John Lamparski/WireImageJordin Sparks is a new mom.

The former American Idol champ and her husband Dana Isaiah have welcomed their first child, son Dana Isaiah Thomas Jr., People magazine reports.

The baby, who the couple plan to call DJ, arrived May 2 at 9:04 p.m. in Los Angeles weighing in at 8 lbs 4.5 oz.

It was miraculously beautiful, Jordin tells People. "Dana caught [the baby] with my midwife, Simona, and when he handed him to me, I was absolutely overwhelmed with joy. He was and is everything we imagined.

She adds that she's "feeling pretty good," and that she's looking forward to motherhood.

As she tells People, "Ive always loved kids and knew that if given the blessing, that I would love and embrace it more than I realized. Its only been a few days and I love it so much already! The joy, laughter, scrapes and bruisesI cant wait for it all!

Jordin announced in November of 2017 that she was both married and expecting. She and Dana secretly eloped while on vacation in Hawaii in July 2017; the couple learned they were pregnant in late August.

Copyright  2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.U.S. billionaire investor Warren Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, visits an exhibition on his invested companies before the Berkshire Hathaway's annual shareholders meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, the United States, on May 5, 2018. Berkshire Hathaway held its 2018 shareholders meeting on Saturday, attended by tens of thousands of people from all over the world. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)

OMAHA, the United States, May 5 (Xinhua) -- U.S. billionaire investor Warren Buffett said Saturday that the world depends on the United States and China for progress, dismissing concerns that the two countries' trade tensions could potentially escalate into a trade war.

Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, made the remarks in response to a Chinese investor's question about U.S.-China trade relations at the Berkshire Hathaway's annual shareholders meeting.

"The United States and China are going to be the two superpowers of the world, economically and in other ways, for a long, long, long time," Buffett said.

"We have a lot of common interests, and like any two big economic entities, there are times when there'll be tensions, but it is a win-win situation when the world trades," the investor said.

Both Democrats and Republicans in the United States believe in the benefits of free trade, he said.

The benefits of free trade are huge, and the world is dependent on it in a major way for its progress, Buffett said.

Speaking of the U.S. trade deficit, Buffett said he would not like the gap to get too wide, but "when you think about it, it's really not the worst thing in the world to have someone send you the goods that you want and for you to send a piece of paper."

The only problem is when one side may want to win a little bit too much, he said, adding the world will not sacrifice its prosperity based on differences that arise in trade.

The investor also implied that he is willing to invest more in China this year.

He is turning 88 this August, and eight, he said, is a very lucky number in China.

This could be the time to acquire something in China, Buffett said.

While the primary focus of his company remains on U.S. businesses, investment opportunities in other parts of the world, including emerging markets, will also be taken into account, according to Buffett.

Berkshire Hathaway is looking to "find big things to do" in big and growing economies that hold potential, such as China, Buffett said in a video released at the U.S.-China Investor Forum held one day prior to the shareholders meeting.

In the video, he called China's growth in the past 60 years or so "a total economic miracle." "I never would have thought it could have happened," Buffett said.

Berkshire Hathaway currently has a stake in China's automobile manufacturer BYD. Buffett said the investment "has being doing so well lately."

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[ Editor: Liu Jiaming ]The event was attended by Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and the UNESCO chief in Vietnam Michael Croft, as well as foreign diplomats and artists from provinces where bai choi is practised.

An indispensable cultural element of people in the central provinces, the content of bai choi singing reflects the love for the homeland, community relationships and life experiences.

The art also helps to shape the qualities that characterise the people of central Vietnam: frankness, sincerity, simplicity, toughness, optimism and hospitality.

Speaking at the ceremony, PM Phuc stated that cultural heritages are a valuable asset of communities and the preservation and promotion work is significant for nurturing patriotism and strengthening national solidarity.

For his part, Binh Dinh, Chairman Ho Quoc Dung, affirmed that the provinces where bai choi is practised are determined to effectively implement a scheme on promoting the heritage.

The ceremony also featured a wide range of bai choi performances as well as other songs and dances typical of the central region.Notice for the Postmedia Network

This website uses cookies to personalize your content (including ads), and allows us to analyze our traffic. Read more about cookies here. By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.Thursday, May 3, 2018 at 9:55AM

The search is on! Today, Netflix announced the search for talented Canadian photographers to take on the role of #GrammastersNorth with opportunities to capture Netflix Original productions behind-the-scenes and share with the NetflixCA Instagram followers.

Canadians can apply beginning today until May 11, 2018. To apply...

1. Follow @NetflixCA

2. Tag #GrammastersNorth and @NetflixCA in their Instagram submissions.

3. Apply by May 11, 2018 for your chance to be a part of a Netflix Production.

Why is Netflix doing this? According to a recent survey, more than half of Canadians (53%) would love to learn more about the content that Netflix films in Canada. And, more than half of all Canadians (53%) think it would be amazing to go behind-the-scenes of Netflix Canadian content to see how it is made.

Think you'd be a great candidate? Here's a hint of what they are looking for in photographers... high level of creativity, an inquisitive, innovate personality and a strong eye for photography. Oh, and a passion for Netflix obviously!

The role of the #GrammastersNorth will be to travel to Netflix sets in various locations aross the country to share experiences with Canadian talent and locations behind Netflix Original productions. So, you must be open to travelling.

Full details available at grammastersnorth.caUnfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.EUNIC Chairman Emmanuel Labrande said that the two-week festival features a wide range of books from Austria, Denmark, Germany, Finland, France, Czech Republic, Spain, Sweden, Italy and Belgium.

He expressed his hope that book aficionados would find the books of their interest at the event.

The book festival has been in full swing with an array of activities such as book introductions, readings, workshops, exhibitions, films, quiz games, and a discount programme.

Particularly, European literature on Vietnam will be introduced on the occasion, including Les Jungles Moi by Henri Maitre and We have eaten the forest by Georges Condominas.

The European Book Days, which was previously called European Literature Days, has been organised annually in Hanoi since 2011 with support from the Delegation of the European Union.Photo: The Canadian Press

Ontario's Progressive Conservatives have dropped a controversial candidate from their roster ahead of the spring election, with the party's leader saying "her characterization of certain issues and people has been irresponsible."

Tanya Granic Allen, a social conservative and outspoken opponent of the province's sex education curriculum, has been taken off the PC ballot in Mississauga Centre just over a month before Ontarians go to the polls.

PC Leader Doug Ford said in a statement Saturday that the Tories "are a party comprised of people with diverse views that if expressed responsibly we would respect."

Granic Allen responded to her dismissal on Twitter, saying she was "disappointed" to be informed of the decision by Ford's campaign manager.

"I'll have more to say about this and Ontario politics in the coming days," she wrote.

Granic Allen's dismissal came just hours after the Ontario Liberal Party shared an edited video showing her expressing views the Liberals described as representing "hatred and homophobia."

The clip posted on the Liberals' website shows Granic Allen discussing sex education in Croatia, saying that when she sees the country "trying to push radical sexualization on the young, or gay marriage, I almost vomit in disbelief."

Granic Allen's comments have landed her in hot water before. Last month, she defended comments she made online years ago about Muslims and gay marriage.

Before securing the PC nomination in Mississauga Centre, Granic Allen denied that posts in which she suggested gay marriage shouldn't be legalized in the United Kingdom represented homophobic views.

She also said posts saying women should not wear burkas in public do not represent Islamophobia.

Ford has been under constant pressure from the Liberals and New Democrats to drop Granic Allen from the ballot, but repeatedly refused.

When her old posts surfaced in April, Ford said in a statement that "our base is growing, and we want all Ontarians to feel like they have a place in our party."

Ford and Granic Allen were considered the more socially conservative candidates in the Tory leadership race, and Granic Allen was the only one to appear by Ford's side as he was declared the winner in March.Photo: CTV

The arrival of the Aga Khan in Vancouver drew thousands of Shia Ismaili Muslims to BC Place on Saturday to celebrate their spiritual leader.

Prince Shah Karim Al Hussaini, the current Imam of Nizari Ismailism, is in Canada to celebrate 60 years in the position  his diamond jubilee.

The Aga Khan is a hereditary spiritual leader and a descendent of the Prophet Muhammad. He's also one of six people in the world to be granted honorary Canadian citizenship  given as recognition of worldwide philanthropic efforts.

Khaleel Meghji is one of more than 5,000 volunteers who have spent months preparing for the Aga Khan's visit, and he told CTV "it's a really joyous occasion."

Another volunteer, Rahim Talib, said the Aga Khan emphasizes the importance of living the values of the faith, which he said include service, generosity and compassion.

I think that those values have great impact on us not just as Canadians or as Ismailis, but as Ismaili-Canadians because those values are the values of Canada."

About 20,000 Shia Ismaili Muslims live in B.C.

- with files from CTV VancouverPhoto: Contributed A washed out road in May of 2017 in Barnhartvale, an area of Kamloops.

A section of the main road in Barnhartvale, an area of Kamloops, will be closed until further notice beginning Saturday evening, due to Campbell Creek spilling onto the road.

The closure, beginning at 8 p.m., will be in at the 7200 block of Barnhartvale Road. Motorists are asked to avoid the area, and to use Blackwell Road as a detour.

Infrastructure in Barnhartvale was threatened last year due to high water levels in Campbell Creek.

The city said residents in the area can pick up sand and sandbags at the Barnhartvale Hall.

Updates will be given as needed relating to water levels in the area, the city added.The event, which was held by the Vietnamese people community in the country in collaboration with the Vietnam-Mexico acupuncture project and the Autonomous University of Zacatecas (UAZ), drew the participation of hundreds of students and Vietnamese people in the locality.

It features 50 photos on Vietnamese landscapes and people as well as books on Vietnamese revolution and President Ho Chi Minh together with the Vietnam News Agencys Vietnam Pictorial magazine.

UAZ Rector Antonio Guzman Fernandez stressed that the exhibition will help his students and locals in Zacatecas gain better understanding of the culture and history of Vietnamese people.

He expressed his admiration for the heroic nation during its struggle for dependence and reunification as well as achievements in national construction and development nowadays.

On behalf of the Vietnamese people community and members of the cooperative acupuncture project between the Vietnams Central Acupuncture Hospital and the UAZ, PhD Ho Quang Minh underlined the significance of Vietnams victory on April 30, 1975.

He said that it is also the victory of international friendship, progressive forces and friendship movements all over the world.

Mexico has given support to Vietnamese people during their struggle, he added.

The exhibition will run until May 6.Photo: The Canadian Press United Conservative Leader Jason Kenney

United Conservative Leader Jason Kenney, in a fiery speech to party members, is promising an all-out attack on the "green left" and those who secretly fund and support the demonization of Alberta's oil.

"The special interests have targeted Alberta oil and not Saudi, Venezuelan, or Russian oil because they saw us as the boy scouts, the soft target," Kenney told about 3,000 delegates and observers in his keynote speech at the party's founding convention Saturday night.

"If I'm premier, those days are over... We will fight back for economic survival."

The battle, he said, will be waged on multiple fronts.

"We will set up a fully staffed rapid response war room in government to quickly and effectively rebut every lie told by the green left about our world class energy industry," he said.

"We will pass a law banning foreign money from being spent by special interests during Alberta elections."

Kenney said a UCP government would create a special legislature committee to probe the sources of foreign money funding any groups working against Alberta's interests.

He vowed to fight through the courts if necessary to get Ottawa to strip charitable status from "bogus charities" such as the David Suzuki foundation.

Suzuki has been highly critical of Alberta's oilsands and has called for it to be shut down.

Kenney also reiterated earlier comments to take actions on lenders working against Alberta's interests, such as HSBC.

HSBC, Europe's largest bank, announced last month it would no longer finance fossil fuel ventures such as pipelines and oilsands.

"If companies like HSBC decide to boycott our oilsands, our government will boycott them," said Kenney, adding that he will be rounding up allies. "We will politely ask the energy industry groups to up their game in telling their story and stop playing defence."

"We need an industry champion to follow the lead of the brave forestry company Resolute Forest Products, which is standing up to bullying by suing Greenpeace for defamation."Photo: CTV

A visiting couple from Toronto was caught in the middle of a police takedown on Vancouver's Granville Street.

Lauren and Matthew Cole had just arrived in the city, Friday, and were driving to their hotel when police vehicles swarmed around them.

We thought we saw someone get into a car accident, and then all of a sudden the cars were boxed in and there was tons of screaming and police with their guns drawn and dogs barking, literally outside our window," Lauren told CTV.

Police ordered the occupants out of a truck in front of the Coles' rental car, but Matthew put his hands up, thinking they were talking to him.

We were thinking, What did we just see? Whats going on?" said Matthew. "We didn't realize at the time that we were basically the only other car that was there that was a non-police car.

Police apologized for the confusion. They were responding to reports of a possible stolen vehicle.

 with files from CTV VancouverPhoto: CTV

A black bear that wandered into the city was hoisted out of a tree by a fire department ladder truck in Abbotsford, Saturday.

Nurse Parm Sahota noticed the bear pacing around outside the Cottage-Worthington Pavillion, close to Abbotsford Senior Secondary School.

Police scared the animal up a tree, where conservation officers tranquilized it. Firefighters then lifted it back down to the ground.

The bear had been seen around town Friday night, but eluded capture.

It will be released back into the wild.

 with files from CTV VancouverPhoto: Twitter

Police in Victoria are searching for a woman who allegedly stole a credit card and is actively using it.

Officers tweeted a picture of her on Friday and said she has a distinctive small white dog.

The woman is described as a Caucasian female, 35 years old, with reddish blonde hair.

A few people posted on Twitter saying they believe they know her whereabouts.

If you see her you are being asked to contact RCMP.Within just three years, Phillips in Association with Bac & Russo has won a place at the very peak of the watch auction business. By dint of putting together exceptional lots and selling them at equally outstanding prices, this tandem has become a specialist at setting records  and more besides, as will be confirmed in Geneva on May 12th and 13th. During these two days, two catalogs will be presented in the auction room. The first is named Daytona Ultimatum and will encompass 30 or so Rolex Daytona models featuring various degrees of rarity. The second is called Watch Auction Seven and will assert the all-round capabilities of the Phillips watch department.

A yellow gold ref. 1579 chronograph, featuring unusual faceted lugs  Patek Philippe

Crowning glory

Daytona Ultimatum is a natural extension of the apparently boundless worldwide enthusiasm for the Rolex chronograph. And yet these are not in fact rare watches, says Head of Sales Alexandre Ghotbi, thereby proving that auction values stem from public demand. The market is no longer dominated by dealers, but rather by individuals. This eagerly anticipated sale looks set to confirm the chronographs star status, as since the historic record reached in 2017 by the model having belonged to Paul Newman himself (17.7 million US dollars), the legend has reached unprecedented heights. However, as Alexandre Ghotbi confirms, there will be Daytonas of all kinds.

Saxon beauty

Held in parallel, the Geneva Watch Auction Seven will be divided into several sections featuring some especially noteworthy lots, including an exceptional A. Lange & Sohne model. The steel 1815 Homage to Walter Lange is a one-of-a-kind creation from which profits will be donated by the Saxony-based brand to the Swiss charity Children Action. Steel Lange models are creating quite a stir at auctions at the moment, and this model houses a movement that the late Mr Lange specifically wished to develop.

1815  Homage to Walter Lange  : a one-of-a-kind steel model with a black enamel dial  A. Lange & Sohne

Rarities

This second catalog also gives pride of place to the independents. These gifted artisans of time certainly deserved a dedicated section. The standout models include a Chronometre Souverain from F.P. Journe, taken from a boxed set of five one-of-a-kind watches with a 38mm steel case. In another sub-section of the Geneva Watch Auction Seven, Phillips is announcing a series of extremely special Breguet watches. These are 20th century models that have never previously been put up for auction, 100% unseen to date, enthuses Alexandre Ghotbi. The brand has achieved some impressive results for models reflecting the heritage of its illustrious founder. What kind of reception can one expect for this historically little-known chapter in its production history ? There will doubtless be some fine surprises in store overall, especially since the catalog encompasses a range of affordable pocket and wristwatches from the major brands. Alexandre Ghotbi reassuringly confides that buyers will be able to treat themselves to models across the entire price spectrum.An indebted Egyptian businessman reportedly killed his family and then committed suicide at the family home in the wealthy Cairo suburb of Rehab on Sunday morning, Al-Ahram Arabic website has reported.

Initial investigations by Egypt's New Cairo prosecution show that the man, reportedly a company owner, had accumulated debts that exceeded EGP 2 million, which it said was behind the incident.

Records of late payments of outstanding debts were found as security personnel were conducting their investigations, the prosecution said.

The 56-year-old father shot his 43-year-old wife, two sons aged 22 and 18, and his 20-year-old daughter, and then killed himself with the same unlicensed weapon.

New Cairo prosecution found the bodies of the five victims following calls from neighbours, who heard gunshots in the early hours of Sunday.

The prosecution ordered a quick autopsy to be carried out on the deceased, adding that all belongings of the deceased were found inside the villa, which refutes reports of robbery.

Prosecutors are currently taking witness testimony from relatives and neighbours.

Suicides connected with financial problems are reported periodically in Egypt, and usually involve people from lower-income backgrounds; family killings as a result of such problems are much more rare.

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Q: We have a 2014 Honda Accord Touring. It has approximately 13,500 miles on it, primarily from city driving. Recently we had the car into our dealer for an A1 service code. At that time the service representative told us that we were past the three-year Honda recommended brake fluid flush. I declined the service, wanting to do a little more research. I found that Honda does recommend three-year intervals but other manufacturers are all over the place, from two to five years. We would appreciate your opinion.I think you made a mistake by inserting yourself and insisting that one apologize to the other, because now you have upped the ante. It might be wiser to be less directive toward your daughter: "I'm disappointed in how you've handled this, and I hope you'll work things out, because this is having an impact on the rest of the family."The group identified themselves as family members of a 12-year-old boy who was shot and critically injured Saturday night on the West Side, but they did not wish to speak about it.The boy was hit when he was crossing the street on a bike in the 5700 block of West Addison Street in the Portage Park neighborhood around 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, police said in a community alert.A car sped away after plowing into five people, killing one, while they were standing on an Eisenhower Expressway exit ramp after a cab they were in broke down, according to the Illinois State Police.Judge Mary C. Marubio ordered Polansky, of the 10900 block of South Hamlin Avenue, released on a $25,000 personal recognizance bail, adding that she was concerned about the safety of the public, but noted that it was Polansky's first arrest. She also barred him from using the internet and contacting anyone under the age of 18.Egypt's parliament has given ride hailing services Uber and Careem six months to comply the new law regulating ride-hailing services in the country, which was approved by MPs on Sunday.

According to Article 2 of the law, ride-hailing services that use private vehicles or mass transport systems should adjust their legal status pursuant to the provisions of the law within six months.

The companies are required to pay a fee to regulate their status that does not exceed the yearly licensing fee, as determined by the prime minister.

Penal articles included in the law are not to be enforced on the companies before the end of the six-month period.

According to the law, a fine of between EGP 200,000 and EGP 5 million is to be imposed on anyone who operates a ride-hailing service without a license.

According to Article 3, the prime minister will put in place the regulations needed to enforce the provisions of the law based on suggestions by the cabinet or authorised bodies within two months of the issuance of the law.

Among these decisions is a licensing fee for drivers that does not exceed EGP 1,000.

Parliament has postponed voting on several articles of the law following a disagreement inside the house over the annual cap of EGP 10 million for the licensing of operations and licensing fees paid by the company in cash.

Also postponed was Article 9, which stipulates that the companies are obliged to provide information on users to national security bodies.

The passing of some articles of the anticipated law comes after a court case filed against the San Francisco-based Uber and the UAE-based Careem.

Last April, a Cairo court of urgent matters blocked the implementation of a March court order to suspend the activities of the two companies in the country.

April's court order gave the two companies the right to continue operations in country pending a ruling on the matter by the High Administrative Court, which is set to continue hearing the case on 12 May.

The case against the two companies was filed in February 2017 by drivers of traditional taxis, who accused the services of violating the traffic law by using privately-owned vehicles for commercial purposes. The case was filed against the two operators as well as the government.

The spread of the ride-hailing smartphone applications had sparked several protests from cab drivers in Cairo over their use of private vehicles to transport commuters, which they say violates traffic regulations.

Taxi drivers say they have been losing clients to the two services, as many people are opting to use the apps to commute in the capital and other cities.

Uber, first launched in San Francisco seven years ago, began operating in Egypt in November 2014. The service is now operating in more than 80 countries.

Its rival Careem operates across 13 countries and more than 90 cities in the Middle East and Asia. It also launched in Egypt in 2014.

In late 2017, Uber announced it would make investments of $20 million over the next five years in its support centre in Cairo, saying Egypt is one of its fastest-growing markets.

Uber had 2 million users and employed 60,000 drivers in Egypt in 2016, the company's Middle East and Africa chief Pierre-Dmitri Gore-Coty told Reuters in October.

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It took the doctor about 20 seconds to pull out chunks of the dead roach, and Holley saw what she thought was the remains of a small insect. She left the hospital nearly two hours later with a prescription for antibiotics and ear drops, relieved that it was all over. She and her husband vowed to never let the experience happen again, stopping by a Walmart to buy earplugs."That really drives it home," Reed said. "This isn't just the people that we're flying  these are all of their families. So we take this extremely seriously, and we understand that our job is to fly people safely and bring them back safely. To do that you have to humanize it. You have to see them as your friends and as your colleagues.""People are engaging law enforcement and we are losing our lives," Plasse said at a news conference. "He was a fine officer and he was going toward danger to help his fellow officers apprehend a homicide suspect.""There has been a fascinating phenomenon over the last few weeks. Those who know the true Gina Haspel - who worked with her, who served with her, who helped her confront terrorism, Russia and countless other threats to our nation - they almost uniformly support her," said Ryan Trapani, a CIA spokesman. "That is true for people who disagree about nearly everything else. There is a reason for that. When the American people finally have a chance to see the true Gina Haspel on Wednesday, they will understand why she is so admired and why she is and will be a great leader for this agency."In an interview Sunday with ABC's "This Week," Giuliani dismissed as rumor his own statements about Trump's payment to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels, said he can't speak to whether the president lied to the American people when he denied knowledge of the silencing agreement and wouldn't rule out the president asserting his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in the Russia investigation. Giuliani also couldn't say whether Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, had made similar payments to other women on the president's behalf.1. Take this quote for example: "Like Washington  Adams had become increasingly distraught over the rise of political divisiveness, the forming of parties  (that) could tie the hands and destroy the ... influence of every honest man with a desire to serve the public good. ... How few aim at the good of the whole."Cool high pressure will follow Monday and Tuesday with sunny days, but an easterly component to the wind will hold temperatures in the 60s to lower 70s well inland and much cooler along the shoreline. Next chance of rain looks to be Wednesday afternoon.Many of the wine tasters said choosing the right wine was part of the fun at the weekend event, where 17 wineries featured samples of more than 120 varieties of wine, many produced in Illinois."I'm glad I participated again this year," said Jones, who is part of the group, Sleeveless Jacket. "When the album project comes around in the springtime, all of the students who share a love of creating and sharing music are assembled together to create the album, and it brings together a supportive, inspiring, exciting environment of kids making music and appreciating each other's work."Those included 189 grams of crack cocaine with a purported street value of $18,900, 1,540 grams of cocaine with a street value $153,930, 42 grams of heroin with a street value of $4,980, an estimated $60,000 worth of illegally obtained prescription pills, about 57 pounds of marijuana that authorities valued at $523,000, four grams of methamphetamine valued at $80 and 14 MDMA (ecstasy) pills with an estimated value of $80.Egyptian Water Resources and Irrigation Minister Mohamed Abdel-Ati said on Sunday that Egypt hopes that the current good feelings between Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia are reflected on the ground through agreements and consensuses over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD).

According to Al-Ahram Daily's print issue on Sunday, Minister Abdel-Ati met on Saturday with his Ethiopian and Sudanese counterparts, as well as forty members of the tripartite technical committee, to discuss outstanding issues on the studies conducted to determine the impact of the dam on downstream countries.

Representatives from French consulting firms Arterlia and BRL, which are tasked with carrying out the studies, also attended the meeting, which comes a few days after Ethiopias new Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed affirmed that the dam will not harm Egypts share of water.

Al-Ahram added that Ethiopia's Water and Irrigation Minister Sileshi Bekele said that the talks held on Saturday pave the way for another meeting which will be held in the Ethiopian capital soon and will include the foreign, irrigation, and intelligence chiefs of the three countries.

Last week, Egypt called for an acceleration of the pace of the negotiations over the GERD.

The Saturday meeting also aimed to adhere to the agreed articles of the Declaration of Principles, signed in 2015 between the leaders of the three countries, regarding the need to complete the studies on the dam to avoid any possible negative effects on the downstream states.

The outcomes of the meeting have not been announced.

Another meeting for further talks is expected to be held on 15 May, according to statements made by Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry last week.

Egypt and Ethiopia are at loggerheads over the construction of the $4 billion hydroelectric dam, with Cairo fearing that the project could reduce its share of the Nile water.

In January, the leaders of the three countries set a one-month deadline from 5 April to 5 May to hold a trilateral technical meeting to end a stand-off in negotiations over the construction of the dam.

The Ethiopian government began construction of the dam on the Blue Nile near the border with Sudan in 2011, as part of a development plan aimed at eradicating poverty and generating electricity.

Over the past seven years, Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan have held several rounds of talks on the dams anticipated impact on Nile water resources.

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A grant from the nonprofit Equal Opportunity Schools will provide the district with monthly opportunities to work with its consultants about how the district uses data to identify students, "to pinpoint kids we might not usually pick up through the process of just recommendations only," said Amanda Patti, one of Waukegan District 60's area superintendents.U.S. billionaire investor Warren Buffett said Saturday that the world depends on the United States and China for progress, dismissing concerns that the two countries' trade tensions could potentially escalate into a trade war.





Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, made the remarks in response to a Chinese investor's question about U.S.-China trade relations at the Berkshire Hathaway's annual shareholders meeting.





"The United States and China are going to be the two superpowers of the world, economically and in other ways, for a long, long, long time," Buffett said.





"We have a lot of common interests, and like any two big economic entities, there are times when there'll be tensions, but it is a win-win situation when the world trades," the investor said.





Both Democrats and Republicans in the United States believe in the benefits of free trade, he said.





The benefits of free trade are huge, and the world is dependent on it in a major way for its progress, Buffett said.





Speaking of the U.S. trade deficit, Buffett said he would not like the gap to get too wide, but "when you think about it, it's really not the worst thing in the world to have someone send you the goods that you want and for you to send a piece of paper."





The only problem is when one side may want to win a little bit too much, he said, adding the world will not sacrifice its prosperity based on differences that arise in trade.





The investor also implied that he is willing to invest more in China this year.





He is turning 88 this August, and eight, he said, is a very lucky number in China.





This could be the time to acquire something in China, Buffett said.





While the primary focus of his company remains on U.S. businesses, investment opportunities in other parts of the world, including emerging markets, will also be taken into account, according to Buffett.





Berkshire Hathaway is looking to "find big things to do" in big and growing economies that hold potential, such as China, Buffett said in a video released at the U.S.-China Investor Forum held one day prior to the shareholders meeting.





In the video, he called China's growth in the past 60 years or so "a total economic miracle." "I never would have thought it could have happened," Buffett said.





Berkshire Hathaway currently has a stake in China's automobile manufacturer BYD. Buffett said the investment "has being doing so well lately."Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province on Saturday released 2 million salmon fry into the Heilong (known as the Amur in Russia) River on its border with Russia in a bid to protect the rare fish.

The Heilong River and its tributary -- the Wusuli River -- are the major birthplaces of salmon. The fish migrate to the Pacific Ocean and return to spawn after sexual maturity in three to four years.

The fishery authorities in the city of Fuyuan on the intersection of the Heilong and Wusuli rivers released the fry to boost the fish stocks and improve the ecosystem.

Since late 1980s, authorities in Fuyuan have released about 30 million salmon fry into the rivers to curb the shrinking of fish stocks.

Amid other efforts to increase fish stocks, China will impose a total 55-day fishing ban on the Heilong and Wusuli rivers this year.Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visit an exhibition of cultural relics at Hubei Provincial Museum in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei province, April 27, 2018. [Photo/Xinhua]

The April 27-28 informal summit hosted by the Chinese President Xi Jinping for the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, held in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, may not have led to the resolving of all differences but it has brought in a vernal breeze in bilateral ties after a bad year of disputes and differences.

There was no strict governance of protocol; there was no other person present in the meeting of the two state leaders except a pair of interpreters. The very inclusive meeting was aimed at building a foundation of confidence for domestic diplomacy in a natural environment.

The Modi-Xi meet is simple but the canvas of such a type of unstructured tete-a-tete is of great symbolic significance at a time when Sino-Indian relations seem to be at a critical phase. It was observed that the informal summit included two meals hosted by Xi for Modi, a museum visit, a boat ride on the beautiful East Lake and a lakeside stroll.

But the most important thing has emerged from the two days of meetings is that a new framework has been set up by both leaders for building trust between the two largest countries in the region. A note of optimism was echoed by Ma Zhanwu, the consul-general of China in Kolkata, India, "After the Donglang stand-off a new chapter has begun with the Wuhan informal summit between the leaders of the two countries."

Whether the bilateral confidence which was strained considerably due to the Donglang (Doklam) stand-off last summer has returned or not, will be clear in the near future. But it's true that the Wuhan dialogue has apparently provided some fresh air into the bilateral relationship as evidenced by the public appearances and the statements by the two leaders. They spoke of the need to resolve their differences "with due respect for each other's sensitivities, concerns and aspirations." And this is what well over two billion people on both sides of the Himalayas actually want. Hopefully, the two leaders in their "heart-to-heart talks" attempted to cool off the heat over unresolved issues that have blighted Sino-Indian ties recently.

It has been learned that both leaders discussed strategic military relations, trade, tourism, communication and development-related concerns in addition to several regional and international issues. Hailing strong Sino-Indian ties, Modi posted his opinion on Twitter and said, "Productive discussions over tea. Strong India-China friendship is beneficial for the people of our nations and the entire world." Xi said that both sides should develop Sino-Indian ties from a strategic perspective, constantly enhance mutual understanding and trust, and promote all sectors and people of the two countries to deepen mutual understanding and cultivate friendly feelings.

However, it's unfortunate that while the two leaders were charting the course of long-term bilateral development, the Modi-Xi affability is being strongly criticized by India's opposition parties as well as a section of political analysts. The Rahul Gandhi-led Congress party slammed the Narendra Modi government for not confronting Beijing over Chinese activities at the Doklam site and cross-border disputes. Rahul Gandhi questioned Modi's "No Agenda" China Visit, "Modi did not speak a single word on Doklam during his visit to China. What kind of prime minister is he? He had tea with Chinese President and held meeting without a single agenda."

On the other hand, Indian analysts say Mr. Modi needs Mr. Xi more than Mr. Xi needs Mr. Modi. "Modi is fixated on winning next year's election in India. And it is a measure of the fraught relationship between China and India right now that he is seen as needing Mr. Xi's help to do that," said Manoj Joshi, a senior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi.

But according to the Indian statement on the Modi-Xi informal summit, it is heartening to note that the two leaders agreed to issue "strategic guidance" to their militaries to build trust and enhance "predictability and effectiveness" in managing border affairs. In reality, it's unrealistic to expect a settlement on the sticky border issue overnight. As such, strengthening communication through dialogue and diplomacy is very important to maintain peace along the 4,000-km-long border between the two Asian giants as the Chinese saying goes: A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

There is no denying that the relationship between India and China is the most important in the world today. The two countries represent 40 percent of the world's population. As such, to tackle the major problems in the world, the two countries should work together. Needless to say, the Modi-Xi meeting has reinvigorated the mechanisms of engagement for the development of Sino-Indian relations.

Rabi Sankar Bosu, Secretary of New Horizon Radio Listeners' Club, West Bengal, India

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors only, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.Russia and its allies are competing with the US and its allies to impose a political solution to the Syrian crisis, with there being little middle ground

On 26 April, the core group of countries having stakes in the Syrian crisis met in Paris to discuss a political solution to the conflict in a meeting attended by the US, France, Britain, Germany, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

The meeting was held after Western pressure on Russia to approve a political transition in Syria after military strikes by the US, France and Britain against facilities controlled by the regime led by Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad on 14 April in response to its alleged use of chemical weapons in the Damascus suburb of Douma.

The participating countries hoped that Russia would understand that after the military response by the West against the use of the chemical weapons, it must consolidate its efforts with those of the West to support a political process in Syria to resolve the crisis.

The countries want Moscow to put pressure on the Syrian regime to agree to negotiations that result in a political solution based on UN Security Council Resolutions, especially the 2012 Geneva I Declaration.

This was not the first such meeting, since these countries also discussed the political transition in Syria after the Sochi Conference in January published an eight-point white paper on a new constitution for the country.

Russia responded to the Paris meeting by calling for a meeting of its own allies to confirm its own conditions.

The US, in cooperation with France and Britain and Germany to a lesser degree, is trying to reach an international formula that will give new momentum to the stalled political process in Syria.

It is also trying to make Russia take a more constructive position and wants Moscow to use its influence to pressure the regime to accept the Geneva I track and resolutions.

Russia invited its allies to meet in Moscow on 28 April in response, with the foreign ministers of Iran, Russia and Turkey meeting as guarantors of a ceasefire in Syria.

At the end of the meeting, the ministers confirmed their commitment to boosting three-way coordination based on joint statements.

They also agreed to facilitate a permanent political solution in Syria based on UN Security Council Resolution 2254 and the Astana Conferences, which they view as the sole international initiatives that have helped improve conditions in Syria.

It was decided to hold another round of Astana talks in May.

Russia and Iran believe the outcome of the Astana Conferences have helped combat terrorism, decrease violence and create suitable conditions for a political solution in Syria through the holding of free and transparent elections under UN supervision and based on a constitution approved by the Syrian people.

Meanwhile, France and Germany are trying to introduce a new diplomatic initiative after the tripartite military strikes, though they are also waiting for US blessings and guarantees of minimal Russian approval.

In the interim, they are continuing to address humanitarian issues, including the issue of Syrian refugees in neighbouring countries, in ways similar to those stated at a UN and EU donor conference in Brussels on 25 April.

Western officials say there will be no Marshall Plan in Syria unless there is a solid political transition and free elections supervised by the UN to change the incumbent regime.

They believe Irans influence on Al-Assad is greater than Russias, and they link the curtailing of that influence to what the US will do about the nuclear deal with Tehran, to be decided by US President Donald Trump on 12 May.

The Russia-Iran-Turkey conference dashed the hopes of the West regarding greater Russian cooperation because it confirmed Astana as the Russian preference for the peace negotiations, something which the West does not recognise because it promotes the Syrian regime. It also curbs the role of the Syrian opposition in any transitional phase.

The opposition and its Arab and Western supporters believe there is only one track that can lead to their goal of political transition and stability in Syria, which is the UN-backed Geneva process overseen by UN Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura.

However, this process is not acceptable to Russia, its allies and the Syrian regime, and these are trying to obstruct it by inventing parallel paths such as those pursued at Astana, Sochi and Moscow.

Europe does not want to move on the reconstruction process in Syria for the time being, because it does not want to help rebuild cities that will be ruled by the same man who destroyed them.

It blames the Syrian regime for derailing the Geneva track and Russia for blindly supporting the regime, using its veto power at the UN Security Council 12 times to block resolutions that might contain a solution to the crisis.

The recent missile strikes on selective targets by three permanent members of the Security Council were not enough to convince Moscow, Damascus and Tehran to move forward on a political solution.

The path of the negotiations in Geneva will not be easy, especially if Iran and its militias in Syria are not neutralised or forced to leave the country. Iran has recently appeared to have become an equal partner to Russia in Syria, competing with Moscow for control of Syrias economy, especially as it has spent more than $20 billion on the war, according to Iranian officials.

It is determined to recover this sum many times over to save its own economy, commentators say.

The strikes proved the ability of the West to intervene in Syria by force outside the Security Council. Russia is in a weak position, and in the end may accept its share of Syria in the form of a military base and gas-prospecting rights in the Mediterranean in return for abandoning its Iranian partner.

There are doubts there can be a negotiated solution while Iran maintains extensive control in Syria.

The West doubts there will be a successful political solution as long as Russia insists on destroying the opposition and protecting the regime and as long as Iranian-backed militias and terrorist groups remain in Syria.

*This story was first published in Al-Ahram Weekly

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The Jiangsu Province Consumer Council has requested meetings with 8 airlines and 7 online ticket platforms to discuss their ticketing policies, reports Xinhua News Agency.





The consumer council sent letters on Friday to some of China's domestic airlines and online travel agencies, including market leaders like Air China and Ctrip. The letters ask the companies to meet with the consumer council within the following 10 working days.









The companies are suspected of infringing on the rights of consumers by over-charging for ticket refunds, refusing to reschedule discounted tickets, and not informing customers about the rules regarding ticket changes, according to the report.





A recent survey conducted by the consumer council sparked off heated debate online after the results showed that 23.5 percent of the 1,250 respondents had been charged a refund fee higher than the original ticket price.





And 22.7 percent reported that they had been charged higher fees for refunds from online ticket platforms compared to the official websites of the airlines.



 Flash

Turkey's capital Ankara was hit by flood following heavy rain in Saturday afternoon, injuring at least four people.





"Four people have been injured. Three of them are being treated at a hospital. Health condition of the injured is not serious," Turkish Minister of Labor and Social Security Julide Sarieroglu told reporters in Ankara.





She also said that about 164 vehicles were damaged by the sudden flood, while nobody dead in the disaster.





The government would access the risk situation and take necessary precautions as soon as possible, the minister added.





Earlier, Ankara Metropolitan Mayor Mustafa Tuna said the flood only hit Mamak district of Ankara, and the other districts in the city were not under risk.



Yemens Houthi rebels quickly chose a successor to Salah Al-Sammad, head of the movements Supreme Political Council, this week after his death in an air strike by Coalition forces in the coastal city of Al-Hodeida two weeks ago, raising questions about their intentions and the future of the war-torn country.

The movements new president, as the Houthis like to refer to him, is Mahdi Hussein Al-Mashaat, described as a hawk by his rivals and as a man who has been handed a mission impossible by his supporters.

The Supreme Political Council is in charge of areas under Houthi control, which make up the majority of what was once known as the Republic of North Yemen and are home to the majority of the countrys 23 million population, according to the UN.

Saudi Arabia, which leads the Arab Coalition in the war in Yemen, accuses the Houthis, who are Yazidi Shiites, of receiving support from Iran, which Tehran denies.

The Arab Coalition has been fighting the Houthis since March 2015 in support of the internationally recognised government of Yemen led by President Abd-Rabbo Mansour Hadi.

Al-Mashaat, also viewed as a hawk by the West, joined the ranks of the religious group at a young age and married into the family of leader Abdel-Malek Al-Houthi before becoming his chief of staff between 2004 and 2009.

The Houthis went to war six times between 2004 and 2010 against late Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh who was supported by the Gulf countries and the US before he was overthrown by popular protests at the end of 2011.

Once Salehs rule ended, Al-Mashaats star began to rise as a negotiator for the Houthis with other Yemeni factions before they took control of the capital Sanaa in September 2014.

Although he was involved in the negotiations he never left the battlefield, and he is accused by Sunni rivals, including the Yemeni Reform Party affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood in Yemen and the Salafis, of committing crimes in Dammaj, which the Houthis took from the Salafis.

Salafi leaders say Al-Mashaat led Houthi forces in a raid on the headquarters of Salafi rule in the town when the Houthis defeated their rivals the Yemeni Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis in the battles in the north.

While the Gulf countries accuse the Houthis of receiving support from Iran, the Houthis accuse Riyadh and its allies of supporting Yemenis Sunni Islamists.

Al-Mashaat returned to politics as a negotiator for the Houthis at meetings in Switzerland and Kuwait. As soon as he was named head of the Houthi Supreme Political Council, the pro-Hadi media in Yemen immediately described the move as a mistake because the current situation needs doves not hawks, it said.

His rivals also noted that his appointment overlooks several prominent Houthi figures, which could trigger disputes within the movement.

Sultan Al-Atwani, a former adviser to Hadi, said Al-Mashaats marriage into the Houthi family was the reason he was appointed, pushing aside other candidates such as Mohamed Abdel-Salam (the main Houthi spokesman), Hamza Al-Houthi, Hussein Al-Ezzi and Abdel-Malek Al-Ajzi.

Others believe that marginalising moderate figures such as Youssef Al-Fishi, who left the Supreme Political Council because of his close ties to Saleh, could anger those who want to end the war.

Mohamed Jemeh, a Yemeni commentator living in the UAE, said there had been serious rifts between Al-Sammad and Mohamed Ali Houthi, chair of the Houthi Supreme Revolutionary Committee, who is accused of trying to seize control of the oil trade, tariffs and territory.

Jemeh said that these disputes could resurface between Houthi and Al-Mashaat. Both accuse the other of corruption, but no independent party has confirmed the claims.

Mohamed Al-Saleel, a former professor at Aden University who now lives in the UK, said that there were no hawks or doves in Yemen, but there were conditions that help or obstruct the situation.

In Yemen, there is an existential war, and therefore everyone is a radical. Otherwise, they would have reached a solution during the talks in Kuwait and Switzerland, Saleel said.

More importantly, the Houthis believe they are resilient and can threaten neighbouring Saudi Arabia with missiles, most likely Iranian-made, which is a hardline position they must take to make the most gains, he added.

Meanwhile, the Houthis are battling with forces loyal to their former ally Saleh led by the latters nephew Tarek Saleh who is trying to take control of Al-Hodeida, the main port in areas under Houthi control.

Some commentators believe that while there is conflict among the Houthi leaders, this has little impact as the overall situation that puts them at war with everyone else guarantees unity and makes them more hardline against their rivals.

There are also hardliners in Hadis camp since many of his supporters believe that compromising with the Houthis would spell defeat. According to Al-Atwani, legitimacy must return to Sanaa, or at least the Houthis must withdraw and return to their stronghold in Saada in the north of the country.

Hadis government fled the Yemeni capital when Houthi forces overran Sanaa in September 2014, and the Saudi-led Coalition has justified its war by demanding that Hadi be allowed to return to Sanaa.

Strong UAE support for the Southern Transitional Council, the former Southern Movement in South Yemen, could strengthen Hadis camp, translating into more hardline positions towards the Houthis.

We are not relying on inter-Houthi disputes, but instead on popular resistance to them, Al-Atwani said.

The war in Yemen will not bring peace or even serious negotiations any time soon. There has been a military stalemate since mid-2015 when the Houthis took control of North Yemen and Hadi of South Yemen, and with the despair over a political solution humanitarian conditions continue to deteriorate.

Yemen now has the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, according to the UN.

Everyone wants the war in Yemen to end, said Hoda Al-Attas, a Yemeni commentator. It is exhausting and costly for everyone, but we lack the courage to find a way out.

Civil wars in developing countries rarely end without one side winning, as happened in Biafra in southeast Nigeria in the war from 1967 to 1970, or when both sides believe the war cannot be won militarily, as happened in the former Sudan, where the North and South of the country were at war between 1983 and 2005.

Until both sides believe they cannot eliminate the other, Yemen will continue to suffer a war that has seemingly ended all aspirations for development in the poorest country in the Arab world.

*This story was first published in Al-Ahram Weekly

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President Hassan Rouhani said on Sunday Iran had plans to respond to any move by US President Donald Trump on the 2015 nuclear agreement and the United States would regret a decision to exit the accord.

Trump says that unless European allies rectify "flaws" in Tehran's deal with world powers by May 12 he will refuse to extend US sanctions relief for Iran.

"We have plans to resist any decision by Trump on the nuclear accord," Rouhani said in a speech carried live by state television.

"Orders have been issued to our atomic energy organisation ... and to the economic sector to confront America's plots against our country," Rouhani told a rally in northeast Iran.

"America is making a mistake if it leaves the nuclear accord," Rouhani said. "If America leaves the nuclear accord, this will entail historic remorse for it."

Britain, France and Germany remain committed to the nuclear accord but, in an effort to keep Washington in it, want to open talks on Irans ballistic missile programme, its nuclear activities beyond 2025 - when key provisions of the deal expire - and its wars in Syria and Yemen.

"We will not negotiate with anyone about our weapons and defences, and we will make and store as many weapons, facilities and missiles as we need," Rouhani said, reiterating a rejection by Iranian leaders of talks on Iran's missile programme which Tehran says is defensive.

"You (US) should know that you cannot threaten this great nation because our people withstood eight year of ... defence (in the war with Iraq)," Rouhani said in another speech during his visit to Razavi Khorasan province.

"We want to preserve our peaceful nuclear technology for electricity, medicine, agriculture and health... and we do not seek to threaten the world or the region," Rouhani said.

In a magazine interview, French President Emmanuel Macron warned a decision by Trump to withdraw could lead to war.

"We would open the Pandora's box. There could be war," Macron told German weekly magazine Der Spiegel, adding "I don't think that Donald Trump wants war." Macron urged Trump not to withdraw when he met him in Washington late last month.

Trump has not told Israel whether he will change or scrap the deal, a senior Israeli intelligence official said on Sunday. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opposes the deal, which he says only halts Iran's nuclear capability temporarily.

The official said Trump shared Israel's scepticism about the deal and voiced hope for new US sanctions, noting the effect of past measures against Iran's banking and oil sector.

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Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349Three Palestinians were killed when they tried to "infiltrate" Israel from the Gaza Strip on Sunday, the Israeli occupation army said, the latest shootings linked to tensions along the border.

The army said four people "attempted to infiltrate" by breaking through the security fence.

"Troops arrived at the scene and fired shots towards the terrorists, as a result of which three were killed," an army statement claimed.

Gaza's health ministry identified two of the dead as Bahaa Rahman Qudeih, 23, and Mohammed Abu Rayda, 20. A name had not yet been provided for the third person.

The latest deaths raised to 52 the toll of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces since protests and clashes began along the Gaza border on March 30.

Hundreds more have been wounded by gunfire.

Demonstrators are demanding Palestinian refugees be allowed to return to the homes they fled or were expelled from during the 1948 war surrounding Israel's creation.

Israel argues allowing the so-called right of return would effectively spell the end of the country as a Jewish state.

No Israelis have been hurt in the weeks of protests and the military has faced international criticism for its use of live ammunition.

It says it only opens fire when necessary to stop infiltrations, attacks and attempts to damage the fence.

It accuses Hamas, the Islamist movement that runs the Gaza Strip and with whom it has fought three wars since 2008, of seeking to use the protests as cover to carry out violence.

Overnight Israel struck a facility belonging to Hamas in reaction to kite-borne fire bombings, which have reportedly caused significant damage to Israeli fields.

#This story was edited by Ahram Online.

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British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is travelling to the United States on Sunday for a two-day visit, during which he will meet Vice President Mike Pence and national security adviser John Bolton, Britain said.

The discussions in Washington will centre on Iran, North Korea, Syria and other issues, according to Britain's foreign ministry, and come ahead of a visit to Britain by President Donald Trump planned for July 13.

"On so many of the world's foreign policy challenges the UK and US are in lockstep," Johnson said in a statement, citing the poisoning in Britain of Russian double-agent Sergei Skripal, and opposition to the use of chemical weapons in Syria and to the development of nuclear weapons in North Korea.

"The UK, US, and European partners are also united in our effort to tackle the kind of Iranian behaviour that makes the Middle East region less secure - its cyber activities, its support for groups like Hezbollah, and its dangerous missile programme, which is arming Houthi militias in Yemen," he added.

Trump has said he wants to reimpose US sanctions on Iran that were lifted in 2015 in exchange for Iranian commitments to curb its nuclear programme.

He has given Britain, France and Germany - who still back the deal - a May 12 deadline to fix what he views as its flaws.

These include its failure to address Iran's ballistic missile programme, the terms by which inspectors visit suspect Iranian sites, and "sunset" clauses under which some terms expire.

Trump also caused upset in Britain and France on Saturday by suggesting US-style gun rights might have stopped a recent surge in knife crime in London and past deaths from terrorist attacks in Paris.

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Defying charter imperils 'one country, two systems' Updated: 2018-05-07 07:07 (HK Edition)

Lo Man-tuen exposes hypocrisy of those who constantly attack the country's fundamental political systems while wanting to continue enjoying benefits of being part of SAR establishment

Editor's note: This commentary is a translated excerpt of an article published in Wen Wei Po on April 26.

National People's Congress Standing Committee member Tam Yiu-chung commented recently that people who advocate "ending the one-party rule (in China)" may not be eligible for Legislative Council election because their political path is unconstitutional. His remarks caused a stir on the local political scene and raised a major question: Should the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region continue letting individuals opposed to the constitutional framework of the city join the legislature and even use it as a platform to challenge the Communist Party of China's leadership?

Wang Zhimin, director of the Central People's Government's Liaison Office in the HKSAR, delivered the keynote speech at a recent symposium that inspired many people in Hong Kong. The sentence in his speech that moved the public the most is: "Opposing the country's basic system under the leadership of the CPC equals opposing 'one country, two systems'." Wang's words are in line with President Xi Jinping's strategy for exercising "one country, two systems" and based on the late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping's theory about "one country, two systems". This includes Hong Kong's existing (capitalist) system and the socialist system of the main body of the country "remaining unchanged for 50 years". He not only raised the important question of "how should Hong Kong see the country's basic system" but also provided guidance for debate over advocacy of "ending one-party rule".

While answering questions from reporters after meeting LegCo members over lunch earlier, Wang also dismissed the term "one-party rule" as being untrue and false. He said anyone who intends to overthrow the establishment led by the CPC from inside is automatically in conflict with the very political ethics they are expected to observe in the realm of politics. It should be noted that the "ending the one-party rule" advocacy is in essence opposing the basic system of the country, challenging the Constitution and the Basic Law and attacking the constitutional foundation of the HKSAR. Therefore, Tam's comments mentioned above should be seen as a timely reminder that the ill-conceived, unconstitutional advocacy must be exposed and banished for good.

The newly revised Constitution of the People's Republic of China, approved by the NPC in March, declares that CPC leadership has the quintessential characteristics of socialism with Chinese characteristics. With this in mind Hong Kong has been integrating its own development into the overall development strategy of the nation. Xi, who is also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made it clear in his report at the 19th National Congress of the CPC that exercise of "one country, two systems" must proceed strictly according to the Constitution and Basic Law. It must never deviate from the right track. That is an important part of his thought on and fundamental strategy for socialism with Chinese characteristics. Wang said in his keynote speech that the newly revised Constitution makes it easier for Hong Kong society to understand the constitutional relationship between the HKSAR and main body of the country and provides guidance for precise and complete implementation of "one country, two systems" in the HKSAR.

There is no denying that some people in Hong Kong are biased against the main body of the country and particularly the CPC - the ruling party. That is why Wang noted in his keynote speech that without the mainland, which exercises socialism with Chinese characteristics under the leadership of the CPC, there would be no "one country, two systems" or HKSAR; establishing the CPC leadership as one of the quintessential characteristics of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the Constitution provides stronger assurance for the precise and complete implementation of "one country, two systems". Moreover opposing the basic system of the country equals opposing "one country, two systems" and therefore is a crime against Hong Kong society instead of a blessing.

Deng, who first came up with the concept of "one country, two systems" in the early 1980s, emphasized more than once the importance of maintaining two things "unchanged for 50 years" - the socialist system and CPC leadership of the main body of the country as well as Hong Kong's capitalist system and lifestyle. However, some people in Hong Kong have gone out of their way over the past 20 years to stress keeping Hong Kong's capitalist system unchanged for 50 years while neglecting the socialist system of the mainland. That is why Wang put so much emphasis on setting the record straight over the original purpose and design of "one country, two systems".

The simple truth is that the whole process of China resuming sovereign rule over Hong Kong was carried out by the CPC-led Chinese government through negotiations with its British counterpart, the same with resuming sovereign rule over Macao, including "one country, two systems" as the system guarantee for the long-term prosperity and stability of the two SARs as inalienable parts of the PRC. As Deng explained back then, the only guarantee for Hong Kong's capitalist system to remain unchanged under "one country, two systems" is the mainland's socialist system under the CPC leadership remaining unchanged in the first place.

As for China's party system, it is multi-party cooperation led by the CPC, not a "one-party rule". Besides, there is not one particular party system recognized and accepted by all sovereign states of the world, because it is the sovereign right of each nation to decide what party system suits its society the best. The "ending one-party rule" advocates in Hong Kong can only convince themselves by refusing to recognize the great success achieved by the Chinese nation under the leadership of the CPC.

(HK Edition 05/07/2018 page7)We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on!

Go to formEgypt's state banks said they will start releasing this month the funds of clients who invested in high-yield certificates of deposit (CDs) offered when the central bank floated the currency in late 2016.

Egypts three state banks, Banque Misr, the National Bank of Egypt and Banque du Caire began offering 18-month CDs at 20 percent and three-year CDs at 16 percent in November 2016.

The National Bank of Egypt will start to gradually return funds for 18-month CDs issued in November and December 2016, which are valued at EGP 188 billion, the banks deputy chairman Yehia Aboul Fotouh said on Saturday.

The bank has raised a total of EGP 467 billion from the certificates, EGP 400 billion of which are from the 18-month CDs, Aboul Fotouh told satellite TV channel CBC.

He said that more than a quarter of the money was raised from some 1.5 million new clients who joined the banking system for the first time.

The bank is currently offering its clients three-year variable rate certificates of deposit at 17 percent, three-year fixed rate certificates at 15 percent and one-year certificates at 16.25.

Banque Misr will return EGP 46 billion from the 18-month CDs issued in November 2016 to clients this month, the banks deputy head Atef Maghraby told Egyptian news website Al-Masry Al-Youm on Sunday.

Maghraby said that alternatives offered by his bank include three-year fixed and variable rate certificates.

The CDs are part of efforts to stabilise the Egyptian pound and attract clients who are keeping cash outside the banking system.

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We attempted to send a notification to your email address but we were unable to verify that you provided a valid email address. Please click here to update your email address if you wish to receive notifications. Otherwise, you may click here to disable notifications and hide this message.In its second year, once again headed by Sherif Al-Shazli, the Cairo Cinema Days (23-30 April), another initiative of Zawya, features screenings at three venues: the Zamalek Cinema, Cinema Karim and the Cinematheque Alternative Film Centre.

The festival, which screens Arab films that proved successful at major world festivals, proved very popular in its first year, filling a gap in indie screenings at this time of year and providing viewers with the opportunity to indulge their love of non-commercial Arab cinema.

The opening film was the young Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hanias widely debated Beauty and the Dogs (Aala Kaf Ifrit), which was screened in the Cannes Film Festivals Un Certain Regard section last year. Ben Hania is well-known to those interested in serious Arab cinema; her feature-length documentary Zaineb Hates the Snow, in which the director followed the life of a Tunisian girl over six whole years, was screened at the Luxor Film Festival last year.

Starting when the girl was nine years old, with exemplary simplicity and delicacy and realism Ben Hania shows how Zaineb makes sense of life after she loses her father in a car accident and her mother decides to marry another and emigrate with him to Canada.

It seems her interest in real womens lives is paramount, what is more, because the present film too is based on a real story and works as a document of corruption and violence in the security system in Tunisia. Indeed the violence of the police and their readiness to humiliate Tunisian citizens was the principal catalyst of the Jasmine Revolution; it was a policewoman humiliating him that drove Mohamed Bouazizi to set himself on fire in December 2010, triggering the protests that were to force President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to flee the country on 14 January 2011.

The screenplay is made up of nine scenes, each narrating an aspect of the tragic experience of the heroine Mariam (Mariam Al-Ferjani), lasting about ten minutes and filmed in a single shot.

The opening scene sets out the story. It takes place at a party in a hotel with the camera trailing Mariam as she comes out of the bathroom, where she puts on an evening gown she borrowed from her friend, and notices a good-looking young man. The single-shot technique, perhaps first used in Hitchcocks The Rope (1948), is distinctive and difficult: every detail in the entire scene (and not just within the first few frames) needs to be taken care of. This scene ends with Mariam leaving with the young man, Youssef (Ghanem Zrelli), to whom her friend has introduced her.

Ben Hania intentionally disrupts the viewer beginning the second scene with Mariam in a state of shock and horror running away while Youssef follows. The viewers mind automatically tries to fill the temporal void between the two scenes to explain the shift form a joyful encounter to this state, and Ben Hania provides a hint. As the police patrol car passes, both young people are visibly scared of it, indicating that the police were involved in what happened.

The second scene prepares the viewer for and draws them into what the dialogue soon explains: Mariam was raped by the police patrol, and Youssef (whom the dialogue tells us was among the Jasmine Revolution protesters) accompanied her to a private hospital to obtain medical proof of what happened to her, seemingly encouraging her to report the two policemen who violated her. But when the hospital administration require her ID Mariam realises she left it in the patrol car where the rape took place.

Thus the action moves from one location and complication to another. In another scene, for example, Youssef and Mariam have to go to a police station to file an official report so that they can be transferred to the forensic department of a public hospital. Youssef and one of the officers remember each other from the protests, however, and following a verbal fight Youssef and Mariam escape from this station to another. This particular repetition, which does not push the drama forward, weakens the structure of the film.

In each scene the director introduces a character who sympathises with Mariam and tries to help her: one nurse speeds up her seeing the doctor; the policewoman who obviously believes and supports her despite her coworkers objections... But each time, in spite of this, the girl ends up completely alone. In the final scene she stands alone facing a huge policeman with a scary face using every means at his disposal to pressure her to withdraw the file.

She is completely alone now that Youssef has been arrested, with no one and nothing to lean on. But Mariam has nothing to lose now that shes been terrorised and subjected to all kinds of oppression and violence; she insists on following through her call for justice. She has a sudden change of heart here which, though unexpected, is justified. What weakens the scene, rather, is the way in which her conversation with the policeman turns into naive and in-your-face rhetoric. Asking her to rest content with the internal investigation and punishment to which he promises her the culprits will be subjected, for example, the policeman tells her that by insisting on prosecuting her rapists she is soiling the image of the one institution that protected the state against collapse after it was aala kaf ifrit (literally, on the palm of a genie, meaning in very grave danger).

Another problem with the film is the weakness of Al-Ferjanis performance in some scenes. No doubt the part is extremely difficult, but Al-Ferjani overacts and falls out of sync with the action a little too often  perhaps as a result of the filmmaker being too busy mastering the long shots to pay sustained attention to actor management. Having said that, Beauty and the Dogs is a truly remarkable film, valuable as much for subject as treatment, and further credit to Ben Hanias talent.

This article was first published in Al Ahram Weekly

For more arts and culture news and updates, follow Ahram Online Arts and Culture on Twitter at @AhramOnlineArts and on Facebook at Ahram Online: Arts & Culture

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CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Many local banks, in the past, routinely raised fees almost every year for things like cashier's checks, safe deposit boxes and bounced checks.

But the latest Plain Dealer survey of bank fees found that banks have completely eliminated fees for some services, and reduced fees or kept them steady for most of the rest, compared with the last PD survey three years ago.

At the same time, it's becoming more difficult to avoid a monthly checking account fee because, increasingly, banks expect customers to pay a few bucks if they don't maintain a minimum balance or have other accounts or loans.

The PD surveyed this region's 14 largest banks, those with at least 1 percent of local deposits in Greater Cleveland. The survey included 11 fees, both avoidable fees like non-sufficient funds and using another bank's ATM, and fees for everyday services such as cashier's checks and safe deposit boxes.

Among the 14 banks, eight didn't increase any of their fees. Seven decreased at least one fee. Five banks didn't change a single fee compared with three years ago.

There are a few reasons behind the stability. At the top of the list, consumers are tired of being surprised by fees in the course of using their bank, especially if they're already paying a monthly checking-account fee.

Keeping fees stable has been "a conscious decision" at Huntington Bank, said Andy Harmening, senior executive vice president and director of consumer and business banking for Huntington, the second-largest bank in Cleveland by deposits. The bank in the past three years increased only one of the 11 fees, for a safe deposit box.

"We're not looking for ways to nickel and dime the customer," Harmening said.

At KeyBank, Cleveland's largest bank with 22 percent of deposits, the bank increased one fee and decreased five of them, which is unusual.

Key Chairman and CEO Beth Mooney said keeping fees stable or even lowering them is "part of our strategy."

"We are trying to lean in to offering ease, value and expertise," she said. Low checking fees make accounts easier to use and offer good value.

Mooney added that Key focuses on making money in other ways than just fee revenue.

The result: Key in the past three years slashed its fees for overdrafts and wire transfers and completely eliminated three fees: depositing checks through the mobile app, replacing a lost card, and getting an ATM-only card.

In fact, today, none of Cleveland's largest banks charge for mobile deposits and only one -- PNC -- still charges customers a fee if they want an ATM-only card instead of a debit card.

Seven of the 14 banks don't charge to replace a lost ATM/debit card. Those that do typically charge $5. On the high end is Westfield Bank in Medina County, which charges $15.

Meanwhile, most banks have capped the number of NSF or overdraft fees charged in a day. Banks in this market generally charge $30 to $37 per item for non-sufficient funds or overdrafts. Also, five of the 11 banks offer free use of other banks' ATMs, with a limit in some cases. The other banks typically charge $2.50 to $3 for using another bank's ATM.

As a whole, many fees have leveled off in the entire banking industry after steep increases nearly a decade ago.

After federal law changed in 2010 to reduce the revenue banks could collect from merchants for debit card transactions, there was a rise in bank fees to make up for that lost revenue, said Nessa Feddis, senior vice president and deputy chief counsel for consumer protection and payments at the American Bankers Association in Washington, D.C.

What's clear now, though, is that many banks don't want customers who just use checking accounts as almost a public service, similar to highways or public parks. Most banks, especially larger ones, prefer customers who have some kind of deeper connection to the bank, either with a minimum balance or other accounts or a mortgage or other loans.

In fact, among the eight largest banks, only one, Huntington, offers a no-strings checking account. The rest charge monthly fees of $7 to $12 unless the customer makes a certain level of direct deposits, often $500 a month, or maintains an average balance of $1,500 or has other relationships. The big eight besides Huntington are Key, PNC, Citizens, Third Federal, Fifth Third, Chase and U.S. Bank.

Interestingly, all six of the smaller banks surveyed offer a checking account with no strings besides receiving an electronic statement in a couple of cases. These banks are Dollar, Ohio Savings, First Federal Lakewood, Westfield, Northwest and First National Bank of Pennsylvania. None of these banks have more than 3 percent of local deposits.

Fifth Third was the first larger bank in this market to do away with no-strings checking in 2009.

"Customers handled the change well and many customers waive the monthly fee due to activity on the account," spokeswoman Laura Passerallo said. Most other big banks followed that lead. Today, Fifth Third offers different accounts to meet consumers' needs, Passerallo said. The basic checking account cost $7.50 a month in 2009; now it's $11.

Customers who do pay monthly fees at various banks may expect to pay roughly $85-$145 range a year for an account that holds their money securely, processes their paychecks, accepts deposited checks, provides online account access around the clock, offers online bill payments and allows them to withdraw money -- all for a quarter or two a day.

"People take the value for granted, said Feddis of the American Bankers Association. In fact, each checking account costs a bank about $350 a year, Feddis said.

Many people don't appreciate what goes on behind the scenes with technology and security. This disconnect has increased as consumers use branches less and online and mobile apps more.

"Everyone thinks because it's electronic, it's free," Feddis said. "It's not."

No matter, Huntington plans to keep offering its best-known checking account, called Asterisk-Free, at no charge for the foreseeable future, Harmening said. Huntington in 2010 shook the industry not only with its free checking account, but also a new, friendly strategy that included a 24-hour grace period on overdrafts, processing deposits all day up until 11:59 p.m. and seven-day-a-week branches.

"The word we heard from customers eight years ago was, 'Just be fair,'" Harmening said. "In a world that wants ease of use, asterisk-free works for us. It's easy. It's simple. The world wants more of that."CLEVELAND, Ohio - Do something once, it seems, and you can be forgiven. Do it again and again? That's harder to ignore - especially in the #MeToo era. Just ask failed Senate candidate Roy Moore and disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein.

A pattern of behavior can expose the true nature of a person - or an administration.

The way the city of Cleveland deals with sex crimes speaks volumes about how it regards victims - in this case, mostly women and children. Here's what I hear, loud and clear: Leaders have allowed the sex crimes/child abuse unit to remain cripplingly understaffed, year after year.

At a March 12 press conference, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, flanked by his generals in the war on crime - Safety Director Michael McGrath and Chief of Police Calvin Williams - addressed what Jackson called an "egregious" lapse.

A former detective in the unit had allowed 60 sex crimes cases to go uninvestigated for years.

The suspect in at least one of them committed another rape.

Heads rolled, McGrath reported. A sergeant was suspended for 15 days and his commander demoted. So was the detective who'd let the cases languish.

Those 60 neglected cases had nothing to do with the size of the staff, Chief Williams said.

That's not what police were saying internally.

An internal affairs investigation into the scandal in 2017 cited "staffing issues" and said police brass should establish a minimum number of cops needed for the sex crimes unit, then not allow the headcount to dip below that.

The report included a memo written by the suspended sergeant to his demoted commander.

Fifteen detectives had been assigned to investigate current rapes and child abuse cases. Not enough to do the job, wrote the sergeant.

Cases were "piling up at an alarming rate." Anemic staffing levels "severely affected" the unit's ability to respond to victims.

Prosecutors were unhappy too. They needed detectives to close cases so lawyers could charge suspects.

Today, there are 16 detectives assigned to the unit. And that's all it's going to get, Chief Williams told reporters. At least right now.

They were conducting an audit to make sure all investigative units had enough people to operate, Williams said.

Some 250 new hires would be on the streets of Cleveland, "hopefully by this time next year."

But Jackson made no promises that any of them would end up in sex crimes.

"It's not that simple" Jackson said, when pressed. The chief had to consider the manpower needs of all units, be that sex crimes, homicide or car theft, he said.

This last comparison makes me cringe. Even though I've been carjacked in Cleveland, I'd rather more detectives spend their days tracking down suspected rapists than car thieves. Seems simple to me.

Apparently, no one who has studied the sex crimes unit thinks staffing levels are adequate.

In 2013, the Police Executive Research Forum, a Washington, D.C. nonprofit, recommended that the number of detectives in sex crimes go from 17 to 21.

Last year, a Cleveland Division of Police staffing report said the sex crimes unit needed 30 detectives to conduct "thorough" investigations.

By that standard, the unit has half the detectives it needs. The gap has consequences.

"We see really good detectives come into that unit and they start off doing incredible investigations," said Sondra Miller, president and CEO of the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center.

"Then, over time, we see the enormous caseload and the toll that it takes on detectives."

The squad catches some 500 rape cases annually and also serious cases of child abuse and neglect, for a total caseload that tops well over 1,000 reports a year.

"It's a heavy burden when every day, they're coming in and being offered new cases and they haven't gotten to yesterday's cases yet," Miller continued.

". . .We can't deny that we need more people in there to do the work."

Williams isn't exactly denying that. He's saying the department needs another audit before trying to fix it. That's like subjecting yourself to countless X-rays and biopsies, learning each time that you have lung cancer, and scheduling another test as you head to the store buy a pack of cigarettes.

We already know what ails us.

And here's another thing we know: Year to date, of all major crime in Cleveland - that includes murder, arson and robbery - only rape is on the rise.

We also know what happens when rapes aren't properly investigated. If rapists aren't caught, studies tell us most rape again. And some serial rapists, like Anthony Sowell, graduate to murder.

We know what a pattern of indifference can bring.

Let's not audit our way into more backyards filled with bodies.

It falls to city leaders to break the pattern. Show the women of Cleveland you give a damn.CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Daffodil Sunday was scheduled for April 15 at Lake View Cemetery, but unseasonably cold weather kept the 100,000 yellow blossoms from cooperating. With warm weather finally returning, however, Daffodil Hill has returned to full bloom at the historic cemetery, kicking off the annual spring flower tour for visitors.

Daffodils, tulips, hyacinths, and crocuses have broken through, along with the blossoms of magnolia trees and crabapple trees, once again creating a palate of color.

Janet Century of Cleveland, visiting the gravesite of her parents next to Daffodil Hill on Saturday, said, "It's nice to see the daffodils speaking again."

The splendor of Daffodil Hill is one of several tours that start the annual visits to the nationally known cemetery for local visitors and those from around the country. Upcoming tours at Lake View Cemetery include a Mother's Day Tour on May 13; the Coppers, Mobsters and Robbers Tour on May 19, and a Memorial Day Celebration, on May 28 at the Garfield Memorial, honoring the men and women who died serving in the armed forces.

More information is at lakeviewcemetery.com.SAVANNAH, Ohio - Measuring a bit more than a square half-mile, the northern Ashland County village of Savannah has one restaurant, a tiny park and one other thing - a gnarled apple tree that is certified as the last survivor of the thousands planted by Johnny Appleseed more than 150 years ago.

And it's still producing apples, sometimes too many.

"It gives us tons of apples," said Barbara Morgan, a descendant of John Harvey who bought the land almost two centuries ago. "Last summer we had to cut some branches off and prop others up with poles because we feared the weight of the apples would break the branches."

Another family member, Dick Algeo, 91, remembers how his grandmother used to tell stories about how John Chapman, who became known as Johnny Appleseed, planted several apple orchards in the area around Savannah. Chapman even stayed on their farm, though he slept in the corn crib because he disliked sleeping indoors.

The Algeo family has lived on the huge farm which is partly in Savannah and partly in Clear Creek Township since 1834, under an 1826 land grant signed by President John Quincy Adams. Dick's great-granddaughter, Amy Paramore-Sheaffer, and her family live in the main house on County Road 658 west of Savannah. The famous tree is just outside her kitchen door.

Ohio Tiny Towns i s an occasional Plain Dealer series exploring some of the state's lesser-known towns and villages. If you have an idea for a town you'd like to see profiled, email msangiacomo@plaind.com

For years, the family used chains and props to hold the trunk of the old tree together, but several years ago a mighty wind proved more than it could handle. The central trunk of the tree split and fell to the earth. A fragile piece of the trunk remains and new two branches from its base are now 20 feet high and produce apples.

Tree still fruitful after more than 150 years.

A piece of the trunk now sits in a display at the Johnny Appleseed Museum and Educational Center at Urbana University.

Dick Sommer of the museum said the secret of the tree's longevity lies in its location.

"It was planted right over an underground aquifer by John Chapman and those roots have grown right into it," he said. "That spring has been feeding that tree ever since."

No one is quite sure when the tree was planted, but Chapman walked the land and sowed his seeds until his death in Fort Wayne Indiana in 1845. Despite legends, and Disney cartoons, Chapman did not drop seeds everywhere he walked. He planted orchards on private property and made deals with the owners to share in the bounty.

"He planted thousands of Rambo apple trees in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana in the 1800s," said Joe Besecker, director emeritus of the Johnny Appleseed Museum. "The Rambo apple is a tart, cooking apple. It's large and matures in August. The trees are tenacious, very hard to kill. It was very important to the settlers who used it to make apple butter, cider, pies, juice and apple vinegar."

Local officials said they remember that about 40 years ago there were three or four Johnny Appleseed trees alive in the area, but they have all since died.

The Algeo family proudly displays a certificate of authenticity of the last living apple tree planted by Johnny Appleseed presented in 1991 by the American Forests organization of Washington, D.C.

"We don't advertise that the tree is here, but people still find us," said Paramore-Sheaffer. "We get four or five groups a year of people who want to see the famous tree. Last year, an 89-year-old woman said she had wanted to see the last Johnny Appleseed tree her whole life. I gave her a clipping from the tree which she was going to try to grow. I hope she succeeded."

As Paramore-Sheaffer talked, she whipped something in a bowl. A short time later she pulled a tray of apple cookies from the oven.

"These are apple cookies made from applesauce from apples we took off the tree last year," she said. "It's my grandmother's recipe. Everyone loves them."

Savannah an escape from modern stress.

Amy, 26, grew up on the family farm in a community that's "quiet and safe." She said she can't imagine ever living anywhere else.

"What can I say? I love living out here, listening to the occasional clip-clop of Amish horse-drawn buggies, enjoying the peace. There is a sense of camaraderie here. We all know one another. I could never leave."

Knowing many of the village residents is not that hard, there were only 409 people living in Savannah in the 2010 census. There is North and South Main Street and a few intersecting streets, a few churches, an ancient graveyard and little else in Savannah.

The best (and only) restaurant in town.

Mandy Close is the latest owner of the only sit-down restaurant in the village. She said there has always been a restaurant on Main Street since the 1960s when it was a Perkin's Pancake House. The restaurant changed hands and names many times since then, before Close took it over five years ago.

"This place gets so crowded on Friday night I can't believe it," she said. "I don't know where they all park. A lot of them are on their way to somewhere else. We have our locals of course, the Guns and Coffee Club meets in the back room and the VFW meets here as well."

She said the diners pass through the village on their way north on U.S. 250 to Norwalk, Cedar Point and Lake Erie, or south heading for Ashland, Mansfield and Columbus.

And they do move.

Ignoring the 35 mile per hour speed limit, they zoom through the village.

"It can be dangerous just crossing the street," said Tom Kruse, who has been the town mayor for 22 years. "We have not had a police department for a very long time. The Ashland County sheriff's department covers us, but often they only have two cars out on patrol and they seldom make it out here. Fortunately, no one has ever been killed crossing the street."

Bicentennial coming.

These days, Kruse and the rest of the village are getting ready for its bicentennial on the weekend of July 23 - 25.

"The town museum will be open, we'll have a parade, a pancake breakfast, a pollock fish dinner and lots of old-fashioned things to do like the skillet toss contest and sack races."

The mobile POW-MIA wall will be set up in town for the bicentennial as well as a "Touch the Truck" exhibit of modern and antique fire trucks for children to see.

Kruse is proud of his little town, with its memorial park on Main Street, its tiny museum and its small-town, homey atmosphere.

"We love it out here in the country," he said. "The kids ride their bikes and play in the woods and the creeks. It's quiet."

Local resident remembers a more bustling village.

Bill Biddinger, 74, is a retired cabinet maker and the curator of the tiny town museum. He looks around the small town and recounts where the two old general stores used to stand. Like the town garage and the five gas stations, the stores are long gone.

He walks to the town post office to pick up his mail.

He takes pride in keeping up the town museum, though he rarely opens it for business. It's located in a house next to his own home. The two-room tribute to the town has yearbooks, military items, flags and many pictures of life in the village over the decades.

Ultimately, like the mayor explained, the village's claim to fame is the Johnny Appleseed tree on the Algeo farm.

"What else are we known for?" he mused. "Well, a local man was given the Congressional Medal of Honor during the Civil War, that's the most famous person we've ever had. The tree is our best-known feature. It's something I know well. I am an arborist and I have been caring for that old tree for years."

Want to buy an actual seedling from the last apple tree planted by Johnny Appleseed in Savannah? Contact the Johnny Appleseed Museum and Education Center at 937-772-9297.The result of a third radar survey show conclusively that there are no hidden chambers in the tomb

After almost three months of study, a new geophysics survey has provided conclusive evidence that no hidden chambers exist adjacent to or inside Tutankhamuns tomb in the Valley of the Kings.

Mostafa Waziri, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, announced the results, adding that the head of the Italian scientific team carrying out the research,

Francesco Porcelli of the Polytechnic University of Turin, is to provide all the details of the ground penetrating radar (GPR) studies during his speech to be delivered on Sunday evening at the ongoing Fourth Tutankhamun International Conference.

Waziri said that a scientific report was submitted on Sunday morning to the Permanent Committee for Ancient Egyptian Antiquities by Porcelli and his team, which included experts from the nearby University of Turin and from two private geophysics companies, Geostudi Astier (Leghorn) and 3DGeoimaging (Turin), who collected GPR data from the inside of Tutankhamuns tomb in February 2018.

According to the report, which Ahram Online has obtained, Porcelli said that the GPR scans were performed along vertical and horizontal axes with very dense spatial sampling. Double antenna polarisations were also employed, with transmitting and receiving dipoles both orthogonal and parallel to the scanning direction.

Porcelli asserted that the main findings are as follows: no marked discontinuities due to the passage from natural rock to man-made blocking walls are evidenced by the GPR radargrams, nor there is any evidence of the jambs or the lintel of a doorway.

Similarly, the radargrams do not show any indication of plane reflectors, which could be interpreted as chamber walls or void areas behind the paintings of the funerary chamber.

It is concluded, with a very high degree of confidence, that the hypothesis concerning the existence of hidden chambers or corridors adjacent to Tutankhamuns tomb is not supported by the GPR data, Porcelli said in the report.

This is the third GPR survey to be conducted inside the tomb in recent years. It was designed to stop the controversy aroused after the contradictory results of two previous radar surveys to inspect the accuracy of a theory launched in 2015 by British Egyptologist Nicholas Reeves, who suggested that the tomb of queen Nefertiti could be concealed behind the north and west wall paintings of Tutankhamuns burial chamber.

The theory was supported by former minister of antiquities Mamdouh Eldamaty, who agreed to conduct two GPR surveys. The first was conducted by a Japanese professional who asserted with 95 percent certainty the existence of a doorway and a hall with artefacts.

The second radar survey was carried out with another high-tech GPR device by an American scientific team from National Geographic, who rejected the previous Japanese results and asserted that nothing existed behind the west and north wall of Tutankhamun's burial chamber.

To solve the difficulties encountered by the two preceding surveys and provide a conclusive response, the current antiquities minister, Khaled El-Enany, who took office in March 2016, decided to discuss the matter at the second International Tutankhamun Conference, which was attended by a group of pioneer scholars and archaeologists who decided to conduct a third GPR analysis to put an end to the debate.







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the complete review - fiction

Bride and Groom



by

Alisa Ganieva



general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

Russian title:   

Translated by Carol Apollonio

With an Afterword by the author

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Our Assessment:



B : fine little slice of contemporary Dagestan life

See our review for fuller assessment.

From the Reviews :

"Naturlich ist das eine durchaus schematische Konstruktion, und die Autorin lasst sie aufscheinen, indem etwa die Kapitel abwechselnd aus Patjas und aus Marats Perspektive erzahlt werden oder sich die beiden exakt in der Mitte des Romans zum ersten Mal begegnen. Damit setzt Ganijewa aber auch das Signal, dass es um mehr geht als um Eine Liebe im Kaukasus , wie der deutsche Titel ein wenig irrefuhrend verspricht." - Tilman Spreckelsen, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung





, wie der deutsche Titel ein wenig irrefuhrend verspricht." - "Die Lekture nimmt gefangen, und dies nicht nur wegen des klugen Romanaufbaus, der Perspektivenwechsel und der mit Jugendslang und Elementen dagestanischer Idiome angereicherten Sprache, die Christiane Korner glanzend ins Deutsche ubertragen hat." - Ilma Rakusa, Neue Zurcher Zeitung





"Ganieva investigates what would happen if you decided to embrace your heritage. (...) The dialect feel to Ganievas writing is distinctly captured in Carol Apollonios translation. At first it feels clunky and uncomfortable. (...) But you settle into it and realise how it reflects the impossibilities of these characters worlds: everyone appears to be speaking the same language but in reality everything is all mixed up. A bold and startling novel reminiscent of the best of Elif Shafaks fiction." - Viv Groskop, The Observer





"Grotesque details occasionally hint at a satiric purpose, but ultimately this is a tenser, sadder tale that underscores the horror and despair of post-Soviet life. Ganieva immerses us in a world where corruption and violence are so widespread and legal protections so meaningless that even love at first sight cannot guarantee a happy ending. (...) This is a timely novel for anyone who follows news from Russia, Chechnya, Dagestan, and other post-Soviet areas. (...) Strongly recommended." - Emily D. Johnson, World Literature Today





"Doch ahnlich wie Rainer Werner Fassbinder nutzt Ganijewa diese populare asthetische Form, um uber etwas ganz anderes zu erzahlen. Denn mehr noch als jede Verliebtheit in den "teeschimmernden Augen" verbindet Marat und Patja die Gratwanderung zwischen der Moskauer Moderne und der archaischen Realitat Dagestans." - Moritz Scheper, Die Zeit

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review 's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.



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The complete review 's Review :

The bride and groom of the title are Patya and Marat, and the story is presented in alternating chapters switching back and forth between them -- Patya's chapters in the first person, Marat's in the third. For most of the novel they aren't actually but rather potentially bride and groom -- with quite a few potential partners beyond each other passing review as well. Both Patya and Marat have been working in Moscow and have now returned to their Dagestan families, who want to marry them off. Twenty-five year-old Patya is dangerously close to the age when, locally, she will be considered over the hill and her family fears that if they don't rush things along they won't even be able give her away, while Marat's family thinks it's also high time for him to get married -- so much so that they've simply gone ahead and set a date and booked a banquet hall: "The only thing that's missing is the bride", Marat notes.

Both families -- both mothers, in particular -- have lined up some potential (if not necessarily suitable) candidates, and there are some not very subtle efforts at matchmaking and meetings with potential-brides/grooms. Yet despite the centrality of the partner-hunt to the novel, it's also treated fairly casually by the characters -- willing to play along, and often annoyed by their parents' and families' ideas, but not obsessing solely about this.

Both Patya and Marat experienced the big city -- Moscow, a world away from the small backwoods republic in the Caucasus. For Patya, in particular, it was a year-long escape, exposing her to a more cosmopolitan world -- with her family of course concerned about her losing touch with the old, traditional ways and her roots. Certainly, things move at a different pace here, and there are specific expectations about behavior and roles, especially between the sexes. Patya still understands and is attentive to her place and how she can act: the big city hasn't spoiled her that much. Everyone gossips, so great care must be taken about behavior: word gets around very fast in this small community -- something everyone is keenly aware of.

Among the local tensions are also religious ones: overwhelmingly Muslim, there are nevertheless competing mosques and strains of ideology. There are concerns about militants -- while in-your-face displays of atheism are also brutally beaten down. Hovering in the background is a near-mystical figure, Khalilbeck, being held by the authorities but enjoying great popular support and both widely feared and revered for his powers.

Patya's most aggressive suitor -- who becomes a bit stalker-ish -- is Timur, whom she had been corresponding with for a while while in Moscow, but who turned out to be not at all to her liking when she finally met him. The dangers of showing any sort of interest or attention are made clear by her friend's summing up of the situation Patya got herself into:

Of course he figured that if you wrote to him and answered his messages, that meant you want to marry him ...

- M.A.Orthofer, 6 May 2018

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:

Deep Vellum publicity page

 publicity page

Suhrkamp publicity page

See Index of literature from Russia

Other books from Deep Vellum

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About the Author :

Russian author Alisa Ganieva ( ; Alissa Ganijewa) was born in 1985.

- Return to top of the page -Posh Labour MP Emily Thornberry  Lady Nugee by marriage  has offered some tips to girls on relationships: Dont just go for the big blue eyes and a handsome boy, she says. Find yourself a smart boy because theyll know the smart girls are looking for guys who will do equal amounts of unpaid work in the home. A Corbynista Jane Austen is born.

Theresa May (pictured) joined in the ribbing of new Home Secretary Sajid Javid

Theresa May joined in the ribbing of new Home Secretary Sajid Javid.

This was right about after the time he adopted a risible power stance for photographs.

Nice pose, Sajid, she sniggered when he arrived at last weeks Cabinet meeting.

I got it from you, retorted a cheeky Sajid.

A fellow Minister muttered: I know who has the better pins.

Certain friends of Jacob Rees-Mogg have taken to calling pro-EU Conservative MP Vicky Ford, Vichy Fraud  a reference to the pro-Nazi regime in occupied France during the Second World War.

Like all cowards, they only do it behind her back. Someone should remind Jacob: by their friends ye shall know them.

Pro-EU Conservative MP Vicky Ford has been branded as Vichy Fraud

Brexit Secretary David Davis, 70 this year, fuelled rumours that he has not ruled out a Tory leadership challenge when he was spotted dining with arch-Remainer Ken Clarke at Londons Garrick Club. A friend of Clarke says: Ken has no time for Gove and Boris. DD is much more likeable and could attract support from all wings of the party.

Among the many indignities endured by Speaker John Bercows staff is being forced to take part in a daily guess the Minister game. To humour the short-tempered show-off, they ask him to come up with the name of the first Minister who will speak at that days closing debate. If he guesses ten days on the trot, he wins an imaginary coconut.

Mike faces the music

Hapless Sainsburys boss Mike Coupe, was caught humming Were In The Money ahead of an interview on his planned takeover of Asda.

He will get his comeuppance when he is summoned before the Commons Work and Pensions Committee.

One MP is threatening to play the ditty, from the 1933 film Gold Diggers, on loudspeakers as Coupe arrives.

Sainsburys boss Mike Coupe

A worried peer alarmed by the sight of a down-and-out couple writhing about in a sleeping bag directly outside an entrance to Parliament was taken aback by their churlish response to his thoughtful solicitations: Sod off, were avin a kiss and cuddle right now.

Snorts of male derision greeted calls for a 50-50 male and female membership rule for a new post-Brexit Commons committee. Brexiteer Tory MP Peter Bone said: If they demand a 50-50 split on grounds of gender, I will insist we have a 52-48 split to reflect the EU referendum.Dan Hodges says contrary to expectations, Theresa May appears the favourite to win the next general election

On Thursday, a remarkable political event occurred. Vince Cable said something interesting and prescient.

Asked about who he thought would be Prime Minister going into the next General Election, he answered: 'I think Theresa May actually.

'She's got a lot more stamina, and it serves a lot of people's interest to have her there.'

The Lib Dems' forgotten leader was right. This morning, in the wake of an expectation-defying set of local council results, the Prime Minister is the Lady Lazarus of British politics.

Not only is it conceivable she could fight a General Election, it has also become conceivable she could fight an Election and win it.

This previously incomprehensible scenario is contingent on a number of factors. The first, and most crucial, is that Labour remains under the hypnotic spell of Jeremy Corbyn and an army of vicious, anti-Semitic cultists.

The conventional wisdom at Westminster is that we have now reached peak Corbyn. This is wrong.

Corbyn has not yet peaked because  as I wrote two weeks ago  there is as yet no one in the Shadow Cabinet willing or able to drag him from his sun-kissed but lonely summit.

But we have finally reached peak Corbynism. Thursday was a dire night for Labour. We are eight years into a Tory government.

Theresa May defied expectations and avoided disaster at local council elections across Britain

This was despite government scandals like Windrush, dreadful growth figures, a Cabinet schism over Brexit and whispers of a leadership challenge to the PM

Pull the plug on this sorry mob UKIPS implosion continues apace. On Friday, general secretary Paul Oakley stunned radio listeners by comparing his party to the Black Death after its disastrous local election losses. Now I understand new leader Gerard Batten has decided to toxify the brand even further by agreeing to speak at todays far-Right Day For Freedom event in Whitehall. Other attendees include former English Defence League leader Tommy Robinson, alt-Right YouTube star Milo Yiannopoulos and Canadian blogger Lauren Southern  who says shell be there even though she was recently denied entry to the UK on the grounds her presence would not be conducive to the public good. Meanwhile, Jo Marney  girlfriend of deposed former Ukip leader Henry Bolton  has delivered her verdict on Thursdays results. Ukip has no one to blame but itself for its failures in the locals, she rages. Rejected reform and a leader who had all the worlds media watching. Surely its time to draw a line under the Peoples Revolution. Advertisement

In the hours before the polls opened, the news was dominated by the resignation of the Home Secretary, dreadful growth figures, a Cabinet schism over Brexit and whispers of a leadership challenge to the PM.

But in London, Labour failed to take a single council they were targeting, whilst outside, their vote share actually went backwards.

By the end of the evening they had recorded their worst local election result in opposition since 1982.

Fortunately for Mrs May, this reality has been withheld from Corbyn's fanbase in much the same way Second World War Naval disasters were censored and kept secret from the British people.

Having spent a month pointing everyone towards upcoming triumphs in Barnet, Wandsworth and Kensington, the Corbynites were suddenly ordered to avert their gaze, turn their attention in the direction of Plymouth, and salute.

Which they dutifully did. Meaning we have now officially arrived at the cross-over point where Labour's army of activist White Walkers have become a net asset to the Tories.

Their slavish devotion to Corbyn prevents any contemplation of his fallibility, never mind serious analysis of what needs to be done to improve his and his party's political fortunes.

Their aggression  both on social media and the doorsteps  is now actively repelling the voters.

Dan Hodges argues this has a lot to do with her opponent Jeremy Corbyn constantly hurting Labour's chances of election victory

And they remain fixated on seeking out and destroying saboteurs within their own ranks, rather than trying to reach out and construct a broad electoral coalition.

Jeremy Corbyn has now faced Theresa May in three national elections, and has failed to best her in any of them. She would be able to enter a fourth rematch with a degree of confidence.

But to prevail she would also need to have her MPs marching in step behind her. And there she can feel less confident.

The zealots on opposing wings of her party are currently circling the entrails of the 2018 local elections, trying to select the juiciest morsels.

The Kamikaze Remainers are claiming the receding threat of Corbynism gives space for a dramatic watering down of Brexit.

The Kamikaze Leavers  led by the Cabinet's very own divine wind, Boris Johnson  are spinning that the results require a hardening of Brexit to lock in their pro-Brexit base.

Both groups are ignoring the truth. These results were not an endorsement of Anna Soubry's thin-gruel Brexit, or Jacob Rees-Mogg's Hard Brexit. They were an endorsement of Theresa May's pragmatic, patient Brexit.

At last week's tense Brexit cabinet committee meeting, Mrs May concluded by making a passionate and unscripted statement of her commitment to leaving the EU.

Hodges says Labour remains under the hypnotic spell of Mr Corbyn and an army of vicious, anti-Semitic cultists

But crucially, she concluded by telling her colleagues 'we have to have a solution that can work'.

In doing so, Mrs May has aligned herself with the bulk of the British people. They want Ministers to call a halt to the ideological warfare over Brexit and give the Prime Minister the space to get on with delivering it.

And her colleagues  all her colleagues  should respect their wishes.

Yes, Corbynism is in retreat. But if either Brexit faction undermines her before the negotiations are completed, they could still throw him and his zealots a life-line. Not to mention indulging in an act of historic and futile self-immolation.

A successful parliamentary rebellion on the customs union or Single Market would almost certainly see the Remainers gifting the Tory leadership to a Hard Brexiteer.

Mr Corbyn's deputy John McDonnell calling Marxism 'a force for change today' and one of the biggest influences on the Labour Party will not help their electability

Opening embracing socialism, let alone Marxism, will not help convince moderate Tory voters Labour needs to win a general election

Similarly, a leadership challenge by the Brexit ultras would risk handing the keys to No 10 to Corbyn. Whether they like it or not, Theresa May represents both sides' least worst option.

Actually, that is unfair. The Prime Minister deserves better than ritual damnation by faint praise.

To date, the narrative constructed around her has been one of political failure. Rightly, given the squandered opportunity of last June.

But since her elevation as Conservative leader, the Tory vote share has remained consistent and resilient. And it's time to acknowledge this is in no small part because of Theresa May, not in spite of her.

A clumsy attempt is under way by the ubiquitous 'friends' of the Foreign Secretary to claim the better-than-expected results in London were down to an expert flexing of his political muscle in Cabinet.

Jacob Rees-Mogg is again threatening to bring all the boys and girls of his pro-Brexit European Research Group to the yard.

Gavin Williamson continues his clumsy attempt to run a full-time leadership campaign while moonlighting as the nation's Defence Secretary.

However, infighting between Conservative factions, including James Rees-Mogg (pictured) could still mess it all up

But the reality is the voters have interposed themselves between these pretenders, their thinly disguised ambition, and their leader.

The local elections were supposed to trigger a crisis for Theresa May. Instead, they have given her the green light to continue moving forward in her inelegant, unfussy, doggedly provincial way.

Mrs May will never be fully comfortable in a Prime Minister's skin. Speak to Ministers, and they refer to her 'limited political skill-set'.

One in which pragmatism frequently undermines her clarity of purpose. An instinct towards conciliation erodes decisiveness. Caution robs her Government of energy and dynamism.

Maybe they're right. But after Thursday  if Corbyn remains her opponent, if her party can stay united, and if she can ride her luck  that still could be enough.On a sunny Bank Holiday weekend, with our bluebells in bloom and the wisteria beginning to display its brief seasonal beauty, there is little that could disturb my equanimity.

But then, it happened again: someone on the radio did the pre thing. This is the only way I can describe it: the verbal virus  quite a recent contamination  that makes those infected put pre in front of words which have no need of it.

The one I heard on the BBC yesterday morning was the most common variant: Pre-planned.

The current guardians of spoken English at the BBC should recall a memo supposedly written by the institutions founder, the terrifying Lord Reith (pictured, in 1956)

Why? Is it actually possible to plan something after it has happened?

And yet this word has become so common that the online Oxford Dictionary now tells us: Pre-plan: verb. To plan in advance, as in a pre-planned route.

What madness is this? Darling, I thought Id plan the route for our journey today. Oh, sorry, thats not good enough. Of course I meant to say Im going to pre-plan the route.

Grating

Other variants recently heard, both in BBC Radio 4 programmes about the Westminster political scene: Pre-trailed and Pre-leaked. I thought the whole point about trailing something, in political terms, was that you did it before an official announcement.

Obviously, we can understand what the broadcaster means. But why add an extra syllable  derived from Latin  which is redundant, and even slightly pretentious?

Perhaps the oddest and certainly the most grating is the now ubiquitous pre-prepared.

Its many decades since I did A-level Latin, but as far as I know the word prepare itself derives from prae meaning before and parare which means to make ready. Why on earth does the pre require another pre before it? Unless you are unfortunate enough to be afflicted with a bad stutter, theres really no excuse. And yet this monstrosity is now most common in the highest circles.

Thus, I noticed Sir Lawrence Freedman, the immensely distinguished Emeritus Professor of War Studies at Kings College London, and a man whose writings I much admire, recently referring to something he had pre-prepared. Lawrence, how could you?

And in its guidance to lawyers, a recent document from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) tells us that an adverse inference cannot be drawn by a defendant who merely refuses to answer police questions after a pre-prepared statement is read out.

Not so long ago it would have been enough to refer to a prepared statement. It still should be.

The CPS has much more serious things to worry about than this: it has become dangerously close to discredited under its departing director, Alison Saunders. The CPS complains that it is under-resourced  but it costs nothing to be clear and concise in expressing the law.

The one I heard on the BBC was the most common variant: Pre-planned'

And when the most eminent professors and institutions do this, we cannot blame less august commercial organisations for following their bad example.

So food retailers now offer us what they increasingly call pre-prepared meals. Plain prepared meals are old hat. Thus, Wiltshire Farm Foods  an excellent firm, no doubt  advertises the following service: Pre-prepared Ready Meals Delivered. Of course, it doesnt mean that the meals have been cooked twice, but thats what it sounds like. And it doesnt encourage me to try their ready meals.

Ive no idea where this comes from. But I wouldnt be entirely surprised if it had blown across the Atlantic. As has another term used increasingly in the UK and which gives me slight palpitations: Storied.

No, its not a misspelling of what we apply to buildings, which can indeed be storeyed. It is used to mean something or someone about whom many stories have been written or told. Thus, on Radio Fours Today programme on March 17 (yes, I took a note) we were told of someone whod had a storied career. Ugh.

I think this term is being used as an alternative to the more English famous. But that grossly overused word is in itself almost always dispensable.

Guardians

The current guardians of spoken English at the BBC should recall a memo supposedly written by the institutions founder, the terrifying Lord Reith.

It is said that on hearing someone described in a broadcast as a famous lawyer, Reith wrote to the programmes producer: The word FAMOUS. If a person is famous, it is superfluous to point out the fact; if he is not, then it is a lie. The word is not to be used by the BBC.

Exactly so. And the current director-general of the BBC should tell his journalists and newsreaders that the following terms are also banned: Pre-planned, pre-trailed and, above all, pre-prepared.

As for storied, anyone from the Today programme using it should be given a formal warning that repetition will result in being exiled to Radio St Helena.

There is a serious point, though. Our language is so beautifully clear and simple, at its best. Our national broadcaster, with its unique influence, has a special responsibility to keep it that way.

Freudian case of Speaker Bercow

To Sigmund Freud we owe the theory known as psychological projection.

This describes the actions of someone who cant accept his own character flaws and deals with this by attributing them to others  which he can then condemn without mercy, or indeed a trace of self-reflection.

I am beginning to think that the Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, is a classic study of this phenomenon.

Over recent days, former Parliamentary officials have described being at the receiving end of Mr Bercows epic tantrums. Angus Sinclair, who worked for Bercow until 2010, told the BBC how the Speaker had frequently bellowed at him, and even attempted to intimidate him physically, smashing a mobile phone to smithereens on his desk.

I am beginning to think that the Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, is a classic study of this phenomenon

Sinclair was succeeded by Kate Emms, who left Bercows office after just a year, suffering, we are told, from post- traumatic stress disorder.

And the former Black Rod, David Leakey, revealed to the BBC that he had also been at the receiving end of Bercows tantrums, adding: His explosive and intemperate behaviour is legendary, objectionable and unworthy of someone in such public office. And heres the thing: John Bercow not only denies all this absolutely, but in 2017 called for zero tolerance of bullying here at Westminster.

Stranger still, he seems to take particular pleasure in questioning the mental stability of MPs who become over-excitable in the chamber, invariably telling them to take a soothing medicament (ie, tranquilisers).

The Guido Fawkes website has unearthed many examples of this. Thus, to the Conservative MP Alec Shelbrooke three weeks ago: You are over-excited and you need to contain yourself. If it requires you to take some medicament, so be it.

To the Labour MP Khalid Mahmood, last July: You seem to be in a very hyper condition today. I recommend that you take some sort of soothing medicament or go and lie down for a little while.

Or indeed, to the entire House of Commons, also last July: Members are shouting excessively. They must calm themselves. Take some sort of soothing medicament.

Yet, to judge from what a number of his former staff say, if any MP is in need of a soothing medicament, it is the member for Buckingham, one John Bercow.What started as a love of the salty treat turned into a full-blown business idea when two blokes bonded over beef jerky.

Andy Fist, from Tasmania, and Shaun Malligan, from the United States, met while working for outdoor events company Tough Mudder in New York.

Their mutual passion for health coupled with a keen desire to be out in nature forged the makings of their brand Kooee! which is aptly named after the Australian bush call.

Andy Fist, from Tasmania, (right) and Shaun Malligan, from the United States, (left) met while working for outdoor events company Tough Mudder in New York

'Traditional jerky companies have relied on testosterone-fuelled branding, but it doesn't have to be that way. Kooee is a brand for active, healthy people of any gender,' Shaun said.

With hormones and preservatives commonly found in the traditional type of jerky, Kooee is instead marinated in a unique blend of spices, coconut aminos, unfiltered apple cider vinegar and sea salt.

This makes it gluten, soy and dairy-free, non-GMO and 100 per cent natural.

This makes it gluten, soy and dairy-free, non-GMO and 100 per cent natural

The company uses grass-fed Cape Grim beef from Tasmania to fashion the snack, which is the same piece of steak you'd be fed in Qantas first class.

What ingredients are required to make beef jerky at home? This is an 'original' recipe that you can add flavours to. For every kilo of meat you will need: Soy Sauce  180ml Contains a LOT of salt (important for food safety) Gives jerky a dark colour, and improves texture Apple Cider Vinegar  35ml Acids can be helpful for food safety. They inhibit microbial growth and keep your jerky safe. They also taste good. Beef jerky is traditionally thought to be an unhealthy food, but this Aussie company is proving everyone wrong Acidity often is the first thing you'll taste in a food, so it can be a lot of fun to pair acids with spicy (which typically take a bit longer to get going) Water  35ml This is simply to create enough marinade to completely cover your meat. Ground Black Pepper  2g It's an oldy, but a goodie. This is just enough to have a hint of pepper in the background. Source: Kooee! Advertisement

Their products are enjoyed by the men's and women's Australian Rugby Sevens teams, elite cyclists and mountaineers, which makes sense given it's made up of more than 20g of protein.

Kooee! is available in four flavours for $6.95 each: Classic Sea Salt, Mountain Pepperberry, Smoked Chipotle and Habanero Chilli and can be found in Woolworths, Dan Murphy's, Virgin Australia, Paddy Pallin and Harris Farm.If you want to make a gutsy career move, you could do worse than give your product to Kim Kardashian.

And that's exactly what Olivia Carr did with her silk pillowcases, when she first launched her ShhhSilk business.

The Melbourne-based businesswoman spoke to FEMAIL about how she grew ShhhSilk into a brand beloved by the likes of Kylie Jenner, Chrissy Teigen and Gisele Bundchen.

She also outlined just how she got her silky products into the hands of Kim Kardashian, which in turn helped her to secure a multi-million-dollar turnover.

Shhh Silk is a business that sells silky pillowcases - the founder of the business even hand-delivered one of her creations to Kim Kardashian (pictured)

Nowadays, the Australian label has fans around the world - including the likes of Chrissy Teigen (pictured)

Olivia had long known about the powers of sleeping on silk - which include reducing the signs of ageing and giving extra hydration (pictured: one of the silk pillowcases)

It's not just Kim from the Kardashian/Jenner clan who loves Shhh Silk either - Khloe sent Olivia a note (pictured)

For Olivia, 36, she had long known about the benefits of sleeping on silk when she launched her business:

'I first started sleeping on silk pillowcases years ago upon the recommendation of my hairdresser,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

Then, when she lost her pillowcase in 2015, Olivia spent her days and nights searching high and low for something high quality that could replace it.

Olivia (pictured) adopted an aggressive marketing strategy when she launched

'When I was unable to find one on the market, I decided that I could easily make my own,' she explained.

'Three days later I jumped on a plane bound for Asia where I spent the next few weeks sourcing the highest-grade silk I could find.'

Shh Silk launched in October 2015, before Olivia began an aggressive marketing strategy - which saw her travel to the Golden Globe Awards in January 2016 to give out silk pillowcases and generate PR and marketing content.

The 'craziest thing' Olivia said she did, however, was hand deliver her pillowcase to none other than Kim Kardashian.

'In hindsight, it was pretty crazy,' she said.

'Knowing their love of silk pillowcases, I could not resist the opportunity to hand deliver some of our new signature range to the girls and their mum and manager Kris Kardashian.'

She travelled to the Golden Globe Awards in 2016 to get people interested in her pillowcases and eyemasks

Gisele (pictured) is a huge fan of the pillowcases, which she takes on long-haul flights

Olivia said the 'craziest thing' she has done with the business is hand-deliver her pillowcases to the Kardashians

Silk is hypoallergenic, making it an ideal fabric for people with any allergies - you normally have to wash silky pillowcases with shampoo and warm water

So how did the 36-year-old pull off the coup?

Olivia explained that she travelled to the Jenner/Kardashian residence, 'where both Kim and Kanye's Rolls Royces were parked on the front nature strip'.

The benefits of sleeping on silk 1. They help to minimise ageing. 2. Silk helps to hydrate your skin. 3. Silk is hypoallergenic. Advertisement

Even though two 'incredibly long security cameras were staring', Olivia explained that she stayed waiting outside for a while, before a UPS truck arrived delivering a box for the Kardashians.

'This was it, this was the moment I had literally been dreaming about since before leaving for LA, I was going to personally hand deliver some of our new marble silk pillowcases to the Kardashians,' Olivia recalled.

'I quickly jumped out of the car, and followed the UPS delivery man over the tape (yes I climbed over the tape), and delivered my parcel.'

Since that moment, Olivia has supplied Kris, Kylie and Khloe with pillowcases and silky sleep masks.

Chrissy Teigen, Elle Ferguson and Gisele Bundchen are also fans.

'We strive to wow all of our customers,' Olivia concluded.

Olivia will be speaking at Retail Global on the Gold Coast between 23 and 25 May. For more information, please click here.I have a theory  not yet disproved  that most social occasions are generated by and for women, which explains why men always act like they are doing a tremendous favour to the hostess simply by showing up. Basically, theyd pay not to go.

Which is why my heart breaks for poor old Thomas Markle Senior as he starts his long walk from freedom into the pitiless glare of the worlds gaze.

On Friday, Kensington Palace announced that not only would Pa Markle be coming to the wedding, he would be walking Meghan down the aisle.

Prince Harry's fiancee Meghan Markle in her younger days with her father Thomas Markle

Collective intake of breath. Thats quite the journey.

One suspects this is not quite what Thomas  I want to be alone, guys  Markle signed up for when he moved to Mexico to enjoy his retirement after a successful career as a television lighting director.

Of course, in a traditional wedding, most fathers would expect to walk their daughter down the aisle. Earl Spencer escorted Lady Diana, as Major Ron did Fergie. Michael Middleton did the honours with Kate and Pippa. Im sure these were among the proudest, most bursting moments of these mens lives. As a convention, its quaintly patriarchal, but also a touching rite of passage (even my father insisted on bundling me in my navy Next suit up to the desk at the Chelsea Register Office).

But theres always been more of a question mark over Markle pere. The epithet most often attached to the bear-like pensioner is reclusive. He has not given a single interview, despite being doorstepped by paps at his modest ocean-front home in the resort of Rosarito.

He shambles out in a hoodie to buy groceries and have the odd beer or cup-a-cawfee in a local cafe or bar. Staff say he is always polite and leaves a big tip, but  spoiler alert  hes a committed loner. He seems to be happy on his own with no one bothering him, which is why he left his wife, his family and his country to live in blissful obscurity and enjoy a peaceful retirement.

Well, bad luck, pal.

In less than two weeks this quiet mole will have to emerge blinking from his hole into the Klieg lights of the global press. Hes having a morning suit made. He will have to fly to Britain to meet the Queen, the Duke of E, Prince Charles and Camilla  a whole bunch of new in-laws hes only seen previously in American supermarket tabloids.

Thomas Markle has been photographed by the press several times in Mexico since the news of his daughter's engagement broke

And he will greet his new son-in-law for the very first time.

And then  no biggie  hes going to walk his Meg down the aisle in front of a congregation of 600 in St Georges Chapel  with billions more watching around the world.

You have to feel for him. Meghans been a star for years. But hes a guy who got hitched himself in the Self Realization Fellowship Temple on Sunset Boulevard and who never asked for any of this circus.

Thomas pictured with Meghan as a newborn baby

For his daughter, all this Royal Wedding Princess Bride Panto is a dream come true. Its even more perfect for the Firm, too, which is why Meghan has been front and centre from the off.

Ms Markle is a mixed-race career woman and divorcee who comes from a broken home. Shes therefore far more representative of who we are as a country, and contemporary society, than a posh blonde virginal daughter of a belted earl.

But amid the celebrations, spare a thought for Mr Markle. This isnt a Disney fairy tale  it must be his idea of a total nightmare.Skincare is a booming industry but with what seems to be a new product on the market every week, it can be difficult to know where you should put your money.

Thankfully, Mecca Australia has done all the hard work for you, with a list of their best-selling skincare items revealing the go-to items for Australian women in 2018 so far.

Here FEMAIL has rounded up their top nine items, with the cheapest product costing an affordable $9.

Skincare is a booming industry but with what seems to be a new product on the market every week, it can be difficult to know where you should put your money

MARIO BADESCU FACIAL SPRAY - $9

The spray is formulated with fragrant herbal extracts and rosewater

Mario Badescu is a cult beauty brand that is loved all over the world and has been praised by celebrities such as Kylie Jenner.

The spray is formulated with fragrant herbal extracts and rosewater, which is designed to help dehydrated, tight and uncomfortable skin.

You can use it for more than dehydration, as Mecca also recommends using it to set makeup or even spray on dry hair.

'Smells so lovely and it's so incredibly inexpensive. I use this every day to tone and hydrate my face. I want fifty more bottles!' Wrote one reviewer.

Downside: 'All my friends were using it so I decided to try it out, however after using it, it made me break out heavily. I stopped using it and my skin went back to normal,' wrote another.

The spray is formulated with fragrant herbal extracts and rosewater, which is designed to help dehydrated, tight and uncomfortable skin

MARIO BADESCU DRYING LOTION - $24

The drying lotion from Mario Badescu is their best seller, which is designed to help banish spots thanks to the inclusion of calamine and salicylic acid.

They claim that it soothes up whiteheads overnight and a simple dab of the product on an unsightly spot will see it disappear quickly.

'Have used this for years and highly recommend it! Works well with only a small amount applied. Overnight spots are gone/minimised,' one happy reviewer wrote.

'LOVE this stuff and always have a bottle on hand. Have recommend it to lots of friends who now also love it!'

Downside: 'I have had this for a really long time, and every time I use it I see no results. My pimples look no different than the night before. It was really disappointing that it didn't work because it had been hyped by other people to work miracles,' wrote one reviewer.

The drying lotion from Mario Badescu is their best seller, which is designed to help banish spots thanks to the inclusion of calamine and salicylic acid

MECCA COSMETICA TO SAVE FACE SUNSCREEN - $40

This tinted moisturiser was created to provide broad spectrum protection against UVA and UVB rays with a matte finish.

It contains SPF 50 with both pomegranate extract and vitamin E, which are good for the skin.

The brand claims that it is the perfect product to act as a base for makeup and it also prevents premature ageing thanks to the UV ray protection.

'I have trialled a LOT of 50+ sunscreens but this will be my go-to product now. Goes on smooth with no white chalky residue like others. Perfect,' one reviewer said.

Downside: 'I had a tester of this product from a beauty loop box about 12 months ago. I then went and bought another tube and every time I wear it, it causes me to break out immediately! Such a shame as I really liked the tester version,' said another.

This product was created to provide broad spectrum protection against UVA and UVB rays with a matte finish

DRUNK ELEPHANT NIGHT SERIUM - $196

This night serum claims to entirely rejuvenate the skin while fighting a variety of skin concerns.

It is believed it helps lift away dead skin cells while hydrating and exfoliating lifeless skin to reveal a refined complexion as well as combating large pores, fine lines and wrinkles.

An independent consumer testing panel of 50 women aged 25 to 55 found that 98 per cent found their skin was smoother and 96 per cent found their skin was softer.

'Loved loved loved this product - after using a tester sample over three days my skin become super soft and radiant,' wrote one reviewer.

'I have reactive/sensitive/dry skin which usually looks very weathered, but after using this product, it glowed. Will be purchasing it when in store next!'

Downside: 'I read all the raving reviews on this product so thought I'd buy the sample size. Well I've used it for about four to six weeks and it has literally made NO difference to my skin what so ever. Absolute waste of money,' said another.

This night serum claims to entirely rejuvenate the skin while fighting a variety of skin concerns

NARS PURE RADIANT TINTED MOSITURISER - $66

This tinted moisturiser from NARS claims to be oil free and is meant to hydrate and even out the skin tone.

This tinted moisturiser from NARS claims to be oil free and is meant to hydrate and even out people's skin tone

It also claims to reduce the appearance of dark spots and discolouration while softening imperfections such as wrinkles and pores.

'After trying out quite a few different tinted moisturisers I haven't found anything as good as this,' one person wrote.

'It really does feel like you are wearing nothing! It is only a medium coverage so I suggest if you're looking for something that covers all pimples/blemishes this isn't for you.'

Downside: 'I really wanted to love this product but unfortunately, every time I use it, I keep breaking out,' wrote another reviewer.

'I have tried this product multiple times with a break in between to see if it was the cause of my break outs and unfortunately it was. Good coverage, but did leave my skin feeling oily.'

It claims to reduce the appearance of dark spots and discolouration while softening imperfections such as wrinkles and pores

'After trying out quite a few different tinted moisturisers I haven't found anything as good as this,' one person wrote

DR DENNIS GROSS EXTRA STRENGTH DAILY PEEL - $220

These pre-soaked wipes are described as 'a daily, at home dermatologist visit' and involve a two-step process.

They're infused with exfoliating alpha and beta hydroxy acids and they claim to reduce fine lines and minimise pores before producing a fresh complexion.

'I will always have a packet of these on hand. I use one whenever I need a good exfoliating or refresh,' said one reviewer.

'I sometimes get little bumps on my chin and it clears them up straight away. You can see and feel a noticeable difference after just one use. Amazing product.'

Downside: 'When I put the stage one on my face, I felt a little bit [of] pricking and my face became little bit red,' one reviewer wrote.

'After stage two it just became really red and my face just felt hot, it made my skin feel tight but did nothing with my blackheads.'

These pre-soaked wipes are described as 'a daily, at home dermatologist visit' and involve a two-step process

GLAMGLOW SUPERMUD CLEARING TREATMENT - $115

Glamglow is a brand that has been raved about online for a long time now, with many people being blown away by the results.

Glamglow is a brand that has been raved about online for a long time now, with many people being blown away by the results

The brand claim that they are the world's most 'scientifically advanced supermud clearing treatment'.

It helps with deep pore extraction to eliminate the look of pores and thanks to the addition of eucalyptus leaf in the formula it is meant to create glowing skin.

'I love this mask so much! It's so amazing for clearing whiteheads and any breakouts in general,' said a reviewer.

'My sister loves using this product as an all over mask, however I would personally recommend you use this as a spot treatment if you don't have many blemishes (as it saves product).'

Downside: 'I tried this product a month ago and it was a complete disaster, I did a patch test and had no problem but when I left it on my face for the time it said it burned. I took it off straight away but my face was swollen, red, sore and irritated for the next two days!!,' one reviewer wrote.

The brand claim that they are the world's most 'scientifically advanced supermud clearing treatment'

EVE LOM CLEANSER - $73

This cleanser from Eve Lom has been created to encourage clear skin and getting rid of redness.

It also claims to drain away toxins, brighten up the face and exfoliate, all while softening and smoothing the skin.

'I discovered the cleanser a few years ago and will never change! With every use you feel like you're at the spa,' a reviewer wrote.

Disclaimer: 'This product has a horrible pasty texture and doesn't emulsify properly. It didn't remove my non-water proofing make up. I don't recommend this at all. Tatcha and Omorovicza are much better in texture amen effectiveness!' wrote a commenter.

This cleanser from Eve Lom has been created to encourage clear skin and getting rid of redness

TATCHA THE WATER CREAM - $99

This oil-free moisturiser from Tatcha turns into water when it comes into contact with your fingertips

This oil-free moisturiser from Tatcha turns into water when it comes into contact with your fingertips.

It has been created so as to release a burst of Japanese botanicals while helping customers achieve perfectly balanced, virtually poreless skin.

The addition of Japanese wild rose is meant to help tighten pores and refine uneven texture and Japanese leopard lily helps with excess oil.

'The Water Cream is so light when you put it on the skin and leaves an amazing finish,' said a reviewer.

'It gets absorbed straight away so it is great for under makeup. Great for oily skin. I noticed a difference in my skin within a week of use. Less dull, less redness and more plumpness.'

Downside: 'Thought this cream would be amazing as I can only use oil-free and I've heard great things about Tatcha.... but no, this cream was horrible, it did absolutely nothing and it never absorbed'It's been a whirlwind few days for Crown Princess Mary, who is currently in Seattle, Washington to create new partnerships 'in the arts' between Denmark and the United States.

But it seems as though her demanding schedule has done nothing to dampen her mood, with the royal arriving at a museum opening on Saturday in excellent spirits.

The effortlessly chic royal joined the President of Iceland, Gudni Th. Johannesson and the First Lady of Iceland Eliza Reid, for the official public ribbon cutting ceremony for the Nordic Museum on Saturday afternoon.

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It's been a whirlwind few days for Crown Princess Mary, who is currently in Seattle, Washington to create new partnerships 'in the arts' between Denmark and the United States

But it seems as though her demanding schedule has done nothing to dampen her mood, with the royal arriving at a museum opening on Saturday in excellent spirits

True to her glamorous yet relaxed style, the 46-year-old donned a flattering blue cape dress and accessorised with one of her classic brooches, pearl jewellery and simple beige pumps.

She wore her hair in loose, swept curls and carried a beige snakeskin clutch to complete the look.

The princess appeared to thoroughly enjoy herself and throughout the event was seen chatting animatedly and sharing hearty laughs with the President and his wife.

The effortlessly chic royal joined the President of Iceland, Gudni Th. Johannesson and the First Lady of Iceland Eliza Reid, at the opening of a new museum and could barely wipe the smile from her face

True to her glamorous yet relaxed style, the 46-year-old donned a flattering blue cape dress and accessorised with one of her classic brooches, pearl jewellery and simple beige pumps

The event concluded with a speech from Mary before the trio cut the ribbon and mingled briefly with attendees and posed for photographs.

It's been a busy few days for Mary, who, since landing, has visited an obesity research centre and lead a panel discussion on women's economic empowerment.

She began her Friday morning in style, donning a navy blue trench coat - a similar colour to her Saturday dress - and similarly matching oriental-style dress paired with nude pumps.

The princess appeared to thoroughly enjoy herself and throughout the event was seen chatting animatedly and sharing hearty laughs with the President and his wife

The event concluded with a speech from Mary before the trio cut the ribbon and mingled briefly with attendees and posed for photographs

Her hair was styled impeccably as she wandered around the Novo Nordisk Research Centre in Seattle before settling into a comfortable panel discussion highlighting the importance of access to care for people with obesity.

She was also offered a gorgeous bouquet of flowers from a young girl by the name of Emeila Beck.

While that might usually suffice as a busy day in the royal office, Princess Mary outdid herself as usual by continuing on to the University of Washington as they launched a new chapter of cultural exchange between Denmark and America.

It's been a busy few days for Mary, who, since landing, has visited an obesity research centre and lead a panel discussion on women's economic empowerment

She began her Friday morning in style, donning a navy blue trench coat - a similar colour to her Saturday dress - and similarly matching oriental-style dress paired with nude pumps

Within the establishment's walls Her Royal Highness led a talk on women's economic empowerment in Seattle and spoke openly about equality.

'Empowering women economically is a cornerstone of Danish policy. We are therefore excited that Her Royal Highness Crown Princess Mary of Denmark will be coming to the University of Washington to discuss this topic,' said Lars Gert Lose, the Danish ambassador to the United States.

'Her Royal Highness Crown Princess Mary of Denmark is a true champion of women's rights and a member of the Leadership Council of International Center for Research on Women.

'It is essential to share ideas on how to break down barriers so everyone can fulfill their full potential. We are very excited for the opportunity to have this important conversation with the young students at the University.'

She was even offered a gorgeous bouquet of flowers from a young girl by the name of Emeila Beck (pictured right)

Her hair was styled impeccably as the 46-year-old wandered around the Novo Nordisk Research Centre in Seattle, Washington

'It's a special opportunity for our UW and Scandinavian studies students to engage with global leaders, and to share their knowledge and perspectives with them,' professor Andrew Nestingen said

She was in good company alongside Dr. Sarah Kambou, president of the International Center for Research on Women, Sarah Hendricks from Gates Foundation and Margaret Schuler from World Vision.

'It was an honor to host Her Royal Highness Crown Princess Mary of Denmark for a conversation with UW students about breaking gender barriers and advancing equality,' said professor Andrew Nestingen, chair of the Department of Scandinavian Studies.

'It's a special opportunity for our UW and Scandinavian studies students to engage with global leaders, and to share their knowledge and perspectives with them.'

The Crown Princess met with university and local officials in Gerberding Hall before walking across Red Square to Kane Hall for the talk.

Danish Royal Guards heralded the royal's procession across campus.Meghan Markle's mother is ready to open up about the racist abuse her daughter has suffered as a result of her royal relationship, it has been reported.

Doria Ragland, 61, is said to be ready to share details of Ms Markle's struggle in a 'groundbreaking' interview with Oprah Winfrey.

Ms Ragland, who will play a key role in her daughter's wedding, was seen leaving the TV mogul's $88million (70million) California home last week.

While the reason for the six-hour visit has not been confirmed, a US TV source has told the Mirror Online that the pair were discussing ideas for a tell-all interview.

Doria Ragland, 61, will is said to be ready to share details of the racist abuse her daughter has suffered in a 'groundbreaking' interview with Oprah. Pictured, Meghan and Doria in 2015

The mother-of-the-bride was spotted leaving the $88m home of US talk show host Oprah Winfrey, pictured last year, earlier this week

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have already had to deal with racist abuse since they first announced they were together

The source said: 'Oprah and Doria spent a long time chatting and they got on really well. The most important and significant issue they spoke about was race and how badly some people had reacted to Meghan and Harry.

'What happened to Meghan and Harry was disgusting and they and all of their families were horrified. Its an issue close to both Doria and Oprah, who have both suffered racism.'

However the interview reportedly needs to be approved by Meghan, Harry and Buckingham Palace before it is recorded.

Prince Harry, 33, slammed racist attacks on Ms Markle, 36, in a statement shortly after their relationship became public knowledge in 2016.

In an unprecedented move, the royal said: 'His girlfriend has been subject to a wave of abuse and harassment.

According to a source it's believed Doria and Oprah will discuss racism - an issue close to both their hearts

'Some has been very public  the smear on the front page of a national newspaper; the racial undertones of comment pieces; and the outright sexism and racism of social media trolls and web comments.'

The couple were then at the centre of an anthrax scare earlier this year, when a suspicious letter containing white powder was sent to St James Palace addressed to Harry and Meghan.

Police treated the incident as 'a racist hate crime' and it raised concerns about security at Harry and Meghan's Royal wedding.

Meghan has previously referred to the difficulties she's faced with race in Hollywood, telling Elle UK: 'To describe something as being black and white means it is clearly defined.

Meghan's parents are set to meet with the Queen ahead of Harry and Meghan's nuptials at Windsor

'Yet being biracial paints a blurred line that is equal parts staggering and illuminating.'

Doria made a visit to Winfrey's $88million 'Promised Land' mansion in Santa Barbara last week as expectations mount for her daughter's wedding to Prince Harry in London.

The mother-of-the-bride emerged after six hours bearing a gift basket that is believed to have contained some of Winfrey's favourite items.

Ragland is no doubt looking forward to seeing her daughter, 36, marry fiance Prince Harry, 33, at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, on May 19th.

Meghan's mother, who is a yoga instructor, is expected to arrive in London 'well before' her daughter ties the knot 'so she can be part of all the fun and festivities and see that dress'.

Buckingham Palace has been contacted for comment.Charity volunteers who worked tirelessly in the aftermath of the Manchester Arena terror attack and the Grenfell Tower fire have been celebrated in a new photo series.

Award-winning photographer Rankin took beautiful black-and-white portraits of 12 British Red Cross recruits who sprung into action following the atrocities in 2017.

'The Power of Kindness' campaign highlights the work of some of the 1,000 volunteers who gave their time to help communities recover from the tragedies of last year, which also included terror attacks at London Bridge and Finsbury Park.

Mother and daughter, Sairah and Hannah Merchant travelled to London last June to help with the response to the Grenfell Tower fire. Sairah said: 'We used to live not too far from Grenfell. My kids used to go to the school nearby and we still have friends in the area. When we were watching what happened on the news it all felt so personal to us. There was no question that we wanted to go and help. It was an extremely difficult time, and we just tried to help in any way that we could'

Among them were mother daughter Sairah, 46, and Hannah Merchant, 19, who travelled to London because they felt compelled to help with the relief efforts following Grenfell.

Sairah said: 'There was no question that we wanted to go and help. It was an extremely difficult time, and we just tried to help in any way that we could.'

Romanian medic Laszlo Kelemen, 33, an intensive care practitioner who started volunteering for the charity when he was just 15 years old, was part of the charitys response to London Bridge, Grenfell Tower Fire and Finsbury Park, providing psychosocial support to those affected.

The release of the photos comes ahead of next weeks Red Cross Week, which marks 148 years since the British branch of the charity was founded.

Farheen Chaudhry, 43, has been volunteering for the British Red Cross for over two years, working in Refugee Support and Emergency Response and worked for several weeks supporting local outreach work following the Grenfell Tower fire. She said: 'When I first signed up I certainly didnt expect that my local neighbourhood was going to experience an emergency like this. Meeting people who had lost someone in the fire, or who had seen what happened up close, was the most emotionally taxing part. I have always felt that I just could not do enough'

Marilyn, 68, and Derek Williams, 71, are emergency response volunteers from Horseham. They have been married for nearly 50 years and have been volunteering for British Red Cross for 25 years. In the immediate aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire they provided vital support to people within the community and their fellow volunteers. Derek said: 'Nothing could ever really prepare you for something like the fire at Grenfell Tower. It was probably the most demanding and intense situations that we have ever been involved in'

Romanian medic Laszlo Kelemen, 33, an intensive care practitioner who started volunteering for the charity when he was just 15 years old: 'When the devastation happened last year communities across London united. Thats the real feeling of London, and being able to help as part of the British Red Cross was the proudest moment of my life'

Julia Reason, 51, from Warrington, Cheshire has been a volunteer with the British Red Cross for over eight years. Following the Manchester Arena attack Julia was deployed to Oldham hospital, to provide a quiet space for hospital staff who needed respite. She said: 'The events of last year have had a lasting impact on me. But as a volunteer for the British Red Cross were privileged to be able to help people when they need it most, and support them through emergencies like these'

Elaine Meakin, 57, had been working with the British Red Cross for just two months when she responded to a call from her home in Fife, Scotland to travel to London to volunteer to help those affected by Grenfell. She recalled: 'Walking to the rest centre, there were all the tributes and messages. It was just really moving. There was a picture of a wee girl who was missing. It was drawn by children at the nursery and it said: "We miss you. Come back soon"'

Pearl Mullan, 57, from Ballykelly, NI, who has been volunteering for the British Red Cross for 12 years, had never flown before but she felt compelled to get on a plane to London last summer to help support people affected by the Grenfell Tower fire. She said: 'I was nervous getting on the plane for the first time. We managed it okay in the end. I just thought "this is something I am going to have to do if I want to go there and help people"'A mother has compared women's 'nether regions' to ham sandwiches and tins of tuna in a hilarious online campaign supporting smear tests.

Corinne Surkitt, 40, from Darwen, Lancashire, posted a series of light-hearted Facebook posts urging women not to let embarrassment stop them from booking their next appointment.

One image shows Corrine standing half-naked with a wig over her underwear as she reassures women that medics don't care what their pubic hair looks like.

Corinne Surkitt, 40, from Lancs, shared a series of hilarious posts to remind women not to be embarrassed to book their smear test check-ups

Corinne, who is mother to four-year-old Cooper, was inspired to share the posts after she learned that one in three women avoid getting tested due to embarrassment.

'I just thought of all the rubbish reasons to not go, embarrassment does have to be the worst,' she said.

'I can understand people not having time, or not being able to book it outside of work hours.

'I can't fix those things, but if what's stopping people is embarrassment then I can do something about that.

'It doesn't work to simply tell people statistics because they will always think they will be the one that isn't affected.'

The posts were inspired after Corinne learned that one in three women avoid getting tested due to embarrassment (ham sandwich seen to prove every woman 'looks different)

Taking it one step further, Corinne took a trip to the supermarket to pose with a can of tuna to remind women that humans are 'walking petri dishes' and that a little smell is normal

She added: 'I am not a healthcare professional, but I can make people laugh at me.

'I embarrass myself about ten times a day, so I figured I was the perfect person to show how easy and normal it is to go for a smear test.

'I did tell the nurse what I was doing because I thought she'd hear the camera go and think 'what on earth is she doing'. She actually thought it was a really good idea.'

The 10 posts cover many of the things that may trigger embarrassment, including what to wear, smell and how their vagina looks.

In one post, Corinne posed in her mirror with a brown wig covering her groin and teased: 'Guess what, unless she needs hedge cutters to gain entry the nurse does not give a monkeys.'

In another post, she suggested wearing crocs to the appointment because 'nothing was more embarrassing than wearing crocs'.

She admitted that becoming a mother to four-year-old Cooper made her realise the importance of having regular health checkups

The mother-of-one even posed with a wig over her nether regions to make the point that nurses aren't bothered about how women look, as long as they attend their appointments

The posts have now been shared more than one hundred times, with people getting in touch to thank Corinne for her words of encouragement.

The mother has always attended her cervical screenings without a second thought, but says it has become all the more important since she had her son, Cooper, four.

Corinne said: 'Of course I've never wanted to get cancer, but now I have my son just the thought of it is horrible. I wouldn't get to see how he turns out.

'There is much more on my mind now I have got someone here who needs me.'

The posts have now been shared more than one hundred times, with people getting in touch to thank Corinne for her words of encouragement

Corinne shared a snap of a pair of Crocs, joking that women should be more embarrassed about wearing crocs than getting a smear test

Smear tests are the best way to test for cervical cancer and are available every three years for women over 25.

Yet it was revealed that one in four women skip cervical screenings altogether in the same survey by the charity Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust.

Robert Music, chief executive of Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust, said: 'Cervical screening provides the best protection against cervical cancer yet 1 in 4 women in the UK don't attend this potentially life-saving test.

'Corinne has done a fantastic job at addressing some of the common concerns women have which will hopefully encourage more women to attend.'Prince Harry and Meghan Markle could break from tradition with their first dance by eschewing a romantic love song in favour of an upbeat pop classic, it is claimed.

The couple, who will tie the knot at Windsor Castle on May 19, are said to be considering Whitney Houston's 1987 hit I Wanna Dance With Somebody for their first dance as husband and wife.

The song would set the tone for the rest of the evening, with Harry, 33, and Meghan, 36, reportedly opting for a 'fun and bouncy' playlist filled with crowd-pleasers.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are thought to be going against convention and choosing something a little bit more upbeat for their first dance as husband wife

The Spice Girls and Coldplay are among the artists rumoured to be performing live while Elton John could treat guests with a special set at the intimate Frogmore House reception, according to the Sun.

The speculation surrounding the Whitney track comes after Ms Markle revealed it is her go-to 'happy song' in a 2016 interview with Lifestyle Magazine.

Harry and Meghan have been more involved in the planning of their wedding than most royal couples.

The couple are said to want their wedding to mirror their own tastes and personalities instead of the institution of the Royal Family.

According to royal insiders Whitney Houston's 1987 pop classic I Wanna Dance With Somebody is going to make the playlist

One insider previously said: 'They want it to be fun and reflective of themselves as a couple and of their family and friends that will be there.

'It will still very much be a royal wedding  just not a traditional one.

It comes after news that Meghan's hugely anticipated wedding dress will set the Royal Family back 100,000.

Ralph & Russo have been odds-on favourite for the commission since Meghan wore a 56,000 semi-sheer black evening dress from the label for her official engagement portrait

Multiple royal and fashion industry sources have revealed the actress has opted for British couturiers Ralph & Russo to make the first of two gowns she plans to wear on May 19.

She will wear the hand-stitched, heavily beaded design to walk down the aisle at St Georges Chapel in front of 600 guests  and an estimated billion TV viewers worldwide  as well as for the reception being held afterwards by the Queen in St Georges Hall at Windsor Castle.

Another source revealed that the dress would cost around 100,000, which will be met by Prince Harry and his family privately.

It sounds a lot but this is the wedding of the year and hundreds of hours of manpower have gone into making it, almost all by hand, they said.

News of her dress came as Kensington Palace revealed new details about the wedding, including that Harry, 33, and Meghan, 36, will not go on honeymoon until later in the summer and will conduct their first public engagement as man and wife days after their wedding.

Ralph & Russo have been odds-on favourite for the commission since Meghan wore a 56,000 semi-sheer black evening dress from the label for her official engagement portrait.Sir Philip Green and his wife Tina have seen their joint fortune fall to 2billion, it has been revealed.

The retail power couple lost 787million amid declining sales at their holding company Arcadia, which owns high street favourites Topshop and Burton.

But Sir Philip, 66, and Lady Green's staggering fortune still earns them a place on the Sunday Times Fashion Rich List, which was released today ahead of the full annual Rich List 2018.

Sir Philip Green and his wife Lady Green are both in the top 25 of Sunday Times' Fashion Rich List with their 2bn fortune

Billionaire Green and his Monaco-based wife Tina  who actually owns the family's Arcadia retail empire  still enjoy the fruits of their labour despite losing 787m this past year

Topping the list of fashion's 25 biggest power players are Guy, George and Galen Weston Jr and family, owners of Selfridges, Primark and Brown Thomas, who boast a networth of 10.05billion.

In second is Sir David Frederick Barclay with a fortune of 7.4bn from Very and Littlewoods.

In third place comes Francois- Henri Pinault, founder of luxury retail group Kering, and his Hollywood actress wife Salma Hayek. The couple, whose interests include luxury brands like Gucci and Saint Laurent, have a 5.16billion fortune.

The Fashion Rich List also features Manchester based fashion e-tailers Boohoo, owned by Mahmud Kamani and family, who have seen their wealth reach 2.3bn, up by 1.58bn from last year.

Sir Philip will be looking forward to his daughter Chloe's wedding to her fiancee Jeremy Meeks who it is rumoured she is also expecting her first child with

The Greens have seen sales at Arcadia Group continue to fall in the past year.

There have also been reports that the company is cutting jobs at its head office to 'streamline' the business.

Sir Philip was vilified for making for making millions from the demise of BHS, which resulted in 11,000 job loses when 164 were closed in August 2016.

He later wrote a 363 million cheque to BHS pensioners following the collapse of the brand.

However, billionaire Green and his Monaco-based wife Tina  who actually owns the family's Arcadia retail empire  still enjoy the fruits of their labour.

Sir Philip was vilified for making for making millions from the demise of BHS, which resulted in 11,000 job loses when 164 were closed in August 2016

Holidaying around the Greek isles on the family's 100 million superyacht Lionheart, hosting lavish parties for his fashion brands as well as glamorous nights out with his wife.

And the tycoon will also be looking forward to his daughter Chloe's upcoming nuptials to her fiance Jeremy Meeks, more commonly known as 'Hot Felon'.

It was previously reported that the wedding is shaping up to be a classic Green party with a big budget for entertaining their guests.

It'a apparently what the businessman - who for his 60th he flew 150 guests to Mexico and apparently spent 6 million on festivities - does best.

After the summer nuptials it's believed he and Tina will sail off on the Lionheart for his customary month-long summer holiday cruising around the Med.Mere seconds after Meghan Markle steps out of a car, one stiletto-clad foot after the other, she sets in motion an extraordinary chain reaction across the globe.

Fashion bloggers frantically identify every garment shes wearing  from her jeans to her jewellery  ringing designers, ateliers and stores from Cardiff to Canada.

Once those details are posted online, shops, from exclusive Stella McCartney to Marks & Spencer, are bombarded by shoppers desperate to get Meghans look.

After Meghan wore the 310 skirt by Greta Constantine, it sold out in 12 hours

The outcome is always the same. Every item Meghan is wearing sells out, usually within minutes, sometimes seconds, of her appearance  cheaper copycat items, too. Websites frequently crash under the strain.

Few other style icons wield such incredible power in the fashion world  not even the Duchess of Cambridge. Kate adds an estimated 1 billion to the British fashion industry annually, but in the latest issue of Vogue, editor Edward Enninful says her soon-to-be-sister-in-law could eclipse her: Ms Markle is an astonishing fashion sales force, who is setting the industry alight.

So what is it about Meghan that makes her wardrobe so covetable and sends clothes flying, quite literally, off the shelves?

Meghan wore this outfit in Nottingham to her first royal engagement. The 585 coat sold out in two hours and the 495 bag sold out in 11 minutes

Fashion experts in Toronto, Meghans home for the six years between 2011 and 2017 when she was filming legal drama Suits, all use the same expression, effortless chic, to describe her style.

She always looks like shes not trying, says John Muscat, founder of Line The Label, the Canadian brand behind the 750 white wrap coat Meghan wore to mark her engagement to Prince Harry last November.

John, 45, has been dressing Meghan for five years, after being introduced by her best friend and style adviser Jessica Mulroney. He made sure she had a collection of clothes from Line to bring to London when she moved here last year.

This 160 bag by Australian brand Oroton sold out in 45 minutes

He knows only too well the astonishing  and highly lucrative  impact of the Meghan Effect. His wrap coat sold out within 20 minutes of the American actresss appearance on Harrys arm at Kensington Palace.

It was insane, recalls John. The phone was ringing off the hook with international press requests. I did 12 hours straight of TV, phone and email interviews. It was the craziest thing Ive ever seen.

We had 5,000 requests for the coat. It costs 750. That is not something you buy lightly. Requests were flooding in from around the world.

When Meghan wore this 1000 coat on Christmas day, it sold out in 24 houts

In gratitude to Meghan, who has put his label firmly on the international fashion map, John has renamed the coat  now back in stock  The Meghan.

Tiny label she put on the map Meghan has singled-out the small Scottish fashion house Strathberry twice. The first time was in Nottingham last December. We had no idea Meghan would be carrying our bag  the 495 Midi Tote, says founder Leeanne Hundleby. The 45-year-old mother of four decided on a whim to send Meghan a selection of bags  and so transformed her fledgling brand. Within 11 minutes, it sold out. When, in February, Meghan carried the 425 East/West mini bag, it, too, sold out within minutes and the waiting list for new stock grew to 1,000 people. Advertisement

A few blocks away in downtown Toronto, is Sentaler, which also has the Meghan seal of approval. Its founder Bojana Sentaler, a 33-year-old mother of two, met Meghan when she visited the showroom in 2016 to check out her collection of Peruvian alpaca coats, jackets and pashminas.

I had the pleasure of meeting Meghan in our showroom to walk her through the collection. Everything looked amazing on her and she now owns many coats from the collection. She actually has the camel coat worn on Christmas Day in two colours!

Although Kate and Canadian PMs wife Sophie Gregoire Trudeau were already wearing her designs, Bojana says the Meghan Effect took things to a new level. The 1,000 Sentaler camel coat with its signature ribbed sleeves, which Meghan wore to church on Christmas Day, sold out in 24 hours.

I was up very early on Christmas morning to catch a fight and saw a twitter notification that Meghan had appeared in my coat. It was the best Christmas present ever!

This 175 coat worn by Meghan during a visit to the University of Bath Sports Training Village sold out in just 24 hours

Why she's ditched rompers As a stylish girl about town, there was one look Meghan wore time and time again  the shorts suit: tailored shorts with a fitted blazer, which only a woman with supreme body confidence can pull off. Meghans take on the shorts suit was, in fact, what Americans call a romper, an all-in-one outfit which combined the shorts and shirt, with a matching jacket worn on top. And her go-to label for chic rompers was Veronica Beard, a U.S. label founded by two sisters-in-law both called Veronica. Its behind the 130 blue Boca Button-Down Romper (right) as well as the 88 Wynwood shorts (above) she wore on a television chat show in 2016. Almost as soon as news broke of her relationship with Prince Harry, however, the shorts suit suddenly disappeared. It may be that Meghan, now 36, simply felt she was getting too old to show off quite so much leg. Or perhaps, as a royal, the shorts suit is no longer deemed suitable for a Duchess-to-be. Given Meghan has shown scant regard for tradition when it comes to royal fashion, it would be no surprise if, one day, the old faithful made a comeback. Advertisement

The coat sold out immediately and went on back order three times. Weve shipped coats all over the world  Singapore, Australia, Dubai  Places weve never expected!

Theres no doubt about it: Meghan sells clothes. The 390 green fitted dress she wore for her BBC engagement interview, by Italian brand Parosh, was out of stock in under an hour.

Our ecommerce site crashed, says the firms Marta Maggi. We restocked it a week later and it sold out again. Like Line, they renamed the dress The Meghan.

Mackage, another Canadian outerwear label, experienced the Markle Sparkle last October when Meghan wore a 390 Mackage leather jacket at a low-key appearance with Harry at the Invictus Games. She chose the brand again for her first official royal engagement in Nottingham in December, wearing a 585 double-breasted navy blue coat.

The coat sold out within two hours, and immediately we were getting messages asking when we would be restocking it, say the design duo behind the brand, Eran Elfassy and Elisa Dahan. We saw a huge boost in web traffic.

The 495 burgundy and blue midi tote by Scottish firm Strathberry, which she carried on the same day, took just 11 minutes to sell out. Within days, 3,500 shoppers signed up for stock updates. The first pre-order was sold within a day.

Intriguingly, designers say they receive no warning Meghan is about to wear one of their pieces and send sales through the roof.

We never know  its always a surprise, explain Christie Smythe and Andrea Lenczner, who set up Smythe, one of her favourite labels.

Of all the brands Meghan supports, Smythe has seen the huge difference in her selling power as an actress and soon-to-be royal.

When Meghan first wore their 560 Brando coat in 2015, on the Suits set, few people took much notice. But when the coat appeared for a second time, on a royal walkabout in South London in January, all stocks were gone in six hours.

We reissued it straight away on our website, Andrea says. Its on pre-order so customers have to wait until autumn to get it. Weve had orders from places we dont usually get interest  Hong Kong, Scandinavia...

With just 12 days to the royal wedding, its anyones guess how quickly her look will sell out once she has the ring on her finger.

Meghan wears a 300 dress by self-portrait that sold out just four hours after she wore it

The coat Meghan wore when she posed with Harry for engagement photos in the Sunken Garden at Kensington Palace cost 750 and sold out in just 20 minutes

Our ecommerce site crashed, says the firms Marta Maggi. We restocked it a week later and it sold out again. Like Line, they renamed the dress The Meghan.

Mackage, another Canadian outerwear label, experienced the Markle Sparkle last October when Meghan wore a 390 Mackage leather jacket at a low-key appearance with Harry at the Invictus Games. She chose the brand again for her first official royal engagement in Nottingham in December, wearing a navy blue 585 double-breasted coat.

Its no secret that Meghan Markle is an avid admirer of Princess Diana, Harrys late mother, and comparisons between the pair are inevitable as she enters the royal fold.

Meghan's 2,100 Burberry coat she wore to Edinburgh in February was a clear nod to Diana, who wore a tartan dress by Belleville Sassoon at the Highland Game in Bute in 1987

According to Andrew Morton, Dianas biographer, she was intrigued by the Princess of Wales and saw her as a role model. She even had a copy of Mortons biography  Diana: Her True Story  on the bookshelf in her bedroom.

Though charity-loving Meghan was no doubt inspired by Dianas philanthropic work, she was in equal part captivated by her style  and a closer look at her wardrobe reveals striking comparisons.

Like Diana, Meghan understands the importance of channelling subtle messages in her clothing  perhaps choosing fabrics which represent the place shes visiting or which will resonate with the people shes meeting.

In March, in Birmingham, Meghan stepped out in a navy and white coast on similar bold lines to the milatary look jacket that Diana wore for a remembrance service in Liverpool in 1993

The pair also share a penchant for off-the-shoulder looks. This style is a particularly apt representation of both womens wardrobes, delicately treading a line between regal and risque  and it goes some way to explaining why Meghan appears to be copying so many of Dianas choices.

Like Diana, Meghan is opinionated, wilful and has a personality and a sense of style which are very much her own.

Maintaining this, while looking every inch the perfect princess, is important to Meghan  and where better to look for inspiration than the ultimate royal fashion icon? Its a masterful move for the royal newcomer, allowing her to look the part and pay her respects to the mother-in-law she will never meet.POWER PLAY Taxpayers are facing a 15billion bill for the cost of building a power station on Anglesey, North Wales, as Japanese industrial conglomerate Hitachi threatens to walk away from the project unless it gets support from the Government.

PENSION CONTRIBUTION Telecommunications giant BT is expected to unveil plans to plug its 13billion pension deficit when it publishes its annual results on Thursday.

Analysts expect it to contribute 1billion upfront, then annual top-ups of 800million for the next 16 years.

FLOATING GYM Health chain The Bannatyne Group, founded by Dragons Den star Duncan Bannatyne, could rekindle plans to float on the London Stock Exchange as it eyes expansion into Europe.

It dropped a 300million float in 2016.

SKY TAXIS Flying cars could be introduced within two years by Uber.

It will host Donald Trumps transport chief and the US airspace watchdog at a summit in Los Angeles this week to iron out any problems.

MALL BILLCouncils are on track to spend record amounts buying up shopping centres as retailers struggle to survive online competition.

BNP Paribas says councils spent nearly 255.2million purchasing malls in the first three months of the year.

EDUCATION PAYS Tycoon Andrew Colin could earn 300million from the sale of his firm Into University, which helps universities attract high-paying foreign students. Deutsche Bank is said to be assessing takeover bids.Credit Suisse is suing the taxman to recover money it was forced to hand over for paying huge bonuses to staff.

Chief executive Tidjane Thiam wants the lender to claw back 239million paid to the Exchequer as a one-off bonus tax in 2010.

The bank claims this amounted to illegal state aid because only lenders that paid bonuses over a four-month period were hit, which unfairly benefited those that paid bonuses at other times.

Legal bid: Credit Suisse chief executive Tidjane Thiam wants the lender to claw back 239m paid to the Exchequer as a one-off bonus tax in 2010

Credit Suisse  the only bank to contest the tax  also wants substantial damages in the case, which will go before the High Court next year.

But its legal action has angered campaigners, who accuse it of being greedy and learning nothing from the financial crisis in 2008.

Pay cut forced on boss Tidjane Thiam became a poster boy for corporate excess after taking charge of Credit Suisse in 2015, earning 29.7million for two and a half years work as he slashed thousands of jobs. But angry investors forced the 55-year-old to accept a 5 per cent cut last year, taking his pay to 7.3million. The former government minister in his home country of Ivory Coast was forced to flee following a coup in 1999.

Fran Boait, from Positive Money, which challenges excess in the banking sector, said: Even Credit Suisses own shareholders have voiced concerns that the banks executive pay is excessive.

But instead of turning over a new leaf, the bank is more interested in pursuing this shameless legal action against ordinary taxpayers over a levy from eight years ago.

The tax imposed by the last Labour government raised 3.4billion after taking 50 per cent of bankers bonuses above 25,000.

Credit Suisse had to cut its bonus pool by 5 per cent, and 400 senior UK bankers took a 30 per cent hit to their payouts.

Although it was never bailed out, it has been embroiled in several scandals in recent years.

In 2014, it admitted helping clients evade tax and was forced to pay 1.9billion to US authorities.

Last year, wealthy clients across Europe were raided by prosecutors who seized jewellery, fine art and gold bullion in a money-laundering and tax-evasion probe.

A bank spokesman said: Credit Suisse has sought to resolve bank payroll tax issues over a number of years with HMRC.

These technical issues are now the subject of formal proceedings, which Credit Suisse has a legitimate interest in pursuing to provide certainty as to the proper scope and application of the 2010 one-off tax.

HMRC declined to comment.I'm not Santa (or the Grinch): Treasurer Scott Morrison will hand down his third Federal Budget on Tuesday

Voters will likely earn a 'nice sandwich and malted milkshake per week' from income tax cuts in Tuesday's Budget, a top economic forecaster has predicted.

Treasurer Scott Morrison recently announced the Federal government will scrap a planned $8 billion Medicare Levy hike.

The levy increase - from 2 to 2.5 per cent - was included in the 2017 budget to fund the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).

But Mr Morrison said the Government's financial situation has improved enough that it can guarantee the NDIS funding from elsewhere in the budget.

The Government has all but confirmed it will use the freed up funds to deliver income tax cuts 'over the long term'.

Deloitte Access Economics partner Chris Richardson said there had been a 'humungous improvement' in the Budget bottom line, thanks to revenue 'raining on the tax man' in recent months.

Deloitte has predicted the Budget will therefore come out $7 billion better than forecast - meaning the government has a bit of money to play with.

So how is the Budget likely shaping up for voters? And what else is the government planning this year?

PERSONAL INCOME TAX CUTS

Taxpayers will likely win themselves a burger and a milkshake from the Budget

The Government's tax cut plan is no big secret.

But how much money can an average worker expect to get?

For middle income workers, the tax cuts will probably translate into a lunchtime meal each a week, Mr Richardson told Daily Mail Australia.

'I think on Budget night we'll have something announced that certainly gives average income workers at least a nice sandwich and a malted milkshake,' he said.

But the devil is in the detail - because the Government could design its tax cuts in different ways.

'$8 billion allows you either to give pretty much all taxpayers some solid money - that's the sandwich and milkshake for everyone,' he said.

'If you make the tax cut a bit more proportional to the amount of tax people are paying in the first place, broadly you're on 'sandwich and a milkshake' from probably $65,000 and after,' Mr Richardson said.

Under that possible model voters on $75,000 per year would receive about $20 per week, he said. Those on $95,000 could expect about $25 to $26 per week.

However, the tax cuts might not be immediate. The Australian Financial Review has reported the tax cuts will be phased in over a decade and will 'start small'.

MEDICARE LEVY SAVINGS

The Budget announcement means voters will not have to fork out an extra 0.5 per cent of their taxable income for a Medicare levy hike.

The levy increase would have cost a voter earning $75,000 a year an extra $375 per year, according to figures crunched by the ABC.

Voters on $25,000 a year will save $175. Those earning $125,000 will be spared $625, the figures said.

A MELBOURNE AIRPORT LINK

The government is splashing $5 billion on a Melbourne airport link train (current train pictured)

The Government has also already announced a series of projects, the biggest so far being billions of dollars in funding for a Melbourne airport rail link.

Airline passengers landing at Tullamarine Airport have long been forced to catch the bus or ride a taxi 20km to the city.

But, in one of the Budget's earliest announcements, the Government committed to spend $5 billion on a rail link to the airport.

The funding - announced by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull earlier this month - has already been touted as biggest new infrastructure investment in the Budget.

Mr Turnbull has asked the Victorian Government to cough up 50 per cent of the project's cost.

'This is the rail link that Melbourne .... and the millions of people who use the airport every year demand and deserve,' he told reporters.

Labor leader Bill Shorten said the project was 'long overdue'. Both Sydney and Brisbane airports have already have city train links.

PROTECTING THE GREAT BARRIER REEF

Another Budget promise is a half-a-billion effort to 'restore and protect' the Great Barrier Reef

It's the world's biggest living thing - and the government last weekend announced a half-a-billion dollar plan to save the Great Barrier Reef.

Fears for the future of the reef led ministers to announce a $500 million investment to 'protect and restore' the reef on Saturday.

The reef has been reeling from bouts of coral bleaching and the threat of climate change.

Just this month, scientists recently revealed a 2016 heatwave had resulted in a 'catastrophic die-off' of coral.

The Government said the funds will go towards improving water quality, fighting off the predatory crown-of-thorns starfish and restoring corals.

Conservationists welcomed the move, but said Australia needs to do more to stop climate change.

CAPTAIN COOK MEMORIAL

An artist's impression of what the new Captain Cook memorial at Botany Bay will look like

British explorer Captain Cook's landing spot at Botany Bay will be the site of a new $50 million memorial.

The Government has announced it will be a 'place of commemoration, recognition and understanding of two cultures and the incredible Captain Cook'.

But the investment, which includes refurbishing an existing statues and building a visitor's centre, is risky given statues of the colonial journeyman have been the target of vandals recently.

OTHER BUDGET MEASURES: CHEAPER BEER AND BREAST SCREENING FUNDS

The Government has also pledged:

To scrap a bizarre tax on boutique breweries. Craft beer breweries are slugged up to 40 per cent more tax because they use smaller kegs

To give 200,000 women $200 for 3D breast cancer screening beginning this November

To fund an infrastructure package for Western Australia, with money for major road and hospital projects

Mr Morrison will hand down his Budget on May 8.Advertisement

An award-winner farmer has lost confidence in the Bureau of Meteorology's predictions after a 'wet' long-term forecast was followed by a devastatingly dry summer.

Huge swathes of New South Wales' north-west have been gripped by drought in recent years, with suffering farmers running out of water and selling off their livestock.

Cotton, canola and wheat farmer John Hamparsum told Daily Mail Australia the drought hit his farm particularly hard last year, after a hopeful weather forecast failed to pan out.

'It's like somebody tells you you've got a really good tip on a horse - but that tip was totally wrong and the horse ran dead last,' he said.

No water to pump... Breeza farmer John Hamparsum is out of water. He says the drought is at a crisis point

Harsh drought: Liverpool Plains farmer Jillian Tudgey is praying for rain on her mixed spread, south-west of Tamworth, in north-western New South Wales

The Liverpool Plain is becoming a dust bowl. Pictured, a 4WD kicks up a big plume as it zooms along a dirt road recently

Feed for animals is scarce as water dries up in dams and underground bores across north-west New South Wales

An agricultural area on the north-west slopes of New South Wales, the Liverpool Plains lie just south of Tamworth

The winner of the 2015 Brownhill Award - a prestigious farming accolade for innovation, sustainability and profit - Mr Hamparsum said he tried to run his farm on the best science available.

So after a hot and dry summer, he decided to plant more cotton last year. The Bureau's long-range forecast had predicted an above-50 per cent chance of a wetter summer and prices were good.

'Cotton was by far the most profitable crop and the best return on our water,' he told Daily Mail Australia.

'We were going "oh gee, it was a terrible summer last year, maybe this will be the one that's going to break it'.

But it wasn't to be. The weather was hot and dry and the river that runs through his farm was desolate. On top of that, the farm's water allocation was recently cut.

Statewide, it was the third hottest summer on record.

At the farm, the rain was pitiful: just 11mm in January, and about 30mm in February, most of which 'basically evaporated'.

'The rain doesn't even settle the dust,' Mr Hamparsum said. A couple of storms came tantalisingly close - but just missed the farm.

The terrible conditions have had a 'massive' impact on the farm. 'We might break even this year, if we're lucky'.

Meantime, the veteran farmer's confidence in weather forecasts has hit an all-time low.

'I base my decisions ... as a good farm manager on the science that's available,' he said.

'I've increasingly lost confidence in that process in the last 3 to 5 years.

'My confidence level in weather forecasters is very low. It's burnt us'.

The storage drams have dried up: John Hamparsam said he is living through one of the worst droughts he has seen

In desperate need of rain: Pictured above, Tamworth dairy farmers Brian Wilson rip open the hay bales to hand-feed cattle

Farmers are selling off their cattle in droves. Above, a recent photo of the Gunnedah saleyards at dawn

Cooper Galton waits for his auctioneer dad to sort the cattle for sale at Gunnedah at dawn

Cowboys! Hugo, 3, and Charlie Bradford, 1, strut the cattle pens at the Gunnedah saleyards

A Bureau of Meteorology spokesman told Daily Mail Australia the agency recognised the impact of the recent dry climate on farmers, and was committed to providing the best science.

The spokesman said the recent climate outlook came at a time in the cycle where predictability was low.

'Climate outlooks are probabilistic, not categorical forecasts,' he said.

'That means a 60 per cent chance of above average rainfall, also means a 40 per cent of below average rainfall.'

'You're not guaranteed a win because there is always that element of chance, but know that in the long run, having the odds in your favour will mean you come out ahead,' a BOM video about its climate outlook maps said.

Meantime, the drought continues. Things are busy at the local saleyards as farmers in the north-west realise they can't feed or water their cattle through the winter to come. Prayers are said for rain but there is no end in sight.

Regardless, Mr Hamparsum said he is still optimistic about the future.

'As the old guys say, every day without rain is another day closer (to it),' he said.A devastated Queensland couple are still struggling to come to terms with the sudden and tragic loss of their four-month-old baby boy, who died unexpectedly in his sleep.

Friends and family have rallied around young Gold Coast parents Jess Pisarek, 22, and Joshua Gall, 25, whose youngest son Lucas failed to wake up on Monday.

It's not known what caused Lucas' death.

His funeral was held on Friday, where his parents requested the colour black not be worn.

Four-month-old Lucas Gall died unexpectedly in his sleep on Monday. Family and friends said a heartbreaking farewell at his funeral on Friday afternoon

'My world has been flipped upside down, I have never felt like this and I am absolutely broken,' Joshua Gall (pictured with Lucas) posted on Facebook earlier this week

In a heartbreaking Facebook post, Jess Pisarek, 22, described her youngest son as 'the most happy content beautiful boy ever'

The devastated parents took to social media this week pay tribute to 'the most happy content beautiful boy ever' and thanked everyone for their 'absolutely overwhelming and amazing' support.

'Not quite sure how to cope with attempting to go back to living a somewhat normal life now,' Ms Pisarek posted on Saturday.

Her partner added: 'Im lost for words, mate I just love you so much.'

The couple are now trying to stay strong for oldest son Ollie, 5 and have since bought a daschund puppy to help ease their heartbreaking pain.



'Cant wait to take him to visit Lucas and for Ollie to meet him,' Ms Pisarek posted on Sunday.

'We were unsure of whether to still buy one and especially at this time but today is the first time both Josh and I have genuinely had a few smiles on our faces, it also gives us something else to get out of bed in the morning for he has two human big brothers who will look after him dearly.'

'Not quite sure how to cope with attempting to go back to living a somewhat normal life now,' Ms Pisarek posted on Saturday, the day after the heartbreaking funeral of youngest son Lucas (pictured)

'We have no regrets of loving you just the way you were meant to be loved since the moment you were born,' Lucas'mother Jess posted earlier in the week

Family, friends and the Gold Coast community have rallied around the heartbroken couple this week.

Ms Pisarek was due to return to work in two weeks after taking maternity leave while Mr Gall works as a concreter, the Gold Coast Bulletin reports.

A GoFundMe fundraising page for the family set up by close close friend Tameka Anderson raised almost $17, 800 in five days to cover funeral costs and time off work for the family to grieve.

The page is no longer taking donations.

'Lucas is the absolute most amazing thing to ever happen to me and Jess and this numbness of emotions is deafening,' Joshua Gall posted on Facebook

The couple have said they donate a portion of the money raised to SIDS research charity Red Nose.

'From what started as a $5,000 goal has been absolutely blown out of the water and we couldnt be any more grateful,' Ms Anderson wrote on the GoFundMe page.

'Yesterday we laid baby Lucas to rest and the send off was beautiful, his whole family remained so strong and the support in the room was a feeling I will never forget. I would love to say a huge thank you to every single person who donated to Jess, Josh and Ollie, your kindness will never be forgotten. May baby Lucas Rest In Peace and everytime we look up we know he will be watching over us.'

The couple has thanked everyone for the 'absolutely overwhelming and amazing' support' following the death of their son Lucas (pictured)

In a heartbreaking post about her son's shock death earlier this week, Ms Piserek urged other parents to hug their children and not take them for granted.

'The feeling of losing a child is absolutely unbearable and you never think it will happen to you, nothing can compare,' Ms Pisarek wrote.

'Hug your kids, speak to them as if they are the most precious little things on this earth, always kiss them and never take them for granted, dont dwell on stupid sh.. and prioritise your precious babies.'

Mr Gall described Lucas as 'perfect'.

'My world has been flipped upside down, I have never felt like this and I am absolutely broken,' he posted on Facebook.

'This pain will never go away and I do not wish it upon anyone. Lucas is the absolute most amazing thing to ever happen to me and Jess and this numbness of emotions is deafening.'Former President George H.W. Bush, 93, was discharged on Friday from a Houston hospital, where he stayed for nearly two weeks for treatment of an infection that spread to his blood, a family spokesman said.

Bush, the oldest living former US president, was admitted to Houston Methodist Hospital on April 22, a day after he attended the funeral of his wife, Barbara, the former first lady who died on April 17.

The couple had been married for 73 years.

'His doctors report he is doing well and is happy to return home,' spokesman Jim McGrath said in a statement.

Former President George H.W. Bush, 93, was discharged on Friday from a Houston hospital, where he stayed for nearly two weeks for treatment of an infection that spread to his blood. Bush was hospitalized the day after his wife Barbara's funeral on April 20 (above)

'His doctors report he is doing well and is happy to return home,' spokesman Jim McGrath said in a statement. The elder Bush is seen foreground with, from left to right: Laura Bush, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, and Melania Trump

Bush, who was president from 1989 to 1993, was admitted to the same hospital about a year ago for a cough that was later diagnosed as a mild case of pneumonia.

Bush is the father of former Republican President George W. Bush, who served two terms from 2001 to 2009, and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, who unsuccessfully sought the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.

The day after his wife's funeral, George H.W. Bush woke up with a urinal tract infection, which then turned into septic shock, his son, Neil Bush, told KTRK-TV.

Neil Bush, the fourth of six children from George HW and Barbara Bush, also told the Houston television station that his father would be heading to Maine for the summer.

'I know many of his friends are excited that he is going to go to Maine and live a full, happy and comfortable life as long as he can,' he said.

Kennebunkport, Maine is home to the Bush family compound.France has slammed Donald Trump over remarks that Parisians could have stopped the deadly 2015 extremist attacks if they were armed with guns.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian expressed his 'firm disapproval' of the US President's comments and vigorously defended France's gun controls.

In a statement, Le Drian said gun violence statistics 'do not lead us to reconsider France's choice on this issue'.

President Donald Trump waves to the audience at the annual National Rifle Association meeting in Dallas on Friday

Le Drian continued: 'Free circulation of weapons in society does not constitute a rampart against terrorist attacks, to the contrary, it can facilitate this type of attack.'

ISIS attackers killed 130 people in Paris' Bataclan concert hall, cafes and the national stadium in 2015.

Trump was speaking at a National Rifle Association meeting, and also referred to London as a 'war zone' due to a recent spate of stabbing attacks.

Speaking about the Paris attacks, he said: 'The terrorists would have fled or been shot and it would have been a whole different story.

'Nobody has guns in Paris, nobody, and we all remember the more than 130 people, plus the tremendous numbers of people that were horribly, horribly wounded.

'They died in a restaurant and various other close-proximity places. They were brutally killed by a small group of terrorists, that had guns.

'They took their time and gunned them down one by one.'A mother accused of kidnapping her children has insisted she loves them after allegedly hiding her daughters away for four years.

The mother sent the message to her twin daughters while in police custody for allegedly abducting them when they were seven-years-old.

She arrived in Brisbane on Saturday night after being extradited from New South Wales, where she was arrested by federal police on Friday after four years allegedly on the run.

A mother (centre) who allegedly abducted her twin daughters (pictured) when they were seven-years-old insisted she loves them on Saturday

The mother (pictured) arrived in Brisbane on Saturday night after being extradited from New South Wales, where she was arrested by federal police on Friday after four years allegedly on the run

When asked if she had a message for the girls she's accused of kidnapping, she said: "I love them,"' The Courier Mail reported.

The girls, now 11, were found safe on Friday in Taree, northern New South Wales, after police located their mother's car.

They were emotionally reunited with their father who desperately campaigned for four years to find his daughters.

He had not seen them since their disappearance from school, in north Queensland, on April 4, 2014.

The father hurriedly left work on Friday to pick up his daughters in Taree, which is almost 2,000kms away from where they went missing.

His lawyer Antonious Abdelshahied said the father was 'ecstatic to say the least' after being reunited with his daughters, according to the publication.

When asked if she had a message for the girls she's accused of kidnapping, she said: 'I love them.'

The girls (pictured), now 11, were found safe on Friday in Taree, northern New South Wales, after police located their mother's car. They were emotionally reunited with their father (centre) who desperately campaigned for four years to find his daughters

'To have his two beautiful girls safely returned to his care, words can't describe how he is feeling,' Mr Abdelshahied said.

He added that the children were found in good spirits 'considering the circumstances'.

The father now intends to travel with his daughters back to north Queensland where they can be returned to school and their old surroundings, Mr Abdelshahied said.

Meanwhile, the girls' grandparents told The Courier Mail that they had spoken with their daughter after her arrest.

'It was a very exciting phone call, at least we knew they were alive and well,' her father said.

She will face Brisbane Magistrates Court tomorrow, charged with two counts of child stealing.Cynthia Nixon called marijuana legalization a number one priority for the state of New York when she made an appearance at a pro-weed rally on Saturday.

The former Sex and the City star was met with cheers when she addressed a large crowd at the New York City Cannabis Parade.

'Arresting people for cannabis - particularly people of color - is the crown jewel for the racist war on drugs and we must pluck it down,' Nixon said at the event.

Scroll down for video

Sex and the City star Cynthia Nixon, 51, spoke at the New York City Cannabis Parade Saturday

Nixon poses with another rally attendee holding a green sign that reads 'Occupy Wall St'

This is the fourth year that the New York Cannabis Parade has been held as organizers continue to push for the full legalization of marijuana in the state where it is only legal for medical use

Nixon officially joined the gubernatorial race as a Democratic candidate in March, challenging incumbent Democrat Andrew Cuomo.

The 51-year-old has made marijuana legalization a main pillar in her campaign, calling it a social justice issue.

'If you are black or Latino, you are 10 times more likely to be arrested for cannabis than if you are white. And that's not right,' she said to the crowd on Saturday.

'It will follow you for the rest of your life, that arrest, and it will make it harder for you to get a job and it will make it harder for you to get a place to live.'

This is the fourth year that the event has been held, aiming to 'end cannabis prohibition, stop racially motivated arrests and expand and improve the state's medical marijuana program', according to the organizer's website.

The 51-year-old gubernatorial candidate spoke with political activist Dana Beal at the parade

The former Sex and the City star announced she was running for New York governor in March, and has made the legalization of marijuana a key pillar in her campaign

Rates of marijuana possession arrests have skyrocketed since former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani cracked down on the drug 20 years ago, from around 1,000 per year before Giuliani took office to more than 40,000 annually after.

More than 80 per cent of New Yorkers arrested in connection with marijuana use are black or Latino, despite roughly equal rates of use among white people and communities of color.

Nixon hopes to gain votes from minority communities by focusing on the racial disparities in arrest rates.

'It's really important for New York to be a progressive leader again,' she said Saturday.

A parade-goer stands with a comically large fake cannabis plant at Union Square in NYC

A 2017 poll found that 62 per cent of New York voters support the full legalization of marijuana

In 2014 New York became the 22nd state to legalize marijuana for medical use.

Current governor Cuomo has proposed decriminalizing public possession of small amounts of marijuana, but such measures have not made it through the state Legislature.

A 2017 poll by Emerson College found that 62 per cent of New York voters support the full legalization of marijuana, an idea that Cuomo has been reluctant to embrace.

The New York gubernatorial election is coming up in November, with Cuomo as a heavy front runner but Nixon catching up.

This week the actress released tax returns, showing she and her wife Christine Marinoni had an income of $1.5million last year and gave about $53,000 to charity.

Nixon (left) and her wife Christine Marinoni (right) are pictured on Friday after tax returns revealed their combined income last year was $1.5millionActress Liz Hurley's 6million Herefordshire mansion was burgled last week while she was home entertaining guests for a dinner party.

The 52-year-old model called the police in the early hours of Sunday morning after hosting a party the previous night.

It is believed the thieves, who are still at large, broke in through an upstairs window and escaped with jewellery.

They fled when the actress noticed and called the police.

Actress Liz Hurley's 6million Herefordshire mansion was burgled last week while she was home entertaining guests for a dinner party

Liz Hurley's home is Ledbury has 13,445 square feet, 12 bedrooms, four full and two half bathrooms

Sniffer dogs helped police to rule out a stalker as they believe the raid was random.

Last month, Ms Hurley's 21-year-old nephew Miles was stabbed following a car crash in London.

She is believed to have stepped up security after the attack, and has again since last week's break in.

'She has CCTV, sensors and on-site guards. The place is now like Fort Knox. The house is surrounded by its own grounds with entry via locked gates and a long drive' a source told the Sun.

Police believe the raiders were parked about half a mile away, and then walked up the footpath to gain entrance to the mansion.

A West Mercia Police spokeswoman said: 'At about 9am on Sunday 19 November 2017, West Mercia Police received reports of a burglary in progress at a property.

'Officers attended, and the incident was investigated. No arrests have been made. If any new information comes to light it will be looked into.'

Grade II listed Donnington Hall dates back to the late 17th century

The home was designed by architect Gilbert Francis Molyneux Ogilvy for its then-owner Admiral Sir Arthur Dalrymple Fanshawe who commanded the Royal Navy Fleet from 1910 - 1913

The home boasts a formal dining room that easily seats 16 - Ms Hurley was entertaining guests at the time of the break in

The actress bought the home with cricketer Shane Warne in 2012 - the land covers 187 acresBillionaire Christopher Chandler, who was accused in the House of Commons last week of being a suspected Russian agent with links to money-laundering

The Kremlin spying row engulfing a pro-Brexit think-tank deepened last night after The Mail on Sunday obtained the explosive files at the centre of the furore.

Billionaire Christopher Chandler  whose Legatum Institute helped Boris Johnson and Michael Gove to lobby the Prime Minister for a hard Brexit  was accused in the House of Commons last week of being a suspected Russian agent with links to money-laundering.

Secretive New Zealand-born Mr Chandler was said to be an object of interest to the French, who suspected him of working for the Russian intelligence services.

Mr Chandler strongly denies the claims.

In an incendiary all-party move, four MPs, including three former Ministers, used the legal protection of parliamentary privilege to make allegations based on documents which have been circulating in intelligence circles.

Tory MP Bob Seely told MPs that the claims were based on papers which originate from Monacos Surete Publique, the police department that manages security and foreign residents in that area.

He said that they were based on the Surete Publiques own information and on information provided by the French Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire  the DST  which, at the time, was the French equivalent of MI5.

Mr Seely, a pro-Brexit member of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, told the Commons that the file described Mr Chandler as having been an object of interest to the DST since 2002 on suspicion of working for the Russian intelligence services.

And he said that Mr Chandlers personal file was marked file code S, which Mr Seely described as a DST marker indicating a high or higher level of threat to France In Monaco then, it was used to designate counter-espionage.

A copy of the files, seen by this newspaper, shows an S written on the cover page next to code fiche, meaning file code, and personal details for Mr Chandler.

It is dated October 17, 2005.

The claims, as set out by Mr Seely, are written in French under the heading commentaires.

Mr Seely claimed that the files had been authenticated by senior French intelligence sources and by British and American counterparts familiar with their contents.

He was backed by former Cabinet Ministers Liam Byrne and Ben Bradshaw and former Foreign Office Minister Chris Bryant, who all raised questions about Mr Chandler in their speeches.

The Mail on Sunday first reported last November that Christopher Chandlers Legatum think-tank had played a key role in Brexit Ministers secret letter to Theresa May

The MPs made their intervention during a Commons debate on money-laundering, during which Mr Bryant backed international moves to impose sanctions on Russian oligarchs such as Oleg Deripaska.

Sources close to Mr Chandler do not deny that the Monaco documents themselves are authentic but say that the allegations contained within  and repeated by the MPs  are entirely without foundation.

One source said: In Monaco at the time, they kept files on pretty much everyone. It was standard practice and carried no connotation of wrongdoing.

The Mail on Sunday has chronicled how Mr Chandler, 58, created a hedge fund in the 1980s with his brother Richard and made a fortune investing in, among other places, the wild west of post-communist Russia. Both brothers are named in the files.

The London-based Legatum Institute is the charitable arm of the Legatum Group, a private investment firm set up by Christopher Chandler in Dubai in 2006.

Mr Chandler says that he plays no part in the running of the Legatum Institute or influencing its work.

Mr Seely says this is Mr Chandlers personal file held by the French Secret Services. He says File Code S indicates a higher level of threat

This newspaper exposed how the institute helped Mr Gove and Mr Johnson to write the secret letter to Mrs May last autumn which set out their blueprint for a post-EU Britain.

The institute denies taking a line on Brexit, but has established strong links to hard Brexit-backing Ministers, MPs, economists and campaigners.

In his Commons speech, Mr Byrne described Legatum as an important think-tank that has enjoyed unrivalled access to Ministers during one of this countrys most important national debates.

Mr Byrne highlighted a line in the file saying: Richard Chandler and his brother Christopher play an important role in the capital of the companies Lukoil and Gazprom (linked to long-standing Russian figures who could be linked to organised crime) and said the file also claimed that the brothers maintained relations with an a Chechen mafia figure.

He said: The risk we are running is that that support is financed from sources that derive from the Russian Federation.

If there is innocence, it should be proved. It should be clear. That is why the disinfectant of sunlight is so important.

'What we cannot have is agents of influence peddling policies and proposals backed by dirty money from one of our countrys enemies.

Mr Bryant told the Commons that he had seen the file and come to the same conclusion as Mr Seely about Mr Chandler.

The MPs also raised questions about the way Mr Chandler secured an EU passport by taking out Maltese citizenship.

Former Culture Secretary Mr Bradshaw asked for an investigation by the UK authorities into growing concern about corruption, money-laundering and the sale of passports in Malta, where Chandler has just acquired citizenship.

The Mail on Sunday revealed earlier this year that Mr Chandler had secured an EU passport two years ago by ploughing more than 1 million into the island.

In March, Pilatus, the Maltese bank used by Mr Chandler to secure the passport, had its assets frozen following the arrest of its owner on money-laundering charges.

The bank has been the subject of corruption claims since journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia accused it of being at the centre of an international network of illicit fund transfers.

She was killed by a car bomb last year. There is no suggestion that Mr Chandler was aware of any wrongdoing at the bank. Pilatus has denied any wrongdoing.

When Maltas Prime Minister, Joseph Muscat, was asked about Mr Chandler and the cash-for-passports scheme last week, he told local journalists cryptically: There is a very interesting story you could investigate.

What the MPs said about billionaire... Tory MP Bob Seely, member of the Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee Described Mr Chandler as an object of interest suspected of working for the Russian intelligence services. Labour MP Liam Byrne, former Chief Secretary to the Treasury What we cannot have is agents of influence peddling policies and proposals backed by dirty money from one of our countrys enemies. Labour MP Ben Bradshaw, former Culture Secretary Called for an investigation into growing concern about corruption, money-laundering and the sale of passports in Malta, where Chandler has just acquired citizenship. AdvertisementMore than 3,500 MDMA ecstasy capsules have been seized and 13 people, including three young women, have been charged at a Sydney music festival on Saturday.

A total of 14,000 people attended the Midnight Mafia Music Festival at the Sydney Showgrounds and of those 187 people, or just over 1.3 per cent, were searched by police.

The capsules were seized in a large police operation, including sniffer dogs, at the event which lasted from 3pm until midnight.

More than 3,500 MDMA ecstasy capsules have been seized and 13 people, including three young women, have been charged at a Sydney music festival on Saturday

A total of 14,000 people attended the Midnight Mafia Music Festival at the Sydney Showgrounds and of those 187 people, or just over 1.3 per cent, were searched by police

Thirteen people were subsequently charged with drug supply while 32 people were issued with court notices for drug possession.

During the festival 256 people sought medical treatment and three were taken to hospital for drug-related health issues.

Notably, a 21-year-old woman, in possession of almost 1600 MDMA capsules and an amount of cocaine, was arrested and given bail to appear at Burwood Local Court on May 25, 2018.

The capsules were seized in a large police operation, including sniffer dogs, at the event which lasted from 3pm until midnight

Detective Chief Inspector Gus Viera said he was greatly concerned by the large number of pills seized

A 21-year-old woman was charged with drug supply after she was found carrying nearly 550 pills and was refused bail to appear at Parramatta Bail Court Sunday.

A 19-year-old woman was charged after 200 MDMA caps were seized and was given conditional bail to appear at Burwood Local Court on 24 May 2018.

Detective Chief Inspector Gus Viera said he was greatly concerned by the large number of pills seized.

'We saw more drugs seized today than recent events, one of the largest we've seen, which clearly shows our messaging is not getting through,' he said on Sunday.

'I am extremely disappointed with these results; however, we will continue to conduct these operations at upcoming festivals throughout the year.'

A 21-year-old woman was charged with drug supply after she was found carrying nearly 550 pills and was refused bail to appear at Parramatta Bail Court SundayThe dramatic moment a ute drove up the ramp of a tow truck before crashing to the ground and bursting into flames has been caught on camera.

The driver, aged 85, became trapped in the car as rescuers rushed to the scene in Melbourne, Victoria.

Footage shows the ute hurling into the air after impact and flipping on its side before the driver was saved.

The dramatic moment a ute (pictured) sped up the ramp of a tow truck before crashing to the ground and bursting into flames has been caught on camera

The elderly man had to be convinced to go to hospital after escaping any serious injury, 7 News reported.

The owner of the truck, Brett Stewart, described the crash as 'dangerous' and was relieved he was not inside at the time.

'At 70 to 80 km/h, it's scary, it's dangerous,' he told the network.

The driver, aged 85, became trapped in the car as rescuers rushed to the scene in Melbourne, Victoria.

The driver was interviewed by police and his licence will be reviewed, 7 News reported.

A spokesman for the tow truck industry, Jessica Gomers, told the network truck drivers say a prayer before doing their job.

'They look at the picture of their kids in the sun visor and then they jump out and do their job,' she said.

Tow truck drivers are calling for a change to the law forcing drivers to slow down to 40km/h when passing them.A member of a Swiss suicide clinic that will help Australia's oldest scientist end his life has slammed Australian laws for not allowing the 104-year-old to do so at home.

David Goodall waved goodbye to his beloved family members at Perth Airport on Wednesday as he flew to Switzerland, on his way to an assisted suicide he chose to have as his quality of life deteriorated.

But Swiss euthanasia advocate Ruedi Habegger said on Saturday that it's an 'atrocity' the centenarian had to board a plane for the event in the first place.

Scroll down for video

Swiss euthanasia advocate Ruedi Habegger said on Saturday that it's an 'atrocity' David Goodall (pictured), 104, must travel to Switzerland to end his life because of Australian laws

Dr Goodall (pictured with his grandson) waved goodbye to his beloved family members at Perth Airport on Wednesday as he flew to Switzerland

Mr Habegger said on Saturday that it's an 'atrocity' the centenarian (centre) had to board a plane for the event in the first place

'Because he is not terminally ill... he has to travel to Switzerland,' he said, according to SBS.

'This is the atrocity of it all. This old man... should be able to die at home in his bed, like we can do here in Switzerland,'

Dr Goodall is set to end his life on Thursday at a clinic near Basel, which Mr Habegger co-founded through his assisted suicide foundation Eternal Spirit.

Swiss law dictates that anyone of sound mind who has consistently requested to voluntarily end their life may do so with assistance.

Mr Habegger's foundation assists 80 people a year to end their life, most of which are elderly, sick and in pain.

Dr Goodall is without a terminal illness but chose to 'go out with dignity and respect', his daughter Karen Goodall-Smith said.

Assisted suicide was banned in Australia until Victoria legalised it last year, although the legislation won't come into effect until June 2019.

The legislation also dictates that only terminally ill patients of sound mind with a life expectancy of less than six months may opt to end their life, according to the publication.

Dr Goodall (pictured with long-time friend Carol O'Neil) is set to end his life on Thursday at a clinic near Basel

Dr Goodall is without a terminal illness but chose to 'go out with dignity and respect', his daughter Karen Goodall-Smith (pictured) said

Dr Goodall celebrated his 104th birthday in early April and has since decided it is time to access voluntarily euthanasia in Switzerland

The Northern Territory briefly legalised euthanasia for the terminally ill in 1996 but it was overturned a year later by the federal government.

Other states in Australia have debated euthanasia in the past, but the proposals have always been defeated, most recently in New South Wales last year.

The limitations led to British-born Dr Goodall opting to fly to Switzerland as a last resort.

'I don't want to go to Switzerland, though it's a nice country,' he told the ABC before leaving.

'But I have to do that in order to get the opportunity of suicide which the Australian system does not permit. I feel very resentful.'

Ms Goodall-Smith, who alongside her three sons waved goodbye to Dr Goodall on Wednesday, further explained how her father came to the difficult decision.

She said that while she is in complete support of his decision, it has still been painful.

Ms Goodall-Smith explained it was Dr Goodall's (pictured with his grandson Graham) wish to 'go out with dignity and respect' that ultimately saw him choose assisted suicide

'He blows me away. His work ethic, his attitude, his determination, his independence,' she told the ABC.

'He's had a really good life, we've had lots of good times together and he's going out with dignity and respect.

'It's hard, but it's also beautiful in some ways.'

A selection of new photos the Goodall family have been uploading to social media in the wake of their grandfather's departure from Perth tell a story of mutual love and respect amongst men.

His grandsons Matt, 23, Graham, 25, and Chris, 28, have all openly spoken about supporting his choice and are glad it's raising awareness about euthanasia.

'It's really promising seeing this sort of response from the public, knowing that a lot of people are in the same boat with the same concerns. It puts the issue into perspective quite nicely,' Matt wrote on Facebook.

Chris changed his profile picture to one of the boys beaming alongside the doctor, with the caption: 'Sharing our last moments with my Grandad #love #family'.

Goodall (left), an honorary research associate at Perth's Edith Cowan University, made international headlines in 2016 when he was declared unfit to be on campus

Dr Goodall is pictured being serenaded by his grandson with a musical piece on the piano

Dr Goodall boarded a plane in Perth late Wednesday surrounded by friends and family saying their final goodbyes, including a heartfelt farewell from his grandson Graham - a picture which has since gone viral.

Who is Australia's oldest scientist David Goodall? Dr Goodall was born in London in 1914, and is an eminent botanist and ecologist. He came to Australia to in 1948, taking up a lecturing position at the University of Melbourne. Goodall, an honorary research associate at Perth's Edith Cowan University, made international headlines in 2016 when he was declared unfit to be on campus. Dr Goodall celebrated his 104th birthday in early April and has since decided it is time to access voluntarily euthanasia in Switzerland. Advertisement

Dr Goodall told 9NEWS: 'I should be glad when I get on the plane - so far, so good.

'I have some of my family here - there are three grandsons here, I believe and my daughter Karen... It's very good that they shall be here to see me off.'

He will spend several days with other family in Bordeaux, France, before heading to Switzerland where he is due to end his life on May 10.

Exit International, which helped Dr Goodall make the trip, said it was unjust that one of Australia's 'oldest and most prominent citizens should be forced to travel to the other side of the world to die with dignity'.

It launched a GoFundMe campaign to get plane tickets for Dr Goodall and his helper upgraded to business class from economy and quickly raised more than $20,000.

Dr Goodall, an honorary research associate at Perth's Edith Cowan University, made international headlines in 2016 when he was declared unfit to be on campus.

Dr Goodall was born in London on April 4, 1914, but moved to Australia in 1948

He came to Australia to in 1948 taking up a lecturing position at the University of Melbourne

After an uproar and support from scientists globally, the decision was reversed.

He has produced dozens of research papers and until recently continued to review and edit for different ecology journals.

Dr Goodall told ABC he appreciated the public's interest in his plight and hoped it would spark more discussion about voluntary euthanasia.

'I would like them to understand it,' he said.

'I am 104 years old so I haven't got much time left anyway. I might as well not have [my health] getting worse and worse, making me unhappy as it goes.'

Mr Habegger explained that Dr Goodall will have control over the final deed himself on Thursday.

He said the doctor can expect to fall asleep within 30 seconds, until his heart muscle relaxes.

'It is not a heart attack. It is not a painful process. The heart just stops beating. Within a minute and a half, it is usually over,' he said.DOING THE BUSINESS: Our City Editor Ruth Sunderland as highly commended as Business Journalist of the Year

The Mail on Sunday has been named 2017 Sunday Newspaper of the Year  a remarkable fifth such triumph in just six years.

After scooping the award in 2012, 2013 and 2014, we picked up the Sunday prize once again in the prestigious London Press Club awards at Stationers Hall last week.

That adds to our victory  almost unprecedented for a Sunday paper  in the Society of Editors 2015 Newspaper of the Year award.

Last weeks judges said the paper was admired for consistently breaking important exclusives that sent daily papers scurrying to follow them and production of a package that covers the entire weekend waterfront for its readers.

The award should go to a paper that deserved to win  and not for the first time  for punching its weight every weekend with popular journalistic excellence that brought commercial success.

The trophy was handed by TV presenter June Sarpong to Geordie Greig, who has edited the newspaper since 2012. He praised all the staff and said: Sunday journalism thrives and does make a difference.

City Editor Ruth Sunderland was highly commended as Business Journalist of the Year.

The judges praised her astute comment columns on business, investment and economics in print and easy command of her field in broadcasting.

Recent major Mail on Sunday exclusives have included reports revealing:

The aid charity sex scandal, specifically that Brendan Cox, widower of murdered MP Jo Cox, was a sex pest;

The racism of Ukip leader Henry Boltons girlfriend Jo Marney, leading to his downfall;

That Minister Mark Garnier sent his personal assistant to buy sex toys.

We have successfully campaigned to establish a special helpline for members of the Armed Forces suffering mental health issues; to fight wasteful foreign aid spending; to force a Government crackdown on the fake holiday sickness racket; and to raise the alarm over flawed sex-crime prosecutions.

SCOOPS: Just some of The Mail on Sunday's exclusives that impressed judges of the prestigious awards

Many of our biggest stories were broken by Political Editor Simon Walters, the current Political Journalist of the Year in the Society of Editors awards.

And Sundays wouldnt be the same without our brilliant columnists Peter Hitchens, Piers Morgan, Liz Jones, Craig Brown and Rachel Johnson.

This year The Mail on Sunday launched a new pullout, Life, featuring Dr Michael Mosleys fabulous health advice plus family columns from Penny Lancaster, Jo Wood and Marina Fogle.

Event magazine features the big names including Rod Stewart, Scarlett Johansson, Anthony Hopkins, Nicole Kidman and Ronnie Wood.

You magazine, currently being revitalised under new editor Jo Elvin, was recently highly commended as Weekly Supplement of the Year in the Newsawards.

But the judges most important to us are you, the readers, who have built our market share of all national Sunday newspapers sold to a record 22 per cent.

True Success on Sunday!Four elderly women returning home from line dancing have been killed in a horror crash.

The women, aged between 64 and 75, were travelling in a Kia that was hit by another car that allegedly failed to slow down at a stop sign before careering into them in Navarre, Victoria, last night.

A 64-year-old woman from Stawell, who was driving the second car, is in hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and will be interviewed by the police.

Four elderly women returning home from line dancing have been killed in a horror crash

Emergency crews rushed to the scene in Navarre, near Ararat, on Saturday evening.

The vehicle carrying the four women was travelling southbound on Ararat-St Arnaud Road when it collided with a car travelling west bound on Bains Road, police said.

The four women who died were a 75-year-old from Hamilton, a 74-year-old from Hamilton, a 72-year-old from Portland, and a 64-year-old from Hayward

The Major Collision Investigation Unit will investigate the collision.

Anyone with information or dash cam footage is urged to contact Crime Stoppers.Evil mother Karen Matthews is sponging off of a sugar daddy 30 years her senior who funds her lavish lifestyle and buys her expensive gadgets.

Pensioner Eric Anderson, 72, is said to have helped kit out the 43-year-old's state-funded flat with flat screen TVs and fibre optic broadband.

He has also allegedly been putting money in Matthews' pockets ever since she was released from prison in 2012.

Karen Matthews (pictured) was jailed in 2008 for faking daughter Shannon's kidnapping to make profit from donations

The shamed scrounger served four years for arranging the kidnap of her daughter Shannon who was aged just nine at the time.

Sources close to Matthews claim she's been on the hunt for a sugar daddy since coming home from prison in 2012.

She is alleged to have set up multiple accounts online seeking financial arrangements with men.

'She has a huge flat screen TV and a Samsung Galaxy 8 smartphone that she flashes about,' a source told the Mirror.

'She had friends over for a party and there was apparently champagne and canapes  it certainly wasn't on a budget.

Matthews is said to have found a sugar daddy in 72-year-old charity shop worker Eric Anderson

Shannon was found 24 days after her disappearance hidden in a bed in the town of Dewsbury, West Yorkshire

'She makes no secret of the fact that she has older benefactors who keep her in the lifestyle she wants.'

Matthews, who claims to be a devout Christian since finding God while in prison, now works in a charity shop alongside Mr Anderson.

The pensioner declined to comment on whether their relationship involves any financial agreement, but did admit to giving her support and teaching her about love.A top US navy admiral announced the re-establishment of the US 2nd Fleet - a Cold War command disbanded in 2011 - to patrol the North Atlantic to guard against potential threats from Russia and China.

The chief of US Naval Operations, Admiral John Richardson, made the announcement during a change of command ceremony Friday in the Atlantic naval port of Norfolk, Virginia.

'Our National Defense Strategy makes clear that we're back in an era of great power competition as the security environment continues to grow more challenging and complex,' said Richardson, according to a navy statement.

The 2nd Fleet command was disbanded as a cost-savings measure in 2011, and its assets and personnel dispersed within the navy (Pictured: USS Wasp Osprey)

NATO naval officials in late 2017 also reported Russian submarines probing underseas data cables in the north Atlantic (Pictured: USS Harry S. Truman)

'That's why today, we're standing up Second Fleet to address these changes, particularly in the north Atlantic.'

The 2nd Fleet command was disbanded as a cost-savings measure in 2011, and its assets and personnel dispersed within the navy.

The new command will be responsible for US naval forces along the US east coast as well as the north Atlantic region, a navy statement said.

The chief of US Naval Operations, Admiral John Richardson (pictured), made the announcement during a change of command ceremony

Before it was disbanded the 2nd Fleet played a key role during the Cold War years, with operations in the North Atlantic and supporting US naval forces in the Mediterranean.

Russian planes and ships have in recent months made multiple incursions in the north Atlantic close to the airspace and territorial waters of US NATO allies, including Britain.

NATO naval officials in late 2017 also reported Russian submarines probing underseas data cables in the north Atlantic.

The 2nd Fleet command currently exists only on paper, but according to USNI News, a publication of the US Naval Institute, the command will open for business on July 1 with 11 officers and four enlisted personnel.

The command will eventually grow to 256 personnel -- 85 officers, 164 enlisted and seven civilians -- USNI reported, citing a memo signed earlier in the week by Navy Secretary Richard Spencer.

The decision to reactivate the 2nd Fleet followed increasing threats in the Atlantic from Russia, officials familiar with the decision told USNI News.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said in January the United States is facing 'growing threats' from China and Russia, and warned that the US military's advantages have eroded in recent years.

'We face growing threats from revisionist powers as different as China and Russia, nations that seek to create a world consistent with their authoritarian models,' Mattis said as he unveiled the Pentagon's national defense strategy.

'Our military is still strong, yet our competitive edge has eroded in every domain of warfare,' he added.Sprawling across five acres, it was a crucial part of Britain's Great War effort, keeping up morale in the trenches by sending longed-for letters and parcels to millions of 'Tommies'.

Now the vast sorting office, which was set up in London's Regent's Park, is being recreated  a century on from the Armistice.

It will be brought back to life inside a marquee to mark the role of the Royal Parks during the 1914-1918 conflict.

Sprawling across five acres, it was a crucial part of Britain's Great War effort, keeping up morale in the trenches by sending longed-for letters and parcels to millions of 'Tommies'

The depot, which included a giant hut that was the largest wooden structure in the world at the time, employed 2,500 staff, many of them women.

The depot, which included a giant hut that was the largest wooden structure in the world at the time, employed 2,500 staff, many of them women.

During the war, it handled more than two billion letters and 140 million parcels, which were sent to the front line.

The letters were transported around the depot in wicker trolleys and sorted depending on which unit they were addressed to and where it was stationed.

It was also the central hub from where letters bearing bad news were despatched to the families of Servicemen.

During the war, it handled more than two billion letters and 140 million parcels, which were sent to the front line

The exhibition will show the conditions for the staff and mementoes from the period, including a humorous ditty written by one worker, James Sullivan, who mocks his war service in a post office rather than on the battlefield.

His granddaughter, Liz Easterling, recently found his poem in a folder. He wrote: 'I'll now describe a victim who/ Before he'd time to grow/ Was destined not for battlefields/ But the prosaic GPO [General Post Office].'

Mrs Easterling said: 'He had quite a sense of humour. I can't help thinking how hugely he would have enjoyed knowing his efforts would be remembered 100 years on.'

The exhibition opens on the former sorting office site on Cumberland Green on Saturday.Salim Mehajer's sisters have been asked to pay a $6.2 million debt owed by one of the disgraced property developer's failed companies.

But Kat and Zenah say their signatures as guarantors for the Sydney Project Group P/L were forged, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

Khadijeh Mehajer married Ibrahim Salaki in 2016, in a ceremony as elaborate as Salim's the year before.

Khadijeh Mehajer (pictured) married Ibrahim Salaki in 2016, in a ceremony as elaborate as Salim's the year before

Zenah Osman (pictured) is the lowest-profile of the Mehajer siblings

Ms Osman says all of the signatures that appear to be hers are fake (she is pictured right with her brother Salim)

Zenah Osman is the lowest-profile of the Mehajer siblings.

Mr Mehajer's Sydney Project Group went into liquidation in 2017 after it was found it and another company owed $97 million but only had $32,000 in the bank.

Kat Mehajer and Zenah Osman are looking for handwriting experts to give evidence on documents signed with their names as guarantors with the Sydney Project Group, the NSW Supreme court heard on Friday.

The sisters may also bring a cross-claim against the lawyers who advised them before they signed parts of the documents, the court heard.

Ms Osman says all of the signatures that appear to be hers are fake.

The hearing was adjourned until June.

Salim Mehajer's sisters have been asked to pay a $6.2 million debt owed by one of the disgraced property developer's failed companies

Mr Mehajer was convicted of electoral fraud in April after it was found he engaged in a 'criminal enterprise' with another of his sisters, Fatima.

He faces jail time if convicted.

Mr Mehajer is embroiled in a number of other court cases and was declared bankrupt in March.Advertisement

Thousands celebrated Cinco de Mayo on Saturday by dancing through the streets of Mexico City and reenacting the historic Battle of Puebla.

Often mistaken for Mexican Independence Day, which is September 16, Cinco de Mayo commemorates the 1862 Battle of Puebla between the victorious ragtag army of largely Mexican Indian soldiers against the invading French forces of Napoleon III.

The day is observed in certain parts of Mexico, but grew in popularity during the Mexican-American 1960s Chicano movement in California, when Latinos and abolitionists linked the victory to the fight against slavery.

Thousands of people celebrated Cinco de Mayo on Saturday with tasty food, exciting parades and flamboyant costumes

Often mistaken for Mexican Independence Day, which is September 16, Cinco de Mayo commemorates the 1862 Battle of Puebla between the victorious ragtag army of largely Mexican Indian soldiers against the invading French forces of Napoleon III. A child dressed as a French soldier marches during a re-enactment of The Battle of Puebla

The day is observed in certain parts of Mexico, but grew in popularity during the Mexican-American 1960s Chicano movement in California, when Latinos and abolitionists linked the victory to the fight against slavery

A woman dressed as a Zacapoaztla soldier marches during the re-enactment of The Battle of Puebla between the Zacapoaztlas and French army as part of the Cinco de Mayo celebrations in Mexico City

In Mexico City, actors put on a reenactment of The Battle of Puebla. People dressed up in Zacapoaxtla indigenous regalia clashed with those playing the part of French soldiers

Mexicans wearing period costumes take part in a re-enactment of the battle of Puebla, along the streets in the Penon de los Banos neighborhood of Mexico City

Thousands paraded through the streets in Mexico City in celebration of Cinco de Mayo

Photos in Mexico City show people decked out in festive outfits participating in parades, playing music and dancing through the streets.

In Mexico City, actors put on a reenactment of The Battle of Puebla. People dressed up in Zacapoaxtla indigenous regalia clashed with those playing the part of French soldiers.

Additionally, people dressed in the revolutionary indigenous outfits danced through the streets of the Penon de los Banos neighborhood of the Mexican capital city.

Cinco de Mayo is now commonly observed in the United States with mariachi music, margaritas and Mexican food.

But in 2017 after Donald Trump's election as US President, those of Mexican heritage were fearful of marking the holiday because of the strengthened immigration enforcement.

He has vowed to build a wall along the US-Mexico border to deter illegal immigration and launched his presidential campaign by attacking the character of Mexican immigrants.

Mexicans wearing period costumes perform during a re-enactment of the battle of Puebla

Cinco de Mayo is now commonly observed in the United States with mariachi music, margaritas and Mexican food

But in 2017 after Donald Trump's election as US President, those of Mexican heritage were fearful of marking the holiday because of the strengthened immigration enforcement

He has vowed to build a wall along the US-Mexico border to deter illegal immigration and launched his presidential campaign by attacking the character of Mexican immigrants. A man dressed as a French soldier marches during a reenactment on Saturday

Mexicans wearing period costumes perform during a re-enactment of the battle of Puebla

Trump marked Cinco de Mayo in 2016 by tweeting 'I love Hispanics!' with a photo of himself eating a taco bowl.

His son, Donald Trump Jr, actually retweeted that very tweet Saturday morning with the caption: 'Perhaps the greatest tweet of all time. He's right though, it's really good.'

In 2017, Trump said that the US honored 'the Mexican-Americans whose fighting spirit and patriotism have been influential in shaping the character of our great Nation'.

This year, the president said in a press release: 'Today, we honor the heritage of our neighbors to the south, and we celebrate the significant contributions of Mexican Americans to the United States.'

'Though they were outnumbered and facing one of the strongest militaries in the world, the determined Mexican soldiers overcame the French force and proved their place in history as valiant defenders of Mexico's liberty and right to self-government,' Trump said.

'Melania joins me in sending our best wishes for an enjoyable day. Feliz Cinco de Mayo!'

An aerial photo shows people walking down a street in Mexico City on Saturday

Men dressed as Zacapoaxtla soldiers march during the re-enactment of The Battle of Puebla between the Zacapoaztlas and French army

A Mexican wearing a period costume fires a homemade shotgun during a re-enactment of The Battle of Puebla

A man dressed as a revolutionary Zacapoaztla indigenous soldier marches during the re-enactment of The Battle of Puebla as another man wears a period costume and holds a chicken's foot in his mouthStephen Lawrence murder suspect Jamie Acourt thought he could outsmart police when they cornered him after two years on the run.

The 41-year-old tried to convince the undercover officers he was just an innocent Italian tourist, not one of Europe's most wanted fugitives.

But Spanish police were not fooled when they swooped as he ate lunch after a session at Metropolitan Sagrada Familia Gym in Barcelona on Friday.

Jamie Acourt has been arrested at gunpoint in Spain in connection with a 4 million marijuana plot

Five officers posed as fellow fitness fanatics to make sure it was him, then silently followed him to an adjoining restaurant were he loaded up on protein.

Acourt protested but with multiple guns pointed at him he was handcuffed without incident and hauled away to face extradition to Britain.

He is accused of involvement in a 4 million marijuana supply plot in Britain.

The muscular suspect was held in jail on Friday following a joint operation involving NCA, Scotland Yard, and Spanish police officers.

Sources said Acourt was regularly seen at the gym lifting weights and relaxing in the hot tub while reading his phone and newspapers.

'I've been told police had been working out in the gym undercover to keep an eye on him. I was having lunch when I saw some big guys move in very quickly,' British expatriate Simon McDonald told the Mirror.

'There was no drama and no one seemed to say a word. It was a bit eerie.'

Armed police swooped on the 41-year-old, who was on the run for two years and on the National Crime Agency's 'most wanted' list, as he left a gym

He was wanted by Metropolitan Police detectives investigating the large-scale supply of drugs in Britain and nabbed on a European Arrest Warrant.

Accourt faced an extradition hearing on Saturday but the results were not made public.

He was the 81st fugitive to be found out of 96 publicised through Operation Captura - an initiative involving the NCA, Crimestoppers and the Spanish authorities.

'Acourt thought he could evade capture, but as a result of an intelligence-led operation his days on the run have ended,' Ian Cruxton, head of International operations for the NCA, said.

'We were able to direct the Spanish authorities to his location in Barcelona.

As well as being wanted for drugs, Acourt was a suspect in the murder of Stephen Lawrence (left). Two of his co-accused were finally jailed in 2012 after advocacy efforts by Stephen's mother Doreen (right)

'Our ability to share information and work at speed with our international partners ensures there is no safe haven for fugitives. We will never stop pursuing these individuals.'

It was thought Acourt, who is related to The Only Way Is Essex's Elliott Wright, was living the high life in celebrity hotspot Marbella where he was regularly seen at bars frequented by show stars.

Wright, who runs Olivia's La Cala bar in the Spanish resort, is married to Acourt's cousin Sadie Stuart.

Acourt managed to stay ahead of authorities but using a plethora of false names and moving house frequently, so officers had to make sure they got their man.

Acourt (circled) and his co-accused are pelted with eggs after leaving a Public Inquiry into police handling of the case on June 30, 1998

The five suspects arrive at a public inquiry into the police's handling of the case June 30. They are: Jamie Acourt (L), Neil Acourt (2nd L), Luke Knight (Front R), David Norris (2ndR, wearing suit and spectacles) and Gary Dobson (Back R wearing waistcoat and tie)

Stephen died in April 1993 aged 18 when he was attacked by a gang of five white youths in Eltham, south east London.

The gang shouted racist abuse as they began the unprovoked fatal stabbing of the A-level student.

Gary Dobson and David Norris were finally jailed in 2012 but the other suspects Luke Knight and brothers Neil and Jamie Acourt never faced trial.Malaysian police have busted a human-smuggling ring transporting illegal immigrants to Australia and New Zealand.

A modified tanker carrying 131 Sri Lankans including 98 men, 24 women, four boys and five girls was intercepted by police on Tuesday.

Royal Malaysia Police released photos of the tanker, named Etra, and the immigrants pictured among piles of suit cases.

Police chief Mohamad Fuzi Harun said authorities had foiled a 'cunning' human smuggling syndicate.

Malaysian police have busted a human-smuggling ring transporting illegal immigrants to Australia and New Zealand (pictured)

A modified tanker carrying 131 Sri Lankans including 98 men, 24 women, four boys and five gives was intercepted by police on Tuesday

'With these arrests, the Royal Malaysia Police has successfully foiled a large and cunning human smuggling syndicate,' he said.

'This syndicate has been operating since mid-2017 and has international connections across Sri Lanka, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia and Malaysia,' he added.

The syndicate was transporting the immigrants using a maritime passage in the waters of Tanjung Gemuk in Kota Tinggi, Johor, Channel News Asia reported.

Three Indonesians and four Malaysians were arrested after police raided a fishing boat transferring the immigrants, according to the publication.

Three Indonesians and four Malaysians were arrested after police raided a fishing boat transferring the immigrants

A spokesperson for the Home Affairs department applauded Malaysia's 'disruption of the venture' in a statement provided to Daily Mail Australia.

'We are aware that Malaysian authorities have successfully disrupted a large, highly organised people smuggling venture before it could depart,' the statement said.

'We applaud Malaysias disruption of this venture and look forward to ongoing cooperation to combat people smuggling.

'This is yet another example of the enduring threat that people smuggling poses across our region.'

Police chief Mohamad Fuzi Harun said authorities had foiled a 'cunning' human smuggling syndicateAides to President Donald Trump reportedly contracted an Israeli private security firm to collect dirt on Obama administration officials and discredit the Iran nuclear deal.

The operation to 'get dirt' on Barack Obama's former staffers Ben Rhodes and Colin Kahl was launched last May, according to unnamed sources and documents cited by UK newspaper The Observer.

The sources said that officials linked to Trump's team contacted Israeli investigators just days after Trump visited Tel Aviv a year ago, his first foreign trip as US president.

The goal was apparently to discredit the Iran nuclear deal framework, which Trump has repeatedly threatened to scuttle ahead of a key May 12 deadline for certifying Iran's compliance.

Trump is seen conferring with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv last May, just days before his camp allegedly hired an Israeli private spy firm to dig dirt on Obama aides

Former Deputy National Security Adviser Benjamin Rhodes (right) was one of the architects of the Iran deal that the alleged covert smear operation targeted

Investigators contracted by the Israeli intelligence agency were instructed to dig into the personal lives and political careers of Rhodes, a former deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, and Kahl, a national security adviser to the former vice-president Joe Biden, according to documents cited by the Observer.

'The idea was that people acting for Trump would discredit those who were pivotal in selling the [Iran] deal, making it easier to pull out of it,' said an unnamed source quoted in the report.

Among things the investigators allegedly examined were personal relationships, any involvement with Iran-friendly lobbyists, and whether the Obama aides had benefited personally or politically from the peace deal.

The private investigators were also allegedly instructed to contact prominent Iranian Americans as well as pro-deal journalists to determine whether Rhodes and Kahl had violated rules by leaking.

Rhodes famously said in a 2016 New York Times profile that he relied on inexperienced reporters to create an 'echo chamber' to helped sway public opinion in favor of the deal.

The investigators were said to be examining Rhodes and Kahl's contacts with the New York Times, MSNBC, the Atlantic, Vox website and Israeli newspaper Haaretz, among others.

Former US Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary for the Middle East Colin Kahl was also a target of the alleged smear campaign run by a private Israeli intelligence firm

Last week, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed to have evidence that Iran 'lied' about its weapons program

It is unclear how far along the project to uncover dirt progressed, or what became of any of the information discovered on the two aides.

Rhodes told the Observer: 'I was not aware, though sadly am not surprised. I would say that digging up dirt on someone for carrying out their professional responsibilities in their positions as White House officials is a chillingly authoritarian thing to do.'

Israel has lobbied heavily against the Iran deal, which lifts economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for a 10-year freeze on the country's nuclear weapons program.

Last week, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed to have evidence that Iran 'lied' about its weapons program. Iran is an arch-nemesis of Israel.

Although the name of the firm allegedly contracted by Trump associates is not clear, Israel is well known for its abundance of private intelligence and security firms.

In November, the Israeli private spy network Black Cube made news when it was revealed that disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein hired the firm to squash articles about sexual misconduct he was accused of.The defining moment in a dismal night for Labour came when Londons Mayor Sadiq Khan quietly slipped out of the back door before the Conservative victory was proclaimed in Wandsworth, a key target in his aim of painting the town red.

In truth, anyone who believes in the democratic principle that there should be a viable, electable alternative to our current shambles of a Government should have been equally dismayed by Labours dismal performance in Thursdays council elections  whatever they think of the party.

Of course, it was an election in which Jeremy Corbyns cheerleaders on the far Left had confidently predicted a Labour landslide and the capture of key Conservative-held London boroughs such as Kensington and Chelsea, Hillingdon, Wandsworth and even Westminster.

Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour party missed an opportunity to seize key Conservative-held London boroughs

Certainly they will never have a better opportunity.

The internal Tory civil war over Brexit, the Windrush scandal and the breast-screening fiasco all resonate deeply in the capital. But even in London  now, more than ever, a Labour city  the Corbyn revolution is the dog that refused to bark.

The party I have worked for all my life catastrophically failed to win targets such as Barnet, where voters, at least in part, turned away from Labour in droves because of the anti-Semitism furore.

Outside London the picture was worse, with disastrous performances in Dudley, Derby and elsewhere.

Election expert Professor Sir John Curtice pointed out there had actually been a swing to the Conservatives from Labour.

Yet according to the leaderships advance publicity, this was an election in which the Corbyn-supporting Momentum group was supposed to deliver grassroots campaigning and a seismic political breakthrough.

How telling that one of Labours few success stories, in Plymouth, happened precisely because local activists insisted on running their own campaign and told Momentum to stay away.

The lesson to be learned is simple and obvious: Corbyns project is leading the party away from victory.

Outside London the picture was worse, with disastrous performances in Dudley, Derby and elsewhere

Labour moderates have remained dutifully silent since he unexpectedly won more than 40 per cent of the vote in last years General Election.

But its becoming clear that Theresa May was denied the mandate she sought for a whole host of reasons, not because Corbyn is some sort of modern prophet.

Last June some voted for Labour safe in the belief that Corbyn would not be Prime Minister, others because they believed it was their best chance of avoiding a hard Brexit.

There were, certainly, some true believers. But it has become increasingly clear that Jeremys leadership is going nowhere.

Where, for example, is his vision? He could have cauterised the damaging anti-Semitism scandal by exposing it for what it was: the loathsome views of a very small group of far-Left fanatics who joined the party only after he became leader, and expelling those responsible. Instead he has fudged and prevaricated.

His policy on the most pressing matter of the day, Brexit, is so vague that even the Shadow Ministers press-ganged to explain it on television and radio tie themselves in knots.

And the parliamentary successes Labour has enjoyed in recent months have come because of the hard work and political nous of politicians the Corbynistas hatefully profess to despise as Red Tories  backbencher David Lammy shaming the Government over Windrush; Margaret Hodge forcing the Government into a U-turn on Commonwealth tax havens; Yvette Cooper holding Amber Rudds feet to the fire over the hostile environment for immigrants, which resulted in her resignation. Keir Starmer and his team are the only reason Labours Brexit balancing act has lasted so long.

We currently stand at a crossroads in British history, where if Tory hard-Brexit free marketeers have their way, workers protections could be shredded, countless jobs lost.

This is precisely the moment where the Labour Party should be leading the national debate about our future, but all Corbyn and his acolyte John McDonnell have to offer are ideas that were promoted and rejected in the 1970s and 1980s.

Im not opposed to their ideas of social ownership of water and joint partnerships in rail. But these are not the policies of tomorrow.

What does Corbyns Labour say to the millions who stand to lose their livelihoods to automation and outsourcing?

How will it rejuvenate hollowed-out towns where shops are boarded up?

What will it do about our deteriorating public spaces, where shared events and experiences should be enriching all our lives?

What, after all, is the point of Labour as a party of principle if it doesnt make a stand for the people it is elected to represent rather than peddle outmoded political dogma?

I was part of a Labour project that won three General Elections by appealing to peoples aspirations for a better future, not a return to the past.

The lesson then, as now, is Labour can only be politically successful if it creates a clear agenda based on a positive alternative, rather than defining ourselves as being anti everybody and everything.

The parliamentary party  backbenchers, committee members and Select Committee chairmen  must pick up the cudgel and begin formulating ideas and policies.

From among them, a leadership group must be formed from which a genuine alternative can emerge.

It wont be easy. Ive seen the personal vitriol local activists endure from some Corbyn supporters.

Ive seen the threats of deselection from the likes of Unites Len McCluskey. Ive seen how good Labour MPs are traduced and insulted, and admired the bravery of those who have been vilified for standing up to anti-Semitism.

But its clear from the council election results that Corbynism is doomed to failure. Rebuilding a new, positive, Labour from the ground up is the only way forward.

Itll take time, which means theres no time to lose.

Whatever your views on Labour, our country and our democracy needs a proper, credible and electable alternative to challenge the Government.

A renewed form of moderate New Labour needs to return.The brother of a boy who disappeared from the side of a road more than four decades ago will never give up on trying to find his sibling's remains.

Daryl Floyd began a painstaking quest of digging out an old mine shaft in rural Victoria eight years ago where he believes a paedophile dumped his brother's body.

'My brother does not deserve to be laying in that disgusting mine out there,' Mr Floyd said in a preview for 60 Minutes.

Daryl Floyd (pictured), 52, has spent the past eight years digging out a mine shaft in rural Victoria where he believes a pedophile dumped his 12-year-old brother's body in 1975

He began the painstaking quest of digging out an old mine shaft near Avoca in 2010 following the revelation of new evidence in relation to his brother's disappearance

Mr Floyd's older brother, Terry, was 12 when he was last seen walking along Pyrenees Highway between Avoca and Maryborough June 28, 1975.

The youngster had been playing monopoly at his friend's house and was heading back to his family's house the afternoon he mysteriously disappeared.

His younger brother, now 52, strongly believed Terry's body was down the abandoned mine shaft he has spent nearly a decade digging out.

'This is basically where all our information leads us to. And I believe he is down here,' Mr Floyd told presenter Tom Steinfort.

Mr Floyd's older brother, Terry (pictured), was 12 when he was last seen walking along Pyrenees Highway between Avoca and Maryborough June 28, 1975

His younger brother (pictured), now 52, strongly believed Terry's body was down the abandoned mine shaft he has spent nearly a decade digging out

He began digging out the shaft near Avoca following the revelation of new evidence, which cannot be revealed, in 2010.

His determination to find answers has been supported by Former Homicide Detective Ron Iddles who worked on the cold case from 1999.

'In my mind there's no doubt he's been murdered,' Mr Iddles said.

Mr Floyd believed polic failed in the way it had handled his brother's disappearance, and called on improvements alongside the families of 30 other missing Victorians.

His determination to find answers has been supported by Former Homicide Detective Ron Iddles who worked on the cold case from 1999 (pictured together)

An old shoe (pictured) was one of several items Mr Floyd believes adds to evidence a certain man murdered and dumped his brother's body in the mine shaft

He said he would continue trying to find his brother for the rest of his life if that's what it took.

'I do it for my parents. They passed on not knowing what happened to their son,' Mr Floyd said in 2015.

'I want to find Terry's remains and bring them home and rest them with his parents, like he deserves.'

The full story will air on Sunday night's episode of 60 Minutes.A Tennessee teenager stabbed her classmate with a pair of scissors because he pulled up her dress, police say.

A male student allegedly pulled up a peer's dress in the classroom at Central High School in Memphis.

The girl reportedly responded by snatching a pair of scissors and stabbing him after multiple missed attempts.

A teen at Central High School in Memphis, Tennessee, allegedly stabbed a classmate because he pulled up her dress. The exterior of the school is shown above

Both students have been issued jury summons following the incident. It is not known exactly when the stabbing occurred.

The male student reportedly told police that 'he was only playing and never exposed the victim', according to FOX13.

He has received a summons for sexual battery, and the female student received one for aggravated assault.

The names of the students have yet to be released.Horrific footage has been captured of the barbaric conditions aboard a live sheep export ship as it travelled from Western Australia to the Middle East.

The footage shows the decaying carcasses of sheep disintegrating as the crew, in minimal protective gear, attempt to clear them from the floor of the ship that is covered in inches of faeces and urine.

The crew of the Awassi Express then dump the gathered melted remains of the animals overboard and pump out the thick brown effluent into the ocean for kilometres.

Horrific footage has been captured of the barbaric conditions aboard a live sheep export ship as it traveled from Western Australia to the Middle East

The footage shows the decaying carcasses of sheep disintegrating as the crew, in minimal protective gear, attempt to clear them from the floor of the ship

'These animals are cooking alive,' Lynn Simpson, a veterinarian who has been on 57 voyages, told Fairfax Media.

Dr Simpson explained that the extreme heat the animals were subjected to meant the animals had effectively boiled to death and the bodies fell apart at the lightest pressure in the same way slow-cooked lamb or beef does when served and eaten.

'It stinks - if that was a scratch and sniff, you wouldn't go anywhere near this video,' she said.

Dr Simpson said the footage demonstrated transporting these live animals en masse, especially through hot climates, cannot be done humanely.

The live export ship is operated by Perth based Emanuel Exports whose Managing Director, Graham Daws, claimed in a letter to 60 Minutes producers that the industry was 'accountable, transparent and ethically sustainable'.

A worker on the Awassi Express captured shocking footage of five separate voyages on a mobile phone last year and blew the whistle to animal protection organisation Animals Australia.

'These animals are cooking alive,' said Lynn Simpson, a veterinarian who has been on 57 voyages

Dr Simpson said the footage demonstrated transporting these live animals en masse, especially through hot climates, cannot be done humanely

The worst of the five voyages was in August 2017 from Freemantle to Qatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates where 2400 of the 63,804 sheep on board died from heat stress.

The worst of the five voyages was in August 2017 from Freemantle to Qatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates where 2400 of the 63,804 sheep on board the Awassi Express died from heat stress.

The original investigation by the Department of Agriculture cleared the voyage of any breaches however the investigation was reopened after footage become public.

The Maritime Union of Australia and International Transport Workers' Federation has called for a temporary ban on the trade for the health and safety of ship workers.

'There are serious concerns about the long-term mental and physical health of the crew members working under these conditions,' said representative Paddy Crumlin.

'These exploited seafarers appear to have insufficient equipment or training to handle animals at sea and little control to improve conditions.'

The Turnbull Government is currently waiting on the results of the reopened investigation ordered by the Agriculture Department following the footage being released.

New Zealand phased out live exports for slaughter more than a ten years ago and The Labor Party has already said this week that it will phase out the live export trade if it wins the next election.

The original investigation by the Department of Agriculture cleared the voyage of any breaches however the investigation was reopened after footage become public

The crew of the Awassi Express then dump the gathered melted remains of the animals overboard and pump out the thick brown effluent into the formerly blue ocean for kilometres



President Donald Trumps top lawyer Rudy Giuliani insists that his star client says he still loves me even though the former New York City mayor may have put him in legal jeopardy during a television interview this week.

Giuliani caused a stir on Wednesday after he told Fox News' Sean Hannity that Trump reimbursed his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, for $130,000 in hush money paid to a porn star who claims she had an affair with the president more than 10 years ago.

Giuliani appeared on Fox News again, this time with Jeanine Pirro during her Saturday night show.

Giuliani called on Attorney General Jeff Sessions to end the Mueller investigation into alleged collusion with Russia.

He also slammed the Justice Department for what he perceives as giving Hillary Clinton preferential treatment during her investigation - unlike Trump and his associates.

The statements by Giuliani this week contradicted longstanding positions of Trump and the White House, who have claimed for weeks that the president had no knowledge of the payment.

President Donald Trumps lawyer Rudy Giuliani insists his client says he still loves me even though the former New York City mayor may have put him in legal jeopardy during a television interview this week. Giuliani appeared on Jeanine Pirro's Fox News show on Saturday

The statements by Giuliani contradicted longstanding positions of Trump and the White House, who have claimed for weeks that the president had no knowledge of the payment. Trump is seen right with Ohio Rep. Jim Renacci in Cleveland on Saturday

Giulianis comments appeared to catch the presidents aides off guard.

In an attempt at damage control, Trump tried to explain his lawyers comments.

The president told reporters at the White House on Friday that Giuliani just started a day ago and is learning the subject matter.

Giuliani actually joined Trumps legal team on April 19.

Giuliani also repeated his claim, first revealed in an interview with Fox, that Trump repaid attorney Michael Cohen for hush-money given to porn star Stormy Daniels - but said the President was not aware of what the money was for until a week ago

He knows its a witch hunt, Trump said of Giuliani.

Hell get his facts straight.

After Giulianis interview with Hannity, the former mayor said Trump was very pleased.

But legal analysts said that Giuliani did damage to Trumps cause by admitting that the president repaid Cohen.

Giuliani later issued a clarification, saying that Trump was not aware of what the payments were for until he was informed by his legal team a week ago.

Speaking to NBC News, Giuliani said Trump began paying Cohen back in January 2017, and in total paid 12 installments of $35,000 each.

The full sum, $420,000, included other expenses and fees for Cohen but Giuliani was unable to give further details.

Daniels, real name Stephanie Clifford, says she was paid $130,000 by Trump to keep quiet over their alleged affair during the presidential campaign

Giuliani said the President was surprised when he learned what the money had been used for and approved Giuliani's decision to go public with the reimbursement, which he did while speaking to Sean Hannity on Fox News on Wednesday night.

'You're not going to see daylight between the president and me,' he told NBC. 'We're going to work hard to have a consistent strategy.'

Trump may now be vulnerable to criminal liability over undisclosed payments as well as possible violations of campaign finance laws.

When asked if Trump was angry with him, Giuliani told The Washington Post on Friday: He says he loves me.

Giuliani and Trump continue to have a strong relationship.

It has been reported in the Post that the two men are still coordinating their legal strategy as Special Counsel Robert Muellers investigation continues apace.

Trump and Giuliani are planning strategy without bothering to consult or inform members of the White House communications team, the Post reported.

Meanwhile, it was reported on Saturday that Trump knew about Cohen's hush money payment to Daniels several months before he denied any knowledge of it in April, according to two people familiar with the arrangement.

Michael Cohen, Trump's long-term private attorney, is being investigated for fraud and campaign finance breaches over the alleged payment to Daniels, it is understood

Mueller's team is understood to have raised the prospect of forcing Trump to answer questions in the Russia probe, though it is unclear how serious the threat was

The insiders told The New York Times they were unsure exactly when Trump learned about the money transfer - intended to stop Daniels discussing their alleged affair - but he knew about it by the time he made his denial in April.

Daniels, real name Stephanie Clifford, signed a nondisclosure agreement with Cohen several days before the presidential election. The porn star has now sued to have it made invalid because Trump never signed it himself.

The lawsuit has now spiraled into questions about whether the payment made to secure Daniels' silence violated campaign laws, as could be the case if the money was sent with Trump's knowledge or to benefit his run for president.

If this was the case then it should have been declared, according to legal experts.

Cohen has insisted he paid the money out of his own pocket without the then candidate's knowledge.

Trump, meanwhile, has denied the affair and insisted the agreement was organized by Cohen to prevent embarrassment to his family, not to help his presidential bid.

Asked why Cohen had made the payment on Air Force One in April, he replied: 'You'll have to ask Michael Cohen. Michael Cohen is my attorney. You'll have to ask Michael.'

Giuliani on Friday said he is preparing for the possibility that Mueller will subpoena President Trump as part of the ongoing Russia probe.

Giuliani said he believes there is roughly a 50/50 chance that a subpoena will be issued, telling ABC News 'I got to prepare for that 50 per cent.'Drug dealers who locked a young boy inside a shipping container on a cannabis farm have been jailed.

Police raided the property, north-west of Taree, in December 2015 on suspicions of cannabis production, when they chanced on the detained child.

There was a small desk, paint tins and a soiled mattress inside the container, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

Police raided the property, north-west of Taree, in December 2015 on suspicions of cannabis production, when they chanced on the detained child

Drug dealers who locked a young boy inside a shipping container on a cannabis farm have been jailed

The 30-year-old man, the partner of the child's mother, responsible was charged on April 27

'I felt like an animal, I thought that I would be kept there forever,' the boy wrote in a victim impact statement to District Court judge Leonie Flannery almost two years later.

'It was terrible being in the shipping container. I felt sad and lonely I felt very scared. Now sometimes it's like everything in my mind is dead.'

The property had a single-story house surrounded by shipping containers.

On one side a black wooden deck and outdoor spa hid the doors to an underground bunker.

Inside was a hydroponic system with chemicals, fans, lighting, power cords and water supply to 225 cannabis plants.

Police also found a rifle, swords, flick knives and batons at the property.

A man and a woman have been sentenced after locking an eight-year-old boy in a shipping container

On one side a black wooden deck and outdoor spa hid the doors to an underground bunker

The young boy was locked in the container daily, denied food and a place to go to the toilet. He was beaten a number of times.

The other children, aged eighteen months, three and 10, on the Elands cannabis farm were occasionally allowed to see him.

For a period the children had access to the hydroponic setup and helped set up the crop.

Inside was a hydroponic system with chemicals, fans, lighting, power cords and water supply to 225 cannabis plants

Police raided the property, north-west of Taree, in December 2015 on suspicions of cannabis production, when they chanced on the detained child

A 30-year-old man, the partner of the child's mother, was charged on April 27.

He was sentenced to a maximum of six and a half years in prison with a non-parole period of four years.

The child's mother received three years and five months, with a non-parole period of two years and five months. She will soon be eligible for parole.

Her brother was sentenced to two years and three months with a minimum period of two years.Rosie O'Donnell (pictured) routinely transgressed Federal Election Commission laws by exceeding the $2,700 contribution limit, records show

Rosie O'Donnell may have a few legal issues on her hands after it was revealed that she has repeatedly exceeded the legal limit for campaign donations to at least five Democratic candidates.

According to an investigation conducted by The New York Post, the famous comedian routinely transgressed Federal Election Commission laws by exceeding the $2,700 contribution limit.

'Nothing nefarious' was done when the donations were made, O'Donnell maintained in response to the Post's findings.

'I was not choosing to over donate. If 2700 is the cut off  [candidates] should refund the money,' said O'Donnell.

'I don't look to see who I can donate most to  I just donate assuming they do not accept what is over the limit.'

Campaign donation limits apply separately to primaries, runoffs and general elections.

The well-known liberal actress said that she made the donations via the online liberal fundraising platform ActBlue in order to combat policies pursued by the Trump administration.

The liberal actress said that she made the donations via the online liberal fundraising platform ActBlue to candidates like U.S. Sen. Doug Jones (L) and Rep. Conor Lamb (R)

Rep. Adam Schiff (Pictured), a Democrat from California, received a donation $2,950 during a primary race, just slightly over the legal limit of $2,700

'My anxiety is quelled by donating to those opposing [President Donald] Trump [and] his agenda  especially at night  when most of these were placed.'

An examination of the campaign fillings show that O'Donnell, who has engaged in a years-long feud with the President, made a $4,700 contribution to Alabama Sen. Doug Jones during a special general election bid last year.

Jones had been locked in a tight race with accused child molester and GOP candidate Roy Moore, the Democrat's campaign filings show.

O'Donnell also gave Pennsylvania Rep. Conor Lamb $3,600 during his election run in March, upsetting the Republican favorite in a special contest.

Campaign fillings show that Lamb has received an addition $1,000 for a different congressional district in November.

The district Lamb currently represents is expected to be dissolved by the end of this year.

Lesser-known politicians like Illinois congressional candidate Lauren Underwood (L) and New York contender Omar Vaid (R) also received excessive contributions

A spokesperson for Lamb said that they plan to notify O'Donnell of the excessive donation and refund the extra $900, which can be used to towards another primary if she chooses.

Records show that O'Donnell used five different New York addresses to make the donations along with four variations of her name, according to the Post.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) received a donation $2,950 during a primary race while Lauren Underwood, an Illinois congressional candidate, reported $4,200 from O'Donnell.

The last out-sized donation was made to Omar Vaid, a congressional candidate in Staten Island and Brooklyn, who reported receiving $3,450 in primary donations.

O'Donnell said that she assumed ActBlue automatically 'limits donations to the max allowed' and refunds the rest of the money.

The 56-year-old Emmy Award winner donated more than $90,000 to 50 federal candidates and committees during the 2017-2018 election cycle.

Although the excessive donations break federal FEC guidelines, O'Donnell isn't likely to suffer any devastating consequences.

'Donors are rarely fined for excess contributions and then only if they are hiding the donations from the recipients,' campaign finance attorney Jan Witold Baran said.

'Campaigns generally are not penalized for isolated contributions over a limit. However, multiple excessive donations may lead to an investigation  Fines could result in such cases.'The father of a teenager who was killed in the Parkland, Florida school shooting has been heckled as he protested the National Rifle Association's annual meeting.

Fred Guttenberg spoke on Saturday four blocks from the NRA convention in Dallas, recalling the death of his 14-year-old daughter Jaime at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school on February 14.

'My daughter was hunted at school,' he said as gun rights supporters heckled him with a bullhorn, USA Today reported.

Guttenberg reiterated his policy proposals: universal background checks, laws that will allow police to confiscate guns from people deemed dangerous, banning 'high-capacity' magazines and raising the age to purchase long guns from 18 to 21.

Fred Guttenberg spoke on Saturday four blocks from the NRA convention in Dallas

Guttenberg (left) recalled the death of his 14-year-old daughter Jaime (right) at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school on February 14

Gun rights advocate Drew Deal of Dallas, right, discusses the second amendment with a gun control advocate who would not give her name outside Dallas City Hall on Saturday

About 100 protesters gathered wearing orange ribbons and carrying signs that said 'Shame on you NRA!'

One NRA member dressed in a suit and black cowboy hat briefly scuffled with protesters as the rally began, but was quickly escorted away by police.

The rally was organized by the newly formed NoRA, or 'No Rifle Association,' and was one of two protests outside the NRA's annual convention.

Actress Alyssa Milano said she created the organization NoRA, which organized the second rally, to combat the influence that the gun lobby wields with U.S. politicians.

'It debilitates our lawmakers from implementing common-sense gun reform,' Milano said in an interview.

The other protest on Saturday, a 'Rally4Reform' drew about 200 demonstrators demanding tighter restrictions on firearms sales. Many were dressed in the orange that has become the color of the gun control movement.

They watched as Manuel Oliver, whose 17-year-old son, Joaquin, was killed in in Parkland, spray painted a mural of kids running and a backpack-wearing student in a rifle's crosshairs.

Manuel Oliver places flowers in holes to symbolize the victims of a mass shooting in Parkland as he creates a 'Wall of Demand' during a gun control demonstration outside Dallas City Hall

Waed Alhayek, 19, speaks during a gun control demonstration outside Dallas City Hall organized by StudentsMarch.org during the NRA Annual Meeting & Exhibits

Gun control advocates, in foreground, walk past a rally of gun rights advocates, background, organized by Open Carry Texas as they depart their own demonstration

Many flinched and some sobbed as he hit the wall with a hammer to simulate the sound of gunfire.

'You were in the wrong room yesterday,' Oliver said of Trump, who enthusiastically embraced the NRA on Friday. 'You should be talking to the people we are now.'

Two hours later, about 150 people attended a counterprotest at the same site in support of the NRA, many of them carrying sidearms and with rifles slung over their shoulders.

One of the organizers, Open Carry Texas President C.J. Grisham, said he has criticized the NRA in the past but wanted to show his support for fellow gun owners who have been vilified during gun control protests.

'When you've got groups who have no idea what they're talking about, going after the largest organization dedicated to preserving liberty, then I feel like we have a duty to stand up,' Grisham said.

Carrying a 'Don't Tread On Me' flag, a rifle at her side and a pistol holstered on her hip, Texas resident Teri Horne, 55, engaged in a debate with two male gun control activists.

After 20 minutes of spirited discussion, everyone shook hands and went their separate ways.

Gun advocates enter a park at the conclusion of a anti-gun rally in Dallas on Saturday

Gun advocates carry firearms and hold signs during an open carry firearm rally on the sidelines of the annual National Rifle Association (NRA) meeting in Dallas on Saturday

Gun rights advocates demonstrate outside Dallas City Hall at a rally organized by Open Carry Texas during the NRA Annual Meeting & Exhibits

Gun rights advocate Brad McClain carries a rifle and flag as he walks past a rally of gun control advocates outside Dallas City Hall during the NRA Annual Meeting & Exhibits on Saturday

Gun enthusiasts inspect a rifle at the Daniel Defense booth during the annual NRA convention

Horne said she supports the NRA, with a few recent exceptions.

'The bump stocks gave me pause because that's an open door, a slippery slope, to way more infringements,' she said, referring to the NRA's support for restrictions on the devices, which let semiautomatic rifles fire almost like an automatic weapon.

'They do great work, and I support them but sometimes there's just things we don't agree on,' Horne said.

An estimated 80,000 people were expected in Dallas for the NRA's three-day meeting, which began on Friday.

The debate over access to guns took center stage after a 19-year-old former student used a semiautomatic rifle to gun down 17 students and staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, a suburb of Fort Lauderdale.

Students who survived became national figures, demanding tighter firearms restrictions.

Gun rights advocates cite the right to bear arms guaranteed by the Second Amendment of the US Constitution.A newborn is fighting for her life in the hospital after being struck in the head by a softball during her father's game.

Seven-week-old McKenna Hovenga was airlifted from the softball game in Shell Rock, Iowa, to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, on Wednesday.

The ball had fractured the tiny baby's skull, causing two serious brain bleeds and frequent seizures.

McKenna's parents Kassy and Lee are desperately waiting for their daughter's condition to take a turn for the better.

Seven-week-old McKenna Hovenga was hit in the head with a softball on Wednesday in Shell Rock, Iowa. She was immediately airlifted to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota

The smiley infant is pictured above before the accident. McKenna's father Lee posted the photos on Friday with the caption: 'Its scary that this was the last time I saw her smile, heard her laugh, and got to hold her'

Lee and Kassy, pictured, struggled with infertility for three years before having baby McKenna

On Friday McKenna's father Lee posted two photos of the baby smiling with the caption: 'Its scary that this was the last time I saw her smile, heard her laugh, and got to hold her. This is giving me so much hope right now.

'Im so grateful for all of the prayers and support we are receiving from all across Iowa and America.

'We hear about these accidents on the news every day throughout the cedar valley, never thinking of how many people other than myself are praying for the victims of these tragic accidents.

'It is heartwarming knowing there are so many selfless people in this world that hope and pray for others.'

A YouCaring page has raised more than $14,500 to help cover McKenna's medical treatments.

Mom Kassy holds onto McKenna's tiny hand in the pediatric intensive care unit at Mayo Clinic

The ball's impact fractured McKenna's skull, causing two severe brain bleeds. Doctors have struggled to keep her seizures under control

The ball appears to have hit the front part of McKenna's skull resulting in a serious brain trauma

Family members have been updating a Facebook page called 'Healing for McKenna' with news from the hospital as the baby's condition changes rapidly.

Scans indicate that the ball hit the front of McKenna's skull.

She is currently using a feeding and breathing tube, and doctors have treated her with a variety of different medications to control the seizures.

'At this point the goal is to stop the seizures. They are not sure of the "why" and won't be able to determine that until they can get them under control,' a Facebook post says.

The most recent update as of Saturday night indicates that McKenna's future is uncertain.

'Realistic scenario is that McKenna will remain in the [pediatric ICU] until Friday at least, before transferring to a regular room.

'This is if everything continues to go exactly perfect - and certainly not anything they are even talking about at this point.

'It is very hard to wait and watch and not know the future and that's exactly what we're doing right now.'

The young parents view McKenna as their miracle child because they had struggled to conceive for three years before the baby girl came along.

McKenna is currently using a feeding and breathing tube. Doctors have treated her with a variety of different medications to control the seizuresOn Wednesday Michael Thornton, 41, pleaded guilty to fatally shooting his ex-girlfriend and her daughter

A Georgia man has pleaded guilty to fatally shooting his ex-girlfriend and her daughter.

Michael Thornton, 41, did not take it well when his girlfriend Tasharina Fluker, 41, broke up with him in March 2017.

On the night of March 22, Thornton called Fluker 24 times before showing up at her home in Lithonia, Georgia, with a gun.

He shot and killed Fluker, a mother-of-three and grandmother-of-five, and her 25-year-old daughter Jazania Myles.

Myles' nine-month-old son was present at the time of the murders but wasn't harmed.

When police brought Thornton in for questioning he told officials that the women had 'jumped' him and the gun 'just went off', according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

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Tasharina Fluker, 41, left, and her daughter Jazania Myles, 25, right, were found shot dead on the night of March 22, 2017

Family and friends gathered in front of the home in Lithonia, Georgia, after the murders

Neighbor Trocon Talhouk said he had heard the couple arguing in the middle of the night.

'[Thornton] kept saying: "All I want to do is get in the house,"' Talhouk told WSB. 'And then, shortly after that, I heard a car speed off and the next thing you know fire trucks and police cars were pulling up.'

'According to neighbors, [the two] fight all the time and hes always beating [her].'

More than a year later on Wednesday Thornton pleaded guilty to multiple counts of murder.

He was sentenced to two consecutive life terms in prison.

Reports revealed that Fluker had recently broken up with Thornton. The 41-year-old healthcare worker was a mother-of-three and grandmother-of-five

At the time of the murder Fluker's sister Monique told police about the break up with Thornton.

'He knew he had to leave,' she told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in March 2017. 'She [told me] he's a good guy, but he's not right for her.'

However, Monique said she was shocked that Thornton would commit such a violent act after all of the support Fluker had provided for him.

The night before her murder Fluker had been out celebrating her upcoming 42nd birthday with friends.President Donald Trump has said the time and place has been set for his landmark meeting with North Korea's Kim Jong Un  but kept the world guessing about when and where.

The White House did, however, announce the details of a separate meeting later this month between Trump and South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

That was announced as the US administration pushed back on a report that Trump is considering the withdrawal of US forces from the allied nation.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in (R) and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un raise their hands after signing a joint declaration on the southern side of the truce village

Trump and Moon will meet at the White House on May 22 to 'continue their close co-ordination on developments regarding the Korean Peninsula' following last week's meeting between Moon and Kim.

They will also discuss the US president's own upcoming summit with the North Korean leader, a statement said.

Earlier this week, Trump expressed a preference for holding the 'big event' with Kim in the demilitarised zone or DMZ between the two Koreas, where Moon and Kim met.

President Donald Trump speaks during a roundtable discussion on tax reform at the Cleveland Public Auditorium in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S., May 5, 2018

He also said Singapore was in contention to host what will be the first summit between a US and North Korean leader.

'We now have a date and we have a location. We'll be announcing it soon,' Trump told reporters on Friday from the White House South Lawn before departing for Dallas. He has previously said the summit was planned for May or early June.

A meeting with Kim seemed an outlandish possibility just a few months ago when the two leaders were trading threats and insults over North Korea's development of nuclear weapons.

But momentum for diplomacy has built this year as the rival Koreas have patched up ties.

In March, Trump unexpectedly accepted an offer of talks from Kim after the North Korean dictator agreed to suspend nuclear and ballistic missile tests and discuss 'denuclearisation'.

According to South Korea, Kim has said he would be willing to give up his nuclear missiles if the United States commits to a formal end to the Korean War and pledges not to attack the North.

Trump says time and place set for Kim meeting but troops drawdown not on table, the White House said

South Korea's National Security Office chief Chung Eui-yong (L) is scheduled to meet his counterpart John Bolton in Washington on Friday

But his exact demands for relinquishing weapons that his nation spent decades building remain unclear.

Trump said that withdrawing US forces from South Korea is 'not on the table'.

Some 28,500 US forces are based in the allied nation, a military presence that has been preserved to deter North Korea since the war ended in 1953 without a peace treaty.

'Now I have to tell you, at some point into the future, I would like to save the money,' Trump said later as he prepared to board Air Force One. 'You know we have 32,000 troops there but I think a lot of great things will happen but troops are not on the table. Absolutely.'

The New York Times reported that Trump has asked the Pentagon to prepare options for drawing down American troops.

It cited unnamed officials as saying that was not intended to be a bargaining chip with Kim, but did reflect that a prospective peace treaty between the Koreas could diminish the need for US forces in South Korea.

Trump hinted that the release of Tony Kim (L), Kim Hak Song (R) and Kim Dong Chul (bottom) was in the offing, but again was sparing on the details

Kim Dong Chul, a 62-year-old naturalised US citizen born in South Korea, was arrested last October

At the inter-Korean summit last Friday, held on the southern side of the DMZ, Moon and Kim pledged to rid the peninsula of nuclear weapons and seek a formal end this year to the Korean conflict where the opposing sides remain technically at war more than six decades after fighting halted with an armistice.

National security adviser John Bolton, who met his South Korean counterpart Chung Eui-yong in Washington on Friday, called the Times report 'utter nonsense'.

During his presidential campaign, Trump complained that South Korea does not do enough to financially support the American military commitment.

In March, Washington and Seoul began negotiations on how much South Korea should offset the costs of the deployment in the coming years.

Before Trump meets Kim, Washington is looking for North Korea to address another persistent source of tension between the adversaries: The detention of three Korean-Americans accused of anti-state activities in the North.

Trump hinted that the release of Kim Dong Chul, Kim Hak Song and Tony Kim was in the offing, but again was sparing on the details.

'We're having very substantive talks with North Korea and a lot of things have already happened with respect to the hostages, and I think you're going to see very good things. As I said yesterday, stay tuned,' Trump said, referring to an earlier tweet on the issue.A billboard showing the huge image of a sniper rifle located next to a childcare centre is causing an uproar among residents in a Queensland suburb.

The sign advertising Gunworld has been place on intersection in Rothwell, just north of Brisbane, with a Goodstart Childcare Centre located on the same intersection.

The Brisbane Times reports that complaints have been made by members of the community to the Advertising Standards Bureau.

A billboard (pictured) showing the huge image of a sniper rifle located next to a childcare centre is causing an uproar among residents in a Queensland suburb

The Bureau, however, advised that while advertisements depicting weaponry are not permitted to show violence unless justifiable in the context of the product or service, the billboard only shows the product image.

'The complaints received were about the type of product being advertised, not about the content of the advertisement,' a spokesperson said.

'While members of the community may not want guns advertised, it is not illegal to do so.'

Complainant Robyn Collett told the Brisbane Times that her and others complaints revolved around the location of the advertisement particularly being in a suburban area near a childcare centre.

'In this day and age and everything happening around the world with gun violence, I thought it was highlighting that kind of culture,' she said.

A representative of Gunworld Australia, Jason Muller, said the billboard was not targeted at children but at adult traffic in the area, saying that he doubted young children would be aware of what is on the billboard.A new book has claimed that Robin Williams struggled to remember his lines as he unknowingly suffered from a devastating brain disorder before his tragic 2014 death

A new book has claimed that Robin Williams struggled to remember his lines as he unknowingly suffered from a devastating brain disorder.

Dave Itzkoff's new biography, Robin, seeks to answer the lingering puzzle over Williams' chaotic life and sudden death.

It reveals his final days from the eyes of some of his closest family and friends and admirers in Hollywood.

According to the book, while the Oscar-winning actor was filming Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb, the third movie in the franchise, he was unable to remember his lines.

'He was sobbing in my arms at the end of every day. It was horrible. Horrible,' makeup artist Cheri Minns said, according to the New York Post.

'I said to his people, "I'm a makeup artist. I don't have the capacity to deal with what's happening to him."'

The book reveals that Williams was a deeply complicated and contradictory man who battled not only alcohol, drugs and rampant infidelity but lifelong loneliness and crushing insecurity.

Williams was 'both wildly outgoing and painfully introverted', the book claims.

Those who spent a lot of time with him barely felt they knew him. He would hide behind the myriad comic characters he created, switching between their voices and personalities with mesmerizing speed.

Few people could recall ever having a serious conversation with the real Williams.

According to Williams' third wife, Susan Schneider, the actor started complaining about a variety of symptoms that included trouble urinating, insomnia, loss of his sense of smell and a slight tremor in his left hand.

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It reveals his final days from the eyes of some of his closest family and friends and admirers in Hollywood. According to the book, while he was filming Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb, he was unable to remember his lines. He's pictured with his wife Susan Schneider

According to Williams' third wife, Susan Schneider (right), the actor started complaining about a variety of symptoms that included trouble urinating, insomnia, loss of his sense of smell and a slight tremor in his left hand

'It was like playing whack-a-mole. Which symptom is it this month? I thought, is my husband a hypochondriac? We're chasing it and there's no answers, and by now we'd tried everything.'

His wife later wrote about her husband's symptoms in a journal for Neurology.

'He had a slow, shuffling gait. He hated that he could not find the words he wanted in conversations. He would thrash at night and still had terrible insomnia. At times, he would find himself stuck in a frozen stance, unable to move, and frustrated when he came out of it. He was beginning to have trouble with visual and spatial abilities in the way of judging distance and depth. His loss of basic reasoning just added to his growing confusion.

Billy Crystal also talks about seeing his friend after a four-month absence.

Crystal said Williams was frail and 'uncharacteristically quiet'. After they had dinner and were preparing to say their farewells, Williams suddenly burst into tears.

'What's the matter?' Crystal asked.

'Oh, I'm just so happy to see you. It's been too long. You know I love you,' Williams replied.

On August 11, 2014, the comedian's personal assistant, Rebecca Erwin, became concerned about the comedian after he still had not left his room by 11am.

She then used a paper clip to open his locked bedroom door and found him hanging dead by his belt.

Williams had left no note nor had he given any warning.

Not only his millions of fans, but even close friends failed to comprehend how a genius with a reputation for exuberance and humor could have ended his life in such a brutal and solitary manner.

But it later emerged that Williams, 63, who had long battled depression, had been diagnosed with Parkinson's  a degenerative disease that gradually shuts down the body and mind.

His autopsy revealed he was actually suffering from undiagnosed Lewy body disease, a devastating brain disorder which causes dementia.

'It was like playing whack-a-mole. Which symptom is it this month? I thought, is my husband a hypochondriac? We're chasing it and there's no answers, and by now we'd tried everything.' His wife (pictured in 2011) wrote about her husband's symptoms in a journal for Neurology

Williams as Mork in the Seventies TV Comedy Mork & Mindy with Pam Dawber

This suggested he had been wrongly diagnosed with Parkinson's and that his suicide might have been the act of an unhinged mind rather than a coldly deliberate act.

Either way, it was desperately dark final for the much-loved star of films including Mrs Doubtfire, Good Morning, Vietnam and Dead Poets Society and the irrepressible master mimic who would bring the house down every time he appeared on Parkinson or The Graham Norton Show.

Itzkoff also reveals how Williams's treatment of women repeatedly crossed the line in terms of acceptability, only for his famous twinkly-eyed charm and childlike manner to come to his rescue and earn forgiveness.

It has already emerged how, while making Mork & Mindy, the hugely popular TV comedy series that catapulted Williams to fame in the late 70s, he would grope his pretty co-star Pam Dawber, grabbing her breasts and bottom, breaking wind on her and even exposing himself to her on set. 'Somehow he could get away with it,' she says now. 'It was the 70s, after all.'

But that wasn't the half of it, says Itzkoff, who believes the acute insecurity Williams experienced throughout his life stems from his unsettled childhood.

Williams was born in 1951. His wealthy father's job as a senior executive for the Ford motor company meant the family moved around the US regularly. At school, Williams was always the new boy and had difficulty making friends. He learnt that telling jokes was effective in keeping the bullies off his back.

His father was often away on business and his mother frequently accompanied him, leaving Williams to be raised by servants.

The star  who had two much older half-brothers  sought companionship with his toys, spending hours in an attic of a mansion when they lived in Detroit. He invented different personalities and voices for hundreds of toy soldiers, sometimes borrowing the voices of favourite stand-up comics he had taped from the TV.

In a sense, says Itzkoff, he never left that attic. He would spend his entire life surrounded by fictional friends  the characters he would mimic  and emotionally cut off from real people.

Still, he was deeply influenced by his parents  his fastidious, serious father bequeathing to Williams a fierce intelligence and tendency to lapse into long silences, while his light-hearted mother instilled a love of entertaining others.

They expected him to become a diplomat and his father wasn't pleased when Williams fell in love with acting. He warned him to learn a skill 'such as welding' in case it fell through.

Friends believe that, even if subconsciously, Williams's determination to succeed reflected a desire to impress his father. Teachers at the acclaimed Juilliard drama school in New York certainly weren't that impressed, accusing Williams of ad-libbing for laughs to make up for acting limitations.

He had far more success when he turned to stand-up comedy in Los Angeles, impressing rivals with his arsenal of dirty jokes and astonishing ability at mimicry.

Cocaine was rife in LA's hard-partying comedy scene and it was here that Williams began an 'enduring pattern of behavior,' says Itzkoff, staying up past dawn drinking and taking drugs with other comedians.

Robin Williams and first wife Valerie Velardi pictured in New York City in 1981

Bob Davis, a friend from school days who went to see Williams on stage, was 'stunned' by what he witnessed in a car park after one show. 'Some guy just walked up to him [Williams] with a spoon full of cocaine, held it up to his nose, and  whoosh,' he recalled. 'This wasn't a friend of his  this was a fan who just walked up.'

Valerie Velardi  a dancer and Williams' girlfriend until they married in 1978  tolerated his after-hours debauchery, hoping it would inspire his performances.

She also put up with his heavy drinking and infidelity, even when he boasted about the latter on stage. Valerie claimed any man would have to be a 'saint' to resist the attractive women who threw themselves at her husband.

Perhaps it was such indulgence from his wife that made Williams feel he could get away with any outrageous behaviour while making Mork & Mindy, which ran from 1978 to 1982.

Williams loved to go 'off script' and many of his improvisations were sexual, directed at the women in the cast, Itzkoff reveals.

More often than not, his target was Mindy, played by Dawber. A 26-year-old former model just breaking into acting, she admits she was intimidated by his 'brilliance'. She laughed off his dirty behaviour to her as his way of expressing affection for her.

'I had the grossest things done to me by him,' she told Itzkoff. 'And I never took offence. I was flashed, humped, bumped, grabbed. He probably did it to a lot of people...he'd look at you, really playful, like a puppy, all of a sudden. And then he'd grab your t**s and run away.'

The show's director Howard Storm put it down to the hyperactive Williams just getting 'bored', recalling: 'He'd be doing a paragraph and in the middle of it he would just turn and grab her arse. Or grab a breast. And we'd start again. I'd say, 'Robin, there's nothing in the script that says you grab Pam's arse.' And he'd say, 'Oh, OK.'

Williams with wife number two Marsha Garces as they attend the 'Memories of Me' Premiere Party on September 22, 1988, at the Tavern on the Green in New York City

Garry Marshall, the show's producer, said Williams's 'aim in life was to make Pam Dawber blush'. Going off-stage while she was continuing a scene, Williams 'would take all his clothes off, be standing there totally naked and she was trying to act', he said.

Williams' marriage couldn't survive his mega-fame. Although he publicly disowned the drug, which he called the Devil's Dandruff, Williams binged on cocaine every night and binge-cheated on his wife.

Whenever colleagues would hear she was coming to the Mork & Mindy set they would rush away whichever woman he was seeing at the time. 'He was out all night and screwing everybody in town,' said Storm.

The death of actor John Belushi from a drug overdose in 1982 shook up Williams, who had been carousing with him only hours earlier. After Valerie gave birth to their son, Zak, in 1983, Williams vowed to clean up his act. He overcame his drug and drink problems but found it harder to 'kick' the women.

In 1984, he started a two-year affair with a cocktail waitress, Michelle Carter.

Three years later came Good Morning, Vietnam, his first hit after a string of dismal films, in which he played a DJ on U.S. Forces radio. It was while filming in Vietnam that he started an affair with Marsha Garces, Zak's former nanny and now Williams' trusted assistant and confidante. He and Valerie split in 1988, and Williams married Marsha the following year.

Williams is pictured with his daughter Zelda in 2009 at premiere of his movie Old Dogs

The second Mrs Williams took an active role in managing his career, tempering his often appalling judgment in the films he made. The Nineties was to be a golden period in which he made Mrs Doubtfire, Dead Poets Society and Good Will Hunting, which earned him the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.

The couple had two children, Zelda and Cody. But for Williams, the glass  metaphorically speaking  was always half empty.

He spent considerable time in therapy, his major terror being that he was about to be eclipsed by a younger comedy superstar.

In the 2000s, he again suffered a run of box-office flops and was also rocked by the deaths of his parents and two close actor friends, Christopher Reeve and Richard Pryor.

He started drinking heavily again and considered suicide  'sitting naked', he said, 'in a hotel room with a bottle of Jack Daniel's'.

He drank not just because he was upset by his friends' passing  it was 'more selfish than that', he admitted darkly. 'It's just literally being afraid and you think this will ease the fear.'

In 2006 he went into rehab but, having lied to his wife about his drinking, he had ruined another marriage. They split up in 2008 and Williams returned to Tiburon, the quiet California town where he had last lived with his parents.

It was a trip down memory lane in more ways than one. He bought a house whose main feature was a huge windowless room  more like a bunker  where he meticulously curated a vast collection of toy soldiers, thousands strong and covering many wars. The few visitors who were allowed in reported that it was spotless.

'I think if you moved a soldier at all, he would know it,' said a friend. 'People wondered, why is he collecting them, still? But I think they were his friends.'

With two ex-wives to support, he had to get back to work but in 2009 he needed major heart surgery.

By then, a new woman had emerged in his chaotic private life  Susan Schneider, a graphic designer and recovering alcoholic.

Wife three Susan Schneider with Williams as they arrive at the premiere of Walt Disney Pictures' Old Dogs at the El Capitan Theatre on November 9, 2009, in Hollywood, California

They married in 2011 but, two years later, he was beset by health problems including dramatic weight loss and motor function impairments.

Williams couldn't remember his lines while making a sequel to the film Night At The Museum and would pour his heart out to Cheri Minns, his long-time make-up artist. 'He was sobbing in my arms at the end of every day,' she says. 'At night I was on my computer, looking up, 'How to deal with a paranoid' so that I wouldn't say the wrong thing.'

The following May he was diagnosed with Parkinson's but couldn't understand why doctors assured him he had another 'good ten years' while he knew his brain was 'out of control'. His managers told close friends to keep quiet about his depression.

To Williams, says Itzkoff, the diagnosis was 'the realisation of one of his most deeply felt and lifelong fears, to be told that he had an illness that would rob him of his faculties, by small imperceptible increments every day, that would hollow him out and leave behind a depleted husk of a human being'.

At 10.30pm on Sunday, August 10, 2014, Williams said goodnight to his wife and took an iPad with him to his bedroom (they had begun to sleep separately since his health deteriorated).

Susan thought the iPad was a good sign as he hadn't read anything for months. It wasn't.

She left the house at 10.30 the next morning, believing he was still asleep. Shortly before noon his assistant found his body hanging. He had cuts on his left wrist. A bloodied penknife was nearby.

There may never be a definitive answer to what prompted his suicide. Many friends insist it must have been the dementia, refusing to believe that such a loving father would have consciously abandoned his family. Others, such as Crystal, say it was reasoned and deliberate.

Crystal recalls Williams quizzing him about what happened to Muhammad Ali after he got Parkinson's. 'He was seeing himself,' he says. 'My heart breaks that he suffered and only saw one way out.'

It's certainly clear that Williams lived to work. First wife Valerie once summed him up as a 'stimulus junkie', addicted to performing in front of an audience as much as to cocaine or alcohol.

'He operated on working. That was the true love of his life,' said make-up artist Cheri.

'Above his children, above everything, if he wasn't working he was a shell of himself. And when he worked, it was like a light-bulb was turned on.'

Robin by Dave Itzkoff will be published in June by Sidgwick & Jackson.A federal judge has rejected a request from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's prosecutors, dealing the probe a legal blow.

US District Court Judge Dabney Friedrich issued the brief order on Saturday evening, denying Mueller's request to delay the scheduled Wednesday arraignment for Concord Management and Consulting, Politico reported.

Concord is one of the three Russian companies and 13 Russian individuals that were accused in a February indictment of using social media to inflame divisions during the 2016 election.

Prosecutors expected the case to proceed without any appearance or defense from the foreign defendants - and were stunned when two lawyers appeared on Concord's behalf last month and began demanding extensive document production from the Mueller probe.

A federal judge has rejected a request from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's prosecutors, dealing the probe a legal blow

Suddenly, it seemed it might be a bid to force Mueller to turn over sensitive documents, and perhaps even force prosecutors into an embarrassing dismissal of charges that they had never planned to press in open court.

In a motion late Friday, Muellers prosecutors disclosed that Concords attorneys, DC-based Eric Dubelier and Kate Seikaly, had made a slew of discovery requests demanding nonpublic details about the case and the investigation.

The prosecutors asked the court for a delay in order to determine whether Concord had been properly served, and verify that Dubelier and Seikaly were authorized to represent the company.

The defense attorneys blasted back in a response to the motion on Saturday, accusing the Mueller team of 'pettifoggery'.

'Defendant voluntarily appeared through counsel as provided for in [federal rules], and further intends to enter a plea of not guilty,' the filing read.

'Defendant has not sought a limited appearance nor has it moved to quash the summons. As such, the briefing sought by the Special Counsels motion is pettifoggery.'

Judge Friedrich's order means the arraignment will continue as scheduled on Wednesday.

The three companies named in the indictment are all reportedly controlled by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian businessman known as Russian President Vladimir Putin's 'chef'.

Prigozhin is also one of the 13 individuals criminally charged in the case.A baby born four months premature in Adelaide is fighting for life while her New Zealand parents are struggling to make ends meet in Australia.

Baby Angelina, born on April 20, is relying on breathing help and an IV for blood transfusions in the Woman's and Children's Hospital in Adelaide.

A dramatic video of the the baby, weighing just 510 grams and 29cm, has been posted online as the couple appeal for help.

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Baby Angelina (pictured) born four months premature in Adelaide is fighting for her life while New Zealand parents are struggling to make ends meet in Australia

The baby (pictured) is relying on breathing help and an IV for blood transfusions in the Woman's and Children's Hospital in Adelaide

Parents Lotomau (Mau) Matekohi, 24, and her husband Reginald (Reg), 23, from Tokoroa, New Zealand, were visiting Adelaide when the baby was born premature.

Mau was rushed to the hospital in the middle of the night and gave birth to her daughter 16 months early.

The baby is currently in a critical condition while the parents stay by her side according to the 'give a little' fundraising page set up for the couple.

Mother Lotomau (Mau) Matekohi (pictured) was rushed to the hospital in the middle of the night and gave birth to her daughter 16 months early

The baby (pictured) is currently in a critical condition while the parents stay by her side according to the 'give a little' fundraising page set up for the couple

'Precious baby, Angelina, was born at 23 weeks and is now fighting to survive and to ultimately overcome the challenges of being born so early,' the page states.

'He condition is currently critical, however, her progress has been nothing short of a miracle.

'Doctors have said her heart is strong and every day is a step forward.'

In an interview with the New Zealand Herald, father Reg said the baby 'wasn't breathing' when it came out but miraculously drew its first breath after being put on the ventilator.

Parents Lotomau (Mau) Matekohi (pictured), 24, and her husband Reginald (Reg), 23, from Tokoroa, New Zealand, were visiting Adelaide, the town they met, when the baby was born premature

Father Reg said the baby 'wasn't breathing' when it came out but miraculously drew its first breath after being put on the ventilator.

Doctors gave the parents (pictured) the option of letting the baby die in their arms

Doctors gave the parents the option of letting the baby die in their arms.

'The doctor said it was highly unlikely she would respond, but then he put the ventilator in and she started breathing,' he said.

The 'struggling' University students fighting to keep their youth allowance, according to a crowdfunding page started by Reg's mother.

The fundraising page has so far raised nearly $5,000 but the couple will need much more to survive in Adelaide where they are staying with the baby 'every minute.

Her condition is currently critical, however, her progress has been nothing short of a miracle. Baby is pictured.

A fundraising page set up for the couple has so far raised nearly $5,000 but they will need much more to survive in Adelaide where they are staying with the baby (pictured) 'every minute.

'While the people of Adelaide have already extended the hand of generosity, the couple have no family in Adelaide,' the page states.

'Angelina needs support to breathe, has nutrients provided through tubes in her nose including Mau's milk, and an IV for blood transfusions, extractions and for medicines,' the page states.

'Angelina has a bleed on the right side of her brain that is serious. Her strong heart is unfortunately pumping blood into her lungs, which is posing a very serious concern.'Boris Johnson flew to the United States today for a last-ditch diplomatic effort to persuade Donald Trump not to scrap the Iran nuclear deal.

The Foreign Secretary will meet vice president Mike Pence amid a diplomatic scramble to save the deal negotiated under Barack Obama.

The US president has fiercely criticised the agreement, which eased sanctions on Tehran in exchange for commitments to abandon its nuclear weapons programme.

French President Emmanuel Macron has warned scrapping the deal could lead to war.

Mr Trump will decide on May 12 whether to reimpose sanctions and effectively torpedo the international alliance behind the deal.

Boris Johnson flew to the United States today for a last-ditch diplomatic effort to persuade Donald Trump not to scrap the Iran nuclear deal

US president Donald Trump fiercely criticised the agreement, which eased sanctions on Tehran in exchange for commitments to abandon its nuclear weapons programme

The Foreign Secretary travelled Washington today to launch two days of talks with senior administration officials including vice president Mike Pence.

He will also meet national security adviser John Bolton and key foreign policy leaders in Congress.

As well as Iran, Mr Johnson's talks are expected to cover North Korea  ahead of President Trump's planned meeting with Kim Jong Un  and the situation in Syria.

Mr Trump has threatened to withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) deal signed by the US, China, Russia, Germany, France and Britain with Iran.

Under its terms Iran is committed to a peaceful nuclear energy programme.

But Mr Trump has been a vocal critic of the agreement and in January issued an ultimatum to 'either fix the deal's disastrous flaws, or the United States will withdraw'.

In a magazine interview, French President Emmanuel Macron warned a decision by Trump to withdraw could lead to war.

'We would open the Pandora's box. There could be war,' Macron told German weekly magazine Der Spiegel, adding 'I don't think that Donald Trump wants war.'

Macron urged Trump not to withdraw when he met him in Washington late last month.

Iran president Hassan Rouhani has warned Mr Trump the West will regret 'like never before' if it sinks the nuclear deal with his country

Earlier this month Mr Johnson stressed the importance of keeping the deal 'while building on it in order to take account of the legitimate concerns of the US'.

The European Union has said the deal 'is working and it needs to be preserved'.

Ahead of his trip to Washington, Mr Johnson said: 'On so many of the world's foreign policy challenges the UK and US are in lockstep.

'We've seen this recently with the response to the poisonings in Salisbury, our strong response to Assad's use of chemical weapons in Syria, and the effort to denuclearise North Korea.

'The UK, US and European partners are also united in our effort to tackle the kind of Iranian behaviour that makes the Middle East region less secure  its cyber activities, its support for groups like Hezbollah, and its dangerous missile programme, which is arming Houthi militias in Yemen.'Advertisement

The yearly protest against cannabis prohibition held in the hills of New South Wales has once again attracted a host of revelers who made the pilgrimage to the tiny village to support their message of decriminalisation.

The Mardi Grass Festival is an annual rally held in Nimbin, NSW, every year since 1993 to protest cannabis laws and educate people on the benefits of the drug, including medicinal.

Since 1993 Nimbin has become synonymous with the Mardi Grass Festival and the colourful characters found during the May weekend when it is held.

Hipsters both young and old come together to party and enjoy the weekend festivities along with a strong contingent of police

The festival, the height of the area's 'weed tourism' calendar, is also an annual boost to the small village's economy.

Revellers were pictured in an array of outfits and emblazoned in marijuana leaf motifs as they partied the weekend away.

One reveler appeared to be dancing down the street with nothing but a sprinkling of green glitter to cover her chest

A couple opted for matching body paint and glitter to cover their nipples, both flaunting their flesh in topless attire

Hipsters both young and old come together in Nimbin each year for the Mardi Grass Festival

Visitors to the Mardi Grass festival push up a giant inflatable joint above their heads as part of the Global Marijuana March in the eastern Australian town of Nimbin

A number of artists and stall holders also make the trip to the festival to sell their goods and add to the feel of the weekend

Two festival-goers looked to be taking a back seat on the festivities, sitting down on the grass for a bit of down time

A shirtless male with long brunette dreadlocks opted to have some green body paint in the shape of a leaf drawn on his chest

Freeodm of expression is encouraged at the Mardi Grass Festival

One reveler rocked a relaxed style in a pair of interestingly ripped denim jeans and Vans while enjoying a beverage

A pop-up bong shop seemed to be doing good business, with people dressed in colourful clothing lined along its display table

Everything from glow in the dark water pipes to rolling papers and hemp material clothing is also on offer during the festival

A woman with a fishnet glove focused on the task at hand as she lit what appeared to be a joint with a cigarette lighter

Three police officers seemed to be having a chat with a group of men sitting on the grass with their backpacks - one wore a shirt saying 'Saturdays are for the boys'

One festival-goer seemed to have put plenty of thought into his 'Bill and Ben the Pot Head Men' costume, as a lady stood behind holding a 'one love' sign

A man dressed in an infamous Bintang singlet playing an electric guitar on the main street of Nimbin

One festival goer needed to rest his eyes after indulging in festivities a little too muchTwo men have been charged over a shocking Anzac Day attack on a war veteran.

Afghanistan veteran Ty Rodda, 32, stopped at the Cenotaph at Allsop Park in Nimbin on Anzac Day to pay his respects when three men approached him, theNorthern Star reported.

The men allegedly knocked him unconscious from behind and stole his personal property.

Afghanistan veteran Ty Rodda, 32, was allegedly knocked unconscious from behind by three men

Mr Rodda was rushed to Nimbin Hospital, before being transferred to Lismore Base Hospital for facial fracture treatment

The veteran was rushed to Nimbin Hospital, before being transferred to Lismore Base Hospital for facial fracture treatment.

Following an investigation officers attempted to speak to a 31-year-old man on Friday.

As police tried to search the man he allegedly resisted and struck out at the officers.

Police eventually seized drugs and an electronic weapon from the man.

The man was charged and is set to appear at Lismore Local Court on Monday.

At 9pm on Saturday investigators attended a property inn Nimbin where the arrested at 35-year-old man.

He was charged with with aggravated robbery with wounding/grievous bodily harm.

The man as refused bail to appear at Lismore Bail Court on Sunday.There's bad news for the world's oldest living terrestrial animal, Jonathan the giant tortoise.

At the age of 186 - and now blind - the famous resident of St Helena won't be having surgery to remove cataracts, as vets have decided it's too risky.

Jonathan, who has also lost his sense of smell, was approximately 50 years old when he arrived on the small island in the south Atlantic from the Seychelles in 1882.

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At the age of 186, Jonathan the tortoise - the world's oldest living land animal - won't be having surgery to remove cataracts, as vets on his home island of St Helena have decided it's too risky. (He is pictured in October 2017)

Jonathan was approximately 50 years old when he arrived on the small island in the south Atlantic from the Seychelles in 1882. (He is pictured in 1900, during the Second Boer War, being watched by a guard and a prisoner-of-war)

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon said earlier this week: 'St Helena's most famous resident, Jonathan the tortoise, is looked after by the island vet who ensures a high-standard of care to the world's oldest terrestrial animal.

'After much deliberation on the island, the vet decided removing Jonathan's cataracts was too high-risk a procedure.'

The Conservative peer added that Jonathan continues to lead an active life.

The reptile can still be found happily plodding around the the grounds of Plantation House, the home of the governor of St Helena.

Following the death of Harriet, a 175-year-old giant Galapagos Land tortoise, in 2005 in Australia, Jonathan has been recognised as the world's oldest living land animal.

In 1991, vets decided Jonathan (above in 1997) needed a girlfriend and he was given a mate - called Frederica. Three decades later, it was discovered that his lover was actually a male, who was renamed Frederic

He wasn't given his name until the 1930s by governor Sir Spencer Davis.

In his time on St Helena, he has seen 28 British governors come and go; eight British monarchs from George IV to Elizabeth II have been crowned during his lifetime; and 51 British Prime Ministers have served at 10 Downing Street.

In 1991, vets decided Jonathan needed a girlfriend and he was given a mate - called Frederica.

However, three decades later - after the vets went to repair a lesion on the reptile's shell - it was discovered that his long-term lover was actually a male, and renamed Frederic.Pretana Morgan is helped at the scene by a friend

A grieving mother yesterday urged teenagers to 'stop, please' and 'make the most of your one life' after her own 17-year-old son was gunned down on London's streets on Saturday night.

Rhyhiem Ainsworth Barton's mother Pretana Morgan, 38, said she 'couldn't have asked for a better son'.

The teenager - who rapped under the name GB - has been named by his mother who said he had 'had so much potential' for the future.

She added: 'My son was a very handsome boy.

'This is not life. My son's a good boy,' she said.

'He was going to do 13 subjects at school before they kicked him out.

'He was a bright boy.'

His devastated mother told how she found her fatally wounded son surrounded by armed police early on Saturday evening.

First picture of Rhyhiem Ainsworth Barton, 17 who was shot dead last night in south London

'I was sat in the park and someone said they heard the Peckham boys were around.

'I came looking for Rhyhiem and a girl said she saw boys running up and down.

Devastated Pretana Morgan, 38, held Mr Barton's things as she sat at the scene of the shooting

'I saw a boy on the floor, it was my son on the floor with police with guns over him.'

She claimed he was targeted by thugs from a gang who terrorised the Brandon Estate in a silver BMW armed with a shotgun on Friday and Saturday night.

Talented rapper Rhyhiem had previously been stabbed a the gang in May 2016 and she was so worried she sent him to live with relatives in Jamaica, where she was born, for his own safety.

He only returned back to London in February.

She continued: 'We do not need this.

Ms Morgan pictured said she 'couldn't have asked for a better son' who was 'trying to make a difference' by learning to work with children

'We cannot be doing this all the time, teenagers you need to stop please.

'Enjoy your life, your youth, get knowledge in your head, get wisdom and knowledge.

'You only have one life, you better make use of it.

'They shot him from a car, there will be no forensics.

Ms Morgan, 38, displays some mementos of her dead son 17-year-old Rhyhiem Barton who was shot dead including a photograph of his birth

'I do not know when I am going to see my son.

'I need to see my son as soon as possible I need to hold him, my handsome boy.

'There is no gang round here, we live as a family.

'He was just trying to focus and trying to be an architect, he was not a bad child.'

She criticised the police, saying: 'We're not being protected because of the police. The police are the ones putting us in danger.'

Rhyhiem's best friend Abigael Adeoye, 17, said: 'We were friends from when we were young at primary school.

'He was really bubbly, he used to message me and say 'Abigael come and see me'.

'I should have told him to stay at home yesterday.'

Ms Morgan brought with her to the scene her son's driving license, old teeth, birth tag and a picture of the two of them together

Mr Barton's godmother Lacey Main told how he had been chased by a gang armed with 'swords and machetes' before being sent to Jamaica 'for his own safety'.

During the ambush the teenager ran to his godmother's home where the gang stood outside, demanding she send him out.

She said hey screamed: 'We want Rhyhiem! We are going to kill him. Send him out!'

A year later aspiring architect Rhyhiem was fatally shot in the chest just weeks after returning to the Brandon Estate in Kennington, south London, where he lived with his mum and six-year-old sister.

His godmother, Lacey Main, said: 'This has been going on for three years - they come and stab people randomly.

'About a year ago they chased him into my home and they broke down my gates and they were standing there with machetes and swords.

'They said 'We want Rhyhiem! We are going to kill him. Send him out!'

She added: 'I will not send a child out for a killing.'

A map to show the 62 killings which have taken place in London since Christmas

Police officers were called to reports of gunshots on Cooks Road in Southwark at 6.05pm on Saturday.

The teenager, who is believed to have lived locally, was found injured with a gun shot wound on nearby Warham Street and was pronounced dead just before 7pm.

He is the fifteenth teenager to be killed on the streets of the capital since Christmas.

Forensic officers were at the scene today searching for evidence

The teenager, who is believed to have lived locally, was found injured with a gun shot wound on nearby Warham Street and was pronounced dead just before 7pm.

The fatal shooting - the second in the capital in less than a week - came the day after US President Donald Trump compared a London hospital to a 'war zone'.

St John the Divine Primary School is just outside the police cordon and inside the tape a police tent has been set up.

No arrests have been made and detectives appealing for witnesses.

The fatal shooting - the second in the capital in less than a week - came the day after US President Donald Trump compared a London hospital to a 'war zone'.

St John the Divine Primary School is just outside the police cordon and inside the tape a police tent has been set up

No arrests have been made and detectives appealing for witnesses

It marks the latest in a series of murders to hit London amid concerns for the rising murder rate.

A Scotland Yard spokeswoman said: 'Police were called to reports of gunshots heard on Cooks Road at around 6.05pm on Saturday.

'Officers, including firearms officers, attended.

A 17-year-old boy has died after being shot on Cooks Road in Southark, south London

Police officers were called to reports of gunshots on Cooks Road in Southwark at 6.05pm on Saturday

'A 17-year-old boy was found nearby on Warham Street suffering from a gunshot injury.

'The London Ambulance Service and London's Air Ambulance provided First Aid.

'He was pronounced dead at 6.56pm.Next of kin have been informed. Formal identification is yet to take place. A post-mortem will be held in due course..'

Detectives from the Homicide and Major Crime Command are investigating.

The spokeswoman added: 'There have been no arrests and inquiries continue.Advertisement

Revellers made the most of their Bank Holiday weekend in Blackpool and Birmingham with a night out on the town.

Party-goers were pictured taking to the streets of the Lancashire town on Friday night to enjoy themselves amid scorching Bank Holiday weather.

The fun-loving revellers were seen in a variety of outfits from smart dresses to painted white T-shirts, while one man was seen dressed as a traffic cone and another group of men appeared to be dressed as Jimmy Savile.

One woman was seen boldly juggling flames while others rested their feet by sitting on the pavement or having their friends give them a piggy-back ride.

Last night in Birmingham thousands of revellers made their way onto Broad Street, taking advantage of the extra day to recover on Monday.

Stag and hen parties were among those who enjoyed the warm late evening temperatures on the nightclub strip with 10 venues within half a mile of each other.

Thousands of Bank Holiday revellers took to the streets of Birmingham for a night out on Broad Street

Two girls in fancy dress walk along Broad Street in Birmingham city centre during their Saturday night out

People cross Broad Street in Birmingham city centre during May bank holiday weekend

A girl wears a sombrero while sat down on Broad Street in Birmingham city centre during May the Bank Holiday weekend

A man in a fairy costume and riding a children's bicycle was pictured in Birmingham along with a girl in a bride's outfit

Party-goers are pictured queuing outside Popworld on Broad Street in Birmingham city centre

Two girls walk along Broad Street in Birmingham city centre during the May bank holiday weekend

Revellers enjoyed their night out on the town in Blackpool as they made the most of their Bank Holiday weekend

One woman was seen getting a piggy-back ride from her friend on Friday night in Blackpool

Two women wearing colourful outfits lead a group of party-goers who hit the town in Blackpool on Friday

A woman in a bright green skirt is carried by a fellow party-goer wearing a high-visibility jacket

A group of men in matching Jimmy Savile-style wigs and tracksuits were among the revellers in Blackpool on Friday night

Two women with hand prints on their tops hold hands as they walk through the streets of Blackpool on Friday

This woman was seen getting a piggy-back ride to rest her feet during a night out in Blackpool

One woman in a leopard-print outfit was seen juggling flames during the night out in Blackpool

One man tries to restrain his friend as two people appear to scuffle outside a Wetherspoons in Blackpool

A man without a shirt is seen outside a club with a woman during the Friday night revelry in Blackpool

Two of the men in matching wigs and colourful tracksuits are pictured during their night out in Blackpool

One woman wearing heels and colourful trousers rests her feet during the night out in Blackpool

This man was dressed as a traffic cone and attempted to give directions to a passing taxi in Blackpool

This reveller filled his stomach with a takeaway as he took a rest during the night out in Blackpool on FridayAustralia's oldest scientist and renowned academic David Goodall, must be judged to be of sound mind before he can end his life with a voluntary assisted dying program in Switzerland next week.

However, the end of life procedure will only go ahead once two doctors agree he is 100 per cent clear on his wishes, founder of the Lifecycle clinic doctor Erika Preisig said.

The eminent botanist and ecologist does not have a terminal illness, but is seeking voluntary euthanasia - which is illegal in Australia - on the grounds his quality of life has deteriorated.

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Dr Goodall celebrated his 104th birthday in early April and has since decided it is time to access voluntarily euthanasia in Switzerland

The 104-year-old got on a plane in Perth last Wednesday surrounded by friends and family saying their final goodbyes, including his grandson Matt (pictured)

The Swiss clinic has helped 73 people to die over the past year.

Professor Goodall doesn't have a terminal illness but says his quality of life has deteriorated at age 104.

He attempted suicide about two months ago after suffering a fall, an incident that ended up in hospital.

Professor Goodall's daughter could only get him out after arranging an independent psychiatric review, Exit International founder doctor Philip Nitschke said.

The scientist then decided it was time for him to die, Dr Nitschke said.

Dr Goodall's grandson, Matt Goodall (far left) on his grandfather's 104th birthday, is pictured alongside his mother Karen and brother Graham

'I no longer find much joy in life. Up to, even up to, say, the age of 90 I was enjoying life. But not now,' Professor Goodall told the ABC.

Dr David Goodall arrived at Perth airport to board a flight to Switzerland to end his life wearing a jumper that read 'Ageing Disgracefully'

Goodall worked at Perth's Edith Cowan University, and said he had become resentful about having to go abroad to die due to the absence of voluntary euthanasia laws in Australia.

There were a few tears but most of the friends and family who gathered to farewell the 104-year-old at Perth Airport on Wednesday said they had prepared themselves to say goodbye.

From his wheelchair, he hugged them all in turn, thanked them and wished them a wonderful life before he and his nurse boarded the plane.

Doctors who initially treated him had threatened to prevent him from leaving Australia but he ultimately left the country unhindered.

A crowdfunding effort from Exit International, a euthanasia advocacy group, raised almost $US20,000 to cover Goodall's travel costs, including two business class tickets for him and his nurse.

Professor Goodall is currently being assisted by an organisation in Basel with the help of Dr Nitschke.

He flew to France on Wednesday to visit family, with the procedure planned to take place in Switzerland on May 10.

Those who are seeking support and information about suicide prevention can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14.Theresa May today vowed she would take Britain out of the EU customs union after Brexit as senior ministers threatened an open revolt over the issue.

The Prime Minister is trying to rally support for a unique 'hybrid' model of customs ties Brexiteers fear is a back door to tying Britain into EU rules.

But after her Brexit war cabinet was deadlocked on the issue on Wednesday, Mrs May repeated her commitment to leaving the current system.

Business Secretary Greg Clark was sent out by Downing Street today to advocate for a customs deal that protects jobs, warning on the Marr show that failing in the negotiations meant a hard Brexit with no deal that threatened 3,500 staff at Toyota.

Business groups immediately issued supportive statements raising speculation of a coordinated effort by pro-Remain supporters to bolster the customs partnership.

And the Tory civil war was laid bare in minutes as leading Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg appeared on the Peston programme to denounce the customs partnership model.

As infighting over the British position continued, DUP leader Arlene Foster - who props up the Tories in Government - revealed today she spoke to the Prime Minister about the issues yesterday.

Mrs Foster told the BBC's Andrew Marr there was a 'constant conversation' about the final arrangements, which are critical to making the Irish border work after Brexit.

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, Brexit Secretary David Davis and Trade Secretary Liam Fox all opposed the hybrid model in Wednesday's crunch meeting of the Brexit war cabinet.

Brexiteer Cabinet ministers have threatened Theresa May (pictured today in Maidenhead) with open revolt if she presses on with a controversial plan for a 'hybrid' customs deal with the EU

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson (centre), Brexit Secretary David Davis (right) and Trade Secretary Liam Fox (left) all opposed the plan in Wednesday's meeting

As infighting over the British position continued, DUP leader Arlene Foster (pictured today on the Marr show) - who props up Mrs May as PM - revealed today she spoke to the Prime Minister about the issues yesterday

The idea - one of two Britain placed on the negotiating table last year - would in theory create close enough ties with the EU to avoid a hard border in Ireland and still allow Britain to strike trade deals.

But there are no similar agreements elsewhere in the world and Brexiteers fear it will be used as a 'trojan horse' to effectively keep Britain inside the full customs union, sabotaging any new trade deal.

The other British option is to streamline the UK-EU borders as much as possible but accept some checks as the price for striking new trade deals.

Brussels has already rejected both proposals.

Mrs May repeated her plans to leave the EU's customs union today.

What is a customs partnership with the EU? A customs partnership is less formal than the current EU customs union the UK is a member of. Under the proposals, Britain would stay in a customs union with the EU for some sectors, while leaving it for others. This would mean it would impose the same tariffs as the Brussels bloc on some goods, but set its own on others. Backers of the plan say his would facilitate free trade in areas where Britain does a lot of its business with the EU, while freeing the country to sign new free trade deals with other countries. One possibility could be keeping the UK and EU in a customs union for trade in goods, but allowing divergence for the services sector. Under the so-called 'hybrid model', the UK would collect EU import tariffs on behalf of Brussels and then pay it to the EU. But Brexiteers are critical of the plan. which they think is unworkable and cumbersome. They fear it will effectively stop the UK from being able to negotiate free trade deals around the world after Brexit. Advertisement

Writing in The Sun On Sunday, the Premier said she had an 'absolute determination to make a success of Brexit, by leaving the single market and customs union and building a new relationship with EU partners that takes back control of our borders, our laws and our money'.

She said the UK was 'making good progress towards that goal and we will carry on doing so with resolution in the months ahead'.

Business Secretary Greg Clark opened the door to extending a transition period on customs with the EU.

Mr Clark said it could be a case of implementing a new customs arrangement 'as soon as you can do'.

Speaking on BBC One's Andrew Marr Show, Mr Clark said it would take some time for new customs arrangements to be put in place, saying it was 'possible' it may take until 2023 to put new infrastructure in place.

He added: 'What I'm suggesting is as part of the work over the next few weeks, I think it would be a mistake to move from one situation to another to a third.

'If we can make progress as to what, which I think we can, as to what the right arrangement is for the long term, then it may be possible to bring that in over that period of time.'

Mr Clark cited the example of Toyota, saying it was making major decisions about future production and there were fears over how the firm's 'just in time' manufacturing model would operate with customs checks.

The company employs 3,500 people in the UK, Mr Clark said, adding that jobs had to be at the forefront of Britain's future customs model.

Business Secretary Greg Clark was sent out by Downing Street today to advocate for a customs deal that protects jobs, warning on the Marr show that failing in the negotiations meant a hard Brexit with no deal that threatened 3,500 staff at Toyota

The Business Secretary went on to say the customs partnership model meant parts could be imported without any checks at the border or paperwork.

Mr Clark added: 'But it's not perfect, because what it means is that if we have imports from other countries where we've abolished the tariff, there has to be an arrangement where you pay back.'

Ex-MEP peers accused of backing second EU referendum because of Brussels pensions Six peers who voted for a second Brexit referendum have been accused of acting in the interests of Brussels because they are due huge pensions. Lord Cashman, Baroness Crawley, Lord Tomlinson Baroness Bowles, Baroness Ludford and Lord Teverson are all former members of the European Parliament. Their parliamentary careers will lead to pension payouts when they retire. All six voted in the Lords last week for a re-run of the historic 2016 vote. Former Cabinet Minister Priti Patel l told the Sun on Sunday the public would be outraged peers were trying to reverse Brexit 'in a show of loyalty to their Brussels pay packet'. Lord Cashman rejected the claim. He said: 'To suggest my votes or beliefs are in any way connected to my receipt of a contributory pension is a travesty of the truth.' Advertisement

He went on to say: 'Of course business wants certainty. Everyone recognises that. But every business that I talk to wants the certainty that the agreement is the right one.

'No-one wants the certainty, which is available at any time, of simply collapsing the negotiations, saying 'well, we're not going to bother with this, we're going to accept frictions at the border', for example.'

British Chambers of Commerce director general Adam Marshall immediately issued a supportive statement: 'An agreement to maintain something close to the status quo until new rules, technology, infrastructure and staff are in place is a no-brainer. The alternative is greater uncertainty, disrupted supply chains and one costly adjustment after another.

'Every trading business I speak to wants practical considerations, not ideology, to drive Cabinet decision-making and negotiations with the EU. The customs question is no different.'

The Confederation of British Industry's director-general Carolyn Fairbairn said: 'We therefore welcome the Secretary of State's recognition that any customs solution must deliver this goal, with no tariffs or additional border checks, delays or red tape for EU/UK exports and imports, which account for nearly half of all UK trade.

'This is a time for pragmatic solutions, not ideology.'

Within minutes, influential Tory Eurosceptic Jacob Rees-Mogg hit back for Brexiteers and warned the 'customs partnership' model would effectively mean remaining in the European Union.

Tory Eurosceptic Jacob Rees-Mogg warned the 'customs partnership' model would effectively mean remaining in the European Union

'The issue with the customs partnership is to be effective it would have to keep us in the single market as well,' he told ITV's Peston on Sunday.

He said it would be 'odd' for the Prime Minister to back a policy that effectively breached her commitment on leaving both the customs union and single market.

'We are supporting the Prime Minister in what she set out in the manifesto - most importantly because that is our deal with the voters - but also in her Lancaster House, Florence and Mansion House speeches.

'I think it would be odd if the Prime Minister were to write one thing for the Sun on Sunday and for another thing to be going on in Downing Street,' he said.

'I trust the Prime Minister not to do things that are odd.'

As the row continues, a Cabinet source told the Sunday Telegraph: 'It would be unimaginable for the Prime Minister to press on with the hybrid model after it has been torn apart by members of her own Brexit committee.

'Overruling the committee would see many Brexiteers lose faith in the current leadership.

'The PM should instead adopt the [highly streamlined] option and not try to force through a plan which would fail to meet the promises made during the referendum and in the Tory manifesto.'

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell said 'the Conservatives are going to fall apart on this' as wrangling over the Brexit strategy continued.

The Labour frontbencher set out his party's plan on BBC1's Andrew Marr Show: 'What we have said very clearly - and I think actually quite a lot of the Conservatives are going to follow us in this - we remain within the customs union during the transition period, we want to negotiate a customs union, that will solve the Northern Ireland border problem, which I think is intractable.'

Mr McDonnell said there 'will be movement from the EU' towards the Labour position.

He told BBC1's Andrew Marr Show that as well as the customs union plan 'we want to get as close to the single market as we possibly can'.

Pro-EU Tories, seeking to capitalise on the lack of agreement in the Cabinet and a Lords victory on the customs union, have pushed for Mrs May to abandon her Brexit strategy and instead commit to a Norway-style approach within the European Economic Area (EEA) and European Free Trade Association (Efta).

Such a move would be unacceptable to many Brexit supporter because it would leave the UK expected to accept free movement, although its advocates claim Mrs May would have some ability to impose conditions.

Pro-EU Tories including Stephen Hammond (file image) are seeking to capitalise on the lack of agreement in the Cabinet and a Lords victory on the customs union to push Mrs May to abandon her Brexit strategy and instead commit to a Norway-style approach

Former Conservative minister Stephen Hammond told The Independent: 'It allows you to have some conversations over new regulation, in that you are consulted and are part of the process before it comes in, though it's still not co-determination, of course.

'But the other reason I think it's a good idea, is that if you look at the EEA terms of reference, it is clear there is more leeway to impose restrictions on freedom of movement.'

A Lords amendment which would require the Government to negotiate continued membership of the EEA could be put to a vote on Tuesday, but Labour peers have reportedly been told to abstain.

Labour's Lord Alli, one of the signatories to the amendment, accused the party leadership of being 'paralysed by indecision'.

He told The Observer: 'This is complete cowardice. There is no point in being in politics to abstain, If you stand in the middle of the road someone is going to knock you over.'Meghan Markle's former Suits co-stars are scrambling to find appropriate ensembles for her big day and have decided to use the show's wardrobe department to make them dresses and hats suitable for an English royal wedding.

The actors had been struggling with the dress code of 'dress uniform, morning coat or lounge suit', with such options hard to come-by in the US and Canada.

So the co-stars and crew members enlisted the help of the wardrobe team to either make their outfits or secure pieces in preparation to watch Meghan and Prince Harry tie the knot at Windsor Castle on May 19.

Meghan Markle's former Suits co-stars are scrambling to find appropriate ensembles for her big day, and have decided to use the show's wardrobe team to make them dresses and hats

An inside source told the Telegraph: 'Last time I was there, I happened to run into a couple of people in wardrobe who were helping getting things made for some of those that are going.

'They were just helping with some of the ladies outfits, helping with the dresses and the hats.

'Two outfits are required for the May festivities, with the men asked to wear a morning suit, which, a few invitees have learned, isn't particularly easy to secure stateside.'

They added: 'I think it's just a couple of people they are helping with it. I don't think they're making the men's clothing, I think they will be wearing morning suits.

'I understand everyone is to wear a hat of some kind, there are a couple of choices...whatever they wear in England, they wear those little side hats.'

Meghan starred on Suits for seven years before leaving in the series' seventh season, ending the show with her own wedding on the popular legal drama.

The show's stars Patrick Adams, Gabriel Macht, Rick Hoffman, Sarah Rafferty and Gina Torres are all believed to be attending the wedding.

Co-stars and crew members enlisted the help of the show's wardrobe team to either make their outfits or secure pieces in preparation for the wedding

The full schedule and timings of Harry and Meghan's wedding from their arrival at Windsor Castle to a glitzy evening bash

As Hollywood gets ready for the big day, preparations are well underway in Windsor ahead of the nuptials, including the construction of a media platform and the grass being cut on the Long Walk.

Signs have also been put up advising Great Western Railway passengers of queuing at stations on the day, while car parks are being laid in fields and repairs to roads on the procession route have been made.

Royal wedding revellers will face airport-style security checks while metal barriers to deter vehicle attacks will be in place around Windsor for the big day on May 19 as tens of thousands of spectators flock to the town.

Other security measures include a huge network of automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) technology and CCTV alongside hostile vehicle mitigation (HVM) barriers to prevent the use of cars or vans in an attack.

An increased police presence is being built up in Windsor, with police officers, both armed and unarmed, search dogs, the mounted section, the roads policing unit and the National Police Air Service joining forces.Ruthless drug dealers are using LinkedIn to sell highly addictive and deadly prescription drugs across the UK.

Criminals openly lure people into buying prescription-only medications like Xanex, which is responsible for dozens of deaths, on the website aimed at professionals.

Cocaine, heroin and ketamine are freely available on the site - owned by tech giants Microsoft- with dealers promising to ship Xanax, 'date rape' drug Rohypnol, morphine and Valium.

Illegal trade: Prescription-only medications like Xanex, responsible for dozens of deaths, are being sold on the website which is aimed at professionals seeking employment

Xanax is a tranquilliser 20 times more powerful than Valium. In a craze sweeping Britain, users mix the drug with cough syrup and alcohol. Medical experts warn the cocktail, known as 'Lean', can cause heart failure, blackouts, memory loss and extreme aggression.

In December last year, Georgia Jackson, a student at the University of Brighton, killed herself two days after taking the powerful drug, often sold to students to ease exam pressure.

Hallucinogenic 2CP, which killed Holby City actor John Michie's daughter Louella at last year's Bestival music festival, is also being sold.

One brazen pusher offered to supply five grams of the deadly drug also known as Seventh Heaven or 7Up  for 140. It is understood that he wanted payment via Western Union, MoneyGram or Bitcoin and said the Class A drugs could be shipped out overnight.

Brazen: Drug dealers are using profiles on Linkedin to advertise drugs including powerful hallucinogenic 2CP

Another dealer claimed he could ship overnight from the US for 107.

2CP is relatively new in the UK and is thought to be made mainly by Chinese laboratories.

Drugs expert Dr Stephanie Sharp told the Daily Star that an increasing number of people are using the internet to buy drugs.

'There might be risks associated with visiting someone on the street,' she said.

'People might think they're protected online, but it turns out you get the same evil stuff no matter where you get it.'

As the dark web, a network of untraceable online activity and hidden websites, faces greater scrutiny from the government, dealers are looking to social media to sell their stash.

Dr Sharp said she had never heard of drugs being sold via LinkedIn. She added: 'That surprises me. Wow.

'But nothing surprises me too much anymore as to how people are acquiring these things.'

In April, the government announced a 9 million crackdown on the dark web to tackle paedophiles, drug dealers and firearms.

Then home secretary Amber Rudd described the dark web as a 'dark and dangerous place where anonymity emboldens people to break the law in the most horrifying of ways', and a 'sickening shopping list of services and products are available'.

Mail Online have contacted Linkedin for comment.Advertisement

It's not often you leave your coats - and the rest of your clothes - in a museum cloakroom. But this was no ordinary visit.

A Paris museum became the first in the city to open its doors to nudist visitors, on Saturday, granting them special visiting hours to tour an exhibit in a one-off naturist event.

The tour, at the Palais de Tokyo contemporary art museum, was attended by around 160 visitors - and sold out in under two days.

The Palais de Tokyo museum in Paris opened its doors for the first time to nudist visitors on Saturday - giving them special visiting hours to tour an exhibit in a one-off naturist event

The tour at the contemporary art museum was attended by around 160 visitors - and sold out in under two days. Above, some of the visitors, at the Discorde, Fille de la Nuit (Discord, Daughter of the Night) exhibition

The museum, in Paris' plush 16th district, is the city's first gallery to grant such access, though naturists have recently launched other initiatives in the French capital. (Pictured, the naturists seemed quite engrossed in the artwork)

The museum, in Paris' plush 16th district, is the city's first gallery to grant such access, though naturists have recently launched other initiatives in the French capital.

A park in the east of Paris, the Bois de Vincennes, last year trialled the city's first dedicated nudist zone, and the space recently re-opened ahead of the summer months.

Naturist campaigners said the museum event was a breakthrough in one of the culture capitals of the world.

'The naturists' way of life is to be naked. Culture is part of our daily life, and this is a special opportunity,' said Julien Claude-Penegry, communications director of the Paris Naturists Association, in the Palais de Tokyo's vast concrete and steel hallways.

'Today, the mentality is changing. Naturists... are pushing past barriers, taboos or mentalities that were obstructive.'

According to the association, which has 88,000 followers in Paris alone, there are 2.6million naturist practitioners in France.

Next in store is a nudist clubbing night planned for later this year.

Nudist events at museums are not unheard of.

A gallery in Vienna invited visitors to take their clothes off for a special viewing in 2013 of an exhibit dedicated to paintings of male nudity, while a museum in Australia has also opened its doors to naked viewers.The first private police force to hit Britain has proved such a success that the scheme is set to be rolled out nationwide.

The scheme, known as My Local Bobby, offers a 'meet-and-greet' service from a client's car and a hotline to their officer who can be tracked on an iPad.

These uniformed 'bobbies' cover up to 250 houses and the firm promises to have a response at the scene within five minutes, all for the fee of 100 to 200 a month.

The private service, which has been patrolling wealthy London streets in Belgravia, Mayfair and Kensington, moves on drunks and drug users, and has even begun murder inquiries.

The first private police force to hit Britain known as My Local Bobby patrols wealthy London streets in Belgravia, Mayfair and Kensington

The service was, set up by former Metropolitan Police detective chief inspector David McKelvey and Tony Nash, 52, former commander of the London borough of Newham, describes itself as Britains first private police force.

Demand for the bobbies, who dress in a high-vis red jacket and cap, has soared as residents feel let down by over-burdened police officers, reports the Guardian.

They now intend to branch further out and are looking to move forces into other cities and more rural areas.

Mr McKelvey told the Guardian: You dont see policemen walk around the streets any more. If you call 101 its a 30-minute wait and it is not a police officer who answers.

Demand for the bobbies, who dress in a high-vis red jacket and cap, has soared as residents feel let down by over-burdened police officers

My Local Bobby is basically taking things back to Dixon of Dock Green-style policing.

A Met spokeswoman said: Any reports of crime provided to the Met by a third party will always be assessed and dealt with.

The company, the countrys first de-facto private police force, is operating against a backdrop of rising crime rates and police budget cuts.

Co-founder Tony Nash, an ex-Metropolitan Police commander, has previously said: This is going back to Dixon of Dock Green to a degree. Its what people want.

There is no substitute for going out and knocking on doors. But with the current state of finances, police are solving cases behind their desks and that has become the culture.

In the past two years the company has brought successful private prosecutions against 403 criminals for fraud, intellectual property theft and other offences. A total of 43 were jailed.

The company, staffed by retired detectives and cyber-crime experts from Scotland Yard, the National Crime Agency and GCHQ, is now expanding its services beyond predominantly financial investigations.

It comes as police chiefs admit they do not have the money to investigate high- volume crimes such as shoplifting and stretched officers complain that they are at breaking point.

But critics fear the rise of private policing could lead to a two-tier system where only the wealthy get protection from criminals.Advertisement

The UK is set for its warmest May Day Bank Holiday ever on a scorching weekend - but Britons will have to make the most of the nice weather before rain and thunderstorms arrive next week.

Temperatures are expected to reach 79F (26C) today and could hit as high as 84F (28C) on Monday, making it the hottest early May holiday since it was introduced in 1978.

The South East can expect the highest temperatures, while Wales and Scotland will also see those in the mid to high 70s.

People swim in Hampstead Heath mixed bathing pond in north London as temperatures hit 80F (27C)

People enjoying the sunshine at the English National Surfing Championships at Watergate Bay, Newquay, today

Adults and children take to the water on their surf boards at Watergate Bay in Newquay this afternoon

People lie on the grass during hot weather in King George Park in Wandsworth on a hot Bank Holiday weekend

A woman sits on a blanket in King George Park in Wandsworth, London, today during the warm Bank Holiday weekend

A woman lies on the grass as she enjoys the hot weather in King George Park in Wandsworth during the Bank Holiday weekend

People are pictured playing on the beach with their children on a warm and sunny day at Barry Island, South Wales, today

Top British surfer Lucy Campbell is seen at Newquay's Watergate Bay as she prepares to compete in the English Nationals

Lucy Campbell takes to the water preparing for the English Nationals on the beach at Newquay's Watergate Bay

Lucy Campbell holds her surf board as she walks along the beach at Newquay's Watergate Bay today

Campbell is seen at Newquay's Watergate Bay on a scorching Bank Holiday weekend which is expected to break records

Bournemouth beach was packed with people in deckchairs and lying on blankets on a warm Bank Holiday weekend

Cambridge University students drinking and partying as they attend the annual Caeserean Party on Jesus Green, Cambridge

Cambridge students dress up and celebrate in a city park as they revel in the sun

Met Office forecaster Mark Wilson said: 'It is likely to be the warmest early May Bank Holiday Monday since the first in 1978, beating the 74.5F (23.6C) record.

'There's also a 30 per cent chance Monday will exceed 83.5F to be the warmest day recorded over this holiday weekend since 1978.

'It's a weekend for suntan lotion, with temperatures 10C above average for this time of the year.'

The heatwave is being caused by hot air arriving from 30C southern Russia, the Met Office said - weeks after 'Beast from the East' cold air from the same region froze Britain.

Daisy Quinn 7, Archie Ellison, 8, Sunny Quinn, 9 and Leyton Krohn, 8, enjoy a the sea at Tynemouth beach in North Tyneside

14-month old Che Richardson has fun building sandcastles on Tynemouth beach in North Tyneside this afternoon

The one-year-old enjoys himself as crowds flock to the seaside to enjoy glorious May Bank Holiday weather

Veron Pimm, accompanied by his canine passenger Bibi, kayaks along the River Thames close to Boulter's Lock in Maidenhead Riverside, Berkshire

People enjoying the sunshine at the English National Surfing Championships, Watergate Bay, Newquay

Competitors ride through Haworth during day four of the Tour de Yorkshire from Halifax to Leeds

Spectators in Haworth during day four of the Tour de Yorkshire from Halifax to Leeds

Tourists enjoy the hot weather by punting on the River Cam in Cambridge today

Several boats full of tourists are pictured making their way down the River Cam on a hot Sunday afternoon

Tourists enjoy the hot weather by punting on the River Cam in Cambridge this afternoon

Two women sit on the grass as they watch tourists pass by on the River Cam in Cambridge today

Tourists enjoy the hot weather by punting on the River Cam in Cambridge this afternoon

The record for the early May Bank Holiday is 74.5F, set in 1999 in Martyr Worthy, Hants, and Worcester and Malden, both Worcs.

Tuesday will remain warm before temperatures ease and showers begin to hit the UK during the week. By Friday some longer spells of rain may arrive into the west, while heavy showers may hit the South East.

The north and west are likely to see strong winds and spells of rain at times during the week, with a risk of thunderstorms in the south over the weekend.

Temperatures may be initially below normal, but will recover to close to average.

A warmer summer is also expected. The Met Office three-month forecast, being briefed to councils, transport chiefs and business leaders, said: 'For May-July, above-average temperatures are more probable than below-average temperatures.

'The probability the UK average temperature for May-July will fall into the warmest of our five categories is 30 per cent. The probability of the coldest of our five categories is between 5 and 10 per cent.'

Fishermen dig for bait in Dublin Bay as the warm weather continues over the Bank Holiday weekend

A man walks his dog at Little Venice in London where the annual Canalway Cavalcade narrowboat festival is taking place

Two women and a dig sit outside on a boat at Little Venice in London amid lovely weather on the Bank Holiday weekend

A group of people in sports gear sit around a table at Little Venice in London during the Bank Holiday weekend

A man stands in the cabin of a boat at Little Venice in London where the Canalway Cavalcade festival is taking place

Visitors are pictured at Little Venice in London where the annual Canalway Cavalcade narrowboat festival is taking place

Perfect weather at Little Venice in London where the annual May bank holiday Canalway Cavalcade is taking place

A man polishes a fitting on his boat at the annual May Bank Holiday Canalway Cavalcade narrowboat festival in London

A woman holds her sandals on the beach at Watergate, Newquay, on a hot day this afternoon

A woman stands on top of a boat with colourful displays in the background at Little Venice in London

People enjoy the sun on Tynemouth Beach in North Tyneside on the North East coast this afternoon

People sizzle in the hot weather at Tynemouth Beach in North Tyneside on the North East coast today

A man goes for a run in the shade at Little Venice in London on a warm Sunday morning

The sun rises over the City of London, as seen from Richmond Park, as the Bank Holiday Monday is forecast to be the hottest since the holiday was introduced in 1978

Dawn breaks over Wharfedale viaduct near Leeds, West Yorkshire, on a warm Sunday morning

Dawn breaks over Wharfedale viaduct near Leeds, West Yorkshire, as temperatures are expected to hit 21 degrees

The sun rises over London as temperatures are set to hit a high of 84F on Bank Holiday Monday

The Angel of the North stands proudly above the fog on Tyneside this morning with temperatures soaring across the country

Photographer Usman Dawood takes pictures as dawn breaks over Wharfedale viaduct near Leeds this morning

The Angel of the North pictured in Gateshead this morning as temperatures are set to break May Day Bank Holiday records

Fishermen dig for bait in Dublin Bay as the warm weather continues over the Bank Holiday weekend

A woman goes for a paddle as fog rolls in off the Irish sea in Dublin Bay this morning

The woman is seen going for a paddle on a foggy morning in Dublin Bay as another warm day beganA Tory MP has defended himself after he called someone 'a complete tw*t' on Twitter.

Lichfield MP Michael Fabricant wrote that he meant to use the word 'twit' in an exchange over this week's local elections, before claiming he had no idea what the more offensive word means.

The controversy began on Friday when Twitter user Darcy Norgate, a local 19-year-old student, challenged Mr Fabricant over Burntwood, a town in his constituency, saying it had been neglected before calling the MP 'weak and wobbly'.

Tory MP Michael Fabricant (pictured) has defended calling someone 'a complete t***' on Twitter

Mr Fabricant wrote back: 'Says a complete tw*t who seems unaware that there is no vote this year in Burntwood. And I neglect no part of my lovely constituency. That's why I'm loved.'

The Tory MP has now defended the move.

The MP made the comment in response to local 19-year-old student Darcy Norgate (pictured)

He wrote a post saying 'snowflake alert', adding: 'Rude twitter person who could be from anywhere (St Petersburg or Glasgow) makes rude comment then 'surprised' to be called a tw*t. Oh, come on.'

Mr Fabricant then posted a statement saying 'Momentum trolls' often commented on events in Lichfield and that the Twitter account listed no details about her age or where she lives.

He added: 'Twitter is not like Facebook. It is not for those who are easily offended  unless they deliberately choose to be offended for political gain. 'Snowflakes' they are called. Labour activists love playing that game.'

Mr Fabricant then wrote that he did not have a clue what the word means, adding: 'I think of it as twit.

'For 'tw*t' substitute 'twit'  which is what I meant.

'But the rest is, of course, true. Revealing how #OldLabour trolls have jumped on that bandwagon.

'If you are constituent making a serious point, you will always be treated seriously. But not if twitter location says ''Wonderland''.'

Ms Norgate has called for an apology.

Michael Fabricant, the MP for Lichfield, called a teenage girl a tw*t, after she criticised him on TwitterCigarette companies are sneakily increasing the price of tobacco for customers on top of massive government tax increses.

Cancer Council revealed a pack of Winfield cigarettes pre-tax increased by 150 per cent since 2010, The Daily Telegraph reported.

Tobacco in Australia shows a Winfield 25s cost $33.65 compared to $12.95 10 years ago.

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Cigarette companies are sneakily increasing the price of tobacco for customers in addition to the increase tax from the government

The tax increase on tobacco gives retailers an extra $2000 - $2500 a year for each Winfield and JPS smoker who smokes a pack a day

JPS smokes also jumped 180 per cent in price where it cost $30.85 now compared to $10.95 in 2010.

Australian smokers are not unfamiliar with the tax increase on tobacco.

The Australian Government increases tax rates on tobacco and tobacco products in March and September.

It is preordained by the government that tax rates for tobacco will increase by 12.5 per cent on 1 September 2018, 2019, and 2020.

The influx in tobacco prices is giving retailers an extra $2500 a year for each Winfields smoker who smokes a pack a day, and an extra $2000 for every JPS smoker who also smokes a pack a day, revealed The Daily Telegraph.

Cancer Council reveals that increase of Winfields 25s and JPS 30s-26s over the fast few years

Paul Grogan, Cancer Council Australia's public police director, said the companies are clever at increasing the prices and it's a dirty trick.

'It's a dirty trick by these companies, and they've been very clever at jacking up their profit margins in excess of increases in excise duty.'

Retailers and makers, British American Tobacco Australia, Imperial Tobacco Australia and Phillip Morris Australia, all had an increase in profits in the past year, compared to the same time two years ago.

Daily Telegraph reported all three companies made profits of $862 million between them in 2017, compared to $930 million in 2010.

Australian smokers pay almost more than double than smokers in the United States, the United Kingdom, and France.

Evidence from Cancer Council also shows an increase in tobacco prices could lead 130,000 adults to quit.The Information Commissioner's Office is backing Professor David Carroll's (pictured) efforts to obtain his personal data from Cambridge Analytica

The Information Commissioner's Office has ordered Cambridge Analytica to hand over all the information it has on an American voter or face criminal action.

The watchdog group is backing Professor David Carroll's efforts to obtain his personal data from SCL Group, which includes Cambridge Analytica.

Mr Carroll is an associate professor at Parsons School of Design in New York City and researches the intersections between advertising and journalism politics data.

The ICO issued the order on Friday, giving the organisation 30 days to comply, saying it was a 'criminal offence' if it went ignored.

The group is also warned of an 'unlimited fine', if the order was denied.

The Enforcement Notice found in favour of Mr Carroll, saying his right to his personal information is protected by the Data Protection Act of 1998.

The decision paves the way for 240 million people to request for their data back from Cambridge Analytica under British data protection laws.

The move comes after the firm, founded by Trump supporters Robert and Rebekah Mercer, announced it was planning to file for bankruptcy in Britain and the US on Wednesday.

The ICO issued the order on Friday, giving the organisation 30 days to comply, saying it was a 'criminal offence' if it went ignored. It also warned of an 'unlimited fine'. Pictured: The office building that used to be occupied by Cambridge Analytica

Speaking to the Guardian, Mr Carroll said: 'This should solve a lot of mysteries about what the company did with data and where it got it from.

'I hope that it will help the ongoing investigations in my country and yours, and other places like Canada. There's a lot of questions that no one has been able to answer until now so hopefully this will be a major breakthrough in our understanding of what it did.'

The ICO ruling says Mr Carroll sought his information from Cambridge Analytica in January of 2017.

'He received a reply from an email address at SCL Group informing him to submit a 10 fee and proof of identity to SCL Elections Ltd, which was said to be Cambridge Analytica's agent,' according to the ICO's statement.

'He did so and on 27 March 2017, he received a spreadsheet from the SCL Group, marked for and on behalf of Cambridge Analytica and which was said to contain all of the personal data to which he was legally entitled.

'Prof Carroll was not satisfied that he had been given all of the personal data held about him, nor an adequate explanation of where it had been obtained from or how it would be used, and complained to the ICO, which subsequently wrote to the data controller in September 2017, sharing his concerns.'

SCL Group, parent company of Cambridge Analytica, is closing in the wake of rising legal costs in the Facebook investigation and loss of clients

Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham said the company 'has consistently refused to cooperate with our investigation into this case and has refused to answer our specific enquiries in relation to the complainant's personal data  what they had, where they got it from and on what legal basis they held it.'

Cambridge Antalytica's bankruptcy filing comes after the company admitted making mistakes over the misuse of data harvested from Facebook accounts.

The row over the improper use of data on 87 million Facebook users by Cambridge Analytica in President Donald Trump's 2016 US election campaign, has hurt the shares of the world's biggest social network and prompted multiple official investigations.

Steve Bannon, Trump's former chief strategist and an influential force on his campaign team, oversaw Cambridge Analytica.Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will marry on May 19th in the market town of Windsor

Police have revealed security fears over demands from Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to have an open-top carriage ride on their wedding day.

Security chiefs are concerned about safeguarding the couple during their procession through the Windsor streets, potentially putting them at risk of a sniper attack.

A senior policing source told the Sunday Times that the route posed 'major security problems' and had the potential to 'turn the market town into downtown Sarajevo'  where snipers targeted civilians during the Balkan wars in Bosnia in the 1990s.

The two-mile route will see the royal couple pass hundreds of flats, houses, balconies and shops that will loom them along Windsor High Street and other narrow streets in the market town.

Former head of royal protection at Scotland Yard Dai Davies said: 'From a protection point of view, the use of Windsor High Street is worrying. It presents an A-Z of security problems and it would be very difficult to evacuate if there was an attack.'

The event is one of the largest police deployments in British history with 3,000 officers arranged for the wedding on May 19th.

The number of officers on duty is thought to be more than triple the number that protected the wedding of Prince Charles and Camilla, also at Windsor castle, in 2005.

Preparations are being made as it is estimated that 100,000 visitors set to descend on the town

With the happy event just two weeks away, it is believed that steps were taken to transform Credenhill barracks in Hereford into a mock version of Windsor High Street.

More than 40 SAS soldiers along with police officers from the Counter Terror Command and the Royal Protection Squad gathered there for a dry run to ensure every possible outcome was anticipated.

With the threat of potential attacks by al-Qaeda inspired extremists, Irish republican terrorists or even lone stalkers, snipers are taking to rooftops and undercover officers are mingling among the crowds as part of a massive operation to avoid an atrocity.

Prince William and Kate Middleton's wedding in 2011 was said to be easier to manage because the Mall is a wider stretch of road with no tall buildings looming over the route.

Last week police appealed to the public to be their 'eyes and ears' to help keep troublemakers at bay as MI5 rates the threat as 'severe', meaning an attack is highly likely.

The Daily Star on Sunday reported last week that extremists could use an 'epidemic of rough sleeping and vagrancy' in Windsor to launch an attack.

The royal couple are expected to ride in an open-top carriage through Windsor High street and other narrow roads causing security chiefs to be concerned

Much like the funeral of the late Diana, Princess of Wales, all leave for Thames Valley Police has been cancelled.

The local force has already scoured the streets around Windsor Castle for potential bomb threats and installed new CCTV camera for security.

Additional CCTV cameras have also been installed as well as and on the day people will have to go through full-body scanners.

Shops and buildings will also be searched in the lead up to the wedding.

The couple at the Anzac Day Dawn service and right, outside Kensington palace after announcing their engagement

A Thames Valley Police statement said: 'Visitors to the town can expect to see our officers, both armed and unarmed, our search dogs and our mounted section out and about.

'There are also many security measures that you can't see.'A 25-year-old woman is fighting for her life, while three others were rushed to hospital for drug-related health issues and hundreds reported to paramedics after a Sydney dance party on Saturday.

A total of 14,000 festival-goers attended the annual Midnight Mafia dance music festival, packing out the Sydney Showground.

A large police operation, including sniffer dogs, was needed as some of the attendees were believed to be carrying drugs.

Of the 187 people that were searched, police made a record drug seizure with more than 3,500 MDMA ecstasy capsules captured.

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A 25-year-old woman is fighting for her life, while four others were rushed to hospital and hundreds reported to paramedics after a Sydney dance party on Saturday (crowd pictured)

An increased police presence was needed to search the crowd, some of which were believed to be carrying drugs, and 187 people were searched by police

Paramedics were on hand to treat the 256 people who sought medical treatment with three festical-goers being rushed to hospital for drug-related health issues.

'The amount of people caught with a number of large prohibited drug offences is outstanding and it leaves us speechless actually,' NSW Police South West Metro Region Enforcement Squad Detective Chief Inspector Gus Viera told Seven News.

'I've never seen anything like it, the sheer brazenness of it is incredible.

'We saw more drugs seized today than recent events, one of the largest we've seen, which clearly shows our messaging is not getting through.'

'The amount of people caught with a number of large prohibited drug offences is outstanding and it leaves us speechless actually,' NSW Police South West Metro Region Enforcement Squad Detective Chief Inspector Gus Viera (pictured) told Seven News

A total of 14,000 festival-goers attended the annual Midnight Mafia dance music festival, packing out the Sydney Showground (crowd pictured)

187 people were searched in a large police operation, including sniffer dogs

Thirteen people, including three young women, have been charged with drug supply while 32 people were issued with court notices for drug possession.

Notably, a 21-year-old woman, in possession of almost 1,600 MDMA capsules and an amount of cocaine, was arrested and given bail to appear at Burwood Local Court on May 25, 2018.

Another 21-year-old woman was allegedly carrying nearly 550 pills; and a 19-year-old woman was allegedly caught with 200 capsules.

Thirteen people, including three young women, have been charged with drug supply while 32 people were issued with court notices for drug possessionA self proclaimed ex-bikie on the run from police has spoken about his justification for not turning himself in to the authorities.

David Brooks, from Newcastle, New South Wales, has been wanted since February 21 when he failed to report to parole officers after jail-time for drugs charges.

I dont accept those laws, so I cant be a criminal,' he said in one of his various Facebook posts.

Mr Brookes took part in an interview with 9 News and said he was being harassed by police until he couldn't take it anymore.

He had some more choice words for police in another of his Facebook live updates.

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David Brooks (pictured) said in a Facebook live video that he doesn't accept the laws he has broken so therefore he 'can't be a criminal'

Its the end of my patience I just took off to rebuild my life on my own terms,' he said.

He geo-tags his Facebook updates with different location everyday including Melbourne, Canada and the Philippines in a calculated ploy.

'My actions are very deliberate and they shall continue to be until I am either caught or handed in,' he said.

His latest post was geo-tagged as coming form Amsterdam which he joked about in the interview.

'My feet arent taking well to clogs and the windmills messed up my hairstyle so thats why Ive got the hat.,' he said.

In a separate upload, he gave officers a 'shout out' and said they were failing to do their jobs.

A former bikie (pictured) on the run from police has been taunting them in Facebook videos

In the video, in which he wears sunglasses and black sweater and smokes a cigarette, he says: 'A shout out to detectives at a police station f****** anywhere.

'Get yer f****** s*** together, you still haven't found me, you f***.'

He continues: 'OK? I'm not that f****** hard to find.

'OK, I'll give you a clue: I'm not in Fiji. Hopefully that will help you in your investigations into ''where is Brooksie''?'

Two hours after posting the video on Facebook, Brook updated his location to Montreal, Canada by using the site's 'check in' feature.

He wrote: 'Anyone want some maple syrup?'

In the video, in which he wears sunglasses and black sweater and smokes a cigarette, he says: 'A shout out to detectives at a police station f****** anywhere

David Brooks (pictured), from Newcastle, New South Wales, has been wanted since February 21 when he failed to report to parole officers after jail-time for drugs charges

Brooks, who depicts himself as an outlaw, told The Daily Telegraph: 'After four constant years of police harassment and being a target, I simply wanted to be left in peace and to be a normal everyday working person as I was before they injected themselves into my life.

'I enrolled in university and am also working long hours. I have no affiliation with any motorcycle club and do not participate in any criminal activity.'

Asked if he wanted to hand himself in, he said: 'I eventually do but I want to make some noise first.'

A spokesman for New South Wales Police told Daily Mail Australia: 'We ask anyone with information about his whereabouts to contact police.'A 16-year-old boy is in a critical condition with burns to his face, arms and torso after an explosion from a backyard fire pit near Port Stephens.

Another four people were left injured and taken to hospital after the explosion at a home on Sandy Point Road in Corlette on Sunday.

NSW Ambulance paramedics and emergency services responded to reports of burn injuries at the home just after 5pm.

A 16-year-old boy is in a critical condition with burns to his face, arms and torso after an explosion from a backyard fire pit near Port Stephens (stock picture)

A man and a woman, both in their 40s, were flown by rescue helicopter to Sydneys Royal North Shore Hospital for burns to their legs and torso.

The are in a serious but stable condition.

Two others, a man and woman also in their 40s, were treated at the scene for burns to their face and torso.

They were taken to Newcastles John Hunter Hospital and are in a stable condition.

NSW Ambulance paramedics and emergency services responded to reports of burn injuries at the home on Sandy Point Road in Corlette just after 5pm

Three people were flown by rescue helicopter to Sydneys Royal North Shore Hospital

Officers from Port Stephens / Hunter Police District attended and established a crime scene.

Initial investigations suggest an explosion occurred after a flammable liquid was poured onto the fire pit on a patio.

Police are investigating.Two Australian Navy sailors have been arrested in Singapore over separate alcohol-related incidents.

One sailor was arrested for allegedly being 'a public nuisance' on Saturday, the Australian Defence Force confirmed.

Another was taken into custody over alleged intoxication on Friday.

Two Australian Navy sailors from HMAS Toowoomba and Success have been arrested in Singapore over separate alcohol-related incidents (HMAS Success pictured)

One sailor was arrested for allegedly being 'a public nuisance' on Saturday, while another was taken into custody over alleged intoxication on Friday (file photo)

Both sailors, from HMAS Toowoomba and Success, have been released to Australian officials in Singapore while local authorities complete their investigation, an ADF spokeswoman said.

'Defence expects its members to act appropriately and respectfully when visiting foreign countries and takes instances of misbehaviour very seriously,' the spokeswoman said in a statement.

'Any member who does not act appropriately will be subject to the Defence Force Discipline Act and, if applicable, local laws.'This is the moment that a panellist asked a woman who became paraplegic after a skydiving accident was 'grateful' for what happened.

Appearing on the Sunday Project Emma Carey opened up about a horror skydiving accident that left her with a spinal cord injury from breaking her back in two places.

Comedian Fiona O'Loughlin, who was on the show's panel, asked Ms Carey if she was 'grateful' for the accident that left her needing to learn how to walk again.

Ms Carey is currently in Melbourne about to start the Wings For Life World Run, which raises money for spinal cord research.

Ms Carey is an ambassador for the event.

After what appears to be technical difficulties Ms O'Loughlin calls out to Ms Carey, calling her an 'incredible young woman'.

Fiona O'Loughlin (pictured left) spoke to Emma Carey (pictured right) asking if she was 'grateful' for her skydiving accident

Ms Carey (pictured at Wings For Life World Run 2018) said that while she would rather live without the injuries, she wouldn't take it back as it made her the person she is today

'Are you almost grateful for the accident?'

Ms Carey pauses before repeating back the question to the panel.

She finally says: 'That is tricky.'

She explains people always ask her if she could take it back if she could.

'Obviously I would much to be living without these injuries but there is no way I could take it back,' Ms Carey replies.

When Emma Carey (pictured) embarked on a three-month European tour with her best friend in 2013, it was supposed to be the trip of a lifetime

She explains that she has gained so much and wouldn't be who she was today without it.

'In a way, I am extremely grateful.'

Ms Carey embarked on a three-month European tour with her best friend in 2013, which was supposed to be the trip of a lifetime.

But five years later, the 25-year-old can perfectly recall the horrific incident that forever changed her life.

On the fifth day of their trip, Ms Carey decided to skydive in Switzerland, explaining she wasn't at all nervous about jumping out of a helicopter.

'I remember thinking it was the best feeling ever,' she told Daily Mail Australia this week.

On the fifth day of her trip, Ms Carey decided to skydive in Switzerland, explaining she wasn't at all nervous about jumping out of a helicopter

But the dive didn't go to plan.

Ms Carey's parachute and emergency chute became tangled and choked her instructor, causing him to pass out.

'He was unconscious the whole time and so he couldn't do anything to help,' Ms Carey said.

The pair fell to the ground so fast Ms Carey was certain it was her last day on earth.

'I didn't think it was possible for someone to survive something like that. I remember thinking 'I am not ready to die',' she recalled.

This photo was taken moments before Ms Carey's parachute and emergency chute became tangled and choked her instructor, causing him to pass out

Ms Carey and her instructor fell to the ground so quickly that she thought they were going to die. She told Daily Mail Australia that she remembers thinking that she wasn't ready to die yet

Ms Carey took the brunt of the fall, landing on her stomach, while the instructor landed on top of her.

When she tried to get up to help him, she realised that she couldn't move her legs.

Ms Carey's spine was broken in two places. She also broke her pelvis and shattered her teeth.

'But the main thing was when I broke my back I also got a spinal cord injury so I was a paraplegic,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

She spent four months in hospitals in both Switzerland and Australia.

She fell on her stomach and the instructor strapped to her fell on top of her

She thought he was dead so she tried to get up to help, which is the 'scary' moment she realised she couldn't move or feel her legs

The then 20-year-old had broken her back in two places, as well as having broken her pelvis and shattering her teeth. When she broke her back she got a spinal cord injury - making her a paraplegic

Since she has regained movement in her legs - and stunned doctors when she was able to get on her feet just a year after the accident.

Ms Carey still can't feel her lower limbs, expect for her shins, but now manages to walk short distances with a limp.

Her muscles don't work like they used to. Her bowels also don't work and she has to use catheters and enemas to go to the bathroom.

Ms Carey has openly spoken about this on her Instagram page.

The 25-year-old has posted images of herself covered in urine as her bladder can only hold 100mL of liquid, leaving her with no choice.

She also posted an image of her in hospital after a urinary tract infection due to her use of catheter.

Ms Carey spent four months in hospital and while she has regained movement in her legs her muscles aren't what they used to be. She can only feel her shins and walks with a limp

Since the accident she has had a string of other injuries - including cutting her foot on glass in Bondi that almost resulted in a leg amputation

Ms Carey was again unable to walk and back in a wheelchair. Just as her foot was healing, a wound opened on the other one

Not being able to feel her legs leaves her open to injury. Last year she was painting a mural on Sydney's Bondi Beach and cut the bottom of her foot.

After weeks of antibiotics and time in a cast there were fears that the foot had to be amputated.

Ms Carey was again unable to walk and back in a wheelchair. Just as her foot was healing, a wound opened on the other one.

Ms Carey also tore a ligament in her knee earlier this year - which led to her getting an MRI and finding out she had a tumor which was removed

The cut in Ms Carey's foot took 12 months to heal and put her back in a wheelchair for the majority of the year

She's shared on social media about how since the accident she has had an 'overwhelming fear' something bad will happen - but has tried to conquer her fears

It took 12 months, two weeks and three days until both her feet healed completely.

Then in 2018 she tore a ligament in her knee as she was standing up - before finding out she also had a tumour in her knee that needed to be removed.

But it seems nothing can stop her from doing all she can to raise awareness about spinal cord injury.

Due to the fall Ms Carey also needs to use a catheter and enemas to go to the bathroom, openly sharing on social media how she deals with urinating herself

But it seems nothing can stop her from doing all she can to raise awareness about spinal cord injury and spreading positivity

Emma Carey is taking on the Wings for Life World Run, which she is also an ambassador for. Last year she competed in a wheelchair due to the cut on her foot

On Sunday, May 6, she will be in the Wings for Life World Run, which raises money for spinal cord injury research.

She is also an ambassador for the event.

At 9pm in Melbourne the race will begin and instead of a finish line competitors try to keep in front of a catcher car.

The first year Ms Carey competed she had a friend under each shoulder supporting her.

And last year she did the race in her wheelchair, unable to walk due to the hole in her foot.

This year Ms Carey plans to walk five kilometres - a feat she hasn't done since her fall.

The race raises money for spinal cord research and allows Ms Carey to share the reality of the injury

The first year Ms Carey competed she had a friend under each shoulder supporting her

She explains that before her personal experience with spinal cord injuries she knew nothing about them

But to her, most importantly, she gets to raise awareness about spinal cord injuries.

'Their (Wings For Life) motto is 'run for those who can't'.

'I just remember thinking all the people doing the run are doing it for people like me so we can walk again.

'Now that I am lucky enough to be able to walk I would just love everyone else in a wheelchair to get that as well.'

She explained that before her personal experience with spinal cord injuries she knew nothing about them.

She said that while she hasn't been able to prepare for the physical side of the event as much as she'd have liked to due to her knee surgery

Ms Carey has shared the reality of a spinal cord injury on social media - and now wants to walk five kilometres to help those who can't run

After the 2017 run Ms Carey wrote on Instagram that the race was 'funnest, most inspiring, uplifting, enthusiastic race on the planet'

'When I saw someone in a wheelchair I just thought their legs didn't work. I didn't know there was a bunch of stuff that came along with it,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

After the 2017 run Ms Carey wrote on Instagram that the race was 'funnest, most inspiring, uplifting, enthusiastic race on the planet'.

She said: 'To all my broken back fam... the world is on our side. With this energy behind us, we're going to do amazing things'.

She said that while she hasn't been able to prepare for the physical side of the event as much as she'd have liked, she has walked every day she has been able to.

The race will be held around the world starting at the same time.Britain's knife crime epidemic has spread to the Home Counties as stabbings are now more likely in Bedfordshire than in Merseyside.

Hertfordshire, Hampshire, Warwickshire, Norfolk and north Wales' rates of knife crime have all increased by more than 100 per cent in the past three years, while London's rate only increased by 20 per cent.

The epidemic is being fuelled by city gangs expanding their territory and going into rural areas, forcing out local gangs with extreme violence, according to experts.

New statistics show that a person is more likely to be stabbed in Bedfordshire than in Manchester or Merseyside, according to a Sunday Times investigation.

Hertfordshire, Hampshire, Warwickshire, Norfolk and north Wales' rates of knife crime have all increased by more than 100 per cent in the past three years

WHERE KNIFE CRIMES HAVE INCREASED THE MOST Norfolk - 274 per cent Warwickshire - 180 per cent North Wales - 134 per cent Hertfordshire - 150 per cent Hampshire - 102 per cent Bedfordshire - 86 per cent Essex - 86 per cent Cambridgeshire - 83 per cent Thames Valley - 50 per cent Advertisement

The percentages are calculated by comparing the county's number of incidents in rates per population from 2014 to 2017.

For example, in Hertfordshire incidents rose 150 per cent in three years, from 229 knife crimes to 573.

A new Home Office report said the increase in violence is linked with 'county lines' drug dealing, where large city gangs go to rural areas and force out local drug dealers - using violence when doing so.

For these showdowns, gang members carry weapons - such as knives and acid - to defend themselves.

Vince O'Brien, head of drugs operation at the National Crime agency said to the paper: 'There is an increasing level of violence coming from city gangs establishing themselves in new drugs markets in rural areas.

'Counties which surround London are being affected.'

Andy Higgins, research director for the Police Foundation think tank, added: 'Although the highest volume of knife crime is in London, some of the largest increases in recent years have been in the county forces.

'The county lines phenomena  organised crime groups exploiting vulnerable young people to supply drugs in smaller towns  is known to be associated with serious violence.'

And as gang violence escalates, a growing number of children and teens are being injured and killed in the wake of the epidemic.

Youths are being sucked into the underworld of crime with the lure of fast cash and are being used to run illegal substances for adult drug dealers.

New statistics show that a person is more likely to be stabbed in Bedfordshire (file photo) than in Manchester or Merseyside

Disturbing pictures show just a fraction of the terrifying arsenal of weapons being carried around the streets of Britain which were seized by police in a single week. Officers seized these two serrated blades being carried in sheaths from people on the streets of Britain

A small axe with a black and yellow handle was among the terrifying weapons seized by police

And as gangs expand their reach from urban areas to rural, a disturbing new form of British rap music called Drill has also been blamed for the surge in gang killings.

The sick videos feature masked gang members displaying weapons, rapping about recent stabbings, taking drugs and making threats to their rivals.

One of the scenes most popular rappers is Headie One, from Tottenham, who has been jailed twice and has 246,000 monthly listeners on Spotify.

Figures released by Scotland Yard earlier this week show that there were 35 fatal stabbings in London alone in the first three months of the year. Eight of the victims were teenagers.

Last month, a study uncovered by Mail Online laid bare research that revealed forces across England and Wales have lost over 20,000 officers since 2010.

In England and Wales overall, the number of deployable officers across the 43 forces plummeted from 143,734 in March 2010 to 123,142 in March 2017.

Three of Britain's biggest forces lost nearly 2,000 officers each other the seven years.

The West Midlands shed a massive 1,870 officers, while Greater Manchester Police Force lost 1,830 officers - going from 8,148 to 6,318 officers.

The Metropolitan Police, the country's largest force which takes the lead on counter terrorism as well as policing the capital, lost 1,850 officers over the same period.

A map to show the 62 killings which have taken place in London since Christmas

And figures for September 2017 - the latest snapshot available - shows that the trend of falling numbers is continuing, down again to 121,929 in England and Wales.

The new report comes after Trump blasted a London hospital, describing it a 'war zone' because of knife crime.

Speaking at a pro-gun rally, the US president claimed that knife crime in London is so bad that one unnamed hospital in the capital is 'like a war zone for horrible stabbing wounds' with 'blood all over the floors'.

He told the National Rifle Convention (NRA) in Dallas: 'I recently read a story that in London, which has unbelievably tough gun laws, a once very prestigious hospital right in the middle is like a war zone for horrible stabbing wounds.

'Yes that's right, they don't have guns they have knives. And instead there's blood all over the floors of this hospital. They say it's as bad as a military war zone hospital.

'We're here today because we recognise a simple fact. The one thing that has always stood between the American people and the elimination of our Second Amendment rights has been Conservatives and congress willing to fight for those rights, and we're fighting.'Stephen Lawrence murder suspect Jamie Acourt has accepted his extradition from Spain after he was arrested over alleged drug offences, it is reported.

Acourt has been wanted by Scotland Yard since 2016 and was arrested on Friday as UK officials said he was 'believed to be involved in the large-scale supply of drugs.'

The Spanish High Court said today that Acourt was not challenging his extradition, BBC News reports.

Police detained 41-year-old Acourt as he left a gym in Barcelona on Friday afternoon, Britain's National Crime Agency said.

Jamie Acourt (pictured) has been arrested in Spain in connection with alleged drugs offences

Dramatic pictures released by Spanish police showed Acourt in handcuffs and in custody after he was held outside a gym in the Spanish city.

Wearing jeans and casual shoes, he was held on an European Arrest Warrant after a joint operation between the UKs National Crime Agency, Scotland Yard and the Spanish National Police.

Armed officers detained Acourt after he left the Metropolitan Sagrada Familia Gym in Barcelona, after he had apparently tried to convince them he was an Italian tourist.

Ian Cruxton, head of international operations for the National Crime Agency, said: Acourt thought he could evade capture but as a result of an intelligence-led operation his days on the run have ended. We were able to direct the Spanish authorities to his location in Barcelona.

Armed police swooped on the 41-year-old, who was on the run for two years and on the National Crime Agency's 'most wanted' list, as he left a gym

Our ability to share information and work at speed with our international partners ensures there is no safe haven for fugitives. We will never stop pursuing these individuals.

Acourt is one of five youths suspected of taking part in the 1993 racist murder of 18-year-old Stephen in Eltham, South London.

Stephen died in April 1993 aged 18 when he was attacked by a gang of five white youths in Eltham, south east London.

The gang shouted racist abuse as they began the unprovoked fatal stabbing of the A-level student.

Gary Dobson and David Norris were finally jailed in 2012 but the other suspects Luke Knight and brothers Neil and Jamie Acourt never faced trial.

Jamie Acourt is believed to have fled to the Costa del Crime after being linked to a major drug smuggling ring. He is suspected of being a principal member of an organised crime group involved in the large-scale supply of cannabis.

Detectives believe the fugitive had been harboured by a network of contacts at locations along the southern Spanish coast.

The unemployed father-of-two has previously tried to start a new life in Spain with his partner.

It was thought Acourt was living the high life in celebrity hotspot Marbella where he was regularly seen at bars frequented by show stars.

As well as being wanted for drugs, Acourt was a suspect in the murder of Stephen Lawrence (left). Two of his co-accused were finally jailed in 2012 after advocacy efforts by Stephen's mother Doreen (right)

Acourt (circled) and his co-accused are pelted with eggs after leaving a Public Inquiry into police handling of the case on June 30, 1998A Victorian mother has been on a mission to raise awareness for the 'silent killer' carbon monoxide after her two sons died after being poisoned by the gas in 2010.

Vanessa Robinsons sons, Chase and Tyler, died from CO poisoning after an un-serviced gas heater started to leak the deadly gas into their Mooroopna home.

After their death Miss Robinson channeled her grief into launching a charity to help raise awareness of the risks posed by the deadly gas.

Victorian mother Vanessa Robinson (pictured) has been on a mission to raise awareness for the 'silent killer' carbon monoxide after her two sons died from CO poisoning

She named the charity the Chase and Tyler Foundation in honour of her boys.

'We just want to help people stay safe and sound within their homes,' she told 9 News.

'Theres no or very little knowledge about carbon monoxide alarms that you can purchase and place inside your home to give you early warning of carbon monoxide levels.'

Chase and Tyler (pictured), died from CO poisoning after an un-serviced gas heater started to leak the deadly gas into their Mooroopna home

With the cold season fast approaching experts have warned Australians to be vigilant about the risks of carbon monoxide by checking any appliances that are burning gas or fuel.

Doctor Barbara Robertson told ABC News the symptoms associated with CO poisoning are much like that of the flu and can go unnoticed.

'It happens very quietly, and very insidiously. It can result in very nasty outcomes,' she said.

It is a difficult gas to detect but symptoms include dizziness, headaches, fatigue and nausea.

With the cold season coming experts are warning Australians to be vigilant about the risks of gas heaters and to make sure all appliances are up to safety standards

Studies have shown that Victorian residents are the most at risk after discovering that a little less than half of all Victorians know what carbon monoxide is.

Professor Anthony Brown from the School of Rural Health at the University of Sydney told ABC News many cases go undetected.

'The tragic thing that happens in these sorts of confined space accidents is somebody's in an area, they lose consciousness, they collapse, and somebody finds them and, quite understandably thinks, 'Oh crikey, I've got to get this person out,' he said.

In a stunning statistic, Professor Brown said in 60% of CO poisoning incidents the victim and the first responder both die.Los Angeles triple-murder suspect Tai Zhi Cui was tried and convicted in his native China after he shot dead his ex-girlfriend, her new boyfriend and her employer in October 2006

A Los Angeles triple-murder suspect was tried and convicted in his native China.

Tai Zhi Cui, fled to his hometown of Shenyang after shooting dead a restaurant co-owner, one of the restaurant's employees and the employee's boyfriend in October 2006.

After years of the Los Angeles Police Department begging China to help cooperate, Cui was arrested and given a trial by Chinese judges, reported the Los Angeles Times.

It could open the doors for convictions in other countries that don't have an extradition treaty with the US.

On the day of the murders, Cui had argued with his ex-girlfriend Kyung Hee Kang and her new boyfriend Seong Ung Kim, although it is unclear over what.

Hours later, Cui walked into Cinyuya Restaurant in Koreatown, where Kang worked, and shot her, Kim and one of the restaurant's owners, Jae Woong Cho, dead.

The LA Times reported that police found the gun used to commit the murder in Cui's apartment but the then-55-year-old had fled to Mexico.

After no leads for two years, the LAPD received a call from a businessman in Koreatown who had heard about the murders.

He had been in China - specifically in Shenyang, Cui's hometown - and believed Cui was the cab driver who drove him from the airport.

The LAPD, the US Marshals Service and the FBI all reached out to Chinese authorities, asking if they could help verify that Cui was in Shenyang, but received no response.

After years of radio silence, LAPD Lt Walter Teague told the LA Times that he reached out to authorities in China in 2014.

He had ties to the country due to his studies in Beijing in the 1980s and where he met his wife.

It worked this time and Teague scheduled meetings in Beijing along with LAPD Det Greg Stearns, and an LA prosecutor.

They presented the evidence they had gathered against Cui including the gun collected from his apartment still spattered with the blood of one of the victims.

Cui was arrested and the LAPD sent the gun and other forensic evidence to China. In interrogations with Chinese police, Cui admitted to the murders before denying he had done it and claiming others had pulled the trigger.

In October 2017, Chinese authorities gave the investigating team in Los Angeles short notice that Cui was going to go on trial in Sheynang, according to the LA Times.

The LAPD, the US Marshals and the FBI pressed Chinese authorities for help for years before they agreed to cooperate, arresting Cui a decade after the murders were committed (Pictured, the restaurant where the murders occurred)

Cui reportedly confessed in a court session that lasted 90 minutes. His attorney, who has not been named, said Cui had been drunk and angry because Kyang allegedly owed him a debt.

Despite a history in China of questionable arrests, forced confessions, and court files not available for public review, LA Country district attorney's office spokesperson Greg Risling said the LA team had exhausted all options.

'Our job is to pursue justice, no matter how much time has passed or how far the distance may be,' Risling told the LA Times. 'Our office exhausted all possible remedies, and we felt this decision would ultimately result in a conviction.'

Despite being found guilty by a panel of three Chinese judges, there has been no word from China yet on his punishment.A bride made a disastrous entrance to her wedding when her helicopter crashed and burst into bright orange flames.

The woman's arrival at the wedding venue, a vineyard in Brazil, went horribly wrong when the four people on board had to flee the burning wreckage.

But incredibly she escaped unharmed and went ahead with the ceremony, while the pilot and the other two passengers got away with minor injuries.

The wedding vows went ahead with the remains of the helicopter still on the ground nearby, the Brazilian website Globo reported.

A bride made a disastrous entrance to her wedding when her helicopter crashed and burst into bright orange flames

The venue said the bride and groom had decided to go ahead with their nuptials despite the accident.

Firefighters were summoned after the helicopter plummeted to the ground at the wedding venue north of Sao Paulo.

The fire department shared a picture of the wreckage with guests in the background, saying that the bride had suffered no injuries.

A child and a photographer were also on board, it was reported.

Last year a bride in Brazil was killed on the way to her wedding when her helicopter crashed a few miles from the venue.

Rosemere do Nascimento Silva, from Sao Paulo, died in December 2016 with the pilot, her brother, and a photographer who was six months pregnant.

The 32-year-old's fiance, Udirley Damasceno, did not know she was arriving by helicopter and was left waiting at the wedding venue unaware of the fatal crash.

The helicopter, carrying four people including the bride, crashed and burst into flamesThe breast cancer screening hotline which was set-up in the wake of the screening scandal is manned by staff with just two hours of training and no medical background, it has been claimed.

According to reports, the hotline saw 8,000 women call in on the day it opened fearing they could have the illness.

However, they were answered by employees relying on a cheat sheet of symptoms to decide whether they need a screening.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt makes a statement to MPs in the House of Commons over the breast cancer screening programme

Outsourcing firm Serco is running the helpline which was set-up after health secretary Jeremy Hunt admitted a computer error meant 450,000 women didn't get letters inviting them for breast cancer screening.

Up to 270 women may have died early as a result of the error, he told the Commons this week.

Now, staff members working on the hotline in call centres in Glasgow, Liverpool and Newcastle claim the rush to get them set up has left them fearing mistakes could be made.

The workers manning the hotline set-up in the wake of the scandal have just two hours of training it has been claimed

Staff told the Guardian they hadn't received proper training and relied on a booklet to go through symptoms with callers.

A staff member criticised the booklet and said it was all over the place, as if it had been typed up and sent out in a rush.

HOW WAS THE IT GLITCH DISCOVERED? The breast cancer scandal was only discovered thanks to an Oxford University trial into extra breast cancer screening for women. The AgeX trial was set up in 2009 to find out whether cancers could be diagnosed with extra screenings without undue harm in those aged 47 to 49 and 71 to 73. Around 65 breast cancer units across the country then recruited women from these age groups with the computer programme supposed to select half at random to be given the extra screening. But a computer glitch that was in the system from the start of the trial meant a large number of the older group had scans cancelled without ever knowing they were going to be arranged. Once the Oxford researchers discovered the error, it soon emerged that the same mistake had affected women in the entire screening programme. Advertisement

One staff member said: 'I felt ashamed knowing what had happened to these women, taking these calls when I am not medically trained, have no counselling background and am in no position to help them.'

Another added: 'We found out at noon and were delivered training at 2.30pm. We were then taking taking calls live at 4pm.

A Serco spokesman claimed that all staff member are trained and experienced in providing services.

He said: 'They are using information and advice provided by Public Health England and are required to collect details of women who believe they have missed screening, so they can be contacted by health professionals, and to set out the options available.

'On Friday as an example we were able to answer 99.5% of all calls received at our centres.'

The NHS was engulfed by the breast cancer scandal after it was revealed 450,000 women were denied life-saving scans and up to 270 died early after a 'colossal' IT failure lasting almost a decade.

The victims aged between 68 and 71 were never sent letters offering them a final routine breast screening because of an IT error lasting from 2009 until this year.

150,000 of these women have now died and Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has admitted between 135 and 270 of them developed breast cancer that shortened their lives.

Experts have said that officials ignored their warnings.

Professor Julietta Patnick, 61, who was in charge of NHS screening during the time period, declined to answer questions outside her home in Sheffield.

A man believed to be her husband said she was retired and wouldn't be commenting.Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has warned that the United States would regret it 'like never before' if they decided to quit a nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers.

US President Donald Trump has threatened to withdraw from the agreement when it comes up for renewal on May 12, demanding his country's European allies 'fix the terrible flaws' or he will re-impose sanctions.

In a televised speech in northwestern Iran on Sunday, reformist Rouhani said if the US quit the deal there would be 'historic remorse'.

'If the United States leaves the nuclear agreement, you will soon see that they will regret it like never before in history,' Rouhani said.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani warned on Sunday that the United States would regret it 'like never before' if they decided to quit a nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers

'Trump must know that our people are united, the Zionist regime (Israel) must know that our people are united.

'Today all (Iran's) political factions, whether they be from the right, the left, the conservatives, reformers and moderates are united.'

The nuclear deal was struck in 2015 between Iran and Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States, then led by Barack Obama.

Under the pact, sanctions were eased in return for a commitment not to pursue a nuclear bomb, but Iran says it is not reaping the rewards despite complying with the deal.

Trump has consistently complained about the agreement, citing perceived flaws including 'sunset' provisions lifting some nuclear restrictions from 2025.

In an attempt to salvage the deal, French President Emmanuel Macron has recently pushed to extend its scope to address this issue, as well as the absence of any limits on Iran's conventional missile capabilities and Tehran's role in the region.

US President Donald Trump has threatened to withdraw from the agreement when it comes up for renewal on May 12

Iran's support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, via the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah in Syria's civil war, and its backing for Shiite Huthi rebels in Yemen have added to frictions between Tehran and Western powers.

Rouhani vehemently reiterated his country's opposition to curtailing its non-nuclear missile capabilities in his speech on Sunday.

He said Tehran 'will build as many missiles and weapons as needed' for its defense.

'We are honouring our commitment, but we are telling the whole world we will not negotiate with anyone about our weapons and our defense,' he said.

Iran's president also said that while he is open to discussing the country's regional role, he would not abandon what he described as its fight 'against terrorism.'

'We want to talk to the world so that our region is safe' but 'we will not allow you to create a new Daesh' he said, using an Arabic term for the Islamic State group.

In a televised speech in northwestern Iran on Sunday, reformist Rouhani said if the US quit the deal there would be 'historic remorse'

While Rouhani did not elaborate on this point, Iran's ally the Syrian government has consistently referred to all armed opponents as 'terrorists' and accused the West of facilitating terrorism.

Iran has always denied it sought a nuclear weapon, insisting its atomic programme was for civilian purposes.

Rouhani did not specify how Iran would react if the US pulls out of the 2015 deal.

But he said he had given 'the necessary orders', notably to Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, in anticipation of Trump's decision.

As the May 12 US decision point nears, Iranian leaders have shuffled between placatory and hawkish comments, although the hardliners have taken a uncompromising stance.

On Thursday Ali Akbar Velayati, the foreign policy adviser to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned Tehran would quit the nuclear deal if the United States withdraws.A cheeky driver has been arrested after allegedly stealing a ute and driving it past the local police station.

The 38-year-old man drove past Netley Police Station in Adelaide's south-west, according to police.

The driver allegedly gained the attention of police when he drove past and waved at them at 10.30am May 6.

The 38-year-old man was allegedly driving around in what was suspected to be a stolen ute when he drove past Netley Police Station (pictured) in Adelaide's south-west and waved at officers

Officers realised that the ute looked similar to one that had been reported stolen in Glenelg North overnight.

They then checked the registration to confirm their suspicions - and it was the stolen Toyota ute.

Police stopped the 38-year-old, who has no fixed address, and arrested him without incident.

When they searched the vehicle they discovered items that had been allegedly stolen from a Selicks Hill hotel during an overnight break-in.

Officers realised that the ute looked similar to one that had been reported stolen in Glenelg North overnight (stock image)

A South Australia Police spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia these were 'maintenance-like' items.

He was charged with illegal use of a motor vehicle, driving while suspended, drink driving (0.04) and serious criminal trespass.

The was refused police bail and is expected to appear in the Adelaide Magistrates Court May 7.16-year Indiana police veteran Rob Pitts, pictured above, was killed in a shoot out with a homicide suspect on Friday

An Indiana police veteran who worked on the force for 16 years has been killed in a shootout.

Rob Pitts was with a team of officers when he approached an apartment complex Friday night where an armed murder suspect was inside.

The suspect opened fire from the second floor of the apartment in Terre Haute, fatally hitting Pitts.

He was taken to Terre Haute Regional Hospital where he died, police say.

Officers arrived to the home around 6:32pm on Friday and a standoff ensued for three hours.

The suspect shot at officers and barricaded himself into the home, leading police to respond with gunfire.

Eventually a SWAT team entered the apartment and located the suspect, ending the standoff at 9:15pm.

He was also killed in the gunfire exchange.

On Friday Pitts along with other officers approached the apartment complex on the south side of Terre Haute, Indiana where he was fatally shot

A murder suspect inside the home opened fire from the second floor onto officers below

A standoff between the shooter and officers ensued for three hours before a SWAT team entered the home to reach the suspect

An investigation is ongoing and autopsies are expected Sunday.

'Rob is deeply missed, but we are grateful for the time we had with him. Thank you for your continued prayers,' Terre Haute police spokesman Ryan Adamson said Saturday.

It is another tragic loss for the Wabash Valley and the Terre Haute Police Department,' Sgt. Joe Watts of the Indiana State Police said.

Chief John Plasse held a news conference to announce Pitts death.

Bringing in back up: The murder suspect also died in the gunfire exchange on Friday evening

Pitts is the first Terre Haute officer to die on duty since July 11, 2011, another officer pictured above at the scene on Friday

Police spokesman Ryan Adamson reported his death on Twitter and announced that his funeral will be held on Wednesday

Governor Eric Holcomb shares his condolences for the 16-year police veteran on Twitter

'People are engaging law enforcement and we are losing our lives. He was a fine officer and he was going toward danger to help his fellow officers apprehend a homicide suspect,' he said.

Governor Eric Holcomb tweeted his condolences to Pitts' family.

'The sorrow @FLJanetHolcomb & I feel for the family of Patrolman Rob Pitts, the Terre Haute Police Department & the Wabash Valley region is beyond words. I ask Hoosiers around the state to join me in honoring Patrolman Pitts service & dedication,' he said.

A vigil for the fallen officer will be held Sunday evening at the Sullivan Indiana Courthouse.

His funeral will be held Wednesday.

He is the first Terre Haute officer to die on duty since July 11, 2011.A jailed sailor who is accused of murdering his bride on their honeymoon, has broken his silence from prison, saying he thinks about his wife 'every waking moment', prompting outrage from her family.

Lewis Bennett was charged with second degree murder for killing his wife Isabella Hellmann, 41, as officials say he deliberately made their boat sink in order to make her death seem like an accident.

The mining engineer, 41, is currently locked away in a Miami prison for smuggling $100,000 in gold coins into the United States.

Now in a letter, Bennett details his longing for Isabella and their 18-month-old daughter Emelia, which sparked fury from Isabella's family who say Bennett is preventing them from seeing the little girl.

Lewis Bennett is accused of killing his wife Isabella Hellmann, 41, as officials say he deliberately made their boat sink in order to make her death seem like an accident. Pictured: Bennett with Isabella and their daughter Emelia

Capsized: Bennett's abandoned catamaran was found capsized about 30 miles away from Cay Sal

Bennett's letter, obtained by the Sunday Mirror, reads: 'I think about my wife and daughter every waking moment and wish we could be together again soon.

'She [Isabella] was such a positive person and always encouraged me to focus on the ''now'' and to enjoy each and every moment.

'I try to take her advice but the here and now for me at this moment is difficult to appreciate.

'Saying that, there are some truly good people here who have helped my state of mind, so I am grateful for that. My sole motivation is my family and the thought of being together with them all again.'

He later adds: 'My family have been extremely supportive of me and are helping my parents to look after my baby girl. I have had letters from my family but aside from that I am left here feeling extremely isolated.'

The toddler's aunt Adriana DiFeo said she was shocked and upset that Bennett was talking to people from jail. She said his claims of wanting to reunite with their family are lies.

She said the family had reached out to Bennett and his sister but never heard anything back.

The little girl is currently being cared for Bennett's mother and father in Hythe, Southampton.

The little girl is currently being cared for Bennett's mother and father in Hythe, Southampton. Pictured: Isabella and her daughter

Ms DiFeo, from Florida, added that they wanted to fly out to England to see the child but Bennett's family 'want nothing to do with us'.

Bennett of Poole, Dorset, was arrested on suspicion of second degree murder in a Miami court, where he was also sentenced to seven months in prison for smuggling stolen coins in February.

In a court document, FBI Special Agent James Kelley said the bureau believes Bennett 'knowingly and unlawfully killed' the mother of his child.

According to the FBI, Bennett told investigators he had gone below deck on their boat near the Bahamas and left Hellman above to keep watch.

The FBI says he falsely claimed she disappeared after the supposed accident.

Rescuers found the British-Australian dual citizen alone in his life raft on May 15 after he made an SOS call to say his wife was missing and his 37-ft catamaran was taking on water.

On May 14  Mother's Day in the US  the British yachtsman and his wife were on the final leg of a belated honeymoon cruise through the northern Caribbean on his 37 ft catamaran, Surf Into Summer.

As Bennett later recounted to the US Coastguard, he had gone to bed in his cabin at 8pm, exhausted after five days on the water as they sailed from Cuba home to Florida.

Bennett said Isabella had been given the helm and left alone in charge of the vessel.

A portion of Bennett's letter reads: 'I think about my wife and daughter every waking moment and wish we could be together again soon. She [Isabella] was such a positive person and always encouraged me to focus on the 'now' and to enjoy each and every moment'

He later adds: 'My family have been extremely supportive of me and are helping my parents to look after my baby girl. I have had letters from my family but aside from that I am left here feeling extremely isolated'

He described how he had been woken at around 1am by the loud thud of the boat hitting an object, and, that when he went on deck, his wife had disappeared.

Bennett, a businessman and mining engineer, fired his emergency positioning beacon and sent out a distress call after he realised the catamaran was taking on water.

Two hours later, he was rescued  safe and sound, but alone  by a US Coastguard helicopter about 30 miles west of the Bahamas.

He was floating in a life raft 1,000 yards from the now half-submerged boat, which he had abandoned after first gathering his possessions.

He said he believed the catamaran had hit something.

He also told investigators that the mast had been loose and 'there is a possibility that she may have (fallen) in the water due to an accident with the mast hitting her'.

An exhaustive four-day air and sea search for his wife, a Colombian-born estate agent he married three months earlier, never found a trace  even though he said she had been wearing a life jacket.

At 5ft 4in and 7st 12lb, and dressed only in light clothing, she would probably only have survived in the water for a few hours if she had been conscious.

A portion of Bennett's letter reads: 'I think about my wife and daughter every waking moment and wish we could be together again soon'

But investigators say they have found evidence that Bennett had scuttled the catamaran.

Portholes had been opened below the waterline and damage to the twin hulls appeared to have been caused from the inside.

The tragedy has left the couple's 15-month-old daughter Emelia, who was being looked after by Isabella's family in Florida at the time, motherless.

Detectives said they found a stash of silver coins in the raft before uncovering a haul of gold coins in the couple's home in Delray Beach, Florida.

Lawyers for his wife's family believe the couple's daughter, Emelia, is being looked after by Bennett's parents in Hampshire.

According to papers filed at court by his sister-in-law Adriana Difeo, in a legal challenge relating to Mr Bennett's control of his wife's finances, just one day after the Coastguard called off its search for her, Bennett asked the service for a 'letter of presumed death'  a document that would speed up the process of sorting out her financial affairs.

Florida law says nobody can be declared legally dead until he or she has been missing for at least five years.Wet wipes are set to be 'eliminated' in Britain in the latest round of ministers' war on single use plastic.

Thousands of throw away wet wipes are flushed every year, bunging up sewers and polluting water ways.

Environment Secretary Michael Gove, who has already announced a string of world-leading measures to crackdown on single use plastic, will now turn his attention to the plastic tissues.

Wet wipes are set to be 'eliminated' in Britain in the latest round of Michael Gove's war on single use plastic

A Defra statement said: 'As part of our 25-year environment plan we have pledged to eliminate all avoidable plastic waste, and that includes single-use products that include plastic such as wet wipes.'

The announcement comes days after a study found piles of flushed wet wipes are changing the shape of the River Thames.

More than 5,000 had collected on a 116 square metre area near Hammersmith Bridge in west London.

This is the highest number ever found in a single place.

At Barnes, south-west London, so many have clumped together that they have changed the shape of the riverbed.

It has created mounds of waste visible at low tide.

Wipes get into the river via overflow sewage pipes after they are flushed down toilets

The wipes get into the river via overflow sewage pipes after they are flushed down toilets.

Thames 21, the charity that organised the pick-up, said Britons should widen the fightback against plastic to include wet wipes and sanitary products, which cannot biodegrade as they also contain plastic.

Tim Evans, CEO and founder of a biodegradable consultancy firm, said: 'The wastewater collection, conveyance and treatment system is for things that biodegrade fairly quickly.

'Wetwipes, tights, knickers, condoms, plastic cottonbuds, etc don't biodegrade.

'The best that can be hoped for if these get into a sewer is that they get all the way to the treatment works without snagging on anything and at the works they can be screened (sieved) out, then go to landfill or incineration.

'It would have been better if they had gone into the solid waste system in the first place.'When Home Secretary Sajid Javid's father - Abdul, a bus driver - arrived in Britain from Pakistan in 1961, he had just 1 in his pocket.

Abdul died of cancer, at the age of 74, in 2012 - two years before Sajid, then the MP for Bromsgrove, was promoted to the Cabinet as Culture Secretary.

But Sajid - the first member of an ethnic minority to hold a Great Office of State - is not the only one of Abdul's sons to have overcome odds to make a success of themselves.

The 48-year-old has four brothers who have excelled in the fields of finance, property, retail and the public sector - in the police force, the Sunday Times reported.

Home Secretary Sajid Javid, 48, has four brothers who have all achieved success in the chosen fields - from property and finance to retail and the public sector

Basit Javid, 47, is a Chief Superintendent in West Midlands Police and the commander of the Solihull police division

Basit Javid, along with his siblings, was raised in a two-bed flat in Bristol and went to a state comprehensive school.

Today, Basit, 47, is a Chief Superintendent in West Midlands Police and the commander of the Solihull police division.

At the age of 17, he joined the Royal Navy as a helicopter engineer, and stayed in the military for six years, including a stint on HMS Brilliant during the first Gulf War.

Then, when he was 25, he joined Avon and Somerset Police, moving up the ranks before transferring to the West Midlands force in 2007.

As well as his Chief Superintendent role, he is also a Tactical Firearms Commander, a Public Order Silver Commander and has led the forces academic research team.

Basit has spoken out about police cuts on Twitter and has also lamented the lack of Asian and Muslim officers in Britain.

Atif Javid, 43, is a property investor and developer in Bristol and has a multimillion-pound buy-to-let property portfolio

Meanwhile, youngest brother Atif Javid has more interest in former investment banker Sajid's old brief: he is a property investor and developer in Bristol.

Atif, 43, became drawn to the property business while he was a corporate lawyer with Burges Salmon in Bristol.

He now has a multimillion-pound buy-to-let property portfolio.

Writing on a property blog in 2016 after the then Chancellor raised stamp duty on buy-to-let homes, Atif was critical of the government's policy on housing.

He wrote: 'George Osborne has decided now is the time to milk the "Golden Cow" of the UKs private property landlords, with changes in taxation for buy-to-let property.'

Before his big brother was appointed Home Secretary, Sajid was, earlier this year, Secretary of State for Housing.

Writing on the same blog, in April 2016, Atif said: 'I was talking to my brother the other day at a family get together, and the subject of the Bristol Property Market came up in the conversation... after the weather and politics.

'My brother said it used to be that if you went out to work and did the right thing, you would expect that relatively quickly over the course of your career, you would be buying a house, you would go on holiday every year, and that youd save for a pension.

'I said that as a leading letting agent in Bristol, it now seems that things have changed.'

It is not known which brother he was referring to in the blog.

Khalid Javid, 49, began his career at AXA and then worked with an international bank and leading mortgage broker before setting up Bristol-based Blackstone Financial Solutions in 2014

When Sajid took over as Communities Secretary in July that year, policies on residential property appeared to soften.

In October 2017, he announced that the Government would publish legislation banning letting agents fees, and said it would be 'taking further steps to give tenants more security of tenure in their homes'.

Then there is Khalid Javid, now 49, who works in the financial services industry as an adviser.

He began his career at AXA and then worked with an international bank and leading mortgage broker before setting up Bristol-based Blackstone Financial Solutions in 2014.

In September 2015, he was featured in the Mail on Sunday's Guide to the UK Top Rated Professionals.

The fourth brother is 51-year-old Tariq Javid, who, according to the Sunday Times, is understood to manage a supermarket chain.Advertisement

A world-renowned fashion photographer has decided to take a piece of his native Australia to the New York art gallery scene by documenting one of the most remote and sacred regions of his home country.

Anthony Horth has spent the past 35 years travelling the world given his illustrious career as a fashion photographer for high-end labels including Tiffany's, Armani and Versace.

Horth, who hails from Sydney and is widely considered one of the country's most successful fashion photographers, has had his work published in British, American, Italian and Australian Vogue, as well as the French, Italian and German Elle.

While he made his mark predominantly in the fashion scene, Horth has recently turned his attention to landscape photography.

His latest project, Mother Earth Kimberley, spectacularly documents the breathtaking Kimberley region in Western Australia.

Anthony Horth, a world-renowned fashion photographer, has just taken a series of stunning landscape pictures of Australia's remote Kimberley region in Western Australia

Horth, who hails from Sydney, documented one of the most remote and sacred regions of his home country and has put the photo series on display in New York City

With the region being virtually unknown outside of Australia, Horth's series of Kimberley photographs sheds light on the vast beauty of the area.

The region is best known for its rugged ranges, gorges and isolated coastline.

Horth has just put the wilderness photographs on display in New York having celebrated the opening of his new flagship gallery in Manhattan's SoHo neighbourhood.

The exhibit represents the single largest collection of photographs to ever be exported from Australia.

It features a collection of 21 pieces that Horth shot during sunrise and sunset near the Argyle Diamond Mine in the East Kimberley region.

The Argyle mine is located on a sacred women's site belonging to the Indigenous Gija and Mirriwung people.

Horth says he was invited onto the reservation by the traditional owners and he spent time with them around the campfire as they told of their Dreaming stories.

The project, Mother Earth Kimberley, spectacularly documents the breathtaking Kimberley region in Western Australia

Horth's series of landscape photos of the Kimberley, which is virtually unknown outside of Australia, is currently on display in his flagship New York gallery

The region is best known for its rugged ranges, gorges and isolated coastline

Horth's series of Kimberley photographs sheds light on the vast beauty of the area

Horth (left), who is widely considered one of the country's most successful fashion photographers, recently celebrated the opening of his flagship New York gallery. Australia's Minister for Tourism, Steven Ciobo (right), stopped by for the opening

Horth launched himself into his international photography career when he flew from Sydney to Paris for a Vogue shoot, before relocating to London for more work when he was just 21.

'It all began when I picked up a camera at 13. From that moment on I liked the way I could contain life by looking through that window,' Horth says.

'I have always been an obsessive person and I'm visually mesmerised by what happens with movement, colour, texture and perpetual changing, as light passes through the hours of the day.

'And still, after all, this time, I cannot put a camera down, Even when I don't have one in my hands I see the pictures anyhow.'

Following 15 years working on shoots across Europe, Horth moved to New York to work with American Vogue.

His new exhibition at the Anthony Horth Gallery in New York will run until June 15.

The exhibit represents the single largest collection of photographs to ever be exported from Australia

His exhibition features a collection of 21 pieces that each showcase the beauty of the Australian landscape

The images were captured during the sunrise and sunset near the Argyle Diamond Mine in the East Kimberley regionStormy Daniels' lawyer Michael Avenatti charged Sunday that Rudy Giuliani's television appearances have been an 'absolute unmitigated disaster' for the president in a withering rebuke of Donald Trump's personal attorney.

In an interview on 'This Week,' Avenatti said that Giuliani's performance on the program just before him was an 'absolute train wreck' and one of the 'worst TV appearances' by an attorney acting on behalf of a client that he may have ever seen.

'I mean this guys all over the map over the last 72 hours on some very simple facts that should be very straightforward,' Avenatti said. 'They dont know what to say because theyve lost track of the truth.'

Daniels' attorney asserted, 'It is time for Rudy Giuliani to be put out to pasture.'

PUT HIM OUT TO PASTURE!: Stormy Daniels' lawyer Michael Avenatti charged Sunday that Rudy Giuliani's television appearances have been an 'absolute unmitigated disaster' for the president in a withering rebuke of Donald Trump's personal attorney

Daniels, an adult film actress who says she had an affair with the president, was a guest on Saturday Night Live. She said that what she really wants is for the president to resign

WHAT'S THAT?: The president indicated Saturday that he couldn't hear reporters' questions over the roar of Marine One as he returned to the White House from an Ohio trip. He did not stop to chat with them about the Daniels hush-money payment

Giuliani claimed he's 'not really involved' in the Daniels case, despite making multiple television appearances to talk about it, and that he doesn't know and doesn't care when Trump first learned that Daniels wanted money to keep quiet about an affair she claims they had.

The former New York City mayor was the person who made the bombshell claim that Trump reimbursed his former attorney, Michael Cohen, the $130,000 that Daniels received as a payoff.

He said Sunday that he's still working out the facts of when exactly Trump knew what the $35,000-a-month retained he was paying Michael Cohen was funding after claiming days ago that it was sometime in April.

'It could have been recently, it could have been a while back. Those are the facts that were still working on,' Giuliani said. 'And that -- you know, may be in a little bit of dispute. This is more rumor than it is anything else.'

The facts of the matter are under dispute in no small part because of Giuliani's claims last week about what Trump knew and when he knew it.

'I don't think the president realized he paid him back for that specific thing until we made him aware of the paperwork,' Giuliani said Thursday.

He told NBC News that Trump responded, 'Oh my goodness, I guess that's what it was for.'

Trump personally distanced himself from his lawyer's statements on Friday, claiming that Giuliani had only just come aboard and was operating without all of the relevant information.

'When Rudy made the statement  Rudy is great  but Rudy had just started, and he wasnt totally familiar with every  you know, with everything,' Trump said. 'And Rudy  we love Rudy, hes a special guy.'

Hours later, Giuliani released a statement that admitting that he had made incorrect statements.

'My references to timing were not describing my understanding of the President's knowledge, but instead, my understanding of these matters,' he offered.

Giuliani also said his suggestion that Cohen paid off Daniels to boost Trump's election odds was wrong.

'There is no campaign violation,' he said. 'The payment was made to resolve a personal and false allegation in order to protect the President's family. It would have been done in any event, whether he was a candidate or not.'

Legal experts roundly rebuked Giuliani on Sunday for the bumbling performance.

'I think this was a very bad week for the Trump team,' Alan Dershowitz, an advocate for the president, said. 'The Trump team has to speak with a single narrative. They have to get their story clearly set out. It has to be put in writing. It shouldn't be put on television shows off the cuff.

Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, a former U.S. attorney, likewise told CNN that Giuliani said things last week that were 'deeply hurtful of the president's case' that he did not obstruct justice when he fired former FBI Director James Comey, as well as other matters.

President Donald Trumps lawyer Rudy Giuliani insists his client says he still loves me even though the former New York City mayor may have put him in legal jeopardy during a television interview this week. Giuliani appeared on Jeanine Pirro's Fox News show on Saturday

Avenatti delivered the fiercest blow in his an interview on ABC News.

'Its an absolute unmitigated disaster for Rudy Giuliani and the president. Its a train wreck. I cant believe that that actually just happened. I mean what we witnessed by Rudy Giuliani may be one of the worst TV appearances by any attorney on behalf of a client in modern times,' the attorney to Stormy Daniels said.

'He now expects the American people to believe that he doesnt really know the facts, that as to every key question you asked, he hasnt communicated with the president about it. I mean this guys all over the map over the last 72 hours on some very simple facts that should be very straightforward.'

Coming back to the topic later in the interview, Avenatti said 'any attorney thats worth anything could have a 30-minute meeting or conversation with his client and get to the bottom of this. This is not a complicated matter that takes months or years to get to the bottom of, George. I mean, this is absurd.'

Giuliani had previously blasted Avenatti and his client as 'stick-up artists' looking for a seven-figure payday.

He told 'Fox & Friends' that Avenatti had approached MSNBC with an idea for a legal program starring himself and remarked: 'The TV show he could get is  well, "Ambulance Chaser".'

On Sunday, however, he backed off, telling ABC, 'You know, Im not really involved in the -- in the Daniels thing.'Prisoners can now study yachting in jail - but only if they have not been convicted of trafficking offences.

A string of new courses, added to the Prisoners' Education Trust's (PET) 'Distance Learning Curriculum' for 2018, are among the over 100 courses available for convicts in the UK.

The UK's prisoners, who's population is now at around 85,000, can now become 'yachtmasters' with the exception of those who have been convicted of trafficking people, firearms or drugs who are banned from doing navigation courses.

A string of new courses, added to the Prisoners' Education Trust's Distance Learning Curriculum for 2018, are among the over 100 courses available for convicts in the UK

According to the PET charity's new prospectus, prisoners can also study Latin for beginners, goat husbandry, dog grooming, poultry management, pig keeping and even get a diploma in the study of birds of prey.

The navigation courses on offer are all accredited by the Royal Yachting Association and include the beginners day skipper course, the Coastal Skipper course, which aimed at the 'more experienced sailor and the Yachtmaster Ocean course which involves the study 'of the sun, moon and stars, and how to sail by them'.

It adds that inmates will learn about 'the sextant, electronic instruments, climatology.

The courses range from between 475 to 990.

Rod Clark, the Chief Executive of the Prisoner's Education Trust, said: 'The work we do cuts crime - research from the Ministry of Justice proves that'

Inmates unable to pay can apply for a Prisoners' Education Trust grant if they meet the requirements.

The goat husbandry course involves 100 hours over nine months and hails the animals as producers of milk and cheese and 'a great source of manure'.

PET, set up in 1989, provides funding to 3,000 prisoners a year. To qualify, prisoners must write a 200 to 300 word submission about how a course will help future plans.

Rod Clark, the Chief Executive of the Prisoner's Education Trust, said: 'The work we do cuts crime - research from the Ministry of Justice proves that.

PET, set up in 1989, provides funding to 3,000 prisoners a year. To qualify, prisoners must write a 200 to 300 word submission about how a course will help future plans

'As a prison governor said to me recently, 'Today's prisoner is tomorrow's neighbour', and we are helping people become better neighbours, by giving them something useful to do with their time inside, so they can find jobs and support their families after release.

'Even the more unusual-sounding courses can lead directly to getting work.

'Yachting courses are popular in the Channel Islands, for example, where this is a significant field of employment.

'People have used our birds of prey qualifications to become a pest controller.

'Tracey Mackness took a pig husbandry course with us a decade ago and now runs a successful sausage-making business, providing jobs for many others in turn.'Keith Ballard, 31, is set to face a jail sentence when he is caught

A father who violently shook his baby, leaving him was catastrophic injuries, fled the country during his trial with his new girlfriend.

Keith Ballard, 31, is set to face a jail sentence when he is caught, after leaving the baby blind, deaf and brain-damaged.

The baby's mother, Sharon Herbert, 33, was asleep when the child fell into a state of encephalopathy and he was in the sole care of Ballard.

After a delay of at least 10 minutes, Ballard called the NHS non-emergency helpline, but he deliberately concealed the fact that the baby had collapsed.

Ballard was found unanimously guilty by a jury of inflicting grievous bodily harm with intent and cruelty by failing to get him emergency medical aid.

The baby is unable to swallow and has severely impaired cognitive function, with little or no awareness of his external environment, and he suffers from epilepsy.

Towards the end of the trial at Warwick Crown Court Ballard went on the run with a 'one-way-ticket' out of the country.

It is understood that he was accompanied by his new Polish girlfriend and they are believed to have fled to her native country, after cameras tracked his car travelling to Dover.

The boy's mother was found guilty of cruelty by neglecting him in a manner likely to cause unnecessary suffering on Friday.

However sentencing for both defendants was adjourned so the police have time to arrest Ballard and bring him back to the UK after a warrant was issued.

Ballard can be charged with the murder of his son if he later dies as a result of his injuries, the court heard.

The baby's mother, Sharon Herbert, 33, was asleep when he fell into a state of encephalopath

Prosecutor Jonas Hankin QC claimed that he was born a 'normal healthy baby', with no sign of abnormality.

He said: 'At midnight on the 9th of September, while at home in the sole care of his father Keith Ballard, the child collapsed into a state of encephalopathy, damage to the brain affecting the function of the brain.

'The colour had drained from his face, there was respiratory distress as he was struggling to breathe, and reduced consciousness.

'He could not be roused, his eyes were closed shut.

'Mr Ballard woke his partner Sharon Herbert, the child's mother, who at the time was asleep in bed, and took the child to her.

'She later said she knew immediately something was seriously wrong with the child, whose condition she described as scary.

'There is consensus among medical experts that he would have been frighteningly unwell, and would have been frighteningly unwell at the point he sustained the injuries. Yet neither defendant called for an ambulance.'

He merely described the baby as being 'chesty and a bit stubborn,' and having been 'a bit floppy' when he got up to feed him.

Mr Hankin added: 'Eventually an ambulance was dispatched, not because it was asked for, but by the call operator who came to realise the baby's condition may have been more serious than was being described.

'But that was not until half an hour after he had collapsed.

'The prosecution case is that the child's collapse happened because he had sustained a very serious traumatic brain injury, and that it was caused by a shaking mechanism, by rotational accelerating and deceleration, with or without impact.

'There is no chance of meaningful improvement.'

Defending Ballard, Rosina Cottage QC said: 'I have no application for any report. Clearly none is needed.

'He will be arrested, there is no doubt, and brought back in due course.'

Adjourning the case, Judge Hancox told Herbert: 'The jury found you wilfully neglected the baby in not seeking timely medical attention for him.

'This is an offence which can be punished by a sentence of imprisonment, but I am going to re-admit you to bail.'A Florida man who broke into his neighbor's home and left out piles of panties with notes asking her to wear them could face up to 40 years in jail.

Isitro Sanches, dubbed the 'Santa Claus of the neighborhood' for his long white beard, broke into a woman's home multiple times over three months and left piles of underwear inside her home and on her bed, the Panama News Herald reported.

The piles were accompanied with notes, which police say 'were written by someone who had some knowledge of the victim and expressed a desire to see the victim wearing the underwear'.

The woman told police she had first found eight pairs of panties inside her unlocked car, with a handwritten note attached, in January.

Isitro Sanches, 59, could face 40 years jail after breaking into his neighbor's home and leaving out piles of panties for her with handwritten notes saying he'd like to see her in them

Sanches was eventually caught after being found in the woman's kitchen by her boyfriend in April, who identified him to police.

During a search of his trailer, officers uncovered 90 pounds worth of underwear, separated into three bags.

The 59-year-old man had been stealing the woman's own underwear as well. Police found her panties inside his trailer.

Sanches has been convicted of three counts of burglary and a count of aggravated stalking.

He will be sentenced on May 11, and could face up to 40 years in prison.

The woman told the jury she and her children had moved house as a result.

'It got to the point it happened several times a day,' she said.

'I was just gathering the notes and the panties so I could report them later. It got too much. I work two jobs.'A Tory MP launched a savage attack on Jeremy Corbyn's top aide today and accused him of peddling Russian propaganda.

Bob Seely said writing by Seumas Milne during his career as a Guardian columnist had chilling echoes of Kremlin misinformation.

The MP said he did not know whether Mr Milne simply shared Russian ideology or was 'wittingly' acting as an 'agent of influence' for Vladimir Putin.

But he vowed to challenge the Labour leader in Parliament to find which was true.

A Tory MP launched a savage attack on Jeremy Corbyn's top aide Seumas Milne (left) today and accused him of peddling Russian propaganda

The incendiary claims against Mr Corbyn's communications dircetor were made in today's Sunday Times.



Mr Seely said: 'I am concerned about the writings of Jeremy Corbyn's communications director Seumas Milne and how they have appeared to dovetail uncomfortably closely with Russia's agenda in Ukraine.'

The Isle of Wight MP said four articles by Mr Milne made the same 'broad argument' about Russia's case for federalism in Ukraine.

He said leaks from the Kremlin laid bare that this was the foundation of Russian mischief in Ukraine.

And vowing to challenge Mr Corbyn in Parliament on his aide's activity, Mr Seely said: 'Based on what Milne has written, I am concerned that he appears to be, at the very least, a fellow traveller of an authoritarian regime intent on invading other countries.

'The question is not whether Milne was sympathetic to the Kremlin's agenda but whether he was wittingly or not a fellow traveller or an active agent of influence for the Kremlin.

'I ask the question in the public interest.'

Bob Seely said writing by Seumas Milne during his career as a Guardian columnist had chilling echoes of Kremlin misinformation

A Labour source dismissed the reports.

They told MailOnline: 'The claim by Conservative MP Bob Seely that Seumas Milne is an ''agent of influence'' is an absurd and baseless political smear.

'Mr Milne has repeatedly criticised the Russian government, describing Putin's justifications for intervention in Ukraine as ''legally and politically flaky'' and argued that Putin's ''authoritarian conservatism'' offers ''little for Russia's future''.

'Western governments have also backed greater regional autonomy in Ukraine to help end the conflict, so Bob Seeley's suggestion that this is somehow sinister is utterly ridiculous.

'Conservatives MPs should instead explain why Putin's government supported the Conservative Party in last year's UK general election, with the embassy in London even promoting May's ''strong and stable'' slogan.'A 'Tinder sl*t shamer' who was found guilty of joking about raping feminists online is back in court over allegations of assaulting his ex-girlfriend.

Zane Alchin, 27, appeared in Sutherland Local Court on Tuesday over the charges.

Alchin pleaded guilty to destroying his ex-girlfriend Rebecca M's iPad and Panasonic television. However he has pleaded not guilty to stalking and intimidation charges.

Pierre de Dassell, Alchin's lawyer, told the court he would be disputing the facts of the charges.

Sydney man Zane Alchin, 27, (pictured) made vile threats online in 2015 when his Facebook friend shared the Tinder bio of 23-year-old Olivia Melville

Miss Melville's Tinder profile was shared online by a friend of Alchin's who pointed out the explicit Drake lyric in her biography

According to news.com.au, the 27-year-old didn't agree that he allegedly destroyed $8,700 worth of goods. This included 17 lingerie sets, a bedspread, a laptop, a second iPad, a Camilla playsuit, Havaiana thongs, a dress and a phone cover.

According to the publication the court was told that it turned sour after Rebecca M received a message from a male friend.

Alchin allegedly locked himself in the bathroom and Rebecca heard a snap of her iPad.

This is also when he destroyed the other items and allegedly said 'if I cant see you in these, no one can' as he cut up her lingerie.

He then allegedly took her to Harvey Norman to replace a TV and iPad two days later which is when she asked about his 'other girlfriend' HL.

On February 27 Rebecca allegedly ended things via Instagram and Alchin told her to bring the stuff he bought her back.

Rebecca alleges this is when Alchin 'grabbed her by the wrists, pulled her forward and pushed her back so that she fell on the floor'. That is when she went to police.

The bizarre swearing altercation occurred outside a childcare centre in Kirrawee (area pictured)

During an exchange in a childcare centre carpark, court documents allege Alchin attempted to hug another ex-girlfriend named HL, and became aggressive when she rejected his advances.

'You're a f***ing sl*t and you owe me money,' Alchin allegedly yelled in front of her boss and the young schoolchildren.

When he was asked to leave Alchin then took 'what resembled a key' and scratched along the passenger door of her grey Ford Focus.

He then yelled: 'Are we going to get back together?' before driving away.

Alchin was charged with use of offensive language and for destroying and damaging property, to which he pleaded guilty.

Alchin posted a string of abusive comments on Facebook after a friend of his shared a screenshot of Ms Melville's Tinder profile

Among Alchin's comments was one which referenced 'raping feminists'. In another he told a different woman she was not good looking enough to rape

In 2016 Alchin also pleaded guilty to using a carrier service to menace, harass, or cause offence, for writing the comments about Olivia Melville's Tinder profile on social media.

Alchin posted a string of abusive comments on Facebook after a friend of his shared a screenshot of Ms Melville's Tinder profile.

In it, the woman included a lyric from rapper Drake's song Only which read: 'The type of girl that will suck you dry and then eat some lunch with you'.

Among Alchin's comments was one which referenced 'raping feminists'. In another he told a different woman she was not good looking enough to rape.

'You know the best thing about a feminist they don't get any action so when you rape them it feels 100 times tighter,' one of his posts read.

Another shocking comment said: 'It's people like you who make it clear women should never have been given rights.'

Ms Melville is now part of a campaign group called Sexual Violence Won't Be Silenced (above)

His vitriol continued: 'Please you deserve to be taken back to the 50s were (sic) you will learn to know your role and shut your damn mouth.

'If anything you've proven the only thing good a women's (sic) mouth is useful for is to get face f*** till she turns blue.

'Your (sic) all basic sluts who clearly couldn't get *** even from their plumber. So shut the f*** up.'

Alchin's friend, Chris Hall, was fired from his bartending job over the incident.

Uploading the photograph to his social media page, he wrote: 'Stay classy ladies. I'm surprised she'd still be hungry for lunch.'features spectacular 360-degree views has gone on the market for offers over 600,000

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A striking octagonal weather observatory built by Quakers 150 years ago with spectacular 360-degree views has gone on the market for offers over 600,000.

The Observatory Tower in Falmouth, Cornwall, was built on some of the highest ground in the area and from the top floor people can see for miles out to sea and along the Cornish coast.

There is also a 'camera obscura' in the observatory deck, effectively turning the room into a pinhole camera and projecting the beautiful panoramic views onto a table.

The Grade II listed mostly octagonal-shaped building was renovated in 2011 and rented out as a high-end holiday let for up to 1,400, but has now gone on the market with Lillicrap Chilcott.

The incredible octagonal building was built by Quakers 150 years ago and has gone on the market for offers over 600,000

The four-floor tower is split over several levels and features a striking spiral staircase which snakes its way through the entire building

From the fourth-floor of the tower there are striking views out over Falmouth harbour and the Cornish countryside beyond

It was built in 1868 by the Royal Polytechnic Society, founded by Anna-Maria and Caroline Fox, Quakers who were concerned about the well-being of the working classes.

The tower was constructed to provide weather information to the local population and serve as a way to engage them in meteorology.

It only served this purpose for 12 years until 1880 when another observatory was built elsewhere in the town. It was then used for storing meteorological records and artists and school groups visited until it was turned into a private residence in the 1980s.

The current owners bought it in 2004 and transformed it from the basic accommodation it had been over just the bottom two floors, into the stunning five-storey property it is now.

It has 1,216 sq ft of accommodation with two bedrooms and two bathrooms on the ground and first floor and the kitchen/diner and lounge on the second and third floors to take advantage of the views.

On the fourth floor is the observation deck, which the estate agents describe as 'one of the most incredible rooms anywhere in Cornwall'.

On the ground floor of the building there is a useful wet room with modern appliances, shower, loo, sink and modern tiling

There is also a camera obscura in the observatory deck, effectively turning the room into a pinhole camera and projecting the beautiful panoramic views onto a table

The comfortable lounge one floor below the observatory deck affords the inhabitants ample living space and yet more sumptuous views

It has windows on all eight walls offering a genuine 360-degree view across Falmouth, the surrounding countryside and coastline, including Falmouth Bay, and across to the Roseland Peninsula, with St Mawes and Pendennis Castles easily seen and lit at night.

The room has an oak panelled vaulted roof space leading up to the camera obscura at the apex, which was constructed in the 1950s.

It converts the whole room into a pinhole camera when the black-out blinds are drawn and it rotates, allowing the panoramic views to be projected as an image on a table in the observation deck.

The owners have recently run the property as a holiday rental and are prepared to sell it with ongoing bookings and its website if the buyer wanted to continue this.

All the furniture, linen, cutlery and crockery, light fittings, blinds and artwork are available by separate negotiation.

Ian Lillicrap from Lillicrap Chilcott said: 'I've been an estate agent in Cornwall for 39 years and I can honestly say it's the most unusual property I have ever dealt with.

The house also features a light and bright compact kitchen with 360 degree windows offering light from every angle around

The house only features two bedrooms in total but they are modern and bright throughout - with the house having been recently renovated

The house's floorplan shows the unusual layout in more detail - as it is split over five floors but only offers around 113 square meters in living space

'And the views from the upper floors and the top are the most spectacular I have ever seen.

'It's like being in a helicopter above Falmouth when you reach the top. It just completely takes your breath away.

'It's glazed on all sides so you get a 360-degree view over Falmouth and for miles surrounding.

'It is the sort of vista you just never see.

'It's a well-worn phrase but it truly is a once in a lifetime opportunity.

'The craftmanship in this property is spectacular. The beautiful, quality, intricate workmanship and ingenuity, similar to kitting out a superyacht, has been brought into this building.

'The flooring, the winding staircases from floor to floor and the way the kitchen has been fitted, it's all marvellous. The owners have the most incredible eye for detail.

'It's not huge so I don't think it will sell as a main home but it would be an absolutely prized second home for someone or it could be someone who wants to use it for lettings.

'I don't believe there is anything else resembling it in Cornwall. There's nothing that comes close in terms of uniqueness and quality.'Airbnb properties have set up new short-term rental accommodations where clothing is optional.

The 'clothing-optional' accommodation was set up by a couple in their 40s in Finland, called NaturistBnB, Nine News reported.

There are currently three properties in Queensland which are listed with 'clothing optional.'

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The 'clothing-optional' accommodation was set up by a couple in their 40s in Finland, called NaturistBnB

There are three properties in Queensland which are listed as 'clothing optional'

The three properties are located in Port Douglas, Noosa and the Gold Coast.

All three Queensland properties offer a safe, happy and non-judgmental place where guests can relax.

'We started to think it would actually be cool if there was a booking site, just like Airbnb, but dedicated to this lifestyle,' co-founders Petri and Minna Karjalainen told CNN Travel, Nine News reported.

'On our website all of the properties are targeted for naturist lifestyle practicing people.'

Airbnb is an online marketplace connecting people to rent their homes with people who are looking for accommodations.Alexis Martin, now 19, is currently in prison serving 21 years to life after pleading guilty in an adult court to murder over the 2013 slaying of 35-year-old Angelo Kerney (pictured above)

The Ohio Supreme Court is considering whether a 15-year-old girl who was jailed for her involvement in the slaying of a pimp should have been given a break because she was a 'forced sex slave'.

Alexis Martin, now 19, is currently in prison serving 21 years to life after pleading guilty in an adult court to murder over the 2013 slaying of 35-year-old Angelo Kerney.

The impact of Martin's prostitution on her role in Kerney's killing is now being debated in the Ohio Supreme Court.

The girl and her attorney are now arguing that a juvenile judge made a mistake when Martin's history of sex trafficking wasn't adequately explored at a hearing that determined whether she should be charged as an adult.

Investigators say Martin and a female friend came up with the robbery plan with two other men to target Kerney and his brother back in November 2013.

Kerney, who ran a house described as a den of drugs and under-aged prostitution, was Martin's pimp.

Martin and her friend were having sex with Kerney and his brother to distract them when the robbers entered a house and shot the victims.

The girl's lawyer, Jennifer Kinsley, said the juvenile court judge should have determined that Martin was covered by a 2012 Ohio law that protects children whose crimes are related to their status as trafficking victims.

Had the judge determined that the so-called Safe Harbor law applied, a court-appointed guardian for the girl could have been named, and that person could have investigated the full extent of the girl's history of prostitution, according to Kinsley.

There were plenty of warning signs, including the girl's call to a probation officer when she was 14, saying she had been kidnapped and taken to Cincinnati and forced to perform exotic dances, Kinsley told justices this year.

She said the girl 'is a crime victim... she was being raped and sold for sex'.

Ultimately, the judge determined the girl could not be rehabilitated in the juvenile court system and transferred her to adult court, where she pleaded guilty to murder and other charges. Now 19, she's serving 21 years to life.

Kinsley wants the Supreme Court to order the case back to juvenile court.

The Summit County prosecutor's office is challenging the girl's appeal, saying her activity the day of the robbery is separate from her history as a prostitute.

Neither Martin nor her attorney at the time raised the Safe Harbor law, and Martin's case was properly moved to adult court because of the seriousness of the crime and questions about whether Martin could be properly rehabilitated at the juvenile level, according to Richard Raley, a Summit County assistant prosecutor.

During oral arguments in January, Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor asked Raley to clarify the status of Martin's sexual activity before the crime and the day of.

'She was having sex with one of these men, at the time of the robbery, and that was separate and distinct from her activity of being a forced sex slave?' O'Connor said.

Raley said that was the case from the state's perspective.

A court decision isn't expected for weeks.

Several organizations fighting human trafficking have asked the court to side with Martin, including Case Western Reserve University's Human Trafficking Law Clinic; the Ohio State law school's Justice for Children Project; and the Washington, D.C.-based Human Trafficking Pro Bono Legal Center.Furious tourists travelling to Gatwick Airport on the Bank Holiday weekend have slammed been hit by chaos as Southern 'strongly advised' against taking trains to the South Coast.

Passengers reported 'absolute chaos' at the airport as hundreds of people were pictured trying to crowd towards rail replacement buses amid scorching 80F (27C) temperatures on Sunday.

Frustrated travellers took to Twitter to share the 'shambolic management' and 'lack of crowd control'.

Tourists travelling to Gatwick Airport on the Bank Holiday weekend have been hit by chaos as Southern 'strongly advised' against taking trains to the South Coast

Pasengers reported 'absolute chaos' at the airport as hundreds of people were pictured trying to crowd towards rail replacement buses

One Twitter user said there was 'absolute chaos and fights' at Gatwick Airport this afternoon

Samantha Evans who was trying to leave Gatwick airport said: 'It's an absolute shambles.

'There are small children in the crowd and people with limited mobility but there's no visible support or queuing system.

'Its chaotic & dangerous, why wasn't the rail replacement service better planned?'

National Rail said he queue time at Gatwick Airport to board a bus was two hours and strongly advised to not travel towards Brighton.

Engineering work caused serious disruption on the line with air travellers advised to take an extra two hours to reach Gatwick.

Earlier there was railway chaos in Glasgow after a 'failure of the electricity supply' caused by damage to overhead wires.

Bottles of water were issued on a scorching Bank Holiday weekend as passengers struggled to get on rail replacement buses at Gatwick Airport because of engineering work

Dozens of services in Scotland were cancelled as ScotRail predicted the disruption would continue until the end of Sunday.

Elsewhere there were serious delays on the A3 with traffic trapped near the Hindhead Tunnel in Surrey after a collision.

Air ambulances were on the scene causing major disruption as the southbound A3 was closed for two hours.

At Gatwick, passengers were pictured crowding and queuing in the heat to board rail replacement buses because of engineering works.

At Gatwick, passengers were pictured crowding and queuing in the heat to board rail replacement buses because of engineering works

A statement from Southern said: 'Engineering work taking place between Gatwick Airport and Brighton means that buses are replacing some trains.

'There are currently large queues for the replacement bus services at Gatwick Airport and overcrowding at the station.

'As a result, customers should anticipate extended journey times and cancellations between London Victoria and Gatwick to prevent further overcrowding.'

In a tweet they said: 'Due to overcrowding, passengers for Brighton & the South coast are strongly advised not to travel today.'

The rail provider advised passengers to allow an extra two hours for travel between London, Gatwick and Brighton.

Tickets from Southern, Thameslink and Gatwick Express are being accepted on each other's services.

One Twitter user, Aimie Atkinson, said: 'Absolute chaos and fights @GatwickAirport trying to get rail replacement to Brighton, sort it out!

There was also disruption in Glasgow this morning after damage to electrical wires (pictured)

'A few workers trying to manage hundreds of people. My mum had to step in and help with crowd control.'

Louise Mahony told Southern on Twitter: 'We booked a direct train to Brighton from London and ended up pretty much stranded at Gatwick airport.

'There's 500 people here waiting for replacement bus services. This is disgusting, how could run such a terrible service on a bank holiday weekend?'

Another Twitter user said: Absolutely shocking scenes at Gatwick airport... only 2 train platforms operational.

'Then a rail replacement bus south to Three Bridges and this is the queue on 3 levels of concourse for the bus! On one of the hottest days. This is disgraceful!'

And Lois Bray said: 'Crowds pushing through the queues, getting v aggressive & out of control. Avoid if you can.'A doctor who imported illegal drugs over the internet has been spared jail after claiming the 'personal trauma' of seeing two child patients die made him relapse.

Michael Condon, 40, admitted last month that he imported three types of drugs, including a synthetic stimulant and a psychoactive substance, between October 2016 and March 2017.

Condon said he suffered a relapsed and needed the controlled substances to cope with his 'draining' job, citing the death of two children who were under his care.

Judge Elliot Knopf noted the physician's 'remorse' and gave him a 12-month community order with 200 hours of unpaid work on Friday at Bolton Crown Court.

Michael Condon, 40, admitted to importing drugs over the internet. The doctor said he suffered a 'personal trauma' after watching two child patients die, making him relapse. He avoided jail when sentenced at Bolton Crown Court on Friday

Condon, of Blackburn Road, Sharples, purchased 26 grams of Alpha PHP, Methylone powder and Flurohenmetrazine (FPM) over the internet.

His defence barrister David Wood said the drug use was a 'relapse' and said working in a 'ferociously draining' environment contributed to the use, reported the Bolton News.

Speaking in court, Mr Wood said: 'He is working towards a position as a consultant in A&E. It can be ferociously draining.

'He has experienced the death of two children that came under his care.

'He had failed to deal with that properly and has allowed himself to relapse by taking inappropriate substances.

'Although he has let himself and his profession down, he has not put anyone at risk.'

Condon, of Blackburn Road, Sharples, purchased 26 grams of Alpha PHP, Methylone powder and Flurohenmetrazine (FPM) over the internet. Pictured: File photo of a controlled substance

The attorney revealed that Condon was convicted in 2005 for obtaining drugs from a pharmacy, falsely saying they were for his patients when they were actually for him.

He added: 'Condon suffered personal trauma in 1999 that led to a significant problem with Class A drugs as a copying mechanism.

'All credit to him, he overcame that addiction, not only that but he went on to complete medical studies. He has become a credit to his profession and a valued member of the NHS.'

Condon was found out when UK border control intercepted a package in December 2016 addressed to Condon from a company in Amsterdam that contained illegal drugs.

The border agency intercepted another package containing drugs in March of 2017, prompting police to search Condon's home.

There, they found documentation that Condon was obtaining drugs from a Dutch company. Police also found bank statements, less than 100, to the company.Senator John McCain has revealed he regrets choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate in the 2008 presidential election.

The Arizona senator, who is battling an aggressive form of brain cancer, admitted his regrets in an upcoming HBO documentary and in his book entitled The Restless Wave, both set for release later this month.

In the book the 81-year-old Republican details wishing he chose Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman instead of Palin as his Vice President pick.

John McCain, left, has revealed he wishes he didn't pick Sarah Palin, right, as his running mate in the 2008 presidential election in his upcoming book and documentary

McCain added he wished he picked Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman instead, above

In the documentary he touches on choosing Palin, calling skipping out on Lieberman 'another mistake that I made' in his political career.

When asked his reaction to McCains regret, the Democrat-turned-Independent Lieberman said 'It touched me greatly' to the New York Times.

McCain says that advisers warned him against Lieberman because he formerly caucused with Democrats and supported abortion rights.

Running with him would jeopardize his campaign by dividing Republican voters.

'It was sound advice that I could reason for myself. But my gut told me to ignore it and I wish I had,' he said in his book.

In the book McCain also shares his thoughts on President Donald Trump.

'He seems uninterested in the moral character of world leaders and their regimes,' he said.

'The appearance of toughness or a reality show facsimile of toughness seems to matter more than any of our values. Flattery secures his friendship, criticism his enmity,' he added.

The Arizona senator was diagnosed with brain cancer last July and is undergoing treatment.

Speaking on his Vice President pick he said it was 'another mistake that I made' in his career, pictured above campaigning in Washington, Pennsylvania in 2008 with Palin

McCain said he was advised against picking Lieberman because he caucused with Democrats and supported abortion rights, pictured with Palin in 2010 in Arizona

McCain's documentary and book are due to be released in May as he battles an aggressive form of brain cancer, pictured above after voting on a Senate tax bill in November 2017

His inner circle is reportedly planning his funeral, of which Trump notably did not make the invite list.

Those close to the McCain told the White House Vice President Mike Pence is wanted to attend the funeral.

However the president did not make the cut.

Trump has blasted McCain on several occasions, calling him 'a mess' during his CPAC speech in February.

Trump even got the CPAC crowd to boo McCain when he mentioned the senator voting against his senate colleagues with a thumbs down when they tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

'Remember, one person walked into a room, where he was supposed to go this way, and he said he was going this way, and he walked in and he went this way and everyone said, "What happened? What was that all about?" Boy, oh, boy,' Trump said avoiding the mention of McCain's name.

In 2015 he mocked McCain's status as hero in the Vietnam War during a 2015 Family Leadership Summit, saying McCain was only a war hero 'because he was captured'.

'I like people who weren't captured,' Trump added.A 13-year-old boy is being hailed as a miracle child after he came back to life following his parents signing papers to donate his organs.

Trenton McKinley, 13, told FOX10, that he was playing with his friend in March in a trailer being pulled by a dune buggy.

The teenager, from Mobile, Alabama, said his friend suddenly slammed on the breaks, causing the trailer to flip over. Trenton's head slammed into the concrete.

He was rushed into emergency surgery at USA Medical Center where doctors told his parents that he had seven skull fractures.

Trenton McKinley, 13 (pictured), is being hailed as a miracle child after he came back to life following his parents signing papers to donate his organs

Trenton, from Mobile, Alabama (pictured, with his mother), said he was sitting with his friend in a trailer being pulled by a dune buggy when his friend slammed on the breaks causing Trenton to hit his head on concrete

Trenton (left and right) was rushed into emergency surgery at USA Medical Center where doctors told his parents that he had seven skull fractures and that he would likely be a vegetable

'All I saw was a stretcher with his feet hanging out. He was dead a total of 15 minutes,' his mother, Jennifer Reindl, told FOX10.

'When he came back, they said he would never be normal again. They told me the oxidation problems would be so bad to his brain, that he would be a vegetable if he even made it.'

Because Trenton was declared brain dead and barely breathing, his parents made the heart-breaking decision to donate his organs to children in need of transplants.

'Five kids needed organs that matched him,' Reindl told the station. 'It was unfair to keep bringing him back, because it was just damaging his organs even more.'

Because Trenton (left and right) was declared brain dead and barely breathing, his parents made the decision to donate his organs to children in need of transplants. But, the day before he was meant to be taken off of life support, he began to show signs of brain activity

His mother (pictured, with Trenton) wrote in a Facebook fundraising page that he began to breathe on his own and, when he woke up, he was speaking in full sentences

The day before Trenton was meant to be taken off of life support, he began to show signs of brain activity.

His mother wrote in a Facebook fundraising page that he began to breathe on his own and, when he woke up, he was speaking in full sentences.

However, the road to recover has not been easy. Trenton has lost 50 pounds and suffers daily from nerve pain and seizures.

Trenton has had three brain surgeries so far and has finally been allowed to return home.

However, the road to recover has not been easy. Trenton (left and right) has lost 50 pounds and suffers daily from nerve pain and seizures. He has had three brain surgeries so far and has finally been allowed to return home

A Facebook fundraising page has been started to raise money for Trenton's (pictured) medical bills. So far more than $3,300 has been raised out of a $4,000 goal

Soon he will be back in the hospital to have part of his skull reattached. But he's maintained a great sense of humor about the trauma he's endured.

'I said I could turn sideways and put salsa in there and eat chips and dip out of my head. No more washing dishes for me!' he told FOX10 in reference to the dent in his head.

'[My mother] wouldn't let me put nothing in it though. I really wanted to see if I could.'

A Facebook fundraising page has been started to raise money for Trenton's medical bills. So far more than $3,300 has been raised out of a $4,000 goal.The Spanish-based renewable energy and infrastructure company involved in the production of Sydney's light rail has launched a campaign to start a conversation on climate change.

In an attempt to distract from troubles with the progress of the light rail, Acciona has enlisted Australian actor Liam Hemsworth, known for his role in the Hunger Games films, and Karla Souza, who is known for her role in How To Get Away With Murder.

Acciona is part of the ALTRAC consortium, which involves three other companies, which are involved in the light-rail project in Sydney, which has been pushed back until 2020.

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Liam Hemsworth (pictured) is the face of Acciona's 'invest in the planet' campaign, as the company filed proceedings against Transport for NSW over being allegedly 'misled' over the Sydney light rail project

But according to the Daily Telegraph, a spokeswoman for Andrew Constance, the New South Wales Transport and Infrastructure Minister, said: 'They should just get on with it like most reputable contractors do.'

In a paid endorsement video shared by Mr Hemsworth on his social media accounts, he explains how he believes it is important to 'invest in the planet'.

He said: 'I have been invited to be a part of Acciona's new initiative on climate change and how it affects life as we know it.

'Acciona is already delivering sustainable solutions for infrastructure and renewable projects across the world but each and every one of us should be thinking about how we can invest in our planet's future.'

He invites people to get in contact with him to discuss ways to minimise the world's footprint.

He also shared a video campaign by the infrastructure company which depicts scenes of madness in a stock exchange type setting before figures and numbers on screens are replaced by environmental disasters.

This all unfolds to the tune of Gary Jules' Mad World.

Mr Hemsworth invites people to get in contact with him to discuss ways to minimise the world's footprint

Karla Souza (pictured) is also part of the campaign aimed at Australia, Spain, United States, Mexico, Chile and Canada

In a press release on their website Acciona explains that: 'The international campaign will have local brand ambassadors, replicating Acciona's commitment to sharing a global vision with a local commitment in the communities where it operates.'

The website explains that the campaign: 'challenges the investment community to re-examine their investment strategies, particularly with regard to their impact on the planet.'

'Nevertheless, slow progress in arresting climate change has led ACCIONA to urge the investment community to take a step further and support initiatives to climate change.'

It is aimed at Australia, Spain, United States, Mexico, Chile and Canada.

An Acciona Australia spokesman said that the campaign was not tied to one specific project.

Acciona has filed $1.1billion proceedings against Transport for NSW in the Supreme Court for what they describe as 'misleading and deceptive' conduct (Pictured: George Street under construction)

'Our new marketing campaign is a global initiative designed to encourage investment in projects that benefit people around the world,' they said.

'It reflects our values as a company, and the importance of responsible investment in infrastructure, water and renewable energy. With 37,000 employees, a presence in 65 countries, a track record of successful project delivery and a strong balance sheet, we play a significant role in these markets internationally.

'Funded from global headquarters, the campaign is not tied to any specific project in any country.

'Allegations of a 'go slow' on SLR have been strenuously denied by ALTRAC, and at no time has any real detail been given to support the allegation. We remain fully committed to the completion of the contract.'

Acciona has filed $1.1billion proceedings against Transport for NSW in the Supreme Court for what they describe as 'misleading and deceptive' conduct, according to the ABC.Four Brits caught trying to parachute off a Benidorm skyscraper (pictured) have been told they face fines of up to 265,000

Four Brits caught trying to parachute off a Benidorm skyscraper have been told they face fines of up to 265,000.

Town hall chiefs say the thrill seekers were planning on filming their stunt and posting footage on the Internet.

They were stopped yesterday morning by local police as they prepared to jump off a skyscraper in the popular holiday resort called Torre Levante.

The 393-foot, 36-storey building, was Benidorms tallest until 2002.

The Brits, who have not been named, also had their parachutes confiscated.

Local paper Diario de Informacion said the men are thought to have performed several unauthorised parachute jumps in the city before police tracked them down.

In March YouTube dare devil Ally Law filmed himself scaling Barcelonas Sagrada Familia temple with friends.

Local paper Diario de Informacion said the men are thought to have performed several unauthorised parachute jumps in the city (pictured)

The video Southampton-born Ally posted on his YouTube channel showed he and two pals were inside the Sagrada Familia enclosure for nine minutes.

They were able to outsmart and outrun security guards who spotted them as they scaled metal scaffolding around the temple before having to abort their climb to avoid arrest.

Daredevil Ally has previously climbed the Severn Bridge and Blackpool's Big One rollercoaster - but has now added the Sagrada Familia to his list

Police launched an investigation the day after the footage was posted online.

Benidorm is known as Little Manhattan because of its tall buildings.

The 692-foot Intempo skyscraper is now the towns tallest building.The toddler son of a British couple has died after falling around 25 feet from a second-floor apartment in the Algarve holiday resort of Lagos.

The child, aged 18 months, was rushed to hospital critically injured yesterday morning.

Sources at the Algarve University Hospital Centre confirmed today that the youngster had died as a result of his injuries after being admitted to a paediatric intensive care unit.

The toddler son of a British couple has died after falling around 25 feet from a second-floor apartment in the Algarve (pictured) holiday resort of Lagos

The child's parents lived on the Algarve and the youngster was born in Portugal and is said to have Portuguese nationality.

Police are now investigating the circumstances surrounding the tragedy. They have made no official comment but have confirmed the parents are British.

One source said it was believed the child had died in a tragic accident - possibly while the youngster's parents were still sleeping - but the investigation was ongoing. It is being conducted by the Policia Judiciaria.

Sources at the Algarve University Hospital Centre (pictured) confirmed today that the youngster had died as a result of his injuries after being admitted to a paediatric intensive care unit

The alert was sounded around 9.30am on Saturday. The boy's parents were both believed to have been in the apartment, near the entrance to Lagos, at the time.

Neither the parents or their child has been named.

The youngster was rushed to Portimao Hospital before being transferred to the Algarve University Hospital Centre in Faro.

A source said today: 'Unfortunately the child was not able to overcome his serious injuries.'

A neighbour said: 'I heard a young man, who practised first aid on the youngster, screaming.

'The neighbour on the first floor came to the window. He then went to knock on the parents' door and the mother came to the window and saw her son lying on the ground.'Advertisement

Stunning photos show Russian servicemen and women rehearsing for the Victory Day Parade.

The annual ceremony, held in Russia and other former Soviet countries on May 9, will mark the 73rd anniversary of Nazi Germany's defeat in the Second World War - known as the Great Patriotic War in Russia.

Planes, jets, helicopters, tanks and artillery vehicles make their way through Red Square in Moscow and Palace Square in St. Petersburg for the country's most important national holiday.

And for the last week, the country's armed forces have been gearing up for the much-anticipated display of patriotism and military might with flamboyant rehearsals in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Female military personnel march proudly through Red Square during rehearsals for the annual Victory Day Parade, held on May 9 in Russia and other former Soviet countries

Russian soldiers, wearing striking red and black military uniform, attend the dress rehearsal in Moscow as the country gears up for their most important national holiday

Spectators watch armed soldiers riding enormous tanks through Palace Square in St. Petersburg during a rehearsal. Many can be seen holding up their phones on selfie sticks to capture the spectacular display

Russian servicewomen wearing red berets march in unison though Palace Square in St. Petersburg during a rehearsal for the much-anticipated national holiday parade

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, heavily decorated in medals, salutes during a dress rehearsal in Moscow

Russian servicemen, wearing smart green uniform and white gloves, march through Red Square during a Victory Day Parade rehearsal

Russian soldiers receive instructions during a rehearsal march in Moscow as the country gets ready for the spectacular display of patriotism

Russian soldiers take a well-deserved break while taking part in rehearsals for the show of military might in Moscow on May 9

Female officers march through Red Square in Russia in regimented rows as the country prepares for Victory Day Parade

Scores of Russian special forces officers put on a stunning display of discipline and strength in Red Square during a rehearsal

Russian soldiers take a break together under dazzling fairy lights as they rehearse in Moscow for their proud patriotic display

A female Russian cadet embraces a colleague in Moscow during rehearsals for the Victory Day Parade. Dazzling decorative lights hang in the background as they affectionately gaze into each other's eyes

Female servicewomen flash smiles during a march in unison through Red Square as preparations for Victory Day Parade get underway

Soldiers in blue berets and carrying rifles look cheery as they rehearse their steps in Moscow for the military parade

Soldiers carrying huge red flags march ahead of a large group of soldiers in Moscow. The country is gearing up for a spectacular show of patriotism and military might

Russian Buk-M2 air defense missile systems drive through brightly-lit Moscow as vehicles practice their maneuvers for the annual parade

Military tanks are driven through Moscow during preparations for Victory Day Parade on May 9. It is a very important day in Russia's calendar

A cheery group of armed Russian soldiers gather in Red Square during a rehearsal. St Basil's Cathedral can be seen towering in the background

A soldier smiles widely as he joins his comrades in rehearsing their steps for the march through Red Square in Moscow

Scores of soldiers march through Red Square, practising their patriotic display which the nation will witness on May 9

A Russian tank snakes its way through Moscow during a late-night rehearsal for the Victory Day Parade, as the country gears up for the celebration

Soldiers march proudly through Moscow during a night rehearsal for the Victory Day Parade, which marks the defeat of Nazi Germany in the Second World War

Russian soldiers raise their heads to the right as they practice their movements for the patriotic march through Moscow

The Kremlin Clock dazzles in Red Square as soldiers gather to perfect their routine for the Victory Day march during a late-night rehearsal

A Russian T-72 tank is loaded onto truck late at night after a rehearsal for the Victory Day Parade in St. Petersburg's Palace Square

Russian T-72 tanks gather in front of the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg during a rehearsal for the parade

A woman cranes her neck to watch as military vehicles make their way through St. Petersburg during a rehearsal for the patriotic march

A little girl poses with a Russian soldier, sitting on top of an enormous tank making its way past the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg

Arctic short-range air defense missile systems drive through Moscow's Red Square during a dress rehearsal for the May 9 celebration

A huge Russian T-72B3 tank is driven onto a truck after a rehearsal for the military parade in St. Petersburg. Spectators line the streets (left) to take photos of the stunning display

Russian servicemen drive military vehicles along Tverskaya Street in Moscow ahead of the flamboyant ceremony

Russian Navy cadets march on Palace Square in St. Petersburg during a rehearsal for the proud national holiday celebration

Servicemen march together in Moscow during rehearsals for the Victory Day Parade, proudly strutting with their heads raised

A group of soldiers take a break from rehearsals beside an enormous tank in St. Petersburg ahead of the Palace Square march

A worker washes a statue of Soviet marshal Georgy Zhukov in St. Petersburg as preparations continue for the 73rd anniversary of the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany in the country's Great Patriotic War (Second World War)

Russian servicemen ride military vehicles along Tverskaya Street in Moscow during a rehearsal for the big march on May 9

Servicemen pose in Moscow's Red Square during a late-night rehearsal for the much-anticipated Victory Day Parade in Russia

Soldiers holding rifles smile for the camera in Red Square in Moscow during rehearsals for the military parade, just days awayAdvertisement

A fire-breathing spider best known for impressing crowds at Glastonbury Festival has arrived in London.

The beast forms part of a festival set up known as Arcadia and is a 50-ton stage made from scrap military metal that has become famous around the world.

And now it has been uprooted from its traditional Somerset home and transported to London to host a show to celebrate the 10th anniversary of its creation.

The festival includes circus performers, remarkable sculptures and engineering, plus live music from acts such as Rudimental.

A fire-breathing spider (pictured) best known for impressing crowds at Glastonbury Festival has arrived in London

The beast forms part of a festival set up known as Arcadia and is a 50-ton stage made from scrap military metal that has become famous around the world

Arcadia has been set up in the capital for a two-day festival to mark the tenth anniversary since its first show

Held at the Queen Elizabeth Park on May 5 and May 6 for the first time, the spider-like stage will be one of three set up at the festival.

Another is a brand new, 360 degree, immersive dancefloor experience called The Reactor which has been introduced to the show.

The festival includes circus performers and dancers (pictured), remarkable sculptures and engineering, plus live music from acts such as Rudimental

Held at the Queen Elizabeth Park on May 5 and May 6 for the first time, the spider-like stage will be one of three set up at the festival

The Lords of Lightning perform during the Arcadia 10th Anniversary Metamorphosis show at Queen Elizabeth Park on May 5, 2018 in London

Arcadia founders, Pip Rush and Bert Cole, previously said: We cant wait to bring Arcadia into the capital for the first time.

Having toured the globe, were really excited to get back onto home soil, and celebrate the best of the past decade.

There is no Glastonbury festival this year as the event takes a fallow year to let the land at Worthy Farm in Somerset recover.

Arcadia teamed up with London event specialists LWE to stage the tenth anniversary show.

Another is a brand new, 360 degree, immersive dancefloor experience called The Reactor which has been introduced to the show Pictured: A dancer performs during The Network show in The Reactor tent

The giant spider entertained crowds with flame shooting performances (left) and light shows (right)

Arcadia teamed up with London event specialists LWE to stage the tenth anniversary show in the capitalRudy Giuliani says that President Trump could plead the fifth if special counsel Robert Mueller subpoenas him.

In an ABC News appearance during which he was acting in his capacity as the president's personal attorney, Giuliani said he cannot be 'confident' that Trump will not refuse to answer questions on the constitutionally-protected grounds that he has a right not to incriminate himself.

'How can I ever be confident of that?' Giuliani said of the possibility that Trump could invoke the Fifth Amendment. 'I've got a client who wants to testify... I hope we get a chance to tell him the risk that he's taking. So he may testify.'

Rudy Giuliani says that President Trump could plead the fifth if special counsel Robert Mueller subpoenas him

Giuliani insisted in the interview that interview that Trump does not have to comply with a subpoena from Mueller if he doesn't want to and that is his privilege as president.

Rep. Adam Schiff, a former U.S. attorney and the ranking Democrat on the House panel that investigated the 2016 campaign, immediately slapped down Giuliani's claim.

'No. He is going to need to comply with a subpoena. If they take that case to court, they are going to lose,' he said.

Giuliani on Friday said he is preparing for the possibility that the special counsel will subpoena Trump before he concludes the 2016 election meddling probe.

The Trump lawyer said he believes there is a 50/50 chance that a subpoena will be issued, telling ABC News 'I got to prepare for that 50 percent.'

President Trump said Friday that he is still willing to talk directly with Special Counsel Robert Mueller but worries that he would be treated unfairly.

He said his his legal team is counseling him against giving Mueller the chance to quiz him about his campaign's links to Moscow and about claims that he obstructed justice in 2017 by firing then-FBI Director James Comey.

'I would love to speak, but I have to find that we're going to be treated fairly,' Trump said at the White House. 'I would love to speak because we've done nothing wrong,' he added.

Giuliani on Sunday said that he came onto Trump's legal team last month with a desire to have his client speak to Mueller.

'And they just keep convincing not to do it,' he said, pointing to the leaked list of questions that Mueller reportedly wants to put to Trump.

President Donald Trump told DailyMail.com as he left the White House on Friday for the NRA convention in Dallas that he would only let Special Counsel Robert Mueller interview him if he thought he could get a fair shake

But Trump fears Mueller's operation is biased against him: 'We have 13 people and theyre all Democrats  real Democrats. Angry Democrats'

Mueller is helming a wide-ranging probe into allegations that the president's campaign colluded with Russians to affect the result of the 2016 election.

Trump said Friday that Mueller's team of veteran investigators are 'all Democrats. In some cases, they went to the Hillary Clinton celebration that turned out to be a funeral.'

'Bob Mueller worked for Obama for eight years,' he said, painting the man who could soon be his inquisitor as a partisan.

Minutes later at Joint Base Andrews, Trump told a different gaggle of reporters before boarding Air Force One: 'Bottom line is I want to talk to people in charge if they can prove that its a fair situation.'

'The problem we have is, we have 13 people and theyre all Democrats  real Democrats. Angry Democrats. And thats not a fair situation,' Trump said.

'Nobody wants to speak more than me  in fact, against my lawyers, because most lawyers, they say "Never speak on anything,"' Trump explained

Trump concluded that he would only participate in a sit-down session if he believes 'that we're going to be treated fairly. Because everybody sees it now and it's a pure witch hunt.'

'If I thought it was fair, I would override my lawyer,' he added.

Giuliani has counseled Trump against consenting to a face-to-face with Mueller that lasts more than two hours.

His departing lawyer Ty Cobb, however, had advised him to strike a more cooperative tone.

Cobb's departure elevates attorney Jay Sekulow, another lawyer who believes the president should keep the special counsel at arm's length.

Giuliani on Sunday said he worries that that the special counsel is setting up a perjury trap for the president.

'They don't have a case on collusion. They don't have a case on obstruction, which is why they're asking all of these cockamamie questions about what do you feel, what do you think,' he said of the leaked list.

The president's lawyer noted that legal minds around the country are saying that Trump would be a 'fool to testify.' He indicated that he and Sekulow agree with them.

'So he may testify. And we may actually work things out with Bob Mueller, because working with him directly is good,' Giuliani said.Donald Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn canceled a campaign appearance Sunday in Montana for Republican US Senate candidate Troy Downing due to an unspecified 'family emergency.'

The cancellation of Sunday's event was announced by Flynn in a video posted by Downing's campaign.

Trump fired Flynn in February 2017. White House officials said he misled them about his Russian contacts.

SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO

Donald Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn (left) canceled a campaign appearance Sunday in Montana for Republican US Senate candidate Troy Downing (right) due to an unspecified 'family emergency'

The former general is one of 19 people charged in the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 US election.

In December, Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about this conversations with Russia and about his role as a lobbyist for Turkey.

He has agreed to cooperate with the investigation that looking into whether there was collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign during the 2016 general election.

Downing, who has called the retired general an American patriot, is one of four candidates seeking the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic US Senator Jon Tester.

Tester enraged the president by derailing the nomination of Ronny Jackson to head the Department of veterans Affairs.

Downing is challenign Democratic US Senator Jon Tester (pictured). Tester enraged the president by derailing the nomination of Ronny Jackson to head the Department of veterans Affairs

Last week, Trump (pictured) called Tester to resign, saying cryptically: 'I know things about the senator' that would cost the incumbent his home-state support.

The Montana Democrat told CNN's Anderson Cooper that Jackson would hand out prescriptions 'like candy.'

'[HE] go down the aisle way of the airplane and say, 'All right, who wants to go to sleep?' And hand out the prescription drugs like they were candy...and put them to sleep and then give them the drugs to wake them back up again,' HE SAID.

Last week, Trump called Tester to resign, saying cryptically: 'I know things about the senator' that would cost the incumbent his home-state support.

In a video endorsing Downing, Flynn said Downing's experience as a combat veteran made him the best candidate in the June primary.

Downing spokesman Kevin Gardner said the campaign would try to reschedule Flynn's appearance for a later date. No further details were available on the nature of Flynn's family emergency, Gardner said.

who enraged the president by derailing the nomination of Ronny Jackson to head the Department of veterans AffairsFive years ago, she could squeeze all four of them into her arms.

But today  with two wriggling, giggling girls on her lap and another two creeping up behind her  it looks as though Christine Clarks hands are fuller than ever.

Her quadruplets made history when they were born because they had come from a single embryo, in what was estimated to be a 70million-to-one chance.

And now the Fab Four  Alexis, Elisha, Darcy and Caroline  have grown up into joyous, if frantic, five-year-olds.

Christine Clarks quadruplets (pictured together) made history when they were born in Rotherham

They have just celebrated their birthday and are already little ladies, according to their father Justin. At one point, I could hold all four girls at once, he said. Now I think: Where have they gone? They are little ladies now.

After five years, the parents have become experts at the logistics of bringing up four girls  for example, how to organise their wardrobes.

When they were born, weighing little more than 9lb between them, they each had their own set of onesies  differently coloured so Mr and Mrs Clark could tell them apart.

But now the girls have to negotiate between themselves what they want to wear each day from a joint wardrobe.

It would be too much work to label all their clothes individually so they all share, explained Mr Clark, 48. They have a few rows, but mostly they work it out amicably.

Mrs Clark, 41, a nurse, added: Weve never dressed them the same and we encourage their different interests and their independence from one another.

Before the girls came along, the couple had been trying for children for nearly a decade and had almost given up hope.

And now the Fab Four  Alexis, Elisha, Darcy and Caroline  have grown up into joyous, if frantic, five-year-olds

But their first round of IVF proved successful in a spectacular way. The quadruplets are from a single embryo that split into three, with one of the resulting embryos dividing again. Professor Simon Fishel, of CARE Fertility Group, said: We would have to wait several lifetimes to witness something like this again.

When the girls were born, Mr Clark gave up his job as a long-distance lorry driver to help care for them. The couple, who live in Rotherham, decided the only way to bring the quadruplets up was with a strict routine.

The sisters get themselves ready for school and help around the house. They will use the vacuum, the steam mop and the polish as well as tidy up their room, said Mr Clark, who is now back working as a telecoms field engineer.

But like all youngsters, the foursome do occasionally play up. Something has to go wrong sometimes, their father added, explaining that their antics have included drawing on their parents bed with pink lipstick and breaking a TV while playing with a broomstick.

Looking to the future, Mr Clark has made one thing clear: Ive told them already  theyll definitely have to pay for their own weddings.Sarah Leigh, 50, was told she had offended a call handler at Santander after she called up with a query about her credit card

A bank customer was threatened with having her account shut down after chatting with a call centre worker about the popularity of curry in his home city.

Sarah Leigh, 50, had called Santander about her credit card when the bank worker mentioned that he was from Bradford.

In an attempt to make conversation, the mother-of-three referred to the West Yorkshire city as Curryland and mentioned reading how waterways there had turned yellow because of the amount of turmeric washing into them.

The man did not complain at the time  but days later Mrs Leigh was shocked to receive a letter from Santander saying she had offended the call handler.

The letter, from Sonia Porter, a manager for the banks executive complaints team, said: Your call has been brought to our attention as the adviser, who was happy to help you with your inquiry, was offended by the comments made in respect of Bradford and its inhabitants.

Santander considers great customer service a priority and we expect our staff to treat our customers with courtesy and respect at all times.

'In return we would expect our customers to afford our staff the same courtesy and sadly this was not the experience they had when you called.

While I am sure you did not intend to cause offence, we would respectfully ask that during future calls you refrain from making remarks such as these.

Should there be repeats of this behaviour when contacting us, we may have no option but to review our banking relationship with you and we may then decide it is in everyones interests for you to seek alternative banking arrangements.

Mrs Leigh, who has banked with Santander for more than three years, said: I was jolted by the letter. I didnt swear, I didnt comment on religion or the colour of the persons skin.

Its so over the top I fear for the future generation. We really are becoming a bunch of snowflakes.

The shocking letter received by Mrs Leigh after her conversation with the call centre worker

Magazine sales executive Mrs Leigh, from Bristol, made the call on April 20 and had largely forgotten about it until she received the letter a week later.

When she rang up and spoke to one of the employees colleagues, she asked what she had done wrong and was told she had talked about Curryland when she learned where the man lived.

She then remembered mentioning an article about how waterways in Bradford  which has 200 Indian and Asian restaurants and has been named curry capital of Britain six times  had turned yellow due to the amount of spices emptying into them.

The issue had been highlighted in a report by the Friends of Bradford Beck group, triggering an investigation by the Environment Agency.

Mrs Leigh said that the woman told her: I know from your call you didnt mean to cause offence but you clearly did cause it to our adviser.

Mrs Leigh said yesterday: The more Ive thought about it, the more outraged I am.

A waterway in Bradford polluted by the popular yellow curry ingredient turmeric. The city has been dubbed the curry capital of Britain because of the changing colour of its waterways

Her 52-year-old husband Marcus, who is a property developer, said: We were gobsmacked.

Sarah wouldnt have meant any malice in the slightest. I think its the most ridiculous thing Ive ever heard of.

'Its a snowflake millennial who has got offended over nothing. But whats worse is a massive company like Santander has backed him.

Santander said that it had followed procedures where staff can report inappropriate behaviour to a manager.

A spokesman added: Our call handler was offended by comments they felt were racially inappropriate.

As a bank with a multicultural workforce, we take these matters seriously and explained to the customer the offence caused.

We have since spoken to Mrs Leigh and understand this was not her intention. We hope we can continue meeting Mrs Leighs banking needs.Right-wing political commentator Candace Owens blames former president Barack Obama for damaging race relations in the US.

Speaking on Fox & Friends on Sunday, Owens opened up about her newfound friendship with rapper Kanye West and jabbed the former president for allowing racial tension to heighten during his time in office.

'Its been so black and white, the conversation, and I blame Obama. His eight years in office did a lot of damage in terms of race relations in this country,' she said.

Speaking on Fox & Friends on Sunday, Candace Owens blamed former Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for adding to racial tension in the US

She said: 'I blame Obama. His eight years in office did a lot of damage in terms of race relations in this country'

She also said she '100 per cent' supported a summit on race to be held at the White House

She said that Obama and Hillary Clinton shoulder the blame for heightened racial tension

Watch the latest video at <a href="//video.foxnews.com">video.foxnews.com</a>

She added that Hillary Clinton also shoulders part of the blame.

'Hillary [Clinton] didn't help much when she kept calling everybody racist and sexist, so the language has changed and the rhetoric has changed,' she said on the show.

In the interview Owens, a controversial YouTuber who is an outspoken critic of Black Lives Matter, detailed how the Republican party has ignored the black community.

'I think Republicans  I hate to speak in terms of Democrats and Republicans  but particularly regarding Republicans, they really gave up on blacks. They said okay 93 per cent of you are voting for Democrats so they didnt really embrace the black community,' she said.

'When I met with some of them, it was like an uphill battle. I was like this can be done. And I think they were just kind of feeling sort of defeated after seeing the numbers for so many years,' she added.

In the interview she said she supported a potential White House summit on race relations and suggested having figureheads like Kanye West and Colin Kaepernick have an open conversation at the conference.

'100 per cent I support it,' she said.

In the interview she also gushed about her new friendship with the Gold Digger rapper.

'It has been crazy how much a seven word tweet can impact your life positively and negatively. It's been a wonderful couple of weeks for me,' she said.

Kanye dished out praise for Owens - a controversial YouTuber who is an outspoken critic of Black Lives Matter - on Twitter, saying he liked the way she 'thinks'

Owens, who works for the right-wing group Turning Point USA, quickly responded begging for a meeting with the 40-year-old rapper

Kanye West was spotted after meeting with conservative commentators Candace Owens and Charlie Kirk in Los Angeles on Sunday

Kanye tweeted this photo of a whiteboard that Owens used during their meeting

On April 22 he tweeted: 'I love the way Candace Owens thinks'.

Owens, who works for the right-wing group Turning Point USA, responded by begging for a meeting with West.

'I'm freaking out. @kanyewest .... please take a meeting with me. I tell every single person that everything that I have been inspired to do, was written in your music. I am my own biggest fan, because you made it okay. I need you to help wake up the black community,' she tweeted.

On Sunday April 29 that meeting finally came to fruition as Owens, West and conservative commentator Charlie Kirk were seen exiting a meeting in Calabasas in Los Angeles.

'I dont even think that hes conservative. I think that hes just a free thinker and wants to feel how he feels out loud and that hasnt been allowed whatsoever,' she said on the rapper-turned-fashion designer on Fox.

'He is a really tremendous individual and he has this vision of love that both sides can come together. I dont know if you saw on Twitter but hes only following me and Emma Gonzales. We couldnt be more different characters but hes trying to say something therethat is it possible that people who have such different visions and passionate about such different things can come together and have a different conversation,' she said.

'He really has this vision of love thats really optimistic and super inspiring,' she added.Daniel Duignam, 21, was shot three times in the chest, groin and forearm at his apartment in North Philadelphia on Saturday night

A 21-year-old Temple University student has been shot dead in North Philadelphia.

Daniel Duignam, a third-year business student, was shot three times in the chest, groin and forearm at his apartment near the school's campus.

Police were dispatched to the Tatamy, Pennsylvania, student's apartment at around 10pm on Saturday night.

He was pronounced dead on the scene.

Police are currently investigating the incident and no arrests have been made as of Sunday evening.

'While there are many questions yet to be answered, they do not believe that this was a random act,' university president Richard Englert wrote in a statement.

Scroll down for video

Duignam, of Tatamy, Pennsylvania, was a third-year business student at Temple University

Police are still investigating the incident and do not think it was a random act, the school said

'On behalf of everyone at Temple, I want to extend my deepest sympathies to Daniels family and friends at this tragic time. They are in the thoughts and prayers of us all.

'The death of a member of Temple Universitys community takes an enormous emotional toll on all of us. That is especially true amid the stress that occurs during finals and the close of the academic year.

'I urge everyone to seek help should you experience difficulty during this time.'

He added that the university would be increasing security on and around the campus as the investigation continues.

He also urged anyone with information about the shooting to call 215-204-1234 or use the confidential tip line at 215-204-6493.The woman who lost her virginity to a former private school boy in a dirty alleyway outside his father's nightclub has finally spoken out about her torment after his rape conviction was overturned.

Saxon Mullins, from NSW's Central Coast, was 18 years old when she had anal sex behind a bustling nightclub in Sydney's Kings Cross about 4am on May 12, 2013.

One year after a judge found Luke Lazarus not guilty of rape, Saxon Mullins has waived her right to anonymity and lifted the veil on her daily torment following the encounter in an exclusive interview with ABC's Four Corners.

'There's something I need to get off my chest. I've spent far too long feeling embarrassed and ashamed. The 18-year-old in the story is me,' she said.

'Those awful things happened to me. I am that girl.'

Scroll down for video

Saxon Mullins, a teenager from the New South Wales' Central Coast, was 18-years-old when she lost her virginity in an alleyway behind a nightclub in Sydney's Kings Cross about 4am on May 12, 2013

One year after a judge found Luke Lazarus (pictured) not-guilty of rape, Saxon Mullins has waived her right to anonymity

A jury found Mr Lazarus guilty of rape in March 2015, and sentenced him to three years' jail.

The Court of Criminal Appeal quashed the guilty conviction in April last year, and ordered a re-trial, which was heard by Judge Tupman without a jury.

In May 2017, Judge Tupman overturned the conviction and found Luke Lazarus not guilty because Ms Mullins 'did not say stop or no'.

There was never any dispute the pair had sex, consent was the only issue.

There is no suggestion Mr Lazarus is guilty of the charge.

After Mr Lazarus was found not guilty, Ms Mullins, now 23, took to social media to reveal how her life had changed since the night she had anal sex, down on all fours, behind club Soho.

'I am mad and frustrated and heartbroken. Was it all for nothing? I've waited four long years. I've stressed and worried and stayed up all night  many many nights  thinking about it,' she said.

'A part of me died that day.'

Ms Mullins, now 23, has taken to social media to reveal how her life had changed since the night she had anal sex, down on all fours, behind club Soho

'I am mad and frustrated and heartbroken. Was it all for nothing? I've waited four long years. I've stressed and worried and stayed up all night  many many nights  thinking about it,' Ms Mullins said (CCTV footage shows the pair on the night in question)

Ms Mullins is pictured with her friend, eating at a restaurant in the hours before she met Mr Lazarus at the Soho club in 2013

Ms Mullins said she felt 'let down and confused' after a judge overturned Mr Lazarus' rape conviction.

'I lost something that night all those years ago and I've been searching for it ever since,' she said.

'The reality is this doesn't get to be over for me. I don't get to know who I would be today had this not happened to me, and I mourn for that person. She seemed like she was on her way to being great.

Ms Mullins went on to say she did not 'wish harm or upset on anyone'.

'I don't want anyone to suffer, that would never bring me joy. All I've wanted since that night was to hear the words "I was wrong" and "I'm sorry". An apology for what was done to me is all I was ever after,' she said.

A jury found Mr Lazarus guilty of rape in March 2015, and sentenced him to three years' jail - but that decision was overturned by a judge

In May 2017, Judge Tupman overturned the conviction and found Luke Lazarus (pictured) not guilty because Ms Mullins 'did not say stop or no'

The NSW woman said she hoped writing her thoughts down would 'help with the long process of moving on'.

Ms Mullins said she wouldn't allow the encounter to dampen her generally positive outlook on life.

'At times like this when I'm feeling sh***y and down, and so so so tired, I remember that for every dickhead human, there are a million more filled with love, light and kindness,' she said.

'And that lifts my heavy heart.'

Less than 24 hours after being acquitted of rape, Luke Lazarus was seen recovering from a party at his Vaucluse home

Friends of the former private school boy were pictured leaving his home last year, after he held a party to celebrate the not-guilty verdict

A friend of Lazarus is seen leaving his Vaucluse home the morning after he held a party to celebrate his acquittal

Speaking to ABC's Four Corners this week, Ms Mullins said she always dreamed her 'first time' would be special.

'I had this grandiose, romantic [notion]: 'It'll be by candlelight on a bed of roses', with someone who loves me,' she said.

Recalling the traumatic event, Ms Mullins said: 'My heart was going at a million miles an hour, I don't even think I was breathing for a majority of the time'.

'I don't even know how to describe it.'

The story is due to air on ABC's Four Corners program at 8.30pm on Monday.

Lazarus' friends (pictured) were pictured leaving his Vaucluse home after he held a party to celebrate the day he was found not-guilty on appealPakistan's interior minister Ahsan Iqbal has been shot in a suspected assassination attempt ahead of nationwide elections due this year.

Mr Iqbal was shot at close range with a 30-bore pistol, hitting him in his right arm as he was preparing to leave a public meeting in Punjab province, senior police official Raja Riffat Mukhtar said.

The suspect, believed to be in his 20s, is known as 'Abid' according to Police.

Pakistani Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal (pictured) had been attending the meeting in his constituency in Punjab's Narowal district when he was ambushed by a gunman

'The attacker was about to fire a second shot when police and people in the meeting overpowered him,' said Malik Ahmed Khan, a spokesman for the Punjab government

Mr Iqbal is undergoing surgery at a hospital in Lahore but his injuries aren't life threatening.

Mr Iqbal's aide said the interior minister 'was targeted' and confirmed that the attacker had been arrested.

Video footage of his arrival released by the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) showed him being lifted from a helicopter on a stretcher, his eyes open as he responded to questions.

The shooting in Iqbal's constituency of Narowal district drew swift international condemnation, and comes as Pakistan gears up for its second ever democratic transition, with federal polls widely expected this summer.

The wounded minister was rushed to hospital for treatment in Lahore after the attack

It follows a series of blows to the PML-N, which has been struggling to find its footing since its eponymous leader Nawaz Sharif was ousted by the Supreme Court over graft allegations last summer.

Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, along with opposition leaders Imran Khan and Bilawal Bhutto and the powerful army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa, have all condemned the attack.

PML-N lawmaker Maiza Hameed told Pakistan's Geo News that the shooting was an attempt to 'weaken democracy' ahead of the upcoming elections.

'Strongly condemn the assassination attempt on my friend Ahsan Iqbal... Just spoke to him & he is in high spirits,' tweeted Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif, brother to Nawaz.

'Those who indulged in this heinous act will be brought to justice,' he continued. 'PMLN will not be browbeaten into submission... Prayers for quick recovery!!'Piled up among the driftwood, scores of discarded bottles, car parts, tyres and crisp packets choke one of Britains rivers.

It is yet another illustration of how plastic litter is poisoning our planet.

The shocking photograph  taken in Doncaster  came as the UNs environment chief said Britain was now leading the world in tackling the issue with the help of the Daily Mail.

Praising our campaigning, Erik Solheim said: We need the Daily Mail to do that as we need to reach out to everyone, not just preach to converted environmentalists. You can see the results of the campaign because the Government of the UK are taking the global lead on plastics.

Piled up among the driftwood, scores of discarded bottles, car parts, tyres and crisp packets choke one of Britains rivers

Im sure they believe in the campaign, theres no issue about that, but if it is set out so clearly for people in the UK they are much more likely to support it.

The UN chief also backed the Mails Great Plastic Pick Up, which runs this weekend  from May 11 to 13  saying such clean-ups were a vital way to teach people to stop dropping litter.

He said: I think this is excellent. Everyone knows we need to stop plastic at source. But clean-ups make cities much prettier and creates the attention and interest that will drive political change and in peoples behaviours.

There has been a huge response to the Great Plastic Pick Up, with 11,085 readers registering to take part and 783 different events organised across the country.

The Doncaster photograph from last week shows the volume of litter that heavy rain swept from streets and into the rivers Don and Cheswold. Much of it became stuck in the Don aqueduct.

John Hourston, of campaign group Blue Planet Society, said: This is litter thats been thrown away. Ive seen hundreds of pictures of plastic pollution in the UK. Thats the worst picture of plastic pollution in a British river Ive ever seen. Many people on social media have been comparing it to a Third World country, which we traditionally associate with this level of pollution.

Its come at a watershed moment, that photograph, its properly shocking. Hopefully its the straw that breaks the camels back and forces people to act.

UN chief Erik Solheim parades a Mail front page

Striking an optimistic note, Mr Solheim said the world was standing on the brink of changing its attitude toward plastic.

The UN chief held up a copy of the Daily Mail at a meeting of more than 100 environment ministers in Kenya last year to praise this papers campaign on plastic waste.

Explaining why he cited the Mail, he said: It was exactly what we needed. My main ambition working on environment in the UN is bringing the issue of plastics to the kitchen table of people.

Mr Solheim said it was vital to bring environmental issues home to people, whether they are living in Kent, Miami or Guangdong in China. The Daily Mail has a massive ability to do that, it reaches out to anyone, to bring issues home  youre great at that, and thats why I find it so good, he added.

We are very, very happy to be covered by the Guardian, absolutely, but we need to go beyond converted environmentalists. In the past, just a few people were asking about it. Its now a mainstream issue in society. This is exactly what we need.

For the past decade the Mail has campaigned to cut plastic waste, leading calls for a 5p charge on plastic bags, then switching focus to microbeads, throwaway coffee cups, plastic bottles, straws and pointless packaging.

Rubbish, Plastic and other litter floating on the river Cheswold, Doncaster, South Yorkshire

Mr Solheim praised Theresa May and her ministers for leading the way on tackling plastic poison, and backed their moves to introduce a bottle deposit return scheme.

Singling out straws, the UN environment chief called for a ban on plastics that cannot be recycled.

He said: Why cant you drink from a bottle or a glass? If every bar put up a sign saying, If you need a straw ask for it that would cut straw use by 95 per cent.

n Plastic wet wipes, which are blamed for more than 90 per cent of sewer blockages, are to be banned. Tens of millions of the throwaway wipes, which are used for babies, to remove make-up and to clean homes, are flushed down toilets.

The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: As part of our 25-year environment plan we have pledged to eliminate all avoidable plastic waste, and that includes single-use products that include plastic such as wet wipes.Detectives have charged nine people following the death of a woman south-west of Brisbane yesterday.

Police will allege that a 37-year-old woman was found with serious injuries to her chest at a Wilsonton, Toowoomba address in McGregor Street just after 2pm.

She was conscious and breathing when paramedics arrived, and was transported to Toowoomba Base Hospital where she was later pronounced deceased.

It is believed the woman was stabbed. The group were later arrested in a Hungry Jack's carpark nearby, news.com.au reported.

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Police will allege that a 37-year-old woman was found with serious injuries at a Wilsonton address in McGregor Street just after 2pm

Detectives have charged nine people following the death of a woman in Toowoomba yesterday

Six women and three men, ranging in age from 23 to 34, have been charged with two counts of assault occasioning bodily harm and one count of enter dwelling with intent.

All of the nine people charged are scheduled to appear in Toowoomba Magistrates Court today.

The victims family has been notified.

Before the arrests, police searched through rubbish bins near units on McGregor Street near where the woman suffered her 'brutal' injuries, The Chronicle reported.

Officers also searched a car parked at a nearby Hungry Jack's.

Forensic officers and the dog squad were helping with the investigation on Sunday evening.A Florida middle school teacher had to be escorted from the premises last week after he was accused of inappropriate behavior by a student.

Miguel Nieves, a math teacher from Millennium Middle School, was allegedly seen in video footage fanning a female student's stomach with his hands after he unzipped her jacket.

A police report states that Nieves took his students outside on Friday as they were not testing, WFTV reports.

According to the student victim, Nieves asked if she was hot in the jacket that she was wearing.

She described how the teacher asked her to remove her jacket, but she shared that her undershirt violated the dress code and she refused.

Miguel Nieves was allegedly seen in video footage fanning a female student's stomach with his hands after he unzipped her jacket at Millennium Middle School in Sanford, Florida

When Nieves asked to see her undershirt, the student told the school resource officer that she refused, the report details.

Going back inside, Nieves took several of the students to get a drink of water and to use the restroom.

He was then said to have allegedly unzipped the student's jacket where he then proceeded to fan her stomach and state, 'You need air.'

Returning to class, Nieves called the student over to him at the end of the period and allegedly told her that 'You are my favorite student. I love you.'

And while Nieves denied what was said to have taken place, he was still escorted from the school grounds and placed on paid leave pending an investigation from the school district.

Sanford police pressed the State Attorney to determine whether charges would be filed.

Surveillance footage appeared to show the teacher making physical contact with the student, unzipping her jacket and waving his hand.

The video hasn't been released because it is still part of an active investigation.Andrew Marr and I have been close friends for more than two decades. With his characteristic cheerfulness, hes many times since retold the moment we met.

He was the newly appointed editor of the sadly-no-longer Independent newspaper, where I worked as managing director.

Two people from opposite sides of the world: he, a Glaswegian educated at Cambridge; me, an alumna of Penrhos Methodist Ladies College in Perth and Western Australia University.

Typical of his generosity of spirit, I always feel that I have been the primary beneficiary of our friendship. Ive loved watching his three children grow up and am close friends with his wife Jackie, the daughter of the much-loved late Labour peer Lord (Jack) Ashley.

Andrew Marr and I have been close friends for more than two decades. With his characteristic cheerfulness, hes many times since retold the moment we met

So when I got the phone call five years ago informing me that Andrew had suffered a massive stroke, and his future was, to say the least, tentative, I was floored. Unable to see him for nearly a month due to his condition, I prayed for his recovery. I also tried to help ease his familys burden by sending weekly food parcels.

Over the weeks, I must have cooked gallons of chilli con carne (from my special recipe containing cardamom, coriander, cumin, smoked paprika and, of course, chilli).

The aim was to give them more time and the ultimate comfort food after hours of visits to Andrews hospital bedside.

Andrew Marr (left), Amanda Platell and Charles Kennedy (right), review the papers during the filming of the Andrew Marr Show

Doctors had discovered that hed torn his carotid artery, causing a massive stroke and putting his life in danger. In his hospital bed, he soon realised that his voracious appetite for work meant that hed pushed his body and mind too hard.

Im a gulper, a gobbler-down of life. I wolf experiences down, he later said. Thankfully, the stroke hit the left side of his brain  which meant his memory and speech were not impaired. But it took months of sheer willpower and tough physical rehab exercises  as well as walking, reading and painting  before he was able to go back and present his Sunday morning BBC1 show.

Thankfully, the stroke hit the left side of his brain  which meant his memory and speech were not impaired

A rock of granite during all this time was his wife. He says: Jackie saved my life. Without her, I wouldnt be here. Its partly because she fought for me; she was my tireless advocate in the hospital to get the right treatment.

His friends often joked that he could have lost half his brain and hed still be cleverer than almost anyone we knew.

When Andrew told me last week of this latest health scare  a small tumour on his kidney which was caught early and will be frozen off  I was more sanguine. Yes, we all fear the words tumour, cancer and malignant. Yet I know that Andrew has more courage and determination in his little finger, even the one hardest hit by the stroke, than most people do in their entire body.

Moreover, this no-nonsense Scot would be appalled to be called courageous. Hes a man without an ounce of self-pity. He would never, ever, ask: Why has this happened to me? What Ive learnt from our friendship is that Andrew has guts. Hes damn stubborn, too.

Hes approaching this cancer scare with the same determination he did his stroke.

Get on with it and go back to work and normal life.

Im sure that will be the case  and that his family wont have to endure any more takeaway pans of chilli con carne a la Platell.The Duchess of York. She is said to be 'deeply unhappy' that she is not on the guest list for Harry and Meghan's second private evening wedding reception

The Duchess of York is said to be deeply unhappy after being left off the Royal Familys inner sanctum guest list for this months royal wedding.

Prince Andrews ex-wife is among 600 guests invited to the ceremony in St Georges Chapel at Windsor Castle on May 19 and to the reception that is being held afterwards in St Georges Hall, it can be confirmed.

But while Andrew and their children, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, have also been sent coveted invitations for a second, private evening reception for 250 being thrown by Prince Charles for the couple, Sarah is most definitely off the guest list for that.

According to sources, the 58-year-old duchess has been complaining about the snub to anyone who will listen  even though many in the royal households think she should count herself lucky to be going at all.

Prince Harry personally intervened to make sure she had an invitation to his wedding to Meghan Markle and the first reception after years in the royal wilderness.

It is understood that Sarah has already been introduced to Meghan by Harry, who is close to his cousins Beatrice and Eugenie, but it is thought that Charles, who is paying for the evening reception at Frogmore House, doesnt approve.

An insider said: Numbers are limited to the evening party, she is not a member of the Royal Family any more and Prince Charles simply doesnt have time for her.

'He just cant see why she is still such a big part of his brothers life.

The duchess wasnt invited to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridges 2011 wedding at Westminster Abbey, which was a much larger occasion than Harry and Meghans intimate family ceremony, and took herself off to a spa in Thailand to lick her wounds.

While relations have thawed enough in recent years for Sarah to be invited to a small number of occasions, such as Royal Ascot and the familys summer sojourn at Balmoral, even the Queen has to take care that she doesnt appear when Prince Philip is around.

He is said to hold a deep-seated grudge against the duchess for the embarrassments he feels she has heaped upon his family over the years, once memorably describing her as having no point.

Meghan and Harry after announcing their engagement. It is understood that Sarah has already been introduced to Meghan by Harry

He has never forgiven her for being photographed having her toes sucked by a pool in the South of France by her financial adviser, John Bryan, in 1992, while still married to Andrew.

She has also tried Philips patience with her profligate lifestyle, which has seen her come close to bankruptcy twice over the years, saved only by the generosity of her former husband.

Although Philip has not been seen in public for several weeks while he recovers at Windsor from a hip replacement operation, it is hoped he will be well enough to make an appearance on his grandsons big day, leaving many royal insiders speculating whether he will even acknowledge the duchesss presence.

Prince Charles is throwing the second reception for Harry and Meghan. He reportedly doesn't want Sarah to attend

One source said: It will be fascinating to see if the Duke of Edinburgh acknowledges her.

'He has held a grudge against her for a long, long time and normally refuses to even be in the same room as her.

Earlier this year the Daily Mail told how Sarah had been invited to the wedding, contrary to reports that she had been banned, but the situation had caused a massive headache behind the scenes.

Senior royals, led by Charles and Philip, had made no bones about the fact that they didnt want the duchess there, but Harry, who is fond of her, held his ground.

He has kept in touch with his aunt over the years, and has previously holidayed at the Swiss ski chalet she bought for an estimated 13million a few years ago with her former husband.

He absolutely, 100 per cent wants her there and has told palace officials that in no uncertain terms, a source said.

Despite their 1996 divorce, Sarah and Andrew remain extremely close and live at Royal Lodge, his Windsor home, together.Harry and Megan got married at the weekend.

But dont worry, you havent missed the royal wedding.

This happy couple were construction workers son Harry Hindley, 22, and Megan (without an H) Morley, 21, the daughter of a mechanic, from Newstead, Nottingham.

Nottingham couple Harry Hindley, 22, and Megan Morley, 21, recreating Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's famous engagement pose

The actors run their own performing arts centre after meeting while studying musical theatre in their early teens.

They had been struggling to save for their wedding  until the other Harry and Meghan announced their engagement and the Sheraton Grand Hotel in Park Lane, London, ran a competition for a couple with the same names to win their own ceremony at the five-star venue.

The pose: Harry and Meghan wave to photographers in the grounds of Kensington Palace after announcing their engagement last year

After winning, the pair playfully posed for engagement photos mimicking pictures of Prince Harry and Miss Markle.

And after marrying in front of family and friends, the emotional bride called it a day we will remember for the rest of our lives.At first glance it looked like any other senior prom: Girls in gorgeous gowns, boys in sharp tuxedos, their shadows shimmering under fairy lights on the dance floor.

But there were signs that this was no ordinary dance. There were names of students scrawled on girls' shoulders, and a pink limo that read: 'We love you Meadow'.

And the dance went silent for 17 seconds to remember the 17 who were killed - including four members of the senior class - at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

Memories of Meadow Pollack, Carmen Schentrup, Nicholas Dworet, and Joaquin Oliver were heavy on the minds of the young survivors on Saturday.

The seniors of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School celebrated their senior prom on Saturday, nearly three months after 17 students and staff members were murdered

While the school honored traditions like prom king and queen, they also found ways to make sure the four seniors who were killed on the Valentine's Day massacre were still remembered

Students wrestled with the guilt of getting to experience the high school milestone that had been so terribly taken away from their friends on February 14.

'Just seeing everyone here and not seeing Carmen is sad,' Anisha Saripalli, 17, told NBC News.

'She was the most excited to go to prom. The fact that we're going and she really wanted to go is just hard.'

Students tried to strike a balance between keeping prom an end-of-the-year celebration without forgetting those who hadn't made it.

Photos of the seniors who were killed were placed on a special poster at the dance (pictured)

Donations poured in for the dance, knocking ticket prices to $30 from the usual $100 as the Westin Fort Lauderdale Beach Resort (pictured) covered the $50,000 venue cost

School administrators declared it would be the most 'over-the-top' prom in the school's history, selling out 800 tickets

Administrators declared it would be the most 'over-the-top' prom in the school's history, selling out 800 tickets.

Donations poured in, knocking ticket prices to $30 from the usual $100 as the Westin Fort Lauderdale Beach Resort covered the $50,000 venue cost.

General manager Daniel Estevez also worked to find vendors who donated music, food, 4-foot centerpieces, and an ice sculpture that read '#MSDSTRONG'.

'This is a way that we could bring a smile to their faces and leave them with a good memory in their senior year so they have the best prom ever,' Estevez said.

There was a table set up at a quiet spot in the room with pictures of the students who had been killed, for those who needed to take a break and reflect.

Staff helped transform the hotel's main ballroom into an enchanted forest, complete with actors that were dressed up as wood nymphs and forest creatures

Dozens also volunteered to help 150 students get ready for the big day, doing their hair and makeup and giving them special gift bags before the dance

Students struggled with guilt as they were both excited about the dance and sad about the friends who were not given the same chance to attend

Staff helped transform the hotel's main ballroom into an enchanted forest, complete with actors that were dressed up as wood nymphs and forest creatures.

Dozens also volunteered to help 150 students get ready for the big day, doing their hair and makeup and giving them special gift bags before the dance.

'I wanted to give back and give them a day just to be pampered and not have to think about anything but prom,' makeup artist Arielle Nielsen said.

'I wanted them to feel good and give them the biggest night.'

But there were also many reminders of those who had been lost.

Journals were set up at the entrance for each senior who had been killed in the massacre so students could write them letters.

The resort's general manager Daniel Estevez worked to find vendors who donated music, food, 4-foot centerpieces, a doughnut wall, and an ice sculpture that read '#MSDSTRONG'

Many girls opted for burgundy dresses to honor their school's colors at the dance on Saturday

And butterflies were released from the roof as a final memorial at the end of the night.

Carley Ogozaly honored her best friend Meadow by wearing a dazzling pink gown that she believed the 18-year-old would have chosen for the prom.

'I would have just worn a simple black dress, but I know Meadow would have argued with me that it would be too plain,' Ogozaly told the Miami Herald.

'My wearing this pink sparkly thing and me doing my nails the way Meadow would have is my way of making sure Meadow doesn't miss prom.'

'This is how I can have no doubt that she'll get to enjoy her prom night, that she'll get to walk across that stage on graduation and prove everyone wrong. She made it.'

Saripalli said she was happy that her fellow students would get a chance at a 'typical high school experience' after a year filled with tragedy.

'Even though ours didn't end typically, this will be a fragment of normality,' she said.

'In the moment, we're all going to be happy.'There's Mr Tickle, Mr Bump, Mr Messy and now apparently...Mr Sexist.

Roger Hargreavess simple tales of the Mr Men and Little Misses portray the female characters as less powerful, according to a study of the books.

The Little Miss characters have to be saved in the stories more than half the time, compared with less than a third for the Mr Men, the study found.

And the male characters also have more to say in the books  with an average of 12 extra words.

Roger Hargreavess simple tales of the Mr Men and Little Misses portray the female characters as less powerful, according to a study of the books

The study claims that even the names of some characters, such as Little Miss Bossy, pictured below, might play to gender stereotypes.

It also cites examples of stereotypical passages including I know what that naughty little lady needs and: She managed to find herself the perfect job. She now works for Mr Lazy! She cooks and cleans for him.

The findings, based on an analysis of 47 Mr Men and 34 Little Miss books from 1971 to 2014, were presented at the British Psychological Societys annual conference in Nottingham.

The Little Miss characters have to be saved in the stories more than half the time, compared with less than a third for the Mr Men, the study found. And the male characters also have more to say in the books  with an average of 12 extra words

The University of Lincoln study concludes: Generally female characters were more passive, had less direct speech and relied on being saved more than male characters.

The series, aimed at children aged two and older, started with Mr Tickle in 1971. The Little Miss books followed a decade later.

Researcher Madeleine Pownall assessed the direct speech of characters in the books and found females were given an average of 53.5 words per story, compared with 61.5 for males.

She also found that as stories progressed the Little Misses had to be saved by another character in 51.5 per cent of cases, compared with 32.6 per cent of cases for Mr Men.

Egmont, which publishes the books, did not respond to requests for comment.Sean 'Diddy' Combs and Beyonce's mom Tina Knowles posed for a shot at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky Saturday, where they took in the 144th annual Kentucky Derby.

The veteran rapper, 48, was in sleek spring style for horse racing's biggest event of the year, wearing a powder blue three-piece shirt with a light tie with diagonal stripes.

The hip-hop impresario rounded out his ensemble with dark sunglasses. He earlier posed for a shot with his three daughters Chance, 12, and twins Jessie James and D'Lila Star, 11, who all looked adorable in traditional Derby fashions.

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VIPs: Sean 'Diddy' Combs, 48, and Beyonce's mom Tina Knowles, 64, posed for a shot at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky Saturday, where they took in the 144th annual Kentucky Derby

He wrote: 'Kentucky Derby with my QUEENS #LOVE,' alongside the heartwarming family shot.

Tina - a proud mom to her daughters Beyonce, 36, and Solange, 31 - wrote on Instagram that 'Puffy and his gorgeous daughters were at the Derby,' alongside the shot of them posed with one another.

Tina, a fashion designer, looked phenomenal as she wore a black gown with sheer long sleeves, a neck-piece with large floral embellishments.

She topped things off with a white hat with black spots and oversize black floral highlights.

Too cute: The hip-hop icon posed with his three daughters prior to the race

Getting ready: Diddy looked to be engaged on his phone as he made his way to the annual spectacle

The 64-year-old beauty shared a few clips from her day at the track, including one in which she was flanked by four women, all in derby fashion. The group said in unison, 'One, two, three: Kentucky Derby!'

The Texas native also made a clip with her husband of three years, Richard Lawson, as the lovebirds were clearly enjoying their time at the track on the soggy afternoon.

In the spirit: Tina was flanked by four beauties as she hearkened the event

Taking it all in: Tina's husband Richard Lawson showed her social media followers their vantage point at the event

Lots of fun: The couple looked to be having a fabulous time at the Kentucky Derby

'It is awesome, just look at all the great stuff that's going on, look at the track, all the great people,' Richard said as he panned out on the spectacular surroundings.

A number of famous faces were in town to catch the race, which was won by famed trainer Bob Baffert's horse, Justify.

Guests at Friday's Trifecta Derby Eve Gala at the Omni Louisville Hotel included Tina, Empire actor Terrence Howard and TV personality Star Jones. Arsenio Hall hosted the event, and Stevie Wonder performed.

And they're off! The horses exited the starting gate to kick off what's regarded as 'the most exciting two minutes in sports'Kim Kardashian will be hitting the Met Gala on Monday

And in preparation the reality star, 37, has been sticking to a rigid cleanse in a bid to get her body looking just right for the social calendar's biggest party.

The mother-of-three gave her fans a sneak peek at the results as she hit Las Vegas on Friday night, in a stomach baring outfit.

Kim Kardashian shows off the results of her pre-Met Gala cleanse... as she goes braless in stomach-baring outfit

Looking her best: The reality star, 37, has been sticking to a rigid cleanse in a bid to get her body looking just right for the social calendar's biggest party

Going braless, Kim wore the Cher-inspired beaded black two-piece as she joined her old school friends for a night out to celebrate 20 years since they graduated.

The 37-year-old reality queen was certainly dressed for the part and obviously perfectly made up, and seemed to put the controversy surrounding her husband Kanye out of her mind.

Before even arriving at the venue, she shared via an Instagram story how her wild turquoise eye make-up was applied by one of her stylists.

Kimmy's high school reunion: Going braless, Kim wore the Cher-inspired beaded black two-piece as she joined her old school friends for a night out to celebrate 20 years since graduation

Finally she showed up for the festivities, which apparently involved watching Cher's show at Caesar's Palace.

Once she entered the theater, she turned the camera on herself, revealing that she had donned an eye catching plunging black top sans sleeves.

She also apparently embraced some local southwestern culture by adorning herself in turquoise earrings, necklaces and two bracelets, which of course keyed off her eye-liner.

She's the queen bee: It's clear Kim was in the popular crowd at school

Even her cyan-hued manicure for the evening complimented her blue bling.

The wife of Kanye West looked to be having a ball at the event, singing along to the Hollywood icon with her friends.

Earlier in the day Kim took to her pay sitekimkardashianwest.com to talk about how she is getting ready for Monday's Met Gala.

The Keeping Up With The Kardashians star said she was on a cleanse and working out really hard to look her best in a designer gown.

Cher inspired: Even her cyan-hued manicure for the evening complimented her blue bling

The Selfish author also shared some never-seen-before images from last year's Gala. In the new images the mother of three looks slender in her white off-the-shoulder dress.

She wrote, 'The Met Gala never disappoints. I've been prepping for this year's with a cleanse and by working out really hard. I'm so excited to go!'

Then she looked back: 'Its always an over-the-top night, so last year, I just decided to keep it simple and sleek in Vivienne Westwood. Mario did my makeup and Michael Silva did my hair. We went for a relaxed, minimal vibe.'

Cher in the house! Kim couldn't help but be excited about watching one of her biggest influences

The task at hand: The 37-year-old reality queen was certainly dressed for the part and obviously perfectly made up, and seemed to put the controversy surrounding her husband Kanye out of her mind

And she said what she was doing at the moment.

'As I was getting ready, I was texting Kendall and Kylie so we could all meet up. There were so many people thereit took forever to find them!

'When we were driving to the event, I didn't want to wrinkle my dress, so I laid down in the car, lol. Anything for fashion!'

Preparation time: Kim Kardashian will be hitting the Met Gala on Monday. So the star, 37, took to her pay site kimkardashianwest.com on Friday to talk about how she is getting ready

Careful: 'When we were driving to the event, I didn't want to wrinkle my dress, so I laid down in the car, lol. Anything for fashion!'



She's expecting her first daughter later this year.

And Kate Hudson flaunted her baby bump on Saturday as she strolled around Malibu with boyfriend Danny Fujikawa and her Australian Shepherd, Cody.

The 39-year-old actress wore a short dress with a deep plunging neckline for the walk.

Bumping along nicely: Kate Hudson flaunted her baby bump on Saturday as she strolled around Malibu with boyfriend Danny Fujikawa and her Australian Shepherd, Cody

The Almost Famous star showed off her gorgeous gams in the short, striped maternity dress.

The pink and purple hued garment also boasted a deep, plunging neckline that showed plenty of the expectant mother's cleavage.

For the casual weekend outing, Hudson wore a pair of flip flops on her feet.

Taking the plunge: The 39-year-old actress wore a short dress with a deep plunging neckline for the walk

Legs for days: The Almost Famous star showed off her gorgeous gams in the short, striped maternity dress

Hudson accessorized with round frame mirrored sunglasses and a host of bracelets on her left wrist.

Her short-cropped, blonde pixie 'do was held back from her face with hair clips and the How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days star wore minimal makeup, letting her naturally gorgeous features shine through.

Her musician beau went casual for the day, wearing shorts, a T-shirt and a cap.

The mother-of-two - sons Ryder, 14, and Bingham, six, with her respective exes Matthew Bellamy and Chris Robinson - is expecting her first daughter with Fujikawa later this year.

She's got some front: The pink and purple hued garment also boasted a deep, plunging neckline that showed plenty of the expectant mother's cleavage

Accessorize this: Hudson accessorized with round frame mirrored sunglasses and a host of bracelets on her left wrist

Natural beauty: Her short-cropped, blonde pixie 'do was held back from her face with hair clips and the How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days star wore minimal makeup

Got a thing for rockers? The mother-of-two - Ryder, 14, and Bingham, six, with her respective exes Matthew Bellamy and Chris Robinson - is expecting her first daughter with Fujikawa later this year

Keeping it simple: Her musician beau went casual for the day, wearing shorts, a T-shirt and a cap

The A-list star told People on Thursday that she's experienced 'all kind of differences' in her first pregnancy with a girl on the way.

'They say girls make you sicker and that, for me, has been the truth,' Hudson told the magazine. 'Its been interesting so far.'

The Bride Wars star said that a girl will help in 'balancing out the masculine [and] feminine in the house,' adding that she's looking 'forward to having feminine energy' with her little one on the way.

Kate told the publication that she's enjoyed an 'amazing, but slow and steady' pregnancy, balancing out proper rest with walking and 'some amazing prenatal yoga.

'When you become the vessel, when you have the privilege of carrying life and giving life, you have to listen, and so right now I think it is all about taking it easy. So the things that I am doing are quite easygoing,' she said.She's reportedly set to say, 'I do' to Today show host, Karl Stefanovic, 43, at a lavish 'Beverly Hills' ceremony in California.

And in the midst of the high-profile pair's blossoming relationship, Jasmine Yarbrough, 34, has sparked pregnancy rumours after she posted a photo of herself posing with her stomach hidden beneath a peplum-style dress.

On Sunday the blonde beauty took to Instagram to share a photograph of the enamored pair at a glamorous beach-side wedding in Rottnest Island in Western Australia.

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'Is that a baby bump?' Jasmine Yarbrough sparked speculation she's PREGNANT by covering her stomach with a peplum frock while attending wedding with fiance Karl Stefanovic this weekend

While Jasmine simply captioned the post: 'Congratulations to Jack & Sofia! We [love emojis] you!' some fans were more interested in Jasmine's choice of stomach-obscuring attire.

'Is that a baby bump?' one fan asked.

Another Instagram follower became rather excited at the prospect of a new bundle of joy: 'Baby bump? She looks preg thou if yes omg how gorgeous!!! Congratulations then [sic]'.

Questions: While Jasmine simply captioned the post: 'Congratulations to Jack & Sofia! We [love emojis] you!' some fans were more interested in Jasmine's choice of stomach-obscuring attire

Happy times: Another Instagram follower became rather excited at the prospect of a new bundle of joy: 'Baby bump? She looks preg thou if yes omg how gorgeous!!! Congratulations then [sic]'

Wedding bells! It comes after Woman's Day reported the high-profile couple have 'already booked the wedding venue' for their upcoming nuptials

Holding a glass that doesnt look like it has been drunk from, Jasmine completed her ensemble with a pair of black slides.

Meanwhile, Karl was a picture of happiness as he posed with his arm draped around his lady love's shoulder.

Love is in the air: The enamored pair attended a glamorous beach-side wedding in Rottnest Island in Western Australia

The controversial TV presenter wore a slick blazer, white T-shirt and a pair of camel-hued chinos.

It comes after Woman's Day reported the high-profile couple have 'already booked the wedding venue' for their upcoming nuptials.

Luxury: Woman's Day claimed Karl and Jasmine have booked the Beverly Hills Hotel in California. The iconic venue, nicknamed the 'Pink Palace', has hosted many celebrity weddings

The ceremony is said to be taking place at the Beverly Hills Hotel in California with $100,000 being allocated to flowers and a celebrity guest list.

A source explained of Karl and Jasmine's choice of venue: 'They're pretty well-known at the (Beverly Hills) Hotel, and the staff were bending over backwards for them.

'They met with wedding planners then, and Karl's already booked the venue.'

The hotel, nicknamed the Pink Palace, will reportedly host the Australian wedding of the year, with Karl allegedly splashing the cash.

Splashing the cash! An insider alleged Karl and Jasmine are pulling out all the stops, even spending $100,000 on flowers

The pair are spending '$100,00 on flowers' and inviting their A-list friends including Delta Goodrem, Margot Robbie and Nadia Fairfax to the ceremony, according to Woman's Day.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Karl and Jasmine's management for comment.

Karl confirmed his engagement to Jasmine in February this year, telling Channel Nine's The Fix they are both 'very happy'.

The lovebirds first met at a Sydney boat party in December 2016, just months after his split with Cassandra Thorburn after 21 years of marriage.Dungarees are a safe, if rather boring, option for a family dinner.

That is, unless you are Jaime King.

The actress put her own spin on the usually demure item of clothing, by going topless beneath them.

Stepping out: Jaime King goes braless as she slips into a pair of dungarees for family lunch at a steakhouse in Beverly Hills on Saturday

Tatt's her: The Ocean's 8 star revealed her tattoos by going shirtless

Skipping a T-shirt, or even a bra, Jaime wore the outfit to a family lunch at a steakhouse, finishing it off with a pair of Birdies slippers. With her hair tied up, her tattoos could be seen.

The Heart of Dixie star was joined by her Kyle Newman and sons James and Leo for the meal.

Jaime can next be seen in the star-filled Ocean's 8 movie, in which she appears alongside a who's who of Hollywood.

Family time: The Heart of Dixie star was joined by her Kyle Newman and sons James and Leo for the meal

The mother-of-two was caught up in a horrifying situation last month, which led to the arrest of homeless man Paul Francis Floyd.

Jaime had just stepped from her vehicle, leaving her friend and her four-year-old son James Knight inside, where Floyd allegedly jumped onto the rear windshield of the vehicle and smashed the glass, showering the young boy in debris.

Shortly after the incident, Floyd was charged with child endangerment, which is a misdemeanour, along with a felony count of vandalism for the damage to her car.

Star power: Jaime can next be seen in the star-filled Ocean's 8 movie, in which she appears alongside a who's who of Hollywood

The 38-year-old star said outside court: 'I'm just trying to stay strong for my kid. And not just for my child but for every single victim, because the process is grueling, and it's made so that victims feel victimised. But I believe in our mayor, and I believe in our officials and I hope that today they're going to choose the right thing.'

And Jaime noted that whilst her friend is 'doing well' following the ordeal, her son will likely be scarred for life.

She said: '[James Knight is] having a hard time facing it. Absolutely, 100 percent [this will scar him for life]. [My friend is] strong, she's doing well.'She gave a tearful speech honouring her late father Steve Irwin last week, when he received a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame.

And Bindi Irwin joined her mother Terri and brother Robert in once again commemorating her father on Saturday at the Steve Irwin Gala Dinner in Beverly Hills.

The 19-year-old star beamed as she posed alongside her family, as well as her long-time boyfriend Chandler Powell at the SLS Hotel.

Family affair: Bindi Irwin rocked a floral dress as she joined brother Robert and mother Terri in honouring her late father Steve at gala dinner in Beverly Hills

High spirits: The 19-year-old star beamed as she posed at the SLS Hotel

Bindi swapped her typical Australia Zoo uniform for a chic floral dress featuring an A-line skirt and scoop neckline on the night.

Styling her dark tresses in glossy waves, she framed her eyes with smoky shadow and finished off the look with a slick of taupe lipstick.

Sharing the red carpet with Robert and Terri, she later cosied up to her boyfriend Chandler.

The American hunk smartened up in a black suit, which he gave a quirky spin thanks to a white satin bow-tie.

Taking centre-stage: Bindi swapped her typical Australia Zoo uniform for a chic floral dress featuring an A-line skirt and scoop neckline on the night

Chic: Styling her dark tresses in glossy waves, she framed her eyes with smoky shadow and finished off the look with a slick of taupe lipstick

The family outing comes after they watched as Steve was honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame.

The legendary TV star was tragically killed in 2006 when he was fatally struck by a stingray barb to the heart.

There were many well-known guests in attendance at the ceremony, held on Hollywood Boulevard.

Cute couple! Sharing the red carpet with Robert and Terri, she later cosied up to her boyfriend Chandler

Smart: The American hunk smartened up in a black suit, which he gave a quirky spin thanks to a white satin bow-tie

Close bond: Chandler flashed a wide grin as he shared the red carpet with Bindi and Terri

Bindi's longtime boyfriend Chandler was present, while celebrity chef Curtis Stone, TV personality Rove McManus and Beau Bridges also lent their support.

While the Irwins happily posed for photos at the event, it was also an emotional occasion.

Bindi teared up as she spoke about her father, telling the crowd he would have loved to have been at the ceremony.

Sssseriously cool! Bindi's 14-year-old brother Robert threatened to steal the limelight as he handled a snake on the red carpet

Spitting image: He bore an uncanny resemblance to his late father Steve

Tribute: The family outing comes after they watched as Steve was honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame

Emotional: Bindi teared up as she spoke about her father, telling the crowd he would have loved to have been at the ceremony

Located near the famed intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine St, Steve's star the 2635th to be placed on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Meanwhile, Bindi's relationship with American beau Chandler has been going from strength to strength, with her recently singing commending his can-do attitude.

'I'm so lucky that he loves wildlife and adventure. He's just up for anything,' she told Access on-air.

Social butterfly: She grinned as she posed with her former Dancing With The Stars partner, professional dancer Derek Hough

The gang's all here! They were later joined by 32-year-old Derek's stunning dancer girlfriend Hayley Erbert, 23

Bindi also wasn't shy about admitting that she has found 'The One' in Chandler. 'He's my one. I'm very lucky,' the daughter of the late Steve Irwin gushed.

She continued: 'I'm very lucky to be able to have someone who's so positive and kind. Chandler's amazing, he's eternally optimistic and that's fantastic.'

'He's just endlessly kind so I'm very, very blessed. We all are, to have him as part of our little team.'

Bindi and Chandler have been inseparable since meeting at Australia Zoo back in November 2013.

Famous friends: Actress Tara Reid was among the guestsAshton Kutcher and Mila Kunis had their hands full as they enjoyed a family lunch on Saturday.

While Mila, 34, juggled two ices coffees to go, while Ashton carried the couple's two young children in West Hollywood.

Black Swan star Mila, 34, looked very fetching in her black floral Rails jumpsuit which dropped to her mid-thigh.

Family outing! On Saturday Mila Kunis flaunted her beauty once again as she accompanied her husband Ashton Kutcher and her two children to lunch in West Hollywood

The garment also featured a v-neck, which provided a glimpse of her black slip, and long sleeves.

Her short brunette tresses were parted on the right and styled straight down.

A gold charm necklace looked to be her only accessory, though she did also carry an iced beverage.

Peek-a-boo: The Rails garment also featured a v-neck, which provided a glimpse of her black bra, and long sleeves.

Dad duty! The sometime tech investor looked to be in charge of the kids, as he carried both his daughter Wyatt, three, and son Dimitri, 17 months, back to their car

That 70's Show co-star Ashton, 40, looked casual in a white, collarless button up shirt and distressed jeans.

He kept the California sun out of his eyes with a Chicago Bears ball cap.

The actor turned tech investor carried both his daughter Wyatt, three, and son Dimitri, 17 months, back to their car.

Date! While it was clearly a family day, Mila and Ashton ventured out alone on Friday as they attended friend Zoe Saldana's Hollywood Walk of Fame induction

While it was clearly a family day, Mila and Ashton ventured out alone on Friday as they attended friend Zoe Saldana's Hollywood Walk of Fame induction.

The Guardians Of The Galaxy star embraced Mila after she introduced her at the podium.

Zoe and Mila co-starred in three films together: the 2001 film Get Over It, the movie Over It in 2007 and 2013's Blood Ties.

Hugging it out! The Guardians Of The Galaxy star embraced Mila after she introduced her at the podium



Ryan Reynolds and Josh Brolin turned dance partners for a moment on Ballando Con Le Stelle, the Italian version of Dancing with the Stars, as they promoted Deadpool 2 in Rome on Saturday.

The A-list actors, who were special guests on the Italian dance competition, were clad in dapper suits on stage for the show's ninth episode during its semi-final, which was held at the RAI Auditorium.

The actors appeared on a special edition in which Ivana Trump made a guest appearance dancing alongside ex-husband Rossano Rubicondi. (One of her four ex-husbands, of course, is U.S. President Donald Trump.)

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Star power: Josh Brolin, 50, and Ryan Reynolds, 41, appeared on Ballando Con Le Stelle, the Italian version of Dancing with the Stars, as they promoted Deadpool 2 in Rome on Saturday

Grand entrance: The actors made their way out on the lavish set of the show

The actor who played President George W. Bush in 2008's W - Brolin, 50 - wore a crisp navy blue suit with a white collared shirt and black shoes.

The veteran actor plays Nathan Summers/Cable in the upcoming blockbuster.

Reynolds, 41, wore a pinstriped grey three-piece suit with a navy blue vest and brown shoes, sporting short brown hair and stubble as he showed off his wares on the dance floor.

Ryan, who's married to Blake Lively, 30, was on the dance floor just days after he took to Instagram to confess that it wasn't actually him dancing in a Deadpool costume in Ashes - the video Celine Dion released this week in promotion of the action-adventure comedy - but dance pro Yanis Marshall.

Handsome: Reynolds danced with dance pro Samantha Togni on the Italian series

Spirited: Brolin showed off his twirling skills as Reynolds looked on

Jubilant: The veteran actor looked to be having a great time while showing off his footwork

'This man is not just a dancer hes an elite athlete, hero, and all-around hilarious person,' the good-nature actor said of his stand-in. 'Follow him on Instagram. Put him in movies. Throw confetti at his feet when you see him. He is a gift to this weary world.'

The sequel to the 2016's Deadpool - which took in more than $783 million worldwide - also features Morena Baccarin, Zazie Beetz, Brianna Hildebrand, Stefan Kapicic and Leslie Uggams.

Deadpool 2 hits theaters May 18.

Graceful: The Vancouver native was stylish in a pinstriped grey suit on the show

Leading man: The hunky actor has been married to wife Blake Lively, 30, since 2012

See you soon: Reynolds and the gang will be at the cinematic forefront when Deadpool 2 opens in theaters on May 18.Terri Irwin has opened up about Steve Irwin's death in an interview with Channel Seven's Sunday Night.

The 53-year-old widow was on the show to promote her advocacy as an anti-culling campaigner, but the conversation quickly turned to her late husband.

'Every day it's difficult, and after 11 years the grief goes from being a rock in your heart to walking beside you,' she said in a preview of the episode obtained by news.com.au this week.

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'Every day it's difficult, and after 11 years the grief goes from being a rock in your heart to walking beside you': Terri Irwin opened up about late husband Steve to Sunday Night

She continued: 'It's always there, and I never really know when it's going to hit me.'

Terri added that she misses Steve 'constantly,' but said that she still felt lucky to have her her 'happily ever after' with the wildlife warrior.

Steve, 44, died on September 4, 2006 while filming on the Great Barrier Reef near Port Douglas when a stingray struck him with a barb to the heart.

Family: Terri and Steve had two children together, son Robert (L) and daughter Bindi (R)

Last month, 'The Crocodile Hunter' received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame more than a decade after his shock death.

Irwin's wife Terri, daughter Bindi and son Robert attended the ceremony on Hollywood Boulevard along with numerous celebrities and fans.

Bindi teared up as she spoke about her father, telling the crowd he would have loved to have been at the ceremony.

'I never in my wildest dreams imagined this would come true,' Bindi said.

'Together we will continue to fight for everything Dad worked so hard for.'

'He was the best and most incredible conservationist, but also the best dad,' her brother Robert added during his own speech.He's known for turning up the heat in the kitchen with his fiery personality.

But Gordon Ramsay showed off his softer side as he transformed into Mrs Doubtfire for an episode of MasterChef Junior in LA.

Donning the character's signature wig, glasses and costume, the television personality, 51, looked the spitting image of the nanny made famous by Robin Williams- much to the amusement of the children.

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Gordon Ramsay showed off his softer side as he transformed into Mrs Doubtfire for an episode of MasterChef Junior in LA

Greeting the contestants, he said: 'Hello dears. As you can see I'm a little older.'

To which, one contestant quipped: 'And a girl', while the others laughed hysterically.

Grappling his fake breasts, the TV chef continued: 'I'm also a grandma guys. I can't remember if I'm supposed to do this alone, do we have another judge?', prompting the children to call fellow judge Christine Tosi to enter the studio.

Funny: Donning the character's signature wig, glasses and costume, the television personality, 51, looked the spitting image of the nanny made famous by Robin Williams (right)

Aging: Gordon opted for a flowing red skirt, a white handbag and a pearl necklace, while he lined up next to his prosthetically enhanced hosts Christina Tosi and Joe Bastianich

'You look like Mrs Doubtfire!' Gordon Ramsay was unrecognisable as he dressed up as the famous Scottish nanny

Gordon's tough exterior melted away as he got into character, wrapping up in a frumpy cream cardigan and gold broach.

The Michelin starred chef was unrecognisable under his dated silk paisley shirt, as the usually muscular cook filled out his waist with extra padding.

In true Mrs Doubtfire fashion, Gordon opted for a flowing red skirt, a white handbag and a pearl necklace, while he lined up next to his prosthetically enhanced hosts Christina Tosi and Joe Bastianich.

Fits of giggles: Greeting the contestants, he said: 'Hello dears. As you can see I'm a little older.'

The clip, which has aired ahead of the series finale in two weeks time, comes after the renowned multi Michelin-starred chef, cheekily baited his meat-loving followers by posting a picture of a vegan pizza on his Twitter and Instagram accounts.

He wrote underneath: 'Going to give this vegan thing a try... Yes guys you heard that right.'

The Hell's Kitchen, Kitchen Nightmares and F Word star, who divides his time between LA and London, has been loudly critical of veganism over the years - which is why many of his followers were shocked that Ramsay is now eating plant-based food by choice.

Having a laugh: Grappling his fake breasts, the TV chef continued: 'I'm also a grandma guys, I can't remember if I'm supposed to do this alone, do we have another judge?

Ramsay is not believed to be converting to a vegan lifestyle as signature dishes at his restaurants around the world such as Petrus and Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, both in London, often feature meat, fish and other animal products such as eggs and cheese.

It is more likely that the snap was to promote his new pizza restaurant Gordon Ramsay Street Pizza, and has the vegan pizza Ramsay photographed for his social media on its menu.The pair became friends after appearing on I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! together in 2017.

And on Sunday, Tegan Martin appeared to cheekily poke fun of her former jungle campmate Keira Maguire's new relationship with Jarrod Woodgate.

Eating out with the smitten couple at a cafe in Melbourne's South Yarra, the former Miss Universe Australia appeared to mock the romantic Bachelor In Paradise finale.

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Having a laugh? Model Tegan Martin (right) pokes fun of Keira Maguire (left)and Jarrod Woodgate's romantic Bachelor In Paradise commitment ceremony

Jarrod and Keira have continued their relationship after the show's finale was aired last week, in which they both professed their love to one another on screen.

Tegan sat across from the duo, as she tried on Jarrod's ring for size.

She joked: 'I said yes! Will you with me forever baby?'

Laughing, she handed back the large band to Jarrod, saying: 'It's so big! There you go Jaz.' Jarrod also agreed, adding: 'It's massive!'

'It's so big': Tegan sat across from the duo, as she tried on Jarrod's ring for size and mocked the couple's commitment ceremony

Lunch with the lovebirds! Jarrod and Keira finally declared they were 'in love' with one another on Monday night's finale of Bachelor In Paradise

Jarrod and Keira finally declared they were 'in love' with one another on Monday night's finale of Bachelor In Paradise.

During a romantic commitment ceremony, 32-year-old Jarrod tearfully declared: 'I feel honoured to call you my girlfriend. Keira Jay Maguire, I love you!'

He then presented the 31-year-old blonde with a diamond commitment ring, leaving her struggling to contain her emotions.

Happily ever after! Jarrod Woodgate and Keira Maguire publicly declared they were 'in love' with one another on Monday night's finale of Bachelor In Paradise

'This commitment ring means that I'm devoted to you, devoted to our relationship, and our future,' he stated as he slid the ring onto her finger.

Feeling overwhelmed, Keira then replied: 'From the first time I saw you, I just was drawn to you. I ran up to you and I just hugged you and I didn't want to let you go. I didn't know what it was.'

She continued: 'But it wasn't until I actually looked into your eyes and we connected that I realised that you were someone very special.'

Jarrod gets his happily ever after! The vineyard manager couldn't keep the smile off his face

'From the first time I saw you, I just was drawn to you': Keira declared her love for Jarrod in the emotional finale

'You're so beautiful, you're kind, and you're everything I've ever wanted,' Keira declared before pulling out her own ring to give to Jarrod.

Putting the ring onto his finger, the blonde stated: 'I am ready to commit to you and I am very serious about what we have.'

She then claimed that she can see herself spending the rest of her life with the vineyard manager.

Turn of events: 'This commitment ring means that I'm devoted to you, devoted to our relationship, and our future,' Jarrod stated as he slid the ring onto Keira's finger

'It wouldn't be right not having you in my life. We're just too perfect for each other!' Jarrod then cooed.

The series was filmed in late 2017, and the couple are now living together.

On Monday, the pair told Woman's Day they 'split their time' between Toms Cap Vineyard Retreat in Gippsland and Jarrod's home in Brighton, Melbourne.Her boyfriend was released from prison after serving nine years of his 16-year sentence for a string of violent offences.

And Lauren Goodger has already sparked rumours she has reunited with her jailbird beau Joey Morrisson as she posted a cryptic snap on her Instagram stories on Saturday.

The reality star, 31, uploaded the photo shortly after Joey's sister, Charlotte shared two images with her 2,474 Instagram followers of her shopping in Milton Keynes with her sibling.

Lauren Goodger has already sparked rumours she has reunited with her jailbird beau Joey Morrisson as she posted a cryptic snap on her Instagram stories on Friday

Lauren hid the identity of a mystery man in the snap with a sun emoticon, prompting speculation she has already met up with the convicted criminal following his release from prison.

In high spirits, she captioned the post: 'What a beautiful day... sunshine.'

The former TOWIE star's post comes after Joey's sister posted a slew of snaps shopping with her brother in an Instagram post, which was captioned: 'Words can't explain the feeling of my brother home after 9 years... love you always my joey'.

Romance: Lauren hid the identity of a mystery man in the snap with a sun emoticon, prompting speculation she has already met up with the convicted criminal

Morrisson was convicted of a string of offences back in 2010, including possession of a firearm, kidnapping, blackmail and actual bodily harm.

He was sentenced to 16 years at HMP Highpoint South prison.

It is not clear whether he has been released permanently or is seeing his sister while temporarily out of prison.

Happy days: Lauren's ex has been released from prison after serving nine years of his sentence for armed robbery

The picture, which had been edited in a smartphone app, shows the convicted criminal wearing a 730 Givenchy jumper.

Charlotte's followers joined her in celebrations, commenting: 'Aw char love this .. have a lovely day xxxxxx... Love this welcome home... Amazing!! Sooo happy for you all... Welcome home Joey!!'

Lauren enjoyed a short-lived romance with Morrison but called it quits after 15 months together in September 2017 - however she has since confessed they are in touch.

Reunited: His sister Charlotte shared a duo of images with her 2,474 Instagram followers on Saturday, in which she posed with her sibling, who was beaming while sporting 660 Givenchy jumper and displaying longer hair than his last sighting

She was dating Morrison for over a year having 'met' him when she picked up the phone at his sister's house while he was calling from prison.

MailOnline has contacted representatives for Lauren for comment.

Last week, The Sun reported Lauren and Morrison would reunite in two weeks after his early release from his 16-year prison sentence.

Tough times: The post, liked by TOWIE star Amber Dowding and Hollyoaks actress Chelsee Healey, was accompanied by an overjoyed caption reading: 'Words can't explain the feeling of my brother home after 9 years... love you always my joey'

A source told the publication: 'It's a huge moment for Joey and for Lauren. They're going to be taking it slow when he comes out because it's a huge change for him...

'But she's waited for this moment for a very long time. It's definitely going to be something special.'

Lauren was spotted visiting Joey in the midst of his 16-year sentence after he was found in possession of 10,000 in cash and 60,000 worth of cocaine.

The Essex resident appeared on Loose Women in September to set things straight regarding her crumbled dalliance with her ex-boyfriend Joey.

'He was meant to come out, last year, in November and things were great,' she explained to the panel, 'But where things got set back, it put strain on us. I couldn't wait no more. It was too much pressure.'

However, in November, Lauren hinted at spending time with the family as she told Closer: 'We're still mates. There's no bad blood. I'm still mates with Joey and his family and I see them all the time.'

Last month, the TOWIE star was seen with personalised number plates adorned with her incarcerated lover's name while she focused her Now Magazine column this week on her widely-discussed romance too.

Ready and waiting: Lauren enjoyed a short-lived romance with jailbird Morrison but she called it quits after 15 months together in September 2017

Just two weeks after Lauren was caught with a screen saver of his face, Lauren changed the license plate on her car to include the jailbird's name.

Putting to bed rumours in their romance, Lauren seemed keen to set the record straight as she awaits his release from his lengthy prison spell.

In the column, she wrote: 'Joey and I are still in touch, which I have never denied. For now, he is focused on coming out and after such a long time I was to protect him so I'm not discussing him or our situation. People have to respect that.

'The number plate thing seems like a big deal but it's not. They were ordered ages ago and not being used so I decided to put them on my new car to save him from being fined for not using them and - let's be honest - it's a wicked plate!'He has been open about his love for Botox, admitting he has toned it down after 'overdoing' it three years ago.

But Simon Cowell has reportedly splashed out 2,000 on a non-surgical facelift in a bid to maintain his incredibly smooth visage.

The music mogul is said to have visited cosmetic surgeon Dr Jean-Louis Sebagh, known as the 'Picasso of dermatology', for a Silhouette Soft Lift, which promises to create a more 'youthful' appearance.

Wrinkle-free: Simon Cowell has reportedly splashed out 2,000 on a non-surgical facelift in a bid to maintain his incredibly smooth visage (pictured earlier this week)

Simon told The Sun on Sunday: 'There's lots of things you can do now, you don't just have to stuff your face with filler and Botox.

'It hurts like hell but it gets rid of sun damage and unplugs all the c**p.

'For me now, it's all about having clean skin, if you have clean skin, you look better.'

The method (also known as a 'one stitch face lift') uses an absorable thread with cones to lift the facial skin and encourage collagen production. The unwanted excess skin is pulled back by the underlying muscle.

Youthful visage: The music mogul is said to have visited cosmetic surgeon Dr Jean-Louis Sebagh, known as the 'Picasso of dermatology', for a Silhouette Soft Lift

The threads are 'stitched' on to the neck, brow or mid-face and promise to create a fresher, more youthful appearance.

MailOnline has contacted Simon's representatives for comment.

Last month, the legendary judge said his health became a top priority after a nasty fall last year which left him both hospital-bound and unable to attend The X Factor live shows.

The music mogul had been going to get a cup of milk to help him sleep when he fell - leading him to be stretchered out of his home in a neck brace.

It was believed Simon was at home alone, as his girlfriend Lauren had been over in the US.

Different route: Simon said: 'There's lots of things you can do now, you don't just have to stuff your face with filler and Botox'

The Syco owner was then forced to pull out of two X Factor live shows, with Alesha Dixon taking his place on the panel.

He said on ITV's Lorraine: 'I'm alright. In a weird way it was a wake up call because it wasn't the end of the world. It was a bit embarrassing...

'I will never hear a bad word about the NHS. It's like having an MOT, they do every possible test. I was probably overtired, to be honest.

'I feel much better this year, I'm not having so many meetings or late night calls, it's a bit more of a balance.'

Simon, however, admitted that he won't be quitting smoking after he was spotted last month puffing away between filming AGT.

Doting dad: Simon said in November that he had gone from 80 cigarettes a day to just the two, after vowing to cut down the sake of his son Eric, but admitted that he refuses to quit the habit

He was seen lighting up two years after he revealed plans to try vaping to ditch his smoking habit, adding last year that his health became a priority after a nasty fall forced him to miss two X Factor live shows.

Yet speaking to The Mirror, he admitted he wasn't going to quit after all, reasoning: 'If I tried to cut out cigarettes completely, I would have a real problem: too boring. It's the same with drinking. I'm pretty good at cutting back when I need to.'

Simon told Now magazine in November that he had gone from 80 cigarettes a day to just the two, after vowing to cut down the sake of his four-year-old son Eric.

It seems the X Factor creator has opted for non-surgical procedures after realising he'd overdone botox when Sharon Osbourne made a joke about his face not moving back in 2015.

Speaking about his age-defying attempts and grooming secret, the X Factor boss revealed that his friend's gag had prompted him to give up the treatment.

Speaking unabashedly about the treatment and his views on it, he told The Mirror: 'Hopefully I look better now  I probably did have a little too much Botox a couple of years ago, because everyone on TV has it.'It's one of the biggest show's on television.

But viewers have slammed the explosive My Kitchen Rules finale, labelling it the 'worst ever.'

Fans on Twitter, first taking aim at Vietnamese mothers Kim Tran and Suong Pham, who they accused of bringing 'contrived drama' to the show.

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'Worst finale ever': Viewers have slammed the finale of My Kitchen Rules, calling the clash between Kim Tran (left) and Suong Pham as 'contrived'

The Vietnamese mothers, who clashed heavily while preparing their dishes, were accused of bringing 'contrived drama' to the show.

At the beginning of the finale, tempers flared between the two fiery cooks, with Suong burning four quail birds before dropping another on the floor.

However, with the $250,000 prize money on the line, the tension appeared to a little too much for Kim, who declared: 'We may as well pack our bags and go home!'

Worst final in years! Despite the My Kitchen Rules finale has failed to impress viewers, with a number of them taking to Twitter to slam the show

But it appears fans on Twitter weren't buying that the argument was genuine, with one viewer slamming the show.

There's something weirdly unnatural about Kim and Suong's drama, is it really necessary,' User Kate said.

A separate Twitter user added: 'While obviously scripted, this is the worst final in years. Too much drama!!! Just stick to cooking.'

Not genuine? Fans didn't seem impressed by the drama between finalists, Kim Tran and Suong Pham

All a bit too much! Twitter fans accused the show of focusing on too much drama

As the show continued, things seem to heat-up again for Kim and cooking partner Suong, who were battling against couple, Alex and Emily.

Fans, however, were unrelenting on their take of the show's finale.

One Twitter user wrote: 'I love cooking shows, but I think this will be my final season of #MKR Too much focus on the drama #mkr2018.'

And while Kim and Suong appeared to get both barrels from viewers, other viewers were quick to have a go at the entire show.

'#MKR2018, I don't think I can take much more of the irritatingly banal commentary provided by the contestants. Talk about saying the bleeding obvious!!!'

Too much talk? One fan appeared annoyed at the 'banal commentary'

Lost all its spice! One viewer seemed to think The Voice was a better optionAlex and Emily were announced as My Kitchen Rules' 2018 winners on Sunday evening.

After serving up an impressive five-course menu, the duo were awarded the coveted MKR winner title and pocketed $250,000 in prize money.

After hearing the news that they had won, the pair were shocked, with Emily jumping as she reacted to the win: 'I'm so happy... so surreal!'

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'Pinch me. We're finally gonna own our own place!' My Kitchen Rules' Alex and Emily pocket $250,000 cash prize as they beat Kim and Suong in finale

'Alex and Emily, you have just won $250,000. Congratulations!' Judges Pete Evans and Manu Feildel congratulated the pair on their journey, as confetti showered down from the ceiling

'You are the My Kitchen Rules champions!' Judges Pete Evans and Manu Feildel congratulated the pair on their journey, as confetti burst from the ceiling.

Gold Coast winners Alex and Emily scored a total of 55 points out of 60, whereas their Melbourne rivals Kim and Suong only scored a total of 52 points.

The pair passionately kissed each other as they realised the tense two hours had paid off spectacularly.

They did it! Gold Coast winners Alex and Emily scored a total of 55 points out of 60, whereas their Melbourne rivals Kim and Suong only scored a total of 52 points

'This was a grand final menu in every way!' The victors were given the only ten in the finale by judge Liz Egan, as she praised their five-course menu

The victors were given the only ten in the finale by judge Liz Egan, as she praised their five-course menu: 'This was a grand final menu in every way. Tonight I score you... ..a ten.'

Manu congratulated the runner-ups on their tremendous effort: 'Unfortunately you just missed out, but you should be so proud of what you have achieved.'

Kim and Suong looked disappointed, but turned to Alex and Emily to say: 'We are very happy for you - a well deserved win!'

'Unfortunately you just missed out, but you should be so proud': Manu congratulated runner-ups Kim and Suing on their tremendous effort, losing to their rivals by three points

'We are very happy for you - a well deserved win!' While Kim and Suong lost the cooking competition, they claimed the couple were deserving of the win and congratulated the duo with a warm hug and kind words

Reacting to the news of their win, Alex told his partner to 'pinch me' as the judges confirmed: 'Alex and Emily, you have just won $250,000. Congratulations!'

The dinner guests cheered, chanted and whistled from the viewing platform as the duo hugged each other in an emotional display of relief and celebration.

'Winning MKR is our ticket to getting what we wanted, to making our dream a reality,' Emily said with a large grin on her face.

Alex agreed, announcing: 'Everything that we've worked towards, everything in our lives that we've worked towards... we're finally gonna own our own place!'

'Winning MKR is our ticket to getting what we wanted, to making our dream a reality': Emily said as she shed tears of joy

'Everything that we've worked towards, everything in our lives that we've worked towards': Alex was in shock, but did not chalk the win up to luck, knowing they had deserved the win they had worked towards

The joyous moment came after the couple endured a tearful fight while prepping their fourth course.

They had to plate 100 dishes of restaurant-quality food before taking out the win in the dramatic two-hour grand finale of My Kitchen Rules.

Cracks began to show with Gold Coast couple Alex and Emily while plating their fourth course, as Emily burst into tears and yelled at her partner: 'Stop having a go at me! I work just as hard.'

'Stop having a go at me!' MKR's Emily bursts into tears after boyfriend Alex 'snaps' during stressful grand finale on Sunday night

As Alex attempted to make light of the stressful situation in the kitchen, Emily quipped: 'Babe, stop it. The pressure is really building up. This is the fourth course. We are exhausted. We're trying to keep our head focused, all these different elements.'

Alex claimed he was on track: 'Stop having a go at me every time we plate. I'm kind of bored of it.'

Starting to tear up, Emily couldn't contain her emotions: 'You've just been having a go at me the whole time!'

'Oh, honey. OK. OK, I didn't. OK, I'm apologising, alright? I'm sorry,' Alex quickly tried to remedy the situation as he hugged his crying lady love.

Tears! Cracks began to show with Gold Coast couple on Sunday night, as Emily openly wept while plating their fourth course

'I love you. It's OK. It's OK': Alex comforted his partner as onlookers looked worried for the couple completing the challenge unscathed

'Emily's really upset. I know I kind of snapped like I shouldn't have, but I'm just feeling, you know, so much adrenaline. It's kind of just coming out of me, and I don't mean it to be,' he later explained to the camera.

On screen, Alex continued to comfort Emily: 'I love you. It's OK. It's OK. It's looking amazing, OK? Just try and hold it together, OK?'

Former rival Ash looked upset by the display: 'It's breaking my heart. Emily's just burst into tears. They're still trying to plate up. It's just chaos.'

'I know I kind of snapped like I shouldn't have, but I'm just feeling, you know, so much adrenaline': Alex explained his behavior to the cameras

Emily pulled herself together and told Alex: 'Just tired. I'm just really tired.'

Alex understood completely, adding: 'I know. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to yell at you.'

The pair backstage made up as they prepared to head back to the kitchen to serve dessert and await the results from the judges and guests on the performance.

They managed to become 'zen' once more, and they took out title of My Kitchen Rules for 2018.She is one of the top lingerie models in the business with over 4 million Instagram followers.

And Romee Strijd turned heads as she touched down in Nice on Sunday ahead of the Cannes Film Festival.

The 22-year-old Victoria's Secret Angel showed off her sartorial flair in a leather jumpsuit as she strolled through the arrivals terminal with her boyfriend Laurens van Leeuwen, 27.

Stunning: Romee Strijd turned heads as she touched down in Nice on Sunday ahead of the Cannes Film Festival

The jumpsuit skimmed over the model's svelte figure, cinching her in at the waist before tailoring out into flared trousers.

She paired the look with chunky white trainers and shrugged a cosy white jumper over her shoulders.

Romee styled her long blonde locks in a side braid and showcased her glowing complexion and natural beauty by opting to forego make-up for her long haul flight.

Meanwhile Laurens, who was casually-clad in a emerald green hoodie and black Adidas joggers, looked every inch the doting boyfriend as he pushed the Dutch beauty's suitcase and bright orange handbag through the airport.

Stylish: The 22-year-old showed off her sartorial flair in a leather jumpsuit which skimmed over her svelte figure, cinching in at the waist before tailoring out into flared trousers

She strolled through the arrivals terminal with her beau Laurens van Leeuwen, 27, who looked every inch the doting boyfriend as he pushed the Dutch beauty's suitcase and bright orange

Romee made her VS debut in 2014 and received her wings in 2015, joining the likes of Alessandra Ambrosio and Candice Swanepoel.

The model recently spoke about her fitness regime as she told Elle Magazine: I would say I workout four to five times a week.

'On my day off, I like to do it in the morning and take my shower and get ready for the day.

'When Im working, I mostly go straight after work, before dinner.'

Simply radiant: Romee styled her long blonde locks in a side braid and showcased her glowing complexion and natural beauty by opting to forego make-up for her long haul flight

She added the Victoria Secret Angels clan try to work out together, with Jasmine Tookes being the most 'hardcore' due to her being able to lift 'a lot of weights'.

Even though she was just a teen when she first got into modelling, she quickly started walking in shows for Alexander McQueen, Badgley Mischka, Phillip Lim, Prada and Vera Wang.

Romee has since appeared in campaigns for Carolina Herrera, Alexander McQueen, Donna Karan, Stradivarius, Giuseppe Zanotti, H&M and Marchesa.They recently announced their engagement to fans on Instagram after a three-month whirlwind romance.

And it seems that Caroline Flack, 38, and her fiance Andrew Brady, 27, can't bear the thought of spending any time apart, as it has been reported that the latter will be joining his wife-to-be while she films the new series of Love Island.

The host is set to spend two months filming the hit reality television show in Majorca, Spain, and a source told The Sunday Mirror: 'Andrew will be by her side.'

Inseparable: Caroline Flack will reportedly be joined by fiance Andrew Brady while she hosts Love Island for two-months in Majorca

MailOnline has contacted representatives for Caroline and Andrew for comment.

The newly-engaged star recently sent temperatures soaring with her sexy pilot-themed Love Island trailer.

Yet Caroline Flack was not content with her sexy uniform in the new advert, as she also took to Instagram to share a sizzling behind-the-scenes snap in which she wore her pilot jacket loosely opened to display her lingerie underneath.

Hot stuff: Caroline Flack was not content with her sexy uniform in the new advert, as she also took to Instagram to share a sizzling snap in which she wore her pilot jacket loosely opened to display her lingerie underneath

Caroline, who has promised Love Island viewers another long hot summer, certainly looked set to deliver when the first promotional pictures emerged ahead of the teaser release on May 5.

The Love Island Host donned a pilot's uniform as she perched on a seat in the cockpit of a plane, destined for the Love Island villa.

Caroline sizzled in a gold trimmed jacket and matching thigh-skimming skirt, although later on she made things a little sexier with her underwear-flashing display.

Her ensemble also included a pilot's hat which had Love Island embroidered on the front of the cap.

Sizzling: The host, 38, who has just become engaged to Apprentice star Andrew Brady, 27, was feeling super saucy as she displayed her underwear in the sexy snap.=

Captain Flack: The Love Island host, who is newly engaged to Andrew Brady, sizzled in a gold trimmed jacket and matching thigh-skimming skirt

The presenter's light tan is sure to darken during the summer months as she spends them filming at the programme's set in Majorca.

Love Island has gained a reputation for broadcasting steamy and intimate sex sessions between contestants.

But according to The Mirror, ITV bosses have allegedly put restrictions on new castmates' passionate liaisons, which includes a ban on full nudity, as well as prohibiting participants in engaging in sex with drunk co-stars.

Contestants of the dating series - which is set to return in June - can also seek advice from counsellors following intercourse.

Controversial: According to The Mirror, ITV bosses have allegedly put restrictions on new castmates' passionate liaisons (Amber Davies, pictured June 2017)

Steamy: Contestants of the dating series - which is set to return in June - can also seek advice from counsellors following intercourse (pictured June 2017)

It was also revealed that the love hopefuls are not allowed to masturbate during their time in the Mallorca villa.

In addition to these rules, participants will be given a handbook on a wide range of topics, featuring sexual consent and protection.

During the last series, viewers saw stars take part in various sexual activities, including raunchy scenes from Kem Cetinay and Amber Davies, Montana Brown and Alex Beattie, and Olivia Attwood with Chris Hughes.He's been dating Scarlett Johansson, 33, since May 2017.

And for the first time on television, Saturday Night Live comedian Colin Jost has revealed that he's in a relationship.

Appearing on his Weekend Update segment with Leslie Jones, the pair were discussing Facebook's new dating feature before the 35-year-old confirmed he wouldn't need to use the service.

They're in love! For the first time on television, Saturday Night Live comedian Colin Jost has confirmed that he's dating actress Scarlett Johansson; seen on April 23 at the Avengers: Infinity War premiere in LA

While Leslie discussed all the terrible men she's been with, the final image was of Colin.

'He was so cute and sweet and kind, but it would never work cause he's gay,' she said.

'I'm not gay, I told you I have a girlfriend,' Colin fired back.

Tough crowd! During the segment, Leslie (left) continued to call him gay and said that she refused to recognize his relationship until he 'proved it'

But wanting more details about his relationship with Scarlett, Leslie hilariously said she refused to recognize his relationship until he proved it.

'I told you I'm not acknowledging that b****. You either prove that you are not gay or I'm going to keep telling everybody that you are,' she said.

Although Scarlett and Colin continue to keep their one-year relationship private, last month, they made their red carpet debut in LA at the premiere of her movie Avengers: Infinity War.

Making it official! Last month, Scarlett and Colin made their red carpet debut at the premiere of her movie Avengers: Infinity War

The couple were first rumored to be dating in May 2017 when they were spotted making out at an SNL after party.

Months later, they confirmed the romance as they attended the American Museum of Natural History Gala in New York.

Scarlett was previously married to French journalist Romain Dauriac, with whom she shares daughter Rose, three.

Prior to that, she was married to Ryan Reynolds from 2008 to 2011.He's had placenta intravenously administered into his veins as part of his latest unorthodox cosmetic enhancement.

And Human Ken Doll Rodrigo Alves was displaying his smooth, fresh-faced complexion when he stepped out in Prague over the weekend.

The TV personality, 34, was his usual debonair self in a gold jacket layered over a semi-sheer shirt and corset inspired belt.

Youthful: Human Ken Doll Rodrigo Alves was displaying his smooth, fresh-faced complexion when he stepped out in Prague over the weekend

Rodrigo dressed his outfit down with a bold pair of monochrome trousers and highlighted his features with a heavily contoured make-up look.

The surgery-loving star staged his own personal photoshoot, striking a pose in front of all the sights.

The social media sensation jetted off to Prague in order to get the unconventional treatment at Medico Beauty clinic.

Dramatic: The TV personality, 34, was his usual debonair self in a gold jacket layered over a semi-sheer shirt and corset inspired belt

Strike a pose: The surgery-loving star staged his own personal photoshoot, striking a pose in front of all the sights

Suave: Rodrigo dressed his outfit down with a bold pair of monochrome trousers and highlighted his features with a heavily contoured make-up look

Shock new treatment: Rodrigo had placenta intravenously administered into his veins as part of his latest unorthodox cosmetic enhancement

Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, the star revealed that he went under the knife again to have stem cell injections, vitamin cocktails, fillers, an eyebrow lift and botox in a bid to look younger.

Part of the treatment included having a drip that contains placenta, a treatment that has grown popularity in Japan.

He explained: 'In order to carry on looking ageless and maintain all the plastic surgeries I have to have anti ageing treatments.

'I live in London but if I want to have an innovative out of the ordinary aesthetic procedure I have to travel abroad for it, because in London we just dont have it.'

Transformed: The TV personality, also known as Human Ken Doll, flew to Medico Beauty clinic in Prague on Thursday for the treatment

Ouch: Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, the 34-year-old star revealed that he went under the knife again to have stem cell injections, vitamin cocktails, fillers, an eyebrow lift and botox

Two's company: Rodrigo was comforted by his surgeon Dr Blanka at Medico Beauty clinic

Looking good: Part of the treatment included having a drip that contains placenta, a treatment that has grown popularity in Japan

Youthful: Rodrigo explained 'In order to carry on looking ageless and maintain all the plastic surgeries I have to have anti ageing treatments'

Rodrigo told MailOnline on Wednesday that he was delighted to be no longer 'lonely' in Prague following a week of solo binge drinking in Miami, and hinted that he has since been considering more aesthetic procedures, despite saying he was 'done' with surgery.

Speaking after his recent trip to the States, he admitted: 'My hotel was on Ocean Drive where all the lively bars are. And for eight days I felt permanently drunk.

'I found myself really lonely and drinking as a way to comfort myself.'

Jetting off: He revealed 'I live in London but if I want to have an innovative out of the ordinary aesthetic procedure I have to travel abroad for it, because in London we just dont have it'

Back under the knife: Rodrigo told MailOnline in January that he was 'perfect' and no longer wanted to embark of surgical procedures. Yet he had a change of heart before his procedure

In good hands: Rodrigo has been delighted by the results of his latest procedure

Feeling better: Rodrigo told MailOnline on Wednesday that he was delighted to be no longer 'lonely' in Prague following a week of solo binge drinking in Miami

Purpose: Rodrigo reasoned: 'I think that if I ever stop looking after myself people will think that I have lost my will to live'

After a brief stopover in London on Saturday, Rodrigo and flew to Prague to have some detox treatments.

Rodrigo told MailOnline in January that he was 'perfect' and no longer wanted to embark of surgical procedures.

Yet he had a change of heart before his latest procedure, reasoning: 'I think that if I ever stop looking after myself people will think that I have lost my will to live.

'My procedures are always done by pioneer doctors and the best in their fields which means that I have to travel out of the U.K. to have their services.'She regularly sets hearts racing with the sizzling snaps she shares with her fans on social media.

And Kady McDermott, 22, was back at it again as she posted a racy bikini snap on Sunday, where she modelled new swimwear on the beach.

The former Love Island star looked sensational in the barely-there grey two piece, as she shared a sweet message with fans: 'Like seashells we are all beautiful and unique, each with a different story to tell.'

And pose: Kady McDermott shared a sizzling bikini snap from her holiday... after Katie Price made thinly-veiled dig at estranged husband Kieran Hayler when he LIKED one of her snaps

Kady pulled her long raven locks into a loose bun above her head, and she wore a black ruched bandanna to keep her fringe from falling on her face.

The model's high cut bikini bottoms ensured that she put on a very peachy display, as she posed with her back to the camera to fully show off her posterior.

The fashion maven kept her accessories to a minimum, and she wore a bandeau top which kept her assets at bay as she posed up a storm on the picturesque beach.

Sexy snap: The model's high cut bikini bottoms ensured that she put on a very peachy display, as she posed with her back to the camera to fully show off her posterior

On Thursday, Katie Price appeared to take aim at her estranged husband Kieran Hayler with an Instagram post, after he had liked one of Kady's racy bikini shots.

The 39-year-old posted a cryptic quote saying she had no concern with exes 'downgrading' after eagle-eyed fans noticed he had liked a revealing bikini snap of Kady, which she had posted on Tuesday morning.

Kieran, 31, returned to social media 15 months earlier after the reformed sex addict atoned for cheating on wife Katie with two of her closest friends, but he appears to be back in the dog house with his latest Insta-action.

Biting back: Katie Price, 39, appeared to take aim at estranged husband Kieran Haylor, 31, on Thursday with a cryptic Instagram post after he 'liked' a snap of Kady

Katie posted a cryptic quote on Instagram which appeared to brush past Kieran's behaviour, hinting that she is well and truly on another path.

The quote read: 'I don't care if my ex upgrades, downgrades, moves to the left or to the right. What they do after me isn't my business.When I'm past you, I'm past you.'

She captioned the snap: 'Fact!!!!'

Kiern had been quick to show his appreciation for Love Island star Kady after the sultry brunette shared a racy throwback snap, in which she models provocative black lingerie, with her Instagram followers.

Taking aim: Katie appeared to take a dig at husband Kieran with a cryptic quote on Instagram a day after he liked a snap posted by Kady

Awkward: Reformed sex addict Kieran showed his appreciation for a racy throwback snap of Kady, little more than a year after his four year social media ban was lifted by wife Katie

Here we go: The former stripper, whose social media ban was prompted by his repeated philandering with other women, may well be back in the dog-house after liking Kady's latest provocative snap

However the move might not go down well with Katie who only lifted his four-year social media ban last February after his repeated philandering with other women sent their marriage into a tailspin.

Kieran has since devoted his Instagram account to wholesome family photos - including numerous snaps of his wife - as they attempt to get their relationship back on track.

Celebrating his return in a brief video posted on Katie's homepage, he announced: 'Hi guys, check out my new Instagram page! I haven't been on there for four years but you can see me, the wife and all the kids AND all our animals. Woo hoo!'

Candid: Katie has previously revealed that social media played a part in her husband, who has since received treatment for sex addiction, organising secret trysts with two of her closest friends

Kieran's ban was prompted by separate flings with Jane Pountney and Chrissy Thomas, two of Katie's closest friends.

The former glamour model later revealed that social media played a part in her husband, who has since received treatment for sex addiction, organising secret trysts.

'He got their numbers from me or approached them on Twitter and began the process of getting them into bed,' she told the Sun On Sunday.

Family first: Kieran has since devoted his Instagram account to wholesome family photos as they attempt to get their relationship back on track, including a cheery post of him and Katie riding horses - his first after returning to social media last February

'It came out in his therapy that he'd been having affairs with Chrissy and Jane at the same time. He usually sh***ed in a lay-by on the way home from his plastering job in Guildford, Surrey.

'He preferred to s**g Jane in a pub car park. The affairs were calculated and evil on his part but also on theirs.'

Katie and Kieran announced plans to divorce last August amid claims of a third fling with their children's nanny, Nikki Brown, an allegation Brown has since refuted.

Relaxed: Despite the potential for another confrontation with her husband, who still lives in the family home, Katie looked relaxed on Wednesday as she enjoyed a pampering session

Getting involved: Daughter Princess got in on the act by trying out the same facial treatment as her mother

Despite the potential for another confrontation with her husband, who still lives in the family home, Katie looked relaxed on Wednesday as she enjoyed a pampering session with her oldest daughter, Princess.

The mother of five shared images of herself wearing a dark blue face-mask on Instagram, admitting her ten-year old child had opted for exactly the same treatment.

Adding a separate shot of the youngster wearing the face-mask, she wrote: 'Even Princess loves it, I can't do a facemask without her.'Carrie Bickmore has thanked Australians for supporting her Beanies 4 Brain Cancer charity.

The fundraising initiative has raised a whopping $4.5 million dollars, with that sum increasing rapidly by the day.

Speaking with The Daily Telegraph on Monday, The Project presenter gushed that it was 'amazing' to 'see Australians go 'we're going to get behind this.''

'The most rewarding thing by far': Speaking with The Daily Telegraph on Monday, Carrie Bickmore thanked Australians for supporting her Beanies 4 Brain Cancer charity

The 37-year-old also added that Beanies 4 Brain Cancer was 'without a doubt the most rewarding thing by far (that she's done).'

Last Tuesday, The Project devoted its entire episode to fundraising for the charity, during which time a formidable $2.1 million was raised.

During the the show, Carrie's high profile friends including Amanda Keller and Fitzy and Wippa made appearances wearing the charitable head wear.

Heartwarming: Last Tuesday, The Project devoted its entire episode to fundraising for the charity, during which time a formidable $2.1 million was raised (pictured hugging her son, Oliver)

And speaking on her radio show with Tommy Little the following day, Carrie revealed that the episode's success had led her pals to prod her to raise even more cash.

'One of my crazy friends said 'can you get to five (million)?' and I started having heart palpitations,' she joked.

Beanies 4 Brain Cancer sees the purchase of beanies to raise money for funds, with two trendy new designs on sale.

Getting behind a great cause! During the the show, Carrie's high profile friends including Amanda Keller and Fitzy and Wippa made appearances wearing the charitable head wear

The cause is close to home for Carrie whose ex-husband Greg Lange died from brain cancer in 2010.

The much-loved presenter memorably donned a beanie to raise awareness for the disease when she won her Gold Logie in 2015.

Carrie and Greg had one child together, Oliver, who is now 10.Kourtney Kardashian teased she was whisking her beau off to somewhere exotic for his 25th birthday during a Snapchat session on Friday.

And on Saturday the 39-year-old TV star shared where the location was.

The looker has taken Younes Bendjima to an ultra posh resort in Arizona.

She landed: Kourtney Kardashian teased she was whisking her beau off to somewhere exotic for his 25th birthday during a Snapchat session on Friday

Nice choice: And on Saturday the 39-year-old TV star shared where the location was. The looker has taken Younes Bendjima to an ultra posh resort in Arizona

Dreamy: Kourtney shared several clips to social media that revealed the location. In one video she was in a bikini while on a speedboat. She also shared views of the lake making it look like she was in Lake Powell, which is in Arizona

Kourtney shared several clips to social media that revealed the location.

In one video she was in a bikini while on a speedboat. She also shared views of the lake making it look like she was in Lake powell, which is in Arizona.

Then she posted a photo where they were driving over the Colorado River.

Digs: There were also a few images from her very modern looking hotel which is likely the five-star Amangiri Resort in Utah, located about 40 minutess drive from Arizonas Antelope Canyon

A sanctuary: The hotel is known for its modern look and incredible views

Nailed it: Then she posted a photo where they were driving over the Colorado River

There were also a few images from her very modern looking hotel, which is likely the five-star Amangiri Resort in Utah, located about 40 minutess drive from Arizonas Antelope Canyon.

Kendall Jenner visited the area just months ago and raved about it on social media.

The star also wished her handsome beau a happy 25th birthday on social media. private jet.

One word: The reality star wrote 'wow' above one of her landscape shots

Cool pool: Kourtney shared a snap of the resort's pool

Climbing gear: The outdoor activities included some climbing

Nice view: Kourtney admired the view during their outdoors getaway

The sister of Kim Kardashian and the catwalk king have been dating for just over a year.

In several of the photos, the two look as happy as can be as they enjoy some of their more exotic vacations.

In one shot, they are both in the ocean.

Long bridge: A long bridge that stretched over a chasm was shown in another snap

Backup plan: Kourtney shared that they were going on a hike but went on a climb instead

Big rock: The reality star and her boyfriend instead climbed a tall canyon wall

She has on a bikini and is smiling as he stands next to her, then later wraps his arms around the ex of Scott Disick.

On Friday the Keeping Up With The Kardashians star revealed some of her secrets to staying youthful and slender.

At age 39, she is only 98lbs.

On her site KourtneyKardashian.com, the sister of Kim and Khloe Kardashian listed the supplements she is taking every day.

She loves the boy: Kardashian shared a very hunky photo of her boyfriend on Saturday

Fun in the sun: The 39-year-old TV star was wishing her handsome beau a happy 25th birthday

Her post began: 'At the moment, I'm all about everything in moderation.

'I try to eat healthy when I'm at home in my everyday routine and have a good balance of fresh, organic vegetables and fruits, healthy fats and protein. I've found the way I eat affects everything from my skin to my mood to my energy levels.'

The mother of three then listed what she puts in her body.

'First thing every morning, I take collagen supplements mixed with a glass of water. I also try to drink a lot of water throughout the dayespecially during my workout.

'Then, I have my morning smoothie with added supplements like bone broth protein powder, MCT oil and E3Live algae.'

Then it was back to food.

'For lunch, I focus on eating organic greens and usually have a salad. Lately, I've been having my signature salad with avocado, hard boiled eggs, cucumber and tomatoes.

She is healthy: Kourtney revealed on her pay site on Friday what supplements she takes; seen here in April

'In the afternoon, I usually have hot green tea and a little snack. I recently discovered these BBQ chips made with chickpeas that I really like.

'For dinner, I usually have grilled salmon or chicken, mashed cauliflower with garlic, roasted carrots and broccoli, along with white rice. I have been doing white rice at night because it's easier to digest in the evening (my nutritionist said it's best to have brown rice at lunch, then white rice for dinner).'

Kourtney was last seen with her beau Younes Bendjima on Friday at the Syrian American Medical Society event in Beverly Hills.Penelope Cruz is often seen glammed to the nines while on the red carpet.

But on Saturday the 44-year-old Spanish siren did something unusual.

The wife of Javier Bardem posed completely makeup free for a selfie shared on her Instagram account.

No glam: Penelope Cruz is often seen glammed to the nines while on the red carpet. But on Saturday the 44-year-old Spanish siren did something unusual

The Oscar winner captioned the photo, 'Thank you #dubai Until next time! @carpisamiddleeast @carpisaofficial And thank you @mertalas, my magical friend. Gracias!!! Hasta pronto Dubai!! Gracias @carpisaofficial.'

She has been in Dubai for the Carpisa event.

The star had on no eyemakeup and no lipstick, just her natural glowing skin.

The PC we know: Cruz is often seen glammed to the nines while on the red carpet; here she is seen in March

She puckered up for the camera while wearing a straw hat and a lace top in a room with closed shades.

The mother to kids Luna and Leo had on only a thin necklace.

Cruz was at the Dubai Malls Fashion Avenue for the store launch of Carpisa, a global handbag brand.

Her great love: The pinup has two kids, Leo and Luna, with actor Javier Bardem; seen in 2017

Cruz, a brand ambassador of Carpisa, held a meet-and-greet with press at the recent extension of the mall on Thursday.

Cruz made a splash earlier this year playing Donatella Versace in the FX series The Assassination of Gianni Versace.

Cruz won raves for her acting which could land her an Emmy nomination.

Victory: Cruz made a splash earlier this year playing Donatella Versace in the FX series The Assassination of Gianni Versace. Cruz won raves for her acting which could land her an Emmy nomination; seen with Edgar Ramirez, Darren Criss and Ricky Martin

Next she will co-star with Javier in Loving Pablo, which comes out June 15.

It was announced recently that she will star with Lupita Nyongo, Marion Cotillard and Fan Bingbing in 355, an all-female spy movie created by, and co-starring, Jessica Chastain.

The Simon Kinberg directed feature will revolve around five international spies who forge a bond despite their conflicts.Kyle Richards loves to spend time in Beverly Hills.

But once in a while the aunt of Paris Hilton needs a little break from the 90210. And on Saturday she did just that as the RHOBH star took a trip to Arizona.

Perhaps by sheer coincidence, her friend Kourtney Kardashian was also there. The 39-year-old TV star took her model beau Younes Bendjima to the picturesque state for his 25th birthday.

New location: Kyle Richards took a trip to Arizona with her husband Mauricio Umansky

Cuddle time: And the reality TV star shared several photos from the holiday on her Instagram account on Saturday

Richards captioned a set of photos: 'Have to share some more photos from this beautiful place ... it really took my breath and want to share.

'Its a must see !! #antelopecanyon #Arizona #Utah #LakePowell #rattlesnakecanyon.'

She was seen in workout clothes as she posed in what looked to be a cave.

Two cute: Richards captioned a set of photos: 'Have to share some more photos from this beautiful place ... it really took my breath and want to share'

Victory: And in another shot they stood on top of a large rock with their arms up as if they were celebrating their hike

The rock formations were smooth as if they were cut by a glacier.

And in another shot they stood on top of a large rock with their arms up as if they were celebrating their hike.

The couple were also seen posing with friends with the mountainscape in the background.

Kyle wore black with a turquoise necklace as her spouse held on to her.

Time to party: The couple were also seen posing with friends with the mountainscape in the background. Kyle wore black with a turquoise necklace as her spouse held on to her

Only the best: And Veuve champagne was put on the rocks

Also in the area is Kourtney, who shared several similar photos.

She has taken Younes to the location for his birthday and they appear to be staying at the five-star Amangiri Resort in Utah, located about 40 minutes' drive from Arizonas Antelope Canyon.

Kourtney was seen in a bikini on a speedboat on Lake Powell. And she was also spotted in workout attire by the resort's pool.

To the gym: Also in the area is Kourtney, who shared several similar photos. She has taken Younes to the location for his birthday and they appear to be staying at the five-star Amangiri Resort in Utah, located about 40 minutes' drive from Arizonas Antelope CanyonShe rose to the title of Victoria's Secret Angel in 2015.

And Romee Strijd proved her supermodel credentials once again on Sunday, slipping into a velvet two-piece in Byron Bay, Australia.

Taking to Instagram, the 22-year-old Dutchwoman ensured all attention was on her washboard abs and ample cleavage.

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She's an angel for a reason! Victoria's Secret Angel Romee Strijd proved her supermodel credentials once again on Sunday, slipping into a velvet two-piece in Byron Bay, Australia

'Sad to leave this wonderful place, but will be back soon!' she captioned tagging Seafolly.

There in Australia for a shoot with the swimwear brand, Romee donned a pink velvet two-piece set.

She accessorised with two gold medallion necklaces and statement earrings.

Baring all! There in Australia for a shoot with the swimwear brand, Romee donned a pink velvet two-piece set and flaunted her ample cleavage and washboard abs

Romee's blonde wavy locks were left out and kept tamed with the help of a sailor hat.

She appeared makeup free while flashing her signature pearly white smile.

Staying at the enviable Elements of Byron Resort and Spa, the beauty also shared some other shots from her shoot.

Making memories: Donning a red coloured lace one-piece, Romee expressed her love with the place

Time out! Although there for a whirlwind trip, the YouTube sensation and her long-term boyfriend Laurens van Leeuwen, 27, still found time to sight-see

Donning a red coloured lace one-piece, Romee expressed her love with the place.

'Will be back soon,' she captioned adding a love heart and the Australian flag.

Touching down earlier in the week, she was spotted at the Gold Coast's Surfer's Paradise embracing the Aussie spirit with a kangaroo-emblazoned t-shirt.

Getting into the Aussie spirit! Touching down earlier in the week, she was spotted at the Gold Coast's Surfer's Paradise embracing the Aussie spirit with a kangaroo-emblazoned t-shirt

Although there for a whirlwind trip, the YouTube sensation and her long-term boyfriend Laurens van Leeuwen, 27, still found time to sight-see.

'this is by far one of the MOST magical sunrises I've ever seen,' captioned Romee, with Laurens revealing they woke up at 5am to capture the view.

After a 36 hour flight, the couple have now touched down in Nice ahead of the Cannes Film Festival.Kim Kardashian is working hard to plug her new KKW body fragrance, which was released only one week ago.

On Saturday the Selfish author shared a full-frontal nude image while she was getting a cast made of her body for the bottle of the scent, which sells for $60.

And on Sunday Mrs Kanye West posted a new image from her controversial January Bo Derek shoot that took place on a Malibu beach.

What's old is new again: Kim Kardashian shared this fresh image from her Bo Derek shoot to promote her new body perfume, which is close to selling out. The photos was posted on her fragrance Instagram account

The caption read, '#KKWBODY is the perfect summer perfume with notes of peach nectar, sandalwood, musk and more. Only available at KKWFRAGRANCE.COM.'

The Keeping Up With The Kardashians star had re-created Derek's iconic perfect 10 beach scene.

The 37-year-old wore a bikini and had her hair in braids as she took inspiration from Bo's memorable look from the iconic 1979 comedy 10.

While Bo wore a skimpy gold string bikini for 10, Kim wore a more modern white version for her shoot, although she followed the original when it came to her hair.

A lot to take in: The Vogue cover girl shared this nude image to her KKW fragrance Instagram account on Friday

Kim revealed her silver corn rows in a Snapchat post - causing a stir amongst fans.

Some were annoyed that she called them her 'Bo Derek braids', branding her 'disrespectful' and accusing of her cultural appropriation.

One fan responded by writing: 'Im still a bit peeved on how @KimKardashian had the audacity to call these braids Bo Derrick braids' (sic)

While another added: 'Kim Kardashian on snap talking about some Bo Derek braids. Kim they are called CORN ROWS.'

No clothing, only clay: The looker had on a cast of her famous curves as the bottle is the image of her very own A-list figure

Yet, a number of other followers rushed to defend her, and claimed fans were making a big deal out of a playful post.

One wrote: 'Whats the problem with Kim Kardashian having braids? Stop making nothing into something.'

On Friday the siren shared a full-frontal nude shot to her KKW fragranceInstagram account with the caption, '#BTS OF #KKWBODY. Shop the newest perfume - only at KKWFRAGRANCE.COM.'

The star had on a cast of her famous curves as the bottle is the image of her very own A-list figure.

This comes after the pinup shared several nude photos toInstagram and Twitter to promote her new KKW Body fragrance.

On Wednesday, the reality TV siren could be seen hugging her naked body as she sat on a white floor. Her head was not shown.

Another good one: Kardashian shared several nude photos to promote her new KKW Body fragrance, which went on sale Monday

An image of her KKW Body fragrance bottle could also be seen along with the grey box it comes in. The caption read: 'A narcotic elixir with notes of juicy peach nectar, jasmine, golden amber and more.'

Kim also shared another nude photo to her own Instagram account with the caption: 'This fragrance has one of my favorite florals Jasmine in it with a rich Sandlewood and Amber! It has sweet and musky notes like peach and rose too!'

Kim has shared at least 11 nude images in all across several platforms, including her KKW Body Instagram site.

The reality TV queen went nude because she took a cast of her body so the perfume bottle could be the exact shape of her famous curves.

Not hiding her body: The mother of three is seen here holding her chest for KKW Body

The same day her scent launched she shared two new images from her Business of Fashion cover.

The graceful goddess tucked away her famous locks for a more pared down style as she made the most of a denim jacket, jeans and an array of turquoise jewelry.

The wife of Kanye West shared the new images on Monday on her website kimkardashianwest.com.

'For a special print edition of Business of Fashion, I talked about building my beauty brands, why I wanted to be my own boss, and what I have coming up next for KKW Beauty and KKW Fragrance,' said the mother to North, four, Saint, two, and Chicago, four months.

She called it a 'narcotic elixir': A new image of her KKW Body fragrance bottle could also be seen along with the grey box it comes in

'While we were on set for the cover shoot, Chris Appleton styled my hair in a low, sleek bun, and I kept my glam simple and chic. All of the photos were taken by Ben Hassett.'

In an interview with the publication, Kim talked how hard it is to deal with nasty comments on social media.

'You have to be a strong person to just handle all the negative comments and the negative energy that comes your way, because if you put yourself out there, [its] the nature of the internet [that] everyones going to want to hate,' said the sister of Kourtney and Khloe Kardashian.

Kim in the raw: She took a cast of her body so the perfume bottle could be the exact shape of her famous curves

'That trolling energy that everyone puts out there, that negative energy, is really hard to deal with. Its really, really tough,' she said.

One of those most common things she used to her was a dismissal that she was just 'famous for being famous.'

She doesn't actually dispute the label, but does disagree that it's a bad thing.

Now with more white on: The head-turner was covered in the white casting clay

'People said that about me all the time,' she said.

'That title just was stupid to me  always. If they are famous for being famous theyre still important; people are still taking their advice; people are still paying attention to them whether they are speaking about fashion or beauty or activism. Theyre very important.'

In addition to covering the new BoF issue, Kim is set to be a keynote speaker at the first-ever BoFWest summit on June 18 in Los Angeles. According to the publication, she will discuss 'the intersection of creativity, business and technology' at the event.George Clooney tuned 57-years-old on Sunday.

And the Oscar-winning actor is not only getting love from his wife Amal, but also from the Crawford-Gerber family as well.

Taking to Instagram, both supermodel Cindy Crawford, 52, and her husband Rande Gerber, 56, were quick to send their wishes to the Hollywood star on his special day.

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Birthday boy! Helping celebrate his birthday on Sunday, Cindy Crawford and husband Rande Gerber both sent their well wishes to George Clooney

'Happy birthday to the guy who always keeps us laughing,' wrote Cindy.

The photo saw the brunette beauty stun in a red gown next to Rande and George.

Standing on a boat, the Ocean's Eleven actor took over driving the water taxi on the way to his film premiere The Ides Of March at the opening of the Venice 48th Film Festival in 2011.

Friend and colleague: Gerber also sent his well-wishes to his tequila business partner

Also taking to social media, tequila business partner Rande sent his well wishes.

'Here's to many more days like these. Happy Birthday George,' he captioned.

Both sitting on beanbag chairs, each of the men were seen holding onto a bottle of their brand while enjoying a seemingly relaxing and enviable vacation.

He knows how to celebrate! And with tequila seemingly the centre of the birthday celebrations, a video uploaded on the Casamigos social media page saw George enjoy some shots

Still a child at heart! Known for his cheeky behavior, the end of the clip saw George pretend to pass out and fall back

And with tequila seemingly the centre of the birthday celebrations, a video uploaded on the Casamigos social media page saw George enjoy some shots.

'When the bosses spend too much time in the office, this happens!' he said.

Sharing what looked to be a ski with shot glasses mounted on top, the face of Nespresso and Rande enjoyed a drink.

Away from home: While the celebrations continue for the father of twins Ella and Alexander, 11 months, he's spent the past few weeks in Italy working on pre-production for his Hulu Catt-22 series which is set to be shot near Sardinia later this month; seen in 2015

Known for his cheeky behavior, the end of the clip saw George pretend to pass out and fall back.

While the celebrations continue for the father of twins Ella and Alexander, 11 months, he's spent the past few weeks in Italy working on pre-production for his Hulu Catt-22 series which is set to be shot near Sardinia later this month.

However, George and wife Amal, 40, are expected to return to New York to attend Monday's annual MET Gala which the human rights and international law barrister will be co-hosting.Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?

Rating:

The Durrells

Rating:

When a great gameshow starts flagging, a new host can boost it back to its best  think of Brucie handing over to Larry Grayson on The Generation Game.

But it can also be a bit of a let-down . . . remember Jim Davidson taking over the reins of the same show in the Nineties?

And then theres the unmitigated disaster of Mel and Sues revival earlier this year.

For the reboot of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? (ITV), the choice of Jeremy Clarkson seemed a safe one. Like his predecessor Chris Tarrant, hes a vastly experienced broadcaster with a reputation for straight talking.

Chris Tarrant (pictured) fronted Who Wants To Be a Millionaire from 1998 to 2014

Having met him last week at the Millionaire rehearsals, when I got to try a couple of questions in the hot-seat, I can confirm the persona isnt an act: he doesnt suffer fools, and he doesnt care who he offends.

But theres one major difference between the two hosts. Through his decades as a radio presenter, Tarrant is used to chatting with the general public. Hes what Americans call a people person.

Clarkson isnt. Hes a motoring journalist, famous for car shows. And as he turned the ignition key to restart Millionaire, he was treating the contestants like machines. His impatience was palpable as the first player mulled over the answers. Ricky, a slow-talking prison officer from Yorkshire, had exactly the right technique: he was talking his way through each set of multiple choice answers, giving his brain a chance to do its work.

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? is back with The Grand Tour host Jeremy Clarkson to mark the 20th anniversary

Tarrant would have coaxed him along, patient and affable. Yet it felt as though Clarkson couldnt wait to get rid of him, and made no effort to hide his boredom. Hurry up  people have to go to work on Tuesday, he groaned. Ricky won a steady 8,000 before bowing out.

Clarkson pleaded with Heather, the next contestant, to be more lively than the last bloke. She certainly was that  quick-witted, knowledgeable and confident. Too confident, in fact: whipped along by Clarksons eagerness to reach the big money questions, Heather guessed at an answer and was eliminated.

Worse, the same catastrophe befell the third player, a doctor called David, who staggered away on the brink of tears. Clarkson could have slowed him down but instead, he was encouraging quick answers . . . driving Millionaire the way hed drive an Aston Martin, with his foot to the floor.

This wasnt an outright car crash. The format is robust, and its great to see this superb quiz show back on our screens.

Clarkson will settle in, and learn quickly. Hell get better at this. But hes no Tarrant, and hes no Brucie. Hes more your Jim Davidson.

On Corfu, gameshows of a different sort were planned, as matriarch Louisas wayward children joined a travelling circus in The Durrells (ITV).

This was the climax of the third series, and the period drama is more assured than ever. These flawed, feckless characters have warmth and real depth, and we feel affection for all of them.

Son Leslies grief, at discovering that he wasnt the father of his girlfriends baby, was heart-wrenching. Sister Margos boyfriend, summoned away by his family, gave her a parting gift that was really touching  a model of the Durrell home, with a figurine of himself at the door, forever paying a visit.

But it was the fractured romance of Louisa (Keeley Hawes) that really brought a lump to the throat. Like Margos paramour, I cant wait to return to this Greek island idyll. The next series cant come soon enough.They've been nearly inseparable since first sparking dating rumors back in March.

And Paris Jackson and Cara Delevingne were together again Saturday night in New York, seen heading to sister Poppy Delevinge's party at Milk Studios and then later to a Gucci soiree.

The up-and-coming model, 20, donned a long dress that offered up plenty of leg, taking a break for a cigarette before heading inside the affair, held ahead of Monday's Met Gala.

Smoking hot! Paris Jackson donned a long dress that offered up plenty of leg and an eyeful of chest as she hopped from party to party with rumored girlfriend Cara Delevingne Saturday night in New York

Paris looked polished in a long patterned frock that plunged to reveal plum colored lingerie underneath.

The daughter of late pop icon Michael Jackson carried a patched backpack and wore hippie-chic glasses, in her typically bohemian style, as she smoked.

Later, she was seen wearing a much more casual look while on the way to a Gucci party with Cara and her father Charles Delevingne.

Paris hit the pavement wearing a vintage Van Halen shirt slashed for an off-the-shoulder look.

Peek-a-boo! Paris looked polished in a long patterned frock that plunged to reveal plum colored lingerie underneath

Blast from the past: The daughter of late pop icon Michael Jackson carried a patched backpack and wore hippie-chic glasses, in her typically bohemian style, as she smoked

Rock on! Paris hit the pavement wearing a vintage Van Halen shirt slashed for an off-the-shoulder look

Patched jeans added to her groupie-chic ensemble.

She donned dark lipstick and piled on the necklaces for an added degree of drama.

Besides her, Cara went for edgy wearing a leather harness over a thin white tank.

Her short, blonde tresses were held back with a patterned scarf.

Meet the parent! Later, she was seen wearing a much more casual look while out on the street with Cara and her father Charles Delevingne, to his daughter's left

Loves leather! Besides her, Cara went for edgy wearing a leather harness over a thin white tank

Tres chic! At the soiree Paris caught up with pal Nicky Hilton, who looked polished-as-ever in a black turtleneck and buttoned pencil skirt

At the soiree, Paris caught up with pal Nicky Hilton for a second, who appeared polished-as-ever in a black turtleneck and buttoned pencil skirt.

Though neither have confirmed or denied a relationship, 'Cara and Paris are crazy about each other,' according to an insider who spoke to HollywoodLife.

'They have amazing chemistry and a super strong attraction. Whenever they're together they have an awesome time.'

'Cara is totally smitten with Paris, she loves how smart and funny she is, and finds her sexy as hell.'Sam Cochrane's ex-girlfriend has reportedly been left 'heartbroken' by his whirlwind engagement to Tara Pavlovic.

The unnamed blonde beauty had hoped to reconnect with the 31-year-old voiceover artist when he returned home from Bachelor In Paradise, sources claimed to NW.

The woman, who allegedly dated Sam for five months, has been left feeling 'stupid' and 'gutted' after he proposed to Tara just four weeks after meeting her.

Rumour has it: Sam Cochrane's ex-girlfriend has reportedly been left 'heartbroken' by his whirlwind engagement to Tara Pavlovic

'The other girl is heartbroken. He didn't even have the guts to call her after to explain he'd not only fallen for someone else, but popped the question,' insiders claimed.

Sources alleged that Sam's ex first heard about the proposal after watching it on TV.

'Sam even admitted himself that he went to Fiji with only a fraction of his heart open - so she was expecting him to come back and pick up where they left off,' the insider added.

'She really believed she had a genuine relationship with Sam - she can't believe this has happened.'

Allegations: The unnamed blonde beauty had hoped to reconnect with the 31-year-old voiceover artist when he returned home from Bachelor In Paradise, sources claimed to NW

The mystery woman reportedly even made him a care package full of essentials like toothpaste, chapstick, lollies and playing cards.

NW tracked down the girl, who reportedly asked to remain anonymous and said she wishes Sam and Tara all the best in their relationship if it is genuine.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Sam and Tara for comment.

Sam and former nanny Tara, 28, got engaged during last Monday's emotional season finale of Bachelor In Paradise.

After weeks of rumours that it was Jarrod Woodgate who proposed to Keira Maguire, Sam dropped down on one knee for Tara.

Hmm: The woman, who allegedly dated Sam for five months, has been left feeling 'stupid' and 'gutted' after he proposed to Tara just four weeks after meeting her

The hunk took a deep breath before triumphantly declaring: 'I love you. I do. It might seem crazy, but it's not. And I've said it to you 1,000 times in my sleep. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. You're incredible.'

'I want to spend the rest of my life with you,' a tearful Sam stated before pulling out a ring and asking: 'Will you marry me?'

Tara gasped in shock and put her hands over her mouth, before stating: 'Yes!'

The couple have been going from strength to strength and now live together on the Gold Coast.

Gutted? 'The other girl is heartbroken. He didn't even have the guts to call her after to explain he'd not only fallen for someone else, but popped the question,' insiders claimed

Last week the lovebirds admitted they are planning a family together - and have already discussed their children's names.

Tara told OK! magazine 'I want two kids, one of each - a boy and a girl. I would love to be a mum. Not sure when, but definitely.'

She clarified to Who magazine that she is 'not pregnant' yet but insisted she 'would love to have kids with Sam'.

'I don't want to be too old - around 30, maybe,' she said.

Let down: The mystery woman reportedly even made him a care package full of essentials like toothpaste, chapstick, lollies and playing cards



It's not been a great weekend for Jacqueline Jossa, after she hunted down the woman her husband Dan Osborne supposedly cheated on her with last summer and asked her point blank to confess.

And while the mystery girl in question chose instead to notify MailOnline and expose Dan's 'cheating' to the nation, it seems Jacqueline, 25, has spent her bank holiday Sunday proactively having a sort out.

A skip has materialised by her property and she is thought to have been spending the day throwing out items of Dan's as she revealed that he will be present for the birth of their second child.

Chuck out that chintz: Jacqueline Jossa has spent her Sunday having a sort out. A skip has materialised by her property and she's thought to have been spending the day throwing out items of Dan Osborne's

Betrayal: It's not been a great weekend for Jacqueline, after she hunted down the woman her husband Dan supposedly cheated on her with last summer and asked her point blank to fess up but revealed he will be present at the birth of their second child

The mother-of-one - who is eight months pregnant with her husband of less-than-a-year's child - caught the attention of neighbours as she chucked a variety of artifacts into the large skip.

Dan, 26, is said to not be living with Jacqueline and their daughter Ella, three, at the moment; and while he's supposedly been staying with a friend, it seems his wife has reached the end of her tether.

Inside the skip is a box of men's clothes, as well as bin liners and various other items of rubbish. There's a box labelled 'Jacqueline's bits' too.

It comes as she opened up about the status of her marriage to Dan in an interview with OK! Magazine and revealed that he will be present at the birth of their second child next month.

Sin bin: The mother-of-one - who is eight months pregnant with her husband of less-than-a-year's child - caught the attention of neighbours as she chucked a variety of artifacts into the large skip

Out with the old: Dan, 26, is said to not be living with Jacqueline and their daughter Ella, three, at the moment; and while he's supposedly been staying with a friend, it seems his wife has reached the end of her tether

The heavily-pregnant star told the publication: 'People want to comment on your marriage, but they dont actually know what is happening  only we know.

'People shouldnt jump to any conclusions and Im in the last few weeks of my pregnancy so I dont need the stress.'

Jacqueline went on to reveal that her estranged husband will be present at the birth of their second child next month and that she might even have his mum, her mother-in-law, there as well.

She added: 'Dan will be with me. Im going to stick to who I had last time, so I just had my mum and Daniel. I might have Daniels mum, it just depends where we all are.

Binning it: Inside the skip is a box of men's clothes, as well as bin liners and various other items of rubbish. There's a box labelled 'Jacqueline's bits' too

This bank holiday purge comes after the former EastEnders actress was supposedly informed that Dan had 'cheated' on her with another woman, weeks after their fairy-tale wedding last summer.

Taking matters into her own hands, Jacqueline tracked down the mystery girl and asked her, calmly, if there was truth in the matter, via social media direct messaging.

The woman - who has asked to remain anonymous - contacted MailOnline to confirm that it is the truth, according to her, sharing the message she received from the pregnant star.

In her message, the actress demanded to know the details, insisting that she won't be angry with her.

Jacqueline wrote: 'Hi, I've just been told something and I need to hear it from you really. I'm not the type of girl to blame the girl etc and all I want is the truth.

The purge: This comes after the former EastEnders actress was supposedly informed that Dan had 'cheated' on her with another woman, weeks after their fairy-tale wedding last summer

She wants the truth: Messaging her via social media, the actress demanded to know if there was truth in the matter, insisting that she won't be angry with her if there is

'Did you sleep with Dan Osborne after a night in Brickyard? I don't want things to get ugly... so I am just giving you a chance to tell me so that things don't get that far.

'Again I'm not going to blame you it's just a simple yes or no, I really need to know. Thanks x [sic].'

Speaking to MailOnline, the woman claims she had a one-night stand with Dan last August after being mutual friends for a while, and meeting by chance in an Essex bar.

She alleges the former TOWIE star told her that he was 'on a break from Jacqueline and things weren't working out' when they met.

'I won't blame you': Jacqueline poured her heart out in the emotional Twitter message, sent earlier this week, where she appeared to be getting closure on her split from Dan

She revealed: 'At the time I didnt want to split them up and felt sorry for Jacqueline so stayed quiet. I thought no one wants to hear that about the person they love and its not worth them separating over especially as they have a family

'I felt guilty as they were obviously in a relationship, but my friends reminded me that I was told otherwise by him and I was single.

'I felt awful for Jacqueline but didnt want to be the reason they split up. Now they already have, and she has asked me directly I cant lie to her.'

The woman said she felt 'surprised, shocked, and awful' when she heard that Dan was still with Jacqueline and had been consumed by guilt, so felt compelled to tell her story after Jacqueline messaged her.

Coming clean: Speaking to MailOnline, the woman claims she had a one-night stand with Dan last August after being mutual friends for a while, and meeting by chance in an Essex bar - Pictured, Dan and Jacqueline in 2006

Honest: The woman said she felt 'surprised, shocked, and awful' when she heard that Dan was still with Jacqueline and had been consumed by guilt, so felt compelled to tell her story after Jacqueline messaged her

She said: 'Yes I felt guilty as they were obviously in a relationship, but my friends reminded me that I was told otherwise by him and I was single. I felt awful for Jacqueline but didnt want to be the reason they split up.'

On hearing the news of the couple's split, the woman said: 'I thought maybe he had cheated on her again.'

The woman said she felt 'incredibly sorry' for Jacqueline since the split but said: 'She's a smart girl and if she chooses to stand by Dan then that will be her decision.'

MailOnline has contacted Jacqueline and Dan's representatives for further comment.

The couple's split was revealed earlier this week. with reports stating the couple were getting into 'a string of heated rows' and that Dan failed to contact Jacqueline during his recent trip to Marbella, causing their fierce disagreements.

During said trip, Dan is said to have found solace in Love Island star Gabby Allen - but merely as 'a shoulder to cry on'.

Jacqueline appeared on Friday's Loose Women in a somewhat awkward interview, where she refused to divulge any candid details.

She did hint, however, that there is more to her split from her husband of less than a year, than previously thought.

Drama: Reports state that they were getting into 'a string of heated rows' and that Dan failed to contact Jacqueline during his recent trip to Marbella, causing their fierce disagreements

Coy: Jacqueline hinted there is more to her split from husband Dan Osborne than previously thought as she broke her silence on the reports during Friday's Loose Women

With her wedding ring still on during the chat, she confessed she's just trying to focus on their three-year-old daughter Ella and their unborn child.

She explained: 'I'm good, honestly. I think, when stuff goes on at home, it's not normal for it to be everywhere.

'But it's not necessarily true or the reasons why you're not getting on at the moment. That's all I really want to say but I'm all good.'

It has also been claimed Dan has moved out of the marital home and is now living with friends while the couple try to resolve their issues.

Soon after the reports emerged, Dan took to Twitter to vent his frustration at the aftermath as he asked why it was 'men who always get stick whenever a relationship goes through tough times.'

At loggerheads: Dan reportedly failed to text pregnant wife Jacqueline during his trip to Marbella - causing their huge rows

'Worst part': The EX-TOWIE star took to Twitter to vent his frustration at as he asked why it was 'men who always get stick whenever a relationship goes through tough times'

Dan tweeted: 'Whenever a relationship goes through tough times etc.. why is it always the man that gets stick..?

'When in "public eye", worst part is, the people trying to give me stick etc are people that DO NOT KNOW ME, do not know the situation.. so can please p*** off.... appreciated.'

Another tweet followed soon after: 'It had absolutely nothing to do with me working away, going away anywhere or anything to do with me having a laugh with friends on a boat... Suppose it makes an interesting read for the viewers though eh.'

'It kicked off a row': The actress, who is 32 weeks pregnant, was left furious when Dan failed to contact her, while at a holistic bootcamp with Gabby Allen and Stephanie Davis (above)

This comes after The Sun reported that the actress was left furious when Dan failed to reply to any of her messages, while soaking up the sun at a holistic bootcamp with the likes of Gabby Allen and Stephanie Davis.

A source explained to the paper that Dan was not on his phone much, as the Spanish fitness retreat encouraged guests to take a detox from technology.

However, his lack of contact reportedly infuriated Jacqueline, who was back at home caring for their daughter Ella, three, and preparing for the birth of their second child.

The insider said: 'Jacqueline had been trying to get hold of Dan all week at the bootcamp - she was messaging him all the time and he just wasn't messaging her back.

Bad to worse; However, the couple were thrown into more drama when Dan was pictured looking cosy with Love Island's Gabby Allen during his trip to Spain

Not happy: Dan fiercely hit out at fans who brought Gabby into his split with Jacqueline on Instagram

'He wasn't replying to her much because he was either taking a session or joining in with one.

'That's what kicked off a huge row - she was eight months pregnant at home alone and he was busy at work.'

Hitting back fans who brought Gaby into his split from Jacqueline, the reality star wrote fiercely on Instagram: '"Cosy" with another woman. I am speaking and laughing with a friend. But of course, a man and a woman cant be friends in this day and age can they? Also, you dont know me, dont know how I "act".'

United: Jacqueline has since echoed his sentiment on Twitter - and urged her fans to stop sending nasty comments about Dan, as they are still a 'team' despite their issues

Jacqueline echoed his sentiment on Twitter - and urged her fans to stop sending nasty comments about Dan, as they are still a 'team' despite their issues.

She said: 'No one needs to comment and get involved in things they don't know anything about.

'Daniel and I are dealing with things privately as a team, there is always 2 sides to every story. Stop with the nasty comments, no one deserves them.'

It has also been claimed that the pair are simply taking a break from each other - with divorce not an option, as they are still very much in love.She is set to depart Coronation Street after her eight-year stint as barmaid Eva Price.

And Catherine Tyldesley enjoyed a well-deserved break as she jetted off to Abu Dhabi with her husband Tom Pitfield and their son Alfie earlier this month.

The soap star, 34, looked every inch the beach babe as she slipped her toned physique into a plum swimsuit - embellished with a plunging neckline and racy cut-out details.

Time off: Catherine Tyldesley enjoyed a well-deserved break as she jetted off to Abu Dhabi with her husband Tom Pitfield and their son Alfie earlier this month

The blonde beauty kept it minimal in the accessory department as she sported oversized sunglasses with an array of plain bangles.

Putting her tanned complexion on full display, the Salford native went make-up free and styled her tresses into loosely tousled waves.

Hunky Tom showcased his taut upper body and washboard abs as he donned a pair of pastel red swimming trunks.

Sizzling hot! The soap star, 34, looked every inch the beach babe as she slipped her toned physique into a plum swimsuit - embellished with a plunging neckline and racy cut-out details

Striking: The blonde beauty kept it minimal in the accessory department as she sported oversized sunglasses with an array of plain bangles

Wow-factor! Putting her tanned complexion on full display, the Salford native went make-up free and styled her tresses into loosely tousled waves

Looking every inch the doting father, the personal trainer carried Alfie, three, while opting for a low-key stroll on the sandy shores.

The couple welcomed their child in March 2015, and tied the knot just over a year later.

Catherine's striking display comes after she confessed she shed tears while filming her final scenes with Shayne Ward's character Aidan Connor on the ITV soap.

In an interview with Metro, the actress admitted the scenes were 'incredibly tough to film', ahead of Aidan's tragic suicide.

Family first: Looking every inch the doting father, the personal trainer carried Alfie, three, while opting for a low-key stroll on the sandy shores

Opening up about her compassion towards the role, the Trollied star said: 'The scenes asked for Eva to cry, but I didnt have to try. I replayed the lovely moments between Eva and Aidan and the tears just flowed.'

Catherine continued: 'The scripts are beautifully written and it wasnt difficult to feel the emotion that Eva was feeling.'

The Florence Nightingale actress recently opened up about her imminent departure from the soap.

Exit: Catherine recently confessed she shed tears while filming her final scenes with Shayne Ward's character Aidan Connor on the ITV soap

In an interview with OK! Magazine, she detailed: 'I feel emotional... Corrie was always my dream job and something I hoped I would do one day. I've loved every second of being there.'

'When I went to see [producer] Kate Oates to tell her I wanted to leave, it was so difficult. She's been phenomenal for Eva and me. Ironically, I feel happier at Corrie than I ever have done.

'I'll be an absolute wreck! I just feel tearful now as I know I'm going to miss it so much.'She regularly treats her fans with her typically racy snaps on social media.

And Georgia Harrison certainly turned heads as she stepped out for a glitzy dinner at Mayfair's Novikov restaurant in London on Sunday evening.

The Love Island siren, 23, gave onlookers a sizzling peek at her slender frame as she donned a mesh crop top - flashing her tiny lace bralet.

Commanding attention: Georgia Harrison certainly turned heads as she stepped out for a glitzy dinner at Mayfair's Novikov restaurant in London on Sunday evening

The skimpy garment - embellished with delicate pale blue frills - worked well with the TV personality's wide-leg trousers, which featured trendy pearl details throughout.

Nailing Parisian chic, the former TOWIE star accessorised with a stylish beret while adding to her height in a pair of pointed suede heels.

Georgia opted for her signature make-up look as she wore sultry false lashes and glittery eyeshadow, tied in with peach gloss.

Wow-factor! The Love Island siren, 23, gave onlookers a sizzling peek at her slender frame as she donned a mesh crop top - flashing her tiny lace bralet

The former personal assistant injected Hollywood glamour into her look as she styled her blonde tresses into voluminous waves.

Georgia enjoyed a brief dalliance with fellow contestant Sam Gowland on Love Island before they went their separate ways.

He has since moved on to star in Geordie Shore and is happily dating co-star Chloe Ferry.

All in the details: The skimpy garment - embellished with delicate pale blue frills - worked well with the TV personality's wide-leg trousers, which featured trendy pearl details throughout

However in February, she candidly shed light on the darker side of the dating circle as she recalled a harrowing abusive relationship she had at 18.

The blonde beauty described how she feared for her life every day as her now-ex spat in her face, taunted her and smashed up her phone.

Reflecting on her past abusive relationship, Georgia wrote in Women's Fitness: 'I remember being in constant fear throughout the day of what would set him off.

Striking: The former personal assistant injected Hollywood glamour into her look as she styled her blonde tresses into voluminous waves

'Would he take my phone again and lock me out so that he can obsessively scroll through it until he finds an innocent message from a friend and smashes it up for the 3rd time?

'Would he taunt me and criticise my appearance to the point where I cant even look at myself?

'Would he take me to dinner and then spit in my face because I "looked at the waiter in a provocative way"? Each day was just a huge contrast of love and fear.'A drug linked to the mass overdose of 10 students at a Gold Coast school earlier this year has been banned in Queensland.

Russian drug Phenibut is among 104 new substances now illegal in the state and has been linked to the mass overdose which caused St Stephen's College students to be hospitalised in February.

"The recent awful incident on the coast serves as a reminder that new and dangerous substances are finding their way onto our streets. It is therefore essential we move quickly to ensure this chemical is illegal," Attorney-General and Minster for Justice Yvette D'Ath said.Tasmania's Liberal treasurer is tight lipped on a state wish list from the federal budget, with long-awaited funds for a new cross-river bridge north of Hobart unlikely to be delivered.

Peter Gutwein hasn't outlined any specific project he wants to see receive Commonwealth funding when Scott Morrison hands down his budget on Tuesday.

Mr Gutwein has previously pledge to fight Canberra "tooth and nail" for a fair share of the GST under a proposed shake-up.

But that won't be addressed until an inquiry wraps up.

"The government will always work cooperatively with the federal government to ensure we receive our fair share," Mr Gutwein said in a statement.

A $535 million four-lane replacement for 70-year-old bridge that crosses the River Derwent at Bridgewater has for years been touted as a federal spend.

The project was recently listed as a national priority by Infrastructure Australia.

Infrastructure Minister Jeremy Rockliff told parliament federal money would be secured for the bridge under the next Commonwealth-state funding agreement, that commences mid-2019.

"I'm very confident funding for a new Bridgewater bridge will form part of the next funding agreement with our federal Liberal colleagues," he said on Thursday.

"It's a hugely important project for the region."

A tangible commitment to the 'city deal' for Hobart would also be welcomed.

On a visit to Tasmania in January two months before the state election, Mr Turnbull said Canberra would progress plans for light rail and a "world-leading" Antarctic research hub in Hobart but didn't allocate any funding.

The federal government in February pledged $17.5 million for a highway overpass near Kingston south of Hobart.Victoria is using its rivalry with NSW to argue for a greater slice of the federal infrastructure pie.

When federal Treasurer Scott Morrison hands down his budget on Tuesday, his Victorian Labor counterpart wants Canberra to balance the scales.

"Victoria will be looking for a bigger share of funding when it comes to infrastructure," Treasurer Tim Pallas told AAP.

"While NSW receives 45 per cent of that funding, Victoria still only receives about 19 per cent, despite making up more than 25 per cent of the population."

Victoria felt some Commonwealth love in April when Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull visited Melbourne to announce up to $5 billion for a rail line from the CBD to the airport, as long as the state pitched in too.

The state government is waiting for the outcome of a business case before committing to the rail plan.

In its May 1 budget, the Victorian government showed it is sick of waiting for the feds to contribute money on some fronts, and will instead splash some of its own cash reaped from growing tax revenue.

After years of waiting to see if Canberra would come on board, the state will go it alone and put $396 million into Australia's first dedicated heart hospital.

The state has also allocated $110 million in its latest budget towards planning and designing a 26km North East Link road, which has a total projected cost of $16.5 billion.

Mr Pallas said he would welcome federal funding for the road.

Ahead of a November 24 election, Victorians will await budget sweeteners from the federal coalition that could assist their state colleagues.Brisbane's Cross River Rail project has topped Queensland's federal budget wishlist, even though the state government has said it can fund the project on its own.

The Palaszczuk Labor government has previously committed to bankrolling the $5.4 billion infrastructure project after failing to secure federal money from the coalition.

But Cross River Rail still remains at the top of state treasurer Jackie Trad's requests for the budget, which Scott Morrison will hand down on Tuesday.

"We want the Turnbull government to stop playing politics and start investing properly in the infrastructure and frontline services that our state needs as we grow," Ms Trad told AAP.

"We want them to put funding into Cross River Rail, which will get people home faster right across the southeast and deliver thousands of jobs."

Mr Turnbull has made multiple trips to Queensland in recent months, announcing a cash splash on infrastructure projects such as the Rookwood Weir in Rockhampton and upgrades to the M1 motorway.

Ms Trad has also called on the federal government to:

* Help fund the Rockhampton levee and Townsville Port upgrades.

* Cough up $400 million of health funding she says the state is still owed from the 2016-17 financial year.

* Renew an agreement to fund housing in remote indigenous communities.

* Rule out changes to the distribution of GST that would see Queensland lose $1.6 billion a year.

* Give parents certainty around long-term kindergarten funding, and reverse its decision to calculate Commonwealth childcare subsidies after state subsidies have been given.The Northern Territory will welcome whatever help it gets in the federal budget after its own woeful budget last Tuesday revealed soaring debts, deficits and predictions of a weak post-gas boom economy.

The Labor Gunner government's biggest gripe is that GST revenue has been "unfairly" slashed by billions of dollars, causing its financial woes.

That won't be addressed by the budget with a GST inquiry ongoing.

NT Treasurer Nicole Manison said she would like the budget to include actual funds to go with the prime minister and NT chief minister's agreement of 12 months ago to work on a Darwin City Deal.

The City Deal involves money to grow and improve cities for the future, with work already starting in Launceston, Townsville and Western Sydney.

Ms Manison would also like federal money to add to the $229 million the NT will use to enact the recommendations of the royal commission into abuses in the juvenile detention system.

"The federal government hasn't committed funds to that so we welcome any more funding there," Ms Manison told AAP.

One thing the Labor government and Country Liberal opposition agree on is that they would like federal budget funds for infrastructure in remote areas.

That includes roads and bridges to access areas with rough tracks that are often left isolated during the wet season.

"It will help not just primary industries, fisheries, the cattle industry, the horticultural industry but also tourism, which we want to grow in these areas," CLP leader Gary Higgins said.The West Australian government wants to see Commonwealth funding for remote indigenous housing reinstated in Tuesday's federal budget.

The 10-year National Partnership Agreement on Remote Housing has seen WA receive an average annual federal government contribution of about $100 million and is due to expire in June.

The Labor state government says the coalition "turned its back" on the deal just before Christmas, creating an increased risk of marginalisation for some of Australia's most vulnerable communities.

But federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion took aim at WA in March for failing to commit its own funds, saying the cost should be equally shared.

Asked what the WA government hoped to see in the federal budget next week, WA Premier Mark McGowan said he'd like the agreement reinstated.

"The Commonwealth has done it for the Northern Territory - they should do it for Western Australia," he said last week.

Senator Scullion made a verbal commitment to match the Northern Territory's funding of $1.1 billion over 10 years in January.

Mr McGowan also reiterated he wanted to hear "positive noises" about changing the GST distribution.

While the federal government's promise of $3.2 billion last week to fund infrastructure projects was pleasing, Mr McGowan said, he'd like more cash for regional roads that haven't been funded yet including the Albany Ring Road and Karratha to Tom Price road.

"Considering our GST share it's the least the Commonwealth could do," he said.The NSW treasurer is playing coy when it comes to his federal budget wishlist but it's already known there'll be some big bucks for Badgerys Creek Airport, the Snowy Hydro buyback and a new bridge in Nowra.

Dominic Perrottet has praised the Turnbull government's decision to scrap the planned Medicare levy increase and demanded NSW receive its fair share of the GST.

But the Liberal treasurer has refused to be drawn on what specific projects he'd like to see funded in Tuesday night's budget to be handed down in Canberra.

"Like all great Liberal treasurers Scott Morrison will be making careful and fiscally responsible decisions that will see the federal budget return to surplus in coming years," Mr Perrottet told AAP in a statement.

"NSW is keen to advocate that we receive our fair share of the GST pie to fund the infrastructure and services that our people need."

The commonwealth has already committed to help pay for a rail line to the new federally-funded Western Sydney Airport with Canberra matching Macquarie Street's $50 million for a business case to finalise a route.

The federal government in the 2017 budget said it was open to acquiring outright ownership of Snowy Hydro from the NSW and Victorian governments.

And in March this year it announced the deal had been done with NSW set to receive $4.15 billion and Victoria to pocket $2.08 billion for their shareholdings.

Meanwhile, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian is hoping to see federal money flow towards her state's multi-billion dollar infrastructure undertaking.

"Of course any support from the federal government in relation to our major infrastructure program would be welcome and I'll be watching with everybody else to see what happens," Ms Berejiklian said.

"We always look forward to seeing what the states receive."

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull late last week confirmed his government would set aside $155 million for a new bridge in Nowra while a week earlier it announced $25 million for a new monument at the Kurnell landing site of Captain James Cook.

The NSW government has off its own bat committed some $22.3 billion for infrastructure projects including the controversial $16 billion WestConnex road network.Sufferers of spinal muscular atrophy will have access to a life-saving drug for a fraction of the cost, as the government makes a suite of pre-budget health announcements.

Spinraza will be made available on the PBS from June 1 this year for all patients under 18, Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt revealed on Sunday.

"It can be a slow and agonising condition but today is a day about genuine hope," he told reporters in Melbourne.

It would have cost more than $367,850 a year for the medicine but it will now be $39.50 per script with concessional patients paying $6.40.

The government subsidies will cost the budget $241 million but Treasurer Scott Morrison says it will help families deal with "a heartbreaking condition".

"For these kids, for their families there is no more essential service than keeping their kids alive," he told the Nine Network.

Mr Morrison took a particular interest in the push to list Spinraza after hearing about it at a forum in Canberra and within his own electorate.

"I looked a lot more into it," he said.

"I sat down with Greg Hunt and the prime minister and others and we said 'this is something you need to do'.

"This is what a stronger economy can do. It can prolong the life of young kids."

The government is also finding the money to deliver free whooping cough vaccines for every pregnant Australian woman from July.

The vaccine is being added to the national immunisation program at a cost of $39.5 million.

"There are now no barriers and no excuses for not protecting yourself, your family and the rest of the community," Mr Hunt said.

The announcement follows the campaigns by two families whose babies died after contracting whooping cough.

Catherine and Greg Hughes' son Riley died of whooping cough in 2015, while David and Toni McCaffery lost their four-week-old daughter Dana in 2009.

Ahead of Tuesday's budget, Malcolm Turnbull and Mr Hunt pledged a $33.8 million cash injection to boost mental health service Lifeline's 24-hour telephone service.

The funding will help the charity answer more calls and train more staff.

The prime minister praised the work of the organisation's thousands of volunteers.

"Their love changes and saves lives," he said in a social media video about the announcement.

Mr Hunt was tight-lipped on the details of an expected package for aged care in the budget.

"We are very, very focused on a strong aged care package which includes support in home and in residential care," he said.

Readers seeking support and information about suicide prevention can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14.

Suicide Call Back Service 1300 659 467.

MensLine Australia 1300 78 99 78.

Multicultural Mental Health Australia www.mmha.org.au.

Local Aboriginal Medical Service details available from www.bettertoknow.org.au/AMSAGE CARE & HEALTH - WHAT TO EXPECTED IN THE BUDGET

* More reforms to home care packages for older Australians, after coalition foreshadowed further changes in response to recommendations of two major reviews.

* More than 100,000 people were waiting for a home care package as of December. Advocates want more level 3 and level 4 packages.

* A new national independent aged care quality and safety commission will start from January to act as one-stop shop for complaints.

* Health Minister Greg Hunt has pointed to record funding for Medicare in this budget.

* Funding for subsidised 3D breast cancer screenings from November for more than 200,000 women.

* Tens of thousands of men will get Medicare-funded MRI scans for prostate cancer checks.

* Support for dialysis in remote areas and new listing for a spinal surgery.

* Money for new medicine listings on the PBS, including for the treatment of Spinal Muscular Atrophy

* Whooping cough vaccine to be made available to all pregnant women

* More than $80 million has been pledged for the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

* Government has already said it's not going ahead with a 0.5 per cent hike in the Medicare levy to help pay for the national disability insurance scheme.Six alpacas have been shot and killed at a property in Queensland's southern Downs region in what police are describing as a disturbing act of animal cruelty.

Police were called to a Glen Aplin property on Saturday after the owner discovered five of his animals dead and another critically injured. It was later euthanised.

"Disturbingly this is the second incident of shooting deaths involving alpacas on rural properties with seven killed at Lyra last September," Senior Constable Jim Ellis said on Sunday.

It's believed the animals were shot on Wednesday or Thursday using a small calibre firearm.A 23-year-old man is accused of an Australia Day attack on two men camping by a dam south of Perth.

Police say the two men, aged 43 and 29, were asleep at the Waroona Dam campsite when they were woken by a loud noise just before midnight and attacked as they left their tents to investigate.

The 43-year-old man received serious injuries including bleeding on the brain, a broken nose and lacerations while the 29-year-old received a head wound requiring seven staples to close.

The 23-year-old will face several charges at Mandurah Magisrates Court on May 18.Australia's star-studded five-person team are second after the opening day of action at the inaugural Founders' Cup of Surfing on what's been dubbed by officials as the "best man-made wave in history".

The maiden two-day event at the artificial Surf Ranch in California produced numerous high-scoring rides on day one with Tyler Wright and Mick Fanning among those to crack the nine-point mark.

With 25 of the world's top surfer in competition, Australia faces a stiff test from the USA, World, Brazil and Europe with only three of the five teams - consisting of three men and two women - progressing to the final.

Australia's total of 75.82 points has them well placed to progress with Wright, Joel Parkinson and captain Stephanie Gilmore all having room top improve on their best scores, which will contribute to the team's overall score.

"We still have a lot of room for improvement," Fanning said.

"Parko's (Joel Parkinson) getting rid of a three, so that's a few more points there, he just couldn't connect on the right.

"And we haven't even seen Steph (Gilmore) dominate on the right yet, so I think she can get into those high 9s when she puts that right together."

The US lead the way on 80.83 with Kelly Slater, who helped fine tune the technology to produce the stunning artificial wave, and Carissa Moore among their best.

The World team is third ahead of Brazil and Europe.

With surfing preparing for its Olympic debut in 2020 and a decision on whether natural or man made waves are used yet to be made, the success of this event could have a significant b earing on that competition.

HOW IT WORKS

* Five teams of five athletes. Three men, two women per team.

* Each athlete surfs six waves (three left, three right) during the qualifying round. Each wave scored out of 10.

* Each athlete's top-scoring left and top-scoring right will contribute to the Team Total (maximum score of 100).

* Top three scoring teams out of the five qualify for the Final.

TEAMS

Australia: Stephanie Gilmore, Mick Fanning, Joel Parkinson, Tyler Wright, Matt Wilkinson

Brazil: Gabriel Medina, Filipe Toledo, Adriano de Souza, Silvana Lima, Tiana Hinckel

Europe: Jeremy Flores, Frederico Morais, Leonardo Fioravanti, Frankie Harrer, Johanne Defay

US: Kelly Slater, John John Florence, Carissa Moore, Lakey Peterson, Kolohe Andino

World: Jordy Smith (RSA), Bianca Buitendag (RSA), Michel Bourez (FRA), Kanoa Igarashi (JPN), Paige Hareb (NZL).The NSW government will set aside almost 25,000 hectares of state forest in a bid to arrest declining koala numbers but conservationists say it's not enough.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian on Sunday announced $45 million would go towards protecting the state's koalas and studying why their numbers continued to decline.

"This unprecedented action is the first part of a long-term investment by the NSW Liberal and Nationals government that will guarantee koalas have a very bright future in this state," Ms Berejiklian said in a statement.

However environmentalists have pointed out the hypocrisy of setting aside some land while at the same time trying to push through controversial land-clearing laws.

The land clearing codes, introduced in 2017, allowed landowners to clear sections of native bushland on their property without prior environmental assessment.

The Land and Environment Court declared the codes invalid in March due to a legal error.

Nature Conservation Council of NSW chief executive Kate Smolski said the codes made 99 per cent of identified koala habitat on private land able to be bulldozed.

"A real strategy to save koalas from extinction would include ending native forest logging, ensuring koala habitat can not be bulldozed by developers and agribusiness, and creating the Great Koala National Park," she said in a statement.

Asked whether she saw contradictions in her state's environmental policies, Ms Berejiklian said she believed there needed to be a "strong balance".

As part of the koala protection strategy, $5 million will be directed towards community initiatives, including planting trees and providing water sources.

Meanwhile, close to $9 million will help develop a statewide koala habitat database.The federal government is ignoring demands for job security from ordinary workers in favour of pushing through $65 billion in corporate tax cuts, the head of the peak trade union says.

Australian Council of Trade Union secretary Sally McManus told a 5000 strong crowd of May Day marchers in Fremantle that protections for working people had been "eroded".

"People in Perth are telling us what workers across Australia have been telling us. The rules are broken and something needs to change," Ms McManus said.

The theme for this year's May Day is "Change the Rules," with unions across Australia holding 12 days of action to support changes to wages and demand more permanent, full-time work.

Ms McManus accused the Turnbull government of ignoring the concerns of the community in favour of a $65 billion tax cut for "big business and the banks".

And workers were failing to get fair pay rises, she said.

Unions WA secretary Meredith Hammat said the next federal election will be decided in WA, citing five coalition marginal seats which could be up for grabs.

People understood employers who relied on casual and temporary overseas workers were the cause of "rising" work insecurity, she said.The economy could lose billions over the next two decades because of a freeze in university funding designed to save costs, new modelling shows.

Universities expect 10,000 fewer students to be enrolled this year because of the two-year freeze announced by the federal government in December.

Funding will be kept at 2017 levels until 2020 to save $2 billion.

But Universities Australia says the short-term savings could cost the national economy up to $12 billion over the next 20 years.

Even best-case scenario research they've commissioned predicts a $6.9 billion hit on gross domestic product and $2.2 billion in lost tax revenue.

"It's a simple equation - less university funding means fewer skilled graduates, a hit to labour market productivity, and less tax revenue for government," UA chief executive Belinda Robinson said.

Modelling by Cadence Economics says every Australian missing out on university qualifications costs the national economy $471,000 and causes the government to lose out on $152,000 in tax revenue.

Their research takes into account workforce productivity where fewer workers have university qualifications, and reduced individual earning potential.

"These findings demonstrate that, even in the most conservative scenario, the short-term fiscal savings to government are offset by the long-run cost of reduced tax receipts - and are substantially less than the long-run cost to the economy," the report states.Thousands of union members will march throughout Queensland on Labour Day to raise awareness of the changes they demand within their industries.

In Brisbane, the annual march will start at Spring Hill from 10am on Monday and finish with a family-friendly festival at the Brisbane Showgrounds.

The Queensland Nurses and Midwives' Union's (QNMU) will be among the groups represented and will dedicate its march to claims of understaffing and neglect in Australian aged care facilities.

"The system is failing residents, those who love them and staff alike," QNMU secretary Beth Mohle said.

"It is a perfect example of where change needs to occur.''

The theme of this year's Labour Day is 'Change The Rules' which encourages people to join their industry's union.

Labour Day marches will be held in Mackay, Townsville, Rockhampton and other places around Queensland on Monday.Queensland's local government minister is seeking greater powers to sack councillors and mayors who have been charged with criminal offences.

Stirling Hinchliffe will meet with the Queensland chair of the Crime and Corruption Commission and president of the Local Government Association Queensland (LGAQ) ahead of Tuesday's cabinet meeting to seek support.

"It's really clear the people of Queensland want to see some action around all the allegations and concerns coming out of local government right now," Deputy Premier Jackie Trad told reporters on Sunday.

Ms Trad said changes to allow Mr Hinchliffe to sack those hit with criminal offences are important and will be fast-tracked along with prohibiting donations from developers to local councillors.

Mr Hinchliffe will look at a wide-range of reforms and is considering a separate commission to oversee the public service.

LGAQ President Mark Jamieson called the idea 'ludicrous' and said he'd been overwhelmed with calls from furious mayors across Queensland.

"I spoke with the Queensland premier today and warned her this will fundamentally change the relationship between state and local governments if this goes ahead," he said in a statement.

The LNP also lashed out at the concept on Sunday, saying there was already plenty of regulators in place.

"There are regulators falling out of the trees," LNP Shadow Attorney-General David Janetzki told reporters.

"The cost on the Queensland taxpayer of Labor creating another bureaucracy to address these problems is unnecessary."

The local government scandal reached tipping point last week when a decision was made to appoint an administrator to Ipswich City Council following a series of corruption charges.

On the Fraser Coast, acting mayor George Seymour claimed victory in the council's by-election on Sunday days after sacked mayor Chris Loft had his review application dismissed.West Australians should expect "no surprises" from this week's state budget but the government has not ruled out further tax hikes to help restrain its bulging bottom line.

Better than expected revenue from iron-ore and dividends from WA utilities, combined with a boost in federal government funding means a budget deficit of about $900 million.

Treasury forecast a $2.6 billion deficit in December but that is expected to fall well below $2 billion after better than expected revenue, including a strong performance from iron ore and increased dividends from utilities.

Last months $3.2 billion federal government road and rail windfall also helped.

But Premier Mark McGowan has refused to rule out further tax increases and Treasurer Ben Wyatt repeated warnings that despite the improvement, the purse strings will remain tight through to 2018/19.

Hikes in household fees and charges have already been announced and people should expect to be slugged an extra six per cent for water and about seven per cent for electricity.

Asset sales including the TAB and Landgate are unlikely to be included in the forthcoming budget, with the government shortly to receive a final report from a scoping study into the sale of the land registry.

And despite the boost in federal funding, the government still has to find $2.2 billion for its key Metronet rail project which will not be fully funded in this year's budget.

Mr McGowan has said the government will be going through its business cases and hope for further Commonwealth generosity to come.As federal politicians return to Canberra for Tuesday's handing down of the budget, workers are wondering how much they will be better off from the much-promised personal income tax cuts.

While these tax cuts have been flagged for months, there is little detail on what form they will take other than they will initially be aimed at low and middle-income earners.

However, Treasurer Scott Morrison has conceded they won't be "mammoth" but they will be affordable.

Such reductions will come when the government still has unfinished business from a previous budget - business tax cuts.

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann insists he is still open for discussion with the Senate crossbench having fallen short of the numbers to pass the reduction form 30 per cent to 25 per cent for all businesses.

If the government fails to get sufficient support in the coming weeks and months, the 10-year plan will be taken to the next election.

But chair of the Australian Institute of Company Directors Elizabeth Proust argues focusing on company tax reductions without wholesale tax reform won't put the economy in a sustainable position in the longer term.

"What we need from the government and the opposition is an adult conversation with the people of Australia to talk about what is needed in the long term," she told Sky News.

A recent survey of her members found they want to see reform first in the GST - raising the rate and broadening the base - then personal income taxes, and followed by company taxes.

"There is a level of complacency, a dependency on too few taxes and we haven't had any reform of taxes or other matters for quite some years now."Detectives have released an image of a man wanted for his alleged involvement in the fatal stabbing of another man in broad daylight at a NSW mid-north coast beach.

The 30-year-old victim was found with a deep wound to his chest about midday on Friday at Lighthouse Beach and died several hours later in hospital.

A manhunt is under way for Ben Black, 32, who was last seen about 12.40pm on Friday at Rushcutter Way, a kilometre from the beach.

Police have released an image of Black and have urged the public to not approach him but call triple zero immediately if he is sighted.

A NSW Police spokeswoman told AAP on Sunday there had been no sightings of him to date.The search continues for a man allegedly involved in a fatal stabbing outside a methadone clinic in Wollongong three days ago.

Emergency services were called to the Denison street methadone clinic in the city centre about 6am on Friday after reports of a stabbing.

It is believed a fight had broken out between two men resulting in a 39-year-old Bulli man, who was visiting the clinic, being stabbed in the chest. The victim died in hospital a short time later.

A warrant was issued for the arrest of Michael Graham Gale, 52, on Friday night. Detectives are also searching for the weapon.

Anyone who sees Gale or knows his whereabouts is urged to not approach him but to contact triple zero.Finance Minister Mathias Cormann has defended the coalition's decision to lock in a cap on the amount of tax revenue collected by the government.

The 23.9 per cent tax-to-gross domestic product limit will be written into the rules for Tuesday's budget, which will feature personal income tax cuts.

Senator Cormann says the "speed-limit" on the public tax burden, above which revenue is returned through tax cuts, will keep the economy strong.

"It's the long-term average," he told ABC radio on Monday.

"This is something Labor used to subscribe to."

But public policy think-tank The Australia Institute describes the cap as "entirely arbitrary".

"There is no objective reason why the government should set this cap. The objective of fiscal policy should be whatever is appropriate for the state of the economy," institute executive director Ben Oquist said.Cabinet minister Mathias Cormann has reignited the dual-citizenship debate, insisting a Labor MP is sitting in breach of the constitution.

Senator Cormann pre-empted Wednesday's High Court ruling on the eligibility of Labor senator Katy Gallagher to sit in parliament for holding British citizenship when elected.

"Clearly right now there are people in the House of Representatives in Bill Shorten's team who are there in breach of the constitution," Senator Cormann told reporters in Canberra on Monday.

He singled out the case of Queensland MP Susan Lamb, who obtained British citizenship by descent but has been unable to provide adequate evidence in order for it to be renounced.

"Susan Lamb by her own admission is a British citizen," Senator Cormann said.

"Our constitution essentially makes it very clear that to be eligible you've got to be an Australian citizen only - which Susan Lamb clearly is not," he said.

But Ms Lamb claims she was validly elected to parliament as she took "all reasonable steps" to renounce her British citizenship.

In an emotional speech to parliament in February she explained how her estrangement from her mother prevented her from obtaining her parent's marriage certificate.

The High Court's decision on Senator Gallagher's citizenship status is expected to have flow-on effects for others in the federal opposition.

The eligibility of MPs Justine Keay and Josh Wilson is also under government scrutiny.As of May 5, the website of American Airlines listed Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau as entities separate from China

The United States on Saturday scolded China for attempting to impose "political correctness" on American carriers by asking them to classify Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau as Chinese territories.

A sternly worded White House statement excoriated Beijing for the demands, which it termed "Orwellian nonsense."

"President Donald J. Trump ran against political correctness in the United States," it said. "He will stand up for Americans resisting efforts by the Chinese Communist Party to impose Chinese political correctness on American companies and citizens."

The statement added that the Chinese Civil Aviation Administration sent a notice to 36 foreign air carriers, including a number of American carriers, on April 25, asking them to comply with Beijing's standards.

As of Saturday, the website of American Airlines listed Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau as entities separate from China. Rivals United Airlines and Delta listed Taiwan separately but not Hong Kong or Macau.

Taiwan has been self-ruled since splitting from the mainland after a 1949 civil war, maintaining its own government, military and independent foreign policy.

But Beijing has refused to recognize the island, viewing it as part of its territory awaiting reunification with the mainland -- by force, if necessary.

The US has maintained a delicate diplomatic balance since 1979, recognizing Beijing's sovereignty as part of its "One China" policy, while remaining Taiwan's most powerful unofficial ally and main supplier of arms.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong, a British colony until 1997, and Macau, a Portuguese colony until 1999, are now "special administrative regions" of China.

The move came after the US and China held high-stakes trade talks in Beijing aimed at forestalling a looming conflict between the world's two largest economies.

In January, Australia's Qantas Airways changed its website classification of Taiwan and Hong Kong from separate countries to Chinese territories, blaming its earlier approach on an "oversight."Tarana Burke, who founded the #MeToo movement, is calling for more concrete action

The #MeToo movement's founder said Saturday the time has come for sexual abuse victims to organize to provide resources for all who experienced similar trauma.

The global anti-sexual harassment, assault and abuse campaign has felled high-profile men across many industries, from Hollywood stars to top media personalities and politicians.

"Me too was just two words; it's two magic words that galvanized the world," Tarana Burke said during a roundtable at the United State of Women Summit in Los Angeles.

"We have to be in a moment of strategy right now. Organizing has to happen. The amplification has happened."

The activist began using the phrase "me too" more than 10 years ago, and her movement gained international momentum, spearheaded by social media activity and riding on outrage over Harvey Weinstein's sexual abuse toward women long perpetrated with impunity.

"The work that needs to happen now is what happens after you said 'me too,'" Burke said.

Speaking to AFP, Burke acknowledged she was initially surprised by the breadth of the #MeToo movement as it gathered steam late last year.

"Whether it's work on sexual assaults on college campuses or awareness of child abuse, work on sexual harassment, we need to elevate this conversation to action," she said.

"I didn't think we'd ever see a time when there would be a national conversation about sexual violence."

Burke called for greater focus on the victims rather than the aggressors.

Calling for everyone to individually educate themselves and gain greater awareness, Burke also urged Congress to create laws to better protect victims and voters to elect candidates who will "make our communities less vulnerable."

During the roundtable, fellow activist Leanne Guy suggested Native American women were most affected by sexual violence.

"This began with colonization and has continued ever since," she said, noting Saturday was the National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Native Women and Girls.

Activists and celebrities including Jane Fonda, Dolores Huerta and Valerie Jarrett also spoke on stage, urging women to actively defend their rights.

More than 5,000 people -- most of them women -- attended the event at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles for the two-day conference.

Ted Bunch, founder of the group A Call to Men, stressed the importance of men being involved in anti-sexism efforts.

"I always invite them around the table," he explained.Beleagured national airline Air India's privatisation has stalled because the government's sale conditions are too restrictive, experts say

The Indian government's attempt to sell debt-laden national carrier Air India is in danger of hitting the skids as a key deadline looms with no bidder in sight.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's administration announced in March that it would privatise the beleaguered airline. But the plan has struggled to get off the ground with several prospective buyers ruling themselves out.

"Conditions put forth by the government with regards to debt and employee costs are restrictive and have put off investors," aviation expert Amrit Pandurangi told AFP.

"The government needs to address the concerns of the private investors if the stake sale is to move forward," the independent analyst added.

Air India, founded in 1932, was once the country's monopoly airline, known affectionately as the "Maharaja of the skies".

But it has been haemorrhaging money for years as it has slowly lost market share to low-cost private players in one of the world's fastest-growing airline markets.

Successive governments pumped in billions of dollars to keep it afloat before Modi's cabinet last year gave the go-ahead to start the process of selling the flagship carrier.

The government wants to sell a 76 percent stake in the 86-year-old airline and offload $5.1 billion of its debt in what would be one of India's biggest ever divestments.

However the proposal has failed to fly with several major airlines, including IndiGo, now India's number-one airline, and Jet Airways, which said last month they were out of the running after reviewing government bid documents.

Analysts say the company's large debts and generous pension schemes are putting off buyers.

Air India is about $8 billion in the red and reported losses of almost 58 billion rupees ($866 million) for the financial year ending March 2017.

"We don't think any of the Indian airlines have the financial strength to bid for Air India," said Binit Somaia, South Asia Director at the Centre for Aviation (CAPA), told AFP.

- 'Back to drawing board' -

Airlines are also being deterred by the sale terms, experts say.

The documents state that the buyer has to purchase all of Air India's six entities, three of which are loss-making.

IndiGo said it was interested only in Air India's international routes and not its loss-making domestic operations.

"IndiGo has been a highly successful carrier. It is a good decision on their part to focus on organic growth," said Somaia.

Under any deal the government would retain a 24 percent stake.

Its insistence that the winning bidder cannot merge the airline with existing businesses as long as the government keeps its stake is seen as a key stumbling block.

The government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has pledged to sell the airline after billions of dollars in public bailouts

Last week the government was forced to extend its deadline to May 31 for companies to submit an expression of interest after none was received.

Indian media reports say the tea-to-steel conglomerate Tata Group, which founded the airline before it was nationalised in 1946, is the best hope for a sale.

Others have suggested that Lufthansa, Etihad Airways and the British Airways-led International Airlines Group might come forward. The three carriers declined to comment to AFP.

Singapore Airlines, which has a partnership with Tata in Indian airline Vistara, has also been touted. A spokeswoman told AFP that it will "keep its options open".

Commentators say it will be very difficult politically for Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party Hindu nationalist government to sell the state carrier to a foreign group, making a domestic-international partnership most likely.

But first it looks like it will have to ease its sale terms to attract any formal bids.

"If the deal in its current form doesn't go through the government will have to go back to (the) drawing board and relook at the deal structure," Manish Agarwal, of PricewaterhouseCoopers, told AFP.FAIZABAD, Afghanistan, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Afghan security forces, following counter-offensive and fierce fighting, have evicted Taliban militants and recaptured Kohistan district in the northern Badakhshan province, provincial police spokesman Sanaullah Rohani said Sunday.

"The security forces after killing 10 Taliban rebels and injuring five others were able to recapture Kohistan district, forcing militants to flee the area on Saturday night," Rohani told Xinhua.

Taliban militants overrun the strategically important Kohistan district on Thursday night.

Taliban militants haven't commented on losing the important district.

However, some people in the restive district have said that fighting is still continuing between security forces and Taliban fighters around the district headquarters.

Without hinting at possible casualties of security forces, the official said that the security forces would continue to target militants elsewhere in Kohistan district to ensure lasting peace there.Displaced Iraqi women walk in "Camp Seven" near al-Khalidiyeh in Iraq's western Anbar province on April 24, 2018

While the election campaign is in full swing elsewhere in Iraq, the country's displaced camps holding hundreds of thousands of people barely register on the radars of those running for office.

In "Camp Seven" in the western Anbar province not a single campaign poster can be seen appealing to those who have the right to cast their ballot at the parliamentary vote on May 12.

The rows of UN tents are part of nine sprawling encampments in the region housing thousands of people who fled the devastating fight against the Islamic State group.

Some five months after the Iraqi government declared victory over the jihadists they remain stuck in the desert camp -- and apparently ignored by the country's politicians.

For many of the residents the disinterest shown by the election candidates is mirrored by their own antipathy to those running.

"I have no confidence in them," says Umm Maher, who fled her home in Qaim, a former IS-stronghold.

Heightening her anger -- and that of others here -- is the destruction of their homes and the disappearance of male relatives they say were either killed or seized by security services during the battle against IS.

A displaced Iraqi woman looks on in "Camp Seven" near al-Khalidiyeh in Iraq's western Anbar province on April 24, 2018

"If they want our votes, they can give us back our children and our homes," adds the 50-year old, who doesn't know the fate of her husband and son.

Going into the polls, Iraq is only just starting to recover from the years of IS dominance over swathes of the country and the punishing fight to end it.

Out of a total displaced population of around two million people, some 285,000 are registered to vote, according to the electoral commission.

166 polling stations are being installed in 70 displaced camps, spread across eight of the country's 18 provinces.

- 'Nobody has come' -

In a bid to encourage the displaced to vote, election officials say identification requirements have been eased for those in the camps.

But despite that, Umm Maher is not the only female resident of Camp Seven who won't be voting, due to the scar left behind by the violence.

"I will not vote until my eldest son returns," says 47-year-old Umm Ahmed, who hasn't seen her 20-year-old child since he was seized three years ago.

"Besides, nobody has come to ask after us," adds the former resident of Saqlawiya, another ex-IS stronghold, a black veil partially covering her face.

Displaced Iraqi children stand next to a washing line in "Camp Seven" near al-Khalidiyeh in Iraq's western Anbar province on April 24, 2018

Politicians admit that despite the potential votes that could be won in the camps, few have ventured there.

"The campaign is absent in the camps and no candidate goes there, even though the votes of the displaced are important," confirms Hikmat Zeydan, from the Rally for the Unity of Iraq, fielding five candidates in Anbar.

Many "are afraid of finding themselves in a difficult situation, because they have done nothing to help the return of the displaced".

One candidate, running on a list for Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's Shiite-dominated Victory Alliance in Samarra, north of Baghdad is blunt in explaining why he has stayed away from two nearby camps.

"We have not put up any posters and did not move (around there) because most families are Daesh," alleges Jassem al-Joubouri, using an Arabic term for IS.

Elsewhere in the country some have made an effort at trying to represent the interests of the displaced.

Abdel Bari Abbas, fled his home west of the former IS bastion of Mosul, and is now standing as a candidate.

A displaced Iraqi girl stands in "Camp Seven" near al-Khalidiyeh in Iraq's western Anbar province on April 24, 2018

As he runs his campaign from Baharka camp, in Arbil province in Kurdistan, he insists his experiences give him a unique insight into how to help.

"My family and the majority of Mosul residents have had many struggles. It is necessary to have a candidate who will make their voices heard," says the 48-year-old Arabic teacher.

"The problems will not be solved without us and I promised myself that even if I am elected, my family and I will stay in the camp."Malaysian police said they arrested 16 people involved in an "international network" of people smugglers which had been operating since 2017

Malaysia has arrested more than a dozen members of an alleged people trafficking syndicate after intercepting a ship carrying 127 Sri Lankan migrants believed to be bound for Australia and New Zealand, authorities have said.

Maritime authorities on Tuesday halted a modified tanker named "Etra" in Malaysian territorial waters off southern Johor state, national police chief Mohamad Fuzi Harun said.

Nearly 100 Sri Lankan men, 24 women and nine children were aboard the ship, which was making its way to international waters when it was stopped.

The police chief said in a statement that authorities arrested 16 people involved in an "international network" of people smugglers, including three Indonesians and four Malaysians aboard a fishing vessel used to transport the migrants from the Johor coast to the tanker.

Another four Malaysians were arrested in the nearby state capital of Johor Bahru, while a fifth was taken into custody in northern Penang state.

Four Sri Lankan men were arrested aboard the tanker for suspected involvement in the trafficking network.

Mohamad Fuzi said the remaining 127 passengers aboard the vessel had been detained for violating immigration laws, according to news reports which did not say where they were being held or if they had been allowed to disembark.

He said the international syndicate, which covered Sri Lanka, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia and Malaysia, had been operating since the middle of last year.

Sri Lanka's foreign ministry said Sunday it was working closely with the Malaysian authorities to establish the identities of those detained.

"While the identities of the 131 persons are still in the process of being determined, initial information indicate that 43 of the 131 persons arrested hold identity cards issued by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR)," the ministry said.

Tens of thousands of Sri Lankans who fled decades of ethnic war are refugees in neighbouring India and other countries despite the end of the conflict in 2009.

It is relatively rare for people-smuggling boats seeking to take people to Australia to be stopped off Malaysia. Boats typically bypass Malaysia and head to neighbouring Indonesia, the traditional staging post on the route to Australia.

Over the years, many such vessels have been stopped or have sunk off Indonesia.

This flow has largely stopped in recent years however after Australia introduced tough policies in 2013 of turning back boats when it is safe to do so, an approach that angered Jakarta.

In 2015 some boats carrying Rohingya, a stateless Muslim minority from mostly Buddhist Myanmar, arrived in Malaysia after Thai authorities clamped down on regional trafficking networks and preventing them from coming ashore in Thailand.

A Rohingya boat arrival in northwest Malaysia last month was the first for some time, and came as fears mounted more might be set to take to the high seas after a military crackdown in Myanmar sent many members of the minority fleeing their homeland.

However experts have played down the potential for a mass exodus via the high seas, as stormy weather over upcoming months makes boat trips far more risky.News of the Phnom Penh Post's sale caught staff by surprise and has raised fears about the future of independent media in Cambodia

A newspaper hailed as Cambodia's last independent English daily has been sold to a Malaysian investor with apparent business links to premier Hun Sen, rattling a journalist community that has been battered by the strongman ahead of elections.

Bill Clough, the Australian publisher of the 26-year-old Phnom Penh Post, said in a statement Saturday that the paper had been purchased by a Malaysian investor identified solely as "Sivakumar G".

The announcement did not disclose the price of the sale or any information on the new owner's other ventures.

But a person close to the matter confirmed to AFP that the buyer is the head of Asia PR, a public relations firm based in Kuala Lumpur whose website describes its CEO "Siva Kumar G" as a journalist by training.

The website lists as a former client Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, whose government stands accused of a sweeping crackdown on independent media, NGOs and rival politicians ahead of July polls.

An Asia PR spokeswoman declined to comment.

The sale, which caught the newspaper's staff by surprise, swiftly raised concerns about a contracting space for independent media in a country that lost its other main English newspaper last year.

"The Post is really the last remaining newspaper that comes out every day and does long investigations on corruption, illegal logging and politics," said Abby Seiff, a Cambodia-based freelance journalist and former Phnom Penh Post editor.

"The journalist community is concerned about what the implication (of the sale) could be. It's just two months until the election and there's not much independent media left," she added.

In his statement, former owner Clough acknowledged that "turbulence" in Cambodia ahead of elections had put a spotlight on the Phnom Penh Post and left it as "the last remaining truly independent media group in the country".

- 'Climate of terror' -

The Post's chief rival, the Cambodia Daily, was forced to shut in August 2017 after it was handed an unpayable tax bill -- announcing its closure the same day authorities arrested opposition leader Kem Sokha on treason charges.

The crackdown also saw dozens of radio stations taken off the air and the jailing of two reporters from Radio Free Asia, which shut its bureau after 20 years due to a series of legal threats.

Cambodia fell 10 places in this year's media freedom ranking by Reporters Without Borders, which described the country as hosting a "climate of terror that has drastically curtailed press freedom".

In recent months local media had reported that the Phnom Penh Post was facing tax troubles.

Clough's statement said "publicised tax claims" had been settled with the government last week and that the paper now faces "no threat to its ability to continue its work".

Chad Williams, a former Phnom Penh Post editor-in-chief, said the quick settling of the tax bill and appearance of a buyer "strongly suggests the government approves of the sale."

"And it's hard to imagine they would approve if they thought the new ownership planned to maintain the paper's role as the country's sole remaining watchdog," he added.

The Post, founded by American journalist Michael Hayes in 1992, is seen as a key pillar of the country's fragile democracy, which observers say has taken a nosedive in recent years as Hun Sen clears out opposition politicians and other critical voices.A Palestinians protester attaches an incendiary device to a kite before trying to fly it over the border fence between Gaza and Israel on May 4, 2018

Israel struck a facility of the Gaza Strip's Hamas rulers overnight, the movement's military wing said on Sunday, with the Israeli army saying it was reacting to kite-borne fire bombings.

A military spokeswoman said it was a direct response to a new Palestinian tactic of flying kites with firebombs attached across the Gaza border into Israel to set farmers' fields alight.

"Last night an aircraft struck a terror post belonging to the Hamas terror organisation adjacent to the security fence in the northern Gaza Strip," a spokeswoman told AFP, without describing the target.

Hamas's Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades military wing said in a statement that it was a border observation post and that nobody was injured in the attack.

"The strike was in response to an incident that took place yesterday in which terrorists launched burning incendiaries in an attempt to light fires in Israeli territory," the Israeli spokeswoman said.

Israeli media have in recent days reported significant damage to farms due to kite-flown Molotov cocktails, though the devices face difficult odds in making it across the fence while staying alight.

Forty-nine Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since protests and clashes began along the Gaza border on March 30, and hundreds of others have been wounded by gunfire.

Demonstrators are demanding the right to return to their homes seized by Israel in 1948, which Israel argues would effectively spell the end of their country as a Jewish state.

No Israelis have been hurt in the weeks of protests and the military has faced international criticism for its use of live ammunition.

The Israeli military spokeswoman made a point of adding that the latest strike had no connection to a so-far unexplained explosion in the central Gaza Strip on Saturday which killed six Hamas fighters.

Ezzedine al-Qassam said the dead were all its members and blamed Israel for the explosion, without providing details or proof.

Some past explosions in the Gaza Strip have resulted from the accidental detonation of explosive materials belonging to militant groups.India has deployed more than 500,000 soldiers in restive Kashmir to tackle rising militancy as civilian support for the rebels grows

Indian soldiers shot dead five Kashmir militants including a rebel university teacher in a gunfight Sunday that triggered violent protests in which five civilians were killed.

Thousands took to the streets in south Kashmir to show support for the slain militants. Government forces opened fire to break up the protests, director general of police Shesh Paul Vaid said.

Hundreds of people were injured in the protests, according to doctors.

Government forces swooped on the village of Badigam, in Shopian district south of the capital Srinagar, following a tip-off about armed militants holed up inside a house.

The rebels refused an offer to surrender, triggering a fierce gun battle, Vaid told AFP.

A special appeal was made to Mohammad Rafi Bhat, a university sociology teacher who only went underground with the rebels on Friday.

Kashmir University, where he taught, was ordered closed for two days, according to a university statement.

"We brought his father from his home to persuade him to surrender, but he, like all of them, refused," Vaid said, confirming five rebels died in the firefight.

A top commander of Hizbul Mujahideen, a key rebel group, was also among the dead.

As news of the trapped militants spread, residents took to the streets across southern Kashmir shouting slogans demanding an end to Indian rule, witnesses and a police officer said.

Another police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said at least 30 people were injured in clashes with government forces who fired live ammunition, pellet guns and tear gas.

A doctor at a hospital in Shopian said hundreds of injured needed treatment.

"We have reached our full capacity. We have run out of essential medicines, there are no more ambulances," he told AFP.

On Saturday, three rebels and a civilian had died during a firefight in Srinagar -- the latest in a string of gun battles in recent weeks across the territory disputed by India and Pakistan since they split in 1947.

A curfew was ordered in the capital on Sunday and mobile internet services were shut down in much of the Indian-administered region.

Fighting in Kashmir this year has left 120 dead, according to officials, including 22 civilians, 67 militants and 28 security forces.

India has deployed more than 500,000 soldiers in the restive region to tackle rising militancy as civilian support for the rebels grows.

India accuses Pakistan of fuelling the insurgency, a charge Islamabad denies saying it only provides diplomatic support to Kashmiris' right to self-determination.A woman flashes her ink-stained index finger in front of a Lebanese flag after voting in Lebanon's first parliamentary elections in nine years in the capital Beirut on May 6, 2018

Hanin Terjman was among the first outside her Beirut polling station Sunday: like many young Lebanese, she is voting for the first time and wants to see new faces in parliament.

Clicking away on her smart phone, the chic 21-year-old student waited nervously for the school-turned-polling station in the Ras al-Nabah district to open for Lebanon's first parliamentary elections in nine years.

She was surrounded by delegates from the country's elite parties, who sported hats with pictures of Prime Minister Saad Hariri and T-shirts in support of the rival powerful Shiite Amal Movement.

But Terjman wants to throw her support behind a list of outsiders including engineers and activists.

"We're in a country whose rulers are putting pressure on us over who we are going to vote for. We should vote for new people who are going to change," she said.

Terjman, who became of age to vote just one month ago, is among 800,000 registered voters -- more than a fifth of the electorate -- who were too young to cast a ballot in previous polls.

"It's nice to feel like I belong to my country," she said, donning a pink top, white headscarf, and thick black eyeliner.

Terjman, who studies education at the Lebanese University, said she will vote for the civil society list Kulluna Beirut, despite being told by friends that veteran politicians would not be easily unseated.

"I want to tell people to go vote for the person they think is appropriate and will improve their country, not people you 'belong' to, because that won't get you anywhere."

As she spoke, half a dozen supporters of Hariri's Future Movement rushed to the school gate, waving ID cards and asking the soldier positioned there when they could be let in.

A Lebanese woman casts her ballot at a polling station in Beirut on May 6, 2018 in the country's first parliamentary election in nine years

Beirut is split into two voting districts, with 19 seats up for grabs for candidates from Christian and Muslim sects.

Many powerful politicians, including Hariri, are running in Beirut, where massive posters of the rival candidates are omnipresent.

- First timers -

Lebanon elected 128 members to parliament in 2009, but a planned 2013 vote was delayed because of discontent with the majoritarian electoral law and concerns about a spillover from the war in neighbouring Syria.

Ali al-Ahmad, 21, came to the Ras al-Nabah station with a friend just moments after polls opened.

"It's the first time for me, and we're excited. A lot of people told me not to vote," said Ahmad, who wore a black tee-shirt.

A Lebanese Shiite woman flashes her ink-stained thumb and waves a flag of the Shiite Hezbollah movement after voting on May 6, 2018

He said he would support candidates from the Shiite movement Hezbollah, which is backing the Damascus regime in the Syria war, and which many analysts say would likely hold on to its seats.

"Just as we were on the front lines and barricades, we'll be behind the ballot boxes, we want a strong country with a strong economy," said Ahmad.

Supporters of candidates running in Sunday's race were distributing boxed breakfasts at decked-out stands near polling stations.

Many young voters came holding their elderly relatives, guiding them into the polling stations and trying to explain the new, more proportional electoral system to them.

Siwar Ibrahim came alone.

He is registered to vote in the Tariq al-Jdideh district, a built-up and conservative neighbourhood where Hariri's party has strong support.

"It's my first time and I hope I don't get disappointed. I turned 21 on January 1," said Ibrahim, a curly-haired visual artist, as he stood in line to head into the booth.

He said he turned down cash payments from traditional parties, insteading opting for Kulluna Beirut.

A man drives a motorcycle cart transporting supporters of Lebanon's foreign minister in the Lebanese coastal city of Batroun north of the capital Beirut as the country holds its first parliamentary election in nine years on May 6, 2018

Ibrahim, who dreams of legislation that would back gender minorities, health care and human rights, said coming into the packed polling station felt threatening.

"I had to dress the opposite of what I usually look like in order to come here to vote safely. I had to take my earrings out, I had to look like what a man is supposed to look like," he told AFP.

"I'm here, at least I tried. I don't want to spend four years at home regretting that I didn't vote."

"It's ok to be scared, that's the challenge. Be scared, and vote."The president of Israel's Supreme Court, Esther Hayut, delivers a speech during her swearing-in ceremony at the Israeli Presidential residence in Jerusalem on October 26, 2017

A key Israeli government panel on Sunday endorsed a draft bill that would make it harder for the Supreme Court to overturn legislation it ruled unconstitutional.

A justice ministry statement said the ministerial committee on legislation voted to send the bill to parliament, where it must pass three rounds of voting in order to become law.

The right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long argued that the court is too active in striking down bills which contravene international humanitarian law or existing Israeli legislation.

Israel has no written constitution but has a set of "basic laws," which the Supreme Court uses as a guide in its decisions.

Under the new bill, a majority of a single vote in the 120-seat parliament could overrule court decisions to quash laws.

According to the Israeli Democracy Institute think tank, the court intervenes significantly less often than in other democracies, vetoing just 18 laws between 1992-2017.

Opposing the new bill from within the government is Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon.

He is threatening to instruct his centre-right Kulanu party to use its 10 votes against the bill when it comes to the Knesset floor, perhaps later this week.

"It is a blow against the rule of law," he said of Sunday's decision. In a statement, he demanded the government and court address their differences through dialogue.An Afghan wounded man lays on a trolley as others rush him to a hospital following blast at a voter registration centre in Khost Province

A blast at a voter registration centre in Afghanistan's restive east on Sunday killed at least 13 people and wounded 33, a health official said, capping a bloody week in the war-torn country.

The bomb had been placed in a tent being used to register voters on the grounds of a mosque, marking the latest attack on preparations for long-delayed legislative elections.

"A crowd of people who had come out of the mosque had gathered to register" when the blast took place, Khost provincial police chief Abdul Hanan Zadran told AFP.

Zadran said the casualty toll stood at "about 30".

But provincial deputy director of public health Gul Mohammad Mangal told AFP at least 13 people had been killed and 33 wounded in the explosion. Among the dead was a female election worker.

Mangal warned the toll could rise, with several of the wounded in a critical condition.

"Ambulances are still bringing more people," he added.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the Taliban said it was not involved in the explosion.

It was the latest attack on election preparations and comes almost a week after 25 people were killed in a double bombing in the Afghan capital Kabul.

Nine journalists including AFP chief photographer Shah Marai were among the dead. BBC reporter Ahmad Shah was killed in a separate attack in Khost province.

The latest assault on a voter registration centre is likely to deter more people from signing up for the long-delayed parliamentary and district council elections scheduled for October 20.

On April 22 a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a voter registration centre in Kabul, killing 60 people and wounding more than 100.

That was among a series of attacks across the country on places where people were signing up to vote.

In a separate incident on Sunday, six Indian engineers were kidnapped along with their Afghan driver in northern Afghanistan, officials said.

- Low turnout fears -

The Taliban and IS have made clear their intentions to disrupt the elections.

Officials are concerned that a low voter turnout will undermine the credibility of the poll.

Khost attack

Just over 1.2 million adults had registered by Saturday, three weeks after the two-month long process began, data compiled by the Independent Election Commission (IEC) showed.

The IEC, which is overseeing preparations for the vote, hopes to register up to 14 million adults at more than 7,000 polling centres.

But if the current trend were to continue, fewer than three million people would be registered by the mid-June deadline.

Authorities have deployed planes to drop leaflets in a number of provinces raising awareness about the elections, which are seen as a test run for next year's presidential poll.

A radio and television campaign is also under way and civil servants have been granted a day off to sign up.

The IEC has placed many of the voter registration centres inside schools and mosques, triggering concerns that students and worshippers could be at risk.

Another hurdle to voter registration is a sticker placed on national identification certificates showing the holder has signed up for the poll.

There are concerns that the stickers could put voters in restive districts at risk of being targeted by Taliban or Islamic State militants.An Iraqi F-16 fighter jet on the tarmac at Balad air base in the Salaheddin province, north of the capital Baghdad, on July 20, 2015

Iraqi warplanes carried out a raid Sunday targeting Islamic State group commanders in eastern Syria, in the second such strike on the jihadists since mid-April, the premier's office said.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered the "painful strike" which targeted "a meeting of IS commanders south of Al-Dushashiya in Syrian territory", a statement said.

F-16 fighter jets were used in the early morning strike and the raid was "successful", the spokesman of Iraq's security media centre, General Yehya Rassoul, told AFP.

Dushashiya is in a desert region of Syria's Hasakeh province, where a US-backed Kurdish-led alliance is fighting the jihadists.

"After receiving information on the target in co-operation with Syria's government and in co-ordination with coalition forces (led by the US), F-16s from the Iraqi air force led strikes against a command post of IS, 10 kilometres from the Iraqi border inside Syria," said General Mohammad al-Askari, an adviser to Iraq's defence ministry.

"This attack took place following a meeting of several Daesh commanders who were planning terrorist operations on Syrian or Iraqi territory," he said, using an Arab acronym for IS.

The target "was completely destroyed and all the officials there were killed," he said, without giving a death toll.

Askari also said Iraq hosts a centre that co-ordinates military activity with Iran, Russia and Syria "against IS".

"This is not the last strike in Syria. They will continue, in relation to the activities of Daesh."

A week ago, Abadi told the media that Iraq would carry out air strikes against IS outside the country's own borders.

On April 19, Iraq said it had carried out an air raid against IS in Syria that killed 36 IS fighters, near the town of Hajin in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor.

Iraq declared victory in December against IS, which launched a sweeping offensive in 2014 and at one point controlled a third of the country.

The jihadists still control pockets of desert along the border with Syria.President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2002 and has since remained the country's biggest political force

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday vowed to launch further cross-border offensives against terror groups as he revealed his ruling party's manifesto ahead of snap elections on June 24.

Erdogan made a series of promises about the economy and uniting the country during a rally in Istanbul attended by several thousand people.

The Turkish head of state last month announced snap presidential and parliamentary elections on June 24 to the surprise of Turkish politics observers.

Experts say Erdogan wants to exploit the rising nationalist feeling after an operation in Syria this year and to hold polls before the economy worsens.

After June 24, Turkey will implement constitutional changes approved in an April 2017 referendum to create an executive presidency which expands the head of state's powers.

Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2002 and has since remained the country's biggest political force.

"June 24 is going to be a milestone for Turkey," Erdogan said.

The president said Turkey would launch cross-border offensives, similar to previous military operations in Syria, adding that Turkey would never give up its fight against terror.

"Turkey will launch additional offensives like Euphrates Shield and Olive Branch operations to clear its border of terror organisations in the new era," Erdogan said.

Operation Euphrates Shield took place between August 2016 and March 2017 against the Islamic State group, while the Olive Branch offensive targeted the People's Protection Units (YPG) militia in its western enclave of Afrin earlier this year.

- Turkey committed to EU -

The president did not give any details on where the next operation could take place although there has been speculation Ankara could launch an offensive in northern Iraq.

Supporters of Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, unfurl his image as he gives his speech presenting his People's Alliance election strategy in Istanbul on May 6, 2018

Turkey says the YPG is linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been waging an insurgency inside Turkey since 1984.

The PKK has bases in the Qandil mountain area of Iraq.

Erdogan also repeatedly threatened in the past to expand the Afrin offensive to YPG-held Manbij, which raised fears of a confrontation with United States forces there.

During his 70-minute speech, Erdogan discussed a range of domestic and foreign issues.

He repeated Turkey's commitment to joining the European Union despite prior tensions with several EU member states and long-stalled membership negotiations.

Erdogan highlighted the AKP's success in starting formal membership talks in 2005.

"We have absolutely not given up our objective of full membership of the European Union even if we have not seen the same determination and desire recently from our interlocutors," he insisted.

Erdogan said interest rates -- despite the Turkish lira's decline in value against the US dollar -- would fall alongside inflation and the widening current account deficit.

Inflation hit 10.85 per cent in April while the lira has lost over 11 per cent of its value against the greenback since January.

- 'Media embargo' -

Erdogan's speech was broadcast live on all the main television channels but the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) candidate Muharrem Ince, chosen two days earlier, hit back at the "media embargo" against the opposition.

A supporter of the Turkish President stands for the national anthem before his speech in Istanbul, on May 6, 2018

Ince's first rally in Yalova, northwestern Turkey, was not broadcast live on Saturday by the main news channels including CNN Turk and state broadcaster TRT.

"The TV channels which even broadcast AKP's district congresses live did not broadcast our splendid rally live," Ince said on Twitter earlier on Sunday, blaming Erdogan.

"We will go on to break this media order. If the media embargo against the opposition at the orders of the palace continues, we will hold our rallies outside TV channels."

In recent months, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim and Erdogan have given speeches to district-level party congresses each weekend which have always been broadcast live.TEHRAN, May 5 (Xinhua) -- Iran and Oman will hold joint rescue and relief drills in the Persian Gulf in coming days, Tasnim news agency reported on Saturday.

The Iranian Navy, Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), Iran's Border Police, the Royal Navy of Oman, and the Royal Oman Police will partake in the exercises.

The decision to hold the joint drill was made during the 14th meeting of the Iran-Oman joint commission on military and security cooperation, held in Iran's capital Tehran on Saturday.

Since 2010, naval forces of Iran and Oman have held several joint rescue drills off the coast of their waters.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers a speech on Iran's nuclear program at the defence ministry in Tel Aviv on April 30, 2018

US President Donald Trump has not informed Israel of whether he will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal it opposes on or before a May 12 deadline, a senior Israeli official said Sunday.

The comments came as Israel pushed its case to have the deal changed or eliminated, arguing intelligence documents it recently unveiled on Iran's alleged nuclear ambitions helped demonstrate why.

Some experts and analysts believe Trump will pull out of the agreement concluded in 2015 under his predecessor Barack Obama and which he has harshly criticised.

They have also questioned whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's televised unveiling of the trove of tens of thousands of intelligence documents on April 30 was coordinated with Washington.

"In effect, I don't know what Trump will decide because he hasn't told me," the senior Israeli official said on condition of anonymity, making clear Israel had not yet been informed of Trump's decision.

The official added however that "I think that he has the same sceptical view."

Proponents of the nuclear deal argued the trove of documents Israel obtained from Tehran shed little new light on Iran's nuclear programme and in fact made the case for why the accord is important.

Netanyahu argues the documents show the deal with his country's main enemy was built on a lie -- Iran denied having pursued nuclear weapons -- and demonstrates it has a secret atomic weapons programme ready to activate at any time.

World powers that were party to the agreement, including Britain and France, said those arguments only strengthened the reasoning for the deal, which has safeguards in place designed to keep Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons.

They also said the intelligence documents did not show Iran was violating the deal.

Trump could decide by May 12 to reimpose US sanctions on Iran lifted as part of the agreement.

The Israeli official said while he did not know what Trump's course of action would be, there could be a range of options.

He said he believed one option could be Trump declining to renew a waiver on sanctions against Iran due to expire on May 12, but using the lag time between when sanctions take effect to negotiate from a stronger position.

Trump could alternatively decide to single out firms key to Iran's economy for what are known as secondary sanctions to apply pressure on Tehran.

"I think you want to ratchet up the pressure," the Israeli official said.

Netanyahu on Sunday meanwhile disputed arguments from deal proponents that the intelligence trove he unveiled had no new details. He also said it did not matter if Iran violated the agreement or not since the deal was fatally flawed.

"If you dont violate a dangerous deal, it doesnt make it less dangerous," he said.

Trump and his Middle East allies, particularly Israel, argue the agreement was too weak and needs to be replaced with a more permanent arrangement and supplemented by controls on Iran's missile programme.Latest appointee to President Donald Trump's legal team and former Mayor of New York City Rudy Giuliani said, "we may actually work things out with Bob Mueller"

Presidential lawyer Rudy Giuliani said Sunday that Donald Trump would not be required to comply with a potential subpoena from the special counsel investigating possible collusion with Russia.

But Giuliani, whose statements since he recently joined Trump's legal team have created some confusion, also said that the president "wants to testify" and that "we may actually work things out with Bob Mueller," the special counsel.

The former New York mayor and onetime prosecutor was asked on ABC's "This Week" whether Trump would comply with a subpoena if Mueller were to issue one.

"We don't have to," Giuliani replied. "He's the president of the United States. We can assert the same privileges other presidents have."

President Bill Clinton had resisted a subpoena during the investigation of his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, then a White House intern. But he ultimately testified for more than two hours before a grand jury.

When Giuliani was asked if he was confident that Trump, should he appear before Mueller, would not invoke his constitutional right under the Fifth Amendment to remain silent, Giuliani responded, "How could I ever be confident of that? ... Every lawyer in America thinks he would be a fool to testify."

Yet he listed a series of points suggesting the Trump team has given considerable thought to the framework of a potential interview.

Giuliani said he would want such testimony to be "only for two and a half hours. Only with an arranged format... (not) under oath. Only a Q&A. We get the questions in advance."

"So," he added, "we may actually work things out with Bob Mueller. Because working with him directly is good."

But any such plan, he suggested, could be derailed depending on how the Mueller investigation proceeds.Indian Bollywood actor Salman Khan was convicted in April of shooting dead two rare antelopes known as black bucks

Indian movie star Salman Khan managed to avoid the spotlight when he returned to court on Monday over his five-year jail sentence for killing endangered wildlife.

Khan, one of the world's highest-paid actors, was convicted last month of shooting dead two rare antelopes known as black bucks on a 1998 hunting trip. He spent two days behind bars before being granted bail.

The Bollywood icon was ordered to appear in court on Monday and an early-morning hearing was held in Jodhpur, in the western state of Rajasthan.

Khan arrived in a white SUV and slipped into court around 8:00 am (0230 GMT) surrounded by minders, catching Indian media and his army of fans off guard. Court sessions generally start much later in India.

The judge, Chandra Kumar Songara, quickly adjourned proceedings after Khan's defence team requested more time to prepare their appeal.

Khan, who is not allowed to leave the country without permission but has been filming a new movie in India, returned directly to Jodhpur airport after the hearing.

"We will begin arguments on the appeal against the five-year sentence from July 17," said defence counsel Mahesh Bora.

Prosecutors said they would oppose the appeal bid and were ready to present their case.

Four other actors were acquitted in last month's verdict and Khan has repeatedly denied killing the creatures -- accusing Rajasthan's forest department of trying to frame him.

His lawyers claim the black bucks died of natural causes such as overeating, insisting there was no evidence they were shot.

Throughout the multiple cases, eyewitnesses have stated they saw Khan firing a gun.

The 52-year-old enjoys a cult-like status in star-obsessed India and is one of Bollywood's biggest draws, despite a host of controversies.

Khan was in a vehicle in Mumbai in 2002 when it mounted the curb and killed a homeless man sleeping on the pavement.

He was found guilty of culpable homicide and sentenced to five years in prison, but the verdict was overturned by a higher court in 2015. His acquittal is being challenged in the Supreme Court.Migrants of different African nationalities arrive at a naval base in the capital Tripoli

The Libyan coastguard on Sunday prevented a rescue ship belonging to two NGOs from approaching a boat in distress carrying migrants, an AFP photographer witnessed.

The Aquarius, chartered by SOS-Mediterranee and Doctors Without Borders (MSF), was informed by the Italian coastguard of the presence of an overloaded boat off the coast of Tripoli, reported the photographer on board the NGO boat.

But Rome also alerted the Libyan coastguard which took charge of coordinating the rescue operation and banned the NGO ship from approaching, also ordering it to move away when migrants jumped into the water to avoid being picked up by the Libyans.

The Libyan navy later announced it had rescued more than 300 migrants in three separate operations, reporting one dead and three missing.

The two victims were with 114 other migrants including 21 women and four children, said a Libyan navy spokesman, General Ayoub Kacem, although he declined to say whether they had been aboard the boat seen by the Aquarius.

And he warned that tensions between the Libyan coastguard and the NGO boats could worsen over coming days if they continued to approach stricken boats.

The Libyan coastguard has previously accused NGOs of causing panic and confusion by their presence during rescues as the migrants all surge to reach the charter boats to avoid being returned to Libya.

A rubber boat with migrants is intercepted by Libyan coast guard, some 24 nautical miles off Libya coast on May 6, 2018

But Italian deputy Riccadro Magi, who was present on board the Astral, a boat chartered by the Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms, earlier Sunday when it rescued 105 migrants, accused the Libyans of being heavy-handed.

"The Libyans act as pirates in international waters demanding that they be recognised as an authority. They act outside the law and they do so with the means provided by the Italian government," he said on Twitter.

On Saturday, the Libyan coastguard also forced the Astral and another ship to move away from a boat carrying 38 migrants.

Last November, German charity group Sea Watch said lives had been needlessly lost because of a Libyan coastguard being trained and financed by the European Union.

According to the NGO, the Libyans began "beating and threatening" the migrants on the stricken boat, provoking panic that caused some to fall overboard.Amnesty International said it documented 36 cases of prisoners being held in prolonged and indefinite solitary confinement in Egypt

Amnesty International on Monday accused Egypt of keeping prisoners behind bars on politically motivated charges in prolonged solitary confinement and subjecting them to physical abuse, saying the practice amounts to torture.

"Dozens of detained human rights activists, journalists and members of the opposition held in solitary confinement are being targeted with horrendous physical abuse," the human rights group said in a summary of a report.

Amnesty's investigation "reveals that prisoners detained on politically motivated charges are being held in prolonged and indefinite solitary confinement in Egypt -- at times for several years -- which in and of itself amounts to torture."

"They are locked in their cells for 24 hours for weeks at end, denied any human contact and kept in horrific cell conditions."

The London-based group said it documented 36 cases of prisoners being held in prolonged and indefinite solitary confinement.

It said they are allowed up to an hour of excercise daily but are barred from contact with other prisoners as well as denied family visits on a regular basis.

"Due to the seriousness of the findings, Amnesty International submitted a memorandum containing a summary of this research to the Egyptian authorities on 16 April. No response has been received," Amnesty said.

Thousands of people, mostly Islamists but also secular dissidents, had been rounded up after the military overthrew Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013.

Morsi's overthrow, after millions took to the streets demanding his departure, unleashed a bloody crackdown on his followers.

The government has repeatedly denied systematic rights abuses and says there are no political prisoners in its jails.LONDON (AP) - One of Britain's most wanted fugitives, accused of drug offenses, was captured in Spain, authorities said.

Police detained 41-year-old Jamie Acourt as he left a gym in Barcelona on Friday afternoon, Britain's National Crime Agency said. The joint operation was carried out by the crime agency, London's Metropolitan Police and Spain's national police force.

The crime agency said in a statement that Acourt, from south London, "is believed to be involved in the large-scale supply of drugs."

In this photo released Saturday May 5, 2018, by the UK National Crime Agency announcing the capture of one of Britain's most wanted fugitives Jamie Acourt, who was detained in Barcelona, Spain, in joint operation carried out by UK and Spanish police. A statement from UK National Crime Agency, says Acourt was detained on a European Arrest Warrant and "is believed to be involved in the large-scale supply of drugs." (UK National Crime Agency via AP)

Ian Cruxton, head of international operations for the NCA, said intelligence work enabled British investigators to "direct the Spanish authorities to his location in Barcelona."

Cruxton said the fugitive "thought he could evade capture but as a result of an intelligence-led operation his days on the run have ended."

He said the sharing of information between various police agencies means there is no safe haven for fugitives.

The crime agency added that Acourt was detained on a European arrest warrant at Britain's request and he will appear at a Madrid court "early next week for an extradition hearing."

London's Metropolitan Police said that Acourt's arrest in Spain stems from a 2016 investigation launched by detectives from the force's Serious and Organized Crime Command.

Acourt, along with his brother Neil, is a former suspect in the 1993 killing of black teenager Stephen Lawrence. The two were among five people initially questioned as suspects in the killing.

Jamie Acourt has consistently denied any role in the racially motivated murder of Lawrence, and he was never charged in the case. Two men have since been found guilty of killing Lawrence in one of Britain's most shocking hate crimes.

___

Frank Griffiths contributed to this report.KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - A Malaysian official said Saturday the ruling party has sacked two powerful former ministers after they openly supported the opposition in the run-up to next week's national election.

Former Trade Minister Rafidah Aziz and ex-Finance Minister Daim Zainuddin have been dropped from the United Malays National Organization after they attended an opposition rally on Friday, said the party's secretary-general, Federal Territories Minister Adnan Mansor. UMNO is the linchpin of the ruling coalition.

Adnan said former Information Minister Rais Yatim is also being investigated over criticism he posted on social media.

A Malaysian Army officer casts his ballot during the early voting for general elections in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Saturday, May 5, 2018. Malaysia's general elections slated for May 9 will determine if scandal-plagued Prime Minister Najib Razak's coalition can extend nearly 61 years of unbroken rule against an unprecedented challenge led by nonagenarian former strongman Mahathir Mohamad. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)

"According to party constitution, when they sit together with the opposition and tarnish the party, they lose their right as members," Adnan told The Associated Press.

Analysts say the three veteran politicians' support of the opposition added weight to former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's bid to unseat the country's long-ruling coalition in May 9 polls. Mahathir, Asia's longest-serving premier when he retired in 2003 after 22 years, made a political comeback amid anger over a massive corruption scandal involving the 1MDB state fund.

Once an ally, Mahathir now heads a four-party opposition alliance seeking to oust Prime Minister Najib Razak.

Najib set up the 1MDB fund when he took power in 2009 and it accumulated billions in debt and is now being investigated in the U.S. and other countries for alleged cross-border embezzlement and money-laundering. Najib denies any wrongdoing.

Rashaad Ali, research analyst with S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, said criticism by the former ministers against the government could win over some voters who were unhappy with the government but not convinced about voting for opposition.

"These ex ministers coming out could lend legitimacy to Mahathir and could have an impact on some fence-sitters," he said.

Still, analysts say it will be a tall task for Mahathir's opposition to win.ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - Another Mother's Day at hand, another moment in time tinged with sadness for stock car racing's first family.

It's been 18 years since Kyle Petty's son, Adam, was killed during practice for a NASCAR race at New Hampshire International Speedway. Just 19, Adam died on May 12, 2000, only weeks after running in his only Cup race, a debut that had made the Petty family the first four-generation family in NASCAR.

Adam Petty's fatal crash came five weeks after his great grandfather, Lee Petty, died, so it's understandable that this time of year is just different for the family.

Former NASCAR driver Kyle Petty, right, appears at a charity motorcycle ride in Albany, N.Y., Saturday, May 5, 2018. Petty leads the ride every year in early May to raise funds for his Victory Junction Gang Camp for children with life-threatening illnesses. (AP Photo/John Kekis)

"It's a sad time," Kyle Petty said Saturday after the first leg of his annual motorcycle ride for charity. "I lost my mom four years ago. Adam passed away on Mother's Day. It's not a good weekend. It can be hard, but it's what you make of it, how you come back from it."

The Petty family has come back from Adam's tragedy in a big way. A devotee of motorcycles, Kyle Petty started a charity ride in 1995 that originally was targeted to benefit children's hospitals, but the family took it a giant step further.

Four years after Adam Petty's fatal crash, they opened Victory Junction Gang Camp - on Father's Day 2004. The summer camp, for children with life-threatening illnesses, is a way to honor Adam, who rode with his father on a couple of the charity rides before his death. Since its inception, the annual ride has attracted more than 8,175 riders and logged more than 11.9 million miles while raising $18 million.

"It's always a tough time of year, but this is what we do, and we have a camp because of Adam," Kyle said. "That's what this ride is all about."

The trek Saturday began in Maine and included a stop at NHIS - and some laps around the mile-long oval - before the pack of bikers crossed into New York state.

"To go back to New Hampshire, it's a little bitter that you have to go back to the racetrack," said Kyle, who understandably didn't take any laps. "But it's sweet that you're going back for a good reason."

For Kyle, now a television commentator on auto racing broadcasts, the ride also serves as a sort of catharsis.

"It's incredible. You saw all the motorcycles," he said. "That's incredibly gratifying."

The annual trek normally starts somewhere on the West Coast, but this year, for just the fourth time, it's going north to south through nine states and will last one week. It started Saturday in Maine and ends Friday in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Among the more than 200 riders taking part are former NASCAR drivers Harry Gant, Donnie Allison, Hershel McGriff and Ricky Craven; current NASCAR driver David Ragan; and Heisman Trophy Winners Herschel Walker and George Rogers. Petty's 80-year-old father, Richard, will join the ride after Sunday's Cup race at Dover, Delaware.

The trip also will include a visit to Woodstock and victory laps at Pocono Raceway. Riders will get tours of the Martin Guitar Factory; a Harley-Davidson factory; Manheim in Pennsylvania, home of the world's largest auto auction; and the Petty Museum in North Carolina.

"It's awesome!" said Donnie Lamm, of Newbern, North Carolina, on the ride for the first time. "I love it."

___

More AP auto racing: https://racing.ap.orgHOUSTON (AP) - Memo Rodriguez scored the go-ahead goal in the 90th minute, and the Houston Dynamo beat the Los Angeles Galaxy 3-2 on Saturday night.

The Galaxy tied it at 2-all in the 85th minute. Zlatan Ibrahimovic fed Giovani dos Santos into open space up the left channel, and Ola Kamara finished dos Santos' wide cross.

Rodriguez put Houston (3-3-2) back in front five minutes later, heading home the rebound of Quioto's shot, which crashed off the crossbar.

The Dynamo took a 2-1 lead in the 47th minute on Quioto's free kick, which benefited from a deflection off Galaxy midfielder Sebastian Lletget.

Alejandro Fuenmayor opened the scoring in the third minute with a left-footed finish of Quioto's free kick. The goal was initially flagged offside, but the call was reversed after video review.

Dos Santos tied it for the Galaxy (3-5-1) in the 39th minute, pouncing on the rebound of Ibrahimovic's saved attempt.KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - Malaysian opposition icon Anwar Ibrahim can't vote in what he believes will be a "defining election" for his country on Wednesday but even from his prison cell has remained a political force to be reckoned with.

The firebrand politician's conviction in 2015 for what he and his supporters said were false allegations of sodomy fractured the alliance of opposition parties that under Anwar's leadership was threatening the ruling National Front's decades-long hold on power.

It was Anwar's second spell in prison and it seemed he'd finally been done in by dirty political tactics. Once a high flyer in the ruling party, in 1998 he was convicted of homosexual sodomy - a criminal offense in Muslim-majority Malaysia inherited from the British colonial era - and corruption following a power struggle with Mahathir Mohammad, Malaysia's authoritarian prime minister for more than two decades.

In this June 13, 2017, photo, former Deputy Prime Minister and opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, center, smiles as he arrive at court house in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Malaysian opposition icon Anwar Ibrahim can't vote in what he believes will be a "defining election" for his country on May 9, 2018, but even from his prison cell has remained a political force to be reckoned with. (AP Photo)

Anwar, however, played an unexpected card. From prison he helped forge a new opposition alliance by ending the two-decade feud with his former persecutor-in-chief, Mahathir, who'd once called Anwar "morally unfit" to govern the country.

It was a hard but pragmatic decision, Anwar's eldest daughter, lawmaker Nurul Izzah Anwar, told The Associated Press.

Anwar, 70, is an "incorrigible optimist" who believes there must be sacrifices to bring about a change of government and badly needed reforms, she said.

"He was instrumental in galvanizing an eventual approval to get Mahathir to be part of our coalition," said Nurul Izzah. "He was the first to state that it's time for us to be actively playing our part to design the Malaysia that we want."

Mahathir, 92, now leads an opposition alliance that includes Anwar's party. They're campaigning to oust Prime Minister Najib Razak, who is mired in scandal, and end the National Front's unbroken 60-year rule.

Even with Mahathir, who is popular with Malaysia's Malay majority, the odds are stacked against the opposition. It won the popular vote in 2013 but the ruling party clung to a majority in Parliament because of an electoral system that gives more weight to Malay-dominated rural seats that traditionally support the government.

A popular Islamic student leader, Anwar joined the ruling Malay party in 1982, a year after Mahathir became prime minister. He quickly rose up the ranks, becoming finance minister in 1991 and deputy premier two years later. Anwar became the heir apparent to Mahathir but they fell out during the 1998 Asian financial crisis and Anwar was sacked.

He refused to go quietly, leading tens of thousands of demonstrators in street rallies in Kuala Lumpur demanding reforms before he was arrested. He was later produced in court with a black eye from a beating by the police chief. That black eye has become the logo of the People's Justice Party led by his wife and is now the symbol of the opposition challenge against Najib.

Anwar was freed in 2004 after Mahathir retired and cleared of the sodomy charges.

In 2008 elections, his opposition pact known as the People's Alliance made major inroads by depriving the National Front of a two-thirds majority in Parliament for the first time. In 2013, the National Front lost the popular vote, its worst result since independence from Britain in 1957. It currently holds 132 of 222 seats.

But in 2015, Anwar was imprisoned again after new allegations of sodomizing an aide that he and his supporters said was a government plot to crush the opposition.

"Authoritarian leaders always believe the best way to deal with dissidents is to jail them, but throughout history, it has always backfired," Anwar said at the time.

His opposition alliance broke up after its Islamist ally left. It regrouped as the Alliance of Hope but the pact was shaky due to infighting and the lack of a charismatic figure to hold it together day to day.

Mahathir's political comeback in 2016 provided the missing glue. Despite his advanced age, Mahathir was seen as the best chance for the opposition to win support from rural Malays.

The former prime minister was spurred out of retirement by the corruption scandal at 1MDB, a state fund that is being investigated by the U.S. and several other countries after associates of Najib allegedly stole and laundered $4.5 billion from it. The fund was set up by Najib in 2009 to promote economic but accumulated billions in debts.

In September 2016, Mahathir met Anwar for the first time in 18 years. Social media was awash with pictures of the two men shaking hands and chatting in court, where Anwar was challenging a repressive new security law.

An opposition victory in the election, though unlikely, could result in a spectacular comeback for Anwar.

He is due to be released from prison on June 8 and Mahathir has pledged to hand leadership to him. Officials say Anwar could take power with a royal pardon.

Anwar, said Nurul Izzah, "knows it's a defining election, he knows the stakes are high."

"We have to face a lot of onslaught against Mahathir especially in the lead-up to the election, but we are also saying that we are not apologists. Like it or not, he is now doing his bit at the age of 92, what are you doing about it? That's the key message we are giving out."

FILE - In this Sept. 10, 2008, file photo, Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, center, is surrounded as he arrives at a court house in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Malaysian opposition icon Anwar Ibrahim can't vote in what he believes will be a "defining election" for his country on May 9, 2018, but even from his prison cell has remained a political force to be reckoned with. (AP Photo/Lai Seng Sin, File)

FILE- In this Jan. 4, 2012, file photo, Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim speaks during a rally in Seremban, south of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Malaysian opposition icon Anwar Ibrahim can't vote in what he believes will be a "defining election" for his country on May 9, 2018, but even from his prison cell has remained a political force to be reckoned with.(AP Photo/Vincent Thian, File)

FILE - In this Sept, 30, 1998, file photo, with a blackened left eye, former Malaysian deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim waves to supporters as he is led into Petaling Jaya court to be charged in Kuala Lumpur. Malaysian opposition icon Anwar Ibrahim can't vote in what he believes will be a "defining election" for his country on May 9, 2018, but even from his prison cell has remained a political force to be reckoned with.(AP Photo/Ed Wray, File)

FILE - In this April 26, 2013, file photo, Malaysia's opposition People's Justice Party candidate and daughter of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, Nurul Izzah speaks during an election campaign rally in Putrajaya, Malaysia. Malaysian opposition icon Anwar Ibrahim can't vote in what he believes will be a "defining election" for his country on May 9, 2018, but even from his prison cell has remained a political force to be reckoned with. (AP Photo/Lai Seng Sin, File)More than 300 people attend a flag raising ceremony that marked the opening of the Djibouti base, August 1, 2017. [Photo/VCG]

China rebutted on Friday the United States' allegation that "Chinese personnel in Djibouti used lasers to target US aircraft and injured American pilots", saying it is not true.

The Defense Ministry said in a statement that it has dismissed such ungrounded accusations from some US officials via official channels. It added that China always firmly honors international laws and laws in Djibouti, and is dedicated to safeguarding regional security and peace.

Hua Chunying, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, also said on Friday that China hopes that those making the accusations consider the truthfulness of their words and not issue untrue charges.

The Associated Press reported on Thursday that the US issued a formal complaint to the Chinese government over what it called "the use of high-grade lasers near the military base in Djibouti that were directed at aircraft and resulted in minor injuries to two American pilots".

Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White said on Thursday the incidents represent a serious threat to US airmen, and the US has asked China to investigate, the report said.

The Chinese military established the Djibouti Logistics Support Base, the nation's first of its kind, in July. It opened in August and is tasked with supporting naval escort, peacekeeping and humanitarian missions in Africa and western Asia.WASHINGTON (AP) - Britain's top diplomat is visiting the U.S. for two days of talks with the Trump administration as President Donald Trump decides whether to pull out of the multinational nuclear agreement with Iran.

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who is expected to arrive Sunday, is a strong proponent of the deal. The deadline for Trump's decision is May 12.

The nuclear agreement itself isn't cited as a discussion point in a statement on the trip from Britain's Foreign Office. But Iran is listed as one of the international issues Johnson is to discuss along with North Korea and Syria.

The statement says Johnson is expected to meet with Vice President Mike Pence, national security adviser John Bolton and other senior administration officials as well as congressional foreign policy leaders.DALLAS (AP) - Those gathered in Dallas to protest the National Rifle Association during its annual meeting include parents whose children were among the 17 people fatally shot in February at a high school in Parkland, Florida.

Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter Jaime was killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, told the crowd at one of several gatherings Saturday that he wakes up every day with the sole purpose to "affect change in the gun control debate."

Guttenberg spoke at a rally organized by #NoRA, a group founded by actress Alyssa Milano. She tells The Associated Press they're "trying to shine the light on the NRA's stronghold over policymaking in Washington."

Fred Guttenberg, who's daughter was killed in the Parkland Fla. shooting, speaks during a protest against the National Rifle Association in Dallas, Saturday, May 5, 2018. (AP Photo/Rex Curry)

At another rally, Manuel Oliver, whose son Joaquin was killed in the Parkland shooting, created a mural containing the message: "We demand a fair game."

Fred Guttenberg, who's daughter was killed in the Parkland Fla. shooting, speaks during a protest against the National Rifle Association in Dallas, Saturday, May 5, 2018. (AP Photo/Rex Curry)

Alyssa Milano, founder of NoRA, reads a list of demands during a protest against the National Rifle Association in Dallas, Saturday, May 5, 2018. (AP Photo/Rex Curry)

Will Haraway, an NRA supporter, left, argues with Alyssa Milano, founder of NoRA, during a protest against the National Rifle Association in Dallas, Saturday, May 5, 2018. (AP Photo/Rex Curry)

Will Haraway, an NRA supporter, left, argues with Alyssa Milano, founder of NoRA, during a protest against the National Rifle Association in Dallas, Saturday, May 5, 2018. (AP Photo/Rex Curry)

A small crowd stands for a moment of silence during a protest against the National Rifle Association in Dallas, Saturday, May 5, 2018. (AP Photo/Rex Curry)

Actress Frances Fisher tells a crowd the National Rifle Association is promoting a gun that looks like a cell phone during a protest against the group in Dallas, Saturday, May 5, 2018. (AP Photo/Rex Curry)

Actress Frances Fisher reads a list of politicians that took campaign contributions from the National Rifle Association during a protest against the group in Dallas, Saturday, May 5, 2018. (AP Photo/Rex Curry)

A small crowd chants during a protest against the National Rifle Association in Dallas, Saturday, May 5, 2018. (AP Photo/Rex Curry)TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran's president is warning President Donald Trump that pulling America out of the nuclear deal with world powers would be a "historic regret."

President Hassan Rouhani made the comments Sunday in the city of Sabzevar while on a tour of Iran's Razavi Khorasan province.

Rouhani said: "If (the U.S.) opts to pull out of the nuclear deal, it will soon realize that this decision will become a historic regret for them."

FILE - In this Aug. 29, 2015 file photo, Iran's President Hassan Rouhani waves to reporters at the conclusion of a press conference in Tehran, Iran. President Donald Trump is weighing whether to pull the U.S. out of Iran's nuclear deal, a 2015 agreement that capped over a decade of hostility between Tehran and the West over its atomic program. A picture of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei hangs on the wall behind Rouhani. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi, File)

Rouhani also assured Iranians that "no change will occur in our lives next week" regardless of Trump's decision.

Trump faces a self-imposed May 12 deadline over the 2015 nuclear deal, which he long has criticized.

Iran has faced economic trouble in recent weeks, with some analysts blaming the uncertainty surrounding the accord.MADRID (AP) - Spain's maritime rescue service said Sunday that it saved 476 migrants who were attempting the perilous crossing of the Mediterranean Sea from African shores.

The migrants were pulled from 15 small boats on Friday and Saturday, officials said. There were no reported casualties.

Separately, a Spanish nonprofit dedicated to helping migrants at sea rescued 105 more migrants in waters near Libya during a mission on Sunday.

Refugees and migrants wait to be rescued by members of the Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms, after leaving Libya trying to reach European soil aboard an overcrowded rubber boat, north of Libyan coast, Sunday, May 6, 2018. In total 105 refugees and migrants from Bangladesh, Egypt, Nigeria, Marrocos, Gana, Pakistan, Sudan, Libya, Eritrea and Senegal were rescued in the overcrowded rubber boat. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

The aid group Proactiva Open Arms found the migrants, from Bangladesh, Egypt, Libya, Nigeria and other countries, drifting at sea in a motor-less boat.

The migrants told an Associated Press photographer onboard who documented the rescue that human smugglers sailing in a separate boat removed their boat's engine halfway through the dangerous Mediterranean crossing and left.

Favorable weather appears to have sparked the surge in sea crossings.

Each year, tens of thousands of migrants attempt to reach Spain and other southern European countries by crossing the Mediterranean in smugglers' boats. Most of the vessels are unfit for open water, and thousands of migrants drown each year.

The U.N. says 615 migrants have died crossing the Mediterranean so far this year. A total of 22,439 migrants have reached European shores, with 4,409 arriving in Spain, through the first four months of 2018.

___

This version corrects the spelling of the NGO to Proactiva Open Arms, not Proactive.

Refugees and migrants wait to be rescued by members of the Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms, after leaving Libya trying to reach European soil aboard an overcrowded rubber boat, north of Libyan coast, Sunday, May 6, 2018. In total 105 refugees and migrants from Bangladesh, Egypt, Nigeria, Marrocos, Gana, Pakistan, Sudan, Libya, Eritrea and Senegal were rescued in the overcrowded rubber boat. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

Refugees and migrants are rescued by members of the Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms, after leaving Libya trying to reach European soil aboard an overcrowded rubber boat, north of Libyan coast, Sunday, May 6, 2018. In total 105 refugees and migrants from Bangladesh, Egypt, Nigeria, Marrocos, Gana, Pakistan, Sudan, Libya, Eritrea and Senegal were rescued in the overcrowded rubber boat. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

Refugees and migrants wait to be rescued by members of the Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms, after leaving Libya trying to reach European soil aboard an overcrowded rubber boat, north of Libyan coast, Sunday, May 6, 2018. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

Refugees and migrants are rescued by members of the Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms, after leaving Libya trying to reach European soil aboard an overcrowded rubber boat, north of Libyan coast, Sunday, May 6, 2018. In total 105 refugees and migrants from Bangladesh, Egypt, Nigeria, Marrocos, Gana, Pakistan, Sudan, Libya, Eritrea and Senegal were rescued in the overcrowded rubber boat. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

Refugees and migrants are rescued by members of the Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms, after leaving Libya trying to reach European soil aboard an overcrowded rubber boat, north of Libyan coast, Sunday, May 6, 2018. In total 105 refugees and migrants from Bangladesh, Egypt, Nigeria, Marrocos, Gana, Pakistan, Sudan, Libya, Eritrea and Senegal were rescued in the overcrowded rubber boat. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

A member of the Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms inspects a boat used by Refugees and migrants trying to reach European soil aboard an overcrowded rubber boat, north of Libyan coast, Sunday, May 6, 2018. In total 105 refugees and migrants from Bangladesh, Egypt, Nigeria, Marrocos, Gana, Pakistan, Sudan, Libya, Eritrea and Senegal were rescued in the overcrowded rubber boat. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

Refugees and migrants are rescued by members of the Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms, after leaving Libya trying to reach European soil aboard an overcrowded rubber boat, north of Libyan coast, Sunday, May 6, 2018. In total 105 refugees and migrants from various countries, including Bangladesh, Egypt, Nigeria, Marrocos, Gana, Pakistan, Sudan, Libya, Eritrea and Senegal, were rescued in the overcrowded rubber boat. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)VATICAN CITY (AP) - Pope Francis has offered a prayer in St. Peter's Square for an end to violence in the deeply impoverished Central African Republic, which he visited 2 years ago.

Francis during his traditional Sunday blessing recalled the serious violence in recent days that left many, including a priest, dead. He called for an end to vendettas "to construct peace together."

At least 19 people were killed and 98 wounded in the renewed sectarian violence in the Central African Republic's capital of Bangui, with targets including a church, a mosque and health facilities. The country has faced deadly interreligious and intercommunal fighting since 2013, with thousands of people killed and hundreds of thousands displaced.

Pope Francis waves to the crowd as he recites the Regina Coeli noon prayer from the window of his studio overlooking St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Sunday, May 6, 2018. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

During his November 2015 visit, the pope delivered a message of reconciliation.

People follow Pope Francis as he recites the Regina Coeli noon prayer from the window of his studio overlooking St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Sunday, May 6, 2018. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

People follow Pope Francis as he recites the Regina Coeli noon prayer from the window of his studio overlooking St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Sunday, May 6, 2018. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Pope Francis delivers his blessing as he recites the Regina Coeli noon prayer from the window of his studio overlooking St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Sunday, May 6, 2018. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Pope Francis recites the Regina Coeli noon prayer from the window of his studio overlooking St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Sunday, May 6, 2018. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)CAIRO (AP) - The International Monetary Fund has lauded Egypt's progress in stabilizing its economy, instilling market confidence, cutting debt and driving growth.

In remarks to a government meeting released late Saturday, IMF First Deputy Managing Director David Lipton says Egypt must now enable private-sector economic activity to expand and provide the jobs needed by millions of Egyptians.

Egypt's economy is still recovering from a 2011 popular uprising and years of political instability. The government secured a $12 billion loan from the IMF in 2016 and launched an austerity program that included subsidy cuts.

As examples, Lipton mentioned Indonesia, Mexico and India as countries where reform efforts empowered the private sector by ending cronyism and government monopolies, encouraging competition and boosting the social safety net.NEWINGTON, N.H. (AP) - A boat crash in New Hampshire has left two people dead and two others injured.

State Police Marine Patrol says the accident happened Saturday night on the Piscataqua River when a 59-year-old man operating a 24-foot Boston Whaler struck a buoy, throwing a female passenger into the water. She was found unconscious in the river and later died, as did another female passenger. The operator and another male passenger were hospitalized.

Several agencies from Maine and New Hampshire responded to the crash, which remains under investigation.

Authorities are withholding the names of those involved pending notification of next of kin.NEW YORK (AP) - Stormy Daniels made a surprise appearance on "Saturday Night Live" to deliver a message to President Donald Trump: "A storm's a coming, baby."

The porn actress, who says she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006 and was paid $130,000 the month before he was elected to stay silent about it, delivered the warning to Alec Baldwin's Donald Trump in the show's opening skit.

When the fake Trump asks Daniels what she would need to "for this all go away," she replies: "A resignation."

This image released by NBC shows adult film actress Stormy Daniels during an appearance on "Saturday Night Live" in New York on Saturday, May 5, 2018. (Will Heath/NBC via AP)

Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, is seeking to be released from the nondisclosure agreement. She has also filed defamation suits against Trump and his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, who paid her the money.

Trump denies he and Daniels had an affair and has said he didn't know about the settlement.PORTLAND, Maine (AP) - Lobster prices are high in the U.S. right now, but members of the industry expect them to come down soon as the Canadian catch creeps up and America's summer haul gets going.

One-pound lobsters, which Mainers call "chicks," are selling for about $12 per pound to consumers, which is a couple of dollars per pound more than six months ago. The U.S. lobster industry, based heavily in Maine, is in a slow mode as fishermen get ready to pull traps in the summer.

The lack of fishing effort and high prices have caused some in the seafood industry to raise the possibility of a shortage, but industry members say quite the opposite is true. Canada's spring fishing season is just starting to heat up, which means prices already are starting to track back down, industry members said.

FILE - In this June 12, 2015, file photo, a lobster is pulled from crate in Kennebunkport, Maine. Lobster prices are high in the U.S. right now, but members of the industry expect them to come down soon as the Canadian catch creeps up and America's summer haul gets going. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)

U.S. lobstermen who were getting $10 per pound for their catch at the dock in March are now getting closer to $6, said Spencer Fuller, a lobster buyer and the president of the Maine Lobster Dealers' Association. Consumers can expect to start seeing that price shift show up at the seafood counter soon.

"You had weather, nothing around, fairly steady demand, it just drives the price crazy," Fuller said. "Now we're heading toward normalcy."

The wholesale price of 1-pound lobsters fell from $10.78 per pound in April to $8.51 per pound this month in the New England market, according to business publisher Urner Barry. It's typical for lobster prices to fall from April to May, but the May price is still about $1.50 above average, according to Urner Barry data.

Maine's lobster catch fell to about 111 million pounds last year after setting a record of 132.5 million pounds the previous year. It was the lowest total since 2011, though still much more than the typical catch in the 1990s and early 2000s. More than 80 percent of the nation's catch typically comes to shore in Maine, although Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island also have significant lobster fisheries.

Fresh, live lobster is historically a summer food in New England, but the growing globalization of the lobster business is starting to change that. That means demand is sometimes higher in the cooler months once considered the lobster "off season."

Exports to China also have increased, which has resulted in some worry about a potential lobster shortage in the U.S., said Michael King, purchasing director of King's Seafood Co., which operates a distribution center in Santa Ana, California. American catch also appeared to suffer due to bad weather during the already-slow winter season this year, he said.

"It's a double whammy of lower supply plus increase in demand," King said.

But there's every reason to believe there will be plenty of lobster to go around this coming summer, said Kristan Porter, president of the Maine Lobstermen's Association.

"Guys are getting gear ready to set," he said. "It's absolutely a typical spring."CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - Former coal executive Don Blankenship went from prison to politics after serving a one-year sentence related to the deadliest U.S. mine disaster in four decades.

His quest: To take down the man he blames for fueling public distrust of him - Democratic U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin.

The self-funded Blankenship is among six candidates in the Republican Senate primary Tuesday, almost a year to the day since his release from a California prison. He has launched a scorched-earth advertising campaign aimed at Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that some have labeled racist for its characterization of the Kentucky Republican's wife, Elaine Chao, who is the U.S. secretary of transportation.

FILE - In this Jan. 18, 2018, file photo, former Massey CEO and West Virginia Republican Senatorial candidate, Don Blankenship, speaks during a town hall to kick off his campaign in Logan, W.Va. Blankenship went from prison to politics after serving a one-year sentence related to the deadliest U.S. mine disaster in four decades. His quest: To take down the man he blames for fueling public distrust of him, Democratic U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia. (AP Photo/Steve Helber, File)

Blankenship is "adding uncertainty to West Virginia politics," said Robert Rupp, a political history professor at West Virginia Wesleyan College. "And it's an obstacle for political observers to figure out what's happening. It threw all our calculations out."

Rupp said lower voter turnout for a midterm primary could enable Blankenship to wrestle victory away from U.S. Rep. Evan Jenkins and state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey. Despite Jenkins' credentials as a sitting congressman, his chances "may be troubled" by a crowded Republican field, Rupp said.

Blankenship, the former Massey Energy CEO, has poured $3.5 million of his own money into his campaign, far more than Jenkins and Morrisey. But what's lacking is outward backing from his own party.

"Let me be clear: I don't care who they are supporting," Blankenship said. "I am not for sale."

Jenkins and Morrisey have mostly focusing their campaigns on their own merits, and on criticism of Manchin and each other. Both have touted their own efforts to reduce the scourge of the opioid epidemic in the state, which leads the nation in the rate of drug overdose deaths, and have distanced themselves from McConnell.

Jenkins has made much of Morrisey's past lobbying ties to the pharmaceutical industry. Morrisey has gone after Jenkins' background when he was a Democrat before switching parties in 2013.

Rupp said the Senate race will be the most closely watched in West Virginia in a generation.

"At least we're going to get some attention," he said. "At issue is not just Republican continued control of the Senate. It's also a concerted effort to defeat a blue-dog Democrat in a red state."

West Virginia gave Donald Trump his largest margin of victory in the nation in 2016 in a state where Republicans make up just 32 percent of registered voters.

When Trump visited West Virginia in early April to tout his tax plan, Jenkins and Morrisey sat on either side of him. Blankenship wasn't there and didn't complain about it.

The 68-year-old Blankenship served a one-year prison term on a misdemeanor conviction for conspiring to violate federal mine safety standards at Massey's Upper Big Branch Mine, where 29 miners were killed in a 2010 explosion.

He's used his campaign to try to clear his name and blame the federal government for the explosion, in particular the policies of the Mine Safety and Health Administration under former President Barack Obama. Blankenship has used his website to repeatedly accuse Manchin of helping cover up the truth about the mine explosion.

Last year the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Blankenship's bid to have his appeal heard.

Four investigations found that worn and broken cutting equipment created a spark that ignited accumulations of coal dust and methane gas. Broken and clogged water sprayers allowed what should have been a minor flare-up to become an inferno. The federal jury held Blankenship at least partially responsible.

On Sunday, Morrisey said Blankenship had not filed a personal financial disclosure form for his candidacy in violation of the Ethics in Government Act. Blankenship campaign spokesman Greg Thomas responded that the candidate is "in the process" of filing the paperwork and that Blankenship's form is complicated.

Morrisey said he plans to forward information to Blankenship's probation officer to determine whether it's a violation of Blankenship's supervised release.

Manchin is seeking his second full six-year term and faces Paula Jean Swearengin in Tuesday's primary. He was West Virginia's governor during the mine explosion and said then that Blankenship "had blood on his hands." After Blankenship's release from prison, Manchin said he hoped Blankenship would "disappear from the public eye."

Instead, Blankenship filed his candidacy papers late last year, which has angered many in southern West Virginia who say it made them relive the 2010 tragedy.

A few miles north of the shuttered mine, retired teacher Shelia Anderson of Sylvester has been a lifelong Republican in Boone County, where Democrats outnumber them 3 to 1. Anderson said she prefers Manchin over Blankenship if they're paired in the fall.

"Don Blankenship hurt himself in this county," Anderson said. "Nobody hurt him."President Xi Jinping stated China's hope for ensuring long-lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula during separate phone conversations with Republic of Korea President Moon Jae-in and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday.

During both phone conversations, the meeting last week between Moon and Kim Jong-un, the top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, was discussed, according to Xinhua News Agency.

Moon briefed Xi on his summit meeting with Kim and the outcomes that were made, including the landmark joint declaration that Moon and Kim signed on improving inter-Korean relations.

Xi said the summit achieved key outcomes for improving inter-Korean ties, eased tensions on the peninsula and pushed for lasting tranquility there.

China speaks highly of the efforts made by both sides on the peninsula, and the international community and all parties involved should support and encourage the efforts, Xi said.

Moon said Seoul appreciates Beijing's key role in catalyzing the situation's positive changes, its strong support for inter-Korean dialogue and its major contribution to resolving the issue through dialogue and negotiation.

Xi noted that the situation is at a crucial moment and the peninsula faces a historic opportunity for peace.

China supports further positive interaction by both sides on the peninsula, improvement of their ties and tangible translation into reality of the consensus they have reached, Xi said.

Beijing is ready to work with the two sides and the global community and further play a positive role in advancing the political process of settling the peninsula issue and thus ultimately realizing sustained peace in the region, Xi said.

Speaking on China-ROK relations, Xi said the ties maintain a good and developing momentum, and China is ready to jointly deepen cooperation, boost cultural exchanges and bring the ties forward in the direction that serves the interests of both sides.

As requested by Abe, Xi introduced China's latest position on the peninsula situation during his phone talk with the Japanese leader.

China seeks to address the concerns of all parties in an all-out and balanced approach and push for the peninsula's lasting peace, and Japan is expected to play a constructive role in this also, Xi said.

Abe said Tokyo values Beijing's role in resolving the peninsula issue and looks forward to strengthening their contacts.

Elaborating on China-Japan ties, Xi said China endorses the positive signals sent by Japan recently about its ties with China and the positive measures it has taken.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the signing of the China-Japan Treaty of Peace and Friendship, and Xi said the ties are at a key point.

Xi said both sides should effectively honor the spirit of the treaty, stay true to the principles outlined by the four key bilateral political documents and honor their consensus.

Both countries should honor their commitments, align actions with rules and effectively manage contradictions and differences to make sure the ties return to the right track and achieve new progress, Xi added.

It is hoped that Japan can make choices that serve the fundamental interests of both countries as well as the region's growth, and ensure that the ties always proceed in the right direction, Xi said.

Abe said he is ready to take the anniversary as an opportunity to push for the comprehensive improvement and development of the relations.

In another development, Vice-Foreign Minister Kong Xuanyou told a news conference on Friday that Premier Li Keqiang's upcoming official visit to Japan is important to bringing China-Japan ties back on track and to plan for the ties' future development.

From Sunday to Friday, Li will make official visits to Indonesia and Japan, attend the 7th China-Japan-ROK leaders' meeting in Japan and meet with Moon and Abe on the sidelines.WASHINGTON (AP) - The Latest on President Donald Trump (all times local):

4:20 p.m.

President Donald Trump's new attorney, Rudy Giuliani, is delivering confounding and at times contradictory statements as he tries to lessen the legal burdens on his client.

Rudy Giuliani, an attorney for President Donald Trump, pretends to tear a piece of paper as he speaks about the Iran nuclear agreement while speaking at the Iran Freedom Convention for Human Rights and democracy at the Grand Hyatt, Saturday, May 5, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Trump is facing legal issues stemming from an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and from a $130,000 hush payment to a porn actress.

In an interview Sunday with ABC's "This Week," Giuliani dismissed as rumor his own statements about Trump's payment to the actress. He also said he can't speak to whether Trump lied to the American people when he denied knowledge of the hush money.

Giuliani wouldn't rule out Trump asserting his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in the Russia probe. He said that despite Trump's openness to meeting with special counsel Robert Mueller, he would strongly advise against it.

___

10:20 a.m.

The attorney for adult-film actress Stormy Daniels is calling the latest statements by President Donald Trump's new attorney "an absolute unmitigated disaster."

Michael Avenatti says the president's attorney, Rudy Giuliani, "expects the American people to believe that he doesn't really know the facts" of when Trump learned about the $130,000 hush payment to Daniels, who has alleged a sexual tryst with Trump in 2006.

Giuliani, who has contradicted the president on when he learned of the payment, has said he's still learning the facts of the case.

Avenatti counters that "this is not a complicated matter" that takes time to sort out and says "they are making it up as they go along"

Avenatti spoke Sunday on ABC's "This Week" immediately following an interview with Giuliani on the same show.

___

9 a.m.

President Donald Trump's new attorney won't rule out the possibility that the president would assert his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in the swirling Russia investigation.

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani says, "How could I ever be confident of that." Giuliani is appearing on ABC's "This Week."

Giuliani says despite Trump's openness to sit down with special counsel Robert Mueller he would strongly advise Trump against it. He says: "I'm going to walk him into a prosecution for perjury like Martha Stewart?"

Giuliani, who was hired by Trump last month, says he's still learning the facts of the Mueller case and the details of Trump's knowledge of a $130,000 hush payment to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels. Giuliani says he doesn't know when Trump knew of the payment.

Rudy Giuliani, an attorney for President Donald Trump, applauds at the Iran Freedom Convention for Human Rights and democracy at the Grand Hyatt, Saturday, May 5, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Rudy Giuliani, an attorney for President Donald Trump, pretends spit on a piece of paper as he speaks about the Iran nuclear agreement while speaking at the Iran Freedom Convention for Human Rights and democracy at the Grand Hyatt, Saturday, May 5, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)PHOENIX (AP) - An interracial couple was walking near a Phoenix park when authorities say a shirtless neo-Nazi began angrily yelling a racial slur and harassing the black man in the couple over dating a white woman.

Authorities say the men exchanged tense words before Travis Ricci rushed back to a home where other white supremacists were partying, grabbed a shotgun and returned in a sedan driven by an associate. Ricci leaned out the car and fired two buckshot blasts, missing the black man - the intended target - and killing his girlfriend, investigators said.

Lawyers are now picking a jury to decide whether Ricci should be convicted of murder and sentenced to death in the 2009 attack, which prosecutors say was a hate crime. Opening statements are tentatively scheduled for June 6.

This undated photo provided by the Arizona Department of Corrections shows Travis Ricci. Ricci, who authorities said was a member of a white supremacist group, is being tried in Phoenix on a murder charge in a woman's 2009 shooting death. Prosecutors say the woman, who was white, was killed because Ricci was upset that she was dating a black man. Ricci is currently serving a 22-year prison sentence in an unrelated case for aggravated assault and misconduct involving weapons. (Arizona Department of Corrections via AP)

The case has offered several unexpected turns.

Ricci, whose defense is expected to include an argument that he's not the man he used to be, claims his great-grandfather was a member of the French Resistance killed by Nazis during World War II.

Authorities are seeking the death penalty, saying 39-year-old Kelly Ann Jaeger's killing was meant to further the interests of the Vinlanders Social Club, a neo-Nazi group with a reputation for violence that was later targeted in a law enforcement crackdown.

Since prosecutors have called the attack a hate crime, they can seek as many as 11 additional years in prison - above the maximum penalty - if Ricci is convicted of other charges, such as attempted murder, drive-by shooting, aggravated assault and assisting a criminal gang.

Ricci pleaded not guilty, and his lawyers have raised questions about the ability of Jaeger's boyfriend, Jeffery Wellmaker, to identify him as the triggerman. They note that nearly two years after the attack, Wellmaker was jailed in an unrelated case and played chess with Ricci behind bars without recognizing him.

Aaron Levi Schmidt, who authorities say was driving the car used in the shooting, pleaded guilty to murder in Jaeger's death. He is already serving 11 years for assisting a criminal gang. It's unclear if he's been sentenced on the murder conviction.

Lawyers for Ricci and Schmidt, both now 36, have said their clients weren't members of the Vinlanders.

Police reports say Ricci told associates before the attack that he saw black men hitting a white woman, though it's unclear if that claim was accurate.

Rebecca Wilder, a spokeswoman for the Maricopa County Attorney's Office, which is prosecuting Ricci, declined to comment on the case. The Phoenix Police Department, which investigated the attack, also declined to comment.

Prosecutors said in court records that Wellmaker, who was unarmed, was extremely distraught over the attack and tried to help his girlfriend after she was shot. They say Wellmaker didn't provoke the attack and tried unsuccessfully to push Jaeger out of the path of the shotgun blast, according to court records.

Ricci's attorneys declined to answer questions about the allegations against their client.

"He is a very sensitive person who cares about people in general," said Jennifer Willmott, one of his lawyers. "He has had a very difficult life."

Bruce Blumberg, another attorney for Ricci, said his client's team has gotten records that document the arrest and execution of Ricci's great-grandfather during his involvement with the French Resistance. Blumberg said the great-grandfather's experience may be brought up during the trial, though it's unclear what it will be used to demonstrate.

The attack started brewing after Ricci left his friend's home angry and drunk, making his way into the neighborhood where he eventually noticed Jaeger and Wellmaker, according to a police report.

Prosecutors say Ricci hurled a racial slur at Wellmaker and yelled, "What are you doing with a white girl?"

He also told Wellmaker he was going to get "something for him," prosecutors said.

Sometime later, Jaeger and Wellmaker were near a pay phone when the sedan pulled up. Ricci fired two shells, hitting Jaeger in the stomach from about 10 feet (3 meters) away, prosecutors said.

Ricci's attorneys have noted Wellmaker was unable to identify Ricci in a photo lineup after the shooting, and he failed to recognize their client in 2011 when the two served time in the same Maricopa County jail pod. Court records filed in Ricci's case didn't specify the charge on which Wellmaker was jailed, and a records check didn't provide a definitive answer to the question.

Ricci ended up telling Wellmaker he was the person accused of killing his girlfriend, a judge wrote in a pretrial ruling.

The judge said Wellmaker's identification of the shooter was reliable because he would have been able to identify Ricci independent of the jail encounter. While working with a police artist after the shooting, Wellmaker described a unique tattoo across the attacker's stomach, the judge wrote.

In an unrelated crime months after Jaeger's shooting death, police say Ricci stabbed two men who tried to stop him from attacking his girlfriend. He is serving a 22-year sentence for assault and weapons misconduct convictions.

___

Follow Jacques Billeaud at twitter.com/jacquesbilleaud. His work can be found at https://bit.ly/2GGWEPO .

This undated photo provided by the Arizona Department of Corrections shows Kelly Ann Jaeger. Authorities say the 39-year-old Jaeger was killed in a park in north Phoenix in 2009 by a member of a white supremacist group who was upset that she was dating a black man. A murder trial is underway for the man who is accused of fatally shooting her. (Arizona Department of Corrections via AP)WASHINGTON (AP) - Britain's ambassador to the U.S. said Sunday his country believes it's still possible to address President Donald Trump's concerns about the Iran nuclear deal in time to prevent him from pulling out of the agreement.

Kim Darroch said Britain has ideas for dealing with those concerns. They include Iran's ballistic missile program and its involvement in Mideast conflicts, issues that aren't part of the international agreement. Trump also objects to the accord's sunset clause, which allows Iran to resume part of its nuclear program after 2025.

"We think that we can find some language, produce some action that meets the president's concerns," Darroch told CBS' "Face the Nation."

In this photo released by an official website of the office of the Iranian Presidency, President Hassan Rouhani speaks in the northeastern city of Sabzevar, on his tour of Razavi Khorasan province, Sunday, May 6, 2018. Iran's president is warning President Donald Trump that pulling America out of the nuclear deal with world powers would be a "historic regret." (Iranian Presidency Office via AP)

The deadline for Trump's decision is this coming Saturday.

Britain's foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, has scheduled talks with U.S. officials in Washington this week. His trip follows visits in recent weeks by the leaders of France and Germany, who also tried to convince Trump to stick with the agreement. All three European countries signed the 2015 deal, along with Russia and China.

In an op-ed Sunday for The New York Times, Johnson wrote that the agreement offered the fewest disadvantages of all the options available. "It has weaknesses, certainly, but I am convinced they can be remedied. Indeed at this moment Britain is working alongside the Trump administration and our French and German allies to ensure that they are," he wrote.

Iran's president warned Trump on Sunday that leaving the nuclear deal would be a "historic regret."

The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee also advised against pulling out of the accord without a clearer idea of the consequences and urged Trump to give the Europeans time to address his concerns.

"So maybe the best thing is for the president to delay a bit more his deadline of this month and put the French and the British up to the test about whether it is possible to get this other sort of agreement," Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, said on "Fox News Sunday."DOVER, Del. (AP) - Kevin Harvick was flanked by his Stewart-Haas Racing team on the victory lane stage when a photographer yelled at the group, "What are you holding up?"

"Four!" they shouted in unison.

Harvick, team owner Tony Stewart and the rest flashed their fingers Four Horsemen-style and let out a "Wooo!" before they uncorked the champagne and sprayed anyone in their sights.

Kevin Harvick, right, poses with the trophy in Victory Lane after he won the NASCAR Cup Series auto race, Sunday, May 6, 2018, at Dover International Speedway in Dover, Del. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)

The checkered flag collection keeps growing at SHR, and Harvick is leading the way.

Harvick dominated a race interrupted by rain and drove to his Cup Series-high fourth victory of the season Sunday at Dover International Speedway.

"I feel like we're playoff-racing on a weekly basis," Harvick said.

He reeled off three straight wins at Atlanta, Las Vegas and Phoenix earlier this season and now has the 60-pound Miles the Monster trophy to add to his collection.

His brought the trophy home following his first win at Dover in October 2015, only to have his young son break the arm on the fiberglass creature that was never cleaned from the victory celebration.

"I'm bringing it home but do not break the arm off of this one," Harvick said he told his son. "It's hard to explain to people why his playroom smells like beer."

Harvick swept the first two stages and easily chased down SHR teammate Clint Bowyer in the third for the lead after a 41-minute delay. Bowyer, who won this season at Martinsville to snap a 190-race losing streak dating to 2012, had asked for a rain dance when the race was stopped with 80 laps left.

Once it resumed, Harvick waltzed his way into victory lane in the No. 4 Ford. He led 201 of 400 laps and stormed past Bowyer and took the lead for good with 62 laps left.

"You knew he was going to be the one that you were going to have to beat for the win," Bowyer said.

Harvick's 41st career Cup victory gives him a stout nine top-10 finishes and eight top-fives in 11 starts this season. He held four fingers out the window as he took a victory lap on the mile concrete track and won at Dover for the second time.

Bowyer was second. Daniel Suarez, Martin Truex Jr. and Kurt Busch rounded out the top five.

SHR had three cars in the top five with Harvick, Bowyer and Busch.

"Three cars in the top five says a lot about where we are as a company," Harvick said. "It's fun racing your teammate."

SHR has five wins this season and has never won more than six in its 10-year history.

"It's days like today that builds momentum for the organization," Stewart said. "It's about evolution."

NASCAR waits another week for its own transformation to happen.

The ballyhooed youth movement that was supposed to usher in NASCAR's rebirth continues to fizzle. The Dover race program had a photo of seven drivers with one career Cup win on the cover, yet the 42-year-old Harvick continues to hold off the so-called "young guns."

Harvick, Truex and Bowyer - all winners this year - are over 35.

One highlight, Suarez, NASCAR's first Mexican champion in the Xfinity Series, did match his career-best finish while driving with a broken left thumb.

"I feel like I was putting a lot of pressure on myself earlier in the season, trying to put a lot of pressure on the team to get the results," he said.

Here's what else happened at Dover:

KYLE BUSCH OUT

Kyle Busch failed to finish a race for the first time this season because of a broken drive shaft on the No. 18 Toyota.

Busch, who had complained of a vibration for most of the race, was running third when the part finally broke and dumped oil across the track.

DOVER DATE

Dover had its earliest Cup date since it started in 1969.

"NASCAR and the networks, they have a pretty tough job of balancing everything out," track president Mike Tatoian said. "If you look at the overall NASCAR schedule, it may be an improvement. But that means some tracks get the short end of the stick, some tracks get the benefit from it. From our perspective, if we had our choice, of course we'd go later."

BACK IT UP

Pole sitter Kyle Larson was sent to the back of the field because his No. 42 Chevrolet failed pre-race inspection three times. Larson had won his fifth career pole and was a heavy favorite on the strength of two runner-up finishes at the track.

Alex Bowman and Austin Dillon also were sent to the rear because of inspection issues with their cars. Larson and Bowman lost their car chiefs, and both teams were docked 30 minutes of practice next week at Kansas Speedway.

BABY ON BOARD

Larson said John Hunter Nemechek is on call for Kansas in case the Larsons' second baby is born.

BUH-BYE, BAYNE

Trevor Bayne, the 2011 Daytona 500 champion, is set to yield the No. 6 Ford next week to the returning Matt Kenseth. Kenseth, a two-time Daytona 500 winner and former Cup champion, was hired by Roush Fenway Racing to split races with Bayne.

UP NEXT

The series shifts to Kansas Speedway, where Truex is the defending race winner.

___

More AP auto racing: https://racing.ap.org

Kevin Harvick, right, hoists and poses with the trophy in Victory Lane after he won the NASCAR Cup Series auto race, Sunday, May 6, 2018, at Dover International Speedway in Dover, Del. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)

Kevin Harvick, front right, hoists and poses with the trophy in Victory Lane after he won the NASCAR Cup Series auto race, Sunday, May 6, 2018, at Dover International Speedway in Dover, Del. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)

Kevin Harvick celebrates in Victory Lane after he won the NASCAR Cup Series auto race, Sunday, May 6, 2018, at Dover International Speedway in Dover, Del. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)

Kevin Harvick, center, celebrates in Victory Lane after he won the NASCAR Cup Series auto race, Sunday, May 6, 2018, at Dover International Speedway in Dover, Del. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)BEIRUT (AP) - Voting Sunday for the first time in her life, the young Shiite Muslim woman said she was casting her ballot for the Shiite militant Hezbollah group. One of her relatives was killed while fighting Sunni militants near the border with Syria and she wanted to honor that sacrifice with her vote.

"Had it not been for the resistance we wouldn't be here," said Zahraa Harb, 24, as she and her husband entered a polling station in the southern Beirut suburb of Burj al-Barajneh. "The arms of the resistance protected Lebanon. Had it not been for the resistance all of Lebanon would have fallen into the hands of the terrorists."

Sunday's parliamentary election was the first in nine years - and the first since the catastrophic civil war in Syria broke out seven years ago. The conflict has nearly torn apart this tiny Arab nation with bouts of spillover violence and sent more than a million Syrian refugees - a quarter of Lebanon's population - pouring across the border.

Zahraa Harb, left, casts her vote at a polling station during Lebanon's parliamentary elections in a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, May 6, 2018. Harb is voting for the first time in her life and the young Shiite Muslim woman is giving her vote to the militant Hezbollah group. Her relative was killed fighting near the border with Syria against militants, and she wanted to recognize those sacrifices in her vote Sunday. (AP Photo/Bassem Mroue)

The war next door has divided Lebanese, with some supporting Syrian President Bashar Assad and others sympathizing with the rebels trying to bring him down. In May 2013, the Iranian-backed Hezbollah began openly sending its fighters to back Assad and since then has taken part in almost every major battle in the country. Hundreds of its fighters have been killed and wounded while fighting in Syria, an intervention that Hezbollah says was necessary to protect Lebanon from the Sunni militants that proliferated across the border in the chaos of Syria's civil war.

The divisions and open hostility were on display Sunday among Hezbollah supporters and opponents of the Shiite militants. As polls closed, fist fights broke out in the Beirut district of Tareeq Jdideh, a bastion of support for Saad Hariri, Lebanon's Western-backed Sunni prime minister, with both sides throwing stones at each other as security forces rushed to contain the violence.

Hariri, who heads a national unity government that includes members of Hezbollah, is widely expected to return as prime minister and recreate that coalition following Sunday's election. But that political alliance, seen as necessary to keep the peace, is not often translated into harmony on the street.

For Harb and her husband, Ashraf Harake, casting their ballots for Hezbollah came down to a matter of survival.

She recalled how her parents' home shook when twin suicide bombings claimed by the Islamic State group targeted their hometown of Burj al-Barajneh on Nov. 12, 2015, killing 43 people in the deadliest attack by extremists in Lebanon since the war in Syria broke out. Harake, who was her fiance back then, rushed from the house to help dozens of people wounded in the streets.

"The Burj al-Barajneh blasts made us more determined," said Harb, her face framed by a black traditional Islamic head scarf. Her husband's cousin, Ali Harake, had been killed a year earlier when IS militants sent explosives-rigged vehicles into Hezbollah strongholds in the Qalamoun mountains on Lebanon's border with Syria.

"I will raise my children on the ideology of the resistance," said Harb, who is six months pregnant with her first child, and sees Hezbollah as a group that once fought to liberate Lebanon from Israeli occupation and now protects the country from Syria-based militant groups.

For 60-year-old Sami Kara, who is a strong supporter of Hariri, the Iranian-backed Hezbollah's involvement in the war in Syria is to blame for the militant attacks in Lebanon.

"Hezbollah attracted explosions to this country. Had we kept our distance from (regional) conflicts we wouldn't have reached this point," said the clothes merchant, standing near a tent decorated with the blue flags of Hariri's Future Movement in Beirut's Sunni stronghold of Tareeq Jdideh.

He said Hariri will always stand against Hezbollah and prevent the Shiite militants from dominating Beirut, adding that his city will not become the fourth Arab capital dominated by Iran - a reference to Iran's influence in Syria's Damascus, Yemen's Sanaa and Baghdad.

Wissam Shqifi, 44, another Hezbollah critic, said the group's intervention in Syria "is an aggression on another country. Hezbollah is ruining our relations with regional countries" - a reference to Hezbollah's military intervention in Yemen, Iraq and Syria that has led several oil-rich Gulf states to join the United States in naming it as a terrorist organization.

Casting his ballot in the capital on Sunday, Hezbollah's deputy leader, Sheik Naim Kassem, countered the charges that Hezbollah was trying to turn Lebanon into a state controlled by Iran. Beirut, he said, "is an Arab city and is not Persian."

Zahraa Harb marks her ballot in Lebanon's parliamentary elections, at a polling station in a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, May 6, 2018. Harb is voting for the first time in her life and the young Shiite Muslim woman is giving her vote to the militant Hezbollah group. Her relative was killed fighting near the border with Syria against militants, and she wanted to recognize those sacrifices in her vote Sunday. (AP Photo/Bassem Mroue)MAIDGURI, Nigeria (AP) - Armed bandits attacked a village in Nigeria's northwest Kaduna state, killing at least 40 people, residents and officials said.

Police Inspector General Ibrahim Idris confirmed the bandits invaded the village of Gwaska Saturday, fighting local defense forces protecting the Birnin Gwari local government area, a community of about 3,000 people. He said 200 policemen and 10 patrol vehicles were deployed to the scene.

A resident who helped fight the bandits said at least 40 people were killed and the toll will likely climb. He spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons. He said the attackers were from Zamfara state, and that they shot at children and torched houses as residents fled.

The attack came about a week after other unidentified gunmen attacked a nearby village.

The Kaduna State government confirmed the attack but didn't give a casualty figure.

In a statement, the local government said it is concerned by the incessant banditry attacks in the region and has been engaging with the federal government on the matter.

"The Kaduna State Government has received with sadness reports of the murder of our citizens by armed bandits in Birnin Gwari," it said, adding that it is committed to resolving the problem.

President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the establishment of a permanent battalion of the Nigerian Army in the Birnin Gwari area.

The State Emergency Management Agency is providing aid to those affected, it said.A woman whose daughter was fatally shot at a Nashville Waffle House has accepted her diploma during a commencement ceremony.

Shirl Baker received a standing ovation as she walked across the stage in her daughter, DeEbony Groves' place Saturday at Belmont University.

Belmont University President Robert Fisher said at the ceremony: 'Almost two weeks ago, our community suffered an unimaginable loss.

'While our hearts were broken, today we have the chance to celebrate DeEbony's life together.'

Shirl Baker, the mother of Waffle House shooting victim, DeEbony Groves, receives her daughter's college diploma at Belmont University on Saturday

The shooting victim's brother, Di'Angelo Groves (front) also received his diploma on Saturday

Di'Angelo Groves is seen crying at the graduation ceremony as his mother hugs him

Fischer also told the crowd how Groves would find comfort and peace by singing the hymn 'Yes Jesus Loves Me'.

'That's the higher power that inspired the last reported words of DeEbony Groves,' Fisher said.

'She and her friend were singing "Yes Jesus Loves Me" just before she departed that Waffle House for heaven's gate.'

Groves, pictured above, majored in social work and was among four people killed when a gunman opened fire at the restaurant on April 22

Twenty-one-year-old Groves majored in social work and was among four people killed when a gunman opened fire at the restaurant on April 22.

Belmont President Robert Fisher told the commencement crowd that 'while our hearts were broken, today we have the chance to celebrate DeEbony's life together.'

Her brother, Di'Angelo Groves, also received his diploma on Saturday.

He wiped away tears when university officials announced a social work scholarship in his sister's honor.

Suspect Travis Reinking is facing multiple charges, including four counts of criminal homicide.BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) - The Latest on flooding in western Montana (all times local):

5 p.m.

Officials in western Montana are bracing for flooding that could be the worst in more than 40 years.

Missoula County deputy emergency services coordinator Ken Parks said Sunday that the Clark Fork River by Tuesday could approach major flood stage for the first time since 1975.

Parks says about 40 households in Missoula's Orchard Homes area already have experienced some flooding.

Residents were being notified that they could be asked to evacuate in coming days.

The National Weather Service forecasts that the Clark Fork will crest on Friday. High water also was expected on the Bitterroot, Blackfoot and Clearwater Rivers and around Seeley Lake.

Warm weather has been melting deep mountain snows and swelling rivers and creeks. Thunderstorms in coming days threaten to make matters worse.

Park says no injuries have yet been reported.

3:15 p.m.

Melting snow coupled with heavy rain was forecast to swell rivers and creeks in portions of western Montana over the coming days, with floodwaters that could affect numerous streets and homes in and around Missoula, federal and county officials said Sunday.

The Clark Fork was expected to reach major flood stage before cresting Friday and starting to recede next weekend. The National Weather Service extended a flood warning for the river above Missoula until further notice.

Flooding of streets and homes in the Orchard Homes area of Missoula was expected by Monday night. County officials set up a sandbagging station at the Orchard Homes Country Life Club for residents who want to protect their properties.

Widespread flooding was possible later in the week from East Missoula to the Bitterroot River, including impacts to U.S. Highway 10, forecasters said.

Temperatures expected in the 70s would accelerate the melt of an above-normal mountain snowpack, they said.

Up to three-quarters of an inch of rain could fall in some areas.

Snowmelt at high elevations also was expected to cause minor flooding in the Helena area, south of Wolf Creek, near Augusta and at locations around Lincoln including the Stemple Pass area.

To the north, near Browning and Glacier National Park, Badger Creek below the Four Horns Canal was expected to flood Sunday, although with only minor impacts. A flood advisory for the region was in effect until Monday night.

In eastern Montana, river levels continued to fall after cresting last week. A flood warning was cancelled for the Nashua area but remained in effect for Glasgow until Tuesday morning.

Gov. Steve Bullock on Wednesday declared a statewide flooding emergency. That allows the use of state resources and the Montana National Guard for flood protection.CAIRO (AP) - Egypt is holding political prisoners in "prolonged and indefinite solitary confinement" that amounts to "torture," an international rights group said Monday.

In a new report, Amnesty International said dozens of detained human rights activists, journalists and members of the opposition held in solitary confinement face "horrendous physical abuse." Such treatment results in "panic attacks, paranoia, hypersensitivity to stimuli, and difficulties with concentration and memory," it said.

Egypt has detained thousands of people, mainly Islamists but also several prominent secular activists, since the military overthrew an elected but divisive Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi, in 2013. Morsi himself has reportedly been held in solitary confinement for most of the last five years.

"Under international law, solitary confinement may only be used as a disciplinary measure of last resort, but the Egyptian authorities are using it as a horrifying 'extra' punishment for political prisoners," said Najia Bounaim, Amnesty's North Africa campaigns director.

The London-based group said it has documented 36 cases of prisoners being held in solitary confinement, including six who have been isolated from the outside world since 2013. It said the prisoners in solitary confinement remain in their cells for 22 hours a day.

Amnesty and other rights groups say torture and abuse are widespread in Egyptian prisons.

Basing its report on dozens of interviews with former prisoners and with family members of current prisoners, the group said abuses range from extended beatings to lack of food, humiliation and restricted movement for years on end.

Prisoners held in solitary confinement "suffer depression, insomnia and an unwillingness to socialize or speak to other people when released back into the prison population," it said.

The prolonged solitary confinement is usually aimed at extracting confessions and punishing prisoners for protesting ill-treatment, but some are held in solitary confinement purely because of their past political activism, Amnesty said.

"Prison conditions in Egypt have always been bad, but the deliberate cruelty of this treatment shows the wider contempt for human rights and dignity by the Egyptian authorities," Bounaim said.

Later on Monday, Amnesty said that Egypt responded to its report with a 14-page statement, denying that the use of prolonged, solitary confinement is wide-spread. However, the London-based watchdog said the Egyptian response confirmed that judicial oversight and human rights monitoring of prisons are "inadequate and ineffective."

Egypt's Interior Ministry has in the past denied allegations of systemic torture, blaming any abuses on individuals and saying they are being held accountable. Several officers have been tried and convicted of torture, while others have been acquitted.

Egypt has said enhanced security measures are needed to combat the Islamic State extremist movement and other armed groups that have stepped up attacks since 2013.North Korea has criticised misleading US claims that President Donald Trumps policy of maximum political pressure and sanctions are what drove the North to the negotiating table.

Mr Trump is due to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in the coming weeks in a historical summit.

The Norths official news agency quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman warning the claims are a dangerous attempt to ruin a budding detente on the Korean Peninsula after Mr Kims summit late last month with South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un with South Korean President Moon Jae-in (Korea Summit Press Pool via AP)

At the summit, Mr Kim agreed to a number of measures aimed at improving North-South ties and indicated he is willing to discuss the denuclearisation of the peninsula, though exactly what that would entail and what conditions the North might require have not yet been explained.

Mr Trump and senior US officials have suggested repeatedly that Washingtons tough policy towards North Korea, along with pressure on its main trading partner China, have played a decisive role in turning around what had been an extremely tense situation.

Just last year, as Mr Kim was launching long-range missiles at a record pace and trading vulgar insults with Mr Trump, it would have seemed unthinkable for the topic of denuclearisation to be on the table.

(PA Graphics)

But the Norths statement on Sunday seemed to be aimed at strengthening Mr Kims position going into his meeting with Mr Trump. Pyongyang claims Mr Kim himself is the driver of the current situation.

The US is deliberately provoking the DPRK at the time when the situation on the Korean Peninsula is moving toward peace and reconciliation, the spokesman was quoted as saying. DPRK is short for the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, the Norths formal name.

Mr Kim and Mr Trump are expected to meet later this month or in early June.

Mr Trump has indicated the date and place have been chosen and said he believes the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) that divides the Koreas might be a good venue. Singapore was also believed to be a potential site.

Experts are split over whether Mr Kims statement made with Mr Moon at the DMZ marks a unique opening for progress or a rehash of Pyongyangs longstanding demand for security guarantees.

Sundays comments were among the very few the North has made since Mr Trump agreed in March to the meeting.

The spokesman warned the US not to interpret Pyongyangs willingness to talk as a sign of weakness. He also criticised Washington for its ongoing pressure and military threats and its position that such pressure will not be eased until North Korea gives up its nuclear weapons completely.

Before Mr Trump meets Mr Kim, Washington is hoping to gain the release of three Korean-Americans accused of anti-state activities. Mr Trump hinted the release of Kim Dong Chul, Kim Hak Song and Tony Kim was in the offing.

There was no sign of an imminent release on Sunday, though the men had reportedly been moved to the capital.

The White House, meanwhile, has announced a separate meeting between Mr Trump and Mr Moon at the White House on May 22 to continue their close coordination on developments regarding the Korean Peninsula.Anti-India protests have raged in Indian-controlled Kashmir for a second day, leaving scores of people injured, police and residents said.

In the latest clash, hundreds of villagers threw rocks at Indian troops in a bid to help rebels who were trapped in a civilian home in the southern Shopian area, police said.

Counter-insurgency officers and soldiers cordoned off the village following intelligence that at least three militants were hiding there.

As the rebels and soldiers fought, government forces also fired bullets, shotgun pellets and tear gas at the protesters who tried to reach the gunbattle site. At least 14 civilians were injured, one of them critically.

According to police, among the trapped rebels were a top commander and a university assistant professor who formally joined the militant ranks just two days ago.

A statement by the University of Kashmir on Saturday said the sociology teacher, Mohammed Rafi Bhat, has been missing since Friday.

Most Kashmiris support the rebel cause while also participating in civilian street protests against Indian control. In recent years, mainly young Kashmiris have displayed open solidarity with rebels and sought to protect them by engaging troops in street clashes during military operations. Last year, at least 29 civilians were killed and hundreds wounded during such clashes.

Shops and businesses were shuttered in most parts of Kashmir following a strike call by separatists against Saturdays killings of a civilian and three rebels in the disputed regions main city of Srinagar.

The funeral of Fayaz Ahmad Hamal, a local rebel, in Srinagar (Dar Yasin/AP)

Internet on mobile phones also remained suspended for a second day, a common practice by Indian authorities to make organising protests more difficult.

Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan each administer part of Kashmir, but both claim it in its entirety.

Rebels have been fighting Indian rule since 1989, demanding Indian-controlled Kashmir be made part of Pakistan or become an independent country.

In recent years, Kashmir has seen renewed rebel attacks and repeated public protests against Indian rule as a new generation of Kashmiri rebels, especially in the southern parts of the region, have revived the militancy and challenged New Delhis rule with guns and effective use of social media.

India accuses Pakistan of arming and training the rebels, a charge Pakistan denies.

Nearly 70,000 people have been killed in the uprising and the ensuing Indian military crackdown.A teenager has been charged with attacking a woman with a cordless drill.

The 38-year-old victim was left in a critical condition after sustaining a severe head injury in the assault in Strabane, Co Tyrone, in the early hours of Saturday.

Officers have been investigating a potential homophobic motive.

Police said a teenager has been charged after a woman was injured in an attack with a cordless drill (Yui Mok/PA)

A 17 year old male has been charged with GBH with intent, possession of an offensive weapon in a public place and theft of a drill. It follows an attack on a woman in Strabane during the early hours of Saturday morning. The teenager is due to appear in Court in Omagh on Monday.  Police Service NI (@PoliceServiceNI) May 6, 2018

The 17-year-old male has been charged with causing grievous bodily harm with intent, possession of an offensive weapon in a public place and theft.

He is expected to appear at Omagh Magistrates Court on Monday.

The incident happened at about 2am on Saturday in Railway Street in the town.A revolutionary swimsuit whose revealing design caused outrage almost a century ago is to be displayed in the new V&A museum, gallery chiefs have announced.

The Speedo racerback costume for men was produced in the 1920s at a time when swimsuits were made out of wool and had sleeves to protect the wearers modesty.

In contrast it had straps which crossed at the back and was made of cotton or silk, which absorbed less water, with both these changes allowing greater ease of movement and helping swimmers go faster.

It was also significantly more tight-fighting than other costumes of the time, and featured the Speedo tick logo.

The new V&A Dundee (Ross fraser McLean/PA)

The controversial costume  which was barred from some beaches  was key to the success of the Australian company, which was founded by Scottish immigrant Alexander MacRae.

MacRae, who was born in 1888, grew up in a small fishing village near Loch Kishorn in the West Highlands, before moving to Sydney, Australia in 1910, and setting up a hosiery company called MacRae Knitting Mills in 1914.

The firm was known for supplying the Australian Army with socks during the First World War before branching out to cater for the growing popularity of beach sports.

Meredith More, the assistant curator of the V&A Dundee, said organisers were delighted to be able to include such an early Speedo swimsuit in the Scottish design galleries.

She added: Alexander MacRae was one of many Scottish entrepreneurs who moved abroad to make his fortune. Capitalising on Australias growing beach culture, he created a ground-breaking swimsuit design that appealed to competitive swimmers and sunbathers alike.

The racerbacks revealing back straps challenged moral codes in the 1920s, when mixed bathing was only just becoming acceptable, but nobody could deny his hydrodynamic design allowed swimmers to achieve faster times.

Signed photograph of Arne Borg used to promote Speedo Racerback swimsuits, 1927 (Sidney Riley Collection: Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences/PA)

Swedish swimmer Arne Borg, who won five Olympic medals and broke 32 world records, was one of those who embraced the daring new design and he featured in several Speedo advertisements.

But the costume was also marketed to surfers and sunbathers, with a Speedo catalogue saying it provided maximum body exposure making it the ideal choice for those wanting a suntan.

The costume is being loaned to the V&A Dundee  which is due to open on September 15  by the Leicestershire County Council Museums Service, and is believed to be the only one in a UK collection

Sarah Nicol, collections engagement officer for Leicestershire County Council, said: When this Speedo suit came up for sale at a local vintage shop, we realised that it was a rare opportunity to acquire a swimsuit of this age, unworn and still with its manufacturers label attached.

Although we are a landlocked county we have a large selection of swimwear in our collections, which reflects the history of hosiery and knitted jersey manufacture that was so important in Leicestershire.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused Iran of supplying advanced weapons to Syria that pose a danger to Israel, saying it would be better to confront Tehran sooner rather than later.

Israel has repeatedly warned it will not tolerate a lasting Iranian military presence in neighbouring Syria, and is believed to have been behind recent air strikes on Syrian military bases that killed Iranian soldiers, prompting Tehran to vow revenge.

Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has hit out at Irans nuclear programme (Sebastian Scheiner/AP)

Mr Netanyahu told the Israeli Cabinet on Sunday that Iran has delivered advanced weapons to Syria in order to attack us both on the battlefield and on the home front.

We are determined to block Irans aggression against us even if this means a struggle. Better now than later, he said. We do not want escalation, but we are prepared for any scenario.

Israel has long viewed Iran as its biggest threat because of Tehrans nuclear activities, its support for armed groups across the region and its leaders frequent calls for the destruction of the Jewish state. In recent years, Iran has provided crucial military support to Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Mr Netanyahus remarks came as President Donald Trump considers whether to withdraw the US from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.

Mr Netanyahu was an outspoken opponent of the deal, which required Iran to limit its nuclear enrichment in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions. Mr Netanyahu says the deal will not prevent Iran, Israels most bitter enemy, from reaching nuclear weapons capability.

Last week, Mr Netanyahu said a half ton of Iranian nuclear documents seized by Israeli intelligence revealed that Iran had lied about its past efforts to produce nuclear weapons. He did not provide any evidence that Iran has violated the 2015 nuclear deal, but said the documents prove Tehran cannot be trusted.

Israel is widely believed to be the only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East, but has never publicly disclosed its arsenal.

European countries, which have been pressing Mr Trump to stick with the deal, said Mr Netanyahus presentation only reinforced the importance of the agreement, which provides for inspections.Sinn Fein backing the introduction of the UKs military covenant in Northern Ireland would show the republican partys commitment to a shared future extends beyond just gestures, Arlene Foster has said.

The DUP leader called for tangible actions as she was asked for her response to recent moves from Sinn Fein that have been interpreted as efforts to reach out to unionists, such as party president Mary Lou McDonalds use of the word Londonderry.

Mrs Foster denied she had not reciprocated with conciliatory gestures to republicans.

Arlene Foster said Sinn Fein should back the extension of the military covenant (Liam McBurney/PA)

She told The Andrew Marr Show on BBC One: Well, I dont accept that we havent made any so-called gestures and I think its more important actually to find and to build a basis for a shared community in Northern Ireland, which is what we want to see  a real sharing and not just a gesture sharing.

And wouldnt it be good, for example, if Sinn Fein were to allow Northern Irelands government to sign up in full to the military covenant and to respect veterans regardless of where they live in the UK?

I think that that is something that they could do to show respect for veterans that live in Northern Ireland.

Wed like to see real sharing and not a gesture sharing with Sinn Fein says @DUPleader Arlene Foster #marr pic.twitter.com/F7LQ9X92yc  The Andrew Marr Show (@MarrShow) May 6, 2018

A stand-off over the full implementation of the military covenant in Northern Ireland is one of the issues at the heart of the ongoing powersharing impasse at Stormont.

The covenant, which has been implemented elsewhere in the UK, encapsulates a series of policies that define the states obligations to its armed services.

Under its terms, members of the armed forces in Great Britain are entitled to some priority medical treatment and assistance with housing and school places for children.

Such policies have not been rolled out in Northern Ireland, with Sinn Fein resistant.

The policies would potentially require amendments to robust equality laws that formed a central part of the Good Friday peace agreement.

Another dispute preventing the return of devolved government involves the Irish language.

Sinn Fein has made clear it will not go back into government without a stand-alone piece of legislation to protect Irish language speakers.

The DUP has said it will not support an Irish Language Act, but would support measures for the Irish language as part of broader legislation that incorporates a multitude of cultures.

I have said frequently that the Irish language is no threat to the United Kingdom, or indeed to the union, Mrs Foster told the BBC.

I respect people that speak the Irish language. But thats not enough for Sinn Fein, they want to impose the Irish language on everyone in Northern Ireland and I think that that would be not only a retrograde step for Northern Ireland, but actually for the Irish language as well, because it actually politicises it.

Northern Ireland has been without a properly functioning powersharing government for almost 16 months, due to the bitter stand-off between the two largest parties, the DUP and Sinn Fein.

After negotiations collapsed in acrimonious circumstances in February, the parties traded claim and counter-claim about whether a proposed deal had been in the offing.

Sinn Fein claimed Mrs Foster had signed off on a deal before backing out in the face of an internal party revolt  claims the DUP leader vehemently denied.

Amid the fallout, documents exchanged by the parties during negotiations were leaked to sections of the media  incidents the DUP has firmly blamed on Sinn Fein.

Mrs Foster has said trust between the parties has broken down as a consequence of the February row.

We have to build up confidence between the parties again, because devolution is right for Northern Ireland and we want to see it return immediately, she said.Government forces have killed five rebels in Indian-controlled Kashmir, police said, while a second day of anti-India protests and clashes left five civilians dead and dozens injured in the disputed region.

Hundreds of villagers threw rocks at Indian troops in a bid to help rebels who were trapped in a house in southern Shopian area, police said.

Counter-insurgency officers and soldiers cordoned off the village following intelligence that a group of militants were hiding there.

As the rebels and soldiers fought, government forces also fired bullets, shotgun pellets and tear gas at protesters trying to reach the gunbattle site. Five civilians were killed, one a teenage boy, and at least 50 others were wounded.

It was the second straight day of intense unrest in the region, which India and Pakistan administer parts of but both claim in its entirety. Rebels have been fighting Indian rule since 1989, demanding Indian-controlled Kashmir be made part of Pakistan or become an independent country.

Most Kashmiris support the rebel cause while also participating in civilian street protests against Indian control.

In recent years, mainly young Kashmiris have displayed open solidarity with rebels and sought to protect them by engaging troops in street clashes during military operations. Last year, at least 29 civilians were killed and hundreds were wounded during such clashes.

The funeral of Fayaz Ahmad Hamal, a local rebel, in Srinagar (Dar Yasin/AP)

On Saturday, Indian troops killed three suspected rebels during a gunbattle in Srinagar, while one civilian was killed when a police armoured vehicle ran over him during clashes with government forces. Another three men were killed in shootings the police blamed on rebels.

Businesses shuttered in most parts of Kashmir on Sunday after separatists called for a strike to protest the previous days deaths. Internet on mobile phones also remained suspended for a second day, a common practice by Indian authorities to make organising protests difficult.

Armed police and paramilitary soldiers patrolled across the region and also enforced a security lockdown in old parts of Srinagar, the urban heart of anti-India protests.

In Sundays violence, protesting villagers made several attempts to reach the site where the rebels were trapped, barraging troops with rocks, bricks and abuse.

After several hours of fighting, five militants were killed and a policeman and a soldier wounded, said SP Vaid, police director-general. Among those killed were a top rebel commander and a university assistant professor who formally joined the militant ranks just two days before.

A statement by the University of Kashmir on Saturday said the sociology teacher, Mohammed Rafi Bhat, had been missing since Friday.

Mr Vaid said they repeatedly asked the militants to surrender.

We made every effort so that they surrender. We even brought the university teachers father all the way to Shopian. But they refused, Mr Vaid said.

Anti-India protests and clashes continued in the area and also spread to some other towns and villages of southern Kashmir.

Anticipating protests, the University of Kashmir on Sunday issued a statement saying the classes would remain suspended for the next two days as a precautionary measure.

In recent years, Kashmir has seen renewed rebel attacks and repeated public protests against Indian rule as a new generation of Kashmiri rebels, especially in the southern parts of the region, has revived the militancy and challenged New Delhis rule with guns and effective use of social media.

India accuses Pakistan of arming and training the rebels, a charge Pakistan denies.

Nearly 70,000 people have been killed in the uprising and the ensuing Indian military crackdown.The leader of mass protests against Russian President Vladimir Putin, that resulted in the arrests of more than 1,500 demonstrators across the country, has been released from detention but faces two charges.

Alexei Navalny said on Twitter he had been released after he was arrested in Moscows Pushkin Square on Saturday.

Russian police push back protesters in Moscow (Pavel Golovkin/AP)

He said he faces charges of organising an unauthorised meeting and of resisting police. Each of those charges can carry a jail sentence of 15 days.

OND-Info, an organisation that monitors Russian political arrests, said at least 1,575 people were arrested in demonstrations in 26 cities across Russia protesting against Mr Putins upcoming inauguration for a new term. It was not clear on Sunday how many remained in custody.

Amnesty International called the arrests and beatings of some Russian protesters outrageous.Thousands of British jobs depend on frictionless trade with Europe, Greg Clark stressed as he said the controversial customs partnership plan was still on the table.

The Business Secretary also opened the door to extending a transition period on customs with the EU until a new arrangement was in place as Tory wrangling continued over how to replace the current system after Brexit.

Mr Clark said it could be a case of implementing a new customs arrangement as soon as you can do, as he acknowledged a new regime may not be ready by the end of 2020 when the proposed transition period expires.

Business Secretary Greg Clarks comments on the risk to jobs have been criticised by Brexiteers (Stefan Rousseau/PA)

"We have three requirements for this new arrangement." @GregClarkMP speaking to @AndrewMarr9 on tariffs #marr pic.twitter.com/0FVxiIP1SV  The Andrew Marr Show (@MarrShow) May 6, 2018

The Business Secretary was part of the Brexit war cabinet which failed to reach agreement on whether to back the hybrid customs partnership  which would see the UK collect import duties on behalf of the EU for goods arriving via British ports and airports  or the so-called maximum facilitation model relying on the extensive use of technology to minimise checks at the border.

Brexiteers have rejected the customs partnership, claiming it would keep the UK too closely tied to Brussels and Mrs Mays inner war cabinet is thought to have lined up six-five against it, despite the Prime Minister and Mr Clark backing the model.

Leader of the ERG @Jacob_Rees_Mogg suggests that Cabinet figures (like @GregClarkMP) arguing that rejecting the PM's customs partnership plan will see jobs lost are engaging in the return of 'project fear'. #Peston pic.twitter.com/4juTwqO2C0  Peston (@itvpeston) May 6, 2018

The Business Secretary denied being close to tears as he spoke at Wednesdays meeting but admitted I do feel very strongly about it, before highlighting the importance of having a customs deal with the minimum of frictions to firms operating a just-in-time production line.

He said Toyota, which employs 3,500 people at plants in North Wales and Derbyshire, was deciding where its next plant should be in Europe.

The nature of the business meant 50% of the parts come from out of the country, every hour, day and night and the customs partnership model means being able to import them without any checks at the border, without any paperwork.

Mr Clark added: You can compare models but actually you need to have in mind the future jobs but also the very important jobs for people today.

Asked if the transition could be extended until Britain was ready, he said: It wouldnt be a question of extending the transition. It would be, as it were, implementing as soon as you can do  there will be different parts that can be done immediately. There will be things that will take more time.

He was backed by former home secretary Amber Rudd, who said Mr Clark was right to argue the case for a Brexit that protects existing jobs and future investment.

Business groups the British Chambers of Commerce and the CBI also welcomed Mr Clarks comments, saying it was important to maintain the status quo on frictionless trade until a new arrangement is in place.

We welcome @GregClarkMP recognition that any #customs solution must deliver goal of protecting frictionless #trade with #EU, with no tariffs or additional border checks, delays or red tape for EU/UK exports and imports @beisgovuk https://t.co/7PAm1dgo8c  CBI (@CBItweets) May 6, 2018

But Brexiteers maintained their staunch opposition to the customs partnership.

In a sign of the divisions at the top of Government, a Cabinet source said: Greg appears to be re-fighting the referendum, this is Project Fear 3.0.

Instead of listening to vested interests he should pay more attention to the 17.4 million who voted to take back control of our trade policy.

The Customs Partnership has been roundly rejected, making threats to keep it alive is just desperate.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, chairman of the influential European Research Group of Tory MPs hit out at Mr Clarks suggestion jobs could be at risk, saying: This Project Fear has been so thoroughly discredited that you would have thought it would have come to an end by now.

He told ITVs Peston on Sunday: The customs partnership is in a sense misnamed because it means single market as well as customs union and therefore we would not in effect be leaving the European Union.

Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith, writing on the ConservativeHome website, said: Despite the crucial Cabinet sub-committee on Brexit negotiations and strategy deciding last week that the scheme isnt fit for purpose, some in Downing Street are, incredibly, now briefing out that after a few tweaks it can be presented again.

But pro-EU former business minister Anna Soubry urged Mrs May to see off these ideologues who are blighting our party and blighting the Brexit process.

A Downing Street source dismissed as nonsense suggestions that Mr Clarks appearance and the support from pro-EU Tories and business organisations had been orchestrated from Number 10.

Writing in The Sun On Sunday, Mrs May said she had an absolute determination to make a success of Brexit, by leaving the single market and customs union and building a new relationship with EU partners that takes back control of our borders, our laws and our money.

She said the UK was making good progress towards that goal and we will carry on doing so with resolution in the months ahead.

DUP leader Arlene Foster, whose party props up Mrs Mays government in Westminster, hit out at Brussels over the EUs stance on customs.

She told The Andrew Marr Show: We dont believe that we have to stay in the customs union to have free flow between ourselves and the Republic of Ireland.

We believe that there are ways to deal with this, and indeed, back in August of last year, as you know, the Government put forward various proposals. We were disappointed there wasnt the engagement from the European Union at that time.Napolis hopes of denying Juventus the Serie A title are virtually over after they conceded a late equaliser at home to Torino.

Lorenzo De Silvestris 83rd-minute leveller secured a 2-2 draw for Torino at the Stadio San Paolo and left second-placed Napoli six points adrift of Juve with only two games to go.

And with the leaders boasting a significantly better goal difference  16  the Old Lady now look certain to claim a seventh successive Scudetto.

Marek Hamsik, second left, celebrates his goal for Napoli (Cesare Abbate/AP)

Napoli had appeared to have kept their slender hopes alive when Marek Hamsik struck in the 71st minute, a goal which restored their lead after Torino midfielder Daniele Baselli had cancelled out Dries Mertens opener.

But De Silvestris goal with seven minutes remaining earned mid-table Torino a point which inadvertently also looks to have handed their city rivals Juve the title.

Birthday boy Mertens took advantage of some awful defending to put Napoli ahead in the 25th minute, the Belgium international stabbing the ball home after catching Nicolas Burdisso in possession just seven yards out.

Baselli drew Torino level in the 55th minute with a deflected strike but Napoli were back in front within 16 minutes when Hamsik fired home from the edge of the area.

But there was to be a late twist in tale as De Silvestri headed Torino level for a goal which had huge implications both in Naples and back in Turin.One of Britains most wanted fugitives is to be brought back to the UK, after it was confirmed he will not fight extradition.

Jamie Acourt was captured by armed officers as he left a gym in Barcelona on Friday.

He had been due to appear in court in Madrid this week, but at a weekend hearing of the Spanish High Court it was accepted that he will not challenge his extradition.

Jamie Acourt is one of Britains most wanted fugitives (NCA/PA)

A spokeswoman for the National Crime Agency (NCA) said: We can confirm that he is not challenging his extradition.

The NCA could not confirm when Acourt, who remains in custody in Barcelona after appearing in court via videolink, will be brought back to the UK.

The spokeswoman said: He is in the Spanish court system now and there will be a number of things that have to happen before he is returned to the UK.

It is believed Acourt will be escorted back to Britain by the Metropolitan Police forces extradition team.

He is wanted by the the force over his alleged involvement in the large-scale supply of drugs.

Acourt is a former suspect in the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993.

Very proud of our officers & sincere thanks to our Spanish law enforcement partners @SimonManleyFCO https://t.co/162zneHq53  Lynne Owens (@DameLynneOwens) May 4, 2018

The 41-year-old, from south London has always denied involvement in the murder of 18-year-old Mr Lawrence in Eltham, south London.

He was apprehended on a European Arrest Warrant (EAW), as he left the Metropolitan Sagrada Familia Gym on Friday afternoon after a joint operation by the NCA, Crimestoppers and the Spanish authorities.

The NCA described him as one of Britains most wanted fugitives.

Acourt was the 81st fugitive out of 96 to be tracked down in Operation Captura.Sri Lanka has emphasized at a recent UN event held in Geneva that it is incumbent on all stakeholders to strive to create a culture of respect for equality and non-discrimination and to work towards dispelling the myth of inferiority attributed to women over centuries.

Sri Lankas Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador A.L.A. Azeez expressed these views while addressing the Intersessional Expert Meeting on the full enjoyment of human rights by all women and girls and the systematic mainstreaming of gender perspective into the implementation of the 2030 Agenda which was held in Geneva on May 2.

Ambassador Azeez said promotion of gender equality, sustained through collective efforts to empower women and girls to play a lead role in decision making, is an integral part of the global vision for Sustainable Development Agenda 2030.

The UN Commission on the Status of Women has addressed this important aspect comprehensively during its deliberations and outcomes in the recent past. Further, the Security Council has also emphasized the pivotal link between gender equality and international peace and security through its resolution 1325, he said in a statement.

He said the rise of hatred and extremism that is often manifested in its ruthless forms in several areas of the world, feeds violent tendencies making women bear the brunt of discrimination and exclusion.

Women confront varying challenges, silently and alone. They suffer from multiple forms of discrimination and marginalization. During conflicts, more often than not, they lose not just their voices but their dignity too comes under severe stress. It devolves on Governments as well as all stakeholders, to take targeted special measures to protect women and girls from gender-based violence and other forms of abuse. We believe that leaving out women and girls in development and in peace and security, is a loss for the world as it puts a damaging brake on progress towards sustainable development, he said.

Meanwhile, Ambassador Azeez said Sri Lanka has launched the National Action Plan to prevent gender based violence (GBV) which is currently under implementation.

He said the empowerment of women is among the foremost priorities that receives focused attention in the 2030 Sustainability Sri Lanka Strategy which is being finalised.

Womens representation in local government authorities in Sri Lanka has been minimal until early this year. The mandatory 25% quota for women introduced by law last year has increased their participation in policy and decision making in local government bodies. This, no doubt, assures them of an opportunity to transform themselves into leadership positions at provincial and national levels in the future, he said.

He said these achievements need to be consolidated while endeavouring to further enhance the participation of women in key sectors of development and economy.

Achieving gender equality is not just an issue of women and girls; it goes way beyond, calling for the active involvement of all stakeholders, he said. (Lahiru Pothmulla)The National Freedom Front (NFF) today condemned the Tamil National Alliances (TNA) alleged attempt to halt the construction of Buddhist temples in the Northern and Eastern regions.

NFF National Organizer MP Jayantha Samaraweera said according to media reports the TNA had informed the Unity Government that it completely opposed the construction of Buddhist temples in the Northern and Eastern areas.

MP Samaraweera said TNA Parliamentarian M. A. Sumanthiran had stating to a national newspaper, had vowed that he would never allow constructing Buddhist temples and had backed this issue from 2011.

He said the NFF strongly condemned MP Sumanthirans racist statement.

He also explained that Buddhism which harboured and practiced Meththa (love and kindness) did not crate any harm or threat to any other religions.

This country was built based on the essence of Buddhist culture. It had never created any restrictions to the Hindu, Catholic or Islamic religions to function while safeguarding their identities. Buddhist culture had always led towards true national and religious reconciliation, he said.

The NFF Organiser also added that the NFF was not surprised by the TNAs request but the entire Buddhists should pay their attention to such statements as the Unity Government administration could grant such a demand in the future in order to retain their power. (Thilanka Kanakarathna)(Article written to remember the late minister on his 9th death anniversary in April)

In the year 1977 E. L. B. Hurulle, the then MP for Horowpothana was appointed Minister of Cultural Affairs in the government of Prime Minister, J. R. Jayawardene.

Although, the Cultural Affairs Ministry was perceived to be an inactive Ministry, Mr. Hurulle took it upon himself to create importance and value for the Ministry by embarking on several activities to bring attention to his ministry nationally.

Thus a major project was initiated by his submitting Project proposal No.19 to the World Congress of the UNESCO in Paris proposing the conservation of Sri Lankas main cultural monuments.

The proposal of Minister Hurulle was accepted by UNESCO including the creation and funding of 6 projects identified as the Cultural Triangle encompassing a distance of 100 miles to cover the ancient cities of Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa and Kandy.

The six projects approved were the Jethavana Temple and Abhayagiri Monastry in Anuradhapura, the Sigiriya Water Park, Alahana Pirivena at Polonnaruwa, the Rock cave temple in Dambulla and the heritage sites in Kandy.

The proposal of Minister Hurulle was accepted by UNESCO including the creation and funding of 6 projects identified as the Cultural Triangle encompassing a distance of 100 miles to cover the ancient cities of Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa and Kandy.

As such, excavation work commenced at the above sites which were funded by UNESCO. Discoveries of cultural and historical value were made. In addition, underdeveloped Buddhist Temples located round Sri Lanka were benefited by way of development and the increased attention of both local and overseas devotees was seen.

Minister Hurulle was born in January 1919 in the village of Morakewa, Horowpothana in the district of Anuradhapura as the second son of Tikiri Banda Hurulle Rate Mahatmaya and Alice Bulankulame. He had his education in Trinity College, Kandy and St.Patricks College, Jaffna after which he joined Government Service in 1938 as a Divisional Revenue Officer (DRO) in Moneragala District.Thereafter he served the people in Vavuniya North, Matale North and Kahatagasdigiliya in the Hurulle Palatha of the NCP.

Being a person who had provided honest and dedicated service to the people as a DRO, the then Prime Minister, Sir John Kotelawala, invited Mr. Hurulle to be the candidate of the United National Party (UNP) for Horowpothana at the Parliamentary General Election of 1956.

Although the UNP at this election was reduced to a mere eight seats in Parliament, Mr.Hurulle was able to win his seat in Parliament comfortably and in the two Parliamentary elections that followed in 1960 as well.

Following the Parliamentary General election of 1965, E. L. B. Hurulle was appointed Minister of Transport in the Government of Dudley Senanayake and played a pivotal role in the development of transport in Sri Lanka.

The importation of quality vehicles for the Taxi Service, Land vehicles for Plantation estates, Lorries for the transport of produce and materials throughout the country were a few economically beneficial activities initiated by him. In addition, it was during this period that Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) was able to purchase a Trident Passenger jet plane for Air Ceylon which allowed the airline to fly international air routes and put Sri Lanka on the international air map. The Railway Department too was supplied with modern Diesel engines and carriages to facilitate travel of the general public.

With Mr. Hurulles appointment as Minister of Cultural Affairs in 1977, a whole new awakening of Sri Lankas cultures and religions were seen. Mr. Hurulle being a descendant of the lay retinue that accompanied Theri Sangamitta who carried the Sacred Bo Tree Plant from Dambadiva to Anuradhapura facilitated the bringing of the Sacred Kapilawastu Relics of Lord Buddha to Sri Lanka for the first time and made arrangements for these Sacred Relics to be taken to all parts of the country for exhibition and worship over a period of 60 days.

Other service provided by ELB Hurulle included the conduct of a Tripitaka Dharma Sangayanawa at Mihintale, facilitating for Buddhist devotees to make pilgrimages to India and Nepal, ensuring the distribution of books on Buddhism to students attending Dhamma schools around the country, arranging for the Department of Examinations to conduct Dhamma examinations and Dharmachariya examinations.

The Department of Buddhist Affairs of the Cultural Affairs Ministry played a principal role in these activities. It was during this period that significant amendments to the Temple and Devala Ordinance were made and action taken to increase the income of Temples and Devalas from their properties. On an international perspective, in 1980 Minister Hurulle attended the sessions of The World Fellowship of Buddhists in Thailand and proposed that a new organization be set up consisting of World Buddhist Leaders and Professionals which was approved unanimously. As a result, the first sessions of World Buddhist Leaders was held in Colombo, Sri Lanka in 1984.

At the same time, Mr. Hurulle ensured that his Ministry assisted and facilitated activities of other religions to ensure their development while having an excellent rapport with their religious leaders. He treated and respected all people alike, irrespective of race, religion and caste.

Being an honest politician from a respected family, ELB Hurulle led a contented life up to the age of ninety years having lived and worked for the people of our country sans allegations of dishonesty or fraud.

I wish and pray that he attains the supreme bliss of Nirvana!

H.M.Wimalaratne,Yakalla, Galenbindunuwewa (Anuradhapura)

Translated to English by W A C P Wijeyaratne, SLAS (Rtd.), Colombo 08Global media attention was fixed on a rare and unprecedented meeting of the two leaders of North and South Korea, the images of the two leaders holding and shaking hands reached millions of viewers across legacy and social media platforms across the globe. It was heralded as a great moment of hope in a time of great uncertainty in global politics.

Kim Jong-uns announcement for negotiations with South Korea took the world by surpise

Xi and Modis common challenge demonstrates that countries can work together and they as political leaders can make this work

This meeting eclipsed another meeting that took place between the Chinese President and Indian Premier on the very same day. The meetings of the two leaders were not in a formal setting, yet the fact that after a 73-day standoff in Doklam plateau between the forces of India and China and the tense nationalist narratives that almost put two most populous nations on war footing, and hence the meeting was significant in political terms.

When Kim Jong-un announced a sudden pause to North Koreas nuclear weapons programme and indicated that he is willing for immediate negotiations with his South Korean counterpart, analysts were scrambling to decipher the real motives and re-calibrate the new security environment that would emerge in the backdrop of a Korean peace process. The meeting between Xi and Modi brought out hope for a cooling Asia after months of hostilities and aggression in all domains of war fighting.

Xi  Modi meeting

The diplomatic initiative for the Modi-Xi meeting was led by the Indian side, whilst the Chinese quickly responded and choreographed a scenic meeting between the two leaders in the Chinas Wuhan province. Whilst the meeting was an informal meeting with no real agenda there were burning challenges for both sides that pragmatically needed the two countries to work together for any workable solution to be achieved.

Especially both leaders are in the view that there is a significant level of uncertainty in global politics that is having an impact on the larger security environment. The actions of the US, Russia, BREXIT consequences in Europe and a burning Middle East in totality had the potential to impede prosperity of Asia.

India and China are both encountering inconsistent overtures from an ambivalent Donald Trump. Indian administration was confident that the Trump administration would stick to the policies of previous administrations of Bush and Obama which saw a deepening and widening of US relationship and a clear set of policies adopted by the United States towards India.

USAs Foreign Policy

United States foreign policy currently seems to be less strategic, driven by the impulses of the Presidency and seems contradictory especially with Jared Kushners engagement with China and Nikki Haleys role as the US Ambassador to the United Nations. Trumps brand of nationalism and his fatalism when it comes to Iran and Russia two countries India have strategic relations have complicated Indias foreign relations dynamics with the United States.

India recently snubbed Australia when it rejected Australias participation in the Malabar naval exercises for 2018. Australia last week publicly admitted that it would not be part of the three nations naval drill which includes navies of the United States, Japan along with India to be held in June this year.

There has been talks among security experts about the resuscitation of the Quad, which was a strategic assemblage in the Indian Ocean until 2008 when Australia under its former premier Rudd led an Australian withdrawal.

Speaking at an event organized by the Bandaranaike Centre for International Studies (BCIS) in Colombo, earlier this year, Indias leading strategic analyst Nitin Gokhale said that India has not forgotten what Australia did a decade ago and hence is reluctant to readmit Australia back into the Quad.

Geo political analysts argue that more than a rebuttal to Australia the Modi administration has rejected Australia to please China in this new moment of Sino India detente, which also saw the freezing of Indian relations with Tibet.

India and China has many hurdles to cross if real, meaningful and stable rapprochement to be achieved. Prof. Swaran Singh a leading International Relations scholar from the Jawaharlal Nehru University observed Indias new and sophisticated foreign relations re-calibration as a representation of the emerging policy of Multi Alignment a form of engagement which encourages partnering with many countries as possible without making one relationship hostage to another.

President Xi and Prime Minister Modis common challenge will be to demonstrate that the countries can actually work together and they as political leaders can make this work. Political insiders are reporting of a plan for the two countries to work on a common economic project in Afghanistan. Ascertaining the mutual economic benefits in real terms may take a long time yet the political significance of a Sino Indian joint projects carries major symbolic values, especially if the site of preference is in Afghanistan.

In strategic terms the very first joint venture between India and China to be located in Afghanistan will make Pakistan and the United States very concerned and will challenge Pakistans strategic orientation and push them to revisit their strategic relations with China.

Asia Arming without Aiming

While Asia seems to be heading towards political reconciliation in a grander scale, Asia is not immune to the increasing militarization of the region and the latest reports emerging from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) is that world military expenditure rose to $1,739 billion in 2017. Asia and Middle East seem to be leading in arms procurement and arms transfers. China and India are witnessing significant increases in defence spending.

Increasing military spending does not help in providing regional or global stability or help any conflict prevention measures in the long run. While India and China maybe cooling tensions, both countries are pursuing large scale military modernization and upgrades of every available weapon platforms.

Till recently the nuclear dimension did not take priority in the security discourse as China to a certain extent did not perceive Indias nuclear programme to be threatening. Consistent upgrades to the Indian ballistic missile programme has irked Beijing and they have been much vocal about Indias nuclear ambitions especially since the Agni 4 missile tests in 2016.

Sri Lankas choices

From a Sri Lankan stand point, it should be realized that what is best for our prosperity and strategic interests is to accept the 21st century realities in global politics. The best form of diplomacy is to engage with as many countries as possible irrespective of their political model. For too long we have dwelt upon a foreign policy orientation of a 20th century mentality, of non-alignment and the dream of using that as furthering our interests.

Non-alignment carved out a significant place for us in the world in the 20th century, given the realities of the cold war, but the 21st century realities are at a different level of complexity, Cold war binaries have been replaced with foreign relations that are contingent on rapidly changing global dynamics.

India while having ambitions of regional dominance has also ceded to the fact that it still is not in a position to sustain adversarial relation with China that will harm its economic prosperity and create more instability in the region.

Sri Lanka could and should adopt a foreign policy of multi engagement driven by the core principal that irrespective who we engage with to stay far from their rivalries and not use these rivalries for our short term benefits. While on theory this approach is pragmatic it will take intelligent and pragmatic diplomatic skills to accommodate such skillful statecraft.

A major challenge for a small state like Sri Lanka to shape its foreign policy, sync it with its domestic and national interests is contingent on its reading of the complex transformations in the region and the world. President Xi and PM Modi jointly called for their armed forces to prudently manage their differences. Sri Lankan foreign policy shapers need to see the telling signs of how even regional powers are flexible enough to respond to complexities, by adopting agile and flexible policy imperatives.

The writer is the Director, Bandaranaike Centre for International Studies (BCIS)In December this year SAARC -South Asia Association for Regional Co-operation- which includes Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Pakistan, the Maldives, Sri Lanka and Nepal, will celebrate the 33rd year of its founding. The region home to five main religions of the world -Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism faces a multiplicity of ethnic/racial, religious, and gender-based problems.

At the time of its formation, SAARC was derisively referred to by some, as an association of beggars. Today though, while the region is known for its riches in mineral resources and growing economic clout, a large section of its people continue to be among the most deprived in the world with around 451 million people living below the poverty line. India and Pakistan, the two leading members of SAARC are nuclear powers. India is seen as one of the fastest growing economies in the world.

The region is home to 23% of the global population and a single country in the association - Afghanistan - sits on one of the richest troves of minerals in the world with an estimated value of $ 1 trillion according to Live Science. SAARC countries have also been plagued by both inter-country and intra-country disputes as well as tensions based on race, caste and ethnicity. India and Pakistan have as yet not come to terms over the carnage which followed partition at the time of their independence and have gone to war over Kashmir three times.

Neither has time healed the scars of the massive human suffering which followed partition. Today there exists a continuing hatred in India over the Muslim minority, leaving the community feeling vulnerable amid a large Hindu population, many of whom are very vocally extremist. Despite legal protections, Indian democracy has not been able to secure the rights of its many minorities. With low-caste Dalits (untouchables) suffering pervasive marginalization in public and private life, as do tribal people (Adavasi).

Attacks on Muslims and Dalits in India are reported on a near daily basis. Statistics show that 86% of people killed in cow-related violence since 2010 are Muslims. The World Watch List 2017 ranks India 15th worst among nations where Christians are persecuted. Four years ago, India ranked 31st on the list.

In Sri Lanka, the Tamil minority claims discrimination and has been demanding a greater role in government since independence. The community has suffered three major attacks based on race, including a state sponsored pogrom which led to a Tamil-led insurgency. Since the brutal crushing of that insurgency, the dominant political voice in Sri Lanka is that of a political Buddhism. Muslims and Christians have become targets of nationalist forces which appear to have state protection.

In Pakistan, the government has participated in attacks on Pashtun villages along its border with Afghanistan, alienating large sections of that community. In Bangladesh tensions between Bengali settler communities and indigenous Jumma settlements continue, again with apparent tacit government backing. In Nepal, the minority Madhesis, with ties to India, accuse the Nepalese authorities of having failed to meet their aspirations for greater participation in government.

Most countries in the grouping also accuse India of meddling in their internal affairs. Unfortunately none of the countries within the SAARC group has as yet been able to come up with a satisfactory solution to the issues of

the minorities.

Despite India being one of the fastest growing economies in the world, millions of Indians continue to live in darkness. Rape in India continues to grow alarmingly, and India has been described as the rape capital in the world. Sadly politicians within the Indian government itself have been implicit in backing rapists rather than their victims.

Do the countries within SAARC have the will and ability to tackle the problems of minority interests in their respective countries? Or will communalism, racism and ethnicity continue to dictate the fate of millions within the group?Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe today said the United National Party (UNP) would form its own government in 2020.

We will form a UNP government in 2020. This is the objective behind the partys recent reorganization. I am not looking at a government which will last only for five years but one that will last for 20 to 25 years. However, I will not be able to do it alone. Others in the party should come forward to fulfil this task, he said at the UNPs May Day rally held at the Sugathadasa Stadium. Former president J.R. Jayawardene created a second level leadership in the 1970s and in the 80s. I have also done the same. Therefore, new leaders will emerge from the UNP in the years to come and the party will be able to name successors.

The Prime Minister asked the members to set up mini Sirikotha offices in the constituencies and pledged to expand Samurdhi. He said UNPers who had been subjected to political victimization will be taken care of as well employment would be provided to the youth in the government and the private sector.

The Premier apologised to the party supporters who were unable to enter the indoor stadium because of the lack of space.

Deputy Leader Sajith Premadasa stressed the need for an urgent welfare package and suggested providing fertilizer free of charge, free school uniforms and shoes to school children and absorbing UNPers to the public service .

It is a do or die situation which the party is facing now, he said and added that the partys next presidential candidate should be named at Galle Face Green. My father, the former president Ranasinghe Premadasa was named as the presidential candidate at the Sugathadasa Stadium in 1988 where we are holding our May Day rally today. However, I suggest that we should name our next presidential candidate at the Galle Face Green."

Mr. Premadasa said the UNPs next presidential candidate would campaign with the report on the progress of the 2,500 village reawakening programme in his hands.

I am willing to accept any unanimous decision taken by the party and go along with my late fathers policies," he said.

UNP Assistant Leader Ravi Karunanayake, MPs Hirunika Premachandra, Ranjan Ramanayake and Ranjith Aluvihare were conspicuous absentees at the May Day rally while a notable feature was the presence of Minister Wijedasa Rajapakshe and Joseph Michael Perera who protested against Mr. Karunanayake's appointment at the recent working committee meeting. (Yohan Perera)By Andrea Thompson

2 May 2018

(Scientific American)  April should be prime walrus hunting season for the native villages that dot Alaskas remote western coast. In years past the winter sea ice where the animals rest would still be abundant, providing prime targets for subsistence hunters. But this year sea-ice coverage as of late April was more like what would be expected for mid-June, well into the melt season. These conditions are the continuation of a winter-long scarcity of sea ice in the Bering Seaa decline so stark it has stunned researchers who have spent years watching Arctic sea ice dwindle due to climate change.

Winter sea ice cover in the Bering Sea did not just hit a record low in 2018; it was half that of the previous lowest winter on record (2001), says John Walsh, chief scientist of the International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Theres never ever been anything remotely like this for sea ice in the Bering Sea going back more than 160 years, says Rick Thoman, an Alaska-based climatologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.A confluence of conditionsincluding warm air and ocean temperatures, along with persistent stormsset the stage for this dramatic downturn in a region that to date has not been one of the main contributors to the overall reduction of Arctic sea ice. Whereas a degree of random weather variability teed up this remarkable winter, the background warming of the Arctic is what provides the extra kick to reach such unheard-of extremes, Walsh says. []The lack of sea ice is not just hitting walrus hunting hard; throughout the winter and spring, coastal communities have seen substantial flooding and erosion during storms without much of the usual sea ice to act as a buffer. What little there is has been very thin stuff local residents call junk ice, Thoman says: It wasnt very much better than no ice at all. [more]By Michael Hawthorne

2 May 2018

(Chicago Tribune)  The Trump administration on Tuesday exempted most of southeast Wisconsin from the latest federal limits on lung-damaging smog pollution, delivering a political victory to Gov. Scott Walker as he makes a new Foxconn Technology Group factory the centerpiece of his re-election campaign.By dramatically reducing the size of the areas required to crack down on smog, Trump EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt overruled the agencys career staff, a move that will save Foxconn from having to make expensive improvements as it builds a sprawling new electronics plant in Racine County, just north of the Illinois border in an area with some of the states dirtiest air.Pruitt also pared back the list of counties with dirty air in Illinois and Indiana, a decision that could add to Chicagos chronic problems with pollution linked to asthma attacks, heart disease, and early deaths.Tweaking the list of counties in violation of federal smog standards is the latest attempt by Pruitt to roll back or delay environmental regulations enacted during the Obama administration. It comes as a new peer-reviewed study found that improvements in air quality across the U.S. have slowed significantly in recent years.The EPA did not address the last-minute changes in a news release that quoted Pruitt as saying he was following the data and the law. But the areas removed from the list were suggested by Republican elected officials who have sought to curb the EPAs authority to force industries to clean up the air.We are working with the EPA to implement a plan that continues to look out for the best interest of Wisconsin, Walker, a 2016 Republican presidential candidate, said Tuesday in a Twitter post. We continue to search for ways to balance between environmental stewardship and a positive, pro-jobs business environment.Walker blames Chicago for making the air unhealthy to breathe in parts of Wisconsin. However, an EPA staff analysis of industrial pollution, traffic patterns, and weather patterns concluded Wisconsin is at least partially responsible for its own smog problems, and documents filed with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources show Foxconn would be a major new source of smog-forming pollution. [more]By John Abraham

18 April 2018

(The Guardian)  With global warming, we can make predictions and then take measurements to test those predictions. One prediction (a pretty obvious one) is that a warmer world will have less snow and ice. In particular, areas that have year-round ice and snow will start to melt. Alpine glaciers are large bodies of ice that can be formed high in mountains, typically in bowls called cirques. The ice slowly flows downwards, pulled by gravity, and is renewed in their upper regions. A sort of balance can occur where the loss of ice by melting or flowing at the bottom is equal to the gain of snow and ice by precipitation.As the Earth warms, the melt line moves upwards so that the glacier melts faster and faster at the bottom, shortening the glacier and reducing its mass. Ultimately, the melted water flows into streams and rivers and ends up in the oceans, contributing to accelerating sea level rise.While glaciers are interesting from an intellectual standpoint, they are also important to ecosystems and society. For example, the rate of glacier melt affects downstream water levels, river flowrates, and the water available for human use. So, it would be really important for us to be able to predict what will happen with glaciers in the future and plan for how water availability will change. Of the groups that track glaciers, my favorite is the World Glacier Monitoring Service, which publishes a survey of the mass changes from selected glaciers around the world, available here and summarized below. The graph shows changes to the mass of the glaciers that are monitored, measured in millimeters of equivalent water.But this doesnt tell the whole story because there is very little information about glacier health in the high latitudes (Northern Alaska, Canada, Northern Europe, Northern Russia, etc.). Very few temperature records exist in high elevations in these regions. Furthermore, the temperatures do not extend back very far in time. So, it is challenging for scientists to develop a long-term perspective on glacier health in these areas.And this is why a new study attracted my attention. A paper was just published by the American Geophysical Union that shared research carried out by Dominic Winski and his colleagues. This team of researchers extracted ice cores from the glaciers on Mt. Hunter, in Alaska. The ice cores held snow and ice from as far back as 400 years. The researchers showed that the amount of water melt currently is 60 times greater than it was prior to 1850. They also found that the summertime temperature changes on Mt. Hunter are almost 2C per century (about 3.5F). To put this in perspective, the temperatures are rising about twice as fast as global temperatures. [more]World Press Freedom Index per region, 2013-2018. Graphic: Reporters Without Borders

25 April 2018 (RSF)  The 2018 World Press Freedom Index, compiled by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), reflects growing animosity towards journalists. Hostility towards the media, openly encouraged by political leaders, and the efforts of authoritarian regimes to export their vision of journalism pose a threat to democracies. [   / Read in Russian]

The climate of hatred is steadily more visible in the Index, which evaluates the level of press freedom in 180 countries each year. Hostility towards the media from political leaders is no longer limited to authoritarian countries such as Turkey (down two at 157th) and Egypt (161st), where media-phobia is now so pronounced that journalists are routinely accused of terrorism and all those who dont offer loyalty are arbitrarily imprisoned.

More and more democratically-elected leaders no longer see the media as part of democracys essential underpinning, but as an adversary to which they openly display their aversion. The United States, the country of the First Amendment, has fallen again in the Index under Donald Trump, this time two places to 45th. A media-bashing enthusiast, Trump has referred to reporters enemies of the people, the term once used by Joseph Stalin.

The line separating verbal violence from physical violence is dissolving. In the Philippines (down six at 133rd), President Rodrigo Duterte not only constantly insults reporters but has also warned them that they are not exempted from assassination. In India (down two at 138th), hate speech targeting journalists is shared and amplified on social networks, often by troll armies in Prime Minister Narendra Modis pay. In each of these countries, at least four journalists were gunned down in cold blood in the space of a year.

Verbal violence from politicians against the media is also on the rise in Europe, although it is the region that respects press freedom most. In the Czech Republic (down 11 at 34th), President Milos Zeman turned up at a press conference with a fake Kalashnikov inscribed with the words for journalists. In Slovakia, (down 10 at 27th), then Prime Minister Robert Fico called journalists filthy anti-Slovak prostitutes and idiotic hyenas. A Slovak reporter, Jan Kuciak, was shot dead in his home in February 2018, just four months after another European journalist, Daphne Caruana Galizia, was killed by a targeted car-bombing in Malta (down 18 at 65th).

The unleashing of hatred towards journalists is one of the worst threats to democracies, RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said. Political leaders who fuel loathing for reporters bear heavy responsibility because they undermine the concept of public debate based on facts instead of propaganda. To dispute the legitimacy of journalism today is to play with extremely dangerous political fire.

Norway and North Korea, first and last again in 2018

In this years Index, Norway is first for the second year running, followed  as it was last year  by Sweden (2nd). Although traditionally respectful of press freedom, the Nordic countries have also been affected by the overall decline. Undermined by a case threatening the confidentiality of a journalists sources, Finland (down one at 4th) has fallen for the second year running, surrendering its third place to the Netherlands. At the other end of the Index, North Korea (180th) is still last.

The Index also reflects the growing influence of strongmen and rival models. After stifling independent voices at home, Vladimir Putins Russia (148th) is extending its propaganda network by means of media outlets such as RT and Sputnik, while Xi Jinpings China (176th) is exporting its tightly controlled news and information model in Asia. Their relentless suppression of criticism and dissent provides support to other countries near the bottom of the Index such as Vietnam (175th), Turkmenistan (178th) and Azerbaijan (163rd).

When its not despots, its war that helps turn countries into news and information black holes  countries such as Iraq (down two at 160th), which this year joined those at the very bottom of the Index where the situation is classified as very bad. There have never been so many countries that are coloured black on the press freedom map.

Screenshot of the Global Press Freedom map in 2018, which ranks countries by the World Press Freedom Index. In May 2018, there have never been so many countries that are coloured black on the press freedom map. Graphic: Reporters Without Borders

Regional indicators worsening

Its in Europe, the region where press freedom is the safest, that the regional indicator has worsened most this year. Four of this years five biggest falls in the Index are those of European countries: Malta (down 18 at 65th), Czech Republic (down 11 at 34th), Serbia (down 10 at 76th) and Slovakia (down 10 at 27th). The European models slow erosion is continuing (see our regional analysis: Journalists are murdered in Europe as well).

Ranked second (but more than 10 points worse than Europe), the Americas contain a wide range of situations (see our regional analyses US falls as Canada rises and Mixed performance in Latin America). Violence and impunity continue to feed fear and self-censorship in Central America. Mexico (147th) became the worlds second deadliest country for journalists in 2017, with 11 killed. Thanks to Presidents Maduros increasingly authoritarian excesses, Venezuela (143rd) dropped six places, the regions biggest fall. On the other hand, Ecuador (92nd) jumped 13 places, the hemispheres greatest rise, because tension between the authorities and privately-owned media abated. In North America, Donald Trumps USA slipped another two places while Justin Trudeaus Canada rose four and entered the top 20 at 18th place, a level where the situation is classified as fairly good.

Africa came next, with a score that is slightly better than in 2017 but also contained a wide range of internal variation (see our regional analysis The dangers of reporting in Africa). Frequent Internet cuts, especially in Cameroon (129th) and Democratic Republic of Congo (154th), combined with frequent attacks and arrests are the regions latest forms of censorship. Mauritania (72nd) suffered the regions biggest fall (17 places) after adopting a law under which blasphemy and apostasy are punishable by death even if the accused repents. But a more promising era for journalists may result from the departure of three of Africas most predatory presidents, in Zimbabwe (up two as 126th), Angola (up four at 121st) and Gambia, whose 21-place jump to 122nd was Africas biggest.

In the Asia-Pacific region, still ranked fourth in the Index, South Korea jumped 20 places to 43rd, the Indexs second biggest rise, after Moon Jae-Ins election as president turned the page on a bad decade for press freedom. North Asias democracies are struggling to defend their models against an all-powerful China that shamelessly exports its methods for silencing all criticism. Cambodia (142nd) seems dangerously inclined to take the same path as China after closing dozens of independent media outlets and plunging ten places, one of the biggest falls in the region (see our regional analysis Asia-Pacific democracies threatened by Chinas media control model).

The former Soviet countries and Turkey continue to lead the worldwide decline in press freedom (see our regional analysis Historic decline in press freedom in ex-Soviet states, Turkey). Almost two-thirds of the regions countries are ranked somewhere near or below the 150th position in the Index and most are continuing to fall. They include Kyrgyzstan (98th), which registered one of the Indexs biggest falls (nine places) after a year with a great deal of harassment of the media including astronomic fines for insulting the head of state. In light of such a wretched performance, it is no surprise that the regions overall indicator is close to reaching that of Middle East/North Africa.

According to the indicators used to measure the year-by-year changes, it is the Middle East/North Africa region that has registered the biggest decline in Media freedom (see our regional analyses Middle East riven by conflicts, political clashes and Journalism sorely tested in North Africa). The continuing wars in Syria (117th) and Yemen (down one at 167th) and the terrorism charges still being used in Egypt (161st), Saudi Arabia (down one at 169th) and Bahrain (down two at 166th) continue to make this the most difficult and dangerous region for journalists to operate.

RSF Index 2018: Hatred of journalism threatens democracies

U.S. drops to 45 in ranking of countries based on freedom of the press

By Sally French

26 April 2018

(Market Watch)  So much for that First Amendment right to freedom of the press. The U.S. has dropped to spot 45 in this years ranking of countries based on press freedom, conducted by NGO Reporters Without Borders.

The survey ranked 180 countries based on factors such as pluralism, media independence, media environment and self-censorship, legislative framework, transparency, and the quality of the infrastructure that supports the production of news and information. The index is compiled via a questionnaire distributed to experts based on both quantitative data and qualitative analysis.

The U.S. dropped two spots on this years list. The report specifically calls out new leadership under President Donald Trump as the driver behind the U.S.s fall.

A media-bashing enthusiast, Trump has referred to reporters as enemies of the people, the term once used by Joseph Stalin, the report says. Trump has also attempted to block White House access to multiple media outlets, routinely uses the term fake news in retaliation for critical reporting, and has called for revoking certain media outlets broadcasting licenses. Trumps anti-media tweets have included a doctored pro wrestling video showing Trump body slamming an opponent who has the CNN logo superimposed over their head. [more]

U.S. drops to 45 in ranking of countries based on freedom of the pressBy Neha Jain

4 May 2018

(Mongabay)  Winters in the Himalayas are getting warmer, which is increasing the risk of avalanches, two new studies suggest.

The Himalayas, a massive 2,500-kilometre (1,553-mile) arc-shaped stretch of lofty mountains straddling Pakistan, China, India, Nepal, and Bhutan, are home to the largest concentration of glaciers outside of the poles.So far, monitoring the trends and effects of changing climate in the Himalayas has been challenging because of the high altitudes and rugged terrain. Now, with the help of mountain-top observatories, Harendra Singh Negi of the Snow and Avalanche Study Establishment (SASE) in Chandigarh, India, and his team have analysed trends in winter (November-April) temperature and precipitation in the northwestern Himalayas and Karakoram from 1991 to 2015. Over this 25-year period, winters in the northwestern Himalayas have become warmer and wetter with less snowfall, the researchers report in a study published in Current Science.This warming has increased the risk of wet avalanches in the western Indian Himalayas, a team of Swiss researchers who are examining tree-ring growth abnormalities, report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. [more]Country

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Principe, Democratic Republic of Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of Senegal, Republic of Serbia and Montenegro Seychelles, Republic of Sierra Leone, Republic of Singapore, Republic of Slovakia (Slovak Republic) Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia, Somali Republic South Africa, Republic of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Spain, Spanish State Sri Lanka, Democratic Socialist Republic of St. Helena St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia St. Pierre and Miquelon St. Vincent and the Grenadines Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Suriname, Republic of Svalbard & Jan Mayen Islands Swaziland, Kingdom of Sweden, Kingdom of Switzerland, Swiss Confederation Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan, Province of China Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand, Kingdom of Timor-Leste, Democratic Republic of Togo, Togolese Republic Tokelau (Tokelau Islands) Tonga, Kingdom of Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Tunisia, Republic of Turkey, Republic of Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda, Republic of Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe#car accidents Car accidents involving unlicensed teenagers rise by 34 percent: data Car accidents involving unlicensed teenagers soared by 34 percent between 2018 and 2020, road traffic data showed Thursday. According to a Korea Road Traffic Authority report s...

#LPGA S. Korea's lone LPGA tournament to feature top stars Some of the biggest stars in women's golf will take the field at the only LPGA tournament to be played in South Korea this month, the event's organizers said Thursday. The BMW L...Thoughtful, committed and brave startup founders have a problem to solve, solutions to test and a vision of what they seek to achieve. Launching and running a business requires a suite of skills to succeed. With limited time, and the need to spend carefully, how can founders access strategic guidance, high-quality expertise and a sounding board?

One way to learn from experts is by having an advisory board, comprised of professionals who provide advice to your business. Establishing an advisory board can be a cost-effective way for your business to obtain expert help.

Why choose an advisory board instead of a board of directors?

Directors direct a business and have legal obligations and duties under the Corporations Act and case law. The legal duties include to act in the best interests of the company and to understand the financial condition of the company to ensure that the company is not trading while insolvent. Directors have power and influence over a company. If a person who has not been appointed as a director, has power and influence over a company, they may be seen as a shadow director and therefore have directors duties and risk.

When the company is at an early stage, it is primarily directed by the founder(s). The founders are the shareholders, key employees, and often fund the business in the early stage. A key directors duty is to ensure that the company does not trade while insolvent. If the founder(s) are financing the company and making spending decisions, then solvency is primarily in their hands.

At this stage, it may be too early to have independent directors. By contrast, advisory boards advise the company and provide an independent view. Advisors are not directors and do not have directors duties. The founders and senior team obtain advice then make their own decisions about the business.

How do I select and setup an advisory board?

Advisory board members are experienced people that are willing to assist your business. Who you choose depends on your goals, industry, business needs, skills needs, and ability to access people.

Possible experts include:

people in the same industry as your business, but with large-corporate rather than startup experience;

people with skills that your business will need to succeed; and

people who have successfully grown their own business and/or raised capital.

You seek to build a mutually beneficial relationship. You can approach potential members to see if they are willing to discuss your business. Do they ask insightful questions? Are they are interested in the startup journey? Will they commit to help grow your business? Do you respect them and can they add value. Potential advisors will consider your goals, expertise, commitment, ability to execute on your vision, and whether you listen to and learn from advice.

How do I set up my advisory board? What documents and steps do I need?

It is important to be clear about what the role does and does not involve. Advisors are not directors, and do not have directors duties, fiduciary responsibilities or directors legal risk.

An advisory board may meet each quarter, or more regularly such as each month or two.

It Is usual to have a couple of key documents to explain the role and help protect your company and the advisors.

Letter of Invitation: This sets out the advisory board goals, who else will be on the board, how often you would like the board to meet, the role and the expectations of the advisors.

Advisory Board Agreement: This protects your company and the advisors and addresses key areas including:

That members are advisors, not directors. The business, CEO and management team will make their own decisions based on advice given.

Confidentiality  information about the company, and advisory board discussions, are confidential. This information cannot be used or disclosed except for approved company purposes.

Intellectual Property  any intellectual property that the advisors create regarding the business, is assigned to and owned by the business.

Non-compete clauses regarding not competing with the business and a non-poaching clause to help protect your team.

These legal documents should be prepared or reviewed by a business lawyer.

When the advisory board meets, it is common to have an agenda, board papers and minutes:

The agenda sets out what will be discussed. This depends on the needs of the business at the time. This usually focuses on strategic direction, goals and progress.

Board papers are documents relevant to the agenda. For example, summary financial information, and a draft pitch deck for review before the company pitches to investors.

The discussions and conclusions at the advisory board meeting should be summarized in minutes, circulated after the meeting, for a record of conclusions and next steps.

How do I pay my advisory board?

Many potential advisors are willing to meet for a short time on a complimentary basis. This helps both parties test whether you want an advisory relationship.

Many advisory board relationships continue for several years and involve remuneration. A common cost-effective and tax-effective method is to issue equity (shares or options) to your advisory board, under an ATO-startup employee share scheme. The company and recipient can access tax exemptions if the company, recipient and plan meet eligibility criteria including revenue below $50 million, a contractor role, and holding not more than 10% of the company shares.

The options (or shares) should vest over time, so they are earned over time. A period of 3 to 4 years is common, to incentivize your advisors.

The quantum depends on the quality of the advisor, less than 1%, to 1%, is a US guide for an early stage venture. This may be more for a high-quality well-known advisor.

Conclusion

If you appoint advisors, select people who will add value and commit to your business. Your advisory board agreement should be clear on the advisors duties, and that advisory board members do not have power and influence over the company and cannot give directions or instructions to the directors of the company. This clarifies the role and helps protect your advisory board members from being seen as directors and having directors liability.

An advisory board can be a considerable asset for you and your business, as you move from launch to growth. An advisory board role can be a great way for corporate executives to give back and share their expertise with a new and growing business. A company can test the contributions of advisory board members, to consider appointing them if the company progresses to appointing independent directors.

About the author

Ursula Hogben is a co-founder and Practice Leader at LegalVision, a multi-award winning legal startup. LegalVision was recently awarded fastest growing law firm in APAC by the Financial Times and ranked 7th in the list of high-growth companies in the Asia-Pacific. Ursula has over 15 years experience in corporate law and investment banking in Asia, the United States and Australia. She is a trusted advisor to businesses across Australia for launch and growth including structuring, intellectual property, hiring, scaling and capital raising.If I remember it right it was last quarter of 2017 when Inflatable Island, a beach adorned with giant inflatbles or floaters and colorful umbrellas and beach lounging chairs officially opened. They even tapped social media personalities for a free visit as long as they rave about them on their accounts.

Inflatable Island, said to be the first and biggest floating playground in Asia, is located at Subic, Zambales about 2-3 hours drive from Manila along Samba beach.

Let me set your expectations right first if you plan on going there.

Online Booking

My family went the weekend of Labor Day 2018 , booked our ticket online because they said it would be more convenient and we will get a 10% discount compared to going there as a walk in. I was in for a big disappointment (along with everyone else on the online registration line with us) . What was supposedly convenient online registration became frustration for those who availed of it because their online booking system sucked. Because those who availed of it have to follow same procedure and longer wait line compared to those who walked in. It took us about more than an hour almost two to get our ticket and arm bands So, what was the use of online booking again?

Check out that line, on the far right was the walk-in on the left from where I took the shot was the line for online registered clients. Line was long and everyone was subjected to wait under the scorching heat of the sun!

Here are the rates for Inflatable Island



The beach and play area

It is a 5 minute walk from the entrance to the colorful Bali Lounge of Inflatable island. As pictured online the place is very Instagram worthy. Pretty colorful theme that can melt your annoyance away.

Expectations vs Reality

The Bali lounge is free to use by Inflatable Island armband holder or those who purchase any of the playtime tickets. You can stay on the lounge as long as you want for the entire day.

The playtime you paid for is actually your time allotment to play on the giant inflatables in the middle of the beach. Life vest are provided, there are play Marshalls everywhere to assure safety of those playing. It is like bouncing, sliding, playing on a giant inflatable playground except it is floating on water. Water under could be 10 feet and above so wear your life jacket all the time.

We didnt use our play time because we were with a senior and PWD, better safe than sorry. Anyway my daughter and mom. Enjoyed the beach area, plus there are giant swans, flamingos and fish floaters anyway.

Nobody told us it was difficult to get on those giant bird floaters. We wanted a group photo or atleast daughter on it with me or with my ate. We planned on me up first then Tasha then sis but no, it was too difficult sis and Tasha gave up, mom tried , she gave up too. So as to make the daunting climb to the floater worth it, I spent time on it a little bit longer.

Food and drinks

There are a lot of places to buy food in the area. There is some kind of food court just behind the Bali Lounge serving different kinds from snacks to grilled to rice meals. Not a lot of them sells water though. Mineral water is Php25 when you find one. Rice meals and sadwiches starts at Php100.

The playground

Anywhere on those colorful giant floaters is the playground and that is what you are paying for playtime . So if you get sprinkle (check rate chart above) you spend one hour there and so on and so forth .

The beach

Anywhere not on those giant floating playground is the beach and is free to access to all Inflatable Island playground ticket holder for the entire day.

Was it worth it?

We paid for the Php799 spray play time (refer at the above photo for the rates) . It was supoosedly 4 hours on the giant inflatables but we didnt use it. I should have opted for the sprinkle or splash instead since we didnt go on the inflatable playground anyway. The website or their facebook page did not explain well that the hour you paid for are time you can be on the inflatable playground itself. You will only realize it when you are there (lol) or I was slow understanding the entrance and pass lol.

Anyway, if you dont plan to spend too much time on the inflatable playground then get the shorter time, you can spend whole day on the beach anyway.

Inflatable Island is a nice place for a beach getaway no doubt about it, plus the Instagram worthy view and colors appeals very much to the millenials. Aside from the hitch on their online booking process on-site and not much sellers selling water, it is a good place to visit for your summer vacay. You may visit Inflatable Island on Facebook for other inquiry.

There are no overnight stay at Inflatable Island only day tours and passes. If you want you can book hotels near the area just visit Agoda for bookings.

I do hope they fixed their online booking system process on-site if they really encourage guests to do so.

Stay gorgeous everyone!

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Imagine repeating the worst strategic error of this century to the magnitude of four

Lets say youve spent the last few years following an agreement that you made with the United States and its allies that prevents you from attaining a nuclear weapon. Your proof of this is repeated verification, per the agreement, by the International Atomic Energy Agency. And your reward for this is that Donald Trump has broken the agreement and demanded that crushing sanctions be re-implemented on your country.

Now lets say youre a rogue nuclear power that has been testing your hydrogen weapons while also working on the capability to strike North America with intercontinental ballistic missiles. Meanwhile youve also been taunting and threatening the United States and its allies. Your reward for this? The first meeting with the president of the United States in the history of your country, the wettest dream of your father and grandfather.

The lesson of all this is pretty obvious: You better have a nuclear weapon.

And this appears to be a lesson the Trump Administration is determined to teach Iran when it effectively breaks the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) better known as the Iran Deal later this week.

Diplomacy with North Korea is good, but the stakes of the meeting between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un are extraordinarily perilous, as Colin Kahl and Vipin Narang explain:

So while Trump believes that Kim is coming to him out of weakness, Kim almost certainly believes he initiated his successful charm offensive out of strength. Trump thinks he can walk away with Kims nuclear weapons, while Kim thinks he can walk away having been accepted as a de facto nuclear power by the president of the United States. Only one can be right.

Trumps desperation for a deal will only rise when the consequences of breaking the Iran deal become obvious.

Of course, Iran may restart its nuclear program right away, but thats not the biggest immediate risk. U.S strategic interests in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and with the global community will immediately face new unnecessary perils. Of course, instability and mounting military pressure is what youd want to happen if you and your allies in the region want war with Iran and regime change.

And now, if the twin hirings of anti-Islamic uberhawks Mike Pompeo and John Bolton werent obvious enough clues, we know that regime change in Iran is Trumps goal because Trumps lawyer (?) just told us that.

The presidents lawyer also just happens to be a long-time employee of the MEP, an exiled militant Iranian group once classified as a terrorist group by the U.S. government thats about as popular in todays Iran as salmonella.

Anyone who thinks about this for a second can see that this is the Iraq War repeated as farce.

The fantasies of exiled outsiders fueled by the war lust of a Republican administration determined to ignore the best global intelligence have already led to the worst strategic decision and many of the worst humanitarian disasters of this century. And another rich kid with no foreign policy experience who avoided war when he could have served is determined to make a nearly identical mistake in the Middle East.

The only differences? Iran is four times larger, far richer, and even more geographically perilous to secure. And we actually debated getting into a war with Iraq.

Besides that, the fantasies are just as bizarre as they were in 2002 when we were promised that the war would be brief, it would pay for itself, and wed be greeted as liberators.

Yes, Iran is led by vile hypocrites who waste precious resources on terror and authoritarian chauvinism. The regime is rightly facing protests and unrest that will almost certainly be quelled and not aided by bombs from the sky.

An unnecessary war that will be this disastrous and deadly has to be sold under the guise of peace  mostly because the blood hunger that actually fuels it is too disgusting to discuss, especially when weve already seen the prequel.

Rudy Giuliani, the presidents lawyer, told his former bosses that this coming war for regime change is the only way to peace in the Middle East. Its more important than an Israeli-Palestinian deal.

Sounds nice, right? Until you get to the next sentence.

Iran used to be an ally of not only the United States, but of Israel, he said. That could happen again.

Hes referring to the regime of the Shah of Iran, which the CIA helped install in 1953 only to see it overthrown by a popular revolution that led to the current regime in 1979. This relationship with the Shah is widely seen as the cornerstone of a failed U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East that has led to generations that despise Western attempts at shadow colonialism.

Neo-cons imagined Iraq as a democracy that would be a beacon to the region. The bloodshed that followed the Arab Spring appears to have disabused even them of this fantasy. But the new fantasy is even more preposterous: a return to U.S.-sponsored-or-abetted feudalism in Iran, similar to what we see in Saudi Arabia. Youre welcome, Iran.

If you loved the Iraq War but didnt like the noble pretensions and wish it had been four times larger, youre going to love what comes next.Latest News

Boards 2022: CBSE Term 1 Board exam date sheet likely this month The board is expected to release the date sheet this month at cbse.gov.in and cbse.nic.in

NIT Andhra Pradesh invites applications for MBA course A total of sixty seats are available for the MBA programme

IELTS announces at-home testing option Aspirants around the world will have the option to take their secure test online when IELTS Online starts

By SacBee , May 04 , 2018





The Golden State is getting even richer.





California is now the worlds fifth-largest economy, according to data released Friday morning by the U.S. Department of Commerce. Its 2017 Gross State Product was $2.747 trillion, surpassing the United Kingdoms $2.625 trillion Gross Domestic Product.





The new ranking marks the highest point for Californias relative GSP since 2002. The state had slipped to the 10th-largest world economy in 2012, when its GSP was just $2.003 trillion.

Read More:



Join us - become an Elderado today at: LarryElder.com

Follow Larry Elder on Follow Larry Elder on Twitter

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Turkey to produce new lightweight towed howitzer

A new 105-millimeter lightweight towed howitzer weapon system has been indigenously produced, Turkey's Defense Minister Nurettin Canikli announced on Saturday.

Turkey produces several types of military supplies and vehicles such as unmanned air vehicles, kamikaze drones, tanks, riffles, satellites and rockets with its private and state-run companies in recent years. Turkeys military products are also in demand in international fairs.

The Turkish military has used locally-made vehicles, weapons, and ammunition in the anti-terror Olive Branch Operation in Syria's northwestern province of Afrin.

"NEW HOWITZER WILL SERVE TURKISH RANGER IN THE OPERATIONS"

Recently, the new system, which is able to be airlifted and named Boran, has been successfully tested, Nurettin Canikli said in a message posted on his official Twitter account. He underlined that Boran would serve the Turkish ranger and infantry troops in the operations.

Boran's mass production will be started by the end of 2018. "The weapon, which has modern command and fire control systems, is able to identify targets." he said. Canikli added that Boran was made ready in a short time and it has a range of 17 kilometers. "Boran can calculate, and target without usual deployment procedures due to its fire control systems" he mentioned.

The weapon's system can be used between the Celsius degrees of -32 and +44 nonstop for 8 hours.Star Wars fans descend on Kerry for Failte Irelands first May the Fourth Be With You festival



Failte Irelands first May the Fourth Be With You festival wraps up today after three days of events across the Kerry villages of Ballyferriter, Portmagee, Ballinskelligs and Valentia Island. The festival kicked off on Friday, May the 4th (the day when fans across the globe commemorate the Star Wars Universe) and sought to capitalise on the enthusiasm for the galaxy far far way, firmly placing Ireland within that galaxy. The festival included a host of fun activities for all-ages, including visits to Slea Heads beehive huts (Luke Skywalkers hideaway of choice), guided film location walks and childrens workshops.



A highlight over the weekend was a special ceili for Star Wars fans which saw costumed dancers take the stage in a great meeting of traditional Irish culture and the Star Wars Universe. Fans also had the opportunity to enjoy outdoor drive-in movie screenings set against the breath-taking backdrop of the west Kerry coast, which featured in the latest movie installation.



Failte Ireland captured the excitement in a video which will be used to build on the connection Ireland has with this iconic film universe after recent Star Wars filming took place along the Wild Atlantic Way.



Speaking about the festival, Minister of State for Tourism and Sport, Brendan Griffin said:



Since Star Wars included some of our iconic Irish landscapes along the Wild Atlantic Way in recent films, I have been keen to mark May the Fourth in a meaningful way. When appointed as Minister last summer, I approached Failte Ireland with this proposal. The inaugural May the Fourth Be With You festival really was a great success, setting a fun and enticing programme of events against the backdrop of our beautiful coastline. Not only did the event attract visitors to the area but events like the outdoor screenings of the film, with the actual film locations visible in the background, have provided us with amazing imagery for even greater exposure around the world.



Failte Irelands Head of Festivals, Ciara Sugrue said:



It has been a truly amazing weekend here in Kerry and Id like to thank local tourism business and all those involved for coming together to help us create an itinerary of events which not only celebrated the Star Wars Universe but the history and natural landscape of the area. Star Wars has created a curiosity around the Wild Atlantic Way and raised its profile amongst fans both domestically and internationally and this festival and the content we have been able to capture over the last few days will only raise the profile of the region further, attracting more visitors throughout the year.



Filming for recent Star Wars films took place in locations across Kerry, Cork, Clare and Donegal. The May the Fourth Be With You festival is being piloted this year in Kerry.

Jump to topThe Fauquier Times is honored to serve as your community companion. To say thank you, we are excited to offer 4 weeks FREE Digital & Print access to all subscribers new and returning alike.

We are dedicated to continuing providing reliable, high quality journalism. This is possible with the trust and support of our subscribers in the community we are proud to serve.Meghan Markle's mother is reportedly set to do a tell-all interview with Oprah Winfrey.

Meghan Markle

The former 'Suits' actress' mum Doria Ragland was reportedly spotted leaving the chat show host's home in California last week after the pair spent the afternoon brainstorming ideas for their impending interview on the long-running talk show.

It's believed Doria will address the racial abuse Meghan suffered after it was announced that she was dating, and subsequently, engaged to Prince Harry.

A source told the Mirror Online: "Oprah and Doria spent a long time chatting and they got on really well. The most important and significant issue they spoke about was race and how badly some people had reacted to Meghan and Harry. What happened to Meghan and Harry was disgusting and they and all of their families were horrified. It's an issue close to both Doria and Oprah, who have both suffered racism."

However, the interview will need to be approved by the 36-year-old actress, her soon-to-be husband and Buckingham Palace before anything is recorded.

Prince Harry, 33, released a statement back in 2016 when his relationship with Meghan became public knowledge condemning the abuse she was receiving.

He said via a spokesperson at the time: "His girlfriend has been subject to a wave of abuse and harassment. Some has been very public - the smear on the front page of a national newspaper; the racial undertones of comment pieces; and the outright sexism and racism of social media trolls and web comments."

The couple - who have been dating since the beginning of 2016 - are set to tie the knot at St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle, Windsor, on May 19..      ""     .      .         6.00 .    :      "",   ""   ""     .  19.09.2021 .         ....Prince William and Duchess Catherine have released the first official pictures of their baby son, Prince Louis.

Prince Louis and Princess Charlotte (c) Duchess of Cambridge

The royal couple - who welcomed their third child into the world on April 23 - were "very pleased" to share two new photographs, which were taken by Catherine at Kensington Palace, with the world to mark both the birth of their son and also the third birthday of their daughter Princess Charlotte.

In one photo, Louis appears wide awake in a white outfit as he gazes at something out of shot of the camera, propped up on a cushion and a blanket embroidered with a rose. The picture was taken on April 26, just three days after his birth and also William, 35, and 36-year-old Catherine's seventh wedding anniversary.

And in the second pictures, which was taken on Charlotte's birthday, 2 May, the little princess tenderly cradles her sleeping baby brother as she bends over to kiss his head.

Kensington Palace released the images on their Twitter account and wrote: "The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are very pleased to share two photographs of Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, taken by The Duchess at Kensington Palace.

"The Duke and Duchess would like to thank members of the public for their kind messages following the birth of Prince Louis, and for Princess Charlotte's third birthday."

The royal couple's oldest child, four-year-old Prince George, doesn't appear in the photos.

Both Louis and Charlotte seem to be wearing hand-me-downs in the photos.

Louis' ribbed knit is identical to the Irulea jumper worn by Charlotte in the first official pictures of her, which were released in May 2015 a few weeks after her birth, while the Princess donned the navy Fair Isle cardigan which was worn by her older brother Prince George in his great-grandmother Queen Elizabeth's 90th birthday portrait in 2016.Category Select Category Apparel/Garments Textiles Fashion Technical Textiles Information Technology E-commerce Retail Corporate Association Press Release

SubCategory Select Sub-Category. , ,  -              ,         Der Tagesspiegel.           ,  :            2020 .,    .  ...A National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) rule issued in 2014 mandating that cars have rearview technology has gone into full effect.

The Los Angeles Times reports it happened Tuesday, and that all cars, buses and trucks under 10,000 pounds manufactured or made to sell in the United States are required to have rearview video systems.

One person speaking out: Dr. Greg Gulbransen, who killed his two-year-old son Cameron in a 2002 back over accident.

Its been a long fight, but were thrilled this day has finally come, the father said in a statement. Its a bittersweet day because this rule should have been in place many years ago. Though his own life was short, my son Cameron inspired a regulation that will save the lives of countless others.

DALLAS RESTAURANTS GUN REGULATION SPARKS CONTROVERSY WITH NRA

A 2007 bill named after the toddler became a public law in February 2008, which the Times reports required that federal transportation officials write a regulation addressing vehicle rear visibility.

Regulators and automakers later agreed that rearview cameras would be the best solution, the news outlet explained.

The Department of Transportation was sued in 2013 for pushing back the rule mandating the cameras by several consumer safety groups, Reuters reported at the time.

The final rule from the NHTSA was issued in March 2014, which requires all vehicles under 10,000 pounds, including buses and trucks, manufactured on or after May 1, 2018, to come equipped with rear visibility technology that expands the field of view to enable the driver of a motor vehicle to detect areas behind the vehicle to reduce death and injury resulting from back over incidents.

NHTSA prioritizes safety on U.S. roads, and today weve reached an important milestone, NHTSA Deputy Administrator Heidi King told ABC News in a statement. This technology helps drivers see behind the vehicle, which we anticipate will help save lives and prevent injuries.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.Robin Williams was a brilliant actor and comedian who could go from light to dark in the blink of an eye.

Apparently the darkness took over, as Williams was found dead from an apparent suicide at noon on Monday.

He was 63.

Williams touched every generation and demographic, making his entrance in a 1970s comic generation with Steve Martin, John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd and Billy Crystal.

Williams went on to become the alien Mork from Ork in his breakout hit '70s sitcom. He was also the voice of the genie in "Aladdin" and a hyper disc jockey in "Good Morning Vietnam." In "Mrs. Doubtfire," he played a dad who dressed as a woman to see his kids, and in "Birdcage," he played a gay man. He was an English teacher in "Dead Poets Society," a scientist in "Awakenings" and a prisoner of war in "Jakob the Liar."

More On This... Conan OBrien shares Robin Williams news with stunned live audience

But it was on a stage, in front of the lights, where Williams shined most brightly. The riffs, tangents and impersonations came rushing at the audience, a seemingly endless torrent.

"You get the feedback," Williams said in a 2007 interview. "There's an energy. It's live theater. That's why I think actors like that. You know, musicians need it, comedians definitely need it. It doesn't matter what size and what club, whether it's 30 people in the club or 2,000 in a hall or a theater. It's live, it's symbiotic, you need it."

On a television talk show, hosts knew Williams barely needed to be wound up. Sometimes, he needed only an audience of one: Williams visited Christopher Reeve a week after the actor's horseback riding accident, dressed in scrubs with a surgical mask and speaking in a Russian accent.

The roles became less prominent as he aged and a different generation took the spotlight. Last year, CBS cast him as the star of a sitcom, "The Crazy Ones," in which Williams played the colorful elder statesman at a Chicago ad agency. The network had high hopes for the comedy, which also starred Sarah Michelle Gellar, but they quickly faded and the show was cancelled after one season.

The failure of the show, coupled with the failure of the independent film The Angriest Man in Brooklyn this year sent Williams into an emotional funk, sources told FOX411. But darkness was nothing new to him. It was no secret that the Oscar-winning actor had suffered for years from periodic bouts of substance abuse and depression -- he made references to it himself in his comedy routines.

Williams joked about one fall off the wagon during a comedy tour, saying, "I went to rehab in wine country to keep my options open."

During an interview with comedian Marc Maron in 2010, Williams seemingly dismissed what would be a career highlight for many actors. "People say you're an Academy Award winner," he said. "The Academy Award lasted about a week and then one week later, people went, 'Hey Mork!"'

Word that he had likely killed himself Monday at his San Francisco Bay Area home left friends in the Hollywood community grief-stricken.

"Robin was a lightning storm of comic genius and our laughter was the thunder that sustained him. He was a pal and I can't believe he's gone," said director Steven Spielberg.

His good friend, the comedian Steve Martin, took to Twitter to express his condolences. "I could not be more stunned by the loss of Robin Williams, mensch, great talent, acting partner, genuine soul," he wrote.

Former Tonight Show host Jay Leno also looked back. "I saw him on stage the very first time he auditioned at the Improv and we have been friends ever since, Leno said. It's a very sad day."

Williams Mork co-star Pam Dawber was stunned.

"I am completely and totally devastated," Dawber said in a statement. "What more can be said?"

In addition to his wife, Susan Schneider, Williams is survived by his three children: daughter Zelda, 25; and sons Zachary, 31, and Cody, 22.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

WATCH: Four4Four: Inside Robin Williams' tragic death, and why everyone feels his lossKensington Palace shared new photos on Saturday of Prince Louis, the newest addition to the royal family.

The photos included one solo shot of the newborn and another with his older sister, Charlotte.

In a tweet, the palace said Prince Louis parents, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, wanted to thank members of the public for their kind messages following the birth of Prince Louis, and for Princess Charlottes third birthday.

KATE MIDDLETON AND PRINCE WILLIAM WELCOME ROYAL BABY NO. 3: EVERYTHING WE KNOW

Prince William and his wife, Kate Middleton, are very pleased to share two photographs of Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, a follow up tweet said. Both pictures were taken by the Duchess of Cambridge at Kensington Palace, the palace said.

The first picture showed Prince Louis donning a sharp all-white outfit on April 26, just days after he was born on April 23.

The next one captured a sweet moment between the newborn and Charlotte, as she cuddled her baby brother and kisses him on the head. They said the photo was taken on May 2, the princess third birthday.

PRINCESS CHARLOTTE CELEBRATES HER 3RDBIRTHDAY: 5 FUN FACTS ABOUT THE BRITISH ROYAL

The youngest addition to the British royal family is formally known as His Royal Highness Prince Louis Arthur Charles, Kensington Palace previously announced.

He is fifth in line to Britain's royal throne, behind his grandfather Prince Charles, father Prince William, big brother Prince George and big sister Princess Charlotte. His uncle, Prince Harry, has moved down to sixth in line.

Fox News Jennifer Earl and The Associated Press contributed to this report.Stormy Daniels, the real one, appeared on NBC's Saturday Night Live on Saturday night in a skit with President Donald Trump -- the fake one played by Alec Baldwin.

In the show's cold open, the pair engage in negotiations over a payment that Daniels allegedly received from Trump, but which the real Trump has denied.

What do you need for this to all go away? the fake Trump asks Daniels.

A resignation, Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, responds.

Yeah, right," Baldwin's trump says.

"Being president is like doing porn, he adds. Once you do it, its hard to do anything else. ... I solved North and South Korea, why I can't I solve us?

"Sorry, Donald. It's too late for that. I know you don't believe climate change, but a storm's a-comin', baby," Daniels says.

Saturday's episode also featured Ben Stiller as Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, Martin Short as Trumps former physician, Dr. Harold Borenstein, Scarlett Johansson as Ivanka Trump, and Jimmy Fallon as Jared Kushner.

"SNL" cast member Kate McKinnon, previously known for playing Kellyanne Conway and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, this time plays newly hired Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani.With the entire world eagerly anticipating the upcoming royal wedding between Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, several were shocked to learn about the couples non-traditional post-wedding plans.

As previously reported, Kensington Palace confirmed in a press briefing Friday that the couple will not be going on their honeymoon right after they say I do. Instead, theyre postponing their getaway in order to have their first engagement as a married couple the week after the wedding.

Only after that will they jet off to Namibia, an extremely private country with a low population. They wont be like most couples and take to the skies to celebrate their wedding right away, but will instead do the royal equivalent of eating their vegetables by doing their duties as the new royal couple.

Upon hearing the news, some fans of all things royal took to Twitter to comment on the situation.

Them choosing to delay their honeymoon and do an engagement a few days after the wedding is wow, one user wrote.

Many were quick to make the obvious observation that the couples decision to stagger their honeymoon might help them escape the ever-watchful eye of the media.

Aren't they going to Antarctica to get away from the paparazzi? one user joked.

Great idea. Its the only way to dodge the media during their honeymoon, another noted.

Others stifled their surprise and immediately jumped into speculation about the delay. Many believe that Prince Harry is trying to keep up with his brother, William. For those unfamiliar, William and Kate Middleton didnt go on a trip right after their wedding either, as they were busy with official duties as well.

William and Kate left for their honeymoon in Seychelles 10 days after their wedding, royal commentator Victoria Arbiter wrote. Before that the couple were in Anglesey as William was working at his RAF search and rescue base.

I think shes saying this to remind us all that W&K took time off before their honeymoon so the fact that H&M are doing the same will lessen the hate theyll receive. Thats just my positive thinking bc Im too happy right now, a user replied.

Of course they can go straight to honeymoon as harry is 6th in line now. But they want to upstage Catherine and prince William. As William is more actively doing royal duties this year. But Catherine can't bcos of maternity leave. #drama mm making royal family a tv soap drama, one user wrote.

Others, however, seized the opportunity to slam Prince Harry and Markle individually.

Good idea. Hope he wakes up before its too late, another user wrote of Harry. Not that I care. Hes a twit too.

They need to postpone the not so Royal Wedding. She aint no princess folks, another wrote of Markle.

Markle and Prince Harry are scheduled to wed on May 19.Liberal comedian and inveterate Trump adversary Rosie ODonnell exceeded the legal limit with campaign donations to five Democratic candidates, a new report finds.

Federal Election Commission rules dictate that an individual candidate may not receive more than $2,700 from any one person per election. (The limit applies separately to primaries, runoffs and general elections.)

The star appeared to put the onus on the candidates, not herself, to correct the alleged errors.

I dont look to see who I can donate most to  I just donate assuming they do not accept what is over the limit  Rosie O'Donnell

If 2700 is the cut off  [candidates] should refund the money, ODonnell wrote in an email to the New York Post. I dont look to see who I can donate most to  I just donate assuming they do not accept what is over the limit.

If 2700 is the cut off  [candidates] should refund the money. I dont look to see who I can donate most to  I just donate assuming they do not accept what is over the limit.  Rosie O'Donnell, in an email

ODonnell told the paper that donating to anti-Trump candidates eases her anxiety.

U.S. Sen. Doug Jones, D-Ala., who defeated accused child molester Roy Moore, disclosed receiving $4,700 in campaign donations from ODonnell.

According to filings, ODonnell donated $3,600 to Conor Lamb, a Democrat who in March won a special election to fill a U.S. House vacancy in Pennsylvania. O'Donnell donated an additional $1,000 for Lambs current campaign for a different congressional district, because of Pennsylvania's redrawn congressional map.

ODonnell has also donated $2,950 to U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, and $4,200 for the primary campaign of Lauren Underwood, a candidate for a U.S. House seat in Illinois.

She also donated $3,450 to Omar Vaid, a congressional candidate in a district that covers parts of Staten Island and Brooklyn in New York City, fillings cited by the Post show.

ODonnell told the Post she donates through the online liberal fundraising platform ActBlue, which, she assumed, limits donations to the max allowed.

Filings show that ODonnell has donated more than $90,000 to 50 different federal candidates and committees during the 2017-18 election cycle.An Iowa family is praying for a 7-week-old infant who was critically injured when a softball accidentally struck her in the head at a ballfield.

McKenna Hovenga suffered skull fractures, two brain bleeds and several seizures, family member Laura Heise said on a YouCaring.com page for the baby, the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier reported Saturday.

Currently McKenna is still heavily sedated and is still on the vent, Heise wrote on the page Sunday. We've had a few issues here and there that have popped up, so the doctors are continually tweaking her meds. Thankfully we have had no seizure activity since yesterday morning and she is stable, but critical.

On a public Facebook page, Healing for McKenna, Heise wrote Sunday that the family blames no one for what happened to the infant.

GRIEVING MOTHER OF NEWBORN SAVES ANOTHER BABY'S LIFE WITH HER BREAST MILK

Accidents happen and this is just one horrible happenstance, she said.

McKenna was at the ballfield in Shell Rock with her parents Lee and Kassy Hovenga. Lee and his team were playing that night.

Another pair of teams were playing and Lee was helping Kassy get situated with a blanket over her, so Kassy could breastfeed, Heise wrote. Lee had his back to the field and never saw the ball coming. The ball came over the fence -- and either hit McKenna first or hit Kassy first. We're really not sure as it happened so fast and Kassy was looking down at McKenna as she was feeding. Neither of them saw the ball as it came over the fence.

The baby was transported to Waverly Health Center and taken by helicopter to St. Marys Hospital at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., the Courier reported.

The YouCaring.com page for McKenna has raised more than $12,000 of its $15,000 goal, according to the paper.NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

Leaders in Washington have vowed to enact welfare reform this year. In an environment filled with so much toxic discourse, its more important than ever that we focus on overhauling welfare the right way: with compassion and common sense.

Unfortunately, neither quality applies to our current welfare system. In fact, our infrastructure can hardly be called a system at all. In truth, its a collection of inefficient programs and agencies cobbled together over the past several decades, each with conflicting interests, standards and procedures. Predictably, these programs fall woefully short in helping the neediest among us. Instead, they keep men, women and children caught in generational cycles of dependence.

How does the current approach limit people? Imagine a single mom with two kids who receives benefits through Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), the Childrens Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). She works a part-time job and desperately wants to make a better life for herself and her children by getting off public assistance.

But the current structure is stacked against her. If she marries, she loses benefits. If she seeks more hours or a higher paying job, she loses benefits. Beyond this, she has to navigate a convoluted network of agencies and a lot of red tape to get her benefits in the first place.

We believe there is a better approach and it entails stabilizing the safety net for those who truly need it, adopting a work first approach for those who are able, and creating incentives to form marriages and households.

There are two principle ways: first, by eliminating so-called welfare cliffs that create disincentives for people to earn more money, and second, by erasing the marriage penalty that and encourages single parenthood.

How else can we accomplish these goals? First and foremost, by streamlining the more than 15 major welfare programs hosted by federal, state and local agencies into five coordinated programs, headed by a sole lead agency. We also propose steps to simplify benefit algorithms to avoid cliffs, gradually taper benefits to avoid drop-offs, and eliminate marginal benefit rules that penalize married families.

The end result is a system that helps those who truly need it while encouraging recipients to take steps toward accomplishing what scholars call the success sequence. Its an admittedly wonky phrase, but the success sequence represents a simple concept: Taken together, a good education, a steady job and a healthy family life greatly increase the odds of people achieving economic and social stability.

Scholars on both the left and the right recognize the importance of this sequence. We believe it forms an outstanding philosophical basis for welfare reform done right. We need to understand that each part of the success sequence can work to help individuals; its never too late to get life back on track. And while following the success sequence is no guarantee of a positive outcome, it does tilt the likelihood in favor of it.

Heres the great news: While it appears that Washington will soon attempt to tackle welfare reform, the states do not have to wait on a sluggish Congress for meaningful change to happen. Individual states have a surprising degree of flexibility to begin welfare overhauls on their own. Maine, for example, recently took advantage of this flexibility to create a work-first approach to SNAP benefits. What's more, flexibility that states lack can often by gained through actions by their congressional delegations.

In the past, state lawmakers have followed this type of approach with notable success. In the late 1990s, Wisconsin and several other states enacted their own mini versions of welfare reforms by petitioning for federal waivers. On the federal level, the TANF reforms of the late 1990s followed, which most observers on both the left and the right agree has been successful at helping the poor and transitioning recipients back into the workforce.

Closely tied to this point, we believe that communities (not the state or federal government) should be the principal means of helping our neighbors escape poverty. Thats why we work so hard at the local level to expand job training, provide apprenticeships and enlarge other workforce supporters. Although Washington can do much to improve welfare, the best solutions must come locally.

In the end, we need to return to a view of welfare that is forward-looking: propelling people to accomplish the three-pronged success sequence, rather than allowing them to languish in poverty for generations.NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

When does a gross indiscretion, aimed at undermining President Trump through private negotiations with a sworn enemy of America, become something bigger? Former Secretary of State John Kerry, deep into his months-long shadow diplomacy with Iran, is testing the point.

Truth is, the antiquated Logan Act  which bars exactly that sort of extra-legal, unofficial and patently officious and offensive behavior  has never been enforced, although referenced as late as 1991 by the Supreme Court.

That does not make Kerrys behavior acceptable, patriotic or defensible. In fact, at a time when everyone from President Trump to Americas national security team are working overtime to warn Iran against counting on that faux nuclear deal, Kerrys actions  not for the first time  are quite unforgivable.

Irony on irony, Kerrys stealthy anti-Trump diplomacy comes on the heels of the Democratic Partys aggressive 2017 attempts to call a single conversation between incoming Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and the Russian Ambassador a Logan Act violation.

One could even argue that, in a cascade of politically-motivated Logan Act attacks, illegal unmasking of Flynn by the Obama White House (for which no one was held accountable), FBI interviews that left interviewers divided on Flynns intent, and Flynns own bad judgement, Mr. Mueller got his biggest one-count guilty plea.

Assuming Mr. Kerry is not authorized to embolden the Iranians and Europeans with false hope, then he is in express violation of the Logan Act. Unlike the Flynn case, there is little ambiguity here. The violation is textbook.

Somehow, what John Kerry is now doing  trying to create a parallel understanding with a hostile foreign nation  is far more serious than anything Mike Flynn did in the days before becoming National Security Advisor to Trump.

This is a brazen attempt to privately negotiate  and assist a foreign government in confounding  U.S. foreign policy and national security. Whatever the reader thinks of this president, deliberately undermining a sitting president in this way is inexcusable.

Think about it for a moment. What we are now witnessing is a second former Secretary of State and Democratic presidential nominee openly aiming to reverse the results of the 2016 presidential election.

Hillary Clinton paid for opposition research that was funneled through partisan FBI leadership to a blind-sided FISA court permitting the government to spy on a member of the Trump campaign  eventually triggering the Comey leaks and the appointment of a special counsel.

Kerry is negotiating foreign policy.

The audacity of this bitter, anti-President Trump crowd is just breathtaking. One wonders when they will simply show up at the White House and just ask for the Oval back. By rights, they think it is theirs.

As Fox News reported, Kerry is actively engaged in shadow diplomacy in an attempt to preserve the Iran nuclear deal, to which he feels attached.

Specifically, Kerry sat down twice with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif in recent months to strategize in a bid to save the deal, as part of what the Globe described as an aggressive yet stealthy mission to put pressure on the Trump administration 

Now, with President Trump facing a May 12 deadline to review the Iran deal, Kerry has been ramping up his meetings ahead of that deadline, and reportedly met with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier -- who was foreign minister of Germany when the deal was negotiated, as well as French President Emmanuel Macron twice and by phone with European Union foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini.

Heres what the Logan Act says: Any citizen of the United States who without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

Assuming Mr. Kerry is not authorized to embolden the Iranians and Europeans with false hope, pushing the string our president is trying to pull, then he is in express violation of the act. Unlike the Flynn case, there is little ambiguity here. The violation is textbook.

Does that mean anything will happen? No. For his own purposes and to preserve his own unelected, unappointed, and unauthorized political agenda, Mr. Kerry will probably continue chasing the Nobel Prize he never got, so badly wanted and still feels he deserves  all for that horrific Iran deal.

After all, Mr. Kerry handed over $1.7 billion to Iran, in American cash. He must feel he is owed something.

That same $1.7 billion, if applied to American needs, would have bought a big chunk of a southern border wall, wider veterans benefits, one year of federal low income energy assistance, two-thirds of all federal job training, or all standardized testing for American kids for a year. But never mind. John Kerry needed his prize, and he still wants it.

President Trumps Justice Department, consumed in responding to a mess created by Mr. Obamas other Secretary of State, will likely let the Logan Act violation go. And maybe that is the right thing. We can only call out so many bad acts and bad actors. And the Logan Act may be  as Professor Alan Dershowitz suggests  unconstitutionally vague.

Still, this does not make Mr. Kerry blameless. Any more than he is blameless for having set this terrible Iran deal in motion, with his predecessor and with President Obama, in the first place.

What his insolence, arrogance and indefensible continuation of private shadow diplomacy points to is this: The Democrats will not accept the outcome of the American electoral process, and for the first time in American history are actively  perhaps illegally  seeking to undermine it.NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

As the United States looks poised to become the worlds largest oil producer in coming years, offshore energy exploration could make a significant contribution in cementing the U.S.s strong global edge on energy.

This not only enables us to be less reliant on foreign adversaries for energy but removes a common negotiating tactic that can be used by other countries that have geopolitical and energy production leverage. Additionally, it could help secure affordable and reliable U.S. energy for decades to come  something that isnt currently top of mind for those that are experiencing decent prices at the pump.

One big step the U.S. could take to solidify our energy security position is to partially open the eastern Gulf of Mexico to oil and natural gas leasing and development. The current Congressional moratorium on these activities runs out in 2022. While those opposed to offshore energy exploration and production continue to point to its incompatibility with our militarys activities in that area, the reality looks very different.

The Defense Department already conducts training and exercises off U.S. coasts where offshore energy exploration and development takes place, without infringing on military activities. And the Defense Department and Department of Interior also coordinate successful in other areas of the Gulf of Mexico. In the central Gulf of Mexico for example, 36 percent of current offshore leases are located within military planning areas. While military readiness must take top priority, a moratorium extension that precludes even the option of coordination between the relevant actors is an extreme response.

In addition to consumer benefits, lower oil and gas prices reduce the cost of Defense Department operations, saving resources that the Department could spend on other pressing needs  like protecting our troops overseas.

In 2010 and 2015 the Defense Department published compatibility reports analyzing offshore oil and gas leasing and military operations across the outer continental shelf. In the eastern Gulf of Mexico, the Defense Department only recommended an outright ban on oil and gas activity on 11 percent of the area. Instead, it allowed for oil and gas exploration on 40 percent of the area with possible stipulations, and no permanent oil and gas surface structures on another 49 percent. As opposed to a blanket moratorium, the reports point to leeway for the Defense Department, the Interior Department and industry to find ways of pursuing natural resource development without infringing on military training needs.

Despite the rhetoric, Defense Department training and our energy security does not have to be a zero-sum decision. The relevant stakeholders within the Defense Department, including the different service branches should have a seat at the table as well. The Defense Department agrees. Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan, in a letter to DOI Secretary Zinke stated, The Department of Defense supports the development of national domestic energy resources in concert with enabling military operations, training and testing.

In addition to consumer benefits, lower oil and gas prices reduce the cost of Defense Department operations, saving resources that the Department could spend on other pressing needs  like protecting our troops overseas. In 2016 for example, U.S. federal government energy costs fell to their lowest point since 2004, because of low energy prices and the continued U.S. energy renaissance.

The Defense Department is by far the largest energy consumer in the government, representing 80 percent of all federal government energy consumption. Geopolitically, increased U.S. production relative to OPEC, Russia and other competitors hands the U.S. greater leverage in energy markets. Russia is currently the worlds largest oil producer, and has long used its energy dominance to expand its influence in Europe and coerce European governments.

An expanded U.S. role in energy markets has already helped, and can continue to help, provide European governments and other allies with other options, and boost U.S. clout in the face of geopolitical competition.

While Defense Department training and testing requirements must take priority, Congress should avoid blocking outright any potential for compatibility between military operations and offshore energy. Instead, particularly given technological advancements in offshore exploration, the energy industry and the Defense Department should be granted the option of exploring whether workable solutions might exist in these areas.

In an increasingly volatile global political environment, the best-case scenario for U.S. national security is the combination of military readiness with energy security. The U.S. should not limit the foreign policy tools it has at its disposal with a false choice between the two.NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

This past week, 18 Republican members of Congress nominated President Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to end the Korean War, denuclearize the Korean peninsula, and bring peace to the region. Youd think the media would applaud this potential honor  right?

Strangely enough, no.

The left-wing New York Daily News headlined its article : Republican stooges push for Trump to win Nobel Prize as critics bash the idea.

Lefty Splinter News ran its own tastefully understated anti-Trump headline: Some Dumb--- Congressmen Nominated Donald Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize.

CNN ran a piece in a similar vein: Trumps possible Nobel Prize nomination mocked. It began with National Correspondent Jeanne Moos sarcastically asking, Trump, Nobel laureate? She then cut to comedian Dana Carvey humorously impersonating Trump during his acceptance speech: I love prizes, I love Cracker Jacks.

Moos followed with anti-Trump comedian Seth Meyers commenting that Trump supporters chanting Nobel, was like going to a monster truck rally and chanting Pulitzer.

CNN clearly was not pleased.

Neither was Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank, doing his impression of the better Dana  Carvey. Milbank wrote up his version of the Trump acceptance speech, but delivered it via column, without the same voice or wit. I love Norwegians! he wrote. I want more immigrants from Norway and others who have the same merit-based complexion that Norwegians have.

Everyone wanted a piece of the joke. Conan O'Brien told his TV audience: A group of House Republicans has nominated president Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize. Yeah. As evidence they pointed out that Trump has managed to avoid an all-out war with North Korea and Melania.

Of course, all of this quasi-news and comedy downplays a very real fact  President Trump accomplished something important.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in was among those who supported the idea of the peace prize for President Trump, saying: Its really President Trump who should receive it; we can just take peace, The New York Times reported.

Back when President Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, even some in the media were stunned. Today Co-Host Matt Lauer (pre-scandal) called it out: Were less than a year into the first term of this president and there are no  I'm not trying to be, you know, rude here  no major foreign policy achievements, to date.

Lauer was right. Obama won the Peace Prize shortly after taking office. The reason? The prize was for something he hadnt done, "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." He was the fourth U.S. president to receive the award. Presidential wannabe Al Gore also won in 2007.

2. Brokaw Story Gets Worse: Sexual misconduct allegations escalated against former NBC anchor and current Special Correspondent Tom Brokaw. First he denied the allegations in a letter that couldnt be stronger, according to The Washington Posts Erik Wemple.

But Wemple followed by detailing the disturbing charges. He noted: The 20-plus-year anchor of NBC Nightly News isnt on trial here. Then he added, NBC News, however, enjoys no such casual luxury.

NBC has a major problem with transparency, a word often demanded from politicians by journalists. It had the same problem with the demotion of anchor Brian Williams. There is an identical issue involving the disastrous Joy Reid investigation at sister network MSNBC.

Brokaw was hit with back-to-back exclusives about the alleged support he received from women.

The New York Post reported how NBC staffers felt pressured to sign letter defending Brokaw.

Variety broke its own story about the support letter. Headlined: NBC News Urged Its Anchors to Report on Supportive Tom Brokaw Letter. The combination undercut any support Brokaw received from it. A third woman also said Brokaw gave her an unwanted French kiss some 50 years ago.

3. Just Desserts: The 2018 White House Correspondents Dinner will long be remembered for crossing the line. The April 28 media event went mostly as planned. Predictably liberal comedian Michelle Wolf was also predictably anti-Trump. She made the first of 25 references to Trump just 36 words into her pathetic monologue with a porn star joke that attacked all men, not just the president.

It was like watching reruns of The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. (Heaven help you.) For three years running, the so-called neutral White House Correspondents Association plucked its comedians from Comedy Central, the land of little-known, anti-conservative comics. Wolf was deservedly obscure, so much so that the journalist association that hired her apparently didnt even do a background check and missed numerous offensive tweets.

When she hit the stage, journalists realized she went too far. Her attacks on White House women seemed particularly tone deaf for the #MeToo era. ABC Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl was critical. Karl is the 2019 president of the association and he called the jokes mean-spirited.

But this is 2018 and anti-Trump comments always have media supporters. Seth Meyers and Noah soon chimed in on Wolfs side. Stephen Colbert joined them.

A common theme of the defense of Wolf was echoed by NBCs Today Co-host Savannah Guthrie, who quoted defenders arguing that the president has said much worse. Of course, the president is also a partisan and Wolf was hired by so-called neutral journalists.

4. Its Porn Star Time: The only thing CNN likes more than a porn star is her lawyer. The network spent 41 minutes ogling a strip club performance by alleged former Trump paramour Stormy Daniels in March.

The CNN reporter team rained 1,500 words and maybe a lot of dollar bills in pursuit of their journalism. Screens around the club advertised Daniels' performance with revealing photos and the slogan #MAGA  Make Adult Great Again, said reporter Hadas Gold.

If Daniels raked in the cash performing, her lawyer Michael Avenatti raked in the media coverage. Avenatti appeared on March 7 for the first time and has visited the supportive CNN team 59 times total  in just about two months. Anderson Coopers program accounted for 19 of those appearances.

CNN wasnt quite done with Daniels, however. The CNN Politics Twitter account commented Thursday: President Trump makes no mention of the porn star payment storm at the National Day of Prayer. Neutral journalism doesnt have a prayer some places.

CNN Editor-at-large Chris Cillizza followed up the Thursday press conference by saying President Trump is a boss no one should be willing to work for. That includes Sarah Sanders. His piece was headlined: Why Sarah Sanders should quit.

As a side note about how the media really work: Avenatti isnt shy in the self-promotion department, allegedly pushing MSNBC for a job after the court battle is over. Interestingly, hes had eight appearances on MSNBC in just four days.

5. Harassing a High School Student: One of the most idiotic stories of the week came courtesy of a Twitter war. Utah teen Keziah Daum was criticized for cultural appropriation for wearing a Chinese-style dress to her high school prom.

Twitter user Jeremy Lam gathered more than 40,000 retweets and 176,000 likes for his whine about what she wore. My culture is NOT your g------ prom dress, he posted. That set in motion a mob frenzy of attacks and stories, many of which got the most basic elements of the issue wrong.

The New York Times wrote: Teenagers Prom Dress Stirs Furor in U.S.  but Not in China. Like many media outlets, The Times seemed to blame Daum for wearing the dress rather than Lam for his bullying reaction to what a high school student wore to prom. Yahoo wrote a similar headline: Teen defends Chinese prom dress that sparked cultural appropriation debate: 'I would wear it again.'

The dress didnt stir or spark anything. Thats victim-blaming.

Cosmo, theoretically a pro-women site but really a pro-loon site, was worse. Girl Slammed on Twitter for Culturally Appropriating Her Prom Dress Says She Would Wear it Again. Even the Chinese admit it was cultural appreciation, not appropriation.

That was a point so clear that ABCs lefty Anchor George Stephanopoulos got it right, saying: It seems like, to me, I dont know, on the right side of the line.

When George thinks the left has gone too far, its hard to argue otherwise.NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

Heading into the 2018 midterm elections we have seen President Trump give Republicans all they need to win. In two years  while fighting off the fake news, paid protesters, and a wild goose chase investigation  Donald Trump signed into law the largest tax cut in American history, orchestrated peace between North and South Korea, and border crossings are at a forty-year low.

I could write several paragraphs on what weve witnessed under the Trump administration that should help the GOP win in November. But what is also helpful is there are key senate races in states that Trump won with authority: Montana, West Virginia, Ohio, the list goes on for key races we will be seeing this cycle.

But what the Republicans need to remember this year is one thing: traditional politics and strategies are totally meaningless in 2018.

Republicans need to play to win like Trump did. Despite what traditional polling places and the media says, a majority of Americans support Donald Trump. A very silent majority. And the Hollywood and D.C. elites are scrambling to figure out who these people are and figure out how to get them in line.

They are the coal miner from West Virginia who is fed up with career politicians who are bragging about their vision of shutting down every coal mine. Theyre the worker in the rust belt of Ohio who used to belong to a union and work in a steel mill before their factory got shut down and moved to China. Theyre the farmers in Montana who dont want their tax money to go to abortions on demand.

This silent majority are the Americans who love God, their family, and our amazing country. They dont want their morals, their job, or their lifestyle threatened by the government or any candidates.

This silent majority are the Americans who love God, their family, and our amazing country. They dont want their morals, their job, or their lifestyle threatened by the government or any candidates.

There is more than just this silent majority today. Candace Owens has caused a tectonic shift in the political landscape. She has spent the last several months working seven-day weeks to wake up the black community  and it is working. On April 21, hip hop superstar and pop culture icon Kanye West tweeted I love the way Candace Owens thinks. Shortly afterwards, he tweeted himself wearing a Make America Great Again hat.

Most celebrities back down and apologize after showing their support for the president. Instead of doing that Kanye has doubled down with his support of Trump and has met with Owens, all while the far left and the Democratic party is losing its mind. Why? Because they depend on the black vote to win any elections. The second a black celebrity such as Chance the Rapper tweets Black people dont need to be democrats thats a death spell for their hopes at elections.

Thanks to Candace, Kanye, and the fact that black unemployment is at an all-time low under President Trump, in the past week alone Trumps approval rating among black men has doubled.

Here is what Republican candidates need to remember during the 2018 midterm:

Americans want jobs, and hard-working families that have been left helpless in the past decade due to awful trade agreements know that Donald Trump was right when he said weve been losing to China.

Americans want law and order followed in this country  they dont want gangs and drugs crossing over the southern border. They want a candidate who makes a campaign promise to keep it  we need a wall.

Finally, Americans want a Congress that is going to do what its says it will do and that will work with and support the president. They are not, for example, content with a skinny repeal of ObamaCare, whatever that even is.

Republicans cannot afford to play to lose this election cycle. The future of this country depends on it. They need to take advantage of the achievements President Trump has handed them and take hold of the opportunity to win these key seats.NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

The American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees lost more than 14,000 members in 2017  a year after it spent nearly $19 million more on politics than on organizing and advocating on behalf of its members, according to a recent Bloomberg analysis.

Coincidence?

AFSCME is one of the largest contributors to political causes and candidates in the country, but maybe not for long. The U.S. Supreme Court is considering a potentially landmark First Amendment case brought by Mark Janus, a public employee in Illinois who argues that his rights are violated by an Illinois law that forces him to pay for AFSCMEs collective bargaining.

Janus argues that because AFSCMEs collective bargaining with the government affects public policy issues like taxes, spending, pension liabilities and more, such bargaining amounts to lobbying and political speech.

Because the Supreme Court has ruled against compelled political speech, a decision in Januss favor could free all public employees in America from being forced to fund government-union collective bargaining against their will.

This should not to be confused with the overt political activity that unions also engage in, such as donations to candidates or parties, or other political spending meant to impact election outcomes. Public employees in all 50 states are already allowed to get back the portion of their dues spent on this kind of politics (although unions make it as difficult as possible).

Making matters worse is that you dont even have to be a union member to be forced to pay for union advocacy. In the 22 states that dont have a right-to-work law  including Mark Janus home state of Illinois  public employees who opt out of union membership can still be forced to fund union collective bargaining through so-called agency fees.

Not only are agency fees used for collective bargaining that affects public policy, they are also spent on activity that is overtly political in nature, such as donations to politically motivated nonprofit organizations or funding events with a political message.

If the Supreme Court agrees with Janus that agency fees fund political activity and thus should be optional, more than 5 million workers could be freed from paying the fees  and it is likely a significant portion would exercise their right to do so.

In 2015, AFSCME itself estimated that about half of its membership would consider no longer paying dues if they were given the freedom to make that choice. Earlier this year, Politico reported on the National Science Foundations General Social Survey findings that 23 percent of unionized government employees dont believe workers need strong unions.

In 2011, Wisconsins Act 10 essentially gave public employees full right-to-work protections as part of broader collective bargaining reforms. AFSCME membership in the state fell by 54 percent in a year.

Clearly, many rank-and-file workers do not agree with or do not find value in AFSCMEs overt political spending, nor its collective bargaining and other activity funded through agency fees.

In a way, this is a compounding problem  as AFSCME expands its political engagement, it pays less attention and resources to actually representing employees at work, causing many to believe the representation is not worth the price.

Moreover, the increased political engagement alienates workers who do not share AFSCMEs political positions, causing them to opt out. Either way, it puts both political dues as well as agency fees at risk.

Regardless, if the Supreme Court ends AFSCMEs forced-dues gravy train this year, the union will face the same challenge as nearly every other organization in America  having to earn every dollar it receives by demonstrating value creation for members.

If that becomes the case, AFSCME will have important decisions to make about where and how it spends its resources, lest it continue to see membership trend downward like it did in 2017.Rudy Giuliani, a recent addition to President Donald Trumps legal team, attempted Saturday night to clarify comments he made earlier in the week regarding a $130,000 payment that Trump attorney Michael Cohen made to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

In an appearance on Fox News' Justice with Judge Jeanine -- in which Giuliani also addressed Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into possible Trump ties to Russia -- the former mayor of New York City told host Jeanine Pirro that he was still learning the facts about the payment.

But he emphasized that Trump did not in any way violate campaign finance law."

GIULIANI CLARIFIES STATEMENTS ON STORMY PAYMENT, COMEY FIRING

This is, you know, 1.2 million documents. Ive been in case for two weeks -- virtually one day in comparison to other people, Giuliani said. So Im not an expert on the facts yet. Im getting there.

"But I am an expert on the law, particularly the campaign finance law," he continued. "Ive lived under it, running for president. And the fact is theres no way this is a campaign finance violation of any kind, nor was it a loan.

"(T)heres no way this is a campaign finance violation of any kind, nor was it a loan.  Rudy Giuliani, attorney for President Donald Trump

Giuliani, who sought the Republican Party's nomination for president in 2008, called the money exchanged between Trump and Cohen an expenditure that would have transpired regardless of whether Trump was running for president.

In an exclusive interview Wednesday on Fox News' Hannity, Giuliani had told host Sean Hannity that Trump reimbursed Cohen for a $130,000 payment that Cohen made to Daniels in the weeks leading up to the 2016 presidential election.

After that interview, Giuliani clarified that he did not mean to imply that Trump knew the cash would be used to buy Daniels' silence about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump in 2006.

That Giuliani interview set off a media frenzy, because Trump had previously denied having any knowledge of a payment to Daniels.

FEDERAL JUDGE ACCUSES MUELLERS TEAM OF LYING, TRYING TO TARGET TRUMP: CMON MAN!

On Friday, Giuliani put out a statement intended to clarify the views he shared during the "Hannity" interview. The statement came hours after Trump said Giuliani would get his facts straight.

During the Saturday night interview, Pirro also asked Giuliani for his thoughts regarding Muellers investigation and how, she said, Mueller's team refused to hand over a "scope memo" that describes the parameters of its investigation.

Giuliani said he believes U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III, who is overseeing charges brought against former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, was correct in challenging the special counsels investigation.

WHO IS TS ELLIS? A LOOK AT THE JUDGE IN THE MANAFORT, MUELLER CASE

The judge, in some substance, said this is a witch hunt with a tremendous amount of government misconduct attached to it, Giuliani said, adding that U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions should dismiss this entire investigation.

During a hearing Friday, Ellis suggested that Muellers team lied about the scope of its investigation, was seeking unfettered power and was more interested in bringing down the president.

Giuliani further maintained Saturday that there is no evidence of collusion with the Russians and that there was no evidence of obstruction of justice.

Everything the president did, he has perfect authority to do under Article 2.  Rudy Giuliani, attorney for President Donald Trump

Everything the president did, he has perfect authority to do under Article 2, he continued, referring to the section of the U.S. Constitution that describes presidential powers.

Fox News' Jake Gibson, Brooke Singman and Kaitlyn Schallhorn contributed to this report.House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes is going to push Congress to hold Attorney General Jeff Sessions in contempt of Congress.

The Californian Republicans committee has been looking into allegations that the Justice Department and the FBI abused the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in their scrutiny of the Trump campaign.

"On Thursday we discovered that they are not going to comply with our subpoena," Nunes said on "Fox and Friends," adding, "The only thing left to do is we have to move quickly to hold the attorney general of the United States in contempt and that is what I will press for this week."

Two weeks ago, Nunes sent to Sessions a classified letter, which he said was not acknowledged, and then he sent a subpoena.

However, the Justice Department said it responded to Nunes' letter, as Maria Bartiromo reported on "Sunday Morning Futures."

"The Department has determined that, consistent with applicable law and longstanding Executive Branch policy, it is not in a position to provide information responsive to your request regarding a specific individual," Assistant Attorney General Stephen E. Boyd wrote in the signed letter. "The Department and its intelligence community partners would welcome the opportunity to discuss whether there are other ways to accommodate the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence's oversight inquiry."

Nunes, who did concede that its possible Sessions personally is unaware of the subpoena, told "Fox and Friends" he wouldnt accept "excuses" relating to national security concerns in terms of his ongoing investigation of how the Russia probe was handled.

ROSENSTEIN LETS NUNES, GOWDY REVIEW FBI MEMO THAT KICK-STARTED RUSSIA PROBE

"How many times have we heard this argument throughout this investigation?" he asked.

House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, Republican of Louisiana, expressed support for Nunes on "Fox and Friends."

"I have deeper and deeper concerns the more I see some of this, not only the stonewalling, but whats been in some of these memos," said Scalise. "Were also trying to get a lot of other information from the Department of Justice about this investigation, and everything that we uncover raises even deeper concerns about the direction."

As Fox News has reported, Nunes called the FBI and Justice Department redaction of his committee's Russia report "excessive and sloppy." The House committee's report found that FBI agents "did not detect any deception during [Michael] Flynn's interview.

Flynn, who pleaded guilty to a single count of making "false, ficitious or fraudulent" statements to the FBI under Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russian probe, served as President Trump's national security adviser.

"This just cannot continue where we don't get information in a timely manner. Like I said, everything we have tried to get they tried to stop us from getting, Nunes said.

Fox News' Jake Gibson and Catherine Herridge contributed to this report.Former Clinton lawyer Lanny Davis suggested Sunday that newly-hired Trump personal attorney Rudy Giuliani should be dismissed, following his statements related to the Stormy Daniels scandal.

I think Rudy Giuliani has to be replaced, Davis told Fox News Sunday.

Davis, who was special counsel to former President Bill Clinton in connection with his inappropriate relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, argued Giuliani must go because he spoke publicly about conversations with Trump about the payout.

Former Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen had argued that he paid Daniels from his own pocket and had not been reimbursed by the president.

The president, prior to hiring Giuliani last week to try to conclude special counsel Robert Muellers Russia probe, had denied knowing about the payment.

However, Giuliani said shortly after his hiring was announced that Trump indeed repaid Cohen. And he seemed to contradict himself about whether the payout was a campaign expenditure, amid speculation that Mueller is looking into potential Trump campaign finance violations.

Giuliani also has seemed to contradict himself in saying the October 2016 payout was to save Trump's family from embarrassment and that it was to keep the campaign from being destroyed just days away from Election Day.

I think that there's at least an argument that by speaking publicly about a conversation with the president (Giuliani) becomes a fact witness on a crucial question regarding whether the $130,000 was perhaps a loan or a re-imbursement, Davis said.

That's a fact that needs to be questioned in front of a grand jury on the issue of whether it was a political contribution, he also said.

Trump, who has denied a tryst with Daniels, on Friday suggested Giuliani needs to "get his facts straight" about the payment.President Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani said Sunday that his client did not have to comply with a potential subpoena from special counsel Robert Mueller in the Russia investigation.

"He's the president of the United States," Giuliani told ABC News' "This Week." He continued, "We can assert the same privilege as other presidents have. President Clinton negotiated a deal in which he didn't admit the effectiveness of the subpoena. [Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr] withdrew it."

In the wide-ranging interview, Giuliani also addressed the investigation into Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen, saying Cohen may have paid off other woman accusing the president of misconduct aside from adult-film star Stormy Daniels: "I have no knowledge of that, but I would think if it was necessary, yes."

When asked if Trump would be willing to testify before a grand jury in the Russia investigation, Giuliani said he was looking for "the Hillary Clinton treatment," a reference to the FBI's interview of the former secretary of state during the investigation into her personal email server.

"That is no [questioning] under oath, only a Q&A, and then we get the questions in advance, and they write the report two weeks before," Giuliani said.

Giuliani also reiterated that he was unwilling to allow Trump to be interviewed by Mueller, despite the president's reported openness to the idea -- and refused to rule out Trump asserting his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

"They don't have a case on collusion. They don't have a case on obstruction, which is why they're asking all these cockamamie questions about what do you feel, what do you think," Giuliani said. "I'm going to walk him into a prosecution for perjury like Martha Stewart did?"

Giuliani was referencing the lifestyle maven convicted in 2004 of lying to investigators and obstruction in an insider-trading case.

Giuliani told Fox News' Sean Hannity on Wednesday that Trump had reimbursed his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, for a $130,000 payment made to Stormy Daniels in the closing days of the 2016 election campaign. Daniels has sued to invalidate a nondisclosure agreement about an alleged sexual encounter with the married Trump in 2006.

When asked Sunday whether Trump knew about the payment to Daniels after the campaign, Giuliani demurred.

"I can't prove that. I can just say it's rumor," Giuliani said.

Cohen "made payments for the president, or he conducted business for the president," Giuliani said, "which means he had legal fees, monies laid out, and expenditures, which I have on my bills to my clients."

Cohen no longer represents Trump, Giuliani said, adding that it would "be a conflict right now." Cohen faces a criminal investigation in New York, where FBI agents raided his home and office several weeks ago seeking records about the Daniels nondisclosure agreement and other matters.

Michael Avenatti, Daniels' attorney, said Sunday on "This Week" that he thinks it's "obvious ... to the American people that this is a cover-up, that they are making it up as they go along."

Both Giuliani and Trump have insisted the payment to Daniels was not a campaign expense.

Giuliani maintained Sunday that the payment could not be considered an in-kind campaign contribution because there was another explanation for it.

"This was for another purpose, to protect him, to protect his family," he said. "It may have involved the campaign. Doesn't matter."

Giuliani said the financial arrangement with Cohen wasn't revealed on Trump's 2017 personal financial disclosure because "it isn't a liability, it's an expense." :       ,          

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Candidates in West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana and North Carolina made closing arguments this weekend ahead of key primaries Tuesday -- showing in many ways how Republican hopefuls are aligning behind President Trump while Democrats move to the left in more divided paths that threaten to undermine the party.

Ahead of West Virginias GOP primary Tuesday to unseat Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, each of the top three candidates has claimed to be the closest in ideology to Trump. Meanwhile, Don Blankenship has taken direct aim at Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell -- calling him Cocaine Mitch. Blankenship apparently has tried to link McConnell to a 2014 news report about drugs purportedly found on a ship owned by his in-laws.

Blankenship also has accused McConnell of creating jobs for "Chinapeople" and said his "China family" has given him millions of dollars. McConnell's wife is Trump's transportation secretary, Elaine Chao, who was born in Taiwan. Her father, entrepreneur and philanthropist James S.C. Chao, was born in China.

The leading GOP candidates are state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and Rep. Evan Jenkins. They have until recently largely ignored Blankenship -- a former coal industry executive who served a year in prison in connection with the Upper Big Branch Mine explosion in West Virginia in 2010 that killed 29 workers.

But this weekend, Morrisey started using robo-calls to potential voters saying: Convicted criminal Don Blankenship didnt vote for President Trump and is a resident of Nevada, where he must report to his parole officer.

On Sunday, Morrisey moved to have Blankenship disqualified from the primary for failing to submit a financial disclosure, in violation of election law and perhaps of his probation.

Blankenships campaign said the candidate has already spoken to his probation officer, who wasnt concerned about the financial disclosure.

Washington Republicans have said they thought the Manchin seat was very winnable, based in part on Trump having won the state in 2016 over Democrat Hillary Clinton by 42 percentage points.

The GOP candidates in Ohio have been pushing for change. Im tired of the career politicians we have in Washington. Thats why Im running, Mike Gibbons, a Republican businessman and first-time candidate trying to unseat Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, told Fox News Americas News HQ on Saturday.

Such talk likely sounds familiar, considering Trump, a Republican, won the 2016 White House race as a successful businessman and first-time candidate vowing to drain the swamp of career politicians in Washington.

Trump has, however, endorsed Ohio Rep. Jim Renacci. And the president on Saturday included the four-term congressman in a public event in Cleveland.

"Hell be fantastic, Trump said of Renacci. "We need his vote very badly."

Gibbons, a fundraising co-chairman in Ohio for the 2016 Trump presidential campaign, also told Fox News that the largest personal donation he ever gave to a candidate went to Trump.

Trump won each of the four states holding primaries Tuesday.

In Indiana, Republicans are set to pick from three candidates who have spent much of the race praising Trump and bashing each other, in a bid to unseat Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly.

In attempts to appeal to Trump voters, theyve adopted the president's harsh immigration rhetoric and penchant for personal insults. The candidates have even channeled Trump by assigning derisive nicknames to one another: Lyin Todd Rokita, Luke Missing Messer and Tax Hike Mike Braun.

Ohio also has a Democratic and Republican primary to replace term-limited GOP Gov. John Kasich.

In the GOP primary, state Attorney General Mike DeWine has a double-digit lead over Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor. Both are Trump-agenda supporters.

The top Democrats in the Ohio governors race are former Rep. Dennis Kucinich and Richard Cordray, a former state attorney general and onetime Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director.

Kucinich is backed by Our Revolution, the self-described next step in the Bernie Sanders' movement. Cordray is being endorsed by Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who helped start the federal protection bureau.

Warren is a potential 2020 presidential candidate whose efforts to regulate Wall Street have made her a champion of the partys progressive wing.

Sanders, an Independent Vermont senator, ran for president in 2016 as a Democrat. The self-described Democratic socialist is weighing a potential 2020 bid and would very likely compete with Warren for the Democratic Partys most liberal wing.

Cordray on Saturday downplayed the Warren-Sanders narrative and suggested he was more concerned about connecting with voters, citing his kitchen table platform aiming to address concerns such as jobs and health care.

I dont think it represents any big split, he told Fox News. Were presenting a case to voters in Ohio.

Polls have shown the race essentially tied or Cordray having a slight lead. Race handicappers, including the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, have rated the general election contest lean Republican, which means the GOP has a slight edge.

Trump won Ohio in 2016 by 8 percentage points, and the state has had a Republican governor for roughly 23 of the past 27 years.

"The far left and the far right always think they are going to dominate these elections," said John Weaver, a Trump critic and top strategist to Kasich. "You may think it's wise in a primary to handuff yourself to the president. But when the ship goes down, you may not be able to get the cuffs off."

Still, primary candidates historically must appeal strongly to their bases to win, before they often try presenting more moderate platforms to win over general election voters.

In North Carolina, GOP Rep. Robert Pittenger faces a primary challenger who almost upset him two years ago. Pittenger features Trump prominently in his campaign. Challenger Mark Harris, a prominent Charlotte pastor, has tried to turn the table, saying Pittenger is a creature of Washington who refuses to help Trump "drain that swamp."

The leading Democrat for the seat is Marine veteran Dan McCready, who has raised almost $2 million, slightly more than Harris and Pittenger combined, in a district Trump won by about 12 percentage points.

Democrats must flip about two dozen Republican-held seats to reclaim a House majority, and they must do it with Republican-run legislatures having drawn many districts to the GOP's advantage.

Fox News Peter Doocy and The Associated Press contributed to this report.John McCain, who has been battling an aggressive form of brain cancer for more than a year, doesnt want President Trump to attend his funeral and prefers Vice President Pence to be there, according to a New York Times report.

In addition, former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama have been asked to deliver eulogies at McCain's funeral, sources close to both former presidents and McCain told CNN.

The 81-year-old Arizona senator underwent surgery for an intestinal infection recently and was joined at his ranch by his daughter Meghan over the weekend. Last July, McCain was diagnosed with glioblastoma, the same rare and aggressive brain cancer that killed Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy and former Vice President Joe Bidens son, Beau.

I dont know how much longer Ill be here, McCain said in an audio excerpt of his forthcoming memoir, The Restless Wave, as NPR reports. The senator is also the subject of a nearly two-hour HBO documentary.

Biden spent 90 minutes at the ailing senators Arizona ranch last Sunday.

Here John knows hes in a very, very, very precarious situation, and yet hes still concerned about the state of the country, Biden told the Times. We talked about how our international reputation is being damaged and we talked about the need for people to stand up and speak out.

According to the Times, McCains closest family members have informed the White House that the current plan for his funeral is for Pence to attend the service to be held in Washingtons National Cathedral, but not Trump  with whom McCain has not had the greatest relationship.

The Arizona senator, who was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1986, cast a crucial vote against the repeal of ObamaCare in July, singlehandedly scuttling one of the Trump administration's major policy goals, a move that provoked the ire of Trump but earned him a thank you call from Obama.

Back in July of 2015, Trump attacked McCain for the five and a half years spent in a notorious Vietnamese prison where he was tortured, telling voters in Iowa:

Hes not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who werent captured.

In his book, McCain doesnt pull any punches about Trump.

He seems uninterested in the moral character of world leaders and their regimes, he writes of the president, according to the Times, which obtained a copy of the book. The appearance of toughness or a reality show facsimile of toughness seems to matter more than any of our values. Flattery secures his friendship, criticism his enmity.

Among other things, McCain reportedly uses his new book to express regret for not choosing former Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, who recently visited McCain at his ranch, as his vice presidential running mate in 2008.

His advisers apparently told him that Liebermans pro-choice views could divide GOP voters. McCain ended up picking then-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who was mocked for a number of unforced errors and gaffes during the campaign.

Former Sen. Robert Dole, who wore McCains POW bracelet while his future colleague was in the camp known as Hanoi Hilton, told the Times he planned to tell McCain in a coming phone call, Youre a tough guy and you can overcome this.

Id like to see us recover our sense that were more alike than different, McCain says in audio excerpts from the book reported by NPR.White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders forcefully entered the debate over President Donald Trump's choice for CIA director Saturday, tweeting that any Democrat who doesnt back nominee Gina Haspel is a total hypocrite.

There is no one more qualified to be the first woman to lead the CIA than 30+ year CIA veteran Gina Haspel, Sanders tweeted. Any Democrat who claims to support womens empowerment and our national security but opposes her nomination is a total hypocrite.

Beginning Wednesday, Haspel faces a contentious confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee, ahead of what the White House acknowledges will likely be a close confirmation vote on the Senate floor.

Debate over Haspel's nomination is split between those who praise her experience and those who want her disqualified because of her role in the CIAs harsh interrogation of terror subjects and destruction of videotapes showing waterboarding after 9/11.

Also backing Haspel's nomination recently was former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, during an appearance last week on Fox and Friends.

If you were not in a position of authority on September 11th, you have no idea the pressures that we faced to try and make sure that this country wasnt attacked again, Rice said.

If you were not in a position of authority on September 11th, you have no idea the pressures that we faced to try and make sure that this country wasnt attacked again.  Condoleezza Rice, former U.S. secretary of state

If Haspel's nomination advances to the Senate, she would need backing from at least 50 senators. In the event of a tie, Vice President Mike Pence -- in his role as president of the Senate -- would cast the deciding vote.

With the likely absence of U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who is battling brain cancer and recuperating in Arizona after recent surgery, Republicans hold a 50-49 advantage in the Senate.

McCain, 81, who was tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, was instrumental in getting Congress to prohibit harsh interrogation techniques, including those used on terror suspects after 9/11, and has said that any CIA nominee must pledge to uphold the ban.

Meanwhile, Sanders' Saturday tweet drew some criticism, including from U.S. Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., who objected to Sanders' linking of the Haspel vote to womens empowerment or national security.

Dear @PressSec: Perhaps I missed it, but I dont see being complicit in torture as part of the agenda for either womens empowerment or our national security.

Walter Shaub, a former director of the U.S. Government Office of Ethics, tweeted a middle-ground response.

@PressSec @morgfair Seems to me that people can legitimately object to her role in torture while also encouraging this administration to increase the diversity of its appointees, Shaub tweeted.

Haspel, 61, is the first woman nominated for the CIA director position. If confirmed, she would replace former CIA Director Mike Pompeo, who was recently confirmed as U.S. Secretary of State.

Haspel, who joined the CIA in 1985, is currently the intelligence agencys acting director.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.Most candidates spend the weekend before an election making a last-minute appeal to voters.

Now, one candidate is making a last-minute appeal to his competitors probation officer.

In a press conference Sunday, West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey laid out a plan to have the former coal baron Don Blankenship disqualified from Tuesdays Republican Senate primary for failing to submit a financial disclosure, in violation of election law.

My campaign will be informing his probation officer in Nevada about this issue right away, to determine if this refusal to comply with federal law violates the terms of his supervised release, Morrisey said. West Virginians dont need a candidate who may not even be able to campaign in the state against Joe Manchin.

Blankenship recently served a year in jail on a misdemeanor conviction for conspiring to violate mine safety laws, connected to an explosion at the Upper Big Branch Mine in 2010 that killed 29 miners.

His probation is set to end Wednesday, the day after West Virginias primary.

According to the Blankenship campaign, the candidate has already spoken to his probation officer, who wasnt concerned about the financial disclosure.

Mr. Morrisey is just having a tantrum, Greg Thomas, a Blankenship strategist and spokesman, told Fox News. Everything will be OK in a few days.

For weeks, Morrisey aimed most of his attacks at another primary opponent, GOP Rep. Evan Jenkins, but refocused his attention on Blankenship this weekend, with the press conference Sunday and a robo-call Saturday.

If Blankenship wins Tuesdays primary, his campaign says paperwork detailing his finances will be released next week.The White House is standing behind President Trump's nomination of Gina Haspel to run the CIA, saying Sunday that partisan critics would not torpedo the president's pick.

The administration's response came after multiple reports said Haspel offered to withdraw her nomination Friday. Fox News could not independently verify those reports.

Raj Shah, a White House spokesman, called Haspel a highly qualified nominee. Her nomination will not be derailed by partisan critics who side with the ACLU over the CIA on how to keep the American people safe, he said.

A senior White House official also said Sunday that Haspel will not withdraw her nomination. Meantime, a former senior intelligence official said there had been a lack of visible support from the White House until this weekend. Her confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee is set for Wednesday.

Haspel, who would be the first woman to lead the CIA, is the first career operations officer to be nominated to lead the agency in decades. She served almost entirely undercover and much of her record is classified. Many Democrats have said she should be disqualified because she was the chief of base at a covert detention site in Thailand where two terrorism suspects were subjected to waterboarding, a technique that simulates drowning.

There has been a fascinating phenomenon over the last few weeks. Those who know the true Gina Haspel  who worked with her, who served with her, who helped her confront terrorism, Russia and countless other threats to our nation  they almost uniformly support her. That is true for people who disagree about nearly everything else. There is a reason for that, CIA spokesman Dean Boyd told Fox News on Sunday. When the American people finally have a chance to see the true Gina Haspel on Wednesday, they will understand why she is so admired and why she is and will be a great leader for this Agency.

Also backing Haspels nomination recently was former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, during an appearance last week on Fox and Friends.

If you were not in a position of authority on September 11th, you have no idea the pressures that we faced to try and make sure that this country wasnt attacked again, Rice said.

On the opposing side are groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union, which says she should have stood up against the interrogation practices then.

Chris Anders of the American Civil Liberties Union lamented last week: If confirmed, Gina Haspel would be the first and only person confirmed by the Senate  we believe in its entire history  with a known operational role in using torture.

Haspels vow to fight any attempt to resurrect the previous CIA program puts her in the same camp as Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who has advised Trump that he doesnt think torture is an effective interrogation tactic. But its at odds with Trump, who spoke in the campaign about toughening the U.S. approach to fighting extremists and vowed to authorize waterboarding and a hell of a lot worse.

Fox News' Jennifer Bowman, Catherine Herridge and The Associated Press contributed to this report.Hawaii officials on Sunday upped the number of destroyed homes to at least nine in the wake of last week's eruption of the Kilauea volcano.

The news was revealed in a 8:15 a.m. update from Hawaii County.

"Hawaiian Volcano Observatory confirms 2 more fissures emerged between Leilani and Malama Street near Luana and Kupono Street last night, bringing the total number of fissures to 9 at this time," it also said.

Fissures are vents through which lava is emitted from the volcano.

The Kilauea volcano erupted Thursday. The area also has been affected by extremely high levels of sulfur gas, and by several earthquakes, including one that hit on Friday at a magnitude of 6.9.

HAWAII VOLCANO, QUAKE EVACUEES SHARE STORIES OF SHOCK, FEAR, FRUSTRATION

The Leilani Estates subdivision on Hawaii's Big Island has been affected by the eruption and subsequent earthquakes.

"Conditions permitting, Leilani Estates residents with property between Highway 130 and Maile Street will be allowed to enter the subdivision to complete evacuation of pets, medicine and vital documents left behind between the hours of 8 AM to 6 PM," Hawaii County officials said Sunday morning.

"I have no idea how soon we can get back," Todd Corrigan, a resident of the Leilani Estates subdivision, said.

He said he and his wife left Friday as lava burst through the ground three or four blocks from their home. They spent the night on the beach in their car and began looking for a vacation rental.

On Sunday, Hawaii County Mayor Harry Kim tweeted about how people could donate to the victims.

HAWAIIS KILAUEA VOLCANO ERUPTS, MANDATORY EVACUATIONS ORDERED FOR MORE THAN 1,000 PEOPLE

Fox News' Zoe Szathmary, Lee Ross and The Associated Press contributed to this report.WARNING: ARTICLE CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGE

Nearly 200 horses were found dead in a stock pond on Navajo land in Arizona after widespread drought and famine hit the area, officials said.

About 191 wild horses died of natural causes in the pond in Gray Mountain, Navajo Nation Vice President Jonathan Nez said in a news release. Nez and Navajo Nation President Russell Begaye went to the scene to assess the incident last Wednesday.

These animals were searching for water to stay alive. In the process, they unfortunately burrowed themselves into the mud and couldnt escape because they were so weak, Nez said in the news release.

The horses will be buried onsite. Officials will be spreading hydrated lime to speed up decomposition before they are buried. The pond will then be permanently closed and covered and a new watering hole will be created at a different location.

This isnt the first time dozens of horses were found dead near a watering pond. Officials said the incident was a seasonal issue as Navajo communities attempt to solve their growing wild horse population. The Navajo Nation  territory that covers parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah  has an estimated 50,000 to 70,000 feral horses on the land. Navajo Nation officials said the ecosystem cannot support the amount of horses.

This tragic incident exemplifies the problem the Navajo Nation faces in an overpopulation of feral horses, Begaye said.

Arizona has been experiencing an unusual dry spell after a winter with little rain and snow. About 10 percent of Arizona is seeing exceptional drought, AZCentral reported. The forecast for the next three months also doesnt offer much hope for more rain to quell the drought.Fives boxes of live year-old crocodiles were seized at Heathrow Airport last week because of unfair transportation conditions.

Fifty young saltwater reptiles arrived in London on a flight from Malaysia, where their cramped quarters were discovered to have violated transportation regulations.

TSA HOLDS MAN AFTER FINDING COUGAR CARCASS IN LUGGAGE

Ten crocodiles were loaded into each of the five boxes, the BBC reported. However, the boxes were only supposed to hold four of the foot-long crocodiles.

The overcrowded boxes caused the crocodiles to fight during the approximately 14-hour flight. One of the reptiles died because of the conditions.

A Border Force spokesman said little attention had been paid to the crocodiles welfare, BBC reported.

The animals were heading to a farm in Cambridgeshire, where they were to be bred for meat, the news site reported, but were confiscated by officials from the Conventions on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

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Grant Miller, head of the national Border Force CITES team at Heathrow, said to BBC, "It is just not acceptable for reptiles to be transported in this way."

"We will seize anything that contravenes CITES regulations, so this should serve as a warning to those thinking about transporting wildlife in such conditions, he added.

The 49 crocodiles will be re-homed.Malaysian police have intercepted a tanker with 131 Sri Lankans believed bound for Australia and New Zealand, smashing a large human smuggling ring that has been operating for a year.

Authorities halted the modified tanker on Tuesday off the coast of southern Johor state, national police chief Mohamad Fuzi Harun said in a statement Saturday.

He said the immigrants included 98 men, 24 women, four boys and five girls.

Police also raided a fishing boat used to transport the migrants to the vessel and detained three Indonesians and four Malaysians on board, he said. Another five Malaysians were nabbed for suspected involvement in the smuggling syndicate.

"This syndicate has been operating since mid-2017 and has international connections across Sri Lanka, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia and Malaysia," Fuzi said.

A total of 127 Sri Lankans will be charged for entering Malaysia illegally while nine Malaysians, four Indonesians and four Sri Lankans will be investigated for human smuggling, he added.Nine months after an 8-year-old biracial boy was nearly hanged, a New Hampshire city is still healing from the alleged racially-motivated incident and grappling with diversity and inclusion.

Dozens of people gathered at a community college last week in Claremont, New Hampshire, at the latest of several listening sessions organized by Republican Gov. Chris Sununu's Advisory Council on Diversity and Inclusion. Some residents shared concerns about other racially charged events that have occurred in the area since the August incident.

The child's family didn't attend, but residents, law enforcement and town officials referenced the incident multiple times.

Claremont police said they couldn't comment on the case because minors are involved.A gunman, allegedly influenced by Parkland, Fla., shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz, shot at multiple cars on a highway in northern Georgia Friday before taking his own life, authorities said.

Police identified the Georgia suspect as Rex Whitemire Harbour, 26, a former student at the University of Georgia.

What his motivation was other than just hate, we dont know at this time, Hall County Sheriff Gerald Couch told reporters. He had the weapons, the ammunition and obviously the will to inflict a lot of harm and a lot of hate.

What his motivation was other than just hate, we dont know at this time. He had the weapons, the ammunition and obviously the will to inflict a lot of harm and a lot of hate.  Sheriff Gerald Couch, Hall County, Ga.

Found inside Harbour's vehicle were three 9mm pistols, a 12-gauge shotgun, a BB gun and more than 3,400 rounds of ammunition, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported.

Investigators found at least 17 shell casings near the site of the shooting, Couch told the newspaper, adding that none of the weapons were believed to have been stolen.

On Saturday morning, Couch said, a handwritten note had been found in Harbours home, proclaiming inspiration from Cruz, whom authorities allege killed 17 people at a high school in Parkland on Feb. 14.

Couch said Harbour hit seven cars on Highway 365 near Whitehall Road. Two people were hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

Investigators discovered a camera allegedly showing Harbour positioned on the south side of the highway, Couch said. Authorities pursued Habour but he allegedly shot himself and died en route to a hospital.

Habour reportedly had no criminal or violent history and passed background checks, Couch said.

An investigation is ongoing.The son of the grandmother dubbed Losing Streak Lois said his mother likely snapped before she allegedly murdered her husband and another woman to steal her identity.

Braden Riess spoke out for the first time last week after his mother, Lois Riess, was arrested at a waterfront restaurant on South Padre Island, Texas, in mid-April after a weeks-long search. The 56-year-old is accused of murdering her husband, David Riess, at their Minnesota home on March 23, then traveling to Florida and killing Pamela Hutchinson with the intention of stealing the woman's identity.

She literally snapped. My whole family is in shock. Nobody ever suspected anything like this. Nobody ever suspected anything like this. It has devastated our family, Braden told Inside Edition.

Braden said he never thought his mother would be accused of murdering his father. He called Riess a "good lady."

Im shocked. Im still shocked. Its like a bad movie. I feel like Im going to wake up, and its going to be back to normal, but its not, Riess youngest son said about the alleged murders.

'LOSING STREAK LOIS' RIESS, WANTED FOR MURDERS, ARRESTED IN TEXAS AFTER WEEKS-LONG SEARCH

Braden said his mother was always caring, always put herself second and us kids first.

Braden said his mothers gambling addiction may have triggered her meltdown. Riess was dubbed Losing Streak Lois for her reported fondness for gambling and was often spotted at casinos. She was reportedly more than $100,000 in debt at the time of her husbands death. Authorities said Riess also stole $11,000 from one of her husbands bank accounts.

Gambling is a terrible thing that can suck people in, destroy lives, Braden said, adding that it was unclear how much money his mother gambled away in one night.

"Just a mental breakdown," Braden said. "She had her own demons, you know, lately. Something happened in her brain that made her snap."

He also revealed his mother blew a $500,000 inheritance on gambling.

I just felt really bad for my mom. I felt like she was alone and desperate, Braden said about seeing surveillance video of her mother while she was evading authorities.

Riess was extradited to Florida, where she was charged with one count of second-degree murder, plus one count each of grand theft, grand theft of an automobile and criminal use of personal identification. Charges in Minnesota are pending.

Braden said he hasnt seen his mother since she was arrested, but said he would tell her he loves her when they see each other.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.Three New York City muggers jumped a teen for his expensive-looking sneakers -- that turned out to be fakes, according to reports.

The Air Jordans, which the 17-year-old victim was wearing, would have been worth $2,000 if they were the real deal, the New York Post reported.

The thieves found out they were knockoffs when they tried to sell them to a sneaker shop 20 minutes after the mugging, according to the paper. The violent April 28 assault in Flushing, Queens, in broad daylight was caught on camera.

The Post spoke to a store employee who said he didnt know the sneakers had been stolen.

He said they looked like authentic Air Jordans until he examined them more closely.

Theyre fake, he said he told the sellers. We cant buy them.

New York City police are looking for the suspects, who remain at large.

Video of the mugging shows the victim being jumped from behind, thrown to the ground and stripped of his sneakers, all in a few seconds. He is then seen chasing after the thieves, who flee in a white vehicle.

On Thursday police released video footage of the suspects inside the sneaker store, WCBS-TV reported.

The victim suffered cuts to his knees and arms in the mugging, according to the station.A junior at Temple University in Philadelphia was found shot and killed in his off-campus apartment Saturday night, university officials said.

Fox 29, citing Philadelphia Police, reported that 21-year-old Daniel Duignam, was shot in the stomach, arm and face.

In a statement, university President Richard Englert said Duignam was a business student from Tatamy, Pa. He added that investigators "do not believe that this was a random act."

ARREST MADE IN SLAYING OF TEMPLE UNIVERSITY STUDENT

"On behalf of everyone at Temple, I want to extend my deepest sympathies to Daniels family and friends at this tragic time," Englert said. "They are in the thoughts and prayers of us all."

Englert also said that the university would step up patrols around campus "as the investigation moves forward."

TEMPLE UNIVERSITY STUDENT SHOT DEAD BY MIAMI POLICE AFTER SHE RUNS OVER OFFICER

Duignam's murder is the latest tragedy to affect the North Philadelphia school. This past September, the body of 22-year-old transfer student Jenna Burleigh was found at a home in Hawley, Pa. Joshua Hupperterz, 29, faces murder charges in Burleigh's death.

The following month, 19-year-old freshman Richard Dalcourt fell to his death from a campus residence hall. Five days later, 22-year-old student Cariann Hithon was shot and killed by police in Miami Beach, Fla. after striking and injuring an officer with her car.

Click for more from Fox29.com.A Denver woman was cited Thursday for allegedly causing damage to a 7-Eleven store's microwave oven when she tried to heat a urine sample, authorities said.

A store clerk reported seeing the suspect, identified as Angelique Sanchez, 26, place something in the Aurora, Colo., stores microwave before hearing a loud bang seconds later, Denvers KUSA-TV reported, citing an Aurora Police Department report.

The clerk reportedly told Sanchez to clean up the mess or she would alert police. Sanchez then wiped out the microwave onto the floor with napkins and left, Pueblos KOAA-TV reported, also citing the police report.

The clerk then called police and told them she noticed yellow liquid dripping from the microwave and the smell was unquestionably urine.

Police later found Sanchez about a half-mile away, at a health clinic where she was waiting to undergo a physical exam and urinalysis for a potential job, according to the report.

One of the quality-check measures for a urine screening involves making sure the sample is at body temperature, or around 98.6 degrees, KUSA-TV reported.

Sanchez reportedly told police that she had cleaned up the mess and did not understand the problem.

When I reminded her that urine blew up where people prepare their food, she told me it was not real urine, a police officer wrote in his report.

When I reminded her that urine blew up where people prepare their food, she told me it was not real urine.  Police report

The officer said he issued Sanchez a summons for damaged property after informing her that the microwave is worth $500, KUSA-TV reported.

Sanchez was also not allowed to take the drug test that day, KOAA-TV reported.The body of a Marine killed more than 70 years ago in World War II was recently identified and brought back to his hometown in Wisconsin.

U.S. Marine Corps Cpl. Raymond A. Barker was buried with full military honors Saturday at Spring Grove Cemetery in Delavan, FOX 6 Milwaukee reported.

"Seventy-five years later after he was gone, here we are celebrating this event," Barkers nephew, John Gibbus, told the station.

"Seventy-five years later after he was gone, here we are celebrating this event."  John Gibbus, nephew of U.S. Marine Corps Cpl. Raymond A. Barker

Barker was killed on the first day of the Battle of Tarawa on Nov. 20, 1943, at age 22. Approximately 1,000 Marines and sailors were killed and more than 2,000 were wounded during the three-day fight against the Japanese resistance on the island of Betio in the Tarawa Atoll of the Gilbert Islands, located in the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and Papua New Guinea.

For nearly a century Barkers body was deemed non-recoverable, but last year scientists with the Department of Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) used advanced investigative techniques to discover areas on Tarawa believed to be burial sites for the battles fallen troops. The government agency works to provide the fullest possible accounting of missing personnel to their families and the country.

"They discovered some bones and matched them up with dental records and with DNA samples provided by family members," Gibbus told FOX 6. "That allowed them to identify the body."

"They discovered some bones and matched them up with dental records and with DNA samples provided by family members. That allowed them to identify the body."  John Gibbus, nephew of U.S. Marine Corps Cpl. Raymond A. Barker

Second Marine's remains also ID'd

The DPAA identified a second Marine from Tarawa who was also buried Saturday. Marine Corps Sgt. David Quinn, 24, was returned to his hometown of Temple, N.H., and received full military honors, like Barker.

A contingent of Marines awaited the arrival Barkers remains in the U.S., saluting his casket and placing it into a hearse, the station reported. Onlookers gathered to pay tribute, waving American flags and saluting the fallen hero as his remains were taken through the streets of Delavan.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker ordered flags to half-staff on Saturday in honor of Barkers service.

"These guys are giving the ultimate sacrifice to defend our right to be free," Don Lawrence told the station. "It's sad that somebody is coming home this way. I think it makes everyone here proud."

Barker, who was assigned to the 2nd Tank Battalion of the 2nd Marine Division, was buried next to his parents, the station said. A gold star had marked his place at the cemetery while he was considered missing in action.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.next Image 1 of 2

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From airplanes to oilfields, billions of dollars are on the line for international corporations as President Donald Trump weighs whether to pull America out of Iran's nuclear deal with world powers.

Regardless of where they are headquartered, virtually all multinational corporations do business or banking in the U.S., meaning any return to pre-deal sanctions could torpedo deals made after the 2015 agreement came into force.

That threat alone has been enough to scare risk-averse firms, like Boeing Co., into slow-walking deals agreed to months ago. A complete pullout by the U.S. would wreak further havoc and likely frighten off those considering taking the plunge.Lebanon is holding its first parliament elections in nine years, with more than 500 candidates vying for 128 seats.

According to Lebanon's sectarian-based power sharing system, the legislature is equally divided between Muslims and Christians. Established political parties and politicians are expected to get the lion's share of seats, but a record number of women, civil society candidates and independents are running, hoping to bring new faces and a degree of change to the corruption-plagued and debt-ridden country.

Here's a look at the main political parties and key players:

____

FUTURE MOVEMENT

The Future Movement of Prime Minister Saad Hariri was founded in the mid-1990s by his father, the late Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who was assassinated in a massive bombing in 2005. Hariri, a Sunni politician who also holds Saudi citizenship, currently heads the largest bloc in parliament. He is a critic of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group, which is nevertheless part of his unity government. Hariri's Future Movement is expected to lose some of its seats during Sunday's s elections due to a new electoral law that is likely to fragment the Sunni vote. Some of Hariri's supporters have also shifted their allegiance after the billionaire businessman, who also holds Saudi citizenship, laid off scores of employees in his development company because of Saudi spending cuts.

____

FREE PATRIOTIC MOVEMENT

The group founded by President Michel Aoun  a former anti-Syrian Christian opposition leader  has been a close ally of the Hezbollah militant group since the two political factions signed a memorandum of understanding in February 2006. FPM has the second largest bloc in parliament and has candidates running in different regions. The mostly Maronite Christian party enjoys wide support among many Shiites in Lebanon, who are likely to back the group in areas where they have presence. The FPM is now headed by Aoun's son-in-law, Foreign Minister Gibran Bassil, who is running for a seat.

____

HEZBOLLAH

The Shiite Muslim Hezbollah guerrilla group, backed by Iran and Syria, was founded in 1982 as a resistance movement to Israeli occupation of parts of Lebanon, and has since grown into Lebanon's most potent military and political force. The group runs an extensive network of charities, schools and clinics and enjoys strong support among Shiite Muslims and some Christians for its record of fighting Israel. Its decision to send its fighters to Syria to shore up President Bashar Assad's forces, however, is highly controversial, and may bring a degree of backlash from within the Shiite community. However, it is still expected come out as a winner in these elections, along with its allies. Hezbollah is expected to keep its 12 seats in parliament.

____

AMAL GROUP

The Shiite political group was founded in the 1970s by Imam Moussa al-Sadr, who went missing in Libya in 1978. The group is a close ally of Hezbollah and is headed by Lebanon's powerful parliament speaker, Nabih Berri. The 80-year-old Berri has held the post for more than 25 years and runs virtually uncontested. Berri is an ally of the Syrian government and is running in a coalition with the militant Hezbollah and other Syrian-backed parties.

____

PROGRESSIVE SOCIALIST PARTY

The main political party of Lebanon's Druze community, which makes up about 5 percent of the total population of Lebanon. The group is headed by leading Druze politician Walid Jumblatt, who is stepping aside in Sunday's election and is backing his eldest son, Taymour, for the seat. The group has several candidates running in coalition with Hariri's Future Movement, the right-wing Christian Lebanese Forces and others.

____

LEBANESE FORCES

The right-wing Christian party is the main Christian rival of President Michel Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement and has been one of the harshest critics of Hezbollah. Led by former Christian warlord Samir Geagea, who spent years in jail after the 1975-1990 civil war ended, the group is expected to win more than the eight seats it currently holds.

___

CIVIL SOCIETY

A record number of civil society activists, women and independents are running in these elections, hoping to ride a wave of popular discontent over Lebanon's myriad troubles, including endemic power cuts, a waste management crisis and soaring debt blamed on corrupt politicians. They face the almost impossible task of competing with sectarian warlords, established parties and wealthy politicians, but hope to at least make a dent in the system.Israels prime minister is set to visit Moscow for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin amid Middle East tensions.

Benjamin Netanyahus office said in a statement Saturday that they will discuss regional developments.

It said they will meet Wednesday at the Kremlin after attending a Victory Day parade marking the anniversary of the Soviet Unions victory over Nazi Germany.

The two leaders have met several times to coordinate activities in Syria, where Russia has placed significant forces.

Israel warns it will not tolerate its archenemy Iran establishing a military presence in neighboring Syria.

Israel has been suspected in a pair of airstrikes on Iranian targets in Syria, though it has not confirmed involvement, and Iran has threatened retaliation.Rescuers reached another miner among the 11 who were trapped after a 3.4-magnitude earthquake hit a coal mine in southern Poland, but he was unresponsive.

Four of the miners remained missing, an official said Sunday.

The head of the Jastrzebie Coal Co., Daniel Ozon, said the latest miner rescued from the Zofiowka colliery was taken to an underground base Sunday, where a doctor would check him. The miner had been trapped under some metal.

More than 200 rescue and support workers were still pressing to reach four other workers missing at the mine in the town of Jastrzebie-Zdroj, close to Poland's border with the Czech Republic.

So far there has been no contact with the four workers, who were stuck 2,950 feet underground. Emergency workers pumped air into the affected area to lower the level of methane gas before they can safely move ahead, Ozon said.

The rescue was launched at 11:25 a.m. local time Saturday. Four miners were rescued quickly but seven others went missing.

Two of the seven were later found alive and have been hospitalized.

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki visited the hospitalized miners Saturday night and met with their families.

An investigation into the accident is underway.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.A service for McKinney will be held at Seattle Centers McCaw Hall at 11 a.m. Tuesday, May 8. The family asks that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Morehouse College Alumni Fund in support of higher education of young black men; and to Fred Hutch to support programs that promote the involvement of minority communities in research.

The Rev. Dr. Samuel B. McKinney, a pillar of Seattles African American community, a champion for social justice and a former Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center board member, died last month at age 91. He will be eulogized Tuesday at a memorial service in Seattle.

A gifted speaker with a deep and sonorous voice, he took up a bullhorn for civil rights and served as pastor of Mount Zion Baptist Church for 43 years. He had met Martin Luther King Jr. when they were youngsters; they became friends when both were freshmen at Morehouse College. King visited Seattle in 1961 at McKinneys invitation; the pastor would later eulogize King from the pulpit of the Seattle church.

McKinney was also a great friend to Fred Hutch, serving on two separate Hutch boards from 1987 to 1995.

Sam served during a challenging period of rapid growth and the move to a new campus, said Neil McReynolds, who chaired the two Hutch boards on which McKinney was a member. The two also knew one another as members of the Rotary Club of Seattle.Free Freightnet Membership

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Before coming to work for The Daily News as a staff reporter, Connor worked for us as a freelance correspondent throughout 2017. He has written for other publications such as the Washington Post.Galveston, TX (77553)

Today

Mainly sunny. High 86F. Winds NNE at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Clear skies. Low 74F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph.The US Environmental Protection Agency has awarded the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality $466,276 to research better ways to monitor diesel exhaust to help protect Portlands most vulnerable citizens. To conduct this research, ODEQ is partnering with local colleges, community groups and government agencies.

Portland State University and Reed College will lead the research seeking better ways to measure diesel emissions impacts in specific Portland locations to better understand health impacts on certain demographic groupsincluding low-income residents, communities of color, youth and seniors. Neighbors for Clean Air, Multnomah County, City of Portland are also active partners for the two-year study, supporting community outreach and providing mapping and demographic information.

One part of this project will assess the relative contributions of diesel sources to particulate matter by continuously monitoring black carbon, particle size distribution and gaseous pollutants to distinguish between diesel sources and other PM sources. This work will produce source profiles for targeted diesel emissions sources and source attribution.

Other specific study goals:

Identifying specific areas of vulnerability in the Portland metro region;

Assessing the emissions contributions to particulate levels in those areas; and

Building the public knowledge base about air pollution and how it can contribute to chronic health diseases in Portlands underserved communities.

The ODEQ diesel monitoring research is funded through March, 2020.Welcome to followthemedia.com The article or material you have chosen...

Michael Hedges May 7, 2018

Times have changed in TV land. Cords are being cut. Ads are out; subscriptions in. Productions are getting bigger and, certainly, more expensive. More significant for some broadcasters, viewers see it all differently. A Burning Ambition For BignessMichael Hedges May 7, 2018 Follow on Twitter Times have changed in TV land. Cords are being cut. Ads are out; subscriptions in. Productions are getting bigger and, certainly, more expensive. More significant for some broadcasters, viewers see it all differently. ...is available for restricted access. You may access this specific article or material for 4 If you are an ftm Member, please go to the home page HERE and log in ftm Members can access all site material at no additional charge. You can JOIN ftm here The ftm newsletter available at no charge to all with registration To register click here.Liberals call for Elections Ontario probe of PCs 'Ford Nation Live' video adsThe Ontario Liberals say the Progressive Conservatives use of "fake news" videos as advertisements may violate campaign finance law and are calling for Elections Ontario to investigate the allegations."The Ford campaign may be using their fake news channel to skirt the Elections Finances Act by passing off their advertising as journalism," the Liberals said in a news release on Sunday, referring to PC Leader Doug Ford's campaign team."In trying to pass off political advertising as media coverage the Conservative campaign is not just misleading Ontarians, it may be running afoul of election laws," it continues.Ahead of the June 7 spring election, Ford's staff has been producing TV-news style videos under the banner of "Ford Nation Live." The videos feature a staffer narrating partisan messages, and include interview-style clips with Ford commenting on various provincial issues.The videos, which have collected hundreds of thousands of views, are shared on the PC party's Facebook page. They have also been re-purposed as online advertisements.It is their use as advertisements that has drawn allegations from the Liberals, who say the video ads violate the Election Finances Act. A review of the "Ford Nation Live" videos on Sunday morning shows that only one, posted in the morning on May 5, includes an image of the official PC party logo and a message underneath it that reads, "Authorized by the CFO for the Ontario PC Party."Sport

Chennai eye summit, Punjab and Kolkata chase play-off berth

Punjab and are lying at the sixth spot in the table behind Kolkata and Mumbai Indians, who have 12 points each. Punjab are out of the race virtually but mathematically they can still make it to the play offs.



Representative McDermott pulls his endorsement of John Carroll for Governor.

Cites involvement of fringe GOP troublemaker Eric Ryan and ongoing defamation of Carroll's rival Andria Tupola and her family.

News Release from Rep Bob McDermott (R-Ewa) May 4, 2018

Today Representative Bob McDermott officially withdrew his support for the gubernatorial campaign of John Carroll.

"If John can't control the civility his own campaign, he has no business running for governor," said McDermott. "It breaks my heart to see a fine man like John Carroll being exploited by the likes of Ryan, who prides himself in lowest form of mud-slinging "

"Eric Ryan claims to represents Republicans, but has done nothing but attack elected Republicans and party officials since he assumed control of HIRA (the Hawaii Republican Assembly)," added McDermott. "Unfortunately, he has expanded his unique brand of defamation and corrupted Carroll's campaign as well."

McDermott said he will withhold any future endorsement until a Republican candidate is chosen during the primary election.

Tupola has filed for a temporary restraining order (TRO) against Eric Ryan and a hearing has been scheduled for May 25th. The onslaught of accusations and derogatory internet assaults from Ryan continues unabated.

Ironically, Ryan was involved with John Carroll's campaign in 2008 which ended with him being fired and accused of forging documents and theft of funds by the candidate. McDermott was among many others who had recently warned Carroll about renewing his involvement with Ryan. Ryan has a long history of having disputes with former clients which inevitably result in false "criminal" accusations and cyber bullying against them by Ryan.

Several years ago Ryan was arrested after defying a TRO granted to Councilwoman Kymberly Pine for protection against similar harassment.

###Why the State Audit is Good Medicine for OHA

by OHA Trustee Kelii Akina PhD, Ka Wai Ola, May, 2018

A doctor's diagnosis can be uncomfortable or frightening. The worst thing to do, however, is to ignore or deny the diagnosis. The same is true for organizations being audited, as OHA was recently by the state Auditor.

By now, we are all familiar with that audit, published in February. ( http://files.hawaii.gov/auditor/Reports/2018/18-03.pdf ) The examination of OHA was thorough and the findings were scathing.

For those of us who see a doctor's diagnosis as a good thing, the audit findings were welcome. Unfortunately, some disagree, insisting that the Auditor's findings are skewed, biased or lacking of credibility. This narrative has been characterized by three myths.

Myth 1: It doesn't matter how the money was spent, as long as it was spent on Hawaiians.

This myth says that OHA can handle money inappropriately as long as it is spent on Hawaiians! The truth is that while OHA is required to spend its funds to help Hawaiians, OHA did not always do so in a way that was responsible or fair. For example, the auditor reports that nine out of 10 applications for Kulia grants lacked required information, demonstrating that funding was often awarded without proper due diligence.

This myth also does not address the question of which Hawaiians get the money. As the auditor pointed out, there were times staff funding recommendations were disregarded by the CEO. According to the auditor, awards were often granted to those who 'know who to ask.'

In the words of one veteran Trustee, as quoted by the auditor, "Most of us were leading with our hearts rather than with our heads." The problem is that Trustees are supposed to lead with our hearts AND our heads.

Myth 2: The state Auditor is not qualified and besides, the state has no business looking into OHA's finances.

The truth is, the Auditor is precisely the one to make such judgment calls and is the most experienced body, appointed by the Legislature, to examine the finances of our state agencies.

The second part of this myth is the idea that, as a semi-autonomous entity, OHA was never meant to be subject to the same set of checks and balances that govern other state agencies. While it's true that OHA is entrusted with discretion over WHAT it spends on, OHA must be accountable for HOW it spends.

Myth 3: Since the Auditor didn't recommend a change in leadership, a change in leadership is not needed.

A statement from the Office of Hawaiian Affairs in February stated that the Auditor did not recommend removal of OHA's CEO. Yes, that is correct, but it wasn't the role of the audit to tell Trustees what specific leadership decisions to make. It is ultimately up to the Trustees.

In conclusion, it is easy to see why the state audit findings elicited the same reaction as a frightening diagnosis. But all of us who love the patient- in this case OHA - need to stand up and say that denying the truth is the wrong medicine. The right medicine is to accept the diagnosis, prescribe the proper remedy, and move forward. Imua!RADNOR, Pa., May 06, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Kaskela Law LLC announces that a shareholder class action lawsuit has been filed against Colony NorthStar, Inc. (NYSE:CLNS) (Colony NorthStar or the Company) on behalf of purchasers of the Companys securities February 28, 2017 and March 1, 2018, inclusive (the Class Period).



Colony NorthStar investors are encouraged to visit www.kaskelalaw.com/case/colony-northstar to receive additional information about this action and submit their information online. Investors may also contact attorney D. Seamus Kaskela at (888) 715  1740, or via email at skaskela@kaskelalaw.com, to discuss their legal rights and options with respect to this action.

The shareholder class action complaint alleges that Colony NorthStar and certain of its senior executive officers made false and misleading statements and/or failed to disclose to investors that: (i) Colony NorthStars Healthcare and Investment Management segments were performing worse than reported; and (ii) as a result, Colony NorthStars public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times. The complaint further alleges that, as a result of the foregoing, investors purchased Colony NorthStars securities at artificially inflated prices during the Class Period and sustained significant investment losses when the truth was revealed.

On March 1, 2018, Colony NorthStar reported its financial and operating results for the quarter and year ended December 31, 2017. Therein the Company disclosed to investors a goodwill impairment of $375 million attributable to its Healthcare and Investment Management segments.

Following this news, shares of the Companys stock fell $1.78 per share, or nearly 23%, to close on March 1, 2018 at $6.00 per share.

Investors who purchased Colony NorthStar securities during the Class Period may, no later than June 5, 2018 , seek to be appointed as a lead plaintiff representative of the class through Kaskela Law or other counsel, or may choose to do nothing and remain an absent class member. In order to be appointed as a lead plaintiff a class member must meet certain legal requirements.

Kaskela Law LLC exclusively prosecutes shareholder actions in state and federal courts throughout the country on behalf of investors. For additional information about Kaskela Law LLC please visit www.kaskelalaw.com.

Investors who wish to discuss this action, their legal rights, or submit their information to Kaskela Law LLC for review are encouraged to contact the Firm or complete the information form on this page.

CONTACT:

KASKELA LAW LLC

D. Seamus Kaskela, Esq.

201 King of Prussia Road

Suite 650

Radnor, PA 19087

(888) 715  1740

skaskela@kaskelalaw.com

www.kaskelalaw.comThis item is available in full to subscribers.

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The account number and zip code are easily available on your most recent issue of the High Plains Journal or Midwest Ag Journal in the address fields as is shown here. Sometimes the account number has extra zero's in front of it, just ignore those.Every member of the department will spend some time learning how to pilot the new boat over the next few days.

Pittsfield Fire Upgrades Boat, Trains For Potential Water Rescues



Crews took shifts throughout Wednesday testing out the new equipment. PITTSFIELD, Mass.  With 80-degree temperatures on Wednesday, many county residents were thinking about getting their boats onto the lake.

And the Fire Department is no different. Except, the department is thinking about rescuing people after boat crashes, or kayaks tipping, and people drowning.

The department has just upgraded its boat and for the next week, every member of the department will be out on the lake, learning the new equipment and getting prepared for the potential water rescues firefighters will have to make.

"This is one of those high risk, low-frequency events. They don't happen a lot but they are very risky. It puts our guys at a serious risk," training Capt. Neil Myers said.

Last year, a group of Pittsfield firefighters went to the Massachusetts Fire Academy for a daylong training on water rescues. Myers said all of the training was done on rigid inflatable boats, which provide much more stability in the water.

Last fall, there was some room in the equipment budget and the department already owned an offboard motor, so it purchased the newer style boat to replace the metal dinghy.

"We've had that for a long time and it just proves to be difficult to do rescues in. To try and pull victims up onto the side of that, it was really tipsy. There is a reason why the Navy and Marines use these style boats. They have a low center of gravity. They sink into the water nice and deep," Myers said.

It also purchased a few new dry suits, boots for swift water, and netting designed to make pulling a victim into the boat easier.

Myers said the department only handles a couple water rescue calls per year. But he clearly remembers a boat accident on Onota Lake just a few years earlier and how difficult those responses can be.

"We train on this every year, even with the old boat. We train on getting in the water, how to backboard a person in the water. That is a real challenge. You have nowhere to stand. You are trying to keep yourself floating plus you are trying to put a board under a person, strap them on, and put head blocks on them. It is really, really tricky. So that's a lot of training. We'll be doing that in the summer," Myers said.

As the weather warms up, the new boat is in service. But, Wednesday was the first time most in the department has had a chance to pilot it.

Myers said when it comes to water rescues, the speed of response is the most important as the threat of drowning and hypothermia is present. He said the department's first goal when getting to a call is getting to the victim and giving them something to keep afloat. And then, the firefighters work to pull the victim in.

"We don't do a lot of rescues like this. One, two, three times a year there will be a boat accident or someone sucked into the lake in a kayak. It is rapid," Myers said.

"There is always the potential, like anything in this line of work."

Myers said the new boat vastly increases the speed the firefighters can get to the victim. The boat is always in service and as soon as the call comes in, the firefighters can deploy it to the scene.

"It is fast and we can deploy it in rivers, whereas the other one we couldn't," Myers said.If you're interested in submitting a Letter to the Editor, click here.

SubmitThe General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Pastor Enoch Adeboye, has said that Nigeria may not exist again if the killings in the country is not stopped immediately.







Adeboye made this statement while speaking at the monthly Holy Ghost service of the church which held at the RCCG camp ground on Friday night, May 4th.

The clergyman also warned that unless the killings stopped, there may not be elections in 2019 in Nigeria.

He added that the recent killing of two Catholic priests and 17 parishioners in a Catholic chirch in Benue state last month, should be a wakeup call to the Federal government. Accoridng to him, when he heard the news of the attack, he was unusually quiet.

His words:

I said there is no father who would lose 19 children in a day that will not be quiet. She said what do you mean, because she hadnt heard the news that in a church, somebody went in and shot 19 people. It doesnt matter the denominationby the special grace of God, all Christians in Nigeria call me daddy. So when any of them dies, its my son or daughter that is dead. I am going to ask you to join me in prayer, because unless these killings stop, and stop immediately, even Nigeria may not live. I am not talking about individuals now, I am talking about Nigeria itselfa bishop asked me not too long ago, Daddy, has God told you who win the next election? I said, Sir, I am not even sure yet there will be an election. Because unless these killings stop there may be no elections next year. Are you prophesying , Daddy? No, no! I am not prophesying. I am just reasoning. Because nobody will want to go out to vote if they are not sure they will be able to return home safely.

The clergyman went further to say that no nation can survive a religious war.

Its a terrible thing. A nation may survive a civil war, but no nation can survive a religious war a remain the same. That Nigeria may live these killings must stop. So all of you who love Nigeria, I want to rise on your feet, and cry to God with all your heart, and say: Father, let the killings stop that Nigeria may live, please God let the killings stop.

Nigeria is the heavenly nation of Africa, where tourists enjoy their stay to its peak.

Nigeria is of significant importance in the world because of its extraordinary geographical location, unique cultural architecture; stunning scenery, friendly inhabitants and vigorous nightlife that encourage tourists to visit this nation several times.







Nigeria contains some of the most stunning cities in Africa, some of these cities include: Port Harcourt, Kaduna, Benin City, Lagos, Abuja etc. Lagos, for instance, is the second biggest city in Africa.

Getting into Nigeria is not an issue because of its world-class international airport  Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA).

1. Weather Conditions

While in this cool country, you can enjoy almost all types of climate conditions like rainfall, humidity, sunshine etc.

Nigerian weather is usually hot and humid because of its location, with a normal temperature of 30 degrees.

The hottest season usually starts sometime in February and ends around May, during this season even the nights are warm with the temperature of about 26 degree Celsius. If you enjoy rainy season, then May and June are the ideal months for your visit to Nigeria.

2. Nigeria Is The Land Of Opportunities

Nigeria is essentially a virgin business country with the capacity for many fresh business ideas. If you have a great business idea and the capital, you will make a lot of money in this beautiful country. Why? There are more than 160 million individuals and a big informal market of customers.

If you are lucky enough to find the right market section and establish a business, your net profit will go through the roof. For example, at the arrival of cell phones in Nigeria, MTN, a South African Company came into Nigeria as one of the first overseas investors.

It is believed that MTN makes a great deal of cash from Nigeria than its home nation, likewise so many other companies.

3. Nigeria Flag

The Nigerian white and Green flag is an eminent national image. The white colour symbolizes unity and peace while the green colour symbolizes agriculture.

Other national images include the Nigerian Coat of Arms, which shows an eagle on a dark shield, trisected by 2 wavy silver bands, and supported on both sides by 2 chargers.

The national motto lies beneath the coat of arms: Unity and Faith, Peace and Progress.

4. Nigerian Accent

The Nigerian accent is presently positioned by CNN Global Experiences as the fifth sexiest accent on the planet.

5. Nigerian Food

Nigeria is so great when it comes to things given to them by nature to make food  Oka, Amala, Egbo, Koun, Agbalumo, Orobo (Jumbo Mirinda), Dodo Ikire, Kulikuli, Gbegiri, Ipekere (Plantain chips), Fufu, Abari-maize cake, Ole (beans cake), Rice, Kpukpuru-Ilaje, Iyan-Pounded Yam, Zobo, Abula, Pomo, Bbaba dudu, Kilishi, Ewedu all known to the wide variety of Nigerian communities but definitely without simple identifiable English equivalents.

6. The Concept Of Family In Nigeria Is Great

The responsibility, the sense of belonging and the care shared within families is exceptionally great.

Family connections are valued and traced as far as second and third cousins. More often than not you will get to hear of my towns man being likened to my brother or my sister.

Nigerians live a communal lifestyle. In Nigeria, the extended family is part of the immediate family.

7. Nigerians Are Happy People

Nigerians celebrate every occasion. They have greetings for a new car, a new month, a new wife, etc. In Nigeria, even your new phone can be a reason to celebrate.

8. Nigerian Women

Nigerian ladies are tasteful, beautiful and stand out easily, with their great feeling of design.

Agbani Darego, previous Miss World, is a good example of this. Nigerian ladies are conceived fashionistas.

9. Friendliness

Nigerians are exceptionally friendly  to a Nigerian, you do not need to receive an invitation to come visiting as you can visit anybody anytime you want. Be sure to receive a warm reception from total strangers in several parts of the nation for simply showing up at their doorstep.

Respecting the elders is very vital in Nigeria. A youngster will always stand up for a senior to sit in a waiting room.

10. Intelligence

The average Nigerian is naturally intelligent. History is loaded with stories of Nigerians everywhere all over the planet, accomplishing academic feats, one of which is Ibraheem Saheela, who at 15, has actualized the objective of receiving admission to the prominent Harvard University, with the goals of becoming a research scientist, studying the human brain.

Nigeria launched the first satellite to be designed and built by Africans.

Be proud of your country.ASHLAND, Ore. -- Students who were a part of Oregon Student Public Interest Research Group (OSPIRG), a student ran, student lead organization at Southern Oregon University (SOU); gathered together today to hold a rally against the proposed Jordan Cove LGN Pipeline.

The pipeline would move compressed natural gas through the state to an export facility in Coos Bay.

The Students today were focused on getting the attention of Governor Brown in hopes that she will make moves against the Pipeline project.

Wen asked why they were against the pipeline, this is what they said, It cuts through about 400 different waterways, including the Rogue River. It cuts through wildfire-prone-zones and since its in a gaseous form at that point, one little spark and we have more wildfires that we did last summer, said the OSPIRG chapter chair, Darcy Obrien.

OSPRIG is also concerned about the multiple species of wildlife and different habitats that would be affected and the lands that would be in the direct path of the pipeline.

This pipeline also cuts through indigenous land, including sacred land and burial grounds, explained Obrien.

According to the Jordan Cove LNG Pipeline website, the pipeline would provide economic growth to the area, along with temporary and permanent jobs to southern Oregon. The website also states, the proposed Jordan Cove LNG facilities will be subject to stringent environmental review to ensure that the construction and operation of the facilities will have minimal environmental impact.

The students against the pipeline say they plan to send a petition to the Governor to take action to stop the pipeline.KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. (AP) - A drop in river flows in the Klamath River has resulted in a die-off of fish and other creatures below the Keno Dam in southern Oregon.

The Bureau of Reclamation says the water was drawn down to charge an irrigation canal for Basin farmers.

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife confirmed the fish kill to Oregon Public Broadcasting. Fish including sculpin, catfish and minnow were stranded due to low river flows.

The Bureau of Reclamation, which controls the river flows, began dropping the levels in late April as part of a water-borrowing deal between farmers and the utility that owns the dams farther downstream.

OPB reports that over a two-day period, the federal agency decreased flows out of Upper Klamath Lake by about 85 percent.

A southern Oregon fishing guide noticed the dead fish and reported it to officials.

___

Information from: KOPB-FM, http://news.opb.org

(Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

5/6/2018 11:30:34 AM (GMT -7:00)Patrick Caldicott, left, shares a laugh with Laelo Vervecken-Wong, 4, as he's held by his mom Anika Vervecken, centre, while posing for a photograph along with Megan Brydie, right, who all live together in a house, in Vancouver, B.C., on Monday April 30, 2018. In a city known for soaring real estate prices, low vacancies and a frostiness to strangers, some Vancouver residents are finding innovative ways of blending their housing and social needs. It's called collective housing, where several people live together not only to share a space, but to create a community where resources and work are shared. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl DyckOntario Premier Kathleen Wynne speaks during the federal Liberal national convention in Halifax on Friday, April 20, 2018. The leaders of Ontario's three main political parties will square off on the same stage for the first time Monday, just days before the official start of the province's spring election campaign. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darren CalabresePipes are seen at the pipe yard at the Transmountain facility in Kamloops, B.C., Monday, March 27, 2017. A three-week pipeline monitoring program at SAIT Polytechnic in Calgary is a pilot project, delving into inspection techniques, pipeline operations and safety a all through an Indigenous lens. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan HaywardResidents transport sandbags to their homes cut off by flood waters in Rothesay, N.B. on Saturday, May 5, 2018. Swollen rivers across New Brunswick are still rising, flooding streets and properties and forcing people from their homes in several communities. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew VaughanJustin Allen and his sled dogs are shown in this undated handout photo. A New Brunswick man making his way across Canada on a dog sled says he's on track to arrive in his final destination in a week's time after being set back by warm weather and flooding. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-Justin Allen, *MANDATORY CREDIT*Former federal Conservative interim leader Rona Ambrose speaks to reporters in Red Deer, Alta., on Saturday, May 5, 2018. Ambrose told reporters after a speech to United Conservative party members at their founding policy convention that she is creating a non-profit group to get more women to run for the party, but says the goal is equal opportunity and not quotas. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Dean BennettFILE - In this Aug. 29, 2015 file photo, Iran's President Hassan Rouhani waves to reporters at the conclusion of a press conference in Tehran, Iran. President Donald Trump is weighing whether to pull the U.S. out of Iran's nuclear deal, a 2015 agreement that capped over a decade of hostility between Tehran and the West over its atomic program. A picture of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei hangs on the wall behind Rouhani. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi, File)FILE - This combination of two file photos shows U.S. President Donald Trump, left, speaking during a roundtable discussion on tax cuts in Cleveland, Ohio, May 5, 2018 and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, right, talking with South Korean President Moon Jae-in in Panmunjom, South Korea, April 27, 2018. With just weeks to go before President Trump and North Korean leader Kim are expected to hold their first-ever summit, Pyongyang on Sunday, May 6, 2018, criticized what it called "misleading" claims that Trump's policy of maximum political pressure and sanctions are what drove the North to the negotiating table. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, Korea Summit Press Pool via AP, File)KIMT News 3 - Meet the six Golden Apple Teachers of the Year finalists.

Melinda Masters from Lincoln Elementary in Charles City was nominated by former students who felt she deserved recognition for the impact she left on them.

They can have my heart as well as I want their heart to build that peace up so we can learn together, Masters said.

Amy Mitchell from Lincoln Elementary in Osage won her award for helping a deaf student succeed, both in and out of the classroom.

Even on her days off Izzy has lost one of her cochlear implants in the park during the summer and her and her husband searched everywhere for it and found it, Brittany Toupal said.

Tamara Johnson from John Adams Middle School in Mason City wants her kids know they can make a difference.

I'm here to teach the kids but at the same time, Im here to be someone they can rely on, Johnson said.

North Butler Elementary teacher Laci Hoogestraat makes sure her classroom fits the needs of her students, designing desks to help them learn.

This is my job I love what I do I love the kids and really whatever I can do to help them learn and be successful is what Ill do, Hoogestraat said.

Kyle Rosedahl at Leroy-Ostrander High School has fellow teachers recognizing his efforts to be the best educator he can be.

Kyle was very deserving of the award. A lot of the teachers to me don't get the recognition they deserve, Rosedahl said.

Lastly, there's Alissa Sauer at Southwest Middle School in Albert Lea. She's making daily efforts to keep her classroom exciting and different so students stay engaged.

Change up the projects we do because if it gets boring for them it gets boring for me too, so I always try something different, Sauer said.DECORAH, Iowa  A trial date has been set for a northeast Iowa 19-year-old accused of drug and sex crimes.

Caleb Allen Fenske of Ridgeway is charged with two counts of sexual exploitation of a minor as well as drug distribution to someone under 18, OWI-first offense, and failure to affix a drug tax stamp.

He was stopped by the Winneshiek County Sheriffs Office on March 24 and accused of driving under the influence and giving marijuana to a 16-year-old female passenger. Authorities say they then found nude photos of an underage female on Fenskes phone in April, as well as a video of Fenske and the minor female having sex.

Fenske is pleading not guilty to all charges and his trial will begin on July 11.MASON CITY, Iowa - This week, KIMT has been on the scene of several crashes.

The most recent one occurred Friday afternoon, when a multi-vehicle crash on Interstate 35 in Cerro Gordo County left two people injured. So are there more crashes than usual?

Michael Espinosa of Mason City says he has noticed an increase lately, as well as people speeding.

"People are always in a hurry anymore. They gotta be somewhere at a certain time and everything, and they're not really watching where they're doing," Espinosa says.

Rebecca O'Green just moved back to Mason City from Florida, and has also noticed more accidents involving speeding, as well as tailgating.

"They're in a hurry to get to where they're going, and they take it for granted that they're gonna be OK. And that they can stop. I know there's a lot of tailgating going on," O'Green says.

According to a 2015 report from the Iowa DOT, 784 fatal and major crashes were related to speeding from 2010 to 2014. In addition, according to the Iowa State Patrol, half of all accidents statewide occur due to speeding. For this year to date, there have been 85 fatalities on Iowa highways.

In addition, O'Green believes that drivers being distracted by things such as cell phones is causing some accidents.

"They shouldn't have it. They shouldn't be looking down. Because even back in the day where there wasn't cell phones, people reach down to get something they drop, there's an accident. You can't take your eyes off the road," O'Green adds.

Espinosa advises drivers to just slow down, and allow extra time to get to your destination.

"Leave earlier, it gives you a little time in case if something happens. You could be in an accident or something you know, but you really need to pay attention of what you're doing when you're driving," Espinosa adds.

According to Iowa DOT utility coordinator Pete Hjelmstad, recent safety initiatives such as cable median barriers, rumble strips and paved shoulders are helping decrease the severity of some accidents.AUSTIN, Minn.  The first sentence has been handed down in a drug task force investigation.

Three people were arrested after a traffic stop on Mower County Road 2 on December 18, 2017. Law enforcement says a search of the vehicle found 1.44 grams of methamphetamine, a small amount of marijuana, drug paraphernalia, a .38 caliber pistol, and ammunition. That led to a search of an Austin home where authorities say they discovered nearly 12 grams of meth, marijuana, marijuana wax, a mirror with meth residue, drug paraphernalia, and a box of rifle ammunition.



Jennifer Spaeth Jennifer Spaeth

Ryan Baldus Ryan Baldus

Cully Thomas Shierts, 21 of Albert Lea, pleaded guilty to 5th degree drug possession and possessing ammunition as a drug user. Hes been given five years of supervised probation and must perform 40 hours of community work service.

Jennifer Ann Elizabeth Spaeth, 28 of Albert Lea, has pleaded guilty to two counts of 5th degree drug possession and illegal transportation of a pistol and ammunition. Her sentencing is scheduled for May 24.

Ryan Jiles Baldus, 27 of Austin, is pleading not guilty to two counts of 5th degree drug possession and being a violent felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition. His trial is set to begin July 23.ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Rochester's Walk MS raised more than $46,000. The money will go towards multiple sclerosis research and helping people who have MS pay for their medications and cover costs like updating home bathrooms to make them more accessible.

Teams came to the walk decked out with matching shirts and fun outfits to show support for people fighting MS.

"It's a perfect day for a walk and the more people that get out there, the more awareness there is," says Jenni Ohm. She is a part of Team Tasha to support her friend Tasha Murray of Byron, who has MS.

Team Abby Normal was the leading team for fundraising. They raised more than $5,000 for the cause. The team of Rochester physical, occupational, and recreational therapists, were led by their team captain Abby Jones, who was diagnosed with MS in January. "Abby Normal because Abby is normal even though there's MS," explains Jones.

Nationwide, more than 300,000 people participated in more than 400 walks.Wilderness Wildlife Week presents 250 free seminars, concerts, outdoor excursions, May 8-12







Tennessee WIldlife Resources Agency displays wildlife information -- Image by Jeaneane Payne



PIGEON FORGE, TN  One of the most attended events in the Smokies is Pigeon Forges award-winning Wilderness Wildlife Week. This year it will be held May 8-12. More than 100 new sessions have been added. Young outdoor enthusiasts can enjoy some of these. The event is headquartered at the LeConte Center at Pigeon Forge.



Wilderness Wildlife Week is in its 28th year. It offers a variety of workshops, lectures, seminars, concerts, hikes and other activities designed to introduce or reacquaint participants of all ages with the great outdoors.



Wilderness Wildlife Week showcases a diverse range of speakers and experts who share their vast knowledge of life in the Great Smoky Mountains, said Pigeon Forge Executive Director of Tourism Leon Downey. From a fishing tournament for kids to an 11-mile hike to Mt. Cammerer, Wilderness Wildlife Week offers something for everyone.



Wilderness Wildlife Week was named a Top 20 Event in the Southeast for May 2018 by the Southeast Tourism Society. Wilderness Wildlife Week also claimed a Gold Kaleidoscope Award - top honors - in the 2018 Southeast Festival and Events Associations Best Event Program category. The headline session includes Ken Jenkins, Judy Felts and Friends in a program entitled Heaven and Nature Sing (May 8 at 7 p.m.). Forensics experts Dr. Bill Bass and Art Bohanan (May 9 at 8:30 p.m.) return to discuss forensic cases throughout the Smoky Mountains region. Also, several historic Sevier County houses of worship are the focus of two outings led by Kathy Gwinn.



Outdoors enthusiasts, nature lovers or those who simply want to learn more about Great Smoky Mountains National Park can choose from various lectures. Topics range from the areas rich heritage to conservation. Outdoor demonstrations include back country and Dutch oven cooking. Workshops focus on basket weaving, photography, fishing, wildflowers and more.



Among the new sessions this year are:

 My Wild Life: From Bears, Panthers and Pandas to People with Ken Johnson

 Frontier Life: Womens Role in Western Frontier Living in North Carolina with the Overmountain Victory Trail Association

 The Ragmen of Appalachia featuring Joseph Williams, Ranger Recollections of Great Smoky Mountains National Park in the 1960s with Joe Kelley

 The White Caps: The Great Unmasking presented by Don Williams, and a Great Smoky Mountains Association film series.



Hikers of all experience levels can choose from several excursions each day. Highlights include:

 11-plus-mile hike to the Mt. Cammerer Fire Tower located less than a mile off the Appalachian Trail (May 11 from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.)

 Six-hour hike highlighting the People and Places of Cades Cove (May 11 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.)

 A nearly five-mile Hen Wallow Falls trek that takes hikers through a hemlock and rhododendron forest (May 11 from 7:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.)

 2.5-mile Cades Cove Loop Road Night Hike (May 10 from 8-10:30 p.m.).





Cades Cove memorabilia -- Image by Jeaneane Payne

A special kids track is offered for younger outdoors enthusiasts Participants can learn more about topics ranging from composting, snakes, and photography. Jenkins, an acclaimed photographer, leads a first-time session entitled Connecting to Nature in which he examines how to engage wildlife and experience first-hand some of the ways to connect to nature and capture its beauty. A childrens Old-Time Scavenger Hunt (10 a.m. to 2 p.m.) and Kids Trout Tournament (8 a.m. to 1 p.m. for children ages seven to 12) both take place on Saturday, May 12.



More than 50 exhibits and vendors, including the not-for-profit Cades Cove Preservation Association and Onsite Heritage Museum, East Tennessee Historical Society, Keep Sevier Beautiful, and Tennessee Trail of Tears, are open daily during the conference beginning at 10 a.m. in LeConte Hall.



This spring celebration of the great outdoors is free and everyone is invited. For more information, a complete schedule and registration details, visit MyPigeonForge.com.



About Pigeon Forge:

Pigeon Forge is located in East Tennessee, approximately 35 miles from Knoxville and McGhee-Tyson Airport. Two-thirds of the nations population east of the Mississippi River lives within a days drive, making it an easily accessible family vacation destination. The citys neighbor is Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the most-visited national park in the U.S. It also is home to Dolly Partons Dollywood theme park, Tennessees most-visited ticketed attraction. More information about all aspects of Pigeon Forge are available at MyPigeonForge.com or toll-free at 1-800-251-9100 and at SmokyVacations.com. Published May 6, 2018













U.S. President Donald Trump spoke with Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May on Saturday on issues including the Iran nuclear deal, a week before the president is to decide whether Washington will leave the pact, the White House said.



Trump is set to decide by May 12 whether to withdraw from the 2015 Iran deal, in which the Islamic Republic agreed to curb its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. Trump has all but decided to withdraw, White House officials said on May 2.



Still, Trump could figure out a way to stay in the deal between the Islamic Republic and six world powers: Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States.



Britain, France and Germany agreed that the deal is the best way of stopping Tehran from getting nuclear weapons, May's office said in late April.



French President Emmanuel Macron urged Trump to stay in the deal when he met with the president in Washington last month.



In the call with May, Trump "underscored his commitment to ensure that Iran never acquires a nuclear weapon," the White House said.



The two also talked about nuclear issues in North Korea. "As planning continues for his upcoming meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, President Trump emphasized his goal of a denuclearized North Korea," the White House said.



British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is traveling to Washington on Sunday for a two-day visit, when he will meet Vice President Mike Pence and national security adviser John Bolton, for talks on Iran, North Korea, Syria and other issues, Britain said.



"The UK, the United States, and European partners are "united in our effort to tackle the kind of Iranian behavior that makes the Middle East region less secure - its cyber activities, its support for groups like Hezbollah, and its dangerous missile program, which is arming Houthi militias in Yemen," Johnson said in a statement.



Trump is slated visit the United Kingdom in July. (Reuters)



Rudy Giuliani said Saturday that three Americans detained in North Korea may be freed "over the next several days," revising his previous remark that the release may happen on Thursday.



"There is a good chance that the three long-time hostages in North Korea will be released over the next several days," Giuliani, a former New York mayor who recently joined President Donald Trump's legal team, was quoted as saying in a speech at the Iran Freedom Convention in Washington, D.C.



On Thursday, he indicated that they may be released that day in an interview with Fox News. "We got Kim Jong-un impressed enough to be releasing three prisoners today," he said.



The detainee issue is widely expected to be resolved ahead of a planned meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.



The U.S. citizens -- Kim Hak-song, Tony Kim and Kim Dong-chul -- have been held in the North on charges of espionage or "hostile acts" against the regime.



According to a South Korean activist who cited a Pyongyang resident, the three were moved from a labor camp to a hotel near Pyongyang in early April by order of superior authorities.



Trump hinted at the possibility of their release on Wednesday, tweeting, "As everybody is aware, the past Administration has long been asking for three hostages to be released from a North Korean Labor camp, but to no avail. Stay tuned!"



Trump and Kim are expected to meet by early June to discuss the denuclearization of the regime. An announcement on the date and location will likely come within days, the U.S. president has said.



North Korea has a track record of using hostages to force the United States to open bilateral talks.



Former U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter traveled to Pyongyang after they left office to win the release of American detainees.



In the latest case, then-U.S. nuclear envoy Joseph Yun went to Pyongyang in June to bring home Otto Warmbier, an American college student who was detained for allegedly removing a political poster from a hotel in Pyongyang.



Warmbier was found to be in a coma and died shortly after returning to the U.S. (Yonhap)



Robert Gallucci, Georgetown University professor and former chief U.S. negotiator during North Korea's 1994 nuclear standoff, talks during an interview with The Korea Times at the Shilla Hotel in central Seoul, Thursday. / Korea Times photo by Hong In-ki



By Lee Suh-yoon, Lee Min-hyung



A U.S. expert on North Korea's nuclear issue said it might be unrealistic to continue pushing for "a complete, verifiable and irreversible" denuclearization (CVID) of North Korea's nuclear programs, despite the North's commitment to denuclearization.



Robert Gallucci, the former chief U.S. negotiator during the 1994 North Korean nuclear crisis, said the standards for denuclearization set by the popular notion of CVID would be physically impossible.



"We cannot verify the declaration of the North," Gallucci said during an exclusive interview with The Korea Times, Thursday, during his participation in the Korea Forum 2018 co-hosted by the English daily and its sister paper the Hankook Ilbo.



"We can verify the destruction of what they declare but if they declare 25 nuclear weapons, we cannot verify that's all they have. This material and this number of weapons are too small, and North Korea is too big for us to know. It's just a fact that North Korea will forever enjoy this ambiguity."



So continuing to emphasize the CVID in future discussions about North Korea would mislead the general public, Gallucci said. Instead, striving for a temporarily setback in North Korea's nuclear weapon production schedule, he believes, can be a more accurate depiction of possible international efforts to curb North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's nuclear program.



"What we're really talking about is 'time to weapon,' as a metric to how close a country is to nuclear weapons," Gallucci said. "We heard this in detail during the negotiations over Iran  to stretch out the 'time to weapon' from a matter of weeks to months to a matter of years."



Even if successful, this "stretching out" of North Korea's nuclear weapon production schedule would be temporary, Gallucci said.





Bangladeshi Ambassador to Korea Abida Islam speaks with The Korea Times at her office in Dongbinggo-dong, Seoul, April 30. / Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk



By Yi Whan-woo



Building "Shonar Bangla," meaning Golden Bengal in Bengali, has been Bangladesh's goal since it declared independence from Pakistan in March 1971 under the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.



The country met all criteria as required by the United Nations to graduate from the least developed country category, just before its Independence Day this year.



Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the late founder's daughter, is now aiming for Bangladesh to become a middle-income country by 2021 and a developed country by 2041.



An investment seminar in Seoul on May 18 to be co-hosted by Embassy of Bangladesh and Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA) is expected to help the country to speed efforts to build "Shonar Bangla," according to Bangladeshi Ambassador to Korea Abida Islam.



The seminar will aim to promote Bangladesh as "a land with huge untapped potential" by offering details about investment opportunities, infrastructure and utility support for prospective investors.



The targeted industries are telecommunication, information and communication technology (ICT), energy, road infrastructure, shipbuilding, garment design and production, leather production, pharmaceuticals, ceramics, light engineering and agro processing.



"I must underline that the Republic of Korea has been a good friend of Bangladesh," the ambassador told The Korea Times at the embassy on April 30. "It has been our important development partner for the past four decades and is assisting us in a wide range of areas.



"But there are lots of potential areas that are yet to be explored by the Korean investors and leading business houses here.



"To sustain our socio-economic development, we need all the support and economic cooperation from friendly countries like the ROK."



Bilateral trade reached $1.4 billion during the 2016-17 period from $22.86 million in 2005.



The trade is in favor of Seoul. More than 200 Korean companies have business in Bangladesh, including Samsung, LG, Posco Daewoo, GS Engineering and Construction, Hyundai Group, Youngone Corporation and Korea Water Resources Corporation



Bangladesh is ranked second-biggest recipient of Korea's Economic Developme nt Co-operation Fund (EDCF). Bangladesh has received about $1 billion from the fund.Israeli Ambassador to Korea Chaim Choshen delivers a speech at the ceremony marking Israel's 70th anniversary at Grand Hyatt in Seoul on May. 2. / Korea Times photo by Yi Whan-woo



By Yi Whan-woo



Israel has made it a priority to sign a free trade agreement (FTA) with Korea, says Israeli Ambassador to Korea Chaim Choshen.



During Israel's 70th anniversary commemoration in Seoul last week, the ambassador also said his country is a world leader in research and development and more Korean companies, in addition to Samsung, LG and Hyundai Motor, are welcome to operate R&D projects there.



"Our first priority is that we will be able to conclude the negotiations on the FTA between Israel and Korea and sign it soon," Choshen said during an anniversary ceremony at Grand Hyatt Seoul on May 2.



The two countries have been in FTA negotiations since June 2016.



The ambassador said signing a bilateral FTA is a "very important task" and it would increase the trade volume from $2.3 billion to "a much higher sum."



He said a possible trade deal would also yield many other benefits to Israel and Korea.



Israel's higher-learning institutions and research centers are ranked top in the world and the country has grown into a "startup nation" and a "powerhouse of technologies and technological knowhow," according to Choshen.



Multinational companies Intel, Google, Microsoft, Samsung and LG run R&D projects in Israel.



"Recently Hyundai Motor identified Israel as an important world center for the car industry and signed a memorandum of understanding with the Technion, the MIT of Israel related to autonomous cars. I sure hope more Korean companies will follow," Choshen said.



The ambassador stressed that several Israeli scientists have won the Nobel Prize, and Israel is one of a few countries that could launch satellites and is a world leader in advanced agriculture.



"We are always happy to share our knowhow with other countries and indeed, we do so," he said.





Former Prime Minister Lee Hong-koo, second from right, proposes a toast with Israeli Ambassador to Korea Chaim Choshen, third from right, and other dignitaries during the commemoration of Israel's 70th anniversary at Grand Hyatt in Seoul on May. 2. / Korea Times photo by Yi Whan-wooSouth Korean President Moon Jae-in and U.S. President Donald Trump will hold talks in Washington later this month ahead of Trump's meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, the White House said Friday.

The summit will take place at the White House on May 22.

"President Trump and President Moon will continue their close coordination on developments regarding the Korean Peninsula following the April 27 inter-Korean Summit," the White House said in a statement. "The two leaders also will discuss President Trump's upcoming meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un."

Seoul's presidential office Cheong Wa Dae also confirmed the schedule for the Moon-Trump meeting, saying the presidents will discuss ways to ensure the success of the forthcomming U.S.-North Korea summit.

"In this summit, (Moon and Trump) plan to reaffirm the solid alliance between South Korea and the U.S. and the two countries' deep friendship," Kim Eui-kyeom, Seoul's presidential spokesman, said in a statement. "They will focus on discussing ways to successfully prepare for the upcoming North Korea-U.S. summit."

Just a day after the April 27 inter-Korean summit, Moon and Trump held phone talks during which they vowed to closely cooperate on the denuclearization issue.



Scuffles broke out between police and protesters near inter-Korean border on Saturday (May 5) as South Korean civic group led by North Korean defector tried to send anti-North Korea leaflets across the border using balloons.

Park Sang-hak, who has previously launched message balloons into the North, planned to send 300,000 leaflets but was blocked by police and residents of border village. Park denounced North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's gesture as a fake and said he already sent some of leaflets on earlier this week.

Dozens of protesters including residents of Paju, border city about 50 km (30 miles) north of Seoul, held a rally at Odusan Unification Observatory to protest against sending the leaflets as saying it is a threatening behaviour, which is almost like a war.

Late April, South Korea turned off the loudspeakers that broadcast a mixture of news, Korean pop songs and criticism of the North Korean regime as a goodwill gesture ahead of the inter-Korean summit, and began dismantling them from May 1. (Reuters)









By Rachel Stine



When Westerners think of Korean cuisine, their minds generally turn to oft-cited dishes  kimchi, barbecued beef and meat soups.



What's less often remembered is alcohol.



In 2010, master brewer Choi Duk-yong set out to change this. Leaving behind a lucrative career in Europe, he returned to Seoul and founded the Institute of Korean Brewing, where he uses 500-year-old family recipes to train the next generation of traditional alcohol experts.





Choi Duk-yong with Jeong Yong-ha, a graduate of the Institute of Korean Brewing / Courtesy of Rachel Stine



"Alcohol is the pinnacle of Korean cooking," he explained over a metal table at the institute. "You only serve the best to your guests and your ancestors."

Born in 1968 to a family with aristocratic yangban roots, Choi is the latest in a veritable dynasty of chefs. The culinary arts were an essential part of life growing up in his traditional hanok-style house in Gwangju.



"When I was a child," he explained, "my grandmother always prepared the finest alcohol for guests. I remember her working tirelessly on batches of it."



His great-grandfather was also involved in food preparation. An outspoken critic of the 1910-45 Japanese occupation, he preserved traditional Korean recipes until the peninsula was liberated in 1945. Later, the government declared the recipes he protected as National Treasures.



While Choi inherited this love of the culinary arts, he was less interested in preserving Korea's historical dishes.



"As a child, I didn't really like Korean food," he said. "I wanted to eat European things, like butter and sausage. So as an adult, I moved to Barcelona, Spain, and ended up training at a Michelin star restaurant."



It was in Barcelona that he began to develop a mastery of fermented foods, including cheese, wine and salami. And although he appreciated the traditions of Europe, his studies brought to mind the heirloom recipes he had left behind in Korea.



Reflecting on this evolution, he said: "I never cherished that heritage until my 20s. I noticed that so many people knew about European foods, but nobody knew about Korean ones. Suddenly I wanted to change that."



This led Choi to retire from Compass Food Group in 1992, despite his coveted title of executive chef. He returned to his hometown and sought out older Koreans who still remembered pre-colonial makgeolli recipes. He also consulted historical documents to pinpoint any ingredients that might be missing from modern texts.



During this time, he expanded his repertoire to include all fermented foods, including bean paste and soy sauce.

"When it comes to bean paste in particular, modern chefs don't really know the old styles. They think what they're doing is traditional food. In actuality, it's quite different from the historical way of doing things," he said.



"I have a recipe for soy sauce called wolsongjang and it's about 500 years old. From that historically accurate recipe, I can adapt it to the modern palate using nuruk, which has pro-digestive qualities and less sodium. So I want to innovate, yes. But you need the traditional base first. Then you can start innovating, and creating a market through organic grocers and artisanal markets."





Jeong Yong-ha, one of the institute's top students, is now a certified master brewer. / Courtesy of Rachel StineBy David Tizzard





"Gapjil" is the abuse of power and finds its negative expression in two forms.



The first is in interpersonal relationships and here it manifests either physically or psychologically. Bodily or verbal violence is used to humiliate the weaker party through the exploitation of one's position in an organization or society.



The second form of gapjil is commercial. This occurs when companies use their position or financial means to exploit others and maltreat them. They are "callous deeds" carried out by those with the means on those without.



A great number of people in Korean society were previously expected to be silent when faced with such treatment: a recent survey revealed that 88 percent of people had experienced gapjil while 33 percent admitted having committed an act of gapjil themselves.



A society based on hierarchical relationships means that such a structure is rife for contravention. Whether it is daughters-in-law in the household, employees in a company, the military, schools and campuses, or the countless number of victims that shared their stories in the recent #MeToo campaign, the phenomena found an unwelcome home in nearly every facet of society.



Dutch scholar Geert Hofstede measures sociological traits. In his work, South Korea scores only 18 out of 100 in terms of individualism, making it a collectivist society. As a comparison, the US scored 91, making it highly individualistic. And yet compare this statistic with the OECD Better Life Index that measures the community level of nations. This determines whether people consider they have someone on whom they can depend in times of need. In this index, out of 38 countries, South Korea is ranked second from the bottom! Thus, despite our assumption that a collectivist society might be more generous, this is seemingly not the case. Western individualistic societies appear to be more altruistic.



American journalist Tom Wolfe once asserted that people have their culture sewn into the linings of their coats: they take it with them wherever they go. So while 1987 and the resulting events may have seen the arrival of democratic institutions in South Korea, it did not necessarily signal a sudden change in people's behavior. Even though a new political foundation had taken root, the people were still wearing the same coats they had always worn. What was needed, therefore, was "democracy after democratization."



Democracy is not yet a full-blown lifestyle here, but it is coming. It's coming in the workplace, the household and the universities. It's coming in the streets and in social media. It's coming inside people that are now demanding it. And demand it they must.



To simply wait and expect those in power to change their behavior seems somewhat foolish. There will be apologies, deep bows offered in front of cameras, a shifting of positions for a few years, and then play resumes once again after lunch. That seems to have been how business has generally been done  a "unique situation deserving of understanding" for those with one ear in the internet.



That is why many were not surprised by the recent revelations that surfaced about the Cho sisters and their behavior at the family-run Korean Air over which their father presides. Long-term effects of such abusive behavior had seemingly finally come to a head, however. Employee morale was down, the reputation of the airline was damaged to such an extent that people were demanding the government consider removing its status as the national carrier, and it also generated a great deal of public anger.



What was surprising though was the reaction of the employees this time. No longer were they willing to simply be beaten down or suppressed. No longer were they willing to content themselves with keeping the ill-treatment to themselves, thinking that do otherwise would be a violation of some longstanding cultural code. Now, instead, they were using modern methods  technological, ideological and societal  to reverse the trends. This reporting of internal incidents of gapjil seems to be key to the change.



Now, perhaps like 1987, there is pressure on those in power. It is this pressure that will make those in positions of power realize they could lose what they have. People are now redrawing the boundaries of what is acceptable and what isn't in terms of human interaction and behavior. And one of the greatest tools in this emancipation of people from those that previously lorded over them is the use of social media and digital technology.



Maybe then those smartphones aren't really enslaving the young as much as we might think. There are some chains involved, certainly, but there's also a whole lot of liberation to be had from them, too.





David Tizzard (datizzard@swu.ac.kr) is an assistant professor at Seoul Women's University and host of TBS eFM's cultural radio show "A Little of a Lot." The show can be heard every Sunday from 4 p.m.-6 p.m. on 101.3 FM or downloaded via online platforms such as iTunes and Podbang.

By Jacco Zwetsloot





Many people come to Korea and expect it to be a largely Buddhist culture because of its history and geography. I knew before arriving that some of the world's largest churches (both in terms of congregations and building size) could be found here.



Nevertheless, on that first night driving from Gimpo Airport to Sinchon, while it was not a complete shock to see red neon crosses lighting up Seoul's darkness, it was still more than I had expected.



Even now it surprises me to see that some multi-story buildings have one or half a floor occupied by a church congregation, and some of these have even managed to erect a steeple-like structure on an otherwise non-distinct square concrete building. Christianity has taken root in Korea like nowhere else in Northeast Asia.



Although in Australia I had attended a Church of Christ, when I arrived in Korea, I decided to give Lutheranism a try. The English papers (this one and the other  there were only two at the time) printed a weekly list of all types of religious services, with locations and phone numbers.



The first time I went to the International Lutheran Church in Hannam-dong I had stayed overnight at Seoul Foreign School, where a friend was house-sitting. He agreed to come with me.



In the morning, we greeted one of the SFS teachers in the elevator, and made our way to the bus stop. Our route took us through Itaewon, but we could not quite work out where to get off, because the instructions were so rudimentary and there were no map apps then. I did not even have a cell phone.



In the end we got off somewhere and used a phone in a nearby shop to call the church and get more directions. When we finally got to the church, we saw the teacher we had earlier greeted in the elevator. It turned out that he and several others from SFS had taken the school's bus direct to the church. Had we spoken more than a greeting, we could have come along too, and saved a longer trip.



Incidentally, the man who answered the phone and gave directions to the church was Mr. Kim. He was the faithful cook, church caretaker and all-round manager. I learned later that he had come south during the Korean War and had never been able to return to his hometown.



He was over 60 when I met him, and had worked at the Lutheran Church since before it had even been consecrated, back when it was a humble mission to the U.S. military in the 1960s. It had been built as a kind of Christian drop-in center where men could hang out, play a game of pool, have a simple U.S.-style meal and sleep in a dormitory-type room.



When the building was turned into a church, the dormitory became the chapel. It must be one of the few Seoul churches whose building has not undergone a serious structural rebuild since the 1960s.



Mr. Kim officially retired in the mid-2000s, but he was unstoppable, continuing to work for the church a couple of days a week, until finally illness and back pain forced him to stop last November. When he left, the church lost a living institutional memory and one of its brightest but also most humble of stars. He now languishes in hospital in a semi-conscious state, and I'm sad to say he is not expected to recover.



ILC came to play a central part of my first years in Korea. There I met many wonderful people who were to become firm friends. In particular I was drawn to Dawn and Karl who, like me, were young and single English teachers in Korea. We spent most of our weekends together, exploring the city and countryside, laughing and watching movies.



Because I lived outside Seoul and it was a long trip in, I frequently stayed wherever Karl lived  first the hagwon where he taught (it was built in the shape of a ship, and four teachers shared two twin rooms behind), later an officetel, and then finally a now-demolished house near Seolleung that we called Gangnam Castle.



We formed such a tight unit that I sometimes think we stayed in Korea because of each other, and the International Lutheran Church was the glue that brought us together.



Once, out of curiosity, we visited Yeouido Full Gospel Church, one of those mega-chuches with a constant series of services each Sunday. It was like a well-oiled machine: they had ushers who led us to special seating areas for foreigners, simultaneous translation was provided in several languages through headsets, and there was what appeared to be a professional band.



All that I can remember from that trip was: it was much slicker and emotional than ILC, and I accidentally walked all over a mat that had been laid out on the stairs for people to sit on when the pews were filled up. I never went back.



In October 1999 my wife Ji-min and I were married by the late ILC Pastor Dwayne Hoyer. We left for Australia the next day. I am no longer the faith-filled Christian I once was in my youth, although my wife is. That is somewhat ironic because she first came to the church through me.



I still go to ILC sometimes, because I like the people there, the atmosphere is welcoming, the pastor and his wife are friendly and genuine, and it is nice sometimes to sing songs together in a group. Yes, I have become that which I once disdained: a person who is drawn more to the form of religion than the function.

USS Theodore Roosevelt underway in the Atlantic Ocean in March 2015. / Courtesy of Wikipedia



By Kinling Lo





A top US defence department official has accused Beijing of "predatory economic activities" in the Indian Ocean and raised concerns about reports it has moved missiles to man-made islands in the disputed South China Sea.

Joe Felter, deputy assistant defence secretary for South and Southeast Asia, said the United States "should be concerned" about US intelligence assessments reported on Wednesday that show China has installed anti-ship cruise missiles and surface-to-air missile systems to three outposts in the Spratly Islands.

"This absolutely looks like an effort to militarise these disputed features [in the South China Sea] and we don't support that," Felter said on Friday. "We want a peaceful resolution of these [territorial] disputes."

If confirmed, they would be the first missile deployments by China in the Spratlys, an island chain that is also claimed by the Philippines.

The development comes after the Chinese navy held an unprecedented week-long series of live-fire drills in the South China Sea last month.

The White House on Thursday warned that the Chinese missile deployments would have "near-term and long-term consequences".





US intelligence assessments reportedly indicated Chinese missiles were moved to Fiery Cross Reef (pictured), Subi Reef and Mischief Reef within the past 30 days. / Courtesy of US Navy via Reuters



Although the US does not have territorial claims over the South China Sea, its warships and aircraft carry out "freedom of navigation" operations in the area.

China accused America of "serious military provocation" in March after a US Navy destroyer sailed within 12 nautical miles of Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands, where China has built an artificial island.

"The US will continue to fly, sail and operate anywhere that allows us so ... we encourage other states to exercise the same rights under international law," Felter said.

Washington's embrace of an Indo-Pacific strategy under President Donald Trump, with an emphasis on it being "free and open", is seen as a counterbalance to China's growing influence through infrastructure-building and its military presence in the region.

Felter said some of Beijing's activities in the South Pacific had not been "consistent" with what that strategy promoted.

He also named developments in Djibouti  where China opened its first overseas military base last year  and at the ports of Hambantota in Sri Lanka and Gwadar in Pakistan, as well as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, as "predatory economic activities".

"Into the South Pacific, we heard some other disturbing news on China's predatory economic activities  they are also trying to gain a foothold in ways we don't think are consistent with the interests of those individual states and countries," Felter said.

Washington has repeatedly expressed concerns over Beijing's efforts to expand its geopolitical and military power and win influence through such projects, which also add to the debt burdens of the countries involved.

"What China is doing ... we don't think it's out of interest of the rule-based order we are promoting with our strategy," Felter said.Mao Xinyu, left, poses for a group photo during his visit to China State Shipbuilding Corp. on May 4, 2018, in this picture posted on the company's website. / Yonhap



Mao Xinyu, the only grandson of Mao Zedong, made a public appearance last week, silencing a rumor that he was among 32 Chinese tourists killed in a traffic accident in North Korea last month.

A Hong Kong newspaper on Sunday published a photo of Major General Mao visiting China State Shipbuilding Corp. on Friday. He and other officials looked around the company research institute and laboratories.

The accident occurred on April 22 when a bus crashed off a bridge in North Hwanghae Province. Four North Koreans were also killed.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un visited the Chinese Embassy in Pyongyang the following day and expressed "deep sorrow," according to the North's state media.

The Chinese government publicly identified 26 victims but withheld the names of eight others. A media outlet reported that Mao, 48, was among the unidentified victims.

He is the only son of Mao Anqing, the last surviving son of Mao Zedong. Mao Anqing died in 2007. Mao Xinyu became China's youngest general in 2009. He is said to have visited North Korea five times.How does the U.S. factor into tensions between China and Taiwan? And where is the last place on Earth where you can ride year-round on a commercial hovercr...

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Thunderstorms during the evening followed by occasional showers overnight. Low 62F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 60%.Even by President Trumps unpredictable and bare-knuckles style of negotiating, his economic teams visit to Beijing in recent days to confront China on trade was both bewildering and, for many in both countries and beyond, worrisome.

Worrisome because the two-day meeting that concluded Friday showed that the U.S. and China are miles apart, making the threat of a trade war very real. There was no joint communique afterward or any official word on when, or whether, they would meet again.

And bewildering because the indications are that the two sides talked past each other, with Trumps high-level emissaries presenting an eight-point set of demands that analysts called so far-fetched that no country would accept it, let alone China  a rising superpower whose national pride is wrapped up in a historical narrative of overcoming century-long subjugation by foreign powers.

The U.S. demands, spelled out as a draft framework for negotiations, not only call for China to cut its $337-billion trade surplus with America by more than half, $200 billion, and immediately halt state support for President Xi Jinpings signature Made in China 2025 industrial policy. But also, they say that Beijing must refrain from retaliating or filing legal challenges should the United States slap tariffs or investment restrictions on China.

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Thats a non-starter for any leader, said Andy Rothman, an investment strategist at San Francisco-based Matthews Asia and former economic officer at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.

Then why would Trumps delegation of Cabinet members, including Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and the U.S. trade representative, Robert Lighthizer, present such an unrealistic set of demands?

The latest from Washington 

Neither Rothman nor other analysts had an easy answer, except to say that it has become standard operating practice for Trump to keep allies and adversaries alike guessing, with surprising demands and threats of severe actions. Some of them, like Trumps campaign promise to label China a currency manipulator right away, turned out to be bluster.

It is hard to assess whether this was a kind of fire and fury message intended to signal to the Chinese that they are dealing with a very serious situation, said Claire Reade, a former assistant U.S. trade representative for China affairs.

It is also possible that the U.S. side knew it was a complete non-starter, but used the proposal to detail Chinas sins, demonstrate China wont fix them and thereby further justify U.S. actions against China.

The outlook is muddied by the presidents repeated praise of Xi, especially for ratcheting up economic pressure on North Korea and its leader, Kim Jong Un. Trump plans to meet with Kim by early June to discuss a denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, and the president would not want China to stand in the way of his achieving a historic breakthrough.

At the same time, the Trump administration  if not the president  has publicly cast China as an economic and military threat, an adversary like Russia. And to Beijings chagrin, the administration has taken steps to draw closer to Taiwan, an island that Beijing considers a renegade province.

On Saturday, the White House press secretary issued an unusually caustic statement denouncing as censorship and Orwellian nonsense Beijings recent demand that U.S. and other foreign airliners change how Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau are identified on their websites, to make clear they are not independent entities.

On trade with China, Trump has been consistent in denouncing the Asian giants huge trade surplus with the United States and its mercantilist economic behavior. The administration has slapped tariffs on Chinese solar panels, steel and aluminum, and has prepared a list of other Chinese products worth about $50 billion that could be hit with tariffs as punishment for intellectual property theft and the forced transfer of technology to China by U.S. companies as a condition of doing business there.

After Beijing responded by proposing counter-tariffs of commensurate value on U.S. goods including soybeans, airplanes and cars, Trump immediately called for a possible tripling of the potential duties against Chinese goods.

Trump is operating in ways no other president has in the past where there was a coherent strategy, Rothman said.

That includes diplomatic protocol.

In a break from previous high-level meetings with the Chinese on trade and security matters, the Trump administration did not send an advance team to do groundwork before the delegation arrived. The White House did not hold the customary news briefing ahead of the trip. And administration officials left Beijing quietly, with the White House issuing a short statement saying they had frank discussions.

Late Friday, Trump tweeted that he would be conferring with his team Saturday to determine the results, but it is hard for China in that they have become very spoiled with U.S. trade wins! On Saturday, at an event in Ohio ostensibly to promote his tax cuts, the president spent much time attacking trade with China.

The Chinese, for their part, did not publicly mention the U.S. demands. The state-run New China News Agency reported that the two sides reached consensus in some areas but that major differences remained.

Chinese officials, led by Vice Premier Liu He, were expected to reiterate previously signaled offers from Beijing to cut tariffs on auto imports, ease up on some joint-venture requirements and open up its financial services sector. But during the talks, analysts said, Beijing apparently presented its own hard-line demands, that the U.S. relax restrictions on selling certain high-tech goods to China and drop recent sanctions against the Chinese telecommunications firm ZTE.

The post-meeting reaction from both sides may reflect a desire not to inflame tensions, but also spoke volumes about how far apart they are. Xi had been expected to meet with the delegation, but did not do so.

We give them a list of things they will never do and they give us a list of things we will never do, said David Loevinger, a former Treasury official on China affairs.

For the Trump administration, the reticence could also reflect the internal division among Trumps top economic and trade officials. Mnuchin, who the White House statement said led the delegation, and Ross are thought to be more pragmatic. Lighthizer and trade advisor Peter Navarro, a China hawk, have been pushing a harder protectionist line against a country they regard as out to supplant American economic power.

Nobody was expecting a breakthrough or easy negotiations, but analysts say its still unclear what the administrations primary goals are  whether to bring the trade deficit down, a near-obsession for Trump that would probably take years to achieve; to secure short-term market access in China; or to get Beijing to change its behavior and its policies  including Xis Made in China 2025 strategy  intended to achieve dominance in strategic technology and other high-value sectors.

Given Trumps America first agenda to get tough on trade, the president is certain to want tangible results that he can hold up to his political base as fulfillment of his campaign promise. But just what he will deem acceptable is anybodys guess.

Analysts and business people are betting that Trump may take China to the precipice of a trade war but not go over, to avoid hurting the U.S. economy and, in turn, his own political standing.

Rothman said he could see Trump just getting on the phone with Xi and saying, Lets do a deal. Said Reade: I suspect the U.S. delegation left China with next steps totally up in the air because Trump will call the shots here, and no one can predict what he wants.

More stories from Don Lee 

don.lee@latimes.com

Follow me at @dleelatimesAs Central Americans from a migrant caravan made famous by President Trumps angry tweets begin entering the asylum process from the U.S. border, they face a complex legal battle that most who have tried in recent years from their countries have lost.

Just under 80% of the 15,667 asylum cases from El Salvador were denied from fiscal years 2012 to 2017, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a project with Syracuse University that monitors immigration data through public records requests. About 78% of the 11,020 Honduran cases and about 75% of the 10,983 Guatemalan cases were denied.

Those trends could change as case law established in the last couple of years has helped more Central Americans show how their stories line up with requirements for asylum.

Theres a steeper hill to climb, I think, in the Central American cases, said Dana Leigh Marks, a spokeswoman with the National Assn. of Immigration Judges. They involve cutting-edge legal arguments. The case law is still evolving. Whether its a liberal or a conservative trend, the reality is law is based on case precedent. The more precedent that builds and makes that principle clearer, the more established its going to be and the more consistent its going to be.

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Under asylum law, people seeking protection must show that they have been persecuted or have a well-founded fear that they will be persecuted because of their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a social group.

Being afraid of general violence or rampant crime is not enough to win a case.

Central American immigrants traveling with a caravan gather at the border wall as some sit on top of it, looking toward the U.S. from Tijuana, Mexico, on April 29. (Hans-Maximo Musielik / Associated Press )

Some Central Americans have more traditional cases under the race or political opinion categories, but most are fleeing gang violence or domestic violence. Such cases tend to require asylum-seekers to show that the bad things that happened to them were because they are part of a particular social group.

More are winning their cases than before, according to Ginger Jacobs, an immigration attorney in San Diego, especially in the last two years.

Women who could show that theyre being targeted because they are women have a better chance of winning their cases, Jacobs explained. This could include women who were gang raped or are victims of domestic violence.

People who can show they fear persecution because their family has been targeted also have a better chance of winning. Members of the LGBTQ community also have an easier time showing that theyre members of a targeted social group.

Judges have started understanding, Jacobs said, how gang violence is intertwined with governments in the Northern Triangle  Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.

Having an attorney can also make a difference in how likely someone is to win a case.

About 95% of asylum-seekers from Honduras without attorneys lost their cases over the last six years, according to TRAC data. Of those who had attorneys, just over 70% lost. People from El Salvador and Guatemala have seen similar results.

For some countries, such as China, having an attorney can make a dramatic difference. Nearly 79% of Chinese asylum-seekers who didnt have attorneys were denied protection over the last six years, compared with just under 18% of those who did, according to TRAC data.

A TRAC report found that immigration judges from the same court often differ drastically. In San Francisco, where Marks hears cases, the highest grant rate is 97.1% and the lowest is 9.4%. In Los Angeles, the highest is 29.4% and the lowest is 97.5%. In San Diego, the high and low are 88.1% and 46.2%.

Credible testimony alone can be sufficient if its consistent with a countrys conditions, Marks said. Thats part of why grant or denial rates among different judges vary so much. Its very hard to specifically pin down what is enough to meet your burden of proof.

Matthew Holt, a San Diego immigration attorney, explained that he thinks about Central American cases as gang plus, meaning theres gang violence involved plus the person has a characteristic or took some kind of action to make him or her part of a protected group that is targeted by the gangs.

The Central Americans were seeing, theyre children, youth, young adults, lots of females and small business owners, Holt said. These are all these people that are trying to get ahead and they cant because the gangs in Central America are murdering them.

Two 2013 cases set precedents that have helped make cases for people who testified against gangs or worked to stop gang violence. Rocio Brenda Neriquez-Rivas witnessed gang members kill her father in El Salvador and testified against them. Then she fled to the U.S.

Courts at first denied her asylum claim, but a Ninth 9th Circuit decision found that someone who testified against a gang in court counts as a member of a social group.

Holt said attorneys and asylum-seekers have to keep fighting to make case law that protects the vulnerable, but he said he worries that the process would be too slow for many currently fleeing harm.

Not everyone who loses their asylum case is deported from the U.S. Many apply simultaneously for protection under the Convention Against Torture and withholding of removal, options that allow the person to stay in the U.S. but do not allow that person to get a green card, travel outside the country and return, sponsor family members or naturalize.

Less than 2% of Convention Against Torture applications were granted in fiscal 2016, according to data from the Executive Office for Immigration Review. About 7% of withholding cases were granted that year.

carlos.lozano@latimes.comAnimal control officers have taken custody of three dogs after at least one of them fatally mauled a 3-month-old girl in a Sherman Oaks home, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.

The attack was reported at 3:25 p.m. Saturday in the 14400 block of Benefit Street, and the girl died later from her injuries at a hospital, authorities said. The dogs were family pets, according to the LAPD.

This is a horrible case, said Capt. Lillian Carranza of the LAPDs Van Nuys Station. It has touched all involved family, friends and first responders. Our hearts go out to the family and friends. As I understand, next Sunday would have been the mothers first Mothers Day.

Carranza said the case is a true tragedy with no indication of neglect or criminal intent. The family, she said, is distraught.

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It is unclear which, or how many, of the dogs attacked the baby.

The dogs at the home included a 98-pound Rottweiler, 89-pound Labrador and 10-pound terrier, Carranza said.

A grandmother was babysitting and stepped away for a few seconds to get the babys bottle, Carranza said. The dogs were able to sneak into the room.

The Mayors Crisis Response Team has been in contact with the family, and the LAPD is offering resources to the family and those who responded to the home, authorities said.

hailey.branson@latimes.com

Twitter: @haileybransonPledging to report unauthorized entries into the United States  and shame any state leaders who welcome them  about 20 border security supporters assembled Saturday morning near Jamul.

The group, including members of the Minuteman patrol movement, coordinated volunteers to watch over designated border regions for 24 hours.

Their vigil, starting at 9 a.m. Saturday, was meant to help federal officers, Minuteman leader Tim Donnelly said.

By reporting unauthorized border crossings, the observers hope to help outnumbered border officers, Donnelly said. He is a Republican candidate for the 8th congressional district, which covers much of the desert area north of Imperial County.

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The border-watching exercise was in part a reaction to the caravan of Central Americans who recently traveled through Mexico to enter the U.S. at the border between San Diego and Tijuana, said Donnelly, a former assemblyman. The roughly 200 migrants are seeking political asylum in the U.S.

It was also meant as a warning to Gov. Jerry Brown, who signed the California Values Act, which limits law enforcement in the state from certain kinds of cooperation with federal immigration officials. The law has been criticized as an effort to make the state a sanctuary for immigrants in the country illegally.

My hope is that we will reignite the [Minuteman] movement and that people will again be aiding [border agents] for longer periods of time, longer musters, Donnelly said.

The camouflage-dressed volunteers, with boots, backpacks and other wilderness gear, were instructed on safety such as avoiding rattlesnakes before heading out from Pio Pico campground.

Volunteers were told to avoid confrontations with border crossers if possible, and to help those in distress.

There is no animus toward those who are crossing desperate, you know, to escape oppression, Donnelly said. But at the same time, among those people come through wolves, people who mean harm people like Luis Bracamontes, who was just recently sentenced to death here in California for executing two sheriffs deputies up in Sacramento.

While expressing sympathy for plight of border crossers, Donnelly and others criticized Brown, who they said has violated his oath of office.

This is not about waving American flags, Donnelly said. This is about actually securing the border and sending a message to the political authorities, to Jerry Brown.

I dare Jerry Brown to come down and arrest me, because you might get arrested down here for being a tyrant, for being a traitor, for aiding and abetting illegal aliens and harboring them in violation of federal law, which is the supreme law of the land when it comes to immigration.

Lisa Collins of Orange County said she had been a member of the Minuteman group since 2005, when illegal immigration surged.

There were so many illegals that were coming across the border, and Im one that believes you cant complain about a subject unless youre willing to do something about it, Collins said.

Supporter Ben Bergquam said he was there to show solidarity with the group, although not taking part in the border watch. He is co-founder and spokesman for the Fight Sanctuary State Movement.

I represent the angel parents whove lost their loved ones to criminal illegal aliens that are protected by the lawless politicians like Jerry Brown, Berqguam said.

The group is preparing to launch a statewide initiative to repeal Californias sanctuary state legislation, Bergquam said.

bradley.fikes@sduniontribune.comAttorney General Jeff Sessions will visit the U.S. Mexico-border in San Diego on Monday to discuss the immigration enforcement efforts of the Trump Administration.

Justice Department officials said Sessions would hold a press conference with Immigration and Customs Enforcement Deputy Director Thomas D. Homan at 1 p.m. The location was not disclosed.

Sessions visit follows a March visit by President Donald Trump to Otay Mesa to survey border wall prototypes. Other administration officials also have made recent visits to the border region.

On April 18, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen paid a visit to Calexico to see the replacement of a border barrier. Later that month, Vice President Mike Pence addressed Homeland Security and Border Patrol employees at the El Centro Border Patrol Station about plans for a new border wall and to call for tougher enforcement measures.

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Sessions planned visit comes a week after a group of about 200 Central American asylum seekers arrived at the U.S. border in Tijuana. The group launched their journey across Mexico more than a month ago, fleeing violent and impoverished areas of Central America.

President Trump has been critical of the caravan in recent weeks, often referencing the group when criticizing what he sees as ineffectual immigration laws.

lyndsay.winkley@sduniontribune.com

UPDATES:

5:05 p.m.: This story was updated with new information about Sessions visit to the border.

This story was originally posted at 3 p.m.As David Spangler recently performed his daily exercise routine in an outdoor gym in Reseda along the Los Angeles River bike path, a small group of neighborhood activists with clipboards and pens in hands approached him.

They wanted to ask about his experience on the bike path.

It was beautiful three years ago, the 49-year-old resident told them. Now theres junkies everywhere.

Spangler told the citizens watchdog group that he has seen drug addicts loitering around the gym, stashing shopping carts filled to the brim with their personal belongings and blocking access to some of the equipment. He said he has also seen some of them shooting up.

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Resedas bike path opened in 2012 and was intended to be a family-friendly trail where people could enjoy an evening walk or bike ride along the river. But residents say they are increasingly afraid of going out alone or letting their children ride their bikes through the area because of transients.

The neighborhood group that approached Spangler calls itself Resedas River Walkers, residents who have been pressuring city agencies responsible for the river and bike path to clean and supervise the area. The group includes about 30 active members and hundreds of others logging in on Nextdoor.com, a community website where residents can post about local concerns

Our group is steady and assertive, said Evelyn Aleman a resident of almost 20 years who has taken the lead of the community effort. Weve made [city officials] understand were not going away.

Residents are demanding that the shrubs along the trail be replaced with succulents to make it easier to maintain and discourage transients from setting up encampments. They also want consistent monitoring by law enforcement and even a hotline to report incidents along the trail.

Councilman Bob Blumenfield joins residents on a walk through a portion of Resedas bike path in November. (Evelyn Aleman )

Councilman Bob Blumenfield, whose district includes Reseda, is one of the groups allies. He has put pressure on the citys Department of Recreation and Parks when needed and sent a representative on monthly walks along the bike path to listen to residents concerns and offer suggestions.

Blumenfield said one of the problems that activists face is the number of oversight agencies they must deal with. In addition to the parks department, the Department of Public Works and the Los Angeles Police Department also have jurisdiction over the area.

Its not only frustrating for the community but its frustrating for me as their advocate, he said of the complications created by having multiple agencies involved. When you have diverse or diffuse responsibility, you have less accountability.

There are other issues. LAPD Officer Oscar Bocanegra, who is responsible for overseeing the bike path area, said there are not enough resources to meet some of the River Walkers demands, like a group of officers dedicated to regularly monitoring the bike path.

He did credit the groups involvement, however, with helping him and the LAPD and other agencies identify the specific areas that need attention. He also noted that a Homeless Outreach and Proactive Engagement, or HOPE, team, which is responsible for helping the homeless access resources, visits the Reseda bike path every few weeks.

Police find trash bags full of marijuana underneath a bridge on Resedas bike path. (Evelyn Aleman )

The River Walkers and others look at what happened in Santa Ana, which is struggling to address a growing homeless population that has been displaced from encampments along the Santa Ana River Trail, and worry about a similar problem developing in their community. In March, the Orange County city cleared tons of trash and thousands of pounds of hazardous waste on the trail.

Reseda residents said they dont want the same thing to happen to their neighborhood. Aleman said she wants local efforts to be a model for communities across the county that want to prevent crime, trash and growing homeless encampments along the 51-mile stretch of the Los Angeles River.

The group said it has consistently called and emailed officials from the oversight agencies, and hosted walks along the bike path and pressed for meetings with them.

City officials must address the problems along the Reseda bike path, said Dorian Gunning, a resident of 30 years, because if they dont, well be Santa Ana, basically.

alejandra.reyesvelarde@latimes.com

@r_valejandraPolice once arrested Margarita Melville on Frederick Road in Catonsville, Md. They drove her to jail and handcuffed her, and FBI agents knocked on her parents door.

But times change. Fifty years after authorities arrested Melville, her husband and seven friends for stealing and burning draft records, the state of Maryland recognized the Catonsville Nine on Saturday with a memorial sign on the grounds of the Catonsville Public Library.

Melville, now 88, returned to the scene of the crime, where she and her fellow pacifists seized and burned 378 draft records in protest of the Vietnam War.

They would be convicted of destruction of U.S. property, destruction of Selective Service files and interfering with the Selective Service Act of 1967, and sentenced to prison. But their protest drew international attention, and inspired dozens more across the country.

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More than 100 people gathered on the library lawn to see the sign unveiled.

Dont cause too much trouble, someone called out. Melville grinned.

The small ceremony marked the 50th anniversary of the protest led by brothers Philip and Daniel Berrigan, both Catholic priests, in May 1968. Melville, one of two surviving members of the nine, was the only one to attend.

1968: A timeline of anger, grief and change 

We were burning draft cards in Catonsville to protest the governments burning of children in Vietnam, Melville said, quoting Daniel Berrigans famous line.

The memorial marker was installed outside the library  not outside the Knights of Columbus banquet hall across the street, where they burned the records.

Organizers said the Knights of Columbus declined to let them place the sign on their grounds. During the 1960s, the Catholic-based fraternal organization allowed the draft board to use an office in the hall.

Activist Brendan Walsh was a student of Daniel Berrigan.

Rather than say we cannot put the marker where it belongs, he said, they should say we repent and ask for forgiveness.

Two women who answered the door at the hall Saturday declined to comment.

The Catonsville Nine inspired similar protests around the country. Under increasing pressure, Congress ended the draft in 1973.

The nine spent weeks planning their raid on the Catonsville draft board. On May 17, 1968, they entered and began ransacking cabinets and throwing Selective Service System files into wire trash baskets.

In the parking lot, they doused the records with a homemade napalm of Ivory soap flakes and gasoline  a recipe from a U.S. military handbook, Melville said.

I personally put a match on them, she recalled. They all shared the culpability.

Melville served nine months in a federal prison in West Virginia. She lives in Mexico now.

After the ceremony, she walked to the Knights of Columbus parking lot and stood on the very grounds where she burned the records. When she continued down Frederick Road, people stopped and thanked her.

Once she went down this road in a police van. Saturday she traveled it again, hurrying to a panel discussion at which she was a guest of honor.President Trumps fixation on tearing up the Iranian nuclear deal is leading him to miss  or worse, fuel  the real threat that Iran poses.

Every administration faces the challenge of setting priorities with a limited amounted of political capital and time. Thats especially critical for this president, with his national security team understaffed and in constant turmoil. By spending so much energy attacking the functioning nuclear deal, Trump is making it harder for his administration to develop an effective response to a problem that actually does exist: Irans non-nuclear aggression across the Middle East.

Republicans often accused the Obama administration of securing the nuclear agreement at the expense of pushing back effectively against Irans actions on other fronts. But now, despite talking tough and hiring hawks like national security advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, it is Trump who is failing to push back on Iran as he focuses solely on killing President Obamas deal.

Whats the president missing? Irans centrifuges are no longer operating, but the military buildup by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps continues unabated. The Revolutionary Guard has a network of proxies across the region. It exerts influence in Syria with direct support for dictator Bashar Assad, in Iraq through Shia militias, in Lebanon through Hezbollah, in Yemen through the Houthis, and in Gaza through Hamas. This broad regional reach gives the guard a presence on the borders of Israel and Saudi Arabia. Iran also has been accused of organizing and arming government opponents in the Sunni Gulf states.

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Killing the nuclear deal wont address a single one of these issues, but it will weaken Iranian leaders who favor engagement with the West while empowering the Revolutionary Guard and other hardliners. If Trump were serious about pushing back on Iran, here are four steps his administration would be taking.

By focusing so intently on the nuclear deal he has lost sight of a larger strategy that would effectively contain Iran in the region.

First, he would prioritize ending the flow of personnel and equipment from Iran to its proxies. The Revolutionary Guard uses air, land and sea routes to move arms across its network, aided by cooperative governments in Iraq and Qatar that allow unfettered access to their airspace and ports. The administration needs a coordinated diplomatic approach using carrots and sticks to get Iraq and Qatar to crack down on Irans weapons shipments. Instead, Trump has neglected Iraq and backed the Gulf countries blockade of Qatar, which has driven Doha closer to Tehran.

Second, Trump should mobilize a broad international effort against Irans proxies, instead of wasting political capital arguing with Americas allies and partners about a nuclear deal they all support. The administration should designate Hezbollah as a Transnational Criminal Organization  its remarkable this hasnt happened yet  and then press countries across Latin America and Europe to follow suit. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis had the right idea in his confirmation hearing when he called for a global shaming campaign to shine a spotlight on Irans bad behavior, but this also hasnt happened. And Trump should direct the intelligence community to share with foreign governments the tail numbers of Iranian aircraft known to have been used to transfer weapons and urge them to deny access even if the flights are now carrying civilians.

Third, the administration should keep Tehran from building a bigger military presence in Syria. Trump has made it clear he wants to pull U.S. troops out of Syria, but that would allow the Revolutionary Guard to further stockpile weapons and forces that could be used to attack Israel. The guard used a similar playbook in Lebanon, where it established forward bases with as many as 120,000 missiles pointing at Israel. Trump should instead be developing a plan to contain or reduce Irans presence in Syria. That doesnt mean the U.S. must have a permanent military presence, but the administration cant outsource the problem to others. At a minimum, the president should be surging intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets to keep a closer eye on Irans activities within Syria.

Finally, the administration should be tackling the Revolutionary Guard directly. Its leaders have a firm grip on much of the Iranian economy and they benefit from a loophole in U.S. law that allows foreign investment in companies in which the guard maintains minority ownership. Theres a bipartisan bill pending in Congress authorizing the administration to close that loophole, but it hasnt done it yet.

Another important step that would weaken the Revolutionary Guard is one Trump apparently doesnt want to take: leaving the nuclear deal in place. Trumps disdain for the deal is blinding him to its benefits. It puts a lid on Irans nuclear program, and facilitates foreign investment. That diversification is reducing the Revolutionary Guards economic dominance. Ripping up the deal would undo all that. Instead, the administration should build on whats been gained, perhaps by offering to lift remaining sanctions in exchange for specific concessions on Irans ballistic missile program.

For all his threats and bluster, Trump actually is going easy on Iran. By focusing so intently on the nuclear deal he has lost sight of a larger strategy that would effectively contain Iran in the region. And if Trump does kill the Iran nuclear deal, he will be strengthening the hardliners and the Revolutionary Guard, who are responsible for Irans worst behavior. Its an upside-down policy.

YJ Fischer served at the State Department from 2012-16, including as the assistant coordinator for Iran nuclear implementation. She co-wrote the 2016 Democratic Party platform.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinionand FacebookDear Karl,

Happy birthday! Its tempting to say that much has changed in the 200 years since your birth, but as I sit down to describe those changes, I must admit I am more struck by the similarities than the differences between your time and mine.

The big news is, of course, that the kings you fought so hard to unmask as charlatans no longer are divine. Well, there are a few monarchs who still claim tangential ties to a higher power, but most people have cottoned on to the fact that royal power is really just a combination of heredity and tenacity. And, unfortunately, your kings have been replaced by new ones who base their right to rule on an aristocracy of wealth.

Have you heard about the terrible wars of the 20th century? They were called World Wars, and that was no exaggeration. The first one, which involved said kings and their ambitions, killed as many as 40 million people. A second war began 20 years later because the first had never truly ended. It would kill twice as many people and produce a weapon so formidable it could wipe out the planet. In that war, man proved he could kill like a beast and a god. Ironically, your name was invoked in the slaughter.

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Yes, Karl, after you died in 1883, people discovered your writings and some promptly misused them. There are statues of you in capitals around the globe where governments expounded Marxism to deprive people of the very freedoms you extolled. They reinterpreted your vision of the free development of each being the condition for the free development of all as the freedom to be equally miserable. Indeed, the repression and butchery accomplished in your name during the last century would horrify you.

Do you remember your high hopes for democracy? How you believed free speech, universal education and the vote would help usher in a world that created the greatest good for the greatest number? It hasnt really worked out that way. While so-called Marxists operating under a communist banner expunged rights around the globe, capitalists busily subverted democracy in a long and insidious hostile takeover.

Dont get me wrong. The initial benefits of capitalism were tremendous. Humankinds possibilities soared. Scientific, technological and medical discoveries ensured that people lived longer and better. The arts flourished because people had leisure time to read, paint and compose. Natural resources were harnessed to improve agriculture, so everyone could eat. It really was marvelous, but as you said, for the capitalist, marvelous isnt enough. That omnivorous beast hungers eternally for more and bigger profits.

I hate to tell you, but the man now occupying Lincolns house is your old capitalist friend Mr. Moneybags.

In the past 40 years, especially, such capitalists have turned democracies on their heads. Most of those governments are no longer of the people or for the people. They serve one constituent: business. Politicians are bought by the dozen, the highest echelons of government bureaucracies are peopled with titans of industry and finance and their minions, and laws are written to protect corporate interests over peoples interests. Citizens of democracies, who fought so hard in your century for the right to vote, have seemed to lose interest in the ballot when faced with the powerful adversary, capital. The vote has been devalued, and like any commodity, it has been snapped up by savvy investors who understand its power.

I remember how much you admired Abraham Lincoln and how you thought that brilliant son of the working class embodied everything good and great about the United States. Well, I hate to tell you, but the man now occupying Lincolns house is your old capitalist friend Mr. Moneybags. I recently reread your Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 and laughed because you described him to a tee when you wrote about the wizardry of money, which can turn even a brute into a prince. I am ugly, but I can buy for myself the most beautiful of women. Therefore I am not ugly, for the effect of ugliness  its deterrent power  is nullified by money.  I am bad, dishonest, unscrupulous, stupid; but money is honored and hence its possessor.  Does not all my money, therefore, transform all my incapacities into their contrary? You must have had a crystal ball in the Paris apartment where you wrote those words.

So, what else has happened 200 years down the road? African men and women are still being sold, but now its called people trafficking. Citizens have been made somnolent by the trinkets of capitalism the way populations in your time were subdued by conquering colonial powers. Now, as then, the distance between factory workers and the people who use their products is great enough that the guilt over the exploitation of workers dissipates by the time coveted stretch jeans or smartphones arrive on store shelves. As in your day, happy consumers congratulate themselves on grabbing a bargain without being troubled by the fact that a person a continent away worked themselves to death to produce it.

Its a grim picture, indeed, Im sorry to say. But there is hope! This century has seen a series of events that indicate a new generation may be finding its way past the prison houses of 20th century ideologies. A collapse of the global financial system in 2008 exposed for even some free-market stalwarts the flaws in its construction. Newspapers that had previously scoffed at the mere mention of your name began to question, Was Marx right? Sometimes, brave individuals stuck their necks out and whispered, Yes.

And then, two years later, in late 2010, spontaneous revolts that came to be known as the Arab Spring signaled the possibility of mass social change. It was a revival of your 1848 Springtime of the People revolts in Europe. Entire populations rose up to overthrow autocratic and corrupt rulers in North Africa and the Middle East. Unfortunately, history repeated itself in that, as in 1848, the reaction from entrenched powers was swift and deadly. Alas, the counterrevolution won again. But, eight years later, the embers are still warm, and the wind (which is now called the internet) is spreading them.

In the past two years, individuals have discovered their voices and the strength that resides in their numbers. Black and white citizens have taken to the streets to denounce the murder of black men by police. Women have joined forces to expose sexual predators and the industries that not only enable them, but profit by it. Tens of thousands of children have assumed the mantle of adults by acknowledging the truth their elders are too cowed to express: Guns kill.

So, dear Karl, as you celebrate your 200th birthday, there is hope. And its great that you are still around to help us, if not in person, then through your work and your words. You inspire us still.

 Mary

Mary Gabriel is the author of Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution. Her latest book, Ninth Street Women, will be published by Little, Brown in September.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and FacebookNewsoms budget proposes $3 million for Alzheimers research, brain task force By Melody Gutierrez Amyloid plaques, shown here in human brains, are a hallmark of Alzheimers disease. (UCLA School of Medicine) Gov. Gavin Newsom will call for the creation of a brain health task force and dedicate $3 million annually from the states general fund to Alzheimers disease research in the budget proposal he will release Thursday, a source close to the administration said. The money for Alzheimers research would target the new grants at understanding why the disease is more prevalent in women and people of color. Former California first lady and Alzheimers activist Maria Shriver pushed for the funding to be included in the state budget. Shriver said in a statement Wednesday that the funding would make California the first state to make understanding our brains a priority. The states former first lady, whose late father Sargent Shriver was diagnosed with Alzheimers, founded the Womens Alzheimers Movement, an advocacy group raising awareness about womens increased risk for developing the disease. In 2011, she wrote a comprehensive assessment on the disease, to which Newsom  then mayor of San Francisco  contributed a portion called What one city is doing. This is personal to me, just like it is to millions of California families, Shriver said. Alzheimers is one of the largest medical, social and economic crises in our state, and of our time. I am so proud that, once again, California is leading the way. Wiping out Alzheimers is going to require bold thinking, and there is no doubt in my mind that California is home to bold thinkers who can make this happen. Facebook

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Gov. Gavin Newsom orders reinvention of troubled California DMV By Patrick McGreevy A line of people stretches around the South L.A. location of a California Department of Motor Vehicles Office on Aug. 7. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday ordered an overhaul of the California Department of Motor Vehicles, which has been plagued by hours-long wait times at field offices, computer crashes and voter registration errors involving tens of thousands of customers. Just a few days after taking office, Newsom appointed a top advisor to a new DMV Reinvention Strike Team to revamp the beleaguered agency over the next six months. By any metric, California DMV has been chronically mismanaged and failed in its fundamental mission to the state customers it serves and the state workers it employs, Newsom said in a statement, adding Its time for a reinvention. The governor appointed state Government Operations Agency Secretary Marybel Batjer to lead the strike team with a goal of modernizing the agency and enacting changes that improve customer satisfaction, employee performance and transparency. Newsom also ordered an accelerated review of initial findings of an ongoing audit ordered last year by Gov. Jerry Brown. The action was welcomed by lawmakers who have been critical of the DMV, including Assemblyman Vince Fong (R-Bakersfield). The egregious management failures of the DMV have been self-evident, which is why I have been calling for new leadership and a comprehensive independent audit of this troubled state agency over and over again as the problems grew significantly worse, Fong said. Last summer, Californians seeking new driver licenses complained of wait times of four to six hours at DMV offices, which the agency blamed partly on snafus caused by a rush of people trying to get Real IDs, a new identification card design required for airline passengers starting in late 2020. Delays were also blamed on computer crashes at DMV offices as the agency struggled to update its aging automation systems. The DMV also admitted that there were an estimated 23,000 errors as people either were unknowingly registered to vote or mistakes were made in their registration status as part of the states new motor voter program. The agency registered to vote as many as 1,500 people with legal U.S. residency but no citizenship. Last month, DMV Director Jean Shiomoto retired from the agency. Legislators were angered earlier this week when the DMV said it needed an additional $40 million to prevent the return of long lines at its field offices. In addition, the agency has been under fire for issuing driver licenses in the last year that do not comply with the federal Real ID standards requiring two forms of identification by applicants. Facebook

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California police unions are preparing to battle new transparency law in the courtroom By Maya Lau Just as a landmark police transparency law is going into effect, some California police agencies are shredding internal affairs documents and law enforcement unions are rushing to block the information from being released. The new law, which begins to unwind Californias strictest-in-the-nation protections over the secrecy of law enforcement records, opens to the public internal investigations of officer shootings and other major uses of force, along with confirmed cases of sexual assault and lying while on duty. But the lawsuits and records destruction, which began even before the law took effect Jan. 1, could tie up the release of information for months or years, and in some instances, prevent it from ever being disclosed. The fact that police unions are challenging this law is on some level not surprising, said Peter Bibring, director of police practices at the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, one of the principal supporters of the new law. They have a long history of fighting tooth and nail against transparency. Read More Facebook

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Secretary of State Alex Padilla begins second term with challenge to ensure every Californian is counted By Jazmine Ulloa Secretary of State Alex Padilla takes the oath of office as his family stands by his side on Monday in Sacramento. (Jazmine Ulloa / Los Angeles Times) Secretary of State Alex Padilla was sworn in for a second term on Monday, saying he would continue the battle to protect the right to vote at a time when voter suppression efforts, online disinformation campaigns and interference from foreign adversaries have polarized the public and threatened to undermine trust in U.S. elections. I am doubling down on our fight here in Sacramento and in Washington, D.C., to defend our democracy, he said. Working on the front lines with so many of you, I know that our collective resolve has never been stronger. But the loudest applause came when Padilla promised to fight back against the Trump administrations changes to the U.S. census, saying he will ensure every Californian gets counted. Padilla, a former state senator and Los Angeles City Council member from the San Fernando Valley, led the cause for a new motor voter registration law in 2015, and a new system for online business registrations. But the programs have had experienced problems: More than 23,000 Californians were registered to vote incorrectly by the state DMV, the agency reported last year. On Monday, Padilla said he would continue to push back against false claims of voter fraud in California and pointed to the states voter turnout as proof that his office was involving more people in the democratic process, a promise he made when he was first sworn in four years ago. More than 12.7 million voters cast ballots in the Nov. 6 midterm election, representing roughly 65% of the states registered voters, the highest number of any midterm election since 1982, according to state certified results. I made that promise based on a shared belief that we are a stronger democracy and a better California when we hear all voices from all corners of California, and when those voices are not just heard but counted, Padilla said. Facebook

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Ricardo Lara, Californias first statewide officeholder to come out as gay, sworn in as insurance commissioner Ricardo Lara on the floor of the state Senate in 2016. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) Ricardo Lara took the oath of office as California insurance commissioner on Monday, pledging action to boost healthcare coverage and combat climate change. Lara, a Democrat from Bell Gardens, is the first elected statewide officeholder in California who has come out as gay. He began his speech in downtown Sacramento by thanking LGBTQ leaders who came before him and celebrated the occasion. Today, because of you, weve shattered the pink ceiling, Lara said. In his inaugural speech, Lara announced the creation of an executive position in his office to address climate change. There is no other industry that has the necessary expertise to ensure that California is prepared to mitigate and reduce risk to our communities and our environment, Lara said. Our planet cant wait. Im ready, and I hope you are too. Lara served as a state legislator and in 2017 introduced a bill to create a single-payer healthcare system in the state. He promised to work with new Gov. Gavin Newsom to expand coverage across California. Lara was sworn in by retired U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, who declared unconstitutional Californias Proposition 8 gay marriage ban. State Sen. President Pro Tem Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) was on hand for the ceremony along with multiple other state lawmakers. Facebook

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New California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis says she will help expand access to universities in the state New Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, center, is shown in June talking with attendees at the Power to the Polls rally in Sacramento. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) More Californians should be given access to public universities, Eleni Kounalakis said as she took the oath of office Monday to become the states first woman elected lieutenant governor. Kounalakis was given the oath of office by Gov. Gavin Newsom, her predecessor in the job, who pledged they would work together. As lieutenant governor, Kounalakis serves on the University of California Board of Regents and the California State University Board of Trustees, she noted in a speech at her swearing-in ceremony at the main Sacramento Library. In that role, she said, she will be committed to expanding access to affordable public higher education here in our state. Its wise, its smart and it is the best way to address our rapidly changing digital economy. Kounalakis is former president of a development company founded by her father, Angelo Tsakopoulos, and served during the Obama administration as the U.S. ambassador to Hungary. In November, she won her first run for statewide office. Also attending the ceremony were House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm. Facebook

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California meets Dutch Newsom, who steals the show at his fathers inauguration By Taryn Luna Gov. Gavin Newsom gives his inaugural address while holding his youngest son, Dutch. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) In the California political world, all eyes were on Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday until his 2-year-old son stole the show. Dutch, the youngest of four children in the Newsom brood, climbed onstage in the middle of his fathers inaugural address in a tent outside the Capitol on Monday. The unplanned moment saw the 51-year-old governors big day interrupted by the toddler, bringing levity to the ceremony. Newsom was recounting Gov. Jerry Browns last inaugural speech and reference to the Sermon on the Mount, a biblical story about two men who built separate homes on sand and rock, when Dutch approached his father, a pacifier in his mouth and blanket in hand. Now more than ever we Californians know how much a house matters and children matter, Newsom said, improvising as he scooped the boy into his arms. The governor kissed Dutch on the cheek and held him for several minutes as he continued with the speech. This is exactly how it was scripted, Newsom joked. Newsom eventually put his child down and Dutch walked to the edge of the stage before retreating behind the podium to hide from his mother, First Lady Jennifer Siebel Newsom. The crowd roared. Siebel Newsom was able to briefly divert her son only for him to return to the stage minutes later. She grabbed him again and this time, the crying toddler did not reemerge. When fires strikes, when kids cry and the earth shakes, well be there for each other, Newsom said. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, who said the moment humanized Newsom, threw cold water on any theories that Dutchs cameo was planned. No, I know it was not, Garcetti said with a laugh after Newsoms speech concluded. I could see that look of absolute abject terror [on Newsoms face]. Weve all been there. Kids always think its about themselves and theyve proved it. California Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood) agreed. I worked in early childhood education for 20 years and theres no way you can ever get a child to do anything when you want them to do it, Rendon said. Facebook

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Fiona Ma takes oath as Californias new treasurer By Liam Dillon State Treasurer Fiona Ma. Fiona Ma took the oath of office in Sacramento on Monday as the states 34th treasurer, promising to boost Californias economy. Ma previously served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, in the state Assembly and on the California Board of Equalization. I want to thank everyone for entrusting me with this important job. I understand my role here as your state treasurer is to build that financial wall around California so that we will remain the fifth-largest economy, Ma said in brief remarks. That is my promise to you. California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye administered the oath to Ma. Following the ceremony, Ma held an ice cream social for guests. On Wednesday, she will host a public event in San Francisco to celebrate her swearing-in. State Treasurer Fiona Ma takes the oath of office. (Liam Dillon / Los Angeles Times) Facebook

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Expectations are high for newly sworn-in state schools chief Tony Thurmond Tony Thurmond shakes hands with retired Alameda County Superior Court Judge Gordon Baranco after taking the oath of office. (Melody Gutierrez / Los Angeles Times) Tony Thurmond took the oath of office as Californias state superintendent of public schools on Monday, promising a labor-friendly agenda before the teachers, students and Democratic officials who filled an auditorium at McClatchy High School in Sacramento to watch him being sworn in. We cant close the achievement gap without a great teacher at the head of every class, Thurmond said Monday to applause. We have to make sure we provide quality compensation and support to our teachers and our classified staff and all the educators who support our kids. Thurmond, a Bay Area Democrat who served in the state Assembly, won a hotly contested and expensive race with the help of labor leaders against charter school executive Marshall Tuck. The race took several days to sort out after Tuck held an initial lead in early returns on election night before falling behind thereafter. Thurmond was sworn in Monday by retired Alameda County Superior Court Judge Gordon Baranco. He was joined on stage by labor rights leader Dolores Huerta and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Paramount). Thurmonds former colleagues in the state Assembly took turns praising him and promising to be an ally in improving schools. Many said they expected Thurmond would be a strong leader focused on improving student outcomes. We know we are going to work hard to give you the money you need and the budget you need to fully fund education and our schools so we can put our money where our mouth is and make sure our children have everything they need, Assemblywoman Connie Leyva (D-Chino Hills) said. As state superintendent, Thurmond will oversee the education of 6.2 million students at 10,000 schools. Thurmond was a member of the West Contra Costa County School Board and a Richmond city councilman before he was elected to the state Assembly. Tony is the right man at the right time to fight the federal, Donald Trump, Betsy DeVos anti-child, anti-education, anti-civil and -human rights agenda, U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) said. Tony is going to do that for us. Facebook

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State Controller Betty Yee takes oath of office with call for more affordable housing and healthcare State Controller Betty Yee California Controller Betty Yee took the oath of office Monday for a second term, saying she still has work to do addressing problems that include a lack of affordability in housing, healthcare and higher education. A San Francisco native, Yee is the chief financial officer of California  the fifth-largest economy in the world  having first won election to the post in 2014 before winning reelection in November. No region is spared from the widening inequality and increased poverty that plague our state, fueled by the lack of affordable, stable housing, the cost of healthcare and transportation, limited educational opportunities, student loan debt, displacement caused by disasters and more, she said. Yee was administered the oath of office by California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye at the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento before an overflow crowd that included state Senate leader Toni Atkins (D-San Diego), state Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra and San Francisco Mayor London Breed. As a public official it is about governance that delivers results and stays accountable while upholding the underlying value of dignity for all, Yee said. Facebook

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California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra begins new term promising to fight Trump policies California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra ( (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)) California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra on Monday took the oath of office for a new term, saying he would continue his role as a leading challenger to Trump administration actions that he believes are counter to the states interests. Becerra, a former 12-term congressman, has become a national opposition figure to Trump, having sued the federal government 45 times since he was appointed as the states first Latino attorney general in 2017. Weve been a little busy stopping the dysfunction and insanity in Washington, D.C., from infecting California, Becerra told an audience during a swearing-in ceremony at the California Museum in Sacramento. Whether its the criminals on our streets or the conman in the boardrooms or highest office of the land, Becerra said, the California Department of Justice, well, weve got your back. Becerra won his first statewide election as the states top cop in November, two years after he filled the post vacated when predecessor Kamala Harris was elected to the U.S. Senate. He has peppered the Trump administration with lawsuits challenging federal policies on healthcare, the U.S. census, the environment and immigration. Our state builds dreams, not walls, he said in a direct criticism of Trumps proposal to build a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border. Just last week, Becerra led a coalition of 17 Democratic attorneys general in announcing an appeal of a federal judge in Texas that ruled the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional. The ACA has been the law for nearly a decade and is the backbone of our healthcare system, Becerra said last week. This case impacts nearly every American  workers covered by employers, families, women, children, young adults and seniors  so we will lead the ACAs defense as long and far as it takes. Facebook

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California Democratic Party Vice Chairman Daraka Larimore-Hall announces bid to lead group By Christine Mai-Duc Daraka Larimore-Hall. (Dominic Parisi / Courtesy of Daraka Larimore-Hall) Daraka Larimore-Hall, a top official at the California Democratic Party, said Monday hes running to replace former chairman Eric Bauman, who resigned abruptly in November after being confronted with allegations of sexual misconduct. Larimore-Hall, a longtime state party activist and former chairman of the Democratic Party of Santa Barbara County, was one of the party leaders who urged Bauman to resign following the allegations. In an email to supporters announcing his bid, he urged both structural and cultural change at every level of our Party. He also repeated his call for a top-to-bottom investigation of the allegations, the party and its culture. In a Times investigation, 10 party activists and staff members said Bauman made crude sexual comments and engaged in unwanted touching and physical intimidation in professional settings. In order to be where we need to be for 2020, we have to confront the culture of abuse and fear that allowed someone to behave in such a vile way for so long, Larimore-Hall said in an interview. We cant brush it aside or think that our activists or our candidates or our donors are going to forget about this overnight. Larimore-Hall said his first priority would be to fully investigate the allegations and restore rank-and-file confidence in the partys leadership. The second would be to refocus the party on political priorities as the 2020 presidential election nears. The Bauman episode, Larimore-Hall said, threatens to derail the Democrats plans to help defeat President Trump and keep the seven congressional seats gained in the midterm elections. Its definitely a crisis, Larimore-Hall said. But the component parts  the energy, the enthusiasm, the volunteers, the infrastructure  its still there. We just need to direct it toward something. Larimore-Hall was elected vice chairman of the state party in February following Baumans razor-thin victory over Bay Area activist Kimberly Ellis. Ellis has announced another bid for the chairmanship and former state Senate leader Kevin de Leon is also mulling a run. The vote will take place at the partys May convention in San Francisco. Facebook

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Newsom will vow to seize this moment, and swipe at Trump in Monday inaugural address By Melanie Mason Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom and his family attend an Inauguration Family Event at the California Railroad Museum in Sacramento on Jan. 6. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) Building on the theme of California exceptionalism that defined his campaign, Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom will depict the state as a guardian of progressive values and a counterweight to President Trump in his inaugural address Monday, according to excerpts of his prepared remarks. What we do today is even more consequential, because of whats happening in our country, read the excerpts obtained by The Times. Peoples lives, freedom, security, the water we drink, the air we breathe  they all hang in the balance. The country is watching us. The world is waiting on us. The future depends on us. And we will seize this moment. The speech casts Californias political stakes in a decidedly national scope, promising an agenda that will unify and be an example to the rest of the country. It contrasts the governing goals of Newsom, a Democrat, with that of Trump, the incoming governors perennial foil. We will offer an alternative to the corruption and incompetence in the White House, the excerpts say. Our government will be progressive, principled, and always on the side of the people. Newsom campaigned on an ambitious and wide-ranging platform, promising sweeping solutions on housing, healthcare, education and other issues that rank among Californians top concerns. In the weeks after his election, he struck a more muted tone, taking pains to emphasize his fiscal caution and need for patience in achieving those goals. The inaugural excerpts indicate a return to lofty pledges. While Newsom will vow to prepare for uncertain times ahead by building budgetary reserves and paying down debt, the prepared remarks quickly turn to a vow to be bold. Newsom has already floated several proposals for his first budget that carry significant price tags, including a nearly $2-billion plan to boost early childhood development for low-income families and a dramatic expansion of paid family leave from six weeks to six months. When asked for a preview of his inauguration speech during a news conference Sunday evening, Newsom predicted pundits would criticize his address as short on specifics. Well, of course, Im at an inaugural, Newsom said. But Ill be very detailed in the budget, a few days later. And then we will architect, in much more nuance and detail, in state of the state. I really see this as three opportunities  to communicate over the next few weeks our agenda, our vision for the state. Times staff writer Taryn Luna contributed to this report. Read More Facebook

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Newsom-hosted benefit concert raises nearly $5 million for wildfire victims By Taryn Luna Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom speaks at a concert to benefit wildfire victims at the Golden 1 Arena in Sacramento on Jan. 6. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) On the eve of the gubernatorial inauguration, Californias political class rubbed elbows in Sacramento for a benefit concert hosted by Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom and headlined by the rapper Pitbull. Newsom told the crowd gathered at the Golden 1 Center on Sunday evening that the fundraiser brought in nearly $5 million for the California Wildfire Foundation, a 501(c)(3) that supports the families of fallen firefighters and communities affected by wildfires. You know, a lot of folks feel anxious about not just politics, but government, Newsom said on stage before introducing the rapper and activist Common. But those firefighters, they are the antidote to the fear and cynicism; they are the manifestation of why government matters and why you should care. Top sponsors, including Salesforce, Kaiser Permanente and other interest groups, paid up to $1 million each to support the cause and curry favor with the new administration. Nathan Click, a spokesman for Newsom, said organizers sold more than 7,000 tickets. Several state lawmakers attended the concert alongside Capitol staff, lobbyists and business types, who mingled on the floor of the arena and offstage in private VIP areas. The rock band X Ambassadors and a duo called the Cold Weather Sons from the town of Paradise, which was destroyed by fire in November, were among several performers who entertained the crowd during the four-hour event. The California Rises concert is the final in a series of festivities held Sunday to celebrate the inauguration of Californias 40th governor. Earlier in the day, Newsom attended a private brunch at Sacramentos Crocker Art Museum and his inaugural committee hosted a free party for families at the California State Railroad Museum at the Old Sacramento Waterfront. Newsoms inauguration is set to begin at 11 a.m. Monday on the steps of the Capitol. Facebook

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Inauguration fever hits Sacramento as Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom prepares to take office By Phil Willon Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom holds his son, Dutch, as he and his family attend an inaugural event at the at the state Railroad Museum Sunday. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) Incoming Gov. Gavin Newsom doesnt officially take the oath of office until Monday, but the parties celebrating his inauguration were in full swing all day Sunday. Newsom and his family were mobbed by well-wishers at the California State Railroad Museum at the Old Sacramento Waterfront in the afternoon, where his inaugural committee hosted a free party for families. He just has charisma. Hes able to really connect with people, said Rosielyn Pulmano, an attorney from Elk Grove who came to see Newsom with her husband, two sons and her niece. I think he cares about working Californians and a lot of their issues. Newsom arrived with his wife, documentary filmmaker Jennifer Siebel Newsom, and their four young children, and the governor-elect spent a good deal of his time wading through crowds, taking selfies with supporters and signing autographs as music boomed in the background. As the family toured the inside of the museums locomotives and the bevy of exhibits, Newsoms two-year-old son, Dutch, was wide-eyed, impressed by all the train cars and seemingly a little overwhelmed by the crowd. Newsom said that for his son, all that was missing from the museum was Thomas the Train, popular fictional locomotive in childrens books and cartoons . If theres one thing I can contribute to Sacramento maybe its getting a Thomas the Train exhibit for the two years olds, Newsom joked when talking with reporters afterward. Newsom said he wanted to include such an event in his inaugural festivities to highlight families and children, whose wellbeing will be among the top priorities of his administration. Youll see that not only as a preamble to the inaugural and the budget that well be submitting next week, but I think itll be a big part of the administration, Newsom said. The museum event followed a private, high-dollar brunch at Sacramentos Crocker Art Museum. A steady rain failed to dissuade as many as 200 guests who sipped wine and dined on chicken and salmon while waiting for a photo with Californias new first couple. Seen at the event were representatives of some of the states most powerful political interests, among them organized labor, healthcare companies and tribal gaming interests. A few other high-profile guests attended, too, including Larry Baer, CEO of the San Francisco Giants, and Erika Jayne, a singer and cast member of the reality TV show The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Im excited to see someone like Gavin  young, vibrant  taking over the state and leading us into the future, Jayne said after attending the brunch with her husband, attorney Tom Girardi. Hes got a lot of great plans. Attendees said the event, which was closed to reporters and held under a tent in the museums outdoor atrium, did not include prepared remarks by Newsom. Among those seen leaving the event were representatives of AT&T, the California Medical Assn., Uber, Kaiser Permanente and the State Building and Construction Trades Council. A fundraising invitation obtained by The Times offered bundled tickets to all of the inauguration events, including those on Sunday and the Monday ceremony, ranging in price from $25,000 to $200,000. The money will be collected by a committee specifically organized to pay for Newsoms inaugural weekend. Sundays festivities are scheduled to end with a benefit concert headlined by Pitbull at the Golden 1 Center, home of the NBAs Sacramento Kings, to raise money for the victims of Californias recent deadly wildfires. Among the attendees at @GavinNewsoms pre-inaugural leadership brunch: Real Housewife of

Bev Hills @erikajayne. Im excited to see someone like Gavinyoung, vibranttaking over the state and leading us into the future. Hes got a lot of great plans. pic.twitter.com/561NHiy2XQ  Melanie Mason (@melmason) January 6, 2019 Facebook

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As Newsom inaugural events begin, he unveils more state budget promises on education and paid family leave Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom, seen here last April, will propose new state budget efforts on paid family leave and education subsidies. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) Californias incoming governor, who must send his first state budget plan to the Legislature this week, has already signaled a significant new focus on programs to help families and children from infancy to college. Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom campaigned on a platform that included a number of child-focused efforts specifically aimed at helping lower-income families. The price tag for the initial efforts is expected to approach $2 billion  a cost paid out of an unrestricted tax revenue windfall that could be one of the largest in state history. Newsom may also seek help for families through new subsidies paid by California employers. The governor-elect is expected to propose a dramatic expansion of paid parental leave  from six weeks to six months  according to an internal document provided by a source close to the Newsom transition team, first reported on Sunday by the New York Times. The document doesnt offer a full explanation for how the program will be funded, saying instead that the budget will set a goal of ensuring that all newborns and newly adopted babies can be cared for by a parent or a close family member for the first six months. Employers across the state are currently assessed a payroll tax that helps offer a subsidy to parents who temporarily leave their job to care for a newborn. Newsoms plan, according to the document, would pay for some of the new costs by shrinking the mandated cash reserve of the state fund that administers the program, allowing more of the money to be paid in benefits. The increase in paid leave would not all happen at once but instead be phased in over a multi-year period. A task force to help implement the expanded care plan is also envisioned, according to the document. It would determine whether two parents could split the six months of paid leave and whether an extended family member could be enlisted to help care for the child of a single parent over the six-month period. The incoming administrations focus on young children will also include $1.8 billion in new spending on early childhood education programs, with a particular focus on training childcare workers and pushing for more California schools to offer full-day kindergarten. Those costs, according to an overview memo obtained by the Los Angeles Times, are considered to be a one-time expense while leaving the long-term costs of the effort to be determined later. More community college students would get free tuition under a third initiative expected in the new governors budget plan. Newsom will propose spending $40 million to offer a second year of tuition-free college to California students, according to an outline provided by a transition official, first reported by Politico. Students are already eligible for a single year of paid tuition under a plan agreed to by Gov. Jerry Brown and lawmakers in 2017. The incoming governor embraced the idea of free community college during the 2018 campaign as part of a broader focus on additional investments in higher education. Education is an economic development strategy, Newsom said at a higher education forum last spring. We need to significantly increase the investment from the general fund of this state on higher education. Theres no greater higher return on investment. Whether the proposal would be targeted to students based on a familys financial need is unclear. Many low-income students are already eligible for fee waivers at community colleges. The new governor must submit his full state budget plan to lawmakers no later than Thursday. Facebook

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Gavin Newsom and his family decide Sacramento is the place to be The Old Governors Mansion State Historic Park in Sacramento. Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom will move his family into the mansion. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom and his family will give up the Marin County life and move to the Victorian-style governors mansion in Sacramento after he takes the oath of office Monday. Newsom and his wife, documentary filmmaker Jennifer Siebel Newsom, had debated whether or when to relocate to the state capital since his election in November. The couple have four young children and expressed reservations about moving in the middle of a school year. To best serve the people of California while also maximizing family time together, the Newsoms have therefore decided to move to Sacramento, said Newsoms spokesman, Nathan Click. On Monday, they will move into the Governors Mansion  along with their four children, their two family dogs, and their family bunny rabbit  and reside there for the immediate future. The Newsoms currently live in Marin County. Gov. Jerry Brown and his wife, Ann Gust Brown, moved into the grand house in 2015 after it underwent $4.1 million in renovations to update electrical and plumbing systems, as well as to remove lead-based paint and install a fire sprinkler system and other security features. The mansion was built in 1877 and has been home to 14 governors, but before Brown it had not housed a California governor for nearly half a century. The state bought the mansion from a wealthy Sacramento hardware merchant, Albert Gallatin, in 1903 for $32,500. It was one of the few California homes at that time to have indoor plumbing. Facebook

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Newsom announces top labor, business liaisons as he prepares to take office Julie Su will be secretary of the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency for Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom. (Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times) Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom on Friday named two advisors on issues related to the California economy, each recognized for their expertise on business and labor. The incoming governor will appoint Julie Su as secretary of the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency and Lenny Mendonca as chief economic and business advisor and director of the Governors Office of Business and Economic Development. Su, 49, has served as state labor commissioner under Gov. Jerry Brown since 2011 and has led an office tasked with the enforcement of Californias labor laws. She won a MacArthur Foundation genius grant in 2001 and previously worked as a civil rights attorney representing low-wage workers. In her new position, Su will be tasked with coordinating the work of several workforce departments in state government, including those that administer unemployment benefits and oversee the relationship between agriculture workers and employers. Mendonca, 57, has been a longtime advocate for rethinking government operations as co-chairman of the nonprofit organization California Forward. Previously, he was partner at McKinsey & Co., a global management consulting firm. While he will be a key advisor to Newsom on the states economy, Mendonca will also lead the office often referred to as Go-Biz, designated as a high-level way to encourage job growth and economic development. In his new role, Mendonca will help ensure that California is rolling out the welcome mat to current and future California businesses and growing a sustainable economy for every Californian, said a statement from the Newsom transition team. Newsom will take the oath of office as governor Monday. He has previously selected key advisors on the state budget, legislative affairs and the executive branchs wide array of agencies and departments. Facebook

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Joshua Groban, aide to Gov. Jerry Brown, sworn in to California Supreme Court By Taryn Luna California Supreme Court Justice Joshua Groban gives remarks after he is sworn into the court by Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday. (Taryn Luna) California Supreme Court Justice Joshua Groban, a lawyer and longtime aide to Gov. Jerry Brown, was sworn into the states highest court Thursday in Sacramento. The ceremony marked Browns fourth appointment to the state Supreme Court and gave the seven-member bench a Democratic majority. We live in a highly chaotic, ever-changing and ever-confusing world, Groban said in prepared remarks at the Stanley Mosk Library and Courts Building. But Im happy to report that Im joining an institution whose fundamental purpose, at core, is to provide stability and consistency amidst this chaotic place we live. I look forward to doing that with a sense of reflection, respect, fidelity to the law and compassion. None of Browns appointees, Groban included, have judicial experience. Groban served as legal counsel to Browns 2010 gubernatorial campaign and joined the administration as a senior advisor to the governor, overseeing the appointments of some 600 judges over the last eight years. Prior to working with Brown, Groban, 45, practiced law for more than a decade. In perhaps his final public appearance before his successor, Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom, takes office next week, Brown pushed back on notions that he stacked the court. I dont want this to be known as a Brown court, the governor said before administering the judicial oath of office. First of all, the so-called Brown appointments do not agree with themselves and nor should they. They are individuals. They will differ. Its not anybodys court. The governor called the court a high calling and said Groban possesses the values for the job. Probably, next to my wife, Ive talked to no person as much as Ive talked to Josh Groban, Brown said. I think youve talked to him more, Californias First Lady Anne Gust Brown interjected. I cant tell you what the hell hes going to do, Brown later quipped. I warned him, dont screw up, at least not at first. Facebook

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California campaign watchdog agency seeks law barring use of campaign funds to fight harassment claims Former state Sen. Tony Mendoza (D-Artesia). ( (Steve Yeater / Associated Press)) Elected officials accused of harassment or discrimination would be barred from using political contributions to cover their legal defense costs under legislation proposed by Californias campaign watchdog agency. The state Fair Political Practices Commission has agreed to pursue a law change to clear up confusion after an attorney for one former state lawmaker argued political funds could be used in such legal defenses. Commission Chairwoman Alice Germond said putting a prohibition into the law would provide some much needed clarity. As chair, I would like to show the public their lawmakers are held to a standard that is above reproach, Germond said in a statement. People dont give money to campaigns for lawmakers to use it to defend their own bad behavior, so lawmakers shouldnt be able to use it in that manner. The issue came up a year ago when an attorney for former Sen. Tony Mendoza (D-Artesia) sought a formal opinion from the FPPC after the Senate launched an investigation that later concluded Mendoza likely engaged in a pattern of harassment against female aides. Mendoza resigned in February under threat of expulsion by the Senate. In a Jan. 10, 2018, letter, Cassandra Ferrannini, an attorney for Mendoza, wrote to the FPPC that she believed Mendoza should be allowed to establish a legal defense fund able to defray his legal expenses in defending himself against the allegations. The use of campaign funds for attorneys fees under these circumstances would fall squarely within the scope of legislative matters, since it involves the alleged conduct of a legislator with regard to legislative staff that he supervised, Ferrannini wrote. The commission staff originally issued an advice letter that said Mendoza may use campaign and legal defense funds to defend himself from claims of sexual harassment that arose directly out of his activities or status as a candidate or elected officer. But the panel later rescinded the letter after some members questioned using campaign funds to fight sexual harassment claims. That left uncertainty about what was allowed, which Germond said could be cleared up by a new law. The FPPC is still looking for a legislator to carry the bill, a spokesman said. Facebook

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Californias landmark police transparency law takes effect after court denies police union effort to block it California Supreme Court building (Eric Risberg / Associated Press) A new state law allowing the public disclosure of internal police shooting investigations has gone into effect after the California Supreme Court on Wednesday denied a bid by a police union to block it. The law opens to the public for the first time internal investigations of officer shootings and other major uses of force, along with confirmed cases of sexual assault and lying while on duty. The San Bernardino County Sheriffs Employees Benefit Assn. challenged the law last month, asking state Supreme Court justices to decide that the law only apply to incidents that occur in 2019 or later. The court rejected that request Wednesday, allowing members of the public to seek all applicable records held by police departments. Union president Grant Ward said in a statement that his organization was disappointed with the decision and is now seeking other legal options. We feel this is a statewide issue and should be considered accordingly, Ward said. Last month, the city of Inglewood authorized the destruction of more than 100 police shooting investigations and other records in advance of Jan. 1, when the disclosure law was scheduled to take effect. California law requires police departments to keep such records for five years, and Inglewood City Council voted to destroy records older than that. Mayor James T. Butts has said the decision had nothing to do with the new law. In Los Angeles, Police Chief Michel Moore has said that complying with the new disclosure rules could take hundreds of thousands of hours of work. State Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley), the author of the transparency law, has said she has no immediate plans to propose changes to it. Facebook

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Few complaints of racial profiling are sustained by police agencies in California, state panel finds CHP Officer J. Nelson stands outside the office of Gov. Jerry Brown as activists in 2015 support requiring the tracking of police stops. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) Law enforcement agencies in California sustain few citizen complaints of racial or identity profiling, according to a report Wednesday by a state panel set up to help reduce bias in policing. The states Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory Board recommended in its annual report that law enforcement agencies improve training and adopt clear guidelines for tracking and reporting data on who is stopped by officers. The panel said that 453 law enforcement agencies in the state received 9,459 civilian complaints in 2017, including 865 complaints alleging racial or identity profiling. Of the racial and identity complaints that reached a disposition that year, 1.5% were sustained, 14.6% resulted in officers being exonerated and 83.9% of complaints were not sustained or were determined to be unfounded, the report said. A clearer picture of the issue is expected from a 2015 law that requires police agencies to report demographic data on all detentions and searches. The first reports by the eight largest agencies, including the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department, are due to be submitted in April. California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra, whose office oversees the board, said tracking of all detentions and searches will be helpful to understand the scope of the issue. The Boards recommendations will help make our law enforcement agencies more transparent and promote critical steps to enhance, and in some cases, repair the public trust, Becerra said in a statement Wednesday. Facebook

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California housing crisis podcast: What Minneapolis decision to end single-family zoning might mean for California A view of downtown Minneapolis in 2014 (Stephen Maturen / Getty Images) Theres a national movement brewing to roll back zoning rules in cities that only allow one house on a plot of land. The epicenter of that movement is Minneapolis, which passed a plan last month to eliminate single-family zoning citywide and let landowners build duplexes and triplexes on residential property. On this episode of Gimme Shelter: The California Housing Crisis Podcast, we talk about the reasons why Minneapolis leaders took this action, including their desire to combat a history of racial exclusion and spur more housing density to fight climate change. We also debate how Minneapolis decision might affect housing politics in California. Our guest is Minneapolis City Council President Lisa Bender, who helped shepherd the new zoning rules to passage and a former San Francisco city planner. The episode also crowns 2018s Avocado of the Year  the most ridiculous story exemplifying Californias housing woes  and includes our predictions for the most under-the-radar important themes in housing politics in 2019. Gimme Shelter, a biweekly podcast that looks at why its so expensive to live in California and what the state can do about it, features Liam Dillon, who covers housing affordability issues for the Los Angeles Times Sacramento bureau, and Matt Levin, data and housing reporter for CALmatters. You can subscribe to Gimme Shelter on iTunes, Stitcher, Soundcloud, Google Play and Overcast. Facebook

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How young immigrant Dreamers made flipping control of the House a personal quest By Jazmine Ulloa Gabriela Cruz, who was brought to the U.S. illegally when she was 1, couldnt vote, but in the final hours before the Nov. 6 election, she was making one last run to get people to the polls. The sun was setting in Modesto when she found Ronald Silva, 41, smoking a cigarette on a tattered old couch behind a group home. He politely tried to wave her off until she reminded him he had a right that she as an immigrant without citizenship didnt have. It could really make a change for us, said Cruz, 29. Read More Facebook

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Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom will propose almost $2 billion for early childhood programs (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times) Seeking to frame his new administration as one with a firm focus on closing the gap between children from affluent and poor families, Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom will propose spending some $1.8 billion on an array of programs designed to boost Californias enrollment in early education and child-care programs. Newsoms plan, which he hinted at in a Fresno event last month, will be a key element in the state budget proposal he will submit to the Legislature shortly after taking office Monday, a source close to the governor-elects transition team said. The spending would boost programs designed to ensure children enter kindergarten prepared to learn, closing what some researchers have called the readiness gap that exists based on a familys income. It would also phase in an expansion of prekindergarten and offer money to help school districts that dont have facilities for full-day kindergarten. The fact that hes making significant investments with his opening budget is really exciting, Ted Lempert, president of the Bay Area-based nonprofit Children Now, said Tuesday. Whats exciting is the comprehensiveness of it, because its saying were going to focus on prenatal through age 5. A broad overview document reviewed by The Times on Tuesday shows that most of the outlay under the plan  $1.5 billion  would be a one-time expense in the budget year that begins July 1. Those dollars would be a single infusion of cash, an approach favored by Gov. Jerry Brown in recent years. Most of the money would be spent on efforts to expand child-care services and kindergarten classes. By law, a governor must submit a full budget to the Legislature no later than Jan. 10. Lawmakers will spend the winter and spring reviewing the proposal and must send a final budget plan to Newsom by June 15. Though legislative Democrats have pushed for additional early childhood funding in recent years  a key demand of the Legislative Womens Caucus  those actions have typically come late in the budget-writing season in Sacramento. Quite frankly, to start out with a January proposal that includes that investment in Californias children reflects a new day, state Sen. Holly J. Mitchell (D-Los Angeles) said. The governor-elect will propose a $750-million boost to kindergarten funding, aimed at expanding facilities to allow full-day programs. A number of school districts offer only partial-day programs, leaving many low-income families to skip enrolling their children because kindergarten classes end in the middle of the workday. Because the money would not count toward meeting Californias three-decades-old education spending guarantee under Proposition 98, which sets a minimum annual funding level for K-12 schools and community colleges, it will not reduce planned spending on other education services. Close behind in total cost is a budget proposal by Newsom to help train child-care workers and expand local facilities already subsidized by the state, as well as those serving parents who attend state colleges and universities. Together, those efforts could cost $747 million, according to the budget overview document. An expansion of prekindergarten programs would be phased in over three years at a cost of $125 million in the first year. The multiyear rollout would, according to the budget overview, ensure the system can plan for the increase in capacity. Lempert said the Newsom proposal is notable for trying to avoid the kinds of battles that in recent years pitted prekindergarten and expanded child care against each other for additional taxpayer dollars. The reality is we need to expand both simultaneously, he said. Another $200 million of the proposal would be earmarked for programs that provide home visits to expectant parents from limited-income families and programs that provide healthcare screenings for young children. Some of the money would come from the states Medi-Cal program, and other money from federal matching dollars. Funding for the home visits program was provided in the budget Brown signed last summer; the Newsom effort would build on that. Emphasizing a policy area with broad appeal in his first state budget could reflect Newsoms political sensibility about the challenges ahead. Democratic lawmakers and interest groups will be especially eager to see how Newsom addresses the demand for an overhaul of healthcare coverage in California  especially after a 2017 effort to create a single-payer, universal system fizzled. The path forward on healthcare is complex and costly, making early childhood education a more achievable goal in the governor-elects early tenure. Newsom is likely to face considerable demands for other additional spending. In November, the Legislatures independent analysts projected that continued strength in tax revenues could produce a cash reserve of some $29 billion over the next 18 months. Almost $15 billion of that could be in unrestricted reserves, the kind that can be spent on any number of government programs. Kim Belshe, executive director of the child advocacy organization First 5 LA and a former state health and human services secretary, said the initial Newsom budget proposal suggests the next governor will focus on a comprehensive approach to improving outcomes for children from low-income families. School-ready kids deserve quality early learning, strong and well-supported families, and access to early screening services, Belshe said. Newsom understands the whole child, multifaceted needs of our kids and is clearly ready to lead. Mitchell, the chair of the Senate budget committee, said shes eager to see the details of the governor-elects proposal to determine whether it might signal the beginning of an even broader expansion of early education efforts. Similar efforts have been hindered by a lack of money and ongoing debate over which services to help children 5 and younger need state funding the most. Universal preschool, in particular, has been debated for more than a decade. California voters rejected a ballot measure to fund a full prekindergarten system in 2006. Its clear theres a new movement afoot trying to engage on investment for universal preschool, Mitchell said. How we invest, and how we prioritize that investment, is going to be a great conversation for the coming months. Facebook

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California Politics Podcast: A final conversation with Gov. Jerry Brown No Californian has served longer as governor, signed more laws, granted clemency to more felons or waged more high-profile campaigns than Gov. Jerry Brown. Brown will leave behind a unique legacy when he packs his last belongings for the trip from the governors mansion in Sacramento to his Northern California ranch. His final two terms in office could be his most consequential. The governor reviewed some of the more notable moments from the past eight years in a far-reaching interview with The Times on Dec. 22. This weeks podcast episode includes extended portions of that conversation. Facebook

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A sagging economy could doom a 2020 ballot measure to raise commercial property taxes, Gov. Jerry Brown says Gov. Jerry Brown, at his Colusa County home on Saturday, said a ballot measure to raise commercial property taxes could struggle in 2020. (Randall Benton/For The Times) An effort to remove commercial property in California from the tax limits imposed by the landmark Proposition 13 could be felled by an economic slowdown, Gov. Jerry Brown said. In a Saturday interview with The Times at his Northern California ranch, Brown said liberal activist groups that have successfully placed the proposal on the November 2020 statewide ballot shouldnt read too much into early poll numbers showing support for the plan. That isnt as easy as you think, Brown said. Because youre going to be in a downturn of the business cycle. And youre talking many kinds of business. And the cost of doing business in California is already high. The ballot measure would allow counties to more frequently assess the market value of commercial property in California than allowed under Proposition 13, a 1978 ballot initiative that amended the state constitution to place strict limits on assessing property values and taxation for both homeowners and businesses. An analysis of the new measure, which qualified in October for the 2020 ballot, estimates it could bring in some $10.5 billion a year in new tax revenue. The business community will fight it, Brown said. And the minimum wage, the family leave, the environmental rules  business[es] have left California, thats going to be the big argument. And I think thats something you really have to think a lot about. The governor, who leaves office early next month due to term limits, declined to either endorse or oppose the ballot measure. He said Californias economic health in two years time could be a key factor in how voters weigh the proposal. Well be in a recession by then, Brown said. So its anybodys guess. Facebook

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Inglewood to destroy more than 100 police shooting records that could otherwise become public under new California law By Jack Dolan Inglewood Mayor James T. Butts (Maria Alejandra Cardona / Los Angeles Times) The city of Inglewood has authorized the shredding of more than 100 police shooting and other internal investigation records weeks before a new state law could allow the public to access them for the first time. The decision, made at a City Council meeting earlier this month, has troubled civil liberties advocates who were behind the state legislation, Senate Bill 1421, which takes effect Jan. 1. The law opens to the public internal investigations of officer shootings and other major uses of force, along with confirmed cases of sexual assault and lying while on duty. The legislature passed SB 1421 because communities demanded an end to the secrecy cloaking police misconduct and use of force, Marcus Benigno, a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, said in a statement. Inglewood PDs decision to purge records undermines police accountability and transparency against the will of Californians. California law says police departments must retain records of officer shootings and internal misconduct investigations for five years. The city of Inglewood, however, had kept records longer than that, including case files of police shootings dating to 1991. State Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley), the author of SB 1421, intended for her bill to allow public access to all qualifying records held by a department, no matter the date of the incident. Inglewood City Council approved the destruction of records that have been in the police departments possession  more than 100 cases  longer than required by law. The city staff report and council resolution describing the action makes no mention of the new police transparency law. Instead it says the affected records are obsolete, occupy valuable space, and are of no further use to the police department. It added the traditional method of destroying such records is to shred them. It is unclear whether the records have since been destroyed. A spokesman for the Inglewood Police Department along with Inglewoods city manager, attorney, clerk, four council members and Mayor James T. Butts, a former Santa Monica police chief, did not respond to requests for comment. Inglewoods City Hall is closed the last two weeks of December. The Inglewood Police Department has a reputation for secrecy and using excessive force. In 2008, the departments officers fatally shot four men in as many months, three of whom turned out to be unarmed. The U.S. Department of Justice launched a civil rights probe and found significant flaws in the way the department oversaw use-of-force cases and investigated complaints against officers. Civil rights advocates still question why Inglewood police opened fire on a couple found sleeping in a car in 2016, killing them both. California police have a long history of shredding records to avoid scrutiny of their actions. In the 1970s, the LAPD famously destroyed more than four tons of personnel records after defense attorneys began requesting them as part of criminal cases against their clients. The move resulted in the dismissal of more than a hundred criminal complaints. In response, the Legislature demanded that records be preserved but then took other measures, supported by police unions, to ensure the public had very little access to them, making California the most secretive state in the nation when it comes to police misconduct. Skinners legislation begins to unwind those laws, which have been on the books since 1978. No video or audio of the Dec. 11 council action is available on the citys website and neither are meeting minutes or any record of the decision. A city spokeswoman, Courtney Torres, confirmed that the council had voted in favor of the police records purge, and said all the relevant reasons for the decision were included in the city staff report. The Jan. 1 implementation for SB 1421 has prompted other police officials to act. A police union in San Bernardino is asking the state Supreme Court to determine that Skinners bill only applies to incidents that occur in 2019 or later. Los Angeles Police Department Chief Michel Moore sent a letter to Skinner earlier this month warning that complying with the law in regard to older records in the departments possession could take hundreds of thousands of work hours. Facebook

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Federal officials question California DMVs process for issuing Real IDs (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has notified the California Department of Motor Vehicles that its process for providing residents with federally recognized identification cards is not adequate. DMV spokesman Armando Botello said Friday that 2.3 million residents who received Real IDs under the current process will have to submit additional documentation when their cards are renewed in five years but will be able to use them in the meantime. The DMV is developing a way for residents to submit more documentation online or via email to comply with the stricter federal requirement, he said. But some state legislators are upset about delays in notifying them of the problem and say Homeland Security could eventually require additional documentation provided by current holders. The DMV has known for a month that millions of Real IDs theyve been dolling out are potentially invalid, Assemblyman Jim Patterson (R-Fresno) said. The DMVs only hope is that the Department of Homeland Security takes pity on California and gives the DMV more time to fix this mess. Real IDs are a new kind of driver license and identification card that federal law will require legal residents to present when boarding domestic flights or visiting military bases and other federal facilities starting Oct. 1, 2020. The DMV has only been requiring one form of documentation, including a current lease or utility bill, to verify the residence of a card applicant. But the federal government said in a Nov. 21 letter to the agency that two such documents are needed. On Friday, DMV Director Jean Shiomoto released a letter defending the current process but said her agency will start requiring a second document to prove residency in April. In order to minimize confusion among our customers, the CADMV will work to inform individuals who have been issued a Real ID under the current process that their card will be accepted for official federal purposes, even if their renewal occurs after the October 1, 2020, final enforcement date for Real ID, Shiomoto wrote to the federal agency. Legislative officials worry there is still a possibility that those issued Real IDs in the past might be required to present a second document to have their cards designated as compliant. The more complex process for obtaining Real IDs has led to hours-long waits for customers at DMV field offices this year, although wait times have been reduced recently by an increase in staffing. Shiomoto last month announced that she is retiring amid problems with the motor voter registration system and after the governor ordered an audit of her agency in response to the long wait times. On Friday, Assembly Republican Leader Marie Waldron of Escondido blasted the DMV for waiting a month to tell legislators of the problem. This is unacceptable and flies in the face of security for our citizens, which is what Real ID was created for in the first place, she said in a statement. Facebook

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Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom taps Keely Bosler to be his finance director Keely Bosler, the director of the California Department of Finance, will continue in that role under Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom. (California Department of Finance) Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom on Friday appointed Keely Martin Bosler as director of the California Department of Finance, continuing the role she has served under Gov. Jerry Brown since August. Bosler will become Newsoms chief fiscal advisor, and will play a pivotal role in shaping Newsoms spending plan for the state that will lay the foundation for his top policy priorities. Newsom must roll out his first budget plan within days of taking office on Jan. 7. Californias brighter future depends on a strong, stable fiscal foundation, Newsom said in a statement released Friday afternoon. Keely is an accomplished public servant of sound fiscal judgment. She understands that state budgets are more than numbers on a page  they are value statements affecting the fate and future of millions of families reaching for the California Dream. We are fortunate to have her on our team. Prior to being appointed finance director, Bosler served as Browns cabinet secretary for two years and, before that, as the chief deputy director for budget in the Finance Department for three years. Earlier this year, Brown picked Bosler to lead an audit of the Department of Motor Vehicles, which had come under fire for long wait times at DMV field offices and numerous computer problems, including errors in the new motor voter program that registered Californians to vote. As we have discussed, long wait times at the Department of Motor Vehicles do not reflect the high standards of service that Californians expect from their state government, Bosler wrote in a letter in September to DMV Director Jean Shiomoto. The audit is still ongoing, but Shiomoto has since announced she will retire at the end of the year. Facebook

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Californias legislative analyst, after decades of nonpartisan research for lawmakers, calls it a career Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor, who has led the state research unit since 2008, will retire on Dec. 31. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) Only five people have led the independent research office of the California Legislature since its creation in 1941. And each of them has had a pretty simple mantra to live by in reviewing public policy proposals and government programs: Call it like you see it. The job of any analyst, to me, is you maintain that nonpartisanship, Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor said. Taylor, 65, will retire from the post at the end of December after a four-decade career with the research team that began, as he likes to tell it, just after the passage of the landmark property tax rollback, Proposition 13, in 1978. He became the leader of the office, with the title of legislative analyst, in October 2008. Two months later, state government found itself in arguably the worst fiscal crisis in its history  a projected shortfall that ultimately grew to $42 billion by the following winter. There were forces beyond our control, Taylor said of that time. But dont underestimate the policy changes that were made afterward. Those changes, most notably a boost in taxes paid by high-income earners and a robust state budget cash reserve fund, have helped lead to successive years of fully funded government services. The state is projected to have some $24 billion in reserves by the end of the current fiscal year. Taylor announced his intention earlier to step down this year. Leaders from both houses of the Legislature select the analyst, who leads a staff of almost five dozen researchers. The office provides in-depth reports on pending legislation, as well as on broader policy topics like education and healthcare, and produces an independent analysis for every proposed ballot measure. A succession of lawmakers and governors alike have praised or panned the work of the Legislative Analysts Office based on their own political worldview. Taylor said his staff is mindful that they work for legislators, but try to ignore the rhetoric that follows the release of a major report. People are going to do what theyre going to do with our information, he said. They dont always like it, but they appreciate that we give them our best advice. Taylor oversaw a transformation in the way the Legislative Analysts Office distributes its information, embracing the release of research reports through social media instead of relying on traditional printed copies and journalist roundtable events. But he said the work of the researchers has remained largely unchanged through the decades. Having an independent take on things, I think, is good for the Legislature, he said. No replacement for Taylor has been announced, which means a short transition for his eventual successor before Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom sends his first budget proposal to lawmakers in early January. Taylor, who lives in the Sacramento suburbs, said he will honor the tradition of his predecessors in stepping away from public policy debates in order to give the new analyst space to lead the team as he or she sees fit. He said he hopes to travel in the coming years and spend time with his children who have moved to the East Coast. Forty years in state government, Taylor said in why he was stepping aside now. Isnt that enough? Facebook

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Gov. Jerry Brown sues to save California sentencing laws By Don Thompson, Associated Press (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) Outgoing Gov. Jerry Brown sued Thursday to protect one of his signature actions in office, a voter-approved measure that allows most prison inmates to seek earlier release and participate in rehabilitation programs. His administration filed a lawsuit challenging a pending 2020 initiative that seeks to toughen criminal penalties as part of an effort to roll back reforms adopted by voters within the last decade. Browns lawsuit in Sacramento County Superior Court contends the measure lacked enough valid signatures to overturn a previously approved constitutional amendment. County officials and California Secretary of State Alex Padilla certified the signatures in July but said they were submitted too late to qualify for last months election. The lawsuit names Padilla and the ballot measures official proponent, Nina Salarno Besselman, president of the advocacy group Crime Victims United. Padilla said the measure exceeded the required roughly 366,000 valid signatures, equal to 5% of votes cast for governor in 2014. Browns lawsuit says he used the wrong threshold. It says changing the state Constitution requires 8%, or more than 585,400 signatures. That makes the pending initiative more than 150,000 signatures short, the lawsuit says. Hes wrong, said Jeff Flint, a spokesman for the campaign backing the measure. He predicted a judge will be reluctant to reject a measure that already has qualified for the ballot. The secretary of state told us how many signatures are required, and thats how many we collected, Flint said. Padillas office did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The measure would reverse reforms adopted by voters through Proposition 47 in 2014 and Proposition 57 in 2016. Proposition 57 allows most inmates to seek earlier paroles, and Proposition 47 reduced some drug and property crimes from felonies to misdemeanors. The combination has helped keep Californias inmate population below a population cap set by federal judges. Corrections department spokeswoman Vicky Waters said the measure gives corrections and parole officials broad discretion to protect our communities and fashion a rational system of rehabilitation and punishment. This new initiative unlawfully seeks to supplant the departments constitutional authority to implement these critical reforms to our criminal justice system. The pending initiative would shorten the list of crimes that qualify for earlier parole and change some theft crimes from misdemeanors back to felonies. It would also increase the number of crimes for which DNA is collected, a list that was limited when some crimes went from felonies to misdemeanors. Those supporting the tougher penalties say easing criminal penalties has increased the number of dangerous criminals on the streets, but those backing the changes say they have helped reduce mass incarceration and rehabilitate convicted criminals. Facebook

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California Supreme Court orders records unsealed in pardon of ex-state Sen. Roderick Wright Former state Sen. Roderick Wright (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times) The California Supreme Court has granted a request to unseal court records involving Gov. Jerry Browns decision last month to pardon former state Sen. Roderick Wright for felony convictions involving lying about living in his legislative district, officials said Thursday. The court order was in response to a request by the nonpartisan First Amendment Coalition, which argued that the public has a right to know what information went into the governors decision to grant clemency to Wright. This is an important victory for public access to court files involving the exercise of executive clemency, said coalition spokesman Glen A. Smith. We are gratified the court has recognized that these decisions should be subject to the same public access rules that apply to other judicial records under California law. The court gave Browns office until Jan. 2 to redact confidential material before giving the court documents that can be released to the public. The court files submitted by the governors office include letters of support for a pardon and an internal review of Wrights case. The court denied a motion to unseal the records of all clemency cases but left open consideration of requests on other individual cases. Browns office is currently evaluating the courts decision, said spokesman Brian Ferguson. The governor argued against unsealing records in a recent court filing that said confidentiality is consistent with historical practice and is supported by state law. In pardoning Wright on Nov. 22, the governor wrote: He has shown that since his release from custody, he has lived an honest and upright life, exhibited good moral character, and conducted himself as a law abiding citizen. Facebook

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California political watchdog agency fines BART, urges prosecution over using public funds for campaign A Bay Area Rapid Transit train leaves the station in Oakland in this 2013 file photo. (Ben Margot / AP) Californias state political watchdog agency on Thursday imposed a $7,500 fine against the Bay Area Rapid Transit District and called for a possible criminal or civil prosecution over allegations the district used public resources to campaign for a 2016 bond measure. The state Fair Political Practices Commission levied an administrative fine against BART for its failure to disclose spending on YouTube videos, social media posts and text messages to promote Measure RR, which authorized $3.5 billion in general obligation bonds. Though the panel lacks authority to seek criminal charges over the misuse of public funds, it also urged county district attorneys in the BART service area and the state attorney general to pursue possible criminal or civil charges over the spending of taxpayer dollars for campaign purposes, Commission Chairwoman Alice Germond said. It is the concept of misusing public funds that I think we all here are very disturbed about, and we want to send a warning and not create a precedent that is a minor, little slap on the wrist, Germond said, adding that the referral to criminal prosecutors would further send a message that this is wrong. Commissioner Brian Hatch also called for the state Legislature to consider granting the FPPC power to go after public agencies that spend taxpayer money on campaigns. Sen. Steve Glazer (D-Orinda) called on the agency to increase the fine to the maximum level of $33,375. The proposed $7,500 fine represents a slap on the wrist for a very serious violation of the law and the publics trust, Glazer said in a letter to the panel. In supporting the fine recommended by the staff, Germond said BART has agreed to pay the penalty. Somebody did something wrong and they have admitted it, she said. A staff report said there were factors in favor of a fine below the maximum. Although the Commission considers BARTs violations to be serious, the absence of any evidence of an intention to conceal, deceive, or mislead; the voluntary filing of the delinquent campaign statement; and the absence of a prior record are mitigating, the report said. Facebook

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California police union seeks state Supreme Court review of new law disclosing internal investigation records Los Angeles Police Department officers. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) A police union is asking the California Supreme Court to block the release of internal officer investigations before a new state law takes effect next year. The San Bernardino County Sheriffs Employees Benefit Assn. filed a petition Tuesday asking justices to rule that only investigations of incidents that occur after Jan. 1 would be available under the law  and not those the department has on file from years prior. The litigation comes after this years passage of Senate Bill 1421, which opens to the public for the first time internal investigations of officer shootings and other major uses of force, along with confirmed cases of sexual assault and lying while on duty. The law goes into effect Jan. 1, and the San Bernardino County Sheriffs Department has told the union it intends to make available in response to public records requests all the information it has. The union is very concerned about any plans to retroactively apply Senate Bill 1421, Grant Ward, the unions president, said in a statement. We believe retroactive application violates our members rights and we hope the California Supreme Court will consider the serious issues raised by our legal challenge. The bills author, Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley), does not agree with the unions interpretation. She has said her legislation should apply to all the records in a police departments possession because the law simply declared that affected records were no longer confidential. If the record exists, its disclosable, Skinner said. A decision on what records will be available under the law is key to how far-reaching it will be. If the court restricts access to incidents that occurred prior to 2019, those cases will not be subject to public scrutiny. The police union in San Bernardino County is not the only one raising concerns about the law. Earlier this month, Los Angeles Police Department Chief Michel Moore sent a letter to Skinner expressing concern that his agency would be overwhelmed if the law required the department to disclose older incidents. Even if the law only applied to the previous five years, Moore wrote, it could take nearly 300,000 hours of work to comply with its provisions. The LAPD operates with a guiding principle of Reverence for the Law; as such, we will diligently comply with SB 1421, Moore wrote. We maintain, however, that a retroactive implementation of SB 1421 will be exceptionally burdensome and would require significant reallocation of front-line investigative personnel. Skinner said if complying with the law becomes untenable for law enforcement agencies that maintain records for a long time, she would consider modifications. But she said agencies did not raise this concern during discussion over the bill. SB 1421 went through multiple committee hearings, multiple floor debates, extensive opportunity for all parties to weigh in on concerns with its structure, she said. That was not an issue that was raised by law enforcement at the time. Facebook

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Gov. Brown warns of backlash for Republicans in 2020 if Obamacare repeal is upheld Gov. Jerry Brown at the National Press Club in April. (Alex Wong / Getty Images) Gov. Jerry Brown warned Republicans on Tuesday that repeal of the Affordable Care Act would devastate the partys political chances in the 2020 election. Brown, speaking at a Sacramento Press Club event moderated by Los Angeles Times columnist George Skelton and Brown family historian Miriam Pawel, said a federal judges ruling last week to strike down the 2010 law  if upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court  will build such a backlash that the Democrats will not only take over the Senate, theyll win the presidency and will win with the kind of momentum, particularly on the issue of healthcare, that [the law] will be replaced probably with something even better. The governor, who leaves office in less than three weeks, said he did not believe the ruling by a Texas judge would ultimately prevail. I think the decision will probably be overturned, Brown said. Few states have embraced the law championed by former President Obama more than California, both through its healthcare exchange, Covered California, and by expanding access to government-funded services under Medi-Cal. Some 12 million Californians now receive healthcare through Medi-Cal, and Brown said a final ruling affecting the federal dollars that subsidize that care would be a serious blow. California would not be able to afford it without the subsidy, the governor said. Facebook

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Bars in Los Angeles, San Francisco could stay open until 4 a.m. under new bill A bar in Sherman Oaks (acuna-hansen) For the third year in a row, a California lawmaker is trying to keep bars open until 4 a.m. State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) is reintroducing legislation that would allow Los Angeles, San Francisco and seven other cities to extend the sales of alcohol in bars, clubs and restaurants by an additional two hours. Nightlife brings people together, fosters creativity and innovation, supports small businesses, and creates middle-class jobs, Wiener said in a statement. Its time to embrace our nighttime economy and give our cities the tools they need to foster the best nightlife possible. Last year, Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a similar bill by Wiener, writing: I believe we have enough mischief from midnight to 2 without adding two more hours of mayhem. Should this years measure, Senate Bill 58, advance through the Legislature, Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom would decide whether to sign it into law. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has endorsed SB 58, saying the city should have more flexibility than it does now. Every community has its own needs, and cities should be able to make informed decisions about what nightlife hours make sense for residents, visitors, and neighborhoods, Garcetti said in a statement. The bill would create a five-year pilot program where Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, Sacramento, West Hollywood, Long Beach, Coachella, Cathedral City and Palm Springs could decide to allow restaurants and bars within their cities to serve alcohol until 4 a.m. with the approval of the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control. Facebook

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Bars in Los Angeles and San Francisco could stay open until 4 a.m. under new bill A bar in Sherman Oaks. (Acuna-Hansen) For the third year in a row, a California lawmaker is trying to keep bars open until 4 a.m. State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) is reintroducing legislation that would allow Los Angeles, San Francisco and seven other cities to extend the sales of alcohol in bars, clubs and restaurants by an additional two hours. Nightlife brings people together, fosters creativity and innovation, supports small businesses and creates middle-class jobs, Wiener said in a statement. Its time to embrace our nighttime economy and give our cities the tools they need to foster the best nightlife possible. Last year, Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a similar bill by Wiener, writing: I believe we have enough mischief from midnight to 2 without adding two more hours of mayhem. Should this years measure, Senate Bill 58, advance through the Legislature, Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom would decide whether to sign it into law. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has endorsed SB 58, saying the city should have more flexibility than it does now. Every community has its own needs, and cities should be able to make informed decisions about what nightlife hours make sense for residents, visitors and neighborhoods, Garcetti said in a statement. The bill would create a five-year pilot program where Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, Sacramento, West Hollywood, Long Beach, Coachella, Cathedral City and Palm Springs could decide to allow restaurants and bars within their cities to serve alcohol until 4 a.m. with the approval of the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control. Facebook

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Californias DMV director announces retirement amid problems with motor voter program (Kent Nishamura/Los Angeles Times) The director of the California Department of Motor Vehicles will retire at years end with a number of questions unanswered about the implementation of a major voter registration system and long wait times experienced by customers for much of the past summer. Jean Shiomoto will not continue in her current role as Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom takes office, and announced to staff several weeks ago her intent to retire at the end of the year after 38 years in state service, spokesman Armando Botello said in an email to The Times on Friday. Newsoms transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment on who might lead the department in 2019. Shiomoto was appointed DMV director by Gov. Jerry Brown in the fall of 2013, having served in prior leadership roles with the department. DMV officials have been sharply criticized by lawmakers in recent months for delays in serving customers at its field offices across the state. Last week, DMV officials revealed errors in registering California voters for the November election  mistakes that followed a series of problems in the rollout of the states new motor voter registration system. Secretary of State Alex Padilla last week said he had lost confidence in Shiomotos leadership as a result of the voting registration problems. Facebook

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New law could break the stalemate over housing on the site of a near-vacant Cupertino mall By Liam Dillon For more than a decade, developers have tried to build new housing on the site of an all-but-empty mall in Cupertino, a city in the heart of Silicon Valley and home to Apple headquarters. A well-organized group of neighbors, upset about traffic, building heights and the potential loss of the communitys suburban lifestyle, turned away every plan. Now, for the first time, the stalemate might be broken  thanks to a decision made in the state Capitol. In an effort to address Californias housing affordability problem, legislators passed a law last year that requires cities and counties to approve housing projects if they comply with local zoning rules and other standards, forcing some resistant communities to agree to new homebuilding. In September, the city of Cupertino, citing the state law, approved developer Sand Hill Property Co.s proposal to build an office park and more than 2,400 homes where the Vallco Shopping Mall sits. Read More Facebook

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Local government was a last bastion for struggling California Republicans. Not anymore By Mark Z. Barabak Theres no shortage of watery metaphors to describe the disaster that befell California Republicans this midterm election. A blue wave. A Democratic tsunami. But the most apt may be a flood, with the casualties steadily rising as the vote count climbed in the days and weeks following Nov. 6. Eventually half the GOP congressional delegation was washed away, along with the entire slate of statewide Republican candidates. In Sacramento, Democrats claimed 29 of 40 state Senate seats and seized three-quarters of the 80-member Assembly  the largest number since 1883, when Chester A. Arthur was serving in the White House. Read More Facebook

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For the Republicans left in Californias Legislature, fewer lawmakers will have to do more work By John Myers From January to late summer every year, the California Legislature is a perpetual motion machine. And in the new year, the people most likely to struggle in keeping up will be Republicans, vastly outnumbered but still responsible for representing millions of the states residents. There are 22 standing committees in the state Senate, plus at least a dozen more subcommittees or special committees. And after Novembers election, only 11 Republican senators will be left to divvy up the work. To the victors go the spoils. To the vanquished go the extra assignments. Read More Facebook

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Californias DMV failed to finish registering 329 new voters before November election (Los Angeles Times) Officials at the California Department of Motor Vehicles said Friday that the agency failed to send information for 329 new voters to state elections officers in time for the November election, the latest revelation in a string of mishaps regarding voter registration. Secretary of State Alex Padilla responded with a blistering letter, calling on Gov. Jerry Brown or Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom to replace Jean Shiomoto, the DMV director. The Director of DMV has lost my confidence and trust, Padilla wrote. In all, the agency revealed that 589 mailed voter registration records that should have been processed under election deadlines werent sent to Californias secretary of state until late November, including forms from 260 drivers who had intended to update their address on existing voter registration records. The DMV had been instructed to not send registration forms that came in after Oct. 22, but the voters in question had forms that were postmarked before the deadline. In some cases, when the postmark wasnt legible, the agency said, documents inside indicated the voter had intended to finish their registration in time for the Nov. 6 election. The DMV recognizes the pause in transmittals was an error and affected the timing of the registration of the 589 individuals referenced above relative to the November election, Shiomoto wrote in a letter to Padilla on Friday. The pause was due to a misunderstanding on the part of the department, for which we take responsibility. Those who were trying to update their address for voter registration would not have been blocked from casting ballots. But officials said its unclear whether any of the 329 new voters were able to participate in the election. Shiomoto said in her letter that DMV will work with elections officials. The errors were not related to previous DMV mistakes about registering voters, problems associated with the rollout of the states new motor voter law. In those cases, multiple registration forms were sent to local elections offices for some voters, some people were assigned the wrong political party preference and others who are noncitizens were incorrectly placed on the list of registered voters. DMV officials have yet to respond to questions posed by The Times over the last several weeks about who knew of those mistakes and when. Facebook

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Newsom appoints a labor advocate and a former staffer as his chief deputy Cabinet secretaries By Taryn Luna A labor advocate and a San Francisco political operative have accepted positions in Gov.-elect Gavin Newsoms new administration. Angie Wei, a Capitol insider with deep ties to organized labor in California, will serve as a chief deputy Cabinet secretary with a focus on policy development. As a legislative director and chief of staff at the California Labor Federation, Wei has represented more than 1,200 unions and 2.1 million workers in Capitol fights over a host of policy issues, including drug-pricing transparency and paid family leave. The governor-elect also tapped Jason Elliott, a policy advisor to Newsom during his time as mayor of San Francisco and a chief of staff to San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, as another chief deputy Cabinet secretary overseeing executive branch operations. Elliott and Wei will serve under Ana Matosantos, Newsoms previouslyCentral Americans who travel north to plead for entry at the U.S. border are taking their chances on an immigration system that is deeply divided on whether they can qualify for asylum if they are fleeing domestic violence or street crime, rather than persecution from the government.

The law in this area remains unclear, and the outcome of an asylum claim depends to a remarkable degree on the immigration judge who decides it.

And sitting atop the immigration court system is Atty Gen. Jeff Sessions, a long-time advocate of much stricter limits on immigration who recently has taken an interest in reviewing asylum cases.

Lawyers say they are troubled by a legal system in which decisions turns so much on the views of individual judges.

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Among the 34 immigration judges in Los Angeles, two judges granted fewer than 3% of the hundreds of asylum claims that came before them in the past five years, while another judge granted 71% of them. The disparity is even greater in San Francisco, where the judges rate of granting asylum claims ranged from 3% to 91%.

Overall, asylum seekers would do much better in San Francisco, where 32% were denied between 2012 and 2017, compared to a 68% denial rate in Los Angeles during the same period, according to TRAC data from Syracuse University.

This is not news to immigration lawyers. A decade ago, several law professors published a study called Refugee Roulette that revealed how asylum cases depend heavily on the views of individual judges. The level of variation was shocking. And it hasnt changed, said Georgetown University Professor Philip Schrag.

Judge Ashley Tabaddor from Los Angeles, president of the National Assn. of Immigration Judges, discounts the statistics. Theyre not reliable, she said, since judges may have very different case loads. Some judges hear claims from people who have been detained for crimes, while others heard mostly claims from juveniles, she said.

We are human. Different people can have different views about the same set of facts, she said.

Several Los Angeles lawyers who have won or lost asylum cases in recent months said the identity of the judges played an important role. Its astounding how much variation there is from judge to judge. The system is in need of repair. Its an embarrassment, said Joseph D. Lee, a partner at Munger, Tolles & Olson.

He represented an El Salvador mother who fled north with her three children after gang members shot and killed her husbands brother in front of her family and then threatened to do the same to her family.

The Central American cases can be difficult to win. Some judges are pretty hostile to gang-related claims, he said. His clients claim was denied, and he plans to appeal. Your chance of winning an asylum claim shouldnt turn on the luck of the draw on which judge you get. But that is exactly how it works, he said.

It may soon become much harder to win such claims. Under an unusual feature of the law, the attorney general, who is the nations top law enforcement officer, also oversees the immigration courts. He can overrule their decisions and announce new rules that are binding on them.

In March, Sessions announced he would review the question of whether women fleeing domestic violence or other private criminal activity can rely on this to win asylum.

Last fall, Sessions spoke to a meeting of immigration judges and complained Americas generous asylum system has become overloaded with fake claims.  The credible fear process was intended to be a lifeline for persons facing serious persecution. But it has become an easy ticket to illegal entry into the United States, he said.

In the past week, the American Bar Assn., faith-based groups and a coalition of immigration law professors submitted friend of the court briefs to Sessions urging him not to reverse years of precedent involving women fleeing abuse and terror.

But veteran immigration judges are not optimistic. [Sessions] just wants more people to be removed, said Paul W. Schmidt, a retired immigration judge from Virginia and an outspoken critic of the attorney general. He will make it a lot harder for Central Americans to get asylum.

The dispute begins with the words of the asylum law. In the Refugee Act of 1980, Congress adopted the United Nations standard and said people may seek asylum if they are unable or unwilling to return to their home country because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.

Under the law, asylum seekers are treated differently than, for example, refugees from a war-torn nation or immigrants seeking work.

Four of those terms in the asylum law are clear enough: race, religion, nationality and political opinion. But lawyers and judges have struggled to decide what counts as membership in a particular social group.

Courts have agreed that gays and lesbians can count as a social group, since they have suffered persecution in many societies. Some judges have also said women and girls fleeing sexual abuse and violence can seek asylum because their society views women as the property of men  and with no hope for protection from their government.

But the question becomes harder when considering the gang violence that has spread through some Central American countries. For example, people who testified against violent gangs or resisted them in other ways have sought asylum on the grounds they are members of particularly endangered social group.

These cases are challenging, said Nareeneh Sohbatian, a Los Angeles lawyer at Winston & Strawn who supervises asylum claims. We talk a lot about this. If they are targeted because of a gang, it can be difficult to show it was caused by their membership in a particular social group.

Jenna Gilbert, managing attorney for Human Rights First in Los Angeles, said it is clear the asylum law does not protect people fleeing generalized violence. A claim needs to be tied to the one of the protected categories, she said. The cases are very fact-dependent.

But the odds of winning asylum are not good for Central Americans. In the past five years, China had the largest number of asylum seekers in the U.S. immigration courts, and only 20% of their claims were denied. Ethiopians did even better, with only 17% denied. By contrast, the highest denial rates arose from claims brought by natives of Jamaica (91%), the Philippines (90%), Mexico (88%), El Salvador (79%), Honduras (78%) and Guatemala (75%).

Andrew Arthur, a former immigration judge who works now at the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors stricter enforcement, said it is not surprising that Sessions will reconsider rulings on asylum in cases of domestic violence. Right now, the law is very unclear. The phrase particular social group is vague. A lot of these claims are compelling, but that doesnt mean it is persecution under the law. If a gang wants to recruit me, thats not persecution.

Last month Sessions criticized a caravan of Central American asylum seekers that approached the border as a deliberate attempt to undermine our laws and overwhelm our system. There is no right to demand entry without justification. Smugglers and traffickers and those who lie or commit fraud will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

People who present an asylum claim at the border must only show they have a credible fear of persecution if they were to return home. This is a rather low standard, and most asylum seekers are allowed to stay and make their claim.

Sessions said he would send more prosecutors and judges to the border area to resolve these claims quickly, rather than let them linger for many months or years.

Meanwhile, lawyers are also rushing to represent the asylum seekers. Unfortunately, the Trump administration has waged a year-long campaign to undermine asylum seekers and demonize those who only wish to live in safety with the families, said Gilbert from Human Rights First. Were proud to assist these individuals who are fleeing unspeakable horror as they try to rebuild their lives.

The latest from Washington 

More stories from David G. Savage 

david.savage@latimes.com

Twitter: DavidGSavageGina Haspel, President Trumps nominee to become the next CIA director, sought to withdraw her nomination Friday after some White House officials worried that her role in the interrogation of terrorism suspects could prevent her confirmation by the Senate, according to four senior U.S. officials.

Haspel told the White House she was interested in stepping aside if it avoided the spectacle of a brutal confirmation hearing on Wednesday and potential damage to the CIAs reputation and her own, the officials said. She was summoned to the White House on Friday for a meeting on her history in the CIAs controversial interrogation program  which employed techniques such as waterboarding that are widely seen as torture  and signaled that she was going to withdraw her nomination. She then returned to CIA headquarters, the officials said.

Taken aback at her stance, senior White House aides, including legislative affairs head Marc Short and press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, rushed to Langley, Va., to meet with Haspel at her office late Friday afternoon. Discussions stretched several hours, officials said, and the White House was not entirely sure until Saturday afternoon that she would stick with her nomination, according to the officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

Trump learned of the drama Friday, calling officials from his trip to Dallas. He decided to push for Haspel to remain as the nominee after initially signaling he would support whatever decision was taken, administration officials said.

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Haspel, who serves as the CIAs deputy director and has spent 33 years in the agency, most of it undercover, faces some opposition in Congress because of her connection to the interrogation program, which was set up after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

In late 2002, Haspel oversaw a secret CIA detention facility in Thailand, where one Al Qaeda suspect was waterboarded. Another detainee was waterboarded before Haspels arrival.

Three years later, Haspel was involved in the CIAs destruction of nearly 100 videotapes that recorded the mens interrogations, touching off an investigation by a special prosecutor who ultimately decided not to bring charges against those involved.

There has been a fascinating phenomenon over the last few weeks. Those who know the true Gina Haspel  who worked with her, who served with her, who helped her confront terrorism, Russia and countless other threats to our nation  they almost uniformly support her, said Ryan Trapani, a CIA spokesman. That is true for people who disagree about nearly everything else. There is a reason for that. When the American people finally have a chance to see the true Gina Haspel on Wednesday, they will understand why she is so admired and why she is and will be a great leader for this agency.

Sanders declined to comment on Haspels offer to withdraw or internal White House discussions, but she stressed that Haspel is a dedicated public servant qualified for the role and that she has the full support of the president.

She is the best of the best, Sanders said of Haspel, describing her as a patriot.

An administration official said the nomination remains on track. There is a hearing prep session today, courtesy calls with senators Monday and Tuesday, and classified materials will be delivered to Senate security so senators can read the real record instead of relying on gossip and unfounded smears, the official said.

But Haspels nomination to become the first woman to lead the CIA came close to being scuttled Friday ahead of any hearings  and largely at her own hand, the U.S. officials said. The problem came to a head Friday afternoon when she was summoned to the White House for some urgent questions, particularly on her role in the use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques.

She had been in a meeting with her staff at CIA headquarters in Langley, fielding mock questions to prepare for her confirmation hearing, when the summons arrived.

Some White House officials were concerned by material being raised in questions from Congress, information they were just learning about, according to the U.S. officials. Those officials said the material was not new, but the White House wanted to hear Haspels explanation of it.

Some records from the interrogation program, including documents that havent been made public, show that Haspel was an enthusiastic supporter of what the CIA was doing, according to officials familiar with the matter. But others have disputed any characterization of Haspel as some kind of cheerleader for the harsh treatment of detainees and noted that the program was authorized by the president, deemed legal by administration lawyers and briefed to members of Congress.

Haspels chances of winning Senate confirmation are considered uncertain, in part because of the 51-to-49 party split and the prolonged absence of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who is undergoing treatment for a rare form of brain cancer. Members of Congress, particularly Democrats, have been resistant to Haspels nomination without more information about her role in the program. The nomination has sparked trepidation inside the White House, with some Trump advisors telling the president in recent weeks she was unlikely to be confirmed.

Lawmakers had been pushing last month for more access to a handful of cables and other CIA material that might shed more light on Haspels work. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said the more material she reads about Haspels role in the interrogation program, including the destruction of tapes, the more unsettled she has become.

Last month, the CIA declassified an internal disciplinary review that found no fault with the performance of Haspel in the destruction of the videotapes. Haspel drafted a cable approving the destruction that her boss ultimately sent to field officers, who fed the tapes into a shredding machine. But she believed that he would first get the approval of senior CIA leaders before sending it, according to people with knowledge of the episode.

The release of the disciplinary review may persuade some lawmakers who had been undecided to support Haspel, said congressional officials tracking the nomination process.

Amid the questioning in the West Wing on Friday afternoon, Haspel told White House aides she did not want her nomination to harm the CIA. She also feared unfair attacks on her own reputation, saying that she didnt want to be the next Ronny Jackson, one official said. Jackson, Trumps White House doctor, withdrew his nomination to become Veterans Affairs secretary following questions regarding alleged misconduct earlier in his career.

Short, the White House legislative affairs director, told Haspel she could still be confirmed despite the information that had recently come to attention of the White House  and the administration expected some Democrats to support her, officials said.

Short declined to comment.

By Saturday, the officials said, Haspel had agreed to continue with her nomination.

Sanders issued a tweet in support of Haspel and rebuking her detractors on Capitol Hill late Saturday afternoon.

There is no one more qualified to be the first woman to lead the CIA than 30+ year CIA veteran Gina Haspel, she tweeted. Any Democrat who claims to support womens empowerment and our national security but opposes her nomination is a total hypocrite.President Trumps attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani, who has already roiled the White Houses legal tussle with adult-film actress Stormy Daniels, asserted Sunday that the president would not have to respond to a subpoena in the special counsels wide-ranging Russia probe.

Giuliani, who joined the presidents legal team two weeks ago, also said that if Trump does agree to be questioned, he might invoke his 5th Amendment right to guard against self-incrimination by refusing to respond to some queries.

Speaking on ABCs This Week, Giuliani said Trump was under no obligation to obey a subpoena, saying we dont have to comply with one.

Hes the president of the United States, Giuliani said. We can assert the same privilege that other presidents have.

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He was referring to former President Clintons choice to resist a subpoena in connection with the Monica Lewinsky investigation, though Clinton ultimately agreed to voluntarily submit to questioning.

The combative former New York City mayor, having emerged as a key catalyst in the separate Daniels case with his unexpected disclosures and changing narratives about the presidents involvement in a pre-election hush-money payout to the porn actress, was somewhat more circumspect in addressing the investigation of Russias election interference and possible Trump campaign complicity.

Questions over whether special counsel Robert S. Mueller III might seek to compel Trump to testify before a grand jury intensified last week after the Washington Post reported that the special counsel had broached the possibility earlier this spring, in talks with the presidents lawyers about whether Trump would agree to a sit-down interview with investigators.

A subpoena confrontation could substantially up the constitutional ante related to Trumps dealings with  and his possible attempts at obstruction of  the Russia investigation, which the president has repeatedly termed a witch hunt.

Trump reiterated last week he would love to sit and answer Muellers questions. But he said he would do so only if he were convinced that investigators were treating him fairly.

Giuliani said he would strongly advise against such an in-person encounter, however.

Im going to walk him into a prosecution for perjury like Martha Stewart? he asked rhetorically, alluding to the high-profile 2004 conviction of the domestic goddess entrepreneur on charges of obstruction and lying to investigators in connection with an insider-trading case.

Joseph diGenova, a lawyer who is in the Trump orbit although not part of the presidents legal team, said he also would argue against an interview with Mueller. DiGenova, who said a business conflict prevented him from joining Trumps team, on Sunday echoed the presidents recent attacks on the special counsel.

The president will not sit down for an interview because this investigation has now reached a level of bad faith [that] this is no longer a good-faith investigation, the onetime prosecutor said on Fox News Sunday.

Giulianis addition to the presidents legal team was part of an overhaul that not only involved the departures and arrivals of several important players, but also pointed to a far more aggressive pushback against Muellers investigative authority.

The challenges faced by Trump in connection with the Russia probe are being steadily amplified by the separate-but-parallel Daniels case. Trumps onetime legal fixer Michael Cohen faces a criminal investigation after having acknowledged making a $130,000 payment to her shortly before the 2016 election that was intended to buy the porn actress silence about an alleged tryst with Trump more than a decade ago.

Giuliani and Trump each have offered inconsistent and contradictory explanations about when and whether the president was aware of the payment, and the underlying motives for the agreement with Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.

The former mayor offered yet another glimpse into the netherworld of what the presidents surrogates have characterized as nuisance claims against Trump. In the ABC interview, Giuliani casually acknowledged that Cohen could have made payoffs to other women under circumstances similar to those surrounding Daniels allegations.

I have no knowledge of that, Giuliani said. But I would think if it was necessary, yes.

Seeking to explain why the president would authorize Cohen to make payments at his own discretion, without Trumps knowledge, Giuliani suggested that sums such as the amount paid to Daniels were inconsequential to Trump as a way of brushing false accusations aside.

I know this sounds funny to people there at home  I never thought $130,000 was a real payment, he told ABC, adding: People dont go away for $130,000 with a meritorious claim.

Appearing on the same program, Daniels attorney Michael Avenatti said he was flabbergasted by Giulianis freewheeling round of television appearances on Trumps behalf, including the one on Sunday just before his own, in which Giuliani said he did not know when Trump became aware of the Daniels payment.

Last week, Giuliani, supported by Trump, said the president had reimbursed Cohen. The president subsequently said Giuliani did not have the facts straight, but Trump did not specify what was wrong with Giulianis account or what the truth is.

Avenatti said Giuliani now expects the American people to believe that he doesnt really know the facts  this guys all over the map over the last 72 hours on some very simple facts that should be very straightforward.

They are making it up as they go along, he said. They dont know what to say because theyve lost track of the truth.

On another Sunday show, presidential advisor Kellyanne Conway defended her boss credibility when she was asked about documented falsehoods by Trump.

The president doesnt lie, she said on CNNs State of the Union.

Giuliani, in the ABC interview, posited that Trumps comments to the news media, and by extension to the public, were irrelevant to the legalities of the case.

I dont know when the president learned about it, he said, referring to the payment to Daniels. These are not facts that matter to me as a lawyer. Those dont amount to anything, whats said to the press  thats political.

laura.king@latimes.com

Twitter: @laurakingLATAs a postdoctoral fellow in 1988, Emmet Flood burnished his academic credentials when International Philosophical Quarterly published his lengthy paper on The Confessions of St. Augustine, the 13-volume, deeply introspective autobiography of the early Christian saint who saw himself as a sinner.

God cannot be persuaded by rhetorical appeals, Flood wrote. He already knows the facts of Augustines case; and furthermore, He has perfect knowledge of all the possibilities of their presentation.

Flood may find solace in that perspective as President Trumps newest lawyer. He joins a White House under siege from special counsel Robert S. Mueller IIIs investigation into Russian political interference, and a legal team buffeted by resignations and a shoot-from-the-id client.

Theres also a potential threat from Congress if Democrats win back the U.S. House in November and regain the power to blanket the Oval Office with subpoenas, or even start impeachment hearings. Activists like billionaire donor Tom Steyer are already pushing to remove Trump from office.

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Unlike former New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and conservative lawyer Jay Sekulow, who represent Trump personally, Flood will be responsible for shielding the institution of the presidency and the White House from legal problems.

Flood has the resume for it, having worked for two previous presidents. He helped fend off Republicans trying to remove Bill Clinton from office in the late 1990s, and sparred with Democrats probing George W. Bushs controversial dismissal of U.S. attorneys in 2006.

The high-wire work earned Flood a reputation as level-headed, passionate and scholarly. He also became known for his ardent defense of executive power  an expertise that could prove useful in trying to shield Trump from the Russia investigation.

Hes the guy that I thought should have been hired for this in the beginning, said Shannen Coffin, a partner at the Steptoe law firm who worked with Flood in the White House near the end of the Bush administration.

Glen Donath, a partner at Clifford Chance who worked with Flood on Clintons legal team during the impeachment process, praised Flood, saying hes as experienced as anyone I can imagine in taking on a challenge of this magnitude.

There are plenty of mines in this minefield, Donath said. But I have no doubt hes well aware of them going in.

Indeed, the explosions began only hours after the White House announced Wednesday that Flood would replace Ty Cobb, the second senior lawyer to leave Trumps side in the last two months.

That night, Giuliani abruptly announced on Fox News that Trump had reimbursed Michael Cohen, his longtime personal lawyer, for $130,000 in hush money paid to the porn star known as Stormy Daniels. Trump confirmed it the next morning in a series of tweets.

The disclosure sent the White House into a scramble, since Trump had flatly denied in April that he knew about the payoff. Critics said the payment could represent a campaign finance violation because it was delivered 11 days before the election to keep Daniels quiet about her alleged tryst with Trump years ago.

Trump confused matters further Friday by telling reporters with a shrug that Giuliani still had to get his facts straight, and Giuliani issued another statement trying to walk back some of his comments.

The shifting stories highlight the challenge for Flood as he seeks to counsel a president who famously doesnt listen to his lawyers or adhere to the truth.

Lanny Davis, who once represented Clinton, said Trump advisors and lawyers privately have expressed concerns about the presidents falsehoods, and have asked, What do you do if youre not sure that youre getting all the facts from your client?

Flood grew up in the Chicago suburbs as one of 14 children and attended Catholic schools as a boy. After attending the the University of Dallas as an undergraduate, he was awarded a doctorate in philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. He continued postgraduate studies at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, where he wrote his erudite paper on St. Augustine.

But instead of pursuing a life in academia, he headed to Yale Law School. His work there was stellar enough that after he graduated in 1991, he landed a clerkship with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, the conservative stalwart who died two years ago.

Flood was driven more by the law than ideology, however. After working in private practice at the Washington firm Williams & Connolly, he joined Clintons legal team during the impeachment proceedings in 1998 and 1999. Clinton was impeached in the Republican-led House but acquitted in the Democratic-led Senate and served out his term.

Flood brought a scholarly approach that helped shaped Clintons legal strategy. Although he wasnt well known, Flood became one of the principle architects of President Clintons defense, Donath said.

Emmet feels that we should respect the results of valid elections and not use the impeachment process as another partisan tool when the opposing party doesnt get the candidate they want in office, Donath said. He believes that in respect to President Clinton, and I suspect he believes that in respect to President Trump.

Its a view that likely appeals to Trump, who regularly accuses Democrats of supporting a witch hunt on the hoax that his advisors conspired with Russians trying to meddle in the campaign.

Flood would be prepared to face off with a hostile Congress if Democrats regain power in November. He joined the White House counsels office under Bush after Republicans lost both the House and the Senate in 2006.

He was at the point of the spear in our relations with Congress, said Coffin, who worked for Vice President Dick Cheney at the time. Despite the heavy demands, Emmet had it under control, Coffin said.

Flood handled the controversy after the White House fired several U.S. attorneys and Democrats accused the Bush administration of forcing out law enforcement officials to push a political agenda.

Floods opponents recall him as talented but stubborn, traits made clear in a closed-door questioning of Karl Rove, Bushs top political advisor, according to a transcript that was released later.

Flood often stepped in to say certain inquiries were out of bounds. At one point he said hed allow a question only because there was no sense my wasting any more time than you are wasting.

Elliot Mincberg, a lawyer who worked for Democrats running the House Judiciary Committee, said Flood stonewalled the panels attempts to obtain internal White House documents.

Most people felt like we would be able to work something out. And we werent, Mincberg said. He just didnt yield. Even an inch.

Its a very different approach than that of Cobb, who sought to cooperate with the special counsel in the Russia investigation. Trumps legal team said in January that the administration had provided over 20,000 pages of documents and allowed more than 20 White House officials to be interviewed by Muellers team.

Its still unclear whether Trump will sit down with the special counsels office. He appears to be laying the groundwork to reject an interview request  or even to fight a possible grand jury subpoena  although he said again Friday that he would like to testify if he thought he would be treated fairly.

I would love to speak. I would love to go. Nothing I want to do more, because we did nothing wrong, Trump told reporters outside the White House.

Then he made a promise that might unnerve Flood.

If I thought it was fair, Trump said, I would override my lawyers.

Follow the latest news of the Trump administration on Essential Washington 

chris.megerian@latimes.com

Twitter: @chrismegerianPresident Trump flared Saturday at Democrats, immigration laws and Mexico, crowed again that his poll numbers are higher than President Obamas and insisted the country is doing better than ever  all in the sort of defensive pitch that Republicans worry could cost them seats in November.

It was left to his companions at an event in Cleveland  Trump supporters all  to offer the optimistic argument that GOP leaders and strategists look for. It was one that many Republicans believe is essential to hold their own in the general election: heartfelt testimonies about the positive effect of the tax cuts they delivered in December.

Trumps journey to the Cleveland Public Auditorium was billed as a presidential visit  meaning that taxpayers footed the bill in a trip otherwise dominated by his fundraising for the party.

The event was wholly political, however, and it served to illustrate the competing sallies for Republicans this election year: one seeking to attract a broad swath of voters by touting the administrations effect on Americans lives, the other driven by the presidents desire to exaggerate and argue about grievances dating back to his election campaign.

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In opening remarks at what was billed as a tax discussion, the president started off talking about trade and quickly moved to the issue of immigration. He suggested that Mexico had gone easy on immigrants who recently traveled north to the border in a peaceful caravan.

I really thought they would be much tougher and better to us on the caravan. Didnt quite work out, but thats OK, thats OK, Trump said in a tone that suggested it was not OK.

You just take a look at that mess thats on television right now, said Trump, apparently referring to coverage of the caravan, which had shrunk to a few hundred migrants when the group reached the U.S. border a week ago. All told, 228 people had applied for asylum by Friday when the caravan dispersed.

It is a total catastrophe, Trump said.

Seated beside Rep. Jim Renacci, the Republican candidate for the Senate, the president repeatedly blamed Democrats and incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown for pushing through weak immigration laws. But the policies he cited, particularly the catch-and-release practice governing treatment of asylum seekers, began in the George W. Bush administration or with court decisions and have been continued by Trumps administration.

This is a Democrat rule, Sherrod Brown, said the president, employing shorthand. He added: These are the problems we have to deal with.

As he often does on the topic of immigration, Trump relied on falsehoods to sell his argument. In particular, he repeated his criticisms of foreigners who seek entrance legally through a lottery  a reflection of his desire to sharply limit legal immigration to the United States.

Can you imagine! the president said. We take people based out of a lottery. You think a country is putting their finest in a lottery? I dont think so. I dont think so, alright?

Those seeking entrance via a lottery apply themselves; their countries do not control their access. The would-be migrants are vetted before being accepted.

Moving to another favorite topic, Trump cited a friendly poll to predict that Republicans would do very well in the midterm elections, a judgment not shared by many in his party.

I just saw a poll come out where Im above Obama  above Obama  and then you turn to the fake news and they go, Donald Trump, whos not very popular he said. Im saying to myself: How do they get away with it?  The amazing thing is that the people are smart, they get it.

In contrast to the president, the supporters arrayed on both sides of him at the Cleveland event stuck rigorously to the suggested topic. Each spoke movingly of the effect the tax cut plan  which Trump said he had wanted to call the tax cut, cut, cut, cut plan  had on their lives.

Sharlene and Kevin Thornton said it has brought them stability after his unemployment several years ago cost them their car and almost their home. Sharlene Thornton said they were making up to $300 more per biweekly paycheck than before, a circumstance she said made their lives a lot more enjoyable.

Her husband, who was laid off in 2012 when the steel mill where he had worked for 10 years closed, went through retraining and now works for a company that he said benefited from the tax plan. He grew emotional as he thanked Trump.

Thornton said that he would not have guessed hed ever be able to say it, but at this rate I think Ill be able to be gainfully employed until my retirement.

Sherry Sheely said she owns a furniture and appliance operation with 148 awesome employees; after the tax plan, full-time workers received a $1,000 bonus and part-time workers a $500 gift.

We had several employees so excited they started to cry, she said.

Turning to Trump, she said, If you even have any times of discouragement, I want you to realize there are millions of Americans across the country like my husband and I who pray for you, your family, your safety.

One by one, others praised the tax plan for allowing them to put away money for college or a down payment on a home, finance a vacation or pay off medical bills.

Anthony Triscari, founder of an industrial products distributorship, alluded to a comment by the House Democratic leader, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, that the tax plan provided crumbs to most Americans while greatly benefiting large companies and the wealthy.

You can let Nancy Pelosi knowthat my people appreciate the crumbs that they receive, said Triscari, who said he gave each of his 13 employees a $500 bonus. Were small and were getting the benefit as much as any big company does.

With their comments over, Trump offered an immediate verdict.

Our country is doing great, he said, more on topic than he had been earlier. Its, I think, maybe doing as good or better than its ever done before. And its only going to get better.

The latest from Washington 

For more on politics from Cathleen Decker 

cathleen.decker@latimes.com

Twitter: @cathleendeckerThese California Republicans mostly just didnt want to talk about it.

At their state party convention in San Diego over the weekend, the GOP activists talked about who to endorse in the governors race. They talked about blaming Democrats for a whole host of ills, including income inequality and increased crime. They talked about the need to condemn a neo-Nazi candidate for U.S. Senate who showed up unannounced and was escorted away by security guards.

But they didnt talk a lot about the biggest threat at their doorstep: The possibility that Democrats might retake control of the House by beating their own in long-held Republican seats.

Scott Baugh, whos running against vulnerable incumbent Republican Dana Rohrabacher (R-Costa Mesa), was one of the only GOP congressional candidates whose name was spotted along corridors plastered with posters. Neither of them attended, nor did Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield). He could, depending on Republicans fortunes this November, be the next House speaker.

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A soapbox set up in the hall as part of the partys candidate fair saw few visits from House hopefuls, in part because the gatherings timing just weeks before the June 5 primary meant many candidates and activists involved in competitive races probably stayed home to campaign.

Instead, the gathered activists and politicians seemed to try to focus on the issues they hope will keep the party faithful excited through the November general election.

In a meeting room equipped with more than a dozen phones, convention-goers were encouraged to make calls to voters about the Republican effort to recall a Democratic state senator who helped pass the new gas tax hike  one of the things Republicans are counting on to inspire conservatives to come out to vote, and keep congressional seats in GOP hands.

The only thing that matters for California Republicans this year are a half-dozen House races, said Dan Schnur, a former Republican and political communications professor at USC. Everything else is either designed to support those House candidates or its just for show.

Rep Mimi Walters speaks at the California Republican convention. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times )

Vulnerable Rep. Mimi Walters (R-Irvine), one of the only officials to explicitly acknowledge the fight, did so from the prominent perch as a dinner headliner.

She warned.

The Democrats think theres no stopping them this time, Walters told a crowd of activists gathered to honor Reps. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) and Ed Royce (R-Fullerton), part of the flood of GOP retirements this year. Theyre not just coming for any one of us, theyre coming for all of us.

She counseled.

We may not win every difficult race, and there will be moments when doubt declares its hold on you.

Still, getting back to the cheerleading that typically marks these gatherings, she said shes ready for the fight.

Whos with me? she forcefully asked the crowd.

The response was more golf clap than rallying cry.

You see an energy and an enthusiasm on the left that I have not seen as a 22-year elected official, Walters told reporters afterward, matter-of-factly describing unprecedented protests at her office following President Trumps election.

Its something that has also concerned Diane McGlinchey, a delegate who sits on the Orange County Republican Partys central committee, for months. At first, when the Democrats started out  they had great force. I looked around and thought, Hows this going to turn out?

Then, says McGlinchey, two movements to counter Democrats that she called a godsend came just in time: the effort to repeal the gas tax increase via a ballot measure in November, which congressional Republicans helped fund, and a wave of local opposition to the sanctuary state law.

The Democrats have given us two beautiful issues to run on, said Tony Krvaric, chairman of the San Diego County party, as hotel wait staff cleaned up an empty banquet hall.

Candidate for governor John Cox fell back on those issues as he inserted a bit of bravado while stumping for endorsement votes early Saturday in front of a sparsely populated meeting room.

We not only want to hold the 14 [House] seats we have, we want to win some more seats! Cox told the crowd, sandwiched between the California and American flags. Thats why, he argued, Republicans need to unite behind one candidate for governor. A few people clapped. But when he said, We are going to get rid of the sanctuary state! he was met with a loud Yeah!

In a strategy session over the gas tax, radio host and former San Diego City Councilman Carl DeMaio stood at a lectern above a large red STOP THE CAR TAX sign and called it the best issue you could run on in November.

Next door, speakers addressed a standing-room-only crowd incensed about the sanctuary state law, which limits local law enforcement in many cases from coordinating with federal immigration officials when someone who might be deported is in custody.

While the issue is not likely to be on the November ballot, controversy over the sanctuary policy has prompted a string of Southern California counties and cities to oppose the law in various ways. It is, national party committeeman and Orange County Republican Shawn Steel said, an ongoing prairie fire that wont go out.

Still, My worry is this: enthusiasm, Steel told The Times. Are the Democrats hungrier than we are? Thats the number one concern.

Coverage of California politics 

christine.maiduc@latimes.com

For more on California politics, follow @cmaiduc.Absent an untimely death or unprecedented crisis, the most modest of Californias political prizes is lieutenant governor, a job whose official description runs just 14 words in the state Constitution.

And yet, its sparked a fierce contest this year among 11 candidates  the largest crop of hopefuls in at least 50 years. Four Democrats, four Republicans, one Libertarian and two unaffiliated candidates all want the $146,854-a-year job with largely part-time work duties.

Not that the candidates see it that way.

The lieutenant governors office is the absolute most important office, next to the governor, proclaimed state Sen. Ed Hernandez (D-Azusa) during a Sacramento Press Club debate last month.

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One of his opponents, former U.S. Ambassador to Australia Jeff Bleich, went so far as to say the lieutenant governor is effectively in charge of higher education and job preparation in the state.

No, not really.

Its hardly being in charge to serve as a University of California regent, a trustee of the California State University and chair of the obscure Commission for Economic Development. The lieutenant governor also has a seat on the California State Lands Commission, weighing in on public access to open space and waterways.

As lieutenant governor, Gavin Newsom has had few duties  and he skipped many of them 

In the event of a tie in the state Senate, the lieutenant governor casts the deciding vote. That last happened in 1996, when then-Lt. Gov. Gray Davis voted to deny recognition to same-sex marriages performed outside the state. And of course, theres succession if a governor dies or resigns.

Bleich and Hernandez are running against fellow Democrats Eleni Kounalakis, also a former U.S. ambassador, and Cameron Gharabiklou; Republicans Cole Harris, Lydia Ortega, David Fennell and David Hernandez; Libertarian Tim Ferreira; and unaffiliated candidates Gayle McLaughlin and Danny Thomas.

Should campaign cash offer a hint at support or momentum, the contest narrows to Democrats Bleich, Kounalakis and Hernandez and Republican Harris. Together, they account for most of the $6.7 million reported in campaign contributions.

Californias free-for-all primary rules could surprise everyone ... again 

The job still pales in comparison to other statewide offices. The attorney general is the top lawyer and a law enforcement official. Californias controller and treasurer make major decisions on state payments and investments. Elections are overseen by the secretary of state. The insurance commissioner and superintendent of public instruction have specific public policy roles.

The lieutenant governor doesnt run on a ticket with the governor, and those who have served in the two jobs havent always gotten along. Former Lt. Gov. Mike Curb, a Republican, took it upon himself to appoint an appeals court judge when Gov. Jerry Brown was out of the state during his second term in 1979. (California still designates an acting governor when the chief executive is away.)

When Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom embarked on an effort to focus on the states economy in 2011, he was leapfrogged by Brown. Ever since, Newsom has been careful to stay out of Browns lane on public policy, sticking instead to less controversial proclamations. He will no doubt want his successor to do the same should he win the race for governor this fall.

This is the first open race for lieutenant governor in the era of the top-two primary, and its possible for two Democrats to advance to the fall contest. Then again, those four candidates could split the partys vote into small pieces and put a Republican on top of the leaderboard June 5.

Each of these men and women believes they can move the needle on issues such as college tuition, affordable housing and fighting national efforts to expand offshore oil drilling. But to do that, theyll have to change history. It will be hard to make Californias lieutenant governor an essential part of governments engine and not just the spare tire in the trunk.

john.myers@latimes.com

Follow @johnmyers on Twitter, sign up for our daily Essential Politics newsletter and listen to the weekly California Politics Podcast

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Updates on California politicsARIZONA AND NEW MEXICO

Presentation

Join Rick Quinn for a discussion about his new book Arizona and New Mexico: 25 Scenic Side Trips and a book signing.

When, where: 7:30 p.m. May 7 at Distant Lands, 20 S. Raymond Ave., Pasadena.

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Admission, info: Free. RSVP to (626) 449-3220.

HIKING

Workshop

Learn about the history of the Three Saints  Mt. San Antonio, a.k.a. Mt. Baldy; Mt. San Jacinto and Mt. San Gorgonio  and get insider tips on permits, logistics, trail conditions, training and timing.

When, where: 6:30 p.m. May 11 at the Adventure 16 store, 11161 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles

Admission, info: Free. (310) 473-4574.

Please email announcements at least three weeks before the event to travel@latimes.com.Its hard not to smile at the site of a baby, especially a furry one. Moms make it hard to spot their offspring in the wild, but you can get a look at adorable zoo babies in San Diego, Anchorage and Denver.

Each zoo is actively engaged in education, conservation and helping save species from extinction.

San Diego: San Diego Zoo Safari Park

Southern white rhino (near threatened status)

On Feb. 7, a southern white rhino named Kacy gave birth to her third calf, a 125-pound male named Justin.

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He is the 97th southern white rhino calf born at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park since 1972. Over the next year, he will gain about 100 pounds a month. As an adult, Justin will weigh between 4,000 and 5,000 pounds.

Because of poaching, southern white rhinos are classified as near-threatened on the International Union for Conservation of Natures Red List of Threatened Species. The species is native to Africa, with approximately 18,000 remaining in the wild.

The southern white rhino is the closest relative of the critically endangered northern white rhino. The last northern white rhino male died in March, leaving behind only two females, both located at Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya.

Cheetah cubs (vulnerable status)

On Jan. 6, the Safari Park also welcomed three cheetah cubs who were born to Malana, an inexperienced mother. After two were accidentally injured, all three were transferred to the Ione and Paul Harter Animal Care Center Nursery when they were 7 weeks old.

Cheetahs are primarily found in Africa and are classified as vulnerable on the Red List of Threatened Species because of due to habitat loss, poaching, the illegal pet trade and other issues. In 1900, the worlds cheetah population was about 100,000. Today, it is about 7,100, and 10% live in wildlife centers and zoos.

San Diego Zoo Global helped form the Breeding Center Coalition to create a sustainable cheetah population over the next decade.

Red-necked wallabies

Two of the joeys, in surrogate pouches. (Ken Bohn / San Diego Zoo Global )

Three red-necked wallaby females arrived at the Safari Parks Harter Animal Care Center Nursery in April from another zoo. They range in age from 5 to 6 months, and are being bottle fed a special marsupial milk substitute and some solid food.

Each is about a foot tall and weighs two to three pounds. As adults, they will weigh between 26 pounds and 35 pounds and measure about 3 feet long from head to tail.

A 6-month-old red-necked wallaby is hand-fed at the Safari Parks nursery. (Ken Bohn /San Diego Zoo Global )

Wallabies are part of the kangaroo family and are native to Australia.

Info: San Diego Zoo Safari Park

Anchorage: Alaska Zoo

Brown bear cubs

Four orphaned male brown bear cubs now at Alaska Zoo in Anchorage will go to the Oakland Zoo once their new habitat is ready this summer.

Two were rescued from Deadhorse, Alaska, and two came from South Anchorage. Alaska Zoo has been rescuing injured and abandoned wildlife since 1969.

Info: Alaska Zoo and Oakland Zoo

Denver: Denver Zoo

Linnes two-toed sloth

A sloth named Baby Ruth was born Jan. 28 at the Denver Zoo. (Denver Zoo )

Baby Ruth, a female Linnes two-toed sloth, was born Jan. 28 to a sloth named Charlotte Greenie, whos 21 years old. Baby Ruth began clinging to her mother immediately and will cling almost exclusively to Charlotte until shes about 6 months old.

The baby sloth clings to her mother at the Denver Zoo. (Denver Zoo )

Although this species is not threatened, two of the six species of sloth are endangered: the pygmy three-toed sloth (critically endangered) and the maned sloth (vulnerable).

African wild dog (Lycaon pictus)

Nicknamed African painted dogs for their colorful markings, only about 6,600 African wild dogs are left in the wild. (Denver Zoo )

Tilly, an African wild dog at the Denver Zoo, had a litter of three males (Nigel, Theodore Roosevelt and Livingstone) and one female (Cholula) on Nov. 20. Nicknamed African painted dogs for their colorful markings, only about 6,600 African wild dogs are left in the wild, because of habit loss, infectious disease and conflicts with humans.

Unlike wolves and dogs, African wild dogs have four, rather than five, toes. (Denver Zoo )

Thirty-two puppies have been born at the Denver Zoo since 2001. In Botswana, the zoo is tracking wild dogs with radio and GPS collars to help reduce conflicts with humans.

Info: Denver Zoo

ALSO

Cuteness alert! Where to find some of the newest zoo babies, from Santa Barbara to Scotland

Princess Cruises and cast of Love Boat TV show to receive Hollywood Walk of Fame honor

Buy an Amtrak ticket to Santa Barbara or San Luis Obispo, and three friends ride for half price

travel@latimes.com

@latimestravelPresident Trumps economic advisors left Beijing on Friday with few apparent gains, accentuating the hurdles facing the worlds two largest economies as they careen toward a trade war.

Both sides recognized that major differences remain, Chinas state-run Xinhua News Agency said in a terse statement Friday afternoon. But they reached consensus in some areas and agreed to maintain communication.

The U.S. delegation, led by Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin, made a quick exit Friday evening without holding a news conference. Few analysts expected a breakthrough, but neither side held up even token wins. It remains unclear whether the U.S. will feel satisfied enough to delay an impending tariffs on $150 billion in Chinese goods.

How could there be a negotiation in two days? said Ashley Qian Wan, China economist for Bloomberg Economics in Beijing. The U.S. came to give an offer and see if China would take it or not.

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U.S. officials sent a list of hefty requests ahead of Thursdays meetings. They demanded China shrink its trade surplus $200 billion by the end of 2020 and stop subsidizing its high-tech production, according to a document first confirmed Friday by the Wall Street Journal.

Even before the talks began, Chinese officials made it clear they wouldnt concede on Trumps desire to narrow the trade gap so dramatically or curb Chinas plan to develop homegrown, cutting-edge industries.

If trade wars are fought, China will inevitably suffer losses, Xinhua said in a Wednesday commentary. However, China has the political advantage of centralized and unified leadership, a huge domestic market as its support and the international communitys support for a multilateral trading system.

Liu He, Xis top economic advisor, led a delegation that produced its own demands  including requests that the U.S. stop its investigation into Chinas intellectual property practices and remove proposed tariffs.

But Liu had requested someone to talk to about the trade issue when he visited the White House in March. And this week for a few hours, at least, that happened.

This might not be a negative thing, said Jianguang Shen, chief economist at Mizuho Securities Asia in Hong Kong. Theyre starting to negotiate, to meet. They have a wish list, and the Chinese can react to that. Its much better than not talking.

Prior to the trip, even U.S. officials warned not to expect much. The White House jettisoned the legwork that usually goes into international visits and instead sent its entire team of trade advisors to Beijing for two days.

Mnuchin led a delegation with competing views on how to deal with China. The group included economic advisor Larry Kudlow, a free trade advocate, as well as Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, trade advisor Peter Navarro and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who take a more hard-line approach to the country.

But the team does agree China has coerced American companies into handing over trade secrets and creating barriers that block entrance into its massive market. They fear the country will continue these practices and heavily subsidize key sectors, such as cloud computing and robotics, giving China control over the worlds most crucial technologies.

Chinese officials argue theyre simply trying to catch up. They view the economys transition from labor-intensive production to advanced manufacturing as essential for its development. America complained for years about Beijings actions, they argue, and now its the protectionist bully.

You are dealing with two different types of demands, said Chen Dingding, a professor of international relations at Jinan University in Guangzhou. One is a trade deficit, and the other is about who will control the future of technology.

Tensions climbed last month after Trump proposed tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese goods that target high-tech products, including medical devices and aircraft parts. China matched the U.S. with a list of tariffs that would hit Trumps base, such as soybeans, tobacco and corn. Then Trump proposed tariffs on an additional $100 billion in goods.

Adding to the tensions, the U.S. released a report on Thursday revealing the trade gap with China spiked by 16% to more than $91 billion in the first three months of the year.

Chinese officials realize that, on this trip, the U.S. gave very unreasonable and unacceptable arguments, which China will definitely decline, Wan, the Bloomberg economist, said. But it will make the following requirement more acceptable and reasonable for the Chinese leaders. So, its a strategy for negotiation.

The delegation dined at the state guesthouse Thursday evening, but neither the U.S. Embassy nor state media indicated the high-level delegation met with Xi.

He spent much of Friday morning delivering a speech to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Karl Marx, widely considered the father of communism. Xi took the opportunity to made pointed references to global interdependence.

Whoever rejects the world, the world will reject them, he said, in a possible dig at the visitors.

The dispute poses a threat to Xi, who must navigate between building up his economy and averting a trade war that could cripple global markets. But it also presents a challenge for Trump, whose Republican Party could take a hit in the midterm elections if China acts on its proposed tariffs.

Our great financial team is in China trying to negotiate a level playing field, Trump tweeted Thursday as his advisors arrived.

The groups ultimate success may appear, again, as a tweet.

Nicolu Liu in The Times Beijing bureau contributed to this report.

Meyers is a special correspondent.

Twitter: @jessicameyers

On high-stakes trip to China, U.S. officials confront tech along with trade

How Made in China 2025 became the real threat in a trade war

A victim of its own industrial success, Chinas hanger capital is now just hanging onIt should have been a relaxing time as Shlomit Almog and her husband, Giora, nursed cups of coffee at their favorite cafe, the C Espresso, early on a Friday afternoon.

But she cant distance herself from the news  or the worry. I cant disconnect, she said.

Its been like this every day since March 30, when, on the Israeli-Gaza Strip border half a mile from their home in Kfar Aza, a prosperous village of about 850 inhabitants, thousands of Palestinians started protesting every Friday. They begin after Muslims leave mosques following Friday prayers, and most of the demonstrations have turned into bloody clashes with the Israeli military.

Im glued to TV and radio. I cant detach, Almog said, then mentioned to her husband that she had forgotten her purse at home.

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Her cellphone, however, she didnt forget, and it pulsed with news alerts. It was about 1 p.m., half an hour before the rallies would start.

The anxiety of Israelis living by the border is escalating as May 15 approaches. Thats when Palestinians observe Nakba, or catastrophe day. May 15, 1948, was Israels full day as a new country  it had declared independence a day earlier  and this year Palestinians are planning to mark the day with huge protests at the Israeli-Gaza Strip border.

Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist militia that rules Gaza, projects that thousands of Gazans will storm the insubstantial fence that marks the border.

Fridays protest was the first without fatalities since the demonstrations, together dubbed the Great March of Return, started.

Forty-eight Gazans have died and thousands have been wounded in the clashes, which quickly turned violent.

Almog frets over her daughter and four grandchildren, who live close to the border in Kfar Aza, or Gaza Village, which was established by refugees from Egypt and Morocco in the early 1950s as a kibbutz, or collective settlement.

Some parents in Israeli border communities dont let their kids out of the house as of noon on Fridays. Almog said with relief that two of her grandchildren are teens so they understand having their movements restricted, but the family has to keep close watch on the youngest two.

An Israeli soldier with a kite found near Kfar Aza. It was flown over the border from Gaza in a tactic recently used by Palestinian demonstrators to start small fires in Israeli territories. (Menahem Kahana / AFP/Getty Images )

Adding to fears are so-called Molotov kites, which are set on fire and released from the Gaza side. Last month, a wheat field near the village was burned to the ground by such a kite, and on Wednesday another incinerated dozens of acres of forest adjacent to Kfar Aza.

On Thursday, Muhammad Harazin, a member of the Great March of Return organizing committee, said that the kites sent by Gazan children is what most terrifies the occupation. The fires and the ensuing damage is draining Israeli coffers. Weve terrified the settlers living there.

The Almogs cant hear the protests from their home, but the smell of burned forests and fields penetrates the air.

For decades, Giora Almog ran a well-known preschool here. In his retirement, he has turned to writing, and has just published his first book, The Kindergarten Teachers Song, aimed at young children, with each hand-drawn page displaying a poem he wrote about one of his former pupils.

His aim, in each poem, is to remind himself that no child who arrives at preschool is a tabula rasa; each child arrives pre-packed with baggage. Its my aim to meet that soul. I may not succeed, but I will never stop trying.

Schools, he says, in general oppress the imagination of children.

In his poem about Tal, now a man of 33, Almog writes about a dreamy boy who conjures jeep treks and spaceships, and even now, you cant decide if the tractor is from your own sphere or a tractor from John Deere.

Unlike his wife, Almog does not listen obsessively to the news, but he acknowledges, Of course, were very worried. He lamented the ruined wheat field,which he compared to a nurturing womb, and the huge amount of money we have spent for cement to fill up the tunnels excavated from Gaza.

The tunnels, like this years protests, are a defining part of life on the Israeli-Gaza Strip border. Since the last showdown between Israel and Gaza, in 2014, Israel has unearthed and demolished numerous tunnels built by Hamas, reportedly for smuggling armed terrorists into Israeli border communities or kidnapping Israeli soldiers into Gaza.

Three weeks ago, the Israeli army demolished a tunnel ready for use that stretched about 60 feet into Israeli territory, adjacent to Kfar Aza.

In 2006, Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier, was captured by Hamas militants in a cross-border raid and abducted via tunnel to Gaza, where he was held for five years until 2011, when Israel released 1,027 prisoners in exchange for his freedom.

On Aug. 1, 2014, two hours after a cease-fire was announced, a group of Israeli soldiers discovered a Hamas tunnel near the Egyptian border and were decommissioning it when a suicide bomber detonated himself. Two soldiers were killed, and another, Lt. Hadar Goldin, was seized by gunmen.

Goldin, who was later killed, was 23 years old and engaged to be married a month later.

Enough blood and tissue from Goldin were retrieved from the tunnel that a rabbi authorized a funeral, but an empty coffin was buried at the state military service.

He was declared dead, but he is also a prisoner of war, Leah Goldin, Hadars mother, said at the time.

On Friday, the Goldin family and supporters gathered at a well-known site on the edge of Kfar Azas agricultural fields  the Black Arrow memorial, which honors eight Israeli soldiers killed in a 1955 operation against Palestinian guerrillas who had attacked Israeli border villages when Gaza was still under Egyptian control.

Goldin, a professor of computer science, and her husband, Simha Goldin, a professor of medieval history, had come the memorial for the first activity of Team Hadar, a group they launched in April to demand the return of their sons body.

Less than a week after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasted about Israeli agents as he revealed that half a ton of Iranian nuclear-related documents had been seized in a suburb of Tehran, Leah Goldin pointed at Gaza, a few steps away.

Are we supposed to believe that Netanyahu can order our guys to operate in Iran, but he cant get a mile into Gaza and bring my son back? she asked.

She looked shattered. Her husband looked incensed.

Netanyahu cant do anything! he said. He then asked why the prime minister could not intervene the way Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Sisi did in another case involving human remains.

Goldin was referring to the burial last month in Gaza of Fadi Batsh, a Hamas engineer and reputed explosives expert who was assassinated in Malaysia in an act widely attributed to Israel.

Batsh was buried after Sisi granted Hamas special permission to bring his body to Gaza via Egypt, citing the Muslim commandment to bury the dead.

Why, Leah Goldin asked, couldnt Netanyahu insist that Hadar Goldin receive a decent burial before Batsh was buried?

So al-Sisi can say, This is a high value for the Muslim faith and make an exception, but Netanyahu cant say, This is a high value for the Jewish faith, and demand that Hadar be returned before [Batsh] gets his decent burial? Leah Goldin demanded.

The Black Arrow memorial, named after the 1955 operations code name, is located in a pleasant, shaded spot, where the Almogs enjoy taking their grandchildren for after-school strolls, where kids pick potatoes and onions and the occasional kohlrabi left over after harvesting. The atmosphere is solemn, but not serene  soldiers in armored vehicles drive by.

Back at the cafe, the Almogs prepared to head out into the 99-degree heat. The rallies would soon start.

Anticipating the coming days of strife, Giora Almog recalled something he saw again and again at his pre-school. The kids used to flood a kibbutz sandbox with water, then use their hands to excavate tunnels from two sides, and erupt with pleasure when their hands finally touched in a gritty, subterranean encounter. We adults should be able to do that, he said.

He is not alone in this yearning. On Friday, in reaction to the campaign of fiery kites, a group of Gazans wrote notes to Israelis with messages such as, We want freedom, We want peace, We want to live in safety, We want to lift the siege, We want justice and democracy and We want to live in dignity.

They affixed the notes to pigeons, and sent the birds flying across the border, towards the Almog family home.

Tarnopolsky is a special correspondent.Irans president warned President Trump on Sunday that pulling the U.S. out of the nuclear deal with world powers would be a historic regret.

President Hassan Rouhani made the comments in the city of Sabzevar while on a tour of Irans Razavi Khorasan province.

Rouhani said: If [the U.S.] opts to pull out of the nuclear deal, it will soon realize that this decision will become a historic regret for them.

Rouhani also assured Iranians that no change will occur in our lives next week regardless of Trumps decision.

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Trump faces a self-imposed May 12 deadline concerning the 2015 nuclear deal, which he long has criticized.

Iran has faced economic trouble in recent weeks, with some analysts blaming the uncertainty surrounding the accord.With just weeks to go before President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un are expected to hold their first-ever summit, Pyongyang on Sunday criticized what it called misleading claims that Trumps policy of maximum political pressure and sanctions are what drove the North to the negotiating table.

The Norths official news agency quoted a foreign ministry spokesman warning that the claims are a dangerous attempt to ruin a budding detente on the Korean Peninsula after Kims summit late last month with South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

At the summit, Kim agreed to a number of measures aimed at improving North-South ties and indicated he is willing to discuss the denuclearization of the peninsula, though exactly what that would entail and what conditions the North might require have not yet been explained.

Trump and senior U.S. officials have suggested repeatedly that Washingtons tough policy toward North Korea, along with pressure on its main trading partner China, have played a decisive role in turning around what had been an extremely tense situation. Just last year, as Kim was launching long-range missiles at a record pace and trading vulgar insults with Trump, it would have seemed unthinkable for the topic of denuclearization to be on the table.

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But the Norths statement on Sunday seemed to be aimed at strengthening Kims position going into his meeting with Trump. Pyongyang claims Kim himself is the driver of the current situation.

The U.S. is deliberately provoking the DPRK at the time when the situation on the Korean Peninsula is moving toward peace and reconciliation, the spokesman was quoted as saying. DPRK is short for the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, the Norths formal name.

Kim and Trump are expected to meet later this month or in early June.

Trump has indicated the date and place have been chosen and said he believes the Demilitarized Zone that divides the Koreas might be a good venue. Singapore was also believed to be a potential site.

Experts are split over whether Kims statement made with Moon at the DMZ marks a unique opening for progress or a rehash of Pyongyangs longstanding demand for security guarantees.

Sundays comments were among the very few the North has made since Trump agreed in March to the meeting.

The spokesman warned the U.S. not to interpret Pyongyangs willingness to talk as a sign of weakness. He also criticized Washington for its ongoing pressure and military threats and its position that such pressure wont be eased until North Korea gives up its nuclear weapons completely.

Before Trump meets Kim, Washington is hoping to gain the release of three Korean Americans accused of anti-state activities. Trump has hinted the release of Kim Dong Chul, Kim Hak Song and Tony Kim was in the offing.

There was no sign of an imminent release on Sunday, though the men had reportedly been moved to the capital.

The White House, meanwhile, has announced a separate meeting between Trump and Moon at the White House on May 22 to continue their close coordination on developments regarding the Korean Peninsula.Lebanons first national elections in nine years were marked by a tepid turnout Sunday, reflecting voter frustration over endemic corruption and a stagnant economy. Politicians urged citizens to vote, and security forces struggled to maintain order as fights broke out in and around polling stations.

President Michel Aoun appealed to voters to cast ballots in a televised address an hour before polls closed. If you want change, you should exercise your right to vote, he said in a tweet.

The elections are the first since war broke out in neighboring Syria in 2011, sending more than a million refugees to Lebanon, a small country with an estimated population of 4.5 million. The war has divided the country, pitting parties supporting the Iran-sponsored Hezbollahs intervention in Syria to aid President Bashar Assad against Saudi-aligned groups opposed to it.

But low turnout  between 30% and 40% in Beirut precincts according to the countrys National News Agency  revealed widespread voter apathy for the main political currents in the country and left open the possibility that outside candidates could win seats in Parliament.

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These leaders are destroying homes, not building them, said Ahmad Khashouq, 43, a private security guard in Beirut. Khashouq, from the town of Zahle in the countrys Bekaa Valley, said he was not voting in the elections after feeling his vote was wasted in 2009, the last time elections were held.

More than 500 candidates are running for 128 seats in Lebanons National Assembly.

Fistfights broke out in and around polling stations across the country, as rival partisans accused one another and election officials of ballot stuffing and illegal campaigning. In the Choueifat district, a crowd inside a polling station accused the sites supervisor of illegal voting practices and smashed a ballot box, spilling its contents across the floor. The army ordered the media to turn off their cameras.

In Zahle, politician Myriam Skaff blamed members of the right-wing Lebanese Forces party of beating up her supporters in polling stations.

The voting is unlikely to change the existing balance of power among the major political factions in Lebanon, but many hope new contenders from civil society groups can challenge the decades-old sectarian political system.

Sarah Brjawi, 33, said she was voting for Nouhad Yazbek, a woman running on a coalition list of political independents and activists in Beirut.

Brjawi, who was walking the streets of Beiruts Ras el Nabaa neighborhood with a clown troupe before voting, said she was perplexed by voters who said they supported their satirical act, poking fun at the countrys endemic corruption and political stagnation, while saying theyd vote for establishment parties again.

This country is really bipolar, Brjawi said.

The main race is between a pro-Western and Saudi-backed coalition headed by Prime Minister Saad Hariri and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group, part of a region-wide power struggle that is tearing apart the Middle East.

This shows Lebanons democracy and the importance of democracy. This is a democratic wedding, and as we said from the start, congratulations to whoever wins tonight, said Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk, who is running on Hariris list, after casting his ballot in Beirut.

As Hariri entered a public school in Beirut to vote, a woman in a wheelchair complained that polling stations were not equipped for disabled voters.

We are human beings. It is not fair that we have to be carried like bags of potatoes, Silvana Lakkis said. The prime minister promised to address the problem in the next elections.

When we see what is happening in countries around us and Lebanon is holding democratic elections, this shows that Lebanon is fine, Hariri said after waiting in line about 20 minutes to cast his ballot. Order is nice, he quipped.

Hezbollah has sent thousands of fighters to Syria to back Assads forces, a move that has been criticized by many Lebanese, mainly Sunni Muslims and Christians, who see the group as dragging the country into regional conflicts.

Leading Hezbollah legislator Ali Ammar defended his groups involvement in Syria, saying it protected Lebanon from the evil powers of the militant groups Islamic State and Al Qaeda.

In Hezbollah strongholds in southern Beirut, there was a steady flow of voters Sunday. Streets were festooned with candidates posters and Hezbollahs signature yellow flags. Outside polling stations, Hezbollah supporters displayed a replica of the ballot on a big board and explained to voters which among the color-coded lists is theirs, and how they can vote for it. They wore yellow shirts bearing the slogan We protect and build.

We love the resistance, said Amira Sidani, an 85-year-old woman, after casting her ballot.

This years vote takes into account a new election law that is based on proportional representation for the first time. Voters will choose one list of allied candidates, as well as a preferred candidate from among them. In the past, the winning list took all the seats in the electoral district.

That has cracked open the door for more outsiders, challenging political titans who have long ruled the country based on a sectarian and family patronage system.

At midday, after casting his ballot in southern Beirut, Aoun, the president, described the process as successful. Wary of voters apathy toward a vote unlikely to change much, he urged people to turn out in large numbers.

Mohammed Ali, 30, riding his scooter to the beach, said hes not voting because there are no choices. He says his family members will vote for whoever pays them, but hes not interested in the money.

The legislatures term was supposed to expire in 2013, but lawmakers have approved several extensions since then, citing security concerns linked to the spillover from Syrias war. Lebanese who support opposing sides in the war have clashed on a number of occasions, and Sunni Muslim extremists have carried out several bombings.

There are about 3.6 million eligible voters and 586 candidates, including 86 women, running for the parliament, which is equally divided between Muslims and Christians.The FBI is investigating a series of tweets sent from a person claiming to be a Lafayette College student who pledged allegiance to ISIS and threatens to detonate bombs around the campus.

Lafayette College Vice President of Marketing and Communications Mark Eyerly confirmed that an investigation in effect late Saturday was prompted by a series of tweets sent from the account of "Jafar Saleem (Brendan)."

"I will destroy the Christianity within the school and make Allah proud," read one tweet sent late Saturday.

One tweet links to an open letter posted on the website pastebin.com.

In the post, the writer "Jafar" says "I've pledged my allegiance to ISIS."

The writer goes on to say he's planted bombs around the Easton college campus.

"I have set up several pipe bombs, pressure cookers and nail bombs around the campus and plan to inflict the utmost damage possible," the post says.

Another tweet shows a photo with a cache of assault weapons.

"Allah has graced us with these weapons of destruction to carry out his needs," the tweet reads.

Lafayette College has received a threat this evening. We are in conversation with various law enforcement agencies to determine the legitimacy of this threat. At this time, we encourage everyone to remain calm.  Lafayette College (@LafCol) May 6, 2018

Eyerly confirmed that Twitter suspended the account, but several people snapped screenshots of the tweets and forwarded them to lehighvalleylive.com.

The college sent out three tweets of its own late Saturday asking students to stay in place while investigators determine whether the threat is credible. Easton police, campus police and the FBI are checking each building on campus, according to the Tweets.

The Easton college urges everyone who is off campus to remain off campus during the investigation. Students on campus should stay in place, the college asks.

A message from Lafayette President Alison Byerly says the school received a threat in an email sent at 8:24 p.m.

She confirms that law enforcement officials are searching buildings. She said the school is not under a lockdown, although students are urged to remain in place.

"I know that many parents are concerned, and encourage students to stay in touch with your families," Bylerly said.

THE THREAT

Here's the full text from the post on pastebin.com.:

My name is Jafar but I used to go by Brendan, I'm enrolled in Economics at Lafayette, and my year has been awful. Starting in early 2018 my grandfather passed away, my girlfriend broke up with me due to complications and I was lost. I found faith and healing in Allah, and I learned that in this life that natural selection is a beauty that Islam embraces. I've pledged my allegiance to ISIS and have been planning to visit Syria for some time but I have been in contact with several other supporters of the caliphate through apps on my cellphone and they have helped me coordinate and orchestrate the attack I'm going to unleash on Lafayette.

I've been mocked and ridiculed for taking up my faith in Islam, this school is liberal to an extent, however it's Christianity liberalism that I cannot stand. I'm going to kill all of those who mocked me, my faith, Muhammad my savior and Allah. By the time you read this, my attack will already be putting into effect, and when word spreads and students attempt to evacuate, they'll be playing right into my plan. I have set up several pipe bombs, pressure cookers and nail bombs around the campus and plan to inflict the utmost damage possible.

I am sorry to my family, and my loved ones as I will go down with a fight. I love you all. Allah will show the world that Christianity is the devil.

Rudy Miller may be reached at rmiller@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @RudyMillerLV. Find Easton area news on Facebook.The Lehigh County Coroner's Office has identified the pedestrian killed Friday after being struck by a train in Emmaus.

The man was identified as James E. Heminitz, 35, of Old Macungie, Berks County.

Heminitz was pronounced dead at 3:30 p.m. Friday on the tracks behind 1116 Chestnut St. by Lehigh County Deputy Coroner Michael Bartholomew.

Jonathan Glass, a spokesman for the Norfolk Southern Corporation, confirmed Heminitz was struck and killed by a westbound train while on the tracks. The mixed-freight train was traveling from Allentown to Birmingham, Alabama and was nearly 7,000 feet long, he said.

Glass said the crew put the train in emergency brake mode but could not avoid striking Heminitz. An autopsy is scheduled Monday to determine Heminitz's exact cause and manner of death.

Norkfolk Southern personnel assisted law enforcement with the investigation, Glass said. The incident remains under investigation by the Lehigh County Coroner's Office, Emmaus Police Department and Pennsylvania State Police.

Pamela Sroka-Holzmann may be reached at pholzmann@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @pamholzmann. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.UPDATE:

A Temple University student from Tatamy was found dead Saturday night from apparent gunshot wounds, according to a letter from the university's president.

Daniel Duignam

Daniel Duignam, 21, was found just before 10 p.m. Saturday in his off-campus apartment on the 1700 block of Diamond Street, president Richard Englert said. Duignam was the grandson of former borough mayor Luke Duignam.

"I am beyond heartbroken to let you know that one of our own has fallen to a senseless tragedy," Mayor Chris Moren stated on Facebook Sunday afternoon. "I cannot imagine their pain and sadness."

Moren described Daniel Duignam as a "really good kid who was cut down in the prime of his life." He plans to ask for a moment of silence in tribute to Daniel prior to the start of Monday's Borough Council meeting.

Duignam was a third year business student at Temple and attended Nazareth Area High School, playing basketball, as well as track and field. He leaves behind a younger sister and brother, according to former classmates.

Nazareth Blue Eagles Basketball Coach Joe Arndt tweeted Sunday the team was in "great sadness" and "utter disbelief" over Duignam's passing. He added such hashtags as Duignam's nickname "Degs" and "Alwayssmiling" and "blueeagleforever."

It is with great sadness and utter disbelief having lost a member of the Blue Eagle Basketball family at such a young age. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the Duignam family.#Degs #Alwayssmiling#blueeagleforever

Coach Arndt & Staff pic.twitter.com/7fYI3cimHj  Nazareth Basketball (@NAZhoops) May 6, 2018

NBC10 News is reporting Duignam was shot three times in the stomach, right arm and face. He was pronounced dead at the scene, according to the report.

"On behalf of everyone at Temple, I want to extend my deepest sympathies to Daniel's family and friends at this tragic time," Englert stated in a letter. "They are in the thoughts and prayers of us all."

He said university and Philadelphia police do not believe the incident was a random act. As part of the ongoing investigation, police are enhancing patrols in the areas surrounding campus.

Englert said counseling would be made available to all students at Tuttleman Counseling Services. Students could visit from from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday and from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to Friday. Walk-in hours also would be made available daily.

"The death of a member of Temple University's community takes an enormous emotional toll on all of us," Englert said. "That is especially true amid the stress that occurs during finals and the close of the academic year."

Pamela Sroka-Holzmann may be reached at pholzmann@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @pamholzmann. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.You may have walked a corn maze or two before. But did you ever get to design one?

A Warren County farm wants children to draw this year's maze in a contest benefitting a children's cancer charity.

"I loved to draw when I was little - still do, so I was inspired by the idea of how exciting it would be for the winning child to see their artwork transformed into a larger than life, interactive maze of their making," said Katie Donaldson, of Donaldson Farms in Mansfield Township.

The farm has selected the theme for 2018 -- "Brighten someone's day" -- but is asking children and teens age 17 and under for their ideas on how to make it come to life.

TO ENTER: Entry forms and rules are available on the Donaldson Farm's website, donaldsonfarms.net. Entries must be received at the farm by 6 p.m. May 20. A winner will be selected by the farm staff at month's end.

One dollar from each ticket sold when the maze is open in the fall will benefit the Tomorrow Children's Fund.

"Everyone knows someone who has been affected by cancer," Donaldson said. "We are hoping that this will be a fun way to feel helpful."

Donaldson Farms has a history of creating mazes that connect with charity. Last year, a portion of proceeds from the "Salute to Our Military" maze went to a veterans' service. In 2015, a maze featuring NASCAR driver and New Jersey native Martin Truex Jr. helped the driver's charitable foundation.

Steve Novak may be reached at snovak@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @type2supernovak and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.New Delhi: The Prime accused in the brutal rape and murder of an eight year old girl in Kathua asked the Supreme Court on Friday to withdraw the security provided to the girl's family and lawyer.

In the affidavit, Sanji Ram and Vishal Jangotra claimed that they were innocent and the security for the family and lawyer was an 'abuse of process of law'.

The accused also demanded that the case be handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation and alleged that the special investigation team had failed to conduct a fair investigation. The girl was brutally gang raped and then murdered in Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua district in January.Renewing the region's workforce won't happen without millennials -- young people now in their 20s and 30s who are entering the main stage of their professional and personal lives, looking to start careers, buy homes, start families and get involved in their communities. A recent forum brought millennials together with mayors to find ways to make that happen in Western Massachusetts and northern Connecticut. Read more here:Salem State University confirmed Christopher Joyce was one of the two men fatally shot in Boston Friday night.

The Bigger Than My Block organization, which helps college and high school students and works to make a change in Boston communities, posted a picture of Joyce on Facebook after the shootings and expressed sorrow after his killing.

Joyce graduated from Cristo Rey High School in Dorchester and was scheduled to graduate from Salem State University on May 19.

"It is with great sadness that we learned of the passing of our student, Christopher Joyce," Salem State University said in a statement. "Our thoughts are with his family and with the students who are suffering from a loss of a friend and classmate. We mourn the loss of Chris, together as a community."

The university said support services are available for students. Joyce was studying accounting at the university.

The Bigger Than My Block organization said on Facebook that Joyce was "gunned down" in the violence tearing apart the lives of young people. The group called his death "another senseless act of violence."

Boston police were called to 277 Centre St. in Jamaica Plain after receiving reports of shots fired around 9:41 a.m. on Friday.

Joyce and a man in his 50s were found outside the Mildred Hailey Apartments. Both men died at an area hospital. The second victim was identified by Boston police as Clayborn Blair, 58, of Boston.

A spokesman for the Boston Housing Authority told the Boston Globe that neither man lived there.

The shootings, Boston's 17th and 18th homicides this year, remain under investigation.A Maine man, who was reportedly armed and suicidal while driving erratically on Massachusetts roadways overnight, shot himself and later died at a New Bedford hospital.

Massachusetts State Police troopers were advised to be on the lookout for a red Ford Explorer with a Maine registration, State Police said.

The SUV was spotted on Route 24 in Raynham and the driver was all over the road.

"A short time later State Police learned that the driver of the Explorer, a 32-year-old man from Millinocket, Maine, was suicidal and armed, and had threatened to shoot anyone who tried to stop him," State Police said.

Just before midnight, a trooper saw the SUV on Route 140 in Freetown. The trooper tried to stop the SUV, but the driver refused to stop. Troopers began a pursuit of the SUV.

State Police say the Maine man pulled over on Route 140 near Route 6 and shot himself. He was rushed to a New Bedford hospital, where he died.An employee of a Massachusetts gas station set himself on fire Saturday after he covered himself with gas. A police officer was injured as he tackled the man in order to put out the flames.

Police and firefighters in Newbury rushed to the Ampet Service Station on High Road around 4:12 p.m. after a customer said a worker set himself on fire.

A 24-year-old Newbury man, who works at the gas station, doused himself in gas and lit himself on fire.

A Newbury police officer tried to put out the flames with a fire extinguisher as the 24-year-old man ran away.

"The officer eventually tackled him to the ground and extinguished the flames," the district attorney's office said.

The victim was rushed to a local hospital then flown to a Boston hospital with life-threatening injuries. The officer was brought to a local hospital for treatment.

Sources told CBS Boston the gas station worker also drank the gasoline.BRATTLEBORO, VT - An unarmed suspect, thought by authorities to be involved in a string of armed robberies in Vermont, was shot by police on Friday, according to Vermont State Police.

Mark Triolo, 46, of Texas, is in stable condition at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, after being shot in the legs and torso by police in Brattleboro Friday night.

Triolo is thought to have been responsible for robberies in Weathersfield and Westminster Friday. He is also a suspect in a robbery at a market in Vergennes on Tuesday, police said.

At the time of the police involved shooting, Triolo also had active arrest warrants out of Texas and New York, police said.

Shortly after the robbery in Westminster Friday, a Brattleboro police officer observed the suspect car parked at a gas station off exit 3 of I-91 in Brattleboro.

The car had been identified to authorities as a black 2007 Kia Sorento with the Texas registration DH5L669. It had previously been reported stolen out of Texas, police said.

The suspect had been described as a while male driving a "black SUV with Texas registration plates, armed with a handgun," police say.

The officer called for assisting officers. When they arrived, police approached the vehicle, but the suspect fled south on US Route 5, and police lost sight of him.

Around 8:50 p.m., a person living on Black Mountain Road in Brattleboro contacted police, telling them that a car had pulled into their driveway and shut its lights off.

Brattleboro and Vermont State Police drove to the residence. Finding the suspect vehicle unoccupied, police searched a nearby wooded area and came upon Triolo. They gave him verbal commands, which he did not obey, police said. After he did not follow commands to show his hands, three Brattleboro police officers and one Vermont State Trooper opened fire on Triolo, police said.

Upon searching the suspect, police found him unarmed. Inside the Triolo's car was discovered an unarmed Daisy Powerline 340 pellet gun, police said.

The police shooting is under investigation by the Vermont State Police Major Crime Unit in consultation with the Windham County State's Attorney.

The robberies that Triolo is believed to have been responsible for are being investigated by Vermont State Police detectives and the FBI.Had I been sitting on the Holyoke City Council, I would have probably caved in to political correctness and the will of the majority and voted in favor of the city's anti-hate resolution.

I oppose hate. In fact, I hate is something I really hate.

But deep down, I'd have known the resolution would serve no real purpose beyond making a statement that Holyoke's City Council, and by extension the city, wants to be known for having good people. I suppose there's some value to that, if posturing ever offers any value at all.

What the resolution will not do is change any individual citizen's personal opinion, because it's tragically impossible to legislate hate and bigotry out of existence. Those who cheer this resolution are precisely the people who didn't need it. Voting against it does not - repeat not - make those council members advocates of bigotry or discrimination.

The bigots and haters of Holyoke will unfortunately not suddenly see the light, just because the City Council said so. This resolution will mostly make Holyoke feel more like Northampton, which appears to be one of Holyoke's goals these days.

Holyoke wants us to know it's a safe and accepting community and in case you forget, they'll say it again. The resolution was similar to one adopted in 2016.

To the disappointment of decent people but to no realistic person's surprise, that piece of local legislation did not eliminate hate. Neither will this one.

Maybe you can't blame a city for trying. "If you're going to vote against (the resolution), think about the message that sends,'' Council member Jossie Valentin said.

Holyoke has come a long way in promoting inclusiveness, and I say this not just from observation but from personal experience. When I worked for a now-defunct Holyoke talk radio station in the 1980s, the animosity toward Puerto Ricans in particular was a sad part of everyday life.

How do I know this? It's mostly because I don't look or sound Puerto Rican, but I am. Some of what people said to me on the assumption I was "not one of those people" was, to put it diplomatically, illuminating.

The city's climate is far from perfect now, but it is better. Chipping away at prejudice is slow and frustrating, but it's the only way to make genuine progress - and since those days, Holyoke has made progress.

The absurdity of the City Council's resolution is not in the intent but in its misguided attempt to identify specifically targeted groups. The council adopted an amendment adding "public servants" to the list, but not before the addition provoked a debate over whether this category of humanity qualified for consideration in a safe and accepting community.

The groups that attracted most attention covered religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, race, age, physical and mental considerations, job description and more. The unborn were included in the debate, and so were the born, which would seem to encompass everyone.

Women over 40 were mentioned. I'm a man over 40. Is Holyoke not a safe and accepting community for me? (At least old people were brought up. That leaves me, at 62, with very mixed feelings).

Pregnant women, conservative women - the debate over who was in and who was out didn't bring people together, which was presumably the intent, but found new and official ways to divide them into their own, separate corners of the American universe. That's not a solution, that's the problem.

Any thinking person could look at the list, or any such list, and find a group that wasn't considered. I saw no Hare Krishnas or Australians on the list. I am left to assume Holyoke's City Council would want to extend its safe, welcoming attitude toward them.

Some groups face prejudice more than others, which any sensible person will admit, but trying to categorize who deserves our open-mindedness (and by exclusion, who doesn't) won't eliminate bias or hate. I fear it will have the reverse effect of tacitly encouraging it by singling out some groups but not others.

Valentin is right: it's important to think about the message this resolution sends. It's also important to consider if the Holyoke City Council adopted this resolution to create a better city in genuine ways, or to feel better about itself.

If it really wanted to stamp out hate, it should have included panhandlers on that list. That's the group that really takes it on the chin in a city that's trying to stamp out hate through legislation, which even its best intentions, sadly, will not do.By Shira Schoenberg, Shannon Young and Dan Glaun, The Republican/MassLive.com

Five days before she died of uterine cancer, Dr. Sarah Kemble, chief of medicine at the VA Central Western Massachusetts Healthcare System in Leeds, submitted a 23-page affidavit to U.S. officials detailing problems of substandard care at the veterans' facility.

"It is my final wish to complete this affidavit ... so that I can attempt to change systemic and dangerous patient care, dangerous practices, and public safety issues," Kemble wrote.

Kemble's husband, Jerry Lund, put it bluntly in a phone interview from his home in Leyden.

"From top to bottom, the place is basically dysfunctional," he said.

The Central Western Massachusetts VA is now the subject of an investigation by the U.S. Veterans Affairs Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection. Officials with the facility are barred from commenting on specific allegations due to the ongoing probe.

Andre Bowser, a spokesman for the healthcare system, said the organization is "cooperating fully" with the investigation.

"We've made improvements over the past three years in access to care and wait times, and we continue to seek ways to improve the service we provide to veterans," Bowser said.

A spokesman for the VA's Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection confirmed the office is investigating Kemble's allegations.

"The case is still under investigation and we will follow the facts wherever they lead," the spokesman said in an email.

Kemble was hired by the Leeds VA hospital in November 2014 after a career as a doctor and health care administrator. She founded a community health center in Greenfield in 1998 and ran it until 2009.

Kemble then worked at a school-based health center, in private practice and at a Vermont hospital system before coming to the Leeds VA. She was involved with medical schools and physicians' groups, teaching and developing health care policy.

"She was an activist," Lund said. "She took that job (at the VA) because she knew there were some real issues, real problems there that a person like herself with her experience could readily address."

According to the affidavit, shown to a reporter by Kemble's attorney Lisa Brodeur-McGan, one of the major problems Kemble identified was with the Veterans Choice program, which was established in 2014 and allows veterans to seek care outside the Veterans Affairs system.

Kemble wrote that patients referred to outside specialists would return to the VA hospital months later saying they were not able to get appointments or treatment, causing what she described as unacceptable delays in care. Kemble said patient records and test results from outside doctors were never related back to patients' primary care doctors. Meanwhile, Leeds VA doctors were not allowed to communicate with the outside specialists.

Kemble raised her concerns about the Veterans Choice program in late 2015, bringing them to a Regional Ethics Council. In January 2016, she was demoted from chief of medicine to chief of primary care. She believes this was done in retaliation, one of three times she said she was retaliated against for reporting problems.

"I have been accused of not being a 'team player,' and causing the staff 'stress,' because I did not prioritize the budget over patient safety, and because I insisted on improving and changing clinical issues that were deviations from the accepted standard of care in the profession," Kemble wrote.

Kemble said although the medical center calls itself a 24/7 hospital, there is no lab service, radiology, clinical pharmacist or appropriate psychiatric care on nights and weekends.

"If you come into the facility off tour with crushing chest pain, you are more than likely going to die if you are having a heart attack because the facility does not have a cardiologist or a cath lab," Kemble wrote. "Off tour" refers to during non-daytime hours.

Kemble also complained about the structure of the Leeds VA. She wrote that she reported to a chief of staff, who was a dentist and did not have medical expertise. She disapproved of the mental health section being led by a psychologist who was not trained to prescribe medication. She said money meant for patient care was used for landscaping. She wrote that the money would have been enough to pay for doctors to fill 50 vacant positions.

Kemble also wrote that veterans staying at Soldier On, a nonprofit on the VA campus which helps homeless veterans, would sell illegal drugs to VA patients.

Jack Downing, president of Soldier On, said neither Kemble nor federal investigators contacted him about the allegations.

"I don't find the (affidavit) to be accurate or reflective of how we live on that campus with this VA," Downing said.

Downing said 88 percent of veterans he serves have addiction problems, so it is not surprising if one had illegal drugs on campus. But, he said some of the policies Kemble describes -- for example, regarding VA doctors responding to incidents at Soldier On -- are outdated.

"It seemed to me as I read the report, somebody took stories from 10 years ago and is saying they're still true," Downing said.

Downing said the Northampton facility has improved since John Collins took over as director in 2014, despite some problems that "are inherently built into the VA bureaucracy." He said Collins has worked with community-based service providers and VA caregivers to resolve problems as they arise.

The allegations, first reported by WCVB Channel 5 in February, have gained increasing attention.

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, called on the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to brief lawmakers on the alleged misconduct, "including who will be held accountable and what steps the VA will take to improve the care to our veterans in the Central Western Massachusetts Healthcare System."

"It should not take a whistleblower on her deathbed for the VA to address outrageous failures of care ... Our veterans are heroes and they deserve better," Warren said in a statement.

Warren, in a March 2 letter to then-Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin, raised concerns about the reported "systemic failures of care" at the Western Massachusetts VA, citing Kemble's allegations.

"Despite enduring retaliation, one of Dr. Kemble's final acts as chief of medicine before dying of cancer was to report these alleged widespread failures to the VA Whistleblower Office," she wrote.

"VA employees must be held accountable when they deliver inadequate care to our veterans. If employees like Dr. Kemble report care deficiencies, they must be protected from retaliation," Warren continued. "I ask for an immediate briefing on the progress and -- if completed -- the outcome of the VA's investigation into these allegations, including appropriate disciplinary action against any personnel that committed misconduct or perpetuated a culture in which misconduct was allowed to continue."

Elizabeth Warren Letter to VA by The Republican/MassLive.com on Scribd

Acting VA Secretary Robert Wilkie confirmed in an April 13 letter to Warren that "the alleged reports of systemic failures are linked to allegations made by a former employee and are at the center of an ongoing whistleblower investigation."

Wilkie said the VA Central Western Massachusetts Health Care System's leadership "has been fully cooperative in the investigation," and the agency will brief Warren once the investigation is completed.

US Department of Veterans Affairs responds to Elizabeth Warren by The Republican/MassLive.com on Scribd

Warren is not the only who wants to ensure that the federal investigation address the allegations.

"Some of the stuff outlined in the doctor's affidavit I find to be inexcusable," said State Rep. John Velis, D-Westfield, vice chairman of the Legislature's Joint Committee on Veterans and Federal Affairs.

Velis stressed that the affidavit is just an allegation, but he said there should be a federal investigation. "If what's in this affidavit turns out to be true, obviously it needs to be investigated. If people are at fault, they need to be held accountable," Velis said.SBA 504 Loans offered statewide! Real estate and equipment, acquisitions, renovation, and new construction. Low, fixed-rates up to 25 years with as little as 10% down.Thursday, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce gave Republican Congressman Greg Gianforte one of its Spirit of Enterprise Awards. About 40 local chamber members attended an award ceremony amidst giant rolls of newsprint at the Kalispell Daily Interlake newspapers warehouse.

By Nicky Ouellet

http://mtpr.org/post/reporters-worry-award-ceremony-rep-gianforte-could-taint-papers-credibilityWe invite articles submitted by our readers. You can add an article (subject to editorial approval) by emailing the Juan Wilson with what you want to post.We will include your name as the author, or, if you are forwarding another's words, we will add you as the source.1. Comments must not be racist, misogynistic, homophobic, or otherwise bigoted.

2. Comments must not involve little more than name-calling and insulting remarks.

3. Comments must not be made by "anonymous" or "unknown".

4. Comments must not try to sneak in some free advertising for themselves (like spam).

I invite anyone who wishes to comment on this blog to do so. I enjoy the comments, whether you agree with what I have said or not. But some people want to abuse the right to comment, and since this is my blog, I have decided to lay down the following rules. If your comment violates these rules, it will not be published.GRAND BLANC, MI -- Nearly 275 Clio High School students were welcomed with ragtime music during a 2018 prom themed "1920s Great Gatsby" at the Captain's Club Saturday night, May 5 in Grand Blanc.

Students were welcomed by a photo booth, photos and dinner which included sirloin steak.

The Flint Journal and MLive.com have photographed proms from across Genesee County, including Flint Powers Catholic, Mt. Morris, Davison High School and more throughout the state.

Have a look at MLive's prom coverage here.FENTON, MI -- More than 420 students traveled from Fenton to New York City Saturday night for prom 2018.

Well, this New York City was actually inside the 59 West banquet room in Highland Township where sponsors put together a New York City-themed prom for the junior/senior prom.

Here's a look at the students that took photos at the gazebo area outside Fenton City Hall and as they arrived by car, truck, limo, and party buses to the Oakland County destination.

Click here to check out prom coverage from across Genesee County and the state of Michigan.GRAND RAPIDS, MI - Forest Hills Central High School students celebrated their "Moonlight Fairytale'' prom Saturday, May 5, at the Grand Rapids Public Museum

Students sported chic dresses and sharp suits while taking a spin on the carousel, strolling around the exhibits, and dancing the night away.

The Grand Rapids Press was there to celebrate the special night with students and capture all the fun moments.

Prom season is underway in West Michigan through May, and we will cover as many as possible to highlight the annual high school milestone.GRAND RAPIDS, MI - Godwin Heights High School students celebrated their "Glitz & Glamour'' prom Saturday, May 5, at St. Cecilia Music Center.

Students looked stunning in trendy dresses and sleek suits. They mingled over dinner and laughed and applauded remarks from classmates and administrators they've grown close to over the years.

The close knit group watched a video of classmates from childhood to present-day grace before hitting the dance floor.

MLive's The Grand Rapids Press was there to capture all the fun and special moments.

Prom season is underway in West Michigan through May, and MLive will cover as many as possible to highlight the annual high school milestone.GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- A group of children and adults marched Saturday in downtown Grand Rapids to commemorate the 55th anniversary of the Children's Crusade in Birmingham -- an important moment in the civil rights movement.

The march culminated events at Black Family Day at the Grand Valley State University Seidman College of Business.

Families gathered to hear about the Children's Crusade but also to talk about local civil rights issues.

Gertrude Croom, a retired Grand Rapids Community College professor, took part in the peaceful protests as a 16-year-old and was with throngs of teens following Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

She spoke to the Grand Rapids group Saturday, May 5.

Croom was arrested four times in a short stretch of time for the 1963 protests.

"What was most exciting about it was having the young people involved because we knew our parents could not. They would lose their jobs," she said.

She described how students, once released from jail, would go right back to the streets to continue the movement.

Saturday's event was sponsored by a the Grand Rapids Chapter of Jack and Jill of America, an 80-year-old national group dedicated to fostering future African American leaders.

The local chapter was established in 2010.

Grand Rapids police participated in Saturday's march and helped promote it as part of continuing efforts to improve community and police relations.

Ja'Von Fields, who graduated in 2017 from Grand River Preparatory High School and is part of the local NAACP Youth Council, urged teens and young adults to get involved in their community to push for change.

He described feeling intimidated recently when he was pulled over in a traffic stop by Grand Rapids police. For him, it's an indication that more can be done on the civil rights front to make African Americans feel more secure.GRAND RAPIDS, MI - Ottawa Hills High School students celebrated their prom Saturday, May 5, at the Grand Rapids Community College Applied Technology Center.

The theme was "Harlem Night'' and students showed off their flair for fashion, arriving in stunning dresses and sharp suits.

It was a fun, vibrant affair. Students mingled and showed off their moves on a packed dance floor when popular tunes were played. MLive's Grand Rapids Press was there to capture all the fun and special moments.

Prom season is well underway in West Michigan. We will cover as many as possible throughout May to highlight this annual high school milestone.ROCKFORD, MI -- Full federal scrutiny is finally coming to bear on the polluted Wolverine World Wide tannery in downtown Rockford, five years after the Environmental Protection Agency stepped away from its initial investigation and left the site under state control.

The EPA says new contamination testing will begin mid-month at the former manufacturing grounds, where, from 1908 to 2009, Wolverine churned out treated leather that helped the footwear company grow into a global business with $2.4 billion in revenue last year.

The testing will be more thorough than Wolverine desired.

The EPA wants Wolverine to conduct extensive soil and groundwater sampling across the entire 15-acre property, which has been open to the public as an informal community green space used sporadically for downtown events since the buildings were razed in 2010.

Data shows the property is fouled by arsenic, chromium and lead in addition to the per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS chemicals, that have sparked new site scrutiny.

The now-empty land where Wolverine reneged on a promise to build a downtown Rockford shoe store is back in federal crosshairs after extremely high PFAS levels were found at the tannery, Wolverine's House Street sludge dump and other places where the company cached toxic waste around northern Kent County.

The tannery scored high enough to warrant inclusion on the federal Superfund list of toxic sites, but the EPA acquiesced in 2012 to substantial pushback from Wolverine and community leaders who lobbied hard to keep the century-old factory grounds under a state-led, voluntary environmental cleanup program.

Whether the site attains Superfund status is an open question.

Although PFAS helped bring the EPA back to Rockford, the federal government doesn't have enforceable cleanup standards for the contamination caused by Wolverine's use of 3M Scotchgard to waterproof shoe leather. But the state of Michigan does.

This has resulted in a delicate state and federal coupling.

The EPA is focusing its probe on other contaminants besides PFAS at the tannery and federal investigators are picking up where they left off, when a site assessment identified historic contamination in places like "the pit," a 50-foot former maintenance basement area where toxic waste pooled and sometimes overflowed.

The EPA issued Wolverine an investigative subpoena for records related to the tannery and the House Streep dump in Plainfield Township in early December, prior to a Jan. 10 order that formally increased the federal role in the Wolverine investigation.

Those records are now under EPA examination.

Jeffrey Kimble, an EPA Region 5 on-scene coordinator assigned to the investigation, asked Wolverine to expand testing.

"They did not meet what I wanted them to do, so (the sampling plan) has been given back to Wolverine's consultant with directions from me," Kimble said. "I want this to be a complete extent of contamination survey, so we've had them adjust their approach."

Kimble is scrutinizing the site for contamination that could pose an immediate health risk and wants "a good number and spacing of actual soil samples, sediment samples in Rum Creek and adjacent Rogue River, and few more groundwater samples."

"I'm looking at what people could actually touch if they dug in the dirt, if they had to do excavation or what may migrate off site," he said.

Through a spokesperson, Wolverine confirmed that it received Kimble's feedback and subsequently modified its testing plan.

Wolverine said it is "diligently" working with regulators and anticipates its consultant Rose & Westra GZA beginning field work this summer.

In June, the company will allow the Rockford Start of Summer Celebration to use the tannery lawn for ballgames and festival fireworks viewing, but EPA says it's requiring the company test the surface soils used for backfill and grading first.

Although the property is fenced along the west side, the public has easy access because the rest of the fence was removed at the city's request in 2015. The EPA couldn't provide a date when more fencing and warning signs would go up, although both are stipulated.

Thad Beard, Rockford city manager, thinks the topsoil cap placed after demolition is enough to keep people safe.

"If you were to go dig a 10-foot hole and start eating the dirt, that would be a cause for concern," Beard said.

"From what I understand, there's no contaminants exposed to the public unless you were to dig below grade."

That may depend on the location. According to EPA testing, contamination above acceptable human contact levels exists "at or near the surface" of the tannery footprint along the heavily-used White Pine Trail, where "elevated levels of organic and inorganic contaminants have been detected in surficial soils."

That contamination data was collected several years before 2017 testing confirmed total PFAS at 532,000 parts per trillion in the groundwater at the tannery.

In the river nearby, sediment testing found elevated levels of arsenic, total chromium, hexavalent chromium, copper, lead, mercury and zinc. Wolverine used chromium in bulk to convert raw hides into leather. The hexavalent variety is a known carcinogen.

In a January memo, Kimble characterized both the House Street and tannery sites as "imminent and substantial" threats to public health and the environment. The memo notes that children have been observed swimming in the river downtown where "sediment and water contamination has been documented."

The EPA evaluated the site six years ago at the request of the Concerned Citizens for Responsible Remediation (CCRR), a local group which petitioned for federal involvement in 2011 after independently documenting contamination at the property.

Lynn McIntosh, a Rockford activist instrumental in bringing Wolverine's pollution to light, said she's spent years warning people enjoying the river downtown to "make sure they wash their kids' hands or wipe their kayak" afterwards.

On multiple occasions, McIntosh said she's quietly approached parents with children playing at the trailside canoe launch near the southwest corner of the former tannery site to warn them about elevated levels of mercury in the nearby riverbed.

"I shouldn't have to do that," she said.

McIntosh is pleased the EPA is back on the ground in Rockford after watching former elected officials like late city manager Michael Young and ex-state Sen. Mark Jansen lobby to keep the tannery under Michigan Department of Environmental Quality oversight.

Both men wrote similarly-worded letters to regulators warning of "significant negative effect" on tannery redevelopment and downtown Rockford if EPA involvement were to continue; both citing their understanding that "there are no conditions at the property that present a health threat to the public."

Wolverine "has advised me that the remaining environmental issues at the property will be properly addressed by Wolverine with the DEQ," Young wrote to the EPA on April 19, 2012.

Both Young and Jansen asked that EPA "terminate" their involvement and let DEQ manage the site under the state's Part 201 law.

Under the state voluntary cleanup program, the DEQ has essentially allowed Wolverine to mothball the site, McIntosh argued.

Although Wolverine has done sampling and soil boring, little excavation and no bioremediation, containment, groundwater control or treatment has occurred under the state's oversight.

Rockford put "money and image over addressing a real possible public health and safety issue, and worked with the company to accomplish that," McIntosh said.

The DEQ counters that retaining control over the site has sped, not slowed, tannery cleanup work because it takes several years for a site to become Superfund listed. The site was designated an "Other Cleanup Authority" under state lead in 2012.

Were it placed on the National Priorities List, "it would have taken several more years to accomplish remedial investigation and remedial actions," said DEQ spokesperson Scott Dean.

"Wolverine has better defined the extent of soil and groundwater contamination and located leather and hide scraps buried on the 100-year-old tannery site" following the 2012 agreement, Dean said.

The state's oversight "made it possible for Wolverine to quickly begin monitoring for PFAS" after it became a concern in 2016, he said.

The company began testing for PFAS in August 2017.

"Although we have been frustrated by the pace of work at the tannery site, our primary focus has been on protecting the public," Dean said.

"We remain committed to holding Wolverine accountable for the contamination on their site and seeing it returned to productive use."Residents in 66 of Michigan's 83 counties will decide on tax requests on the May 8, 2018, ballot.

Most of the requests are from school districts, but libraries, cities, townships and other governmental units also have ballot proposals.

Among the school districts holding an election: Ann Arbor, Kalamazoo, Jackson, Bay City, Battle Creek and Ypsilanti.

To see if there's an election in your community or school district, check the Michigan Secretary of State website at www.michigan.gov/vote.

By typing in your name, birth date and ZIP Code, you can find out if and where you are registered to vote and see what's on that specific ballot on Tuesday.

The website also will provide a map to your polling place.

Polls will be open Tuesday from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Many of the ballot requests involve renewal of school districts' 18-mill nonhomestead tax, which is levied on second homes and commercial property. Owner-occupied homes are exempt from the nonhomestead tax.

On requests for a millage increase, you can calculate the impact on your property taxes by multiplying your property's taxable value by the number of mills and dividing by 1,000.

For instance, 2-mill increase would cost $100 a year on a home with a taxable value of $50,000 and a market value of $100,000. (Michigan's 2017 average taxable value for a residential parcel was $53,442.)

Related stories:CASS COUNTY, MI - Three Indiana men were taken to Cass County-area hospitals Saturday afternoon after the trio was flung from a vehicle when it crashed and rolled over multiple times near Newberg Township, according to the sheriff's office.

At least one of the injured passengers was airlifted from the scene, said Cass County Sheriff Richard Behnke.

Speed appears to be a factor in the crash, Behnke added. Alcohol may have also been a factor, and the incident is under investigation.

Deputies were dispatched at around 1:53 p.m. on Saturday to investigate a crash at Quaker Street near Savage Road in Newberg Township, Behnke said.

Colin Mikel Schieber, 20, of Elkhart, Indiana, was driving east on Quaker Street before losing control of his vehicle, the sheriff said. The vehicle swerved off the roadway into a ditch and rolled over multiple times.

Schieber and passengers Austin Lamar Feldman, 22, of Elkhart, and Gage Darwin Lambdin, 21, of Bristol, Indiana, do not appear to have been wearing seat belts, and the impact of the crash ejected all three from the vehicle, Behnke said.

Shieber was taken by ambulance to Bronson Methodist Hospital in Kalamazoo. Feldman was taken by ambulance to Three Rivers Hospital, but was later airlifted to Bronson, Behnke said.

Lambdin was airlifted to Southbend Memorial Hospital from the scene, the sheriff said.

Newberg EMS and fire, Life Care EMS, Three Rivers EMS, Medflight, Pokagon Tribal Police and the Michigan State Police assisted Cass County deputies with the crash.MUSKEGON, MI - Reeths-Puffer High School students and their guests walked the red carpet to celebrate prom 2018.

The prom was held on Saturday, May 5, with the theme "A Night on the Red Carpet."

The event was at the Fricano's Event Center downtown Muskegon. About 420 students and their guests attended.

Organized by about 10 students, the prom included desserts and soda. The decor centerpieces were a red carpet and a Hollywood sign accented by a black and red color palette.

Attendees also collected party favors: sunglasses and keychains.

MLive will cover as many proms as possible this season, through the end of May.

Find all MLive/Muskegon Chronicle's prom coverage here.GRAND HAVEN, MI - Erin Eisen chose a casual black dress with red roses on it for prom 2018.

Eisen attended her third prom on Saturday, May 5, at Grand Haven Christian School, along with about 100 other young adults serviced by the Ottawa Area Intermediate School District.

"They have so much fun," said mom Michelle Eisen. "They treat these kids like royalty when they go to these places."

The ISD's young adult students - student ranging from age 18-26 who qualify for special education, aren't offered a prom every year.

Erin Eisen doesn't have a definitive diagnosis, but is cognitively impaired, she said.

"She functions at a lower age than what she's at," Michelle Eisen said.

Erin Eisen said she was excited about prom, but wasn't sure if she'd dance or not. She attended with three friends.

Three Western Michigan Christian students chose to plan this year's prom as their senior service project.

"We wanted to give kids an experience that they may not get otherwise," said Hannah Nestell who worked with classmates Catherine Bradford-Royle and Jared Hanes. "We hope this event makes fun memories for these students and encourages them that they are a part of our lives, that we love to be around them and interact with them because they are our friends."

Erin Eisen, 23, attended prom with three of her good friends: Dylan Gibson, Chance Bonz and Gilberto Herrera who are also OAISD students.

After Eisen did her hair and makeup and donned her dress, she and Michelle Eisen picked up her friends and took pictures on the way to prom.

They enjoyed dinner from Chick-fil-A and homemade desserts while a friend of the coordinators spun tunes at the DJ booth. A photographer, another friend of the coordinators, circulated through the crowd to capture candid moments on the dance floor and posed keepsakes.

The theme was "Under the Stars," which was highlighted by a photo backdrop made of tulle, lights and stars. Table centerpieces were painted wine bottles with ribbons around the necks.

Erin Eisen, Gibson, Bonz and Herrera, along with all the other students were provided with a carnation party favor.

Aside from providing all the bells and whistles associated with any prom, the coordinators also had to keep students' special needs in mind.

For students who may need to get away from the excitement of prom, a quiet room was prepared. A parents' room was also available with coffee and cookies.SAGINAW, MI -- Police have identified the 23-year-old man shot and killed early Saturday morning at a Saginaw apartment complex that marks the eighth homicide of 2018 in the city.

Officers responded around 3 a.m. May 5 to the Birch Park Apartments, 3000 Birch Park Drive, for a shooting call and discovered Saginaw resident Jermaine Boose had sustained at least one gunshot wound.

A Mobile Medical Response ambulance crew also responded and administered emergency medical care to the victim, but Boose was later pronounced dead at the scene.

The Major Crimes Unit-- consisting of Saginaw Police and Michigan State Police detectives -- and the Michigan Department of Corrections are investigating this incident as a homicide.

Detectives are interviewing witnesses, but no further information on the incident or suspect description has been released at this time by police.

Anyone with information is urged to call Detective Jacobs or Detective Burns at 989-759-1628, 989-759-1231, or report a tip anonymously to Crime Stoppers at 1-800-422-JAIL (5245).SWAN CREEK TWP - Swan Valley students celebrated the area's most colorful prom as they donned luau leis and neon suits and dresses for their Hawaiian-inspired 2018 prom Saturday.

After downing a buffet-style dinner and donning the flowery necklaces worn by Hawaiian islanders, the students took to a dance floor dominated by bright lights and a mini fog machine.

Prom season continues throughout Michigan until the end of the month - check Mlive.com throughout May for more coverage of the students' big night.Effects of COVID-19 on children the focus of first Pennridge Community Partnership eventBuilding Homes for Heroes donates home to war veteran and her childrenMay 06, 2018

The MoA Week In Review And Open Thread 2018-22

Last week's posts on Moon of Alabama:

Netanyahoo presses for the end of nuclear deal (JCPOA) with Iran. But that is only step one. He wants the U.S. to destroy Iran. First its forces in Syria, then the Islamic Republic itself. Amos Harel: Israel Hopes Trump Scrapping Nuclear Deal Could Ultimately Lead to Iran Regime Change. Some Israeli thinkers are waking up to the danger of such nonsense: Former Israeli General: U.S. Exit From Nuclear Deal Would Help Iran. But it is too late. Trump will dump the JCPOA deal. From there on we will be on very uncertain territory. Patrick Cockburn remarks: Its not clear if Trump and Netanyahu want a war with Iran  but they may fall into one all the same. Lee Camp points out that Iran recently ended doing business in U.S. dollars. He points to other cases where such a decision had serious consequences: I Know Which Country the U.S. Will Invade Next. The Saker walks us through a possible war on Iran scenario: The Warmakers.

Use as open thread ...

Posted by b on May 6, 2018 at 16:18 UTC | Permalink

Comments

next page May 06, 2018 Trump Circles Hired Israeli Spy Company 'Black Cube' To Dig Up Dirt on Iran Deal Negotiators Updated below Someone tipped off the Observer, the Guardian's Sunday edition, about an attempt of Donald Trump flunkies to find dirt about the people who negotiated the nuclear deal (JCPOA) with Iran. An Israeli spy company was hired to set up traps. One of the victims describes how that happened. The modus operandi seems similar to one described in another dirty story which surfaced about a year ago. The company, not named by the Observer, in question is Black Cube.

bigger The Observer: Revealed: Trump team hired spy firm for dirty ops on Iran arms deal Aides to Donald Trump, the US president, hired an Israeli private intelligence agency to orchestrate a dirty ops campaign against key individuals from the Obama administration who helped negotiate the Iran nuclear deal, the Observer can reveal. People in the Trump camp contacted private investigators in May last year to get dirt on Ben Rhodes, who had been one of Barack Obamas top national security advisers, and Colin Kahl, deputy assistant to Obama, as part of an elaborate attempt to discredit the deal.

...

Sources said that officials linked to Trumps team contacted investigators days after Trump visited Tel Aviv a year ago, his first foreign tour as US president.

... According to incendiary documents seen by the Observer, investigators contracted by the private intelligence agency were told to dig into the personal lives and political careers of Rhodes, a former deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, and Kahl, a national security adviser to the former vice-president Joe Biden. Among other things they were looking at personal relationships, any involvement with Iran-friendly lobbyists, and if they had benefited personally or politically from the peace deal.

...

Both Rhodes and Kahl said they had no idea of the campaign against them. The last sentence no longer holds. Colin Kahl now remembers that something fishy was going on: Colin Kahl @ColinKahl - 5:33 UTC - 6 May 2018 According to this story, in May of last year, Team Trump asked an Israeli intel firm to dig up dirt on me as part of an effort to discredit the Iran deal. Tonight, as my wife read this story, that date triggered a very creepy memory. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/may/05/  Last year, my wife was serving on the fundraising committee of my daughter's public charter school in DC. One day, out of the blue, she received an email from someone claiming to represent a socially responsible private equity firm in the UK. This "UK person" said "she" was flying to DC soon and wanted to have coffee with my wife to discuss the possibility of including my daughter's school in their educational fund network. This was not a generic "Nigerian prince" scam. This person had all sorts of specific information on my wife's volunteer duties at an obscure DC elementary school. There was a website for the firm (which no longer exists, by the way), but it had no depth to it, and there was no detailed information about the "UK person" who reached out to my wife. My wife shared the email with me and a few people we know in both the finance and education fields. All agreed that the entire scenario seemed implausible and seemed like an approach by a foreign intelligence entity. To test the implausibility, my wife kept trying to encourage the "UK person" over email to meet with other school fundraising officers & leadership while "she" was in DC, providing relevant contact info. But the "UK person" kept insisting that "she" had to meet with my wife. At that point, my wife stopped corresponding. This all happened in late May and early June of last year.

... The way the operation was run against Colin Kahl sounds familiar. I remembered reading about a similar attempt a while ago and, after some searching, dug up this New Yorker story from last November: In the fall of 2016, Harvey Weinstein set out to suppress allegations that he had sexually harassed or assaulted numerous women. He began to hire private security agencies to collect information on the women and the journalists trying to expose the allegations. According to dozens of pages of documents, and seven people directly involved in the effort, the firms that Weinstein hired included Kroll, which is one of the worlds largest corporate-intelligence companies, and Black Cube, an enterprise run largely by former officers of Mossad and other Israeli intelligence agencies. Black Cube, which has branches in Tel Aviv, London, and Paris, offers its clients the skills of operatives highly experienced and trained in Israels elite military and governmental intelligence units, according to its literature. Two private investigators from Black Cube, using false identities, met with the actress Rose McGowan, who eventually publicly accused Weinstein of rape, to extract information from her. One of the investigators pretended to be a womens-rights advocate and secretly recorded at least four meetings with McGowan. In both cases we see a 'private' Israeli spy company, with deep government connections and operating from London, which uses false identities and meets its targets under false pretense. I bet a cup of coffee that Black Cube is the company behind the attempts to spy on the JCPOA negotiators. The company is notorious for such dirty work. Compare this from Colin Kahl above: One day, out of the blue, [my wife] received an email from someone claiming to represent a socially responsible private equity firm in the UK. This "UK person" said "she" was flying to DC soon and wanted to have coffee with my wife to discuss the possibility of including my daughter's school in their educational fund network. With this from the Weinstein case as described in the New Yorker: In May, 2017, McGowan received an e-mail from a literary agency introducing her to a woman who identified herself as Diana Filip, the deputy head of sustainable and responsible investments at Reuben Capital Partners, a London-based wealth-management firm. Filip told McGowan that she was launching an initiative to combat discrimination against women in the workplace ... The same pattern is used: A surprise contact from London pretending to have money from some rich fund to disperse for a good cause the targeted person is known to support. The false person is persistently asking for a personal meeting. There are multiple additional details about the spies approach in both cases that look quite similar. Black Cube claims to deliver "Creative Intelligence". But to use the same method and false story over and over is not creative at all. The company has had some press lately. The Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Whyle alleges that Black Cube was hired to hack the personal data of Nigerian President Buhari prior to his election to get access to his medical records and private emails. Cambridge Analytica also worked for the Trump campaign. One wonders why the Observer did not name the Israeli spy company. One also wonders why the story is coming up now. Who leaked it? And is it true? One of the Guardian/Observer authors of the story is Julian Borger who was long notorious for writing manipulating stories about Iran's nuclear program. Borger is pretty much in the anti-Trump camp and his 'official' sources are sometimes shady. His additional frame piece to the story above reveals nothing new. Who gave him the story? The British government which wants to keep the JCPOA alive? Could someone have made up the whole story, modeled after the Weinstein case, in an attempt to discredit Trump and his planned termination of the JCPOA deal? Then again - hiring 'former' spies to dig up dirt about people was actually a specialty of the Clinton campaign. It paid the 'former' British spy Christopher Steele to make up the "Dirty Dossier" about Trump. It would be hypocritical to now condemn the Trump circles for doing similar stuff. Update (May 7 12:30pm est): An hour ago the New Yorker author who wrote the original Black Cube/Weinstein piece confirmed that Black Cube was indeed the company which targeted the Obama administration officials Colin Kahl and Ben Rhodes. Mr. Kahl points to several news-pieces in mid 2017 in which Trump administration officials blamed him and Mr. Rhodes for the Iran deal. It is unclear though how deep the current White House was involved in hiring the spy company. From the new New Yorker piece: The Observer reported that aides of President Trump had hired Black Cube to run the operation in order to undermine the Iran deal, allegations that Black Cube denies. The idea was that people acting for Trump would discredit those who were pivotal in selling the deal, making it easier to pull out of it, a source told the Observer. One of the sources familiar with the effort told me that it was, in fact, part of Black Cubes work for a private-sector client pursuing commercial interests related to sanctions on Iran. (A Trump Administration spokesperson declined to comment to the Observer on the allegations.) It could of course be both. The Trump administration officials Sebastian Gorka and Steve Bannon pushed against the Iran deal and went to news outlets complaining about Kahl and Rhodes. The company denies that the White House hired it. While some private company, (uber-Zionist and casino magnate Sheldon Adelson?), may have paid Black Cube these efforts were likely coordinated. Another target was the pro-Iran deal lobbyist Trita Parsi. The Black Cube spies, and the Trump administration flunkies, insinuated that the Obama people pursued the Iran deal in exchange for personal financial gains. I do not believe that to be the case. But it is interesting that the Trump people can not think of other reasons for making such a strategic deal. This is the kind of scandal the media will love to dig into. We can thus expect to hear much more about the case. Was a crime committed? I do not see such an angle yet but a good prosecutor may make the case. Unlike the whole anti-Russia/anti-Trump campaign and investigation, which has no merit at all, this one would be on target. It was and is Israel that is the most influential foreign country in Washington DC and within the Trump administration. Any dirt coming up now will help to make that point more visible to the general public. Posted by b on May 6, 2018 at 14:33 UTC | Permalink CommentsVous etes confrontes a une infestation par la puce, la punaise de lit ? Voici plusieurs actions qui sont a mettre en uvre pour faire []NEW YORK (AP)  New York City's Trinity Church, a tourist attraction loved for its ties to colonial America and links to a Broadway hit, will be largely closed to visitors during a two-year renovation intended to brighten the church and improve disabled access.

The neo-Gothic church surrounded by soaring skyscrapers embarks Monday on a $98 million renovation that will put its nave, with its 66-foot vaulted ceiling, off limits.

A small chapel in the building's northwest corner will be open, as will the church's picturesque graveyard, where luminaries including Alexander Hamilton and his wife, Eliza, are buried, will remain open throughout the renovation.

"We're trying to create much more accessibility and much more capacity to welcome people," said the church's rector, William Lupfer.

An estimated 1.9 million people visited Trinity in 2017, according to the church. Those numbers are swollen by fans of the musical "Hamilton," who often leave flowers or other mementos on the founding father's memorial stone and the tomb of his wife.

The church's stained-glass windows will be restored and a new one will be installed at the front of the church facing Broadway. A new organ with more than 7,500 pipes is being built in Germany at a cost of $11.4 million.

The renovations will add a wheelchair ramp to the church, lower the pews, which are now a 4-inch step up from the aisles, and increase seating capacity from 514 to 652.

A clear canopy will be attached to one side of the building to protect clergy members from the elements when they're assembling for the Sunday procession into the church.

New gender-neutral bathrooms will be added as well.

David Maddox, director of facilities and property management for the church, said the columns and window casements inside Trinity are stone, but the interior walls are plaster painted to look like stone when the church was built in the 1840s. Maddox said the plaster will once again be painted with veining that mimics stone, but in a lighter shade than the dark brown favored in the Victorian era.

The building being renovated is the third Trinity Church to occupy the site at the head of Wall Street. The first was built in 1698 and burned in the great New York fire of 1776, which destroyed hundreds of buildings. The second was built in 1790 and torn down after support beams bucked in 1838. George Washington and members of his government worshipped at the second Trinity Church during the period when New York was the capital of the United States.

The current Trinity Church, designed by architect Robert Upjohn in the Gothic Revival style, was consecrated in 1846. Its 281-foot steeple made it the tallest building in New York City until 1890.

The parish also includes St. Paul's Chapel five blocks away, built in 1766 and operating continuously since then, which will host Trinity's Sunday services during the renovation.

Both Trinity and St. Paul's survived the destruction of the nearby World Trade Center, and St. Paul's ministered to recovery workers for months after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Trinity's lower Manhattan neighborhood has become both a prime residential area and a tourist destination in the years since the attacks, and Lupfer said hundreds of neighborhood residents as well as visitors worship at Trinity every week.

Insurance broker Alda Dhingra said she lives in New York but hadn't been inside Trinity Church before visiting last week.

"I've always passed it and just walked by," Dhingra said. "But I needed prayer so I went inside and sat and prayed. And I feel so much better now that I did." She added, "It's so beautiful that it's here amidst all these buildings of commerce. Because I think we all need to remember sometimes we are spiritual beings, we're not just business people."

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.COCOA, Fla. -- In Brevard County, an agreement by a dozen city utility companies means three new solar power sites will be built in neighboring counties.

It's called the Florida Municipal Solar Project -- a joint effort considered one the largest city-backed solar efforts in the U.S.

Some 900,000 solar panels will be put in at the three sites, enough to provide power to 45,000 homes according to officials.

They say the cost for consumers is about a third of a home based, rooftop system.

(Were) trying to provide cost effective solutions for our customers, and this has been a way to get the cost down and really get more solar penetration in the state of Florida, and working together as municipals is a great way to do it, said Clint Bullock, General Manager and CEO of Orlando Utilities Commission.

Central Florida cities that are part of the pact include Ocala, Orlando and Kissimmee.

The project is hoped to be up and running by mid-2020.Two people were killed in a crash on I-4 early Friday morning after the vehicle ran off the roadway.

Troopers said James Rogers, 85, was driving a Ford eastbound on I-4 when, for an unknown reason, he failed to stay in the lane and struck a construction barrel.

The vehicle then sideswiped a guardrail and left the roadway, hitting a concrete pillar, troopers said.

Rogers and the passenger, Georgia Bell, 80, suffered fatal injuries.

Troopers said the crash remains under investigation.National Geographic WILD is home to a big family of animal caretakers and rescuers. In these special episodes, check out how the Men of WILD are helping all kinds of creatures one case at a time.

Fridays from 8:30pm AEDT.Champaign, IL (61820)

Today

Light rain...with scattered thunderstorms in the afternoon. High 74F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms during the evening followed by occasional showers overnight. Low around 60F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 70%.He said the police have deployed officers to deal with crime at all hotspots. He urged members of the public to share vital information with the police to reduce the recurrence of criminal activities in the area. Recently police bust a stock theft racket recovering three carcasses, loads of meat and arrested eight people in connection with the matter near the same rail level crossing. Four members of the gang have been jailed for an effective 15 years each while charges against four others were withdrawn for lack of evidence. Residents in Beitbridge said they were living in fear of the gang believed to be responsible for numerous incidents of mugging and theft in the border town. Sunday NewsGet the news faster.

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X(Newser)  As John McCain debated his choice for vice presidential running mate in 2008, advisers warned him against the optics of picking Joe Lieberman, a pro-choice Independent senator who caucused on the other side of the aisle. "It was sound advice that I could reason for myself," he writes. "But my gut told me to ignore it and I wish I had." The senator and 2008 GOP presidential nominee, battered by brain cancer, is, as the New York Times puts it, "reckoning with his history and the future" via a final book and memoir. He calls passing on Lieberman, who also ran as a Democratic vice presidential candidate, "another mistake I made." McCain's sentiment was news to Lieberman, who found out while watching the documentary. "It touched me greatly," he said.

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There is a steady stream of friends and colleagues making their way to McCain's ranch in Sedona, Ariz., among them longtime former senator Joe Biden, whose own son, Beau Biden, died of the same kind of tumor that McCain has. "Here John knows hes in a very, very, very precarious situation, and yet hes still concerned about the state of the country," says Biden. Biden, said to be mulling a 2020 presidential run, said McCain urged him to "not walk away" from politics. Both men fiercely oppose President Trump, and the Times reports that VP Mike Pence is to attend McCain's funeral in the president's place. The Times has other insights into McCain's day-to-day life, including three-hour physical therapy sessions, "a tall glass of Absolut Elyx on ice," and trading in his flip phone for an iPhone so that he can follow the Arizona Diamondbacks via the MLB app. It's all here. (Read more John McCain stories.)(Newser)  NASA safety experts are warning SpaceX that its rocket technology has the potential to put lives at risk. Per the Washington Post, Elon Musk's company was looking for a way to supercharge rockets when engineers realized they could pack in more fuel by super-cooling it before takeoff. In order to keep the fuel at the correct temperature, it must be loaded into the spacecraft just before takeoff in a process known as "load-and-go." That, NASA says, is a problem because astronauts will already be in the craft and ready to blast into orbit when the rocket is fueled. Should something go wrong and the fuel ignite prematurely, the results could be deadly. The "load-and-go" practice was even rejected in years past by NASA over concerns it is unsafe, according to the report.

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The September 2016 explosion of a SpaceX rocket during fueling appeared to be a realization of NASA's fears. However, SpaceX supporters have painted NASA as unnecessarily cautious and say that instinct hampers innovation. What's more, a SpaceX representative said at a congressional hearing early this year that the company believes "load-and-go" is actually safer than other methods because it takes just 30 minutes to fuel. The company also notes that its Dragon spacecraft is outfitted with safety gear that jettisons the crew capsule away from the rocket in the event of an emergency. As Newsweek notes, NASA's 2018 schedule shows that SpaceX is set to test launch for the first time a rocket with a capsule designed to carry humans in August, though it will be unmanned for the test. (Read more SpaceX stories.)(Newser)  Nudists visited a Paris art gallery for the first time Saturday and perused its exhibitions completely au naturel, the BBC reports. The Palais de Tokyo allowed the 161 visitors to drop off their garments at coat-check and walk around naked, a moment hailed by the Paris Naturist Association. "The mentality is changing these days," an official at the association tells Reuters. "Nudists are overcoming barriers, taboos, or mentalities that were obstructive." But it's not a worldwide first: People were allowed to disrobe for an exhibition on male nudity at a Vienna gallery in 2013, and an Australian museum has let people roam in the buff. Next up in Paris: a night of nudist clubbing sometime later in 2018. (Read more nudism stories.)(Newser)  The Trump administration is again throwing down with Beijing, this time after China's aviation bureau sent letters to 36 foreign airlines demanding that references to the sovereignty of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau be zapped from their websites. Those airlines included American carriers, and the White House response on Saturday was swift, reports Reuters. "This is Orwellian nonsense and part of a growing trend by the Chinese Communist Party to impose its political views on American citizens and private companies," it said in a statement. Further, President Trump "will stand up for Americans resisting efforts by the Chinese Communist Party to impose Chinese political correctness on American companies and citizens."

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China's response on Sunday was to essentially say that foreign companies who want to operate within its borders need to play by its rules. "No matter what the United States says, it cannot change the objective fact that there is only one China in the world and that Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan are indivisible parts of Chinese territory," it said in a statement. The latest squabble comes amid high-level trade talks between the two countries last week. While in Ohio on Saturday, the Guardian reports that Trump alluded to the negotiations, saying, "My group just got back from China. Were going to have to rework China because thats been a one-way street for decades." (Read more airline industry stories.)(Newser)  Indian police arrested 15 people Saturday in the horrific case of a teenage girl who was allegedly gang-raped and set on fire, the New York Times reports. Authorities say several men attacked the girl Thursday, but things only got worse the next day when village leaders gathered to punish alleged gang leader Dhanu Singh Bhuiyan. Enraged by his imposed punishment100 sit-ups and a fine of roughly $750Bhuiyan stormed into the girl's house in the village of Chatra, attacked her parents, and fatally set the girl on fire, the Times of India reports. Bhuiyan fled through a window but was apprehended Saturday, as were members of his family and at least two village leaders, per the Indian Express.

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Authorities in the state of Jharkhand say Bhuiyan knew the girl and lured her away from a wedding Thursday. "Bhuiyan had developed a friendship with the victim," says a police officer. "When the [village council] was called, the accused and the victim accepted that they liked each other." But the imposed fine sparked an argument between the families and led to Bhuiyan's alleged murder of the girl, who was 16 or 18 years old depending on the report. Critics are calling this another example of rape culture in India, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other senior officials failed to speak out last month after an 8-year-old girl was killed. Just last week, Zee News India reports, a group of men sparked attention on social media by circulating a video of them molesting a teenage girl. (Read more rape stories.)(Newser)  With just weeks to go before President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un are expected to hold their first-ever summit, Pyongyang on Sunday criticized what it called "misleading" claims that Trump's policy of maximum political pressure and sanctions are what drove the North to the negotiating table. Per the AP, the North's official news agency quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman warning the claims are a "dangerous attempt" to ruin a budding detente on the Korean Peninsula after Kim's summit late last month with South Korean President Moon Jae-in. At the summit, Kim agreed to a number of measures aimed at improving North-South ties and indicated he is willing to discuss the denuclearization of the peninsula, though exactly what that would entail and what conditions the North might require have not yet been explained.

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Trump and senior US officials have suggested repeatedly that Washington's tough policy toward North Korea, along with pressure on China, have played a decisive role in turning around what had been an extremely tense situation. But the North's statement on Sunday seemed to be aimed at strengthening Kim's position going into his meeting with Trump. Pyongyang claims Kim himself is the driver of the current situation. "The US is deliberately provoking the DPRK at the time when the situation on the Korean Peninsula is moving toward peace and reconciliation," the spokesman was quoted as saying. Sunday's comments were among the very few the North has made since Trump agreed in March to the meeting. (Read more North Korea stories.)(Newser)  A longstanding mystery that had Egyptologists scratching their heads has finally been unraveled. Per National Geographic, radar scans inside King Tutankhamun's tomb recently concluded that there are no burial chambers hidden behind the walls. For the last several years, researchers had wondered at the possibility that Queen Nefertiti could have been buried someplace alongside the final resting place of Tut. New scans have provided conclusive evidence that there are no hidden rooms inside the chamber, Egypt's antiquities ministry said Sunday. Per the AP, Mostafa Waziri, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said an Italian team conducted extensive studies with ground-penetrating radar that showed the tomb did not contain any hidden, man-made blocking walls as was earlier suspected.

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Francesco Porcelli of the Polytechnic University of Turin presented the findings at an international conference in Cairo. In 2015, British Egyptologist Nicholas Reeves proposed, after analysis of high-definition laser scans, that queen Nefertiti's tomb could be concealed behind wall paintings in the famed boy king's burial chamber. The discovery ignited massive interest, with officials first rushing to support the theory but then later distancing themselves and ultimately rejecting it. The ministry says two previous scans by Japanese and American scientists had proved inconclusive, but insists this latest ground-penetrating radar data closes the lid on the tomb having such hidden secrets. "It is concluded, with a very high degree of confidence... the hypothesis concerning the existence of hidden chambers or corridors adjacent to Tutankhamun's tomb is not supported by the GPR data," it said in its statement.

(Read more King Tut stories.)Sorry!

This content is not available in your regionNew Delhi:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address four back-to-back rallies across the southern state on Sunday ahead of forthcoming Assembly elections in Karnataka.

Modi will address a public meeting at Chitradurga at 11:30 am, which will be followed by three more rallies at Raichur, Jamakhandi and Hubli.

In a bid to oust the ruling Congress from the South Indian states, the BJP has intensified its high-decibel election campaign across Karnataka and Modi is directly taking on the Congress and its president Rahul Gandhi.

Earlier on Saturday, Modi launched a scathing attack on the Congress, giving the party a new acronym of "PPP - Punjab, Puducherry, Parivar" party.

Modi said that after Karnataka Assembly election results, the Congress, a party whose flag once fluttered "from Panchayat to Parliament" will reduce to "Punjab, Puducherry, Parivar" party.

Apart from Modi, BJP president Amit Shah will address a public gathering at Belgavi district and visit Saundatti Yellamma stadium. Later, he will hold a road show in Belagavi at 6:00 pm.

Highlights:

# 02:15 PM:A How can we forget that Congress party put an end the politics of the proud son & architect of modern Karnataka, Nijalingappa Ji because he questioned the wrong policies of Nehru, says PM Modi.

# 02:10 PM:A Congress owes an explanation to the nation on why it is not letting Parliament function. The anti-Dalit and anti-OBC mindset of the Congress is the reason why Congress is stalling Parliament and not allowing: ModiA

# 02:05 PM:A It's the right time to bid farewell to Congress party which opposes Modi on every issue: Modi

# 02:00 PM:A The Karnataka government must give an account of the work they have done for the people of the state. Instead all they do is- Modi, Modi, Modi. They just keep abusing me: PM

# 01:55 PM:A The Karnataka polls are about the future of the state. On one side, there is the BJP's development agenda and on the other side is the anti-development Congress: PM

# 01:48 PM:A There are many people who are sitting in AC rooms and saying there will be a hung assembly. I want to tell them- come here to Raichur and see the mood on the ground: PM

# 01:45 PM:A Narendra Modi is addressing his second public rally of the day in Karnataka's Raichur.A

# 11:45 AM:A Congress leaders in Karnataka are looting the state. The longer they stay, the longer they will loot : PM Modi

# 11:40 AM:A Congress is obviously uncomfortable today because the highest offices of the land are occupied by people from poor and humble backgrounds. That is why now Congress prefers to mislead in the name of the Dalit community : PM

# 11:35 AM:A When we had the numbers to play a key role in the election of a President, we did not play party politics. We preferred that Dr. Kalam become the President of India. This time, we had the numbers but we preferred that a person from the Dalit community become the President: PMA

# 11:25 AM:A Congress humiliated Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar. They never accepted Dr. Ambedkar, says Modi.

# 11:20 AM:A Sadly, Congress forgot brave women and men of our history. Just because of vote bank politics, they are celebrating Jayantis of Sultans. Congress has insulted the people of Chitradurga: PM

# 11:10 AM:A It is a matter of great pride that the preparation for mission Chandrayan 2 is going on this soil by ISRO unit of Chitradurga : PM Modi

#11:05 AM:A This land of Chitradurga is synonymous with the Mantra of - Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan and Jai Vigyaan. This land is prone to drought but the farmers here have been innovating and turning adversities into opportunities: PM Modi

# 10:55 AM: LIVE : PM Narendra Modi addresses public meeting in Chitradurga, Karnataka.

# 08:55 AM: BJP/RSS fascist: Rahul Gandhi fires early morning salvo: "Central to the RSS/ BJP fascist ideology, is that Dalits & Adivasis must continue to exist at the bottom rung of society.A In this disturbing video, the dangers of this mindset and how itas openly propagated by senior RSS/ BJP leaders is revealed,"Rahul tweeted along with a video.

Central to the RSS/ BJP fascist ideology, is that Dalits & Adivasis must continue to exist at the bottom rung of society.



In this disturbing video, the dangers of this mindset and how itas openly propagated by senior RSS/ BJP leaders is revealed. #AnswerMaadiModi pic.twitter.com/gX2NwL0q27 a Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) May 6, 2018

# 08:45 AM: A recape of Saturday:A A Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday claimed thereas a asecreta pact between the Janata Dal-Secular and the Congress and said that Deve Gowda's party was aprotectinga the Congress, but only the BJP can change the government in Karnataka. Modi said that after the results of Karnataka Assembly elcetions, Congress will become a 'PPP' - "Punjab, Puducherry, Parivar" party.

# 08:30 AM:A Hello and welcome to the live updates ofA Karnataka Assembly Election 2018. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold four back-to-back rallies to take on Congress in a fierce political battle in the southern state. While Modi was pushing BJPas attempt to add another state in its kitty, Rahul was also sweating buckets to retain power in the only big state, his partyA Congress was left with. Follow all the happening and live updates of Karnataka elections here.New Delhi:

With scores of agitated students staging protests over the CBSE paper leak scam in April, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has formed an eight-member panel in order to review the Class 10th and Class 12th board examinations process.

The committee, formed to analyse the conduct of CBSE Class 10 and Class 12 examinations, has sought suggestions from some Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) to prevent exam paper leaks, which took place in 2018.

At its last meeting in April, the committee decided to approach the IITs, Indias premier engineering schools for technology solutions, sources close to the development told Hindustan Times.

The panel, formed by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), has also decided to add some element of surprises every year to the proposed new system.

Besides IITs, CBSE has tapped professionals from the information technology sector to suggest measures.

The decision was taken amidst the growing clamour over the CBSE Class 10 Mathematics and Class 12 Economics papers leak, which invited criticism of the process the CBSE conducted examinations.

Read | UPSC announces Civil Services 2017 marks, topper Durishetty Anudeep scores 55.60 %

A re-test of the Class 12 Economics paper took place on April 25 while the CBSE decided against one for Class 10.

The committee, headed by VS Oberoi, a former secretary of the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), comprises seven other members and was formed in April.

They are also discussing ways to make it easier to track the source of paper leaks and fix the same as soon as possible.

"CBSE has also suggested that the system used by it for its online competitive exams could also be adopted as there hasnt been any instances of paper leak in those," Hindustan Times quoted another person familiar with the development.

Read | CBSE to declare Class 12 Board Exam 2018 result on May 28

The committee is expected to submit its report by the end of May 2018.New Delhi:

Sunny Leone, who is one of the most searched celebrities on the internet, has a surprise up her sleeves for her fans. The beautiful actress is working on her most ambitious project till date- a biopic titled Karenjit Kaur: The Untold Story of Sunny Leone.

The Ragini MMS 2 star will bare it all in the upcoming web series and reveal the intimate details of how her life in Canada was. The upcoming web series will give viewers an insight into the life of Sunny Leone, right from her days in the adult film industry to her success in Bollywood.

The biopic will have all the answers about Sunny Leone, who is gearing up to tell her untold story to viewers.

Just chillin! A post shared by Sunny Leone (@sunnyleone) on May 5, 2018 at 11:14am PDT

The former Bigg Boss contestant took to social media to reveal the actress who will play her younger self in the biopic. A The actress who will portray aminia 'Karenjit Kaur is Rysa Sujania.

Check out some of the pictures of the teen actress right here.

YY photo credit : @kedarnaidu_ A post shared by Rysa Saujani (@heyyitsrysa) on May 6, 2018 at 12:04am PDT

Y A post shared by Rysa Saujani (@heyyitsrysa) on May 5, 2018 at 4:43am PDT

too glam to give a damn Y A post shared by Rysa Saujani (@heyyitsrysa) on Apr 27, 2018 at 1:59pm PDT

The web series featuring the untold story of Sunny Leone will beam on ZEE5. The diva, who made men go weak in their knees with her dances moves in Laila Main Laila, will play herself in the biopic.

Interestingly, Sunnyas husband Daniel Webber wonat be part of the web series and a South African model will reprise his role.

Y A post shared by Sunny Leone (@sunnyleone) on Apr 11, 2018 at 9:18pm PDT

The celebrity couple recently welcomed two little bundles of joy- Asher Singh Weber and Noah Singh Weber in their family. The twin boys were born through surrogacy. Sunny and Daniel have also adopted a daughter named Nisha Kar Weber.

We wish Sunny Leone all the best for her new endeavour.A

For all the Latest Entertainment News, Bollywood News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.New Delhi:

Seven Indian engineers were abducted by unidentified armed men in Afghanistan's Baghlan province on Sunday, local media reports said.

The Indian nationals were travelling to a government-run power station in a minibus, when unknown armed men abducted them and their bus driver - a local resident of Afghanistan.

The incident took place in Bagh-e-Shamal village of the provincial capital Pul-e-Khomre. They were all working in an Indian infrastructure company named KEC, which owned an electricity sub-station contract in the area.

So far, no group has claimed the responsibility for the abduction. However, Baghlan provincial council has suspected Taliban's involvement.

The External Affairs Ministry confirmed the abduction and said that it was in contact with local authorities and efforts to find out the Indians were on.

"We are aware of the abduction of Indian nationals from Baghlan province in Afghanistan.We are in contact with the Afghan authorities and further details are being ascertained," MEA said in a statement.

This is not the first time that an Indian citizen has been abducted in Afghanistan. Earlier in 2016, an Indian nurse was kidnapped in Kabul, and was released after 40 days.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.New Delhi:

In a ground-breaking verdict, the Supreme Court ruled that a girl aged 20 or above is free to live with her underaged husband. The judgement of the Apex court said that an adult couple can be in a live-in relationship even when the mans age is below 21 years, the legal age for marriage.

In its ruling, the SC said that a girl is free to decide who she wants to stay with.

This comes after the Kerala High Court last year, cancelled the marriage of 20-year-old Thushara on the grounds that her partner Nandakumar was not 21 when they had married in April 2017. The Kerala High Court ordered to send her back to her father after cancelling the marriage.

Giving its ruling on the issue, the SC cited the Marriage Law and said that the Kerala High Court should not have cancelled their marriage.

Thusharas father had also accused the boy Nandakumar of kidnapping his daughter and later got and order from the Kerala High Court to cancel the marriage, stating that the boy was only 20 when he had married his daughter. But the Supreme Court ruled that it was enough to note that Nandakumar and Thushara were adults.



"Even if they were not competent to enter into wedlock (which position itself is disputed), they have right to live together even outside wedlock," a bench of Justices AK Sikri and Ashok Bhushan said.

The apex court also noted that the legislature had recognised live-in relationship under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.New Delhi:

Uttarakhand High Court Chief Justice KM Joseph, whose elevation became a new tussle point between the Centre and the Judiciary, on Sunday broke his silence over the issue and termed Narendra Modi governments decision unprecedented.

Never has been it happened like this that the names sent by the collegium are edited and resent, ANI quoted Justice Joseph as saying.

The Supreme Court collegium  a group of five senior most judges  headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra had recommended the names of Malhotra and Justice Joseph.

On April 25, the Centre had approved senior advocate Indu Malhotras elevation but put Justice Josephs name on hold.

Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad asked the Supreme Court collegium to be objective and fair and reconsider its recommendation of elevating Joseph.

In 2016, Joseph had struck down Centres order to impose Presidents rule in Uttarakhand and allowed Harish Rawat-led Congress government to return to power

Joseph refused to comment on whether his name would re-recommended for the elevation to apex court judge and said that the Supreme Court collegium will take the decision.

The meeting is going to be convened. It is not right for me to say anything before the meeting is convened, he added.

However, if the collegium decides to re-send Josephs name for elevation, it would become incumbent for the Centre to approve his name.

In that case, Centre can only delay the elevation but wont be able to stop it.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.New Delhi:

Five militants were killed in an encounter with security forces in Badigam area of Jammu and Kashmirs Shopian district on Sunday, police said.

"Encounter concluded at Badigam Zainpora Shopian, 5 bodies of terrorists recovered. Well done boys - Army/ CRPF/J&K Police," Shesh Paul Vaid, DGP, Jammu & Kashmir said.

Top Hizbul commander Saddam Padder and a missing Jammu and Kashmir University professor Muhammad Rafi Bhat were among the five militants killed in the gun battle. The other three militants were indentified as Tawseef Sheikh, Bilal Moulvi and Adil Ahmad.

All the the millitants killed in the gun battle were said to close aide of slained Hizbul commander Burhan Wani.

Following a tip off about the presence of militants in Badigam village by local sources, security forces launched a cordon and search operation on Sunday morning, a police official said.

As the forces were closing in during the search operation, the militants opened fire, leaving at least two jawans injured.

The search operation turned into an encounter after the hiding militants fired upon the forces, which was retaliated, the official said.

"We appealed to them (terrorists) to surrender but continuous firing from inside is underway, cannot confirm the number of terrorists yet," said Shailendra Mishra, SSP, Shopian.

Clashes erupts after Shopian encounter, five civilian died

Soon after the Shopian encounter in which five militants were gunned down, massive clashes erupted in the area. Hundreds of locals gathered at the spot and started pelting stones at the security forces.

At least five civilians caught in the clashes and lost their life. A 17-year-old teenager identified as Asif Ahmad Mir was one among the five civillians dead. He was reportedly shot at head during the clashes. The police, however, claimed that Mir was injured in cross-firing during the encounter.

Following the encounter and the clashes, internet services were suspended in the area.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.New Delhi:

In an interesting turn of events, a team of physicists from Japan and Germany has made a massive breakthrough by discovering evidence which proves that once upon a time, there were huge lakes of water on the moon, hinting on existence of extra-terrestrial life.

During the research, the team examined 13 lunar meteorites with latest microscopes. With extensive analysis the researchers found traces of moganite, a mineral which has silicon dioxide in one of the rocks from space, NWA 2727. The fact of the matter is that moganite only gets formed on earth when alkaline liquids get trapped under high pressure.

The report is published in the journal Science Advances.

With this latest discovery, many alien buffs have started to believe that moon, once harboured extra-terrestrial life. They even believe that aliens might be living in the underground bases of the moon to get away from the rash conditions.

In April, many leading media organisations claimed that Buzz Aldrin has passed a lie detector test for claiming that he witnessed an alien UFO during his course to earths satellite. However, Aldrins spokesperson denied the claimes.

Earlier, George Graham, a Scottish UFO researcher had spotted two mysterious objects on the lunar surface in a photograph captured by Chinese lunar probe spacecraft Change 3.

For all the Latest Science News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.New Delhi:

Pakistans Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal was injured on Sunday in an assassination attempt when an unidentified person opened fire at him in Punjab province as he completed a political rally, police said.

Iqbal, a senior Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader, was hit by a bullet on his right shoulder in the attack, as per the police.

The incident happened when the US-educated leader was leaving the political rally in his native Narowal district.

The minister was rushed to a nearby hospital but later he was shifted to Lahore for further medical treatment, as per reports.

According to an initial report issued by the police, Iqbals bone was fractured in the attack.

Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi condemned the attack and called for immediate action from the top police officials of the Punjab province.

Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif called the incident an "assassination attempt," as per a leading daily.

Iqbals son said that his father was out of danger.

The reason behind the attack is unknown.

"Just spoke to him and he is in high spirits. Those who indulged in this heinous act will be brought to justice. PML-N will not be browbeaten into submission. I am personally overseeing the investigation," said Sharif.

Punjab government spokesman Malik Ahmad Khan confirmed the attack and arrest of the attackers. He said the minister is stable but being shifted to Lahore.

"Police are investigating the attack and we will know how he (attacker) was able to reach so close to the minister," he said.

He said that the attacker was initially identified as Abid Hussian and his age was said to be between 20-22 years. He is said to be a resident of Narowal.

Rana Manan, a lawmaker of Punjab assembly, said that Iqbal was about to sit in his vehicle when the attacker fired at him.

The attack on the interior minister highlights the issue of security of high-profile politicians ahead of the elections scheduled to be held after June.

Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa also condemned the incident and sent his best wishes for Iqbal's early recovery.

Asif Ali Zardari, Bilawal Bhutto and other Pakistan Peoples Party leaders also condemned the attack.

Iqbal was seen as a potential prime minister candidate when Nawaz Sharif was ousted by the Supreme Court in 2017.

(With inputs from agencies)

For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.A 33-year-old man has been arrested for filming up a womanas skirt at Kuki Station in Saitama Prefecture, police said.

According to police, the suspect, Masahiro Karato, who works in the planning division of the Kuki city government, followed a woman in her 20s up an escalator at around 10:10 a.m. Friday and used an MP3 player with a camera attached to film up her skirt, Sankei Shimbun reported.

A 52-year-old man spotted Karato and called out to him to stop, and then took him to a nearby koban (police box).

Police said Karato has admitted to the charge.Police have shot and captured a Texas man in Vermont who was wanted for allegedly committed armed robberies in several states, including New York.

WTEN-TV reported that Mark Triolo, 46, was shot and captured on Friday night in Brattleboro, VT, around 9:00 p.m. after he first fled from officers.

Triolo was wanted in several states, including, Texas, Kansas, New York and Vermont, for a series of armed robberies, including one in Queensbury in New York's Capital Region. Triolo is accused of robbing the Speedway on Aviation Road on April 30.

Vermont State Police confirm the suspect shot and taken into custody Friday night is Mark Triolo, wanted on warrants for armed robberies in Texas and New York.https://t.co/gL1FhpT6LL pic.twitter.com/s2T7wr5Agj  CBS 6 Albany - WRGB (@CBS6Albany) May 5, 2018

Three Brattleboro police officers and one State Trooper opened fire on Triolo. The man is suspected of being involved in two armed robberies on Friday evening in Vermont before being captured.

Triolo was taken to Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center for treatment, and Vermont police did not comment on his condition.

The four Vermont officers who shot Triolo have all been placed on leave pending an investigation of the shooting, according to The Associated Press. They have been identified as Trooper Jason Lengfellner, Officers Michael Cable and Sean Wilson and Sgt. Chase Stanley.ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- "Sex and the City" star and New York gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon released tax returns on Friday showing she and her wife had an income of $1.5 million last year and gave about $53,000 to charity.

The Democratic candidate released the returns after initially filing an extension on her taxes. Nixon's finances are complicated and involve her private corporation, named the Fickle Mermaid Corp., as well as a family foundation and income from investments, royalties and residual payments for television and film. Nixon paid state income taxes in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Utah, Illinois and California.

Most of the income received by Nixon and her wife, Christine Marinoni, in 2017 was derived from investments, royalties and Nixon's work as an actor. Marinoni earned $128,000 working as a senior adviser in New York City government in 2017; she left the job this year. Nixon and Marinoni filed jointly. They had a total federal tax bill of $150,000 and a state and local tax liability of $63,000.

Nixon's campaign said her true income was about $1 million in 2017, noting that the overall figure of $1.5 million does not reflect some expenses incurred by Nixon's corporation, while it does include receipts from the sales of securities which are not classified as income for tax purposes. When various losses are included, Nixon's adjusted income drops even more. She and her wife had an adjusted gross income of just under $620,000.

The couple contributed about $53,000 to a variety of environmental, education, arts and children's charities, including the Girl Scouts, homeless shelters, the Montauk Public Library and a hospice. Most of the money was contributed by a family foundation. Nearly $8,000 worth of contributions made directly by the couple were not itemized.

Nixon's campaign allowed reporters to review her tax documents for two hours on Friday. Releasing tax returns is common for candidates for governor. Nixon's Democratic primary opponent, two-term incumbent Gov. Andrew Cuomo, released his tax returns last month, while Republican candidate and Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro released his taxes on Thursday.

Cuomo's returns showed that he had $212,000 in income and a combined federal and state tax bill of nearly $55,000 in 2017. He gave $11,000 in charitable contributions to HELP USA, a charity he founded years ago to fight homelessness.The Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, has accused the All Progressives Congress in Ekiti State of plotting to disrupt the governorshi...

The Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, has accused the All Progressives Congress in Ekiti State of plotting to disrupt the governorship primary of the Peoples Democratic Party holding on Tuesday.The governor said the opposition party in the state hatched the plot to create an impression that violence was common among political parties in the state.Fayose stated this in a statement he issued on the aborted governorship primary of the APC held on Saturday.He said, Another worrisome development is the information at my disposal that the APC is plotting to sponsor thugs to disrupt the PDP primary election scheduled for Tuesday, May 8, 2018, so as to create the impression that violence is common to all political parties.I, therefore, call on security agencies to act decisively to nip this sinister plan in the bud. The police should not shy away from its responsibilities. Ekiti was adjudged by the police as the most peaceful State in Nigeria, it must remain so.In the last three years, our State has been peaceful and never witnessed any sponsored political violence or killing until this APCs desperation sets in.I also call on Nigerians, as well as the international community to focus their attention on Ekiti State from now on. Ekiti people must be allowed to choose their next governor under a free and fair atmosphere.But in reaction, the state Chairman of APC described the allegation raised by Fayose as laughable.Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Saturday said that President Muhammadu Buharis administration is different from other past administrati...

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Saturday said that President Muhammadu Buharis administration is different from other past administrations as it will not steal the commonwealth of the people.He spoke at the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) Ward Congresses in Eti Osa Local Government Area of Lagos State.In a statement by the Senior Special Assistant on Media and publicity, Laolu Akande, the Vice President assured all Nigerians that they would share in the benefits that would accrue as the Buhari Administration continues to serve.He said We came to find out how things are going, to hear the good news that all our ward congresses are going on very peacefully without any rancour and problems.We are confident in our party and the reason we are confident is that we are not thieves, we are different and we want to serve the people and the people know we want to serve them. And with everything we have, we would serve the people. We will make sure we provide everything necessary.And I pray that everyone of us will all see and benefit in the goodness of this land. None of us would be left behind. We would all see the blessings together.Our party is a great party and it will become greater and greater still. What we must achieve in Lagos and other parts of the country is that we must be the best, in everything we do we must be the best.In terms of progress, whatever we do must be the best, our schools, hospitals and roads must be the best. So we have to put in the resources. And we can do that, very very possible.As I have been saying all over the country, the difference between us and any other govt is that we will not steal the money. We must be confident. he saidHe went on With the decline in the oil prices, we have been earning 60% less than the previous government, but God is helping us, we are getting more and more hopeful.With that we would see the changes we hope for, so that our children and ourselves will see the benefits. he statedThe Vice President also commended the party leaders in the LG.He said I have seen that we held this congresses peacefully. I am very happy to be here, to see that our party is making progress and is doing very well.Prof. Osinbajo also prayed that the Lord God Almighty will help us, He will help your children, we will see the goodness in this land, in our own lifetime we will enjoy, suffering must end, progress must continue.Commercial Bank customers within the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) have decried excess charges by banks through Automated Teller Machin...

Commercial Bank customers within the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) have decried excess charges by banks through Automated Teller Machine (ATM) withdrawals.Some customers who spoke to a News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) correspondent, said they dreaded making withdrawals using other banks ATMs because of the continued charge of N65 for every transaction.According to the customers, most banks within the city centre have programmed their ATMs to dispense only N10,000 or less per transaction, thus ripping off customers withdrawing more than that amount.The customers complained that if they had to withdraw N100,000 or more through other banks ATM, it meant they would lose so much money.They, however, called on the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and other relevant authorities to look into the matter so as to help poor Nigerians.Miss Agatha Young, a First Bank customer, said, I live in Kubwa, one of the suburbs around the city centre and almost all the banks ATMs in my area dispense maximum of N10,000.Recently, I needed to withdraw N200,000 and my banks ATM was crowded, so I went to use another banks ATM only to discover that the machine was dispensing only N10,000 per transaction.I was only able to withdraw N150,000 because other customers were waiting on the queue and I was tired of going through the same process.I also discovered I was charged almost N1000 for that transaction as I had exceeded three withdrawal limit using the other banks ATM, which is outrageous.Mr Sunday Mgbede, a Gurantee Trust Bank customer, residing in Nyanya, another suburb around the city centre also said most of the ATMs in his area dispensed maximum of N10,000 per transaction.If you want to make withdrawals at weekends around the Nyanya/Mararaba axis, you will discover that only few ATMs are dispensing over N10,000 per transaction.The concerned authorities should please look into this matter because people are suffering, there is no money in the country, yet banks want to make profit off customers.Even the N65 charge which CBN authorised should be charged after three transactions, I am not sure the banks follow the rule due to the debit alerts we receive after withdrawals.Another customer of First Bank, Erica Jonah who narrated her experience, said she used her ATM card to withdraw N100,000 from another bank and discovered the machine was programmed to dispense N10,000 per transaction and was charged N65 per every transaction.Jonah said that was not her first experience, describing the practice by banks involved in it as fraudulent.She also called on regulatory bodies in the industry to look into the matter with a view to curbing such excesses by banks involved in the practice.Meanwhile, Mrs Gift Agbo, a former banker, said most ATMs used by banks in the country were not designed for Nigerias currency and that is why the amount it dispensed was limited.Some of these machines are old and not programmed for the kind of money we have in the country.The notes which many banks put in the machines also limits the amount that can be dispensed by the machines.I am sure this problem can be resolved if Nigerian banks invest in customised machines that are suitable for our environment and currency, she said.In its reaction, CBN Consumer Protection Department said it had received several complaints from bank customers over the low withdrawal limit set by banks on their ATMs.Mr Fada David, thevSenior Manager, Complaints Management Division of the Department, assured customers that the apex bank was working to make sure that such complaints were addressed.Yes we have received complaints from people saying they could withdraw for example N40,000 from bank A yet they are not able to get that much if they carry a card of Bank A to bank B ATM.First of all, I want the public to know that withdrawal from any ATM at all is not supposed to attract any charges until you withdraw more than three times in a month.If you are using your banks ATM, you are at liberty to withdraw as many times as you like in a month without incurring any charges.Also, we want to encourage customers to engage their banks to find out why there is such a withdrawal restriction on ATMs, he said.David also urged customers to embrace the cashless policy and use other payment methods such as POS, internet and other Mobile banking applications; to reduce over dependence on cash.You can use other payment channels for goods and services. You can go to the market, buy something and use your mobile app, pay for that product.Unless it is absolutely necessary that you need to take cash, consumers can take advantage of a lot of other payment channels to pay for goods and services and do other transactions, he said.David said that bank customers also have the responsibility to improve the way their bank serves them by officially writing to complain about bad services.According to him, it is only then will the bank address the issue to make sure that their customers are happy with the services being rendered.The Governorship primaries of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ekiti State has been postponed indefinitely. The postponement is...

The postponement is due to violence.The voting process turned rowdy as supporters of some aspirants attempted to disrupt the process.Voting was already in progress when the supporters who were not happy with the trend of voting surged forward and attempted to stop delegates from further casting their ballots.Delegates from six out of sixteen local governments had voted before the process was halted by the protesters.The process had been peaceful before the protest broke out.The aggrieved delegates surged forward and overturned the tables where ballot boxes were placed but security men on duty rescued the ballot boxes.They alleged that the process was skewed in favour of the Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Dr. Kayode Fayemi.The protesters were chanting anti-Fayemi songs.The security men on ground had formed a ring around the voting centre and the state box where the aspirants were sitting.The chairman of the electoral committee and Nasarawa State Governor, Umaru Tanko Al-Makura, headed for the state box to allow tempers cool down.The Chief Executive Officer of Complete Care Foundation and Human Right Lawyer and Boko Haram mediator, Barr. Hajiya Aisha Wakil a.k.a ...

The Chief Executive Officer of Complete Care Foundation and Human Right Lawyer and Boko Haram mediator, Barr. Hajiya Aisha Wakil a.k.a Mama Boko Haram has said she will not stop negotiating for peace with the Boko Haram insurgents in the bush.The human right lawyer also disclosed that the Boko Haram who she calls her children will soon; all return home and surrender for peace.Speaking at the commissioning of her multi-million naira office complex and fund raising of her NGO in Maiduguri on Saturday, Barr. Wakil disclosed that the Boko Haram insurgents were willing to give up their arms, assuring that they will soon return home.All my sons in the bush will come home and surrender for peace, she said. She assured that she continues to support efforts to return peace to the troubled state.I will not stop from negotiating for Boko Haram to be granted amnesty and to be accepted by the people in the society. These are our own children and we cannot throw them away. We must accept them back if they decide to return home, Barr. Wakil said.She said her foundation; Complete Care and Aid foundation was established to care for the affected victims of insurgency including orphans and displaced and the vulnerable children, adding that her NGO is also intervening in the area of education, health care and psycho-social support.Barr. Wakil thank all the people, government, organizations and corporate bodies for the support she has so far received for realizing her objective of establishing the Complete Care Foundation.Over N100 million was realized at the event.The Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, has berated the All Progressives Congress, saying the ruling party is no match for the Peoples De...

The Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, has berated the All Progressives Congress, saying the ruling party is no match for the Peoples Democratic Party in the forthcoming governorship poll in the state and the 2019 general elections in the country.Fayose, who spoke in Osogbo during the PDP South-West zonal rally on Saturday, described the party as a sleeping lion that had been roused.In a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Idowu Adelusi, the governor was quoted as saying that whoever emerged the APC candidate for the Ekiti election would be defeated by the PDPs candidate.Nigerians have seen the deceit called the APC and their failed government. They can see the difference. The PDP is a lion that has been woken from sleep.We are taking over at the federal level next year and by the grace of God, we are winning the Ekiti governorship election. We have done well in the running of the state and our continuity agenda stands firm.When we defeated the APC in all the 16 local government areas of the state in 2014, they went to town with lies. Now, their party is in control at the federal level; we are waiting for the excuse they will give, as they will suffer another humiliating defeat, he said.Similarly, former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar and the National Chairman of the PDP, Uche Secondus, urged Nigerians, irrespective of ethnic background or religious belief, to unite with them to rescue the nation from the alleged misrule by the APC.Atiku said indicators in the polity showed that the time was ripe for the opposition to rise up on behalf of Nigerians to take back the nation from what he described as the voyage of destruction, which he said the ruling APC was taking Nigeria on.He added, The process for a better Nigeria has started today in Osogbo. The PDP, more than ever before, is poised to take Nigeria out of poverty, penury and despondency. But we need to unite against all forms of divisions currently threatening the peace of the country.Atiku, who is a presidential aspirant, stated that the PDP would reposition the country on a true path to peace and prosperity via restructuring and the strengthening of critical national institutions of government, when it returns to power next year.According to him, the alleged tyrannical attitude being used against democratic institutions like the National Assembly and the opposition will not save the ruling APC from Nigerian voters, who he said had been on the receiving end of misrule since 2015 and were determined to put an end to it.Secondus also charged the people of Osun State to use their permanent voter cards to vote out the APC and save Nigerias democracy. He stated that all hands must be on deck to get this done.The PDP chairman said, No amount of antics and harassment will discourage us because we are doing the desires of Nigerians.The APC government has destroyed this country and made life meaningless; we have no alternative but to kick them out.On the occasion, the PDP chairman received defectors from the ruling APC in the state, including Alhaji Fatai Diekola.A former Chairman of the PDP Caretaker Committee, Senator Ahmed Makarfi, also called on the people of Osun to join millions of other Nigerians to vote Buhari out of office, saying the PDP would restore hope to despondent Nigerians.Other PDP leaders in attendance were former Governors Gbenga Daniel, Rashidi Ladoja, Aliyu Babangida and Sule Lamido, among others.Ahead of 2019 general elections, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has vowed not to succumb to intimidation by the ruling All Progressiv...

Ahead of 2019 general elections, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has vowed not to succumb to intimidation by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).Speaking at the PDP South-West Zonal rally at the Nelson Mandela Freedom Park in Osogbo, Osun State yesterday, the partys National Chairman, Prince Uche Secondus, said the PDP was positioned to take over power from the APC in Ekiti and Osun in the forthcoming guber polls in the two states and at the federal level next year.Secondus, who disclosed that the PDP was resolved to work harder to win the 2019 general elections, said that the masses were tired of the President Muhammadu Buhari-APC led administration.He said: The PDP will win the forthcoming governorship election in Osun, Ekiti and the general elections in 2019. The APC should start packing their load because they cannot win again. And ahead of the election, we will not succumb to any form of intimidation because we are on a mission to rescue the nation.Also, the former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, stressed the need for members of the party to come together if the PDP will win the 2019 general elections.He said that the party would do everything possible to rescue Nigeria from the APC.A former governor of Jigawa State, Alhaji Sule Lamido, who is a presidential aspirant of the party like Atiku, advised members to start serious work right from now, saying I know you and you know me, let us prepare for the 2019 general elections.Also, Gov. Ayo Fayose of Ekiti, said the party was adequately prepared for Ekiti, Osun and 2019 general elections. He said the PDP was prepared to give the ruling APC a good fight in the forthcoming elections.Meanwhile, Alhaji Fatai Diekola, who recently defected from the APC in Osun State to the PDP, said that he and his supporters decided to leave the ruling APC because of the partys evil policies.In attendance were many stalwarts of the party, including former Osun State deputy governor and Minister of State for Defence, Erelu Olusola Obada, former Minister of Youth Development, Senator Olasunkanmi Akinlabi, former Osun State Speaker, Adejare Bello among others.In a reaction to PDPS rally, the APC described it as an overhyped mega rally and a little better than a town hall meeting.In a statement by its spokesperson, Kunle Oyatomi, the party said: the PDP has promised 15,000 people from Osogbo alone will defect but only two leaders (a business man and a weak politician) and a few korope loads of supporters showed up.The Ibadan crowd led by defecting Rasheed Ladoja stole the show. Then one Secondus came all the way from Abuja to Osogbo to declare that the PDP was on a rescue mission. It was all pathetic.Those who witnessed 2014 PDP rally will be sorry for the party or what was left of the PDP at todays rally. The Yoruba nation, if it ever needs deliverance would not look for one from a Secondus.The rally which was supposed to be a show of strength turned out to be an exhibition of a diminished political party. Thats why they could also attract inconsequential politicians and businessmen.Sensible party men in the PDP wont need to be told that Saturdays rally was a picture of the defeat that is around the corner for the PDP in Osun come September 22.Gareth Bale's equaliser helped Real Madrid rally for a 2-2 draw against 10-man Barcelona in a combative affair on Sunday night at the Camp Nou.With Barcelona having wrapped up the league and Real preparing to play in the Champions League final later in the month, the Clasico lacked some of the hype that normally precedes it, but the match was thrilling encounter across the 90 minutes.Barcelona were on the front foot from the off and found their opener on 10 minutes when Luis Suarez smashed a first-time volley from an inch-perfect Sergi Roberto cross past Keylor Navas.But Real struck back before the quarter-hour through Cristiano Ronaldo, who tapped home a headed Karim Benzema pass from close range after some nice build-up play from Zinedine Zidane's team.The strike from Ronaldo put the Portuguese level with Real legend Alfredo Di Stefano for the second-most Clasico goals of all-time at 18. Lionel Messi has the most with 25.The match grew testy as the first half wore on, with Messi handed a yellow card for a hard tackle on Sergio Ramos and Roberto being shown straight red for violent conduct after throwing a punch at Marcelo before half-time.In between those two cards, Bale escaped punishment after a late tackle on Samuel Umtiti that had the Barcelona dugout crying foul.Ronaldo, who picked up a knock while scoring his goal, was substituted at half-time, with the team telling reporters he suffered a slight ankle sprain, and would not be risked in the second half.Down to 10 men, Barcelona took the lead against the run of play when Suarez picked out Messi at the top of the Madrid penalty area and the Argentine took two touches to his left and curled a shot in at the near post to make the score 2-1.Messi nearly had his second on 70 minutes, but Navas did well to keep hs shot out after Suarez had sprung him behind the Madrid defence.And the miss would prove costly for Barca when Bale scored with a spectacular first-time shot two minutes later, curling the ball around Marc-Andre ter Stegen from a Marco Asensio assist.With both teams chasing a winner, Marcelo had a legitimate penalty shout waved off before Navas again kept Messi at bay, parrying away the Barca striker's shot from a difficult angle on the right side of goal.The result keeps Barcelona's unbeaten season in La Liga going with three games remaining in their season.Both teams are in action on Wednesday, with Barcelona hosting Villarreal and Real heading to the Estadio Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan for an away match against Sevilla.Credit:ESPNA Nigerian student has allegedly been deported from the U.S. over the large quantity of weaves in her luggage.

Imagine getting admitted into a US Uni for Masters, getting your visa and all that...only to be sent back by immigration & flagged for 5 years because you carried so many weaves in your box to go sell there.



Tears  Serengetti (@_Brayz) May 5, 2018

She had learned hairdressing and was told braiding & all that costs a lot over there. Trying to cash out, aunty carried two boxes filled with weaves. More weaves than clothing.  Serengetti (@_Brayz) May 5, 2018

"What's a student doing with all of these?"



"My friends told me to bring them"

...



"But on your application form, you said you have no friends or family here?"



"Errr..."



"Turn around plis dear, we'll put you on the next available flight back to Lagos"  Serengetti (@_Brayz) May 5, 2018

According to the Twitter user @_Brayz, who shared the story on Saturday, the Nigerian student had been admitted into a university for her masters, only for her to arrive for her programme with weaves.Not only was she deported, she was also banned from entering America for the next five years, the tweet claimed.Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftain, Chief Sunny Onuesoke, says former Vice President Abubakar Atiku is the best presidential materi...

Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftain, Chief Sunny Onuesoke, says former Vice President Abubakar Atiku is the best presidential material for Nigeria in 2019.Onuesoke, who was in Atiku s entourage to the10th anniversary symposium of the late Sen. Abraham Adesanya held at Muson Center, Lagos, told journalists that Nigeria needs an intelligent and an experienced man like Atiku Abubakar to steer her affairs.He said Atiku was not a saint like every human being, stressing that in the former VP, there was hope and better future for Nigerians. Onuesoke pointed out that one thing that made the Turaki of Adamawa stand out among other leaders was his ability to identify talent, competence and consistency on key national issues, adding that Atiku seemed to understand Nigeria but the nation had not been able to understand him.Onuesoke, who described himself as an unapologetic Atikuist, recalled that, as Vice President, Atiku advocated the creation of the Ministry of Niger Delta to fast-track development in then troubled region which the late President YarAdua later adopted as a key leg of his seven-point agenda.Srinagar, May 06: Massive throng at absentia prayers of martyr Dr Rafi in Kashmir University

Srinagar, May6, 2018 : He was sorry if he had hurt his parents, the son told his father on the phone. It was the first call of the day that Fayaz Ahmed Bhat received from his sociologist son  and the last ever.

Bhat was still bleary-eyed at his residence in Chundhama in Ganderbal when his mobile phone rang early this morning, he told the police later.

It was his son Mohammed Rafi Bhat. Calling to bid farewell.

I am sorry if I have hurt you, Rafi told his father before he was martyred by the Indian occupation forces during clash at Shopian in South Kashmir today.

The father, accompanied by his mother, sister and wife, started their journey from their home to the Shopian while Indian forces violent operation was going on. But barely after reaching Bota Kadal, 14km from their home, they heard the news about Rafis end, martyred by Indian occupation forces by blasting a house.

The family returned home to prepare for his funeral.

I am sorry if I have hurt you and this is my last call, Rafi told his father.

Rafi Bhat, a 33-year-old professor on contract with the Kashmir Universitys Sociology department, had left the varsity premises on Friday and had been missing since then.

Rafi, a Ph.D in his discipline, was among five martyred by Indian forces personnel at the Badigam area of Shopian, nearly 80km from his house.

Two of his first cousins had died in the early 1990s.

Massive throng at absentia prayers of martyr prof Dr Rafi in Kashmir University

Srinagar: Hundreds of Kashmir University students from different hostels of the varsity including girls hostels on Sunday marched through the campus raising slogans in favour of Pakistan, Azadi and against India; and offered funeral prayers in absentia to the slain scholar and assistant professor Dr Muhammad Rafi.

The martyred had gone missing on Friday afternoon from the University campus. He was working as Assistant Professor (Contractual) in the Sociology department of the varsity.

Sources said that the students assembled outside the Allama Iqbal library and offered funeral prayers.

Those who participated in the prayers included students, scholars and some faculty members.

The students, scholars and faculty members unanimously declared that they will visit the residence of the slain Assistant Professor on Monday and Tuesday and pay tributes to him. We decided that we will visit Dr Rafis residence for the two consecutive days on Monday and Tuesday to express sympathy with the family of Rafi and pay glowing tributes to him, a scholar told Kashmir Reader.

A student who participated in the funeral prayers said that it was decided that the students, scholars and faculty members including females will hold a massive congregation on Wednesday when the university will resume the routine.

Pertinently, the University administration has ordered suspension of classwork in the varsity on Monday and Tuesday while examinations scheduled have been postponed.

As and when the university resumes the routine, we will hold a massive congregation in the university campus in honour of Dr Rafi to pay tributes to him, a student said.

Dr Rafi Bhat was awarded doctorate degree in November last year. He had completed his Ph.D programme on whole time basis in department of Sociology after successfully defending his thesis entitled Globalization and emerging trends in Consumerism: A comparative study of rural and urban Kashmir.

Besides a PhD, Bhat had qualified National Elegibility Test and Junior Research Fellowship of the University Grants Commission (India), a statutory body set up by the Indian Union government in accordance to the UGC Act 1956 under Ministry of Human Resource Development, that is charged with coordination, determination and maintenance of standards of higher education.The Police Command in Enugu State has commenced investigation into the alleged sale of a baby boy for N300,000 in the state.

The Police Command in Enugu State has commenced investigation into the alleged sale of a baby boy for N300,000 in the state.The commands spokesman, SP Ebere Amaraizu, disclosed this in a statement in Enugu on Saturday.Amaraizu said that the investigation commenced on May 3 after the command arrested one of the buyers.He said that the babys mother, Nwanneka Ezechi, 30, from Akama Oghe in Ezeagu Local Government Area, claimed that a yet-to-be-identified man impregnated her.The police spokesman said that Ezechi later disappeared from home.It was further gathered that in November, 2017, she declared that she had given birth to a baby boy but this was not disclosed to the family.He said that when the family discovered that she had given birth and the whereabouts of the baby was not known, they reported to the police, who arrested the lady.Amaraizu said that Ezechi s confession led to the arrest of one Okechukwu Nyia of Akpasha village, Akegbeugwu in Nkanu West Local Government Area of Enugu State, whom she allegedly sold the baby boy to for N300,000.The spokesman said that the two suspects had been helping police operatives in their investigations to identify the person whom Nyia had allegedly sold the baby to for the sum of N350,000.(NAN)A retired teacher who oversaw the Northern Highlands Regional High School student newspaper when James Comey was writing for it is getting a big honor Sunday.

Andrew Dunn is being inducted into the Allendale school's hall of fame, along with about a dozen others.

James Comey, seated in front on left, with others on the Northern Highlands Regional H.S. student newspaper. Faculty adviser Andrew Dunn is standing on the left.

The high school's hall of fame already includes Comey, the former FBI director whose prominence skyrocketed after he was fired by President Trump in 2017. He was inducted in 2010.

Dunn was the faculty adviser to the student newspaper in 1978, when Comey was a staff reporter.

The two kept in touch over the decades. Comey invited Dunn to his wedding, to see him sworn in as a U.S. Attorney in New York in 2002, and when he was sworn in as FBI director in 2013.

Mitch Aeder was editor-in-chief of the student newspaper in 1978, Comey's senior year.

Asked about Dunn, Aeder said, "He was a teacher who both gave us a lot of independence, but pushed us to succeed and excel."

"He, in a very quiet way, was a real motivator as both an English teacher as well as a newspaper advisor," added Aeder, who lives in Queens, N.Y.

Comey was fired by Trump while leading the investigation into possible Russian involvement in Trump's 2016 election. He has been telling his side of the story in conjunction with the release of his autobiography, "A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership."

Days before Comey's book was released, Dunn told NJ Advance Media that his best-known student is "a bright, personable, friendly and funny guy."

Dunn did not respond to a request for comment on his induction.

Sunday's induction ceremony is being held at a catering hall in Washington Township, Bergen County.

Comey will not be attending, said Chris Kunisch, chair of the hall of fame selection committee.

Comey was inducted to the school's hall of fame three years before becoming FBI director. He spoke with students at the high school in 2015 and an autographed photo of him is in a glass case near the front entrance.

Rob Jennings may be reached at rjennings@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @RobJenningsNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.It was a school night in March and Vinny Smith was searching for a photo to post on his Instagram account.

The 15-year-old, who has Asperger's syndrome and other health disorders, zeroed in on a three-month-old photo saved on his phone. In the picture, he was holding a pellet gun cocked in front of his face with his index finger curled around the trigger, and he was smiling.

"Toms River," Smith began typing, in what would become an infamous caption, "where we pull the trigger."

And with one click, the photo went out to his 8,000 followers.

"I just wanted a picture to post and look cool," Smith explained in a recent interview with NJ Advance Media. "But I guess it wasn't cool. You know what I'm saying?"

Indeed, not cool for many.

The gun photo went online on March 13, the night before a planned nationwide school walkout to protest gun violence, instantly throwing his classmates into panic.

Within hours Smith was taken into custody by local police, suspended from school and later charged with creating a false public alarm. His family now says they've been plunged into "living a nightmare."

Was the official response to Smith's Instagram post appropriate or over-the-top? That depends on who you ask. But it's undeniable Smith is an example of a new kind of cautionary tale, one that keeps getting repeated in communities across the country.

Since the shooting that killed 17 people in Parkland, Florida, every joke is considered a threat, every cryptic post on social media a warning sign and every teen with a gun the next active shooter. About 200 potential threats to New Jersey schools were reported in ensuing month, and more than a dozen students as young as age 12 have been charged.

"I wasn't thinking I was going to get in trouble," said Smith. "If I knew I was going to get into trouble, I wouldn't have posted it."

Vinny Smith poses with his mother, Jennifer Santana. The 15-year-old created chaos in Toms River when he posted a photo of a gun on social media. (David Gard | For NJ Advance Media)

A night of chaos

It started around 10:30 p.m. that night. First, someone was ringing the doorbell. And then they were banging on the door.

Jennifer Santana, a mother of seven, answered the door of her Toms River home, and what seemed like 10 police officers stormed in, searching her house from top to bottom, she said.

"What the hell?" Santana, a 41-year-old, stay-at-home mom, remembers telling the officers. "This is overkill. I know I didn't do anything wrong."

But her son, eighth-grader Smith, did. Earlier that night, while hanging out at his uncle's house in the same neighborhood, Smith posted the gun picture.

Smith doesn't have access to any guns at home, but he pulled the pellet gun from a box at his father's house in Staten Island last December and posed with it for fun, he said.

He posted the photo on social media that month (though he since deleted it), he said. Then, he decided to post it again in March, with what he said is a line from a song he wrote: "Toms River ouhh (sic) where we pull the trigger."

The photo also included what he said was another lyric from one of his songs: "f--- around and get smoked n----."

Looking back, Smith understands why the photo was considered a threat. But that's not what he meant in the moment, he insisted. The gun was only capable of shooting pellets for recreational use.

"I didn't have any intention of doing anything," Smith said. "It's an Airsoft gun."

His intentions didn't matter. Nationwide, social media photos of teenagers with guns have become increasingly taboo since Parkland, regardless of the context.

It's possible students are just out for a family trip to the gun range, like the Lacey Township students controversially suspended in March. But following the missed warning signs in Florida, concerned students and parents are reluctant to take that chance.

The Educator's School Safety Network, a non-profit that tracks media accounts of threats against schools, has seen reports skyrocket in the aftermath of the Florida shooting, said Amy Klinger, the organization's founder.

"Part of the reason you see this increase is you have things being reported in March that would not have been reported in January, before Parkland," Klinger said. "People would have said, 'Oh, well they were kidding.'"

Smith's photo was quickly reported to police, who arrived at his house that night. After confirming there was no gun, police drove Smith to the hospital in the back of a squad car for a psychological evaluation, his mother said.

He was released from the hospital the next morning and suspended from school for 10 days with his return conditional on another psychological evaluation, Santana said.

But the trouble was only beginning, and Smith has yet to return to school.

Fear and hysteria

After the photo was posted, rumors of a potential school shooting began to fly in the Toms River School District. It didn't help that Smith isn't exactly known as an angel, his mom said.

Smith had been in trouble with the law twice before, once when he broke a bench with a group of friends and again when he got arrested after an altercation with a school administrator, Santana said.

And he had been in and out of two Toms River middle schools this school year: First, because his family moved to a new house, and then because his mother revoked his special education status after a fight with the district about which school he should attend, Santana said.

Smith was also suspended for 10 days in early March after getting into a fight on just his second day at Toms River Intermediate School East, she said.

Then came the gun photo, which set off a flurry of rumors and misinformation on social media, Santana said.

Parents and students falsely said Smith was expelled from other Toms River schools, she said. They claimed the district didn't discipline him for the gun photo and even tried to organize a movement to keep kids home from school on the day Smith would return, she said.

"I don't know how nothing has been done for his threats and his actions," one parent posted on Facebook.

Two weeks after the photo was posted, tensions ran high at a March 29 school board meeting. Smith's photo brought the horror of Parkland too close to home and dozens of parents demanded answers.

The scene was just like others that played out across the country following threats against schools that forced parents to grapple with the reality their children might not be safe at school. To them, anything less than keeping Smith from the school was an under-reaction.

"You have to give us something, as parents, to reassure our children it's safe to go back to school," parent Meghan Ciniglio told the board. "We can't just say, 'Everything is fine.'"

Mark Motyka, a 64-year-old raising his 13-year-old granddaughter, demanded specifics. Vague assurances from the district that the case was under control weren't cutting it, he said.

"I'm sorry," he said, "but with the recent events in this country, it's just unacceptable."

District administrators had the facts to set the record straight, but they couldn't say anything specific because of student privacy laws.

The district is confident the incident was fully and appropriately addressed, Superintendent David Healy said in a statement. He declined to comment further, citing confidentiality rules.

What the parents didn't know was Smith wouldn't be coming back anytime soon.

Frustrated with the district's required psychological evaluation, and feeling like her family had become pariahs, Santana pulled Smith from the district and enrolled him in cyber school, she said.

She understands how scary the photo seemed, but thinks other parents made more of the incident than it was, she said. After all, her son didn't make a specific threat against anyone and doesn't even have access to a real gun, she said.

"I get why parents are hysterical. I understand that," Santana said. "He's still my son. I am not going to turn on my child because he made a stupid decision to post a picture."

Cracking down on threats

Smith is far from the only New Jersey student to get busted for a threat, real or perceived, since Parkland.

Law enforcement officials received about 200 reported threats against schools in the month that followed the Florida shooting, acting state Education Commissioner Lamont Repollet said in March.

The New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness won't say how many students have been criminally charged in connection with threats, but local police have reported charges against more than a dozen students -- as young as 12 years old -- for making threats or creating a false public alarm since mid-February.

Jared Maples, the state's director of Homeland Security, told lawmakers in April said the state has "doubled down" on outreach for its see-something, say-something campaign.

"Preventing an incident and avoiding the use of response tactics is our goal," Maples said. "Reporting suspicious behavior can potentially stop the next school incident or terrorist attack."

At the end of March, state Attorney General Gurbir Grewal ordered police departments across the state to immediately report school shooting threats to state homeland security officials. State authorities will in turn report the threat to the FBI.

"There can be no delay or hanging back at any level to assess the situation when the lives of students or others may be at risk," Grewal said in a statement announcing the new directive.

The criminal charges against Smith are just part of his family's nightmare. His mother said she's been criticized on social media and called a bad parent, and she thinks some of her neighbors look at her askew.

"I have consequences, he has consequences, we all did," Santana said. "I am still paying for this mistake that he made."

Awaiting his next court date, Smith is required to wear a monitoring-bracelet around his ankle, Santana said. He's not allowed to leave the house without adult supervision and "just stays home doing nothing," she said.

Santana knows you can't unscramble an egg, but she plans to re-enroll Smith in Toms River schools before the end of the school year and hopes he can get a fresh start in high school next fall, she said.

Smith would take back putting the photo online if he could, he said.

"I regret it," he said, "100 percent."

Adam Clark may be reached at adam_clark@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on twitter at @realAdamClark. Find NJ.com on FacebookCorey Sandone doesn't profit off his side-hustle.

All the money from the 26-year-old Mantua man's new apparel brand - which he started on the side of his digital advertising business - goes to clothing local foster youth in new threads.

"The majority of the profit goes to creating a shirt, the rest of it goes back into helping us run our business," he said. "We're not really profiting at the moment, we're just here for our cause."

Late last year, Sandone launched Lost Threads, a clothing brand that, for every shirt or sweatshirt sold, provides a new, identical garment to a New Jersey foster child.

Sandone started Lost Threads because of his love of street-wear and a desire to give back to the community.

"I've always been passionate about helping people," he said.

Modeling a sweatshirt he designed, Corey Sandone poses in front of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge. Last year, the Mantua man launched an apparel brand called "Lost Threads" that donates a garment to a local foster child for each item sold. (Photo provided by Corey Sandone)

Sandone was never in foster care and didn't know anyone who was, but he realized it was a cause he wanted to benefit after hearing there were over 400,000 foster youth in the U.S.

He then called the nonprofit Ticket to Dream foundation, which helps "foster kids be kids" by partnering with nonprofits that provide placement, education, activities and clothes, according to foundation president Gina Davis.

In New Jersey, Ticket to Dream partners with statewide nonprofits Foster & Adoptive Family Services and Together We Rise, according to tickettodream.org.

"It's a way to give back with your business," Davis said. "It shows that you are a responsible community member."

Ticket to Dream will tell Sandone where the clothes go and when, and then Sandone will deliver them himself. Nonprofits will get garments in the hands of foster children by stocking free stores or closets with them, or handing clothes out at events. Some will go directly to children new to foster homes so they have something new to wear, Davis said.

"[Sell one, donate one] is awesome and a great early business model," Davis said.

Sandone designs the street-wear-inspired garments, which are available only on his online store, LostThreadsApparel.com. In stock are eight hoodies and t-shirts in a range of adult sizes that are screen-printed or embroidered with the Lost Threads logo and other original artwork.

This month, Lost Threads will release a women's clothing line and new shirt designs.

"They're comfortable, they're universal and they're for everybody," Sandone said.

Most of the clothes will go to teenagers, because Sandone sells and donates adult sizes. Foster youth will get to choose their own clothes.

"When people think about foster children, they envision a child, and it's not always the case," Sandone said. "There are kids that are 18 years old...a lot of kids in the system don't have clothing that fits."

New Jersey had 7,400 foster children in 2015, according to the state Department of Children and Family. Sandone plans to donate primarily in South Jersey before expanding to the whole state.

"We try to keep donations where the community is supporting them," Davis said.

Sandone will start out distributing clothes twice a year, in May and November. As business grows, he plans to distribute quarterly. He will make his first donation later this month, which marks National Foster Care Month.

Lost Threads is a one-man operation, with Sandone undertaking everything from design to website management and distribution. He buys blank shirts and sweatshirts and sends them to local businesses to be decorated with his designs: ACE Screen Printing in Glassboro and In Stitches in Blackwood.

He said he has shipped over 50 garments from New Jersey to California since launching this winter, therefore another 50 were put aside for foster youth. Sandone doesn't have a quota for the May delivery, but will donate "as many as I can."

Two years ago, Sandone graduated with an English degree from Rowan University, which he said helped him understand culture and fashion.

"What I've taken from my degree is just how beautiful culture is," he said.

After graduation, he did odd jobs like selling pizza to make ends meet. But, he wanted to nurture an entrepreneurial spirit he had since fourth grade, when he sold Sam's Club gumballs to classmates for a quarter apiece.

Within a year of his graduation, he trademarked Lost Threads, but it took him a year to get it ready for launch online. Lost Threads does not have a brick-and-mortar store, but "maybe one day we'll get there," he said.

Sandone said college graduates can impact their communities if they "start small" like he did.

"You just need to go and do it and you'll figure it out along the way," he said. "Any step is a positive step. If there's something in your heart that you want to do, do it and start however small you have to start, and just keep going."

Because foster youth have experienced significant trauma, their identities are protected, so Sandone and other donors can't interact with them directly, Davis said.

"He's more about not taking the credit," Davis said.

Sandone said he hopes Lost Threads will bring people together.

"Maybe one day down the road, somebody will say they were in foster care and they got one of my sweatshirts," he said. "That'll be a really great feeling."KEARNY -- A man was found dead floating in the Passaic River late Friday evening, officials said.

While few details have been released about the discovery, the Hudson County Prosecutor's Office confirmed homicide detectives were investigating.

The Prosecutors Homicide Unit is on the scene in Kearny to investigate the death of a male found in the Passaic River. He has not been identified at this time.  ProsecutorSuarezHCPO (@HCPOProsecutor) May 4, 2018

Lyndhurst Police Chief James O'Connor told northjersey.com the body could be 51-year-old Vitorino Cirne, a Lyndhurst resident and employee with the U.S. Postal Service.

Police previously said Cirne was reported missing on April 12. His car was found abandoned near Kingsland and Riverside avenues in Lyndhurst along the Passaic River. Crews had searched the waters for Cirne.

Additional information was not immediately available.

Caitlin Mota may be reached at cmota@jjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter @caitlin_mota. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.When Candido Perez walked into Union City's Welcoming Center, I thought he was a Union City public official or an aide to Mayor Brian Stack, who was hosting the clergy meeting last month.

Perez was nattily dressed, sporting some fine jewelry. I definitely did not think he was a clergyman. He is. And an overseer of a dozen Pentecostal churches in the region. A preacher on the radio. A founder of a Newark drug rehabilitation program. And a contractor.

But what stunned me during the meeting was his disclosure that at one time he would frequent the hills of Hoboken and Union City.

"I used to go there," Perez, 45, said to Stack, who plans to intervene to help the homeless who live there. "Be careful and watch out for the discarded needles.''

Perez should know. He used to shoot up there.

"I never lived there but went there frequently," Perez told me last week as we sat in the spiffy benches of the Iglesia Pentecostal La Gloria del Altisimo, the Union City church he pastors.

Since he became pastor five years ago, he's done over the entire church, which is immaculate and well-pointed. Huge chandeliers hang over the main aisle. The benches are slanted with red cushions covered in stiff plastic to keep them clean. The choir loft is enclosed to house the church's office. An instrument music section occupies the right sanctuary. An American flag and a Christian flag stand at either side of the center of the sanctuary. Twenty smaller flags -- representing the countries where the 200 parishioners come from -- adorn the edge of the pulpit.

Barbara, Perez's wife of 20 years, sat a few benches behind us.

"I am just the pastor's wife," she answered when I asked if she had a role there.

But she is not only his companion in ministry and partner in raising five children -- all young adults now -- but also the reason Perez came clean.

The two met around the time he turned 24, after spending five years in some of New Jersey's toughest state prisons. He started to relapse until Barbara showed him tough love.

"He was cute and carried himself in a secure way with nothing negative," she said.

He finished a Christian drug program, Libre por Jesu Cristo, in the Bronx and realized that he never wanted to go back to a life of drugs but wanted to serve God.

They married in 1998.

Perez, a North Newark native and graduate of Barringer High School, had a rough upbringing, mostly living with his mother. He admitted to having sold drugs and done them in many places.

He knows his way in and out of the hills where people live year-round, some in makeshift shelters that are quite sturdy. He occasionally goes there and hires some men to work in his business, Perez Innovative Builders.

"I never forget where I came from," he said.

After Perez felt a calling to ministry, he graduated from a Bible school in Newark and apprenticed in several churches before taking over his current Union City church.

Perez's Newark program can accommodate a dozen residents for 30 days.

"I know what it means to surrender to a higher power," said Perez, whose one-hour sermon every Sunday is broadcast over Radio Cantico Nuevo, 97.5 FM.

Perez's videotaped church service is two hours long with devotions, testimonials, prayers for healing and then reconciling with the Lord. Afterward, the entire congregation retreats to the church hall below and has a sumptuous dinner  all prepared, cooked and served by different ministries of the church.

When I visited, Perez was proud of newly tiled bathrooms, new tables and chairs and full, functioning kitchen. He only wishes he had a parking lot in the congested, residential downtown neighborhood, a stone's throw from the Jersey City border and Washington Park. If the city permits, he might use his contracting skills to solve it.

Coming full circle, Perez is also a Newark police chaplain.

Since coming clean, he's made all the right moves. He knows where he has been and wants to help people stay on track.

"I came from a rough place," Perez said, "and my experience will help this community."

If you go ...

Iglesia Pentecostal La Glora del Altisimo Church is located at 325 Fourth St., Union City. Bible study is held every Sunday at 11 a.m.; service from 1 to 3 p.m. Every Tuesday evening from 8 to 10 p.m., the church's ministries -- men's, women's and youth -- alternate meetings. For information, call 862-237-6368.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The Rev. Alexander Santora is the pastor of Our Lady of Grace and St. Joseph, 400 Willow Ave., Hoboken, 07030, FAX: 201-659-5833; Email: padrealex@yahoo.com; Twitter: @padrehoboken.The second in Sasscer Hill's Fia McKee series is as good as her first, and a great fun for anyone who likes horses and racing mixed into a page-turning investigation. The ambiance is set at the outset in "The Dark Side of Town" (Minotaur Books, 320 pp., $25.99) , as it

puts you in the iconic town of Saratoga, N.Y., a summer mecca for thoroughbred racing fans.

Ex-cop McKee is working undercover (her specialty) as a hot walker for the Throughbred Racing Protective Bureau, trying to gather evidence of a corrupt trainer. He's corrupt all right, but McKee discovers a lot more than that going one - starting with the seemingly unrelated suicide of a young jockey followed by threats made to another jockey.

The handsome Cuban entrepreneur Calixto, who threatened to capture McKee's heart in last year's "Flamingo Road," turns up at the track working another case. He devises an imaginative way for them to communicate: he'll pretend to have a crush on her. McKee contributes more credibility than Calixto to this charade, maddeningly blushing every time he approaches.

That Hill is no novice with horses gives her mysteries enormous credence. She's bred and ridden horses (including as a jockey) for 30 years and knows her way around every inch of a racing venue. She also knows the laws applying to racing, the encyclopedic number of ways around them, and every legal and illegal performance enhancer out there. This puts Hill in the exclusive club of the late, much revered Dick Francis, best-selling author of more than 30 racing mysteries over as many years.

That's good news for fans of racetrack thrillers, as it's unlikely there will be a shortage of bad business around racetracks any time soon.

To understand Lisa Scottoline's new legal thriller "After Anna" (St. Martin's Press, 352 pp., $27.99), you need to know the "before": Following Anna's birth, her mother Maggie suffered from post partem psychosis. Her then-husband

divorced her, exploiting her diagnosis to win legal custody of their daughter.

Flash-forward 17 years. Maggie, now happily married to a pediatric allergist with a young son, gets a call from the daughter she hasn't seen since babyhood. Anna, a senior at a New Hampshire boarding school, tells her her father has died and she wants to reunite with her mother.

Maggie's husband Noah is thrilled for Maggie. He urges her to visit Anna, and agrees she should invite Anna to live with them when she graduates. But when Maggie arrives in New Hampshire, the girl convinces her she's unhappy and friendless at school, and begs Maggie to take her home with her. Maggie visits Anna's counselor, who agrees the move would be beneficial. So, in fewer than 24 hours after reuniting, mother and daughter head to Maggie and Noah's home in Pennsylvania.

If there's validity to the adage "too good to be true," Anna is Exhibit A. Noah notices it before she's been in their home a day. Anna makes a couple of suggestive remarks, leaving little doubt she's coming on to him. He says nothing, chalking it up to naive teen behavior. But he's impressed with her efforts to befriend his son Caleb, and admires her patience with the boy's speech impairment.

The death of Anna's dad has made her an heiress to a considerable fortune, and though she doesn't officially inherit until she's 18, she has only to ask her financial advisor for funds and they're given. The first clash is over her determination to buy an expensive car. Noah says she must wait, she's never even driven. But the willful Anna buys it anyway.

Though trying to keep an open mind, Noah continues to sense something predatory about Anna. But Maggie sees another Anna entirely, and when he tells her Anna is trying to drive a wedge between them, Maggie thinks he isn't trying hard enough. She urges him to spend some alone time with Anna - which he does, and which creates an opportunity for Anna to make false charges against him.

Anna compromises the couple's life and marriage in ways Noah couldn't have imagined. And when she is murdered, Noah is charged. (This is not a spoiler; from the book's earliest pages, chapters alternate between Anna's developing behavior and Noah's reflections while sitting in his jail cell awaiting a verdict in his murder trial.)

Scottoline's imaginatively-plotted legal thriller has some of her trademark twists, and you won't see all of them coming.

Fran Wood, retired Star-Ledger op-ed columnist and former books editor, blogs at nj.com."Give me an A, A-K, A-K-I-R-A-H"

A group of former Orange High School cheerleaders chanted in honor of a past member of their squad, 20-year-old Akirah Townes, on Saturday in Lincoln Gymnasium.

Townes, of Orange, was stabbed to death April 27 in Montclair, allegedly by an ex-boyfriend.

More than than 200 people from the community filled the gym, wearing purple shirts, hats and carrying signs and balloons to honor the life of Townes.

"All these people here, it's a testament to who she was," her oldest brother, Tyree Townes, 32, said. "Had it been one of us or anyone in the community, Akirah would have been the main one behind this -- knocking on doors, passing out flyers to those in the community."

During the memorial service, Akirah Townes' family announced they were starting a foundation called "Akirah Cares" in the slain woman's honor.

"She was all the good things of her brother and sisters rolled into one," Tyree Townes said.

According to Essex County Prosecutor's Office, Townes was found stabbed on Hartley Street in Montclair around 6 a.m. Taken to St. Joseph's Regional Medical Center in Paterson, she was pronounced dead shortly thereafter.

Her ex-boyfriend, Ahigjah Broomes, 21, of Orange, has been charged with murder, unlawful possession of a weapon and possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose in Townes' death, authorities said.

Broomes appeared for a detention hearing Thursday in Superior Court in Essex County, where a judge ordered him to be held in custody pre-trial and to undergo a mental health evaluation, authorities said. His next listed court date is May 21.

Akirah Townes, a Kean University junior, was studying to become a special education teacher to honor her brother, who died four years ago from a rare genetic disease.

On Saturday, she was remembered as a daughter, sister, friend and beloved community member. One of her friends said during the ceremony that she was passionate about education and never wanted to skip class.

In February, Akirah Townes posted a photo on her Facebook page of a letter naming her to the dean's list for the fall semester.

Got this in the mail today!  Posted by Akirah Townes' on Monday, February 12, 2018

Many promising lives have been scarred by domestic violence, according to statistics.

In New Jersey, an act of domestic violence happens every 7.29 minutes, according to 180 Turning Lives Around, Inc, a Monmouth County-based nonprofit organization dedicated to ending domestic violence.

The Office of Domestic Violence Services in the state's Division of Women offers a 24-hour hotline with access to confidential safe-house counseling, support services, and advocacy for victims and children.

Akirah Townes' family hopes to add to the agenda through the creation of "Akirah Cares," which a family friend said will focus on education, intervention, counseling and attacking the problem of domestic violence at its roots.

During the ceremony Saturday, which was also sponsored by the Orange Board of Education and Orange Police Department, many purple balloons began to pop as family and friends spoke about Akirah Townes.

"She's here," a family friend said. "This is exactly what she'd want us to be doing."

Taylor Tiamoyo Harris may be reached at tharris@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @ladytiamoyo.Authorities say there are "multiple" fatalities after two pickup trucks crashed in Burlington County mid-afternoon Saturday.

The accident took place at 2:30 p.m. in a rural section of Eastampton Township where Powell Road intersects with U.S. Route 206.

Eastampton Police Sgt. Michael Shepard said late Saturday night the accident shut down the roadways in the area for several hours as police conducted their investigation.

He said there were "multiple" fatalities, but declined to say how many people died.

According to Shepard, along with the dead, some involved in the crash -- all adults -- were hospitalized.

Shepard said authorities are still notifying the next of kin of those involved Saturday night.

The point where Powell Road intersects with Route 206 forms a T. There is a stop sign on Powell Road.

Shepard said authorities are still trying to determine what caused the accident.

He did say all of those involved are from New Jersey.

Numerous fire and rescue companies and neighboring and state police responded to the scene with Eastampton Township Police.

Bill Gallo Jr. may be reached at bgallo@njadvancemedia.com. Follow Bill Gallo Jr. on Twitter @bgallojr. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tipsI have seen the future and it is grim.

I'm talking about the recent decision by Ford to stop making cars of the traditional four-door variety.

Ford executives announced recently that the company will be discontinuing production of cars like the Fusion and Taurus in favor of pickups and SUVs.

The Mustang will be saved, but it's targeted at a demographic that is quickly disappearing: people who actually like to drive.

There are still some of us left. But it's a dangerous world out there for anyone trying to navigate a car in the convoy of monster trucks that occupy the American road.

I discussed this the other day with G. Clotaire Rapaille, the French-born anthropologist who has consulted with a number of car companies on automotive design.

Rapaille is famed in the field for noting how the typical American favors what he terms "the reptilian brain" when it comes to vehicle choice.

"The reptilian brain says that you are more powerful and more in control when you look down at other people," Rappaille told me.

He said his intensive studies of focus groups showed studies even highly educated women channel their inner reptiles when it comes to cars.

"They all said, 'I love the SUV because I can look down on the guy in his Porsche,'" he said. "They feel more safe and secure with an SUV."

Rapaille himself drives a Porsche. But he knows he's in a losing battle when it comes to cars. Ford found that out when it tried to market nimble little cars like the Focus.

"I think it was a mistake for Americans to concentrate on small cars. That goes against the American archetype," said Rapaille, who moved here in his youth. "When do you have enough money? Never. When is your house big enough? Never. When is your car big enough? Never."

Rapaille knows whereof he speaks. He lives a couple blocks from Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, which vies for the title of the world capital of wretched excess.

"It's so common to have a Rolls-Royce that people want something different," he said.

That has led to such vehicles as the $100,000 pickup truck, he said.

Another expert on the automotive industry told me that such monster trucks are actually encouraged over cars under current federal regulation.

Industry expert Bruce Belzowski said the federal government inadvertently aided in the demise of the domestic car back when the Big Three car-makers were mired in the recession.

The Obama administration reacted by crafting fuel-economy regulations that favor so-called "light trucks" - pickups and SUVs - over cars.

Under the current CAFE regs, a small car has to get 45 miles per gallon while a large pickup can get away with 25 miles per gallon. The bigger vehicles come with bigger profit margins, so it's no mystery why cars are being phased out, Belzowski said.

"The reason the Obama administration put this in play the way they did was they didn't want to put the U.S. companies out of business," said Belzowski. "I think they thought gas prices would stay high."

With high gas prices, the feds expected the regs would lead to a mix of 60 percent cars and 40 percent pickups and SUVs, he said.

But when gas prices dropped, the 60-40 mix went the other way. That led the domestic car-makers to abandon car production to the foreign brands, he said.

But that's not the end of the bad news for car-lovers, he said. We drivers ourselves are slowly becoming obsolete, said Belzowski.

Belzowski is the managing director of the Automotive Futures Group based in Ann Arbor. And from where he sits, it looks like the future is going to be self-driving cars.

"It's going to be this long transition period until people give up driving," Belzowski said.

As people get used to such features as "super cruise control," which keeps the vehicle in its lane at highway speeds, they will eventually get used to taking their hands off the wheel, he said.

The next step might be to permit only autonomous vehicles to enter cities.

Eventually we old-fashioned drivers might be restricted to some country roads where we can drive around in circles waving at each other.

As for me, I'll give up my stick shift when they pry it from my cold, dead hands - which they will probably do after I get run over by a self-driving SUV.

PLUS: THE WALL STREET JOURNAL GETS IT: Most of the media seems to be run by people who don't care about cars or actively hate them. An exception is the Wall Street Journal, whose writers understand the bungled federal regulations that destroyed the modern car. Here's an excellent review (subscription required; for a non-subscription review, go here.) of a Jaguar station wagon in which the writer points out how superior station wagons are to SUVs:

"Sometimes I wish I could gather up consumers by the lapels and say, 'Look! Here, this is the sort of vehicle you really want, not that ugly, lane-hogging, no-driving crossover.' All else being equal, a wagon design will always be lighter, quicker, faster, more agile, with better braking and ride quality, lower emissions/consumption and wind noise."

ALSO, a number of dull-witted sorts fall for the absurd notion that SUVs and pickup trucks came about because of the free market. If you suffer from that delusion, please read this piece on the free-market Reason site:

"Fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions standards for vehicles are a very inefficient way to address issues related to fuel consumption and emissions. Ideally, the federal government would scrap the federal CAFE and greenhouse gas emissions standards. However, this option is not currently on the table."Srinagar, May 06: Top rebel commander Saddam Padder and the missing Kashmir University professor Muhammad Rafi Bhat are among five militants killed in a gunfight with forces in south Kashmirs Shopian district on Sunday.

Director General of Police (DGP) SP Vaid said five militants were killed in the encounter. He said five bodies have been recovered from the gunfight site.If we can acknowledge that decent housing is a fundamental necessity, then we can also agree that your home is worth a fair legal fight when it is under threat.

Too often, however, families that face eviction are helpless and overmatched in the cattle call of Housing Court. While 90 percent of landlords in eviction proceedings show up with a lawyer, the vast majority of tenants do not have one - if they show up at all.

You can figure out the rest: Since the only weapon against dislocation is an attorney - which are especially scarce or unaffordable in New Jersey, where the Legal Services budget has been hacked to pieces - we have an eviction epidemic, especially in the lives of the urban poor.

Mayor Ras Baraka knows how housing instability causes convulsions throughout a community - in schools, in public safety institutions, in demand for human services - so he has proposed making Newark the second city in the U.S. to provide free legal assistance to low-income residents facing eviction.

Any mayor would be alarmed by these numbers: There were 17,000 evictions filed in Newark in 2016, and very few tenants had legal help. Rutgers Law Review published a study of 40,000 eviction actions in Essex County found that in only 80 cases (two-tenths of one percent) were tenants able to present a defense, leaving the rest vulnerable to substandard living conditions, unfair rent burdens, and wrongful evictions.

Yes, a lawyer makes a difference: A tenant with counsel is 10 times more likely to prevail in court than tenants without it, a Cal-Berkeley Law School study reveals.

The city council must approve the plan, and a substantial funding source needs to be established, because the legal help must go beyond court representation. It should entail all forms of advocacy, such as determining whether conditions require repair, negotiating with landlords, and dealing with court filings.

It was appropriate that Mayor Bill de Blasio joined Tuesday's rollout, because New York City is starting to figure it out. It had no other choice: Between 1994 and 2014, there was a 115-percent increase in homelessness in de Blasio's city. Knowing that the best way to address homelessness is to prevent it before it occurs, de Blasio formed a coalition under the city's Office of Civil Justice to provide legal help for tenants facing eviction.

Here's what they have learned during the phase-in: In the first 10 zip codes chosen for expanded legal help, court representation in eviction cases tripled, and evictions are down 27 percent. The burden on courts also eased: There were 17,000 fewer eviction cases heard in 2017 than in 2013.

In hard numbers, 70,000 New Yorkers have remained in their homes as a result of decreased evictions since right to counsel was initiated.

That's like saving a medium-sized city from dissolving into despair, because the real-life impact is profound: Princeton sociologist Matthew Desmond - whose seminal "Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City" won the Pulitzer - reminds us that eviction's fallout includes "home, possessions, and often your job; being stamped with an eviction record and denied housing assistance; relocating to degrading housing in dangerous neighborhoods; and suffering from increased material hardship, homelessness, depression, and illness."

New York's success has earned the attention of Gov. Murphy, whose transition team advocated a similar program for the state. We hope he keeps an eye on Newark's progress, because eviction is no longer a silent epidemic, and its eradication should not depend on the size of a tenant's wallet.

Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook.New Jersey families and businesses are likely to be hit soon by a $300 million annual surcharge on electric bills to subsidize PSEG's nuclear plants.

Now, we learn that a good chunk of that money could be exported to Pennsylvania, to support its nuclear plants.

That's right. Pennsylvania would get the jobs. We would pay the bill. Ralph Izzo, the boss at PSEG, just confirmed that in a conference call with investors.

This is the worst bill to win approval in years. The cost could amount to $3 billion over the next decade, a staggering sum. And the money would be raised in the cruelest way possible, through higher electricity bills, not progressive taxation. The poor pay the same rates as the rich, and if they can't keep up, PSEG can turn out the lights.

It was muscled through the Legislature by Senate President Steve Sweeney, D, Gloucester, whose district is home to the three PSEG nukes in New Jersey. He set up bogus hearings where legislators who barely understand the energy markets passively listened to a parade of compelling protests from businesses, environmentalists, consumer advocates, and PSEG's competitors - all of whom are begging Gov. Phil Murphy to veto this bill.

How bad is it? For the first time in history, the Ratepayer Advocate, the one person whose job is to keep a lid on electric bills, would lose the right to be present when these subsidies are discussed at the Board of Public Utilities. She'd need special permission, which could be denied. That's revealing.

"At every turn, the thumb is on the scale in favor of the nuclear power plant owners," says the advocate, Stefanie Brand. "This bill is a mess."

Want more? The bill ties the hands of the BPU so that PSEG can get much more than it needs. It sets the level of subsidy at about $300 million a year, by fiat, even if the BPU determines that a smaller subsidy would suffice.

This list goes on. The energy produced by these nuclear plants benefits all the consumers in a common energy market known as PJM, which extends to Chicago and includes about 65 million people. But this subsidy will be paid entirely by us saps in New Jersey, who already face among the highest rates in the country.

"We are subsidizing people in other states," Brand says.

PSEG refuses to discuss any of this. No doubt, it is difficult to justify.

Murphy is in a tough spot. The bill is on his desk, and if he kills it with a veto, he will make a blood enemy of Sweeney and endanger his entire agenda.

Still, this bill is a monster, and especially unfair to the poor. Murphy needs to use a conditional veto to fix the worst features, at least. For starters, Brand needs to be in the room.

More: Tom Moran columns

Tom Moran may be reached at tmoran@starledger.com or call (973) 836-4909. Follow him on Twitter @tomamoran. Find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook.In the movie, "The Hunt for Red October," a fictional national security advisor is considering a risky plan to assist a rogue Soviet sub commander who wants to defect to America, with his boat.

He turns to Alec Baldwin and offers a political insight for the ages: "Listen, I'm a politician, which means I'm a cheat and a liar, and when I'm not kissing babies, I'm stealing their lollipops," he says. "But it also means I keep my options open."

If you want to understand the debate over legalizing weed in Trenton, that sums it up well. I don't mean the part about stealing lollipops, though I can't rule that out. It's the part about keeping the options open, letting the other guy risk his neck first.

Only a handful of the 120 legislators have come out in favor of legalizing weed, even though polls show solid public support, and the new governor, Phil Murphy, won decisively in November after campaigning on it aggressively

So, what's going on?

Legalizing weed is something new, and big, and controversial. And the bills are still taking shape. At this stage, it's safer to let the other guy step out of the foxhole first and see if he survives.

"You're not going to jump out and say you're in favor of this when you don't even know what the bill is, and you know you will have people come out against you," says Senate President Steve Sweeney, D-Gloucester. "But you're going to see the momentum shift."

When it does, it will gain momentum, as it becomes safer and safer for the scaredy-cats.

I talked to almost all the key players last week, concerned by reports that this effort could stall. And, yes, if the supporters don't get moving soon, they could indeed blow this.

We could keep arresting people for smoking weed, which is ridiculous. We could keep convicting African-Americans at three times the rate of whites, which is offensive. And we could preserve a system that the criminals love because it ensures they will keep earning boatloads of cash from street sales.

But I am ready to predict it will go the other way, that New Jersey will follow Colorado and the eight other states where weed is treated like booze - legal for adults, and not for kids.

Why the optimism? Here's a list.

Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, D-Middlesex, is now leaning strongly in support of legalization after visiting Colorado, according to three sources with direct knowledge of his thinking. That's a big deal.

As Speaker, Coughlin can single-handedly stop this train. And while Sweeney and the governor are solidly on board, Coughlin has been a holdout.

He is taking no position now, he says, because he does not want to pressure his members -- at least until Assemblyman Joe Danielsen, D-Somerset, finishes his public hearings on the issue.

That, by the way, is unusual in Trenton. The big-shots in town, like Sweeney, tend to throw their political weight around like Sumo wrestlers. Coughlin prefers to build consensus through dialogue. Imagine that.

Another reason for optimism: Colorado is a secret weapon, because it shows that the fear-mongering is nonsense.

"Every time a legislator visits, they come back enlightened, thinking this is a good idea," says Sen. Nicholas Scutari, D-Union, the chief sponsor in the Senate.

An example: Critics cite statistics showing a huge number of "marijuana-related" car crashes in states with legal weed. But it turns out that claim is based on blood tests, which only show that a driver has smoked within the last three or four weeks. It says nothing about his or her state of sobriety.

Another: Emergency room visits spiked after legalization. But Danielsen, who is on the fence, talked to firefighters and ambulance crews in Colorado, who told him that problem has disappeared.

"In the first eight months or so, people didn't know how to handle marijuana, and they took too much, too fast," he says. "But that's all gone now."

Several legislators say they worry that legalizing weed would send a message to children that using drugs is okay, even as the opioid crisis continues to take its horrifying toll.

"The message is that this drug is okay, and that drug is not," says Sen. Joe Vitale, D-Middlesex. "Kids don't get that."

It's tough to measure that, of course. But we've been using criminal law to deter kids from smoking weed for a half century now. It has failed spectacularly. Maybe it's time to try something new.

The truth is that the black market itself is the gateway to hard drugs. Because if you buy weed on the corner, dealers often have a menu for you to consider. Want cocaine? Opioids? LSD?

"That's the relationship we don't want to foster," says Scott Rudder, a former assemblyman who runs the New Jersey CannaBusiness Association and promotes the industry. "The regulated shops will not say, 'Hey, you want to try this other drug?'"

Rudder says that behind closed doors he hears a lot more support than he does in public. "I walk in to a 'no' and leave with a 'maybe.' I walk in to a 'maybe' and I leave with a 'yes.' The tides have turned in a dramatic fashion because of the record in other states."

This is far from a sure thing, and I confess that my track record on predictions is imperfect. Just ask President Hillary Clinton.

Danielsen might be the best barometer, because he's undecided and he knows the material well. He's not opposed in principle, but says the details count.

How will cops catch stoned drivers, with no breathalyzer? How can the state ensure those most damaged by the criminal prohibition -- poor minorities -- get a fair share of the business and benefits? How can we ensure that drug cartels don't capture a share of the legal business?

"I'm not going to vote for something I'm uncomfortable with," he says. "I knock on doors, and I have been for 20 years. I have to answer questions on those doorsteps."

Scutari says he'll open Senate hearings soon, though no date has been set. He seems amused by the worries of the fence-sitters. "Politicians are not a courageous bunch," he says.

Ten years ago, when he first started talking about medical marijuana, a senior legislator warned him to steer clear.

"It's 10 years later," he says. "And I'm still here."

Bless him for that. Because if they all listen to the voice of caution, and protect their careers, nothing big will ever get done.

More: Tom Moran columns

Tom Moran may be reached at tmoran@starledger.com or call (973) 836-4909. Follow him on Twitter @tomamoran. Find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook.Terry Brennan and his wife Cynthia Newport had only been in New Orleans for a day when disaster struck. One moment, they were driving back from a day in the French Quarter and lunch at Antoine's and the next they were being strapped to a gurney and rushed to University Medical Center.

Their friend, Leo Gonzalez, had picked them up from the restaurant. The three of them were driving back in a black Lincoln town car on Elysian Fields Avenue when an Audi careening down the street struck them. All three were knocked unconscious and badly injured. It was not until they awoke in the hospital and checked NOLA.com | Times-Picayune that they realized they were three of many casualties caused by a man's crime spree. Brennan said he saw a photo of the mangled Lincoln and his wife's purse perched on top.

That Sunday afternoon (April 22), a man went on a citywide rampage, sending New Orleans police to multiple crime scenes across the city and ultimately shooting five people, including a police officer, and injuring others, including Newport, Brennan and Gonzalez, after a car chase ended in a Mid-City crash.

Charles Williams, 25, was arrested after the rampage and police say he told them he fatally shot Lil Ricky Goins, 38, while they were driving separately near the intersection of Elysian Fields Avenue and North Galvez Street. Goins kept driving after he was shot and hit Gonzalez's town car.

Two weeks later, Terry Brennan, 63, sat at PJ's coffeeshop in University Medical Center. Despite being knocked unconscious in the accident, Brennan suffered relatively minor wounds in the crash. He broke a few ribs and something punctured his back. As he sipped his coffee, healing cuts and bruises dotted his arms and shoulders.

His 68-year-old wife and 87-year-old Gonzalez still remain in the hospital in stable, but serious condition. Newport shattered her hip, ruptured her diaphragm and fractured her femur.

"Everything is bruised and mangled," said Brennan.

Gonzalez, meanwhile, was fading in and out of consciousness with a neck fracture and a punctured lung.

Brennan has gotten to know the hospital well. He and his wife had planned to spend 10 days visiting Gonzalez and experiencing New Orleans. It was Brennan's first time in the city. Instead, he has spent nearly every moment of the past two weeks at UMC, sleeping by her side in a hospital bed with their luggage propped in the corner.

It is a dismal situation, but Brennan said he is "surprised and happy that all of us are alive."

He is now trying to navigate how to comfortably transport his wife back to Las Cruces, New Mexico, where the two live and a rehabilitation facility awaits her. When Newport was taken to the hospital, her black purse did not come with her. Photos from the accident show it sitting on top of the Lincoln at the scene. However, when she asked officials for it, no one seemed to know where it had gone.

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When asked about the purse, NOPD spokesman Gary Scheets told NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune that NOPD "is working to track down items related to the accident that occurred in the 2400 block of Elysian Fields Avenue" and "will return the missing items to the victims as soon as they are located."

"It's one thing if we couldn't prove the purse was in the car, but the purse is right there in the photo, so where did the purse go?" Brennan said. "Ambulance people don't know. Hospital doesn't know. NOPD doesn't know. Tow place doesn't know."

Therefore, air travel is off the table. Even if her identification were to surface, Newport could not feasibly sit on a plane in her current condition. For now, the two plan on road tripping.

"We'll likely, out of our own pocket, rent an RV. Buy a bed from Walmart, fix it up inside and drive the most direct route through Texas. We'll need to go through cities so we can stop at a hospital if needed," said Brennan.

Outside PJ's Brennan seemed less angry with the circumstances than dejected that one man's actions had caused so much damage to not only him and his friends, but also dozens of others.

"What gets me about things is no matter how people feel about guns or no guns--this is violence. Violence upon people. Guns don't kill people, but what guns do is injure people in cars that kill people. It's all part of a vicious cycle of the same thing. If it wasn't for that beginning stretch of violence, we might not have gotten hit."

While he is trying not to let the incident taint his image of New Orleans, each passing day at UMC hammers home the reality of a vacation ruined by violence.

"I'm trying to get my mind in the right spot so that I don't equate this whole ordeal with the city itself," he said, shaking his head. "I live in a real humble community of nice, happy people of Las Cruces, New Mexico, and it doesn't make you feel safe to come around if this is how you could end up."

He looked around the empty hallways of University Medical Center, before dropping his head and taking a long sip of coffee.

----

Those interested in helping Cynthia Newport can visit her GoFundMe me page.A Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office deputy was shot in the leg early Sunday (May 6) in Harvey, authorities said.

The deputy, whose injuries are non-life-threatening, was shot on Manhattan Boulevard near the street's intersection with Harvey Boulevard, JPSO spokesman Glen Boyd said. He was taken to a local hospital.

Boyd said JPSO had a suspect in custody.

The shooting was reported about 2:38 a.m., he said.

No other information was immediately available.

Check back with NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune for updates.LOUISVILLE, Ky. - It was Justify's day at the 144th running of the Kentucky Derby on Saturday (May 5).

The precocious, unbeaten son of Scat Daddy announced himself as a viable Triple Crown contender by dominating a field of 20 3-year-old colts at Churchill Downs in the wettest Run for the Roses in history.

"I was just in awe of his performance," trainer Bob Baffert said of Justify. "He just put himself up there with the greats. I knew I had something special, but he had to prove it today."

And prove it, he did.

The victory was Justify's fourth in as many starts and ended the Derby's so-called Apollo Curse, becoming the first horse to not race as a 2-year-old to win the Derby since Apollo did it in 1892.

"He's a special, special horse," said Justify's jockey, Mike Smith.

The New Orleans-based connections of Lone Sailor were happy with the eighth-place finish of their colt, who went off at 24-1 odds and beat 12 horses in the field, despite a troubled trip. In fact, they indicated after the Derby that they might take another shot at Justify in the Preakness Stakes in two weeks.

"We're very proud of our horse," said Tom Amoss, the New Orleans native who conditioned Lone Sailor for Gayle Benson's GMB Racing Stables. "He outran his odds. Unfortunately, there's nothing you can do about traffic. That's horse racing."

Even if Lone Sailor had enjoyed a perfect tour of the Churchill Downs oval, it's doubtful he could have run down Justify, the race's 5-2 morning-line favorite who looked downright giddy in the sloppy conditions. Justify bolted out of the gate and raced in second just off the flank of pace-setter Promises Fulfilled until the far turn, then spurted away from the field in the stretch to comfortably hold off Good Magic and Audible at the wire for a 2 1/2-length victory.

Justify's winning time over the soggy track was a pedestrian 2 minutes, 4.20 seconds, making it the second slowest Derby in the past 25 years. Only Super Saver (2:04.45), who won in sloppy conditions in 2010, was slower.

But the slow time was certainly no reflection on Justify's brilliance.

"He's a superior horse," said Baffert, who earned his fifth Kentucky Derby title and second in four years since American Pharoah started his Triple Crown run here in 2015. "He's special."

There certainly was nothing special about the weather. More than 3 inches of rain soaked the track and massive crowd in attendance.

Lone Sailor's connections came prepared. Benson and a handful of wives of the team's senior executive team accessorized their Derby outfits with customized Lone Sailor rain boots, a prescient move considering the waterlogged conditions.

Most of the party of about 40 staff members, family and friends flew into Louisville on Saturday morning after attending the New Orleans Pelicans' 119-100 victory against the Golden State Warriors on Friday night in New Orleans.

Lone Sailor broke slowly from post No. 8 and jockey James Graham immediately guided the horse to the rail to save ground into the first turn. He raced mid-pack down the backstretch then made his move along the rail as he entered the second turn but quickly encountered traffic as Free Drop Billy threw in the towel and started to retreat. After sitting in idle for a few seconds, Graham navigated around the congestion, then sent Lone Sailor through an opening at the top of the stretch. Despite losing a shoe during the eventful trip, Lone Sailor finished strongly but well back of top three finishers: Justify; Good Magic; and Audible.

"He ran his heart out," Graham said. "The conditions were fine. He was running hard until the end."

Lone Sailor's finish matched the eighth-place result of GMB Racing's Mo Tom in the 2016 Kentucky Derby. It also tied for the second-best Derby finish in Amoss' career. He finished fifth with Mylute in 2013.

"(The race) started out really, really good," Amoss said. "We had a good position inside. We were making up some ground and then on the backside we had to wait behind a horse (Free Drop Billy) that was stopping. We were forced to drop back and re-rally and that's tough to do, especially in a race like this."

Lone Sailor officially finished more than 9 lengths back of Justify, but the connections were so encouraged by the performance they are considering running him in the second leg of the horse racing's Triple Crown, the Preakness Stakes on May 19 at Pimlico Race Course.

"A Top 10 finish is always something to be proud of when you're talking about the best 20 3year-olds running against each other," said Greg Bensel, the club's vice president of communications, who oversees the stable for GMB Racing. "The conditions were very tough and the field very talented. Our horse was ready and we look at this race as a springboard for him."New Orleans Pelicans fans arriving Sunday at Smoothie King Center will find another shirt at their seats before Game 4 against the Golden State Warriors.

Like the other three shirts, the latest one has the "Do It Bigger!" catchphrase with another version of a Pelicans wing logo.

The shirt before Game 3 against the Warriors had a four-box look with the letters N-O-L-A inside the four boxes.

The Pelicans are trying to even their Western Conference semifinal series at 2-2 after losing the first two games in Oakland, California.

Here's a look at the latest shirt.When you fall in love with a place -- a common occurrence for New Orleans -- finding excuses to come back are easy.

INVITATION:

Michele Brett Glodowski went to Tulane Medical School, and two of her brothers went to Tulane University, with one getting married and staying in the city.

So, when it came time for Michele to marry her fiance, Max David Silverman, there was no question of where to have it. Max, too, had been charmed by the Crescent City after surprising Michele with a trip there while they were dating.

The couple -- Michele is a doctor of endocrinology and Max is a pediatric nurse -- live in Denver and connected on a Jewish dating web site. They clicked instantly.

Max proposed to Michele 11 months later. She was planning to go home for Memorial Day weekend, and Max was headed to Park City, Utah, to spend the holiday with his family. "Instead, I secretly bought a plane ticket to New York and planned the proposal with Michele's friend," Max said. "I organized the event to take place at Jane's Carousel in Brooklyn, just off the boardwalk. I was going to be standing there, while she and her friend were walking to dinner. The minute she saw me she smiled."

The shock of seeing him there quickly wore off as Michele caught on to what was happening. "When I realized he was wearing a jacket and tie, I knew he was about to ask me to marry him," she said.

"I had all these words to say when she approached me, but I froze and told her I loved her and got down on one knee and asked her to marry me," Max said.

Neither wanted to get married in their hometowns -- Dix Hills, N.Y., for Michele, and Tucson, Ariz., for Max -- so they chose New Orleans.

To plan their March 10 wedding, the couple turned to event planner Hily Trowbridge of HTNO, as well as bridesmaid Keely Williams, an owner of the Catahoula Hotel, who hosted the pre-wedding party with cocktails and cigars, and where family photos were taken. The ceremony was on the rooftop of the Roosevelt Hotel, followed by a reception in the hotel's Blue Room adorned with florals and greenery from Pistil & Stamen, which also did the wedding bouquets.

At the reception, there was dancing to music by the NOLA Dukes, with a guest appearance by Michele's brother Bryan Glodowski playing drums on one song, and the bride and groom enjoyed the Hora (informally known as the chair dance).

No doubt, many of their guests fell in love with the Crescent City that night, and are already plotting their own return.

******

"I do" has moved from WISH to the Living section of the Times-Picayune. Be on the lookout on the first Sunday of the month.Jambalaya is one of those south Louisiana foods that can bring people together or violently split them apart. Take the kerfuffle over the dish prepared by White House chefs last month for a state dinner. Though it was billed as having been "cooked in a New Orleans tradition" and was "scented with the trinity of Cajun cooking," this rice pilaf upsold as a Louisiana delicacy reportedly left some guests scratching their heads.

Of course there has never been unanimity over just what goes into jambalaya. One of the earliest published recipes for the dish, from an 1853 cookbook, calls for mostly recognizable ingredients -- rice, "a fowl" and ham. But it concludes "pepper and salt (are) the only seasoning," which would not pass muster today.

The origin of the dish is also somewhat in question. Many present-day writers declare authoritatively that jambalaya was an adaptation of the Spanish paella. But in several mid-19th century publications, including the 1853 cookbook, jambalaya is described as having come from Native Americans.

That claim about Native American heritage is repeated in a story published in 1875 in the New Orleans Times in which the writer attempts to standardize the spelling of jambalaya. The lengthy report notes that the Orleanian, a new weekly journal that operated for several years in the 1870s, had recently published a jambalaya recipe.

Wrote the Orleanian, according to the Times: "It is composed first, of rice; then, large red beans; then, rice again; then, smoked sausages; then more rice; then, ham; then, red peppers; rice again; then chicken; more rice; then oysters; condiments a discretion; boil all together -- and eat. You'll be happy."

The Times seemed to think that recipe wasn't quite right (Ed: and it's not, of course, by our modern standards), but noted that the dish "is variable to suit circumstances." The writer -- the story has no byline, unfortunately, as was customary at the time -- then goes on to describe his magical first experience with jambalaya, during a hunting trip to Cajun country more than 30 years earlier.

"In January 1844, a party of twelve or fourteen of us had camped on Grand River for several weeks hunting in the swamps of Western Louisiana; one half the party were Creoles, the other Americans with two mulattos who though slaves, stood on their hunter's rights and social equality and would cook only when it came to their turns in regular rotation," he wrote.

A vote was taken; the hunters wanted jambalaya -- spelled "jombalyeeyah" in this instance.

"A half-gallon of washed rice was put into the largest camp kettle, and with sufficient water set to boiling, after a while, slices of fat pickled pork were put in, at intervals, half fried pieces of bear meat, venison and ham were dropped in and well stirred; then a loggerhead turtle, and by and by three owls, two wild ducks, a half dozen squirrels and five or six small catfish with broken biscuit were put in, with an abundance of garlic onions, red and black pepper, salt and leaves of sweet bay for a high seasoning. A piece of alligator tail had been subscribed by one of the party, but was indignantly rejected."

The meal was cooked at night and served at sunrise, and it was a hit with the hunters. "We have received many compliments in our day," the writer said, "but none were ever more deserved or more grateful to our feelings, and the manner in which our first jam-ba-ly-ee-yah was gobbled up and praised by those hungry hunters, without regard to race, color or previous condition."Srinagar, May 06: Thousands of people participated in the funeral prayers of slain Professor Dr. Muhammad Rafi Butt in Ganderbal district, Sunday evening.

Mourners were raising pro-freedom, pro Pakistan and pro-Islam slogans as the martyrs body was marched towards the local graveyard.

Doctor Muhammad Rafi Butt was killed along with other four youth during a violent military operation in Badigam village of the Shopian district, today.33 kg gold smuggling case: Suspects change their statements in District Court

The suspects held in connection with the 33 kg gold smuggling case and the murder of Sanam Shakya, an alleged smuggler, have changed their statements in the Morang District Court. The court had started recording the suspects statement from Thursday,40 foreign investors keen to build Nijgadh airport

At least 40 foreign investors have expressed interest to build the proposed modern international airport in Nijgadh, Bara, indicating that a stable government seems to have had an impact on the countrys business climate, Tourism Minister Rabindra Adhikari said.Roseburg, OR (97470)

Today

Partly cloudy this evening with more clouds for overnight. Low around 45F. Winds light and variable..

Tonight

Partly cloudy this evening with more clouds for overnight. Low around 45F. Winds light and variable.Arrest of syndicate supporters goes on

The government continues to arrest those involved in the transport strike enforced against its move to uproot syndicates in the sector.NY1's Bobby Cuza looks at the marijuana industry in New York and whether the state could soon legalize marijuana.

Marijuana is having a moment in New York.

In the last month alone, the political winds have shifted significantly. First, Cynthia Nixons rousing endorsement of legalization thrust the issue front and center in the governors race, prompting Governor Cuomo to soften his stance. Within days, Sen. Chuck Schumer and Public Advocate Letitia James both came out in favor, as did former Republican House Speaker John Boehner.

Culturally, too, marijuana is entering the mainstream in the most New York of ways, from a high-end head shop in the Chelsea Market to a newly-opened medical marijuana dispensary on Fifth Avenue that mimics the aesthetics of an Apple store.

New York-based firms in tech and private equity are already among the biggest players in the cannabis industry. Industry meetups draw hundreds of entrepreneurs.

With neighboring Vermont, Massachusetts and New Jersey (likely) onboard, growing public support and a big nudge from the political left, the era of marijuana prohibition may be nearing an end in New York.

Judging from some of the places we visited, you might think it already has.

Part 1: Normalize It

The cannabis industry has made a concerted effort to destigmatize marijuana and even appeal to an upscale clientele. Exhibit A: Higher Standards, the chic head shop with the $33,000 bong-as-collectible-art-piece, and a high-tech automatic joint-roller.

Part 2: Planting the Seeds

When you shop at the sleek new MedMen dispensary on Fifth Avenue, you can browse using the iPads on walnut display tables, or consult the cheerful staff in matching red t-shirts. Its only for medical marijuana patients. For now.

Part 3: A Budding Industry

At the monthly CannaGather in SoHo, you can mingle and network with other cannabis entrepreneurs. As some New York-based firms have already figured out, you don't have to wait for legalization to make money in this business.

Part 4: A Burning Issue

Nine states and the District of Columbia have legalized recreational marijuana. New Jersey could be next. And 56% percent of New York voters support it. It's probably a matter of when, not if, New York will follow their lead.Assailants beat up tender bidders

A group of assailants allegedly beat two tender bidders by holding them hostage in Palungtar, Gorkha, on Friday.Every May 1, United Nations Member States honour the contribution of workers to national development.

This years theme  Promoting the Public Spirit in the Public Sector, reminds us of what is needed in most developing countries including Uganda. More and better jobs, decent working conditions and a better work culture infused by positive values.

There is no greater virtue to be found in a citizen than the public spirit, and this is why it is very important for every individual to identify themselves with the interests of nation, community or organization that they serve.

This is an opportunity to recall that universal values such as ethics are deeply ingrained in all cultures including African culture based on time tested wisdom.

Today inspired by the Sustainable Development Goals we have an opportunity to rekindle our spirit of public service by linking it to our heritage.

In Southern Africa, Ubuntu is a widely cherished and practiced indigenous cultural philosophy based on the notion that a universal bond of sharing connects all humanity: That my humanity is connected and is inextricably bound up with yours.

Thats why last month we joined our South African brothers and sisters to mourn the loss of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, a leader who dedicated her life to serve the people of her nation.

A related cultural value in Uganda is Obuntu bulamu, an expression of healthy humanness that conveys the possession of courtesy, compassion, good upbringing and being cultured. We also have Bulungi bwansi" literally translated into service or for the good of the community in other words public spirit - which promotes volunteerism based on good ethics.

These values are enshrined in the National Ethical Values Policy and promote sustainable development. The thread of bulungi bwansi runs central in the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which are a reflection of the global public spirit. The United Nations was founded on ideals of promoting the public spirit.

The preamble of the UN Charter states that, We the people of the United Nations determined .. to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom . to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples; which illuminates the public spirit.

In Uganda the United Nations Systems, which includes 18 agencies, supports the Government and people of Uganda to achieve the national development objectives outlined in Vision 2040 and the Second National Development Plan (NDPII) through the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF).

At the heart of this and the 2030 Agenda is a shared ambition to develop opportunities for sustainable job creation and inclusive growth.

Uganda is widely recognized for producing a wide range of excellent policies on social, economic and development issues. It is key to ensure that people in public service at all levels are well informed of existing policies and are able to define new approaches to ensure implementation.

The UN System in Uganda stands ready to support the Government of Uganda in the transition from good policies to good practices so that the public sector can effectively fulfil the public spirit and people across the nation can be part of improving their quality of life.

There is also need to revitalize the Local Government System: Ugandas Local Government System has in the past been widely acclaimed as a global example to fulfill the public spirit. However, it is now recognized that this local government system is not functioning optimally.

There are numerous efforts by various development partners to support the Government to address capacity building challenges for a while without significant results. We need renewed leadership to re- examine how to revitalize the Local Government System given that it is the branch of the Public sector which engages most directly with citizens.

A strengthened Local Government System is key if we are to successfully implement the National Vision 2040 including transformational policies with regards to youth empowerment, inclusive green growth and refugee management.

The United Nations System in Uganda is committed to engaging with Government, private sector, cultural and religious leaders so that the Local Government System can play its role as a platform to address the needs of citizens and the revitalization of the national public spirit.

The author is UN Resident Coordinator/UN Resident RepresentativeCrackdown continues as buses rejoin routes

Public vehicle operators who went on a strike on Friday resumed services across the country on Saturday, bowing to pressure from the public and the government which initiated a number of measures against the transport syndicates.Formation of Electricity Regulatory Commission delayed yet again

The Energy Ministrys plan to establish Nepal Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), a powerful body to regulate the countrys energy sector has been delayed after the Law Ministry failed to provide consent over a regulation required to operate such commission. The Energy Ministry had sent the draft of Electricity Regulatory Commission Regulation to the Law Ministry around two months ago but has yet to receive consent from the latter.From the fields

Women can add value to climate change-friendly farming practices and technologiesSome Portland shoppers are threatening to abandon New Seasons Market, the self-proclaimed "friendliest store in town."

They're convinced the grocer - or more accurately, its equity firm owner -- isn't being so friendly to employees looking to form a union. Some customers are also angry the equity firm, Portland-based Endeavour Capital, has taken money from the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust.

The trust, which is based in Vancouver, Wash., distributes grants to a variety of West Coast nonprofits. Critics don't like that Murdock has given money to anti-union groups and as much as $1 million to the Alliance Defending Freedom, a national group that advocates for religious freedoms, is pro-life and anti-gay marriage.

In his recent op-ed, "New Seasons Market isn't living up to its brand," Rep. Rob Nosse, D-Portland, railed on New Seasons for failing to distance itself from Murdock. Instead he says New Seasons "made excuses" for Murdock when the grocer's executives responded that Murdock's grant recipients have "diverse viewpoints, perspectives and missions."

A glance at Murdock's recipient list bears that out. The trust has also given money to the University of Oregon Foundation, Oregon Health Sciences University Foundation, Habitat for Humanity Portland/Metro East, Reed College, Oregon Symphony Association, Friends of the Children, Meals on Wheels, numerous public high schools and the City of Elgin, which used the $100,000 grant to improve the small town's performance space.

When it comes to Endeavour, Murdock is one of more than 100 investors in Endeavour's Fund V, which owns the majority of New Seasons shares. And the Murdock money represents less than 1.5 percent of the fund. That's a drop in the bucket. A bucket that New Seasons doesn't control.

As shoppers make their choices about where to plop down their recyclable bags, they might consider the company's track record here. About the number of locations the company opened in low-income neighborhoods, some that had gone without well-stocked grocery stores for years. About setting examples here and across the country with environmentally friendly construction and business practices. And about the jobs created that have provided competitive pay and benefits without restrictions related to employees' gender or their family structure.

Those were business decisions that New Seasons controlled and that may Portlanders have appreciated - maybe even benefited from. They were decisions that aligned with the company's mission, but also were possible, in large part, to Endeavour's investments.

Shoppers will make their choices, that's also a part of business. It's fair for shoppers to hold store managers accountable for how they treat employees seeking to unionize. The National Labor Relationss Board has looked into two complaints that the grocer retaliated against organizing efforts by firing employees. The board didn't find sufficient evidence to substantiate those claims and the independent board is looking into a third claim.

We believe that businesses - like politicians - can operate independent of those that fund them.

-- The Oregonian/OregonLive Editorial Board

Oregonian editorials

Editorials reflect the collective opinion of The Oregonian/OregonLive editorial board, which operates independently of the newsroom. Members of the editorial board are Laura Gunderson, Helen Jung, Mark Katches and John Maher.

To respond to this editorial, post your comment below, submit an OpEd or a letter to the editor.

If you have questions about the opinion section, email Laura Gunderson, editorial pages editor, or call 503-221-8378.What do you think?

In recent months, Chief Danielle Outlaw and Mayor Ted Wheeler have been calling for adding as many as 93 officers to the Portland Police force.

Some residents supported the call, saying that the city's public safety has been ignored for too long. Others decried the idea, arguing the city needs really needs more police training and social services

Last week, Wheeler shared his proposed budget that adds just 58 officers, including four assigned to the training division and two for the Behavioral Health Unit. He called the new plan more "reasonable" and "pragmatic."

We asked readers, "Does Portland need more police." And they responded, both in emails and online comments online. Here are a few, edited for clarity and length.

Yes, we need more -- and better -- police

Yes, we need more and we have for several years now. However, the quantity of police officers should not be the only consideration. Portland needs higher paid, better educated, more diverse police officers to reflect our community and allow Portland the opportunity to hire the best officers.

Nancy Grech, Southeast Portland

I don't live in Portland, but I work there. It seems to me that the current staffing for the police force is too light. We hear reports on the news and in your paper that lots of overtime is being paid. Current officers are being asked to delay their retirement and retired officers are being asked to return to work.

I am very thankful that there are men and women who choose to be police officers. It is often a thankless and frustrating job.

We hear that the police need to have more training to be able to deal with the increasing numbers of mentally ill and drug affected people they run into, and this is probably true. In order to provide this training, police officers need to be taken off the streets and/or paid overtime. If there were more police officers, perhaps the training could be more easily accomplished.

It also seems to me that it would be easier for police officers to deal with the public if police officers are well rested because they have had sufficient time off from their stressful jobs. One way to achieve this is to have adequate staffing of the police force.

Joy Valine, Milwaukie

No need for more officers

We need to have our police officers stop using time and resources doing patrols in poor neighborhoods and communities of color, and make themselves available for actual emergencies. We need Portland residents to stop using our police resources to report homeless people existing, people of color walking down the street and minor inconveniences that should not require police intervention.

Portlanders need to learn that they are not entitled to live a life free of irritation. We have the data that tells us that in Multnomah County, it's black residents who suffer the most from interactions with the police. We don't need more of that. We need to figure out how to lessen that.

We also know from the data that actual emergencies in Portland have not increased; the 911 calls that have increased are non-emergencies. We don't need more police officers for this. We need to reallocate resources and reprioritize police officer time.

One thing that would greatly decrease clogging the 911 lines is creating camping zones for homeless people. If they had a place where they were allowed to be, people wouldn't be calling to report their existence in their neighborhoods. And I bet providing trash and toilet services to these camp zones would be a lot more affordable than hiring 93 new officers. Then maybe city leaders could focus on providing permanent housing to these folks.

Candice Aiston, Southeast Portland

Responses from oregonlive.com/opinion

Well, seeing as how property crime has been on the rise for some time thanks to our open door policy towards drug-addled vagrants, more bodies to ward off such activity probably wouldn't hurt.

"Mpower830"

If, and it's a big if, the mayor's proposal were tied to meeting empirical outcomes for each of the next three years, and if meeting those outcomes were a condition for the continued employment of the chief, assistant chiefs and division captains then the mayor and commission should fund this.

If not, why would anyone believe the mayor isn't just blowing more smoke in our faces and knows hiring more cops will do little? How about it Mayor Wheeler and Chief Outlaw?

"Trappercreek"

Why is it either or? The approach to solve Portland's crime woes can and should be multi-faceted. More police, better training, more accountability for criminals who break the law, jail space to house repeat offenders and programs for at risk youth would all be good starts.

There's way too much focus on race when in fact it's a red herring. Skin color is pretty inconsequential to the officers out there working to keep people safe. Their job is to arrest those breaking the laws despite the color of someone's skin.

"Easyasugo"

When I need police assistance, it's faster for me to drive to Starbucks than to call 911.

"Nichohoops"Modis pilgrimage: India plans three surprise gifts

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will announce three separate surprise gifts for Kathmandu, Janakpur and Muktinath Temple during his two-day state visit to Nepal starting May 11.JEFF MANNING

Knute Buehler has more name recognition, more government experience and 14 times more campaign money than any of his opponents in the race to become Oregon's next Republican nominee for governor.

But the Bend orthopedic surgeon is taking nothing for granted. He spent one of the final weeks before Tuesday's primary attacking one of his leading Republican rivals. The race that once seemed like an easy cruise for Buehler may be tighter than expected.

Buehler's primary focus has been Sam Carpenter, the candidate in the race who has most closely tied his fortunes to President Donald Trump. The 68-year-old business consultant has adopted the campaign slogan "Make Oregon Great Again."

In distancing himself from Trump and focusing on incumbent Gov. Kate Brown, Buehler "has certainly played to the general election voter" during his primary campaign, said John Horvick, political director for DHM Research, a Portland market research and polling firm. "The typical Republican electorate is pretty conservative, probably 65 to 66 years old. They still strongly back the president."

Buehler launched a radio ad calling attention to the 21 tax liens filed against Carpenter and Carpenter's telecommunications company. He also called out Carpenter for a homosexual slur allegedly written or uttered by a Carpenter campaign official.

"I'm joining the Oregon Tea Party and a chorus of voices in condemning Sam Carpenter  including (fellow GOP candidates) Greg Wooldridge and Bruce Cuff  for his false attacks and repeated lies," Buehler, 53, said last Wednesday.

Carpenter, a 68-year-old business turnaround consultant, said he's being targeted because he's beating Buehler with traditional, conservative Republicans.

There are other reasons to question Buehler's lock on the nomination. Political newcomer Greg Wooldridge, a former U.S. Navy pilot who led the Blue Angels, handily won the straw poll at the Republicans' annual Dorchester Conference in March.

In all, nine people are running in the Republican primary. Other candidates include Keenan Bohach of Keizer, Gresham-based Jonathan Edwards III, Brett Hyland of Portland, David Stauffer, also of Portland, Jeff Smith of Elgin, and Jack Tracy, of Lebanon.

Only Buehler, Carpenter and Wooldridge have raised more than $20,000 for their campaigns.

KNUTE BUEHLER

While some pundits say this year's election will be a referendum on Trump, Buehler has strived to make it a referendum on Kate Brown. It's unacceptable, he said, that at a time when the booming economy is generating record tax revenue, the Brown administration has repeatedly sought new and higher taxes. If elected, he vows to sign no spending bill until Salem launches meaningful reform of the public employee retirement system.

"I want to be governor for a simple reason: to fix the big problems in Oregon that have been avoided, ignored and made a lot worse by Gov. Brown over the last three years," he said.

The son of a butcher and homemaker, both high school dropouts, Buehler grew up in Roseburg. He attended public schools and got his college degree from Oregon State University before going on to medical school at Johns Hopkins. He also studied politics and economics at Oxford.

He works as an orthopedic surgeon specializing in knee and hip-replacements.

A strong public education was his "stepping stone" to a better life, he said. His top priority, he said, is to fix the state's "underperforming" schools.

Buehler lost to Brown in the 2012 race for secretary of state. He then won a seat in the Oregon House of Representatives in a Democratic-leaning district in Bend, which Buehler says demonstrates his crossover appeal.

He has drawn some big checks from supporters, led by Nike co-founder Phil Knight, who contributed $500,000. In all, Buehler has raised about $3.4 million from 11,000 donors.

At times, Buehler sounds like a card-carrying Democrat. When asked about his proudest achievement as a lawmaker, he says it was the 2015 bill that provided women access to prescription birth control without having to visit a doctor.

Several states have adopted similar legislation, he said.

"I've spent four years in the Legislature as a freshman and sophomore representative for the minority party," he said. "It's been like getting a Ph.D in politics. I have no hard power. But it's hard to deny the power of a good idea."

GREG WOOLDRIDGE

Greg Wooldridge

Last June, Oregon conservatives Bruce Starr and Derrick Kitts embarked on a high-stakes recruiting mission. Dissatisfied with Buehler and Carpenter, they sought another option.

They approached Greg Wooldridge, a retired U.S. Navy captain and jet pilot turned motivational speaker who has lived in Oregon since 2006. The 71-year-old political neophyte was stunned at the notion and said he wasn't interested. Then in early February, just three months before the primary, Wooldridge changed his mind.

"I finally decided this had to be done," Wooldridge said. "It was a final call to duty."

While a newcomer to politics, Wooldridge does have experience as an administrator. Between "call back" Blue Angel tours, Wooldridge commanded the Naval Air Station at Lemoore, California, which he said was akin to running a city.

Education, infrastructure and reforming the public emplyees retirement system are his three top priorities. He will call for a 25-student maximum in Oregon classrooms -- a change that would cost hundreds of millions of dollars a year -- and promises he would build more roads and more highway lanes to cope with growing population and congestion.

Bruce Cuff, a Marion County real estate salesman who got 9 percent of the vote in the 2014 Republican primary, withdrew from the 2018 primary last month and asked his supporters to back Wooldridge.

Wooldridge remains far behind Buehler in the money race. He's raised $234,350.

Kitts, who is advising the Wooldridge campaign, said the novice politician has a knack for connecting with people. "Dollar for dollar, I think we have done an astoundingly effective job," Kitts said. "Greg is working harder than any of the other candidates."

SAM CARPENTER

After buying a telecommunications company in Bend in the 1990s, Carpenter struggled for years to make a go of it. Both the Oregon Department of Revenue and the IRS filed liens seeking payment of back taxes.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Sam Carpenter answers a question at a debate hosted by Oregon Women for Trump on Sunday, March 25, 2018, at the Keizer Community Center.

In the end, Carpenter says, the company, called Centraltel, regained solid financial footing and managed to pay the back taxes. Carpenter wrote a book about the long effort and found a new career as a business turnaround consultant. He claims he's consulted for some 500 companies over the years.

Born in Port Leyden, New York, Carpenter moved to Oregon 40 years ago. He ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in 2016.

His top three goals if elected:

Reverse the status of any Oregon sanctuary city for illegal immigrants.

Protect the Second Amendment and gun rights.

Stop taxpayer funding of abortions.

Carpenter has raised just over $230,000, including $122,000 he loaned his campaign.

Carpenter warned his fellow Republicans that their failure to wholly embrace Trump will cost them in the primary and in the November general election. He predicted a "red trifecta" with the Republicans retaking the House, the Senate and the governor's office.

After focusing his attacks on Brown for the entire primary season, Buehler went after Carpenter last week, pointing out the tax liens filed against him and his company.

"We're being attacked mercilessly. It's because we're in the lead," Carpenter said.

Len Bergstein, a veteran Portland communications and political consultant, described Buehler as "the best-prepared candidate the Republicans have put up in three to four cycles." Yet, he agreed that the race seems to have tightened. "I'm hearing there's a fair amount of anxiety that the Trump-Tea Party crowd has consolidated around one candidate," he said.

-- Jeff ManningThomas Balmer announced Sunday that his six-year run as chief justice of the Oregon Supreme Court will soon come to an end to comply with state law.

Balmer became Oregon's 43rd chief justice in May 2012. State law limits the term of a chief justice to six years, meaning it's time for Balmer and his colleagues to name a replacement.

A new chief justice will be elected by an internal vote of the seven-judge court. That decision is expected within weeks. Balmer's successor will take the reigns July 1.

In an email announcing the transition, Balmer, 66, said he plans to remain on the high court "for at least a few more years" and expects to run for re-election in 2020. Balmer joined the Supreme Court in 2001 and is its longest-serving judge.

Here's a portion of Balmer's announcement, sent to other judges and news outlets:

When I became chief in 2012, our branch -- like state government as a whole -- was suffering from the effects of the recession, and we were struggling to keep the courts open, to decide the cases that come before us fairly and expeditiously, and to continue moving towards our goals of a justice system characterized by the rule of law and equal justice under the law.



Together, we have been able to stabilize important aspects of the Oregon Judicial Department, We completed the implementation of Oregon eCourt statewide, moved ahead with a number of critical courthouse replacement projects that will benefit Oregonians for decades to come, increased judicial compensation by 25% (as of July 1, 2018), and recommitted ourselves to the goals of fairness and inclusion. There will be time later to review our other accomplishments, and, perhaps more importantly, our current "work in progress" and the "to do" list of steps we need to take to make OJD all that we know it can be.

-- Brad Schmidt

bschmidt@oregonian.com

503-294-7628

@_brad_schmidtA public defender who practices before the Oregon Court of Appeals is running against the longest-standing judge now serving on the court.

Kyle Krohn, 34, of Salem says his work ethic and experience are the backbones of his campaign. He's calling for more transparency on the Court of Appeals.

Incumbent Rex Armstrong, 68, was first elected 23 years ago and is by far the longest serving of the 13 judges currently on the court.

Here's a look at the candidates in the May 15 primary:

Rex Armstrong

Rex Armstrong: A native Oregonian, he spent most of his childhood in Salem and Southwest Portland. Armstrong says that at age 18, he came to personally experience the potential life-altering power of the criminal justice system when he was accused of burglarizing a pair of jewelry stores in Raymond, a small Washington town where he was stationed while working as a choker setter for a logging company.

Police thought they had their guy , he says, because someone had spotted him looking through the windows of the jewelry stores earlier that day, but he presented a solid alibi: He had been stopped by a Washington state trooper for a broken taillight at the time of the burglaries while driving back to Portland with his parents.

Armstrong says the experience helped instill in him the importance of a balanced justice system: one that respects defendants' rights without unduly hindering the prosecutions role of pursuing the guilty.

I have long believed that ... had I simply driven home from Raymond alone, the police and local prosecutor would have gone forward with a prosecution of me, and I could well have been convicted by a jury, Armstrong says.

Armstrong graduated from the University of Oregon law school and worked 16 years in private practice, representing clients in antitrust, contract and bankruptcy law cases. But he also represented the ACLU on cases involving freedom of expression and religious liberty.

Today, he lives with his wife, Multnomah County Circuit Judge Leslie Roberts, in Portland. They have 14 children -- 12 who were adopted from China.

Kyle Krohn

Kyle Krohn: He has been a licensed lawyer in Oregon for seven years, all of them as a public defender.

One of 11 children, Krohn grew up in Portland. He graduated from Georgetown Universitys law school.

He spent the first year of his career in Portland, representing clients against a range of charges, including trespassing, theft, assault and drunken driving.

Hes spent the past six years representing indigent clients before the Oregon Court of Appeals and Oregon Supreme Court.

Krohn says hes written over 300 appellate briefs and has argued more than 60 times before the Court of Appeals and four times before the Supreme Court. That makes him "the most productive appeallate public defender in the state," he says, based on other public defenders in his office year over year.

Krohn says the Court of Appeals is understaffed and bears a tremendous workload, but he thinks it should do a better job of explaining every ruling, even if that just means writing a sentence or two.

In recent years, he says, more than 60 percent of Court of Appeals cases are affirmed without opinion, meaning the public is left in the dark about why the court ruled as it did.

Decisions without explanations are merely the unchecked exercise of power, Krohn says.

-- Aimee GreenOn the difficulty of navigating the world in a large body, author Roxane Gay writes, "The bigger you are, the smaller your world becomes."

The phrase stuck with Portlander Rebecca Alexander as she worried about her own world shrinking.

"It's an anxiety-producing experience, when you're in a large body, to go to a place you've never been before," she said.

In response, Alexander has raised more than $50,000 to launch AllGo, an online review platform where users can rate public spaces on their accessibility and comfort for plus-sized people.

AllGo will be like Yelp - but instead of photos of food, users will see images and ratings of booth spaces, chairs and aisle width. It's set to launch in Portland this summer, focusing on reviews of bars, restaurants, theaters and offices.

Alexander, 30, grew up near Medford and graduated from Willamette University. She spent the last five years working in fundraising for nonprofits Bradley Angle and the YWCA of Greater Portland.

"When I was going out on donor meetings and wanting to be impressive and to put my organization in the best light, I really noticed the anxiety I experienced around going to places I'd never been before," she said. "I didn't want my first interaction with this donor I'm trying to impress to call attention to the fact that I'm a fat person and I can't fit in that booth."

She'd arrive to meetings 20 minutes early to scope out seating. It's a fear she traces back to a high school class trip to a Six Flags amusement park, where she couldn't fit on all the rides.

"After waiting in line for 20 minutes ... am I going to have to walk the walk of shame past all of them after the seat belt doesn't close?" Alexander said. "That was the most memorable part of that day for me."

Alexander realized she wasn't alone in her fears. Last year, she sent surveys about plus-sized accessibility to her email contacts and over social media. The responses were sometimes heartbreaking.

"I don't feel comfortable going out anymore."

"I don't go out to new places anymore."

"I don't feel I can exist in this space."

The most basic solution to all this was access to information.

Rebecca Alexander of Portland is one of the co-founders for AllGo. The online review platform will be a place for users to rate public spaces for their accessibility and comfort to plus-sized people. (Courtesy of AllGo)

Alexander connected with Michele Amar, a fellow Portlander, who has experience in technology design, and together they cofounded AllGo last year.

"It wasn't a terribly difficult solution to come up with," Amar said. "We can do something about the not knowing. It seemed like a solvable challenge and one that would have an impact on people's lives."

Alexander's background in nonprofits made her well-suited to scrappy, small-budget entrepreneurial work. A friend suggested the name AllGo, and her payment was a homemade key lime pie. The company mascot is another friend's orange tabby cat, sitting precariously on a far too small box.

Within 19 days, AllGo's Kickstarter raised more than $55,000 from some 1,100 backers. The campaign received contributions and endorsements from known names in the body positivity movement, including plus-sized model Tess Holliday and authors Roxane Gay and Samantha Irby.

AllGo isn't about shaming restaurants or forcing costly changes, Alexander said. But she does hope it will spark an interest in measures businesses can take toward size inclusivity.

"I want this review platform to be a tool for (business owners) as much as it is for fat people to learn the needs of part of their customer base," Alexander said.

AllGo's co-founders were part of a recent panel for Design Week Portland called "The Fattest Gap in Design," which looked at large-body design needs around clothing, home goods, furniture and cars.

Alexander noted that more than a third of American adults are considered obese.

"I don't believe that any restaurant owner is saying to themselves, 'Oh, let me bolt this table and this booth to the floor so a third of my customers can't eat here,' " she said. "I want to know how I can help them and what information would be helpful to them to make decisions around their space."

I met Alexander at Albina Press Coffeehouse in North Portland, one of her regular meeting spots. We sat outside at a picnic table before heading inside, where she pointed out the sturdy chairs and wide aisles that make the space accommodating to large bodies.

"I've never really thought about it in that sense," said the coffee shop's owner, Kevin Fuller. "But if I ever had a situation where someone came in and found themselves uncomfortable, they thought if they sat in something it would break or there wasn't enough room for them to move around the space, it would make me feel really uncomfortable with the way that things are set up."

AllGo will help businesses rethink the needs of larger customers, but its biggest strength will be providing tools to plus-sized people worried about visiting new places.

Other communities can benefit from this concept as well: How accommodating is a space for people with disabilities, or for parents with young children?

With so much information now available in our hands, the digital world should make the real world easier to navigate for everyone.

For more on AllGo, or to sign up for the beta version when it's released, visit canweallgo.com.

-- Samantha Swindler is a columnist for The Oregonian/Oregonlive.

@editorswindler / 503-294-4031

sswindler@oregonian.comPortland Police arrested an attempted murder suspect Saturday afternoon following a traffic pursuit through Southeast Portland and Gresham.

Dustin Clifford Melbourne

Dustin Clifford Melbourne, 31, was booked into the Multnomah County Jail on multiple accusations. He will be arraigned Monday on nearly two dozen charges, including attempted murder in connection with a recent shooting in Southeast Portland.

Around 10:45 a.m., officers spotted a gray Dodge Charger they knew to be associated with Melbourne in the area of Southeast 163rd Avenue and Division Street. Officers attempted a traffic stop, but Melbourne sped off, police said. Police tried using spike strips to stop the car, but Melbourne continued to elude capture, police said.

During the chase, Melbourne damaged public and private property, including fencing near North Powellhurst School on Southeast 135th Avenue, police said.



The chase ended when Melbourne crashed his car near 181st and East Burnside Street. He ran from the car, but was located and taken into custody in the 18400 block of Northeast Couch Street, police said.



The Portland Police Bureau was assisted in their pursuit and arrest by the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office and Gresham Police Department.

-- Grant Butler

503-221-8566; @grantbutlerUpdate: A Portland man admitted to a violation of city code and paid a fine to resolve the issue. Portland police had arrested him after complaints, but it turned out he was firing a BB gun at "fixed objects" on his apartment rooftop. He was not firing at a street fair or people.

Portland Police on Saturday arrested a 30-year-old man after receiving reports that he was on a balcony pointing a rifle at a nearby street fair.

The arrest, which occurred just after 11:30 a.m., came after officers responded to reports that a man was on a balcony in the 900 block of Southeast 11th Avenue. It turned out he had fired a BB gun at objects on the roof.

The suspect, Eben David Eubanks, 30, was booked into the Multnomah County Jail on three counts of Discharging a Firearm in the City. He later pleaded no contest to a violation of city code and paid a fine.

-- Grant Butler

503-221-8566; @grantbutlerSUNDAY



"Sweetbitter": TV series adaptation of the bestselling book about a Midwestern gal who comes to New York, and learns about her palate - and life - working in a restaurant. (8 p.m. Starz)

"Vida": New series about two Mexican-American sisters who return to their old Los Angeles neighborhood after their mother's death, and start to discover family secrets and truths. (8:30 p.m. Starz)

"I'm Dying Up Here": The comedy-drama about aspiring stand-up comics in the 1970s Los Angeles comedy scene returns for Season 2. (10 p.m. Showtime)

MONDAY



"Running Wild With Bear Grylls": The outdoor adventure expert, and his variety of guest stars, returns for Season 3. (10 p.m. NBC/8)

"No Man's Land": David Byars was on the ground in Eastern Oregon for nearly the entire 41-day 2016 occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, by Ammon Bundy and his followers. This documentary looks at that 2016 event and what occupiers and others have to say about why it happened. (10 p.m. PBS/10; streams on the "Independent Lens" website beginning May 8)

TUESDAY

"Chrisley Knows Best": The reality series about a colorful family returns for a new season. (10 p.m. USA)

WEDNESDAY

"American Housewife": Been missing Nathan Fillion since "Castle" ended? Here he is, guest-starring as himself - well, sort of, in the family comedy. (9:30 p.m. ABC/2)

THURSDAY

"Atlanta": This fascinating second season of Donald Glover's comedy-drama-social commentary series comes to an end. (10 p.m. FX)

FRIDAY



"Meghan Markle: An American Princess": A documentary look at Meghan Markle, who's gone from rocking some snappy pencil skirts in "Suits" to preparing for marriage to Prince Harry. (8 p.m. Fox/12)

SATURDAY



"Patrick Melrose": Benedict Cumberbatch has said that appearing in a miniseries adaptation of Edward St. Aubyn's novels, inspired by the author's own troubled life, was a passion project. And Cumberbatch's witty, emotionally resonant performance as Patrick Melrose, a well-born Brit who sinks into dissipation after a traumatic childhood, shows just how closely the actor connects with the role. (9 p.m. Showtime)

-- Kristi Turnquist



kturnquist@oregonian.com

503-221-8227

@KristiturnquistIndian girl, 16, burnt alive after Jharkhand rape

A 16-year-old girl in India was burnt alive after her parents complained to village elders that she had been raped, BBC reported quoting police.We have used your information to see if you have a subscription with us, but did not find one. Please use the button below to verify an existing account or to purchase a new subscription.Jhyalkhana: glass prison

The room was full of guests and the atmosphere was of abounding extravagance. As women in sparkly clothes hovered around Laxmi, I walked straight up to the dulahi and handed her the gift. Badhai chha! Dont forget us now that you got your life partner, I teased. In response, she just smiled and her eyes sparkled. She looked beautiful in a brides attire. It seemed like the traces of coyness accompanied by beaming hope only added to her charm.The Special Aide to the Ashanti Regional Chairman of the NPP, Andy Owusu has warned the likes of Kojo Bonsu, Agyenim Boateng (Gyataba) and others exploiting the name of the Asante Kingdom to be wary of their actions.



According to him, the former Mayor of Kumasi, Kojo Bonsu as well as the founder of the United Front Party (UFP) Agyenim Boateng, have hidden agenda to ride on the back of Manhyia for their parochial political interest.



He is therefore warning them to be cautious of their action otherwise he will be forced to expose them.



The Personal Aide to the Ashanti Regional Chairman of the NPP argues that the two individuals do not have true lineage to the Asante Kingdom but are only pretending just to score political points.



His comments come at the back of recent outrage by the Asantehene over what the King said was covert moves by some individuals within the corridors of power to undermine the Asante Stool.



But Andy Owusu, who is a true blooded Ashanti and Asanteman advocate says the powerful King has nothing to worry about, stressing that no one born of a woman can bring the Kingdom down.



"We want our King to relax and feel mighty on his powerful throne because none of us who are true blooded Ashanti will never sit aloof and allow any group or individuals to denigrate our powerful and revered Kingdom"



He further pointed out that even the individuals whose names have come out as being mastermind of the supposed plot truly appreciate the supreme authority of the Manhyia Palace.



"I have worked with both Gabby Otchere Darko and Asante Bediatuo; I know they can't do anything to undermine the Asante Kingdom and the Golden Stool. They all trace their upbringing and careers to Ashanti and can never do anything to subvert the powers of the Kingdom" he pointed out.



"Take Asante Bediatuo for example, he is virtually part of the Genfi family in Suame because that's where he was raised, Gabby's father is a true Asante, how can they work against us? It is not possible" He retorted



Andy Owusu further noted "If Gabby were to be working against the Asante Kingdom, I would have been his number one enemy, he dares not because he knows that will be a political suicide to him and the entire NPP"



"I remember during the heat of the Afoko and Kwabena Agyapong controversies and when there were fears of break up, Gabby categorically told me there is no way the NPP can disintegrate because its foundation is buried in the Manhyia Palace and anything institution that traces its root to the Asante Kingdom can never die" He recounted



Andy Owusu however believes that the comments by the Royal Majesty only demonstrate his love and affection for the NPP, explaining that for the King to have openly expressed his anger and not conceal it demonstrates that he wants the party to mend their ways.



KOJO BONSU'S AGENDA



According to Andy Owusu, the former Mayor is in the hunt for the running mate of the NDC and so the only way to stay relevant is to fuel political tension using the name of the Kingdom.



According to him, Kojo Bonsu's claims to Princehood is suspect as he is not truly related to the Offinso Stool as constantly claimed.



Kojo Bonsu and the likes have every right to fight for Asanteman but they must not hide behind their political parochial agenda and claim to be acting in the Kingdom's interest.



"If they do not stop their coward acts some of us will be forced to expose them and trace their roots because we know their backgrounds", he warned.







Source: Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured VideoKatie Holley was jolted awake by a cold thing -- what she had initially thought was a small piece of ice that somehow slid down her left ear. Still disoriented, she rushed to the bathroom, grabbed a cotton swab and slowly stuck it inside her ear. And then Holley felt something move. It was like a "rhythmic" movement, she recalled, as if whatever that thing was was trying to burrow deeper into her ear canal.

She pulled out the cotton swab and saw small, dark brown pieces that looked like legs.

Cockroaches have been a nuisance in the Holley household since she and her husband, Jordan, bought their first home last year, she wrote in Self magazine this week. They thrive in warm and damp places, and that includes Florida, where the young couple live and where flying cockroaches called palmetto bugs are most common. Households in warm cities, such as New Orleans, Houston and Atlanta, report more problems with cockroaches than much of the country.

A few weeks earlier, an exterminator sprayed every room inside the couple's house in Melbourne, Fla., and Holley felt what turned out to be a very temporary sense of relief.

That morning, around 1:45 a.m. on April 14, Jordan Holley rushed to the bathroom to help his panicking wife, grabbed a flashlight and looked inside her ear. And there it was, a small part still visible from the outside as it stayed there, lodged in the middle of the ear canal. Jordan Holley managed to pull out a couple of legs using a pair of tweezers, but the intrepid bug had crawled too deep.

The young couple drove to the emergency room just a few miles away. A man sitting behind a desk near the hospital's entrance saw the look of panic in Katie Holley's face and asked whether she was in pain.

"A roach crawled into my ear while I was sleeping and it was stuck," Holley said she told him.

She was given a wristband and taken to a room, where she lay on her side on a gurney, whimpering. A nurse injected the bug with the anesthetic Lidocaine to try to kill it. Holley said she felt the roach move, twitching and wriggling further into her ear as it tried to avoid death. Two minutes later, it stopped moving.

It took the doctor about 20 seconds to pull out chunks of the dead roach, and Holley saw what she thought was the remains of a small insect. She left the hospital nearly two hours later with a prescription for antibiotics and ear drops, relieved that it was all over. She and her husband vowed to never let the experience happen again, stopping by a Walmart to buy earplugs.

Nine days passed, but Holley's ear still didn't feel normal. It was still numb, she said, and she felt some discomfort every time she yawned. Her medicine drops also had stopped passing through her ear, leading her to think that perhaps earwax had built up inside.

She went to her physician for her regularly scheduled appointment and asked the doctor whether she could check her ear. Her doctor and a physician assistant flushed her ear four times. Using an otoscope, they peeked inside, and there it was: another leg.

Holley's doctor pulled out six pieces of the roach's remains - but feared there was still more left. Holley said her physician arranged for her to see a doctor who specializes in treating the ears, nose and throat (ENT) later that day.

As she went home and waited, Holley tried to remember how much of the roach was taken out at the emergency room more than a week ago.

"Did they find the head? Antennae?" she wrote. "I couldn't recall. But I could only hope that the ENT would only need to remove another teensy leg or two."

The ENT doctor placed what looked like a microscope next to Holley's face. A few minutes later, she felt something bigger was getting extracted out of her ear canal. And then she saw it. Not a "teensy leg or two." Not the remains of a baby roach. But a head, a torso, limbs and long antennae of what looked like a fully grown palmetto bug.

For nine days, much of the dead roach sat in Holley's ear.

"I was furious. I was really disappointed with the ER for not having seen that, for letting me believe it was all out," Holley, a 29-year-old sales and marketing manager, told The Washington Post on Saturday. "They said this is something that happens often. I was told there's no need to see anyone or a specialist."

Holley declined to name the hospital she first went to in April.

Luckily for her, palmetto bugs generally don't bite, and if they do, their bites aren't harmful. Holley said she didn't have any permanent damage or infection.

Cockroaches have been known to burrow into people's ears. A South African hospital, for example, pulled two dozen critters out of people's ears over a period of two years, according to a National Geographic article published last year.

"Roaches are searching for food everywhere," entomologist Coby Schal of North Carolina State University told National Geographic. "And earwax might be appealing to them."

But, still, as Holley said: "It was still a roach. In my ear."

(c) 2018, The Washington Post. Story by Kristine PhillipsA threat on social media prompted a police response to a Pennsylvania college Saturday night and into early Sunday morning.

Someone claiming to be a student posted a message on the website pastebin.com and on Twitter, declaring allegiance to the Islamic State group, saying he was planning an attack on Lafayette College's campus in Easton, The Morning Call is reporting.

UPDATE: Lafayette College investigating messages that threaten attack on campus. https://t.co/R8XmOuuoDl  The Morning Call (@mcall) May 6, 2018

According to reports, the poster states he set pipe bombs and pressure cookers around the campus after having been mocked for his faith.

An investigation is underway, but Lafayette College officials said this morning on Twitter, "After an extensive room by room search of the campus there were no malicious or hazardous materials found."

After an extensive room by room search of the campus there were no malicious or hazardous materials found. Public Safety/Easton Police will continue to work with the FBI (lead) on this investigation.  Lafayette College (@LafCol) May 6, 2018

Campus police will continue to work with the FBI, which is leading the investigation, according to Lafayette College.

College officials first learned of the threat Saturday night and encouraged its student body to remain calm, saying an active investigation is underway.

The campus was not on lockdown, but officials encouraged students on campus to remain where they were and off-campus students to stay away, according to reports.A Berks County man is dead after he was hit by a train on Friday.

The Lehigh County Coroner's Office identified the victim as 35-year-old James E. Heminitz, whom authorities say was found dead on the tracks on the 1100 block of Chestnut Street in Emmaus, WFMZ is reporting.

The 7,000-foot-long train was heading from Allentown to Birmingham, Alabama, when it struck Heminitz around 2:30 p.m. on Friday.

An autopsy is scheduled for Monday.Maoist chief says new party will be based on equality

Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal has told party members that unification of the CPN (Maoist Centre) and the CPN-UML will be respectful and based on equality.By Theresa Laverty

Desert life depends on reliable access to water. In Namibia's stark Namib Desert, where I spent 18 months doing research for my Ph.D., wildlife concentrates around natural springs. Increasingly, animals there also rely on man-made ponds intended for livestock.

But water can vary both in quantity and quality, and animals have different needs.

Some species, like the kangaroo rat, can survive without drinking water for years by obtaining it instead from its food. More often, the movements of desert animals are restricted by reliable access to water.

Part of my research examines relationships between bat species and water quality in an African desert.

Based on my observations, I believe that in arid places, people may be able to locate usable water sources and detect changes in the quality of sources they are already using by observing bats.

Water can be hard to access in rural areas. This young Namibian travels two miles round-trip every day to collect water for drinking, cooking and cleaning. Theresa Laverty, CC BY-ND

Measuring pollution with canaries, moss and fish

People have used plants and animals as environmental indicators for many years. Most famously, miners carried canaries into coal mines with them to detect toxic gases, including carbon monoxide, before the development of modern safety equipment.

Today, scientists use many living organisms in their natural habitats to assess changes in the environment. Good bioindicators are typically species that are abundant, common and whose lives are relatively well-understood but also are sensitive to specific disturbances or stresses, such as water scarcity or pollution.

For example, some researchers infer pesticide concentrations by monitoring the population sizes and body conditions of amphibians and fish-eating birds. Plants are useful bioindicators for many types of air pollution because they absorb air through their leaves. Similarly, fish and other small aquatic organisms can be effective bioindicators of water pollution.

Clean drinking water is scarce and dwindling

According to the United Nations, global water use has grown at more than twice the rate of human population growth over the last century. In many places groundwater is being used at faster rates than it can be replenished. And water quality is declining. At least a dozen major cities could face limits on water use in the next several decades.

Water quality typically worsens as humans pump up increasing quantities from underground. Salt and toxic substances become more concentrated in the remaining groundwater as its volume decreases. At the surface, pollution from agriculture, mining and human waste reduces water quality in rivers, lakes and ponds.

Government agencies in developed countries monitor and treat freshwater supplies to ensure that they meet drinking water standards designed for humans and livestock. Costs for laboratory analysis often start at US$100 or more per sample and quickly add up. Therefore, scientists often resort to biological indicators, such as aquatic insects and fish, to assess water quality.

Wahlberg's epauletted fruit bats (Epomophorus wahlbergi) roosting in Tanzania. D. Gordon E. Robertson, CC BY-SA

Follow the bats

In the Namib Desert, pools of freshwater are rare and isolated. The ephemeral rivers of Namibia flow only a handful of days each year, so it is very hard for aquatic insects and fish to travel between bodies of water.

But since bats can fly, they can find freshwater sources over large areas, and may visit multiple ponds in a single night. One question I am studying is whether bats are more likely to travel to seek out high-quality water than to find food.

There are more than 1,300 bat species worldwide, living in diverse environments on every continent except Antarctica. They pollinate plants, disperse seeds and consume insects - including disease-spreading vectors like mosquitoes.

Because their wings are large and uninsulated, bats are vulnerable to dehydration. Even the most desert-adapted species need water.

Water quality affects them directly when they drink and indirectly when they consume insect prey, many of which spend part of their lives growing in water. This makes bats excellent indicators of water quality. In extreme cases, they have died after drinking water contaminated with insecticides or heavy metals.

To find high-quality surface waters, people could observe bat activity levels using acoustic detectors to record bats' echolocation calls.

Although mostly inaudible to humans, people can typically identify bats to the species level by their calls.

Monitoring species that are associated with high-quality water over time would help municipalities detect changes in water quality. During my time in Namibia, I observed that activity by all local bat species dwindled at springs with high salt concentrations.

Preliminary analyses suggest the long-tailed serotine (Eptesicus hottentotus) could indicate the presence of high-quality water in the northern Namib Desert. This species was found to be more active at ponds farther from human settlements with minimal pollution. Theresa Laverty, CC BY-ND

Water chemistry affects different bat species in different ways. For instance, one study found that certain species in Israel's Negev Desert, such as the lesser horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus hipposideros), avoided drinking water of lower quality, while other species appeared to be more pollution-tolerant.

Scientists are still trying to discern whether and how well bats tolerate salty drinking water.

A study from western Australia suggests that elevated salt levels in surface waters due to gold mining may decrease bat activity, foraging and drinking. If this is true, people living in those areas could detect changes in water quality, such as increased salinity, by gauging activities and drinking patterns of sensitive bat species. With new tools such as bat detectors for smartphones, this is becoming easier and cheaper than testing water samples in labs.

Water quality near and far

Water quality challenges aren't limited to distant deserts or cities in arid regions such as Cape Town, South Africa.

In my New Jersey coastal hometown, production wells pump freshwater from about 900 feet below ground out of the Kirkwood-Cohansey aquifer system. As water levels decline in the aquifer, saltwater enters pores previously filled with freshwater. Saltwater is currently approaching my county's wells at a rate of about 300 yards per year.

In addition to groundwater pumping, paved surfaces and deicing road salts have increased salt concentrations in bodies of freshwater across the United States, threatening the state of our drinking water at vast scales.

The Conversation

Bats' potential as environmental indicators is just the latest reason for studying and conserving these important creatures. Worldwide, about one-third of bat species are

meaning that scientists know too little to make judgments about their status.

But with effective protection, monitoring sensitive bat species soon could be a viable way to find clean water in the far reaches of remote deserts - or even the rural United States.

Theresa Laverty is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology at Colorado State University. She wrote this piece for The Conversation, where it first appeared.By Wendy Cadge and Laura R. Olson

Last week, news reports emerged that House Speaker Paul Ryan had forced Father Patrick Conroy, a Jesuit priest and longtime House chaplain, to resign over what many, including Conroy, have claimed is about the content of his prayer.

Ryan initially disputed this account, saying that some members simply wanted a different chaplain to better serve their "pastoral needs."

Seven days later, Conroy rescinded his resignation. And he and Ryan are set to sit down so they "can move forward for the good of the whole House," the Wisconsin Republican said, according to CNN.

We are scholars of religion and American politics who, with Brandeis Ph.D. candidate Margaret Clendenen Minkin, have written about the history and work of congressional chaplains. The present controversy offers a unique opportunity to ask broader questions about why the U.S. Congress employs chaplains and what they do.

History of congressional chaplains

The American tradition of legislative prayer dates to 1774, when Jacob Duche, the rector of Christ Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, was recruited to offer prayers before the First Continental Congress.

After the Constitution was ratified, the U.S. Senate selected an Episcopal bishop from New York, Samuel Proovost, as its chaplain in April 1789.

For its part, the House of Representatives chose William Linn, a Philadelphia Presbyterian minister, as its first chaplain in May 1789. Proovost and Linn each received an annual salary of US$500. After Congress moved to Washington, D.C., local clergy took turns leading prayer before the permanent chaplaincies were institutionalized.

Who are the chaplains today?

Today, congressional chaplains hold full time, nonpartisan, nonsectarian jobs. They are formal officials of the chamber in which they serve. Each chaplain has a staff and is paid as a level IV executive federal employee: currently $164,200.

The chaplains offer public prayers at the beginning of each day of congressional business. They also provide pastoral care for members of Congress and others associated with the House and Senate, including staff, police and family members.

It is noteworthy, however, that they do not demographically represent the American public, and quite strikingly so. Every congressional chaplain since 1789 has been a Christian man, and of those nearly all have been Protestant. Only one, the current Senate chaplain, Rev. Barry Black, has been a person of color. The only time that Muslim and Hindu chaplains have delivered prayers was as one-time guest clergy. It's the same for women.

Church-state separation?

In a nation in which church-state separation is the law of the land, it has long been controversial to have chaplains formally working for the federal government. During the 1850s, Congress received a number of petitions calling for the elimination of the positions. But chaplains remained.

In 1983 a lawsuit led by Ernest Chambers, a member of the Nebraska State Legislature, to end the practice of legislative prayer reached the U.S. Supreme Court. However, the court decided to defer to historical custom rather than asserting a firm boundary between church and state.

The Conversation

In the current controversy, Father Conroy has become the first congressional chaplain ever to leave office in the middle of a congressional term. Whether Speaker Ryan in fact did ask him to resign due to the content of his prayer does not take away from the historic significance of Conroy's departure.

Wendy Cadge is a professor of Sociology and Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Brandeis University. Laura R. Olson is a political science professor at Clemson University. They wrote this piece for The Conversation, where it first appeared.The story of Pa. Rep. Tarah Toohil's protection-from-abuse order against fellow lawmaker Rep. Nick Miccarelli has reached the pages of the New York Times.

The Times profiled Toohil on Saturday, taking readers through Toohil's case against Miccarelli and the larger context it has in the #MeToo movement. The paper points out that in similiar cases in other states, lawmakers were forced to step down. But in Miccarelli's case, he is allowed to work.

From the Times:

Since March 1, when they called on him to quit, top Republicans in the House have taken no actions that would put pressure on Mr. Miccarelli to comply. They have not stripped him of committee assignments, introduced a resolution for expulsion, or even cut his office budget.

House Speaker Mike Turzai refused this week to address the issue. As he strode quickly on Wednesday from the back door of his office suite to an elevator held open for him by a guard, he was asked why Republicans were not moving to expel Mr. Miccarelli or otherwise apply pressure. He did not reply.

The profile featured an interview with Toohil, who had previously issued a statement on the case but had not conducted an in-depth interview.

Another woman accusing Miccarelli of abuse spoke with PennLive's Jan Murphy about the relationship, which included at least one case of alleged rape. Toohil told the Times that hearing about that woman back in February led her to file for a PFA.

Toohil told investigators that Miccarelli threatened her with a gun, along with hitting and verbally abusing her. At one point during their relationship, she said that Miccarelli vowed to crash his car with both of them in it. She feared going public.

"I always felt, if he lost his political career because I outed him, he would kill me," Toohil told the Times.

Toohil was issued a 3-year PFA order and is escorted through the Capitol by a security officer to ensure that Miccarelli doesn't violate the terms of the agreement.

Since then, Miccarelli has refused to resign. He announced March 21 that he would not seek a sixth term in office.Simon Barton, left, and Chelsea Burley wear make shift waders of garbage bags and packing tape as they cross a flooded road in Saint John, N.B. on Sunday, May 6, 2018. Swollen rivers across New Brunswick are still rising, flooding streets and properties and forcing people from their homes in several communities. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew VaughanFlowers, notes and candles are piled high at a vigil on Yonge Street in Toronto, Tuesday, April 24, 2018. A visitation will be held north of Toronto today for Renuka Amarasingha, one of 10 people killed in last month's deadly van attack in Toronto. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Galit RodanUnited Conservative Leader Jason Kenney, in a fiery speech to party members, is promising an all-out attack on the "green left" and those who secretly fund and support the demonization of Alberta's oil. Kenney introduces his leadership team in Edmonton on Monday, October 30, 2017. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason FransonKashmiri Muslims women watch the funeral procession of a local rebel Fayaz Ahmad Hamal, in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Saturday, May 5, 2018. Indian troops killed three suspected rebels during a gunbattle Saturday in the main city in Indian-controlled Kashmir, officials said, while police blamed insurgents for killing three other men in the disputed region. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chairs the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, Sunday, May 6, 2018. Netanyahu said Sunday that Iran is supplying advanced weapons to Syria that pose a danger to Israel and that it's better to confront Tehran sooner rather than later. (Jim Hollander/Pool Photo via AP)MPs in judicial custody spared suspension

Concluding weeks of discussion, political parties have agreed not to suspend the members of parliament unless they are convicted by the court in criminal offences.Families waiting for a word about miners who have gone missing after a tremor at the Zofiowka coal mine in Jastrzebie-Zdroj in southern Poland, on Saturday, May 5 , 2018. Seven miners went missing after the strongest ever tremor at the mine. Two of them were found hours later conscious but hurt, while rescuers continued their search for the other five missing miners. (AP Photo/Rafal Klimkiewicz) Poland OutA member of the clowns troupe, Clown Me In, holds an Arabic placard that reads, "We are yesterday and today, but tomorrow no, we have a show," as she pokes fun at Lebanon's first national elections in nine years, outside a ballot station in Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, May 6, 2018. The group said their act is a message to voters to think about the state of the country and the political stagnation of the last nine years. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)Panel plans new drains for polluted rivers

The High Powered Committee for Integrated Development of Bagmati Civilisation (HPCIDBC) plans to build new drainage systems for five more polluted rivers in the capital, in a bid to clean the stinking rivers in Kathmandu.The Model 3, Teslas mid-market, all-electric sedan includes several unusual features, such as no gauges on the dashboard: No speedometer, no tach, no mileage readouts, no sound system controls. Read more

The Tesla Model 3 appears to be a tale of two cars.

Elon Musk's vision of an electric vehicle for the masses pairs innovative electronics and interior material choices with basic car construction that puzzles the likes of Sandy Munro, whose Auburn Hills firm reverse-engineers products, including cars.

The engineers at Munro & Associates have been tearing into a Model 3 as they prepare an analysis. The firm bought the car in January from a private seller for $72,000.

Munro recently showed a group of journalists and analysts with the Automotive Press Association around the body of a Model 3 stripped of its components, with a sleek, still-assembled black Model 3 sitting nearby.

"This is all dinosaur technology," Munro said.

Lots of steel, less aluminum, which makes the car heavier than might be expected. Munro also said the different types of welds surprised him.

"They don't have a consistent way of doing things," he said.

At various places on the body, white writing pointed out what Munro's team found to be unusual:

"Too many parts."

"Weld flanges too big."

"Unusual to bolt here."

But Munro & Associates also found much to like about the Model 3. A poster shows what is referred to as the Skateboard, an area that holds the car's lengthy battery pack, calling it the "brilliance of the Tesla Model 3."

Arrows pointed to parts of the diagram touting "excellent front suspension for a great drive," "5 bar link for sport car handling," and "the electronic module center, we are shocked by the advanced integration and advanced manufacturing techniques."

As Tesla CEO Musk's ability to deliver on production promises for the Model 3 have consistently fallen short, the reasons could have much to do with basic car making. Musk, who famously described sleeping at his factory in Fremont, Calif., has said maybe the company used too many robots.

Michelle Krebs, executive analyst at AutoTrader.com, suggested that the issues highlighted by Munro's presentation appear to answer questions about Tesla's production.

"This illustrates why Tesla has trouble building the Model 3 and why we're hearing reports of poor quality," Krebs said, noting that the company could have benefited from more automotive expertise. "They know how to do electronics very well. Detroit, Germany, Japan really know how to do the basic building blocks of a car."

Tesla issued a statement about Munro's conflicting impressions about the Model 3, noting recent improvements:

"The primary car evaluated by Munro was built in 2017. We have significantly refined our production processes since then, and while there's always room for improvement, our data already shows that Model 3 quality is rapidly getting better.  Since we began shipping Model 3 last year, we have been very focused on refining and tuning both part and body manufacturing processes."

Some of the more innovative aspects of what Tesla does were shown by Stephen Handley, a senior consultant for Munro. Handley has years of experience with trim work through both Ford and General Motors.

He told a Free Press reporter to place his hands on a floor mat, which was sitting on a table, and push. The mat barely moved. Rather than relying on a hook or something similar to keep the floor mat in place, the Tesla solution used a unique material underneath.

"You don't want your floor mat to slide up under your accelerator pedal," Handley said. "They've got a lot of innovative stuff."Will Pa. voters May 15 break their habit of mostly ignoring primary elections? Read more

You've got time. Primary's May 15. Plan on voting, even though Pennsylvania doesn't make it easy.

There are tons of races. Bone up on candidates. Then vote, even if you no longer vote on grounds it's hopeless and/or since Pennsylvania doesn't make it easy.

Not voting is giving up. Don't give up. Even I don't give up, though the political world the last few decades gave me (and you) lots of reason to.

Ironically, I can't vote for any candidate May 15. Registered independent long ago. And, of course, we're a closed-primary state, cuz Pennsylvania doesn't make it easy.

But, hey, we've got a new woke, engaged electorate, right?

New congressional districts, bunch of open seats, bevy of first-time candidates, chance to oust incumbents (just kidding, most don't have primary opponents). Plus, plenty of women (and Joe Hoeffel) running in a year the vote's expected to be #MeToo-driven.

What's not to like?

"I'm really interested to watch turnout," says Pennsylvania League of Women Voters director Suzanne Almeida. "It's the first big election since 2016 [let me just add here, since the league is nonpartisan, when the world spun off its axis], and there's all this enthusiasm. So, I'm very hopeful but not at all convinced, because we know people don't show up for primaries."

She's right, people. So, show up.

If you don't know what you're doing, check the league's website. Enter your address, see who you can vote for, and for what.

Let's look at some races.

U.S. Senate: Incumbent Democrat Bob Casey, unopposed. GOP has (Trumpish) Lou Barletta and state Rep. Jim Christiana (R, Beaver). Meh. But vote anyway.

Governor: Incumbent Democrat Tom Wolf, unopposed; GOP's got (Trumpish) Scott Wagner; self-proclaimed real conservative Paul Mango; and sensible, civil Laura Ellsworth. Let your conscience be your guide.

Don't forget the five-way Democratic lieutenant governor primary featuring controversial, maybe vulnerable incumbent, Mike Stack; and a four-way GOP race.

The Democratic race, by the way, offers a couple compelling, if un-Pennsylvania-like options: Braddock Mayor John Fetterman; Philly's Nina Ahmad. Check them out.

Also, new area congressional districts have crowded Democratic fields (Republicans, not so much), high drama and gender politics; and, for a state used to seeing slugs on the ballot, an array of capable, credentialed candidates.

In the Fifth (Delco and South Philly) there are 10 Dems: six women, four men; a great slate, and a potential free-for-all. It's got, for example, Chester Mayor Thaddeus Kirkland, state Rep. Greg Vitali, former Philly deputy mayor Richie Lazer, former federal prosecutor Ashley Lunkenheimer, Ballard Spahr pro bono counsel Mary Gay Scanlon, Penn biophysicist Molly Sheehan. A bountiful ballot, indeed.

The Fourth (Montco, Berks) features state Rep. Madeleine Dean, CeaseFirePa's Shira Goodman and the aforementioned Hoeffel, former congressman and current target for possibly ruining Pennsylvania's chance to elect at least one woman to Congress.

See, there's this thing going around that three open seats, Fourth, Fifth and Seventh (the old Charlie Dent seat; Lehigh, Northampton) have strong women running but all three could be won by men.

I guess anything's possible. But I think the state's days of no women in Washington are gone for good, largely thanks to President You Know Who. Especially if turnout's up.

"I do believe we'll see increased primary turnout," says Common Cause chief Micah Sims, "even in legislative races due to all the attention to reform issues such as redistricting, resizing the legislature and voting modernization."

Legislative primaries are mostly snoozers. Though there are open, contested suburban seats and three open seats in Philly due to the retirements of South Philly Democrat Bill Keller, North Philly Democrat Curtis Thomas, and Northeast Philly Republican John Taylor.

All three seats have Democratic primaries. (Republicans not so much.)

Committee of Seventy's voter guide has details on city races. And Seventy boss David Thornburgh says that, for the first time, the guide includes suburban races. It's well-done and worth your time.

So, no excuses. Candidate info's a few clicks away. Get it, share it, vote.

Even though Pennsylvania doesn't make it easy.Within days of celebrating July 4, 1850, President Zachary Taylor was on his deathbed. Read more

Zachary Taylor, the nation's 12th president, was among the least politically experienced men to occupy the White House, and is still considered among our worst chief executives ever.

But he excelled on the battlefield as a fearless soldier who fought in and led major battles spanning the War of 1812, the Indian Wars and the Mexican War.

Jealous fellow generals mocked the Kentuckian's lack of book learning and polish. But that didn't matter after he triumphed over a Mexican force three times the size of the small command Taylor led in the Battle of Buena Vista near Monterrey in northern Mexico in February 1847. Standing on his horse, Taylor dodged a cannon ball shot between his legs, and went on to capture Monterrey City despite its apparent impregnability.

Before long, Taylor was being pushed forward as a candidate for the 1848 presidential election, though he'd never before voted or disclosed his political views. At the Whig Convention held at the old Chinese Museum building at Ninth and Sansom Streets in Philadelphia, Taylor won the nomination, and from there the general election.

It would be a short presidency. On July 4, 1850, a typically hot and humid summer day in the capital, Taylor went to a celebration to dedicate land that would hold the new Washington Monument. He enjoyed a cooling snack of fresh cherries and iced milk, and took a stroll later along the Potomac River.

That evening, he experienced abdominal cramps, diarrhea and then a fever. The next night, his worried physician administered opium, as well as mercury chloride, or "calomel," used as a laxative, a disinfectant, and to treat syphilis until the early 20th century. It also was used in Philadelphia during a major outbreak of yellow fever.

But it didn't help the president, who on July 8 declared: "I should not be surprised if this were to terminate in my death."

The next day the doctors started bleeding therapy and skin blistering. But Taylor, age 65, died on July 9. The diagnosis was cholera morbus, what we would call today acute gastroenteritis, not the modern understanding of cholera.

Some suspected assassination, perhaps by poisoning. What actually took down this previously robust military man?

Solution

Arsenic poisoning, one leading theory for President Zachary Taylor's sudden illness and rapid death, was ruled out by hair analysis many years later. In fact, Taylor's case suggests salmonella or some similar bacteria, possibly from contaminated water used to wash the cherries he had eaten, or to make ice used to chill the unpasteurized milk he drank.

As it turned out, he had company in his sad fate.

A decade before, President William Henry Harrison died after just 31 days in office, also taken down by a sudden and fatal illness. After Taylor's death, it was discovered that the water supply of Washington was contaminated by sewage that flowed into a marsh not far from the White House. The marsh provided an environment for salmonella bacteria and other organisms capable of causing typhoid fever and paratyphoid fever. There was no typhoid vaccine protection or antibiotic treatments as there are today.

Whatever the source of infection, the hot weather and Washington's open, fly-infested sewers undoubtedly aggravated the situation. And Taylor's fate was probably sealed by his doctor's ill-conceived "treatments" of bleeding and calomel, a purgative, which worsened diarrhea and vomiting.

During Taylor's short presidency, the greatest issue he faced was the extension of slavery into the newly acquired Mexican territories. By 1848, Taylor had come to oppose the creation of new slave states, and in December 1849 he proposed immediate statehood for California, whose new constitution explicitly prohibited slavery. Southerners in Congress, who feared a permanent Senate majority of free states, fought back bitterly. Two months after Taylor's death, Congress adopted the Compromise of 1850: To appease the South, the fugitive slave law requiring Northerners to return runaway slaves to owners was made stronger, but the north gained a new free state, California. Though the slave trade was abolished in Washington, D.C, slavery remained legal. And Texas, a slave state, lost land that later became territories that could determine their own status, but Congress compensated Texas with $10 million to pay its debt.

Some scholars have revised history's negative view of Taylor, opining that he was more a forgettable president than a failed one.

Allan B. Schwartz, M.D., is a professor of medicine in the division of nephrology and hypertension at Drexel University College of Medicine.I'm not a runner so you won't see me stretching my legs in Olney, pinning a bib to my shirt, and joining 40,000 runners at the annual Broad Street Run on May 6.

Nonetheless, this year's race is special to me.

My aunt Sophia Verros, an avid Broad Street Run participant, died by suicide in June after a long battle with depression. To say it's been a tough year for our family would be an understatement. My aunt's death has left her family and friends with more questions than answers.

But in recent months, the 10-mile race has given us a silver lining through our grief  and a way to honor the life of my aunt.

Every year, Temple University's Gamma Iota Sigma organization for risk management and insurance students raises money for a local charity. The largest chunk of the students' yearlong fundraising efforts is generated through the sale of Temple's Broad Street Run team T-shirts. This year, the students selected Michael's Giving H.A.N.D., a Philadelphia nonprofit dedicated to educating area high school students and their families on mental illness. Moreover, the students chose to make this year's donation in my Aunt Sophia's name. (She graduated from the Fox School of Business in 1995.)

The organization's fundraising goal for this year is $15,000, and the Gamma Iota Sigma students are well on their way to surpassing that total. That money will go a long way for Michael's Giving H.A.N.D, which works closely with Temple Health System to provide mental health presentations and resources to local high school faculties, parents and students.

In 2009, Fox School professor Michael McCloskey organized the first Temple Broad Street Run team of 15 runners. It has grown a lot since then. This year, about 300 runners have joined the team, including a number of my family and friends who want to honor my aunt's memory.

My dad is also running with the team. It will be his first Broad Street Run since 1992. He is using the race as a way to share our family's experience with a loved one struggling with anxiety and depression. Hopefully our experiences can help others who may struggle to find the support they need.

I'll be waiting for him at the finish line.

This 10 miler is so much more than just a race. The Broad Street Run is helping the Fox School's Gamma Iota Sigma students surpass their fundraising goal. It's increasing awareness to Michael's Giving H.A.N.D. And most of all, to me, it's honoring the life of my aunt and her love for Temple, running, and this beautiful city she called home.

Maria Ceschan graduated from Temple University's Fox School of Business in 2011 with a degree in marketing. She is a digital marketing manager for LD Davis Glue & Gelatins in Jenkintown, Pa.An intruder who broke into a home early Saturday near Broad and Poplar Streets was shot in the upper left arm, police said. According to 6ABC, he was shot by the mother of a police officer.

Police said that about 4:40 a.m., a 43-year-old man broke into a home on the 1300 block of Poplar when the woman who lived there fired a gun at him. The man then fled onto the roof of a car wash at Broad and Brown Streets, where he called police, according to 6ABC, which identified the woman as Maxine Thompson. He was taken to Hahnemann University Hospital, where he was listed in stable condition with a graze wound.

Thompson told the television station that the man broke into the house through a rear window and went upstairs after her.

"I reached down and grabbed my gun; he was at my bedroom door," she told 6ABC. "And I shot at him a couple times. He ran down the steps, and I ran down the steps behind him. I shot some more, and he jumped out the window, he jumped out the same window he came in and he jumped back out."

No further information was available Saturday.If many of the Philadelphia Orchestra's concerts this season have come with a dash of event status, the orchestra this past weekend slipped into a program that was merely pleasant, if a bit dull. Little of the repertoire presented Saturday night at Verizon Hall really grabbed attention, with the notable exception of Stravinsky's striking ancient-modern suite from Pulcinella.

Some of the playing, too, contributed to the routine air, though nothing ordinary passed from the hands of the evening's soloist. The infusion of $5 million over five years from local philanthropist Frederick R. Haas and the Wyncote Foundation for organ-centric programming might raise concern about the influence of money over programming. But the appearance of Peter Richard Conte in Handel's Organ Concerto in F Major, Opus 4, No. 4 was a thrill.

Conte  known as the grand court organist for the Wanamaker Organ at Macy's was front and center at the on-stage console for the Dobson pipe organ. This wasn't the occasion to listen for its full capabilities, but rather for shrewd coloristic choices.

With a small ensemble backing him (no brass, just three woodwinds), Conte took obvious joy in filling in the orchestral voids. He pushed the tempo in the first movement, adding some edge. Three distinct organ voices emerged in the second movement  a breathy flute sound, a fuller French horn, and a small-corps trumpet color.

Nearly the entire program, led by Baroque specialist Nicholas McGegan, was about eliciting the sound of something "other."

In Respighi's Ancient Airs and Dances for the Lute, Suite No. 1, lute is only intimated, with Respighi wrapping his orchestral sound around works by other composers between four and five centuries in the past. What resulted has a wallpaper-ish quality to it, and it is probably all right that the orchestra last performed this piece in 1943.

These concerts marked the orchestra's first-ever performances of Locatelli's Concerto Grosso in F Major, Op. 7, No. 4, and it served an instructive purpose, with some of it referring back in the program, stylistically, to the Respighi and ahead to the Stravinsky (which has its melodic sources in 18th-century Italy).

Another Italian, Rossini, was represented in a fine if not sparkling performance of his Overture to La Cenerentola.

But for truly committed playing, we had to wait for the Stravinsky. Scored for chamber orchestra, the piece functions as something of a concerto grosso. It was a night of solos brief and more substantial for concertmaster David Kim, and you often wished for greater presence and charisma from someone in a position of such visibility.

But others soared. Double-bass player Joseph Conyers seized his solo moment with some individualistic moves. Oboist Richard Woodhams had the gift of subtlety early on when he tapped a sound so softly that he seemed to barely touch the note. Wind-heavy sections featured stylish, fleet playing by bassoonist Daniel Matsukawa, hornist Ernesto Tovar Torres, and trombonist Nitzan Haroz.

The music from Pulcinella leaves individual musicians exposed, and, for all the economy of the scoring, these players responded by finding ways to fill the hall with personality.Police arrest 11 illegal North Korean workers

A team from the Metropolitan Police Crime Division (MPCD) has arrested 11 North Koreans illegally working in Nepal. The arrests were made during a raid at Durbarmarg-based Pyongyang Arirang Restaurant on Friday, according to Superintendent of Police Dhiraj Pratap Shah at the MPCD.Braddock Mayor John Fetterman is seeking the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor in Pennsylvania while Jeff Bartos, a real estate executive from Lower Merion, is running on the Republican ticket. Read more

The Pennsylvania Constitution says a governor needs a lieutenant governor. That notion is once again up for debate.

One bill pending in Harrisburg would abolish the office. Another would allow candidates who win their party's nomination for governor to select their own running mate. Two more bills call for referendums asking voters whether Pennsylvania should keep the lieutenant governor's office, which costs the state about $1.7 million per year.

Meanwhile, we're stuck with the office and voters must choose from among five Democrats and four Republicans seeking their party's nomination in the May 15 primary.

Lt. Gov. Mike Stack III is in a competitive Democratic primary, vulnerable because Gov. Wolf publicly rebuked him last year for verbal abuse he and his wife inflicted on state troopers who protected them and staffers who served them.

Stack, a former state senator and Philadelphia ward leader, pitches himself as a candidate who helped Wolf win in 2014, and who can do that again.

But the incumbent's issues suggest a change is needed, and JOHN FETTERMAN, mayor of Braddock in Allegheny County, is the best Democratic candidate to fill that need. Fetterman has established the can-do credentials to make a difference in an office that is too often irrelevant to what is happening in Harrisburg.

Fetterman, perhaps best known for his failed 2016 bid for the U.S. Senate, has made a name for himself by trying to revive an old steel mill town down on its luck. Wolf is staying out of this fight, neither endorsing Stack nor pushing any other candidate. But that in itself says a lot.

On the Republican side of the ballot, JEFF BARTOS, a lawyer and real estate executive from Lower Merion, is the best choice for that party's nomination.

Bartos, who has teamed with State Sen. Scott Wagner, a York County Republican running for governor, casts himself as the wonky partner to Wagner's rousing populism. His familiarity with issues facing Pennsylvania suggests Bartos, who briefly ran for the Senate last year, would do a fine job in statewide office with or without Wagner.FILE  In this Jan. 10, 2017 file photo, Tom Barrack, chairman of the inaugural committee, speaks with reporters in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York. The Associated Press has learned that investigators working with special counsel Robert Mueller have interviewed Barrack. Two people familiar with the probe tell the AP that Barrack met with federal investigators working on the Russia inquiry. The people spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations. Barrack spokesman Owen Blicksilver declined comment. Read more

WASHINGTON (AP)  Investigators working for special counsel Robert Mueller have interviewed one of President Donald Trump's closest friends and confidants, California real estate investor Tom Barrack, The Associated Press has learned.

Barrack was interviewed as part of the federal investigation of possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia in the 2016 election, according to three people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

The specific topics covered in questions from Mueller's team were not immediately clear.

One of the people who spoke to AP said the questioning focused entirely on two officials from Trump's campaign who have been indicted by Mueller: Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and Manafort's longtime deputy, Rick Gates. Gates agreed to plead guilty to federal conspiracy and false-statement charges in February and began cooperating with investigators.

This person said Barrack was interviewed "months ago" and was asked a few questions about Gates' work on Trump's inaugural committee, which Barrack chaired, and but there were no questions about the money raised by that committee.

A second person with knowledge of the Barrack interview said the questioning was broader and did include financial matters about the campaign, the transition and Trump's inauguration in January 2017.

Barrack's spokeswoman, Lisa Baker, declined comment.

Barrack has rare access and insight into Trump going back decades, since their days developing real estate. Barrack played an integral role in the 2016 campaign as a top fundraiser at a time when many other Republicans were shunning the upstart candidate. Barrack later directed Trump's inauguration.

While the specifics of Barrack's questioning were unclear, Mueller's team has asked several other witnesses about the flow of money related to the campaign.

Investigators have for months been inquiring about the Trump campaign's finances and compliance with federal election law, according to four people familiar with the matter.

Prosecutors' questions have been wide-ranging, these people said, touching on the campaign's data operations, its relationship with data-mining company Cambridge Analytica, payments to Gates and whether there were arrangements that weren't disclosed in filings to the Federal Election Commission, they said.

The four people familiar with the investigation spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details of the confidential interviews.

The investigators' questions about the campaign's finances have come up in interviews dating to early fall while prosecutors were preparing the first indictment against Manafort and Gates.

Barrack, a wealthy real estate investor with close ties to several Mideast leaders, met Trump in 1988 when he negotiated the sale of The Plaza Hotel in New York to Trump. Barrack's publicist in 2016 described the men as having since "solidified a lifelong friendship between themselves and their families."

Barrack employed Gates last year, wrapping up operations on the Presidential Inaugural Committee, before Gates was charged by Mueller.

Barrack spoke glowingly of Trump in a CNBC interview in early 2016.

"He's one of the kindest, and actually most humble, friends that I've had," Barrack said. "I have so much respect for him because at this point in his career, wandering into the milieu was not easy, and he's changed the dialogue of the debate."

Barrack also was among the featured speakers at the Republican convention where Trump formally received the nomination.

Days after Trump's victory in November 2016, Barrack told CBS' "This Morning" that Trump was like an ultimate fighter during the campaign who used "whatever tools necessary to convey a really disruptive message." Barrack said America would see "a softer, kinder" Trump now that Trump had won the presidency.

Mueller's investigators have interviewed dozens of witnesses in the probe into Russia's meddling in the 2016 election. They have also secured the cooperation of former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn and former Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos.

But few witnesses have as much insight into the president's lengthy business career and all facets of his campaign and administration as Barrack.

___

Lemire reported from New York and Suderman reported from Richmond, Virginia. Associated Press writers Chad Day, Eric Tucker and Zeke Miller contributed to this report.Police found Daniel Duignam, a Temple University business student, shot to death in his Diamond Street apartment on Saturday. Read more

Natalie LePera's North Philadelphia neighborhood seemed quiet as she walked up to her third-floor apartment early Sunday morning.

She'd received an email alert from Temple University about a shooting that had been reported hours earlier on the 1700 block of West Diamond, where she's lived since August, but she didn't see any hint of trouble  no crime scene tape, empty shell casings, or idling police cruisers.

LePera, a 22-year-old Temple student, dozed off for a while, and then awoke to another email, this one from a university counselor who asked whether she was OK or in need of support services. A quick Google search revealed that Daniel Duignam, a student at Temple's Fox School of Business, had been killed in an apartment two floors below LePera's.

Police found Duignam, 21, shot in the chest, groin and forearm shortly before 10 p.m. Saturday. The Tatamy, Northampton County, native was pronounced dead at the scene.

Homicide Capt. Jack Ryan said there was no sign of forced entry in Duignam's first-floor apartment, which is next to a fenced-off yard where little kids played basketball and danced to a thumping radio on Sunday afternoon.

"There was definitely signs of a struggle," Ryan said. "The house was ransacked."

He declined to speculate on a possible motive. Investigators have no suspects, but the university tried to send a reassuring message to its campus community.

"While there are many questions yet to be answered, [police] do not believe that this was a random act," Temple University president Richard Englert said in the statement. "Temple University will enhance patrols in the areas surrounding campus as the investigation moves forward."

LePera and her boyfriend, Bobby Giacobbe, said they didn't know much about Duignam; their exchanges were mostly limited to occasional greetings as they made their way in and out of the apartment building.

"The scariest part was, we came home and didn't realize anything had happened," Giacobbe said. Later, the couple noticed a splotch of blood on Duignam's door handle.

Duignam's LinkedIn account describes him as a risk management and insurance student. According to his Facebook page, he went to Nazareth Area High School.

"On behalf of everyone at Temple, I want to extend my deepest sympathies to Daniel's family and friends at this tragic time," Englert said. "They are in the thoughts and prayers of us all."

A handful of Temple students who were stopped near Duignam's apartment on Sunday said they didn't know the third-year student, but tributes piled up on social media.

"Absolutely heartbroken to hear of Danny Duignam's passing. He was a fine young man from a fantastic family," Ken Termini wrote on Facebook. "I had the pleasure of coaching him while I was at Nazareth. You couldn't find a nicer or more polite kid. So sad and senseless. "

"[S]uch an innocent life was lost," Amanda Sroka, a Northampton Community College student, wrote in another Facebook post.

His family could not be reached for comment.

The Morning Call of Allentown reported that Duignam's family is well-known in Tatamy, where his grandfather Luke Duignam was mayor.

In a post on the Tatamy Borough's Facebook page, current Mayor Christopher Moren said, ""I am beyond heartbroken to let you know that one of our own has fallen to a senseless tragedy," and asked residents to keep the Duignam family in their thoughts as they deal with "the unimaginable."

Temple's chapter of the NAACP, meanwhile, decried the gun violence that claimed Duignam's life. "It is tragic that we have lost yet another life here at Temple University," the group said in a statement. "Someone so young did not deserve to lose their life in that manner of violence."

NAACP officials encouraged anyone with information about the crime to contact authorities.

Similar sentiments were expressed by the Temple Student Government, which released a statement that read in part: "We have endured multiple tragedies in just one academic year, and we have seen firsthand the horrific effects of gun violence."

Jenna Burleigh, a 22-year-old commuter student from Lower Salford Township, Montgomery County, was murdered in late August by Joshua Hupperterz, 29, in an apartment not far from Temple's campus. The two had met at a nearby bar. Hupperterz was arrested  after he took Burleigh's body 140 miles to his grandmother's house in Wayne County.

Giacobbe and LePera were left unsettled by Duignam's slaying, the second instance of gun violence to hit their neighborhood in less than a month. Two people were shot to death and a third was wounded at 18th and Diamond Streets when a gunman reportedly opened fire on a crowd at a house party on April 21.

LePera said she wants to move away from the area. "I'm over it," she said. "I'm very over it."Belarus has been accused of hiding cases of African swine fever (ASF) after products containing the virus genome were discovered in Russia.

Strict sanctions were immediately imposed on Belarus pig farmers; as Russian veterinary watchdog Rosselhoznadzor banned the import of pork and live pigs, by-products, sausages, semi-finished products and even cans with the content of pig-derived products.

Rosselhoznadzor blamed Belarus for hiding ASF outbreaks, although the Belarus Government denied the claims, issuing a statement saying: The situation in regard to the animal diseases, including ASF, is sustainable with no registered outbreaks.

However, there have been a number of reports of pig mortality and subsequent culls on farms in Belarus, with no official explanation.

That Belarus may be hiding ASF outbreaks wouldnt be a surprise to veterinary services in neighbouring countries. Ukraine and Poland have repeatedly reported cases of infected wild boars approaching from Belarus territory  which is why Poland is spending $42 million on plans to build a fence one kilometre long and two metres high.

This isnt the first time the ASF genome has been identified in sausages supplied from Belarus  so why has Rosselhoznadzor only now decided to impose restrictions?

Indeed, Vladimir Semashko, the deputy Prime Minister of Belarus, commented that somebody in Russia was lobbying that decision. He went further, suggesting the ban is linked to Russias desire to protect its domestic market.

That sounds feasible. After all, fears of an oversupply are steadily growing in Russia, where production growth is depressing prices.

The Russian Union of Pork Producers (RUPP) estimated that prices for half-carcases have dropped by 15% during the past year and by 2.8% already in 2018 to Rub145,610 (1,694)/tonne. This is the lowest price ever seen in the domestic market and is putting producers under intense financial pressure.

Brazil, the largest foreign supplier into the Russian market last year, has already been the subject of one pork import ban. So the argument goes that by protecting its customers and maintaining sanitary safety of the products on the shelves, Russian veterinary agencies are also removing some pork blocking the domestic market.

The recently imposed sanctions have delivered a major blow to Belarus pig farming, effectively stopping pork exports from the country. In 2017, Belarus pork exports were worth $14m, 95% of which was sold to Russia.

It was exporting small quantities of pork, but these were primarily products with higher added value, such as pork sausages and ready-to-cook products.

Its expected the current restrictions will increase the demand for pork from Russian meat-processing plants and help slow the fall in prices. Even so, this may be only a temporary solution. Russian farmers keep building new capacity, despite pleas from the Government to sit tight.

As a result, Russia produced 3.5m tonnes of pork in slaughter weight in 2017  an increase of 169,400t on the previous year.

Year-on-year comparisons from the RUPP predict that 2018 domestic production could increase by 8% to 280,000t.

Get Our E-Newsletter - Pig World's best stories in your in-box twice a week See e-newsletter example Will be used in accordance with our Privacy PolicyPolice detains constable in gold smuggling case

Morang District Police Office (DPO) has detained a head constable in the 33kg gold smuggling and murder of an alleged gold runner.I dont think Churchill ever wrote much about North Korea, even though the Korean War was going on when he became prime minister for the second time in 1951, and Britain was our ally in that conflict. The outbreak of the Korean War mostly spurred on Churchills preexisting and controversial view in favor of German rearmament. But my mind has wandered back to some of Churchill enduring lessons as I observe the current minuet of the Trump Administration with regard to both Iran and North Korea.

First, is it purely a coincidence that North Korea has made peace overtures right at the moment that the Trump Administration has to make a formal judgment about whether Iran is complying with the nuclear agreement that the Obama Administration reached? Given that North Korea and Iran have cooperated with each other in developing nuclear weapons capacity, isnt it likely that, among other considerations, North Korea is trying to advance the diplomatic position of both rogue states by casting doubt on the durability of any nuclear agreement the United States might reach? If Trump decertifies the Iran agreement next week, the North Koreans are likely to cite this as evidence that the U.S. cant be trusted to reach an agreement.

But second, theres a much deeper problem than mere timing and diplomatic posturing: the essential character of the regimes in Iran and North Korea. The only real remedy for the menace proposed by both nations is regime change. Churchill understood this problem with great clarity in a 1937 article he wrote for Colliers magazine about the dilemma of Nazi rule:

To relax their grip may be at the same time to release avenging forces. Dictators and those who immediately sustain them cannot quit their offices with the easy disdainor more often reliefwith which an American President or a British Prime Minister submits himself to an adverse popular verdict. For a dictator the choice may well be between the throne or the grave. The character of these men who have raised themselves from obscurity to these positions of fierce, dazzling authority does not permit us to believe that they would bow their heads meekly to the stroke of fate. One has the feeling they would go down or conquer fighting, and play the fearful stakes which are in their hands. . . Thus we are confronted with a situation in Europe abhorrent to its peoples, including the great mass of German and Italian peoples, in which bands of competent, determined men under ruthless leadership find themselves unable to go or to stop. It may well be that the choice before Germany is a choice between an internal and an external explosion. But it is not Germany that will really choose. It is only that band of politicians who have obtained this enormous power, whose movements are guided by two or three men, who will decide the supreme issue of peace or war. To this horrible decision they cannot come unbiased. Economic and political ruin may stare them in the face, and the only means they have to escape may be victory in the field. They have the power to make war. They have the incentive to make war; nay, it may well be almost compulsion.

This analysis applies equally to Iran and North Korea today. Trump may be superb at the art of the deal, but count me as pessimistic that he can reach a genuine breakthrough with either Iran or North Korea.This past February Special Counsel Robert Mueller brought the dramatic indictment against Russian actors allegedly responsible for interference in the 2016 presidential election. The Department of Justice has posted the indictment online here. Politico covered the indictment in a good story by Michael Crowley and Louis Nelson. The indictment charged three Russian companies and 13 Russian individuals with election related crimes.

I dont think anyone (including Mueller) anticipated that any of the defendants would appear in court to defend against the charges. Rather, the Mueller prosecutors seem to have obtained the indictment to serve a public relations purpose, laying out the case for interference as understood by the government and lending a veneer of respectability to the Mueller Switch Project.

One of the Russian corporate defendants nevertheless hired counsel to contest the charges. In April two Washington-area attorneys  Eric Dubelier and Kate Seikaly of the Reed Smith firm  filed appearances in court on behalf of Concord Management and Consulting. Josh Gerstein covered that turn of events for Politico here.

Gerstein noted that by defending against the charges Concord could force prosecutors to turn over discovery about how the case was assembled as well as evidence that might undermine the prosecutions theories. He also speculated that trial might expose sensitive intelligence information without the prospect of ultimately sending anyone to prison.

Indeed, Concord has submitted discovery requests demanding information supporting the charges. The Special Counsel prosecutors have asked United States District Judge Dabney Friedrich to put off the formal arraignment of Concord set for Wednesday. The prosecutors assert that Concord hasnt formally accepted the court summons related to the case. They wrap themselves in a cloud of confusion: Until the Court has an opportunity to determine if Concord was properly served, it would be inadvisable to conduct an initial appearance and arraignment at which important rights will be communicated and a plea entertained.

Concord filed its response yesterday. Gerstein has obtained a copy and posted it here. Gerstein quotes this biting point: [Concord] voluntarily appeared through counsel as provided for in [the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure], and further intends to enter a plea of not guilty. [Concord] has not sought a limited appearance nor has it moved to quash the summons. As such, the briefing sought by the Special Counsels motion is pettifoggery.

It is no surprise that they have failed to respond to Concords discovery requests. They dont even acknowledge Concord has appeared in the case to contest the charges. Gerstein reports that Judge Friedrich sided with Concord and said the arraignment will proceed as scheduled Wednesday afternoon. Gerstein also reports that Concord intends to assert its speedy trial rights, putting more pressure on the special counsels office to turn over records related to the case.

I wonder if the Russians might not be more clever than Mueller. For whatever reason, the Special Prosecutor is complicating the issue and seeking to protract the proceedings.

JOHN adds: One hates to be in the position of rooting for the Russians, but the Mueller Switch Project is so distasteful that it is hard not to enjoy the prospect of Mueller having to deal with an actual adversary in court. Meanwhile, this is probably the first time in the history of litigation that a plaintiff (here, prosecutor) has told a court that it may not have obtained good service of process on a defendant that has appeared to defend the case on the merits. Mueller to Court: We didnt really mean it, Judge! We had no idea they might actually show up!

Talk about back-pedaling.Victor Davis Hanson is an author, classicist, military historian, former university teacher, and incredibly prolific columnist. Like a writer of science fiction, he calls on a vivid imagination to conjure an alternative universe. In the alternative universe of his imagination, Democrats are held to the same standards as Republicans. Take, for example, his column What if Mueller questioned Barack Obama? It is in its own way a Swiftian satire of the world were living in.

And then we have the case of Monsieur John F. Kerry. Is it possible to imagine a world in which he is held to the same standard of conduct as conservatives and Republicans? I dont think so.

Former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates was an Obamabot holdover in the Department of Justice for the first few weeks of the Trump administration. In that capacity she played a leading role in the events that culminated in the resignation and indictment of Michael Flynn relating to his alleged dishonesty about an intercepted conversation with Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak. Subsequent events based on Yatess testimony are set forth in this ABC timeline.

I thought of Yates when reading of Kerrys recent meeting with the Iranian foreign minister (cited below). I wrote Yates yesterday morning and again today to ask for her comment:

Dear Ms. Yates: I write for the website Power Line (powerlineblog.com) and write to request a comment from you on John Kerrys reported meeting with the Iranian foreign minister to work against the Trump administrations possible exit from the Iran deal. The story is reported by Matt Viser in the Boston Globe and available online [here].

Will you please comment on the possible Logan Act violation involved in Kerrys meeting as reported in the Globe?

Thank you for your courtesies and consideration.

Scott Johnson

Power Line (powerlineblog.com)

St. Paul, Minnesota

Cell: [omitted]

So far, Yates has maintained radio silence. I think its nevertheless worth asking her a question or two and, as far as I know, Im the only one doing it even if Im not the only one with the same train of thought.

OMG! Logan Act violations!! Send in the G Men https://t.co/FA1dydJGQb  Devin Nunes (@DevinNunes) May 4, 2018( Read 10998 Times)

Source :

Udaipur, Geetanjali Medical College & Hospital today, announced that it has received accreditation from National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers (NABH), the highest national recognition and a mark of quality patient care and safety. This makes Geetanjali Medical College & Hospital, Udaipur the first to be accredited in the state of Rajasthan. With this recognition, it is the only medical college & super-specialty hospital with the highest national accreditation in the west zone. The program was honored by the presence of Chief Guest, Director General Association of Health Care Providers of India (AHPI) Dr. Girdhar Gyani. The program also accompanied the presence of Chairman Geetanjali Group Mr. J P Agarwal, Vice-Chairman Geetanajli Group Mr. Kapil Agarwal, Executive Director Getanjali Group Mr. Ankit Agarwal, Vice-Chancellor Geetanjali University Dr. R K Nahar, Dean Geetanjali Medical College Dr. F S Mehta & Chief Executive Officer Geetanjali Medical College & Hospital Dr. Kishore Pujari as guests of honor. The program marked its beginning with lamp lightning before Maa Saraswati & Ganesh Vandana by Geetanjali College of Physiotherapys students Apurva & Group. Senior General Manager Quality Control Mr. Sukanta Das was over-whelmed & appreciated the GMCH Team to achieve this recognition in a record time of 10 months & 6 days. He also said that for a medical college & hospital to achieve this recognition is a very challenging task which has now become a milestone in history. Dr. Kishor Pujari congratulated everybody for this proud moment & said that the accreditation so achieved is a matter of pride and historical moment. The NABH Certificate was handed over to Mr. J P Agarwal, Mr. Kapil Agarwal, Mr. Ankit Agarwal, Dr. R K Nahar, Dr. F S Mehta & Dr. Kishor Pujari by Chief Guest, Dr. Girdhar Gyani. Speaking on the occasion, Mr. J P Agarwal said, "We at Geetanjali Hospital are proud that our hospital has been accredited by NABH. We are constantly working towards providing the best of services to our patients, enabling the benefits of the latest technological developments in the field of medicine. Patients are the highest beneficiaries of the accreditation as it assures high quality of patient care and safety. This achievement strengthens our commitment to fulfill the needs of the community and provide patients care essential for their well being. This has been the aim since its inception to provide quality care & better treatment for patients" Dr. Girdhar Gyani, Director General NABH spoke on the benefits of accreditation to the patients, society as well as medical community. He mentioned, "It was a moment of pride for NABH also to be awarding the first accreditation to Rajasthan, which is the 19th state in the country to have an accredited hospital & medical college. Also from a list of 550 full NABH accredited hospitals, only 5 medical colleges have this recognition to which now GMCH, Udaipur has also its name registered under it. It is the continuous efforts of the Quality Council of India and NABH to ensure quality of care the patients receive at a hospital. The objectives of accreditation are patient safety & promotion of evidence-based medicine." AHPI Mementoes were presented to Mr. J P Agarwal, Mr. Kapil Agarwal & Mr. Ankit Agarwal and Dr. Kishor Puajri was announced the Vice-President of Rajasthan Sector by Dr. Gyani. Also the mementoes of appreciation were presented to management team & doctors of various departments of GMCH. The program was anchored by GM HR Mr. Rajeev Pandya & Himali Vyas.(Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/687363/Oriental_Pearls.jpg )



The exclusive agreement will bring Tonino Lamborghini's legendary and unsurpassed standards of luxury, exclusivity and customization to the Royal Pearls master-planned community that is currently taking shape in Dubai's Meydan One district.

Tonino Lamborghini s.p.a., is the Italy-based company founded by the heir of the Lamborghini family. By staying true to the tradition and heritage of his family, in 1981 Mr Tonino Lamborghini created a lifestyle experience brand with a wide range of luxury design products to promote a distinctive Italian style and taste. Through this partnership, Tonino Lamborghini has granted Oriental Pearls exclusive rights to use the Tonino Lamborghini brand in Dubai in the real estate sector for a minimum period of 10 years.

"It gives us great pleasure to be able to partner with Tonino Lamborghini for our upcoming projects in Dubai, beginning with Royal Pearls. Oriental Pearls specializes in developing iconic, upscale living spaces and themed communities designed for the modern and discerning urbanite. Joining hands with Tonino Lamborghini enables us to offer our customers the ultimate bespoke living spaces, customized and fitted to designer premium standards that haven't been seen yet in Dubai," said Ma Guolong, CEO of Oriental Pearls.

"After four 5-star hotels and the recent launch of a luxury Tonino Lamborghini Real Estate project in China, I am delighted to start a new partnership in this highly developing sector in Dubai with the Oriental Pearls developer. For the next years to come, our combined efforts will be focused on bringing a new upscale concept of total living to this extraordinary city and country," declared Mr Lamborghini.

Offering a range of smart, networked living spaces, set in carefully contoured lawns and meticulously manicured swathes of greenery, Royal Pearls is an innovative 4.6 million square-foot iconic development that will see over 7,500 premium freehold apartments being offered to residents.

For more information, please contact:

Heba Al Mansoori, Founder & CEO

BIZ COM - For PRoactive Communications

E: [email protected] | W: http://www.bizcom.ae

+971(0) 4 3320888



SOURCE Oriental Pearls-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Fedora Update Notification

FEDORA-2018-43c64deada

2018-05-05 20:25:39.991217

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Name : drupal7

Product : Fedora 28

Version : 7.59

Release : 1.fc28

URL : http://www.drupal.org

Summary : An open-source content-management platform

Description :

Equipped with a powerful blend of features, Drupal is a Content Management

System written in PHP that can support a variety of websites ranging from

personal weblogs to large community-driven websites. Drupal is highly

configurable, skinnable, and secure.



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Update Information:



- https://www.drupal.org/project/drupal/releases/7.59 -

https://www.drupal.org/SA-CORE-2018-004

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ChangeLog:



* Wed Apr 25 2018 Shawn Iwinski <shawn.iwinski@gmail.com> - 7.59-1

- Update to 7.59 (SA-CORE-2018-004 / CVE-2018-7602)

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References:



[ 1 ] Bug #1572099 - CVE-2018-7602 drupal: Remote code execution

vulnerability SA-CORE-2018-004

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1572099

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This update can be installed with the "dnf" update program. Use

su -c 'dnf upgrade --advisory FEDORA-2018-43c64deada' at the command

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Style Crest has been supporting the Manufactured Housing Industry for over 45 years.

Style Crest Inc. has been awarded the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) Supplier of the Year Award for a second consecutive year.

The award was presented during the 2018 Manufactured Housing Institute Congress & Expo held in Las Vegas, NV. Voted on by the members of MHI, Style Crest was recognized for its innovation of new products along with its continued support and advancement of the manufactured housing industry. This is the seventh time Style Crest has been named MHI Supplier of the Year, previously winning the award in 1996, 1998, 1999, 2014, 2015 and 2017.

Style Crest is committed to providing the manufactured housing industry with extensive product offerings and a dedicated service platform that customers count on to support the success of their businesses. Style Crest continues to show leadership in the industry with their complete line of Revolv heating and cooling solutions and innovative foundation cover products designed specifically for manufactured homes. Style Crest recently introduced Titan Xterior Elite, Masons Rock and Masons Brick to provide the industry with more aesthetic foundation covers.

Style Crest is a manufacturer and distributor of over 4,000 products servicing the Manufactured Housing Industry nationally for over 45 years. Style Crest continues to grow through strategic acquisitions to enhance its service footprint as the National Supplier in the industry.Live Dream Colorado donates a portion of their annual proceeds to Trails and Open Space Coalition to Help Protect Natural Outdoor Places in Colorado Springs.

Live Dream Colorado, a local real estate firm comprised of Realtors Lauren D Collier and Rob Hoben, recently donated $1,794.69 to Trails and Open Space Coalition (TOSC). As a member of international nonprofit organization 1% for the Planet, Live Dream Colorado pledges to donate 1% of annual income to support the environment.

Trails and Open Space Coalition, represented by Executive Director Susan Davies and Outreach Director Eileen Healy, accepted the donation on May third. The funds support continued progress on and advocacy for developing the Ring the Peak Trail. Other recent donor-supported accomplishments of TOSC have been the new Bike Master Plan passed by the City with the support of Bike Colorado Springs, as well as TOSCs advocacy for parks and trails development in the new Banning Lewis Ranch Annexation and development. TOSC works to preserve open space and parks, and to create a network of trails, bikeways, and greenways for the Pikes Peak Region. The work of TOSC helps make and keep Colorado Springs a beautiful, unique, and desirable city of choice for employers and for people of all ages.

1% for the Planet is a global organization founded in 2002 by the owners of Patagonia to support environmental giving. 1% for the Planet inspires people to support environmental organizations through annual membership and everyday actions. They advise on giving strategies, certify donations, and amplify impact. There are thousands of business members and nonprofit partners worldwide.

Live Dream Colorado is a Colorado Springs real estate brokerage firm dedicated to providing expert-level skills, zealous advocacy for clients, community philanthropy, uncompromising ethics, and first class service. Realtors Lauren D Collier and Rob Hoben believe that property ownership is a meaningful personal experience for every person, bringing freedom, responsibility, stability, and comfort. We joined 1% for the Planet to give back to our community. And we chose Trails and Open Space Coalition as our nonprofit partner because they preserve the outdoor environment in Colorado Springs, which makes for our incredible quality of life here. We dont take that for granted, and we want to do our part to preserve it, says Live Dream Colorado owner Lauren D Collier.He was told he couldnt make any living from it. He was told to find a better job to do so he could provide a better future for his children. Yet, Daniel didnt give up in pursuing a career he lovesphotography. Today, through his stunning pictures and sharp videos, he has become one of the most sought-after photographers in Ghana. Read on as he shares his story on how he fell in love with photography.

Background

Daniel Kwabena Marmo is the last born of eight. He is a product of the St. Thomas Aquinas Secondary School in Accra, and the University of Ghana, where he graduated with a degree in Information Studies in 2015. After school, he did his national service at the Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ).

Daniels interest in photography began in his early teens. He often flipped through fashion magazines bought by his three sisters who are fashion designers, just to look at the quality of the pictures in them.

Then, fortunately for him, his father bought a camera. He would be the one who would always take the pictures when his family went out for an event.

During his secondary school days, Daniel, on vacations would use his elder brothers smart phone to take pictures and try to edit it himself on the computer.

Due to his keen interest in photography, Daniel borrowed a friends camera and began posting pictures on social media just for the fun of it, with no business interest at the time.

How it turned out to be a business

While in the university, a friend introduced him to a group of young men who wanted a photographer to shoot the launch of their clothing line. Through that contract, it opened the door for him to meet some of the professional photographers in town. One of them is Gideon William Addo, who taught him how to use the professional camera.

The same Gideon mentored him and took him along when going for wedding shoots and other programmes.

Then, a time came when he was contracted to take photos at a religious event.

After I showed the pictures to the speaker who came from London, he was awed. So, he asked me how much I make from taking photos and I told him I have not commercialised it yet. Then, he advised me to commercialise it because I could earn a lot of money from it if I were in the UK. He thereafter introduced me to a lady who was an expert in branding startups. She told me to take the business seriously by registering it and branding myself so as to be recognised.

Daniel took their advice and initiated steps to register his business in the name Marmo Studios. It took six months, at the time, for the registration process to complete.

Within the six months, he went for the launch of a programme at the Accra Mall. That was when his beautiful pictures caught the attention of one of the managers of the shopping mall. Following that, he was invited by the manager to take photos of other events hosted by the mall. This was when he received his first pay check from photography.

His classic photography has earned him other high-profile contracts in the country. He covered the opening of the Kumasi City Mall last year as the official photographer; he did some work for DSTV; he has covered lots of high-profile events like birthdays, parties, and weddings.

For someone who started with having just about four contracts in a whole year, because of his excellent work, now a week hardly goes by without his services being engaged. So, business is good as usual.

Marketing

A very effective method Daniel has used to market his photos is social media. He has accounts on Facebook, Instagram with the name Marmo Studios where clients can have a look at a wide variety of some of his pictures.

Again, another effective means of advertising is word of mouth and recommendation from people. He personally takes it upon himself to reach out to new clients at events, fairs, and the like.

Milestones

His hard work earned him a nomination in the Sony Photography Awards; and the Hamdan International Photography Award in Dubai.

Vision

Daniel says his vision is to make Marmo Studios the largest film studio in Africa; and for him personally, he wants to be one of the best photographers in the world.

Challenges

One thing that became a stumbling block to his interest in photography was the perception of society. Many entertain the wrong thought that certain jobs, including photography, are not for graduates.

This view affected the acceptance level of some of his family members who also felt Daniel would have better used his time to pursue a better job than to do a job which they thought could not provide him a sustainable means of livelihood.

Because I have knowledge in coding, some of my brothers and sisters thought I would rather want to become a software engineer. So, when I told them I would be a photographer they all expressed surprise and questioned whether that was the best job I could find.

However, his late father threw his weight behind him and encouraged him to pursue a career he loves.

Secondly, a challenge that he is faced with is the cost of the cameras. Very powerful cameras are so expensive and with no financial support for startups in the country, most photographers are unable to purchase them.

The role of education

For Daniel, education has been the main difference between him and other photographers. By attending seminars, workshops, among others, he has come to know how to brand his business; how to write proposals and other important things that can help him lift up his game.

How government can support

Daniel thinks government should waive taxes on imported cameras so that, at least, they can become quite affordable.

Advise to young entrepreneursSerbia-Nepal bilateral ties could expand

First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia Ivica Dacic on Saturday said Serbia attaches high importance to its bilateral ties with Nepal that could expand in many sectors.The slum is said to be home to about 5,000 persons including Ghanaians, Nigerians, Ivoirians and other foreign nationals.

The Accra Regional Director of Operations, Chief Superintendent of Police, Mr Kwesi Ofori told the media the area served as a hideout for suspected criminals.

He said:"The place serves as a home for mostly drug peddlers, commercial sex workers and suspected criminals and they have been a threat to residents in the surrounding communities and beyond."

Meanwhile the assembly has explained that the squatters were given one month notice to vacate the place.Five other countries -- Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Norway and Venezuela -- have vouched for the dialogue.

"After jointly examining the options to renew dialogue as soon as possible," Colombian government and ELN negotiators will resume talks "in Havana starting next week," a joint statement read.

"We hope to move forward quickly," added Santos.

On April 18, Ecuador said it was suspending its role as guarantor of the peace talks between Colombia and the National Liberation Army guerrillas, which have been hosted in Quito since early 2017.

Ecuadoran President Lenin Moreno told Colombia's RCN television that he wanted to end Ecuador's role following a flareup of violence along their common border.

Moreno's remarks came as Ecuadoran and Colombian troops pressed a hunt along their respective sides of the border for a small band of ex-FARC rebels turned criminals responsible for the kidnapping and murder of a three-man Ecuadoran journalist team.There were emergency conference calls with Washington lawyers. Court filings were prepared. Web designers remade the companys home page.

It wasnt a business crisis that had mobilized the company, however. It was politics.

Hours earlier, President Donald Trump had announced plans to sharply reduce the size of two national monuments in Utah. Bears Ears, an expanse of red-rock canyons rich with archaeologically significant sites, would be slashed in size by 85 percent, more than 1 million acres. Another monument, Grand Staircase-Escalante, would be reduced by half.

Trump said the decision was about reducing federal overreach. Some people think that the natural resources of Utah should be controlled by a small handful of very distant bureaucrats located in Washington, he said. And guess what. Theyre wrong.

Yet to the tribal groups and conservationists who had been monitoring the situation, including Patagonia, the decision realized some of their worst fears: that the Trump administration would be waging an assault on public lands and potentially opening up protected areas to drilling and mining.

Patagonia was as ready for this moment as any company could be. For more than 45 years, the company has mixed business and politics to a degree unusual in corporate America. While companies are expected to weigh in on everything from gun control to transgender rights these days  and many do so uncomfortably  Patagonia has been unapologetically political since the 1970s.

It bills itself the Activist Company and publicly advocates for environmental protection, fair trade and stricter labor standards. It supports thousands of grass-roots environmental activists and has been involved with Bears Ears since 2012. But until December, Patagonia had never tangled with a president.

That Monday, about 50 Patagonia employees gathered in a conference room to watch Trumps speech. The mood was somber. Within an hour of the presidents remarks, Patagonia updated the home page of its website. Instead of promotional images advertising colorful products, there was a stark message against a black background: The President Stole Your Land.

At the same time, Patagonias legal team set in motion a plan that had been in the works for months: It would sue the president.

Working with a handful of local groups and the law firm Hogan Lovells, Patagonia filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Washington. The lawsuit named as defendants Trump, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, the secretary of agriculture, the director of the Bureau of Land Management and the chief of the Forest Service. And the argument was simple: The Antiquities Act of 1906 gave presidents the power to create national monuments. But it did not grant the power to reduce them.

For as much authority as it gave to the president to create these monuments, Congress gave the president no authority to revoke or modify those monuments, the lawsuit reads. Congress is the sole authority that can undertake such changes.

Patagonias activism has made the company plenty of enemies over the years. Developers, the fossil fuel industry and lawmakers have all gone after it, and this time was no exception. As Patagonia ramped up its campaign, the Trump administration hit back. Zinke and Republicans in Congress accused Patagonia of playing politics to sell more clothes, and the hashtag #BoycottPatagonia began circulating on Twitter.

The barbs only stiffened Patagonias resolve. The companys founder went on CNN and called the Trump administration evil. And Rose Marcario, Patagonias chief executive officer, made the protection of Bears Ears one of her top priorities.

Weve always given to grass-roots organizations; its part of our DNA, she said in an interview at company headquarters. But the fight got a lot more urgent after the election. This was totally unheard-of.

It would have been enough for one day if Patagonia had just been caught up in a public spat with the president. But hours after Trumps announcement, a more urgent crisis emerged: A brush fire was reported in Santa Paula, California, a small community not far from Patagonias headquarters.

The hot, dry Santa Ana winds blowing that day whipped the fire into an inferno, and much of Ventura was soon evacuated. At the very moment Patagonia was preparing to sue the president, its campus was shut down indefinitely and employees fled their homes.

We did a lot of scenario planning for the lawsuit, said Corley Kenna, Patagonias head of communications. We didnt put on the list that life-threatening fires would be happening at the same time.

Protecting a River

Patagonia was founded by Yvon Chouinard, an enigmatic mountain climber with an interest in Zen Buddhism and a passion for the environment. In 1957, he taught himself to blacksmith and began making and selling climbing gear that was less damaging to the rocks he and his buddies were scaling in Yosemite National Park.

Within a few years, he had set up shop in Ventura and was doing a brisk business selling clothing for outdoor enthusiasts. He eventually called the company Patagonia, an homage to the vast mountainous region at the southern tip of South America, where he had recently traveled.

Patagonia developed a cult following and expanded its offerings. But for the most part, the company was a means to an end, a source of funds that enabled Chouinard and his friends to surf, climb and travel their way around the world.

That changed in 1972, when Chouinard attended a City Council meeting to hear about development plans along the Ventura River. Under a proposal being considered, the flow of the river would have been changed, and a prized surf break could have been ruined.

At the meeting, it looked as if the development would proceed. Then an environmental activist, Mark Capelli, took the floor. He presented a slideshow and argued that the proposed changes would harm the birds, water snakes and muskrats in the estuary. The development was halted, the river was protected and the surf break was preserved.

Chouinard befriended Capelli and began to support his work, giving free office space to his nascent organization, Friends of the Ventura River, and helping to fend off several more attempts to develop the river.

That set the template. Patagonia would offer small grants to local activists, give in-kind support through marketing know-how and business savvy, and amplify their message with customers. Chouniard also resolved to give 1 percent of Patagonias sales to support environmental activism.

Patagonia has given out thousands of grants. In Alaska, the company has supported efforts to prevent waste from mining operations from polluting Bristol Bay, a productive salmon fishery. In Yellowstone National Park, Patagonia has worked to protect grizzly bears. In Poland, the company has advocated for the protection of forests. And Patagonia has waded into national politics before, having opposed the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

The company has produced documentary films, including DamNation, an argument against damming rivers. Every other year, it hosts a conference where activists share tips for protests, fundraising and litigation. In 2011, Patagonia famously placed an ad in The New York Times that read, Dont Buy This Jacket, an effort to discourage excessive consumption.

Patagonia has established a unique role in the political and policy ecosystem, and are wiling to be very public about their advocacy, said Neil Kornze, who was a director of the Bureau of Land Management under President Barack Obama and now runs an environmental consulting firm. They are a group of avid environmentalists who just happen to sell coats.

Business is booming under Marcario. A former private equity executive who walked away from finance to study Buddhist meditation in India for two years, Marcario joined Patagonia in 2008 as chief financial officer, drawn to the companys environmental activism.

Thats why Im not on Wall Street right now making a ton of money, she said. Im kind of worried about the planet.

She was named chief executive in 2014 and has overseen Patagonias continued expansion. Revenues and profits have quadrupled over the past 10 years, according to the company.

Under Marcarios guidance, Patagonia has struck out in new directions. It started a venture capital arm, Tin Shed Ventures, named after the metal hut  still standing  where Chouinard once forged metal, and has invested some $75 million in eco-friendly startups.

It has opened a food business, Patagonia Provisions, selling dried buffalo, lentil soup and beer. It recently activated a social network of sorts, Patagonia Action Works, designed to connect engaged consumers with local environmental campaigns.

And the company maintains a team of 18 people focused on supporting activism and distributing grants. Since 1985, Patagonia has given away some $90 million to environmental causes.

Science without activism is dead science, Chouinard said. We want to fund the little activist organizations that are out there on the front lines, the grandmothers in front of the bulldozers.

Writing on the Wall

In 2012, one of the little activist organizations that Patagonia supported for the first time was Friends of Cedar Mesa, a small nonprofit organization advocating for the protection of a wide swath of sensitive desert in southern Utah, including the area that would become Bears Ears.

At the time, Republicans in Utah, notably Rep. Rob Bishop, were intensifying efforts to reduce federal protections of some lands in the state. Doing so could open the door for more oil and gas drilling and uranium mining, bringing in additional state tax revenue.

Patagonia ramped up its support for Friends of Cedar Mesa, offering grants and producing a short film about Josh Ewing, the organizations director, who goes rock climbing in the area. It was the kind of assistance Patagonia had offered to thousands of local groups over the years, and at the time, there was no sense that Bears Ears would soon become a point of contention in a national debate over public lands.

Patagonia has been interested in this area for a long time, Ewing said. More than any company Ive ever seen, they put their money where their mouth is.

As Patagonia learned more about Bears Ears, which was a favorite of rock climbers, it came to appreciate the areas significance. Sacred land to tribal groups and home to Hopi and Navajo ruins and petroglyphs carved into rock walls, it was a largely unspoiled terrain that could be threatened by expanded drilling and mining.

As we got more involved, we recognized the cultural and spiritual importance of the place, said Lisa Pike Sheehy, Patagonias vice president for environmental activism. This was a place that should have been protected 50 years ago.

In total, Patagonia has spent some $2 million on efforts to protect Bears Ears, including making grants to nonprofit groups, producing films and other marketing materials, and buying television ads. And at least for a brief moment, they worked.

In December 2016, with less than a month left in his administration, Obama designated two new national monuments, including Bears Ears. It was a last-ditch effort by Obama to secure as much of his environmental legacy as possible. But with Trumps inauguration looming, supporters of the monuments knew the victory might be fleeting.

We never got the chance to celebrate the monument being created, Ewing said. The writing was on the wall. There wasnt ever a moment when we thought the monument was safe.

Inside Patagonia, Marcario and her staff knew their resolve would soon be tested. On the morning after Trumps election, Marcario sent out an all-staff email. Defending our air, soil and water has never been more important, she wrote. In the last few years, our voice and reach has grown louder and stronger ... we wont stop.

Their fears were quickly realized. Shortly after Trump took office, he ordered a review of some national monuments, vowing to end another egregious use of government power.

During a monthslong public comment period, the Interior Department received more than 2 million submissions, the majority of them supporting the continued protection of public lands. Patagonia said its customers had submitted more than 150,000 comments.

During the first months of the new administration, Marcario and another Patagonia employee, Hans Cole, made numerous attempts to meet with Zinke as part of outdoor industry delegations, according to internal Interior Department emails reviewed by The Times. No meeting with Zinke ever took place, but Cole joined two meetings with Interior Department staff.

Around this time, Patagonia also began planning for its eventual lawsuit. It enlisted Hogan Lovells, which tracked developments on the issue and organized a weekly conference call for the eventual plaintiffs.

Meanwhile, Patagonia ramped up its publicity efforts around Bears Ears and public lands. The company worked with Google to start a website featuring videos, virtual reality and information about Bears Ears. It aired its first-ever television ad, featuring Chouinard sitting by a river, reflecting on the virtues of wild places.

And Patagonia succeeded in its monthslong, retaliatory campaign to move a lucrative trade show out of Utah. For years, the Outdoor Retailer trade show had taken place in Salt Lake City, bringing business and tourism revenue to the state. But when politicians didnt budge after Patagonia demanded that they voice their support for public lands, the Outdoor Retailer show was moved to Denver.

The retailers added an economic argument to the campaign to protect Bears Ears: Outdoor recreation contributes more than $12 billion annually to the Utah economy, spending that could be jeopardized if public lands are developed.

In the end, none of this made much of a difference. In August, Zinke proposed reductions to four monuments, including Bears Ears. Then Trump made his proclamation on Monday, Dec. 4, and all hell broke loose.

Ash Falling Like Rain

That evening, Marcario was driving north along the California coast, returning home from a business trip. As she approached Patagonias headquarters, she could see flames encircling Ventura.

I saw the whole ridge line on fire, she said. I realized we wouldnt be able to go back to the office.

Patagonia enacted its emergency plan overnight. Employees were instructed to stay away from campus, and the company offered to pay for accommodations for anyone who had to evacuate.

A skeleton crew stayed behind at Patagonia, putting out spot fires on campus. The fire spread, surrounding Ventura and consuming hospitals and apartment buildings on the outskirts of town.

There was ash falling like rain, Marcario said. It was something I have never seen before.

As the blaze, known as the Thomas Fire, spread north, Patagonia and the Trump administration sparred publicly. Chouniard, typically a recluse, took to the airwaves to bash Trump. This government is evil, and Im not going to sit back and let evil win, he said on CNN.

Zinke hit back. You mean Patagonia made in China? he said on a press call, accusing the company of playing politics in a gambit to sell more clothes. I think its shameful and appalling that they would blatantly lie in order to gain money in their coffers.

Then on Fox Business Network, Zinke took issue with Patagonias activism. They should focus on how to bring manufacturing back to this country, rather than lying to the public about losing federal land, he said.

The House Committee on Natural Resources, chaired by Bishop, joined the fracas. Patagonia is lying to you, the committee wrote on Twitter. A corporate giant hijacking our public lands debate to sell more products to wealthy elitist urban dwellers from New York to San Francisco.

Soon, the hashtag #BoycottPatagonia began circulating among Trump supporters on Twitter, and Stephen Colbert worked Patagonia into his Late Show routine.

As Patagonia and Trump supporters traded barbs, the blaze became the largest wildfire in modern California history. Burning for more than a month, it destroyed more than 1,000 structures and forced the evacuation of some 100,000 people. Downtown Ventura and the Patagonia campus were spared, but five employees lost their homes.

With the fire still burning out of control Dec. 6, Marcario was working from her home in Montecito, 30 minutes north of headquarters. Friends and employees who had fled were staying with her, although Marcario would later be forced to evacuate.

Then in the middle of what felt like the apocalypse, across my inbox comes an email, she said. Patagonia versus Donald Trump, et al.

Marcario placed a call to her executive team and informed it that she had approved the lawsuit. Patagonia was suing the president.

The President Stole Your Land

Since that week in December, the feud between Patagonia and the Trump administration has continued to simmer.

Bishop replied to Chouinard with a tart letter of his own. Although it is your right, living in a bubble isnt healthy, nor is it conducive to a robust discussion on important matters of public policy, he said. In an email, the committees press secretary said Chouinard was still welcome to testify.

Then in March, The Times published a story that showed oil and gas interests were central to the Trump administrations decision to shrink Bears Ears. After that, Patagonia updated its website yet again. The new copy: The President Stole Your Land and You Were Lied To.

The decision was nothing more than a political favor, Sheehy, the companys vice president of environmental activism, wrote in a blog post. The redrawing of boundaries was deliberate, and directly influenced by an industry that spends millions of dollars lobbying the government to get what it wants.

The Trump administration has not formally responded to the lawsuit filed by Patagonia and the other plaintiffs. Heather Swift, a spokeswoman for the Interior Department, said in an email that claims that the redrawing of boundaries was motivated by oil and gas interests were patently and demonstrably false.

Marcario drew a link between the extraction and consumption of fossil fuels and the Thomas Fire, which some climate scientists believe was made worse by climate change.

These are climate disasters, and theyre going to get worse and worse, Marcario said. We have an administration that isnt paying any attention to that.

And the disasters werent over yet. In January, torrential rains hit the area. Hillsides eroded by the Thomas Fire came loose, and devastating mudslides roared through Montecito, killing more than 20 people and damaging the homes of several Patagonia employees.

Patagonias lawsuit against Trump is tied up in the courts. It has been consolidated with two other cases filed by separate groups, and the government has asked a judge in Washington to transfer the case to Utah. There is no deadline for that decision, and, until then, all proceedings are stayed. Hogan Lovells, which has 25 lawyers working the case on a pro bono basis, has billed $1.7 million in hours to date.

In the meantime, the area originally protected by Bears Ears National Monument is available for commercial use, including drilling and mining, although there hasnt yet been any new development.

At Patagonia, Sheehy said that while the company would see its lawsuit against the president through to the end, it had an expansive time horizon when it came to environmental protection.

These are all long fights, she said. Were in this for 50 years, 100 years.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.He caught the favorite Runnymede in deep stretch to win by a half-length and earn the heaping sum of $4,560. No one in attendance that day could have predicted how long it would take for another 3-year-old to emerge who did not race at age 2 but would still sniff the roses on the first Saturday in May.

Enter Justify, the undefeated chestnut colt with the big white blaze who had won three straight races in 2018 and is trained by the Triple Crown-winning Bob Baffert. Maybe the curse of Apollo would get the best of him at the Kentucky Derby, or maybe enough was enough, and the right horse had finally come along to send that curse the way of the billy goat and the Bambino.

And on Saturday at Churchill Downs, amid a steady and driving rain, Justify proved he was indeed that horse, fending off Good Magic to win the 144th Kentucky Derby by 2 1/2 lengths in 2:4:20, and putting his name right next to Apollos in racing lore. Justify also earned a $1,432,000 paycheck for his jockey, trainer and owners, and rewarded his thoroughly soaked backers with $7.80 on a $2 bet to win. Audible finished third.

Ive seen all kinds, I mean this guy, hes just special, Baffert said. He has that presence about him.

It was an emphatic statement coming from a trainer who, in 2015, won the first Triple Crown in 37 years with American Pharoah and who also presided over the worlds richest racehorse, Arrogate.

Saturdays result, which came in slop that made the race itself more unpredictable, marked the sixth year in a row that the favorite had won the Derby. It was also Bafferts fifth Derby victory.

He said it did not bother him that 136 years had gone by without a horse unraced at 2 winning the Derby. What did unnerve him a bit, he acknowledged, was that his wife, Jill, chose to wear a green dress on Saturday. In racing, he said, green is thought to be bad luck.

She pulled it out, he said. I didnt say anything. I thought, all right, were going to see how good this horse is.

Justify was ridden by Mike Smith, the 52-year-old ironman who is in supreme shape and, in a career overflowing with success, not surprisingly goes by the nickname Big Money Mike. His other Derby triumph came in 2005 when he scored with the 50-1 shot Giacomo, and this time the challenge was to guide his supremely talented, but woefully inexperienced, mount to victory in a jammed 20-horse field.

Which he did, becoming the second-oldest jockey to win the Derby, behind Bill Shoemaker, who was 54 in 1986 when he won on Ferdinand. Keep riding horses like this, and you dont have to work that hard, said a jubilant Smith. They take care of all the work for you.

Justify broke cleanly out of the starting gate  a necessity according to Baffert  and quickly headed to the front of the pack. Promises Fulfilled went to the lead, but Justify never let him get away. In the backstretch, Smith let him relax a bit, but once he asked for Justifys best around the far turn, the horse responded like a freight train. Supercharged, is how Baffert described it.

Chad Brown, trainer of Good Magic, said he was proud of his horse but was unlikely to take another shot at Justify when the Preakness Stakes, the second leg of the Triple Crown, is held two weeks from now.

Justify is co-owned by WinStar Farm, Head of Plains Partners, Starlight Racing and the China Horse Club. WinStar, which won its first Derby when Super Saver romped in the slop in 2010, owns the majority of the horse, and its president and chief executive, Elliott Walden, decided to name him Justify at the suggestion of an assistant. Theres no story, he said, just a good name for a good horse.

The horses large ownership group reflects the rise of partnerships across the industry, even among the sports most powerful owners. In all, nine of the 20 Derby horses this year were owned by partnerships.

As for the other owners, Head of Plains Partners is run by the hedge fund executive Sol Kumin, who earned his first Kentucky Oaks victory on Friday, when Monomoy Girl netted the first-place check for another of his successful partnerships, Monomoy Stables.

Starlight Racing, a small syndicate run by Jack Wolf and his wife, Laurie, usually invests in unproven yearlings, not 3-year-olds. But the trend to team up, Wolf said, is here to stay.

And then theres the fourth owner, China Horse Club, the exclusive and secretive group that has become a major global player in the sport in just five years. It won the Oaks last year with Abel Tasman and then one-upped itself with Justify.

The win today is equivalent to a gold medal in the Olympics, said Teo Ah Khing, the Harvard-educated architect who runs the China Horse Club. Sitting beside him at the postrace news conference was the prime minister of the Caribbean island of St. Lucia, where Teo is attempting to develop a horse racing resort in a place where there are no thoroughbreds.

But truly standing out among all the owners was Kumin, who had scored a double, snaring both the Oaks and the Derby in one weekend, the first time any owner had done that in more than 60 years.

When Kumin won the Oaks on Friday, he maintained that nothing could top it. This feels about as good as it gets, he insisted.

But then came Saturday, and Justifys triumph. Surely, Kumin now felt differently. After all, his philosophy on teaming with others to buy horses is this: Why buy one when you can buy two? So why win one big race when you can win two?

And perhaps the same will also hold true for Baffert in 2018. Why settle for one Triple Crown when perhaps Justify can bring you another?

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.Fosudo also said being an actor also gives him the opportunity to discuss the experience and practical aspect of his career to his students.

ALSO READ: ATBU sacks 2 lecturers for moonlighting and insulting school

Fosudo speaks about his Career

Speaking about his career, the actor cum lecturer said he started his career in 1980 at the Obafemi Awolowo University, where Professor Wole Soyinka and Professor Adelugba amongst others professors mentored him.

The LASU lecturer, who has featured more in Soap Operas, said his choice of choosing TV series is more flexible in times of managing time unlike shooting a movie where you have to travel from locations to locations.Ajienka in his paper titled, Research As Enterprise: Building Innovation, Commercialization, Entrepreneurship (ICE) Ecosystem said Nigerian tertiary institutions are not ranked high among other universities across the world because of the lukewarm attitude of Nigerian scholars towards translating research works into innovation.

Speaking at a one-day conference organised by the Nigerian Defence Academy, the former VC said that 90 percent of indicator to rank universities is based on research.

Havard University among other universities is 36 billion dollars richer than a country because it has placed importance on translating its research work into products and services.

Research institutions must be extremely collaborative, globally recognised and strategically relevant because they are the engine that transforms the economy of a country and creates jobs for the teeming youth.

Ajienka, therefore, advised Nigerian Universities to embrace the culture of innovation, commercialization, entrepreneurship and knowledge value chain development.

More Universities to be established

Meanwhile, the National Universities Commission, NUC has hinted about the establishment of 292 new private universities in Nigeria.The executive secretary of Nigerias National Universities Commission, Abdul Rasheed Abubakar said that the NUC was processing 292 applications from institutions that hope to become private universities.

''While many of those seeking accreditation are fairly small and specialist institutions, such as private medical schools and creative arts colleges, the new institutions will be vital in Nigerias plans to expand student numbers by 20 percent over the next five years'' Abubakar said.

NUC boss justifies the need for more universities

Speaking at the annual conference of the UKs Quality Assurance Agency, NUC boss said there is a dire shortage of university in Nigeria.

''Only 19 percent of the 2 million students who applied to university were accepted last year, with about 30 percent either going abroad or pursuing vocational studies.

ALSO READ: Nigerian Universities are not producing quality graduates

This is a very serious situation  1 million students do not get access to university not because they have failed their exams, but because the capacity [to admit them] is not there,

It is a dangerous thing to have this problem of frustrated youths who are left out on the streets, he said.ALSO READ: Couple share deep kiss on live television

Since noticing the change, fans have thrown this question at each other, finding it hard to believe that the couple, we imagined would be the next best celebrity couple Nigeria has seen, are over.

This comes as no surprise as the pair has been all over each other since they made their relationship public last year.

This was also evident when Juliet and Slim came into our studios for their interview.

So the next question that has begun to haunt is, what went wrong?

Stay with us as the story develops.

Recall when Juliet Ibrahim warned Iceberg Slim against breaking her heart?

Juliet Ibrahim says that Ghanaians are ready to deal with her boyfriend and rapper, Iceberg Slim if he breaks her heart.

She revealed this while granting an interview to a Ghanaian radio station, Joy FM.

Ghanaians are listening, the whole country is behind me. If you mess upif you mess up Iceberg SlimI see the comments from my Ghanaian fans like if you try it, if you mess Juliet up, we will deal with you," the actress warned.

The couple also revealed how they met and fell in love during a trip to South Africa.

This is coming a few days after the celebrity couple shared a deep kiss on a live television programme, dropping the hints that these guys are going to be here for a long time.

"I give him a reason to smile....#MyRideOrDie #BonnieandClyde".

ALSO READ:Juliet Ibrahim partners with NGO to assist victims affected by flood in Benue state

Recall a lot of people were of the perception that Iceberg Slim was exploiting Juliet Ibrahim. While in an interview with Vanguard Nigeria on September 16, 2017, Iceberg Slim was asked if he was using the Nollywood actress' fame to rise to stardom, he unequivocally denied it saying;

"Rumour has it? Ive never heard such, and besides, there will always be rumors when youre in any form of spotlight. Id never exploit anyone, for any type of gain. That would be extremely selfish and immoral. Such behavior goes against my code of ethics."According to the reports, counterfeit passports, drivers licenses, and $53, 000 cash, were recovered from the suspects.

ALSO READ: 22-yr-old Nigerian man arrested for identity fraud in US

The suspects identified as Mayowa Balogun, Danteni Tijani and Dolapo Badmus, have been released after facing relatively minor charges, NBC Chicago reports.

The Maserati SUV, when run through the system was reportedly reported stolen out of Ohio.

The police alleged that the trio was carrying counterfeit passports and drivers licenses, mostly from Great Britain.

According to the investigators, said nearly $40,000 was found in the cars glove compartment and over $13,000 in a coat somewhere else in the car.

Balogun and Badmus were reportedly charged with possession of altered documents, a class 4 felony which allowed them to receive I-bonds, allowing them to regain their freedom almost immediately.

As for the driver, Tijani, he initially faced an additional charge of possession of a stolen motor vehicle but that charge was later dropped.

When Tijani appeared before Judge William Raines, last week, his bond was set at $100,000 and was ordered to be placed on electronic monitoring if he managed to post the stated amount.

Tijiani did just that with the help of a friend barely one hour after. The trio are scheduled to appear in court again later this month.

2 Nigerians nabbed with $500,000 worth of stolen goods in Atlanta

Three people, two of which are Nigerians, have been arrested for helping to receive $500, 000 worth of goods.

Gwinnett County sheriff deputies said they found stolen microscopes, medical equipment and electronics in a Snellville warehouse in Atlanta.

The suspects identified as Gregory Bland, 55; Temitayo David, 55; and Toyosi Ogunleye, 43, have reportedly been charged with theft by receiving.

Instablog9ja reports that the deputies began investigating the case after a California company was defrauded of an order of 40 microscopes totalling $11,555.20 that was shipped to the warehouse on Eastgate Place in Snellville.

According to the reports, the order seemed to have come from an existing customer, but investigators later discovered that the microscope company had been a victim of a business email compromise scheme, which is a type of phishing scam.

Investigators reportedly stormed the warehouse on February 23 and encountered Bland, who said he was allowed to live at the building in exchange for accepting packages for the owner, David.

A statement released by the Sheriff's office revealed that during a search, investigators found the microscopes and other stolen items, including medical equipment and construction equipment.Punchng reports that suspects identified as Akin Ogunsemi and Shina Fatola, are said to be indigenes of Ijebu Igbo in Ogun State.

ALSO READ: Businessman faces N8.4m fraud charge

Among the items recovered from the suspects were fake foreign currencies, charms and other suspected shrine materials.

The suspects will be charged to court upon the completion of the police investigation into the case.

EFCC arrests woman over alleged N45m herbal cure fraud

The Ibadan Zonal office of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), says it has arrested one Aminat Okiribiti for allegedly conspiring with others to defraud a woman of her money, under false pretence.

Mr Ayo Oyewole, the EFCC Head of Public Affairs, Ibadan Zonal Office, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Ibadan on Thursday that the suspect had engaged in Advance Fee Fraud.

Oyewole stated that Okiribiti, with others now at large, had allegedly conspired, using the pretence of providing cure and spiritual solution to health challenges, to defraud the women (name withheld) of a sum of N45 million.

He said that Aminat, age 34, married to one Wande Okiribiti (47) who is still at large, had confessed to committing the crime.

He said she had confessed that some of the money obtained from the victim, was collected by her through her bank account in a new generation bank, located in Ibadan.

ALSO READ: Woman faces N375,000 loan fraud charge in Lagos

Recounting her ordeal, the complainant said that she met Wande (suspects husband) sometimes in October 2014 at Utako, Abuja while in search of a cure for the health challenges of her children.

According to her, Wande presented himself as a local herb hawker and a spiritualist capable of providing solutions to all problems and lured me into believing he had the cure to my childrens challenges.

I subsequently made different payments as advised, totaling N45 million, but became suspicious at the request for funds transfers, which continued without solution to the problem.

Oyewole said that the complainant, having suspected foul play, wrote petitioned the commission, necessitating the arrest of the suspect.

He urged members of the public to be wary of the age-long tactics to avoid falling into the hands of fraudsters.Steadfast friendship

The time is right to explore the ways Nepal and the UK can build further upon historical tiesInstablog9ja reports that the whole drama began after a tenant identified simply as Ayo, demanded for a refund of his N1.3m rent after his house was burgled just days after he moved in.

Ayo reportedly lodged a complaint of the robbery case at the Alagbon police station but nothing came of the investigation.

ALSO READ: Tenant allegedly damages landlords property after eviction

Feeling like his safety had been compromised, Ayo decided to contact the agent for a refund of the remainder of his rent, the cost of the days he had spent in the house, had been deducted.

Going by the report, the agent is said to have delivered the message to Majuka but he refused the demand, stating that it could only be done after a new tenant was ready to occupy the house.

The argument for a refund went on for an unknown period of time until the tenant woke up on Saturday morning to the presence of their landlord and some soldiers who ordered them out of their houses and reportedly had them flogged.

The tenants revealed that the soldiers only stopped beating them after one of them fainted and had to be rushed to the hospital.

73-yr-old landlord arraigned for damage, breaking into tenants home

Similarly, a septuagenarian Lagos landlord, Ogunbamiro Rasak who allegedly broke into his tenants room in his absence and removed property worth N49, 000, was on Tuesday brought before an Ogudu Magistrates Court.

Ogunbamiro, 73, a resident of Kolawole Street, Alapere in Ketu, a Lagos suburb, is facing a three-count charge of break-in, damage and unlawful entry.

Ogunbamiro was accused of forcefully entering his tenants room and removing his belongings which he dumped at the backyard of the house.

The Prosecutor, Sgt. Lucky Ihiehie, told the court that the landlord committed the offences on March 15 at his tenement building.

Ihiehie said the complainant, Akpan Victor, a cook, had reported the incident at Ogudu Police Station.

According to him, the complainant rented a room in the house since 2011 and paid for a year rent which expired in 2012.

The complainant has been paying his rent every six months till 2016 and he travelled to Ekiti State in February.

When he came back on April 4, he noticed that the door of his room had been broken and all his belongings were dumped outside by the accused, his landlord.

ALSO READ: 3 tenants docked over alleged assault on landlord

Ihiehie listed the items as a steamer/fryer worth N15, 000, two pairs of shoes worth N8, 000, a rechargeable lamp, a DVD player, an electric kettle, three trays and an electric cooker all valued N49, 500.

The offences contravened Sections 307(1), 166(d) and 285 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2015 (Revised).

The accused pleaded not guilty to the three-count charge.The assailants were said to have invaded Gwaska village in Birnin Gwari local government area of the state on Saturday, May 5.

According to Channels Television, the attackers, who reportedly came from neighboring Zamfara State, struck the village around 7:00 pm.

Last week, a similar attack occurred in Janruwa community also in Birnin-Gwari local government area in which 14 local miners were killed.

Residents who spoke to the TV station about the latest attack said the bandits shot sporadically and burnt down some houses in the community.

ALSO READ: Bandits kill at least 12 soldiers in Kaduna army base attack

It was gathered that most of those killed were volunteers who tried to defend the vulnerable villagers from the attack.She added that her efforts to help the government negotiate the release of everyone in the custody of Boko Haram will stop.

She said,"All my sons in the bush will come home and surrender for peace".

"I will not relent in my mediating role to ensure everybody in Boko Haram bondage is released."

Mama Boko Haram had in March said that Boko Haram is tired of fighting and would surrender.

The fundraising event was for Complete Care Aid Foundation, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) she founded.

ALSO READ: I pressured Boko Haram to release Dapchi schoolgirls - Aisha Wakil

Meanwhile, the AFP reported on Sunday, May 6, reported that the sect has launched a fresh attack on Lake Chad island.The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the helicopter gunships were delivered to Nigeria by Russia in April.

NAN also reports that the President was represented by the Minister of Defence, Brig-Gen Muhammad Dan-Ali (Rtd) at the NAF base in Kaduna during celebrations to mark the 54th Anniversary of the Air Force.

ALSO READ: NAF takes delivery of MI-35M helicopter gunships

The theme of the year 54 event was, Enhancing Nigerian Air Force Operational Capacity for Timely Employment of Air Power in Response to Contemporary Security Challenges. 

Buhari said the NAF was established in April 1964 to achieve full complement of the countrys military defence system.

As a young Army officer, i took part from the beginning to the end in our tragic civil war and I know the role the young NAF played in the prosecution of the civil war.

NAF has undergone several developmental stages and the government over the years acquired various weopons system to enable the NAF to effectively perfom its roles.

He said the most recent platforms added to NAF inventory by the current administration include, Super Mushsak, the recently delivered Mi 35 Helicopters, the Daimond and various helicopters .

We have also approved the purchase of Super Tucano aircraft.

He added: With the acquisition of these new weopons platforms, there arose the need to train personnel to man and maintain the new aircraft types.

The President also disclosed that within the last two years NAF enlisted and recruited over 5,000 personnel to adequately boost its human capacity, which was in line with his administration efforts of creating jobs for unemployed youths.

Buhari said role of military as an enabler of national development cannot be overemphasized as the efforts would be futile if national security is not first guaranteed.

Let me once more commend the gallant men and women of the Nigerian armed forces and other security agencies for their tireless efforts in defeating Boko Haram and other threats to our nation.

The President saluted the efforts of the current leadership of NAF for performing its assignments wonderfully well.

Earlier the the Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Sadiq Abubakar said the growth of the NAF since the inception of the current administration has been particularly outstanding.

Abubakar said 12 grounded aircraft have been reactivated and personnel strength increased by 7,500 men and 400 officers.

Two Commands and two new Branches have been established and new platforms acquired and inducted into service to meet the evolving security challenges we are faced with.

The air chief said the gap between force projection and fence protection has been substantially bridged with 79 training of about 1000 Special Forces.

He said the special forces have been deployed as part of the intervention force to deal with the lntemal Security challenges of the North Central geopolitical zone.

Some of the forces are deployed in Zurmi Local Government Area of Zamfara, working with other security agencies to deal with Internal Security challenges. By next week, another batch of the special forces will be deployed to the newly established Quick response wing at Nguroje in Taraba State.

In addition, we are putting finishing touches to infrastructure in Keran Plateau State, lpetu ljesha in Osun state, Doma in Nasarawa and Agatu in Benue State to deploy elements of these forces.he said.The Emir confirmed to newsmen on Saturday that the people attacked him after the Friday prayer in Kwandere area of Lafia, Nasarawa State capital.

He said that he was shocked at the behaviors of the people because they were carrying sticks, stones and other weapons.

He narrated that the whole thing started with protest by the people before the Friday prayers.

They said they would not give their lands for the building of 100 housing units by the Federal Mortgage Bank in the area.

They also said their lands were taken over for the building of Comprehensive Primary Healthcare Center, International Markets, among others.

So, they said that I should talk to the governor that they would no longer give their lands for further projects, he added.

Al-Makura explained that he had earlier met with leaders of the group that led the protest and agreed that they would put all their grievances in writing.

I offered to lead the delegation to the governor, but to my surprise they still attacked my convoy, destroyed my vehicles and attacked even police officers, he said.

He denied ordering the police to shoot any protester.

Meanwhile, an eyewitness who preferred anonymity, said their grievances was that their land was taken over by the government with nothing for them to farm.

He added that they were staging a peaceful protest but the Emir ordered the police in his entourage to shoot everyone on sight.

He claimed that five people were shoot, out of which one Hussaini Yahuza died and others sustained various degrees of injuries and were receiving treatment in an undisclosed hospital.

When News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) contacted Police Public Relation Officer (PPRO), DSP Kennedy Idirisu, he said the command has yet to receive report on the incident.Saraki had said that 1% of Nigerias budget would be used to provide basic primary healthcare services across the country.

In a tweet, the WHO Director General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, described the move as the needed drive towards achieving the universal health coverage.

Good news! The President of the Senate of Nigeria, Bukola Saraki committed to ensure 1% of the Consolidated Revenue Fund is included in Nigerias budget to strengthen primary healthcare. Political will at all levels is needed for #HealthForAll, the WHO boss said via Twitter.

Saraki, had in a keynote address delivered at the 58th Annual General and Scientific Conference of the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) on Thursday, May 3, 2918, reiterated the commitment of the Senate towards ensuring ensuring that all Nigerians have access to basic healthcare.

As I intimated when the delegation led by the NMA President and the Executive called on me at my office, and as I reiterate now, Primary and Universal Health Care provision is a key legislative agenda for the 8th Senate under my leadership. It is a promise that we have made to Nigerians, and one that we are determined to keep", Saraki said according to a statement by Olu Onemola, his Special Assistant on New Media.

Recall that on June 24, 2017, the Senate President launched the Legislative Network for Universal Health Coverage and urged the Federal Government to honour the Abuja Declaration of 2001, while also calling for the full implementation of the National Health Act of 2014, which he helped to formulate in the 7th Senate (2011 to 2015).

There is no better place than here today, to announce that the issue of funding will be attended to in our budgetary review of the 2018 Appropriations Bill. The Senate has, with the cooperation of the House of Representatives, resolved to mandate our Committees on Appropriations to ensure that the pledge to set aside 1 per cent of the Consolidated Revenue Fund for the Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF) is met, Saraki said.He said terrorists and not herdsmen are behind the killings across the country.

According to him, the opposition is hell-bent on frustrating the PresidentMuhammadu Buharigovernment.

In an interview with Daily Independent on Saturday, May 5, 2018, Idahosa said corruption is fighting back with much vigour.

He said, "As far as I am concerned, the insecurity in the country is being perpetrated by corrupt people who want to frustrate the war against corruption that Buhari has been dogged about.

"I feel very sad when Nigerians get confused and misled. I said in one of my interviews that corruption will fight back. I recall when President Buhari visited London shortly after he was sworn in as President, he said when he gets home he will release the list of looters. But for strange reasons the party did not release the names then and that gave room for those looters and thieves to retreat and go planning.

"What we are seeing today are not herdsmen, thee are terrorists imported into this country by the looters to cause mayhem and create a situation of crisis in the country. The PDP guys who looted this money and the former leaders who dont want Buhari back want to create a situation of insecurity in the country so he will not return. How do you explain when one will go to a village and kill 73 people and you call them herdsmen?

"We grew up in this Benin, the herdsmen we knew carry sticks and dagger but now you see people carrying AK-47 to kill and you call them herdsmen so as to give Buhari a bad name. These are trained killers imported into this country by the PDP looters, corruption is fighting back. These people know that if Buhari is re-elected, many of them will be in jail."

Obasanjo and Babangida's letter

Idahosa also berated former President Olusegun Obasanjo and former Head of State, Ibrahim Babangida for opposing Buhari's second term bid. He said they do not have the moral right to advise the President.

"Look at former Presidents writing letters to him telling him not to run, what moral justification do they have to advise Buhari? . Buhari was former governor of the North East region which was about five states then but he has no house in Benin or Lagos. And he has no property in Dubai or London but look at other former presidents who came into power without a penny, they are all billionaires today", he said.

"Babangida never wanted to leave office, he set up an interim government and planned how to kick out the interim government. The freest election in this country was conducted under him but he nullified it. He will still sit down and be advising Buhari that has integrity and respected worldwide. Nigerians are being respected today in world because of Buhari.

"Atiku cannot go to America and he is one of those talking. It was Orji Kalu that dropped money for Obasanjo when they wanted to make him President. He rigged elections in states including the Alliance for Democracy (AD) states in the South West. Here is a man that wanted third term even after people helped him into power without him winning his region", Idahosa added.

ALSO READ: Forget it, Obasanjo and Buhari will never be cool again

Obasanjo and Babangida had written separate explosive letters to Buhari, highlighting the failure of his administration and advising him not to seek re-election in 2019.Welcome to the Pulse Community! We will now be sending you a daily newsletter on news, entertainment and more. Also join us across all of our other channels - we love to be connected!Death of the USSR

On December 8, 1991, Boris Yeltsin, who has served six months as president of the Russian Federation, stands alongside the leaders of Ukraine and Belarus and proclaims the death of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union.

The leaders of several former republics, including Russia, agree that the Soviet Union "no longer exists". Soon afterwards Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has no option but to resign.

Yeltsin swiftly launches an ambitious programme of market reforms, privatising key sectors, easing price controls, allowing the ruble to float.

In 1993, he dissolves Russian parliament unconstitutionally, triggering a rebellion, then orders tanks to shell parliament building where deputies have taken refuge. 148 are killed according to the official toll.

The following year Yeltsin sends Russian troops into the small independent republic of Chechnya. In 1996 a peace deal ends the first Chechen war which left tens of thousands dead.

The 1998 financial crisis plunges millions of Russians into poverty. The health and education systems crumble and corruption spreads.

A tsar is born

In August 1999, Yeltsin propelled a virtually unknown figure to become his prime minister. That man was Vladimir Putin who had been head of the KGB's successor, the FSB intelligence service.

Putin swiftly forged an image as a strongman in a country traumatised by a series of attacks attributed to Chechen separatists.

Yeltsin, battling health and drinking problems, sensationally resigned on New Year's Eve 1999, leaving his protege to take control of the biggest country on Earth.

Putin formally succeeded Yeltsin as president at the ensuing election in March 2000.

From 2000 to 2009 the conflict in Chechnya left tens of millions dead.

During his first two mandates -- he was re-elected in 2004 -- Putin reinforced his control over parliament, placed regional governors firmly under Moscow's thumb, demanded unconditional loyalty from the media and restored all the powers of the intelligence service.

He also took on Russia's new super-rich oligarchs, who prospered under Yeltsin, including oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky who was imprisoned for ten years and now lives in London.

Meanwhile Putin also addressed Russia's economic woes, introducing strict monetary controls but also benefiting from huge oil revenues.

President Medvedev

As Russia's constitution ruled out a third consecutive mandate, Putin names a young ally, deputy prime minister Dmitry Medvedev, as his preferred successor as president.

Medvedev is duly elected in March 2008, with no real opposition standing against him.

Putin becomes prime minister and takes the reins of the ruling United Russia party, which controls parliament.

In 2009 Russia is hit hard by the global economic crisis, but afterwards growth resumes.

Controversial return to the top job

In December 2011 a protest movement begins -- unprecedented since Putin came to power -- angered by what the opposition denounced as fraudulent elections won by Putin's United Russia party.

However the wave of protests does not prevent Putin from returning to the presidency in 2012, for a six-year mandate thanks to a constitutional reform.

His election, with 64 percent of the vote, had "serious problems" according to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) which complained that there had been no serious competition to Putin and the result was never in doubt.".

Reviving 'Great Russia'

Putin seeks to restore "Great Russia" , annexing the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in 2014.

This move brings Russia's relations with the West to their lowest levels since the Cold War, with Western powers accusing Moscow of also militarily supporting a separatist struggle in eastern Ukraine, a charge the Kremlin denies.

The United States and European nations impose a raft of sanctions which hit the Russian economy.Hundreds of people were reported injured in the protests after the siege in which a top commander of Hizbul Mujahideen, a key rebel group, was also killed.

Government forces swooped on the village of Badigam, in Shopian district south of Srinagar, following a tip-off about armed militants holed up inside a house.

The rebels refused an offer to surrender, triggering a fierce gun battle, Vaid told AFP.

A specific appeal was made to Mohammad Rafi Bhat, a university sociology teacher who only went underground with the rebels on Friday.

"We brought his father from his home to persuade him to surrender, but he, like all of them, refused," Vaid said, confirming five rebels died in the firefight.

As news of the trapped militants spread, residents took to the streets shouting pro-separatist slogans, witnesses and a police officer said.

Another police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said at least 30 people were injured in clashes with government forces who fired live ammunition, pellet guns and tear gas.

A doctor at a hospital in Shopian said hundreds of injured needed treatment.

"We have reached our full capacity. We have run out of essential medicines, there are no more ambulances," he told AFP.

Fighting this year has left 120 dead, according to officials, including 22 civilians, 67 militants and 28 security forces.

On Saturday, three rebels and a civilian had died in a firefight in Srinagar -- the latest in a string of gun battles in recent weeks across the territory disputed by India and Pakistan.

The region is divided between the arch-rival neighbours but claimed in full by both.

India has deployed more than 500,000 soldiers in the restive region to tackle rising militancy as civilian support for the rebels grows.TU senate meeting put off

The Tribhuvan University senate meeting scheduled for Sunday was postponed due to health issue of TU Chancellor and Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli.According ABC News, the aid group found the migrants drifting at sea in a motor-less boat.

The migrants reportedly told an Associated Press photographer onboard who documented the rescue that human smugglers sailing in a separate boat removed their boat's engine halfway through the dangerous Mediterranean crossing and left.

Favorable weather presumably sparked the surge in sea crossings.

Other migrants are citizens of Bangladesh, Egypt and Libya.

Another 476 rescued

In a separate rescue effort on Sunday, Spain's maritime rescue service was also said to have saved 476 migrants who were attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea from African shores.

The migrants were reportedly pulled from 15 small boats on Friday and Saturday. No casualties was reported in the incident.

Tens of thousands of migrants attempt to reach Spain and other southern European countries every year. They cross the Mediterranean in smugglers' boats. Most of the vessels are unfit for open water, and thousands of migrants drown each year.

ALSO READ: Is migration to Europe a blessing or curse for Africa?

The United Nations says 615 migrants have died crossing the Mediterranean so far this year."Our National Defense Strategy makes clear that we're back in an era of great power competition as the security environment continues to grow more challenging and complex," said Richardson, according to a navy statement.

"That's why today, we're standing up Second Fleet to address these changes, particularly in the north Atlantic."

The 2nd Fleet command was disbanded as a cost-savings measure in 2011, and its assets and personnel dispersed within the navy.

The new command will be responsible for US naval forces along the US east coast as well as the north Atlantic region, a navy statement said.

Before it was disbanded the 2nd Fleet played a key role during the Cold War years, with operations in the North Atlantic and supporting US naval forces in the Mediterranean.

Russian planes and ships have in recent months made multiple incursions in the north Atlantic close to the airspace and territorial waters of US NATO allies, including Britain.

NATO naval officials in late 2017 also reported Russian submarines probing underseas data cables in the north Atlantic.

Russian 'threat'

The 2nd Fleet command currently exists only on paper, but according to USNI News, a publication of the US Naval Institute, the command will open for business on July 1 with 11 officers and four enlisted personnel.

The command will eventually grow to 256 personnel -- 85 officers, 164 enlisted and seven civilians -- USNI reported, citing a memo signed earlier in the week by Navy Secretary Richard Spencer.

The decision to reactivate the 2nd Fleet followed increasing threats in the Atlantic from Russia, officials familiar with the decision told USNI News.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said in January the United States is facing "growing threats" from China and Russia, and warned that the US military's advantages have eroded in recent years.

"We face growing threats from revisionist powers as different as China and Russia, nations that seek to create a world consistent with their authoritarian models," Mattis said as he unveiled the Pentagon's national defense strategy.Sonko took to social media to share the sad news that his son Satrin Osinya has of late had on and off complications that have seen him admitted at Nairobi hospital for treatment.

His message read in part that The Devil is a liar. My adopted son Satrin osinya who survived a brain surgery after a bullet lodged on his brain was successfully removed by doctors at KNH has been of late developing complications on and off.

He is currently undergoing treatment at the Nairobi hospital. All watu wangu just join my family in praying for him. May he be healed in the mighty name of Jesus.

In the midst of the trying times, Sonko put his faith in God and shared Don Moens song I am The God That Healeth Thee.

He expressed hope that Osinyas health shall be restored.

Osinya became a symbol of undying courage and hope in the war against Al Shabaab after surviving one of the numerous attacks by the terror group.

He survived a terrorist attack at a Church in Likoni and was left with a bullet lodged in his head.

He underwent a successful surgery at Kenyatta National Hospital and was afterwards adopted by Mike Sonko.QUIZ: Guess the Road Songs

We can't wait to get back on the road again! Play this quiz and see if how many you can get right!Lloyd Burr: Where can we go... When we need to go?

OPINION: If youre outside of Auckland, this wont really affect you, but itll certainly interest you: Where can you pee and poo now?Find a great selection of commercial real estate, manufactured homes, timeshares and more for Sale

Buy real estate. Find a great selection of commercial real estate, manufactured homes, timeshares and more for Sale in US and Canada.

Search Real EstateTurning tears into happiness

Local govts need to implement plans that satisfy victims rights to justice, acknowledgment and reparationsViolent activities reported during CPN-called banda

Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) were detonated in various places while suspicious objects were planted in public places in the past 24 hours, terrorising the local people.Sellers, especially the smaller ones, are planning to go to court as well as move CCI as they fear that Walmart could bring multiple private labels in India and flood the e-commerce platform with its own products.

With the biggest retail chain of the world, Walmart, just a few steps away from being the biggest investor in and virtual owner of e-commerce major Flipkart, many home-grown trader unions, seller associations and retailers have begun voicing their protest.

They are not just approaching officials in the finance and commerce ministries, but are also planning to knock the doors of the Competition Commission of India, so that the deal can be blocked.

Traders argue that the proposed deal between Walmart and Flipkart could be a violation of foreign direct investment norms. Theres a looming threat of competition getting hurt, making them consult the anti-trust body.

Its really unfortunate that even after having a clear FDI policy, multinationals are finding an escape route, whether it is in retail or e-commerce. Walmart, after failing to enter India in the retail sector through FDI, has chosen the e-commerce route, which will be quite harmful for the trading community, said Praveen Khandelwal, secretary general, Confederation of All India Traders.

If the government and the CCI are not able to help, Khandelwal would want to move court.

The $500-billion American retail giant has always been a cause of concern for local businesses including mom and pop stores as they feared job losses after Walmarts entry.

Walmart set up its wholesale or cash and carry business in India through a joint venture with Bharti Enterprises in 2007, but it hasnt been able to start a multi-brand operation so far due to policy hurdles. It also broke off with its JV partner Bharti in 2013.

Sellers, especially the smaller ones, on Flipkart are also planning to go to court as they fear that Walmart could bring multiple private labels in India and flood the e-commerce platform with its own products. That would take away business from the sellers, one of them said.

In fact, many of the sellers want an assurance that Flipkarts algorithm would promote their products equally after the deal with Walmart.

According to the spokesperson of the All India Online Vendors Association, which has 3,500 sellers on large platforms like Flipkart and Amazon, the sellers community has received no communication or update so far on the deal talks between Walmart and Flipkart.

There has been no communication from Flipkart or other parties involved in the matter. While we understand that the deal discussions are private, it leaves us in the dark as to what is the future for us on the platform. We want to get clarity on the way forward as we also need to plan accordingly, said the AIOVA spokesperson.

We are studying the situation and will take appropriate action, including the legal route, if necessary, the spokesperson added.

Meanwhile, the government does not see any violation in the proposed deal.

A foreign entity making inroads into a sector, which is still in many ways nascent in India, is significant, an official at the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion said.

The deal is not likely to be under government scrutiny, he said. Subsequently, the developments may be supervised by a potential regulator in the e-commerce sector.

An inter-ministerial think tank is currently in the process of preparing a framework for an e-commerce policy within the next six months.

Photograph: Reuters.'The link between global warming and weird, extreme weather events is being better understood every year.'

'India is particularly at risk from such events.'

'Indian communities and urban centres don't have the resilience needed to survive such disasters,' says Mihir S Sharma.



IMAGE: People remove the logs of uprooted trees after strong winds and a dust storm in Alwar, Rajasthan. Photograph: Reuters

2017 was the second warmest year on record.

I have always thought it a pity that this news about the previous year's record-setting warming came in while most of the northern hemisphere was suffering through frigid Januaries; it didn't receive the attention that it deserves.

But this is just another reminder of the way in which climate change is real, and already affecting our lives.

Climate change operates at exactly the wrong pace for policy makers.

It is happening fast enough that we will see real changes over our lifetimes -- real, problematic changes.

But it is too slow for it to be seen as a genuinely urgent problem, whatever the lip service paid to it by political leaders across the world.

It might be useful, therefore, to consider for a moment the likely consequences for India, in the medium term, of uncontrolled global warming -- what climate scientists call the 'business as usual' scenario.

First, much of north India might well become unliveable.

Our cities already hit absurd temperatures for periods in the summer -- close to 50 degrees centigrade in some places. But now this densely populated part of the world will see greater and greater levels of heat stress.

Global average increases in temperature of two to three degrees may not seem completely unmanageable at first, but it means that the extremes of temperature will get that much worse.

Those parts of India already suffering from ultra-high temperatures will see these periods get longer and more intense.

Are we ready for a Delhi that stews at above 45 degrees for weeks at a time?

What are the public health implications of this? The energy consumption implications?

Most of all, will it not drastically reduce quality of life?

Second, the delta regions of the subcontinent are tremendously at risk from rising sea levels.

Parts of Bengal are already enduring high levels of salinity in the soil that makes agriculture difficult, which means that subsistence farmers are struggling.

Our neighbour, Bangladesh, has vast tracts of heavily populated land that are just metres above sea level.

When the seas rise, where will these hundreds of millions of Bangladeshis go? Already Assam politics has been twisted and warped by the issue of Bangladeshi migrants.

Are we ready for vast waves of desperate people fleeing the rising sea? Not to mention the fact that many of our coastal cities will need massive technological interventions just to survive.

Kolkata, for example, is built on a narrow strip between wetlands and river. What happens when the water level rises? How much will it cost to protect Kolkata, or will we just abandon it?

Third, ours is a country that survives on regular weather patterns such as the monsoon. It is already becoming obvious that the monsoon is arriving later and is patchier than it used to be.

Too often it arrives, technically on time, meaning that farmers have sown their crops; but then it hangs about and does nothing for weeks at a time as the crops wilt on the stalk.

In other words, we may be on the threshold of a time when all that we know about farming in India will have to change; when the wisdom of generations as to when to plant, when to harvest, and how to farm will no longer be useful. What will this do to livelihoods in rural India?

Fourth, longer warm spells and less cool winters will have their own effect on diseases.

Already we have seen strange new diseases descend on us, such as chikungunya.

What next? Will the longer warm spells mean that disease pathogens have longer to infect us every year?

Will disease mutation become more rapid? We don't know, but it is a real danger.

Fifth, the link between global warming and weird, extreme weather events like mega-cyclones is being better understood every year.

India is particularly at risk from such events; Indian communities and urban centres do not usually have the resilience needed to survive an increase prevalence of such disasters.

How much will it cost, in cash and state capacity, to disaster-proof our country?

Is that even possible -- after all, even the United States has failed several times to respond adequately to such natural disasters.

There are multiple other such threats from warming -- threats that are accelerating in frequency and becoming more intense.

Our response, and the global response, is simply not ambitious enough. And I am not just talking about Donald Trump here.

Countries like Germany, which should know better, have chosen to replace nuclear power with thermal power, which increases their emissions of the carbon that causes global warming.

The People's Republic of China has loudly declared its commitment to climate change, and gained worldwide applause for planning shut-downs of its coal-fired energy plants.

But it is stepping up its financing of such plants outside, including in Pakistan -- just as other sources of funding for thermal power were drying up.

We know that combating global warming is expensive. But it is worth reminding ourselves regularly of the vast stakes, and the huge costs that India in particular will have to pay if the effort to counter climate change fails.As politicians fast to score brownie points, they should know that not every fast has a desirable ending, says Arundhuti Dasgupta.



IMAGE: A photograph of Congress leaders in Delhi eating before sitting on a fast was circulated on social media, April 9, 2018. Photograph: ANI

There is something disturbing about a photograph of well-fed men gorging on plates full of greasy food just before a much-publicised hunger strike.

So when members of the Congress party, clad in the trademark politician's uniform of all-white kurta-pyjamas were caught doing just that, hawk-eyed social media trolls were quick to swoop down on their chicanery.

The feast eroded the sacrificial piety that the party was plumping for, but nothing can quite take away from the power of the fast as a symbol of sacrifice, be it among the poor and powerless or the rich and powerful.

Prime Minister Modi too undertook a one-day fast to protest the disruption of Parliament by Congress members.

Denying oneself the pleasure of food has always been a potent symbol.

It has been used in literary narratives, in political protests and people's movements and in nearly every culture, is imbued with deep religious overtones.

In some instances it is used to show displeasure, as Kaikeyi famously did to Dasaratha to demand that he make Bharata the king of Ayodhya.

In myths, it is also used to draw the attention of the major gods; Parvati, for example, survived on just fruits and roots and then soon gave that up, too, when she sought to win Shiva's love.

There are numerous instances of the severe fast that kings and gods have undertaken to seek a boon of immortality or victory over a strong rival.

The practice was also absorbed into the organised religious framework and a fast then formed part of a set of severe hardships set down for ascetics and monks in Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.

It is a form of penitence among some followers of Christianity when, during the Lent period, they give up certain foods and luxuries.

In Islam fasting is compulsory for all (healthy) adults during the month of Ramadan and there are many examples of similar practices in other religions too.

Remarkably in Hinduism, the fast as a symbol of personal purification, repentance, protest and whatever else transformed itself into one of sacrifice.

Instead of blood sacrifice, the devotee soon turned to self-denial as a form of prayer.

This came about when a group from within the religion condemned the animal sacrifices that had become rampant among its followers and also under the influence of pacifist religions such as Buddhism.

Violence that is at the heart of such practice was replaced by a non-violent ritual. And it is this aspect of the fast that Mahatma Gandhi evoked so successfully in his battle against British colonial rule, giving new life to the concept of ahimsa that is wound inextricably around the ritual of fasting in several festivals in the region.

The fast also formed a key element of the practice of vratas in India.

Vrata means a vow or a resolve and it usually denotes an individual's decision to give something up to get something in return. It could involve forgoing food, going on a pilgrimage or carrying out a gruesome sacrifice.

Vratas have led to an entire category of folk literature about the lives of gods and goddesses in the form of vrata-kathas -- these were mostly narrated and heard by women.

There is a dark side to these kathas that were also used to reinforce the gender inequalities that marked the social structures of the time.

The priestly classes used these stories to set down the rules for a good wife whose life was to be dedicated to the welfare of her husband and children.

Men could fast, too, along with their wives, but the family honour was not tied to their abstinence as much as it was for that of women, some of these tales declared.

However, as politicians continue to use the ancient practice to score brownie points in their present-day electoral battles, it may be wise to know that not every fast results in a desirable ending.

The story about Ravana and his mother being a case in point.

A great devotee of Shiva, Ravana's mother was distraught when she discovered that the Shivalinga that she worshipped had been stolen by the king of gods, Indra.

She went on a fast until death or the return of the idol. Ravana undertook a severe penance to bring it back, which he did, but in the end lost it again because he failed to keep a condition that Shiva had set for the safe return of his prized possession.

Ravana was asked not to set the idol down on the ground under any condition, however, fate decreed otherwise and Ravana lost the idol.

For the Indian political parties, if they are to truly use the power of a fast, it may be better to measure their commitment to the cause they are willing to go hungry for.He was sorry if he had hurt his parents, the son told his father on the phone.

It was the first call of the day that Fayaz Ahmed Bhat received from his sociologist son -- and the last ever.

Bhat was still bleary-eyed at his residence in Chundana in Ganderbal when his mobile phone rang early on Sunday morning, he told the police later.

It was his son Mohammed Rafi Bhat. calling to bid farewell.

I am sorry if I have hurt you, Rafi told his father before he was gunned down in an encounter with security forces at Shopian in South Kashmir on Sunday.

Rafi had left home on Friday last week and joined the Hizbul Mujahideen terror group, the police said.

The Jammu and Kashmir police, which was monitoring all calls from the encounter site, quickly got cracking and sent a police team to Bhat asking him to convince his son to surrender.

The father, accompanied by his mother, sister and wife, started their journey from their home to the encounter site. But barely after reaching Bota Kadal, 14 km from their home, they heard the news about Rafis end.

The family returned home to prepare for his funeral.

The senior Bhat told the police about his last conversation with his son and indicated he was convinced Rafi would not be there to hear their pleas, asking him to surrender.

I am sorry if I have hurt you and this is my last call as I am going to meet Allah, Rafi told his father, who recounted the conversation to the police.

Rafi Bhat, a 33-year-old professor on contract with the Kashmir Universitys Sociology department, had left the varsity premises on Friday and had been missing since then.

Reports had suggested he had joined the terror group but his father had repeatedly told the police Rafi would not pick up arms.

Fayaz Ahmed Bhat, who was an overground worker for a terror outfit in the early 1990s, had been keeping a strict watch on his son ever since he had attempted to move to Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir at age of 18 but was caught by the police and handed over to his parents.

Rafi, a PhD in his discipline, was among the five terrorists killed by security personnel at the Budgam area of Shopian.

Two of his first cousins were also involved in militancy and had died in the early 1990s.Seven Indian engineers of an RPG group company working in Afghanistans northern Baghlan province were abducted on Sunday by Taliban gunmen who apparently mistook them for government employees, media reports said.

The external affairs ministry said in New Delhi it is in touch with authorities in Afghanistan and is ascertaining the details of the incident.

The Taliban terrorists abducted the Indians, working for Maharashtra-based company KEC, and their Afghan driver early on Sunday morning in Bagh-e-Shamal area of the provincial capital Pul-e-Khomre, TOLOnews reported, citing officials.

According to the Associated Press, the seven Indian nationals were electrical engineers.

The company employees were abducted while they were travelling to the area where KEC has a contract to operate an electricity sub-station, the Afghan news channel reported.

Baghlan Governor Abdulhai Nemati said the Taliban group took the engineers hostage and moved them to the Dand-e-Shahabuddin area of Pul-e-Khumri city, according to the report.

It quoted Nemati as saying that the Afghan authorities spoke with the Taliban via local people and the terror group said it had abducted them, believing they were government employees.

No group has, however, claimed responsibility for the abduction.

Nemati said they are trying to get the abductees released through tribe elders and mediation.

In response to queries, the external affairs ministry spokesperson said, We are aware of the abduction of Indian nationals from Baghlan province in Afghanistan. We are in contact with the Afghan authorities and further details are being ascertained.

Harsh Goenka, the chairman of the RPG Enterprises, the parent company of KEC, said he has requested External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to help rescue its employees.

Request @SushmaSwaraj and Ministry of External Affairs to help rescue 7 of our managers from the kidnapping in Afghanistan.#KEC, Goenka tweeted.

KEC, a global infrastructure engineering, procurement and construction major, is one of the largest Indian companies in Afghanistan.Defending the Bharatiya Janata Party leaderships decision of giving tickets to mining barons,the Reddy brothers of Ballari and their associates, BJPs chief ministerial candidate B S Yeddyurappa on Sunday said that winning each assembly constituency was important for the party.

Yeddyurappa said he was aware of his past experiences with the Reddy brothers and would cautiously move ahead.

All the former and present MLAs of Ballari, including Sriramulu, are with us. While two of them left us, we gave tickets to the rest of them. They will surely win. Victory is equally important, he said.

BJP has fielded G Somashekhara Reddy in Ballari city and his elder brother and former Ballari Lok Sabha member G Karunakara Reddy in Harappanahalli in Davanagere district.

Another brother, Janardhana Reddy, has been barred from entering Ballari, in accordance with his bail conditions in the illegal mining case and is camping near Molakalmuru in Chitradurga district overseeing the campaign of his siblings as also the BJP.

Yeddyurappa said Janardhana Reddy had not expected a ticket to contest the polls and added that if he felt he should help, he was free to do so independently.

I admit I should move cautiously, he told a meet-the-press programme organised by the Press Club of Bangalore and Bangalore Reporters Guild.

Yeddyurappa said he has not forgotten the past.

I am not forgetting (the past incidents of) Reddy brothers. I have told you we will be very careful in future. I know what had happened when I was the chief minister. I will

be careful, said the former chief minister.

Asked about chief minister Siddaramaiahs accusation that Somashekhara Reddy had been accused of bribing a judge in the cash for bail case, he said the charge was not true and had lost its meaning as the Reddy brothers had been absolved.

Somasekhara Reddy has been accused of bribing a judge in the cash-for bail case that involved Janardhana Reddy. He is currently out on bail.

Yeddyurappa counter questioned the chief minister, asking him to explain about the cases against their candidate Anand Singh, to whom they had given a ticket and who too had been to jail.

To a question on reported differences of opinion between him and party president Amit Shah regarding Janardhana Reddy, Yeddyurappa said the latter was not in the BJP.

BJP has publicly distanced itself from Janaradhana Reddy, with party chief Amit Shah recently saying it has nothing to do with him.

Yeddyurappa, however, admitted he had met Reddy before Shah had publicly disowned him.

Since the court has denied him (Reddy) permission to canvass in the election (at Ballari), he cannot canvass for us. For me winning each and every constituency is important.

To a query that Reddy brothers had abused him in public, Yeddyurappa said, You forget....What about peoples opinion? How can they win there then?

Asked how he would face the electorate when he had been to jail on corruption charges, the BJP leader said he has been absolved of all charges by the courts.

Yeddyurappa demanded that the chief minister, who has been taunting him, saying he was once a prisoner, explain who gifted him the Rs 70 lakh watch and the reason for it.

Siddaramaiah who looted and did corruption, talks of Yeddyurappa going to jail. Why are then people giving me 150 seats?

The BJP leader ruled out any possible tie-up with Janata Dal-Secular, headed by former prime minister H D Deve Gowda, saying that such a question does not arise because his party would get absolute majority.

Even in Badami, defeat is staring at him. Congress is a divided house with three doors,where there are differences of opinion between Siddaramaiah, Mallikarjun Kharge and G Parameshwara, said Yeddyurappa.Wheat harvest in Kanchanpur goes up to 78,061 tonnes

Wheat production in Kanchanpur, the far-western Tarai district, has increased this year despite the prolonged winter drought during the plantation and growing periods and hailstorm just days before harvest.Youth killed in bike-jeep collision in Tokha

A youth was killed when his motorbike collided with a jeep at Tokha municipality-5, Kathmandu on Saturday night.The Continental Marines were the marine force of the American Colonies during the American Revolutionary War. The Corps was formed by the Continental Congress on November 10, 1775 and was disbanded in 1783. Their mission was multi-purpose, but their most important duty was to serve as on-board security forces, protecting the Captain of a ship and his officers. During naval engagements Marine sharpshooters were stationed in the fighting tops of the ships masts, and were supposed to shoot the opponents officers, naval gunners, and helmsmen.

In all, there were 131 Colonial Marine officers and probably no more than 2,000 enlisted Colonial Marines. Though individual marines were enlisted for the few American naval vessels, the organization would not be re-created until 1798. Despite the gap between the disbanding of the Continental Marines and the current organization, the United States Marine Corps celebrates November 10, 1775 as its birthday.

==History==

In accordance with the Continental Marine Act of 1775, the 2nd Continental Congress decreed: {cquote|That two battalions of Marines be raised consisting of one Colonel, two lieutenant-colonels, two majors and other officers, as usual in other regiments; that they consist of an equal number of privates as with other battalions, that particular care be taken that no persons be appointed to offices, or enlisted into said battalions, but such as are good seamen, or so acquainted with maritime affairs as to be able to serve for and during the present war with Great Britain and the Colonies; unless dismissed by Congress; that they be distinguished by the names of the First and Second Battalions of Marines.}

These two battalions were initially intended be drawn from George Washingtons army for the planned invasion of Halifax, Nova Scotia, the main British reinforcement and supply point. In reality only one battalion was formed by December, with five companies and a total of about 300 men. Plans to form the second battalion were suspended indefinitely after several British regiments-of-foot and cavalry, supported by 3,000 Hessian mercenaries, landed in Nova Scotia, making the planned amphibious assault impossible. Washington was reluctant to support the Marines, and suggested that they be recruited from New York or Philadelphia instead.

The Continental Marines only Commandant was Captain Samuel Nicholas, commissioned on 28 November 1775; and the first Marine barracks were located in Philadelphia. Though legend places its first recruiting post at Tun Tavern, historian Edwin Simmons surmises that it was more likely the {Sic|Conestoga Wag|gon}, a tavern owned by the Nicholas family. Robert Mullen, whose mother owned Tun Tavern, later received a commission as a captain in June 1776 and likely used it as his recruiting rendezvous. Four additional Marine Security Companies were also raised and helped George Washington defend Philadelphia. {Citation needed|date=June 2012}

The Marines were used to conduct amphibious landings and raids during the American Revolution. The Marines joined Commodore Esek Hopkins of the Continental Navys first squadron on its first cruise in the Caribbean. They landed twice in Nassau, in the Bahamas, to seize naval stores from the British. The first landing, named the Battle of Nassau, led by Captain Samuel Nicholas, consisted of 250 Marines and sailors who landed in New Providence and marched to Nassau Town. There, they wreaked much damage and seized naval stores of shot, shells, and cannon, but failed to capture any of the desperately needed gunpowder. The second landing, led by a Lieutenant Trevet, landed at night and captured several ships along with the naval stores. Sailing back to Rhode Island, the squadron captured four small prize ships. The squadron finally returned on 8 April 1776, with 7 dead Marines and four wounded. Though Hopkins was disgraced for failing to obey orders, Nicholas was promoted to major on 25 June and tasked with raising 4 new companies of Marines for 4 new frigates then under construction.

In December 1776, the Marines were tasked to join Washingtons army at Trenton to slow the progress of British troops southward through New Jersey. Unsure what to do with the Marines, Washington added the Marines to a brigade of Philadelphia militia, also dressed in green. Though they were unable to arrive in time to meaningfully affect the Battle of Trenton, they assisted in the decisive American victory at the Battle of Princeton.

Continental Marines landed and captured Nautilus Island and the Majabagaduce peninsula in the Penobscot Expedition, but withdrew with heavy losses when Commodore Dudley Saltonstalls force failed to capture the nearby fort. A group under Navy Captain James Willing left Pittsburgh, traveled down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, captured a ship, and in conjunction with other Continental Marines, brought by ship from the Gulf of Mexico raided British Loyalists on the shore of Lake Ponchartrain. The last official act of the Continental Marines was to escort a stash of silver crowns, on loan from Louis XVI of France, from Boston to Philadelphia to enable the opening of the Bank of North America.

At the end of the Revolution, both the Continental Navy and Marines were disbanded in April 1783. Although individual Marines stayed on for the few American naval vessels left, the last Continental Marine was discharged in September. In all, there were 131 Colonial Marine officers and probably no more than 2,000 enlisted Colonial Marines. Though individual Marines were enlisted for the few American naval vessels, the organization would not be re-created until 1798. Despite the gap between the disbanding of the Continental Marines and the establishment of the United States Marine Corps, Marines worldwide celebrate 10 November 1775 as the official birthday. This is traditional in Marine units and is similar to the practice of the British and Netherlands Royal Marines.

==Timeline==

 1775, October 13: Second Continental Congress convenes and directs the acquisition, fitting out, and manning of two vessels for the Continental Navy. Since Marines are a normal part of warships complement, this is the first (albeit indirect) authorization for the enlistment of Continental Marines.

 1775, November 10: The Continental Marines are created.

 1775, December: Five companies of about 300 Marines were raised. While armed, they were not equipped with uniforms. They head South for the Caribbean where the five companies joined Commodore Esek Hopkins of the Continental Navys first squadron on its first cruise.

 1776, March: Nicholas Marines land on New Providence Island, Bahamas. In 13 days they secure 2 forts, occupy Nassau, control the Government House, seize 88 guns, 16,535 shells and other supplies. Returning from the raid, they encountered a British ship. Marines engaged the ship with muskets and assisted in manning the broadside cannon. Commodore Hopkins ignored his ambitious orders to sweep the southern seas of British ships, and instead raided the Bahamas for gunpowder for Washingtons army. Nicholas Marines made an opposed landing and marched on Nassau Town, on the island of New Providence, seizing shot, shells and cannon. However, a failed attempt at a surprise attack the day before had warned the defenders, who sent off their stock of gunpowder in the night. Sailing back to Rhode Island, the squadron captured four small prize ships. The squadron finally returned on April 8, 1776, with 7 dead Marines (including Lt. John Fitzpatrick), and four wounded. Though Hopkins was disgraced for failing to obey orders, Nicholas was promoted to Major on June 25 and tasked with raising 4 new companies of Marines for 4 new frigates then under construction. Among the newly commissioned Marines was Captain Robert Mullan.

 1776, April: John Martins enlistment to serve on the {USS|Reprisal|1776|6} in Philadelphia in April gave him the role as the first black Marine.

 1776, October: Sergeants William Hamilton and Alexander Neilson become the first recorded Marine mustangs when they are promoted to lieutenant.

 1776, December: Marines were tasked to join Washingtons army at Trenton to slow the progress of British troops southward through New Jersey. Unsure what to do with the Marines, Washington added the Marines to a brigade of Philadelphia militia, also dressed in green. Though they were unable to arrive in time to affect the battle of Trenton, they assisted in the decisive American victory at Princeton. Later that spring, Washington incorporated some of the Marines into artillery units of his reorganized Army.

 1778, January: A Marine detachment sails down the Mississippi River and secures New Orleans to keep British traders out. Continental Marines landed and captured Nautilus Island and the Majabagaduce peninsula in the Penobscot Expedition. A group under Navy Captain James Willing left Pittsburgh, traveled down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, captured a ship and in conjunction with other Continental Marines brought by ship from the Gulf of Mexico raided British Loyalists on the shore of Lake Ponchartrain

 1778, April: A Marine detachment nominally under the command of John Paul Jones makes two raids on British soil.

 1783, January: Marines board and seize the British ship Baille in the West Indies

 1785, June: After the end of the American Revolutionary War (Jan, 1783), the Alliance is sold. The last official act of the Continental Marines was to escort a stash of French silver crowns on loan from Louis XVI, from Boston to Philadelphia, to enable the opening of the Bank of North America. The Continental Marines and the Continental Navy are disbanded.

==Continental Marine uniforms==

On September 5, 1776, the Naval Committee published the Continental Marines uniform regulations specifying green coats with white facings (lapels, cuffs, and coat lining), with a leather high collar to protect against cutlass slashes and to keep a mans head erect. Its memory is preserved by the moniker Leatherneck, and the high collar on Marine dress uniforms. Though legend attributes the green color to the traditional color of riflemen, Colonial Marines carried muskets. More likely, green cloth was simply plentiful in Philadelphia, and it served to distinguish Marines from the red of the British or the blue of the Continental Army and Navy. Also, Sam Nicholass hunting club wore green uniforms, hence his recommendation to the committee was for green.

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_MarinesArticles Sorry, there are no recent results for popular articles.

Images Sorry, there are no recent results for popular images.Narragansett Elementary School students Sarah Floody, Evan Boze, and Delaney Bonneau handle spider crabs during Save the Bays Bay Classroom Experience at NES last week. More than 70 students got the opportunity to handle crabs, sea stars, and other marine animals that live along the shore of our own Narragansett Bay. The Save the Bay program teaches students about the anatomy and adaptations of Bay creatures through observation of live animals brought into the classroom.A Place for All Conservatives to Speak Their Mind.Florida Georgia Line's Old Camp Whiskey is teaming up with the USO to launch the Patriot Pack, a new package for their peach pecan whiskey that will help support military families in partnership with the United Service Organizations.

"We're both really passionate about [Old Camp Whiskey], and to be able to launch this Patriot Pack, getting to team up with the USO to support our military, it takes it from something that's fun to something a little bigger than that and bigger than us," says Tyler Hubbard. "Being able to affect people's lives and raise awareness for the military, it's a big step for Old Camp and something we're really excited about."

Florida Georgia also said that they hope to collaborate with the likes of Migos and Cardi B on their next studio album.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Entertainment NewsIranian President Hassan Rouhani warned that the U.S. will face "historic regret" if Donald Trump scraps the nuclear agreement with Tehran.

Mr Rouhani's comments come as the US president decides whether to pull out of the deal by a 12 May deadline.

Mr Trump has strongly criticised the agreement, calling it "insane".

The 2015 deal - between Iran, the US, China, Russia, Germany, France and the UK - lifted sanctions on Iran in return for curbs on its nuclear programme.

France, the UK and Germany have been trying persuade the US president that the current deal is the best way to stop Iran developing nuclear weapons.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is travelling to Washington on Sunday to discuss the matter with White House officials.

The UN also warned Mr Trump not to walk away from the deal.

However, he has threatened that the US will "withdraw" from the deal on 12 May - the end of a 120-day review period - unless Congress and European powers fixed its "disastrous flaws".

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Political News(Agencia CMA Latam) - Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has asked the military forces not to be politicized, highlighting the "inconvenience" of involving the army in political tasks.

"We have seen attempts to involve the Armed Forces again with the political tasks, to politicize the Armed Forces. And my first message is: do not allow that, under any circumstances, for any reason," the head of state said.

During a lecture to military officers, the president recalled the speech of former President Alberto Lleras in 1958, on "the need to completely divorce and the Armed Forces' activity."

Santos stated that "the Armed Forces have to be above the struggle for power. You are more important than politics do not let yourselves be permeated on one side orof the other."

by Agencia CMA Latam

For comments and feedback: editorial@rttnews.com

Economic News

What parts of the world are seeing the best (and worst) economic performances lately? Click here to check out our Econ Scorecard and find out! See up-to-the-moment rankings for the best and worst performers in GDP, unemployment rate, inflation and much more.Pakistan's Interior Minister, Ahsan Iqbal, was shot and wounded in his shoulder while attending a provincial assembly meeting in Narowal, Punjab province, according to reports.

Imran Kishwar, Narowal district police reportedly said, "As he got out of a car, a young man shot him. The assailant has been apprehended."

Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has "strongly condemned" the attack on Mr. Ahsan Iqbal and has called for an immediate report on the incident from the Inspector General of Punjab Police.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business NewsElaine P. Wynn, co-founder and the largest shareholder of Wynn Resorts, Limited (WYNN), announced that, in a report issued on May 5, 2018, Institutional Shareholder Services or "ISS", one of the world's leading independent proxy advisor firms, has recommended that Wynn shareholders "WITHHOLD" votes from legacy director nominee John Hagenbuch at the Company's annual meeting on Wednesday, May 16, 2018, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

ISS also recommended that shareholders vote "AGAINST" approval of Wynn Resorts' say-on-pay proposal.

Commenting on the ISS report, Ms. Wynn said, "I am pleased to see further support for my efforts to ensure that the Company takes the actions necessary to truly become the 'New Wynn.' I urge my fellow shareholders to join me in voting for accountability ad objective oversight in the Wynn Resorts board room."

ISS joins independent proxy advisor firm Glass, Lewis & Co., LLC in supporting Ms. Wynn's call to vote WITHHOLD on legacy director John J. Hagenbuch at this year's 2018 Annual Meeting.

Ms. Wynn believes that Mr. Hagenbuch's role as a longtime member of the Compensation Committee and on the Special Committee responsible for overseeing the investigation into allegations of sexual harassment by his close friend, Stephen A. Wynn, the Company's former Chairman and CEO are problematic and concerning.

Commenting on the actions by the legacy directors in response to the allegations against Mr. Wynn, ISS said: "This election will serve as a referendum not only on whether the current board has done enough to stem the fallout of the accusations against Steve Wynn, but also on whether the current board composition is sufficiently robust to minimize the possibility that similar issues reemerge in the future.

Ms. Wynn added, "If you agree that accountability and transparency are needed in the Wynn boardroom, please join me and WITHHOLDyour vote from legacy director nominee John J. Hagenbuch at this year's annual meeting on May 16, 2018."

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business NewsYemeni army inflicts heavy losses on Saudi enemy troops over Friday [05/May/2018] br> SANA'A, May 5 (Saba) - Yemeni army and popular forces launched several attacks against positions of Saudi enemy troops and mercenaries in several fronts over Friday, inflicting heavy losses on them, according to military reports obtained by Saba on Saturday.



In Asir region, the army forces repelled an infiltration of the Saudi-paid mercenaries toward Mandaba area, in conjunction with an artillery shelling on their gatherings, which resulted in several dead and wounded in their ranks.



The mercenaries' infiltration was accompanied by more than 15 air strikes without any field progress.



Meanwhile, the army's artillery and missile forces bombed mercenaries' gatherings in al-Qulal al-Sood and customs at Aleb outlet, as well as hitting a Saudi military bulldozer by a guided missile off the same outlet.



In Jizan region, gatherings of Saudi soldiers and mercenaries were shelled in Walam compound, al-Mahdaf and Mahttam sites and in al-Mazab camp, as well as destroying a military vehicle of Saudi army and killing its crew in west of southern Mabkhara.



In Taiz province, the army fighters carried out an offensive on positions of Saudi-paid mercenaries in the western coast front, killing and injuring several of them, as well as destroying two military armored vehicles and killing all those were on board at the same front.



A military bulldozer belonging to the mercenaries was destroyed with a guided missile in north of Khalid camp in Moza district.



In Marib province, several of mercenaries were killed and wounded in an attack targeted their sites in Serwah district, in addition to burning of a military vehicle and two machine guns and seizing military equipment.



In Jawf province, the aggression coalition's mercenaries suffered losses in their ranks and gear as a resulted of an offensive targeted their sites in Waqaz area of Maslob district.



In Hajjah province, the army's artillery bombed mercenaries' gatherings in north of Medi desert and destroyed a military vehicle belonging to them, as well as burning a Saudi Abrams tank with a guided missile in Harad district.



BA



SabaReport: army, committes attack Saudi army, its mercenaries over 24 hours [06/May/2018] br>

SANAA, May 6 (Saba) - The rocket and artillery forces of the Yemen army and popular committees have targeted sites and gatherings s of the Saudi army and its mercenaries, killing dozens of them during the past 24 hours, according to military reports combined by Saba News Agency on Sunday.



In Najran Saudi border province, a guided missile targeted a Saudi-50-caliber weapon, while the army and committees attacked gatherings of Saudi army in Selah buildings, customs and Khadhra crossing by artillery shells and katyusha rockets.



In Jizan border province, two Saudi soldiers were shot dead in Shaikh and Haskell hills.



In Khubah of Jizan, artillery shelling targeted a Saudi army's gathering, and two military vehicles were destroyed by a guided missile in front of Khubah.



In Saudi border province of Asir:, a missile, Zilzal-2, was fired toward gatherings of Saudi army and it's mercenaries in Ain-Thurin camp.



Furthermore, Katyutha rockets and artillery shells were fired toward Saudi-backed militias in Sod hills and Alb crossing of Asir.



In Nehm district, some 50 km northern the capital Sanaa, dozens of mercenaries were killed and injured when the army and committees shelled their sites in Eastern Side area of Mujawaha and Hawk area.



also in Nehm, and artillery shelling targeted mercenaries gatherings in Namlah valley and Fatem mountain of HaribHarib-Nehm.



In lahj province, three of mercenaries were killed and three other injured by fire of the army and committees in Karsh district.



In Medi district of Hajhah province, artillery force of the army shelled mercenaries gatherings in the north of Medi desert.



In Marib province, a Saudi-paid mercenaries was killed by the fire of Yemen army and committees in Serwah front.



In Taiz province, two of Saudi-paid mercenaries, including the commander of 3rd battalion brigade, were killed in Makha front.





Sameera H.

Saba1. Yes. There should be absolute certainty that the election was free and fair.

2. Yes. The audit could and should lead to stronger laws governing elections in the state.

3. No. Former President Trump wants the audit to further cast doubt on the 2020 vote.

4. No. Its a waste of money, an attempt by Abbott to gain favor among Trump backers.

5. Unsure. It seems unnecessary but it may provide some worthwhile findings.

Vote

View ResultsDear Editor,

I read with great interest a feel-good article in the 30 April edition of The Observer regarding the efforts of the Office of the Regulator (O.O.T.R.) to help develop plans and actions to assist the electricity sector - which seems to include the E.P.C. and everyone else in the country that uses electricity  called Good foundation is in place for Samoas energy goals.

The article mentioned the Prime Ministers target of 100% renewable energy by 2025, which seems to be a laudatory goal from an environmental standpoint, and something that nations around the world are trying to embrace.

I think we all agree with the goal. The question is  how do we get there and are we really doing everything we can to achieve that goal?

The article mentions that New technology can also promote the installation by customers of solar panels in their own property which is the reason why I am writing this letter. In 2015 I first started communicating with E.P.C. because I wished to install a solar array to generate power for our business, Coconuts Beach Club, which is a large consumer of electricity.

My plan was to install enough solar panels to provide for our normal daytime power requirements, to stay connected to the E.P.C. power grid, and buy additional power from EPC at prevailing rates for nighttime and cloudy days  with any excess power generated by our solar grid sold back to E.P.C. at some negotiated rate or diverted to a back-up battery supply if E.P.C. did not want to buy the excess power.

I explained this to E.P.C. and asked for their guidance. Following weeks of discussions, during which time E.P.C. was quite helpful, E.P.C. notified us that if we installed a solar panel array to generate power we had to make a choice.

If we wished to stay connected to the E.P.C. grid then we HAD to sell them ALL of the power that we generated at some prevailing rate (which we believe to be approximately 50 sene per kwh) and we had to buy all of our power from E.P.C. at the going rate (which seemed to be 80 sene per kwh). In other words, we could generate power from our panels, but could not use the power that we generated for our own use.

They notified us that if we wished to use the power from our own solar panels on our own property then they would disconnect us from the grid.

Quite simply, if we wanted to create our own power and use it ourselves then we would be penalized and could no longer be connected to E.P.C.

That was the story in 2015 and is apparently the same right now.

It seems to me that the E.P.C. rules are in direct conflict with the stated goal of the Prime Minister of achieving 100% renewable energy by 2025.

It is kind of like the government telling people that they want you to conserve water and mentioning that water catchment by property owners is a good way you can achieve that goal.

But, if you install a catchment system then the government is going to disconnect you from the main water supply to penalize you for being a good citizen.

So, is the E.P.C. (and the government) really doing everything they can to meet the stated energy goals?

Once again, it seems that actions speak louder than words.

Respectfully.

Tautai Barry RoseThe temporary export ban imposed on the exports of fresh taro to American Samoa has been lifted.

The Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, Lopaoo Natanielu Mua, called a meeting with taro exporters and officials from Pacific Forum Line Shipping on Thursday to announce that taro exporting to American Samoa can resume as per normal. With one exception.

Weve been working in discussions with my Ministry and the Department of Agriculture in American Samoa and the taro ban that we imposed in February is now lifted, Lopaoo told the Sunday Samoan.

However from now on, we will be making sure that the taros are cleaned. All the fresh taros will be taken to Atele where they will be thoroughly inspected, repacked and issued a certificate of approval before being sent to the wharf.

The news was welcomed especially by taro exporters who have been waiting expectantly on a positive outcome for their businesses to resume exporting to Samoas closest international market.

Taro farmer and exporter, Peter Tulaga Eliesa, was present at the meeting and said that it was good news particularly for the exporters.

All the exporters were happy even though there is an extra cost for them to take their taros to Atele, said Mr. Eliesa.

During the ban, at least farmers could meet the demand of our local market but for exporters, it affects their business more.

According to Mr. Eliesa, while the temporary ban on exports to Pago was difficult for farmers and exporters alike, it was necessary to make sure that all parties were treated fairly and equally.

Pago want to control how we do things here but yet we are the ones supplying them, especially since the cyclone, theres no taro and no bananas there."

They want us to follow what they want, with their criteria, they want the farm to supply them not the exporter because they say they want to make sure that they can trace the environment the crops came from."

Pago got a lot of farms there. I go every week to Pago and I can see a lot of people doing farms, they became concerned with the virus but the problem is not us, its them. They researched and found that the virus already existed there.

In June 2017, The American Samoa Government (A.S.G.) banned imported taro from Samoa citing reasons regarding the safeguarding of the A.S.G. local taro industry from any taro virus diseases.

American Samoa Director of Agriculture, Filifaatali Mike Fuiava said they were concerned by an unknown virus that broke out in Samoa affecting taro crops in Savaii and Upolu.

According to him, lifting the suspension would depend on test results of taro samples affected by the disease which were being sent to Germany.

In a letter dated February 23, 2018, the A.S.G. lifted the ban but with some restrictions imposed on Samoan exporters and farmers.

The conditions that came with the proposed lift included inspections by a group of American Samoan Quarantine who were required to inspect farms, verify the names of the farmers, locations of the farm, their mailing addresses, telephones and email addresses.

Lopaoo mentioned in the meeting that if they had agreed with the conditions of the Department of Agriculture in American Samoa, only the bigger farmers who could afford to export would benefit from those terms, leaving the smaller farmers and exporters out and at a disadvantage.

The Minister of M.A.F. encouraged the exporters and farmers at the meeting to lift their game up, especially with regards to packaging standards when exporting.

Look into making your labels and packaging more professional. Recently we had a problem with a shipment to New Zealand concerning the packaging of sasalapa juice and faapapa being exported in an untidy fashion."

Now everyone will need to meet the required standards of the packaging and no longer will shipments be accepted if they are in an untidy condition.A 75-year-old woman of Fagalii has become the latest road fatality in Samoa.

The deceased is the victim of an alleged hit and run incident on Friday night.

A 19-year-old man allegedly struck the elderly woman when she was crossing the road.

The driver has since been found and charged with negligent driving causing death.

This was confirmed by Police Superintendent and Media Spokesperson, Auapaau Logoitino Filipo.

The driver was brought in for questioning by the Police and had since been criminally charged, he said.

Hes held in custody until his criminal mention next month.

Auapaau declined to comment on the details of the case.

But a Police officer at the scene said the driver sped off after running over the elderly woman.

They tracked down the driver and found him at their place of business in Vailele.

He explained the reason he drove off was because he saw men from the village running towards him and he feared for his life so he took off."

The vehicle in questions was a van.

Fagalii resident, Bernard Lui, told the Sunday Samoan the driver sped off when men in the village ran towards where the incident occurred.

The elderly woman was crossing when she was struck, he said.Samoa's Talofa Airways is resuming flights on the Apia to Pago Pago route, Radio New Zealand reported.

A statement from the Apia-based airline says scheduled flights to and from American Samoa will commence tomorrow, Monday Samoa time and Sunday in American Samoa.

Talofa Airways was grounded by the Samoa Civil Aviation Authority following an incident on April 24 with its Turbo Commando aircraft.

The flight from Fagalii to Pago Pago was diverted to Faleolo after the pilot noticed an engine issue.

The brakes overheated and burned after the pilot worked to slow down the engine on landing, according to the airline's C.E.O. Toleafoa Jeffrey Hunter.

The Samoa Civil Aviation Authority was conducting an investigation into the incident.

Talofa Air passengers were accommodated on Samoa Airways or offered refunds.A new health centre and hotel was opened at Motootua yesterday.

Alecs Home Away and Health Specialist Centre is built and equipped with the latest medical systems tailored for the needs of the contracted professional health specialists.

Owner of Alecs Home Away and Health Specialist Centre, Aiono Professor Alec Ekeroma, said this is his way of giving back to the community  having medical specialists available in Samoa.

I saw this piece of land for sale in May 2016 on one of my annual visits to Samoa and the dots connected. I bought the land and proceeded to plan a building that had both a health centre and accommodation mainly for medical students, Aiono said.

Location is important. Being near the hospital but also being able to see the sea. We cleared the land in October 2016 and then got delayed by a few months as we addressed concerns by P.U.M.A. and a neighbour."

This venture is very much a home coming - giving back project. I am hoping it is not a mid-life crisis project. I hasten to add that there many examples of the Pacific medical diaspora giving back to their Islands of birth.

The second medical school in Fiji, for example, was funded and created in Lautoka by the late Dr. Umanand Prasad, a Fijian national. The Viseisei Community Health Centre in Fiji was founded by Prof Rajat Gyaneshwar and Prof Naidu, fellow O&G specialists. Friends of Fiji have performed more than 1,000 heart operations in Fiji and the Pacific.

Many Samoan doctors have returned to work and some to live on these shores and many more are contributing in their own way, small or large, to our countrys development. I intend to tap into the good will of our overseas colleagues and the Samoan diaspora in many fields to assist not only with the Health Specialist Centre, but in increasing tourism and continuous development of our medical school, he said.

Aiono mentioned the specialists will have access to zoom facilities to discuss cases with their overseas counterparts.

Access to wifi and internet facilities will be unlimited for the management of patient care. It is up to the local doctors and health specialists to make this work. We are being inclusive of all specialists in health. A physiotherapist and a clinical psychologist are health specialists.

Aiono added Alecs Home Away will have 23 hotel rooms with a specific purpose of increasing tourism and to support the health specialist centre, a commercial kitchen, a communal kitchen and two meeting areas and a pharmacy.

We started building the foundation in March 2017. As the building progressed, I changed my mind and decided to aim for a three-star hotel. The only knowledge I had of what a three-star hotel should look like comes from having stayed in many hotels around the world."

The building changed function and purpose and therefore the builders had to make structural changes. Every time I visit home and checked on the project I would make changes."

So here ladies and gentlemen, is what I believe to be an innovative model of private health service delivery. We have learnt lessons from the closure of Samoas only private hospital - Medcen. As Leoo John Adams said in an email, they were ahead of the times with setting it up and I agree."

We were not ready for a private hospital and we are still not ready for a private hospital. I have studied the private hospital setting in Fiji, the largest islands in the region and decided that we cannot afford a private hospital at the current time.

Suva has a population of 500,000 and a large expatriate population. We have only 70,000 in the confines of Apia. Suva has three private hospitals and only one is operating profitably. As much as we may want to, our small population and the weak willingness or ability to pay cannot sustain a private hospital model.

We must also be careful not to set up structures that can potentially divert funds from public to private care. Those who can afford private care should be given the option to purchase quality care locally.

For Alec, there is a season for everything and right now it is his time.

I paraphrase Jay Shetty everything in life happens at its own pace. It took until 32 for JK Rowling to be published for Harry Potter. Morgan Freeman got his big break at 52. Virgin was founded by Branson at 34. Albert Wendt returned to teach at Samoa College in 1965 and 23 years later, he was a professor at the University of Auckland.

Fatu Feuu from Poutasi took 17 years to be recognised as a major artist in N.Z. Monica Galetti, Michael Meredith and Joe Lam worked in many kitchens for many years before they were recognised in N.Z. and the world stage as first-class chefs.

And Alec Ekeroma, well, he finally went home after his training at 59. Dont let anyone rush you with their timelines because as Albert Einstein said not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that is counted truly counts.

And this is the most important thing, I want you to be able to create meaningful, purposeful fulfilling lives for yourselves and learn how to use that to make an impact and a difference in the lives of others. That will be true success, he added.AA Rent-A-Car offers more than just ordinary cars.

With Samoas road conditions, the rental car company knows how frustrating it can be trying to get to your destination without a bumpy ride.

Theyve just recently introduced their off road tours, which involves the use of 4WD vehicles to get tourists to any destination they wish.

AA Rent-A-Car owner, Edward Jessop, believes the road condition should not hinder tourists from experiencing and witnessing what Samoa has got to offer.

We have noticed that there have been a few places that you cant go to and some tours cant or some of our clients who travelled in small low cars cannot reach their destination because of the roads, Mr. Jessop said.

There have been remote places that we have been able to cover such as Sauniatu and Saaga Beach. The roads there are really bad, a small car and a van cannot go there. So we decided to get these cars that we are now using which is suitable and it is a 4WD.

The other thing is we have catered for an America Survivor and also the Australian Survivor twice and the places that they go to really needs 4WD and it is really good for the tourists to see the nice places here. So we decided to use 4WD to get there.

Mr. Jessop is excited to see the many changes that these 4WD brings to the country and also meeting the demands of the tourists.

I dont think there is anyone else in Samoa that does this, it is just only us. Many other tours they use vans and small 4WD. But as you can see, we are providing off roads 4WD that will go to those places.

So here we are we choose to use 4WD for that. Also with that tour, the client would have to choose their own vehicle to take and we would take them there.

We have not yet received any feedback because we have just started. Weve just put it on our website.

Mr. Jessop also mentioned the challenges that theyve tried so hard to overcome.

I think it is the competition with the other rentals because I know that there are some other people who are doing tours such as Samoa Scenic and John.

This will be a good challenge with our 4WD off road tour. It is all about marketing, he said.

AA Rent-A-Car is all about affordable and quality car rentals in Samoa. They also do tours to different places. For a full day it is from 8am to 5pm.

All our full day tours, there has already been six different tours and we are looking at $100 per person, that includes the fees to some other places and we also provide the lunch for our clients.

It is a new tour that we are doing and it will be nice to see people coming in and checking it out for themselves.Over the course of five years, the Samoa National Provident Fund (S.N.P.F.) has provided South Pacific Business Development (S.P.B.D.) $8.9 million in micro finance assistance.

The Founder and President of S.P.B.D., Gregory Casagrande and S.N.P.F. Chief Executive Officer, Pauli Prince Suhren, on Friday celebrated this partnership that has made a difference in the lives of many Samoan families.

S.N.P.F. has been a terrific partner to South Pacific Business Development (S.P.B.D.) micro finance over the past five years, Mr. Casagrande said.

Together we have a very smart partnership to advance financial inclusion throughout Samoa, to the great benefit of the thousands of Samoan families scattered nearly across every village on Upolu, Savaii and Manono.

S.N.P.F. has been by far our largest local funder and has made a significant difference to our ability to finance small women entrepreneurs throughout Samoa.

We are very grateful with our partners here and together we work hard on the centrals banks national financial inclusion task force.

We think that this type of partnership that really drives a difference, that really helps us together to provide meaningful economic opportunity to all Samoan families regardless of their status in economic life here in Samoa, Mr. Casagrande added.

Pauli said the partnership enables S.N.P.F. to reach parts of the local community that the central bank cannot cater to directly.

This is one of the areas we S.N.P.F. ourselves cannot cater to directly because its not really part of the mandate of S.N.P.F. and also because microfinance is an area that requires a lot intensive customer care and intensive customer relationship and it is something that S.P.B.D. does really good as well, he explained.

So really as part of the Governments national financial inclusion taskforce, this is one way S.N.P.F. indirectly contributes to the building up of the microfinance sector, which is the fringe of the community or society where normal banking transactions and normal financial network does not really cater to.

So these are the micro businesses, especially the womens small businesses that would not have regular access to normal financing, but they do have access to financing through S.P.B.D.

It is that partnership with S.P.B.D. that gives S.N.P.F. comfort that we are also doing our part in doing the national financial inclusion taskforce to build this part of the community up, Pauli said.

The relationship between S.N.P.F. and S.P.B.D. is an ongoing partnership.The Rotary Club of Apia has come to the assistance of the Samoa Returnees Charitable Trust (S.R.C.T.) in their request for educational material to complement their weekly literacy programmes targeting young offenders, and at risk group who needs special attention to prevent becoming repeat offenders.

This week the management of the Samoa Returnees Charitable Trust attended the weekly meeting of the Rotary Club to receive 600 reading books that will boost the resources for their literacy programme.

S.R.C.T. Director, Faafetai Koria, and management staff Doris Tulifau received the books from the President of the Rotary Club, Louise Main.

S.R.C.T. is a non-profit organisation that helps Samoans deported from overseas to start afresh, get on with their lives and contribute to their families.

Our goal is to help them in that process, to se to it they receive the opportunities to work, and to ensure they are not turned away because of their past errors, for which they have already made compensation. We are a transparent organisation that is ever advancing for the welfare of Samoas returnees, said Mr. Koria.

The educational material will help start up a literacy programme, as the returnees themselves have expressed the need for this service to complement their service to community.

S.R.C.T. provides a weekly counselling and computer classes for young offenders registered with the Alcohol and Drugs Court, in partnership with the Ministry of Courts and Justice.

The returnees themselves provide reading comprehension sessions to the young offenders to facilitate the youth literacy programmes. One of the unique advantages for the returnees is that having lived most their lives overseas, they have a strong command of the English language.

The ultimate goal for the educational assistance is to lift the literacy rates of vulnerable youth, and better equip them for employment, and other responsibilities of adulthood, said Faafetai.

Living up to its mission to make a difference, the Rotary Club of Apia continues to provide assistance to the education sector of Samoa through donating books to schools, and through scholarships and laptops to tertiary students. Last week in Savaii, Rotary members delivered boxes of educational books to Lalomalava Primary School and to Iva Primary School.The cocoa renaissance in Samoa in recent times has had a rough time with environmental and production challenges.

Samoas largest cocoa exporter, Vaai Plantations, watches the industry carefully and with some concerns because they know firsthand the challenges the cocoa industry is experiencing.

One of them is the cocoa growers inability to produce enough supply for their international markets.

While there have been efforts by the Government and their international development partners to provide support, through money incentives and innovative programme initiatives to boost the once thriving cocoa industry of Samoa, sometimes it is best to look back to the Cocoa tycoons of the past to provide the answers in paving the way forward.

Former Cabinet Minister and businessman, Vaai Papu Vaai, remembers the cocoa boom during the time of his father and grandfather, particularly in their district on the western end of Savaii.

My father was called a cocoa Baron and his father before him was one too, he said.

Back then W.S.T.E.C. was a top producer and then our family was second to them. Right throughout the district it was flourishing, there were trading stations with Curruthers, Eveni, Nelson. People used to put their groceries on credit but when the cocoa was weighed and cashed out , families could easily pay off their debt and have a surplus of cash left over.

Cocoa was the lifeblood of this district. In 1990 Cyclone Ofa came and killed our cocoa industry, the crops were destroyed but we didnt give up  we planted our whole farm again.

Fourth generation cocoa farmer, Tupai Saleimoa Vaai is a descendant of the early Vaai cocoa barons with a long family history steeped in cocoa farming, processing and exporting.

Legacy is important to Tupai but perhaps more importantly, continuation is crucial to prevent the traditional knowledge of cocoa farming from declining to non existent in our country.

My grandfather used to have a saying that everyone who knew him remembers well, he used to say there are trucks, cars, and pickups found underneath the vines we only need to open or pull out the vines to get them, Tupai said.

We can have what we want but we need to work for it, there is a common disinterest in getting your hands dirty these days.

Coming from a family where we are continuing a legacy that our grandfather and great grandfather started onto our fathers and now onto us, said Tupai.

We are from a family of people that grew a lot of cocoa in the beginning and here we still are reaping the fruits of their work. We want to go back and re-instill that sense of longevity and continuing that legacy. Im still planting cocoa now and hopefully my sons will harvest it.

Back in the hay days, my grandfather used to ship three truckloads of workers to the Vaai Cocoa plantation and he would have had 200 workers on the farm.

Today between myself and my cousin Kolone - we have twenty workers doing all the work that the 200 had to before.

With a commercial arrangement between Tupais Savaii Koko and New Zealands J H Whittaker & Sons in its third year, efforts have been made to support farmers with seedlings and improvements to cocoa farming systems in Savaii to strengthen the supply chain for exporting.

However, the lack of interest in growing cocoa from the youth compounded by a loss of traditional cocoa planting knowledge with every generation is worrisome to Tupai.

The lack of cultural understanding and context by aid donors and international consultants though well meaning, misses the mark when it comes to understanding the family role that underpins farming practices,

I do a youth group programme in collaboration with U.N.D.P. to encourage them into farming, he said.

My only criticism about development aid is they try and segregate everybody but Samoa is built on a family unit. But they say you have to boost women, you have to boost the youth. When it comes to farming in Samoa, the whole family is involved so thats including the kids because everyone has their role which is why our ancestors farms were so prosperous.

I dont like the concept of these conditions that they place on development aid because it doesnt fit our culture  family is the basis of everything, not individuals, especially when youre dealing with subsistent farming. Why try and separate something that is deeply embedded in our traditions and culture?

But we do it because we must, so we try and get the families who want to start growing again and we tell bring your young people, register them but keep in mind that you still need the father to encourage the youth to keep going and if the young people end up leaving as is what sometimes happens we have found out  the family will continue it. Its the reality of the way of life in Samoa. We do what we must because we have to adhere to the conditions of any programme.

In 2017 the New Zealand government injected $8.5 million into the Samoa cocoa industry with a mandate to build a better industry and better market access but Tupai says that help is mostly needed at the primary level.

With that particular programme there is no direct input into the farmer. Their goal is to build an industry , in my view even though its a good long term plan  it does not change or affect what we as an industry need at the moment. What we are needing is supply and the only way to increase supply is to help the bottom level where the farmers are. Were not going to increase it by making a better industry or better market access it needs to go right down to the primary level.

Once we increase any sort of supply, the industry will build itself up out of it. The Chamber of commerce is spearheading that programme and their mandate is to build an industry body and then looking at building nurseries , make better plants and better seedlings.

Tupai wants to encourage people to go back into farming which is why he continues with his free seedling program out of the Asau district which has been very successful in supplying 30,000 trees to farmers free of charge.

I wanted to encourage people to go back into farming; I have to give them something. Everyone wants a hand out, which is a bad mentality  its made our people poor. But I had to do something, I built these green houses and started growing cocoa and giving it out for free because I knew, even the 30cents you buy the seedlings at the crops divison in Asau is expensive if youre a small farmer.

TupaI says that they markets are there again for cocoa producers and exporters and now is the time to take advantage of them before they look elsewhere.

My hope is that the government keeps pushing because at the moment I just cant keep up with the demand from my markets. I have 103 farmers and a lot of them are small farmers and a few big farms, what we are trying to do is encourage them.

But throughout the rise and fall of Samoa cocoa production levels in the last 100 years, the sons and daughters of the early Vaii plantation tycoons have survived unpredictable world prices, devastating cyclones, ageing trees and failed government attempts to reverse the trends. TupaI says that cocoa growing tradition is still strong in Samoa so long as our older generations continue to pass down the knowledge and passion for cocoa farming.

Someone asked me what my vision is as a cocoa producer, I said to them that my father used to ship cocoa right out of here and thats what I would like to see happen again for us to be able to ship right out of our harbour here in Asau.

We do what we must and we dont give up. We are again at harvest time and looking to fill a container for New Zealand and one for Japan. Most people opt for the local market but when the harvest is on there is excess of supply and we want the people to know there is market for their koko.

Savaii Koko from Asau is taking in koko wet beans and dry beans. We collect from anywhere in Samoa that includes Upolu. We want to promote the resurgence of koko for the prosperity of our peopleThe Minister of Prisons and Correctional Services, Tialavea Tionisio Hunt, has the "authority" to declare a building or land a prison.

Thats the opinion of the Attorney General, Lemalu Herman Retzlaff, in relation to the ongoing saga involving two notorious convicts who had been moved to the Apia Police station after a failed mass prison break plan last year.

Tagaloasa Filipaina and Ovaleni Poli have been housed at the Apia Police station since the incident last December.

But they have hired a lawyer to fight the decision in Court.

Last week, Supreme Court Justice Vui Clarence Nelson ruled that the Apia Police Station is not by law a prison.

But in an email to the Commissioner of Police, Fuiava Egon Keil, the Attorney believes the prisoners dont have to be moved.

The Commissioner of Prisons and Correctional Services, Taitosaua Edward Winterstein, is copied on the email.

Justice Nelson was not asked to decide if the detention was unlawful, he was asked to decide if there is a case to answer, the letter reads.

He was dealing with the preliminary stay application, not the actual Court case itself. We have re-read the decision and reconsidered para 17 and we are of the view that HHs comments cannot therefore mean that the Applicants detention at Apia Police station is unlawful.

He is saying that the Applicants have an arguable case that the detention given his determination that the Order is invalid. The matter needs to be set down then to argue.

Lemalu goes on to say that the prisoners therefore can still be detained in the Apia Police station until the actual case is heard by the Court and a definite determination is given as the lawfulness or otherwise of their detention at Apia Police station.

The Attorney General also points out that the Government can easily remedy the situation by having Apia (Police station) declared a Prison.

We have looked at the Prisoners and Corrections Act 2013 considering our discussions (and) the reasons why they were transferred to Apia Station, he said.

Lemalu quoted section 16 of the Prisoners Act, which gives the Minister the power to declare a building or land a prison.

He adds that the Commissioner also has the power under Section 16 (4) to make arrangements for prisoners to be kept at a location designated by the Commissioner as a temporary prison.

Either option can be taken immediately, he said.

It is recommended that these steps be taken as we cannot have persons we need to hold in Apia for whatever public reason in future, claiming that cells are not a prison.

It was not possible to get a comment from Minister Tialavea yesterday.Theres no doubt there are challenges for the Savaii tourism industry with accessibility.

But while being remote does have its disadvantages, this only makes Savaii hoteliers work both smarter and harder to bring business to the big island.

Amoa Resort Project Development Manager, Elisabeth Siaosi, was optimistic with the business relationships forged and new information gained at the annual Samoa Tourism Exchange (S.T.E.).

The S.T.E 2018 programme came in two parts with an opportunity for business to business (B2B) meetings in Apia as well as familiarisation tours of the sites and attractions as well as accommodation inspections.

In the last weekend of April, Amoa Resort was given the chance to showcase their resort as well as Savaii for some American agents.

When we were given the chance to show the agents what Amoa Resort and Savaii was all about, we jumped right in and said anyone who travels to Samoa must come to Savaii, said Mrs. Siaosi.

From Salelologa to Falealupo and everywhere in between, its a paradise, not only because of its natural beauty but because its oozing with culture and tradition, not like that found on stage show but its simply the way of life here on the big island.

Of course when their clients come we want them to stay at Amoa, so we treated them with a local fusion menu promoting the very best of locally sourced ingredients, farmed from the plantations behind us and the lagoons that surround us.

The feedback from the agents was overwhelmingly positive.

They loved it. They were most impressed at how lucky Samoans are to the abundance of fresh and organic food that we are very fortunate to eat more or less the same day its farmed or caught from the sea.

Some even commented our portion sizes were very big and much bigger than in Europe, which for a Samoan is great compliment but gives us opportunities to tailor the menu according to where our guests are coming from.

At the exchange meet between buyers and sellers last week at T.A.T.T.E, Mrs. Siaosi said its imperative that she (along with other Savaii tourism representative) make the most out of these events because its a considerable investment for Savaii tourism operators to come over to Upolu in order to take advantage of these opportunities having to pay extra for transport and accommodation.

There were buyers from all around the globe covering America, U.K. and Europe, Asia and Australasia and we came to Apia to make connections that we are keen to develop into new business. We were here to network and to learn whats new in consumer buying trends.

Some of the buyers that were here, we have been dealing with for many years we want to know from them whats new and how their clients are choosing to book travel. Then we can try to mirror our business activities to ensure we are visible exactly where is needed.

The world of communication is changing and it is an added challenge for hoteliers to keep up with the new developments in technology and information sharing in order to attract more tourists.

This year we met not only traditional wholesalers but also group buying sites who promote your business via flash group buying websites such as scoupon.com and luxuryescapes.com. E-commerce is certainly the way to go as prospective travellers are my tech savvy about how to research and book travel and accommodation.

Its all new ideas that we hope to utilise in the near future to gain more business. We also heard consistently over the two days that the buyers wanted to come to Samoa to learn more about us as an alternative travel destination to Pacific hotspots like Fiji and Tahiti.

We heard this particularly from the niche South Pacific wholesalers that more and more of their clients are asking them where else in the Pacific should they travel too because Fiji is becoming over commercialised and Tahiti comes with a price tag.There is no lack of evidence that educational and financial empowerment of women can effectively lift any country out of poverty.

Which is why the South Pacific Business Development (S.P.B.D) honours the business acumen of its customers with its Annual Businesswomen Awards.

This years event took place last Friday at the Tuutuuileloloto Hall.

President and Founder of S.P.B.D Samoa, Greg Casagrande, said in a speech at the awards ceremony that the women entrepreneurs who created their business successes through microfinancing available through their institution were the pride of Samoa.

These women entrepreneurs are the shining jewels of the S.P.B.D. family and the pride of their country, he said.

They have created business successes that will inspire anyone who chooses to follow in their footsteps. As an organization we provide customized financial products along with strategic know-how on how best to deploy capital  but it is to the credit of these women that theyve found niche business ideas and are servicing a market that continues to evolve and grow.

Their agility in keeping themselves of market needs and trends is applause worthy.

The South Pacific Business Development Microfinances (SPBD) 17th Annual Businesswoman Awards was attended by more than 200 guests including senior government officials, bankers and other important stakeholders,

The Minister of M.C.I.L and M.P.E , Lautafi Fio Purcell congratulated the women and offered some of his own business advice to aspiring female entrepreneurs.

In the business context it is always sweet to own and manage your own business for profit earning, he said.

However I want to share with you some basic tips if you are to be successful in sustaining your businesses:

1. It is always good to start small and build up as you progress,

2. Create a bank savings account and save your business earnings,

3. You should get a salary from your business, but do not spend business earnings unnecessarily,

4. Make sure there are quality goods on the shelves all the time

5. Focus on the needs of your customers & not just your business ideas,

Lautafi praised the women for being role models and for not only building a strong business for the betterment of their families but also for contributing to a stronger economy for Samoa and the region.

We salute the nominees and award winners of the S.P.B.D Annual Businesswomen Awards

Overall Micro Businesswoman of the Year: Tutulu Meafou, Faleasiu 6 Centre

Small Medium Enterprise Overall Businesswoman of the Year: Maria Levy (Safotu 2 Centre)

Saver of the Year: Me Mua, Vaovai Asau

Overall Best SPBD Centre: Satitoa Tauatiae Centre.The Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Labour (M.C.I.L.) has expressed worries about non-compliance among Samoans with regards to procedures and processes for Foreign Employee Employment Permits (F.E.E.P.).

F.E.E.P. is an employment permit granted for foreigners to work in Samoa.

The concerns are highlighted in the M.C.I.L. Annual report for 2016-2017 received by the Samoa Observer.

The report also indicates that there is a rise in the demand for foreigners to fill vacancies for domestic work such as babysitting, caregiving and housekeeping.

More and more Samoans are recruiting workers from China, Fiji and the Philippines.

A total Non-Taxed Revenue collected for permits for the year in question amounted to $636,130, says the report.

Evidently there are a number of non-citizens found during inspections to be working without valid permits, the report reads.

There is also the issue with employers failing to advise the Ministry of when their non-citizen employees depart the country prior to the expiration of their employment arrangement.

Another issue is the moving around of permit holders in work that was not assessed to enable employment in Samoa. 

But the Ministry assures that it is working hard to remedy the problem.

Fortunately the Ministry has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Ministry of the Prime Minister and Cabinet to access the Border Management System to track the movement of permit holders.

The report goes on to say that while the Government remains open to overseas skills and experience to complement the local workforce, the priority should be given to the local workforce and Samoan citizens.

Permits are considered for non-citizens within specific industries, professions and roles perceived to be high in demand but scarce in the local labour market, the report reads.

The recruitment of non-citizens is progressively increasing within industries such as construction; accommodation in hospitality services; restaurants; retail, and wholesale.

For the reported period a total of 621 FEEP (Foreign Employee Employment Permits) applications were lodged, 579 were approved, 17 were declined due to inability to satisfy criteria of qualification, relevant experience and the required ratio 1:3 were declined, and 25 pending assessment.

Permits issued were dominated by the Construction Sector, Domestic Workers and Hospitality Industry and data also shows the top three countries that Samoa is sourcing foreign workers from are China, Fiji and the Philippines.

The M.C.I.L. seeks to improve its F.E.E.P. services, therefore an initiative to strengthen good governance in the assessment and issuance of permits.

This has resulted in two key works currently in progress that include the endorsement of the FEEP Policy and the development of an online-FEEP system.Accidents happen and that is the risk every business takes. Some of those accidents could lead to lawsuits.

This is according to General Manager of the Electric Power Corporation (E.P.C.) Tologata Tile Tuimalealiifano.

For every business, incidents do happen from time to time, he said. These are incidents that we cannot avoid.

And we are trying not to let that happen, but as I have said incidents do happen.

This year, E.P.C. paid $20,000 to the family of an eight-year-old boy who was allegedly electrocuted from a faulty electrical wire.

The incident occurred at Tuaefu, where the young boy was found by his cousin unconscious near an electric pole damaged by Tropical Cyclone Gita.

During an interview with the Samoa Observer last week, Tologata said, they have only paid $20,000.

But he anticipates that more will be paid.

There are negotiations in progress for a settlement. The familys lawyer and our lawyer are discussing a settlement in the case, he said.

It was put to Tologata that last year the Prime Minster instructed the E.P.C. during Parliament that $2.5million was paid to a family for a similar incident.

In response, the C.E.O. said: These things happens and all we can do is try to avoid it by working extra hard to assure this will no happen again.

He declined to divulge how much they have offered the family to settle the matter.

All I can say is that negotiations are on going but we are trying every way possible to avoid lawsuits. The reality is that incidents do occur from time to time.

Last year, Prime Minister Tuilaepa instructed the E.P.C. management to look into conducting regular inspections to check the stability of the electricity poles.

Tuilaepa was concerned when found out that $2.1 million tala that was paid to a family following an incident where an electricity pole fell on a car and killed a man. The incident occurred some 10 years ago.

He pointed out the government does not have insurance to cover general public/third party for liability.

However the government had set aside $2.5million tala specifically for this purpose. He said that following the incident, a total amount of $2.13million was paid to the mans family for damages.

He urged the E.P.C. to take bold steps to ensure these incidents are not repeated.

The family was from Australia and they wanted more money but, it was negotiated down to this amount and although this happened a long time ago, we should learn from it.

This was a significant amount of money and this can be avoided by checking the poles to determine whether they are grounded properly.Fans of renewable energy anticipate a bonanza blowing off the coast of California.

But a map released by the U.S. Navy puts large swaths of the state off limits to future offshore wind farms  including all of San Diego and Los Angeles, extending up to the Central Coast.

The military does not have the final say in the matter, as federal and state officials  as well as wind energy companies and at least one member of Congress  are working with the U.S. Department of Defense to develop a more flexible plan.

But the back-and-forth adds an extra layer of complexity to the nascent industry on the West Coast, where geographic features make it harder to construct wind farms in the Pacific than those on the East Coast.

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Theres a lot at stake here for California to meet its ambitious clean energy goals, said Robert Collier, a policy analyst at the Green Energy Program at the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education. California is going to need a lot more renewable energy from all sources. Offshore wind is not the only potential solution, but it is part of a multi-pronged strategy.

Why offshore wind must float on the West Coast

The sight of wind turbines anchored into the ground, their blades turning like giant pinwheels, has become more common in recent years.

But its rare to see a wind farm looming over open water  at least in the United States. European companies with projects in places like Denmark and Scotland have taken the early lead in offshore wind energy.

The first commercial offshore wind facility in the U.S. was launched in December 2016  the 30-megawatt Block Island Wind Farm in Rhode Island  and more are in the works.

In the Atlantic, offshore wind turbines can be bolted into the seabed in relatively shallow water.

But the continental shelf off the coast of the Pacific plunges quickly and steeply. That leaves developers with just one option  floating wind farms tethered, or moored, by cables to the ocean floor that dont penetrate the surface. Electricity from the turbines is transmitted to a floating substation and carried to a power plant onshore via a buried cable.

Its estimated that nearly a terrawatt of electricity will be generated off the coast of California, 13 times more capacity than all the land-based wind farms across the country generate.

But in the past year, some of the lofty expectations have been tempered.

Two years ago, a Seattle-based company called Trident Winds filed an unsolicited lease request to build a floating wind project 33 nautical miles off the coast of Morro Bay near San Luis Obispo. Since then, Norwegian energy giant Statoil has also expressed interest.

At the request of Gov. Jerry Brown, the federal governments Bureau of Ocean Energy Management established an intergovernmental task force to look into opportunities for offshore wind in California.

State waters extend from the shoreline to three nautical miles into the ocean. Federal waters extend from three miles to 200 nautical miles. Floating offshore wind projects are typically located in federal waters but since the cables connect onshore, they cross state waters. That means state as well as federal agencies are involved.

Resistance from the military

The Department of Defense (DOD) was asked to provide its assessment of the California coast. Last summer the Navy released a map, using the colors of a traffic light  green for no restrictions, yellow for site-specific stipulations and red for what it called wind exclusion where the military wanted no wind farms at all.

Blue areas were coded for sites designated as National Marine Sanctuaries.

The red no-go areas covered all of Southern California  from the southern tip of the Mexican border, extending through San Diego, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and going all the way to Big Sur. The area included the Central Coast  site of the potential Morro Bay projects.

The only areas colored green were located north of Mendocino.

The Navy said the red areas should be off limits to wind projects because they would conflict with the requirements of Navy and Marine Corps missions conducted in the air, on the surface, and below the surface of these waters.

The map was updated in February and became more restricted. All the green areas turned yellow.

Why is all of Southern California in the red zone? Steve Chung, the Navy Region Southwest Encroachment Program Director, pointed to the Point Mugu Sea Range north of Los Angeles and the sprawling Southern California Range Complex situated off the coast between Dana Point and San Diego.

The complex encompasses more than 120,000 square miles of sea space for training, equipping and maintaining combat-ready forces, supporting the largest concentration of naval forces in the world, Chung said.

The area is also used by the Marine Corps, the Air Force (Vandenberg Air Force Base near Lompoc) and, to a lesser extent, the Army.

Its a very congested environment out there, said Chung, and we start (by) pointing out other activities such as marine traffic or civilian air traffic. When you begin presenting structures such as wind turbines, now youre introducing additional complexities.

When asked if putting wind farms in Southern California would be a hard nut to crack, Chung said, Southern California is beyond a hard nut to crack. I dont see any realistic, conceivable manner where we can find offshore wind to co-exist with the degree and complexity of operations that are occurring in Southern California.

Moving north

The wind blows harder as you move up the California coast and thats where wind developers have really set their sights.

Its also attractive to California policymakers to meet the states renewable energy goals. The states Renewables Portfolio Standard requires power companies to derive 50 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2030.

Renewables have a problem with intermittency  solar energy dips when the sun doesnt shine and land-based wind falls off when the wind doesnt blow.

Offshore wind blows harder and more consistently which, its supporters say, will help balance the states grid while allowing for more integration of clean energy sources.

A small community power authority in Humboldt County is in position to become the first to establish a floating wind farm in the country.

Were excited, said Lori Biondini, the director of business development and planning at the Redwood Coast Energy Authority, a community choice aggregator, or CCA. We like to be pioneers of things in the energy world.

Last month, the group formed a consortium to erect a 100 to 150-megawatt wind farm of between 12 to 15 turbines more than 20 miles off the coast of Eureka. The turbines, Biondini said, will be 700 to 900 feet tall. The project is expected to go online in 2024 or 2025.

We have a world-class wind resource, Biondini said. We have a way, way better wind resource up here than they do in Southern California. Average wind speeds off the Humboldt County coast exceed 10 meters per second, or 22 mph.

The Navys updated map changed the coast of Humboldt County from green to yellow but the project is still definitely workable, Biondini said.

Chung said the color was changed largely because the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) wanted more information about the turbines to make sure they dont interfere with long-range radar.

But like Biondini, Chung sounded upbeat, saying, We will continue to be very encouraged and very optimistic for the art of the possible in Northern California.

The outlook for the Central Coast is more cloudy.

Its in a holding pattern, said Alla Weinstein, the founder of Trident Winds, the company that wants to construct a wind farm off the coast of Morro Bay. Were working on the issues but it will take some time to work them through.

If given the go-ahead, the Trident Winds project would be about six times more powerful than the facility planned at Humboldt Bay.

After a meeting in February, state officials, the military and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) decided DOD should meet with wind companies interested in building wind projects off the Central Coast to try to work things out.

We are in ongoing discussions, not only with Trident but with other developers, Chung said, but the Central Coast is still red in our assessment.

Design models for floating offshore wind turbines. (Illustration by National Renewable Energy Laboratory )

Rep. Salud Carbajal, a congressman and Democrat from the San Luis Obispo area, wants the Navy to show some flexibility.

He met with Navy representatives in March in Washington and came away encouraged.

They didnt come in with an obstructionist attitude, Carbajal said. They expressed a willingness to continue the conversation with various companies and to find opportunities within the challenges they have outlined in their mapping.

The San Luis Obispo economy is about to take a hit with the imminent closure of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant that employs nearly 1,500 people. Carbajal sees offshore wind as a way to replace some of those jobs.

We have to be able to develop this type of technology, he said in a telephone interview from Washington.

For her part, Weinstein said Trident Winds is still holding to its target date to open in 2025.

Conflicts are resolved through diplomacy, Weinstein said. Thats what were doing. Were discussing and were looking at solutions.

Who makes the call

The Navy may have released its map but the Department of Defense does not, officially, have the power to determine where offshore wind projects get built.

That rests with BOEM, which has permitting authority in the Outer Continental Shelf. The agency is part of the U.S. Department of the Interior.

Theres no word on when BOEM officials will make a final decision on sites, said John Romero, the head of public affairs for the bureaus Pacific region.

The Defense Department is a key partner here, Romero said.We are working together, were keeping the discussion going, were working hard at trying to mitigate any potential conflicts.

Collier of the UC Berkeley Labor Center, who thinks the Navys map is too restrictive, said the military may not have veto power when it comes to siting wind farms in California but, for all practical purposes, it does.

Technically, the Navy is just yet another stakeholder. De facto they are, of course, the 800-hundred pound gorilla, Collier said. If BOEM were to simply ignore the Navy then the Navy would essentially appeal this and the appeal would go all the way to the presidents cabinet. And whos got more power, the Interior secretary or the Defense secretary?

A Marine veteran, Carbajal said he understands the militarys concerns.

But at the same time (we need to be) looking at the changing landscape, he said. And renewable energy is certainly one of those areas we should try to accommodate while also maintaining our security resources.

Chung defended the mapping.

Within the Department of Defense, one of our primary and core objectives is to maintain our military readiness and ensure our national security, he said.

A final DOD assessment will be delivered to BOEM but Chung said he didnt know when it will be submitted.

Business

rob.nikolewski@sduniontribune.com

(619) 293-1251 Twitter: @robnikolewski

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Wind energy in California: The good news and the bad news

Wind turbines taller than the Empire State Building?Within a few days of United Airlines announcing a new policy for transporting pets, more than 56,000 people have signed a petition asking for an exemption for military families with dogs.

United Airlines said this week that starting June 18 it would no longer transport dozens of breeds with short or snub noses, including bulldogs, boxers and pugs, in the cargo hold, because studies have shown that they have difficulty breathing in planes.

Passengers can still bring small pets, including many of the breeds banned in cargo, into the cabin if the animals carrier fits under the seat without obstructing passengers from exiting.

But the policy, which doesnt address service and emotional-support animals, also bans the transport of animals in crates bigger than 30 inches tall anywhere on planes.

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The petition on Change.org says United has been the most affordable airline for transported animals, especially large breed dogs such as Labradors, golden retrievers and huskies  breeds that can only be transported in crates more than 30 inches tall.

I have a German Shepherd and we are living in the UK as a military family, Ashley Swearingin wrote on the petition site. I cant imagine how we will get our baby girl home now.

Another military family member, Lynette Layne, wrote on the petition site: SEMPER FI, Always Faithful!!!! We should as a country never leave a man, woman or animal behind!!!

The new policy may cause some hardship with military families based in Guam, where United Airlines is the only major U.S.-based carrier serving routes to the mainland.

The carrier said Thursday that it will allow military families and State Department and foreign affairs personnel to book new reservations to transport their pets out of Guam under the previous regulations  but only until the new policy takes effect June 18.

Unfortunately, we are unable to provide any other exceptions, said United spokesman Charles Hobart. We know this can present challenges, but we hope our customers understand that we are making these improvements to help safeguard the health and safety of pets in our care.

In most cases, travelers could book flights on other major U.S. airlines, some of which allow large breeds but tend to charge higher fares.

The changes were prompted by the death of a 10-month-old French bulldog on a United Airlines flight in March from Houston to New York  a story that went viral on social media. United also flew two other dogs to the wrong destination in the days after the bulldog scandal.

After the incident, United stopped transporting all animals in the cargo compartment, the service that it will relaunch starting June 18.

hugo.martin@latimes.com

To read more about the travel and tourism industries, follow @hugomartin on Twitter.On a drizzly afternoon Tuesday, first-graders from Conway Elementary School in Escondido waited to open a small cabinet, and enter the world of discovery.

The structure  a white box with hinged glass doors, mounted on a wheeled stand  was the schools new Little Free Library, a neighborhood book exchange. It was one of 18 such cases built by woodworking students at Escondido High School for each of the communitys elementary campuses.

With two bookshelves stuffed full of volumes in English and Spanish, it allows students and their families to take books that appeal to them, and donate those they dont need.

Take a book, share one back, librarian Tanya Turek told the crowd of mostly six- and seven-year-olds. If you love it and want to sleep with it under your pillow, great! Or if you can, return it. Or give back an old book.

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Lilliana Rosales, 7, introduced the gift, addressing her classmates as stewards of the library and encouraged them to explore its offerings.

It helps people to grow their minds with curiosity and inspiration, so maybe they can write a book one day, Rosales said, explaining that she prefers books about the worlds mysteries, such as the lost city of Atlantis. Books are a good place to start in your imagination.

Shes already a regular at other Little Free Libraries, including one near Conway School, and helps her mother look out for new ones.

If were driving and we see one, Ill make a U-turn to go back and get a book, said her mother, Venessa Rosales. I keep books in my car to donate.

Conway Elementary School students Arlen Cortez, center, Abigail Espinoza, right, and Melanie Gonzalez, all first graders, start to read the books they just picked out of out of the new Little Free Library box, one of eighteen built by Escondido High school students. (Hayne Palmour IV )

Arlen Cortez Perez, 6, picked the book Esperanza Rising about a young Mexican immigrant girl working as a farm laborer, but didnt think shed want to return it. She had coveted the book since her sister read it, and was thrilled to have her own copy.

I was thinking she doesnt have to read it to me because Ive got my own now, Cortez Perez said. I think Im not going to bring this one back, but I might bring some from home. I love this book. Its so cool. It has so many pages, so you can read some more.

The book exchange had been a dream of Tureks since she began working at the school five years ago. About 80 percent of students in the district come from socioeconomically disadvantaged homes, according to the California Department of Educations school dashboard, and those families are less likely to have books in the home.

The idea that people have access to books for free is really exciting to me, Turek said.

She broached the idea with Escondido High School woodworking teacher Nathan Boelhauf. Coincidentally, Little Free Libraries had also been on his mind. For several years, he has enlisted students to build childrens furniture and bookshelves for needy families, so the book exchanges seemed a natural fit for his class. He proposed making 18 of them  one for each of Escondidos elementary schools.

This is something Ive been wanting to do since I started teaching at the high school, Boelhauf said. I believe that (encouraging) literacy and reading is one of the most important things you can do.

Turek received a grant from the Escondido Education Foundation to register the boxes and fit them with plaques designating them as Little Free Libraries. And she secured $4,500 from the Current Wisdom Foundation in San Marcos to purchase adult books in Spanish and English to share in the boxes.

Little Free Libraries started in Wisconsin in 2009, when a Wisconsin man built one to honor his late mother, according to the nonprofit organization by that name. It became an international movement, as bibliophiles around the globe began building and installing the boxes.

With more than 70,000 across 80 countries, the libraries have become a book-lovers treasure hunt, an ice-breaker for neighbors and a chance for artistic expression. Many feature vivid colors and whimsical designs, including vintage schoolhouses, animals or Harry Potter novels.

Boelhaufs approach, by contrast, was practical. His students were skeptical of the idea at first, and worried the boxes would be vandalized or stolen. So they constructed the doors out of shatter-resistant plexiglass instead of glass to keep the books secure. And they mounted the boxes on wheels so they could be rolled back into the school after hours and during the summer.

His class built the boxes through an assembly-line production system, with students splitting up tasks of cutting wood, assembling and finishing the structures. In the end, they gained experience with industrial carpentry, as well as a sense of community participation.

Its an exciting project for kids to undertake because theyre going back to the elementary schools that they went to, Boelhauf said. So theres a personal connection for them.

As a student picked a Fancy Nancy from the box, third-grader Donna Arias was reminded that she had something to give back, too.

I have a glow-in-the-dark Fancy Nancy book, she told Turek. I have a whole bunch of books, and I dont need it anymore. I will bring it to you.

School Library Technician Tanya Turek, first grader Lillian Rosales, and Escondido High School wood shop teacher Nathan Boelhaur, with a Little Free Library at Conway School. (Hayne Palmour IV )

deborah.brennan@sduniontribune.com Twitter@deborahsbrennanCITY COUNCILS

DEL MAR

The Del Mar City Council met Monday for a special all-day workshop on council goals and priorities. The council also discussed ways to expand public information, communication and outreach.

ESCONDIDO

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The Escondido City Council met in closed session Wednesday to discuss labor negotiations and litigation. In regular session, the council approved an interim measure imposing a moratorium on car wash businesses. The council heard an update on the Innovate 78 regional economic development initiative, and on its updated 2018 comprehensive economic development strategy. It continued a hearing on the proposed budget and assessments for landscape maintenance assessment districts to May 23. An item requesting continued emergency repairs for an HVAC line at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido, was tabled. The council approved reducing the comprehensive general and auto liability insurance requirements for taxicabs from $1 million to $350,000.

OCEANSIDE

The Oceanside City Council met Wednesday for a workshop to receive information on organics management within the city. The council directed staff to negotiate with Waste Management to start a commercial collection program.

POWAY

The Poway City Council met Tuesday for a hearing and approved allowing four seatainers on residential property at 14710 Beeler Canyon Road. The council also held hearings and counted ballots on creating two new landscape maintenance districts. The results will be announced at the May 15 meeting.

VISTA

The Vista City Council held a public workshop Tuesday to discuss city marijuana policy and a possible cannabis initiative. Licensing, a cultivation tax, and banning items that are geared to children were discussed.

SCHOOL DISTRICTS

DEL MAR

The Del Mar Union School District board met in closed session April 25 to discuss litigation and property negotiation. In regular session, the board adopted a School Safety Resolution with amendments removing language calling for a ban on many firearms and equipment, and adding language stating that the district will work with local organizations to develop and provide educational opportunities on firearm safety. Town Hall meetings with the superintendent to discuss the reconfiguration of the elementary schools will be at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday at Del Mar Heights School, and 6 p.m. Wednesday at Del Mar Hills Academy. Find more meetings at https://www.dmusd.org/Domain/4 under School Reconfiguration.

SOLANA BEACH

The Solana Beach School District board met in special session Monday to hear a report from Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates about the information developed during the districts superintendent search. The report covered district strengths; challenges and concerns facing the district; and the leadership characteristics desired in a new superintendent.

laura.groch@sduniontribune.comMike Hinkley came to last weeks national Craft Brewers Conference in Nashville with a message:

Hes not the ghost of San Diego beer past.

Im meeting with retailers, letting them know Green Flash and Alpine are still alive, said Hinkley, who founded Green Flash in 2002 and bought Alpine Beer in 2014. We didnt die, were alive and we want to come back.

At its peak, Green Flash was synonymous with San Diego craft beer. Its distinctive brews won fans and contests, and one of those beers  West Coast IPA  defined the regions most popular style. Hinkleys ambitions for his brand were boundless, and he believed it would grow from a micro-brewery to a national power.

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Six weeks ago, Green Flash and Alpines assets were seized by a bank and sold at discount to a new band of investors. Hinkley says his companys collapse cost him $1.5 million.

I lost my investment, along with all the shareholders, he said. Its a shame what happened.

Industry observers say this disaster, the worst failure in the history of San Diego craft beer, could have been avoided if Green Flash had observed some basic business tenets: Own your backyard. Dont become over-extended. Heed constructive criticism.

 The troubled Green Flash brewing operation has been sold to a new company following a foreclosure.

Yet Green Flashs fall was also rooted in its unique culture, which relied on a small circle of investors, friends and relatives with almost boundless faith in the founder.

People invested in Green Flash and Mike Hinkley, said Pam Palisoul, one of the earliest investors. My husband always said you find the guy with the passion and you put your money on that guy.

Hinkley was that guy  until March 30, when the Comerica Banks stepped in and turned Green Flash stock into worthless paper.

Just to have that completely wiped away, I feel betrayed, I feel stupid and I feel a whole range of things  and I feel that for others who invested, said Palisoul, whose 155,000 shares were once valued at nearly $7 million. It was a real family thing and a lot of families are dysfunctional.

And I guess this one was, too.

See the boom of San Diego craft beer 

Rise and fall

Today, its hard to remember that Mike Hinkley was once a popular leader of San Diegos craft beer community.

The guy at Enron was hated less than Hinkley, said Scot Blair, owner of Hamiltons Tavern and South Park Brewing Co. Lets not pretend that this guy was Hitler.

A Navy veteran, Hinkley bounced around after leaving the service. One of his stops was the Kansas City Barbecue.

He was a bartender for us, said Martin Blair, who owns the restaurant with his wife, Cindy.

Blair told his friends, Pam and Phillip Palisoul, that this hire combined a passion for beer with an impressive work ethic. Martin said he would finance whatever Mike wanted to do in the future, Pam Palisoul said, because of his go-get-edness.

The Blairs and Palisouls were the original investors in Green Flash. Opening in Vista in 2002, the brewery initially struggled. We were in the red for a long time, Pam Palisoul said, maybe three years before we were breaking even.

Then it was onward and upward.

The brands rise followed the 2004 hiring of a veteran brewer, Chuck Silva, with a portfolio of distinctive recipes. His West Coast IPA and Le Freak, the latter a Belgian-style tripel/American-style imperial IPA hybrid, won fans and awards.

Years of profitable, steady growth followed. In 2011, the company left its small Vista brewery for a massive Mira Mesa plant, giving it a seven-fold increase in production capacity. In 2014, Green Flash crossed a symbolic barrier, appearing for the first time on the list of the nations 50 largest craft breweries, debuting at Number 48.

In 2015, it had risen to Number 41. In 2016, Number 37.

A former brewer recalled congratulating Hinkley on the increasing sales, remarking that it could eventually rival San Franciscos Anchor.

He looked at me like, Anchor? Were going to be much bigger than that, the brewer said.

Step by step, Hinkley was determined to build a national beer company. His 2014 purchase of Alpine Beer added several legendary beers, including Nelson and Duet, to his portfolio. In 2015, he opened a barrel-aging facility in Poway, Cellar 3.

His boldest move came in November 2016, when he opened a second large-scale production brewery in Virginia Beach, Va. Making beer on both coasts, Hinkley spearheaded a drive to sell Green Flash in all 50 states.

Far from positioning the brewery for nationwide success, though, those moves sealed its fate. Insiders say two factors doomed Green Flash:

1. Hinkley was over-extended, borrowing heavily to fund this expansion. It was a good decision to build it, he said of the $20 million Virginia Beach plant. But a bad decision to build it on debt.

2. With no more than 45 salespeople, the company couldnt effectively compete in 50 states,

Youre not building relationships, said Jim Kenny, Green Flashs former vice president of sales. Youre just having a guy show up every six months and sprinkle some fairy dust and then move on.

Nipping at your ankles

For Green Flash, 2018 has unfolded like a chain reaction car wreck. In January, more than 30 people were laid off. The 50-state strategy was reduced to 18 states.

February, the company announced it was seeking new investment.

March, the dismal news piled up even faster. The Virginia Beach brewery? Closed. Cellar 3? Ditto. The company itself? Dissolved on March 30, when Comerica seized its remaining assets.

A new group, led by former Green Flash board member Richard Lobo, bought the brands at a discount, pledging to keep the Green Flash and Alpine brands alive, but sell those beers only in eight western states.

Hinkley was devastated  I have so many regrets, he wrote to investors, but all are secondary to hurting so many of my friends  but took solace in the survival of his brand and the San Diego jobs it provided.

Theres 144 people that relied on me for their jobs, he said. They all kept their jobs and benefits and health coverage and 401(k)s.

Local operations, some say, should have been Green Flashs focus all along.

You have to own your own backyard, said Scot Blair, the brewer and tavern owner. For instance, Karl Strauss is only distributed in California. They seem to have figured it out  theyre our oldest brewing company.

Holding onto local fans while pursuing a national audience requires an army of sales reps, blanketing the territory. Making your beers stand out from the pack is difficult, especially when that pack is larger than ever. There are now 6,400 breweries in the U.S., the greatest number in American history.

When the Virginia Beach brewery opened, Green Flash executives assumed that the craft beer boom had peaked. They miscalculated.

All of a sudden youve got thousands of breweries opening up, nipping at your ankles, Kenny said. You go anywhere in the United States any more, the majority of the tap handles are taken by local breweries.

Moreover, Green Flash was devoting more resources to expensive, high-alcohol beers as customers and bar owners were clamoring for less potent offerings. The brewerys flagship, West Coast IPA, was reformulated as more powerful double IPA. Cellar 3s lineup revolved around expensive, and often boozy, barrel-aged brews in 750-ml bottles.

Right now, trends change faster than your underwear, Kenny said. Cellar 3 beers were an expensive commitment for an expensive beer that is slow moving off the shelf.

It didnt help that some of Cellar 3s brews, while well-regarded by craft beer aficionados, had odd names like Oculus Sauvage.

Is that a sex act? Blair asked. What does that even mean?

Blindsided

Between 2010 and January 2017, Green Flash sold thousands of shares to about 50 investors. Because the company was privately held, buyers had to be approved by Hinkley.

He tapped some investors, like the late Phillip Palisoul, for seats on the companys board. Pam Palisoul said the Hinkleys were close family friends who had relied on their support for years. But as sales drooped and expenses grew, Hinkley stopped heeding their advice.

Green Flash had a lot of debt, and the board encouraged Mike to do a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Pam Palisoul said, Mike wouldnt do that.

In fact, Hinkley said, a deal to refinance the companys debt was being negotiated early this year, only to fizzle out. The end came so suddenly, even board members like the restaurateur Martin Blair  no relation to the publican/brewer Scot Blair  felt blindsided.

Right now theres a lot of questions, said Martin Blair. People are upset that they gave their time and effort and money.

For Scot Blair, this debacle underscored the need to listen to trusted counselors. You have to surround yourself with qualified people who can hold you in check when you go flying off the rails.

Kenny, the salesman, warned that having more ambition than income is not an uncommon situation among craft breweries. And Green Flash, he noted, stumbled even while making award-winning beer.

Theres plenty of bad beer out there right now, Kenny said. And theyve got notes coming due, too.In whats long been a mans world of pilots, directors, catapult teams and shooters, women on Feb. 28 took over the carrier Theodore Roosevelts flight deck.

Although female sailors have served aboard Americas flattops for two decades, on that sunny morning in the Persian Gulf, 35 women made history.

Records are fuzzy, but it likely marked the first time in the warships 32-year life that an overwhelmingly female crew orchestrated the complicated ballet of catapult operations on the flight deck, launching 35 aircraft.

It was a small moment in a seven-month tour that saw the Theodore Roosevelt travel more than 56,000 miles and fly 1,164 combat sorties over Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, but one pilot thinks it still important.

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Im kind of speechless about it, honestly, said Lt. Elizabeth Lana Grider, an MH-60S Seahawk helicopter pilot from Marion, Indiana, during a Friday radio call from sea.

Slated to return to North Island on Monday morning with her carrier, Grider served as a yellow-clad shooter on the deployment. Theyre the supervisors who make sure every sailor is safely positioned before they greenlight a steam catapult to hurl a jet into the air.

Im extremely proud of this team. This started at the deck plate level, not the officers, she said. They wanted to do this for themselves and take this unique opportunity to launch aircraft with an all-female launch crew, which doesnt happen too often.

That sounds easy now, but it really wasnt when Grider and her junior sailors were planning it.

It takes about 50 crew members working below- and above-deck to launch an aircraft off a carrier, but women comprise only 16 percent of the active-duty Navy.

Although female sailors have come to dominate the ranks of legal clerks and make up increasingly larger numbers of counselors, quartermasters and cooks, less than one out of every five female sailors seizes a spot in the aviation section.

The gender mix of the Rough Riders is a little more balanced  one in four aviation section members is a woman  but Grider and her crew had to raid the night shift and two of the other four catapult teams to dragoon enough female aviation boatswain mates to run the launches.

Theyre the flurry of grease-splattered green shirts on a flight deck, the sailors who chock and chain the jets, troubleshoot preflight problems, run the hooks and cables and helm the barricades when the arresting gear fails and the blast plates when the planes roar off.

Aviation Boatswain Mate 2nd Class Esperanza Romero was the one hitting the fire button to fling the jets.

It all comes down to teamwork, said Romero, of Denver, a supervisor on a mixed male and female team operating the carriers bow catapult. Men and women work together. Yes, aviation boatswain mates pretty much a male-dominated rating but more women are going into it and we wanted to show what we can do.

For this event, we couldnt have accomplished it without the hard work and dedication of all our junior sailors. The job we do is strenuous and rough and not everyone wants to do it, but theyre proud to do it.

Aviation Boatswain Mate 3rd Class Teneshia Walton spent the morning feeding data about the planes to the rest of the crew and operating the blast deflector, the steel fence that redirects blowtorch-hot air and debris churned up from jet engines away from sailors and other aircraft.

That job can get even more dangerous when sailors are toiling on rain-swept decks battered by winds, but she loves it.

It can involve a lot of long hours doing hands-on work but Im always really excited to get things working, to get it all rolling, said Walton, of St Louis. Its not an easy job but you come to appreciate what you do and those you work with.

No one person can do all of this. Everyone has a role to play and we work together to do it.

Although shooter Grider said that the female crews joined together on Feb. 28 to prove something to themselves  not the Navy or the country  news about the launches began to ripple far beyond the Persian Gulf, spread by social media.

My hope is that a young woman or a young girl might see this story and be inspired to work on a flight deck, too, Grider said. You can do this. We proved that.

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cprine@sduniontribune.comMay 6, 1918 The San Diego Union

The San Diego Union-Tribune will mark its 150th anniversary in 2018 by presenting a significant front page from the archives each day throughout the year.

Monday, May 6, 1918

At least 13 men, including 11 servicemen, drowned in a single day in heavy rip currents off Ocean Beach. Over 60 people were rescued by lifeguards.

Here are the first few paragraphs of the story:

2 DROWN, 11 MISSING, 60 ARE SAVED AT OCEAN BEACH

TERRIFIC TIDE-RIP TRAPS SWIMMERS WITHOUT WARNING

CAUGHT in a terrific tide-rip which swept upon them without warning yesterday afternoon at Ocean Beach, scores of bathers fought for their lives, sixty were rescued by life guards and other bathers, two of them were drowned and their bodies recovered, and at least eleven others are missing. A crowd of over 5000 holiday makers looked on from the beach as bathers and rescuers struggled in the surf, powerless except to shout encouragement to those who were risking their lives for those whose strength was being sapped by the undertow.

The dead:

Hugh E. Burr, company B, 144th machine gun battalion, camp Kearny.

Charles Humphrey, bakery company 323, Camp Kearny.

The missing;

Sergt. Herman Hauber, company B, 159th infantry, Camp Kearny.

Sergt. Emmerson Donaldson, company D, 115th ammunition train, Camp Kearny

Corp. Eravella Taylor, company 5, 115th supply train, Camp Kearny.

Private Fred W. Sanborn, sanitary detachment, 160th infantry, Camp Kearny.

Private Ralph Brady, battery F. 145th field artillery, Camp Kearny.

Private Frank Mitchell, 204 aero squad, North Island.

Sailor H. P. Hanson, naval air station, North Island.

Sailor C. L. Pollitt, radio station, Point Loma.

I. H. Killingsworth, believed to be a sailor.

Marcus Regil, janitor of St. Joseph's Catholic Church, city.

Catarino Anda, city.

Deeds of Heroism Recorded

The clothes of these men, with the exception of Killingsworth, were found in various bathhouses of Ocean Beach after the beach had been cleared of all bathers.

During the evening the police, together with the military authorities at the resort, canvassed the houses at which it was likely rescued men had been taken, and it was only after a through checking of each one that the above list was compiled. Killingsworth dressed at home and the report of his being missing was made by his wife, who said he was on the beach at the time of the catastrophe.

In addition to the list of the dead and missing, as gathered by the authorities, it is believed possible that several others who did not get bathing suits at the bathhouses may be lost.

This is practically certain, it is declared, concerning two Mexicans who are known to have used the top of a building as a dressing room.

As the magnitude of the catastrophe became more apparent the crowd swarmed to the head of the tide-rip. the lifeguards and police patrolmen immediately became the center of a rescuing party numbering 30 or 40 bathers. As the rescued were brought to the beach, willing hands wrapped them in overcoats and shawls and men and women bent themselves to the task of resuscitation.

Risks Life in Surf

The pulmotor at the beach was put in use and a telephone call rushed out a lung motor from police headquarters at San Diego. As Hospital Steward Paul Plaisted pushed through the crowd just in front of the spot where the tide-rip was strongest, eight unconscious bodies lay upon the sand, and others were being carried from the surf along the strand. Disregarding those who were in no danger of death Plaisted waited for those bathers who, it was seen from the shore, were floundering in the deep water between the breakers, and for whom heroic efforts were being made by rescuers.

The first of these to be brought in was Burr. Efforts to aid him with lifeboats, three of which were ineffectually trying to breast the heavy sea, were unavailing, while a lifeline, held by a number of rescuers, was carried far out into the surf by a number of swimmers.

At the head of these was Frank B. Merritt, motorcycle patrolman detailed to beach service for the day. Merritt finally secured the body, but was helpless in the undertow.

At this time occurred the most thrilling feat of the afternoon. Arthur Wilson of Ocean Beach, a young man whose swimming powers have made him well known at the resort, dashed through the surf while fully clothed, with the exception of his shoes, dived through th first line of breakers and struck out for Merritt and Burr.

Makes Daring Rescues

Together the patrolman and Wilson fought against the undertow while the rescuers with the life-line battled to reach them. When Merritt and Wilson finally had come in sufficiently for the other swimmers to assist them they were exhausted. Carrying Burr's lifeless body to the dry snd of the beach Merritt turned to go badk and fell unconscious. Wilson retained consciousness, but was very weak.

More:

View anniversary front pages online at sandiegouniontribune.com/150-years. For more from the Union-Tribune digital archives, go to newslibrary.com/sites/sdub. Searching is free, with registration. A fee is required to view full stories.Vice President Mike Pences trip to the border region, the latest in a string by the president and his people, was big on symbolism and some fact-challenged perspectives.

Pence went to Calexico Monday primarily to promote President Donald Trumps proposed extended border wall. He mentioned the administrations belief that the project will help deter illegal border crossers, but framed it as a symbol as much as anything.

RELATED: Attorney General Jeff Sessions to visit border on Monday

Weve got to build a wall, Pence said. A wall sends a clear message that we are a nation of borders.

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It seems the world has gotten that message, certainly via Trumps megaphone. Border crossings are still way down, despite a recent uptick.

Pence gave much of the credit for that to Border Patrol agents and promised them massive reinforcements that Trump has proposed.

Im pleased to report that illegal crossings at our southern border have fallen by more than 40 percent in the past 12 months, he told a gathering of agents in Calexico. Job well done, men and women.

However, those figures he gave tend to undermine the argument for the $25 billion wall, or whatever its price tag is these days.

The timing of Pences visit created a juxtaposition with the caravan of Central American asylum-seekers arriving to the west in Tijuana just a few days earlier. He referred to the caravan as he spoke about the wall, though, in reality, the two dont have much to do with each other.

From hundreds of miles away, the people in the caravan very publicly announced their intention to travel to the U.S. border and apply for asylum through the lengthy legal process. Thats not exactly a good strategy if youre trying to sneak across the border. Besides, they arrived in a place where there is already a fortified border barrier.

Still, Pence sought to make a connection.

But lets be clear, he said in Calexico, as we think about the hardship of those families gathered at our border in the so-called caravan, this wall is not only necessary to support you men and women who are on the front lines of our homeland security, but its also a physical manifestation of the determination of the American people to protect our borders and protect our sovereignty. And we will complete it.

At one point, he got a little jaunty and rhymed about the wall  or was it an attempt at rap?

When it comes to the border wall, were going to build it all, Pence said.

Theres uncertainty what all means, and its highly unlikely that the wall can be constructed uninterrupted from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. Even the president, known for careening positions on many issues, at one point raised the prospect that it might not be a continuous structure as he had originally proposed.

For one thing, they havent quite figured out how and where to build it in Texas Rio Grande Valley, not to mention other locations with uncooperative topography.

Trumps wall has not been started beyond construction of the eight prototypes the president visited on Otay Mesa in March. That hasnt stopped him from attempting a bit of sleight-of-hand, suggesting the long-planned border fence replacement in Calexico is part of his grand design.

Pence tried to keep up that ruse, but was called on it by CNNs Gary Tuchman during his visit.

Mr. Vice President, this is a fence replacement project, Tuchman said. Theres been a fence here for decades. This is nothing new. President Trump tweeted that this is the beginning of our southern border wall. Will you acknowledge that this is not the beginning of the southern border wall that he promised voters?

Replied Pence: This is the beginning of the southern border wall. This was from the fiscal 17 budget.

Then Pence added, This is a replacement project, but if you look at the border wall, this new wall is roughly two or three times taller than the wall that was here today. It represents the kind of new border wall measures that we will be implementing all along the southern border.

Tuchman pointed out that the replacement project is not adding any length to the fence that was already there. Pence did say that land acquisitions were under way in New Mexico and other jurisdictions for the extended fence.

The vice president said the fence and changes in immigration law were needed because the dangers are only growing. In Fiscal Year 2017, were informed that attacks on our Border Patrol agents actually increased by 73 percent.

That may not be true. A widely circulated investigation by the news website The Intercept revealed instances of what would normally be reported as a single incident being counted as multiple attacks. The report was published days before Pences visit, yet he continued to use the figure.

Make no mistake: One attack on a border agent or any law enforcement officer is too many. But using inflated figures only skews the reality and, in this climate, can raise suspicion that its being done for political reasons.

From early in his campaign to the present, Trump has kept up a steady drumbeat about illegal immigration. Its become even more intense with administrations recent fixation on our border region. Two weeks before Pences visit, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen toured the border in San Diego and Imperial counties.

A month before that, Trump examined the wall prototypes here. In between, the president ordered the National Guard to provide support for enforcement efforts along the border.

The exact reason for that was not entirely clear. It was reported that there was concern about an increase in asylum requests from Central Americans, thought it was uncertain what the Guard would be able to do about that. There also was that notable increase in attempted illegal crossings earlier this year, but as Pence noted, that activity has been way down overall.

All of this also comes at a time when Trump is taking heat from some on the political right who have become frustrated with the pace of his efforts to crack down on illegal immigration and for what they consider small, piecemeal funding of his wall.

The usefulness of the extended wall  and whether it is cost-effective  continues to be debated as it has pretty much since Trump first proposed it.

Democrats have made it a regular talking point to note that, historically, about 40 percent of unauthorized immigrants come here legally, but overstay their visas. Critics of the wall argue there are better, more efficient ways to provide border security and reduce illegal immigration, such as targeting visa overstays.

Trump and his allies have criticized the existing border barriers, contending its easy for people to scale them or tunnel underneath to the U.S. side.

It turns out a lot of folks may have simply flown over them.

Tweet of the Week

Goes to Greg Dawson (@DawsonNBC), vice president of news for NBC 7, regarding the two black men arrested at Starbucks who settled with Philadelphia for $1 each and a city pledge of $200,000 for young entrepreneurs.

This is what you call taking the high road.Sometimes its not about winning or losing in the courtroom.

For many lawyers and judges, its about volunteer service within the legal community and the general community at large.

The San Diego County Bar Association honored attorneys as well as young artists at a Community Service Awards luncheon last week at the downtown Westin San Diego hotel.

The outstanding attorney award was shared by Candace Carroll, of Sullivan Hill Lewin Rez & Engel, and Virginia Nelson, with her own litigation firm, each honored for their involvement in local and national bar activities and mentoring.

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Carroll also was noted for her pro bono work for asylum seekers and her leadership of Sen. Barbara Boxers federal judicial appointment committee. Nelson, adjunct professor at the University of San Diego School of Law, has been a county bar association president and a director of the American Board of Trial Advocates.

Students competed by creating posters or videos depicting equal access to justice. Winners at the luncheon were Jaiden Sao, Tommy Thaodara, William Nguyen and Jimena Martinez of Crawford High; Nico Standifer, St. Gregory the Great elementary; Charlotte Morton, El Camino Creek Elementary and Marielle Lappe, St. James Academy.

Other attorneys were given awards for service to:

The legal community: Wendy Behan, of Casey Gerry Schenk Francavilla Blatt & Penfield.

The county bar association: Alvin Gomez, of the Gomez Law Group.

Diversity: Jonah Toleno of Shustak Reynolds & Partners.

The outside community  James Tabb, of Zaveri Tabb.

Deputy District Attorney Michelle Ialeggio was honored for service by a public attorney, and Jamie Quient, of Free to Thrive, was recognized for outstanding service by a new lawyer.

The outstanding jurist award was given posthumously to David Bartick, a magistrate judge for the U.S. District Court in San Diego.

pauline.repard@sduniontribune

Twitter: @pdrepardAs Central Americans from a migrant caravan made famous by President Donald Trumps angry tweets begin entering the asylum process from the U.S. border, they face a complex legal battle that most who have tried in recent years from their countries have lost.

Just under 80 percent of the 15,667 asylum cases from El Salvador were denied between fiscal 2012 and fiscal 2017, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a project with Syracuse University that monitors immigration data through public records requests. About 78 percent of the 11,020 Honduran cases and about 75 percent of the 10,983 Guatemalan cases were denied.

Those trends could change as case law established in the last couple of years has helped more Central Americans show how their stories line up with requirements for asylum.

Theres a steeper hill to climb, I think, in the Central American cases, said Dana Leigh Marks, a spokeswoman with the National Association of Immigration Judges. They involve cutting-edge legal arguments. The case law is still evolving. Whether its a liberal or a conservative trend, the reality is law is based on case precedent. The more precedent that builds and makes that principle clearer, the more established its going to be and the more consistent its going to be.

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Under asylum law, people seeking protection must show that they have been persecuted or have a well-founded fear that they will be persecuted because of their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a social group.

Being afraid of general violence or rampant crime is not enough to win a case.

Some Central Americans have more traditional cases under the race or political opinion categories, but most are fleeing gang violence or domestic violence. Such cases tend to require asylum seekers to show that the bad things that happened to them were because they are part of a particular social group.

More are winning their cases than before, according to Ginger Jacobs, an immigration attorney in San Diego, especially in the last two years.

Women who could show that theyre being targeted because they are women have a better chance of winning their cases, Jacobs explained. This could include women who were gang raped or victims of domestic violence.

People who can show they fear persecution because their family has been targeted also have a better chance of winning. Members of the LGBTQ community also have an easier time showing that theyre members of a targeted social group.

Judges have started understanding, Jacobs said, how gang violence is intertwined with governments in the Northern Triangle  Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.

Having an attorney makes a difference in how likely someone is to win a case, though how much depends on the country that an asylum seeker is from.

About 95 percent of asylum seekers from Honduras without attorneys lost their cases over the last six years, according to TRAC data. Just over 70 percent who had attorneys lost. People from El Salvador and Guatemala have similar spreads in the likelihood that they will win their cases.

For countries like China, having an attorney makes a more dramatic difference. Close to 79 percent of Chinese asylum seekers who didnt have attorneys were denied protection over the last six years, according to TRAC data. For those who had lawyers, just under 18 percent lost their cases.

Whats different from what a lot of Americans think about the law they have learned on television is that its not uncommon that the people applying for asylum have very little documentary evidence, said Marks.

Having an attorney can especially help when someone doesnt have much proof beyond his or her testimony, Marks explained.

If somebody is represented, even if all they have is their word, they may be very successful in getting background documentation  newspaper articles, university reports on conditions in different countries  that help corroborate their claim indirectly, said Marks. Someone who is unrepresented is going to have a lot harder time showing that.

Judges may be aware of additional information about the country, but deciding how much the judge should do to include that in the case record is a philosophical debate.

Are you crossing the line and becoming an advocate?, Marks said. Theyre not easy questions.

Thats why we say that immigration law is as complicated as tax law, and I think more so, Marks added.

That complexity, Marks said, contributes to judges having different grant rates. (A TRAC report found that immigration judges from the same court often differ drastically. In San Francisco, where Marks hears cases, the highest grant rate is 97.1 percent and the lowest is 9.4 percent. In San Diego, the highest is 88.1 percent and the lowest is 46.2 percent.)

Credible testimony alone can be sufficient if its consistent with country conditions, she said. Thats part of why grant or denial rate among different judges vary so much. Its very hard to specifically pin down what is enough to meet your burden of proof.

Matthew Holt, a San Diego immigration attorney, explained that he thinks about Central American cases as gang plus, meaning theres gang violence involved plus the person has a characteristic or took some kind of action to make him or her part of a protected group that is targeted by the gangs.

They were a witness in a prosecution. They were a witness in a murder. They filed a police report, said Holt, giving examples that would help win asylum cases. They participated in community- or religion-based gang amelioration efforts. They were family members to someone who fell out of the good will of the gang.

He uses expert testimony to help judges understand country conditions to back up the stories of his clients.

The Central Americans were seeing, theyre children, youth, young adults, lots of females and small business owners, Holt said. These are all these people that are trying to get ahead and they cant because the gangs in Central America are murdering them.

Two 2013 cases set precedents that have helped make cases for people who testified against gangs or worked to stop gang violence. Rocio Brenda Neriquez-Rivas witnessed gang members kill her father in El Salvador and testified against them. Then she fled to the U.S.

 The final remnants of the Central American caravan began to disappear in Tijuana Friday after the last group of asylum seekers entered the United States.

Courts at first denied her asylum claim, but a Ninth Circuit decision found that someone who testified against a gang in court counts as a member of a social group.

Victor Hugo Tapia Madrigal was a Mexican army veteran who had combated drug activity during his time in service. Though threats from gangs while doing the work could be considered a known risk of the job, Tapia Madrigal received death threats after he left the Army.

Though courts at first denied his claim as well, the Ninth Circuit ruled that former Mexican army soldiers who participated in anti-drug activity was a particular social group and one that was at least one of the central reasons for his persecution.

Holt said attorneys and asylum seekers have to keep fighting to make case law that protects the vulnerable though he worried that the process would be too slow for many currently fleeing harm.

Not everyone who loses their asylum case is deported from the U.S. Many apply simultaneously for protection under the Convention Against Torture and withholding of removal, options that allow the person to stay in the U.S. but do not allow that person to get a green card, travel outside the country and return, sponsor family members or naturalize.

Less than two percent of Convention Against Torture applications were granted in fiscal 2016, according to data from the Executive Office for Immigration Review. About seven percent of withholding cases were granted that year.

Jacobs said shes seen more judges willing to grant these protections to Central Americans in the last two years as well.

Asylum case law will continue to evolve based on the conditions that people are fleeing, Marks said.

Asylum has to be a living area of the law, she said. Unfortunately, mans ingenuity on who we choose to hate and how we choose to harm people continues to change.

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Polish rescue workers on Sunday found the bodies of two miners after an earthquake hit a coal mine in southern Poland.

Three other miners remain missing some 2,950 feet below ground since the quake hit Saturday morning in the mine, located in the town of Jastrzebie-Zdroj, close to Polands border with the Czech Republic.

The head of the Jastrzebie Coal Company, Daniel Ozon, said a doctor confirmed the two fatalities and identification of the victims was underway.

The first victim, initially identified by Ozon as a 38-year-old man, had been trapped under some metal. Ozon said the identification still needed to be confirmed by DNA tests. The second miner was found a few hours later, trapped in the rubble, he added.

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More than 200 workers were involved in the rescue operation, working through twisted machinery and metal parts to get to the area where they expect to find the missing men. Ozon said emergency workers were pumping air into the affected area to lower the level of methane gas before they can safely move ahead.

A minor quake Sunday afternoon briefly delayed rescue efforts as it released more methane into the search area, Ozon said.

After the quake hit, four miners were rescued quickly but seven others went missing. Two of the missing were later found alive and have been hospitalized.

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and President Andrzej Duda travelled to the town, visiting the hospitalized miners and meeting with their families and some of the rescuers. Duda extended his condolences to the victims families.

Authorities have launched an investigation into the accident. It was not clear if coal extraction would resume Monday.

Polands State Mining Authority said the temblor had a magnitude of 3.4, while the European Mediterranean Seismological Centre pegged it at 4.3. TVN24 said the quake was also felt on the surface and shook some houses.

Coal mining is a major industry in Poland. Coal remains the main source of energy and heating in the country but Poland is taking some steps to shift toward renewable, cleaner sources of energy. The Main Statistical Office said some 65.8 million metric tons of coal were extracted last year in Poland, some 4.8 million tons less than in 2016.

Still many of Polands mines are dangerous, with methane gas that has led to a number of deadly explosions and cave-ins. So far this year, six miners including Sundays casualties have been killed at different mines, according to the State Mining Authority.

In 2016, eight miners were killed in a cave-in at the Rudna mine in Polkowice and methane explosions killed five miners at the Myslowice-Wesola mine in 2014.Attorney General Jeff Sessions will visit the San Diego border Monday to discuss the immigration enforcement efforts of the Trump Administration.

Justice Department officials said Sessions would hold a press conference with Immigration and Customs Enforcement Deputy Director Thomas D. Homan at 1 p.m. The location was not disclosed.

Sessions visit follows a March visit by President Donald Trump to Otay Mesa to survey border wall prototypes. Other administration officials also have made recent visits to the border region.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen viewed Calexicos replacement border barrier project on April 18. Less than two weeks later, on April 30, Vice President Mike Pence addressed Homeland Security and Border Patrol employees at the El Centro Border Patrol Station to discuss border wall plans and to call for tougher controls on immigration.

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The conference comes a week after a group of Central American asylum seekers arrived at the U.S. border in Tijuana. The group launched their journey across Mexico more than a month ago, fleeing violent and impoverished areas of Central America.

President Trump has been critical of the caravan in recent weeks, often referencing the group when criticizing what he sees as ineffectual immigration laws.

RELATED

The day after a migrant caravan reached the U.S. border in hopes of requesting asylum, Vice President Mike Pence visited a border construction project in Calexico, where he blamed activists for encouraging people facing hardship in Central America t

Twitter: @LAWinkley

(619) 293-1546

lyndsay.winkley@sduniontribune.comA brush fire burned dangerously close to some downtown Ramona apartments Saturday afternoon, prompting the evacuation of about 50 tenants for two hours.

The fire broke out about 2:15 p.m. off Montecito Road at Ramona Street, along a creek bed through town and near some apartment buildings, a sheriffs official said.

He said deputies assisted with evacuations and blocked roads in the area.

Two firefighting helicopters and two air tankers assisted 65 firefighters on the ground in containing the blaze at seven acres,Cal Fire Capt. Issac Sanchez said.

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He said the fire burned right up to the fence around two apartment buildings, so the residents were evacuated. They were allowed back into their apartments at 4:15 p.m.

Sanchez said the fire was first reported as debris burning in the river bed. Within a few minutes, spot fires were breaking out and a full wildland fire response was ordered, with air support.

He tweeted about 3 p.m. that the fire had burned four acres. An hour later, it had grown to seven acres, with 10 percent containment.

Firefighters soon stopped the forward progress of the blaze. Sanchez said crews would probably take another five hours to mop up, making sure there are no hot spots that could flare up later.

The cause of the fire was under investigation. Sanchez said he did not know if there were homeless camps in the river bed.

pauline.repard@sduniontribune

Twitter: @pdrepardThe border wall. Obamacare. Gun control. President Donald Trump has ignited controversy and driven media coverage on one political topic after the next.

However, for San Diegans planning to vote in the June 5 primary one issue may rise above the rest.

Its the economy, folks.

 Hear what issues San Diegans care about in the upcoming midterm election.

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Likely voters in the region, according to a recent SurveyUSA poll, ranked the economy well ahead of a slew of other prominent issues  such as immigration, tax policy or even how well the president is performing.

That might be troubling news for Democrats trying to win swing districts by framing the election as a referendum on Trump. At the same time, Republicans trying to scoop up red districts by tacking hard right behind the president may also find much of San Diegos electorate less hardline than theyre hoping.

Its one of those elections where locally theres no one riveting issue yet, said Carl Luna, a political science professor at San Diego Mesa College. Brand-name incumbents and party registration are probably the biggest impact.

Trump may win points with moderates as the stock market continues to hum along, although its far from clear what impact this will have.

While voters may care most deeply about issues that impact their bank accounts, the state of todays economy is not an easy issue for politicians to campaign on. Despite record low unemployment in the county and beyond, wage growth remains stagnant and fears about economic instability are never far from voters lips.

Voters such as Joe McCloskey, a moderate Republican from Solana Beach, are tracking pocket-book issues closely but without assigning too much credit to one party over the other.

The economy is always an issue, said the 61-year-old. Obviously, its a bit overheated right now. Well see what happens with quantitative easing.

Im trying to watch everything, he added. Thats a fulltime job in itself.

Perhaps not surprisingly, candidates have latched onto more divisive issues  most notably immigration, the states sanctuary laws and Trump.

The biggest force in the election is the guy whos not on the ballot, said Thad Kousser, chair of the political science department of UC San Diego. Its still all about Donald Trump and the issues that he has brought to the fore in American politics.

According to the SurveyUSA poll, which included demographic categories for gender, age, race and education:

The state of the economy was of most concern to men, those across all age groups, whites, Hispanics, Asians and especially those that earn more than $80,000 a year.

was of most concern to men, those across all age groups, whites, Hispanics, Asians and especially those that earn more than $80,000 a year. Whether undocumented immigrants should lose protections under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program raised the most concern with those age 18 to 24 and, of all races polled, Hispanics.

raised the most concern with those age 18 to 24 and, of all races polled, Hispanics. Recent tweaks to healthcare laws done through executive order resonated strongly with those that make less than $40,000 a year.

resonated strongly with those that make less than $40,000 a year. Gun Laws were of most importance for those aged 50 to 64, also ranked highly among those that made between $40,000 and $80,000 a year.

were of most importance for those aged 50 to 64, also ranked highly among those that made between $40,000 and $80,000 a year. Whether the border wall should be built resonated strongly with white voters, those between the ages 50 to 64 and those without any higher education.

resonated strongly with white voters, those between the ages 50 to 64 and those without any higher education. The job the president is doing was the top issue for African Americans and resonated notably with those over 65 years of age.

was the top issue for African Americans and resonated notably with those over 65 years of age. The recent tax overhaul polled evenly across, with no demographics prioritizing the issue.

Contentious races to watch include the battles for Rep. Darrell Issas 49th and Rep. Duncan Hunters 50th congressional districts, as well as the contest to replace termed-out County Supervisor Ron Roberts in District 4, which represents much of the city of San Diego.

The San Diego District Attorneys office is also up for grabs, pitting District Attorney Summer Stephan against Deputy Public Defender Genevieve Jones-Wright. The race could be one of the most definitive litmus test of the political makeup of the county with voters choosing between Stephan, a tough-on-crime candidate, and Jones-Wright, a reformer critical of the department.

The outcome of these races are anyones guess.

Democratic registration in the county surged in the run up to Trumps election and continues to grow.

As of April, the party had 611,831 voters or 36.6 percent of the electorate, as compared to Republicans 491,783 or 29.4 percent  growing its lead over GOP registration from 27,742 voters in January 2016 to more than 120,000 today.

However, analysts caution that such an advantage doesnt necessarily forecasts a blue wave.

Independents still represent a significant wildcard with 476,186 or 28.4 percent of registered voters. And many of those registered as Democrats may not actually vote.

North Park resident August Cade, 34, said shes a swing voter who favors lower taxes but voted Democratic in the last election. I look for a candidate whos more of a humanitarian that cares about people.

Spencer Burkholz, a 55-year-old attorney from Carmel Valley, said he follows national politics but hes most concerned about whats happening on the state and local level.

I think an issue is the homeless, he said. I notice it just walking while taking breaks from work, and Ive seen how bad its become over the last 20 years.

In the end, local and state issues, from affordable housing to road repairs to efforts to repeal the newly enacted gas tax, could play a decisive role in many elections, according to election watchers.

Theres no single issue thats driving voters of one party or the other to the polls, said longtime San Diego political consultant Tom Shepard. What Democrats need to do is take advantage of displeasure with Trump and then focus on micro issues.

The economy and the tax cuts are issues that are appealing to many Republican voters, he added. I think well also see issues connected with sanctuary cities connected with crime and the criminal justice system.

Another factor causing uncertainty, is Californias New Motor Voter Act that went into effect last summer and electronically transfers drivers information to the Secretary of State. They are then contacted and given the option to choose a party affiliation or opt out altogether.

While many of the newly signed up are groups that tilt left, such as younger urban voters, theyre also populations unlikely to cast ballots.

A slew of new voters, more Democratic than Republican, are on the rolls, but most of them are not going to vote in the primary because theyre not accustom to voting, Shepard said.

According to the SurveyUSA poll only 18 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds said they were certain to vote, compared with 45 percent of those ages 50 to 64 and 79 percent of those 65 years and older.

That apathy was apparent in David Tallman, who recently graduated from UC San Diego and is now living in La Jolla. The 22-year-old could barely muster a reason for not voting let alone the effort to fill out a ballot.

Im not planning on it, no real reason, he said. I dont discourage people from doing it. I just dont personally do it. I never felt like I needed to.

Anthony Barton, 24, who recently arrived in San Diego, also said he doesnt plan to vote in the June primary.

At this point, my generations so confused about what to do and who we should be, we dont even know where to start with ourselves, let alone a whole system, he said. Its a challenge.

Twitter: @jemersmith

Phone: (619) 293-2234

Email: joshua.smith@sduniontribune.com

Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading.Built on the Adossat wharf, this 12,500-square-meter Terminal E along with Carnival's Palacruceros at Terminal D, represent the company's largest combined terminal investment, more than 46m, in Europe.

Designed by Catalan architecture firm Batlle i Roig Arquitectura, the terminal has a modern and graceful style with straight lines, creating a contemporary and comfortable environment designed to enhance the embarkation and disembarkation process.

Port's first public parking

Also making its debut shortly will be the port's first public parking facility, providing embarking passengers with access to nearly 300 parking spaces. In addition, the Helix terminal will accommodate Carnival Corp.'s new class of next-generation ships that will be fully operated by liquefied natural gas.

The ceremony included Arnold Donald, CEO of Carnival Corp. & plc; Julio Gomez-Pomar Rodriguez, secretary of state for infrastructure, transport and housing for the government of Spain; Enric Millo, government delegate in Catalonia; Ricard Font, secretary of infrastructure and mobility for the government of Catalonia; Agusti Colom, councilor of tourism, commerce and markets for the Barcelona City Council; Jose Llorca, chairman of Puertos del Estado; and Sixte Cambra, president of the Port of Barcelona.

Europe's best-loved cruise port

'After years of working closely with our extraordinary partners in Barcelona, including the port, its support network of local businesses and the city, we are absolutely thrilled to introduce our world-class Helix cruise center to welcome guests from around the world to Europe's best-loved cruise port and to Barcelona, one of the world's greatest cities and regions,' said Giora Israel, SVP global ports and destination development for Carnival Corp.

He continued: 'Our goal is to provide our guests with extraordinary vacations, and we are confident that our new terminal will help us enhance the overall experience for our guests. The terminal stands as a tribute to the remarkable appeal of Barcelona and the entire country as one of the world's most beautiful, vibrant and compelling destinations.'

Carnival Corp., he added, now looks forward to working with the Port of Barcelona and its community partners to make the cruise terminal a highly efficient and customer-friendly operation.

Tribute to Jose Alberto Carbonell

Israel also paid an impromptu tribute to Jose Alberto Carbonell, director general of the Barcelona Port Authority and the senior career civil servant at the port under Cambra, appointed by the regional Generalitat of Catalunya. Referring to their 20-year professional relationship, Israel described Carbonell as a 'rock' for his dependability and for his consistent attention to the interests of the port during their many negotiations.

Citing the port's long history of working with Carnival Corp. and its brands, Cambra expressed appreciation for the company's 'strong commitment to our great port, city and region, and we are excited about the new Helix cruise center, which is already earning rave reviews as one of the world's most spectacular cruise terminals.'

'In a city and region known for its inspiring and beautiful architecture, it is exciting to have Carnival Corporation's stunning Helix cruise center grace the Port of Barcelona as our newest landmark,' Font added. 'We appreciate Carnival Corporation having such a positive impact on our local economy and employment and for making such a significant investment in our region.'

1m passenger movements by Carnival brands

Eight Carnival Corp. brandsAIDA Cruises, Carnival Cruise Line, Costa Cruises, Cunard, Holland America Line, Princess Cruises, Seabourn and P&O Cruisesvisit Barcelona throughout the year. Six of those brands are operating full or partial homeporting in 2018.

Carnival expects to accommodate more than 1m passenger movements at the port in 2018, with 289 calls by 38 ships.

On Saturday, Queen Mary 2, calling at the port for the first time in three years and for the first time since the liner's total refurbishment, was docked alongside the new terminal near the completion of a 120-day world cruise. QM2 is scheduled to call at Cadiz on Monday before returning its Southampton homeport. Costa Favolosa was docked at Carnival's adjacent Palacruceros terminal and sailed just as the Helix inauguration was concluding. Farther toward the city along Adossat pier, P&O Cruises' Britannia lay alongside. AIDAstella was at Terminal Sud near the World Trade Center.

With reporting by Dan Solon from BarcelonaSTATEN ISLAND, N.Y.-- Faber Park was covered in green, white and red on Saturday afternoon, as dozens celebrated authentic Mexican culture in Port Richmond.

Sure, Cinco de Mayo is known for being a popular partying day, but to Josephine Marino of Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield, it's much more than that.

"This festival is getting better and better," said Josephine Marino. "It's even nicer to see that people from the South Shore are coming to the North Shore to appreciate this wonderful cultural festival."

CINCO DE MAYO 101

"Just to be clear, in Mexico, we don't get the day off for Cinco de Mayo," said Jorge Tuddon, a representative of the Mexican Consulate of New York.

Tuddon described the history behind Cinco de Mayo, which commemorates the David-vs.-Goliath defeat of French forces at the Battle of Old Puebla on May 5, 1862.

Now, 156 years later, it's an opportunity to dance and celebrate on Staten Island.

Mexican Independence Day, the holiday Cinco de Mayo commonly gets mistaken for, is on September 16.

"Although we are facing anti-immigrant rhetoric, it is important to remember that the United States is a great nation of today because it has recognized the human capitol of immigrants, what they bring and all of this has opened the doors for those who come seeking a better place for their families," Tuddon continued.

TRADITIONAL DANCE AND DISHES

Performances from Nu Davi, El Ballet Guadalupano, El Ballet Folklorico Del Centro and a mariachi band entertained the crowd lining the grass area of the park.

The borough-based Labyrinth Art Collective debuted their bilingual children's theatre program during the festival as well, teaching youngsters the difference between the sun and the moon.

Rev. Terry Troia, president of Project Hospitality, and other volunteers served authentic Mexican cuisine to attendees, while kids enjoyed games.

The event is sponsored by Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield, El Centro del Inmigrante, NYC Parks, NYPD, Labyrinth Art Collective, Single Stop and the Healthcare Education Project.

"[This event] is Staten Island becoming one Island, that's the whole idea," Marino says.STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Free samples, giveaways and discounts are up for grabs this afternoon at Mark's Bake Shoppe, the Richmond sweet shop owned by Mark Intoccia.

The bakery, located at 3479 Richmond Road, carries a full selection of cookies, cakes, cupcakes, muffins, strudel and breads, some of which are vegan and free of dairy or animal byproducts.

Mark says:

"Today, and throughout the afternoon, in order to celebrate our first anniversary, we are having a party complete with deejay, free samples of sweets including our newest cake bite we call "Jelly Ring," as well as 20 percent off all cake orders placed today."

He adds:

"(We make) each item fresh, in small batches, from scratch, and often. We hope that when you eat our desserts, you say to yourself, 'That's what it's supposed to taste like.'"



Intoccia and his wife, Amanda, have deep roots in the Richmond community: Both went to nearby St. Patrick's School.



And the business is a family affair.

Intoccia has even tagged his confections with names of family members, such as "Jo-Jo's Cookies" after one of his sons, Joseph.

Mark invites Staten Islanders to stop by to say hello.STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Andrea Barberio, 27, said she thinks about her mother, Jil -- who died two years ago after suffering a brain aneurysm -- every day.

On the days when she doesn't want to get out of bed, "I hear her voice, and it gives me strength to move on."

"In the 24 years I had her, she taught me that you can't let something break you. You have to let it motivate you to keep going. I think about my mom every second of every day," said Barberio, an Annadale resident who is an ultrasound technician for a surgery center in Manhattan.

One month shy of her 25th birthday her mother died after undergoing breast reduction surgery.

"A few days after her surgery everything seemed fine, but then she suffered a traumatic brain aneurysm. She was on life support for a couple of days, but ultimately we had to remove her," said Barberio, referring to the difficult decision made by herself, her father and brother.

'I CAN'T LOSE HER'

"When my mother was in the hospital I remember thinking to myself, I can't ever lose this woman because it would be the death of me as well," she added.

To make matters worse, Barberio lost her grandmother -- a second mother to her -- just a year prior.

"My grandmother was like a mother to me and lived right next door. Oddly enough, that sort of prepared me, because that was the worst loss I ever experienced," said Barberio.

FINDING SUPPORT

After her mother's death she read a book "Motherless Daughters" By Hope Edelman.

She soon found Edleman's Facebook page, which linked to a New York City page for women who had lost their mothers.

"I started to join Facebook groups of women who had lost their mothers. ...It was nice to see other women who felt the same way I do. ..It was such a good place for me. I know when I need a place to go to, to ask for advice, post a picture of her, and be part of a community. I know those people will understand, and not say, 'Oh she's posting another picture of her mom,'" said Barberio.

"There are things I can't say to my friends and family who haven't loss their mothers," she added.

STATEN ISLAND MOTHERLESS DAUGHTERS PAGE

After meeting others from Staten Island in this group, she got together with Nicole Smith and Audrey Giambrone and two weeks ago launched a Facebook page, Staten Island Motherless Daughters.

The trio hopes the page will lend support as Mother's Day approaches -- a particularly tough time for those who have lost their moms.

After only two weeks, the page already has close to 60 members.

"But I don't want it to stop there, especially as Mother's Day approaches. It's tough for people right now," said Barberio. "The page is there if you want it or need it. ...It's just a place where you can connect with people who understand and get it," said Barberio.

In addition, Barberio has her own blog where she posts about her mom, and all she loved, and misses about her. Her most recent post is titled: "Mother's Day through a Motherless Daughter's eyes."

Anyone interested in joining the Staten Island Motherless Daughters Facebook page, can request membership here.

FOLLOW TRACEY PORPORA ON FACEBOOK and TWITTERSTATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - Mayor Bill de Blasio wants to help make the commute easier for New Yorkers.

Except here on Staten Island, that is. At least for the moment.

It's the first anniversary of de Blasio's fast ferry program. You remember. It's been called the "five borough" fast ferry system. Or the "citywide" fast ferry system.

Neither moniker is accurate, actually, seeing as Staten Island still isn't a part of it. And from what the mayor said the other day in announcing a sweeping, $300 million expansion of the program, it doesn't sound like we'll be part of this "blue highway" any time soon.

First things first: Yes, Staten Island has a free, subsidized ferry between St. George and Downtown Manhattan. We have round-the-clock service, seven days a week.

We're grateful. Truly.

But a ferry based on the North Shore simply isn't enough for our Island of almost half a million people. For people from the Mid-Island or South Shore, just getting to the ferry is a commute in and of itself. So they need options.

Here's what de Blasio said the other day in announcing the service expansion, according to a transcript provided by City Hall:

"I want to speak to all of the straphangers and all of the drivers who suffer in this city every day who are on the clogged highways, who are stuck in traffic, who are in a subway that's overcrowded, on a platform where they can barely have enough space waiting for a train - all those New Yorkers every day are struggling, they need new solutions," he said. "They need new options. And they feel, I think a lot of them, the same way I felt. How are we not taking full advantage of all that's around us? Our waterways -

He said, "This is the key to a future of New Yorkers being able to get around more easily and being able to have the kind of choices that they deserve for the thing that decides so much of your life, getting from point-A to point-B."

Tell me that every word doesn't apply to Staten Islanders. And yet we're still closed out of the fast ferry system.

Borough President James Oddo has pressed de Blasio on the fast ferries, offering his own ideas for how it can be done.

But if the system is to come here at all, we're going to have to wait until two other spots get their fast ferries before we're even looked at.

Here's what de Blasio had to say about Staten Island the other day.

"I'm sticking to what I've said all along, once the Lower East Side route and the Soundview route are up and running this summer we will have a good look at the whole system and how it's worked. And we all had to understand how this would work in real life, not on paper, but in real life. That will give us the opportunity to make a decision about the future."

In other words, don't hold your breath.

What makes it all the more frustrating is that de Blasio is over the moon about how the system has worked so far. He says that within the next few years, 9 million people a day will be using NYC Ferry. The city is doubling the fleet, adding larger capacity boats. He said the demand has been "astronomical," and that the system has been a "game changer" across the city.

Said de Blasio, "If you don't have access to transportation that works, you don't have access to education, you don't have access to jobs, you certainly don't have the quality of life you deserve."

He's right. How often have Staten Islanders lamented how their exhausting commutes are degrading their quality of life?

De Blasio also said that NYC Ferry is "a very important part of our goal of making New York City the fairest big city in America."

Yep, fair is fair. Give Staten Island a piece of the fast ferry action.Crackdown shakes Chinese city's 'Little Africa'



Guangzhou, May 6 (AFP) May 06, 2018



The Ghanaian university student was roused after midnight by police shouting and pounding on his door in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, where a crackdown on illegal immigration has left many residents of its "Little Africa" neighbourhood feeling scared and angry.

After demanding to see his visa, the agents carefully checked his papers before leaving to knock on other doors.

The commercial hub has long been a magnet for fortune-seeking Africans, but traders and students say they face unfavourable visa rules and increasingly heavy policing.

"They do this because Africans live here," the Ghanaian student told AFP as he stood on a pedestrian bridge in the bustling city, still upset over last summer's after-dark visit.

"I was sick of being treated like a criminal. I had to move to another neighbourhood," he said, gesturing at a nearby police station and lamenting that the omnipresent security had made life more complicated.

Migration from Africa has risen in recent years as China has stepped up its diplomatic links and investments with the continent.

Guangzhou draws merchants who come to buy goods such as jewellery and electronics in bulk, which they ship back to their homelands.

But in January, the official Xinhua news agency reported that the African population in Guangzhou had decreased as "police have tightened enforcement on illegal immigration".

There are now 15,000 Africans living in the city compared to 20,000 in 2009, but "the real number, including illegal immigrants and overstayers, is believed to have been much higher," the report said.

Estimates from Chinese researchers have put the actual number of residents at over 150,000, making Guangzhou home to the largest African community in Asia.



- 'Harsh treatment' -



Police vans with flashing lights and officers astride motorcycles congregated after nightfall recently at a small public square in Xiaobei, a "Little Africa" neighbourhood with halal restaurants on narrow winding streets.

A Nigerian merchant was returning home from a meeting with wholesalers earlier this year when officers handcuffed him and hauled him to a police station because he was not carrying identification.

It was only after his Chinese landlord vouched for him over the phone that police allowed him to retrieve his passport in his apartment -- under close watch.

The treatment seemed "wrong" for a routine document check, the merchant told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Residents who faced police checks asked not to be identified over fears of being deported.

Guangzhou's police and exit-entry bureau did not return requests for comment.

"Sure, there are some illegal activities like the drug trade and police should target this minority of people," said Ohene Opoku Agyemang, a doctoral student in international relations at Jinan University.

"But the harsh treatment of law-abiding people negatively affects Africans' view of China and hurts efforts to build friendly relations with African countries," he said.



- Too much red tape -



Long-time African residents of Guangzhou say they see their compatriots lapse into "illegal" status after struggling with onerous visa renewal requirements.

Nigerians must submit criminal record checks for all work and student visas, and no African countries are eligible for 72-hour or 144-hour transit visa exemptions, unlike visitors from many other nations.

"My friend had to go home to give fingerprints for a criminal record check. A return flight cost $2,000. By the time he got all his documents in order, his visa expired," said Akubakarr Sajor Barrie, director of an import-export company.

"For a small business owner, this is really hard. People start to wonder if doing business in China is worth it and they go to countries like Turkey and Vietnam instead," Barrie said.

In 2013, China amended its legislation governing foreign residents, the Exit-Entry Administration Law, adding higher penalties for illegal workers and overstayers without streamlining visa requirements, which vary widely between jurisdictions.

While the rules are for all foreigners, Africans lack institutional support in China and face considerable bureaucratic hurdles from their own countries, such as lacking online services for criminal record checks.

"There is no chamber of commerce from the 55 African countries in Guangzhou to track what is really happening or advocate for African businesses as other chambers of commerce do," said Hannah Ryder, CEO of Development Reimagined, an international development consultancy specialising in Africa-China relations.

A severe lack of funds and information prevents African governments from working together to seek favourable visa policies, she added.

The decrease of African residents in Guangzhou has taken a toll on Chinese businesses catering to them.

"We do flight bookings for traders, so when they can't get visas to come and visit even for a short time, of course it affects our business," said Yoyo Chen of Yoyo Travel Services.

But traders say some business conditions have improved.

"The quality and variety of choice in products has improved dramatically in the seven years I've been coming to Guangzhou," said a shoe merchant from Lagos, while he examined a bejeweled black velvet loafer at a market.

"And more Chinese can speak English."FRENCH CUL DE SAC:--- On Sunday May 6th, Prime Minister Leona Romeo-Marlin, Minister of Justice Cornelius DeWeever & Minister of Education Culture Youth & Sport Jorien Wuite attended the annual Fish Day Festivities in French Cul-de-sac.

President of the Collectivite of St. Martin Daniel Gibbs, during the Opening Ceremony for Fish Day thanked the three Ministers representing the Government of St Maarten for their presence at the event.

As part of the Opening Ceremony for Fish Day Prime Minister Romeo-Marlin, Minister DeWeever & Minister Wuite were invited to accompany President Gibbs and other invited guest aboard a traditional fishing vessel to lay a wreath at sea. The traditional laying of the wreath at sea, is in honor of fishermen that have passed away and who contributed to the establishment of the fishing tradition and industry on French St. Martin.

The Fish Day Opening Ceremony concluded with a traditional seafood breakfast followed by traditional and cultural activities including steel pan performances and The Crab Race.Cuba to host Colombia-ELN rebel peace talks



Bogota, May 5 (AFP) May 05, 2018



Cuba will host peace talks between the Colombian government and leftist ELN rebels aimed at ending a five-decade conflict after Ecuador bowed out as host, negotiators said Saturday.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos is trying to conclude a peace agreement with the country's 1,500-strong last active rebel group, similar to the one signed with the larger FARC guerrillas in November 2016. The FARC has since become a political party.

Five other countries -- Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Norway and Venezuela -- have vouched for the dialogue.

"After jointly examining the options to renew dialogue as soon as possible," Colombian government and ELN negotiators will resume talks "in Havana starting next week," a joint statement read.

"We hope to move forward quickly," added Santos.

On April 18, Ecuador said it was suspending its role as guarantor of the peace talks between Colombia and the National Liberation Army guerrillas, which have been hosted in Quito since early 2017.

Ecuadoran President Lenin Moreno told Colombia's RCN television that he wanted to end Ecuador's role following a flareup of violence along their common border.

Moreno's remarks came as Ecuadoran and Colombian troops pressed a hunt along their respective sides of the border for a small band of ex-FARC rebels turned criminals responsible for the kidnapping and murder of a three-man Ecuadoran journalist team.

However, peace talks with the ELN are being held against the backdrop of a more hostile political context in Colombia, after hardline conservatives opposed to peace with the rebels have gained ground in recent legislative elections.Iraq says its warplanes targeted IS jihadists in Syria



Baghdad, May 6 (AFP) May 06, 2018



Iraqi warplanes carried out a raid Sunday targeting Islamic State group commanders in eastern Syria, in the second such strike on the jihadists since mid-April, the premier's office said.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered the "painful strike" which targeted "a meeting of IS commanders south of Al-Dushashiya in Syrian territory", a statement said.

F-16 fighter jets were used in the early morning strike and the raid was "successful", the spokesman of Iraq's security media centre, General Yehya Rassoul, told AFP.

Dushashiya is in a desert region of Syria's Hasakeh province, where a US-backed Kurdish-led alliance is fighting the jihadists.

On April 19, Iraq said it had carried out an air raid against IS in Syria that killed 36 IS fighters, near the town of Hajin in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor.

Iraq declared victory in December against IS, which launched a sweeping offensive in 2014 and at one point controlled a third of the country.

The jihadists still control pockets of desert along the border with Syria.Iraq says its warplanes targeted IS jihadists in Syria



Baghdad, May 6 (AFP) May 06, 2018



Iraqi warplanes carried out a raid Sunday targeting Islamic State group commanders in eastern Syria, in the second such strike on the jihadists since mid-April, the premier's office said.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered the "painful strike" which targeted "a meeting of IS commanders south of Al-Dushashiya in Syrian territory", a statement said.

F-16 fighter jets were used in the early morning strike and the raid was "successful", the spokesman of Iraq's security media centre, General Yehya Rassoul, told AFP.

Dushashiya is in a desert region of Syria's Hasakeh province, where a US-backed Kurdish-led alliance is fighting the jihadists.

"After receiving information on the target in co-operation with Syria's government and in co-ordination with coalition forces (led by the US), F-16s from the Iraqi air force led strikes against a command post of IS, 10 kilometres from the Iraqi border inside Syria," said General Mohammad al-Askari, an adviser to Iraq's defence ministry.

"This attack took place following a meeting of several Daesh commanders who were planning terrorist operations on Syrian or Iraqi territory," he said, using an Arab acronym for IS.

The target "was completely destroyed and all the officials there were killed," he said, without giving a death toll.

Askari also said Iraq hosts a centre that co-ordinates military activity with Iran, Russia and Syria "against IS".

"This is not the last strike in Syria. They will continue, in relation to the activities of Daesh."

A week ago, Abadi told the media that Iraq would carry out air strikes against IS outside the country's own borders.

On April 19, Iraq said it had carried out an air raid against IS in Syria that killed 36 IS fighters, near the town of Hajin in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor.

Iraq declared victory in December against IS, which launched a sweeping offensive in 2014 and at one point controlled a third of the country.

The jihadists still control pockets of desert along the border with Syria.Israel doesn't know if Trump will pull out of Iran deal: source



Jerusalem, May 6 (AFP) May 06, 2018



US President Donald Trump has not informed Israel of whether he will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal it opposes on or before a May 12 deadline, a senior Israeli official said Sunday.

The comments came as Israel pushed its case to have the deal changed or eliminated, arguing intelligence documents it recently unveiled on Iran's alleged nuclear ambitions helped demonstrate why.

Some experts and analysts believe Trump will pull out of the agreement concluded in 2015 under his predecessor Barack Obama and which he has harshly criticised.

They have also questioned whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's televised unveiling of the trove of tens of thousands of intelligence documents on April 30 was coordinated with Washington.

"In effect, I don't know what Trump will decide because he hasn't told me," the senior Israeli official said on condition of anonymity, making clear Israel had not yet been informed of Trump's decision.

The official added however that "I think that he has the same sceptical view."

Proponents of the nuclear deal argued the trove of documents Israel obtained from Tehran shed little new light on Iran's nuclear programme and in fact made the case for why the accord is important.

Netanyahu argues the documents show the deal with his country's main enemy was built on a lie -- Iran denied having pursued nuclear weapons -- and demonstrates it has a secret atomic weapons programme ready to activate at any time.

World powers that were party to the agreement, including Britain and France, said those arguments only strengthened the reasoning for the deal, which has safeguards in place designed to keep Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons.

They also said the intelligence documents did not show Iran was violating the deal.

Trump could decide by May 12 to reimpose US sanctions on Iran lifted as part of the agreement.

The Israeli official said while he did not know what Trump's course of action would be, there could be a range of options.

He said he believed one option could be Trump declining to renew a waiver on sanctions against Iran due to expire on May 12, but using the lag time between when sanctions take effect to negotiate from a stronger position.

Trump could alternatively decide to single out firms key to Iran's economy for what are known as secondary sanctions to apply pressure on Tehran.

"I think you want to ratchet up the pressure," the Israeli official said.

Netanyahu on Sunday meanwhile disputed arguments from deal proponents that the intelligence trove he unveiled had no new details. He also said it did not matter if Iran violated the agreement or not since the deal was fatally flawed.

"If you don't violate a dangerous deal, it doesn't make it less dangerous," he said.

Trump and his Middle East allies, particularly Israel, argue the agreement was too weak and needs to be replaced with a more permanent arrangement and supplemented by controls on Iran's missile programme.Israel doesn't know if Trump will pull out of Iran deal: source



Jerusalem, May 6 (AFP) May 06, 2018



US President Donald Trump has not informed Israel of whether he will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal it opposes on or before a May 12 deadline, a senior Israeli official said Sunday.

The comments came as Israel pushed its case to have the deal changed or eliminated, arguing intelligence documents it recently unveiled on Iran's alleged nuclear ambitions helped demonstrate why.

Some experts believe Trump will pull out of the agreement concluded in 2015 under his predecessor Barack Obama, and which he has harshly criticised.

They have also questioned whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's televised unveiling of the trove of tens of thousands of intelligence documents on April 30 was coordinated with Washington.

"In effect, I don't know what Trump will decide because he hasn't told me," the senior Israeli official said on condition of anonymity, making clear Israel had not yet been informed of Trump's decision.

The official added however that "I think that he has the same sceptical view."

Proponents of the nuclear deal argued the trove of documents Israel obtained from Tehran shed little new light on Iran's nuclear programme and in fact made the case for why the accord is important.

Netanyahu argues the documents show the deal with his country's main enemy was built on a lie -- Iran denied having pursued nuclear weapons -- and demonstrates it has a secret atomic weapons programme ready to activate at any time.

World powers that were party to the agreement, including Britain and France, said those arguments only strengthened the reasoning for the deal, which has safeguards in place designed to keep Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons.

They also said the intelligence documents, obtained in February, did not show Iran was violating the deal.

Trump could decide by May 12 to reimpose US sanctions on Iran, which had been lifted as part of the agreement.

The Israeli official said that while he did not know what action Trump would take, there could be a range of options.

He said he believed Trump could decline to renew a waiver on sanctions but use the lag time before they took effect to re-negotiate from a stronger position.

The US president could alternatively single out firms key to Iran's economy in order to apply pressure on Tehran.



- 'Dangerous deal' -



Netanyahu on Sunday disputed arguments that the intelligence trove he unveiled contained no new details.

He also said it did not matter if Iran violated the agreement or not, since the deal was fatally flawed.

"If you don't violate a dangerous deal, it doesn't make it less dangerous," said Netanyahu, whose country is believed to be the Middle East's sole nuclear power, though it has never acknowledged it.

A senior Israeli intelligence official said the vast majority of the documents uncovered were not previously known.

Trump and his Middle East allies, particularly Israel, argue the agreement was too weak and must be replaced with a more permanent arrangement and supplemented by controls on Iran's missile programme.

Restrictions on Iran's nuclear activities begin expiring in 2025.

Netanyahu has also said lifting sanctions has increased Iran's ability to finance proxy militants.

Beyond that, there have been tensions between Israel and Iran in Syria, where Tehran is backing Bashar al-Assad's regime.

Israel has pledged not to allow Iran to entrench itself militarily in the neighbouring country.

It has been accused of carrying out deadly strikes there, most recently on April 9 and April 30, which killed Iranian forces as well as Syrian soldiers.

"We are determined to block Iran's aggression against us even if this means a struggle," Netanyahu said Sunday.

"Better now than later... We do not want escalation, but we are prepared for any scenario."Stockholm, May 6, 2018 (SPS) - Swedish Minister for Rural Affairs, Sven-Erik Bucht, has affirmed that the Polisario Front, as the legitimate representative of the Saharawi people, should be consult on every fishing agreement that may include the territorial waters of Western Sahara.



This came in response to a written question addressed by Swedish MP from Swedish Democratic Party, Bjorn Soder, to the Minister for the European Union and trade, in which he demanded clarifications on the mandate granted by the Council of Europe on April 16, to the Union Commission, to begin negotiations with Morocco on the renewal of the agreement on fishing and the position of Sweden.



The Minister replied that Sweden was the only country to vote on February 19, against granting the European Commission authorization to open negotiations with Morocco on the renewal of the fishing protocol, which was supported by the European Court ruling on February 27, which nullified any agreement between the EU and Morocco that might include Western Sahara and its territorial waters.



The Minister reiterated Sweden's position in support of the Saharawi people's legitimate right to self-determination, recalling Sweden's full support for the ongoing peace process within the framework of the United Nations, including efforts to enable the people of Western Sahara to enjoy their right to self-determination. (SPS)



062/SPS/TRAI am grateful to know what a special person he has been since 1983. He enriches the lives of so many people. I hope all of his patients have the same respect and admiration for him that I do. He is truly a master in his field and has changed many lives.





by Anwar A. Khan





( May 6, 2018, Dhaka, Sri Lanka Guardian) At the outset, I wish to quote from the book of Rise Up and Salute the Sun written by Egyptian-American author Suzy Kassem, Choose a leader who will invest in building bridges, not walls. Books, not weapons. Morality, not corruption. Intellectualism and wisdom, not ignorance. Stability, not fear and terror. Peace, not chaos. Love, not hate. Convergence, not segregation. Tolerance, not discrimination. Fairness, not hypocrisy. Substance, not superficiality. Character, not immaturity. Transparency, not secrecy. Justice, not lawlessness. Environmental improvement and preservation, not destruction. Truth, not lies, and a Doctor for Healing of Patients, not killing of them. As a matter of fact, Dr. Bernard B. Nath loves to give or bring back a patients life. Therefore, trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility.





Dr Bernard B. Nath is an allopathic physician of medicine by profession. He did his Doctor of Medicine from Italy. Being a very kind-hearted Doctor of medicine, he has been treating his patients for about four decades, with strong dedication, medical skills and kindness; and he always remain concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through his excellent treatment. He takes a very insignificant fee per medical consultation. Every patient is a true votary of him because of his kindness and his very high quality of treatment. I know him since 1983. He is a perfect Doctor, perfect in all respects and a perfect human-being. Innumerable patients have been taking his quality treatment with great satisfaction. Everyone respects him highly from the bottom of their hearts because of his excellent treatment to his patients. But he always keeps a very low profile. He is above 65 years old. To verify the veracity of my statement about him, anyone may kindly visit his chamber to receive his quality treatment at Indira Road, Dhaka and can interact with the patients waiting there for his medical consultation.





Dr. Bernard B. Nath [/caption] [caption id="attachment_50750" align="alignleft" width="189"] [/caption]





He is rare species of Doctor and one will not be able to find another physician to his level of quality in the present time. Dr. Bernard is an excellent medicinal physician and professional and every sense of the word. He is truly the finest and most gifted medicine specialist in Bangladesh. He is a true asset to the country. His talent and expertise are superb! What a fabulous field of medicine; watching the transformation and joy of patients. One has to be filled with gratitude for his dedication to his field of activities and tender care of his patients.





I am grateful to know what a special person he has been since 1983. He enriches the lives of so many people. I hope all of his patients have the same respect and admiration for him that I do. He is truly a master in his field and has changed many lives. Many patients are now healthier, happier, and more confident and are committed to getting in good shape and health. Dhaka is blessed to have such a kind-hearted physician who cares about his patients and is a consummate professional. He is an incredible doctor and I imagine he does wonderful things for his patients every day. Patients are also grateful for his tranquil reassurance that is always calm but always beneficial.





He is truly the best of the best in the field of medical treatment in our country! His professionalism, kindness and expertise are highly praiseworthy. He knows how happy he is making his patients every day but as I said earlier, he always keeps a very low profile. He is a gifted general physician in the discipline of medicine. He is so very special to every patient. When we feel love and kindness toward others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and peace and I think Dr. Bernard strongly believes and have truly internalised these words of Dalai Lama in his inward soul to renders his services to his patients.





Simply put, a great doctor is a great human being, who happens to have the capacity to restore health. The greatest doctors are those who know when to stop and pull out. A doctor, like anyone else who has to deal with human beings, each of them unique, cannot be a scientist; he is either, like the surgeon, a craftsman, or, like the physician and the psychologist, an artist. This means that in order to be a good doctor, a man must also have a good character, that is to say, whatever weaknesses and foibles he may have and he must love his fellow human beings in the concrete and desire for their good before his own.





An enlightened Master Jaggi Vasudev has said, In terms of the real quality of a human being, only when suffering comes, when pain comes, does a man stand up as a human being. Similarly, until and unless, we fall in sick, we cant fathom the sufferings of illness. I am sexagenarian; so I frequently encounter physical sickness and try to get some relief for which I used go to consult with physicians and hence, I have developed some good intimacies with a few best doctors of the country though the country does have serious dearth of good doctors in the related field of illness.





The art of living lies less in eliminating our troubles than in growing with them has been aptly said by Dr. Bernard M. Baruch and any sort of illness or disease is nothing but a trouble and we should not carry on with it. Seeking a doctors advise for remedy is the right thing to do. Whenever I fall into sickness, I prefer to consult with humanist physicians like Dr. Bernard B. Nath, MD (Medicine), Italy and maybe, because we also are in the same age group. There is, within physicians, special breeds who have honed the uncanny ability to simply feel what is wrong with a patient, and pursue this observation appropriately. This is the breed of Dr Bernard, a man perhaps most famously known for being the real-life inspiration behind all patients. He asserts in the tone of Dr. Abraham Verghese, I grew up and I found my purpose and it was to become a physician. My intent isn't to save the world as much as to heal myself. But in entering the profession, we must believe that ministering to others will heal our woundedness.





Before you examine the body of a patient, be patient to learn his story. For once you learn his story; you will also come to know his body. Observation, reason, human understanding, courage; these make the physician. To array a man's will against his sickness is the supreme art of medicine. The physician should look upon the patient as a besieged city and try to rescue him with every means that art and science place at his command. The doctor should be opaque to his patients and, like a mirror, should show them nothing but what is shown to him. It is the duty of a doctor to prolong life and it is not his duty to prolong the act of dying.





Men, who are occupied in the restoration of health to other men, by the joint exertion of skill and humanity, are above all the great of the earth. They even partake of divinity, since to preserve and renew is almost as noble as to create. Ernest Hemingway said, Deceive not thy physician, confessor, nor lawyer. In nothing do men more nearly approach God, than in giving health to men. The doctor is the servant, not master for teaching Nature. Dr Bernard B. Nath is simply like a servant to his patients.





A physician is obligated to consider more than a diseased organ, more than even the whole manhe must view the man in his world. Carl Wilhelm Hermann Nothnagel said, All knowledge attains its ethical value and its human significance only by the human sense with which it is employed. Only a good man can be a great physician. In fact, Dr Bernard is a human being of morally admirable and as such, he is a physician of uppercase and major significance or importance. But nothing is more estimable than a physician who, having studied nature from his youth, knows the properties of the human body, the diseases which assail it, the remedies which will benefit it, exercises his art with caution, and pays equal attention to the rich and the poor. He is a great friend to the poor patients and sometimes, he treats his patients without any fees or with a very nominal fee.





Let the physician take care to regulate the whole regimen of the patient's life for joy and happiness by promising that he will soon be well, by allowing his relatives and special friends to cheer him and by having someone tell him jokes, and let him be solaced also by music on the viol or psaltery. The physician must forbid anger, hatred, and sadness in the patient, and remind him that the body grows fat from joy and thin from sadness.





Medicine rests upon four pillarsphilosophy, astronomy, alchemy, and ethics. The first pillar is the philosophical knowledge of earth and water; the second, astronomy, supplies its full understanding of that which is of fiery and airy nature; the third is an adequate explanation of the properties of all the four elementsthat is to say, of the whole cosmosand an introduction into the art of their transformations; and finally, the fourth shows the physician those virtues which must stay with him up until his death, and it should support and complete the three other pillars has correctly been spelt out by Philippus Aureolus Paracelsus. And he is the physician who possesses all those qualities.





Only the healing art enables one to make a name for him and at the same time give benefit to others. Only those who regard healing as the ultimate goal of their efforts can, therefore, be designated as physicians. Physicians are many in title but very little in reality. Dr Bernard comes under the purview of that very few little in reality. Physicians still retain something of their priestly origin. The best physician is also a philosopher and he is like a philosopher.





There are some arts which to those that possess them are painful, but to those that use them are helpful, a common good to laymen, but to those that practise them grievous. Of such arts there is one which the Greeks call medicine. For the medical man sees terrible sights, touches unpleasant things, and the misfortunes of others bring a harvest of sorrows that are peculiarly his; but the sick by means of the art rid themselves of the worst of evils, disease, suffering, pain and death. The ideal doctor would be a man endowed with profound knowledge of life and of the soul, intuitively divining any suffering or disorder of whatever kind, and restoring peace by his mere presence as spelt out by Henri-Frederic Amiel, has been interanlised in the heart and soul of Dr Bernard B. Nath.





To end up, we wish to say Allah and the Doctor we alike adore. Dr. Bernards achievement of his happiness is the only moral purpose of his life, and that happiness, not pain or mindless self-indulgence, is the proof of his moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of his loyalty to the achievement of his values. Without continual growth and progress, such words as, improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning. Restore a man to his health; his purse lies open to thee. To us, the ideal doctor would be a man endowed with profound knowledge of life and of the soul, intuitively divining any suffering or disorder of whatever kind, and restoring peace by his mere presence. Each patient ought to feel somewhat the better after the physician's visit, irrespective of the nature of the illness. "In the middle of difficulty, lies opportunity. We must go through the storm to appreciate the sunshine! as defined aright by Albert Einstein and Dr Bernard is the sunshine; he is one of few finest gentlemen physicians of the country. As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them. The fragrance of flowers spreads only in the direction of the wind. But the goodness of a person spreads in all directions. Goodness is about character - integrity, honesty, kindness, generosity, moral courage, and the like. More than anything else, it is about how we treat other people. And Dr Bernard treats patients in an exceptionally different way to heal them.





-The End-







by Anwar A. Khan





When work is a pleasure, life is a joy. When work is a duty, life is a slavery.  Maxim Gorky





( May 1, 2018, Dhaka, Sri Lanka Guardian) International Workers' Day, also known as Labour Day or Workers' Day in some countries and often referred to as May Day is a celebration of labourers and the working classes that is promoted by the international labour movement which occurs every year on 1st May Day. The date was chosen by a pan-national organisation of socialist and communist political parties to commemorate the Haymarket affair, which occurred in Chicago on 4th May 1886. The 1904 Sixth Conference of the Second International, called on all Social Democratic Party organisations and trade unions of all countries to demonstrate energetically on the First of May for the legal establishment of the 8-hour day, for the class demands of the proletariat, and for universal peace.





International working classes have existed since the development of agriculture, about ten thousand years ago. Serfs, slaves, trades people and others were forced to turn over the fruits of their labour to an exploiting class. But the modern working class, whose exploitation is hidden by the wage system, is only several hundred years old. Men, women and children forced to work long hours in miserable conditions just to eke out a living. These conditions gave rise to demands for limitations on the working day. Utopian socialist, Robert Owen of England, had raised the demand for a ten-hour day as early as 1810, and instituted it in his socialist enterprise at New Lanark. For the rest of the English workers, progress was slower. Women and children were only granted a ten-hour day in 1847.





French worker's demand for a 12-hour day was granted after the February revolution of 1848. In the United States, where May Day was born, Philadelphia carpenters campaigned for a ten-hour day in 1791. By the 1830s, this had become a general demand. In 1835, workers in Philadelphia organised a general strike, led by Irish coal heavers. Their banners read, "From 6 to 6, ten hours work and two hours for meals." From 1830 to 1860, the average work day had dropped from 12 hours to 11 hours.





Already in this period, the demand for an eight-hour day was being raised. In 1836, after succeeding in attaining the ten-hour day in Philadelphia, the National Labourer declared, "We have no desire to perpetuate the ten-hour system, for we believe that eight hours' daily labor is more than enough for any man to perform." At the 1863 convention of the Machinists' and Blacksmiths' Union, the eight-hour day was declared a top priority. The heart of the movement was in Chicago, organised mainly by the International Working Peoples' Association.





A few years later, in 1872, a hundred thousand workers in New York City struck and won the eight-hour day, mostly for building trades workers. It was in this protracted campaign for an eight-hour day that May Day was born. The movement for the eight-hour day was linked to the date of 1st May at an 1884 convention of the three-year-old Federation of Organized Trades and Labour Unions of the United States and Canada, the forerunner of the American Federation of Labor. It was resolved to hold the demonstration on 1st May 1890 in keeping with the American Federation of Labour's 1886 demonstrations of 1st May.





The call was a resounding success. On 1st May 1890, May Day demonstrations took place in the United States and most countries in Europe. Demonstrations were also held in Chile and Peru. In Havana, Cuba, workers marched demanding an eight-hour working day, equal rights for all and working-class unity. Although the 1889 resolution called for a once-off demonstration on 1st May, the day quickly became an annual event. Throughout the world workers in more countries marked the celebration of labourers rights on May Day.





May Day was celebrated for the first time in Russia, Brazil and Ireland in 1891. By 1904 the Second International called on all socialists and trade unionists in every country to demonstrate energetically annually on 1st May for the legal establishment of the eight-hour day, for the class demands of the proletariat, and for universal peace. Chinese workers celebrated their first May Day in 1920, following the Russian socialist revolution. In 1927, workers in India observed May Day with demonstrations in Kolkata, Chennai and Bombay. By that time, May Day was truly a world workers' day.

Ironically, while May Day gained momentum across the world it lost steam in the United States where the celebration originated. Today May Day is celebrated as a public holiday throughout most countries with the exception of the United States, because of the holiday's association with Communism. Mayday has been celebrated unofficially in South Africa since the 1980s. However, 1st May only became an officially recognised public holiday after the democratic elections of 1994. South Africa's mining industry's history and the development of strong Trade Unions and communist ideologies has largely determined the country's labour history and the workers struggle.





May Day is also a labour holiday in many areas of the world, and that part of its history is a thornier story. May Day has shared a date with International Workers' Day since the 1880s. At the time, labour movements around the world were fighting for fair work accommodations like eight-hour workdays and unions. The date was chosen because it aligned with the anniversary of the Haymarket affair in Chicago, where police killed four people at a peaceful protest after someone threw a bomb into the crowd. The event had a huge impact on labour movements across the world.





The demand for an eight-hour day . . . is the demand of the whole proletariat, presented, not to individual employers, but to the government as the representative of the whole of the present-day social and political system, to the capitalist class as a whole, the owners of all the means of production. The decision to declare 1st May as International Labour Day or May Day arose from the historic struggle launched by the American workers for an eight-hour workday and the brutal attack by the police on the workers at a protest rally held at Haymarket Square in Chicago, U.S.A. on May 4, 1886. In that rally, the American workers struck work on 1st May 1, 1886 demanding an eight-hour workday.





The working class across the world attaches great importance to May Day rallies to show their strength. Red has been selected as the colour of the workers in recognition of the blood-shed in the eight-hour workday struggle. May 1st of each year is now looked upon by the organised wage-workers and the observing public as a sort of new Independence Day upon which they will every year strike a blow for emancipation and steadily weaken the shackles of wage slavery. And that is significance of May Day.





Initially, May Day was intended to be a one-off protest, and in some ways quite a solemn affair. May Day did not merely enact internationalism and working class solidarity; it celebrated these things with the familiar paraphernalia of badges, flags, art, sporting events May Day is now most commonly associated as a commemoration of the achievements of the labour movement. The holiday may also be known as Labour Day or International Worker's Day and is marked with a public holiday in over 80 countries including Bangladesh.





The first of May is a national public holiday in many countries worldwide, in most cases as "Labour Day", "International Workers' Day" or some similar name. The 1st May popularly known as the May Day is an official holiday in Bangladesh. All labour-oriented organisations celebrate the day with great honour and dignity. On the following stanzas, what comrade Lenin said is of immense significance:





May Day is when the workers of all lands celebrate their awakening to a class-conscious life, their solidarity in the struggle against all coercion and oppression of man by man, the struggle to free the toiling millions from hunger, poverty, and humiliation. Two worlds stand facing each other in this great struggle: the world of capital and the world of labour, the world of exploitation and slavery and the world of brotherhood and freedom.

On one side stand the handful of rich blood-suckers. They have seized the factories and mills, the tools and machinery, have turned millions of acres of land and mountains of money into their private property. They have made the government and the army their servants, faithful watchdogs of the wealth they have amassed. On the other side stand the millions of the disinherited. They are forced to beg the moneybags for permission to work for them. By their labour they create all wealth; yet all their lives long they have to struggle for a crust of bread, beg for work as for charity, sap their strength and health by back-breaking toil, and starve in hovels in the villages or in the cellars and garrets of the big cities....





The great struggle of labour against capital has cost the workers of all countries immense sacrifices. They have shed rivers of blood in behalf of their right to a better life and real freedom. Those who fight for the workers cause are subjected by the governments to untold persecution. But in spite of all persecution the solidarity of the workers of the world is growing and gaining in strength....  We wish to finish off today in the words of Martin Luther King Jr., All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance, and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.





-The End In reality, Iran has very little offensive power. Like Iraq before it, Iran is militarily dilapidated with 40-year old equipment, a largely grounded air force, little artillery and poor communications. Tehran has a few inaccurate missiles but no nuclear warheads.





by Eric S. Margolis





( May 5, 2018, Toronto, Sri Lanka Guardian) Chutzpah is a wonderful Yiddish word that means outrageous nerve, or unmitigated gall.





This weeks Chutzpah Award goes to Israels prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Standing in front of props of data files and cds, Netanyahu claimed Israels renowned Mossad spy agency had stolen a small mountain of secret Iranian nuclear data from a warehouse in Tehran.





The never-understated Netanyahu claimed that the purloined material proved that Iran was lying about having halted its covert nuclear program and must not be trusted.





Netanyahus supposed nuclear bombshell was likely the warm-up act for President Donald Trump to reject Irans nuclear freeze deal with the US, Russia, China, Germany, and France, blessed by the UN and the European Union. The only thing Trump apparently hates more than Muslims is his predecessor, former President Barack Obama (whom he accused of being a secret Muslim). The Iran nuclear deal was the most important foreign policy accomplishment of the Obama administration.





Netanyahu repeatedly warned the world about Irans alleged nuclear arsenal while making no mention at all of Israels own large, secret nuclear arsenal, which is believed to comprise of over 100 warheads, perhaps even several hundred, that can be delivered by aircraft, missiles and submarines. Every Mideast nation can be hit by Israeli nukes as well as Russia, which some experts say is or was on Israels target list.





Trump, of course, made no mention of the awkward fact that Israel had stolen much of its nuclear technology and uranium from the United States, sometimes with the connivance of very senior US government officials. France, that paragon of world peace, had the rest.





Listening to Netanyahu accuse Iran of hiding secret nuclear facilities was pure pot calling the kettle black. Israels early nuclear program at Dimona in the Negev desert was entirely concealed from US and UN inspectors, including fake walls in the nuclear complex that completely fooled them. When Netanyahu accused Iran of cheating, he knows of what he speaks.





Most of what Netanyahu revealed about Irans alleged nuclear program was old stuff, dating back to 1999-2003 and readily available in reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency. This respected UN agency now reports that Iran has fulfilled all of its commitments and abandoned its earlier nuclear program that did not produce any weapons before it was ended.





But facts dont matter in this Trump-produced, made-for-TV drama. The key point is that with the naming of Michael Pompeo as US Secretary of State, and appointment of the rightwing fanatic John Bolton as US national security advisor, Israels rightwing government has completed its virtual takeover of US Mideast policy. As Ive previously written, Trump looks more and more like a Trojan Horse for Netanyahu and his extremist allies.





Besides Pompeo and VP Mike Pence, both ardent Christian Zionists, and Bolton, Trump now has around him the UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, of Indian origin, who is the darling of the US far right and a handmaiden of arch-pro Israel billionaire, Sheldon Adelson, a major bankroller of the Republican Party. Add in Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and, of course, Trumps daughter and son-in-law. In short, an amen-chorus for Israels far right.





This American Israel-first coalition has joined Netanyahus Likud alliance in pressing for war against Iran. The first skirmishes have already begun with over 100 Israeli air attacks on Syria, ostensibly against Iranian positions. A great propaganda hue and cry against the purported dangers of Iran is being raised in the US and Europe. According to Israels right, Assyrian hordes are about to engulf Israel.





In reality, Iran has very little offensive power. Like Iraq before it, Iran is militarily dilapidated with 40-year old equipment, a largely grounded air force, little artillery and poor communications. Tehran has a few inaccurate missiles but no nuclear warheads.





Israels powerful air force could easily turn any attacking Iranian forces into chopped falafel. Irans only strength is defensive, in urban combat or mountainous terrain. Iran has no capability to seriously threaten Israel except by aiding the Lebanese Hezbollah movement in showering northern Israel with light artillery rockets, a nuisance rather than a mortal danger.





Israel is moving to repeat its triumph in 2003 when the Bush administration, US partisans of Israel, and dishonest US media pushed the nation into a war of pure aggression against Iraq. Israel emerged the victor from this unprovoked war and is trying to repeat its success again with Iran.





Overthrowing Irans Islamic Republic would leave Israel the unchallenged power in the Mideast.The question of party discipline /indiscipline provides a window to an understanding of some of the changing dynamics of Sri Lankas political party system at present.





by Jayadeva Uyangoda





( May 6, 2018, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) For a student of political institutions in Sri Lanka, things happening within political parties are great material for reflection and analysis.





It appears that our political parties today are not what used to be a few decades ago. The presidential system, the system of proportional representation, changes in value framework in society, shifting class bases of political power, and persistence of coalition politics seem to have contributed to what one may call reshaping of the nature, dynamics, and cultures of political parties as institutions of democracy.

Party Indiscipline

The question of party discipline /indiscipline provides a window to an understanding of some of the changing dynamics of Sri Lankas political party system at present.





When we look at what we might call internal crises of both, the UNP and SLFP during the past two-to-three years, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that these two parties are no longer governed by the old cultures of inner party discipline and party loyalty. Indiscipline and weak loyalty with impunity seem to be a culture of party governance tolerated with indifference within both the UNP and SLFP.

SLFPs Record

Let us briefly look at what has been happening to the SLFP since November 2014. The General Secretary of the party staged a dramatic defection to the Opposition one night in November 2014 to become the Oppositions presidential candidate against his own party leader. His party membership was suspended, but with little or no effect on his position within the party. Two months later he became the partys leader by virtue of the fact that he was elected as the countrys President. This is an extremely interesting instance of how a grave violation of party indiscipline and disloyalty has been rewarded in thrilling form under unusually unusual political circumstances!





Then, in January 2015, President Sirisena, as the SLFPs new leader, brought his party to be a co-partner of the coalition government with the UNP, signing a formal agreement for a unity government. More than half of the SLFP MPs in Parliament defied the party leaders decision, organized themselves informally into a joint opposition in Parliament, and began at act as the de facto parliamentary opposition to the government headed by its own party leader. Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa continues to give leadership to this joint opposition, with no disciplinary consequences either for him or nearly 50 of his MPs. When one looks at the whole issue from the conventional perspective of party discipline, this is a situation that warrants to be called bizarre.





Then came the local government election held last February. Hundreds of members of the SLFP contested under a new, rival party called Sri Lanka Podujana Peramnuna (SLPP), and many of them even won. No one seems interested in even finding out whether such open defiance of party discipline should bring to these errant members any disciplinary consequences. The topic of party discipline is totally absent in the otherwise intense debates among different factions of the SLFP.





The current episode of 16 SLFP Ministers who are reported to be joining the Joint Opposition in the coming few days is another addition to this new trend in redefining party loyalty as a domain of extreme uncertainty. It is not very clear which side of the aisle they actually belonged to. They seem to find oscillation between the Government and the Opposition an enjoyable game in a situation where the line of demarcation between the Government and Opposition in Parliament is also blurred.

UNPs Record

The story of the break down of party discipline in the UNP is only slightly better. None of its disgruntled MPs or leading members has so far, since 2015, formed a rival party, or defected to the enemy camp. Yet, several MPs and Ministers continue to show scant respect for the party leader as well as the idea of party discipline with impunity.





There has been an open revolt against the party leader for months, with several Ministers, Deputy/State Ministers and MPs openly criticising, nay attacking, sometimes virulently, their party leader who is also their Prime Minister. And some of them have even been rewarded at last weeks reshuffle of the Ministerial portfolios, giving a lie to the old practice of a reshuffle as a mechanism to punish those who violate party discipline.





Meanwhile, one young MP the other day even posed an open challenge to the party hierarchy suggesting that she and several junior MPs had decided to boycott events attended by the leader as a mark of protest against his refusal to initiate substantial leadership reforms.

Unusual Things

Thus, in both the UNP and the SLFP, two unusual things have been happening. Party discipline has severely broken down, and the party leaders are unable to maintain the traditional disciplinary norms of party organisation. This stands in sharp contrast to the Sri Lankan tradition of strict party discipline maintained even during the recent past by leaders such as J. R. Jayewardene, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, R. Premadasa and Mahinda Rajapaksa.





What is most interesting is that even a leader like Mahinda Rajapaksa who controlled the SLFP under an iron fist could not prevent a debilitating defection three years ago, suggesting a general trend within both the SLFP and the UNP.





That trend is the simmering discontent at all levels of the party which the party leadership cannot address or contain by conventional means of securing loyalty to the party and the leader through internal party mechanisms. The UNP leadership is now facing this particular problem.





Does it mean that modern day party members have acquired a certain degree of autonomy from the party organization, even acquiring the capacity to function free of a regime of strict party discipline? Yes, that seems to be the case, particularly, with regard to those who have access to elected office.

Recent Changes

This invites us to look somewhat academically, at the recent changes in Sri Lankas political party system. The research conducted by Dr. Pradeep Peiris of Colombo University, a few years ago as part of his doctoral work, provides important clues to some significant shifts in the nature and dynamics of Sri Lankas political parties. Among his findings are the following:





(a) Major political parties in Sri Lanka no longer function on the foundation of well-structured national organisational networks on the ground that are controlled and managed by the party hierarchy, as it was the case in the past.





(b) Party organisations built locally are the most important organisational entities of the parties. This gives a greater leverage to local level party organisers, who will eventually become Provincial Councillors, MPs and Ministers, in party politics than in the previous system where the national level structures had held sway.





(c) Thus, the rise of the local party networks, built on the personality, resources and the ideological flexibility of the local organisers, over national organisational structures is the most significant new development in the organisational cultures of both, the UNP and the SLFP. This may be observed in other parties too, to greater or lesser degrees.





(d) What exists at the local level as party organisations are primarily informal and flexible networks of electoral support and patronage. These are usually established by individual MPs and office seekers through personal links with the electorate, on the basis of family, caste, patronage and other non-party as well as non-political ties.





(e) The party affiliation thus provides only a tenuous basis for party loyalty. Thus, extra-party loyalties built around individuals work side by side with party and ideological loyalties, often threatening the latter.

Crucial Shifts

These findings indicate that there have been crucial shifts in the relationship between individual politicians  Provincial Councillors, MPs, and Ministers  and their political parties: Parties have less control over them now than in the past. If we study individual cases of politicians whose record of party loyalty and discipline is marked by abiding uncertainty, vacillation and even what may be called unprincipled opportunism, we can see how the new logic of party indiscipline and disloyalty has been working as a distinct pattern in party politics in most of our political parties, big or small. Party loyalty then is a renewable virtue that is interspersed with ruptures, betrayal, and renewal. This relative autonomy of party functionaries vis a vis party bosses has also been made possible by two other structural factors, (a) the prevailing electoral system of proportional representation, and (b) the persistence of multi-party coalition governments. These two factors have made loyalty to the party fragile and party affiliation unstable, as repeatedly demonstrated during the People Alliance government of 1994-2001, the UNP government of 2001-2003 and the two UPFA governments during 2004 and 2014.





The Supreme Court interpretation of the constitutional provisions governing the consequences of crossovers under the PR system during the PA government of President Chandrika Kumaratunga inaugurated a new pattern of party disloyalty with no consequences. It actually allowed penalty-free cross overs from the opposition to the ruling party and back. A few beneficiaries of that Supreme Court ruling are holding top positions in the current coalition government.





Today, party bosses are reluctant to take disciplinary action against errant MPs and Ministers thanks to that particular binding interpretation of the PR law. It has in fact pushed the practice of disciplinary action in political parties into a zone of uncertainty, making institutional cohesion of Sri Lankas political parties uncertain and fragile.

Coalition Impact

Meanwhile, the recurrence of coalition governments under the Presidential system has added another fascinating element to the fragility of political institutions. Its most visible expression is the erosion of the theory and practice of collective responsibility of the Cabinet.





This is a process that began during the mid-1990s when a fragile coalition of several parties, -- the Peoples Alliance  survived as a government with a very slim parliamentary majority. That is also the period in which the breakdown of party discipline and the disregard for the principle of collective responsibility of the Cabinet worked together to germinate some significant new trends in Sri Lankas political institutions. What we observe at present is the fruition and maturity of those trends.

New Creatures

So, the point that interests students of political institutions is that Sri Lankas political parties have become new creatures with some unusually new characteristics. Monitoring these new changes requires not only scholarly vigilance, but also detachment from our old images of what democratic political institutions are.The Grand Old Party at the crossroads: There is, no doubt, however, in the minds of the UNP voter and the public at large that the changes made reveal that the UNP will remain unchanged.





by G. Dasanayaka





( May 6, 2018, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Let me preface what follows with a brief statement explaining why the subject is of broader interest and concern to the Sri Lankan public than just to the United National Party leadership.





From a public perspective, the overarching concern is that the UNP leadership by commission or omission is pushing the voter and the country back to the near despotic regime that was rejected by a majority of the people three years ago. The UNP has been a political force that has catered to the interest and welfare of a large constituency for over seven decades. People of many a race and faith still look to the UNP for political refuge and national stability. Thats why, perhaps, the party has earned for itself the sobriquet of Grand Old Party. It cannot be left to an individual or an inner circle to let the party drift into oblivion and create a political vacuum that cannot easily be filled. Such a vacuum can also lead to social upheaval in our country.





The Grand Old Party at the crossroads: There is, no doubt, however, in the minds of the UNP voter and the public at large that the changes made reveal that the UNP will remain unchanged.





Just when I thought that the April 4 no-confidence motion (NCM) against the Prime Minister had now been relegated to the dustbin of history, I could not help but revisit the subject on seeing colourful banners in outstation towns proclaiming the defeat of the NCM as a great victory for Our Prime Minister. These banners obviously put up by Sirikotha appointed organisers, many of whom lost the local council elections to the Phottuwa, are a reflection on the sorry state the UNP and the party leadership have fallen into.





Its folly to be wise where ignorance is bliss and it may well be that those responsible for these banners in their blissful state, believe that the defeat of the NCM has cleared all hurdles for the entrenchment of Ranil Wickremesinghes power for the next decade. Or can it be that such people are just self-centred and concerned only with whatever short term benefits they could reap from the current UNP leadership?





While these Sirikotha oragnisers hail the defeat of the NCM as a great victory for Our PM the more discerning and politically savvy public, view it more as a reprieve. At best, they see it as a Pyrrhic Victory leaving the party bruised and battered, warranting immediate introspection and remedial action. Such introspection and remedial action are required within the Unity Government but more within the UNP; as millions of Sri Lankans still rely on the UNP for national political stability.

Govts positives

The days of the Unity Government are numbered. The Constitution dictates that the Presidential election be held before January 8, 2020. General Elections will follow not much later. With a tired and frustrated electorate, especially the 6.2 million who voted the previous regime out of office still looking for a genuine change in governance, what matters most now, is not what the Unity Government can deliver in the next 17 months. Instead, it relates to what is in store for us when the people elect a new leader and Government in 2019/20. Should Messrs Sirisena and Wickremesinghe wish to continue in the turbulent seas of the Unity Government, so let it be. In the process let Mr Wickremesinghe will also achieve the distinction of serving a full term as Premier in his fourth attempt. Whatever good the Unity Government may achieve in this remaining short period will be a positive and I, for one, hope the Government will have some positives to speak of by the end of 2019. What thereafter, however, is the million dollar question.





As for the next presidential and parliamentary elections, it is reasonable to assume as at now that the key contenders will be a UNP-led front on the one hand and a group whether under the Pohottuwa or the SLFP-led by Mahinda Rajapaksa on the other. This is regardless of who the Presidential candidates will be. Any major change in this equation within the next 17 months appears highly unlikely.





Meanwhile, the underlying causes for the rejection of the MR regime and the victory of the UNP-sponsored common candidate in January 2015, continue to niggle in the minds of the voter; especially the 6.2 million who voted for change. The MR group has done nothing constructive since its defeat to convince voters that it has the capacity to re-position itself as a clean government, committed to democratic values and national prosperity. Neither have the people around the MR leadership changed. Yet, in their unbridled favour has been the virtual chaos that has reigned in governance under the MS-RW leadership.





This chaos, particularly at the level of the rural and working class voter, has led to a yearning for MR times notwithstanding all the vulgar negatives it was associated with. This yearning was evident in the results of the February local polls. Given this background, the critical question for the UNP must necessarily relate to its ability to convince the national electorate in 2019, that the party deserves another term in office. That effort must also target a UNP-led government and not a shaky coalition  a truly formidable challenge!





In fairness to the Unity Government, much has been done primarily in the area of strengthening democratic institutions and overall freedom of the individual. This, however, is more of intrinsic value and the average voter when in dire need asks: Are we to eat and live on freedom alone? Regrettably, neither has the Government been able to successfully market with the public whatever good it has achieved in terms of macro-economic long term stability; whereas the governing chaos has overwhelmingly overshadowed the achievements.





One may argue that the attitudes of our voter smack of political immaturity and the problem lies therein. Any political leadership worthy of its salt, however, needs to understand reality and average voter expectations. The average voter looks for more direct tangible benefits in which area this Government has little to boast of, apart from what was done during the period January-August 2015. In an electorate with a short term memory what was done then counts for little now and will count for even less by late 2019.





The post-local poll scenario and the run up to the NCM led to a revamped sense of enthusiasm among UNP supporters. This enthusiasm was prompted by the repeated assurances given by the party leadership that radical changes would be made to the party, enabling younger people to take charge of party affairs. More than a hint was made of a change in party leadership. The positive impact this enthusiasm had on the rallying call to support the PM and defeat the NCM cannot be gainsaid. Even the most pessimistic of UNPers seemed to entertain a glimmer of hope in the promise of change. The month for change was April. April has come and gone. What a damp squib the so-called radical change has been? Not only among many involved in the party machinery at different levels but thousands and more foot soldiers of the party feel they have been shortchanged and brought to square one. Meanwhile, the pessimists sneeringly say out loud: we told you so!





The so-called change has been a shifting of persons (all men at that with no women) among the key offices under the party constitution. The only outgoing has been the chairman who continues to retain heavy political clout. The general secretary was appointed chairman. The deputy was appointed general secretary with no unanimity  and a reluctant deputy brought in to fill the gap. A new national organiser, with no defined role, and a few other insignificant moves among old faces have also been made. The obvious deputy leader remains unchanged and so does the highly controversial assistant leader.





The only sense one might draw from the spirit of these changes is that the leader will also remain! I would not guess as to how satisfied the UNP leadership is of this change. There is, no doubt, however, in the minds of the UNP voter and the public at large that the changes made reveal that the UNP will remain unchanged. No doubt there are some good and efficient people among the new party office bearers. Regardless, the image of a party in the eyes of the public is reflected in the persona of the leader. To that extent, the party will continue to be associated with a failed leader and the expectation of a UNP-led government by end 2019 is even more diminished now than what it was before the Change Month of April 2018.

Cry of the UNP foot soldiers

Interestingly, as a wag put it in a Colombo watering hole the other day  Only if RW when contesting national elections displays the same tenacity he does when protecting his party leadership, he would certainly have been a winner many moons ago! But then, clinging to party leadership within the context of a tight pro-leader constitution and fighting a national election in the public domain are two different ball games. Unless the numerous committees in the UNP wake up to this reality, the drift from victory to oblivion will be very fast.





If the party leader cannot be changed under the complexities of the present constitution, change the constitution is the cry of the party foot soldier. The very least one could expect from the UNP in preparation for the 2019/20 election, though certainly not the best, is to declare the Partys Presidential candidate sooner than later. The UNP voter does not expect it to be RW and hopefully the party will not snoop around in secret conclaves for a third party candidate either. The declaration of a candidate can still permit RW to continue as party leader and make way for a new leader when the party candidate hopefully wins the Presidency.





We can be reasonably assured (or can we?) that RW the loyal party man will in the, meanwhile, extend unstinted support for the victory of the party candidate. Such an arrangement, however, will necessarily require the declared candidate to take operational charge of the party machinery and build a strong team to face the hustings. That requirement too needs to be facilitated. In the prevailing atmosphere within the party it is questionable, however, as to whether the current leadership will be far sighted and courageous enough to walk this path.





Assuming without conceding that the April Changes can galavanise the party into election mode, a political analyst may still legitimately ask whether party and government should not be delinked as far as it is possible, for mutual good.





It is useful to consider in this regard how J.R. Jayewardene addressed this aspect. JRJ is credited with bringing the party twice into power after humiliation at the polls. The most notable was the UNP victory in 1977 which routed the then mighty SLFP. If the current UNP leadership is really serious about strengthening the party machinery why not take a leaf from the thoughts of JRJ?





It was his thinking that the party executive; to work with efficiency, needed a degree of independence from the politicos. His thinking was manifested in the appointment of the highly respected accountant and polls strategist N.G.P. Panditharatne as the party chairman. He was not in the public eye but a professional master strategist, loyal to the party and what it stood for. JRs appointment of the young, energetic and affable Harsha Abeyawardene as General Secretary was another good example. Harsha who was ruthlessly gunned down in his prime by cowardly terrorists was not burdened with nursing an electorate. Instead, he focused full time on party work and facilitated with great acceptance the activities of the politicians.





Now, contrary to the thinking of JRJ all the key office bearers of the UNP are not mere politicians but those holding powerful cabinet/ministerial responsibilities. Party office bearer meetings may well amount to mini cabinet meetings! I wonder as to whether these men have sufficient hours in a day to get through their ministerial duties and wonder even more as to how they would find time to discharge the obligations they owe the party and its membership.





I ask, against this backdrop, as to why not in the minimum, rid the burden of high governmental responsibilities from the General Secretary? Or will sacrificing cabinet office be too high a price to pay for holding key party office? The party had an exceptionally good choice in Imthiyaz Bakeer Markar for General Secretary but for reasons unexplained, that was not to be. No doubt those responsible for appointing the current office bearers and the holders of these offices consider themselves equal to the task: truly supermen!





An arrangement to delink the party as much as possible from the politicians can also be of practical value when in government and more so in a coalition government; as it enables a degree of flexibility to draw a distinction between compromised government decisions and party policy. This cannot easily be done when government ministers hold key party office. A very simple but clear example would relate to President MSs decision to continue with a ban on selling alcoholic beverages to females. The UNP very likely has a different view on the subject. Yet, how could the General Secretary of the party who is a senior Minister in a cabinet presided over by the President speak out for the party without breaching the norms of collective responsibility?





To revert to the issues at hand, the NCM, its aftermath and the impending national elections in 2019/20. The defeat of the NCM was at best a pyrrhic victory for the UNP. If the UNP is to retain the faith of the voting masses it must constructively address the challenges ahead in a politically mature manner.





The level of disillusionment among the party rank and file has reached an all-time high. This disillusionment alone is enough to reverse the result of the 2015 elections. The writing on the wall is clear and time is running out fast. Hopefully, I am not just a proverbial violinist as the Sinhala saying goes; playing music to a pack of deaf elephants. It was the erstwhile Israeli diplomat politician, Abba Eban who said many years ago of the Palestinians: They never lose an opportunity to lose an opportunity. Being an incorrigible optimist, I still believe that history will not have to say the same of the Grand Old Party.Most Russians, especially those of military age, are reluctant to serve in the military and very much against foreign military adventures even if they are not likely to be sent to a combat zone. The government already acknowledges that by minimizing the number of Russian troops sent to Syria or Donbas and keeping military casualties low.

The February incident in Syria where over 200 Russian military contractors died when they tried to seize a small base in eastern Syria containing American troops did not trigger calls for revenge among Russians. Instead, the attitude was that these guys took a chance to make a lot of money and it didnt work out. There are a lot of dangerous jobs in Russia that pay well to compensate for the risk. Those who do that work are opportunists, not patriots. So the government has to go easy in Ukraine and Syria. Israel seems more aware of this than most Middle Eastern powers. That is partly because Israel has a large Russian minority, courtesy of a lot of Russian Jews coming to Israel since the 1980s and keeping in touch with folks back home.

Another aftereffect of the 200 contractor deaths was Russia revealing how many Russian military personnel have served in Syria since mid-2015. It was 48,000, and that includes army, navy and air force. Not included are contractors, who are civilians, even if they took on some of the most dangerous jobs and suffered more casualties than the military personnel. Out of those 48,000 Russian military personnel who have been in Syria (some for less than a day, few for more than six months) only about 60 have died in combat so far. There have been half as many military contractors serving in Syria and they have suffered nearly 500 dead. No official numbers of military contractor fatalities have been released but Russian volunteer organizations have tried to keep track of the funerals or other indications of young men dying in Syria and it is clear that being a military contractor is a lot more dangerous. The point here is that there are still some Russians willing to take dangerous combat jobs but there are not enough them to maintain the million man military Russian leaders want.

For the Russian military all this indicates that military service is still very unpopular and even though most Russian military personnel are now volunteers (serving on contracts) the ability of the military to hold onto those contract soldiers is always weakened if there are a lot of casualties or too much chance of being sent to a combat zone. Conscription is in even worse shape, with the number of conscripts available declining each year. In April 2018 the Russian military only ended up with 128,000 conscripts during the semiannual draft call. This was the lowest since 2006, a year when there were more young men available as well as more deferments and rampant draft dodging. In the t2 years since then, the deferments have declined, more draft dodgers have been punished severely but there are still fewer conscripts. There are simply fewer young men to conscript because of lower birth rates and more young men who are in poor physical shape or have become addicted to drugs or otherwise acquired a police record and more trouble than they are worth if conscripted anyway. All this was expected but since the 1990s Russia has been seeking solutions and finding none that work.

A 2012 parliament-ordered investigation of the armed forces found that the army was short a third of the privates (lowest ranking enlisted troops) they were supposed to have. The Russian military (mainly the Army and Interior Ministry paramilitary units) are supposed to have a million personnel. But officials admitted in 2011, off-the-record, that the real number is closer to 800,000 and relentlessly declining. A subsequent investigation confirmed this. What happened to the missing troops? Since 2012 the military has come up with a growing list of solutions for the problem but all these efforts do is slow the decline of military manpower numbers, not reverse it. Current fixes involve calling up reservists (usually for a brief period to test the system) and instead of letting the reservists quickly return to civilian life the military is keeping many of the reservists for six months or more. If this keeps up, reservists will start looking for ways to get out of the reserves. The economic recession since 2014 (because of low oil prices and sanctions) was supposed to encourage more Russians to volunteer but that did not happen. Recruiting foreigners had minimal impact and so the Russian military keeps fading away.

The military has 220,000 officers and about the same number of "contract personnel" (higher paid volunteers, who fill most of the NCO slots). Thus conscripts still make up a large portion of the military and it's getting harder and harder to find enough people to take. The means that there are two classes of Russian military personnel. Most (about 70 percent) are much less capable (most of them conscripts in for one year of service) supervised by many of the least capable officers and NCOs. But a third of the military are more enthusiastic volunteers and conscripts. These staff the elite special operations, airborne, security and specialist units. In other words, while the Russian government claims to have a million military personnel on duty the reality is the reality is that there are less than 800,000 (and apparently closer to 700,000) people on active duty and only about 200,000 of those are really good at what they do and want to be in the military.

Conscripts are inducted twice a year, in April and October. In 2011, the April intake was 220,000 but fewer than that actually made it into uniform. In 2018 the April draft was 128,000. In 2011 only about 75 percent of the men who showed up were considered fit to take. In 2018 standards of fitness for military service are much less strict and the military has to cope with a lot more recruits who are of marginal use.

By 2012 the military reluctantly accepted the fact that they would not be able to obtain more than 270,000 conscripts a year if that. In the last six years maintaining anything close to that number meant taking less willing and able men. Senior leaders now accept that they will never command a million man force.

For a decade now the military has not been attracting the kind of quality volunteers they had hoped to get and are lowering their standards in order to make their annual quotas. This just fills the ranks with more troublesome people, who cause more of the good troops to get out. In the last few years, the military has quietly stopped accepting many volunteers or conscripts from Moslem areas, especially the Caucasus (especially Chechnya and Dagestan). The wisdom of this was made clear when Russian intelligence reported that the most effective Russian Moslems who joined and fought for Islamic terrorist groups were military veterans. In contrast, Russian Moslems who had not served in the military were less likely to become Islamic terrorists and if they did they were used as suicide bombers or support staff, not as long-term fighters. Moreover, commanders continued to report that if more than a few percent of their troops were Moslem there would be morale problems or worse.

The basic recruiting problem is two-fold. First, military service is very unpopular, and potential conscripts are increasingly successful at dodging the draft deliberately or otherwise. But the biggest problem is that the number of 18 year olds is rapidly declining each year. By 2009 all draftees were born after the Soviet Union dissolved. That was when the birth rate went south year after year. Not so much because the Soviet Union was gone but more because of the economic collapse (caused by decades of communist misrule) that precipitated the collapse of the communist government. The number of available draftees went from 1.5 million a year in the early 1990s, to less than half that today. Less than half those potential conscripts are showing up and many have criminal records (or tendencies) that help sustain the abuse of new recruits that have made military service so unsavory.

With conscripts now in for only a year, rather than two, the military is forced to take a lot of marginal (sickly, overweight, bad attitudes, drug users) recruits in order to keep the military and Ministry of Interior units up to strength. But this means that even elite airborne and commando units are using a lot of conscripts. Most of these young guys take a year to master the skills needed to be useful and then they are discharged. Few choose to remain in uniform and become career soldiers. That's primarily because the Russian military is seen as a crippled institution and one not likely to get better any time soon. With so many of the troops now one year conscripts, an increasing number of the best officers and NCOs get tired of coping with all the alcoholics, drug users, and petty criminals that are taken in just to make quotas. With the exodus of the best leaders and growing number of ill-trained and unreliable conscripts, the Russian military is more of a mirage than an effective combat (or even police) organization.

The military is unpopular for conscripts mainly because of the brutal treatment they receive. This has not been getting better, and "hazing" incidents are still increasing each year. This is serious stuff. There are a lot of reasons for not wanting to be in the Russian Army but the worst of them is the hazing (of new men by guys who have been in a few months longer). It was thought that this sort of thing would speed the demise of conscription in Russia, once the Cold War ended in 1991. Didn't work out that away. The government has found that, even among the "contract soldiers" (carefully selected volunteers who are paid much more than conscripts) the old abuses lived on and that most of the best contract soldiers left when their contract was up. It was because of the brutality and lack of discipline in the barracks. The hazing is most frequently committed by troops who have been in six months or so against the new recruits. But this extends to a pattern of abuse and brutality by all senior enlisted troops against junior ones. Its out of control. The abuse continues to exist in part because of the growing animosity against troops who are not ethnic Russians and especially against those who are Moslem. Because of higher birthrates among the Moslem populations, nearly 15 percent of eligible conscripts are Moslems and that is seen as more of a problem.

This hazing originally developed after World War II, when Russia deliberately avoided developing a professional NCO corps. They preferred to have officers take care of nearly all troop supervision. The Soviets failed to note that good NCOs were the key to effective troops. The Soviets felt that officers were more reliable, as they were more carefully selected and monitored. The NCOs that did exist were treated as slightly more reliable enlisted men but given little real authority. Since officers did not live with the men slack discipline in the barracks gave rise to the vicious hazing and exploitation of junior conscripts by the senior ones. This led to very low morale, and a lot of suicides, theft, sabotage, and desertions. The hazing has been one of the basic causes of crimes in the Russian armed forces, accounting for 20 to 30 percent of all soldier crimes. This has caused a suicide rate that is among the highest in the world. Poor working conditions in general also mean that Russian soldiers are nearly twice as likely to die from accidents, or suicide, than American soldiers. Long recognized as a problem no solution to the hazing ever worked.

Conscription itself, and the prospect of being exposed to the hazing has led to a massive increase in draft dodging. Bribes, and document fraud are freely used. Few parents, or potential conscripts, consider this a crime. Avoiding the draft is seen as a form of self-preservation. The government has cracked down on the parent-backed draft dodging with little effect. Thats because there is still so much corruption in Russia and evading conscription is seen by many as not really criminal, especially when the parents can afford to pay a bribe to keep their only son (and often an only child) out of the Russian military.

The Russian lack of sergeants (praporshchiki) has been difficult to fix. Just promoting more troops to that rank, paying them some more, and telling them to take charge, has not done the job. So going back to look at how Western armies do it, the Russians noted that those foreign armies provided a lot of professional training for new NCOs and more of it as the NCOs advanced in rank. But this is a long term process and it will be years before benefits will be felt.

All this is in sharp contrast to the old days. When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, it had five million troops in its armed forces. Now it's less than 800,000 in just Russia (which has about half the population of the Soviet Union but most of the territory). Although the Russian armed forces lost over 80 percent of its strength by the end of the 1990s a disproportionate number of officers remained. This problem was solved, after encountering much resistance from officers in general, after a series of reforms, the number of officers was reduced by over 50 percent.

As a result of these personnel problems, Russian efforts to reform and upgrade its armed forces have, so far, failed. The basic problem is that few Russian men are willing to join, even at good pay rates. Efforts to recruit women and foreigners have not made up for this. The Russian military has an image problem that just won't go away easily. This resulted in the period of service for conscripts being lowered to one year (from two) in 2008. That was partly to placate the growing number of parents who were encouraging, and assisting, their kids in avoiding military service.

All this comes after more than a decade of reforms in the armed forces, particularly the army. Poor discipline, low morale, and incompetent performance are all legacies of the Soviet era (1921-1991). Russian commanders, envious of the success of all-volunteer Western forces, have long studied their former foes and decided to adopt a lot more Western military customs. For example, one recent reform ordered that Russian troops would not be confined to their barracks most of the time. In the Soviet era, the conscripted troops were treated like convicts and their barracks were more like a prison than the college dormitory atmosphere found in troop housing for Western military personnel. Russian conscripts are now free to leave the base on weekends and work only a five day week. All barracks have showers (a recent achievement) and troops accommodations are the best they have ever been. Things like this help a bit but not enough.

Russia has tried to change public attitudes towards the armed forces by publicizing all the new changes and programs. But word got around that most of these efforts failed. Blame that on the Internet. Polls constantly show that most military age men do not want to serve in the military and the main reason is the hazing and prison-like conditions in the barracks. As a result of all these factors, prospects of a revival of the traditional large Russian armed forces continues to fade.Students of Cato-Meridian High School attended their prom Saturday, May 5, 2018, at Alexandria's in Oswego.

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See all photo galleries from proms, senior balls, and other formals around Central New York.The latest episode of "Saturday Night Live" kicked off with a cold open to remember, featuring Alec Baldwin, Ben Stiller, Martin Short, Scarlett Johansson, Jimmy Fallon and porn star Stormy Daniels.

Daniels appeared in the opening sketch on "SNL" Saturday night as herself, talking on the phone with President Donald Trump (Baldwin) and his personal lawyer Michael Cohen (Stiller).

"Come on, Stormy. Stop making such a big deal about this. Everyone knows it's just an act," Baldwin said as Trump. "Just tell me, what do you need to make this all go away?"

Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, responded by demanding Trump resign. Baldwin's Trump tried to reason with her -- and flirt.

"My poll numbers are finally up and speaking of poles being up," he joked.

The political skit comes after a lively week in the sex scandal where Trump's new lawyer, former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani, said Trump reimbursed Cohen $130,000 for a hush-money payment to Clifford days before the 2016 election. Clifford says she slept with Trump in 2006, while he was married to first lady Melania Trump, and was paid to keep quiet.

Trump has denied all allegations of an affair with Clifford and denied changing his story. Giuliani "needs to get his facts straight," Trump said Friday.

Clifford, who was in New York to perform at a Long Island strip club over the weekend, has sued Trump and Cohen for defamation.

"I know you don't believe in climate change but a storm's a-comin', baby," she said on "SNL" Saturday.

The skit also featured Johansson as Ivanka Trump, Fallon as Jared Kushner, Short as Trump's former doctor Harold Bornstein, and "SNL" cast member Kate McKinnon as Giuliani. Bornstein returned to the news this week when he claimed three Trump associates "raided" his office and stole the president's medical records.

Donald Glover served as host and musical guest on Saturday's episode. The "Solo: a Star Wars Story" actor performed as his rapper alter ego Childish Gambino.

Stormy Daniels is scheduled to come to Western New York later this summer, performing at Scores in the town of Tonawanda on Aug. 10 and 11. The owner says the strip club will be renamed New York Showgirls by the time she visits.The death of Sultan Saladin is a mystery that is already eight centuries old. However, a doctor searched the limited medical history to finally unveil what might have caused the mighty sultan's death.

The cause of Sultan Saladin's death is just one of the many mysteries surrounding the legendary warrior. As he lived during a time before modern diagnostic medicine, records of his illnesses are scarce, and what is left are merely clues to what he may have suffered from.

Modern Diagnosis Possible

To uncover the mystery illness, Dr. Stephen Gluckman of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine scoured through the limited records of the sultan's health and presented his findings at the Historical Clinicopathological Conference last May 4.

Although a definitive diagnosis is really unlikely, the results revealed the likeliest cause of the sultan's death.

Mystery Illness

Evidence shows that the sultan's health woes began in December 1185 when he was 47 years old. There is no documentation of his symptoms, but his ordeal apparently lasted for over two months and his illness was so severe that his colleagues thought he was going to die.

He eventually managed to overcome his illness but evidently experienced fluctuating bouts of fever and colic in the months that followed. In 1190, he once again had a fever that had him confined to bed for a month.

When he was 56 years old, he complained of lost appetite, indigestion, weakness, and lethargy. He then experienced a bilious fever and his illness continued to grow more serious as he experienced severe headaches and bleeding.

On the seventh and eighth day of his illness, his mind began to wander, and by the 11th day, he was sweating so profusely that his perspiration went right through his mattress and mats. The next day, the patient was already going in and out of consciousness.

He died after the morning prayer on March 4, 1193, on the 14th day of his final illness.

Typhoid Diagnosis

Despite the limited information on the sultan's health, Dr. Gluckman was able to rule out several possible illnesses such as smallpox, plague, and tuberculosis.

Based on the evidence, the likeliest possibility is that he suffered from typhoid, a disease that that was rather common at the time. It is contracted when a person ingests food that is contaminated with Salmonella typhi. The symptoms of the illness include weakness, stomach pains, high fever, loss of appetite, and headache.

Sultan Saladin, or Salah al-Din Yusuf, is most known for unifying the Muslim world in the 12th century and recapturing Jerusalem from Christians.

His case was reviewed and discussed at the Historical Clinicopathologic Conference as part of the annual clinical exercise of discussing challenging historical cases.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.Two Polish miners killed, three missing after quake



Warsaw, May 6 (AFP) May 06, 2018



Two miners were killed and rescuers were struggling to locate three others after an earthquake hit a coal mine in the country's south, the mine's management company said Sunday.

The rescue workers managed to pull two miners up to the surface on Sunday but doctors there pronounced them dead, Daniel Ozon, the CEO of the Jastrzebie Coal Company (JSW) managing the mine, told reporters.

One of the dead men has been identified and the family were being informed, he said. A letter to his wife was found near the man's body.

DNA tests will be carried out Monday to idientify the other victim.

More than 200 miners and rescue workers were still searching for the three missing men, in sweltering heat around a kilometre (0.6 miles) beneath the surface.

"We are doing all we can to find them as quickly as possible," said Ozon.

The earthquake hit the mine at 11:00 am (0900 GMT) on Saturday about 900 metres (3000 feet) below ground level, Anna Swiniarska-Tadla, a spokeswoman for the WUG mining office told PAP news agency.

According to the Polish Mines Office it was a 3.42 magnitude quake.

Around 250 miners had been working underground when the quake struck, according to JWS.

Local residents also reported feeling a strong jolt in their homes in the region not known for seismic activity.

JSW is the largest company producing coking coal in the European Union.

Ozon said that family members of the missing miners were being offered psychological counselling at the mine site.

Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki visited rescued miners in hospital after meeting with mining officials late Saturday.

President Andrzej Duda arrived at the mine Sunday noon as the rescue operation was in full swing.

Coal is the main energy source in Poland with 65.5 million tonnes mined in predominantly state-owned mines the country last year.

Mining accidents have claimed over 200 lives in Poland over the last 45 years, according to statistics compiled by Poland's PAP news agency.

Poland's right-wing government and previous administrations have based their energy policy on plentiful domestic coal and taken little action to invest in or promote renewables to mitigate heavy pollution.

Smog from coal has spiked to record levels nationwide in recent years, with experts estimating there are some 50,000 premature pollution-related deaths per year in the country of 38 million people.

Poland is set to host the UN's COP 24 international conference on climate change late this year.Purchases made via links on our site may earn us an affiliate commissionRep. Pat Smith, D-Baton Rouge, protests a ruling by the House Speaker during the closing minutes of the last day of the regular legislative session Thursday June 8, 2017, in Baton Rouge, La..Mayor Mitch Landrieu waves to the crowd after making what he said could be his last public address as Mayor at a ground breaking ceremony on the half billion dollar redevelopment of the Four Season property at the end of Canal Street in New Orleans, La., Wednesday, May 2, 2018.Mayor Mitch Landrieu speaks at a ground breaking ceremony on the half billion dollar redevelopment of the Four Season property at the end of Canal Street in New Orleans, La., Wednesday, May 2, 2018. Landrieu said this was likely his last time making a public address before stepping down as Mayor of New Orleans.On Monday, New Orleans will celebrate the 300th anniversary of its founding with another historic milestone: the inauguration of its first woman mayor.

LaToya Cantrell will assume her office during what is in some ways a high point in New Orleans history. Almost thirteen years after Hurricane Katrina crippled the city, the budget is largely stable, billions of dollars are still being invested in public infrastructure and private developments, and progress has been made on many of the day-to-day issues facing city government.

But even after an exceptionally long transition period following her landslide victory in November, much remains unknown about what the Cantrell administration will do when Mayor Mitch Landrieu turns over the keys to the mayor's office on the second floor of 1300 Perdido St.

Cantrell has promised a government that draws its strength from community input and consensus, informed by her years as a neighborhood organizer and City Council member.

As mayor I will listen, I will engage and I will make the best decisions I feel necessary, to not only move these recommendations forward but to move the city of New Orleans forward, Cantrell said Thursday as she unveiled a series of recommendations from dozens of transition committees she had appointed.

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Cantrell, 46, swept to victory in the fall elections, leading in the primary and winning 60 percent of the vote in a runoff against the early favorite, former Municipal Court Judge Desiree Charbonnet.

Despite lagging in fundraising early in the race, Cantrell was able to assemble a coalition that transcended racial and geographic lines through direct contact with voters, effective use of social media, and passionate speeches that forged an emotional connection with residents.

She won majorities of both black and white voters and notched victories in nearly all of the city's neighborhoods. Combined with a long, six-month transition due to a change in the city's election calendar, Cantrell was set up to come into office with significant clout and the ability to hit the ground running.

"Shes got a lot of good will going in," said former Mayor Marc Morial, who now heads the national Urban League. "Its exciting, but it's daunting. Its a tough job."

But for months throughout the transition, Cantrell was largely absent from the public stage, and only recently have the contours of her administration begun to take shape publicly.

Announcements over the past two weeks have filled out the new administration's top ranks with a mix of local hires and government veterans from Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Detroit. Although most of her appointees will be new to city government or at least to their new jobs, decisions to retain Police Superintendent Michael Harrison and Fire Superintendent Tim McConnell suggest a degree of continuity with Landrieu's team.

The Cantrell cabinet: All the key hires of New Orleans' incoming mayoral administration LaToya Cantrells top administrative hires for the New Orleans mayors office:

Cantrell wrapped up the transition period on Thursday by unveiling a nearly 140-page report compiled by the committees she created to make recommendations to her on how the new administration should handle the challenges facing the city.

Cantrell specifically praised some of the report's proposals  such as moving the Sewerage & Water Board away from producing its own power  and said they will provide a "road map" for her team. But her top aides also said the administration will view the report as simply recommendations, leaving open exactly what policy directions the administration will take.

Cantrell, a California native who came to New Orleans to attend college, first come to prominence as a community organizer fighting against proposals to abandon her Broadmoor neighborhood and other hard-hit areas in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and much of that spirit still animates her. From there, she was elected to the City Council, where she served a term and a half representing District B.

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Cantrell's plan for New Orleans? Changing how S&WB gets electricity, boosting affordable housing, more Mayor-elect LaToya Cantrell said Thursday that she plans to shift New Orleans' ailing drainage system to a new source of electricity, a step a

Among her notable accomplishments on the council were the passage of an ordinance banning smoking in bars and at Harrah's casino; ensuring that housing funds were spent on actually improving housing units rather than code enforcement; and pushing for a "low-barrier" homeless shelter, where she and other council members successfully battled Landrieu over where the shelter should be built.

Despite progress in many areas under Landrieu, Cantrell inherits a city still grappling with serious problems including steep income and racial inequality, a lack of affordable housing, a high rate of violent crime and the S&WB's ailing drainage system.

She will face major decisions about how to upgrade the city's ability to handle serious storms and how to pay for those projects. She will need to choose a new leader for the embattled S&WB.

"The Sewerage & Water Board rebuild is going to be very difficult and important," Landrieu said recently when asked about the incoming administration. "It's not something that cant be done  but it is a thing. It would be the thing that I would spend a good deal of my time on had my time not been ending."

Other less crucial but still important issues also will face Cantrell. She has indicated her administration will examine the Regional Transit Authority's functions and try to expand its service, work on ways to help small contractors get more work from the city, make it easier for businesses to deal with City Hall and improve the services available for children and families.

And then there are the unknowns. Landrieu said every modern mayor has had to deal with crises that couldn't be anticipated.

What will become evident, unfortunately too soon, is that when you run a major city, you have major issues that you have to deal with all the time," he said. Before she even gets into things that she cant anticipate coming her way, the things that (she knows) she has coming her way are equally difficult.

Cantrell also faces some more personal challenges as she assumes office.

Hanging over her head is state Attorney General Jeff Landrys probe into whether she and other council members misused their city-issued credit cards, an investigation that was kicked off by attacks on her during the campaign. Cantrell has denied any wrongdoing, but Landry said Thursday that his investigation is not over and extends beyond Cantrell.

She also has faced criticism during the transition for personnel moves that at times have left observers puzzled.

Derrick Shepherd  a former state lawmaker who served time in prison for conspiracy to commit money laundering  was on hand at her first meeting with the citys delegation in the Legislature, raising concerns he would be tapped to play a major role under the new mayor. Eventually, Cantrell said that Shepherd would not be a part of her administration.

Similarly, she faced criticism for saying a few days ago that she was considering former NOPD Superintendent Warren Riley for a key job, only agreeing to "push pause" on that idea after criticism over police killings on Riley's watch after Katrina and what many said was his lackluster response to those incidents.

Asked recently about her history-making election, Cantrell said she is keenly aware of the responsibility that comes with shattering the glass ceiling.

I feel higher scrutiny is around me and on my back, she said.

In no way do I want to fail. In no way do I want to not deliver for the citizens of New Orleans.Amid the many celebrations and retrospectives that have accompanied the city's 300th birthday this year, one of the less-heralded aspects of New Orleans' history is finally getting a more official acknowledgement: its central place in the slave trade.

Two different groups, one of them affiliated with the official 2018 Tricentennial Commission, have plans to erect markers that explain the city's role as the largest slave market in the Deep South.

The New Orleans Committee to Erect Historic Markers on the Slave Trade has already placed one marker at the Moonwalk along the Mississippi River and another in the neutral ground at Esplanade Avenue and Chartres Street.

"For so many years, this part (of the city's history) was not commemorated," said Freddi Williams Evans, a New Orleans-based author and historian who serves as one of the committee's chairs. "This is an effort to rectify that."

The selling of slaves, which had been going on in New Orleans for nearly a century at the time the city became part of the United States in 1803, really took off after Congress banned the transatlantic slave trade in 1808.

With almost no new slaves arriving from Africa, hundreds of thousands of enslaved people were forcibly moved from the Upper South, states like Maryland and Virginia, to the Deep South, where the cotton economy was booming and landowners needed labor.

New Orleans, in position to receive cargos of slaves traveling both down the Mississippi River and along the coast, became the Deep South's biggest market for humans during the first half of the 19th century.

Evans said cities like New Orleans are just coming around to publicly commemorating this part of their history. "We see these efforts across the country," she said. "It's nothing isolated to New Orleans."

Cities like Montgomery, Alabama; Charleston, South Carolina; and Richmond, Virginia, have wrestled with how to properly remember the slavery era, she noted.

The other local group involved in setting up new markers on the slave trade is the New Orleans Slave Trade Marker and App Project, an effort of the Tricentennial Commission's Cultural and Historical Committee.

Erin M. Greenwald, a historian who works at the New Orleans Museum of Art and is a member of the committee, said the group plans to place six markers at places where slaves were actually traded, although the precise locations have not been announced.

An app that can be downloaded will provide an audio tour of the sites, Greenwald said.

Two markers will go in the Central Business District, three in the French Quarter and one in Faubourg Marigny, she said. The committee hopes to have them in place by the end of July.

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Each of the six will mark properties "that have direct links to the slave trade," Greenwald said, though she noted that some of the buildings now on the sites are from later periods.

Those sites include places where people were sold at auction or held in "pens," which functioned like prisons, Greenwald said.

The markers help reveal how the slave trade grew in New Orleans after the banning of the transatlantic trade, according to Joshua Rothman, a professor at the University of Alabama.

Prior to 1808, cotton had only begun to be the money crop that it would shortly become, Rothman said. But the land acquired in the Louisiana Purchase and subsequent infrastructure and technology improvements fueled its boom, he said.

Burgeoning cotton production in the Deep South, coupled with a surfeit of enslaved people along the eastern seaboard, especially in tobacco-growing areas, created a massive forced migration  estimated at more than one million people  from places like Alexandria, Virginia, and Baltimore to the Deep South.

And many of those people were brought to New Orleans, Rothman said.

"The best estimate I have seen says that between 1804 and 1862, 135,000 people were bought and sold in New Orleans," he said. The second biggest market, Natchez, Mississippi, was much smaller than New Orleans.

Many of those slaves were then taken to sugar plantations in south Louisiana or to cotton plantations farther north.

It's only recently that some cities are beginning to address that history, Rothman noted. Richmond and Montgomery have created memorials that point to those cities' roles in trading people.

For Evans, the markers are an important first step toward addressing not only the inhumanity of the trade but also the contributions enslaved people made to the rich cultural history of New Orleans.

"It's important to know the contributions that enslaved people made to the city," she said. "We are saying, 'Let's paint a fuller picture.' "

Luther Gray, who has worked with Evans on getting the first two markers up, said he hopes the markers will help bring more notice to the city's history in the slave trade.

"I think it's going to be a major starting point," he said.Entergy on Sunday released its first public statement in response to a report that local actors were hired to attend public hearings and support the companys request to build a $210 million power plant in New Orleans East.

The company said it did not pay, or authorize anyone else to pay, people to attend New Orleans City Council meetings. It called the allegations "troubling."

Entergy said it has launched an investigation "to determine if anyone retained by the company has acted in any way inconsistent" with its values.

The recent allegations that some supporters of the New Orleans power station may have been paid to attend or speak at certain public meetings are troubling and run counter to the values of our company, Entergy said in a statement posted on its website. While we reiterate that Entergy did not pay, nor did we authorize any other person or entity to pay, supporters to attend or speak at council meetings, we recognize that our interactions with our stakeholders must always be based on honesty and integrity.

According to its statement, Entergy is completing an investigation into the allegations and plans to take "swift and appropriate action if warranted."

On Friday, The Lens reported that at least four actors were paid $60 to attend City Council meetings in October and February, to applaud speakers supporting the proposed plant, and to wear shirts that read: Clean Energy. Good Jobs. Reliable Power.

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One actor said he recognized 10 to 15 others who work in the local film industry.

Some got $200 for a speaking role, which required them to deliver a prewritten speech, according to interviews with the actors and screenshots of Facebook messages provided to The Lens.

The actors were asked to sign non-disclosure agreements, but three of them agreed to talk to The Lens about their experience and provide evidence of payment.

Entergy New Orleans did not respond to requests for comment last week but told WWL-TV, "Entergy New Orleans did not pay anyone to attend."

The City Council approved the power plant in March on a 6-1 vote.As it charts a course for at least the next decade, the Port of New Orleans is weighing nearly $2 billion worth of potential projects to support its growing cargo, rail, cruise ship and industrial real estate businesses.

The plans, which are outlined in the ports newly released master plan, are largely conceptual but, if completed, could reshape the regions maritime sector, officials say.

Roughly half of the $2 billion total is related to a proposed $1 billion-plus container cargo terminal and logistics center thats under consideration for an undeveloped, 675-acre tract of land in St. Bernard Parish.

Port officials say the proposed Meraux development would create thousands of jobs and help lift St. Bernards long-stagnant economy.

The concept of the development was unveiled this year, and officials are now studying whether the site, which is zoned for heavy industrial activity, could support a riverside container terminal and distribution complex. An initial evaluation could be completed by the beginning of next year.

Its been a decade since the port released its last master plan. Since then, its circumstances  and those of the city  have shifted from post-Hurricane Katrina recovery to planning ahead for expected growth.

The 2008 master plan outlined $1 billion in potential projects, including a multiphase, roughly $500 million plan to expand the Napoleon Avenue Container Terminal, which would have increased its annual capacity to more than 1.6 million 20-foot equivalent units  a measure of cargo capacity for containerized shipping  or nearly 50 percent more than it can handle today.

Those plans also were drafted to account for the effects of the multibillion-dollar widening of the Panama Canal, which was completed in 2016, allowing larger cargo ships to go through the canal.

However, after the plan was released in the wake of the 2008-10 financial crisis, the ports biggest obstacle proved to be getting the money to do the proposed expansions.

The port released its new master plan late last month after nearly two years of meetings with customers, local officials and the public. The 96-page document provides a general road map for the ports projected growth as it works to increase its share of the global shipping market.

The report provides an analysis of the ports cargo, cruise and real estate businesses and lays out ideas for optimizing its current facilities, including the recently acquired Public Belt Railroad. It highlights ways of increasing capacity for break-bulk and container cargo, and finding ways to revitalize underused industrial real estate near the Industrial Canal and along the Mississippi River, including in Jefferson and St. Bernard parishes.

The ports governing board is scheduled to consider adopting the plan on May 24.

Port President and CEO Brandy Christian said the planning process will help shape the ports growth as well as extend its reach into surrounding parishes. By expanding elsewhere, it could drum up new economic opportunities there and respond to officials who in recent years have urged the New Orleans port to give their parishes a look.

We wanted something that went beyond just looking at what facilities, whats the next terminal, that we build to largely developing economic development strategies for the region and the port complex, Christian said.

Over the next four to five years, the plan calls for spending roughly $365 million on capital projects intended to improve efficiency, expand capacity and address maintenance issues at port facilities, wharves and bridges.

To do so, the port anticipates it will need a mix of state and federal money, as well as public-private partnerships and joint ventures. Port officials also hope to catch the eye of those planning President Donald Trumps proposed $1.5 trillion infrastructure spending plan.

The near-term projects that are ready to go if funding is available include $113 million worth of general infrastructure projects, including replacing the Almonaster Avenue Bridge and repairing the substructure at the Poland Avenue Wharf.

About $109 million worth of container-related projects are listed, including adding new 100-foot gauge container cranes, which are equipped to service wider, post-Panamax vessels, and paving the marshaling yard at the Napoleon Avenue terminal.

Making improvements to the break-bulk terminals at First Street and Harmony and Seventh streets also are included, as well as repairing the Jourdan Road Wharf, which together accounts for about $85 million.

As for its industrial real estate, the ports proposed short-term projects tally about $37 million. They include making security and road improvements along the Industrial Canal and improving and rebuilding France, Jourdan and Terminal roads.

To accommodate the city's growing cruise business, plans call for spending about $8 million on making improvements at the Erato and Julia Street terminals and identifying the site for a new cruise terminal, which has long been eyed for Poland Avenue. Although that site is still up for debate, any future terminal will have to be situated at a deep-draft wharf that's downriver of the Crescent City Connection.

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The port forecasts that it could justify adding another cruise terminal in the next decade, a timeline that could be accelerated if a cruise line is willing to commit the cash for the terminal, officials say.

Cargo

The ports Napoleon Avenue container facility is gradually nearing its cargo-handling capacity. It handled more than a half-million TEUs in the 2017 fiscal year, which ended last June.

That tally is expected to rise, with some experts predicting hundreds of thousands of additional TEUs will flow through the Gulf region in the next two years, in large part driven by Louisiana-produced resins.

Napoleon Avenues capacity is roughly 840,000 TEUs, but it can be built out to accommodate about 1.5 million TEUs. That would involve upgrading to larger cranes and maximizing space in its existing yards  steps that are included in the master plan.

Cruise ships

Similarly, the local ports cruise ship business is growing: A record 1.2 million passengers traveled through the port in 2017, a number that was lifted by the citys booming tourist industry, which surpassed 11 million visitors last year. It was the fourth consecutive year of topping the 1 million-passenger mark.

Based on projected industry growth, port officials continue to evaluate building a third cruise ship terminal. Average annual growth in passengers between 2010 and 2017 hit nearly 5 percent, with about 225 cruise ship calls in 2016.

In turn, officials expect oceangoing cruise passenger growth will rise to upward of 1.3 million passengers in 2020 and potentially 1.9 million by 2030, depending on different scenarios.

For decades, the Poland Avenue Wharf, which now serves as an overflow area for break-bulk cargo and cruise ships that are making brief port calls, has been considered the likeliest location for a new cruise ship terminal. In fact, the port identified it that way in its 2008 plan. But the idea has faced some opposition from neighbors, and the port is still evaluating alternative locations.

Already, the port is spending about $20 million on maintenance and repairs at Poland Avenue, but a new cruise terminal likely would cost about $50 million.

Real estate

The port also is evaluating how to spruce up its real estate along the Industrial Canal to help draw tenants, particularly those interested in developing value-added businesses. The port plans to invest in the infrastructure  roadways, utilities, landscaping  to create an industrial park-type atmosphere that could attract market-rate tenants.

Developing properties in that area, which is served by rail lines and accessible to the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, could be a boon for the local maritime industry, port officials said. The port owns roughly 1,000 acres of potentially developable industrial property near the 5.5-mile waterway.

The need is there. I think the demand for the property is there. There just hasnt been the investment, said Robert Landry, the New Orleans port's vice president of commercial operations.

The port also is expected to benefit from efforts to finally redevelop the former Avondale shipyard on the Mississippi River into an intermodal terminal. Though nothing is final, advanced talks are underway for the 206-acre Avondale site to be purchased by a new partnership that includes Hilco Global, an Illinois-based financial services firm that often is hired to help liquidate bankrupt companies, and T. Parker Host Inc., a Virginia-based shipping agent.

The idle west bank facility features more than 7,900 feet of riverfront access and offers users deepwater access.

From the list of projects, Christian described the planned upgrades at Napoleon Avenue as the ports most pressing investments, not only to stay in the market, but to grow the market."

"Looking at a second container terminal (in St. Bernard) is really to anticipate looking out 10-plus years to where the market could be, she added.

Basically, the port will look at things project by project but so far has received positive interest, particularly from customers who may be asked to contribute to offset much of the cost of the various projects.

We are in a unique position because we have the rail connectivity and the water connectivity of an intramodal shipping port, and we really just want to expand our reach along the Mississippi River, Christian said.A chaotic scene unfolded in what many bartenders describe as a "locals part" of the French Quarter early Sunday when three men were shot in the 1100 block of Decatur Street, according to the New Orleans Police Department and witnesses on the scene.

The incident happened about 2 a.m., when the three victims  two 25-year-old men and a 23-year-old man  were approached by another man who opened fire, police said.

The victims were all taken to hospitals, where they were listed in stable condition.

A Lyft driver near the scene of the attack said he heard one gunshot and saw the shooter run toward the driver's van before reaching over it and firing at people standing on the sidewalk.

He was after somebody, driver Chris Caminita said of the gunman. They all started ducking on the ground and ducking behind garbage cans.

Caminita said he did not get a good look at the gunman's face.

After the shooting, two of the men who were injured ran into a bar and locked the door behind them until help came, according to a witness.

As she tended to a handful of locals gathered for an early-morning drink a few hours later, Shannon Shufeldt, a bartender who was scheduled to work the graveyard shift a block away at Aunt Tiki's bar, said she was just arriving for work about 2 a.m. as the action unfolded.

She described a chaotic scene with people crying as they gathered in the street, while the three victims were being taken to hospitals. She was able to get a look at the men on stretchers and said they all appeared to be alert and "doing fine."

"I got here and they were loading people in ambulances," Shufeldt, 35, said. "They all seemed to be conscious."

Shufeldt said police indicated the men were shot in the foot, shoulder and leg. One of the victims had a large gauze pad over the right side of his chest as he was rolled into an ambulance.

Several people who work on Decatur Street said the confrontation happened outside Santos Bar, a live music venue that features mostly rock 'n' roll shows and had just shut down for the night.

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According to employees at Santos, the three men who were shot had been inside the bar but were hanging out as part of a large crowd just outside when the shots were fired, Shufeldt said.

She and others described a hair-raising scene, with pedestrians running inside bars up and down the street and ducking for safety after people heard the gunfire.

The normally lively street was roped off until 4 a.m. as police processed the scene, according to Nicki Sanchez, another bartender who works the early morning shift at The Abbey, another 24-hour bar.

Sanchez, 32, said she was working when she heard six shots. She also described a frightening series of events as people ducked inside in an area of the French Quarter where mostly locals congregate.

Sanchez, who said she belongs to a sort of network of late-night industry workers, said she and other bartenders called each other after the incident to check in and get information.

"I was just worried it was going to be a bartender (who was shot)," she said. "I was thankful when I heard it was not."

Bartenders said people inside the crime scene were stuck in the roped-off section for hours, while others were unable to get in and report to work, as police questioned witnesses.

In the meantime, intoxicated people kept trying to get past the NOPD's yellow caution tape, a witness said.

Police did not release any information about a possible suspect or motive.

Danielle Miller, a spokeswoman for the NOPD, said at mid-morning that officers were in the process of collecting surveillance footage from the area.

"The investigation is active and ongoing," she said.

Staff writers Matt Sledge and Ramon Antonio Vargas contributed to this report.An email sent by the Orleans Parish school district has charter school leaders trying to figure out how theyll deal with an unexpected shortfall in funding.

The problem? The city has more students, including more who need expensive special education, than it did last year, meaning less state money per pupil. But its unclear why school leaders just learned Tuesday how it will affect their bottom line.

We were just kind of mystified that the first we were hearing about this was mid-April, when budgets are obviously set and youre a month away from the end of the school year, said Bob Keogh of 4th Sector Solutions. That company handles finances for several charter schools, including ENCORE Academy in the St. Roch neighborhood.

The elementary school, which has 511 students, will receive $95,000 less than it expected. Keogh said the school will have to dip into its reserves.

Midyear adjustments are not uncommon, said Caroline Roemer Shirley, the head of the Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools. However, she said, I think some of this could have been better communicated to schools.

Dominique Ellis, a spokeswoman for the Orleans Parish School Board, declined to answer questions about when the district learned about the funding shortfall.

The state gives per-pupil funding to the Orleans Parish School Board based on schools' Oct. 1 enrollment. That money makes up about a third of the per-pupil education funding for New Orleans schools. The rest comes from local property taxes.

The money is distributed to schools every month based on a formula that provides more for certain types of students: those who need special education, are gifted, are English-language learners or are over-age.

This year, there was a slight increase, about 1 percent, in the number of students in Orleans Parish. But many more students need special-education services or dont speak English as their first language. The number of students who need those services went up about 7 percent.

And even though schools get more money for such students, those with a larger share of those students were hit harder.

Eric Seling, chief operating officer for the Orleans Parish school district, explained what happened in the email to school leaders. As you are aware, the local amount of money available is split by the number of students and thus, as the student count increases, the local amount available on a per-pupil basis decreases, he wrote.

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Jay Altman, the CEO of FirstLine Schools, said his five-school charter group is about $630,000 short of its budgeted revenue  about $210 per student. Such a large adjustment this late in the school year will pretty much wipe out the groups contingency fund, he said.

We do work in a field where the mission exceeds the resources already, he said. So this adds to the strain for sure.

The shortfall doesnt appear to be due to a big shift in the states share of per-pupil funding, although it did drop about 1 percent this year.

Schools typically base their budgets on the prior years per-pupil allotment or the states projected allotment.

Other factors may have played into this years shortfall. Last year, schools shared about $3 million in one-time funding, which may have blunted the effect of any miscalculation.

Keogh said another issue  though not as significant  stems from the school districts revision of its funding formula in 2016. That change gave schools more money for special-ed students and less for gifted students.

Lusher Charter School and Lake Forest Elementary Charter School, which have many gifted students, complained that the change would decrease their funding. So the district promised to make sure those schools per-pupil funding did not drop more than 2 percent from what they got in 2014-15. To do that, the district gives those schools a portion of the per-pupil funding allocated to other students in the city.

That hold-harmless clause obviously brought us down a little bit, Keogh said.

But Altman said the bigger problem is that total state funding hasnt increased.

We live in a state where weve done some pretty ambitious reforms, Altman said. And they all end up, long term, being in jeopardy if we dont adequately fund public education.If Louisiana ever does require a unanimous jury for a criminal conviction, history will give much of the credit to Calcasieu Parish District Attorney John DeRosier.

The turning point came when a House committee was considering a bill to call a referendum on an amendment to the state Constitution, which currently allows a guilty verdict, save in capital cases, by a vote of 10-2.

The fate of the bill was regarded as uncertain until DeRosier took his seat at the witness table. By the time he was through, all 16 members of the committee couldn't wait to vote for it. No surprise there, you may be saying to yourself. If a professional advocate cannot change a few minds, who can?

Trouble is, DeRosier was urging legislators to vote against. He and his Sabine Parish counterpart Don Burkett wanted Louisiana to retain majority verdicts when unanimity is required in federal courts and every other state bar Oregon. Not only did they fail in that mission; they made it impossible for anyone to vote their way without seeming keen to bring back Jim Crow.

DeRosier began by conceding that our majority verdict law was born amid the vestiges of slavery, but that was 138 years ago. In fact, it was adopted at the Constitutional Convention of 1898, so we had better hope DeRosier is better at law than he is at math. Nobody noticed that he sucks at subtraction, however, because DeRosier airily added, It is what it is.

What he meant, presumably, was that, however reprehensible the origins of the law, there may still be valid and race-neutral reasons for retaining it all this time later. But that's not how it came out. DeRosier's remarks were bound to give the impression that he did not give a hoot that the explicit purpose of the 1898 convention was to perpetuate the supremacy of the Anglo-Saxon race, and that the majority verdict law was adopted to render the votes of black jurors nugatory.

That was certainly the impression DeRosier gave the committee's black members, who took turns lambasting him. Leading them was Ted James, D-Baton Rouge, who assured DeRosier that the voters of Calcasieu Parish, which is 25 percent black, would hear about this. The black legislators were so furious and so offended that no way could their white colleagues vote to keep majority verdicts.

One of them, John Stefanski, R-Crowley, noted that one of his heroes had been a firm believer in unanimous jury verdicts. He said it twice to make sure that everyone knew he was not on DeRosier's side but was in total agreement with that great man, former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Scalise.

No cigar. Antonin Scalia was on the Supreme Court until he died two years ago. Congressman Steve Scalise of Metairie is House Majority Whip. It is likely that more people picked up on that than knew about the constitutional convention of 1898.

By then, DeRosier and Burkett must have wished they'd stayed home. They were not there on behalf of the District Attorneys' Association, which had taken no position on the bill. Burkett explained this was because not all its members were against the constitutional amendment. Denise Marcelle, D-Baton Rouge, was vastly amused at the notion that DAs require unanimity for a political decision but not before sending a defendant to prison for life.

There wasn't much point in further argument from our hapless prosecutors  certainly nobody cared that a unanimity requirement would make their job harder  but DeRosier could point to an irony too. Other countries are abandoning jury unanimity just as Louisiana may fall in line with the American norm and embrace it.

Learned judges and advocates who favor jury unanimity always cite English authorities, going back to medieval times, in support of the proposition that it is a bulwark of liberty. Yet since 1967, if English juries can't reach a unanimous decision after a couple of hours, a judge will tell them 10-2 is OK. In Scotland, there is no such thing as a hung jury. Cases are settled by a simple majority out of 15 jurors.

Email James Gill at Gill1407@bellsouth.net.if the people of Biafra want Republic of Biafra, it will be a reality during my administration. ----Donald Trump Donald Trump I wi...Energy and Mines is an international organisation formed in 2014 to assist the global mining sector looking to diversify their energy mix with solar power and other forms of renewable energy.

The organisation is touting Australia as a global centre for renewables for mines. This year they are sponsoring its second annual Energy and Mines Australia Summit featuring presentations from both experts in solar power, battery storage, and other forms of renewable energy as well as mining company staff announcing planned moves to solar and renewables. Presenters represent a broad spectrum of mining companies, including BHP Billiton (BHP), Sandfire Resources (SFR), Fortescue Metals Group (FMG), Rio Tinto (RIO), South32 S32), Nyrstar, Oz Minerals (OZL), Australian Vanadium (AVL), Panoramic Resources, Montezuma Mining Company (MZM), Resolute Mining (RSG), and Gold Fields.

While there is an acknowledged social benefit to these moves, the key driver is not public good will nor the environment, but economics. Brisbane based juwi Renewable Energy Pty Ltd (juwi) is the Australian operation of global renewable energy engineering and construction firm, juwi Holding Group, based in Germany. The company claims miners could save upwards of 75% on mine energy costs. The cost of solar modules is falling rapidly, between 3% and 8% per year. Bloomberg New Energy Finance points to price drops in commercial battery storage of solar power as well, priced today at around USD$73 per kilowatt hour (kWh) compared to USD$250 in 2017.

The ASX boasts two completed projects  the DeGrussa Solar Project currently powering Sandfire Resources (SFR) DeGrussa Copper mine; and Rio Tintos (RIO) solar project at its Weipa bauxite mine.

Both projects were backed by ARENA (Australian Renewable Energy Agency) and constructed by private firms, selling output to the mining companies. Results are positive, with the DeGrussa project saving Sandfire from the purchase of 450,000 litres of diesel every month. Over the five and a half years of its purchase agreement with the operator, Sandfire will cut more than 25 million litres of diesel from its traditional generating stations.

The Weipa Project was the first of its kind in the world, going online in September of 2015. The first stage of two developments is offsetting up to 600,000 litres of diesel per year during daytime hours Rio would need to purchase for traditional power generation. Rio has a 15-year purchase power agreement (PPA) in place with the project operator.

In addition to the two operational projects, there are four mining companies with projects underway. Some skeptical investors may view the cost savings as too minimal to make a compelling investment case for these stocks.

Recent history provides ample evidence of the power of lowering mining costs through any means. Rabid investors in the mining sector cheered in the boom days as miner after miner, intoxicated with the lofty prices of their commodity, spent like drunken sailors, acquiring seemingly any acreage with the remotest hint of something of value on the property. The future development costs of those purchases posed no problem, as long as commodity prices continued to soar.

Those same rabid investors watched in horror as company after company began to shed those exploration assets, often at a loss, as commodities across the board collapsed, led by iron ore. The next step was cutting costs ruthlessly to allow the miners to remain profitable in the face of lower prices.

Today investors in the sector are as interested in sustainable operating costs as they are in growth estimates.

Here then are the six early-mover ASX listed stocks betting on the long-term cost efficiencies of renewable energy sources.



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Linkedin Bill Laurance (The Conversation)  Sun, May 6, 2018 09:52 1250 a7124a1e87885b91d244660f9e230f66 2 Opinion Tapanuli-orangutan,Belt-road-initiative,OBOR,one-belt-one-road,China,investment,dam Free

The plan to build a massive hydropower dam in Sumatra as part of Chinas immense Belt and Road Initiative threatens the habitat of the rarest ape in the world, which has only 800 remaining members.

This is merely the beginning of an avalanche of environmental crises and broader social and economic risks that will be provoked by the BRI scheme.

Read also: Newly discovered orangutan species is most endangered ape: Study

The orangutans story began in November 2017, when scientists made a stunning announcement: they had discovered a seventh species of Great Ape, called the Tapanuli Orangutan, in a remote corner of Sumatra, Indonesia.

In an article published in Current Biology today, my colleagues and I show that this ape is perilously close to extinction  and that a Chinese-sponsored megaproject could be the final nail in its coffin.

Ambitious but nightmarishly complicated

The BRI is an ambitious but nightmarishly complicated venture, and far less organised than many believe. The hundreds of road, port, rail, and energy projects will ultimately span some 70 nations across Asia, Africa, Europe and the Pacific region. It will link those nations economically and often geopolitically to China, while catalysing sweeping expansion of land-use and extractive industries, and will have myriad knock-on effects.

Up to 2015, the hundreds of BRI projects were reviewed by the powerful National Development and Reform Commission, which is directly under Chinas State Council. Many observers have assumed that the NDRC will help coordinate the projects, but the only real leverage they have is over projects funded by the big Chinese policy banks  the China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China  which they directly control.

Chinas Belt & Road Initiative will sweep across some 70 nations in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Pacific region. Mercator Institute for China Studies

Most big projects  many of which are cross-national  will have a mix of funding from various sources and nations, meaning that no single entity will be in charge or ultimately responsible. An informed colleague in China describes this model as anarchy.

Tapanuli orangutan

The dangerous potential of the BRI becomes apparent when one examines the Tapanuli orangutan. With fewer than 800 individuals, it is one of the rarest animals on Earth. It survives in just a speck of rainforest, less than a tenth the size of Sydney, that is being eroded by illegal deforestation, logging, and poaching.

All of these threats propagate around roads. When a new road appears, the ape usually disappears, along with many other rare species sharing its habitat, such as Hornbills and the endangered Sumatran Tiger.

The most imminent threat to the ape is a US$1.6 billion hydropower project that Sinohydro (Chinas state-owned hydroelectric corporation) intends to build with funding from the Bank of China and other Chinese financiers. If the project proceeds as planned, it will flood the heart of the apes habitat and crisscross the remainder with many new roads and powerline clearings.

Its a recipe for ecological Armageddon for one of our closest living relatives. Other major lenders such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank arent touching the project, but that isnt slowing down Chinas developers.

What environmental safeguards?

China has produced a small flood of documents describing sustainable lending principles for its banks and broad environmental and social safeguards for the BRI, but I believe many of these documents are mere paper tigers or greenwashing designed to quell anxieties.

According to insiders, a heated debate in Beijing right now revolves around eco-safeguards for the BRI. Big corporations (with international ambitions and assets that overseas courts can confiscate) want clear guidelines to minimise their liability. Smaller companies, of which there are many, want the weakest standards possible.

The argument isnt settled yet, but its clear that the Chinese government doesnt want to exclude its thousands of smaller companies from the potential BRI riches. Most likely, it will do what it has in the past: issue lofty guidelines that a few Chinese companies will attempt to abide by, but that most will ignore.

The Greater Leuser Ecosystem in northern Sumatra is the last place on Earth where Orangutans, Tigers, Elephants and Rhinos still persist together.

Stacked deck

There are three alarming realities about China, of special relevance to the BRI.

First, Chinas explosive economic growth has arisen from giving its overseas corporations and financiers enormous freedom. Opportunism, graft and corruption are embedded, and they are unlikely to yield economically, socially or environmentally equitable development for their host nations. I detailed many of these specifics in an article published by Yale University last year.

Second, China is experiencing a perfect storm of trends that ensures the harsher realities of the BRI are not publicly aired or even understood in China. China has a notoriously closed domestic media  ranked near the bottom in press freedom globally  that is intolerant of government criticism.

Beyond this, the BRI is the signature enterprise of President Xi Jinping, who has become the de-facto ruler of China for life. Thanks to President Xi, the BRI is now formally enshrined in the constitution of Chinas Communist Party, making it a crime for any Chinese national to criticise the program. This has had an obvious chilling effect on public discourse. Indeed, I have had Chinese colleagues withdraw as coauthors of scientific papers that were even mildly critical of the BRI.

Third, China is becoming increasingly heavy-handed internationally, willing to overtly bully or covertly pull strings to achieve its objectives. Professor Clive Hamilton of Charles Sturt University has warned that Australia has become a target for Chinese attempts to stifle criticism.

Remember the ape

It is time for a clarion call for greater caution. While led by China, the BRI will also involve large financial commitments from more than 60 nations that are parties to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, including Australia and many other Western nations.

We all have a giant stake in the Belt and Road Initiative. It will bring sizeable economic gains for some, but in nearly 40 years of working internationally, I have never seen a program that raises more red flags.

Bill Laurance, Distinguished Research Professor and Australian Laureate, James Cook University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.Indonesians are known to become more consumer-orientated in Ramadhan. From communal breaking of fasts to Idul Fitri festivities, the necessities increase significantly and according to Google, this has an impact on Google searches.

Yudistira Adi Nugroho, Googles industry analyst, says internet users start their search from as early as a week before Ramadhan, The search for bargains starts a week prior to Ramadhan. The first peak usually happens in the first week and the second peak is in the third week of Ramadhan, he said as quoted by Kompas.com.

There is a total 40 percent increase of searches for bargains compared to regular days, he added.

Here are the five most-searched for bargains in Ramadhan according to Google.

Retail and food items

Searching for retail and food items has become a habit of users, to minimize spending in anticipation of the big Idul Fitri holiday.

Travel tickets

Train and airplane tickets are the most-coveted items and are usually booked out even before Ramadhan starts. The surge in searches happens because people want to avoid the high prices as well as to secure themselves seats for the annual Idul Fitri exodus.

Gadgets and telecommunications

Bargains in internet packages are among the most-searched for on Google, also in anticipation of the coming annual exodus, for people to be able to spend the journey streaming movies on their gadgets. Young people who have just started earning money also search for bargains in gadgets as they want to have new gadgets before going back to their hometowns for the holiday, added Yudistira.

E-commerce offers

Idul Fitri for most Indonesians means new clothes and looking for discounts at e-commerce sites has become the norm. Ride-sharing services also lie in this e-commerce category, Yudistira said.

Credit cards

Credit card holders are also active searchers for discounts offered by their credit card issuers during Ramadhan, which include breaking of the fast or plane ticket price cuts. (asw)Meghan Markle enters the British royal family in drastically different circumstances from the last American to join: Wallis Simpson, a name that still sends shivers through Buckingham Palace.

Although both US divorcees, the times have changed so dramatically that while Simpson's presence threatened to bring down the monarchy, Markle is seen as a figure who can revitalize it in the 21st century.

King Edward VIII was forced to abdicate in 1936 within months of acceding to the throne in order to marry Simpson -- a seismic event that rocked national stability in the years before World War II.

And the shadow of 1936 will be impossible to ignore when Markle and Harry tie the knot on May 19.

The wedding will take place in St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle, west of London -- the very same church where Wallis's funeral was held in 1986.

The duchess of Windsor, as she became, is buried next to her husband a 10-minute walk away in the Royal Burial Ground outside Frogmore House, where the newlyweds' evening reception will be held.

"Listen very carefully at the choir's singing as Meghan Markle walks down the aisle," said royal writer Andrew Morton, for the faint sound of the nearby king Edward "spinning in his grave".

The monarch had to give up the throne to marry a US divorcee -- now one is welcomed into the royal family with open arms, he noted.

Morton, who has penned biographies of both Wallis and Markle this year, contrasted the twice-divorced Baltimore socialite to the mixed-race Los Angeles television actress.

"Wallis's family were slave owners as opposed to slaves themselves," Morton told AFP, referring to Markle's mother's ancestors.

Edward and Wallis "would have been astonished at the transformation in the British monarchy over the last 80 years," he said.

Read also: Meghan Markle's father to walk her down the aisle

Glacial welcome

In this file photo taken on June 3, 1937 Edward, Duke of Windsor, and formerly Edward VIII of England, and his wife Wallis Simpson, are seen during their wedding, at Chateau de Cande, Monts in France. (AFP/File)

Wallis's grip over Edward chilled the royal family. She was deemed politically, religiously, socially and morally unacceptable as a potential queen.

Had Edward married against prime ministerial advice, the British government would have been forced to resign, triggering a crisis.

Edward stepped down and the couple married in a French chateau in 1937.

Their high-profile visit to Nazi Germany's dictator Adolf Hitler that year caused great alarm and suggestions that the couple were Nazi sympathisers.

Their life in exile on the outskirts of Paris saw them essentially living in retirement, entertained by wealthy friends.

However, the ice never fully thawed with the royal family, with contact and trips to Britain rare events.

The monarchy's response to Edward's abdication helped mould it into an institution that Markle, an earnest embracer of public service, is well placed to join.

Edward putting himself before his country was seen as a selfish and irresponsible dereliction of duty.

His successor, his brother king George VI, sought to make the monarchy the exact opposite -- a duty-first mindset continued by his daughter Queen Elizabeth II, now 92, for whom abdication remains a dirty word.

Aged 36, Markle has strong public service credentials, having been United Nations advocate for women's empowerment and a global ambassador for the World Vision Canada relief agency.

"She could have been a diplomat; a politician; a lawyer," said Morton.

"Meghan is certainly ready for the royal family: she's proved herself."

Read also: Penpix of the key figures at the royal wedding

Era of change

Markle and Wallis are two bookends to an era of change in both the Windsor dynasty and British society, which is now multi-racial, less tied to Anglican church morality, and where four in 10 marriages end in divorce.

By the turn of the century, the queen's three eldest children had divorced.

Harry's father Prince Charles, the heir to the throne, married his second wife Camilla in 2005. She too was divorced. Their civil marriage was blessed in St. George's Chapel.

The aristocracy, too, is less snobbish towards Americans and marriage outside their own ranks.

"The seismic change in social attitudes over the past decades has been mirrored in the way the announcement of Harry's engagement to Meghan, an American divorcee, was met with such enthusiasm," royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams told the Daily Express newspaper.

Wallis being American was not popular in the 1930s, while Markle marrying Harry is being seen as the "ultimate manifestation of the 'special relationship'" between Britain and the United States, he said.For most of its history, New Yorks Peninsula Hotel had, in the words of General Manager Jonathan Crook, generic hotel art of no significance.

Starting in 2010, though, it began an ambitious program to exhibit a shifting array of contemporary artworks, sourced from a collector named Alvaro Leal and his Manhattan-based company, Circa 1881. Since 2015 weve had four or five rotations of new art, Crook says, and its been very well-received.

In honor of its 30th anniversary, the Peninsula wanted to celebrate art made by stars of the 1980sworks by such artists as Francesco Clemente, Andy Warhol, and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Crook was put in touch with Asher Edelman, a financier turned art dealer turned art financier, who had a suite of Warhols Mao prints on consignment from a collector who was hoping to sell them for $850,000. Edelman had had the prints for about a year, and we had some genuine interest but no hard offers, he says.

The Maos consignor gave us his blessing to lease out the works in any kind of safe place where they could be shown well, Edelman says. So he spoke with the Peninsula, and an agreement was reached: The consignor would lease them to the hotel for a period of three months, and in exchange for brokering the deal, Edelman, through his company Artemus, would receive a percentage of the lease fee.

Edelman declined to say how much the Peninsula paid, but he says that for major works of art, youre going to pay something like 8 to 10 percent a year to lease it. Insurance and installation costs are extra, he says.

Theyve only been up for a week, and theyre creating a lot of interest, says Crook. Its a bit of a wow moment.

Read also: Rabbit Town, selfie culture versus awareness of art

A growing effort

The deal is the most recent example of an increasing attempt by dealers, collectors, and financiers to monetize their art in ways that transcend merely buying or selling.

I believe that an asset should be attached to a cash flow, says Edelman. If youre going to be in the business of art, you want to be a lender or a leaser, and you probably dont want to simply be a speculator. In other words, by creating a business out of leasing his art rather than buying works purely with the intention to sell, Edelman isnt exposed (at least in theory) to the possibility of selling a work for less than he thinks its worth. Id rather make money at 10 percent a year than risk the value of the art, he says.

Edelmans business, which combines art loans and art financing, selling, and leasing, is one of several variations of monetization to appear in the art world in recent years.

That has become a dominant theme, mostly because theres a bunch of people trying to promote that idea, says Marion Maneker, founder of the Art Market Monitor. And its like anything elseits marketing.

Proponents of the concept of art as an asset, he continues, are softening people up to the point where they begin to think: Why should I have my money locked up in this artwork if I can finance it?

Lenders such as Citibank, J.P. Morgan, and U.S. Trust have begun aggressively courting collectors with relatively straightforward propositions along the lines of lending against collections. Others, like Edelman, have started to get creative, with the leasing program being the most recent instance.

Read also: Yoes Rizal: Keeping art as art and nothing more

But will it work?

The question, though, is whether it will work. The whole idea of renting out art makes some sense, says Maneker. But I dont think that anyone is really generating real revenue or an income stream off it.

Surprisingly, Circa 1881 founder Leal agrees. After more than seven years of loaning out his art, he cautions that margins are razor-thin. Theres the cost of moving artworks and installing and protecting them properly, he says. And the margin you can charge on top of that for the actual rental of the works isnt very big.

Leals company, which uses art from his collection, including works by Cindy Sherman, Wolfgang Tillmans, and Basquiat, is for profit, he says. But not much.

After expenses, you can get a return on the art you lend out, but its 2 percent or 3 percent, he explains. Its not really attractive.

But Leal believes the market has potential.

The main hurdle, he says, is that people outside the art world need to learn how to appreciate high-value works.

As the market develops, and people start valuing a work by Jeff Koons over an artist from the street, he says, then the margins might increase.Twitter has warned its more than 330 million users worldwide to change their account passwords due to a bug recently found in its internal network.

The social media company said in a blog post Thursday that they "recently identified a bug that stored passwords unmasked in an internal log," in a process that recorded the data before they were encrypted, but that the glitch has already been fixed.

"We mask passwords through a process called hashing...which replaces the actual password with a random set of numbers and letters that are stored in Twitter's system," the company said. "This allows our systems to validate your account credentials without revealing your password."

Read also: Disney to collaborate with Twitter on content

"Due to a bug, passwords were written to an internal log before completing the hashing process."

Twitter said that "our investigation shows no indication of breach or misuse by anyone."

Still, the social media platform said, "Out of an abundance of caution, we ask that you consider changing your password on all services where you've used this password."Say someone gave you $130,000. Or you just want to spend $130,000 for fun. Or youd like to spend $130,000 because you know someone will pay you back. Sometimes its not clear. Anyway, here are some things you could buy with that amount of money.

A Lightly Used Aston Martin

This 2015 Aston Martin V12 Vantage S has 8,200 miles on it and comes painted in Montana Orange, with black interiors lined with Alcantara suede. Capable of a 3.7-second sprint from zero to 60 miles per hour and a top speed of 205mph, this was the brands fastest car off the production line at the time of its release. At $123,950, youll still have some money left over for speeding tickets.

Read also: Ferrari supercars are so hot that they're sold out into 2019

Matching Bell & Ross Watches

If you are, shall we say, a hands-on person, try these extra-thin, his-and-hers Bell & Ross BR-X2 Tourbillon Micro-Rotor watches, which cost $64,900 apiece. The 42.5-millimeter stainless-steel case has a self-winding Suisse movement, creates 21,600 vibrations per hour, and comes with a flying tourbillon at 6 oclock.

Your Own Plane

Instead of hiding your dough in the Cayman Islands, why not fly yourself and three pals there for a weekend getaway? Doug Pendleton, aircraft finance manager at Archer, says You can get a real nice Archer or Dakota for $130,000. Its consistently reliable: a little slow but comfortable (not cramped), safe, stable, and easy to land, even on short, dodgy runways.

Cruise Around the World

Two tickets for a penthouse veranda on Vikings five-month cruise come to $119,990. Coast from Iles du Salut, French Guiana, to Montevideo, Uruguay, while stopping at ports in Hobart, Tasmania, and Fort Dauphin, Madagascar. Instead of 90 days behind bars for campaign finance fraud, why not enjoy 21 countries and 49 days of open bar on the high seas?

Lots of Baggage

Or skip the cruise and begin planning your next trip with a complete 10-piece set of Ghurka steamer trunks. Add a Starling Ostrich Bucket Bag in military khaki for her, and theres still enough left for that Vintage Wellesley Tote in chestnut alligator, for a total of $127,500.

A Bunch of Motorbikes

Risk it all and sample the entire 2018 line of Ducati motorcycles, which adds up to $128,265. The Panigale V4 was named most beautiful bike at the 2017 Esposizione Internazionale Ciclo e Motociclo. Cycle World called the 2018 model the fastest Ducati super bike weve ever ridden.

School Supplies

Help save your school district and purchase 12-packs of Dixon Ticonderoga #2 HB soft pencils. It would take 29,279 packs to reach $129,998enough for every student in St. Louis.

Fine Wine

You could get 144 cases of 2016 Chateau Calon Segur for $129,600. Classified a third-growth in the 1855 classificationwhen France laid down the classes of Bordeauxit drinks like a second-growth that will remind you to keep minding your first love. The original owner, the Marquis de Segur, who also owned Lafite and Latour, once said: I make my wine at Lafite and Latour, but my heart is in Calon.

Therapy

866 hours of marriage counseling, at $125 per hour, will get you to $129,900. Even then, fixing it is a lot cheaper than divorce.Pulitzer Prize-winning author Junot Diaz has pulled out of his remaining sessions at the 2018 Sydney Writers Festival in Australia amid allegations of inappropriate and aggressive behavior toward fellow writer Zinzi Clemmons and other women.

The festivals organizer released a statement on Saturday, which mentions the Dominican American authors own words in his recent New Yorker essay, Eventually the past finds you.

As for so many in positions of power, the moment to reckon with the consequences of past behavior has arrived, read the statement.

According to The Associated Press, Diaz faced confrontation during the festivals Q&A session on Friday when Clemmons questioned the essay, in which he shared details of his sexual assault when he was just 8 years old, and asked why he had put her in a vulnerable position when she was a student six years ago.

As a grad student, I invited Junot Diaz to speak at a workshop on issues of representation in literature. I was an unknown wide-eyed 26 yo, and he used it as an opportunity to corner and forcibly kiss me. I'm far from the only one he's done this 2, I refuse to be silent anymore, Clemmons later tweeted on Friday.

Read also: Sexual misconduct claims: The fallout

As a grad student, I invited Junot Diaz to speak to a workshop on issues of representation in literature. I was an unknown wide-eyed 26 yo, and he used it as an opportunity to corner and forcibly kiss me. I'm far from the only one he's done this 2, I refuse to be silent anymore.  zinziclemmons (@zinziclemmons) May 4, 2018

Other writers, namely Carmen Maria Machado and Monica Byrne, then shared similar experiences of being subjected to such behavior from Diaz.

During his tour for THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE HER, Junot Diaz did a Q&A at the grad program I'd just graduated from. When I made the mistake of asking him a question about his protagonist's unhealthy, pathological relationship with women, he went off for me for twenty minutes. https://t.co/7wuQOarBIJ  Carmen Maria Machado (@carmenmmachado) May 4, 2018

When I met him he told me I had the face of the oppressor and needed to darken up to look like a real Latina. Then he pulled me into his lap and hit on me. I got away from him but I couldn't stop crying. (cont)  Alisa (Li) Rivera (@lirivera) May 4, 2018

Sydney Writers Festival is a platform for the sharing of powerful stories: urgent, necessary and sometimes difficult. Such conversations have never been more timely. We remain committed to ensuring they occur in a supportive and safe environment for our authors and audiences alike, the organizer adds.

In a statement for the New York Times, the 2008 Pulitzer Prize winner for The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao said he takes responsibility for his past and that is the reason I made the decision to tell the truth of my [childhood] rape and its damaging aftermath.

"This conversation is important and must continue, he adds. (kes)The annual Writers' Series held by The Jakarta Post Writing Center returns for the third time this weekend.

Running two days until May 6, the first day of the event, which was a mini conference, took place in the Upper Room, Annex Building, Central Jakarta. Meanwhile, the second day will host a premium workshop at the Posts office in Palmerah, West Jakarta.

Japan-based writer, journalist Pallavi Aiyar during her speech at the Writers' Series event in Central Jakarta on may 5. (JP/Ni Nyoman Wira)

This years theme, "The Story of Us", teaches participants how to choose good stories and which stories to spread.

Open to the public, the mini conference allowed participants to hold discussions with speakers from various backgrounds, including innovators, poets, writers, journalists, curators, educators and communication experts.

In "What's Up Stories", for instance, three speakers from different disciplines, the Posts own senior editor, Endy Bayuni, Yale-NUS College Singapore writing program director Robin Hemley and Publicis Ones head of public relations, Eugene Laksono, discussed the evolution of storytelling.

In a different session, Japan-based writer and journalist Pallavi Aiyar presented her 100 Paper Cranes for India project as a protest against brutality around the world.

Aiyar was in Hiroshima, Japan, when she heard the devastating news about a little girl in India who was kidnapped and raped by a group of men. She then decided to encourage people worldwide to fold paper cranes as a symbol.

Participants fold paper cranes in a provided space at the Writers' Series event in Central Jakarta on May 5. (JP/Ni Nyoman Wira)

Read also: Crafting words for the world at Writers Series

Folding this craft is a motive of connection, beauty [] in the world that is increasingly ugly, said Aiyar during her speech. And each crane that we fold in some ways serves as an apology that this kind of brutality could happen on our watch.

Among speakers on the first day were creative writing director of Sun Yat Sen University in China, Dai Fan, Filipino poet Lawrence Ypil, American writer Ben Loory and Singaporean writer Joshua Ip.

Meanwhile, the premium workshop is scheduled to be attended by renowned instructors, among them Ben Loory, author Xu Xi, Robin Hemley and Lawrence Ypil.

In 'The Story of Us', we feel our audiences already know what kind of stories that they want to communicate, said Maggie Tiojakin, managing director of the Posts Writing Center, prior to the mini conference. So, now can we create a more positive narrative about who we are and where our direction is as a community.

Maggie also highlighted many unfortunate incidents that had occurred around the world. The event can be a way for people to gather and create new narratives for the future.

The point is about how we can be a better listener, Maggie said. Sometimes people forget to listen to other people when theyre telling stories. [] To be a good storyteller, you have to be an excellent listener. Its important to understand other people; how to find narrative that doesnt hurt them and find the solution together.

Senior photojournalist PJ Leo shares his knowledge during the 'Living Library' session at the Writers' Series event in Central Jakarta on May 5. (JP/Ni Nyoman Wira)

Furthermore, Maggie expected the event to spark dialogue among participants or with their families and friends outside the event.

I hope the audiences will be blown away by what they see and hear, Maggie said. I dont expect them to process everything directly, but they can absorb everything over the next week or month and see what happens.

Registration remains open and can be done online to guarantee a seat, aside from attaining an on-the-spot ticket. (kes)Share this article Whatsapp

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Linkedin Karina M. Tehusijarana (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, May 6, 2018 13:45 1249 a7124a1e87885b91d244660f9e23df8f 1 National #KPK,KPK,Democratic-party,partai-demokrat,Amin-Santono,lawmaker,corrupt-lawmakers,Indonesian-corrupt-lawmakers,2018-state-budget Free

The Democratic Party dismissed House of Representatives member Amin Santono on Saturday after the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) officially named Amin a graft suspect.

As a form of support for the KPK and as part of the Democratic Partys moral responsibility to give no room for graft, the Democratic Partys central executive board has decided to dishonorably dismiss AS from the Democratic Party and from the House of Representatives, Democratic Party secretary-general Hinca Panjaitan said in a written statement on Saturday.

The Democratic Party would like to thank the KPK for helping to cleanse the party of graft, he said.

Hinca went on to apologize to the public over the incident, saying that the Dems would continue to support the eradication of corruption and would not tolerate any corrupt practices.

Amin, a member of the Houses Commission XI overseeing banking and finance, was arrested in a KPK raid on Friday after allegedly accepting an Rp 400 million bribe in relation to the 2018 state budget deliberation.

KPK deputy chairman Saut Situmorang said the commission had been investigating the case since December 2017 after receiving a tip-off.

Besides Amin, three others were named suspects after the raid: Finance Ministry official Yaya Purnomo, private contractor Ahmad Ghiast and suspected middleman Eka Kamaluddin. (evi)Share this article Whatsapp

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Linkedin (Reuters)  Sun, May 6, 2018 13:33 1249 a7124a1e87885b91d244660f9e23cbaa 2 World Israel,Hamas,Palestine,Israel-Palestine-conflict,Gaza,Gaza-strip Free

Hamas' armed wing blamed Israel for an explosion in the Gaza Strip on Saturday that killed six of the group's gunmen.

A statement from the Palestinian Islamist group's armed wing called the incident a "deplorable Zionist crime" perpetrated against its fighters.

"During a complicated security and intelligence operation conducted by Qassam Brigades to investigate a serious and a grave security incident conducted by the Zionist enemy against Palestinian resistance, a deplorable crime took place against our Mujahideen in the area of Zawayda in central Gaza Strip," it said.

Hamas provided no further details.

Reuters television captured a pillar of smoke rising above the village of Zawayda near the coast of Gaza, far from the border with Israel where tensions have escalated in recent weeks.

The exact circumstances of the blast were unclear and Hamas, which controls theGaza Strip, provided no further details.

An Israeli military spokesman declined to comment on the incident, although a more junior official had earlier denied the army was involved.

Israel and the West designate Hamas as a terrorist organisation.

Israel withdrew its troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005. But, citing security concerns, Israel maintains a naval blockade of the coastal territory, keeping tight restrictions on the movement of Palestinians and goods across the frontier.

Egypt, battling an Islamist insurgency in neighbouring Sinai, keeps its border withGaza largely closed.

Forty-three Palestinians have been shot and killed by Israeli forces since March 30, when Gazans began weekly protests dubbed "The Great March of Return" along the border with Israel.

Facing international censure over its use of live fire in the protests, Israel says it is protecting its border and takes such action only when protesters, some hurling fire-bombs and trying to plant explosives, come too close.

As Israel celebrates its 70th birthday, Palestinians mourn what they call the "Nakba" (Catastrophe) of their people's mass dispossession during the conflict that broke out in 1948.

Two-thirds of the 2 million Palestinians in Gaza are war refugees or their descendants. The protests have seen thousands gather to demand access to their families' lost homes or lands, now in Israel.

Israel says Hamas is using the protests as cover to try to carry out attacks. Hamas denies the accusation.Share this article Whatsapp

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Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) New Delhi  Sun, May 6, 2018 16:34 1249 a7124a1e87885b91d244660f9e242c4d 2 World India,rape,murder,rape-culture,gang-rape,suspect Free

Indian police said Sunday they have arrested the main suspect in the gang rape and gruesome murder of a teenage girl, in the latest of several high-profile sexual assault cases in the country.

The local village chief has also been detained while the 16-year-old victim's family have been given special police protection.

Dhanu Bhuiyan was found at a relative's house where he was hiding after he and accomplices allegedly burned the girl alive Friday in a remote district of the eastern state of Jharkhand.

Police said Bhuiyan became enraged after the local village council ordered him to do 100 sit-ups and pay a 50,000 rupee ($750) fine for the victim's gang rape. Bhuiyan and his accomplices allegedly attacked the girl's parents before setting their house on fire with the girl inside.

"The main suspect has been arrested from a relative's place where he was hiding. We have also set up a medical board which will conduct the (victim's) post-mortem," police inspector general Shambhu Thakur told AFP.

"We are on the case and we promise the family that the guilty won't be spared."

Thakur said the village head has also been arrested since he "announced a punishment that led to the murder".

Village councils of local elders often settle disputes in rural India, bypassing a lengthy and expensive judicial system. Although they carry no legal weight, they exert massive influence over village communities.

So far 15 people have been arrested in the case, Thakur said, adding that the accused and the victim seemed to know each other.

Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das has called for stringent punishment and announced compensation of 100,000 rupees ($1,500) for the victim's family.

He has condemned the killing as "barbaric".

Indian authorities have faced renewed pressure to act in the wake of several horrific sexual assault cases, including the recent gang rape and murder of an eight-year-old Muslim girl by a group of Hindus.

Amid mounting outrage, the government has changed the law to allow execution for child rapists.

India previously tightened the law following the 2012 rape and murder of a student on a bus in New Delhi, a crime that triggered mass protests.

Some 40,000 rape cases were reported in 2016, with many more believed to go unreported because of stigma attached to sex crimes in deeply patriarchal India.Share this article Whatsapp

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Linkedin (Agence France-Presse) Dhaka, Bangladesh  Sun, May 6, 2018 21:00 1249 a7124a1e87885b91d244660f9e24a5a4 2 World Rohingya,Rohingya-Muslims,Myanmar,human-rights-abuse,Muslim-nations Free

Islamic foreign ministers on Sunday launched a campaign to mobilize international support for action against Myanmar over the Rohingya refugee crisis, officials said.

Foreign ministers and diplomats of the 53-member Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) set up a campaign committee during two days of talks in the Bangladesh capital Dhaka.

OIC secretary general Yousef bin Ahmed Al-Othaimeen called the move a key step toward ending a crisis caused by the exodus of about 700,000 Muslim Rohingya from Buddhist-majority Myanmar into camps in Bangladesh.

He said the new committee would "mobilise and coordinate international political support for accountability for human rights violations against the Rohingya community."

"This is very important. This is one of the concrete steps that has been taken to alleviate the problem for our (Rohingya) brothers and sisters," he said.

A military campaign launched in Myanmar's Rakhine state in August last year set off the massive influx of the Muslim minority into Bangladesh where they joined 300,000 refugees already living in squalid camps following previous violence.

The United Nations and United States have said the crackdown amounted to ethnic cleansing. The Myanmar army has said it only targeted militants.

Rohingya civilians have told of murders and rapes as they fled. They say the army burned hundreds of Rohingya villages to the ground.

Al-Othaimeen said Muslim nations had to "pressure the international community".

"This is not religious, this is human basic rights of our brothers and sisters in the last 50 years," he said.

The International Criminal Court prosecutor has already called for the tribunal to rule on whether it can investigate the allegations of mass rape and killings.

Bangladesh has put huge diplomatic effort into pressuring Myanmar to take back the refugees in safety.

The two nations signed a repatriation deal in November, but nobody has since returned.

The Rohingya have been persecuted for decades in Myanmar, where they are regarded as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and denied citizenship.

Last month a UN Security Council delegation visiting the camps called for the safe return of the Rohingya and an end to discrimination against them.

Canada's Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland also called for "accountability" when she toured the Rohingya camps this week.

Bangladesh Foreign Minister A. H. Mahmood Ali said the OIC meeting had urged "strong action against the Myanmar government" on the Rohingya crisis.Share this article Whatsapp

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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, May 6, 2018 13:59 1249 a7124a1e87885b91d244660f9e23e93d 4 City Monas,social-event,jakarta,police-reports,incident Free

Komariah, the mother of 10-year-old M. Rizki Syahputra, one of two children who died on April 28 during a charity event at National Monument (Monas) Park in Central Jakarta, has dropped her police report after being questioned by the Jakarta Police on Saturday, her lawyer has said.

Irfan Iskandar, a lawyer who was appointed by Komariah to replace her former lawyer M. Fayyadh, said Komariah had come to terms with the incident.

She has officially dropped the report. I have submitted the official letter to rescind the report, which has been signed by Komariah, to the investigator. She dropped the report because she had come to terms with the incident and had accepted it as God's will, Irfan said on Saturday as quoted by kompas.com.

Irfan said Komariahs decision was made without intimidation from any party.

However, he acknowledged that Henry Indraguna, a lawyer who represents Dave Santosa, the chairman of Forum Untukmu Indonesia, which organized the event, had communicated with Komariah.

The two had reportedly come to an agreement and made peace.

Irfan refused to say whether Dave had promised compensation for Komariah.

She has accepted it [the death of her son] and sees it as Gods will. Therefore, she accepted the peace deal, he added.

Komariah ex-lawyer, Fayyadh, previously said his client had been asked to not discuss the chronology of the incident to anyone in return for money.

Fayyadh said two members of Relawan Merah Putih had given Rp 5 million (US$358) in hush money to Komariah and Rp 10 million to the family of Mahesa Junaedi, a 12-year-old who also died during the event.

Relawan Merah Putih is a campaign group that supported Joko Jokowi Widodo and Jusuf Kalla during the 2014 presidential election and Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama and Djarot Syaiful Hidayat during the 2017 Jakarta gubernatorial election. (cal)Share this article Whatsapp

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Linkedin Riza Roidila (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, May 6, 2018 12:02 1250 a7124a1e87885b91d244660f9e23a45e 1 World Indonesia,Immigration-Office,immigration-policy,Indonesia-Israel,diplomatic-relations,Indonesian-visas-for-Israel Free

Indonesias Immigration Directorate General denied on Saturday a report by an Israeli media portal claiming that it was issuing tourist visas to Israelis.

Israeli media portal Hareetz reported on May 3 that Indonesia, the worlds largest Muslim-majority country, was issuing tourist visas to Israelis. The article said the policy had been effective since May 1.

However, immigration spokesperson Agung Sampurno has since denied the report.

The Indonesian government does not have a tourist visa policy for Israeli citizens, he said in a press release, while stressing that Indonesia and Israel had no diplomatic relations.

Agung said the granting of visas to foreign citizens from a country that did not have diplomatic relations with Indonesia was only made possible through the Calling Visa mechanism, which is overseen by the Foreign Ministry and its related agencies, including the Immigration Directorate General.

The report stating Indonesia was issuing tourist visas to Israelis is a hoax, Agung said.

Hareetz stated that Israelis could apply for tourist visas through the Israel Indonesia Agency, which, according to Hareetz, had been set up last month. Hareetzs article did not quote any Indonesian authorities. (evi)Share this article Whatsapp

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Linkedin Callistasia Anggun Wijaya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, May 6, 2018 19:21 1249 a7124a1e87885b91d244660f9e2494cb 1 City #CarFreeDay,Car-Free-Day,#2019changepresident,#2019gantipresiden,anti-jokowi,#2019PresidentialElection,2019-presidential-election Free

Officers of the Jakarta Public Order Agency (Satpol PP) distributed white t-shirts to people who were wearing T-shirts with #2019GantiPresiden (Change President in 2019) printed on them at the Car Free Day (CFD) event, in a bid to ensure the event is politics free.

Five sacks of white T-shirts were prepared in anticipation of participants of the #2019GantiPresiden declaration rally, being held around Arjuna Wiwaha monument, Gambir, Central Jakarta, about 2.3 kilometers from Jl. MH Thamrin, choosing to enter the CFD area wearing their politically emblazoned T-shirts.

Jakarta Public Order Agency head Yani Wahyu said the distribution of the t-shirts was in line with Jakarta Gubernatorial Decree No. 12/2016 on no politics at the CFD.

The step was taken following an incident last Sunday in which a woman, who was wearing a white T-shirt bearing the slogan #DiaSibukKerja (He is Busy Working), to express her support for President Joko Jokowi Widodo, was heckled by several people who were wearing #2019GantiPresiden t-shirts.

We offered white T-shirts to participants of the declaration rally who wanted to enter the CFD area. We didnt force them, simply persuaded them to wear the white T-shirts to comply with the gubernatorial decree, Yani told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

Yani said he had deployed 250 officers, of whom 120 were women, to safeguard the CFD and to make sure no political activities were conducted in the area.

Besides distributing white T-shirts, Satpol PP also erected several banners stating people could only hold environmental, sports, arts or cultural events at the CFD. (evi)Share this article Whatsapp

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Linkedin Jerome Aning and Leila B. Salaverria (Inquirer.net/Asia News Network) Manila  Sun, May 6, 2018 11:02 1250 a7124a1e87885b91d244660f9e235c61 2 SE Asia Philippines,Chinese-missiles,South-China-Sea,#SouthChinaSea,#Philippines,Southeast-Asia,#SouthChinaSeaDispute,Rodrigo-Duterte,#Duterte,#RodrigoDuterte,maritime-defense Free

Lawmakers urged the Duterte administration on Saturday not to become complacent about Chinas installation of missiles in Philippine reefs in the West Philippine Sea.

The lawmakers made the appeal even as Malacanang said it would exhaust all means, including a diplomatic protest, once the government was able to verify the missile installation.

But presidential spokesperson Harry Roque maintained that the situation in the West Philippine Sea did not pose a threat to the country because of its strong friendship with China.

Let us not be complacent and say maybe, said Sen. Gregorio Honasan, chair of the committee on national defense and security.

Many people have landed in trouble because of speculations and assumptions. Let us assume the worst situation, said Honasan, a former Army colonel and mutineer.

File protest

In the first place, why would China place missiles there? Where would it aim these? Honasan said, urging the President to seek multilateral diplomatic action.

Honasan said Chinas militarization of the West Philippine Sea affected not just the Philippines, but other countries as well.

While its still early, let us unite and turn to diplomacy and talk sincerely with China, he said, adding that a multilateral approach would be best for the situation.

Sen. JV Ejercito urged the Department of Foreign Affairs to file a diplomatic protest over Chinas move, saying Beijing has gone overboard by installing weapons systems in the disputer islands.

Sen. Leila de Lima, a critic of the President, urged the Armed Forces of the Philippines to impress upon the President that the situation posed the single biggest threat to national security in recent decades.

'See no evil 

She chided the AFP for remaining silent even if [the President] is already pawning the security of Filipino soldiers and citizens in his effort to make his personal love affair with China a matter of national policy.

In line with the Presidents amorous affair with China, the AFP has chosen to play the monkey that sees, hears, and speaks no evil whenever it comes to China, she said.

It is time that the AFP draw the line between Dutertes mendicant policy toward China on the one hand, and national defense and security on the other, she added.

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This article appeared on the Philippine Daily Inquirer newspaper website, which is a member of Asia News Network and a media partner of The Jakarta PostShare this article Whatsapp

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Linkedin (Agence France-Presse) Phnom Penh  Sun, May 6, 2018 23:27 1249 a7124a1e87885b91d244660f9e24f43e 2 SE Asia Cambodia,Hun-Sen,independent,English,newspaper,democracy Free

A newspaper hailed as Cambodia's last independent English daily has been sold to a Malaysian investor with apparent business links to premier Hun Sen, rattling a journalist community that has been battered by the strongman ahead of elections.

Bill Clough, the Australian publisher of the 26-year-old Phnom Penh Post, said in a statement Saturday that the paper had been purchased by a Malaysian investor identified solely as "Sivakumar G".

The announcement did not disclose the price of the sale or any information on the new owner's other ventures.

But a person close to the matter confirmed to AFP that the buyer is the head of Asia PR, a public relations firm based in Kuala Lumpur whose website describes its CEO "Siva Kumar G" as a journalist by training.

The website lists as a former client Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, whose government stands accused of a sweeping crackdown on independent media, NGOs and rival politicians ahead of July polls.

An Asia PR spokeswoman declined to comment.

The sale, which caught the newspaper's staff by surprise, swiftly raised concerns about a contracting space for independent media in a country that lost its other main English newspaper last year.

"The Post is really the last remaining newspaper that comes out every day and does long investigations on corruption, illegal logging and politics," said Abby Seiff, a Cambodia-based freelance journalist and former Phnom Penh Post editor.

"The journalist community is concerned about what the implication (of the sale) could be. It's just two months until the election and there's not much independent media left," she added.

In his statement, former owner Clough acknowledged that "turbulence" in Cambodia ahead of elections had put a spotlight on the Phnom Penh Post and left it as "the last remaining truly independent media group in the country".

The Post's chief rival, the Cambodia Daily, was forced to shut in August 2017 after it was handed an unpayable tax bill -- announcing its closure the same day authorities arrested opposition leader Kem Sokha on treason charges.

The crackdown also saw dozens of radio stations taken off the air and the jailing of two reporters from Radio Free Asia, which shut its bureau after 20 years due to a series of legal threats.

Cambodia fell 10 places in this year's media freedom ranking by Reporters Without Borders, which described the country as hosting a "climate of terror that has drastically curtailed press freedom".

In recent months local media had reported that the Phnom Penh Post was facing tax troubles.

Clough's statement said "publicised tax claims" had been settled with the government last week and that the paper now faces "no threat to its ability to continue its work".

Chad Williams, a former Phnom Penh Post editor-in-chief, said the quick settling of the tax bill and appearance of a buyer "strongly suggests the government approves of the sale."

"And it's hard to imagine they would approve if they thought the new ownership planned to maintain the paper's role as the country's sole remaining watchdog," he added.

The Post, founded by American journalist Michael Hayes in 1992, is seen as a key pillar of the country's fragile democracy, which observers say has taken a nosedive in recent years as Hun Sen clears out opposition politicians and other critical voices.Share this article Whatsapp

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Linkedin (Agence France-Presse) Kuala Lumpur  Mon, May 7, 2018 04:08 1249 a7124a1e87885b91d244660f9e2541e0 2 SE Asia Malaysia,Rohingya-Muslims,boat,Myanmar,asylum-seekers,Australia,New-Zealand Free

Malaysia has arrested more than a dozen members of an alleged people trafficking syndicate after intercepting a ship carrying 127 Sri Lankan migrants believed to be bound for Australia and New Zealand, authorities have said.

Maritime authorities on Tuesday halted a modified tanker named "Etra" in Malaysian territorial waters off southern Johor state, national police chief Mohamad Fuzi Harun said.

Nearly 100 Sri Lankan men, 24 women and nine children were aboard the ship, which was making its way to international waters when it was stopped.

The police chief said in a statement that authorities arrested 16 people involved in an "international network" of people smugglers, including three Indonesians and four Malaysians aboard a fishing vessel used to transport the migrants from the Johor coast to the tanker.

Another four Malaysians were arrested in the nearby state capital of Johor Bahru, while a fifth was taken into custody in northern Penang state.

Four Sri Lankan men were arrested aboard the tanker for suspected involvement in the trafficking network.

Mohamad Fuzi said the remaining 127 passengers aboard the vessel had been detained for violating immigration laws, according to news reports which did not say where they were being held or if they had been allowed to disembark.

He said the international syndicate, which covered Sri Lanka, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia and Malaysia, had been operating since the middle of last year.

Sri Lanka's foreign ministry said Sunday it was working closely with the Malaysian authorities to establish the identities of those detained.

"While the identities of the 131 persons are still in the process of being determined, initial information indicate that 43 of the 131 persons arrested hold identity cards issued by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR)," the ministry said.

Tens of thousands of Sri Lankans who fled decades of ethnic war are refugees in neighbouring India and other countries despite the end of the conflict in 2009.

It is relatively rare for people-smuggling boats seeking to take people to Australia to be stopped off Malaysia. Boats typically bypass Malaysia and head to neighbouring Indonesia, the traditional staging post on the route to Australia.

Over the years, many such vessels have been stopped or have sunk off Indonesia.

This flow has largely stopped in recent years however after Australia introduced tough policies in 2013 of turning back boats when it is safe to do so, an approach that angered Jakarta.

In 2015 some boats carrying Rohingya, a stateless Muslim minority from mostly Buddhist Myanmar, arrived in Malaysia after Thai authorities clamped down on regional trafficking networks and preventing them from coming ashore in Thailand.

A Rohingya boat arrival in northwest Malaysia last month was the first for some time, and came as fears mounted more might be set to take to the high seas after a military crackdown in Myanmar sent many members of the minority fleeing their homeland.

However experts have played down the potential for a mass exodus via the high seas, as stormy weather over upcoming months makes boat trips far more risky.Share this article Whatsapp

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Linkedin Martin Abbugao and Sam Reeves (Agence France-Presse) Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia  Sun, May 6, 2018 14:30 1249 a7124a1e87885b91d244660f9e240551 2 SE Asia #Malaysia,Malaysia,Malaysia-election,Najib-Razak,brain-drain,Chinese-Malaysians,Indian-Malaysians,ethnic-group Free

Malaysia's racially divisive elections are fanning resentment among minorities, and risk escalating a "brain drain" of disillusioned ethnic Chinese and Indians in an exodus experts say is hurting the nation's economic ambitions.

About 60 percent of Malaysia's 32 million people are Muslim Malays but the country is also home to large minorities, with about a quarter of the population ethnic Chinese and a substantial number ethnic Indian.

The Barisan Nasional coalition, which has been in power since independence from Britain in 1957, has long promoted affirmative-action policies that confer Malays and other indigenous groups with many advantages, including access to cheaper housing and priority in government jobs.

The programme, introduced in the 1970s after deadly race riots, was aimed at helping the poorer Malays catch up with the wealthier, more business-savvy Chinese and has been credited with creating a Muslim middle class and maintaining racial harmony.

But it has also been blamed for fuelling resentment among ethnic minority groups and encouraging their better-educated members to move abroad.

Some young members of the Chinese and Indian communities say they feel like second-class citizens in their own country, and that staying in Malaysia would likely limit their career opportunities as they hit ethnic glass ceilings.

Gabey Goh, a 34-year-old marketing executive, is one of many Malaysian Chinese who have headed to neighbouring Singapore, which is predominantly ethnic Chinese, more affluent, and which she regards as having a more merit-based culture.

"I was never very comfortable, and I never agreed and I don't agree, with the affirmative action policy," said Goh, who left Malaysia more than three years ago.

"There's too much anger, too much of a divide."

In the run-up to Wednesday's general election, Prime Minister Najib Razak has been accused of amplifying racial tensions as he scrambles to shore up his Malay voter base with moves that may further alienate minorities.

Analysts say electoral boundaries have been redrawn along racial lines, creating constituencies dominated by Malays.

Najib has also warned that an opposition victory would be a "nightmare" for the country's Muslims.

Speaking in December at the annual assembly of his ruling party, he said that if the opposition wins, "the bumiputras will be cast aside, insulted and damned, and left destitute in our own country".

"Bumiputra", or "sons of the soil", is the term for Malays and other indigenous groups.

Toxic atmosphere

While Najib is expected to win at the polls, he faces a tough opponent in veteran politician Mahathir Mohamad, a staunch Malay nationalist who led the country for 22 years and has come out of retirement to join forces with the opposition.

A scandal surrounding state fund 1MDB -- founded by Najib and allegedly looted by senior fund officials and their associates -- and the challenge from Mahathir has only pushed the premier to further focus on his Muslim base.

Tian Chua, vice-president of opposition group the People's Justice Party, said Najib's approach would worsen relations among Malaysia's different ethnic groups.

"It is not helping people to feel they are part of larger society," he told AFP.

The World Bank has estimated that at least one million Malaysians have left to live abroad since independence, threatening the country's competitiveness.

"The migration of talent across borders touches the core of Malaysias aspiration to become a high-income nation. Human capital is the bedrock of the high-income economy," it said in a 2011 report.

"Brain drain does not appear to square with this objective: Malaysia needs talent, but talent seems to be leaving," said study which is still seen as the most authoritative on the subject.

In such a toxic atmosphere, Neeta Ravi -- originally from Malaysia's ethnic Indian community -- is glad she is not around for the election. She left her homeland in the 1990s and settled in Canada.

"We felt that while we had the opportunity, we would go somewhere where we were treated on the same level, the 63-year-old told AFP, using a pseudonym as she still has family in Malaysia.

She said her family preferred a place "with no first-class, or second-class citizens" while back at home her son would have needed better grades to get into the same university course as a Malay boy.

There is little sign the situation is improving. Goh said that inquiries from friends about life in Singapore have only increased in the past year.

And many of those who have left say they will not return while affirmative action remains in place.

"If Malaysia becomes a more just and equitable and fair country, we will pack our bags tomorrow and go back," said Ravi.While the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or North Korea, is open to tourism, like any other country, travelers must be aware of rules and regulations imposed in its territory.

Kompas.com has compiled a list of things to be aware of before visiting the northern part of the Korean Peninsula.

1. Only cash transactions accepted

When visiting North Korea, be mindful of the currency you carry. The country only accepts cash transactions in euros, US dollars, Chinese yuan or the North Korean Won, also known as the Korean People's Won (KPW).

There are no ATMs, and credit cards are not valid for transactions in North Korea. Coins of US dollars and Yuan are also not acceptable. North Korea does not limit the amount of cash travelers bring into the country.

2. Can you bring a mobile phone?

Since 2013, North Korea allows tourists to bring mobile phones. However, a local SIM card must be used to make calls, since no foreign SIM card works in the country.

Moreover, the local SIM cards made available for visitors also differ from those used by North Korean residents. Visitors cannot make calls to local numbers.

3. Internet and e-mail

There is only one hotel in North Korea that provides Wi-Fi services, namely the Masik Ski Resort. No other places offer Wi-Fi in the country. The internet can be accessed through data plans from SIM card providers.

E-mails can be sent from hotels  using the hotels e-mail address  a service that costs visitors 2 euros, equivalent to Rp 30,000, for each e-mail sent.

Read also: What not to do in North Korea

4. Taking photos and videos

Visitors are allowed to take photos and videos throughout their travels. However, do not be surprised when the tour guide forbids you to take photos in certain areas, such as a military post.

At the end of the journey, before returning home from North Korea, photographs on the camera of every tourist will be checked, and some photos may be deleted if they are not in accordance with the applicable provisions.

5. Be mindful of etiquette and behavior

Not only local residents must show respect at statues of North Korean leaders. The rule also applies to foreign visitors, who are also expected to bow down upon approaching a statue.

If you are not comfortable with that, request that your tour guide avoid locations where you might find statues of North Korean leaders, such as those of Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il on Mansu Hill in Pyongyang.

Visitors must also be careful with images of the country's leaders. For example, it is not advised to throw or deface newspapers that feature photographs of the leaders.

Lastly, when pointing at a statue of a North Korean leader, you must not point with one finger but stretch out all five fingers of your hand. (liz/asw)With access to the real DMZ restricted, tourists are flocking to a replica of the border truce village of Panmunjom to re-enact the scene of the leaders of the two Koreas shaking hands.

With a low cement block between them marking the "border", they shake hands as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korea's President Moon Jae-in did when they met at Panmunjom on April 27.

Many visitors joined hands and hopped over the mock Military Demarcation Line to the "North" and back, re-enacting the scene that was broadcast live.

"My children urged me to come here after they saw the the famous scene on TV at school class," Park Sook-hyun, a 44-year-old housewife, told AFP.

Chung O-Chul, 46, said he came from the southern city of Changwon to see the replica and "celebrate reconciliation" between the two Koreas.

"But I was overwhelmed by this huge crowd", he said.

Panmunjom, known as the Joint Security Area, is inside the Demilitarized Zone, a 250 kilometre (155-mile)-long swath of land that divides the Korean peninsula.

Read also: North Korea goes back to the future - by 30 minutes

Despite its name, the DMZ is among the most heavily fortified areas on the planet and the Joint Security Area is the only place where soldiers from the North and South stand face-to-face.

The replica was built for the 2000 blockbuster "JSA: Joint Security Area", a mystery thriller by renowned director Park Chan-wook.

The village has UN blue-coloured huts, Panmungak, a drab cement building on the North side, and the Freedom House pavilion on the South side.

But despite the realism there is a complete lack of the tension visitors feel when they set foot on what former US president Bill Clinton once described as the "scariest place on Earth".

"It is almost like the real Panmunjom but what lacks here is the tense atmosphere" said Park, adding she had a chance to visit Panmunjom 20 years earlier.

The facility and two other outdoor movie sets belong to the Korean Film Council's Namyangju Studios in the eastern suburbs of Seoul.

"The two other movie sets used to be more popular than Panmunjom replica but following the summit, most visitors want to see Panmunjom set first," a studio official said.

And there are only a few weeks left to visit "Panmunjom" as the sets will be torn down after the end of May ahead of the studio's relocation to the southern city of Busan next year.Vacations can be more meaningful when you know you are contributing to a good cause at the same time, and there are more options available now for travelers who wish to do just that.

More than 100 independently owned boutique hotels, restaurants, and cruises united under the Secret Retreats collection have taken action to encourage responsible and sustainable tourism. They mainly focus on supporting their communities and protecting the environment.

Secret Retreats will launch its 2018 campaign in June to support the Myanmar-based Inle Heritage Foundation. Established by Yin Myo Su, Inle Heritage is a non-profit organization that aims to preserve the cultural and natural wealth of the Inle region. The foundation also helps the region to thrive as a place to visit, work and live.

Yin Myo Su is also the managing director of several Secret Retreats member properties in Myanmar, namely Inle Princess Resort, Inle Heritage Stilt Houses and Mrauk U Princess.

Secret Retreats will launch its 2018 campaign in June to support the Myanmar-based Inle Heritage Foundation. Established by Yin Myo Su, Inle Heritage is a non-profit organization that aims to preserve the cultural and natural wealth of the Inle region. The foundation also helps the region to thrive as a place to visit, work and live. (Secret Retreats/File)

Meanwhile, in 2017, Secret Retreats charity campaign supported the Misool Foundation, dedicated to protecting some of the worlds richest reefs in Raja Ampat, Papua. Dubbed an innovative foundation, Misool has successfully promoted sustainable tourism and community-based environmental conservation through its protected 300,000-acre marine park.

Read also: Raja Ampat easier to reach thanks to Garuda's new Jakarta-Sorong service

The Secret Retreats family supported the foundation through charity dinners led in partnership with Secret Tables chefs, special guest chef experiences onsite at Misool. There was also a six-month fund-raising initiative involving members. Secret Retreats then distributed the donations to strengthen the impact.

Following this first annual charity campaign, more than US$ 15,000 has been raised for the Misool Foundation.

Misool protected area (Secret Retreats/File)

Sustainable and responsible tourism have always been part of the Secret Retreats ethos.

With the new annual campaign, we are able to harness the collective power and support of our community. Not only to raise awareness [] but to also provide concrete monetary support, said Secret Retreats managing director Stephane Junca.

He went on to say that 2017 was just the beginning and that his side was looking forward to increasing efforts and donations this year to support the Inle Heritage Foundation. (mut)Having breakfast is more than just consuming a morning meal, as research shows it is beneficial for your metabolism. Below are breakfast and brunch spots in Jakarta for you to enjoy:

Mister Sunday

Mirroring its name, Mister Sunday offers a laidback, relaxing ambiance that reminds you of a Sunday morning. Founded by duo Fergie Tan and Yusuf Asikin, the place has a minimalist design with lots of natural lighting.

Founded by duo Fergie Tan and Yusuf Asikin, Mister Sunday has a minimalist design with lots of natural lighting. (Mister Sunday/File)

The restaurant offers all-day breakfast with notable Asian twists. Among its new dishes is sesame-seared tuna with quinoa salad, which has a crunchy texture from the red quinoa. If youre a seafood lover, you may consider trying the smoked salmon eggs benedict or soft shell crab benedict.

Sesame-seared tuna with quinoa salad by Mister Sunday. (JP/Ni Nyoman Wira)

For coffee, they use local beans from various provinces, including Java and Bali, and V60 manual brewing. If you are a tea person, Mister Sunday also has the fresh talang tea with Lemongrass  a blue beverage that turns purple once you squeeze lemon juice into it.

Feeling purple: Talang tea with lemongrass  the blue beverage turns purple once you squeeze lemon juice into it. (JP/Ni Nyoman Wira)

A recommended menu item is the restaurants salted caramel Lindt chocolate brownies with vanilla ice cream. The sweetness of the chocolate and caramel are well mixed with salty notes. It is available for delivery. An average of Rp 100,000 ($7) is spent at this restaurant.

Salted caramel Lindt chocolate brownies with vanilla ice cream by Mister Sunday. (JP/Ni Nyoman Wira)

On weekdays, people living in the neighborhood and nearby professionals flock to this restaurant. While on weekends, people enjoying Car Free Day and community group members usually dine here. A smoking area is available during certain hours.

Where : Jl. Cikajang 30, South Jakarta

Opening hours : 7:30 a.m.  10 p.m. (Sunday-Thursday), 7:30 a.m.  11 p.m. (Friday to Saturday)

Poachd Brunch & Coffee House

The newly opened restaurant adopts an Australian brunch-house style. Owner Karizma Soraya makes sure the concept flows through their dishes and coffee.

Serving in generous portions, its all-day brunch items are inspired by the uniqueness of European and Asian cuisine. Those who love eggs and want to stay healthy can consider trying the Aussie, which includes poached eggs, smoked salmon, avocado, hollandaise sauce and roasted beets. The restaurant also serves the Moroccan and Texan  the last one is for meat and spice lovers.

The Texan, one of the dishes at Poach'd. (JP/Ni Nyoman Wira)

Our coffee is pure Arabica, [while] our house blend is a combination of local and Brazilian coffee, Karizma told The Jakarta Post. A range of beverage choices are available. After seeing them on Poach'd Instagram posts, one of them is the almond caramel sprinkle, people usually become intrigued and give it a try.

Moroccan brunch item by Poach'd. (Poach'd/File)

Upon entering the restaurant, its high ceilings may charm you, along with Instagrammable spots in its corners. Diners on weekdays usually comprise office employees on lunch breaks or holding meetings, while the restaurant is a hot spot for families on weekends. An outdoor eating area facilitates smoking. Pets are also welcome.

A post shared by Poach'd Brunch & Coffee House (@poachd_kemang) on Apr 21, 2018 at 8:07pm PDT

Poach'd also has vegetarian options, Indonesian dishes and kids meals.

An average of Rp 100,000 is spent here.

Where : Jl. Kemang Raya No. 11, South Jakarta

Opening hours : 6 a.m.  6 p.m.

Read also: Jakpost guide to Jl. Kemang Raya: Part 1

Antipodean

Nestled in Kemang, Antipodean offers an intimate and warm ambiance.

Mainly influenced by Western dishes, the menu can be read from a wall. The restaurants French toast, with sweet and savory options, come highly recommended.

The Post tried its spinach scrambled eggs with feta and grain bread and churros. The feta was soft, while the churros were crunchy with the right consistency in the chocolate sauce. None of them disappointed.

A post shared by Antipodean_Indonesia (@antipodean_indonesia) on Jul 28, 2017 at 8:12pm PDT

When it comes to coffee, Antipodean uses coffee beans roasted by Merdeka Coffee. Among the blends used is Bukit Sentul Breakfast.

A post shared by Antipodean_Indonesia (@antipodean_indonesia) on Apr 16, 2017 at 4:51am PDT

The place is designed in casual way with red as the dominating color. The crowd here varies, from office workers to groups of friends and family.

An average of Rp 100,000 is spent here.

Where : Hero Kemang Villa Complex, Jl. Kemang Selatan I, South Jakarta

Opening hours : 8 a.m.  8 p.m.

Monolog

A list of breakfast and brunch places is not complete without Monolog. Said to be one of the pioneers of coffee and all-day breakfast in fine locations, Monolog was established in 2011 with their first outlet in Plaza Senayan shopping mall.

When it comes to food, owner Christoph Darjanto said, Theres nothing that we highlight more than others because we hope people who come to Monolog can find something that they like.

A post shared by MONOLOG (@monologcoffee) on Mar 19, 2018 at 8:00pm PDT

The restaurant does have signature dishes, one of them is the steak and eggs. There is also the Monolog big morning and Parisian breakfast  with eggs in both dishes.

Monolog focuses on local coffee, mainly from Java and its surrounding areas. The restaurant is happy to make your cup of coffee just the way you like it.

A post shared by MONOLOG (@monologcoffee) on Mar 22, 2018 at 5:00am PDT

Monolog has another branch in Pondok Indah Mall (PIM) I, South Jakarta. The outlets have different crowds. While the Plaza Senayan location is usually filled with office workers, the PIM I location is usually the go-to place for moms. Car Free Day participants also flock to the Plaza Senayan location. People can smoke freely in the outdoor dining area of Monologs PIM I location.

An average of Rp 180,000 is spent here.

Where : Plaza Senayan shopping mall and Pondok Indah Mall (PIM) IHundreds of angry Korean Air employees took to the streets in Seoul demanding the overthrow of the firm's controversial controlling family Friday, after police failed to secure an arrest warrant for one daughter over allegations she sprayed juice over a business associate.

A series of scandals have put Korean Air chairman Cho Yang-ho and his family among the country's most notorious super-wealthy and sparked a rare outburst of hostility from the firm's employees.

Chanting "Cho family must step down!" around 400 Korean Air staff members, their families and other protesters gathered at Gwanghwamun in central Seoul late Friday.

The family first shot to international infamy in 2014, when Cho's oldest daughter Cho Hyun-ah forced two Korean Air flight attendants to kneel and beg for forgiveness after she was served macadamia nuts in a bag rather than a bowl.

She ordered the Seoul-bound flight back to the gate so one of them could be ejected in an incident quickly dubbed "nut rage".

Her younger sister Cho Hyun-min recently emerged into the unflattering limelight with her own tantrum -- dubbed "water rage" -- when she allegedly splashed fruit juice over a business associate.

The Gangseo police station in Seoul said Friday it was seeking an arrest warrant for Cho, who was accused of assault and obstruction of business.

But the request was dismissed by prosecutors.

The fruit juice accusation hit a nerve within the Korean Air workforce, prompting hundreds of staff members to join an online chat room to allege Cho family misdeeds against employees and domestic staff.

Loyalty is prized in South Korea and it is rare for employees of major conglomerates to publicly turn against company owners.

Many of the protesters on Friday were dressed in work uniforms or in all black, with their faces covered by sunglasses or Guy Fawkes masks for fear of being identified by their employer. Many declined to be interviewed by the media.

"There are many people from the company's HR team here to keep an eye on what we do and say," said one Korean Air pilot in uniform, but with his face covered by a mask.

"The owners are living in clover while the employees are suffering from extreme stress," he added.

Many protesters carried signs saying "Cho, you are fired!" and "Cho Yang-ho out!".

Lee Tae-hoon, a student, told AFP: "They were scared to speak up for a long time but have now found the collective courage to do so. I hope they can bring change."

Read also: Korean Air boss apologises as hot-tempered daughters resign

Clan controversy

Police said in a statement that Cho Hyun-min was "denying her criminal actions", but "a review of the probe including testimonies by victims and witnesses as well as recorded audio files point to alleged crime".

Korean Air had attempted to influence the victims, police added, and there were concerns Cho could destroy evidence if she was not detained.

The 34-year-old has apologised in front of journalists and TV cameras but denied any wrongdoing during police questioning.

Police said last week they also investigating allegations that the sisters' mother Lee Myung-hee had abused employees verbally and physically.

The family are also accused of using Korean Air planes to smuggle luxury goods into the country to avoid import duties and customs authorities raided their residence and the airline's headquarters last week.

Chairman Cho Yang-ho -- who last year faced accusations of embezzling company funds, although prosecutors rejected a request for his arrest -- apologised for the "immature" behaviour of his daughters, both of whom resigned from their executive posts.

Cho's Hanjin is among the country's 15 biggest business groups, and as well as Korean Air it owns logistics and transport firms, and has interests in information technology and hotels.

It used to own Hanjin Shipping, once one of the world's biggest shipping firms, which was declared bankrupt last year.

At the protest in Seoul Park Chang-jin, the flight attendant berated by Cho's older daughter for the macadamia nuts said the demonstrators were not trying to "harm".

"We are here because we love Korean Air and to make it better," said Park, who is seeking damages in a court battle against the firm, claiming he has faced discrimination since the incident.Unfortunately, The Content Is Not Here

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Home PagePanel to vet allegations of nepotism levied against Gov. Noem

The Attorney General's Office on Wednesday announced it was referring the complaint to the South Dakota Government Accountability.Kuwait blocked the U.N. Security Council on Friday from issuing a U.S.-sponsored statement sharply criticizing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for what Washington called vile anti-Semitic slurs and baseless conspiracy theories.

Kuwait is the Arab representative on the 15-member council and two diplomats said it opposed the press statement on grounds that it was not comprehensive. The diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity because consultations were private.

Abbas issued an apology earlier Friday over Mondays speech, which was sharply condemned as anti-Semitic by Israel, the U.S., U.N., European Union and others.

In the lengthy speech, he said it was the Jews social function, including money lending, which caused animosity toward them in Europe. He also described the creation of Israel as a European colonial project, saying history tells us there is no basis for the Jewish homeland.

U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley was sharply critical of the Security Councils failure to respond.

Disgusting anti-Semitic statements from the Palestinian leadership obviously undermine the prospects for Middle East peace, she said in a statement. When the Security Council cannot reach consensus on denouncing such actions, it only further undermines the U.N.s credibility in addressing this critical issue.

The proposed statement, obtained by The Associated Press, would have expressed the Security Councils firm and unequivocal rejection of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial and called on Abbas to refrain from anti-Semitic comments.

The draft would also have recalled that anti-Semitism has historically contributed to threats to international peace and security, mass atrocities, and widespread violations of human rights.

The U.S. circulated the statement Friday as several thousand Palestinians staged a sixth weekly protest on the Gaza-Israel border.

The protests every Friday are part of a campaign organized by Gazas Hamas rulers aimed, in part, at breaking a decade-old blockade of the territory that imposed by Israel and Egypt after the Islamic militant group took control there in 2007, and at 70 years of Israeli occupation of land the Palestinians want as their state.

Since late March, 40 Palestinians have been killed and more than 1,700 wounded by Israeli army fire.

Last week, Haley accused Hamas of using women and children as human shields but made no mention of deaths or injuries to Palestinians by the Israeli military.

Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian ambassador to the U.N., said in a letter to the Security Council and Secretary-General Antonio Guterres late Friday that more casualties in the latest protests reinforce the sense of despair and anger in the face of what he called this ruthless occupation.

As tensions continue to rise and humanitarian and security conditions to deteriorate, the urgency of addressing this dire situation and bringing it back from the brink thus cannot be understated, he said. Time is of the essence and the international community must act without delay.

Amb Haley: Disgusting anti-Semitic statements from Palestinian leadership obviously undermine prospects for Mid East peace. When the Sec. Council cannot reach consensus on denouncing such actions, it only further undermines the UNs credibility in addressing this critical issue.  US Mission to the UN (@USUN) May 4, 2018

(AP)Five public officials in Beit Shemesh were among ten persons taken into custody during a raid involving Israel Police and Israel Tax Authority officials.

A large police force arrived in Beit Shemesh during the night of motzei Shabbos and made arrests at a number of homes. The locals are already used to seeing police arrive at night and there was an immediate reaction, protests and demonstrations against police forces. However, this was not about arresting people for breaking the law during protests or evading the draft, but this was about public officials accused of taking bribes and breaking other laws.

This time, the suspects include a candidate for mayor in the city who runs a certain department in the city, a businessman, an architect and a lawyer.

The list of detainees includes two public servants, who appear to have used their public position for their own gain. The project, which appears to be the Beit Shemesh Holyland project, involves a building project on Sfas Emmes Street. In 2016, the Satmar Kehilla in Kiryas Yoel purchased the project and has already invested at least $4 million. It is added the persons who invested in the project are American citizens.

[Senior Beit Shemesh Degel Hatorah Official Among Those Arrested; Mayor Abutbul Responds]

Israel Polices 443 Major Crimes Unit conducted a clandestine investigation for some time, and when sufficient evidence was gathered, the arrests were ordered. The suspects face charges including bribery, fraud, breach of trust, and tax evasion.

According to the suspicions, the suspects allegedly received money in exchange for advancing the interests of others, in violation of the law. The suspects were brought for questioning by the police, and on Sunday afternoon, 21 Iyar, they will be arraigned in the Rishon LTzion Magistrate court.

Eight months ago, in BeChadrei Chareidim reported that the Jerusalem police fraud investigators arrested Yeshayahu Ehrenreich, a member of the Beit Shemesh municipal council, and holds the education portfolio in the city. He was arrested along with his associate, on suspicion of diverting the terms of a public tender to transport children worth hundreds of thousands of shekels or more, in a manner that led to a certain company winning it, despite the fact that it did not meet the required conditions.

During the investigation, Ehrenreichs office in City Hall was raided by police. Eight months later, on erev Shabbos, Ehrenreich received a letter from police informing him he was not be charged due to a lack of evidence.

(YWN Israel Desk  Jerusalem/Photo Credit: #)Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Sunday, 21 Iyar, announced Likud ministers will back the so-called Override Clause, which seeks to limit the authority of Israels High Court of Justice. He explained the reason he wished to postpone the vote on the bill was to ensure all Likud ministers are on board.

According to a Yediot Achronot report, Likud ministers serving on the Ministerial Law Committee are planning to back the bill as Mr. Netanyahu indicates to be the case. The Bayit Yehudi party has threatened if the bill is not passed into law, it will stop voting with the coalition since the bill is addressed in coalition agreements that were signed by all coalition parties. Bennet insisted the bill would not be postponed again this Sunday, as it was numerous times in the past.

The bill would give the Knesset the authority to overturn a High Court ruling in cases when the court disqualifies Knesset legislation. The bill seeks to bring the power back to the legislative branch by taking from the judicial branch, which elected officials feel has gone amuck, ruling on anything and everything.

There is still dispute over the number of MKs required to overturn a High Court decision. Bennet and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked feel 61, a simple majority is sufficient while others, including Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit feels that number must be a minimum of 70 lawmakers.

(YWN Israel Desk  Jerusalem)Israels prime minister on Sunday stepped up his calls for world powers to end the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran as President Donald Trump decides whether to withdraw from the agreement by next week.

In a briefing to foreign reporters, Benjamin Netanyahu said the world would be better off without any deal than with what he called the fatally flawed agreement reached in 2015.

Netanyahu said Israel is sharing a trove of confiscated Iranian nuclear documents with the six world powers that signed the deal, as well as other countries, in hopes of mounting further opposition to the deal. He heads to Moscow later this week for a meeting with President Vladimir Putin, where talks will focus on the Iranian nuclear program and Irans involvement in neighboring Syria.

I said it from the start, it has to be either fully fixed or fully nixed, Netanyahu said. But if you do nothing to this deal, if you keep it as is, you will end up with Iran with a nuclear arsenal in a very short time.

[John Kerry Undermines U.S. Government; Meets With Iranians TWICE To Salvage Nuke Deal]

Netanyahu was a vocal opponent of the deal when it was reached during the Obama administration. The agreement lifted painful economic sanctions against Iran in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program.

Netanyahu has repeatedly argued that the deal will not prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons capability after its restrictions expire in the next decade or so. Trump has voiced similar objections and hinted he will withdraw from the deal unless it is renegotiated.

Netanyahu did not accuse Iran of violating the deal. Instead, he said the deal, reached by the Obama administration, was so weak that Iran has no need to break it. He said the flaws include permission for Iran to continue some low-level enrichment of uranium and its continued development of long-range missiles capable of delivering a bomb. He said the nuclear documents unveiled by Israel last week prove that Iran also pursued the know-how on how to develop and detonate a bomb.

I say that a deal that enables Iran to keep and hide all its nuclear weapons know-how, is a horrible deal, he said.

Netanyahu last week showed off what he said was a half ton of Iranian nuclear documents dating back to 2003.

A senior Israeli intelligence official said there were over 100,000 pages of documents that gave Israel new insight into how far the Iranian nuclear program progressed. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity under briefing guidelines, said the volume of information showed the program was more comprehensive and robust than previously thought.

Trumps criticism of the deal has given Netanyahu a rare chance to reopen negotiations that appeared to have concluded in 2015. So far, Europe, China and Russia have shown no interest in revisiting the topic.

European countries, which have been pressing Trump to stick with the deal, have said Netanyahus presentation only reinforced the importance of the agreement, which provides for inspections.

It remains unclear what would happen if the U.S. withdraws from the deal but the other countries remain committed.

Netanyahu appears to be betting that the pressure of renewed American sanctions could be enough to persuade companies to stop doing business with Iran. He also seems to be hopeful that the threat of military action, either U.S. or Israeli, will deter Iran from resuming its nuclear activities.

Yoel Guzansky, an analyst at the Institute for National Security Studies, an Israeli think tank, said Trump is playing a game of chicken with Iran in hopes of renegotiating a better deal.

They hope that by threatening to walk away from the deal they might get that. I am not so sure, not so sure, the Europeans are not on board, of course the Russians and the Chinese are not on board, he said. Walking away, he added, could have hard-to-predict consequences.

Israel considers Iran its arch-enemy, citing Irans calls for Israels destruction, support for militant groups across the region and growing military activity in neighboring Syria. Israel has warned that it will not allow Iran, whose troops are backing Syrian President Bashar Assad, to establish a permanent military presence in Syria.

Israel is believed to have been behind recent airstrikes on Syrian military bases that killed Iranian soldiers, prompting Tehran to vow retaliation. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement.

The possibility of the nuclear deal collapsing has raised concerns it might embolden Iran to strike Israeli targets.

Netanyahu told his Cabinet earlier Sunday that Iran has delivered advanced weapons to Syria in order to attack us both on the battlefield and on the home front, including weaponized UAVs, ground-to-ground missiles and Iranian anti-aircraft batteries that would threaten air force jets.

We are determined to block Irans aggression against us even if this means a struggle. Better now than later, he said.

Nations that were unprepared to take timely action to counter murderous aggression against them paid much heavier prices afterwards. We do not want escalation, but we are prepared for any scenario.

(AP)In the wake of the meltdown at TSB and the harvesting of personal information from Facebook, people are increasingly nervous about managing their finances online.

Here, The Mail on Sunday looks at how safe our data is and what we can do to protect ourselves from scams and fraudsters.

Data security: Often, just a few details  including a name, address and date of birth  are enough for someone to steal your identity and maybe take out a credit card in your name

ACT ON NEW DATA PROTECTION LAW

A shake-up of data protection rules is being introduced this month aimed at changing the way companies handle personal information given to them.

Under a new general data protection regulation, it should be easier to control how our details are shared. This includes financial facts  such as where we bank, our account numbers and sort codes.

It also encompasses other personal information, including our shopping habits, medical records, email addresses and information that tracks where we are.

In the internet age many companies keep such information  profiting from selling it to other interested parties and using it for targeted advertising.

The new European Union backed laws are rolled out in just under three weeks time to replace the Data Protection Act 1998. The old rules, designed to ensure private information could only be used for specific and stated purposes, has proved ineffective.

Under the new regime, customers will have the right to insist firms do not hold or share information  even if you had earlier authorised it when ticking a terms and conditions box. You can also demand information is permanently erased.

Threat: Facebook users' data has been harvested

Colin Tankard, of Harlow-based data security company Digital Pathways, says: People need to realise how sharing any personal information makes them vulnerable to fraud. Now you will have the right to object to any such sharing, even if you previously gave consent.

Some firms, such as Facebook, are playing hard ball. It has said it will ask customers to opt out if they do not want personal information shared or held.

Lisa McCarthy, of the Information Commissioners Office  a Government-backed body that aims to uphold privacy rights  says: Personal data includes everything from names and addresses to medical records, religious beliefs and political opinions. The new rules build on previous legislation so information held by organisations can be erased in certain circumstances if that is your wish.

ACTION PLAN: Do not tick any box allowing details to be shared if you wish your information to stay private. If you believe you have been victim of a data breach contact the Information Commissioners Office on 0303 123 1113.

BE VIGILANT WITH PERSONAL DETAILS

To fend off online burglars or a cyber-attack you should first ask yourself what a criminal wants. Often, just a few details  including a name, address and date of birth  are enough for someone to steal your identity and maybe take out a loan or credit card in your name.

Paul Giles, of banking trade body UK Finance, says those living in a block of flats with shared post boxes are particularly vulnerable to having personal information stolen. Thieves also use social media to discover dates of birthdays or when people are on holiday. Prying eyes on the high street can also result in PINs and card details being stolen.

He says: Regularly check bank statements for any suspicious payments. If you discover any, contact your bank immediately.

Giles also warns people of the danger of unsolicited calls, texts and emails. For example, if someone over the phone is asking to double- check your bank details  often by claiming you may have been a victim of fraud  simply ignore them.

ACTION PLAN: Resolutely refuse to share bank information to cold-callers  even if they claim to be on your side. Do not reveal personal details on social media websites.

Internet crime: So-called phishing is a common email scam

LEARN TRICKS OF THE FRAUDSTERS TRADE

Despite concerns over high-tech hacking  including attacks masterminded by Russian spies  most internet crime can be combated.

So-called phishing is a common email scam. This involves crooks tricking people into handing over key personal banking information in the hope of then draining your bank account of money.

Variations include vishing (scam phone calls) and smishing (mobile text messages). Some fraudsters manage to download malware  malicious software  on to peoples computers, enabling them to read login details for bank accounts.

Such activities need not keep you awake at night but do require you to be suspicious of anyone contacting you out of the blue. No matter what they say never give out a password or transfer money. Being vigilant is also key because high street banks rarely offer compensation if you have inadvertently authorised a payment that turns out to be fraudulent.

But a new confirmation of payee bank safeguard is being rolled out before the end of the year. This will mean that anyone authorising payment from your bank account will have to prove they are who they claim to be.

ACTION PLAN: Never share a password or transfer money to someone who contacts you out of the blue  by phone, online or in person. Contact your bank immediately.

KEEP GADGETS SAFE FROM VIRUSES

Modern technology offers some great time-saving devices and high-tech gadgets, but they are prone to hacking. Once a cyber-criminal gets into your computer they can use malware that reads or destroys personal information.

It comes in a wide variety of forms  from worms that infect computers to Trojan horses when software looks perfectly innocent but hides a criminal intent.

Not just computers: Your toaster too can be hacked by criminals

A fraudster can also use ransomware so that they can demand money to avoid data being destroyed or shared  and spyware to watch you online.

Colin Tankard, of Digital Pathways, says there is basic free anti-virus software available to detect potential cyber-attacks. Special software can also be bought. Among anti-virus software he recommends  free or paid for  are packages from Avira, Sophos and McAfee. Other providers include Bitdefender and Norton.

It is not just computers, smartphones and wi-fi that criminals use to hack into the home.

Tankard says: You would be amazed at how inventive criminals can be  hacking toasters and computer games.

He explains that the latest toasters can be hacked by criminals to discover your wi-fi password.

There have also been cases of burglars secretly watching and listening to what is going on in a persons home through malware in games downloaded on to a computer.

Tankard also warns against using public wi-fi for transactions such as banking as they are easy to hack.

ACTION PLAN: Install anti-virus software on to your computer. Be aware most high-tech gadgets can be hacked.

SEEK SUPPORT TO TACKLE FRAUD

Help: Rachel Almeida, charity Victim Support

Public body Action Fraud is worth contacting if you are a victim of fraud  but it provides more advice than help in finding financial criminals. In truth, it is a buffer for police forces inundated by calls and only passes on cases if it feels there is something that can be done.

Many financial institutions pass the buck and encourage victims to contact Action Fraud  washing their hands of responsibility. But do not let them off the hook. Demand that they look into fraud and if they are unhelpful complain to the Financial Ombudsman Service. Also, contact the police directly.

Emily Boneham, of Action Fraud, says: We assess any reported fraud and the viability of it being investigated by police. We pass on information if we believe it can be pursued.

The charity Victim Support recognises that many fraud victims feel frustrated by the lack of redress  accentuating any anxiety caused by the crime. Spokeswoman Rachel Almeida says: Victims of fraud often feel embarrassed and ashamed. We are able to provide specialist emotional support as well as practical help.

ACTION PLAN: Victims should immediately contact their bank and the police with details of any suspected fraud. Get extra help from Action Fraud and Victim Support.

BRACE YOURSELF FOR A BANK SHAKE-UP

New open banking rules have been introduced this year that could provide fraudsters with yet more opportunities.

Major banks are being forced to share customer data with other firms  part of a second payment services directive from the European Union.

The idea is to make banking more competitive and easy to use, but it may also provide opportunities for scammers.

For example, a social media website could use your bank account details to transfer money to a friend under the new legislation  adding convenience but also increasing the risk of fraud.

The idea is that eventually we might be able to manage multiple accounts  for example a bank account, an insurance policy and a savings plan  from one place.

ACTION PLAN: Do not opt into open banking until it has become more established and has been proven to be safe.City lawyer Ian Rosenblatt is likely to see his net worth valued at more than 20million when the law firm bearing his name floats on the London Stock Exchange this week.

The firms clients have included embattled former AA boss Bob Mackenzie, fund manager Terry Smith, former Sun newspaper editor Kelvin MacKenzie and Nathalie Dauriac, who was involved in a legal battle with former business partner John Caudwell, the founder of Phones4U.

The company is set to raise 43million from investors including US funds giant BlackRock, valuing the business at 76million.

Stake: Ian Rosenblatt founded his law firm aged 29

Rosenblatt himself will retain a 21 per cent stake valued at 16million and is expected to cash in shares worth millions more.

The Liverpool-born lawyer, who set up his firm in 1989 aged 29, owns a North London music shop, which he says he still works in on Saturdays.

He also co-founded City PR firm Redleaf with his wife Emma Kane, and has an OBE for philanthropic services to music.

Client: Nathalie Dauriac sued Phones 4U founder John Caudwell

He was a major donor to the Labour Party under Ed Miliband, but is a critic of Jeremy Corbyn.

The law firms chief executive is Nicky Foulston, who led motor sport business Brands Hatch when it was floated on the stock exchange in 1996.

New shareholders in Rosenblatt after the float will include Miton Asset Management, Fidelity and BlackRock, which will take stakes of 16 per cent, 7 per cent and 6 per cent respectively.

Rosenblatt worked on Richard Desmonds recent 127million sale of his Express newspaper group to Trinity Mirror.

The firm is also working for the controversial RBoS Shareholders Action Group, which represented 7,000 small investors, but was co-founded by a fraudster.Investors are staging revolts over executive pay in a wave of protests that threatens to destabilise the boardrooms of some of Britain's biggest businesses.

Analysis by The Mail on Sunday shows influential City advisers are urging shareholders to oppose the pay reports at corporate raider Melrose, rat-catcher Rentokil, drug-maker AstraZeneca and insurers Direct Line and Aviva.

Advisers have criticised pay at a further five blue-chip firms  mining giant Anglo American, outsourcer G4S, broadcaster ITV, Paddy Power Betfair and insurer RSA  but stopped short of recommending that investors vote against their remuneration reports.

Persimmon enraged investors by awarding Jeff Fairburn a bonus worth more than 100m

The shareholder rebellions follow Prime Minister Theresa May's crackdown on excessive boardroom pay, which she called 'the unacceptable face of capitalism'.

The Investment Association will soon announce it has added a further eight companies to its register of businesses where there is more than 20 per cent dissent over rewards.

New entrants to the list of shame include Persimmon, the FTSE 100 housebuilder that enraged investors by awarding chief executive Jeff Fairburn a bonus worth more than 100million.

Following a backlash earlier this year, the firm cut the bonus by 25million and Fairburn pledged to donate an unspecified amount to charity.

Chris Cummings, chief executive of The Investment Association, said investors are 'flexing their muscles and holdings businesses to account'.

He added: 'A strong signal is being sent to boardrooms that investors won't tolerate rewards that are out of line with company performance.'

Another firm in the firing line is Melrose, the company behind the 8billion hostile takeover of engineering giant GKN.

The four top bosses each pocketed more than 42million last year, boosted by payouts under long-term incentive schemes.

Glass Lewis, a leading shareholder advisory firm, said the bonuses were 'excessive' and urged investors to block the remuneration report at Thursday's annual meeting.

Advisory firms Pirc and ISS flagged up concerns about AstraZeneca's bonus scheme, which boosted chief executive Pascal Soriot's most recent total pay package to 9.4million.

ISS said the bonuses 'do not appear to be suitably aligned with performance'. About 40 per cent of shareholders rebelled against the company's remuneration report in 2017.

There are also red flags over the pay packet for Direct Line's new finance chief, Penny James. Her 675,000 base pay is 37.5 per cent higher than her predecessor's.

Investor group Pirc slammed bonus plans for Rentokil's 4.4 million-a-year chief executive Andy Ransom as 'excessive'.

FTSE 250 bookmaker William Hill, where the 600,000 base salary for chief executive Philip Bowcock is nine per cent more than his predecessor's, has also come under attack.

Satellite firm Inmarsat was the first major firm to suffer a pay defeat this year when almost 60 per cent of investors rejected its pay report last week.

Luke Hildyard, director of the High Pay Centre, said: 'Shareholders should be standing up for fairer, more proportionate pay practices at company meetings.'Fashion website Atterley.com has kickstarted a search for new funds as it eyes growth in the UK and overseas.

Chairman and majority owner Mike Welch said he is looking to raise up to 3million and is considering a range of options including strategic investors and partnerships.

The website offers fashion ranges from more than 100 boutiques across the globe including Britain, France, Italy and the US.

Boutique chic: Tycoon Mike Welch wants to expand the website

Welch said: 'We're growing quickly in the US and Europe, and starting to make a bigger impression in Asia.

'It has taken time to bring on the best independent boutiques with the brands to match our customer tastes, but we've now got an incredible platform to build from.'

He added that cashflow is strong due to the rapid turnover of stock. The tycoon sold his online tyre retailer Blackcircles. com to Michelin for 50million in 2015.

Welch acquired Atterley out of administration.Campaigners are demanding urgent reforms to stop banks from seizing entrepreneurs' homes if their businesses fail.

Lenders insist company owners must agree huge personal guarantees  putting their homes on the line  as a matter of routine before bank finance will be authorised.

Reformers argue that those seeking business loans have no choice but to sign on the dotted line.

Fury: Businessman Dean D'Eye's elderly father was evicted from his home

Campaigners claim the properties are quickly confiscated as soon as a problem arises. They argue that this is deterring people from starting or expanding their own businesses.

There will be a major House of Commons debate on Thursday about the treatment of small businesses by banks. The issue of personal guarantees is almost certain to be raised.

More than a million small business owners have signed personal guarantees underwriting their bank loans.

Dean D'Eye, a property developer who lives in Beckenham, South East London, was bankrupted in 2012.

He said: 'You can't do anything as an entrepreneur without a personal guarantee. You need them for bank loans  even for a trade account at your builders' merchant  for leases and freeholds.'

Mr D'Eye had loans with RBS and small lender Dunbar. He said that when his business ran into trouble, the banks immediately went after the 2.8million guarantees he had signed rather than allowing him to try to make up the shortfall.

He had to pay fees totalling another 3million  including huge sums to professionals for work on his bankruptcy and charges for defaulting on his loans.

As a result, he says the initial 2.8million debt rocketed to more than 6million. 'You can never catch up,' he said. 'It grows at such a rate.'

His bankruptcy trustee chased him for his 82-year-old father Derek's home, which Mr D'Eye had bought.

Derek, who lives in Orpington, South East London, was evicted and had to move into council accommodation.

The Mail on Sunday has been campaigning for justice for firms mistreated by banks.

Entrepreneurs have little recourse when things go wrong because all but the very smallest are barred from complaints procedures. We want to see a tribunal and an Ombudsman for firms.

Campaigners argue that the system of guarantees means limited liability company status  which prevents creditors from pursuing shareholders for their assets in times of trouble  has been rendered worthless.

Mel Loades, a specialist consultant, believes directors do not always understand what personal guarantees involve. He says they should be forced to seek professional advice before signing them.

A spokesman for UK Finance, which represents the lenders, said: 'In some circumstances personal guarantees are needed to secure a loan. We support the Financial Conduct Authority's proposals to improve the complaints process.'North Korea said on Sunday its intention to denuclearize, unveiled at a historic inter-Korean summit, was not the result of U.S.-led sanctions and pressure, warning the United States not to mislead public opinion.

Impoverished North Korea has been hit by a series of U.N. and U.S. sanctions in recent years in a bid to rein in its nuclear and missile programs.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in vowed "complete denuclearization" of the Korean peninsula in the first inter-Korean summit in more than a decade on April 27, but the declaration did not include concrete steps to reach that goal.

The North\s official KCNA news agency said Washington was "misleading public opinion" by claiming the denuclearization pledge was the result of sanctions and other pressure.

The United States should not "deliberately provoke" the North by moving to deploy strategic assets in South Korea and raising human rights issues, KCNA said, citing a foreign ministry spokesman.

"This act cannot be construed otherwise than a dangerous attempt to ruin the hardly-won atmosphere of dialogue and bring the situation back to square one," the spokesman was quoted as saying.

It would not be conducive to resolving the issue of denuclearization if Washington miscalculated North Korea\s "peace-loving intention" as a sign of weakness and continued to pursue its pressure and military threats, KCNA said.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who plans to meet Kim over the next few weeks, has said he will maintain sanctions and pressure on the North and "not repeat the mistakes of past administrations" and has said his tough stance had led to the breakthrough.

Trump told the National Rifle Association\s annual convention in Dallas on Friday that he had toned down his rhetoric in anticipation of the talks after labeling Kim "Little Rocket Man" last year and threatening him with "fire and fury".

Moon said Trump deserved a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end the standoff with the North.

The White House said that Trump\s national security adviser, John Bolton, met his South Korean counterpart, Chung Eui-yong, on Friday and both said there were no plans to change the U.S.South Korea bilateral defense posture.

North and South Korea are technically still at war because their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty. South Korea said U.S. troops need to stay in the area even after a peace treaty is concluded to replace the armistice.

The United States stations 28,500 troops in South Korea, a legacy of the war.

SOURCE: AFPPolski Day in KCK A crowd of a few hundred celebrated Polish culture and heritage with a parade and festival in Kansas City, Kansas. The parade, led by grand marshal and Channel 41 anchorman Mike Marusarz, followed Central Avenue from 12th Street to 8th before turning north to end at All Saints Parish at 8th and Vermont.

Really great local neighborhood coverage of this annual old school immigrant celebration in an enclave that's now dominated by newer arrivals. Read more whilstthat doesn't offer much hope of stopping migration that already happened:Kansas City Traffic Close Call

Man survives being hit by 2 vehicles after getting off bus Breathtaking video was released on Friday night of when a man was hit by two vehicles near the Country Club Plaza. The crash happened between two bus stops in the area of Emanuel Cleaver II Boulevard and Woodland Avenue on Thursday at 8:45 a.m.

Inspiring Local Comeback

Wyandotte County deputy shot 7 times back on patrol Wyandotte County Deputy Scott Wood is back on patrol after being shot seven times in 2015. "That was my biggest fear, that I would not be able to go back to work," Wood told KMBC's Lara Moritz. A 911 call revealed the horror of what happened to the deputy on March 4, 2015, when he stopped at a convenience store.

More JoCo Free Speech Deets

Shawnee Mission School District says no students will be punished for walkout The Shawnee Mission School District has said that no students will be punished for participating in the school walkout that happened on April 20. They also said that a special meeting will be held on Monday evening to discuss their investigation into the issues that were brought up by the ACLU.

Golden Ghetto Tech Heist Clip

Brazen thieves steal thousands of dollars in electronics from Lenexa business LENEXA, Kan. -- Lenexa police are looking for two people responsible for stealing thousands of dollars worth of electronics from Direct Computer Outlet. Surveillance video shows a man wearing a hat and a woman who wore a dress walking into the store on Thursday, April 26.

Local Gun Drama On Stage

Nathan Louis Jackson's New Play Covers Gun Violence In Kansas In his new play, Nathan Louis Jackson draws on his own life to tackle the issue of gun violence. " Brother Toad " tells the story of two men who are related but going down different paths. "Each path ends with the decision of 'how do I protect myself and the ones I love?'" Jackson told host Gina Kaufmann on KCUR's Central Standard.

Football Fanboy High Hopes

Chiefs begin first day of rookie minicamp Kansas City, Mo. - Most of the players working out for the Chiefs won't make it. That didn't stop the 68 players including 14 undrafted rookie free agents and the six draft picks from competing in this year's rookie minicamp.

Home Team Hometown Hero Last Chance

KC Royals: Bubba Starling should finally get big league call-up in 2018 Usually with first round picks, major league teams would like to see those players come up three or four years later depending on their age. Bubba Starling was only 18 years old when the KC Royals drafted him, so fans figured it'd be at least three to five years before he was contributing in Kansas City.

Hottieafter a tense legal battle.Closer to home we share these Kansas City local news links with the denizens of our blog community.Checkit:is the song of the day and this is thefor right now . . .Lee's Summit police investigate possible homicide along I-470 LEE'S SUMMIT, Mo. -- Police shut down part of I-470 after a man was found dead along the road Saturday evening. According to police, emergency crews were called to the area of northbound 291 Hwy. near the I-470 merger around 7:30 p.m. on the report of a man stumbling through traffic.

Violence in the embattled suburb is getting worse and the latest death confirms an uptick in fatalities pointed out by neighborhood leaders. Take a look:Slovak ambassador to Greece, Iveta Hricova, met with local government officials in Chania, Crete, on Friday where they discussed ways of boosting ties between the central European nation and the Greek island, according to ANA.

Along with the counsellor of the Slovak Republic in Crete, Stavros Paterakis, Hricova met with deputy governor of Crete, Apostolos Voulgarakis, where they discussed prospects of the two area working together. There was a special weight given to research and innnovation between the universities and technological institutions in the two areas, while they also discussed ways of cooperating in tourism and culture.

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A total of 48 Brazilian companies will feature their latest offerings at the Beautyworld Middle East to be held later this week in Dubai, UAE, said the Arab-Brazilian Chamber of Commerce (ABCC).



The event, set to run from May 8 to 10, is one of the largest international trade fair for beauty products, hair, fragrances and wellbeing in the Middle East.



The industry show will see Brazilian toiletry, perfume and cosmetics manufacturers showcase their leading products and services before the Arab beauty industry, said a statement.



Michel Alaby, secretary general and CEO, ABCC, said: We have been participating in the trade show for long time, and the increasing interest from Arab buyers in innovative Brazilian products has always been a key motivating factor.



The chamber remains optimistic that the exhibitors will be able to create fruitful business partnerships through their participation at the event this year, he added.



The Brazilian pavilion at the exhibition will provide a hairdresser basin to its exhibitors. Participating companies will also be able to promote and demonstrate their goods to potential buyers in a specifically designed workshop are, it said.



The Arab countries are an important market for the Brazilian toiletry, perfume and cosmetics industry. The industry grossed $17.21 million from sales to Arab buyers in 2017 according to the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce in Brazil.



The amount represents an increase of 12.56 per cent over the value of 2016. The leading markets were Iraq, UAE and Saudi Arabia, it stated.  TradeArabia News ServiceKuwait-based Equate Petrochemical Company, a leading producer of petrochemicals, recently celebrated the graduation of 12 Kuwait University students from its annual internship programme.



Equates programme provides soon-to-be graduates with professional development and hands-on practical experience in the petrochemical industry as part of its commitment to supporting local education programmes, said a statement.



Equate Group global human resources director Mohammad Alsharhan said: Through our continued collaboration with Kuwait University, we aim to continue playing a positive role in developing a generation of professionals who will lead the sustainability of our company, the national economy and the entire industry.



We congratulate every one of our graduating interns and we look forward to seeing them progress in their careers, he said.



In addition to receiving recognition for their achievements, the interns presented case studies to demonstrate the technical competencies they acquired after spending three months at Equates industrial complex and headquarters in Kuwait.



Since launching the internship program in 2000, Equate has trained hundreds of interns from various universities and majors, such as engineering, accounting, finance, business administration, chemistry and environmental sciences, it stated.  TradeArabia News ServiceBatelco, a leading telecom provider in Bahrain, has signed a strategic agreement with the Bahrain Institute of Banking & Finance (BIBF), aimed at enhancing digital learning opportunities for Batelcos employees.



Under the memorandum of understanding (MoU) BIBF will provide training programmes, focusing digital learning contents, and development solutions, designed to deliver new and enhanced opportunities for Batelcos employees.



In line with its digital strategy, Batelco is developing a Digital Talent Academy and the BIBF will support through providing relevant training content. A key deliverable of the agreement will be the accessibility of learning opportunities for Batelcos employees.



Additionally Batelco and the BIBF will focus on gamification and new generation learning models to further enhance the programme and benefit both organisations.



The partnership agreement was signed by Batelco Bahrain CEO Mohamed Bubashait and BIBF director Dr Ahmed Abdul Hameed Al-Shaikh at a recent meeting at Batelcos HQ in Hamala.



Bubashait said: Learning and development is an essential part of Batelcos framework and staff already benefit from a wide range of learning opportunities in the classroom and online. The collaboration with the BIBF will take digital learning to a new era to be in line with our growing requirements as a leader in the digital communications industry.



Dr Al Shaikh said that the BIBF was delighted to continue its relationship with Batelco through the signing of a new agreement, which will provide a number of mutual benefits for both organisations.



This partnership comes at a time when digitalization across all industries is growing and more organisations recognise its importance for delivery of better results. At the BIBF we strive to be innovative and a leader in the delivery of training and educational programmes for individuals and organisations in the Kingdom of Bahrain. We know that ongoing professional development plays a tremendous role in the success of any organisation, added Dr Al Shaikh.  TradeArabia News ServiceSri Lanka is looking to become the most preferred destination in Asia for GCC travellers, having received a total of 107,635 tourists from the Middle East region in 2017, up 6.5 per cent compared to 2016 arrivals.



As part of efforts to boost visitor numbers from the GCC, the Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau hosted a press conference at the Arabian Travel Market in Dubai last month to showcase the diverse product offerings and experience spread across the small island.



The press conference was attended by John Amaratunga, Sri Lankan Minister of Tourism; Charitha Yattagoda  Sri Lankan Consul General  Dubai and Northern Emirates; Sutheash Balasubramaniam  managing director  Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau; Felix Srimal Rodrigo  advisor to tourism minister; Ajantha Rathnayake, assistant director - Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau; Asiri Wickramasooriya, country manager  UAE Sri Lankan Airlines and members of GCC media.



"Sri Lanka has much to offer visitors from the region with our distinctive, adventure-packed, eco-friendly, family-focused experiences and offerings, as well as our rich nature, heritage and culture, year-round schedule of festivals and special events, numerous parks and eco centers, luxury resorts and wellness centres, and romantic settings for honeymooners and couples. Our mission has done much to put Sri Lanka on the map and in the hearts and minds of Middle East-based travel partners, and in combination with future promotions planned for the country and the region, Im confident we will see many more visitors from the region making Sri Lanka their next holiday destination of choice in the coming months, said Amaratunga.



Currently, there are 70 direct flight services a week connecting the UAE to Sri Lanka, suggesting the potential to grow and develop the market further is great, especially as travellers from the country on average have one of the highest travel spends in the world.



Sutheash Balasubramaniam, managing director, Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau, said: "The Middle East continues to be one of the fastest growing source markets for Sri Lanka. We believe that the potential of the Middle Eastern travel market is yet to realise in terms of attracting longer stay and higher spending travellers."



"It is our fervent hope to make Sri Lanka the most preferred destination in Asia for Middle Eastern travellers," noted Balasubramaniam. - TradeArabia News ServiceTravelport has today announced a new multi-year technology and content agreement with Norwegian travel agency chain, G Travel.

With 27 agencies in Norway, six agencies in Sweden and an additional 17 global agencies, G Travel is one of the most expansive travel companies in the Nordics.



Aided by a tailor-made solution by Travelport, G Travel consultants will gain access to intelligent, fast and accurate search of high-quality content from over 400 airlines, 650,000 hotel properties, and 35,000 car rental locations. With over 250 airlines signed up to use Travelports unique merchandising technology, the company will also benefit from being able to display, gain insights from and sell branded fare families and ancillary products (such as paid seat assignments, baggage fees, priority boarding, etc.) from these airlines.



In addition, as part of the agreement, G Travel will use Travelport Business Insights, a cutting-edge data analytics tool that provides near real-time access to actionable insights from a vast range of data sources to help it optimise supplier contracts, enhance customer service and improve operational efficiencies. As the only global distribution system (GDS) provider to be certified by Iata as a Level 3 Aggregator under its New Distribution Capability (NDC) initiative, Travelport will soon benefit the company further by creating NDC connections with airlines as they become available.



Commenting on the new partnership, Finn Vetle Hansen, CEO of G Travel, said: We are delighted to sign this new technology agreement with Travelport. We need a technology partner that is fast, accurate, and reliable and, for us, Travelport is leading in these capabilities today. Its edge in technological innovation and wide choice of content will enable our consultants to deliver the best travel itineraries for our customers and a truly personalized service throughout the travel experience.



Peter Cramon, managing director, Nordics at Travelport, commented: We are delighted to have signed this new partnership with G Travel. We are proud the company recognises the value our technology and content provides. It is testament to the strength of our dedicated team of highly experienced travel tech professionals and best-in-class technology that market leaders like G Travel continually choose us to power their solutions. We look forward to working with the leadership team at the company to continually find new ways to set it apart from its peers and help shape its future. - TradeArabia News Service

Swiss-Belhotel International is set to embark on significant growth plans in the Middle East and Africa, which will see 20 hotels in operation and 10 under construction by 2021.



Laurent A. Voivenel, senior vice president, operations and development for the Middle East, Africa and India, Swiss-Belhotel International, unveiled the groups expansion plans for the region at the Global General Managers Conference held in Jakarta, Indonesia, last week.



Laurent said: We have chalked out a very aggressive expansion strategy for the Middle East and Africa with 17 per cent of our global portfolio of hotels comprising 3,500 rooms centred in the region. Our goal is to have 20 hotels in operation and 10 under construction by 2021. Out of these, five projects would be in Africa while the remaining will be in gateway cities across the Middle East with a significant presence in the GCC. Built on a heritage of passion and professionalism, our ultimate aim is to position Swiss-Belhotel International as the best alternative to blue chip companies offering superior returns, unbeatable value and unforgettable experiences.



Commenting on the industrys long-term economic outlook in the region, Laurent said: Tourism performance in the main cities across the Middle East is expected to remain strong with the fruition of major infrastructure projects such as airport expansions, increased global connectivity and growth of low-cost carriers, new leisure attractions, enhanced business facilities and a year-long calendar of regional and international events.



Swiss-Belhotel International was recently named by Tophotelprojects among the top 10 most active brands in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is a very significant market for us with 35 per cent of our development pipeline concentrated in the kingdom. In 2018, we have six new hotels opening in quick succession and out of these, three are located in Saudi Arabia. Our success is testament to the relationships we have built with owners and investors in the region. With 14 well-established brands, we are well equipped to meet the needs of every segment of the market. This diversity of brands allows owners the flexibility to pick the right fit for their property. - TradeArabia News Service

Royal Cliff Hotels Group warmly welcomes the new Executive Chef, Peter Held, to its award-winning culinary team. With over 30 years of culinary experience, he brings a dynamic and innovative energy to Royal Cliffs diverse culinary scene.



(TRAVPR.COM) THAILAND - May 4th, 2018 - Pattaya, Thailand - Royal Cliff Hotels Group warmly welcomes the new Executive Chef, Peter Held, to its award-winning culinary team. With over 30 years of culinary experience, he brings a dynamic and innovative energy to Royal Cliffs diverse culinary scene.

His passion to continuously learn and explore his craft has resulted in an impressive career spanning Asia and Germany with previous work experiences that include working for 5-star hotels such as the Kempinski Resort & Spa in China, Anantara Resort & Spa and Centara Grand Beach Resort Samui in Thailand as well as 5-star cruises such as the MS Royal Viking Sun.

Honored to have worked with the late Paul Bocuse who is a legend in his field, Chef Peter has also cooked for distinguished personalities from politicians like H.E. Helmut Kohl, a former chancellor of West Germany, the 3 recent Prime Ministers of Thailand to popular German actors such as Hardy Kruger. He has also served royalty which includes Princess Anne from England and world-renowned actors like Sean Connery, Jean Collins and Don Johnson. His wide ranging experiences, creative flair and ardent passion for the culinary arts make him the ideal chef to oversee and maintain the legacy of the 11 award-winning restaurants of the Royal Cliff Hotels Group.

The Royal Cliff Hotels Group is home to restaurants that offer a gastronomic experience unlike any other. With a tempting variety of dining options, dining here is like embarking on a tour of the world's finest cuisines. The Wine Spectator Magazine in New York have continually awarded 5 of its restaurants with the prestigious Best of Award of Excellence which recognizes the exceptional food and wine pairings that each restaurant offers and the remarkable dining experiences that they provide. The Royal Cliff team has challenged Chef Peter to elevate the dining quality of its restaurants, so come and discover his extraordinary dishes that embody bold, exotic and memorable flavors and check out how he will surpass the status quo.

Situated on a 64-acre private parkland estate overlooking the stunning Gulf of Thailand, the Royal Cliff Hotels Group operates 4 award-winning hotels providing guests from home and abroad with the ultimate experience. Book your stay directly and get the best price guaranteed along with value-added optional extras that will enhance your hotel experience by visiting www.royalcliff.com, contacting Reservations at (+66) 38 250 421 ext. 2824 or emailing: reservations@royalcliff.com.

For more information on the Royal Cliff Hotels Group, please visit www.royalcliff.com.

###TOURISM ROADSHOW



(TRAVPR.COM) INDIA - May 5th, 2018 - In an effort to reach out to the travel trade in Pink City Jaipur, India. Goa Tourism has organized a one-day road show on the last day of GITB, Jaipur at Fortune Select Metropolitan - Jaipur.

JAIPUR

In order to boost tourism in the state, Goa Tourism Department is organising road shows and participating in travel marts across the nation. Building interactions with stakeholders like Travel & Tour operators as well as media persons. The attendees are high profile delegation of Goa Tourism officials consisting of Goa Tourism Development Corporation (GTDC) Senior Manager, Marketing and PRO Mr. Deepak Narvekar, Mr.Sudesh Tamboskar, Tourism Information Officer, Mr.Prashant Parsekar, among others are in Jaipur to attend GITB.

They also participated in a Goa Tourism Roadshow at Fortune Select Metropolitan where leading travel and tour operators, travel association heads, and representatives of the media attended.

The GTDC Senior Manager, Marketing and PRO Mr. Deepak while interacting with the travel & tour operators announced that an aggressive 360 degree promotional campaign is being launched to create awareness about the mesmerising destinations of all the regions of the state  GOA.

Goa has various tourism facets and some of them include:

Adventure Tourism

Goa has taken adventure tourism to new heights with the operation of unique adventure services like Hot Air Ballooning in the north and Hop on Hop off bus service in the south. The monsoon season in Goa has also picked up due to the successful operations of white water rafting activity in the river Mhadei.

Various other activities such as Segway Tours, Bungee jumping, Scuba Diving and Horse Riding trails are also set to begin shortly.

A very exciting project of the Ropeways is also in progress and will be a major tourism attraction here in Goa.

Wedding Tourism:

While marriages are made in heaven, Goa Tourism is ensuring that the celebrations deserve a place no less. The tiny State has become a big hot spot for weddings and wedding celebrations. With excellent air, road and rail connectivity, wide range of hotels, cuisine, entertainers and a lot more, Wedding tourism in Goa has caught on in a big way. The State has bagged several awards as a leading Wedding and Honeymoon Destination Goas offerings for Wedding tourism are umpteen and tempting.



Festivals and Events:

One of Goas major tourist draws are festivals and events that are organized from October till May. Goa Tourism takes the opportunity to showcase how the tiny State has diverse cultures, folklore, food and festivities. From the annual religious festivals of Ganesh Chaturti, Diwali, Christmas to the annual events  Carnaval, Shigmo, and the conceptualized events such as Grape Escapade  Asias biggest Wine festival and Goa Food and Cultural Festival. Tourists find reasons to visit Goa during ever season. Even the Monsoons are an exciting time to be in Goa with a large number of monsoon festivals organized showcasing Goas cultures and traditional. Some of them include Sao Joao, Bonderam, Sangodd, Poderachem fest, Touxachem fest, Patolleanchem fest, Ponsachem fest and many more.

Safety & Security of Tourists:

Goa Tourism has never left a stone unturned when it comes to safety and security of tourists. The water and beach patrol with 676 life guards and an addition 117 personnel on beach patrol till midnight, tourist police to crack the whip on touting, and the women taxi service  an exclusive service for women tourists and women passengers reassures tourists visiting Goa that Goa tourism has not compromised on the safety cover for tourists visiting the State. Goa is also a safe destination for night life and this has been endorsed by none less than National Geographic in its listing of the Top 10 Best Nightlife Cities in the World where Goa figures Sixth on the list.

Beach Cleaning Initiatives:

Goa Tourism is proud to announce to the world that it has five of the best beaches among 25 endorsed by Trip Advisor at the Best of 2015 Awards. Goa also has 11 of Indias 25 best beaches, again in Trip Advisors Best of 2015 Awards.

Goa tourism showcases to the world its clean beaches emanating from the Comprehensive Beach Cleaning Management Plan and other Clean Beach Initiatives. The other mechanisms introduced for collection, segregation and disposal is also showing good results. The Whatsapp initiative is also working systematically.

###ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM

SC Vasudeva

Q. I am an NRI having residential HUF property at Chandigarh which I am planning to sell.

1. Can I give a letter of authority to my father to sell the property?

2. What would be the tax applicable?

3. Can I get an Aadhaar card? Please advise.- Dr Gurman Gill

A. (a) You can execute a Power of Attorney in favour of your father authorising him to sell the property on behalf of your HUF.

(b) Capital gain arising on the sale of the property shall be taxable @20% plus education cess of 3% in case the amount of capital gain arising on the sale of the property which has been held for more than two years. In case it is not so held, tax would be chargeable at the normal slab rates applicable for the relevant assessment year.

(c) An NRI is not required to obtain an Aadhaar card. This is in accordance with the notification issued by the Government.

Q. The rent of my godown complex for the month of March 2017 (FY 17-18) was paid to me during financial year 18-19.

1) Please clarify whether this rental income is to be counted towards the FY 17-18 or FY 18-19 while filing the I-T return.

2) Also clarify whether TDS deducted from the rental bill of March 2017 paid during the FY 18-19 will be counted towards the FY 17-18 or 18-19 for filing the I-T return.

- Surjit Singh

A. Your queries are replied on the presumption that the amount of rent for March 2017 has been received in financial year 2017-18 relevant to the assessment year 2018-19 and the words "financial year 18-19" have been mentioned incorrectly as rent for March 17 could not have been received in financial year 18-19.

(a) The rental income for the godown complex for the financial year 2017-18 shall have to reflected in the return of income for the full year i.e. April 1, 2017 to March 31, 2018 even though the amount has been received in the succeeding year.

(b) The credit for tax deducted at source will be available on the basis of form 26AS, which indicates deduction of tax by the payer and for which the relevant return has been filed by the payer. Therefore, in this case, the amount of tax deducted at source in respect of the rent for the month of March 2017 having been paid in the succeeding year, the credit for the same shall be allowed to you in the succeeding year.

Q. i) I purchased one Jeevan Dhara policy from LIC in 1990 for which the annual premium was Rs 1,640. Now this policy is matured and I am getting Rs 1,800 per month as annuity. Kindly advise me whether this amount is taxable.

ii) I understand that under Section 80-D of income tax, mediclaim insurance premiums and medical expenses incurred are deductible to the extent of Rs 30,000. Please advise which medical expenses are deductible under this section. I am a retired public sector employee and senior citizen.

- PK Garg

A. i) It is not possible to give reply to your query with regard to the receipt of annuity till such time the terms of the policy are perused.

(b) Deduction under Section 80D of the Act is allowable for medical expenditure incurred on the health of the assessee or any members of his family as it does not exceed Rs 30,000 in case of a very senior citizen. The section does not indicate the nature of expenditure and therefore any expenditure incurred by a very senior citizen for the cost of medicines, doctor's fee, etc. which is paid by the assessee in connection with his or any family member's health problem should be allowable as deduction. It may be added that the Finance Act 2018 has increased the allowable amount of deduction as Rs 50,000 and further such deduction shall be allowable to a senior citizen for financial year 2018-19.

(Readers can send their queries to delhi@scvindia.com)editorial@tribune.com

Chandigarh, May 6

The VC, Prof Arun Kumar Grover, said: I will not withdraw the affidavit. He said: Tell me any university, where a Syndicate member can file a false allegation of sexual harassment. A police complaint was also filedThis Senate and Syndicate have failed to protect the office of VC. When you Google my name, it appears as accused VC.

He added: First the National Students Union of India (NSUI) alleged loot and plunder in the PU and then the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) took it up. A fact-finding committee was formed and our grants were frozen.

He blamed both the UPA and the NDA governments for restricting grants to the PU. Not one member of the given house see how we should go for it (resolving financial crisis). When we are Rs 100 crore short, how would we pay salaries, conduct exams

He added: What centre has done today, you cannot recruit anybody. They have taken assurance from us that we wouldnt recruit anybody. Under this condition, we have got a hike of 6% increase in funding.

He said the previous Punjab governments did not give us grant for 15 years and the present regime had also enhanced the contribution by just 6%. We have Punjab CM, DPIs as members. But do they come? Does Syndicate bother? You all are bothered about your ego and honour. Have you bothered about the VCs honour? he asked.

He also criticised senators holding a hunger strike outside the VCs office in February 2014 and him not being able to make Dean Students Welfare of his own choice.Sandeep Dikshit

Sandeep Dikshit

Informal summits by their very nature are rare. Countries in need of keeping the engines of bilateral diplomacy regularly oiled and greased opt for annual summits like the ones India holds without fail every year with Russia and Japan. The two-day informal summit between Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping would rank more of an event because being peripatetic, they anyway come across each other at several multilateral summits staged all around the globe.

The regional situation must be very pressing for the two leaders to first indulge in extensive rounds of initial spadework with a flurry of top-drawer Indian visitors to China. In classical diplomacy, the one-way traffic to China without carefully measured reciprocal visits translates into the need being greater on Indias part to mend ties. But a glance at Chinas diplomatic exertions around the world makes it clear that Beijing has also felt the need to turn the page with other neighbours: overtures to Japan, discussing trade with the US and dialogue with ASEAN on a code of conduct on South China Sea after years of refusing to do so.

Are the two leaders merely buying time for domestic consolidation or is there a long-term game plan that will emerge from at least three more top-level interactions this year, followed by yet another informal summit next year?

The short-term prospects look promising. Neither Modi nor Xi can afford external distractions. For Modi, Doklam was a close call to his pretensions of practicing muscular diplomacy. Another confrontation on the one of the many disputed barren tracts on the Sino-Indian border could have cost him his strongman image on the eve of the next general election. On the other side, Xis anointment as Permanent President was greeted by a US catnip in the form of a trade whammy and an ever-increasing conglomeration of hostile navies on its western sea flank.

For the longer term, however, both sides need to dispel their ghosts for an element of settlement to appear on the horizon. The first step may have already begun with India instructing its border patrols not to get into entanglements with their opposite numbers in areas over which both sides have overlapping claims. Of all the bilateral inconveniences, none sends public perception in India about China nose-diving than visuals of its soldiers trespassing into Indian territory. It stands to reason that China should issue similar instructions to keep the Wuhan spirit nominally aloft.

But progress will be limited and even regress till both sides address the others fear about mutual encirclement. The past three years of acrimony has tempted both countries to accelerate their plans for foreign military bases. India has a military base sharing agreement with three countries, all of them mutual allies and all wary of the Chinese military. Beijing has responded to the US Pivot towards Asia and Indias Look East policy by sabotaging Indias plans for a military base in Seychelles, weakening its exclusive security relationship with the Maldives and doubling up on building its bases on the tip of Africa and in Pakistan. In fact, most of the hubs and spokes of Chinas Belt and Road Initiative are aimed at reducing its insecurity over the heavy dependence of Chinese tonnage on the narrow Straits of Malacca where Indian and the US navies maintain a perch on its openings at either end.

Even if all the forthcoming interactions with the Chinese President are included, PM Modi will still fall far short of the number of interactions clocked between the Chinese leadership and his predecessor Manmohan Singh who also attempted a similar approach of personal rapport to shore up Sino-Indian ties. Singhs playbook yielded limited results mainly because it could not cross the red lines erected due to years of suspicion and sporadic political level engagement.

PM Modi has built himself an image of a persuasive go-getter but has found himself at a loss in resolving Indias two major foreign policy conundrums of China and Pakistan. On both fronts, he is making a second effort to resolve the deadlock after three ineffectual years of posturing. But as the UPA found out, Modi is likely to face concerted resistance from within as well as external forces if he attempts to cross some of the red lines.

The BJP-led Union Government may have temporarily turned its back on the Dalai Lama but ever since the CIA began stoking the Khampa rebellion, most of the ideological spear carriers for the Tibet cause hailed from the RSS crowd. This is a psychological barrier that Modi has to cross. China along with Russia has a record number of 14 land boundaries and all its dozen boundary settlements have a common element: extinguishing of threat to its security from the country concerned.

History is replete with instances of minatory quibbling between China and its land neighbours over real estate similar to Doklam and Chumar. But these pinpricks, such as China laying claim on the whole of Mt Everest, vanished once Beijing and the dozen countries in question agreed not to post themselves as security threats to each other. For China, the Dalai Lama and his Tibetan followers in India are one such security threat and that may have precluded a final settlement of the border rather than lack of political will in Delhi.

The Dalai Lama has evoked considerable interest in his statement by claiming that independence is off the agenda of Tibet exiles. Significantly, two days after the Modi-Xi tete-a-tete, US Ambassador to India Kenneth Juster was in Dharamsala to confer with the Dalai Lama and the Prime Minister of the Central Tibetan Administration Lobsang Sangay. With the wind of the informal summit behind them, Modi and Xi need to cross the US-China rubicon for a breakthrough that is not just cosmetic but perceptive and verifiable; one that meets the short-term interests of politicians, and also has the capacity and content to cause a meaningful change in peoples lives.

sandeep4731@gmail.comJagdeep S Chhokar

Jagdeep S Chhokar

Former Director, IIM, Ahmedabad

The issue of holding elections to the Lok Sabha and the state assemblies simultaneously is being debated these days. The points in support of the proposal mostly take into account the two factors of expenditure and governance.

To think that simultaneous elections will save huge expenditure is amazingly naive. Given the fact that elections are the primary means of operationalising democracy, it raises the question: Should India be looking or aspiring for the cheapest possible democracy or the best possible? Those interested in ensuring the continuation of democracy in the country will support a quest for the "best possible". (Taking this argument to the extreme, one might even argue for not having elections at all!)

The 'saving huge expenditure' logic also overlooks the issue of who spends how much money on elections. The figure of Rs 4,500 crore quoted to have been spent by the Election Commission pales into insignificance when compared to what is spent by candidates and political parties, overtly and covertly. While myriad reasons are cited why candidates and political parties have to spend such huge amounts, the real reason is the complete absence of internal democracy in the functioning of all political parties, particularly in candidate selection.

The key to reducing expenditure on elections, therefore, lies in democratising the internal functioning of parties and their candidate selection processes and not by forcibly, and unconstitutionally, reducing the frequency of elections.

The role of parties needs to be looked at more critically. It is a moot point whether arguments of political parties remaining busy in formalising and executing strategies for the next cycle of elections as also shifting attention from developmental works to winning elections point to a problem with the holding of elections or with the behaviour of political parties. The question arises: Do political parties exist with the sole purpose of trying to win elections or are they also supposed to do something after winning?

Regarding governance as the reason for holding elections to the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies simultaneously, it is argued that simultaneous elections will save expenditure and provide more time to the governments to undertake development work. It implies that elections are detrimental to development or, in other words, democracy and development are and either/or proposition. There can be nothing more fallacious than this unless of course a society decides that it will prefer development over democracy.

It is true that there can be development without democracy, China and Singapore being two examples. But in India's case, the founding fathers seemed to consciously chosen to follow a democratic path to development. And this choice remains enshrined in the Constitution. Therefore, to say that frequency of elections should be reduced seems to be against the spirit of the Constitution, because the sole purpose of elections is to make democracy possible.

There are other constitutional issues involved in holding simultaneous elections. States have a separate constitutional existence in the Constitution with separate chapters and articles dealing with states. The states have their own rhythm of elections which have evolved through their own histories. Trying to force their election cycles into the Lok Sabha election cycle is again a violation of the spirit of the Constitution.

The other, and much more serious, constitutional issue arises from the 'basic structure' doctrine which was enunciated by a 13-jugde bench of the Supreme Court in 1973 in what is called the Kesavananda Bharati judgment. The doctrine postulates that while Article 368 of the Constitution authorises the Parliament to amend provisions of the Constitution, it does not give the Parliament the power to change the 'basic structure' of the Constitution. Elements of the 'basic structure' have been described in various judgments of the Supreme Court including in Kesavananda Bharati. One of the constitutive elements of the 'basic structure' that features in all formulations is the federal character of the Constitution.

Forcibly linking the state assembly elections to the Lok Sabha elections will clearly work to reduce the importance of states in the national scheme of things and will therefore be a violation of the 'basic structure.' It follows that any amendments done to the Constitution to enable simultaneous elections will not stand judicial scrutiny because it is clearly a clandestine move towards changing the federal character of the Constitution to a unitary one.

Importantly, since the idea of holding simultaneous elections has been around for so long and has been discussed so many times in the past, there must be some really cogent reasons why this has not happened.

It is therefore advisable that this discussion on simultaneous elections be given up so that scarce resources of the nation are not wasted on discussing something that is not going to happen.

Views are personalsinghking99@yahoo.com

With almost 40 per cent judges' posts in various high courts lying vacant, the blame game between the government and the judiciary over the delay in judicial appointments is getting intense. The open spat between a Bench headed by Justice Madan B Lokur and Attorney General KK Venugopal on Friday last is symptomatic of this stand-off. The latest provocation could be the government's decision to return the Collegium's recommendation to elevate Uttarakhand High Court Chief Justice KM Joseph to the Supreme Court which is seven short of its sanctioned strength of 31 judges. The government can return any name recommended by the Collegium for reconsideration in accordance with a Constitution Bench verdict. But the underlying message is clear. If the government is not allowed to have a legitimate say in judges' appointments, it'll resort to tactics that may not augur well for democracy.

The Executive is questioned by the Judiciary for their lapses, and rightly so. Now the Executive has started questioning the Judiciary on judicial appointments. There are certain unanswered questions. Why did the Collegium stop the appointment of judges for a year during pendency of hearing against National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC)? Why does it recommend only few names for high courts having huge vacancies? Why has it not recommended 12 names for the Supreme Court where seven posts are lying vacant and five more judges will retire later this year?

While blaming the government for delay in a particular appointment, questions remain. Today the Collegium is a divided house with infighting rendering it dysfunctional. Senior judges have gone public and attempts to remove the CJ Dipak Misra added to the situation. While the government and the Collegium indulge in a verbal duel, common litigants are suffering. The Collegium system needs reforms to make it truly transparent in line with a Constitution Bench suggestion in the NJAC verdict. If the government is delaying drafting of Memorandum of Procedure for appointment of judges, the top court should take it up on judicial side and decide it. The Government too must leave behind the NJAC nostalgia and move on."We want to be regarded as a Government open to dialogue and one that seeks consensus. Therefore, as President of the Republic, we are going to foster encounters with all political leaders, without exception," he expressed.

The Peruvian leader considered imperative that talks are held after his administration's first measures have been carried out, which would take 100 days.

He went on to say that convening dialogue is part of the Government conception that "we can achieve important things if we work together."

Additionally, the country's top official affirmed transparency and governance will be the hallmark of this administration.

As is known, President Vizcarra took office last March . He replaced Pedro Pablo Kuczynski , who resigned amid a political scandal.uttara@tribuneindia.com

Tribune News Service

Mahendragarh, May 6

Union Minister Rao Inderjit on Sunday accused the Indian National Lok Dal of spreading rumours about his joining the party.

Inderjit, a BJP leader, said the INLAD was spreading such rumours for "political gains".

He spoke about complaints that Parliamentarians were being ignored by states, and said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had recently written to chief ministers saying MPs were to be given importance.

Inderjit Rao suggested pension for representatives of gram panchayats along the lines of those given to MPs and Members of Legislative Assembly.pardeepdhull@gmail.com

Chandigarh, May 6

Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar said namaz should be performed in mosques and idgahs, days after Hindu groups prevented Muslims from performing their Friday prayers in public spaces in Gurugram.

Speaking to the press before his tour of UK and Israel on Sunday, Khattar said that there was an increase in instances of namaz being offered in the open these days leading to protests from the local residents.

He, however, said that law enforcement was doing its job.

Press reports said several Hindu groups visited six spots to prevent Muslim congregation from performing their Friday prayers two days ago.

Water dispute

Speaking about water dispute that Haryana has with Punjab, Khattar said that he has asked Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh to draw up a plan to restrict water from Ravi river from flowing into Pakistan.

I have written a letter to the Chief Minister of Punjab asking them to take some step to prevent the flow of the water of Ravi. We have also ordered our officials to come up with some proposal on the same, so that we can use the water for people of Haryana and Punjab, Khattar said.

Khattars letter

Khattars letter to Captain Amarinder Singh reads:

You must have noticed reports about an unprecedented water crisis that looms large before our states. More and more blocks of Haryana and Punjab have anyway been slipping into the category of over exploited blocks even as our hard working farmers toil in the face of a stressed farm sector. I think that time has come when we must join hands in checking the wasteful flow of Ravi waters to Pakistan.

You may perhaps be aware that the 6th meeting of the Committee formed by Government of India in this regard was held in the Central Water Commission, New Delhi on 23.4.2012. It had assessed the quantum of Minimum Utilizable Water (MUW) as 32 cumecs (equivalent to 0.58MAF) on a sustainable basis. The Committee decided that the proposal for its diversion by constructing a 2.0 to 2.5 m high diversion weir structure across river Ravi with a gravity flow canal off-taking from Dharamkot to Harike Head works was viable. The Committee also opined that any other techno-economically superior alternative that would minimize the problem of implementation of the scheme may be carried out during preparation of DPR based on actual survey and investigation by an agency to be decided separately at an appropriate forum.

Government of India had accordingly asked all the partner States to build consensus on engaging the Bhakra Beas Management Board to undertake feasibility studies and to construct the above project and that Government of Punjab may take follow-up action on the Minutes of meeting held on 23.4.2012.

It is indeed unfortunate that there has been no visible progress on the issue so far and the ever so precious water is still going to Pakistan. This enormous National wastage of water needs to be stopped immediately. Being divertible, this water should instead be utilized for the benefits of the people of the partner States.

I, therefore, request you to direct your concerned officers to take up the proposal in right earnest. I have directed our Chief Secretary and Principal Secretary Department of Irrigation and Water Resources to accord 'Top Priority to this. They shall make it convenient to attend any meeting that your officers may consider necessary on the subject so as to ensure expeditious implementation of this proposal which has already been declared as National Project by Government of India.



amansharma@tribunemail.com

Sushil Manav

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 6

With thunderstorm and squall likely at isolated places in Haryana, Punjab, Chandigarh and Delhi on Monday, Haryana Education Minister Ram Bilas Sharma has announced that schools will be closed in state on Monday (May 7) and Tuesday (May 8).

The All India Warning Bulletin issued by the National Weather Forecasting Centre of the IMD on Sunday predicted thunderstorm, squall and hail for parts of Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Chandigarh and Delhi on Tuesday.

Parts of Punjab, eastern Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, southern Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala could experience thunderstorm and gusty winds on Tuesday, said a warning by the weather department.

Thunderstorm accompanied by squall is likely at isolated places in West Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, while heavy rain could take place in parts of South Karnataka and Kerala.

Besides this, dust storms have been predicted for parts of Rajasthan.

Meanwhile, Haryana Revenue and Disaster Management Department has issued advisory in public interest in view of possibility of heavy rain, thunderstorms or dust storms on May 7 and 8. The Department has suggested safety tips to be adopted in case of thunderstorms, dust storms and squall.

A spokesman of the Department said there will be no need to panic and people should follow the precautions suggested by the Department, and pay special attention to children and senior citizens. All departments have been directed to stay alert, he added.

The advisory said people should prepare an emergency kit with essential items for safety and survival. They should secure their houses, carry out repairs and do not leave sharp objects loose. Secure outside objects that could blow away and cause damage, remove rotting trees or broken branches that could fall and cause injury or damage and listen to radio, watch TV or read newspapers for weather updates and warnings.

The advisory comes after 124 people died and over 300 were injured in thunderstorms and lightning that hit five states last week.editorial@tribune.com

Dipender Manta

Tribune News Service

Mandi, May 6

The lobbying has started for identifying land for the proposed airport for which a Central team will conduct an aerial survey in Mandi district on Monday.

Darang MLA Jawahar Thakur has marked 750 bigha at Basadhar where 576 bigha is government land while 174 bigha is private land. According to the MLA, the displacement of people from the area will be low and destruction of forest negligible.

The place is close to the Indian Institute of Technology where the frequency of visitors is expected to be high.

The IIT authorities had requested the government to develop an airstrip near the campus at Kamand which will prove a boon for the institute.

The MLA said, I have marked the land. However, the final decision will be taken by experts, who will conduct the survey. The site is connected with a road.

The previous Congress government had proposed an airstrip at Ghoghardhar and even allocated funds but could not construct it. Similarly, there was a proposal for airstrip at the Balh valley but due dense fog in the winter, the government shunned its idea.

Why Basadhareditorial@tribune.com

Ambika Sharma

Tribune News Service

Solan, May 6

Even as Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur admitted on Saturday that there was a lapse in the security of the woman official, who died during a demolition drive in Kasauli on May 1, its status report, submitted before the court on May 3, portrays a different picture.

The state government, in its report, has stated that TCP official Shail Bala, after the lunch break, entered the premises of Narayani Guest House, along with Shavinder Pal Singh, Range Forest Officer, and a labourer without intimating the head of the team constituted for the purpose. The report further says that after some time the firing took place in the guest house and members of the team rushed to the firing site from the adjoining Hotel Shivalik and found the woman official lying on the floor.

Interestingly, the CM had earlier stated in Shimla that she had gone alone to the site without the security cover and that led to her killing.

According to the orders issued by the District Magistrate, she was the coordinator of the team and policemen were supposed to ensure her safety. As many as 14 policemen, including two armed quick reaction team sleuths, were present on the site who were specifically entrusted with the task of ensuring the safety of the team.

The repeated change in the state governments stand has put a question mark over the governments real stand at a time when the slain officer has been bestowed with a Gaurav Puruskar on May 3.ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM

The introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) from July 1, 2017, has transformed India into a single market with a single indirect tax regime. The rollout of the e-way bill represents a central component of this exercise. The first month of the implementation of the new system from April 1, 2018, was a major success, and industry has hailed its efficiency and smooth operation.

Initially, the e-way bill system, which digitally tracks the movement of goods, was to be introduced from February 1, 2018, but it was deferred for a couple of months due to various technical reasons. After expanding the capacity of the portal to accept bills, it was reintroduced on April 1 for inter-state movement of goods. Through the month, the system was further expanded to include intra-state tracking of goods for certain states.

The facilitative transport system demonstrates the commitment and strong efforts of different central and state government bodies working together. The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC, earlier known as CBEC) undertook the task in a mission mode and ensured that all parts of the system work efficiently. The e-way bill portal managed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) is functioning well, and is now also monitored by the GST Network (GSTN). State governments too have dismantled state checkpoints and barriers, enabling faster movement of trucks. For industry, this smooth and facilitative system represents a significant progress in its competitiveness.

The e-way bill system, which involves electronic waybills to be carried by transporters when moving goods exceeding Rs 50,000 in value, ensures seamless movement of goods across states borders. This has several benefits to the national economy.

Bottlenecks removed

To begin with, by the removal of checking and tax payment at state borders, the transit time has been significantly cut down. Earlier, trucks often waited hours to cross from one state to another and challans were required to be generated to enable further movement of goods. The savings in transportation time translates into cost savings for the logistics, warehousing and transportation sectors.

It has been estimated that India's logistics costs prior to the introduction of e-way bill, were far higher than those in key economies, cutting the competitiveness of Indian goods and adding to costs for the consumer. The new system promises to contribute significantly towards adding to productivity and efficiencies in the Indian economy.

Apart from lowering costs, the e-way bill would also curb tax evasion and thereby boost government revenues. It eliminates physical checking of goods by introducing digital matching of waybills.

Gaining currency

Since its introduction on April 1, over 28 million e-way bills have been generated during the month. The online system now has the capacity to take more load and more than 100 technical teams are working to ensure that the entire ecosystem works smoothly.

To ensure that manufacturers and transporters do not face implementation challenges, CBIC, GSTN and NIC conducted multiple webinars and worked with agencies for compliance. A user-friendly guide as well as FAQ were released to alleviate information gaps. An IT grievance redressal mechanism was set up to address complaints regarding technical glitches on the GST portal.These steps helped industry and transporters to understand procedures and resulted in the successful implementation of the new system.

For intra-state movement of goods, the e-way bill is to be applied in a phased manner and 11 states have already implemented the system. The remaining states are expected to introduce it by June 1, 2018. This will further add to the efficient movement of goods across the country.

Make it simple

Earlier, the government had made changes to the e-way bill rules to further simplify the procedure for the movement of goods under the GST, giving more relief to smaller businesses, FMCG, courier and e-commerce companies. Under the new rules, if both exempted and taxable goods are moved, only the value of the taxable supply will be considered for the purpose of generating an e-way bill.

With laudable efforts made by the GST Council, CBIC, NIC and state governments, the system appears to have stabilised. Going forward, as more states roll out the e-way bill, it will be important to ensure that the system continues to meet its fullest potential for lowering logistics costs and ensuring ease of doing business, particularly at the state level.

While state barriers have been eliminated, states should take care that new checkpoints are not created which could hamper the movement of goods. Further, it would be useful to consider RFID tags for trucks which could be used for them to pass through checkpoints without having to stop. Random checks on most days would be better than checks for all trucks on any given day, which would lead to long queues. Finally, the states which are yet to introduce the system should be encouraged to do so within the stipulated period.

With the rollout of the e-way bill across the country, industry can look forward to lower costs for consumers and better markets for its products.

 The writer is the Director General of the Confederation of Indian Industry

Tight vigil

The e-way bill is an integral part of the indirect tax reform that has established the Goods and Services Tax regime. This online record system aims to end the corrupt practice of underinvoicing by unscrupulous traders to save taxes. The e-way bill is expected to boost the GST collection significantly in coming months.

Is e-way bill mandatory?

Inter-state: E-way bill is mandatory for inter-state movement of goods across the country from April 1, 2018.

Intra-state: Certain states have made it mandatory for intra-state movement of goods. They include Arunachal Pradesh, MP, Meghalaya, Puducherry, Sikkim, Karnataka, Nagaland, Bihar, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Tripura, Uttarakhand , Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Kerala, Telangana and UP.

What does it record?

The document contains details related to the consignment of goods including name of the consignor, the consignee, the point of origin, its destination and route.

Who should generate the bill and why?

An e-way bill is to be generated by the consignor or consignee himself if the transportation is being done in own/hired conveyance or by railways etc. If the goods are handed over to a transporter for transportation by road, e-way bill is to be generated by the transporter.

Can anyone generate it?

Any individual can also enrol and generate the e-way bill for movement of goods for his/her own use.

How to generate it?

It is generated from the GST common portal (ewaybillgst.gov.in) for e-way bill system by registered persons or transporters who undertake movement of goods.

When to generate it?

The e-way bill is generated before the commencement of the movement of goods.

Whether it is required for all the goods that are being transported?

It is required to transport all goods except for certain "exempted" items. Movement of handicraft goods or goods for job-work purposes under specified circumstances also requires e-way bill even if the value of consignment is less than Rs 50,000.

What are exempted items?

They include perishable items (such as milk, milk products, meat, fruits and vegetables), gold and silver jewellery, LPG cylinders, raw silk, wool and handlooms.

Is there any validity period for e-way bill?

Yes. Validity of the e-way bill depends on the distance the goods have to be transported. In case of regular vehicle or transportation modes, for every 100 kms or part of its movement, one day validity has been provided.

Whether e-way bill is required, if the goods are being purchased and moved by the consumer to his destination himself?

Yes. E-way bill is required to be carried along with the goods at the time of transportation, if the value is more than Rs. 50,000. The consumer can enroll as a citizen and generate the e-way bill himself.

Sources: ewaybill.nic.in; www.gst.gov.in, Finance Ministrysinghking99@yahoo.com

Azhar Qadri

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, May 6

An assistant professor, who went missing two days ago and later picked up arms, and four militant commanders were killed in a gunfight on Sunday. Subsequent protests in south Kashmirs volatile Shopian district left five civilians dead, marking another bloody day in the region.

The five militants were killed in the gunfight at Badigam village when security forces raided the locality where they had taken shelter, Jammu and Kashmir Police chief Shesh Paul Vaid said.

The police had made an offer of surrender to the militants, who declined it with gunfire. The slain militants included four local commanders and an assistant professor at a local university who had picked up arms only two days ago, a police official in Shopian said.

The five militants have been identified as Saddam Paddar, Adil Malik and Bilal Molvi of Shopian, Tawseef Sheikh of south Kashmirs Kulgam district and Mohammad Rafi Bhat of central Kashmirs Ganderbal.

Except for Bhat, the four militants were local commanders, a police official said. Bhat had a doctorate in sociology and was teaching at the University of Kashmir till Friday when he went missing.

Shopian  one of the southern-most and prosperous districts of Kashmir valley which produces tonnes of apples  has provided a strong base for militants, who come from across the region to find safe shelter and popular support.

The situation aggravated in Shopian as protests erupted in the district while the gunfight was underway and five civilians were killed by midday and more were injured as they made attempts to rescue the militants.

The injured were rushed to hospitals across south Kashmir and to Srinagar as ambulances sped on deserted roads of the city, where a shutdown was underway following Saturdays gunfight in which three militants were killed.

The latest killings in Shopian have taken the conflict-related death toll in the region to 14 since Saturday. It is the second bloody Sunday in Shopian since April 1 when 12 militants were killed in two gunfights in the district on a single day.

The high casualty figures in Shopian have pushed the region to the edge and sparked a wave of anger. Mobile Internet services have been suspended in most of Kashmirs districts, including the entire south Kashmir, as part of measures to contain protests.editorial@tribune.com

Azhar Qadri

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, May 6

As part of its biannual move, the state government will begin functioning from Monday in Srinagar, the states summer capital, amid a tense atmosphere.

The civil secretariat  headquarters of the state government  will reopen in Srinagar after functioning in the states winter capital Jammu for the past six months.

The offices that will reopen in Srinagar from Monday include that of the Chief Minister, the state Cabinet ministers and heads of all departments of the government. The civil secretariat and other government offices had closed in Jammu on April 27.

The practice of shifting of the state governments headquarters from Srinagar to Jammu during winter and from Jammu to Srinagar during summer is part of a century-old practice called Durbar move.

It was originally established as a practice by former monarchs of the state and was retained by the state governments to maintain a regional balance.

The shifting of Durbar offices this summer, however, comes at a time when the Valley is gripped in volatile and deteriorating law and order situation. The first day of the government in Srinagar is likely to be affected by a shutdown and protests sparked by Sundays killing of five militants and five civilians during gunfight and protests in south Kashmirs Shopian district.

The state governments stay in Srinagar during the next six months is likely to test its nerves as the situation in Kashmir continues to remain grim with frequent gunfights between militants and security forces leading to casualties among protesting civilians.

A separatist leader has already called for a peaceful sit-in on Monday in front of the civil secretariat.

The bitter relations between the ruling coalition parties, BJP and PDP, will also likely shadow the governments stay for the next six months in Srinagar. The friction between the two ruling parties has increased since the rape and murder of a minor girl in Kathua district, which had led to the resignation of two BJP ministers from the Cabinet.

Volatile situationpardeepdhull@gmail.com

Azhar Qadri

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, May 6

Five militants - four of them local commanders - and five civilians were killed during a gunfight and subsequent protests in south Kashmir's Shopian district, pushing the region to edge and threatening a fresh wave of anger.

The militants were killed in the gunfight at Badigam village of Shopian when security forces raided the locality where militants had taken shelter. The slain militants included four local commanders and a university professor who had picked up arms only two days ago.

Also read: Kashmir University Asst Profs militancy stint short-lived

The five militants have been identified as Saddam Paddar of Hizbul Mujahideen, Adil Malik of Shopian, Tawseef Sheikh of Kulgam, Bilal Molvi of Shopian and Rafi Bhat of central Kashmir's Ganderbal district. Except for Bhat, the four militants were local commanders, a police official said.

Bhat had a doctorate in sociology and was teaching at University of Kashmir's Sociology department till Friday when he went missing.

The situation aggravated as protests erupted in the volatile south Kashmir district, where militants have vast public support, while the gunfight was under way and five civilians were killed by midday and more were injured.

The injured were rushed to hospitals across south Kashmir and to Srinagar as ambulances sped on deserted roads of the city, amid a shutdown following yesterday's gunfight in which three militants were killed.

The latest killings in Shopian have taken the conflict-related death toll in the region to 14 since yesterday.

The high casualty figures in Shopian has pushed the region to edge and sparked a wave of anger. It is for the second time in past two months that Shopian has witnessed large-scale killing of militants as last month 12 militants were killed in the district in two gunfights in a single day.

The mobile internet services have been suspended in most of Kashmir Valley districts, including in entire south Kashmir, as part of a preventive measure to contain protests.

Video source: Social media

Encounter concluded at Badigam Zainpora Shopian, 5 bodies of terrorists recovered. Well done boys - Army/ CRPF/J&K Police," Shesh Paul Vaid, Director-General of Police, Jammu and Kashmir, said in a tweet.

Encounter concluded at Badigam Zainpora Shopian, 5 bodies of terrorists recovered. Well done boys - Army/ CRPF/J&K Police.  Shesh Paul Vaid (@spvaid) May 6, 2018

The spokesman said the identities of the slain militants are being ascertained.

Todays success comes less than 24 hours after security forces killed three militants in a gunbattle in Chattabal area in the heart of the city on Saturday.

Official sources said top Hizbul Mujahideen commander Saddam Padder and a Kashmir University Assistant Professor Rafi Ahmad Bhat are among the slain militants.

The other militants killed in the gunbattle are Tauseef Shiekh, Aadil Malik and Bilal, alias Molvi, all residents of south Kashmir.

Bhat, a contractual Assistant Professor in the Sociology Department of the university, went missing on Friday.

Bhats family informed the university authorities about his disappearance on Saturday.

Protests had rocked the university on Saturday over his disappearance, following which the Vice-chancellor met the protesting students and assured them that all efforts would be made to trace the missing Professor.

The Vice-Chancellor had also written to the Director-General of Police, requesting him that all efforts be made to trace Bhats whereabouts.

Inspector General of Police Kashmir S P Pani said the police made repeated attempts to persuade the Professor to surrender, but to no avail.

After receiving the input about his presence there, we brought his family from Ganderbal to persuade him to surrender, Pani said.

Two police officials and an Army personnel also suffered minor injuries during the gunbattle, a police official said.

He said incriminating material, including arms and ammunition, have been recovered from the encounter site.

Massive clashes broke out between groups of stone-pelting youth and security forces near the encounter site, leading to the death of five protestors, the official said.

He said a civilian, Asif Ahmad Mir, resident of Rahmoo Pulwama, received bullet injury on his head during the clashes and was rushed to SMHS Hospital here where he succumbed later.

However, a police spokesman said Mir was injured in the cross-firing during the encounter.

Kashmir University has suspended class work for two days from Monday as a precautionary measure and postponed all examinations scheduled to be held on Monday.

Mobile Internet services have been suspended in south Kashmir districts and Ganderbal in central Kashmir, while the facility remained barred in Srinagar for the second consecutive day on Sunday. With PTIpardeepdhull@gmail.com

Srinagar, May 6

He was sorry if he had hurt his parents, the son told his father on the phone. It was the first call of the day that Fayaz Ahmed Bhat received from his sociologist son -- and the last ever.

Bhat was still bleary-eyed at his residence in Chundana in Ganderbal when his mobile phone rang early this morning, he told the police later.

It was his son Mohammed Rafi Bhat. calling to bid farewell.

"I am sorry if I have hurt you, Rafi told his father before he was gunned down in an encounter with security forces at Shopian in South Kashmir today.

Rafi had left home on Friday last week and joined the Hizbul Mujahideen terror group, the police said.

The Jammu and Kashmir police, which was monitoring all calls from the encounter site, quickly got cracking and sent a police team to Bhat asking him to convince his son to surrender.

The father, accompanied by his mother, sister and wife, started their journey from their home to the encounter site. But barely after reaching Bota Kadal, 14km from their home, they heard the news about Rafi's end.

The family returned home to prepare for his funeral.

The senior Bhat told the police about his last conversation with his son and indicated he was convinced Rafi would not be there to hear their pleas, asking him to surrender.

"I am sorry if I have hurt you and this is my last call as I am going to meet Allah," Rafi told his father, who recounted the conversation to the police.

Rafi Bhat, a 33-year-old professor on contract with the Kashmir University's Sociology department, had left the varsity premises on Friday and had been missing since then.

Reports had suggested he had joined the terror group but his father had repeatedly told the police Rafi would not pick up arms.

Fayaz Ahmed Bhat, who was an overground worker for a terror outfit in the early 1990s, had been keeping a strict watch on his son ever since he had attempted to move to Pakistan-occupied-kashmir at age of 18 but was caught by the police and handed over to his parents.

Rafi, a Ph.D in his discipline, was among five militants killed by security personnel at the Badgam area of Shopian, nearly 80km from his house.

Two of his first cousins were also involved in militancy and had died in the early 1990s. - PTIIranian President Hassan Rouhani has warned that the US will face historic regret if Donald Trump scraps the nuclear agreement with Tehran.

Rouhanis comments come as the US president decides whether to pull out of the deal by a 12 May deadline.

Trump has strongly criticized the agreement, calling it insane.

The 2015 deal  between Iran, the US, China, Russia, Germany, France and the UK  lifted sanctions on Iran in return for curbs on its nuclear programme.

France, the UK and Germany have been trying to persuade the US president that the current deal is the best way to stop Iran developing nuclear weapons.editorial@tribune.com

Suhail A Shah

Anantnag, May 6

Saddam Padder, a top Hizbul Mujahideen militant, was killed on Sunday along with four other militants, here in the Nagbal area of Shopian district.

Described as a category A++ militant by security agencies, Padder was one of the last few surviving militants featuring in the viral group photo with former slain commander of the outfit Burhan Muzaffar in the middle.

Padder joined militant ranks in the late 2013 and from being a shadow of the slain Burhan Wani, climbed the ladder within the ranks to become one of the most wanted militants in the Kashmir valley.

His name also featured in last years most wanted list released by the Army. Eldest among the four children of a well-to-do and influential orchardist in the Heff area of Shopian district, Saddam had dropped out of school a few years before he joined the militant ranks.

A senior police official from south Kashmir termed his killing a great success while describing him as a master recruiter.

In the past few years, he had recruited several young boys in the militant ranks. His name also featured in many attacks carried out across south Kashmir, though his primary zone of operation was Shopian district, the official said.

He said Saddams killing was a huge setback to the militant ranks and their morale.

The other militants killed in the encounter were also long surviving militants. Two of the militants  Bilal Mohend and Tawseef Sheikh  were active since 2011-12 and were considered to be very influential within the ranks.editorial@tribune.com

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, May 6

Condemning the civilian killings in the wake of the Shopian encounter on Sunday, separatists have called for a complete shutdown on Monday. They have also asked people to march towards the civil secretariat to register their protest.

In a statement, the Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL) comprising Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Yasin Malik termed the killings as opening up of a bloody war and worst atrocity against the people of Kashmir.

The JRL issued the call for peaceful protests after five militants, including a Kashmir University professor, and equal number of civilians, were killed by security forces in south Kashmir.

The leaders asked people to march towards the civil secretariat on Monday to protest what it termed continuous bloodshed in Kashmir.

Words fail to express the pain of the tragedy unfolding in Shopian as the count of people killed by the security forces keeps rising. On Monday as the Durbar opens in Srinagar, leadership and people from all walks of life, including traders, lawyers, students, employees and others, will move towards the civil secretariat and stage a peaceful dharna till the daily carnage is not stopped. The strike will continue, Mirwaiz wrote on a microblogging site.

Later, the Joint Resistance Leadership also issued a detailed statement denouncing the civilian killings.

On the other hand, taking to Twitter, former J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Sunday termed the killing of the Kashmir University professor as an answer to those who claim jobs and development are the solution to violence and alienation in Kashmir.uttara@tribuneindia.com

Smita Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 6

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has confirmed abduction of seven Indian nationals from northern Baghlan province in Afghanistan early Sunday morning. The men, as per unconfirmed reports, were travelling in a mini-bus when they were taken hostage by unidentified armed assailants near Bagh-e-Shamal village, in Pul-e-Khomre city, capital of Baghlan province.

While no group has taken responsibility so far for the abduction, local Baghlan authorities were quoted by international news agencies as blaming the Taliban for the incident.

Responding to media queries, Raveesh Kumar, MEA spokesperson, said, "We are aware of the abduction of Indian nationals from Baghlan province in Afghanistan. We are in contact with the Afghan authorities and further details are being ascertained."

The abducted Indians are engineers working for KEC, an Indian company with the RPG group that was awarded a contract in 2013 to erect a 220 KV transmission line between Chimtala and Kabul.

KEC collaborates with government-run Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat (DABS) that operates power generating stations in the war-torn country. Harsh Goenka, Chairman of the RPG group reached out to Minister Sushma Swaraj on social media seeking help for rescue of the Indian men. Goenka wrote on twitter, "Request @SushmaSwaraj and Ministry of External Affairs to help rescue 7 of our managers from the kidnapping in Afghanistan. #KEC."

Request @SushmaSwaraj and Ministry of External Affairs to help rescue 7 of our managers from the kidnapping in Afghanistan. #KEC https://t.co/o7R1dGlZcY  Harsh Goenka (@hvgoenka) May 6, 2018

"We are very concerned and the matter is being looked at by the MEA at the highest level. In the interest of safety of our people and the sensitive nature of the situation on ground, we will not be commenting any further. We want to assure everyone concerned that we are working with the authorities to ensure safe return of our employees," said Vimal Kejriwal, MD & CEO, KEC International.

With its over $2 billion assistance towards rebuilding of Afghanistan, India is involved in several infrastructure projects building dams, highways and other buildings. An estimated 150 Indian engineers and technical experts are involved in various projects on the ground.

Afghan media house Tolo News quoted Baghlan governor Abdulhai Nemati saying the Indians were mistaken to be government employees and efforts are on to release them "through tribe elders and mediation". Sources also meanwhile asked the media to exercise caution in reporting so as not to "hamper efforts at successful resolution of the crisis".

The kidnappings take place at a time when a series of terror strikes and blasts have led to bleeding of Kabul and other parts of Afghanistan over the past few days. There have been instances of Indians getting kidnapped in Afghanistan in the past in 2003, 2005, 2006 and 2008, with release of hostages secured in most cases. In 2016, an Indian aid worker kidnapped in Kabul was released after 40 days.singhking99@yahoo.com

Smita Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 6

Seven Indian engineers were abducted from northern Baghlan province of Afghanistan on Sunday morning. The men, as per unconfirmed reports, were travelling in a minibus when they were taken hostage by unidentified assailants near Bagh-e-Shamal village in Pul-e-Khomre city, the capital of Baghlan province.

While no group has taken responsibility so far for the abduction, international news agencies quoted Baghlan authorities as blaming the Taliban. Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said: We are aware of the abduction of Indian nationals from Baghlan province. We are in contact with the Afghan authorities and further details are being ascertained.

The abducted engineers are working for KEC, an Indian company with the RPG group that was awarded a contract in 2013 to erect a 220-KV transmission line between Chimtala and Kabul. KEC has collaborated with the government-run Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat (DABS) that operates power stations in the war-torn country.

RPG Group chairman Harsh Goenka reached out to External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on social media, seeking help for the rescue of the abducted men.

With its over $2 billion assistance towards rebuilding Afghanistan, India is involved in several infrastructure projects, including construction of dams, highways and other buildings. An estimated 150 Indian engineers and technical experts are involved in various projects on the ground.

Afghan media house Tolo news quoted Baghlan governor Abdulhai Nemati as saying that the Indians were mistaken for government employees and efforts were on to release them through tribe elders and mediation. Sources also, meanwhile, asked the media to exercise caution in reporting so as not to hamper efforts at successful resolution of the crisis.

There have been instances of Indians getting kidnapped in Afghanistan in the past in 2003, 2005, 2006, 2008, with the release of hostages secured in most cases. In 2016, an Indian aid worker kidnapped in Kabul was released after 40 days.

(With agency inputs)singhking99@yahoo.com

Manas Dasgupta

Two tiny dots on the CCTV footage are believed to have led to cracking of the Surat rape-cum-double murder case even before the police had any idea about the identity of the victims and an iota of clue about the culprits.

For more than 15 days after the recovery of the body on April 6 of an 11-year old in a bush on the outskirts of the diamond city of Surat, her death remained shrouded in mystery. The police felt helpless as all efforts to establish the identity of the victim, including announcing cash rewards both by the police and a local builder, remained futile. Her photograph was pasted and dispatched all over in bundles of sarees manufactured in Surat to other cities for sale, but yielded no result and the police kept groping in the dark to get a starting point into the investigation into the gruesome crime that read almost like the despicable Nirbhaya case in Delhi.

Coming close on the heels of similar incidents in Kathua and Unnao, Surat also caused a nationwide public outcry after it was known that the poor victim bore 86 serious injury marks on her body, including on her private parts, and the post-mortem report indicated that she was subjected to repeated rape and inhuman torture for at least eight days before she was strangulated to death. As the pressure mounted on the BJP government in the state to solve the mysterious case at the earliest, the state government on the advice of the DGP, who was a former police commissioner of Ahmedabad, involved the Ahmedabad crime branch police.

The Ahmedabad police too started with efforts to identify the victim. The fingerprints of the girl were reportedly sent to the Central government for tracing her Aadhaar card, but got only rebuff. The Ahmedabad team again began with the CCTV footage that the Surat police had gone many times over. The police had collected footage of three days before the recovery of the body on April 6 from some 150 CCTV cameras around the spot where the body was found in Pandesara, but the nearest camera was some 600 metres away from the spot in a building under construction. It was a mountain of CCTV footage with little hope of getting anything new, but the effort did not go waste.

The police divided itself into 12 groups to re-visit the CCTV footage. When the groups were almost about to give up, one of the teams noticed two tiny dots that stayed on the footage for 56 seconds with time showing around 4.30 am on April 6. After continuous cross-checking, the police concluded the dots to be the back lights of a car.

The police suspected that the car may have something to do with the body of the girl as it was halting for 56 seconds at the spot in the wee hours. The footage of the cameras around the entry and exit points of the roads leading to the spot were re-run and the police detected one black car entering the road around the same time. By zooming, the police got the number of the car and checked with its owner. They were told that the car was sold to a person in Pandesara sometime back and the new owner in turn told the police that the car was taken for a day on April 5 by one Harsasai Gurjar for some personal work and he, after returning the car, left for his native village in Gangapur in Sawai Madhopur district in Rajasthan the same day.

In Gangapur, Harsasai had no idea that the police were closing in on him. It was almost like shooting an arrow in the dark but fortunately for the police, it hit the bulls eye. The police team got his confession not only about the 11-year old but also her widowed mother, whose body was recovered from the same spot in Pandesara three days after the girls body was found.

The police had no clue about the highly decomposed body but could extract a confession from Harsasai that he had killed the mother first after sexually exploiting her and later strangulated the daughter because she was a witness. Though later Harsasai sought to deny that the 11-year old was raped, the post-mortem report was conclusive in this regard. A clause of human trafficking was also added against him following reports that the mother-daughter duo was actually bought by him as sex slaves for Rs 35,000.

For the way it was cracked, the Surat case will go down in crime history as one of the shining examples of the achievements of Gujarat Police.pardeepdhull@gmail.com

New Delhi, May 6

A man was arrested by the customs at the Delhi airport for allegedly trying to smuggle in 100 iPhone X handsets, an official said on Sunday.

The 53-year-old accused was intercepted by the customs after his arrival from Dubai on Friday.

Hundred iPhone X handsets worth a total of Rs 85.61 lakh were seized from his baggage after a thorough search, Additional Commissioner of customs at the airport, Amandeep Singh, said. PTIeditorial@tribune.com

ON April 27 and 28, Wuhan, the capital city of Hubei province in China, was in the limelight when an informal summit was held between President Xi Jinping and Prime Minster Narendra Modi. The Wuhan Summit is significant, fruitful and unprecedented as a milestone in the history of bilateral relations. I sum up the outcomes.

Chemistry, friendship

This was the 13th get-together of the two leaders, creating a new model of engagement. President Xi told Prime Minister Modi that he had only hosted a foreign leader twice outside Beijing over the past five years of his tenure, and both were for Modiji. The two leaders spent nine hours together in seven events, including four one-on-one meetings, walking and tea-tasting along the lakeside, boat ride, and museum tour. The protocol arrangements eventually made the guest relaxed, comfortable and feel at home.

The talks started from friendly recalling of home diplomacy and long-time interaction between the two leaders. Modiji recalled his visit to the Three Gorges Dam when he was Chief Minister of Gujarat and President Xis visit to Gujarat when he was presented a vegetarian birthday cake by President Xi.

Mutual trust

The two leaders agreed to continue to maintain strategic communication in different forms. They discussed strategic autonomy, concerted efforts to realise the Asian Century and reaffirmed that China and India are good neighbours, good friends and good partners.

The two leaders agreed to promote trade cooperation while mitigating trade deficit, strengthen exchanges in the fields of movie, sports, tourism, youth and local contacts. President Xi mentioned that he had watched Bollywood movies such as Dangal. The two leaders also agreed to establish a high-level people-to-people exchange mechanism.

Deepen synergy

The two leaders exchanged in-depth views on governance. President Xi introduced China's Two Centenary Goals, Made in China 2025, employment, urbanisation, environment protection, particularly anti-corruption and poverty alleviation. Prime Minister Modi hoped the two sides could share their experience.

The two leaders further deepened their understanding with each other and shared similar views on the historical position, stage and goal of development of China and India. The two sides viewed each others developmental intentions in a positive way and decided to build a Closer Developmental Partnership in an equal, mutually beneficial and sustainable manner.

Reinforce coordination

The two sides agreed to carry out China India plus cooperation in Afghanistan and speed up the economic cooperation under the BCIM framework. They exchanged views on how to coordinate in the WTO to jointly deal with trade frictions with the third party.

Prime Minister Modi briefed President Xi on Indias neighbourhood first policy and the concept of the world as one, which are quite similar with President Xi's idea of "neighbourhood diplomacy as high priority, and to build a community of shared future for mankind. As two largest developing countries and emerging market economies, each with a population of over 1 billion, China and India are important engines of world economic growth and backbones of the worlds multi-polarisation and economic globalisation.

Friendly negotiations

State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi has taken up the post of the Special Representative of China-India Boundary Question. The two leaders were committed to find solutions with regards to border disputes through the Special Representatives Meeting while adopting confidence-building measures to uphold border peace and tranquility.

The informal summit can be traced back to the SCO Astana Summit last June when Modiji made the proposal. It was confirmed by the two leaders during the BRICS Xiamen Summit last September. Thereafter, there were many warm-ups and preparations for the informal summit. The Special Representatives of Boundary Question and Foreign Ministers exchanged visits in a short span of time. Particularly, upon the closing of Chinas Two Sessions on March 20, President Xi received a phone call from Modiji on his re-election.

It is better to understand if we look at Wuhan Summit in a bigger picture. From the global perspective, China and India are largely relevant to the evolving international structure of rise of the east and decline of the west and against the headwinds of anti-globalisation and protectionism. From the respective developments, we should share the developmental strategies and experiences as our combined population and GDP account for 40% and 20% of the worlds total. From the bilateral perspective, how to coexist with each other, how to look at respective development and how to judge intentions, are key issues that urgently call for the strategic guidance from the leaders.

Strategic communications, meetings, heart-to-heart dialogues are important. Equally important is to implement the consensus, transmit personal friendship between the two leaders down to the common people, and take more concrete actions. Wuhan Summit is not a talk shop and we have a lot of work to do in the future such as trade deficit mitigation, acceleration of BCIM process, cooperation in Afghanistan and establishment of high-level people-to-people exchange mechanism. Building on these efforts, we can accumulate more consensus for the following summits such as SCO Summit in Qingdao, BRICS Summit in South Africa and G20 Summit in Argentina this year where two leaders are likely expected to meet again.singhking99@yahoo.com

Shubhadeep Choudhury

While the police have filed an FIR against unidentified persons for assaulting a couple in the Kolkata Metro, four names are doing the rounds on the social media. One of the four whose names figure on the social media is vigorously defending the assault. On his Facebook page, the elderly man, who has affiliation with a Hindu right-wing outfit, has uploaded a video of a woman radio jockey giving a second-hand account of the incident, claiming the couple had acted outright silly and had nobody but themselves to blame for the assault. Loads of abuses are being posted on Facebook pages against the alleged accused, addressed as dadu (grandpa). An elderly man has filed a complaint with the police, the CID and the cyber crime branch for being falsely accused on the social media as one of those who thrashed a couple in the Metro last week for getting too intimate.

Kashmiris agony

Rakesh Kaul, vice-president of Kolkata Kashmir Sabha, was born and raised in Kolkata. His visit to Srinagar in 1989 to get married is etched in his memory. The day after the wedding, he visited his wifes place, as is the custom among Kashmiri Hindus. On their way back, his wifes brother offered to accompany them along with friends. Having seen the Naxalite unrest in Kolkata in the seventies, Kaul pooh-poohed the idea. But the brides mother insisted that the boys accompanied the couple. So, he agreed, grudgingly. As they hit the road, Kaul could sense fear among the locals. He abandoned the plan to visit Pahalgam for his honeymoon and flew straight back to Kolkata.

When he revisited Srinagar in 1994, he found the doors and windows of the familys ancestral home were missing. The furniture inside had vanished too. We met the CM and asked for reservation in educational institutions for displaced Kashmiri families. But nothing happened. We obviously do not constitute a worthwhile political constituency, rues Kaul, who runs a factory in Pagladanga area of Kolkata.

Of Rabindra sangeet

In the latest Mann ki Baat, PM Narendra Modis said when he was young he loved listening to Rabindra sangeet (songs written by GurudevTagore) on the radio at 5.30 am. The remark has triggered a controversy. Apparently, AIR does not go on air so early in the morning. The first Rabindra sangeet programme of the day is aired by AIR Kolkata at 7.45 am and the timings were no different when Modi was young.

Politicians portrait

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is reportedly peeved with a section of her supporters for displaying an old picture of hers on their Facebook pages. She feels she looks too fat in the picture.The story goes that the CM signalled her disapproval of the picture when she saw one on display at party secretary-general Partha Chatterjees office. Immediately, instruction was sent out to party offices and government establishments to replace CMs old pictures with new ones. But the social media was left out from this exercise. Fresh instructions have now been issued to TMC supporters to replace Didis fat pictures on the Facebook with new ones.

Playing Mamata

The BJP has alleged that one of its workers, Aditi Mukherjee, is being harassed by the police for playing Mamata Banerjee in a street play on the Rohingya issue. The actress says she was asked by the CID to appear at the state police headquarters at Bhawani Bhawan. The Chief Minister likes to lambast the Central Government for destroying democracy. But look at the state of democracy in her own state, remarked BJPs Shamik Bhattacharya.DID YOU KNOW? The first presentation of a theory that the Earth rotated around the sun was by Aristarchus of Samos (c. 310  c. 230 BC), an ancient Greek astronomer and mathematician. But the belief that Earth was at the centre of the universe persisted until after the acceptance of ideas by 16th and 17th century thinkers like Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and Newton.

WEATHER Dry to start with cloud building through the morning. Patchy outbreaks of rain and drizzle in the afternoon. Dry again later, getting humid, with temperatures up to 15deg later in the evening. Light breezes from the south will increase to moderate through the afternoon and evening. Today is Ivy Day in Dublin in memory of Charles Stewart Parnell, who died in the year 1891 on this day.

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PEOPLE OF THE HOLLY BUSH Another subject has been posted in the 'People of the Holly Bush' Kilcullen profiles project by Kieran Behan and Brian Byrne. He is Martin Murphysinghking99@yahoo.com

New Delhi, May 6

The traders body, Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), has demanded that the government conduct a scrutiny of the proposed Walmart-Flipkart merger deal.

Up in arms against the deal, they say it will encourage more predatory pricing in e-commerce, which is already facing malpractices.

The traders body said it was unfortunate that even with a clear FDI policy, foreign companies were finding an escape route, whether in retail or e-commerce.

Same is the case of Walmart, which after failing to enter India in the retail sector through FDI, has chosen the e-commerce route, which will be quite harmful for the trading community, it said.

Unfortunately, the government, despite knowing the intent and hidden agenda of companies like Walmart, is keeping its eyes and ears shut, the CAIT said.

The Commerce Minister has no time to talk about domestic trade but is always prompt in meeting MNCs, the tradersbody added.

The CAIT said it will soon knock at the doors of the government, including the Competition Commission of India, and if needed, shall not hesitate to move court.

The CAIT demanded a regulatory authority for e-commerce and no such deal till it was set up.  TNSuttara@tribuneindia.com

Tribune News Service

Mukstar/Sangrur, May 6

Anganwadi workers took their months-long protest for better wages to Punjab lawmakers on Sunday.

Anganwadi workers, who have been protesting for better wages since the past few months, pitched tents outside Punjab Minister Vijay Inder Singlas house Sangrur house to begin their hunger strike.

Workers began their protests outside Gidderbaha MLA Amarinder Singh Raja Warrings Muktsar town house.

The All-Punjab Anganwadi Employees Union has been protesting poor wages, and have demanded that the state government should emulate Haryana government and increase allowances for anganwadi workers and helpers.

Although the protests have been sporadic for several months now, they intensified over the past few months, with the union taking its demands to Finance Minister Manpreet Badals office in Bathinda last month.

editorial@tribune.com

Tribune Reporters

Muktsar, May 6

Anganwadi workers on Sunday took their protest seeking better wages to the doorsteps of MLAs. At some places, they even began a hunger strike by pitching in tents in front of legislators residences.

In Muktsar district, workers began their protest outside Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badals residence after giving the slip to the police. Notably, protesters are never allowed to enter Badal village, which is the native village of former CM Parkash Singh Badal.

Meanwhile, anganwadi workers also reached in front of the residence of Gidderbaha MLA Amarinder Singh Raja Warring in Muktsar town, where they began a hunger strike by putting up a tent. Similarly, they lodged a protest outside the residence of Balluana MLA Nathu Ram in Malout town.

Hargobind Kaur, president, All Punjab Anganwari Employees Union, said, We are lodging a protest against the poor wages and demanding that the state government should emulate Haryana governments policy and increase allowances for anganwari workers and helpers.

Abohar: Members of the Punjab unit of the All-India Anganwadi Workers Union from different segments gheraoed Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee president Sunil Jakhars house in Panjkosi, about 15 km from here, on Sunday.

The police did not allow them to enter Jakhars ancestral house and all gates were shut as the protesters marched towards the palatial complex. The protesters, wearing black clothes, waved black flags and raised slogans against the state government. They staged a dharna and observed fast from 10 am to 2 pm.

Moga: Workers and helpers staged a protest outside the residence of Congress MLA Dr Harjot Kamal at Ajitwal in the district. The protest was led by block president of the union, Kirandip Kaur Chuhar Chak.editorial@tribune.com

Bathinda, May 6

Akali Dal president Sukhbir Badal on Sunday alleged that the Congress government is trying to wipe out the states own history along with that of the Sikh community. He demanded that it should immediately tender an apology and revert to the old syllabus of Class XII.

Addressing the media here, Sukhbir said he had called a full party meeting on May 11, during which the SAD would decide its future strategy over the issue. There were 22 chapters on Sikh history, which have been reduced to six. Similarly, 94 pages were dedicated to the Sikh Gurus, which have been curtailed to just 24 lines, he claimed.

When asked about various sections of employees protesting against the government, he said people were fed up with the Congress. There is no command structure. It is a headless government, he alleged.

Amritsar-Bathinda road to open on May 10

Sukhbir revealed that Union Minister Nitin Gadkari would inaugurate the four-lane Amritsar-Bathinda road here on May 10. He said he would also lay the foundation stone of Budhlada-Jakhal-Moonak road, which would boost connectivity of the region.  TNS

SGPC meet todaysinghking99@yahoo.com

Rachna Khaira

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, May 6

First the Hoshiarpur land scam, and now Jalandhar. Land sharks are eying hefty compensation having bought chunks of land of the 380 acres the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) intends to buy for a project to link National Highway-70 (Jalandhar to Mandi via Hamirpur) with National Highway-71 (Jalandhar to Rohtak via Sangrur).

It plans a 29-km bypass running through Jandu Singha village to Pratarpura via Jamsher in Jalandhar.

Curiously, among the new landowners are those accused in the Hoshiarpur land scam. Their properties were freezed by the Enforcement Directorate two days ago. But those bought by them on the Jalandhar stretch have not been touched, according to sources in the ED.

After a notification under Section 3(A) of the National Highways Act, 1956, by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways on February 27 this year, the NHAI published the khasra numbers of chunks of land it intended to acquire to construct the highway.

The land mafia, not losing time, too initiated the process to get CLU (change in land use) certificate since commercial/residential properties fetch compensation higher than agricultural land.

Documents reveal that a registration deed for 3 marla agriculture land was executed for Rs 12 lakh at Kot Kalan village on April 12. A CLU certificate was issued on March 12 to convert agriculture land into a hotel site in Kot Kalan. Another was issued on March 14 to raise a senior secondary school on agriculture land measuring 6 acres in Kapur village. A third one was issued to build a school on 5 acres of agriculture land in Talhan village.

Lacunae make it easy for themeditorial@tribune.com

Aparna Banerji

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, May 6

The first meeting addressed by the newly named AAP candidate for Shahkot bypoll, Rattan Singh, here at his village Kakkar Kalan on Sunday witnessed thin attendance. About 30 AAP volunteers turned up for the meeting.

This follows the meeting of AAP held at the local Desh Bhagat Yadgaar Hall on April 27. Co-convener Dr Balbir Singh had addressed 40-50 AAP workers, volunteers and former MLA candidates and had made a formal declaration regarding AAP contesting the Shahkot bypoll.

In fact, sources said that some prominent MLA candidates might shift to the Akali Dal from Jalandhar.

While the AAP in the state is yet to streamline its cadres following the controversy surrounding Kejriwals apology to SAD leader Bikram Singh Majithia  a row which also triggered the exit of AAPs LS poll candidate Dr Amarjit Singh Thind into the SAD a month ago  the chances for AAP in the Shahkot Assembly bypoll look bleak at present.

While a lot rides on the outcome of the Shahkot bypoll, Punjab veterans of the party had expressed on Saturday that it would be best if the AAP gave the bypoll a miss and concentrated on the 2019 LS poll.

In the meeting held yesterday at Chandigarh under Delhi Deputy CM Manish Sisodia, both state chief Bhagwant Mann and Leader of Opposition Sukhpal Khaira were against the decision to contest the Shahkot bypoll.

Sources within the party said, It isnt the best of decisions for the party in Punjab. It is ideally the time to gear up the cadres in the state. But co-president Dr Balbir Singh seemed insistent on declaring a candidate despite opposition from the veterans. It seems Delhis will is that the Shahkot election be contested irrespective of what the leaders here think. So, the party has no choice but to reluctantly stick to the decision.

Hans Raj Rana, Adampur MLA candidate from Jalandhar, said, If the party asks us to canvass, we will consider it. So far, it hasnt. No one had even seen the new candidate until the party announced his name. None of us were consulted. After the recent defection, it is unlikely that people will rally behind the new candidate.

While Bholath MLA Sukhpal Khaira and Dr Balbir Singh have confirmed to the candidate that they would campaign for him, the other Doaba and Jalandhar leaders wore a studied silence on the issue. None of the Doaba MLA candidates of the party attended the meeting on Saturday either.

AAP Shahkot candidate Rattan Singh said, Sukhpal Khaira will canvass for me so will Dr Balbir Singh. We have already started holding meetings. We held one at the village on Sunday and we will be going door to door in all the villages in the constituency to convince the people. Im an honest candidate and the people have faith in us. On Monday, 50-60 volunteers from across the state will join us.

Veterans want to give bypoll a misseditorial@tribune.com

PK Jaiswar

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, May 6

With efforts of the police and government proving ineffective in stopping the flow of drugs in the streets of Punjab, addicts are getting desperate to find ways to stay out of temptations way, even after de-addiction treatment. Their families are anxious to prevent sure ruin of finances as well as relationships.

The only difference we have seen over the past year is that earlier heroin could be had for Rs 1,500 to Rs 2,000 per gram, now it is Rs 3,500, a drug addict told The Tribune, requesting not to be identified, adding that getting the daily dose is not difficult.

I started consuming drugs around six years ago after my friends lured me into it, and now I have nowhere to go. I consume 500mg to 1gm daily, said a 23-year-old youth from Mughal Chak Pannuan village in Tarn Taran. He had been under treatment for around 10 days at the government-run de-addiction centre at Tarn Taran Civil Hospital.

Young deaths

The situation in border villages is even worse. And no one can know it better than Mukhtar Singh, a resident of Patti, who lost his son, Manjit Singh, a graduation student, to drugs in March 2016. But the unfortunate father decided to do something more than just grieve. He set up an organisation under the name of Kafan Bol Paya Nash Virodhi Misson-e-Punjab. His first effort was to collect data from government de-addiction centres in 17 districts, which pegged the figure of addicts who received treatment at 4.94 lakh. Then he also did an intensive survey of addicts in Tarn Taran district, and found that only 20 per cent of them sought treatment.

There is no doubt that the Special Task Force constituted by the government is working to nail the peddlers, but it is also true that the number of youth dying of drug intake has not gone down, Mukhtar Singh said. He believed that though smugglers were nabbed, they continued to operate through mobile phones from inside jails. He said the government should confiscate all properties of smugglers, and the revenue generated from those should be utilised for better and affordable treatment for addicts.

In January this year, a youth identified as Vicky died of drug abuse in the Patti area. In April, another youth, Harjit Singh of Sri Goindwal Sahib, reportedly died of drug overdose. He had married around three months ago. Three persons, apparently beggars, also died of similar causes in the Company Bagh area in Amritsar.

Desperate families

The story is not complete without taking into account the families of drug-abuse victims. In the hope that their wards would shun drugs and return to the mainstream, they are ready to try all means suggested by anyone. Corridors of de-addiction centres are full of family members seeking help. Such has been the shattering effect in some cases, that families even start wishing death for their ward as repeated attempts at getting them cured fail.

At one private de-addiction centre, The Tribune spoke to a woman who was getting her husband, a cable operator, treated. She said though he was on the path to recovery, the fear of his falling back into the trap always loomed. When you have an addict in the family, society distances itself from you. Family members also change. At one point even I contemplated leaving my husband; but later decided to stick by him and get him treated, she said. There was a man who had come to get medicines for his father, a policeman who had been an addict for several years. When the family learnt of the addiction, they were completely shattered. It was difficult for us to accept the reality, he said. However, with support from the family, his father was now on the mend.

Yet another woman at the centre, a resident of Baba Budha Sahib area, was not so fortunate. Her only son had relapsed a number of times. He was addicted to synthetic drugs, available easily in the market.

Cheap pills

The rising price of heroin is also not helping much, as addicts switch to synthetic drugs, including intoxicants and medicines available at chemists. The misuse of the addiction-treatment medicine tramadol, and even some Ayurvedic drugs, had also come to light before the Assembly elections when the Narcotics Control Bureau confiscated huge quantities of these. A little over a month ago, the Chheharta police seized a huge quantity of tramadol tablets. It does not come under the preview of the NDPS Act, and those involved get away with milder charges under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act.

Dr Jaswinder Singh Gandhi, who has written a couple of books of short stories and also made short films on the problem, however, appreciated the fact that the government had at least shown its willingness to address the challenge. Different agencies are working, and the government has now also implemented the DAPO (Drug Abuse Prevention Officer) programme to involve people in this war, he noted. There are many hopes pinned on that.uttara@tribuneindia.com

Washington

Scientists have developed an artificial intelligence system that can help predict which students are at higher risk of perpetrating school violence.

The researchers found that machine learningthe science of getting computers to learn over time without human interventionis as accurate as a team of child and adolescent psychiatrists, including a forensic psychiatrist, in determining risk for school violence.

"Previous violent behaviour, impulsivity, school problems and negative attitudes were correlated with risk to others," said Drew Barzman, a child forensic psychiatrist at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center in the US.

"Our risk assessments were focused on predicting any type of physical aggression at school. We did not gather outcome data to assess whether machine learning could actually help prevent school violence. That is our next goal," said Barzman, lead author of the study published in the journal Psychiatric Quarterly.

Researchers evaluated 103 teenage students in 74 traditional schools throughout the US who had a major or minor behavioural change or aggression toward themselves or others.

The students were recruited from psychiatry outpatient clinics, inpatient units and emergency departments.

The team performed school risk evaluations with participants. Audio recordings from the evaluations were transcribed and manually annotated. The students, as it turned out, were relatively equally divided between moderate- to high-risk, and low-risk, according to two scales that the team developed and validated in previous research.

There were significant differences in total scores between the high-risk and low-risk groups. The machine learning algorithm that the researchers developed achieved an accuracy rate of 91.02 per cent, considered excellent, when using interview content to predict risk of school violence.

The rate increased to 91.45 per cent when demographic and socioeconomic data were added.

"The machine learning algorithm, based only on the participant's interview, was almost as accurate in assessing risk levels as a full assessment by our research team, including gathering information from parents and the school, a review of records when available, and scoring on the two scales we developed," said Yizhao Ni, a computational scientist at Cincinnati.

"Our ultimate goal, should research support it, is to spread the use of the machine learning technology to schools in the future to augment structures, professional judgment to more efficiently and effectively prevent school violence," said Barzman. PTIshalender@tribune.com

Paris/London, May 6

US President Donald Trump caused anger in France and Britain by suggesting looser gun laws could have helped prevent deadly attacks in Paris in 2015 and linking knife crime in London to a handgun ban.

In a speech to the National Rifle Association (NRA) on Friday, Trump mimicked the shooting of victims in the Paris rampage and said if civilians had been armed it would have been a whole different story.

The French government issued its strongest criticism of Trump since he took office and one minister urged the leader to apologise, at a time when President Emmanuel Macron has been reinforcing bilateral ties following a state visit.

France expresses its firm disapproval of President Trumps comments about the Paris attacks on November 13, 2015 and demands that the memory of the victims be respected, the foreign office said in a statement.

France is proud to be a country where acquiring and carrying firearms is strictly regulated. French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said he hoped Trump would come back on his words and express regret. His comments are shocking and not worthy of the president of the worlds greatest superpower, Le Maire told BFM television on Sunday.

Other French politicians, including the mayor of Paris, took issue with Trumps comments, after he acted out the scene of the massacre by Islamist assailants at Paris Bataclan concert hall, where 90 of the 130 victims of the attacks died. They took their time and gunned them down one by one. Boom! Come over here. Boom! Come over here. Boom!, Trump said, using his hands in a gun gesture.

Francois Hollande, who was French president at the time, said on Twitter Trumps remarks were shameful and obscene.

Trauma surgeons in London, meanwhile, said Trump had missed the point when, in the same speech, he linked knife crime there to an absence of guns. Comments by Trump have caused upset before in Britain. Relations with Prime Minister Theresa May cooled last year after she criticised him for retweeting anti-Islam videos by a British far-right group.

Trump, who is due to visit Britain on July 13, told NRA members that a once very prestigious London hospital, which he did not name, had become overwhelmed with knife attack victims. They dont have guns. They have knives and instead theres blood all over the floors of this hospital, he said. They say its as bad as a military war zone hospital, he said, making stabbing gestures.  Reuters

What US President said

On Paris attack

Nobody has guns in Paris and we all remember more than 130 people, plus tremendous numbers of people that were horribly, horribly wounded. You notice nobody ever talks about them. They were brutally killed by a small group of terrorists that had guns. They took their time and gunned them down one by one. If civilians had been armed it would have been a whole different story.

On London knife attack

I recently read a story that in London, which has unbelievably tough gun laws, a once very prestigious hospital - right in the middle - is like a war zone for horrible stabbing wounds. Yes, thats right, they dont have guns. They have knives and instead theres blood all over the floors of this hospital. They say its as bad as a military war zone hospital.pardeepdhull@gmail.com

London, May 6

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson will on Sunday begin a two-day visit to Washington, with the Iran nuclear deal, Syria and North Korea on top of the agenda, the Foreign Office said.

Johnson will meet US Vice President Mike Pence, National Security Advisor John Bolton and Congressional foreign policy leaders.

On so many of the worlds foreign policy challenges the UK and US are in lockstep, said Johnson, highlighting the joint responses to Russian provocations, North Korea and Syria.

The UK, US, and European partners are also united in our effort to tackle the kind of Iranian behaviour that makes the Middle East region less secureits cyber activities, its support for groups like Hezbollah, and its dangerous missile programme, he added.

Britain remains committed the nuclear deal Iran signed with world powers in 2015, but US President Donald Trump has threatened to abandon the agreement when it comes up for renewal on May 12, calling it insane.

Britain, France and Germanythe three European countries that signed the dealhave repeatedly tried to persuade Trump not to abandon it.  AFPpardeepdhull@gmail.com

Mexico City, May 6

Mexican authorities say nine men have been found murdered in the back of a small cargo truck in the southern state of Guerrero.

State prosecutors say in a statement that the men were apparently kidnapped Thursday and reported missing the following night.

The truck was discovered Saturday morning along a highway between the state capital, Chilpancingo, and the city of Tixtla.

It was registered to one of the victims.

Prosecutors say the men lived in Tixtla and Chilpancingo and used the vehicle to sell possibly ill-gotten food products.

Guerrero has one of the highest homicide rates of Mexicos 31 states plus the capital district.

It is home to opium poppy plantations and splintered gangs at war with each other for control of the drug trade and extortion rackets.  APamansharma@tribunemail.com

Lahore, May 6

Pakistan's Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal was on Sunday shot at and injured in a suspected assassination bid after he addressed a rally in Punjab province, police said.

Iqbal, 59, sustained a bullet wound on his right shoulder. He was attending a corner meeting in Narowal's Kanjrur Tehsil when the incident occurred, the police were quoted as saying by Dawn News.

He was shifted to the District Headquarters Hospital, the report said. Family sources confirmed that the interior minister is being shifted to Lahore.

The suspect has reportedly been taken into custody, according to police. District Police Officer Imran Kishwar said the attacker used a 30-bore pistol to fire at Iqbal from a distance of around 18 metre.

"One of the shooters has been arrested and (is) being interrogated by the police," Punjab government said in a Twitter message.

Confirming the incident, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Tallal Chaudhry said Iqbal was out of danger. The arrested suspect is 20-22 years old, he added.

Corner meetings become common as elections come close with politicians interacting with supporters and common people. - PTIpardeepdhull@gmail.com

Moscow, May 6

Russian Opposition leader Aleksei Navalny was released from police custody on Sunday after being detained for several hours the day before on charges of organising an unauthorised demonstration in Moscow against President Vladimir Putin.

Navalny posted on his Twitter account that he was released before his trial and that he left the Russian capitals police headquarters after midnight, reports Efe news.

The Opposition leader was arrested on Saturday in central Moscow when he attended a protest under the slogan He is not our tsar, which he himself had called for on the eve of Putins swearing in for his new term in office.

Thousands of people attended rallies on Saturday called by Navalny, in downtown Moscow and in St. Petersburg, the two largest cities in the country, despite warnings from municipal authorities.

More than 1,200 people were arrested all over Russia.

Smaller demonstrations were held in close to 100 cities, although the police only acted against protesters where the marches had not been authorized by local authorities.

Arrests were reported in Chelyabinsk, Krasnoyarsk, Yakutsk, Novokuznetsk, Kemerovo, Yekaterinburg, Penza, Tver, Voronezh, as well as a dozen other cities Navalny, the most vocal opponent of the Kremlin, campaigned for the presidential elections on March 18 but was unable to attend the elections because of his criminal record in a case he considers a political persecution.  IANSpardeepdhull@gmail.com

Washington, May 6

Senator John McCain, 81 and battling brain cancer, has made clear he does not want President Donald Trump to attend his funeral, US media reported on Sunday.

McCain, a Vietnam war vet and respected Senator from Arizona who has had a turbulent relationship with Trump, instead wants Vice-President Mike Pence to represent the White House, The New York Times and NBC News said, quoting people close to McCain.

McCain is also using a new book and documentary to express regret about not having selected former Senator Joseph Lieberman as his running mate in 2008 against Barack Obama and instead going with populist Sarah Palin, the Times said.

McCain has been fighting an aggressive form of brain cancer for more than a year.

He is currently back in Arizona, recovering from surgery for an intestinal infection.

McCain and Trump have had a rough relationship, particularly during the 2016 presidential primary, when Trump said McCaina POW for years in Vietnamwas not really a war hero because he was captured.

Last summer Trump slammed McCain for a no vote that helped doom a key bill to repeal Obamacarethe health care reforms passed into law under president Barack Obama.  AFPThe domain turkeytelegraph.com may be for sale. Please click here to inquireSenderwahl Das Erste ZDF RTL SAT.1 ProSieben kabel eins RTL II VOX 3sat ARTE ZDFneo ONE sixx DMAX TELE 5 ServusTV Deutschland ProSieben MAXX NITRO RTLup SAT.1 Gold COMEDY CENTRAL NDR WDR BR SWR/SR HR MDR RBB SPORT1 SPORT1+ Eurosport 1 Eurosport 2 DAZN Sky Sport News Sky Sport HD 1 Sky Sport HD 2 EXTREME SPORTS Sky Sport Austria Bundesliga HD 1 sportdigital Auto Motor Sport Ch. eSports1 ARD-alpha tagesschau24 ZDFinfo PHOENIX WELT N24 Doku n-tv kabel eins Doku DW (Europe) euronews BBC News Bild TV SUPER RTL KiKA Disney Channel nick/MTV+ RiC TOGGO plus Nick Jr. Nicktoons Disney Junior Junior Cartoon Network Fix & Foxi ORF eins ORF 2 ORF III ORF SPORT + PULS 4 ATV ATV II oe24.TV SRF 1 SRF zwei STAR TV PULS acht 3+ tv.berlin Hamburg 1 munchen.tv Leipzig Fernsehen rheinmain tv Rhein-Neckar Fernsehen Al Jazeera BBC World News Bloomberg Europe TV CNBC CNN International France 24 (franz.) France 24 (engl.) NHK WORLD TV CNN Turk Deutsches Musik Ferns. MTV Base MTV Hits MTV MTV Live HD DELUXE MUSIC VH1 Classic Animal Planet ANIXE Bibel TV Discovery HD More than Sports TV GEO Television Crime + Investigation Health TV K-TV Marco Polo TV Nat Geo HD NAT GEO WILD SPIEGEL TV WISSEN SPIEGEL Geschichte TLC travelxp 4K UHD1 Welt der Wunder Home & Garden TV VOXup Rocket Beans TV 123.tv Channel21 HSE24 QVC QVC2 sonnenklar.TV Belgien 1 DR1 TV2 TV5 Monde Canal+ Sport BBC Two Canale 5 BBC One Canal+ Canal+Cinema Euro D Euro Star France 4 France 5 Show Turk France 3 BBC four Canal+ Decale Turkmax Gurme France 2 Sky Cinema Premieren Sky Cinema Premieren +24 Sky Action Sky 1 Sky Atlantic HD Sky Cinema Fun Sky Family Sky Cinema Best Of Sky Cinema Classics Sky Comedy Sky Krimi E! Entertainm. HISTORY HD Heimatkanal 13TH STREET Beate-Uhse.TV FOX kabel eins CLASSICS ProSieben Fun Syfy KinoweltTV Warner TV Comedy Warner TV Film Warner TV Serie Motorvision TV Romance TV Universal Channel HD Sky Crime Sky Cinema Special HD SKY Sport F1 Sky Cinema Thriller HD Sky Documentaries Sky Nature Adult Channel AXN BBC Entertainm. BonGusto Classica Fashion TV GoldStar TV Gute Laune TV Jukebox LUST PUR Mezzo Nautical Channel NOW US Playboy TV RTL Passion SAT.1 emotions Silverline Sony Channel RTL Crime Trace TV RTL Living Bergblick 123.tv 13TH STREET 3+ 3sat Adult Channel Al Jazeera Animal Planet ANIXE ARD-alpha ARTE ATV ATV II Auto Motor Sport Ch. AXN BBC Entertainm. BBC four BBC News BBC One BBC Two BBC World News Beate-Uhse.TV Belgien 1 Bergblick Bibel TV Bild TV Bloomberg Europe TV BonGusto BR Bundesliga HD 1 Canal+ Canal+ Decale Canal+ Sport Canal+Cinema Canale 5 Cartoon Network Channel21 Classica CNBC CNN International CNN Turk COMEDY CENTRAL Crime + Investigation Das Erste DAZN DELUXE MUSIC Deutsches Musik Ferns. Discovery HD Disney Channel Disney Junior DMAX DR1 DW (Europe) E! Entertainm. eSports1 Euro D Euro Star euronews Eurosport 1 Eurosport 2 EXTREME SPORTS Fashion TV Fix & Foxi FOX France 2 France 24 (engl.) France 24 (franz.) France 3 France 4 France 5 GEO Television GoldStar TV Gute Laune TV Hamburg 1 Health TV Heimatkanal HISTORY HD Home & Garden TV HR HSE24 Jukebox Junior K-TV kabel eins kabel eins CLASSICS kabel eins Doku KiKA KinoweltTV Leipzig Fernsehen LUST PUR Marco Polo TV MDR Mezzo More than Sports TV Motorvision TV MTV MTV Base MTV Hits MTV Live HD munchen.tv n-tv N24 Doku Nat Geo HD NAT GEO WILD Nautical Channel NDR NHK WORLD TV Nick Jr. nick/MTV+ Nicktoons NITRO NOW US oe24.TV ONE ORF 2 ORF eins ORF III ORF SPORT + PHOENIX Playboy TV ProSieben ProSieben Fun ProSieben MAXX PULS 4 PULS acht QVC QVC2 RBB Rhein-Neckar Fernsehen rheinmain tv RiC Rocket Beans TV Romance TV RTL RTL Crime RTL II RTL Living RTL Passion RTLup SAT.1 SAT.1 emotions SAT.1 Gold ServusTV Deutschland Show Turk Silverline sixx Sky 1 Sky Action Sky Atlantic HD Sky Cinema Best Of Sky Cinema Classics Sky Cinema Fun Sky Cinema Premieren Sky Cinema Premieren +24 Sky Cinema Special HD Sky Cinema Thriller HD Sky Comedy Sky Crime Sky Documentaries Sky Family Sky Krimi Sky Nature Sky Sport Austria SKY Sport F1 Sky Sport HD 1 Sky Sport HD 2 Sky Sport News sonnenklar.TV Sony Channel SPIEGEL Geschichte SPIEGEL TV WISSEN SPORT1 SPORT1+ sportdigital SRF 1 SRF zwei STAR TV SUPER RTL SWR/SR Syfy tagesschau24 TELE 5 TLC TOGGO plus Trace TV travelxp 4K Turkmax Gurme tv.berlin TV2 TV5 Monde UHD1 Universal Channel HD VH1 Classic VOX VOXup Warner TV Comedy Warner TV Film Warner TV Serie WDR WELT Welt der Wunder ZDF ZDFinfo ZDFneoVietnam is among the top textile producing countries and apparel exporters in the world, emerging as an ideal alternative to China.

Major factors driving industry growth are growing textile exports derived from multilateral free trade agreements and low labor costs.

Despite rising challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the industry is fast evolving to address its haunted growth, raising optimistic prospects for recovery.

The garment and textile industry is one of the key industries in Vietnam with the second-largest export turnover in the country. In 2019, the industrys export value contributed to 16 percent of total GDP. In the past five years, the textile industry has continuously grown at an average rate of 17 percent annually.

In 2019, Vietnams garment and textile industry earned US$39 billion from exports, a year-on-year increase of over 8.3 percent, according to the Vietnam General Statistics Office. Garment manufacturing accounts for the majority of businesses, at 70 percent. Major factors driving the growth of the market are low labor costs and growing textile exports to the EU, the US, Japan, and South Korea.

Industry overview: 3 sub-sectors

Vietnams garment and textile industry consist of 3 sub-sectors: upstream sector (fiber production), midstream sector (fabric production and dyeing), and downstream sector (garment manufacturing).

Sub-sectors that produce fibers or fabric are mainly used for domestic consumption because of the low quality. Downstream sector of garment manufacturing accounts for around 70 percent of the total apparel and textile sector in Vietnam with Cut-Make-Trim (CMT) models being the main activities. In 2019, CMT accounted for about 65 percent of total exports, while the more advanced business models, like Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) and Original Design Manufacturer (ODM) accounted for only 35 percent.

The US, Europe, Japan, and South Korea are the main export destinations of Vietnams textile and garments products. Although Vietnam has a huge potential for cotton cultivation and production, the textile industry imports most of the cotton inputs. In 2019, Vietnam imported up to 89 percent of fabrics, of which, 55 percent were from China, 16 percent from South Korea, 12 percent from Taiwan, and 6 percent from Japan.

Growth factors  increased market access and low labor costs

Increased market access through free trade agreements (FTAs_ and technology are major growth drivers for the garment and textile industry. Vietnams bilateral and multilateral FTAs continue to provide Vietnamese manufacturers access to new markets, minimizing the effect of growing trade protectionism. With new FTAs in effect such as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and Vietnam-EU FTA (EVFTA), new markets will lead to higher exports and push manufacturers to develop the industrys supply chain so that they can take full advantage of the preferential tariffs and increase the competitiveness of their products.

Further, manufacturing shifts from China to Vietnam due to their labor cost advantage and skilled workers will also help expand the textile and garment industry.

Going forward, market access alone will not be enough to generate growth and Vietnamese manufacturers would also need to invest in technology  especially Industry 4.0 technologies  to increase productivity, and quality to remain competitive.

Foreign direct investment

According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), in the first 11 months of 2019, Vietnam attracted FDI capital to the garment and textile industry with a value up to US$1.55 billion for 184 projects. Investments were led by Hong Kong (US$447 million), Singapore (US$370 million), China (US$270 million), and South Korea (US$165 million).

Tay Ninh, (US$464 million, 16 projects), Quang Nam (US$107 million, 10 projects), Nghe An (US$210 million, 3 projects), and Thua Thien Hue (213 million, 2 projects) are localities that attracted most FDI in 2019 due to government incentives and their proximity to major economic hubs in the Southern and Central parts of Vietnam.

FDI firms made up 70 percent of total garment and textile exports in 2019. In recent years, foreign investment has shifted from mainly CMT activities to more upstream sectors such as fabric productions and dyeing. In 2019, more than 80 percent of FDI in the industry consisted of manufacturing fabrics and raw materials projects.

Besides capital, these FDI firms have provided competition pressure and spill-over benefits that stimulate innovation and growth of domestic producers, as well as help scale-up the industry s capacity in the past three decades.

COVID-19 and Vietnams garment and textile industry

With a supply chain that heavily relies on a few key partners, Vietnams garment and textile industry is among the countrys hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since January, the suspension of the industrys input production in China has resulted in a raw material shortage in Vietnam. Meanwhile, a crash in demand from the US and European markets has led to order cancellations as well as revenue and job losses for domestic manufacturers.

According to the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association (VITAS), garment and textile exports in the first four months fell 6.6 percent year-on-year to US$10.64 billion. Meanwhile, the total import value was US$6.39 billion, down 8.76 percent compared to the same period last year. Exports of fibers, clothes, and garments fell between 6 to 22 percent in the first four months of this year as compared to the same period of 2019.

As per VITAS, 80 percent of garment manufacturers started reducing shifts and rotating workers since March. By June 2020, the estimated loss to the industry was about US$508 million.

Despite this severe, yet temporary setback, Vietnams garment and textile industrys fast response and government policy support are reasons for investors to be optimistic about the industrys future post-pandemic.

Optimistic prospects for the industrys post-pandemic recovery

Industry response: Shifting production from conventional clothing to personal protective equipment (PPE)

Many garment producers in the country have shifted to producing face masks as a solution to cope with suspended orders and take the opportunities from surging demand in both domestic and international markets.

By the end of April, Vietnam had exported over 415 million face masks. According to the (MoIT), local manufacturers have a total production capacity of 40 million face masks per day, or about 1.2 billion a month. With full capacity, the entire garment and textile sector can produce 100 million face masks per day, or about 3 billion a month.

Government support policies

Prior to the pandemic, the government had already centered its support for the textile industry by expanding industrial parks for textiles and stimulating the domestic supporting industries. The plan is to increase the supporting industries contribution to 18 percent of production in the local manufacturing and processing sector by the end of 2020. Local governments are also encouraged to assist firms in research and development activities, technology transfer, and innovation.

To mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on businesses, the Ministry of Finance (MoF) has also proposed to extend the list of import tax exemptions for raw materials, supplies, and components for processing and manufacturing export products.

Looking ahead

Although the garment and textile industry is significantly affected by the pandemic, optimistic prospects for fast and strong recovery is possible, given the industrys response and governments support policies.

Post-pandemic, Vietnam will focus on moving up the value chain and building a national brand image that is competitive and quality driven, according to a MoIT promotion program. In addition, it also needs to diversify its trading partners and reduce raw input import reliance in order to take full advantage of FTAs, such as the EVFTA, with strict rule of origin conditions.

Note: This article was first published in May 2018, and has been updated to include the latest developments.Pakistani miners gather outside the collapsed mine in Marwaarh area, 45 kilometres (28 miles) east of Quetta, the capital of oil and gas-rich Balochistan province on May 5, 2018. (Photo: AFP/STR)

The accident occurred in Marwaarh, 45 kilometres (28 miles) east of Quetta, which is the capital of oil and gas-rich Balochistan province bordering Iran and Afghanistan.

"The roof caved in following an explosion triggered by the accumulation of methane gas, killing 16 miners and wounding nine others, two of them seriously", Jawaid Shahwani, the top government official in Quetta, told AFP.

Shahwani said 25 workers were inside the mine when the explosion occurred, adding that all the injured miners had been rescued and taken to hospital.

"We are trying our best to recover bodies but it will take time as most of the bodies are buried very deep", he said.

Pakistani mines are notorious for poor safety standards and bad ventilation.

At least 43 workers were killed in March 2011 when explosions triggered a collapse in a coal mine in Balochistan, which has battled separatist insurgents and Islamist militants for more than a decade.

Balochistan is the largest of Pakistan's four provinces but its roughly seven million people have long argued they do not get a fair share of its vast gas and mineral wealth.The Vinhomes Central Park project

As one of the leading real estate developers in Vietnam, Vinhomes are currently implementing projects in 40 cities and provinces across the country. It also owns numerous golden land plots in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Haiphong, and Danang, among others.

As of March 31, Vinhomes reported its asset value of VND94.69 trillion ($4.16 billion) and charter capital of VND38.24 trillion ($1.68 billion). The apartment sales volume in 2015-2017 made up 15 per cent of the country total.

The firm has released its financial statement for the first quarter of this year. Notably, it earned VND10.53 trillion ($462.6 million) in net revenue and VND3.98 trillion ($174.8 million) in after-tax profit, tripling and quintupling its performance from last year.

Recently, Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC issued plans to purchase ordinary shares and extend a debt-like instrument to Vinhomes, subject to the satisfaction of mandatory regulatory and other conditions. The combined value of the investment and debt instrument is approximately VND29.5 trillion ($1.3 billion).

GIC is one of the largest investment funds in Vietnam. It currently holds a 5 per cent stake in Masan Group, 5 per cent in VietJet, 0.7 per cent in Vinamilk, and 3.5 per cent in FPT. Its total holdings reach a total value of VND15 trillion ($658.6 million).Rozzette Maduro of Tranxform can meet her clients needs wherever she may be.The U.S. has warned Beijing there will be consequences for its installation of missiles in the South China Sea on contested islands.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told media that: Were well aware of Chinas militarization of the South China Sea.

Huckabee Sanders said that the U.S. has raised their concerns with the Chinese over what is occurring.

There will be near-term and long-term consequences, she said.

Huckabee Sanders did not say what those consequences might be.

She was responding to a question raised by a journalist about media reports originating from a CNBC article citing unnamed sources describing how the Chinese have established missiles on three fortified outposts west of the Philippines.

The CNBC report stated that Beijing quietly installed anti-ship cruise missiles and surface-to-air missiles on Fiery Cross Reef, Subi Reef, and Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands over the past 30 days. Radar jamming equipment has also been installed, said the report.

See this report from Fox News:

Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop also voiced her disapproval over the news, saying that what the establishment of missiles is contrary to Chinas stated aspiration that it would not militarize these features, reported AAP.

Beijing claims most of the South China Sea as its own. Thats a 1.4-million-square-mile stretch of open ocean where some $5 trillion of ship-borne trade passes through annually.

To back up claims that stretch 1,200 miles from its own shoreline, Beijing has been busy turning atolls and rocky outcrops into islands that are being militarized, the Pentagon has repeatedly said. Around 3,000 acres of new territory have been built on seven reefs.

See this report from ABC News:

A U.S. defense expert told Reuters that the recent missile deployment is a major escalation.

Missile deployment in the South China Sea

When China sees that it can get away with these types of actions with little cost  as they did all through 2015 and 2016  it only makes it more likely they will keep pressing, said Eric Sayers, a former consultant to the commander of the U.S. Pacific Command.

China sees its participation in the exercise as a sign of its acceptance among the worlds maritime powers, but Beijing should not be allowed to militarize this open maritime domain and still be honored as a welcomed member of the maritime community, said Sayers.

In February 2016, the Chinese deployed surface-to-air missiles and fighter jets on the contested Woody Island, which is part of the Paracel Island chain that is also claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan.

Here's why so many nations want to control the South China Sea pic.twitter.com/tvrdjCeIhi  Business Insider (@BusinessInsider) April 26, 2018

Chinese officials have long said there would be no militarization of the contested strategic waterways. In March, Premier Li Keqiang said as much, but added that defense equipment would be added to built-up islands to ensure freedom of navigation, reported Reuters.

The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and Taiwan also have contesting claims in the South China Sea, but what Beijing has done dwarfs all of their efforts combined.

Beijing has repeatedly rejected international arbitration over the islands. In July 2016, Beijing ignored the results of a tribunal with the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague that ruled against Chinas claims over the sea.

The installation of missiles has occurred around the same time as reports that Chinese personnel in Djibouti have used powerful lasers against American aircraft. Two U.S. pilots reportedly suffered minor eye injuries.

See this Fox News report on why Beijing is a bigger problem for the U.S. than Moscow:

Follow us on Twitter or FacebookPhone scam reportedly costs woman $4,000

A woman reported to a Richmond police officer on April 6 that she was a victim of a phone scam, according to a police report. The complainant told police a male contacted her regarding her DTE bill. The caller claimed her service was going to be shut off if she did not pay them. She turned over $4,000 to the unknown male. The case was closed due to lack of investigative leads and police being unable to track the suspect.

Baby formula allegedly stolen from store

On April 5, Richmond police officers responded to a business in the 66000 block of Gratiot Avenue following a report that retail fraud had just occurred, according to a police report. Upon the officers arrival, he was informed that a white female put infant formula in a shopping cart and left the store without paying. The case remained open at press time.

Loud party prompts police visit

Richmond police officers responded to an address in the 67000 block of Gleason Street in response to a report of a loud party on April 1, according to a police report. When officers arrived, they made contact with the homeowner, who said the party would quiet down.

 Barb Pert Templeton, For The VoiceThere are mothers out there, and then there are mothers who do not share the same genealogy with you. These are people who expound love and caring to all ...Several leaders of the Army of Islam (the jihadist group that was once set up in Eastern Ghouta), believe that the head of their organization, Mohammed Alloush, has fled after stealing 47 million dollars from the organization.

Mohammed Alloush (face on in the photo with Staffan de Mistura) is Zahran Alloushs cousin. Zahran founded the jihadist group and died in December 2015. The head of the Alloush family was their grandfather, a Wahhabite preacher who had sought refuge in Saudi Arabia where he lives today. The family has significant assets in the United Kingdom.

Supported by the British and the French, Mohammed became the leader of the delegation opposing the negotiations in Geneva. In Syria, he became known for his campaign to execute homosexuals, implemented in the areas of Ghouta that fell under the control of Yesh al-Islam.

Mohammed Alloush appears to have reinvested the money that he stole in commercial interests in Turkey and Saudi Arabia.On May 2, 2018, a Turkish citizen named Musa Alerik, a worker in the municipality of Adrianople, passed by mistake into the Greek territory, in the area of Kastanies, and so got arrested by the guard of the nearby outpost.

The impression immediately created was that Musa Aleriks case was "ideal" for Greece to handle it on the basis of reciprocity and ensure the release of the two Greek soldiers arrested on Thursday, March 1, because they had entered by mistake into the Turkish territory.

We call it "ideal", because the offense that both have committed is exactly the same and actually in the same area.

In the case of Musa Alerik, the Greek Justice and the body of the Greek judges have demonstrated the true splendor of Justice and that Greece is a State of Law.

Even before the twenty-four hour period has elapsed since the incident, the accused Musa Alerik was charged and sentenced to five months imprisonment, a fine of 1,500 euros, legal costs, confiscation of the excavator and suspension of his sentence for three years.

The Turkish citizen, who illegally entered Greece in the afternoon of Wednesday in Kastanies, Evros, is detained until the deportation process is completed in the coming days.

Let us see, however, what the Turkish authorities have done in the case of Lieutenant Mitretodis and Sergeant Kuklatzis. In a case or rather in a simple incident, which is very similar to that of Turk Musa Alerik, since they also entered the Turkish territory by mistake in the same area, a few hundred meters north of the point that Musa Alerik entered, the Turkish Justice transformed these two human souls into a policy tool of the Turkish state. And we are talking about a policy that even attempts to blackmail the Greek government and abolish the Greek Rule of Law, which works right in the case of the eight Turk officers who have sought asylum in Greece.

The Greek Justice has decided not to satisfy Turkeys request for extradition because there are serious indications that they will not have a fair trial.

And now, the Turkish Justice, with its handling of the case of the two Greek soldiers, comes to prove that the rule of law does not work in Turkey, and to justify furthermore the decision of the Greek Justice for the Eight.

At the same time, for completely identical incidents that happened in the same area, the Greek court handed over justice in less than twenty-four hours, while the Turkish prosecutor, having spent 65 full days, has yet to file charges against the two Greek military men, holding them as hostages in the year 2018, in the 21st century.

And on top of that, the Turkish president, who is claiming his re-election in the June 24th elections, asked publicly Greece to extradite the eight Turkish servicemen, violating the principles of the rule of law, in order to consider the two Greek soldiers releasing.

These two cases in question must first and above all concern the European countries and especially ones of European Union, which consider the operation of the rule of law to be the greatest achievement of the modern world and a weapon against barbarity. Unfortunately, they often, in the name of the economic profit and interest, turn a blind eye to the violations of the Ankara governments in basic human rights, with the participation of Turkish justice, which has as a result, instead of the humanization of Turkey, the gradual barbarization of Europe itself.Bon Jovi. Photo: Kevin Mazur/HBO

Last month, 2018s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony rocked out in Cleveland  and we mean really rocked out; it was nearly five hours long  with the event finally being broadcast on HBO this weekend for everyone to experience. Since Vulture was in the room where it happened, we decided to compile the highest of highs, the lowest of lows, and the just plain whoas! from this years ceremony, which saw Bon Jovi, Dire Straits, the Moody Blues, Nina Simone, the Cars, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe get the induction honors.

HIGH: Howard Sterns raunchy speech.

When David Letterman subbed in to present for Pearl Jam as a means of eleventh-hour necessity at last years Rock Hall induction  the original presenter, Neil Young, became too ill to attend  the musician-adjacent-comedian era of the Hall was officially born. Howard Stern continued the new tradition this year by presenting for his good pals Bon Jovi, so please feign shock when we tell you that his no-holds-barred speech equally delighted and disturbed the ceremonys attendees, where he waxed poetic about everything from having a threesome with Richie Sambora to how much of an ass he thinks Jann Wenner is. To give you a taste:

Now, on the other side of the zombie apocalypse, Jann Wenner finally let Bon Jovi into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Way to go Jan, Jonny, John, Jann, whatever the fuck your name is. Anyway, Jann, you did it. You finally gave this fantastic band their due. Now, for those of you who dont know, Jann is the man in charge, but Im not sure why. This guy doesnt play a musical instrument, he doesnt have a band, but he did start a great magazine, Rolling Stone. Yeah. And now its the size of a pamphlet  what a business plan; way to go. I read it in about 30 seconds backstage. Now, Jann required years of pondering to decide if this glorious band that sold over 130 million albums could be inducted. What a tough decision! Gee, I dont know if I should let Bon Jovi in? 130 million albums, thats not such a big deal.

He also told Bob Dylan to eat shit and gave the audience a vivid mental image of Leonard Cohen masturbating. He was the very first speech of the night.

LOW: Dire Straits entire induction.

It was, to sum it up in one word, disappointing. A weirdly beautiful mess, if you will. If youre a newbie to this whole drama, all you need to know is that the bands front man, Mark Knopfler, refused to attend the ceremony for unknown reasons, with only half of the band ultimately choosing to make the trek to Cleveland. Which led to this spiral into the sonic abyss: Musicians refused to induct the band since Knopfler wasnt in attendance, leading to the first lack of presenter in the Rock Halls history. (The bands bassist, John Illsley, technically did the honors.) There also wasnt a standard post-speech performance, owing to, yup, that whole 50 percent of the band isnt coming situation. Ten minutes of decent enough speeches, a short video, and thats all we got. Not even HBO knows how to spin this.

HIGH: Lauryn Hills tribute performance to Nina Simone.

This is the textbook definition of a tribute. Lauryn Hill served as a surprise guest by being one of the performers for Nina Simones induction, weaving a gorgeous sonic tapestry (with some added modern flair) of the songs Ne Me Quitte Pas, Black Is the Color of My True Loves Hair, and Feeling Good.

WHOA: The Moody Blues fantastic hair.

Photo: Kevin Mazur/HBO

Lord, bless us with the follicles of John Lodge and Justin Hayward when we, too, become septuagenarians.

LOW: The lack of an all-star jam.

As what has pretty much been the tradition for Rock Hall inductions since its inception in 1986, an all-star jam session closes the ceremony, where most of the inductees  and sometimes, the presenters, too  perform an iconic song together and have a blast doing it. (For instance, Neil Youngs Rockin in the Free World was performed by Pearl Jam, Geddy Lee, Neal Schon, and Trevor Rabin last year. Their smiles were infectious, truly!) Likely owing to that Dire Straits brouhaha, there wasnt any attempt made at such a performance in 2018, effectively letting down that niche group of people who were clamoring for a Jon Bon Jovi and Ric Ocasek collab.

HIGH: Ric Ocaseks snazzy outfit.

Photo: Kevin Mazur/HBO

Dont cha stop serving those lewks, Ric.

WHOA: All of the speeches that dissed the Rock Hall.

A whole melange of people took time out of their induction speeches to throw some shade at the Rock Hall experience, with the general grievance being how long it took for the institution to recognize them as musicians worthy of the honor. Some days I write the thank-you speech, other days I write the fuck-you speech, Jon Bon Jovi pointedly peppered into his musings. I know, I know, its about time. (We dont need to repeat what Howard Stern said about co-founder of the Rock Hall, Jann Wenner. Reread the first paragraph, or his entire speech, if you so desire.) The Moody Blues Graeme Edge also let his frustration be known: It was so long that we were eligible and didnt make it that I got a real sour grapes thinking about it.

Dire Straits Illsley, meanwhile, voiced his subtle annoyance with how the Rock Hall handled their strange induction situation while serving as the bands pseudo-presenter. As as fellow member, I found I might be the most qualified one to do this. Its a bit weird, but lifes strange, he said from the podium. I know its a little bit odd, but its my honor to welcome Dire Straits into the Hall of Fame. And last but certainly not least, Nina Simones brother, Sam Waymon, had thoughts about why its ironic for her to be inducted at all. Its the oddest thing for you to induct her because Nina Simone is a nonconformist; shes a non-traditionalist, he said. But still, you know if she was here she wouldve said thank you, but she also wouldve said, Damn, Sam, what took them so long?

LOW: Jon Bon Jovis speech.

Few would disagree that Jon Bon Jovi seems like a genuinely nice fella whos done New Jersey proud. (Although some might dispute the merits of his band being in the Hall.) But theres really no excuse for his supersized 20-minute speech in an already-long ceremony, especially since it took the form of a condensed Wikipedia entry about his career, as opposed to more poignant musings about the bands evolution. As someone whos literally said that he started writing this induction speech when he first picked up an instrument, youd think he wouldve had time to reflect and appropriately hone it over the last few decades.Junot Diaz. Photo: NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images

In the days since author Zinzi Clemmons confronted Junot Diaz and accused him of sexual misconduct at a literary festival in Sydney, Australia, and later tweeted about her allegations, a number of other women have come forward with stories of alleged sexual harassment and abuse at the hands of Diaz. On Friday evening, author Alisa Valdes opened up about Diazs misogynistic abuse in a blog post titled, I Tried to Warn You About Junot Diaz. In 1996, the year Diazs short-story collection Drown came out, Valdes was a young reporter at the Boston Globe who was looking to make the jump from journalism to books. When Valdes went to interview Diaz while he was on book tour, he allegedly treated her rudely, and then suggested they finish their interview at her apartment later that night so he could look over her manuscript.

She describes the encounter below.

Junot came over that night. I had the book out  it was the first 100 or so pages of what would later become THE DIRTY GIRLS SOCIAL CLUB, called MERENGUE back then. Diaz sat too close to me on my couch. I remember being super uncomfortable, crossing my arms defensively, and him moving them, opening them, and his staring at my chest. Why are you doing that, youre so lovely, he said.

We were more or less the same age, and he wasnt my teacher, but there was still a strange power dynamic. He was the NY literary writer, the darling of the New Yorker. I was a rising star in literary nonfiction, longing to enter his world. He told me, sincerely I thought, that he loved my writing, that no one was writing with my voice and it was much needed. He said hed do what he could to help me get it to the right people when it was finished.

That night, they ended up having sex, and Valdes later visited Diaz a handful of times in New York City. While at first, she thought she had found a kindred spirit in Diaz, she says he quickly became misogynistic, demeaning and cruel. She describes her experience of leaving him as painful and upsetting. After she published her book The Dirty Girls Social Club, Diaz allegedly didnt congratulate her  Valdes says he only mentioned her book to her once as one that girls in his classes like, after she reached out to congratulate him on his Pulitzer.

Frustrated with his treatment of her, Valdes wrote a blog post saying that the only difference between herself and Diaz was that the latter fit the white liberal stereotype of Latino other-ness and misery, and she didnt. His response and those from his fans were allegedly cruel. He said I was arrogant, she writes. He wasnt the only one. Many Latinos who loved him, his readers, wrote to me to tell me I was a horrible person for bringing down one of our own.

To conclude the post, Valdes thanks all the other brave women who came forward with allegations against Diaz.

Thank you, Zinzi, Carmen, Monica, for giving me the courage to know it wasnt just me, she writes. Or me at all. It was him.AMP faces further board instability with interim executive chairman Mike Wilkins admitting he is unsure if recent management changes will be enough to head off a push by angry investors to sack three directors at its annual meeting.

Mr Wilkins, who accepts that AMP under the current board "hasnt always covered itself in glory", has been lobbying major shareholder groups to vote in favour of retaining three of its eight directors who are up for re-election this Thursday in Melbourne.

AMP executive chairman Mike Wilkins has implored shareholders to not vote against the reelection of three company directors on Thursday. Credit:Fairfax Media

He told Fairfax Media on Sunday he hasnt polled investors since last Fridays announcement that the former chair of the Financial Services Inquiry, David Murray, will take over as AMP chairman in July.

"Were not saying well have the same board in six or 12 months time but I do think voting three directors off on Thursday just creates more uncertainty," Mr Wilkins said.London: Britain's royal family released the first two official photographs of newly born Prince Louis on Sunday, one of which shows him being held by his sister Princess Charlotte, aged three.

Britain's Princess Charlotte cuddles her brother Prince Louis. Credit:Kensington Palace

Louis, who is fifth in line to the British throne, was born on April 23 weighing 8lbs 7oz (3.83 kg).

Both the photographs were taken at Kensington Palace by Kate, the children's mother and wife of Prince William, Queen Elizabeth's grandson.

The first photograph, which the palace said was taken on April 26, shows Louis propped up against a white cushion, wearing a white jumper and trousers.Elyse Knowles wears Acler for Myer. Credit:Lucas Dawson Photography

In case you hadn't realised, Australian labels are in hot demand. Just last week, actress Blake Lively posted a photo of herself in a new-season Zimmermann dress, while Meghan Markle may have helped save Oroton when she wore one of its bags, with a Camilla and Marc blazer no less, a couple of weeks back.

And in less than a week's time, all eyes will be on Australia, specifically Sydney, for Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Australia, where some of the country's top labels, as well as plenty of newbies, will show what they have in store for later in the year. Here are the brands to watch.

Acler

Powered by the Adelaide-based duo of Kathryn Forth and Julia Ritorto, the three-year-old brand has become a favourite of the Australian celebrity set, including Nadia Bartel. With a style credo typical of much more established labels, Acler's resort range will no doubt include feminine yet structural pieces, and a ruffle or two. More recently, the pair have focused on the brand's shirting, one of its best-performing categories. Other celebrity fans include Halle Berry and Hailey Baldwin.Its not a cure, but for Bethan McElwee the drug Spinraza is the difference between her daughter Aviana, who is turning two in July, not surviving past her first birthday and thriving.

"By the time Aviana started on the drug, she couldn't hold up her head and was only able to move her fingers and her eyes," said Mrs McElwee.

Now, almost a year past the usual life expectancy for those born with the muscle-wasting disease spinal muscular atrophy, Aviana can sit unsupported, roll around to reach her toys and is gaining muscle every day.

Bethan and Johnny McElwee with their daughter Aviana who has SMA1 and is undergoing Spinraza treatment. Credit:Brook Mitchell

On Sunday, Treasurer Scott Morrison announced that in Tuesday's federal budget, Spinraza, the drug that Mrs McElwee credits with saving her daughter's life, will now be put on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) for just $39.50 per script ($6.40 for concessional patients) for all children with SMA type 1, type 2 and type 3a under the age of 18.Its taken almost half a century but Australian forces who fought in one of the bloodiest battles of the Vietnam War are finally to be recognised for their bravery.

Soldiers who resisted attack at the Battle of Coral-Balmoral, which claimed 26 Australian lives, learnt on Thursday they were to be honoured with a Unit Citation for Bravery. The recommendation comes ahead of the 50th anniversary of the battle on the weekend of May 12-13.

Troops arriving in Vietnam Credit:Fairfax Media

Last month Fairfax Media highlighted concerns that men had died and others had taken their lives not knowing the outcome of the tribunal.

The Defence Honours and Awards Tribunal posted the decision on its website on Thursday morning, stating that members had arrived at the recommendations unanimously.The state government has announced a $15 million injection into the Mitchell Freeway in the hopes funding an additional lane near one of the road's major exits will help ease congestion.

The project will involves widening the northbound lanes from the Hutton Street on-ramp to the Cedric Street off-ramp after figures revealed around 25,000 vehicles use the section every day during afternoon peak - well above capacity.

The Cedric Street off-ramp, which is usually a car park on Thursday nights and weekends.

The project is due to be completed in early 2020 and is expected to create more than 50 jobs.

Transport Minister Rita Saffioti said the upgrade is intended to help address chronic traffic congestion around the Cedric Street area.An investigation is underway after it was revealed workers at a Pinjarra refinery may have been exposed to asbestos on Thursday.

It's understood the incident occurred at Alcoa's Pinjarra factory, one of the worlds largest refineries.

Alcoa's Pinjarra office.

Its believed lagging, which contained asbestos, was removed within an area that provided no protection from the potentially lethal fibres.

Alcoa notified the Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety of the incident on Thursday night and after reviewing the preliminary information, investigation officers attended the site on Friday.A Perth man has been charged with a vicious attack on two campers at a popular South West camping spot on Australia Day this year.

The incident happened at around 11.45pm on January 26 in the Lake Navarino Holiday Park at Waroona Dam.

Police commenced an investigation into the attack in early February.

Police commenced an investigation just over three months ago.

A 43-year-old man received serious injuries in the attack, including bleeding on the brain, a broken nose and lacerations.Australia's oldest scientist and Perth man David Goodall must be judged to be of sound mind before he can end his life with a voluntary assisted dying program in Switzerland next week.

Founder of the Lifecycle clinic doctor Erika Preisig told German press agency DPA the procedure to end Professor Goodall's life would only go ahead once two doctors agree he is 100 per cent clear on his wishes.

Edith Cowan University honorary research associate David Goodall doesn''t have a terminal illness, but is determined to travel to Switzerland to voluntarily end his life. Credit:ABC News

The Swiss clinic has helped 73 people to die over the past year.

Professor Goodall doesn't have a terminal illness but says his quality of life has deteriorated at age 104.Jakarta: The Australian chairman of the Phnom Penh Post, one of the last independent media voices in Cambodia, has announced the sale of the newspaper to a little-known Malaysian investor.

The deputy director of Human Rights Watch in south-east Asia, Phil Robertson, warned it could be the "beginning of the end of the Phnom Penh Post as an independent daily" with a history of critical reporting on the repressive regime of Cambodia Prime Minster Hun Sen.

The English-language newspaper has been a critic of Cambodia's leader Hun Sen.

Post Media chairman Bill Clough on Saturday announced the sale of the English-language daily, after months of speculation about the newspaper's future, to Malaysian investor Sivakumar G.

In a statement, Clough said the sale would "inject new life" into the 26-year-old daily.Washington: US President Donald Trump's new lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, is delivering confounding and at times contradictory statements as he tries to defend his client. But it's proving to be a bewildering display.

In an interview on Sunday with ABC's This Week, Giuliani dismissed as rumour his own statements about Trump's payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, said he can't comment on whether the President lied to the American people when he denied knowledge of the silencing agreement, and wouldn't rule out the President asserting his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in the Russia investigation.

Giuliani also couldn't say whether Trump's previous personal lawyer Michael Cohen had made similar payments to other women on the President's behalf.

Giuliani said despite Trump's apparent openness to sit down with special counsel Robert Mueller in the Russia investigation, he would strongly advise Trump against it.After three years of fighting, the belligerents finally exhausted themselves roughly along the same 38th parallel from which hostilities began. By then over 3 million people were dead. I shrink  I shrink with a horror that I cannot express in words, General Douglas MacArthur told the US Senate, just after president Harry Truman had sacked him as commander of the United Nations allies. I have never seen such devastation. I have seen, I guess, as much blood and disaster as any living man, and it just curdled my stomach the last time I was there. When the armistice was signed both armies were ordered to move back 2000 metres from their fighting positions, and the zone between them was cleared of human habitation and became the DMZ. South Korean soldiers (foreground) and North Korean soldiers (background) stand guard in the Demilitarised Zone. Credit:AP In the dead heart of the DMZ, just north of Seoul, is the so-called Joint Security Area (JSA), administered by the United Nations, where North Korean and South Korean troops stand, quite literally, face to face. It is here that the armistice was signed, where prisoners of war were exchanged; here where the two Korean leaders met so remarkably last week, and here where Trump proposes meeting Kim for talks.

If things work out, there is a great celebration to be had on the site, he said during a press conference on May 1. Youre there, youre actually there. CNNs North Korea correspondent has reported that Kim has agreed to the location, though no formal statements have been made. To get to the JSA from Seoul you drive an hour or so north along a highway built hard and wide enough to move a mechanised army at pace to a checkpoint placed, weirdly, by a fun park outside the city of Paju. When Fairfax Media visited recently, K-pop blared from a rollercoaster and a little tourist train tootled around a memorial to the American dead and a statue of Truman while military choppers prowled overhead. US President Donald Trump has suggested the DMZ as a possible venue for his talk with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Credit:AP Daytrippers from Seoul ignored stacks of concertina wire and watchtowers dividing them from the north as they enjoyed the last mild days of autumn. Later in an interview the action movie director Yang Woo-seok told me he believed South Korea was awash in kitsch culture because to contemplate the place too deeply - to really consider the coiled potential violence of the place - was to consider annihilation. Easier to look away.

From there it is a short drive to Camp Bonifas, headquarters of South Koreas JSA security battalion. These are the soldiers selected to face off against their North Korean foes on the line of demarcation that runs through the centre of the DMZ inside the JSA. (No, you cant discuss the geography of this place without collapsing into military jargon.) The members of the JSA Battalion are uniformly tall and broad. They wear aviator shades and immaculate uniforms. They move with a fast, clipped swagger, and on the line they stand in a fist-clenched taekwondo stance. At Camp Bonifas is a visitors' centre where old enmities are lovingly preserved. There is a fabulously detailed diorama of what is known as "The Axe Murder Incident", in which two US soldiers felling a poplar tree that was obscuring the view from their observation post were killed by North Korean soldiers with their own axes in 1976. This prompted Operation Paul Bunyan, which a propaganda video at Camp Bonifas describes as the most extensive tree-clearing operation in history. A diorama of The Axe Murder Incident" in the Joint Security Area. Credit:Nick O'Malley The White House felt that the North Koreans needed to see American grit and the trees needed to go, but the threat of massive escalation was real. Before the tree-fellers headed out into the JSA, nuclear-armed B-52s were readied and the US military global alert was lifted to DefCon 2, its second-highest setting.

The fatal axe is said to be on display at a North Korean museum across the border. There have been other showdowns, other demonstrative killings, in the JSA. Days after Fairfaxs visit in November last year Oh Chong-song, a driver working for the North Korean general staff, bolted across the line of demarcation that runs through the centre of the JSA to escape into the south and was shot down by his comrades. South Korean soldiers managed to rescue him and he was flown on a US military helicopter to a hospital where he survived surgery for his five gunshot wounds. It is only a few minutes' drive from Camp Bonifas into the heart of the JSA and the demarcation line along which sit the famous temporary huts that the UN built for negotiations over half a century ago. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop is photographed by North Korean soldiers during a trip to the demilitarised zone. Inside they have the close air and architectural banality of a demountable classroom. One is bisected by a plain-looking conference table, placed carefully over the line of demarcation so that negotiators from the north can sit in the north and those from the south in the south.Email To : Multiple e-mail addresses must be separated with a comma character(maximum 200 characters) Email To is required.

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(5) Jan 17 (5) Jan 16 (5) Jan 15 (5) Jan 14 (3) Jan 13 (5) Jan 12 (6) Jan 11 (5) Jan 10 (5) Jan 09 (4) Jan 08 (3) Jan 07 (5) Jan 06 (5) Jan 05 (6) Jan 04 (5) Jan 03 (3) Jan 02 (3) Jan 01 (3) Dec 31 (3) Dec 30 (3) Dec 29 (3) Dec 28 (4) Dec 27 (4) Dec 26 (5) Dec 25 (6) Dec 24 (7) Dec 23 (7) Dec 22 (4) Dec 21 (5) Dec 20 (6) Dec 19 (10) Dec 18 (9) Dec 17 (10) Dec 16 (8) Dec 15 (4) Dec 14 (6) Dec 13 (10) Dec 12 (6) Dec 11 (5) Dec 10 (6) Dec 09 (5) Dec 08 (8) Dec 07 (5) Dec 06 (6) Dec 05 (6) Dec 04 (7) Dec 03 (7) Dec 02 (6) Dec 01 (9) Nov 30 (5) Nov 29 (9) Nov 28 (7) Nov 27 (6) Nov 26 (7) Nov 25 (3) Nov 24 (4) Nov 23 (4) Nov 22 (7) Nov 21 (7) Nov 20 (4) Nov 19 (8) Nov 18 (12) Nov 17 (8) Nov 16 (6) Nov 15 (4) Nov 14 (11) Nov 13 (11) Nov 12 (9) Nov 11 (6) Nov 10 (9) Nov 09 (9) Nov 08 (7) Nov 07 (7) Nov 06 (8) Nov 05 (8) Nov 04 (6) Nov 03 (5) Nov 02 (7) Nov 01 (5) Oct 31 (7) Oct 30 (6) Oct 29 (7) Oct 28 (4) Oct 27 (7) Oct 26 (4) Oct 25 (7) Oct 24 (4) Oct 23 (7) Oct 22 (7) Oct 21 (6) Oct 20 (8) 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(2) Apr 25 (2) Apr 24 (2) Apr 23 (3) Apr 22 (4) Apr 21 (4) Apr 20 (3) Apr 19 (3) Apr 18 (2) Apr 17 (2) Apr 16 (2) Apr 15 (2) Apr 14 (2) Apr 13 (2) Apr 12 (2) Apr 11 (3) Apr 10 (3) Apr 09 (2) Apr 08 (2) Apr 07 (2) Apr 06 (2) Apr 05 (3) Apr 04 (2) Apr 03 (2) Apr 02 (2) Apr 01 (2) Mar 31 (1) Mar 30 (1) Mar 29 (2) Mar 28 (2) Mar 27 (2) Mar 26 (3) Mar 25 (3) Mar 24 (2) Mar 23 (2) Mar 22 (1) Mar 21 (1) Mar 20 (2) Mar 19 (2) Mar 18 (2) Mar 17 (2) Mar 16 (4) Mar 15 (2) Mar 14 (2) Mar 13 (2) Mar 12 (2) Mar 11 (3) Mar 10 (3) Mar 09 (3) Mar 08 (2) Mar 07 (1) Mar 06 (2) Mar 05 (3) Mar 04 (3) Mar 03 (8) Mar 02 (2) Mar 01 (1) Feb 28 (2) Feb 27 (4) Feb 26 (1) Feb 25 (1) Feb 24 (2) Feb 23 (2) Feb 22 (4) Feb 21 (2) Feb 20 (2) Feb 19 (2) Feb 18 (2) Feb 17 (2) Feb 16 (2) Feb 15 (1) Feb 14 (1) Feb 13 (1) Feb 12 (2) Feb 11 (1) Feb 10 (2) Feb 09 (1) Feb 08 (1) Feb 07 (1) Feb 06 (1) Feb 05 (5) Feb 03 (1) Feb 02 (1) Feb 01 (1) Jan 31 (4) Jan 30 (4) Jan 29 (4) Jan 28 (2) Jan 27 (5) Jan 26 (5) Jan 25 (5) Jan 24 (3) Jan 23 (4) Jan 22 (4) Jan 21 (3) Jan 20 (3) Jan 19 (4) Jan 18 (3) Jan 17 (2) Jan 16 (4) Jan 15 (3) Jan 14 (5) Jan 13 (5) Jan 12 (5) Jan 11 (4) Jan 10 (3) Jan 09 (5) Jan 08 (5) Jan 07 (4) Jan 06 (3) Jan 05 (4) Jan 04 (4) Jan 03 (6) Jan 02 (3) Jan 01 (4) Dec 31 (4) Dec 30 (4) Dec 29 (5) Dec 28 (5) Dec 27 (4) Dec 26 (4) Dec 25 (4) Dec 24 (1) Dec 23 (4) Dec 22 (3) Dec 21 (5) Dec 20 (5) Dec 19 (4) Dec 18 (4) Dec 17 (5) Dec 16 (4) Dec 15 (6) Dec 14 (4) Dec 13 (4) Dec 12 (5) Dec 11 (5) Dec 10 (4) Dec 09 (5) Dec 08 (4) Dec 07 (4) Dec 06 (5) Dec 05 (4) Dec 04 (4) Dec 03 (4) Dec 02 (3) Dec 01 (3) Nov 30 (4) Nov 29 (4) Nov 28 (5) Nov 27 (4) Nov 26 (4) Nov 25 (3) Nov 24 (5) Nov 23 (4) Nov 22 (4) Nov 21 (4) Nov 20 (4) Nov 19 (5) Nov 18 (4) Nov 17 (4) Nov 16 (3) Nov 15 (5) Nov 14 (3) Nov 13 (4) Nov 12 (4) Nov 11 (4) Nov 10 (3) Nov 09 (3) Nov 08 (3) Nov 07 (4) Nov 06 (4) Nov 05 (4) Nov 04 (3) Nov 03 (2) Nov 02 (3) Nov 01 (4) Oct 31 (3) Oct 30 (4) Oct 29 (3) Oct 28 (4) Oct 27 (3) Oct 26 (3) Oct 25 (3) Oct 24 (3) Oct 23 (3) Oct 22 (3) Oct 21 (3) Oct 20 (3) Oct 19 (3) Oct 18 (3) Oct 17 (3) Oct 16 (4) Oct 15 (5) Oct 14 (3) Oct 13 (6) Oct 12 (4) Oct 11 (4) Oct 10 (3) Oct 09 (3) Oct 08 (3) Oct 07 (3) Oct 06 (3) Oct 05 (4) Oct 04 (3) Oct 03 (3) Oct 02 (3) Oct 01 (3) Sep 30 (3) Sep 29 (3) Sep 28 (3) Sep 27 (3) Sep 26 (5) Sep 25 (5) Sep 24 (4) Sep 23 (5) Sep 22 (4) Sep 21 (4) Sep 20 (5) Sep 19 (4) Sep 18 (5) Sep 17 (5) Sep 16 (4) Sep 15 (5) Sep 14 (4) Sep 13 (3) Sep 12 (6) Sep 11 (6) Sep 10 (4) Sep 09 (4) Sep 08 (3) Sep 07 (3) Sep 06 (3) Sep 05 (4) Sep 04 (4) Sep 03 (3) Sep 02 (3) Sep 01 (4) Aug 31 (3) Aug 30 (3) Aug 29 (4) Aug 28 (3) Aug 27 (4) Aug 26 (3) Aug 25 (4) Aug 24 (4) Aug 23 (3) Aug 22 (3) Aug 21 (3) Aug 20 (5) Aug 19 (4) Aug 18 (3) Aug 17 (3) Aug 16 (3) Aug 15 (5) Aug 14 (3) Aug 13 (3) Aug 12 (4) Aug 11 (3) Aug 10 (3) Aug 09 (4) Aug 08 (2) Aug 07 (2) Aug 06 (2) Aug 05 (2) Aug 04 (2) Aug 03 (3) Aug 02 (4) Aug 01 (3) Jul 31 (2) Jul 30 (5) Jul 29 (3) Jul 28 (3) Jul 27 (3) Jul 26 (3) Jul 25 (6) Jul 24 (3) Jul 23 (4) Jul 22 (4) Jul 21 (4) Jul 20 (4) Jul 19 (4) Jul 18 (4) Jul 17 (4) Jul 16 (4) Jul 15 (5) Jul 14 (3) Jul 13 (4) Jul 12 (4) Jul 11 (5) Jul 10 (5) Jul 09 (2) Jul 08 (2) Jul 07 (3) Jul 06 (2) Jul 05 (2) Jul 04 (3) Jul 03 (4) Jul 02 (5) Jul 01 (3) Jun 30 (2) Jun 29 (3) Jun 28 (4) Jun 27 (4) Jun 26 (5) Jun 25 (4) Jun 24 (5) Jun 23 (3) Jun 22 (4) Jun 21 (2) Jun 20 (4) Jun 19 (3) Jun 18 (3) Jun 17 (1) Jun 16 (5) Jun 15 (5) Jun 14 (2) Jun 13 (5) Jun 12 (4) Jun 11 (3) Jun 10 (2) Jun 09 (2) Jun 08 (2) Jun 07 (2) Jun 06 (2) Jun 05 (2) Jun 04 (2) Jun 03 (2) Jun 02 (4) Jun 01 (3) May 31 (4) May 30 (5) May 29 (3) May 28 (3) May 27 (3) May 26 (4) May 25 (4) May 24 (2) May 23 (4) May 22 (4) May 21 (5) May 20 (6) May 19 (4) May 18 (3) May 17 (4) May 16 (5) May 15 (6) May 14 (4) May 13 (9) May 12 (4) May 11 (5) May 10 (5) May 09 (4) May 08 (3) May 07 (5) May 06 (3) May 05 (4) May 04 (5) May 03 (1) May 02 (5) May 01 (7) Apr 30 (4) Apr 29 (5) Apr 28 (4) Apr 27 (1) Apr 26 (4) Apr 25 (4) Apr 24 (4) Apr 23 (4) Apr 22 (3) Apr 21 (4) Apr 20 (4) Apr 19 (3) Apr 18 (4) Apr 17 (3) Apr 16 (4) Apr 15 (3) Apr 14 (4) Apr 13 (3) Apr 12 (5) Apr 11 (6) Apr 10 (1) Apr 09 (4) Apr 08 (3) Apr 07 (3) Apr 06 (4) Apr 05 (5) Apr 04 (1) Apr 03 (3) Apr 02 (4) Apr 01 (3) Mar 31 (1) Mar 30 (3) Mar 29 (4) Mar 28 (3) Mar 27 (4) Mar 26 (2) Mar 25 (4) Mar 24 (6) Mar 23 (5) Mar 22 (5) Mar 21 (4) Mar 20 (6) Mar 19 (5) Mar 18 (4) Mar 17 (4) Mar 16 (4) Mar 15 (4) Mar 14 (3) Mar 13 (4) Mar 12 (4) Mar 11 (5) Mar 10 (4) Mar 09 (5) Mar 08 (5) Mar 07 (5) Mar 06 (3) Mar 05 (4) Mar 04 (3) Mar 03 (3) Mar 02 (5) Mar 01 (4) Feb 28 (2) Feb 27 (3) Feb 26 (3) Feb 25 (3) Feb 24 (4) Feb 23 (4) Feb 22 (3) Feb 21 (4) Feb 20 (4) Feb 19 (3) Feb 18 (3) Feb 17 (3) Feb 16 (5) Feb 15 (4) Feb 14 (3) Feb 13 (4) Feb 12 (3) Feb 11 (3) Feb 10 (4) Feb 09 (4) Feb 08 (3) Feb 07 (4) Feb 06 (3) Feb 05 (3) Feb 04 (3) Feb 03 (5) Feb 02 (4) Feb 01 (3) Jan 31 (3) Jan 30 (3) Jan 29 (4) Jan 28 (3) Jan 27 (2) Jan 26 (4) Jan 25 (3) Jan 24 (5) Jan 23 (4) Jan 22 (4) Jan 21 (3) Jan 20 (3) Jan 19 (6) Jan 18 (4) Jan 17 (3) Jan 16 (4) Jan 15 (3) Jan 14 (4) Jan 13 (3) Jan 12 (6) Jan 11 (4) Jan 10 (4) Jan 09 (3) Jan 08 (4) Jan 07 (3) Jan 06 (4) Jan 05 (3) Jan 04 (4) Jan 03 (5) Jan 02 (4) Jan 01 (3) Dec 31 (2) Dec 30 (2) Dec 29 (2) Dec 28 (3) Dec 27 (3) Dec 26 (2) Dec 25 (2) Dec 24 (3) Dec 23 (3) Dec 22 (3) Dec 21 (3) Dec 20 (4) Dec 19 (4) Dec 18 (5) Dec 17 (3) Dec 16 (3) Dec 15 (3) Dec 14 (3) Dec 13 (3) Dec 12 (2) Dec 11 (6) Dec 10 (4) Dec 09 (4) Dec 08 (6) Dec 07 (5) Dec 06 (3) Dec 05 (3) Dec 04 (4) Dec 03 (3) Dec 02 (3) Dec 01 (4) Nov 30 (2) Nov 29 (3) Nov 28 (3) Nov 27 (2) Nov 26 (3) Nov 25 (5) Nov 24 (4) Nov 23 (6) Nov 22 (5) Nov 21 (4) Nov 20 (2) Nov 19 (5) Nov 18 (7) Nov 17 (5) Nov 16 (4) Nov 15 (6) Nov 14 (3) Nov 13 (3) Nov 12 (4) Nov 11 (3) Nov 10 (3) Nov 09 (4) Nov 08 (3) Nov 07 (2) Nov 06 (2) Nov 05 (2) Nov 04 (4) Nov 03 (4) Nov 02 (4) Nov 01 (2) Oct 31 (3) Oct 30 (4) Oct 29 (3) Oct 28 (2) Oct 27 (3) Oct 26 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Aug 03 (1) Jul 27 (1) Jul 26 (1) Jul 24 (1) Jul 22 (1) Jul 21 (1) Jul 19 (1) Jul 15 (1) Jul 14 (1) Jul 13 (3) Jul 10 (1) Jul 08 (2) Jul 07 (1) Jul 06 (1) Jul 03 (1) Jul 01 (1) Jun 28 (1) Jun 24 (2) Jun 20 (1) Jun 19 (1) Jun 18 (1) Jun 15 (1) Jun 14 (2) Jun 11 (1) Jun 09 (3) Jun 08 (1) Jun 07 (1) Jun 06 (1) Jun 04 (2) Jun 03 (1) Jun 02 (2) Jun 01 (1) May 31 (3) May 30 (1) May 29 (1) May 28 (2) May 26 (1) May 25 (1) May 18 (1) May 17 (1) May 15 (1) May 09 (1) May 07 (2) May 02 (1) May 01 (1) Apr 30 (1) Apr 27 (1) Apr 26 (2) Apr 23 (1) Apr 22 (1) Apr 19 (1) Apr 18 (1) Apr 12 (1) Apr 11 (1) Apr 09 (1) Apr 07 (1) Apr 05 (1) Apr 01 (1) Mar 30 (1) Mar 27 (1) Mar 25 (1) Mar 22 (2) Mar 19 (1) Mar 18 (1) Mar 16 (1) Mar 15 (2) Mar 13 (1) Mar 12 (1) Mar 11 (1) Mar 10 (1)By The Associated Press May. 05, 2018 | 04:03 PM | LOUISVILLE, KY

At least one record was broken at the 144th Run for the Roses  and not one anyone will be celebrating.The National Weather Service declared it the wettest Derby on record, and the rain was still coming down. The weather service tweeted that the official rainfall measurement stood at 2.83 inches at 6:10 pm, about a half-hour before the big race.The Courier-Journal reported that the rainfall Saturday edged out the previous record of 2.31 inches, which held for nearly a century since May 11, 1918.A steady stream of people started heading for the exits at Churchill Downs before the 144th running of the Kentucky Derby.The rain continued unabated, pouring harder as the day wore on. Swaths of the grandstand's uncovered seats that sell for hundreds each were empty, as Derby goers opted instead to cram under awnings and overhangs to try to stay out of the rain.Otis Miller joined the stream of those who had enough and decided to leave. He and his friend, William Smith, were visiting from Cincinnati for their first Derby in the infield, where there is little shelter. Both were sopping wet by the time they threw in the towel.Miller gestured to his bright yellow suit, soaked under a flimsy poncho."I tried to bring the sun out on a rainy day with my yellow suit," he said, "but Mother Nature won that battle."Many were wearing ponchos and carrying umbrellas, and women's hats - usually a show of their own - were also covered if race fans ventured outside.The mud was flying at rainy Churchill Downs, leaving jockeys' silks and faces coated in dirt and their horses covered in filth.

Riders in races before the 144th running of the Kentucky Derby were wearing multiple pairs of goggles during races, so they could pull a clean pair down whenever their current set got dirty.Jockey Brian Hernandez says the track surface was in good condition despite being listed as sloppy. He had just won the $300,000 Pat Day Mile aboard 39-1 shot Funny Duck.The National Weather Service earlier Saturday issued a flash flood warning for Louisville until about 15 minutes before the Kentucky Derby was to be run.A human traffic jam formed in the underground tunnels leading to and from the infield, as drenched Derby goers sought shelter from the unrelenting rain.Lacy Nelson glanced behind her as she tried to navigate the nearly impassible tunnel, and saw thousands more people pressing in behind her."Oh my god, we're like cattle," she exclaimed. "Look at everybody."Nelson and her friend, Mary Rolfe, traveled from Minnesota to their first Derby, and said the rain is such a bummer they said they would have left if they hadn't spent $80 on their infield tickets. The daylong downpour created ankle-deep puddles in the infield, where there is little shelter. Soggy spectators crowded under trees and awnings. Chairs sank into the mud."It's awful," said Rolfe. "I want to come back to the Derby when it's nice so I can really enjoy it."Phones binged with an emergency flash flood warning and many crammed into the tunnels around them groaned.Forecasters predicted the rain would stretch through the afternoon and into the evening.Sarah Applewhite came from New Orleans with a group of friends, and said the rain hadn't ruined the day for them."It's like a music festival, with horses," she said. "I just hope it doesn't get ruined."

On the Net:Traffic stop leads to the arrest of threeWilliamson, WV (25661)

Today

Rain early...then remaining cloudy with showers in the afternoon. Thunder possible. High 79F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 80%..

Tonight

Showers early, becoming a steady rain late. Low near 65F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 70%. Rainfall near a quarter of an inch.Sunday, May 6, 2018

College graduation season is upon us. Our Immigrant of the Day will be graduating from UC Berkeley on May 12.

As a young girl, Chansitha Ouk didnt go to school. There was no school, she says. I didnt know what it was. It just didnt exist. Life was on the run.

Ouk was born in Cambodia in 1968. The civil war between the Cambodian government and the communist Khmer Rouge had begun the year before. As early as she can remember, she and her family  her two younger sisters, mother and grandmother  were on the move. We would move at night from shelter to shelter, she says. I grew up always hearing guns shooting and bombings. We just didnt have anywhere to go. Its how all families were  alert, always moving.

 There was no school, she says. I didnt know what it was." It just didnt exist. Life was on the run. It wasnt until Ouk was 12, living in a refugee camp in Thailand, that she realized what she had been missing. She finally had the chance to go to school  to learn to read and write in her native language, Khmer. She even learned some basic English phrases and became an interpreter for the U.N. It was like a new world, she says. It was like the light went on. I was so hungry to learn.

On Saturday, May 12, Ouk is joining more than 5,000 graduating seniors at UC Berkeley as they make their joyous walk across the California Memorial Stadium stage  a feat she never dreamed possible. She will receive a bachelors degree in media studies. Its her time at Berkeley, she says, that has given her the courage to share her story  one that she hopes will inspire people to push past any obstacle, no matter how big, to follow their dreams and pursue an education.

For more on Chansitha Ouk's amazing story, click here.

KJ

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2018/05/immigrant-of-the-day-chansitha-ouk-cambodia-college-graduate.htmlThere will be more improvements to facilities at the largest state park in Cayuga County.

The 2018-19 state budget included $90 million for new projects and upgrades at nearly 50 parks and historic sites. A portion of that funding  $1.5 million  will be used to "construct and renovate cabins" at Fair Haven Beach State Park, according to Gov. Andrew Cuomo's office.

Dan Keefe, a spokesman for the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, provided more details about the project. Plans are being developed to construct four or five new cottages equipped with bathrooms, kitchens and heat. Improvements will be made to the park's existing cabins, including roofing and siding repairs, energy efficient lighting and interior work.

The design and construction schedule is being finalized, Keefe said.

Fair Haven Beach State Park has 32 cabins and three cottages, according to the park's website. It's unknown how many cabins will be renovated in this round of funding. Keefe said it would depend on final design and procurement.Barack Obama is done being on ballots, but there will be ample opportunities to support him in 2018.

A club of young politicians is trading on his popularity and mission to kick-start their own careers. And its all part of the master plan the former President has laid out.

At 56, Obama is more popular than he's been in nearly a decade, and as an ex-president, his favorable ratings are expected to keep rising. At a time when our politics has become increasingly ugly, divisive, and crude, a political figure like Obama is rare.

In his retirement, Obama is redefining the post-presidency. Although he's generally following the career path set by his predecessors -- there's a foundation, and the library and memoir are on their way -- he's doing it bigger. The publisher of his and Michelle's forthcoming books promised "global publishing events of unprecedented scope and significance," his presidential library is actually going to have a public library in it, and he's in talks with Netflix to produce shows. But those aren't even the biggest projects on his to-do list.

"After I left office, what I realized is the Obama Foundation could eventually create a platform for young up-and-coming leaders, both in the United States and around the world," Obama said at a conference in Tokyo in March. "If I could do that effectively, then, you know, I would create a hundred or a thousand or a million young Barack Obamas or Michelle Obamas, or, you know, the next group of people who could take that baton in that relay race that is human progress and continue to build on the work that we have done. So that's really going to be my focus."

A million Obamas. It's one of the most ambitious goals ever for a former American president.

Obama alumni running for office

"People miss President Obama," said Brian Forde, a former senior advisor in the Obama administration's Office of Science and Technology. "It's not just Democrats."

Two out of three Americans like Obama, according to a January CNN poll. That includes 94% of liberals, 74% of moderates, and 37% of conservatives. He's a far more popular former president than his predecessors were in Gallup polls taken the year after they left office. Bill Clinton was at 47% in 2002. George W. Bush was at 45% in 2010.

Forde is now running for Congress in California's 45th district, in Orange County. The founder of a phone company in Nicaragua before he got into government, he's positioned himself as a tech-literate, Bitcoin-friendly candidate. And he's not the only Obama alum running.

This year, more than 60 former members of the administration are running for elected office, according to the Obama Alumni Association. There are former interns and campaign staffers, an ex-ambassador to Denmark, and the former director for Iraq in Obama's National Security Council. More than two dozen alumni are running for Congress, and others are running for state offices in 13 states.

"We learned a lot working for him," Forde said. "And the most good we can do is go back home, taking what you learned, and applying it to help people locally."

Forde and the other alumni candidates are the first wave of neo-Obamas. They're doing what their old boss asked them to. Action is a hallmark of Obamaism, true to its community-organizing roots. Don't boo, vote, he'd say campaigning. Today, the message is don't resist, run. "If you're disappointed by your elected officials, grab a clipboard, get some signatures, and run for office yourself," he said in his farewell address in Chicago in January 2017.

New Obama Cool

The original Obama brand, of the 2008 campaign, was a pop cultural phenomenon. It inspired street art by Shepard Fairey, a pop song by will.i.am., and a new generation of voters. But after a decade of politics, it's time for a refresh.

Kehinde Wiley's floral portrait of Obama unveiled in February is a pop sequel to Fairey's "Hope." Michelle's portrait, by Amy Sherald, was so popular the Smithsonian had to move it to accommodate visitors. The couple's memoirs will be bestsellers, whatever they do on Netflix will generate international interest, and support for Obamacare reached an all-time high last year. And of course, there was the time the former FLOTUS literally dressed as a pop star, celebrating Beyonc-'s birthday with a "Formation"-themed photo. Welcome to New Obama Cool.

The Obama campaign's logo, color scheme, and sans-serif font have inspired political design ever since. The "O" logo has been featured on a shoe by Steph Curry, and it's shown up in the congressional campaign logos of Brent Welder, a former field and get-out-the-vote director for the Obama campaign running in Kansas, and Levi Tillemann, a former Department of Energy adviser running in Colorado.

Tillemann said his logo, which doubles the red and whites stripes of the Obama "O" with a Colorado "C" rising above, is meant to evoke a number of things, including the Colorado mountains and "the hope that Obama instilled in all of us, and the fact that that hope isn't gone, we just need to rekindle it."

For older millennials, who are now in their 30s, "Obama "was a watershed. He was a flash of lightning. He really was a political revolution," Tillemann said. Obama's call to run for office "resonated powerfully" with him and "it was one of a number of factors that made me decide to run," he said.

Running for office after working in the White House isn't unique to Obama alumni. Before he was a senator from Texas, Ted Cruz worked on George W. Bush's 2000 campaign and in his Federal Trade Commission. And New York Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik worked in Bush's Domestic Policy Council and chief of staff's office.

But having Obama on your resume is especially powerful in 2018, Tillemann said.

"Most presidents gain some benefit of the doubt with the passage of time," he said. "As we have receded farther and farther away from his presidency, and Washington has slouched further and further into the swamp, the decency and altruism of Obama shines through ever more brightly."

Keeping the spirit of Obama alive

The new generation of leaders Obama hopes to inspire aren't just heading to Washington. The Obama Foundation recently announced the Community Leadership Corps program for 18- to 25-year-olds in Chicago, Phoenix, and Columbia, South Carolina. And in July, he's launching Obama Foundation Leaders: Africa for 200 young people there. It's at once a community and a global project.

Growing up, Ammar Campa-Najjar was inspired by Obama's story. "His journey that I read about in 'Dream From my Father' really resonated with me, because I went through a similar path of self-discovery. Not being Latino enough to the Latinos, or being Arab enough or American enough." He went to work for Obama, in his White House selecting the 10 letters he would ready daily from Americans, and in the Department of Labor. Today, Campa-Najjar is running for Congress in California's 50th District, in an "Obama way."

That means a "compelling grassroots message" and a "strong digital presence," he said. "Mobilizing, organizing a real people power movement. Grassroots. Not fueled by hate but by hope."

It's a template that can be used in California or Chicago, and in Iowa or Africa. Minting a million new Obamas is ambitious, and if the former president is successful inspiring a next generation of progressive leaders, he could leave a political legacy that lasts far longer than his eight years in office and is independent of his time as president.

"His call to action was not to defend his legacy, his call to action is to build on it. And even if we have to undo some of it to go forward, he would be the first one to say go for it," Campa-Najjar said. "The way forward is keep the spirit of Obama alive, even if his policies and accomplishments are superseded by our own in the future."NEW HARTFORD- Congresswoman Claudia Tenney called out her congressional opponent, Anthony Brindisi, for accepting contributions for his campaign from Nancy Pelosi. Tenney said, Brindisi doesn't support Pelosi and believes he shouldn't be accepting money.





Brindisi told NEWSChannel 2 he did accept the money, but said Tenney is trying to distract from her voting record in Washington. He also confirmed he does not support Nancy Pelosi. He said there needs to be change.

Tenney said Brindisi accepted a total of $14,000 from Pelosi. Tenney said she thinks Brindisi should give that monay back. "He should turn back the $14,000 to Nancy Pelosi, turn back the money and refuse to take the money to ads going out to the house majority PAC," said Tenney.

Brindisi responded with, "The true issue is an attempt by the Congresswoman to try and draw attention away from her disastrous record on things like healthcare."

The election is in six months.ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - In New York government news, Senate Republicans aim to prove Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo wrong by getting things done in the final weeks of the legislative session.

Cuomo has said he doesn't expect lawmakers to accomplish much of consequence before adjourning in June. But Republican Senate Leader John Flanagan says Republicans are passing bills to cut taxes and strengthen penalties for drug dealers.

(Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)Utica, N.Y. - Fred Nichols of Utica was one of 800 Utica College graduate students to receive their degrees on Sunday at the Adirondack Bank Center at the Utica Memorial Auditorium, but he may have had the longest journey to get to the stage.



Nichols is about to turn 46 years old, and his path the past 30 years to finally travel across the stage at the Aud to receive his M.B.A. is quite amazing.

Nichols grew up on Lansing St. in Utica in the 70's and 80's and says he was put in special education classes in the Utica City School District at an early age. He eventually dropped out of high school for failing grades.

Then at the age of 17, Nichols entered the former Amigos Mini Market at the corner of Blandina St. and 3rd Ave. one day, and was shot when then owner of the store had his gun fall from his pocket. The gun accidentally discharged and Nichols was shot in the leg.

Nichols, who describes his family life as a rough situation, needed an attorney to file a lawsuit against the owner and went to see Utica Attorney Mark Wolber and that's when he said his life began to turn around.

Wolber remembers the day Nichols came to see him very well, "I had somebody in the office who was a retired school administrator and she said 'what's the story with him?'. I said well I think he dropped out of school."

Nichols says Wolber and that retired school administrator then got him to start studying for his G.E.D., "He said I see potential in you and he said you know you have the ability to do a lot of great things, but you got to get that education behind you and you got to change your mentality."

Nichols changed his mentality with what he says was the first positive reinforcement he ever received as a young person and with some tutoring from Wolber, he did eventually receive his G.E.D..

He then entered M.V.C.C., where again, with the help of tutoring by Wolber, he received an associate's degree.

Nichols then decided to get away from Utica and went to China where he taught English for more than a decade, before coming back to his hometown of Utica in 2014.

Upon his return, Nichols told Wolber his goal now was to get his M.B.A. in Business, as he wants to ultimately run his own company.

So in the past four years, again with the help of some tutoring by Wolber, Nichols earned first, a Bachelor's degree from SUNY POLY, and then here on this Sunday May 6th, 2018, he received his M.B.A. from Utica College.

Nichols says Wolber has been like a father to him, and he could have never gotten to this point in his life without Wolber's tutoring every step of the way.

Nichols truly believes that bullet he took in 1989, actually ended up saving his life.WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI)-- Corvette owners are driving around to raise awareness for local veterans.

The Lafayette Star City and Lafayette Corvette Clubs host the annual event at the Indiana Veterans Home. Owners of corvettes from Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, and Michigan were in attendance.

Drivers came together to ride along State Road 43 to raise awareness for veterans in need.

Star City Lafayette President Phil Nace said this is a great way for people to learn about the organization.

"All of us have veterans in our family," Nace said. "Some of us are veterans and so it's great to see the community and not only the local areas but the states around us support this event."

Nace said the goal of the event is to inspire others to get involved. A list of donations needed can be found here.Two Indianapolis police officers who fatally shot an unarmed black motorist could face firing when they go before a civilian police merit board.

Indianapolis police Chief Bryan Roach has recommended the seven-member board terminate officers Michal Dinnsen and Carlton Howard for the June 2017 shooting death of 45-year-old Aaron Bailey.

An internal police review of the shooting found the officers had failed to comply with the department's training and policies.

The Indianapolis Star reports the officers will likely argue during Tuesday's hearing they followed policy and training and feared Bailey was reaching for a weapon. Both have been on administrative leave since the shooting.

Bailey's family is suing the city, contending the officers used excessive force and Bailey posed no threat to them.

Information from: The Indianapolis Star, http://www.indystar.com

(Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

5/5/2018 9:31:02 AM (GMT -4:00)



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Sorry, the page you requested was not found. If you're having trouble locating a destination on Womenofchina.cn, try visiting the Womenofchina Home pageSuccess! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup.A woman called for help when her husband failed to return home after a hiking trip.

This call will cost her and her husband thousands of dollars after he was found at a luxury hotel.

70-year-old Christophe Chamley of massachusetts, who is an economics professor at Boston University, was on a solo hike in New Hampshire.

However, he did not return home when he was supposed to.

When his wife did not hear from him, she panicked and feared the worst.

Chamleys wife called Mountain Rescue Services and reported him missing. They immediately set out to rescue the man.

A group of 25 rescuers in snow vehicles and other special equipment along with a National Guard helicopter were deployed.

After hearing about the desperate search for the missing hiker, staff members at a luxury hotel informed police that Chamley has booked a room.

When officers confronted Chamley, he was surprised. He showed the officers that he sent his wife a WhatsApp message at 1:00 a.m. to let her know that he was going to rest at the hotel.

However, police said that Chamley failed to notice that the message did not go through.

Chamley now will likely have to pay for the rescue efforts as

state law allows officials to recoup their costs for rescue operations if the person involved is deemed to have behaved recklessly.

Col. Kevin Jordan, chief of the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department, said that he will submit the bill to the Attorney Generals office for approval.

He added that the bill will likely run into the thousands of dollars.

This is not the first time a missing hiker was charged for a rescue. In 2009, teenager Scott Mason was ordered to pay $25,000 for a three-day mountain search.A New Zealand embassy worker in Washington DC was shocked to discover a camera inside a toilet, according to court documents in New Zealand.

Wellington police said that they have arrested Commodore Alfred Keating after being accused of recording people using the toilet at the countrys embassy in the U.S. capital.

Keating has been charged with attempting to make an intimate visual recording.

Keating did not face any charges in the United States as he had diplomatic immunity.

He was recalled to New Zealand, where he was brought before Judge Grant Powell.

Keating eventually resigned from his position in the Navy.

According to the police investigation, Keating placed a camera inside an air condition duct in order to record people using the toilet at the New Zealand Embassy in Washington DC.

One day, the camera fell out of the duct and landed on the floor.

There was a large amount of duct on the camera, indicating that it was in the air condition duct for many months.

Police found Keatings DNA on the camera.

Keating, who once was the assistant chief of Navy in Wellington, denied the allegations.May Day 2018 is invested with special significance, because we are celebrating not only the day of international working-class solidarity, but also the 200th anniversary of the birth of Karl Marx. There is no element of exaggeration in the assertion that in the realm of philosophy, economic science, historiography, social theory and politics, Marx is the most significant figure of the modern era. There is not another thinker who has exerted such a great, enduring and progressive influence on the development of the social consciousness of the great mass of humanity and its struggle against oppression and exploitation. Marxs work initiated a new epoch in mankinds understanding of the objective forces that determine the course of historical development, and thus made possible the conscious struggle of the working class for the socialist transformation of society.

May Day 2018 and the bicentenary of the birth of Karl Marx

On the basis of his refutation of Hegels objective idealism and the critical appropriation of its dialectical methodology, Marx was able to develop philosophical materialism and apply it to the study of mans socioeconomic and political evolution. Prior to Marx, even the most advanced thinkersabove all, Hegel and Feuerbach, the greatest of Marxs immediate predecessorsderived social and political relations from some sort of ideal inspiration, be it spiritual or intellectual. Even the great materialist thinkers of the 18th century, such as Helvetius and Baron dHolbach, whose writings played a critical role in preparing the ground for the great French Revolution of 1789-1794, believed that the social and political environment was determined by public opinion, that is, by thought. But the idealist conception that social relations are the product of thought is contradicted by reality. Human beings, in their real historical existence, are born into, confront and adapt themselves unconsciously to the prevailing social relations.

Marx, the greatest of all materialist philosophers, uncovered the real origin of mans thought and ideological conceptions, and, as Lenin later explained so concisely, proved that the conclusion that the course of ideas depends on the course of things is the only one compatible with scientific psychology (Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 1, pp. 139-40).

In his initial elaboration of the materialist conception of history and its subsequent substantiation in the writing of Das Kapital, Marx identifiedamidst the seemingly uncoordinated actions of countless millions of human beings, each pursuing what they believed to be their own best interests, driven by their individual passions, ambitions and contradictory aspirationsthose objective forces, operating apart from and even independently of individual subjective consciousness, that underlie and determine the economic structure of society.

Marx rejected any resort to idealist subjectivism in explaining the development of consciousness. Even false conceptions of the nature of society are rooted in and are reflections of objective conditions that exist independently of individuals. Mans inability to perceive and comprehend, on the basis of direct observation, the exploitative character of capitalist social relations cannot be explained as a failure of the individual intellect. Rather, it arises from the enigmatical character acquired by the products of labor when they assume the form of commodities. As commodities, Marx wrote, a definite social relation between men necessarily assumes, in their eyes, the fantastic form of a relation between things (Capital, vol. 1, in Collected Works, vol. 35, pp. 82-83).

Marx and his life-long friend and collaborator, the genius Friedrich Engels, did not invent socialism. The term itself came into usage as early as the 1830s. Saint-Simon, Owen and Fourier, in particular, have entered into history as the utopian precursors of Marx and Engels. These remarkable thinkers did not lack for brilliant insights into the defects of existing society and proposals for its more rational organization. But what was absent from their conceptions was an explanation of the objective socioeconomic processes from which socialism would actually emerge and the identification of the social force that would fight for its realization.

As Marx later recalled, he and Engels proposed the scientific study of the economic structure of bourgeois society as the only tenable theoretical foundation for the fight for socialism, and argued in popular form that it was not a matter of putting some utopian system into effect, but of conscious participation in the historical process revolutionizing society before our very eyes (Herr Vogt, in Marx-Engels Collected Works, vol. 17, Moscow: 1981, p. 79).

In explaining the significance of his theoretical work, Marx, with excessive modesty, identified three critical and interrelated achievements:

What I did that was new was to prove: 1. that the existence of classes is only bound up with particular historical phases in the development of production; 2. that the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat; 3. that this dictatorship itself constitutes no more than a transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society (Marx Letter to Weydemeyer, March 5, 1852, Collected Works, vol. 39, pp. 64-65).

As the bicentenary of Marxs birth has approached, there has been no shortage of assessments by academics and journalists of the significance of his life. The economic disaster of 2008 is still fresh in everyones memory. Only incorrigible anticommunist reactionaries, blinded by hatred and greed, can deny the monumental scale of Marxs work. Even the phrase Marx was right! has appeared fairly frequently. The more intellectually conscientious academics have conducted painstaking research to refute attacks by conventional bourgeois economists on critical elements of Marxs work, such as the labor theory of value and his analysis of the tendency of the rate of profit to decline. Such serious intellectual work should be welcomed and encouraged.

However, even the more generous acknowledgments of Marxs genius are constrained by efforts to isolate his theoretical work from its practical political, i.e., contemporary revolutionary implications. One or another aspect of Marxs work is lauded as relevant to an understanding of present day economic conditions. But the appreciation of Marx, the economic theorist, is rigidly separated from Marxism as the theory, program and practice of world socialist revolution. Much of the discussion of the relevance of Marx is dominated and distorted by this strict separation of the consideration of Marxs economic critique of capitalism, from the recognition of the enduring significance of Marxism as the historical and contemporary international political movement of the most advanced sections of the working class for the revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist system.

The separation of Marx, the economic theorist, from the socialist revolutionary, has a long history. In the course of more than a century, countless efforts have been made to trim Marxs beard, that is, to reconcile Marx with one or another form of bourgeois ideology and petty-bourgeois opportunist reformism. Eduard Bernstein seized on the opportunity provided by Engels death in 1895 to disassociate Marxism from socialist revolution and convert international socialism into a movement for social reforms. In the course of the 20th century, the revisions of Marxism assumed an increasingly reactionary character, serving more or less openly as a means of divesting it of any real revolutionary significance and converting it into an apologia for the national opportunism of the mass Social Democratic and Stalinist parties and trade unions.

The assault on Marxs legacy was facilitated by the unrelenting efforts of petty-bourgeois theorists to undermine and discredit the materialist foundations of his theoretical work. As early as the 1890s, barely a decade after his death, various German professors were eager to reconcile Marxs revolutionary morality, based on the logic of class struggle, with Kants supra-historical categorical imperative. From the very beginning of the twentieth century, reflecting the increasing influence of philosophical irrationalism upon broad sections of the petty-bourgeois intelligentsia, Marxs insistence on the objective and law-governed character of the historical process came under attack.

Thinkers such as Georges Sorel and later Henri De Man claimed that workers required the inspiration of myths, not knowledge of objective laws governing the development of the class struggle against capitalism, to inspire the fight for socialism. Insight into unconscious psychological motivations, rather than the analysis and comprehension of objective economic forces, were declared to be essential for winning workers to the socialist movement.

The flight of petty-bourgeois intellectuals into irrationalism was combined with an attack on Engels as a vulgar materialist and positivist, who had supposedly concealed the individualist and humanist elements of Marxs thought. The Young Marx of the Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 was elevated above the Old Marx of Das Kapital. The main aim of the assaultwhich has persisted under the influence of Nietzscheism, existentialism, the Frankfurt Schools dilution of materialism with Freudian pseudo-science, and the irrationalist and anti-historical intellectual nihilism of post-modernismhas been to suppress the essential revolutionary content of Marxs work.

The intelligence agencies of the capitalist state have not stood on the sidelines in the ideological war against Marxism. The British newspaper, the Independent, in an article published yesterday, calls attention to a recently declassified CIA research paper. The agency, it reveals, read French postmodern theory, concluding that its questioning of the objective basis of reality could be used to undermine the Marxist doctrine of historical  inevitability. Millions of dollars were pumped into front organizations such as magazines, publishing houses and favored academics, in order to push postmodern ideas and to create a center-left, thus demarcating the outer boundary of respectable ideasanything beyond which could be denounced as dangerous and radical lunacy 

The separation of Marx, the theoretician, from Marx, the revolutionary, must lead to falsification, first and foremost of Marxs biography. Marx, the thinker, cannot be understood apart from his political development and activity as a revolutionist. As Franz Mehring observed in his biography of Marx, There is no doubt that the incomparable stature of Marx is due not a little to the fact that in him the man of ideas was indissolubly bound up with the man of action, and that the two mutually complemented and supported each other (Karl Marx: The Story of His Life, p. xiii).

As early as March 1843, Marx wrote to Arnold Ruge: Feuerbachs aphorisms seem to me incorrect only in one respect, that he refers too much to nature and too little to politics. That, however, is the only alliance by which present-day philosophy can become truth (Marx-Engels, Collected Works, vol. 1, p. 400). This was not a passing phrase, but the key to understanding the essential relation between philosophy and politics in both Marxs work and in the contemporary world.

In his Theses on Feuerbach, Marx wrote: The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but is a practical question. Man must prove the truth, i.e., the reality and power, the this-worldliness of his thinking in practice. The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking which isolates itself from practice is a purely scholastic question (Collected Works, vol. 5, p. 6).

Philosophy, separated from revolutionary politics, the struggle against the oppression of man by man, is idle speculation, without progressive significance. But politics without a firm basis in revolutionary theory and knowledge of its development in the course of the long history of the international workers movement and the struggle for socialism, can lead only to impotent improvisations and outright betrayal.

Marx died on March 14, 1883 at the age of 64. Speaking at his graveside, Engels described his beloved friend and comrade-in-arms as a man of science. But, he added, this was not even half the man. Marx, Engels declared, was before all else a revolutionist. His real mission in life was to contribute, in one way or another, to the overthrow of capitalist society and of the state institutions which it brought into being, to contribute to the liberation of the modern proletariat, which he was the first to make conscious of its own position and its needs, conscious of the conditions of its emancipation. Fighting was his element. And he fought with a passion, a tenacity and success such as few could rival (Reproduced in Reminiscences of Marx and Engels, Moscow, p. 349).

Marx, the man, died 135 years ago. Marxismunderstood as the application of dialectical and historical materialist methodology to the study of continuously changing objective socioeconomic conditions; as a science of revolutionary political perspective oriented toward the conquest of political power by the working class, the ending of capitalist exploitation, the abolition of the nation-state system and the establishment of a socialist society on a world scalecan only be properly understood in its relation to the historical development of the class struggle and international socialist movement.

Engels once wrote that with every advance in the natural sciences, materialism must change its form; that is, it must incorporate into its understanding of the material universe the latest advances in physics, chemistry, evolutionary biology, and mathematics. In like manner, Marxism, as a science devoted specifically to the study of capitalist society, develops through the continuous examination of critical changes in the capitalist mode of production on a world scale and through participation in, and the critical assimilation of, the experiences of the class struggle on an international scale. All invocations of dialectics that exclude this critical element of Marxism, that ignores or glosses over the lessons of the revolutionary struggles of the past century, are nothing but an exercise in empty phrase-mongering and petty-bourgeois political charlatanry.

The celebration of the bicentenary of Marxs birth is of genuine revolutionary political significance only to the extent that it is based on the whole historical development of Marxism. In the course of the 20th century, the working class passed through monumental historical experiences: of imperialist wars, of revolutions and counterrevolutions. Marxism does not exist in the abstract, or as a set of conclusions formulated more than a century ago. Rather, it exists as the real movement that represents the continuity of the conscious struggle within the international working class to develop the program, perspective and practice of world socialist revolution. In 1938, Leon Trotsky founded the Fourth International, in revolutionary opposition to the counterrevolutionary Stalinist bureaucracy, whose betrayals had led to catastrophic defeats of the working class.

In the course of 80 years, the Fourth International has passed through tumultuous struggles, not only against the counterrevolutionary parties and organizations of the Stalinist and Social Democratic bureaucracies, but also against the many forms of opportunism, centrism and pseudo-leftism that reflect the pressure of the capitalist class and imperialism upon the working class. It is in the struggle against all these forces that the Fourth International, led by the International Committee, has defended and developed Marxism.

As we celebrate May Day 2018, there are growing signs that a new period of mass revolutionary struggles by the working class has begun. As is usually the case, the emergence of the working class onto the scene of history comes as a surpriseabove all to the representatives of the pseudo-left and the anti-Marxist academics whose intellectual and political conceptions are based on the total rejection of the working class as a revolutionary force and, therefore, a no less total belief in the permanence of capitalism.

But all that is irrational, all that exists in defiance of the needs of the progressive development of human civilization, is unreal. That is, it is condemned by virtue of its own insoluble contradictions to historical oblivion. This sentence has been imposed by history on capitalist society. It must be carried out. Has there ever been another ruling class that has displayed such obvious signs of social parasitism, political disorientation, intellectual exhaustion, and moral breakdown? Compared to todays international mafia of oligarchs, who control and consume a vast portion of the wealth produced by the labor of billions of people, the bourgeoisie of Marxs era appear almost as a respectable fraternity of philanthropists. The claims of decrepit reformists like Sanders and Corbyn that the capitalist oligarchs can be persuaded with sweet phrases to accept a more equitable distribution of wealth is nothing less than delusional. As Trotsky once asked, how are tearful appeals to the decency of the rich better than prayers for rain? There is no way to settle accounts with the class that owns and controls the means of production and the global financial networks, along with gigantic military machines, intelligence agencies and police forces except through socialist revolution. But is this possible?

At a certain stage of their development, Marx wrote, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production.  From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an epoch of social revolution (Marx Engels Lenin on Historical Materialism, Moscow: 1972, p. 137). These words, in the most profound and immediate sense, define the historical situation that confronts present-day capitalism.

For all their wealth and power, the ruling elites stagger from crisis to crisis. The ascendancy of Trump in the United States is the most visible and ghoulish expression of the universal degeneracy of the capitalist class. But the ascendancy of Trump is of not only symbolic significance. Throughout the 20th century, and especially in the aftermath of World War II, the United States functioned as the ultimate guarantor of the stability and survival of the world capitalist system. It is incapable of playing that role any longer.

For the past quarter-century, American capitalismseeking to offset, through military operations, the consequences of its protracted economic declinehas become the epicenter of geopolitical and financial instability. Within this situation, the resurgence of class struggle in the United States has immense historical significance. The upsurge of class struggle within the United States will imbue the international working class with renewed confidence in the possibility of defeating imperialism, and thereby accelerate the process of global working-class radicalization.

The laws of history, Trotsky proclaimed upon founding the Fourth International, are more powerful than the bureaucratic apparatus. That prognosis is now being vindicated. The working class is in the process of throwing off the shackles imposed by the old reactionary trade unions and their allies among the cynical organizations of the petty-bourgeois pseudo-left and its myriad forms of reactionary identity politics. The real progressive and revolutionary struggles of this epoch will be based on the universal emancipatory aspirations of the working class, not on the selfish strivings of one or another fragment of the upper-middle-class for identity-based privileges.

On this historic May Day, the 200th anniversary of the birth of Karl Marx, the International Committee of the Fourth International proudly proclaims that Trotskyism is the Marxism of the 21st century! We appeal to all our listeners throughout the world, to the hundreds of thousands of readers of the World Socialist Web Site: Join our ranks! Build new sections of the Fourth International! Participate in the fight for the victory of the working class and the establishment of a new and truly humane society, based on the genuinely socialist principles of international solidarity and the equality of all mankind.A Clinton-era White House press secretary suggested Sarah Sanders ought to issue an ultimatum to President Donald Trump: Tell me the truth or I'll resign.

"I think at this point, I'd go into the Oval Office and tell the President that if he lies to me again, I have to quit," Joe Lockhart, who is a CNN political commentator, told anchor Ana Cabrera on "CNN Newsroom" Saturday.

"I think she runs the risk, it's at the stage where she's complicit in the lies, even though she may not have the best information" Lockhart continued, adding that Sanders "now knows for certain that the President is a liar."

"We now know, without any shadow of a doubt, that the President will say whatever is in his interest at that moment and has no regard for the truth. So she knows this," Lockhart added.

"Going forward, she has to make clear she's not going to carry his water anymore," he said.

Lockhart, who served as former President Bill Clinton's press secretary during the Monica Lewinsky scandal and impeachment proceedings, conceded that "it is a very tough job," particularly when the President is under investigation.

"If a president's under investigation, your best bet is to say, 'The President's under investigation. We're not going to talk about that,'" Lockhart told Cabrera.

Lockhart became press secretary in 1998, following the resignation of Mike McCurry, who had declared himself "out of the loop" on the Lewinsky affair. Lockhart took on the role after Clinton's admission that he had had "inappropriate intimate contact" with Lewinsky, despite having denied doing so under oath months prior.

Lockhart contended Saturday that his defense of the Clinton administration was different than Sanders' because "we left it to others to decide whether the allegations are true."

"We did talk about the motives of the politicians who were coming after us, but didn't try to try the legal case from the White House podium," he explained.

Sanders came under fire this week following the revelation by Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani that Trump had reimbursed his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, for a $130,000 hush payment to porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election for her discretion about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump -- despite the White House's previous denial that Trump knew about the payment.

Facing questions of whether the White House had intentionally misled the public, Sanders maintained that she had "given the best information she had at the time."

Trump on Thursday denied any campaign money was used to reimburse Cohen and said he was paid via retainer.TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - For Florida A&M University, it was a special graduation ceremony this year.

The community is celebrating, but also taking a moment to remember their lost Rattlers.

Earlier this year, two engineering students, Alfred Motlow and Aniya Brown, died in a car accident.

In honor of them, FAMU announced a $10,000 scholarship that will help put two engineering students through school.

Graduates say, they are remembering lost Rattlers as they think about their favorite memories over the last 4 years.

"The homecomings. I just crossed Delta Sigma Theta, so I was very excited about that. And just overall reflecting on my experiences at FAMU, which were really extraordinary," said Jeliah Jones, Biology Pre-Dentistry Graduate.

Organizers say, about 1,500 participated in the three graduation ceremonies held Saturday.Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-06 00:25:15|Editor: Yamei

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LOMPOC, the United States, May 5 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) sent off InSight, its robotic lander, from the central coast of California at pre-dawn on Saturday to explore the deep interior of the red planet.

NASA's new administrator Jim Bridenstine tweeted: "It's been a big day here at @NASA! @NASAInSight successfully launched and is on its way to Mars!"

The lander blasted off at 4:05 a.m. local time (1105 GMT) atop an Atlas V rocket from the Vandenberg Air Force Base.

The mission is NASA's first Mars surface spacecraft to lift off since the Curiosity rover started its deep-space journey in November 2011.

"Mars, here I come! 6 months and counting to the Red Planet," the mission team tweeted.

InSight, short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, will study how rocky planets and their moons were formed.

"I am so excited! This is my first time watching a rocket launch on the West Coast," said Jennifer Ma, who drove here from San Diego on Friday to view the launch.

"Most of the hotel rooms in town sold out weeks ago. I had to stay in the car, waiting for the launch," she told Xinhua.

Missions to other planets are normally launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center and fly east, over water. That's because the eastward direction adds the momentum of Earth's eastward rotation to the launch vehicle's own thrust.

But the Atlas V is powerful enough to fly south toward the sea from the Vandenberg Air Force Base. Besides, the air force base had greater availability to accommodate InSight's five-week launch window.

The launch is only the beginning. The trip to Mars takes about six months. The journey is about 485 million kilometers.

If everything goes according to plan, InSight will land on Mars on Nov. 26, around noon Pacific Standard Time, on the Elysium Planitia, a volcanic region located in Mars' northern hemisphere, according to NASA.

Unlike NASA's previous Mars rovers such as Opportunity, Spirit and Curiosity, the lander will be a stationary mission. Staying in one place is necessary for its goals.

In addition, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory will use the spacecraft communication system to provide precise measurements of planetary rotation.

InSight "will probe the interior of another terrestrial planet, giving us an idea of the size of the core, the mantle, the crust - and our ability then to compare that with the Earth," NASA chief scientist Jim Green said during a prelaunch news conference on Thursday. "This is of fundamental importance for us to understand the origin of our solar system and how it became the way it is today."

The mission is also sending CubeSats, miniature satellites for space research, beyond Earth for the first time.

The probe is also carrying a chip with 2.4 million names from space fans, including Canadian actor William Shatner, who plays Captain James T. Kirk in the "Star Trek" film franchise.

Atlas V, operated by United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin Space, is one of the biggest rockets available for interplanetary flight. This is the same type of rocket that launched the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2005.NEW YORK, May 5 (Xinhua) -- The China Institute and the Yue-Sai Kan China Beauty Charity Fund jointly presented the third annual China Fashion Gala at The Plaza Hotel in New York City on Friday night.

This year's gala honored iconic designer Christian Louboutin; Alessandro Bastagli and Massimiliano Giornetti, executive chairman and creative director of Shanghai Tang, respectively; Tiffany & Co., the world's premier jeweler and America's house of design; and Maggie Q, one of the first Asian actresses to lead an American television network series.

The highlight of the evening show was a full-length couture fashion show by designer Grace Chen. Chen graduated in 1996 from the Fashion Institute of Technology, where she was the first alumnus for the Chinese mainland.

Chen said she hopes her designs will help establish the iconic image of modern Chinese women worldwide.

"China's power of culture is in the rise and everyone in the world is putting eyes on China and want to learn from China, so for us it's a good timing," said Grace Chen.

The China Fashion Gala is a platform to promote and support emerging Chinese talent on the international stage and recognize individuals whose outstanding contributions have helped position Chinese design and aesthetics at the forefront of fashion on a global scale.Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-06 04:15:58|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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LONDON, May 5 (Xinhua) -- Former Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson has suffered a brain haemorrhage and had an emergency surgery on Saturday.

A United statement said the surgery had gone "very well" but he needs "a period of intensive care to optimise his recovery", the BBC reported.

Ferguson, 76, who retired in 2013 after leading Manchester United to 38 trophies during 26 years in charge, presented Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger with a commemorative trophy before the United's 2-1 victory over the Gunners last Sunday.

The Sky news quoted a source saying Ferguson was in a "serious condition" in a Manchester hospital.Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-06 07:01:26|Editor: Yamei

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BOGOTA, May 5 (Xinhua) -- Colombia's government and the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrillas will resume peace talks in Cuba next week, the two sides announced on Saturday.

Ecuador had been hosting the talks, but declined to continue following a wave of violence along its border with Colombia.

The government and ELN delegations are to discuss "a new (bilateral) ceasefire" agreement to help promote an atmosphere of cooperation in seeking an end to five decades of fighting.

"After jointly examining our options for resuming the talks as soon as possible, we have decided to continue the fifth round in Havana starting next week," they said in a joint communique.

Both also thanked the various countries and organizations that had offered to host the talks to ensure the peace process continues.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos also broadcast the news, saying "it was decided to resume the negotiations with the ELN next week to seek a ceasefire and try to advance as much as possible in this process."

The talks had been taking place in Ecuador's capital Quito, with the ELN looking to strike a similar peace deal with the government as Colombia's disbanded Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) did in 2016. The FARC has since renounced violence and transformed into a political party.Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-06 07:01:27|Editor: Shi Yinglun

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A man casts his vote in a polling station in Beirut, Lebanon, on May 6, 2018. Some 3.7 million Lebanese people are registered to cast their votes in the parliamentary elections on Sunday, the first of their kind since the adoption of a new law that allows proportional representation. (Xinhua/Wu Huiwo)

by Salah Takieddine

BEIRUT, May 5 (Xinhua) -- Some 3.7 million Lebanese people are registered to cast their votes in the parliamentary elections on Sunday, the first of their kind since the adoption of a new law that allows proportional representation.

However, despite the abolition of the old majoritarian electoral system where the winner takes all, no major changes are expected in the political distribution of powers inside the parliament, because of the preferential voting system introduced in the new electoral law.

"How can you expect a representation of the political minorities in the parliament, when you introduce what is called the preferential voting, in which the Lebanese will cast according to their sectarian attribution," Hicham Nasreddine, head of Lebanese Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) electoral body, told Xinhua.

The voters will focus on "their protectors" with no attention "to any new aspiring candidates," said Nasreddine, whose party represents the majority of the Druzes in Lebanon.

But Khalil Hamadeh, a politburo member of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), Lebanon's largest Christian party established by President Michel Aoun and headed by Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, disagreed as his party aims for more seats in the parliamentary elections under the new electoral law.

"Our party aspires for a larger representation than what we already have in parliament, to restore the Christian representation in the hands of its owners," he told Xinhua.

"Change is coming and you will see the results on May 7," Hamadeh said.

Christians and Druzes were engaged in a fierce battle during the Lebanese Civil War from 1975 to 1990, causing the displacement of most Christians from their villages and towns after the Druzes managed to win the war.

In addition to the apparent rivalry between the Christians and Druzez in their campaign for the 128 seats in the parliament, many big names, including former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and Deputy House Speaker Farid Makari, have decided not to run.

Despite the big hopes built around the participation of the civil society in the upcoming elections, many Lebanese people still find themselves mired in the sectarian strife gripping the country, as it is most likely that they will have to wait for another four years to see any change in the parliament.Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-06 07:41:32|Editor: Xiang Bo

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by Julia Pierrepont III

LOS ANGELES, May 5 (Xinhua) -- "In California we're not encumbered by Washington politics. We have our own politics," California Governor Jerry Brown said at the California-China Business Summit in Beverly Hills in the western U.S. state of California on Thursday.

In a dramatic change from Hollywood's glittering Golden Globes and celebrity bashes, the Beverly Hilton opened its doors to the 2018 California-China Business Summit, which is co-organized by the Milken Institute which is a prestigious economic think tank, CHINAWEEK which is a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing understanding of and access to China, and the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products.

Atop the long list of issues and concerns being discussed was the U.S.-China trade tiff that has sparked retaliatory tariffs which threaten lucrative business ties between California and China.

The guiding principle behind the China Week is the belief that by introducing China to the Western world through the lens of Los Angeles, the natural gateway to the East, they can strengthen bonds and create a new dialogue between the two great nations.

"This event strengthens the growing economic, cultural and social ties between California and China," affirmed Governor Brown.

The summit brought together government, civic and business leaders to contextualize and explore the deeply entwined relationship between California and China.

Lou Anne Bynum, the president of Harbor Commissioners, Port of Long Beach, told Xinhua, "LA is the #1 port in the U.S., with 200 billion U.S. dollars, Long Beach is #2, with 180 billion U.S. dollars. We handle 40 percent of container imports for the entire country and create 350,000 jobs. China is responsible 69 percent of that trade."

"California and China recognize that economic prosperity is built on the long view, not which way the wind blows today...," affirmed Panorea Avdis, the director of the CA Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development.

"This trend to scale back and think that one economy can do it alone is short-sighted at best and at worst, could destroy the entire global economy," cautioned Avdis.

As the "Mobile First-Mobile Only" age continues to rapidly evolve, Winston Ma, managing partner and chief investment officer for Silk Road Investment Capital, issued a strong warning that the U.S. new isolationist and protectionist policies are in danger of leaving America behind in the global race to cash in on the next generation of digital tech.

"America led the way with 4G networks, but, through the Belt and Road Initiative and other key trading relationships with developing countries, it's like to be China's digital Silk Road that brings 5G to the next billion emerging consumers, while America is busy building a wall between Mexico," Ma told Xinhua.

Perry Wong of the Milken Institute seconded that concern. "You can do almost anything you used to do on a laptop on a mobile phone now and 80 percent of the cellphones in countries like Pakistan are from China and they adopt China's network infrastructure along with them. And as the Belt and Road rolls out in the future, that influence will keep expanding."

Jonathan Woetzel, director and senior partner of the McKinsey Global Institute Shaghai office, explained, "Globalization is the flow of goods and services, money, talent, people, data. When you are in the flow, it benefits you, your economy is better, your quality of life is better, so it's important to stay in the flow."

He added, "California needs investment in infrastructure right now and China has certainly demonstrated it knows how to invest in infrastructure. Bring some of their expertise, ideas and money to California."

Alan Turley, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce for China and Mongolia, noted that policy changes and trade scuffles have caused an alarming trend: "There has been a steep reduction in Chinese real estate investment this past year. A total of 67 projects worth 16 billion U.S. dollars in 2016 has dropped to 52 projects worth just 4.7 billion U.S. dollars in 2017. We need to get that back to where it was."

The next panel served up a near six-pack of California Assembly reps from all across the state: Napa Valley, Oakland, Silicon Valley, San Gabriel and San Bernadino. All of them - Democrats and Republicans - stressed the importance of China's trade to California.

California State Assemblymember Cecilia Aguiar-Curry from California's 4th District in Napa Valley and the Central Valley came out strongly for the California growers.

"California has the best nuts and fruits, the finest products with the highest standards of health and safety. And Chinese consumers want these products. There should be no barriers to trade," she told Xinhua.

Another California State Assemblymember Kansen Chu, from Silicon Valley, encouraged greater cross-cultural commerce rooted in shared perspectives and history. "High tech and motion pictures are big markets for us in China. We can do more to create co-productions with shared stories, like the Flying Tigers of WWII or building America's intercontinental railroad."

The Inland Empire's Republican California State Assemblymember Chad Mayes said, "California has to get its act together and compete globally. We're all people, we all matter. China, Singapore, Mexico - we have to lift up everyone. Free trade does that."

"It is the role of the California government to spur innovation collaboration between government, business, and academia to plan the future of our economy. To boldly envision and reimagine how we interact with the world around us," Avdis told Xinhua.

Peter Shiao, chairman of CHINAWEEK, summed it up best, "The future of our world depends on our ability to understand, appreciate, and connect with other countries. Learning about the arts, culture, business, sciences and history of another country enriches life and provides a powerful way to strengthen communities," asserts Shiao.

"We are a global economy. This is 2018, not the 1930s and you can't put the genie back in the bottle," warned the Port of Long Beach's Bynum.Photo taken on May 5, 2018 shows a view of the Asian Development Bank's (ADB) 51st annual meeting in Manila, capital of the Philippines. (Xinhua/Dong Chengwen)

MANILA, May 5 (Xinhua) -- China on Saturday proposed four steps that the Asian Development Bank (ADB) could take to further promote inclusive development in the Asia-Pacific region.

"Looking to the future, I hope that based on the development experience of the past 50 years, ADB can keep pace with times and engage in innovation, and actively support the promotion of inclusive development in the Asia-Pacific region," said Vice Minister of China's Ministry of Finance Yu Weiping, who represented Minister of China's Ministry of Finance Liu Kun at the business session of the 51st annual meeting of the ADB Board of Governors.

Yu said ADB can "innovate development strategies to promote high-quality development" in the region. Poverty reduction is one of the key goals of ADB, but it should not be the only one, Yu said.

"With more and more developing members entering the ranks of middle-income countries, ADB should strengthen its cooperation with middle-income countries to help them achieve high quality development while supporting low-income countries, small island countries, and vulnerable countries."

Yu said ADB can also "deepen regional cooperation and promote the building of a community of shared future for mankind."

"We support ADB's continued efforts to increase support for regional cooperation, and encourage ADB to continue to set long-term funding targets for regional cooperation and improve the linkages among regional cooperation mechanisms such as the Belt and Road Initiative, in order to achieve shared benefits through extensive consultation and joint collaboration and build a community of shared future for mankind."

Yu said ADB needs to "increase financing to support infrastructure interconnectivity" in the region.

"We encourage ADB to make full use of the capital advantages from ADF-OCR merger to expand the scale of loans and provide more financial support for developing members," Yu said, referring to ADB's Asian Development Fund and ADB's Ordinary Capital Resources.

China supports ADB to fully leverage its private sector operation, develop new loan products and tools, and catalyze more private capital to support infrastructure interconnectivity and long-term growth, Yu said.

Another proposal that Yu suggested for ADB is to "expand partnerships to enhance overall development benefits and levels" in the Asia-Pacific region.

Yu encouraged ADB to further expand its cooperation with new multilateral development banks such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Shanghai-based New Development Bank and other financial institutions.

By doing so, Yu said the scale of joint financing could be expanded, and the overall development benefits of the region will be enhanced by more actively carrying out tripartite and multi-party cooperation.

Yu said China will continue to support the development of ADB. "We will continue to deepen China's all-round cooperation with the ADB to jointly contribute to the sustainable development of the Asia-Pacific region and the world."

Yu hailed ADB, saying it is an important multilateral development bank in the region.

Over the years, Yu said, ADB has made prominent contribution to its developing members' endeavor in tackling various challenges, poverty reduction and development.

"ADB supports the cooperation between its regional cooperation programs and the Belt and Road Initiative, promotes the process of regional cooperation and integration, and serves the building of a community of shared future for the Asia-Pacific region."

Yu said the key to achieving inclusive development lies in people, in that all people should participate in the development process and share in the benefits of development.

"The funding, technology and knowledge of ADB are critical to achieving inclusive development in the region," Yu added.Photo taken on May 2, 2018 shows Xu Zhou (1st L), a project manager of the China Railway No. 2 Group (CREC2), talks with two workers on the China-Laos railway construction site at the suburb of Lao capital Vientiane. (Xinhua/Liu Ailun)

By Zhang Jianhua, Phouthaphone Sirivong

VIENTIANE, May 5 (Xinhua) -- In the central Laos' scorching sunshine in May, 35-year-old Xu Zhou was busy mapping design and inspecting the process of construction in the sixth section of the China-Laos railway construction project.

Xu Zhou was just awarded as one of the ten "Most Handsome Workers" ahead of this year's International Labor Day, selected nationwide by the Publicity Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and All-China Federation of Trade Unions. After attending the honoring ceremony on April 28 in Chinese capital Beijing, Xu Zhou appeared on the construction site at the suburb of Lao capital Vientiane on April 29.

"My daily job is mapping the construction design, drawing up and approve technical scheme, monitoring and managing the field work," Xu Zhou felt not much special of his job as a project manager of the China Railway No. 2 Group (CREC2) when talking to Xinhua on May 2.

"I am quite happy to be awarded as a nationwide Most Handsome Worker, which is a honor, but also a solid responsibility. Sure, I will carry on the responsibility as a fresh impetus, to do a better job, try to be a model, a professional model."

The CREC2 is in charge of the construction of the sixth section of China-Laos railway project, including the construction of Nam Khone super major bridge, the longest bridge in the China-Laos railway project and the longest under-construction bridge in Laos so far, with a length of 7,506 meters.

Photo taken on May 2, 2018 shows the Nam Khone super major bridge under construction by China Railway No. 2 Engineering Group Co., Ltd. (CREC2) in Vientiane, capital of Laos. (Xinhua/Liu Ailun)

Xu Zhou's main job in the railway project is to assure a perfect construction work of the Nam Khone Bridge, the key control project of the China-Laos railway.

Just in one year since he came to Laos from the Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway construction site in Ethiopia in May, 2017, Xu Zhou has conquered the difficulty of rainy season construction.

In the last rainy season in Laos, Xu Zhou and his team have accomplished many a mission impossible, such as planting the first bridge pile and the first bridge pier of China-Laos railway, building a steel processing factory in 12 days, completing the China-Laos railway exhibition hall and safety demonstration museum in 20 days, building 2.7-kilometer standardized example section in one month, etc.

Now in the railway's sixth section construction site near Vientiane, the railway roadbed is formed, bridge piles and piers are sprouting out of the ground, and especially the Nam Khone Bridge is due to be an example of Chinese standard and Chinese technology.

"Standing fast at the post, fulfilling my duties, is to accomplish my responsibility as a Chinese engineer, is to stay true to a man's very initial goal and beginning mind of achieving long-range ambitions," Xu Zhou said to Xinhua.

"I have just done what I should for the Belt and Road Initiative, but was awarded with a much bright honor, which will inspired me to build a highly-efficient, safe and best-qualitied China-Laos railway, to strive for a new China Railway legend on Belt and Road."

Xu Zhou, himself has become a legend among the workers on the China-Laos railway construction sites.

"Xu Zhou has been working with me since his internship," Gong Pingchang, the Communist Party of China in-field secretary of the CREC2's construction site, might be the one who knows best how Xu Zhou has become the Most Handsome Worker.

"He was quite dedicated and hardworking at that time, and then went to Ethiopia, now in Laos, full of hardship. However, going abroad to experience more difficulties opens the youth's mind wider."

In Gong's eyes, Xu's success lies on his endurance, dedication and great efforts, as well as being good at learning from the experienced colleagues. Gong hopes Xu to make more efforts so as to better complete the railway project, while also hopes more young staff can grow up in the major Belt and Road project.

"To be a handsome worker lies on what the handsome do. Loving the job, quick to learn and assiduously making the job well done may be what a handsome young Chinese engineer should do," Zhou Xiaoxia, the superintendent of the China-Laos railway construction project's sixth section said to Xinhua on Friday.

In the sixth section construction sites, there are not lacking such young figures, such as the in-field party secretary Gong Pingchang fainted twice in the bridge construction site for overworking last year.

What's more, when Xinhua reporters were in the construction site on Wednesday, the survey technician Bai Guisong was seen busy in fieldwork no matter exposing to the burning sun or the heavy rains; in the non-airconditioned factory, technician Luo Jin was teaching workers how to process the reinforcing bars, office staff Liu Shiqi was sorting the document in off hours; Liang Jingyu lost 24 kg weight during his six years work in Ethiopia and Laos, etc.

The China-Laos railway is being promoted by the leaders of the two countries as a project of interconnectivity. Since the commencement of construction in December 2016, the building of tunnels, bridges, roadbeds and other sections has progressed smoothly along the route.

The China-Laos railway has a total length of more than 414 kilometers comprising 60 percent of bridges and tunnels, linking Mohan-Boten border gate in northern Laos and the capital of Vientiane.

The operating speed of trains on the route is designed to be 160 km per hour. The railway is expected to be fully operational in December 2021.Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-06 11:16:56|Editor: Li Xia

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Sitaram Yechury, general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxists) reads in India's capital New Delhi April 8, 2018. Marxism is a guiding philosophy in any country where struggle is going on against exploitation, and the philosophy continues to be active in India, said Sitaram Yechury in a recent exclusive interview with Xinhua. (Xinhua/Zhang Naijie)

by Pankaj Yadav

NEW DELHI, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Marxism is a guiding philosophy in any country where struggle is going on against exploitation, and the philosophy continues to be active in India, said Sitaram Yechury, general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxists), or the CPI-M.

"Marxism can't escape the attention of the people, because it is the only philosophy that combines two very important aspects -- one is the aspect of emancipation, liberation from exploitation etc., and the other one is that it is supremely scientific," Yechury said in a recent exclusive interview with Xinhua.

"So, this has been its attraction which had its appeal in India as well," he said.

Yechury further stated that Marxism provides solutions to problems in a way that suits the local conditions in any country, and that's why it is relevant even today.

Yechury made the remarks as this year marks the 170th anniversary of the publication of The Communist Manifesto and the 200th anniversary of Marx's birth.

Hailing China as a shining example, the CPI-M chief praised the achievements China has made in just four decades since 1978, when China began to adopt its reform and opening up policy.

"China's experience with Communism is a very rich experience for Communists all over the world," he said.

The essence of Marxism in any country is "Concrete Analysis of Concrete Situations," Yechury said, adding that his party would not prefer copying China's Marxist model since Marxism should be applied to a country according to its own conditions.

He pointed out that copying from the Chinese experience does not work, saying "We need to adapt Communism for conditions in each country, like for example in India."

Yechury said that the CPI-M's endeavor is to reach out to young people by making use of modern communication tools like social media, mobile apps, in addition to the traditional print material like newspapers and journals.

The party has five dailies in different languages in five states, as well as journals, he added.

The CPI-M has come a long way since it was established in November 1964. Currently it reports a total membership of around 1.1 million.

"Electorally our performance might not have been at par, but that doesn't mean ... (that) Marxism has failed in India," Yechury said.

Currently the party rules in the state of Kerala in southern India, which has been a stronghold of the Communists for many decades.

In terms of parliamentary strength, the CPI-M reached its zenith during 2004-2009 when it had over 43 members of parliament (MPs) in lower house "Lok Sabha" and was one of the main alliance partners in the government headed by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Presently, the party has nine members in Lok Sabha out of total 545, and has five MPs in upper house "Rajya Sabha" which has 250 members.by Fei Liena, Zheng Shibo, Liang Hui

JAKARTA, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Every night, on the beaches along the landmark Surabaya-Madura Bridge (Suramadu Bridge), local people and tourists would comfortably sit or lie on the sand, drinking coffee and enjoying the spectacular view of the neon-lit bridge.

Harsa, an employee from Surabaya, the second largest city of Indonesia, said he comes here every week to relax and enjoy the seaside. "Thanks to the Suramadu Bridge, I can travel to Madura Island across the sea much more easily than before," he said.

"It's really pretty, isn't it?" he showed pictures of the bridge on his mobile phone to us, smiling.

The 5,438-meter Suramadu Bridge, the largest cross-sea bridge in Indonesia, started construction in October 2005 and was completed on June 10, 2009 after three and a half years of hard work by the Indonesian Public Works Ministry and the bridge's main contractor, China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC).

Before the bridge was built, local people and tourists often took long hours waiting for ferry to travel between Java Island and Madura Island. After its opening, the Suramadu Bridge cuts transportation time from 30 minutes to just 5 minutes.

According to data from the Indonesian Statistics Bureau, the average flow of motor vehicles on the bridge was 42,000 per day in 2016, and since then the number has kept rising every year.

"This number is pretty huge, bringing great economic and social benefits to the local government and people," Wei Wen, CRBC's Indonesia office general manager, told Xinhua.

Locals call it "the bridge of people's livelihood," as it facilitates transportation, attracts more commodities to flow between Java and Madura, and increases their income.

Sa'adah used to work as a household helper in Saudi Arabia. After the Suramadu Bridge opened in 2009, she decided to move back to her hometown and opened a gift shop under the bridge.

Everyday, especially on weekends, tourists from domestic and abroad would swarm into Madura Island, also buying souvenirs and gifts at Sa'adah's shop.

"Business is quite good," she said. "My earnings can totally support my whole family, including education for my three children."

Along the road under the Suramadu Bridge, there are more than 100 such shops, as well as restaurants and cafes.

"Madura has advanced industries of animal husbandry, salt, tobacco and lilac. It's also famous for its traditional bull-racing festival," said Sidik Wiyoto, chief secretary of Surabaya Madura Regional Development Agency. "However, the Madura Sea used to isolate Madura Island from the outside world, restricting its economic development. Its four regencies are among the least developed in the country."

"Now the Suramadu Bridge acts like the main artery of Madura Island, sending people and commodities through the veins."

The bureau has been planning industrial, commercial, trade and tourism zones in the Surabaya-Madura area, hoping to speed up its development process, Wiyoto noted.

"The Chinese enterprise helped us build this bridge, we hope China can do more and help us develop this region," he said.

According to Gu Jingqi, Chinese consul general in Surabaya, China and Indonesia have been actively developing closer synergy between China's Belt and Road Initiative and Indonesia's Global Maritime Axis vision.

The mutually beneficial cooperation in such areas as infrastructure, capacity-building, trade and commerce, investment, finance, and e-commerce has been moving forward, Gu said.

And a batch of significant cooperative projects such as the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway are well under way, he added.A military officer casts his vote at a polling station during the early voting for general election in Malacca, Malaysia, May 5, 2018. (Xinhua/Chong Voon Chung)

KUALA LUMPUR, May 5 (Xinhua) -- Malaysia's political parties are stepping up their campaign efforts over the weekend before the general election on May 9.

More than 270,000 police and military personnel and their spouses were registered for the early voting on Saturday. Postal voting is also available for voters overseas and those who would be on duty on the polling day like journalists.

Leaders of the incumbent ruling coalition of Barisan Nasional (BN) and the opposition have been touring the country to meet voters since the dissolution of parliament on April 7, despite the official campaign period only started a week ago on the nomination day.

When campaigned in the northern state of Penang, an opposition stronghold on Saturday, Prime Minister Najib Razak hailed his predecessor and former Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi as a "true statesman" "in contrast to another former party leader who wants to burn down our house that we have built together," in reference to former prime minister and now opposition leader Mahathir Mohamad, according to the state news agency Bernama.

Najib has been in office since 2009.

Barisan Nasional, or the National Front, a multi-party coalition led by the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), has been in power since Malaysia's independence in 1957. But the BN is facing increasing challenges from the opposition in recent years, being denied a long-held two-third parliamentary majority in the 2008 election and lost the popular votes in 2013.

BN is banking on Malaysia's strong economic performance as the country registered an impressive growth of 5.9 percent in 2017.

"The Barisan Nasioanl is confident of equaling or even doing better in this coming election compared to the last one in 2013," said Eric See-To, BN's Strategic Communications deputy director.

"We are among one of the strongest growing countries in the world," he told Xinhua in a recent interview, "The income inequality is now at all time the lowest, and income is growing across all segments."

The opposition of Pakatan Harapan, or the Alliance of Hope, is led by the 92-year-old Mahathir who has been a one-time mentor of Najib. Mahathir fell out with the prime minister and accused him of corruption over the state investment fund 1MDB, while Najib has denied any wrongdoing.

Mahathir quitted UMNO in 2016 and joined the opposition, becoming its candidate for prime minister ahead of the election. The opposition hoped Mahathir, who is still admired by many in the country, could weaken the strong support that UMNO enjoys in the rural areas.

At a campaign event in Kuala Lumpur earlier this week, Mahathir concentrated his criticism against Najib, urging voters to give him a chance to correct his mistakes in office.

BN is criticizing the opposition for making unrealistic promises like the abolishing of Goods and Services Tax that would imperil the country's economy, as well as voicing false allegations to gain support.

The opposition accused the ruling coalition of pushing through a redelineation of parliamentary seats ahead of the election to gain an edge, an allegation which See-To said was "unfounded".

"For the opposition, to continue narratives or their propaganda that this election is unfair, is merely to serve their purpose to gain sympathy votes," he said.

Polls and analysts still favors BN to win the election by citing the split in the opposition. The result will be unveiled following Malaysian voters casting their ballots on the polling day of May 9.YANGON, May 6 (Xinhua) -- A national-level political dialogue for Myanmar's Mon ethnic people is underway in Ye, Mon state to discuss issues on establishing a federal union, the official Global New Light of Myanmar reported Sunday.

The three-day dialogue, which began on Saturday, comes after the New Mon State Party (NMSP) armed group signed the government's Nationwide Ceasefire Accord (NCA) on Feb. 13.

Four sectors are being discussed in groups, covering proposals on the fundamental principles of the political sector, social sector, federal economy and farmland and environment sector.

Attending the political dialogue are 500 representatives concerned.

NMSP, along with the Lahu Democratic Union, signed the NCA with the government in Nay Pyi Taw on Feb. 13, bringing the total of such signatories to 10 since the first signing with the prior eight armed groups in 2015.

The two signatories will join the upcoming third meeting of the 21st Century Panglong Peace Conference slated for the last week of May.

Following the 2015 initiation of the NCA, the 21st Century Panglong Peace Conferences were held twice during the incumbent government in August 2016 and May 2017, respectively.Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-06 12:07:05|Editor: Shi Yinglun

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Ill villagers receive intravenous injection at the Kratie Provincial Referral Hospital in Kratie province, Cambodia on May 5, 2018. The death toll from drinking contaminated water in eastern Cambodia's Kratie province has risen to 10, as 121 others were hospitalized, Om Phy, deputy police chief of Kratie province, said Sunday. Villagers in Sre Non village, the tiny indigenous people's village in Chitborey district, have fallen ill and died subsequently since Thursday after they reportedly drank contaminated water from a canal in the village. (Xinhua/Kim Heat)

PHNOM PENH, May 6 (Xinhua) -- The death toll from drinking contaminated water in eastern Cambodia's Kratie province has risen to eight, with 103 others hospitalized, Om Phy, deputy police chief of Kratie province, said Sunday.

"Two more victims were confirmed dead at the Kratie Provincial Hospital and the Phnom Penh's Calmette Hospital early Sunday, bringing the number of the dead to eight, as the number of villagers hospitalized has reached 103," he told Xinhua.

Villagers in Chitborey district have fallen ill and died since Thursday after they reportedly drank contaminated water from a canal in the village where they live.

Om Phy said it was suspected that the water was contaminated with insecticides that farmers used on their crops along the canal.

Dr. Chheang Sovutha, director of the Kratie Provincial Health Department, said Sunday that eight of the victims, who were still in severe condition, had been admitted to the Phnom Penh's Calmette Hospital.

"We primarily suspect that farmers used insecticides to kill weeds in their farms, and when there was rain, the rain water flew the insecticides into the canal," Sovutha told Xinhua. "It is not the epidemics such as cholera or typhoid."

According to Sovutha, the victims had the same symptoms such as breathing difficulty, fatigue, sore throat, dizziness, vomit, and stomach ache.

He said that a sample of the water in the canal had been sent to a health laboratory in Phnom Penh, and the result was not yet available.Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-06 12:17:06|Editor: Xiang Bo

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by Xinhua writer Liu Si

BEIJING, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Wearing a white T-shirt printed with the head of Karl Marx, Australian professor Roland Boer is easy to spot in a crowd. His students say this is his typical and favorite look.

Boer, professor at the School of Humanities and Social Science of Newcastle University in Australia, was awarded the prestigious Isaac and Tamara Deutscher Prize, the highest in Marxism academia.

He met with Xinhua reporters here in Beijing recently, ahead of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Karl Marx, one of the most important thinkers in modern history.

Although he speaks little Chinese, Boer was able to freely speak such phrases in Chinese as "sinicization of Marxism," "reform and opening up," "socialist market economy," "poverty reduction," "harmony with diversity," and the like.

Born in 1961 as the son of a Presbyterian minister, Boer is not an "average scholar," whose academic path "took an unorthodox turn during a course in political and liberation theology" while studying for a bachelor's degree in the 1980s. He found interest in using Marxist analysis for economic and social phenomena and he did the same during his master's degree. "Marx has always been part of my work ever since, for more than 30 years."

Boer believes that the greatest thinkers are "actually on the margins or outside the mainstream."

"He (Marx) grew up in a Jewish family. His parents became Christian in cultural sense. He didn't go on to a university position. He didn't get a regular job, had to leave Germany, had to leave France ... he was really on the margins of the usual sort of thing," said Boer. "That's where real new discoveries take place."

The particular social context at that time "provided an impetus for someone like Marx to make the breakthroughs" to examine "the functioning of capitalism and the way it works." In his opinion, Marx and his collaborator Friedrich Engels were able to truly see the appalling state of the working class, the profound social disruption and other massive changes in England after industrialization, which "was an inspiration for both of them."

In view of that the West has witnessed a renewed interest in socialist ideas and Marxist ideas after the 2008 global financial crisis, Boer said, citing Marx's 151-year-old masterpiece Das Kapital as an example. In a sense Marx was describing a capitalism that was still to come. "He saw what was coming as it were and it's even more relevant now than it was then."

Boer pointed out that in volume 3 of Das Kapital, Marx did have a description of the financialization of the market "where money just produces money," something he says occurs today.

"This is the economic model that the United States has been following for a while. The richest people don't make anything. They don't build infrastructure but just get their money producing money," said Boer.

"The fact that people since 2008 especially have been returning to examine Marxism analysis indicates how relevant it is for current issues," he added.

That's one of the reasons Boer found it fascinating to study Marxism and socialism, particularly in China. "The Capitalism system is geared to make the rich richer so the have-nots still have-nots."

Socialism means "the lives of everybody should be improved not just a select group," said Boer, adding that socialism's superiority is its emphasis on justice and equality for all.

"I think that's the wisdom of China's reform and opening-up to realize the importance of that," he said, referencing China's anti-poverty campaign.

Statistics show that China has lifted 700 million people out of poverty through 40 years of reform and opening-up, which is widely described as the greatest human rights achievement of modern times. Boer noticed that more and more countries are interested in China's model "focusing on long term planning and stability."

"Even in Europe like Greece or Hungary or Serbia, countries that have been sort of marginalized in Europe have increasing engagement with an alternative model that China is offering," he said.

Having a crush on China, Boer currently spends about six months in the country every year, teaching at Renmin University and directing a research project called "Socialism in Power" in collaboration with a number of key Chinese institutions and universities.

He told Xinhua that he had never imagined in the past that he would be so engaged in China. "There was no plan in a sense to it but I found myself drawn into it."

Traveling around China, Boer has been committed to trying to understand what Marxism is all about and what China is doing with its socialist construction. In order to read the Marxist literature available here, Boer started to learn his 10th language -- Chinese, in his 50s.

Boer said what interests him most is China's creation of a socialist market economy and socialist democracy, and its sinicization of Marxism. Boer says each country develops its own approach to universal questions.

To examine how China is working on the basic right to economic well-being in rural areas, Boer led a team to create a massive open online course by filming in Ruijin, Jiangxi Province, in Fujian Province, and others. He was pleased to find an ethos in these places, which are "with the peasants first of all focused on making sure that they have enough food, that they have safe housing, that they have warm clothes, that life is secure and then they'll become communists."

In regard to the development of Marxism in China, Boer compared it to a tree taking root in a different soil and growing in its own way. "It is Marxism but I see Marxism as a living tradition."

According to Boer, he's been closely following the development of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era. He said that he actually studied Chairman Xi's works before the first volume of Xi's book on the governance of China. "Xi is taking another step in light of Chinese conditions, history, culture and recent developments and the longer past."

In fact, Boer is one of many Australians who are fascinated by China. He told Xinhua that there is a generational shift in Australia, with more interest in China developing among younger people.

Boer laughs at a suggestion that he is among the younger generation. "Elderly" more like it, he says.WASHINGTON, May 5 (Xinhua) -- Over 3,200 people visited the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C.. on Saturday as the embassy opened its doors to the public for the first time as part of the Around the World Embassy Tour, a signature cultural event held annually in the U.S. capital.

Held from 10 a.m. (1500 GMT) until 4 p.m. (2100 GMT), the 2018 Open House of the Chinese Embassy offered a rare look inside the embassy building, providing a unique opportunity for the public to experience China's cultural heritage and national tradition.

Visitors to the Embassy had a chance to tour the embassy's chancery building, enjoy the authentic Chinese artwork and various performances and shows, including martial arts, Beijing Opera, calligraphy and tea art demonstrations, along with the opportunity to participate in multiple hands-on programs, including sampling of Chinese cuisine, a photo booth featuring China's landmarks, and a chance to take a picture with a giant panda while waiting in line to enter the chancery.

In his opening remarks to kick off the event, Cui Tiankai, Chinese ambassador to the United States, extended his warm welcome to all the guests.

Cui noted that the event was held in the hopes of fostering greater connection and promoting further understanding between the Chinese and U.S. people.

He expressed his hope that the American public will gain a deeper understanding of both China and its people through the Open House event.

The diplomat assured all the guests that the Chinese embassy will open its doors even wider to the public in the future, so as to deepen the mutual understanding between the two peoples.

"The most solid basis for China-U.S ties lies in a deeper mutual understanding between the two peoples. All of you can become true ambassadors between China and the United States," said the ambassador.Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-06 13:44:55|Editor: Yamei

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Cheongsam lovers give a show on an ancient street in Bozhou, east China's Anhui Province, May 5, 2018. A cheongsam cultural festival opened here on Saturday, attracting more than 600 cheongsam lovers from home and abroad. (Xinhua/Zhang Yanlin)Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-06 14:27:21|Editor: Xiang Bo

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BEIRUT, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Lebanon will hold its first parliamentary election since 2009 on Sunday.

There are 976 registered candidates, including 111 women, running for the 128 seats in the parliament. The mandate of the current parliament was supposed to expire in 2013, but the lawmakers have extended it for several times, last time in June 2017 for another 11 months.

The parliament of Lebanon elects the president and approves the government. The prime minister, although appointed by the president, should also retain the confidence of majority in the parliament.

It also bears the responsibility of making major financial decisions such as levying taxes and passing budgets.

On May 25, 2014, the Lebanese parliament failed to elect a new president to replace then President Michel Suleiman when his term ended, creating a presidential vacuum which lasted for two and a half years.

Attempts to elect a new president failed dozens of times as the political fissure deepened within the parliament.

Lebanon has been split between two major opposing camps, the March 8 Alliance and the March 14 Alliance, resulting in a political deadlock throughout the administration.

In 2014, former army chief Michel Aoun, a member of the March 8 Alliance backed by Iran and Syria, became a candidate for the presidency. But he faced rivalry from the Saudi-supported March 14 Alliance, which backed the candidacy of the Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea.

However, in late 2015, Geagea withdrew from the presidential race after reaching an agreement with Aoun to back the latter's candidacy. In October 2016, Aoun was finally elected as Lebanon's 13th president, ending the long-time vacancy.

In June 2017, the Lebanese parliament ratified a new electoral law, which adopts a system of proportional representation for the first time in Lebanon's history, replacing the traditional winner-takes-all majoritarian principle in all former elections since its independence in 1943.

Lebanese nationals living overseas, for the first time, are able to cast ballots in early voting in this year's election. A total of 111 women have registered to run this year, creating a new record for the country.

Lebanon has long been sticking to a power-sharing pact among its coexisting religions, which stipulates that the president should be a Christian Maronite, the parliament speaker a Muslim Shiite, and the premier a Muslim Sunni.

But the delicate political balance is easy to break, especially when it is under rising pressure from external intervention.

Prime Minister Saad Hariri, a fierce opponent of the Syrian government led by President Bashar al-Assad, is the leader of the March 14 Alliance that rivals the Iranian-backed Hezbollah and enjoys the support of Saudi Arabia.

At the same time, President Aoun is allied with Hezbollah, whose forces are fighting in Syria alongside Syrian government forces.

On Nov. 4, 2017, Hariri abruptly announced resignation on TV in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, triggering a political crisis, which ended when Hariri rescinded his resignation in early December, shortly after returning home.Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-06 14:37:22|Editor: Xiang Bo

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BEIJING, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Being one of the overseas hubs within the framework of China's Belt and Road Initiative, Indonesia is witnessing rapidly developing ties and increasingly fruitful cooperation with China.

The growing momentum in bilateral relations, experts say, is also helping strengthen the partnership between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

In recent years, China-Indonesia ties have enjoyed rapid development, fuelled by the frequent high-level exchanges since the two countries established a comprehensive strategic partnership five years ago.

They have also aligned their development strategies, giving a stronger boost to their practical cooperation, which has borne rich fruit but still enjoys huge potential.

With Chinese Premier Li Keqiang travelling to Indonesia for an official visit, the two sides can work out more concrete measures to deepen and broaden bilateral cooperation, said Song Junying, deputy director of the Department for Asia-Pacific Security and Cooperation Studies at the China Institute of International Studies (CIIS).

Song suggested that the two countries carry out more major joint projects in such fields as industrial capacity cooperation and infrastructure construction.

Xu Liping, a senior research fellow with the National Institute of International Strategy at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, referred to the three pillars of China-Indonesia relations -- politics and security, trade and business, as well as people-to-people interactions.

"The overall cooperation mechanism is smooth, with stable approaches established in all the three fields," Xu told Xinhua.

China has been Indonesia's largest trading partner for seven years in a row, and has also become a main source of foreign investment in the archipelagic country. Chinese official statistics show that in 2017, two-way trade reached 63.3 billion U.S. dollars, up 18 percent year-on-year.

People-to-people exchanges are also increasing. The number of Chinese tourists to Indonesia reached 2 million last year, and Jakarta is trying to bring the volume to 3 million in 2018.

To Xu, it is very promising to link the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, the maritime part of the Belt and Road Initiative that Chinese President Xi Jinping put forward in Indonesia in 2013, with Jakarta's Global Maritime Fulcrum strategy.

Both initiatives envision comprehensive development encompassing infrastructure, industrial zones and so on, Xu said.

Although key programs are yet to be initiated, a good start has been seen in the operation of such joint industrial zones as Wuling Motors' production facility in Indonesia, added the researcher.

Xu suggested that China get more involved in Indonesia's infrastructure projects, as most parts of the Southeast Asian country are in dire need of efficient transportation.

Surrounded by a vast sea, Indonesia also needs to cooperate more with China in port construction and management, as well as on maritime issues like resource exploration and fishing, Xu said.

Such suggestions can also be applied to China-ASEAN cooperation, while development plans should be customized in accordance with the unique situations of different member states.

Besides cooperation with ASEAN, which has rolled out the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity 2025 for overall development, China can also take part in sub-regional mechanisms like the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation and the East ASEAN Growth Area, said Song, the CIIS scholar.

China's active participation, he added, will bring more investment and help accelerate both the sub-regional and the overall development of ASEAN in a positive way.

"Interconnectivity is the premise, while industrial capacity cooperation serves as the basis, and people-to-people exchanges as the guarantee," Song said.Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-06 14:57:24|Editor: Xiang Bo

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BEIJING, May 6 (Xinhua) -- China's national weather observatory renewed a yellow alert for rainstorms in southern and eastern areas Sunday.

In the next three days, heavy rain may hit parts of Anhui, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hunan, Jiangsu and Jiangxi, with gales in some areas, according to the National Meteorological Center (NMC).

From Sunday to Monday, some regions will see more than 100 millimeters of rain per hour.

The NMC warned local residents against outdoor activities and advised local authorities to take precautions against flooding and geological disasters.

China has a four-tier color-coded weather warning system, with red the most severe, followed by orange, yellow and blue.PHNOM PENH, May 6 (Xinhua) -- The death toll from drinking contaminated water in eastern Cambodia's Kratie province has risen to 10, as 121 others were hospitalized, Om Phy, deputy police chief of Kratie province, said Sunday.

"Four more victims were confirmed dead at the Kratie Provincial Hospital and the Phnom Penh's Calmette Hospital today, bringing the number of the dead to 10, as the number of villagers hospitalized has reached 121," he told Xinhua, adding that the dead were four men and six women.

Villagers in Sre Non village, the tiny indigenous people's village in Chitborey district, have fallen ill and died subsequently since Thursday after they reportedly drank contaminated water from a canal in the village.

Om Phy said the village has about 50 families and it was suspected that the water was contaminated with insecticides that farmers used on their crops planted along the canal.

"It's just the start of rainy season, and there is rain these days. I suspect that rain water has flown insecticides from the farms into the canal," he said.

He said that to prevent more cases, local authorities and health officials on Sunday morning warned the villagers of the dangers of contaminated water and distributed clean water and food to them.

Chheang Sovutha, director of the Kratie Provincial Health Department, said Sunday that to date, all of the victims remained in the hospitals.

"We primarily suspect that farmers used insecticides to kill weeds in their farms, and when there was rain, the rain water flew the insecticides into the canal," Sovutha told Xinhua. "It is not the epidemics such as cholera or typhoid."

According to Sovutha, the victims had the same symptoms such as breathing difficulty, fatigue, sore throat, dizziness, vomit, and stomach ache.

He said a sample of the water in the canal had been sent to a health laboratory in Phnom Penh for check, and the result was not yet available.

"To prevent more cases, we have only one measure: educating the villagers to stop using water in the canal, providing them with clean water, and finding another source of water for them," he said.Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-06 15:17:28|Editor: ZX

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BEIJING, May 6 (Xinhua) -- The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) recently fined three commercial banks for improper practices in wealth management.

China Merchants Bank, one of the country's biggest, was fined more than 65.7 million yuan (about 10 million U.S. dollars) for 14 violations, including guaranteeing principle on some wealth management products (WMP), the CBIRC said in an online statement Friday.

Shanghai Pudong Development Bank was fined more than 58.5 million yuan for 19 offences including allocating too much money raised from WMPs to risky assets.

Industrial Bank Financial Leasing Company, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Industrial Bank, was fined 1.1 million yuan for bundling the sales of WMPs with financial leasing business, among others.

The punishment comes as China's regulators toughen their stance on market irregularities, targeting risky business such as shadow banking.

Last month the central bank tightened regulations on asset management businesses of financial institutions.

The new rules unify regulatory standards for asset management products and address issues such as implicit guarantees by banks on many WMPs.

While the new rules give financial institutions until the end of 2020 to fully reform their practices, risks in existing business may be gradually exposed, and more fines could be imposed, analysts said.Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-06 15:22:29|Editor: ZX

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BEIJING, May 6 (Xinhua) -- China's central government has dispensed all its planned 2018 poverty alleviation funds to local governments, two months earlier than last year.

The poverty alleviation fund stands at 106 billion yuan (16.7 billion U.S. dollars) this year, 20 billion yuan more than last year.

The additional 20 billion yuan will be used to support areas of extreme poverty.

The Ministry of Finance urged local governments to help the country's 832 poorest counties and districts to make full use of the money.

China aims to lift another 10 million rural people out of poverty in 2018.People wait in a queue in front of a polling station in Beirut, Lebanon, on May 6, 2018. (Xinhua/Wu Huiwo)

BEIRUT, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Polling stations opened early Sunday in Lebanon as voters cast ballots in the first parliamentary election in nine years, amid calls for change and hope for a better future. The polling stations across the country opened the doors at 7 a.m. local time (0400GMT). Security has been beefed up at the polling stations and government buildings to prevent potential terror attacks. A long line formed in the early morning at the polling station set up in the Omar Fakhuri Primary School in southern Beirut,the capital, as dozens of voters waited patiently for their turn to cast the vote. This year's election featured active participation of young voters, estimated at 800,000, who hoped for a major change to the status quo. "Speaking as a college student, we need jobs, we need more respect, we need to be cured, we need to be helped, we hoped to have everything new, everything better than before," Jalal Bukhari,a 23-year college student, told Xinhua. Lebanese Interior Ministry statistics showed that about 3.7 million registered voters are eligible for voting this year. There are 976 registered candidates, including 111 women, running for the 128 seats in this year's election, which adopts a new system of proportional representation to replace the traditional winner-takes-all principle.

A man casts his vote in a polling station in Beirut, Lebanon, on May 6, 2018. (Xinhua/Wu Huiwo)

Major players in this year's election include the Future Movement, led by incumbent Sunni Prime Minister Saad Hariri; the Free Patriotic Movement, founded by incumbent Christian President Michel Aoun and led by his son-in-law Gebran Bassil; the Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed powerful Shiite political faction in Lebanon; the Amal Movement, led by incumbent Speaker Nabih Berri who has been in office since 1992; and the Lebanese Forces, a Christian opponent of Hezbollah. Though having enjoyed relative peace due to the delicate political balance reached among the Christians, Muslims and the Hezbollah since the 1975-1990 civil war, Lebanon has long been ruled by traditional powers including previous warlords and influential families. In the recent years, the Lebanese public has been voicing discontent over the declining public services, as illustrated by constant water and power cuts as well as corruption, and the rising number of Syrian refugees in the country. Despite the popular prediction that this year's election is unlikely to fundamentally change the political division as most of the old guards are expected to retain power, many voters are still upbeat about it and the country's future. Samira Hejazi, a 70-year-old woman, told Xinhua that she voted for Hariri. Though complaining about the "complicated" political system and diverged opinions in this small but religious diverse country, Hejazi said she still hoped this election would bring about some new changes. "I'm optimistic about the future. Lebanon is a great country, and Lebanese people are very good people," she said. To ensure the fairness of the election and prevent voting fraud, Lebanon has invited the European Union (EU) and the U.S.-based National Democratic Institute to monitor the voting on Sunday. A group of 36 short-time EU monitors were deployed Friday across Lebanon to monitor the voting, in addition to 24 long-term EU monitors and 40 Beirut-based staff members from the embassies of EU member states.Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-06 15:57:34|Editor: Shi Yinglun

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Lebanon's President Michel Aoun (R) votes at a polling station in Beirut, Lebanon, May 6, 2018. Polling stations opened early Sunday in Lebanon as voters cast their ballots in the first parliamentary election in nine years, amid calls for change and hope for a better future. (Xinhua/Dalati & Nohra)

BEIRUT, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Polling stations opened early Sunday in Lebanon as voters cast their ballots in the first parliamentary election in nine years, amid calls for change and hope for a better future.

The polling stations across the country opened at 7:00 a.m. local time (0400 GMT). Security has been beefed up at the polling stations and government buildings to prevent potential terror attacks.

A long queue formed in the early morning at the polling station set up in the Omar Fakhuri Primary School in southern Beirut, the capital, as dozens of voters waited patiently for their turn to vote.

This year's election saw a lot of young voters, estimated at 800,000, who were hoping for a major change.

"Speaking as a college student, we need jobs, we need more respect, we need to be cured, we need to be helped, we hope to have everything new, everything better than before," Jalal Bukhari, a 23-year college student, told Xinhua.

Lebanese Interior Ministry statistics showed that about 3.7 million registered voters are eligible to cast their votes this year. There are 976 registered candidates, including 111 women, running for the 128 seats in this year's election, which adopts a new system of proportional representation to replace the traditional winner-takes-all principle.

Major players in the election include the Future Movement, led by incumbent Sunni Prime Minister Saad Hariri; the Free Patriotic Movement, founded by incumbent Christian President Michel Aoun and led by his son-in-law Gebran Bassil; the Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed powerful Shiite political faction in Lebanon; the Amal Movement, led by incumbent Speaker Nabih Berri who has been in office since 1992; and the Lebanese Forces, a Christian opponent of Hezbollah.

Though having enjoyed relative peace due to the delicate political balance reached among the Christians, Muslims and the Hezbollah since the 1975-1990 civil war, Lebanon has long been ruled by traditional powers including previous warlords and influential families.

In recent years, the Lebanese public has been voicing discontent over the declining public services, as illustrated by constant water and power cuts as well as corruption, and the rising number of Syrian refugees in the country.

Despite the popular prediction that this year's election is unlikely to fundamentally change the political division as most of the old guards are expected to retain power, many voters are still upbeat about it and the country's future.

Samira Hejazi, a 70-year-old woman, told Xinhua that she voted for Hariri.

Though complaining about the "complicated" political system and divergent opinions in this small but religiously diverse country, Hejazi said she still hopes this election would bring about some new changes.

"I'm optimistic about the future. Lebanon is a great country, and Lebanese people are very good people," she said.

To ensure the fairness of the election and prevent voting fraud, Lebanon has invited the European Union (EU) and the U.S.-based National Democratic Institute to monitor the voting on Sunday.

A group of 36 short-time EU monitors were deployed Friday across Lebanon to monitor the voting, in addition to 24 long-term EU monitors and 40 Beirut-based staff members from the embassies of EU member states.Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-06 16:27:37|Editor: ZX

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BEIJING, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Foreign Ministry on Sunday said Yang Jiechi, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo exchanged views on the Korean Peninsula issue during a Saturday phone conversation.

According to Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang, Yang, who is also director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the CPC Central Committee, elaborated China's principle and position, and underscored China's stance on denuclearization, peace and stability of the peninsula, and settlement of the issue through dialogue and consultation.

It is hoped that all parties can consider the China-proposed "dual-track" approach, according to Geng. The "dual-track" approach refers to promoting denuclearization on the peninsula and establishing a peace mechanism.

China called on all parties to maintain the positive momentum in resolving the issue, and address each other's reasonable security concerns in a balanced manner in the process of promoting denuclearization, thus

achieving the ultimate goal of long-lasting peace and stability on the peninsula and in the region, according to the spokesperson.Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-06 17:47:47|Editor: ZX

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JAKARTA, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang arrived in Jakarta Sunday for an official visit to Indonesia, the first stop on his first overseas trip since the new cabinet took office in March.

Li's visit comes as this year marks the 5th anniversary of the establishment of the China-Indonesia comprehensive strategic partnership and the 15th anniversary of the strategic partnership between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-06 17:57:49|Editor: ZX

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Laborers chant slogans during a protest rally against two separate coal mines collapse incidents, in southwest Pakistan's Quetta on May 6, 2018. The death toll of Pakistan's two separate coal mine collapses, which took place on Saturday in southwestern Balochistan province, rose to 23, officials said on Sunday. (Xinhua/Asad)

ISLAMABAD, May 6 (Xinhua) -- The death toll of Pakistan's two separate coal mine collapses, which took place on Saturday in southwestern Balochistan province, rose to 23, officials said on Sunday.

Chief Inspector of Mines Iftikhar Ahmad said the death toll rose after five more bodies were recovered from a mine in Margit area near Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan.

According to the official, overall, seven people were killed and two others sustained serious injuries in the incident in Margit area. However, he said the reason behind the mine collapse has not been known yet.

Earlier on Saturday, local media reported that an explosion triggered by gas caused the incident.

The rescue work is still in process at the mine, as it is feared that some people remained buried under the debris very deep. Rescue officials feared the death toll would further rise.

In another incident in Marwar area near Quetta, at least 16 miners were killed and nine others injured after the mine caved in following an explosion caused by the accumulation of the methane gas, the official said.

The government reportedly plans to start separate inquiries into the two accidents.Photo shows the sign of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). The China-initiated AIIB is a complement to existing international financial system. (Xinhua)

NAIROBI, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Kenya's decision to join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is a continuation of the country's drive to diversify its core interests from the Western-led lending institutions, and to cement its relations with China that has emerged as a leading contractor of its key infrastructure projects, analysts said Thursday.

The AIIB announced Wednesday that its board of governors has adopted resolutions approving applications from Papua New Guinea and Kenya to join the bank, bringing its total approved membership to 86.

Kenya will officially join AIIB once they complete the required domestic processes and deposit the first installment of capital with the bank, according to AIIB.

Local economic observers hailed the move by the Kenyan government.

"Kenya's lag in infrastructure development for many years can be directly attributed to the conditionalities of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This is a mistake that the country does not want to repeat again and therefore the choice to join a tolerant financial development institution," Ken Ogembo, a lecturer at the Kenyatta University, told Xinhua.

He gave an example of the proposed overpass along Nairobi's main traffic artery of Uhuru Highway that was expected to ease traffic congestion in Nairobi.

The road was approved by the parliament in 2008. "The World Bank withdrew from its funding pledge at the eleventh hour. To date, the road has not been done," Ogembo said.

Ogembo said Kenya's joining of the AIIB is part of its strategic plan to align with financial institutions that are "developing countries-minded" and therefore have a broader knowledge of the solutions for growth in a country like Kenya.

"We are likely to see more African countries join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank because it provides an opportunity for finding solutions for the south-south development challenges," he said.

In recent years, China-funded infrastructure projects was credited to help the Kenyan economy grow by about 5.5 percent on average in the last five years, compared to the 4.5-percent average growth in the previous five-year period, according to the ministry of national treasury and planning.

Kenya has been on a hunt for competitive development financing since 2002 when infrastructure upgrade and development drive started.

"China has been a true partner of Kenya as far as infrastructure financing is concerned. It is a chance that Kenya does not want to lose now as there is still massive demand for projects to open up the country further," said David Mutua of the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA).

Among such demands is an ambitious development initiative launched by President Uhuru Kenyatta last year known as the Big Four Agenda, which seeks to transform manufacturing, food security, affordable housing and health insurance in the next five years.

"Kenya does not have the capacity to finance the kind of projects which are to ensure that this initiative succeeds. The demand for external financing is therefore massive. We are talking about constructing half a million houses for instance. Then you look at expanding irrigation to increase food security. These are capital intensive projects that will require support of partners," said Mutua.

The move to join AIIB is also seen as a vote of confidence on Kenya-China relations.

"Kenya is sending a message to China that 'We are with you for the long haul.' The gains that Kenya has made because of Chinese assistance are massive yet the need for further expansion of infrastructure is even higher as the country moves towards achieving a middle-income status," said Wilson Kamau, head of Africa Governance Institute (Kenya Chapter).

"It's a benefit Kenya could not have gained from the Western partners and would not gain in future," Kamau added.

Kenya adopted China as one of its preferred development partners in 2002 under the then president Mwai Kibaki. The bilateral relations have seen steady improvements since then.

According to study results revealed by Ipsos in April, more Kenyans have singled out China (34 percent) as the most important foreign partner to the Eastern African country compared with the United States (26 percent).

With 57 signatories at its launch in January 2016, the Beijing-headquartered AIIB aims to improve social and economic outcomes in Asia and beyond by investing in sustainable infrastructure and other productive sectors.

"We're very happy to welcome Papua New Guinea and Kenya as prospective members of AIIB," AIIB Vice President and Corporate Secretary Danny Alexander said Wednesday.Some local employees of the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) Nigeria Limited pose for a group photo. (Xinhua)

by Olatunji Saliu

ABUJA, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Last month, some Nigerian youths were about to round off their mandatory one-year National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) program after graduation from local universities when a Chinese firm held a job fair inside their camp.

The job fair, which has now provided 50 of the fresh graduates their first jobs, was organized on April 12 by China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) Nigeria Limited.

It had established itself as a top international brand in Nigeria after more than 30 years of localization efforts.

Fredrick Okagwa, a fresh graduate of the Nigerian Law School, said he didn't expect to have the opportunity at first, but it later turned out that he was selected after "a very tough but transparent process."

"I sent my CV (curriculum vitae), and I was called for an interview. That was how I got the job," Okagwa told Xinhua.

On Friday, barely a month after the job fair at the Abuja NYSC camp, he and 49 others were formally inducted as CCECC staff in Nigeria.

The induction ceremony was organized for the new local employees, by the CCECC management, after a short training introducing the goals and objectives of the construction firm in Nigeria.

The training was also to teach the new workers how to manage the Nigerian construction industry.

"I never thought I could get my first job so easily, let alone working for such a big company immediately after my mandatory NYSC program," said Okagwa, who got a placement in CCECC's legal department.

The objective of my department is to reduce the liability of the company, he noted.

"I intend to grow in the company to a senior managerial position, and also see how I can influence the company to consider Nigerians for reputable positions in times to come," he said.

At least 2,000 fresh graduates of various disciplines had applied for jobs in CCECC following the job fair, said Li Jianhui, managing director of the Chinese construction firm.

"The management of CCECC is not only interested in engaging thousands of workers, we are talking about the localization of the management team," Li said at the induction ceremony.

The Chinese firm has well over 20,000 local workers in Nigeria, handling mainly road, bridge, and railway projects.

Local employment has made a great contribution to the company's rapid development in Africa's most populous country.

Abu Joseph, one of the trainee staff who studied political science at the University of Abuja, told Xinhua he sees a bright and rewarding future in working for the Chinese firm, although he is new on the job.

"I am glad that I have been given this opportunity to serve. As an executive assistant, my position is going to help me inform the company on policies in Nigeria.

"I am very passionate about this company. I want to grow with it, and see the company as one of the strongest engineering construction firms in the world in the nearest future," Joseph said.

Sharing their experiences so far, the young trainee staff said many instructors who spoke with them inside a CCECC camp in Idu, a new industrial area in Abuja, had taught them how to add value to the company through passion, loyalty, focus, and humility.

"I have just been given a platform toward realizing my dreams in life," said Mary Chinanza Dimejesi, a graduate of English Language from the University of Nigeria in the southeastern city of Nsukka.

"The best way to give back to CCECC is to give hard work and show passion toward the company's goals," Dimejesi said, adding "this company has shown a great interest in the growth of Nigeria through its goal of localizing its management team."

Some of the newly employed workers have already been posted to different states in Nigeria, to work on CCECC's projects across the country.

Jonathan Obafemi Olopade, an engineering professor and Honorary President of CCECC's Abuja Training School, told Xinhua he and his team will ensure a bright future for new and older staff of the company in Nigeria, as the Chinese construction firm had been providing a good platform for local workers who have the capacity and willingness to prove their abilities in various areas.

The Chinese firm regularly sent Nigerian employees with potential to China to receive training so they could catch up with the latest technology in the construction industry.

"This enhanced their sense of belonging to CCECC and many of them had risen from assistants to project managers," Olopade added.Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-06 18:27:56|Editor: Lu Hui

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PUL-E-KHUMRI, Afghanistan, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Unknown armed men abducted six foreigners and their Afghan driver in Khawja Alwan area outside Afghanistan's northern Baghlan province's capital city Pul-e-khumri on Sunday, a local official said.

"All the abducted foreigners were working for a sub-station of a power supply company in Khawja Alwan area when the incident happened today morning," police spokesman Zabihullah Shija told reporters here.

Without identifying their nationalities, the official blamed Taliban militants for the abduction and said, "Taliban commander Mullah Shahen is behind the crime."

However, he added that efforts are underway to ensure the safe release of the abducted persons.

Taliban militants are yet to make comment.Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-06 18:27:57|Editor: Lu Hui

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BEIJING, May 6 (Xinhua) -- From May 18th to 25th, the Bolshoi Ballet will visit the National Center for the Performing Arts (NCPA) in Beijing to deliver a ballet feast for audiences with its full-length Le Corsaire and The Flames of Paris.

Le Corsaire, to be staged from May 18th to 20th, will attract audiences with its sprightly and changeful structure; especially the section "Zakharova and Shipulina," with more than 60 performers and lasting over 20 minutes, is rare in group ballet for its large number of dancers, rich structure and varied formations.

From May 22nd to 25th, the Bolshoi will play The Flame of Paris, a master work about the French Revolution in 1792, premiered by the Leningrad Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre in 1932.

The play becomes more dense and intricate by cutting to two acts from the previous four. A new role, Adeline, the daughter of a noble family who gets escorted to the guillotine, is added to present a new perspective of the French Revolution.

Founded in 1776, the Bolshoi Theatre is the main national theatre of Russia. The Bolshoi Ballet has gained worldwide reputation with its classical ballet performances, such as Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, Don Quixote, The Nutcracker, and Romeo and Juliet.PARIS, May 6 (Xinhua) -- France strongly criticized U.S. President Donald Trump's remarks suggesting more flexible arms rules in the country could have helped prevent deadly terrorist attacks in 2015, French foreign ministry has said.

"France expresses its firm disapproval of President Trump's comments about the Paris attacks on Nov. 13, 2015 and demands that the memory of the victims be respected," the Quai d'Orsay said in a statement.

"Every country freely decides on its own laws on carrying firearms, as in other areas. France is proud to be a country where acquiring and carrying firearms is strictly regulated," it added.

Trump, on Friday, told a gathering at the National Rifle Association (NRA) which advocates for gun rights, that if civilians had been armed, it would have been a different outcome to 2015 series of explosions and shootings that left 130 victims.

"The free flow of arms within society does not constitute a bulwark against terrorist attacks, it can instead facilitate the planning of this type of assaults," the ministry fired back.

Former French president Francois Hollande, who was ruling the country at the time, rejected Trump's "shameful" and "obscene" remarks which "tell a lot about what he thinks about France and its values."Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-06 18:43:00|Editor: Lu Hui

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PYONGYANG, May 6 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Sunday accused the United States of misleading world opinion by saying that the DPRK's commitment to denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula was the outcome of international sanctions and pressure.

The Korean Central News Agency quoted a spokesperson for the DPRK Ministry of Foreign Affairs as saying that Washington is deliberately provoking the DPRK despite the improvement of the situation on the Korean Peninsula.

"Recently, the U.S. is misleading public opinion, arguing as if the DPRK's clarification of its intention for denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula made through the Panmunjom Declaration adopted at the historic North-South summit is the result of so-called sanctions and pressure," said the spokesman.

He slammed the United States for saying that it would not ease the sanctions and pressure until the DPRK gives up its nuclear weapons completely.

"The U.S. is also moving to aggravate the situation on the Korean Peninsula by deploying strategic assets on the Peninsula and increasing its attempt of taking up the 'human rights' issue against the DPRK," said the spokesman.

"This act cannot be construed otherwise than a dangerous attempt to ruin the hard-won atmosphere of dialogue and bring the situation back to square one," he added.

The spokesman warned that if Washington miscalculates the peace-loving intention of the DPRK as a sign of weakness and continues to pursue its pressure and military threats against the latter, it would be counter-effective to addressing the nuclear issue on the peninsula.

The DPRK and South Korea issued a joint declaration on April 27, saying the two sides are committed to the goal of denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula, during a historic summit meeting between DPRK top leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in.SOFIA, May 6 (Xinhua) -- A military parade involving more than 1,600 soldiers, 52 combat vehicles and 14 helicopters and airplanes, was held here on Sunday to mark the Day of the Bulgarian Army.

The parade, attended by country's President Rumen Radev and Parliament Speaker Tsveta Karayancheva along with cabinet ministers, ambassadors, military veterans and thousands of citizens, was opened by a Mi-17 helicopter carrying the national flag.

The helicopter was followed by a march of army units, the National Guard and the Guard Brass Band, as well as a representative unit of the Macedonian Army.

Meanwhile, Mi-24 and AS-532 AL helicopters, and C-27J, L-39ZA, PC9M, Su-25 and MiG-29 aircraft flew over them.

Right after that, the parade was joined by T-72 tanks, self-propelled howitzer 2S1, various armored vehicles, as well as tactical operational missile complex Tochka, and anti-aircraft missile system Osa-AK, among others.

"At the crossroads of geography, Bulgaria has survived for 13 centuries," Radev said while addressing the parade.

"Bulgaria is a pillar of peace in our historically burdened region," Radev said, adding that sovereignty can be secured by enough strength and valor.

Bulgarian army was officially established in July 1878, shortly after the country's liberation from Ottoman rule, and May 6 was officially pronounced as the Day of the Bulgarian Army in 1880.Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-06 19:18:07|Editor: Lu Hui

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JAKARTA, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang arrived in Jakarta Sunday for an official visit to Indonesia, the first stop on his first overseas trip since the new cabinet took office in March.

Li's visit comes as this year marks the 5th anniversary of the establishment of the China-Indonesia comprehensive strategic partnership and the 15th anniversary of the strategic partnership between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Li was welcomed by Indonesia's Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan and other senior officials at the airport.

Since Chinese President Xi Jinping paid a state visit to Indonesia in 2013, the two countries have been promoting the synergy of their development strategies, yielding fruitful results in their cooperation in various fields, Li said upon his arrival in Jakarta.

Li will hold talks with Indonesian President Joko Widodo and Vice President Jusuf Kalla, and attend a China-Indonesia business summit. The schedule also includes witnessing the signing of cooperation documents.

The Chinese premier will visit the ASEAN Secretariat to underscore China's commitment to its relations with the 10-member community, meet with ASEAN Secretary General Lim Jock Hoi, and attend celebration activities of the anniversary.

China has been Indonesia's largest trading partner for seven years in a row. In 2017, two-way trade reached 63.3 billion U.S. dollars, up 18 percent year-on-year. Good results have been achieved in building the China-Indonesia industrial parks and steady progress is being made in the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway, Li said in a signed article published by the Jakarta Post on Saturday.

China is also Indonesia's largest source of foreign tourists and second-largest host of Indonesian students, the article noted.

After the trip to Indonesia, Li will leave for Japan on Tuesday to attend the 7th China-Japan-ROK leaders' meeting and pay an official visit to Japan.NEW DELHI, May 6 (Xinhua) -- The Indian government is in touch with Afghanistan authorities to ascertain the whereabouts of the Indian nationals abducted in Afghanistan on Sunday, an official said.

"We are aware of the abduction of Indian nationals from Baghlan province in Afghanistan. We are in contact with the Afghan authorities and further details are being ascertained," an official spokesperson said, responding to reports of the abduction.

According to Afghan police, unknown armed men abducted six foreigners and their Afghan driver in Khawja Alwan area outside Afghanistan's northern Baghlan province's capital city Pul-e-khumri on Sunday.

"All the abducted foreigners were working for a sub-station of a power supply company in Khawja Alwan area when the incident happened today morning," police spokesman Zabihullah Shija told reporters.

The Afghan side has yet to confirm the nationalities of the abductees, but blamed Taliban militants for the abduction, saying "Taliban commander Mullah Shahen is behind the crime."

Taliban militants are yet to make comment.Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-06 20:23:19|Editor: Shi Yinglun

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OSLO, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Norwegian authorities have spent from zero to more than 200,000 kroner (24,800 U.S. dollars) in the last three years for published posts on Facebook website, newspaper Aftenposten reported Sunday.

Norwegian researchers believe this amount will increase.

"Sponsored content can be problematic, because the administration should not pay for what is defined as political message," said Kjersti Thorbjornsrud, media researcher at the Institute for Social Research.

The ministries told Aftenposten that the most sponsored posts were job advertisements, and after that campaigns promotion. There were, for example, posts on stricter asylum regulations in Norway, as well as content about flu vaccine and antibiotic resistance.

On Facebook there are also examples of sponsored content that show the prime minister in conversation with a patient who is pleased with the government's policy.

"Paid content should be linked to neutral information, such as job advertisements. But then there is always a question of when a message gets political overtones, for example when the ministries sell a message that the government or a minister does something good. The question is where to set the limits for payment, which we have not discussed properly yet," Thorbjornsrud said.

She also expressed uncertainty about whether the state should pay for information that not everyone has access to, as Facebook makes sure that information only reaches certain target groups.

Media researcher Bente Kalsnes pointed out that this practice of government announcing has consequences for traditional media that are losing money.

"In many businesses and organizations today, we see that advertising money that previously served as a form of media support is on its way to being transferred to social media and Silicon Valley companies. If the ministries do the same, this will also have consequences for the authorities' media policy," she said.

The government's Head of Communication, Trude Maseide, said that the ministries follow their own guidelines from 2016. These, according to her, "allow ministries to consider sponsorship of matters that are important general information, campaigns, events or advertising budgets, such as those for job advertisements."

In other types of cases, judgments are made by using common sense, but sponsorship should not be used on purely political matters, Maseide added.ARUSHA, Tanzania, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Tanzania is now focusing on Eastern Europe in its tourism marketing strategies after registering success in Western Europe and North America, an official of the country's Tourist Board said on Sunday.

Willy Lyimo, Tanzania Tourist Board (TTB) northern zone manager, said that the new market will complement the otherwise traditional markets such as the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and France.

Lyimo who was speaking shortly after meeting a delegation of travel agencies from Eastern Europe highlighted the importance of the new market to the growth of the sector, noting that Tanzania stood to reap big from it.

"This is a unique opportunity to expand our base to emerging markets. There's a lot of potential from countries like Bulgaria and the Czech Republic," he explained.

The TTB official was also optimistic that the marketing of Tanzania's natural resources on international travel expos was now paying dividends following the desire expressed by the foreign travel agents of bringing tourists to the country.

Volodymyr Voloshyn, Director of BCD travel from Ukraine, described Tanzania as a well-established safari destination for many Ukrainians, and assured that his company would bring more tourists from the country.

"Tanzania is endowed with a pristine heritage coupled with an array of natural resources, it is the perfect gateway for tourists from Ukraine," he said.

Buoyed by the direct flights from Ukraine's capital Kiev to the spice island of Zanzibar, Voloshyn was convinced that such a trend would open up Tanzania to the rest of Eastern Europe.

Paul Fissoo, Tanzania's Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority (NCAA) Manager for Tourism Services, expressed his optimism over the potential offered by the Eastern European market.

Fissoo said the authority will capitalize on the new market with a view of increasing the number of tourists who tour the Ngorongoro Conservation Area.

According to the 2017 International Visitors' Exit Survey Draft Report released last week, international tourist arrivals in Tanzania soared by 5.6 percent in 2017, raking in 2.3 billion U.S. dollars, from 2.1 billion U.S. dollars recorded in 2016.Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-06 20:28:21|Editor: ZX

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BEIJING, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Foreign Ministry on Sunday reiterated that foreign-funded enterprises should respect China's sovereignty and territorial integrity.

This came after a U.S. statement released on Saturday, which objected to China's requirement that foreign companies should stop listing Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan as "countries" on their websites and promotional materials.

Spokesperson Geng Shuang noted that no matter what the U.S. side says, it will not change the fact that there is only one China and that Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan are inalienable parts of China.

China will stick to the One-China principle when dealing its external relations, Geng said, urging foreign enterprises operating business in China to respect China's sovereignty and territorial integrity, abide by Chinese law, and respect the Chinese peoples' feelings.



Particularly during my sojourns in South Africa, it may not be possible for me to perform the moderation function speedily. I regret the necessity of moderation but it has been rendered inevitable by the behaviour of a particular commentator whose contributions will always and without exception be rejected.





No correspondence will be entered into regarding moderation decisions.

Readers are invited to comment on blog posts. All comments require to be pre-moderated by me, and I shall reject all (a) that are not related to the Lockerbie disaster or (b) that fail to meet my -- perhaps idiosyncratic -- standards of courtesy towards other contributors. Comments will not be rejected simply because I disagree with them or because I, or other contributors, find them irritating. But comments will be rejected if they distort or misrepresent the evidence; are defamatory; or if they risk embroiling me, as publisher, in defamation proceedings. I am perfectly relaxed about being sued in respect of material which I personally have posted -- but not in respect of material that others wish to post as comments and which, in any case, I often strongly disagree with.Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi calls his people to vote after casting his ballot in a vote station at Ariana in Tunis, capital of Tunisia on May 6th, 2018. (Xinhua/Liu Kai)

TUNIS, May 6 (Xinhua) -- About 11,185 polling stations opened early Sunday to host in total 5.3 million Tunisians registered voting for their first free municipal elections since the 2011 revolution.

Spread over 40,000 centers across 350 constituencies in the 24 provinces, polling stations begin at 8:00 am and will end around 6:00 pm, except for 172 polling stations located in border provinces, where the polls begin at 9:00 am and end at 4:00 pm for security reasons.

A Tunisian voter casts his ballot in a vote station at Ariana in Tunis, capital of Tunisia on May 6th, 2018. (Xinhua/Liu Kai)

A few dozen voters, including women accompanied by their children carrying Tunisian flags, were in front of the "Sidi Fraj" primary school in Soukra, one district of Ariana province in northern suburbs of Tunis.

While waiting to access the polling station to exercise their electoral rights, these Tunisians met their President, Beji Caid Essebsi, who arrived around 10 am and voted.

The municipal elections observed the candidacy of 53,668 Tunisians including 49.26% of women. These candidates are spread over 2074 electoral lists in the running, including 1055 lists of political parties, 860 independent lists and 159 coalition lists.

According to figures from Independent High Authority for Elections of Tunisia, 69.63% of the heads of lists are men and 30.37% are women.Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-06 21:18:27|Editor: Chengcheng

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People carry an injured man upon to a vehicle after a suicide attack in Khost province, Afghanistan, May 6, 2018. At least 12 people were confirmed dead and 23 others injured as a blast targeted a voter registration center inside a mosque in Khost city, the capital of eastern Afghanistan's Khost province. (Xinhua/Zaman Nazari)

KABUL, May 6 (Xinhua) -- At least 12 people were confirmed dead and 23 others injured as a blast targeted a voter registration center inside a mosque in Khost city, the capital of eastern Afghanistan's Khost province, on Sunday.

Gul Mohammaddin Mangal, a health official in the province said 12 dead bodies and 23 injured persons have so far been taken to hospital.

Earlier, provincial police chief Abdul Hanan Zadran told reporters that 30 people were killed or injured in a blast in a local mosque that housed a voter register center.

No group has claimed responsibility.

Taliban militants have targeted voter registration centers in parts of the war-battered country over the past couple of weeks.Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-06 21:18:27|Editor: ZX

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TEHRAN, May 6 (Xinhua) -- If the United States pulls out of the nuclear deal, it will be a "historical regret" for them, Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said here on Sunday.

Rouhani dismissed Washington's threats, saying that the Iranians are not afraid of the United States. "This great nation will continue its progress and development" regardless of the threats, he said.

Rouhani said that the Islamic republic is prepared for any decision by the U.S. regarding the nuclear deal.

"We must know that (the U.S.) next week decision will not change our lives," he said.

The Iranian government has given necessary instructions to the executive bodies of the country since a couple of months ago, and "the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran has also received orders to deal with the possible U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear deal," he said.

Iran has threatened to resume nuclear enrichment activities in case U.S. President Donald Trump decertify the nuclear deal.

Trump is expected to decide by May 12 whether to pull out of the nuclear deal, and he has said that he would not extend the waiver suspending the U.S. sanctions on Iran.

In January, Trump extended sanctions relief on Iran under the deal for the last time, threatening to withdraw from it if U.S. Congress and his European allies cannot fix the alleged "disastrous flaws."

The whole world, except the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia, is supporting the nuclear agreement, Iranian president lashed out at Trump's call on the Europeans to join his plan.

"I overtly announce to the whole world, Europe, America, the West and the East that we will not negotiate with anyone about our country's weapons and defense programs," said Rouhani.

"We will build and store any amount of weapons and missiles the country may need. It is none of anybody's business what decision the Iranian people have made for their defense," he stressed.KABUL, May 6 (Xinhua) -- As many as 268 militants loyal to the Taliban group have been killed and 71 others wounded following series of operations launched by Afghan forces in the county's two restive provinces of Uruzgan and Ghazni over the past six weeks, officials said Sunday.

"Around 18 insurgents affiliated with the Taliban were killed and 13 others wounded over the past 24 hours of the Afghan forces in the Andar district of eastern Ghazni province," Aref Noori, the provincial governor spokesman told Xinhua, adding that no Afghan troops suffered casualty in the incident.

Elsewhere in Trinkot district of southern Uruzgan province, around 250 militants were killed and 50 others wounded during the past 45-day operations by the government forces, according to Col. Rahmatullah Qimati, the brigade commander based in the area.

He also confirmed the death of 10 security forces and injury of 10 others during the ongoing operations.

The Taliban fighters have not commented on the report.RABAT, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Better job growth helped push Morocco's unemployment rate down to 10.5 percent in the first quarter of 2018 from 10.7 percent a year earlier, said the official High Commission for Planning on Sunday.

The commission said in a note that Morocco's economy created some 116,000 jobs between January and March compared to 109,000 during the same period last year.

Services, agriculture and construction created 50,000, 43,000 and 32,000 jobs respectively, according to the note. Manufacturing lost 9,000 jobs.

The unemployment rate in urban areas was slightly down from 15.7 percent to 15.6 percent, while it significantly decreased from 4.1 percent to 3.5 percent in rural areas due to bountiful rainfall.

Unemployment remains high among urban youth aged between 15 to 29, particularly graduates.

The Moroccan government has set it as one of the top goals to reduce the unemployment rate to 8.5 percent by 2021.Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-06 21:38:34|Editor: Shi Yinglun

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by Levi J Parsons

SYDNEY, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Vintage World War II aircraft, aerial stunt planes and thunderous military fighter jets tore up the sky this weekend at Wings Over Illawarra.

Firstly launched in 2007, the annual event originally began as an open-day at Albion Park Airport, 100 km south of Sydney.

But in just a few years, the air show has been transformed into Australian aviation's biggest showcase.

With over 80 aircraft on display both on the ground and in the sky, this year's program was the largest ever, with more than 40,000 people in attendance for the two day event on Saturday and Sunday.

Among some of the aircraft on show were the C-17A Globemaster, Black Hawk helicopters, a P-8A Poseidon, the C-130J Hercules and the Royal Australian Air Force's famed FA-18 Hornet squadron.

But for lovers of history, there were also World War II era restorations of classic warbirds like Sabre's, Hurricane's, Tiger Moths and larger transport aircraft like the DC-3.

"It is important to preserve the historic value of these older aircraft, both as a mark of respect to those who flew them in times past, but also to remind people of our aviation history," one of the event's organizers Steve Visscher told Xinhua.

"People are genuinely interested in the wide range of aircraft, and our aim is to inspire interest and enthusiasm for aviation of all kinds."

"People not already active in aviation are amazed by the speed and the sounds, as well as the aerobatic action."

One of those acrobats who thrilled onlookers with death-defying stunts, was Australian Red Bull Air Race pilot Matt Hall, who recently returned from France after winning the Cannes Event.

"I do get called a lot of things," Hall said, "and Mad is one of them."

"I will be doing maneuvers today where I am only about 5 ft off the ground at about 400 km per hour, pulling about 12 G's."

As a former Royal Australian Air Force pilot with 18 years military experience, the stuntman said "It's not my objective to scare people, I'm just out there having fun."

As well as thrilling locals and tourists alike, Wings Over Illawarra has also proved to be a massive boon for the local economy.

This weekend, the New South Wales State government estimates around five million U.S. dollars will be injected into the region with over 5,000 overnight stays.

According to Visscher, a growing number of those visitors have been Chinese.

"Chinese tourists regularly buy tickets to the event, particularly those living here and engaged in pilot training," he said.

"Going forward, we plan to actively market the show to Chinese and other regional markets as a major tourist event."

"Similarly, we are keen to grow interest in aviation in the Chinese market by staging air shows there in coming years too."Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-06 21:53:37|Editor: Xiang Bo

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Chinese Premier Li Keqiang arrives in Jakarta, Indonesia, May 6, 2018, for an official visit to the country. (Xinhua/Pang Xinglei)

JAKARTA, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang arrived in Jakarta Sunday for an official visit to Indonesia, the first stop on his first overseas trip since the new cabinet took office in March.

Li's visit comes as this year marks the 5th anniversary of the establishment of the China-Indonesia comprehensive strategic partnership and the 15th anniversary of the strategic partnership between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Li was welcomed by Indonesia's Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan and other senior officials at the airport.

Since Chinese President Xi Jinping paid a state visit to Indonesia in 2013, the two countries have been promoting the synergy of their development strategies, yielding fruitful results in their cooperation in various fields, Li said upon his arrival in Jakarta.

"My visit is aimed at cementing mutual political trust, deepening mutually beneficial cooperation and enhancing the friendship of our peoples," Li said. "I expect joint efforts of both sides to promote the bilateral relations and cooperation in various fields so as to bring more benefits to the peoples of both countries."

China is willing to join member states of ASEAN, including Indonesia, to strive for greater development of China-ASEAN relations and cooperation, Li said.

China and ASEAN should work together to build a community of shared future with neighboring countries and promote regional peace, stability and development, he said.

During his visit, Li will hold talks with Indonesian President Joko Widodo and Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla, and attend a China-Indonesia business summit. The schedule also includes witnessing the signing of cooperation documents.

The Chinese premier will visit the ASEAN Secretariat to underscore China's commitment to its relations with the 10-member community, meet with ASEAN Secretary General Lim Jock Hoi, and attend celebration activities of the anniversary.

China has been Indonesia's largest trading partner for seven years in a row. In 2017, two-way trade reached 63.3 billion U.S. dollars, up 18 percent year-on-year. Good results have been achieved in building the China-Indonesia industrial parks and steady progress is being made in the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway, Li said in a signed article published by the Jakarta Post on Saturday.

China is also Indonesia's largest source of foreign tourists and second-largest host of Indonesian students, the article noted.

Placing ASEAN as a high priority in its neighbourhood diplomacy, China has been a staunch supporter of ASEAN community building and ASEAN centrality in East Asian cooperation, Li said in the article, adding that China is keen to work with ASEAN to uphold the multilateral trading system and promote trade and investment liberalization and facilitation.

After the trip to Indonesia, Li will leave for Japan on Tuesday to attend the 7th China-Japan-ROK leaders' meeting and pay an official visit to Japan.Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-06 21:58:39|Editor: Shi Yinglun

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Palestinian militants attend the funeral of their comrades, in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, on May 6, 2018. Armed wing of the Islamic Hamas movement, which rules the Gaza Strip, blamed Israel on Sunday for the six deaths of its militants in an ambiguous explosion in Gaza on May 5. (Xinhua/Stringer)

GAZA, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Armed wing of the Islamic Hamas movement, which rules the Gaza Strip, blamed Israel on Sunday for the six deaths of its militants in an ambiguous explosion in Gaza Saturday.

In a statement, Hamas's Qassam Brigades held Israel responsible for the death of its militants, saying that they were killed while "dealing with a booby-trapped spying device."

Six militants of the Hamas armed wing were killed and three others injured Saturday evening in a blast in a house in the Deir al-Balah city in central Gaza Strip.

The group said the device was planted by Israel during the past decade, adding that the deceased militants foiled a "big Israeli spying plan."

The statement said more information on the operation will be revealed later.

"Israel will pay a heavy price," the group said.

Despite Hamas accusations, Israel denied involvement in the explosion.NAIROBI, May 6 (Xinhua) -- New Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali and Djibouti President Ismail Omar Guelleh are expected in the country for state visits, Kenya's presidency announced on Sunday.

State House Spokesperson Manoah Esipisu told journalists in Nairobi that Abiy will arrive in the country later on Sunday for a two-day state visit to bolster already strong relations between Kenya and Ethiopia.

"Some matters of particular interest to us are boosting economic partnerships, and boosting participation in trade and investment by our private sector," Esipisu said.

"Therefore, the leaders are likely to review how the implementation of the Special Partnership Agreement is progressing, and possibly agree on how to accelerate that," he added.

Esipisu pointed out that Kenya and Ethiopia are key partners in security and peace in the region, and have both committed time and resources in fighting against terrorism, bringing Somalia to sustainable peace, and finding a lasting solution to the challenges in South Sudan.

He said Abiy's host, President Uhuru Kenyatta is expected to formally receive Prime Minister Abiy at State House on Monday where bilateral and regional issues will dominate their discussions.

Meanwhile, Esipisu said Djibouti President Guelleh will arrive in Nairobi on May 9 for a two-day state visit.

He said the focus areas of discussion between presidents Kenyatta and Guelleh will be cooperation in trade, livestock management, vocational training, promotion and protection of investment and exemption of visa for holders of diplomatic and service passports.

The State House spokesman said additional areas of discussion between the two leaders include partnership in the tourism sector, geothermal energy and expansion of bilateral trade and investment.

"Collaboration in the Air Transport sector by increasing Kenya Airways passenger flights to Djibouti and introduction of cargo flights to increase the volume of trade in Kenya's assorted agricultural products including coffee and tea, among others, will also feature in the talks," he said.

Kenya's exports to Djibouti include petroleum and bituminous products; tea; and soap. Medicines, especially for vet purposes, also remained a common export between the two countries in the last five years.ADDIS ABABA, May 6 (Xinhua) -- A delegation of the African Union (AU) is in Sudan to assess the security trends in peacekeeping mission and the situation of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the country.

An AU statement on Sunday said that the AU Peace and Security Council (PSC) on Saturday started its five-day visit to Khartoum and Darfur, Sudan for the assessment.

The council will assess the African Union-United Nations Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) in light of the ongoing review of the mission aimed ensuring a smooth and seamless exit of the UNAMID.

The PSC will urge all Sudanese parties to commit to the full realization of peace and stability in Darfur following the resolution of the conflict which lasted for almost 15 years, said the statement.

The statement said that the PSC visit is taking place at a time when the security situation is reported to have sustainably improved in Darfur, thus necessitating a gradual withdrawal of the UNAMID.

"The AUPSC therefore deems it imperative to gather first-hand information on the current status of the situation prior to making decisions on the future of the UNAMID, while guaranteeing the protection of civilians in Darfur," said the statement.Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-06 22:33:51|Editor: yan

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ALEPPO, Syria, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Chinese brand cars have been shining in the ongoing International Aleppo Fair in the country's northern city of Aleppo, with merchants stressing growing trust in the Chinese automobile industry during Syria's seven-year-old crisis.

Chinese sedans, SUVs and pickup trucks were put on display on the fair from May 5 to May 11, the first international exhibition in Aleppo during the country's long-running conflict.

During the period of conflict, the imports of new foreign cars have come to a halt largely due to the Western sanctions on Syria as well as the economic measures undertaken by the Syrian government regarding the imports of cars to preserve the country's foreign exchange reserves.

In terms of the Chinese cars, Syrian companies have imported the parts of the cars from China and assembled them in factories in Syria in coordination with Chinese companies.

Chinese cars are sold in Syria at reasonable prices affordable by most Syrian buyers. BYD, Great Wall, and Faw have become famous and well-known in the country.

Visitors in the fair seemed interested in the Chinese cars, checking their specifications and their interiors.

Hamdo Nashed, a visitor, told Xinhua that he was interested in the Great Wall cars, saying "my friend had bought a hatchback car and he has been driving it for three years and it is good."

Qadri Shanan, another visitor, also has a friend who owns a Chinese car, saying "the car is naturally promoted when people try it and it's proved to be good and reliable as time moves on. People want to buy it because they have friends or relatives who have already bought it."

The marketing manager of the Shammout Auto company told Xinhua during the fair that there is a growing demand for Chinese cars in Syria.

"During the seven years of war in Syria, China has achieved a great leap in terms of the manufacturing of cars and Syrian people are turning to these products because they have noticed the quality of the cars," he said.

For his part, Amer Kharboutli, the marketing manager of E-motors, said the Chinese automobile industry has largely been enhanced and developed in the recent years, which is the reason behind Syrian people's growing preference for these cars.

"As Syria's car industry was affected by the crisis, Chinese cars have proven to be good alternatives and the people want new cars that have warranties and spare parts," he said.

Ren Min, regional marketing representative of the Dongfeng Automobile, told Xinhua recently in Damascus that ahead of the war, Syria was a very big market for the Chinese cars as Chinese brands have attracted great interest in the Syrian market.

During the crisis, the cars were imported as parts and assembled in Syria, he said, adding that more Chinese state-owned car companies have attached importance to the Syrian car market.

Unlike the Western companies that were strained after the sanctions, the Chinese car companies are offering technical support after purchase, he said, adding that Syria is still an important market for both the private and state-run Chinese automobile companies.

Besides cars, the Chinese products in general are well received in Syria.

Hashem Qasoumeh, who runs a company offering logistic service for imports and exports firms, said the business with China is so important for the Syrians.

"China is one of the largest exporters to the world and this is a very strategic point. Syria relies largely on China as 80 percent of the goods in Syria are imported from China including raw materials and products," he said.

Meanwhile, the Chinese Ambassador to Syria Qi Qianjin visited the fair in Aleppo and had a tour in different pavilions.

He told Xinhua that "the opening of this fair is a clear evidence that Syria is returning to normal life and started recovering economically and socially. At the same time, China is interested in the reconstruction process of Aleppo and other Syrian cities."

For his part, Syrian Minister of Tourism Bisher Yaziji told Xinhua that Syria is building on the economic, social and political relations with China.

"The participation is extensive from all the companies and that is a strong indication of the recovery of the Syrian economy, particularly in Aleppo city," he said.

Aleppo was the industrial capital of Syria ahead of the war and after its liberation from the rebels in late 2016, efforts were exerted to reactivate the industries in the city.Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-06 22:33:52|Editor: yan

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TOKYO, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang's upcoming trip to Japan is of great significance to bilateral relations as well as regional cooperation and prosperity, Chinese Ambassador to Japan Cheng Yonghua said in a recent article.

During his stay in the neighboring country, Li will pay an official visit to Japan, the first by a Chinese premier in eight years, and attend the seventh China-Japan-South Korea leaders' meeting, a trilateral mechanism that is being resumed after two and a half years.

The trip, said the ambassador, is expected to further consolidate the warming-up trend in China-Japan ties and enhance China-Japan-South Korea cooperation.

The China-Japan relationship went through twists and turns in the opening years of this decade, which seriously damaged the political mutual trust and practical interests of the two countries, Cheng recalled.

In November 2014, the two sides reached a four-point agreement that reaffirmed the principles for them to properly handle historical, territorial and other issues, and bilateral ties began to improve, noted the ambassador.

The momentum, Cheng pointed out, has further increased since Chinese President Xi Jinping met in May 2017 in Beijing with Toshihiro Nikai, secretary-general of the Liberal Democratic Party, who led the Japanese delegation to the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.

Noting that this year marks the 40th anniversary of the signing of the China-Japan Treaty of Peace and Friendship, Cheng said the two neighbors are highly complementary in economy and closely connected in culture.

Both positive and negative historical experiences have proved that China and Japan should stick to peace, friendship and cooperation, which is not only the sole correct choice for the two sides, but also the common aspiration of the international community, especially the Asian countries, he said.

At present, bilateral exchanges and cooperation in various fields are being steadily restored and developed. Last year, bilateral trade returned to above the 300 billion U.S. dollars level and personnel exchanges increased to a record high of 10 million, noted the ambassador.

With profound changes at home and abroad, China and Japan are sharing more and more common interests, said Cheng, adding that as two important players in Asia and beyond, the two countries also shoulder the common responsibility of maintaining peace and development in the region and the world at large.

The two sides, he suggested, should seize the opportunity to strengthen exchanges and cooperation in various fields, continuously expand their common interests, and work together to lead Asia toward prosperity.

Against this backdrop, Li's official visit to Japan and attendance at the trilateral leaders' meeting are worth looking forward to, the ambassador said.

"I believe that with the joint efforts of the two sides, this visit will help bring China-Japan relations back to the right track so that they can realize sound and stable development," Cheng said.Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-06 23:09:00|Editor: yan

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HOHHOT, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Tens of thousands ethnic Mongolians and tourists on Sunday made the pilgrimage to a shrine dedicated to the 13th-century conquerer Genghis Khan for a spring memorial ceremony.

Worshippers gathered at the mausoleum in Ordos, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, to pray and offer hada, a white ceremonial silk scarf.

Called Tsagaansurek, or "milk sacrifice" in Mongolian, the spring ritual uses the milk of white horses as a sacrifice to peace and prosperity.

"Hearing the chant of the ancient eulogy and watching the parade, I felt the history in books had come alive," said an ethnic Mongolian student, who gave his name as Hongyan.

Every year, ethnic Mongolians hold four rituals, one in each season, to Genghis Khan. The spring ritual is the grandest at the shrine and lasts for eight days. Local authorities estimate that there will be more than 100,000 visitors to the shrine during the festival.

Ethnic Mongolians claim to be descended from Genghis Khan, who united the tribes of northern China and founded the Mongol Empire in the 13th century. His grandson, Kublai Khan, established the Yuan Dynasty that ruled China from 1271 to 1368.

Genghis Khan memorial rituals were inscribed as China's intangible cultural heritage in 2006.Photo taken on May 5, 2018, in Syria's northern city of Aleppo shows a host standing next to a Chinese car showcased during the Aleppo International Fair, the first international fair held in Aleppo during the Syrian crisis, with 400 companies taking part. (Xinhua/Hummam Sheikh Ali)

ALEPPO, Syria, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Chinese brand cars have been shining in the ongoing International Aleppo Fair in the country's northern city of Aleppo, with merchants stressing growing trust in the Chinese automobile industry during Syria's seven-year-old crisis.

Chinese sedans, SUVs and pickup trucks were put on display on the fair from May 5 to May 11, the first international exhibition in Aleppo during the country's long-running conflict.

During the period of conflict, the imports of new foreign cars have come to a halt largely due to the Western sanctions on Syria as well as the economic measures undertaken by the Syrian government regarding the imports of cars to preserve the country's foreign exchange reserves.

In terms of the Chinese cars, Syrian companies have imported the parts of the cars from China and assembled them in factories in Syria in coordination with Chinese companies.

Chinese cars are sold in Syria at reasonable prices affordable by most Syrian buyers. BYD, Great Wall, and Faw have become famous and well-known in the country.

Visitors in the fair seemed interested in the Chinese cars, checking their specifications and their interiors.

Hamdo Nashed, a visitor, told Xinhua that he was interested in the Great Wall cars, saying "my friend had bought a hatchback car and he has been driving it for three years and it is good."

Qadri Shanan, another visitor, also has a friend who owns a Chinese car, saying "the car is naturally promoted when people try it and it's proved to be good and reliable as time moves on. People want to buy it because they have friends or relatives who have already bought it."

The marketing manager of the Shammout Auto company told Xinhua during the fair that there is a growing demand for Chinese cars in Syria.

"During the seven years of war in Syria, China has achieved a great leap in terms of the manufacturing of cars and Syrian people are turning to these products because they have noticed the quality of the cars," he said.

For his part, Amer Kharboutli, the marketing manager of E-motors, said the Chinese automobile industry has largely been enhanced and developed in the recent years, which is the reason behind Syrian people's growing preference for these cars.

"As Syria's car industry was affected by the crisis, Chinese cars have proven to be good alternatives and the people want new cars that have warranties and spare parts," he said.

Ren Min, regional marketing representative of the Dongfeng Automobile, told Xinhua recently in Damascus that ahead of the war, Syria was a very big market for the Chinese cars as Chinese brands have attracted great interest in the Syrian market.

During the crisis, the cars were imported as parts and assembled in Syria, he said, adding that more Chinese state-owned car companies have attached importance to the Syrian car market.

Unlike the Western companies that were strained after the sanctions, the Chinese car companies are offering technical support after purchase, he said, adding that Syria is still an important market for both the private and state-run Chinese automobile companies.

Besides cars, the Chinese products in general are well received in Syria.

Hashem Qasoumeh, who runs a company offering logistic service for imports and exports firms, said the business with China is so important for the Syrians.

"China is one of the largest exporters to the world and this is a very strategic point. Syria relies largely on China as 80 percent of the goods in Syria are imported from China including raw materials and products," he said.

Meanwhile, the Chinese Ambassador to Syria Qi Qianjin visited the fair in Aleppo and had a tour in different pavilions.

He told Xinhua that "the opening of this fair is a clear evidence that Syria is returning to normal life and started recovering economically and socially. At the same time, China is interested in the reconstruction process of Aleppo and other Syrian cities."

For his part, Syrian Minister of Tourism Bisher Yaziji told Xinhua that Syria is building on the economic, social and political relations with China.

"The participation is extensive from all the companies and that is a strong indication of the recovery of the Syrian economy, particularly in Aleppo city," he said.

Aleppo was the industrial capital of Syria ahead of the war and after its liberation from the rebels in late 2016, efforts were exerted to reactivate the industries in the city.Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-06 23:14:01|Editor: Chengcheng

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File photo taken on April 26, 2018 shows Pakistani Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal speaking during an event in Islamabad, Pakistan. Pakistani Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal was shot and injured in an assassination attempt during a rally in Narowal district of the country's eastern Punjab province on Sunday evening, police said. (Xinhua/Ahmad Kamal)

ISLAMABAD, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal was shot and injured in an assassination attempt during a rally in Narowal district of the country's eastern Punjab province on Sunday evening, police said.

District Police Officer of Narowal Imran Kishwar said a local resident opened fire at the minister soon after he concluded his speech during a rally in Kanjrur town of the district.

The gunman Abid Hussain, 22, merely managed firing one shot that hit the minister's right arm.

The suspect was arrested by the police soon after he fired the shot, the officer said.

The minister was rushed to the District Hospital in Narowal where he is undergoing surgery. He is out of danger, the officer said.

Chief Minister of Punjab Province Shahbaz Sharif sent a helicopter to shift the minister to a hospital in Lahore, the provincial capital of Punjab.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi condemned the attack and ordered the police to trace the planners behind the attack.

Iqbal is considered among the top brains of Pakistan's political elite. He is performing his duties along with two portfolios, including minister of interior and minister of planning, development and reform.Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-06 23:39:06|Editor: yan

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BEIJING, May 6 (Xinhua) -- China's securities regulator has issued draft rules on the issuance and trading of China Depositary Receipts (CDRs) for public comments.

A China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) online statement Friday revealed the draft rules on CDRs, with detailed procedures and information disclosure requirements.

The draft rules lay the institutional foundation for innovative firms to return to the domestic capital markets via the issuance of CDRs, while creating conditions for the launch of the Shanghai-London stock connect program.

The public have until June 3 to comment on the draft rules.

The CDR program will allow domestic investors access to tech giants such as Alibaba and Baidu, currently listed in the United States.A man casts his vote in a polling station in Beirut, Lebanon, on May 6, 2018. Polling stations open early Sunday in Lebanon as voters cast ballots in the first parliamentary election in nine years, amid calls for change and end to corruption. (Xinhua/Wu Huiwo)

BEIRUT, May 6 (Xinhua) -- The voting in the first Lebanese parliamentary election in nine years on Sunday proceeded smoothly in a calm and orderly manner, raising hopes for new changes and a better future.

The polling stations across the country opened doors at 7 a.m. local time (0400GMT) and were closed at 7 p.m. local time (1600GMT).

President Michel Aoun, speaking to the press before voting, urged every voter to exercise the "sacred duty" of choosing their representatives for the next four years.

"Hold on to your free will and do not allow any pressure to be exerted on you," Aoun said.

This year's election featured active participation of young voters, estimated at 800,000, who hoped for a major change to the status quo.

"Speaking as a college student, we need jobs, we need more respect, we need to be cured, we need to be helped, we hoped to have everything new, everything better than before," Jalal Bukhari, a 23-year-old college student, told Xinhua at the polling station in the Omar Fakhuri Primary School in southern Beirut, the capital.

About 3.7 million registered voters are eligible for voting this year. There are 976 registered candidates, including 111 women, running for the 128 seats in this year's election, which adopts a new system of proportional representation to replace the traditional winner-takes-all principle. About 580 candidates, including 86 women, were finally qualified for the race.

On the record number of female candidates running in the election, some voters felt very encouraged.

Sabah Darazi, a 65-year-old retired employee of the Education Ministry, told Xinhua at a polling station in Sidon (Saida), 45 km south of Beirut, that she hoped there will be more women lawmakers in the parliament, citing that Lebanese women are "full of aspiration and wittiness."

Afaf Dabaghi, a French language teacher, told Xinhua that she even hoped there will be a female president in Lebanon one day in future. "Who knows," she said.

Major players in this year's election include the Future Movement, led by incumbent Sunni Prime Minister Saad Hariri; the Free Patriotic Movement, led by Christian President Aoun's son-in-law Gebran Bassil; the Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed powerful Shiite political faction; the Amal Movement, led by incumbent Speaker Nabih Berri; and the Lebanese Forces, a Christian opponent of Hezbollah.

Though having enjoyed relative peace due to the delicate political balance reached among the Christians, Muslims and the Hezbollah since the 1975-1990 civil war, Lebanon has long been ruled by traditional powers including previous warlords and influential families.

In the recent years, the Lebanese public has been voicing discontent over the declining public services, as illustrated by constant water and power cuts as well as corruption, and the rising number of Syrian refugees in the country.

Gabriel Debbane, general manager of Debbane Saikali Family Holding, told Xinhua at a Sidon polling station that he was not satisfied with the way that things went in the past years, especially the power outages and garbage issue.

"During the last two or three years, it was a mess -- no decision, no new law, no political life," he told Xinhua, referring to the political deadlock within the government that failed to address the daily problems.

Despite the popular prediction that this year's election is unlikely to fundamentally change the political division as most of the old guards are expected to retain power, many voters are still upbeat about it and the country's future.

Samira Hejazi, a 70-year-old woman, told Xinhua that she voted for Hariri.

Though complaining about the "complicated" political system and diverged opinions in this small but religious diverse country, Hejazi said she still hoped this election would bring about some new changes.

"I'm optimistic about the future. Lebanon is a great country, and Lebanese people are very good people," she said.

Lebanese analysts hailed the calm and orderly manner in which the voting was conducted on Sunday.

"What the Lebanese recognize is that consensus is the one rule that governs Lebanese politics and that no political change can happen if there is no minimum of understanding between the parties on the issues involved," Mahmoud Raya, a political analyst in Beirut, told Xinhua.

Raya added that holding this election will give hope to the institutions, thus alleviating the tensions among different parties.

Imad Risk, general manager of the Isticharia Strategic & Communication Studies in Beirut, told Xinhua that whoever wins or loses in this election, Lebanon has set a good example not only for own domestic politics but also for the region.

"After nine years, now it's the first time for the Lebanese to participate in this election, and to have the possibility to change or to continue the process of peace and democracy in Lebanon, and the Middle East as well," Risk said.

He said currently there are a lot of problems in the chaotic Middle East, so the peaceful Lebanese election sets a good example for achieving new changes and reconciliation not in military ways, but in political ways.

"We can say that Lebanon now is giving itself a new image that democracy, freedom and also responsibility are possible in Arab countries," he said.

To ensure the fairness of the election and prevent voting fraud, Lebanon has invited the European Union (EU) and the U.S.-based National Democratic Institute to monitor the voting on Sunday.

A group of 36 short-time EU monitors were deployed Friday across Lebanon to observe the voting, in addition to 24 long-term EU monitors and 40 Beirut-based staff members from the embassies of EU member states.Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-07 00:34:18|Editor: Chengcheng

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File photo taken on April 26, 2018 shows Pakistani Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal speaking during an event in Islamabad, Pakistan. Pakistani Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal was shot and injured in an assassination attempt during a rally in Narowal district of the country's eastern Punjab province on Sunday evening, police said. (Xinhua/Ahmad Kamal)

ISLAMABAD, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal was shot and injured in an assassination attempt during a rally in Narowal district of the country's eastern Punjab province on Sunday evening, police said.

A spokesperson of the Punjab government said the minister is out of danger and has been airlifted by a helicopter to a hospital in Lahore, capital of the province.

District Police Officer of Narowal Imran Kishwar said a local resident opened fire at the minister soon after he concluded his speech during a rally in Kanjrur town of the district, the minister's hometown.

The gunman Abid Hussain, 22, merely managed to fire one shot from a distance of 10 to 12 meters, and the bullet hit the minister's right arm.

The suspect was arrested by the police soon after he fired the shot, the officer said.

The minister was rushed to the District Hospital in Narowal where he underwent initial surgery.

Leaders from all political parties of the country strongly condemned the attack and urged the government to ensure the security of politicians as well as common citizens.

Soon after the attack, members of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz took to the streets in different cities and launched a protest against the attack.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi also condemned the attack and ordered the police to trace the planners behind the attack.

Local media quoting eyewitnesses as saying that soon after the firing, the gunman announced that he attacked to revenge because Iqbal's men killed his relative in the past.

However, some reports said the attacker, in his confessional statement, said he attacked Iqbal because the minister was among the ruling party's members who changed a religious law last year.

Security agencies had already informed the minister about a possible attack on him, local media reported.

The reports were not confirmed by any official yet.

Iqbal is considered among the top brains of Pakistan's political elite. He is performing his duties along with two portfolios, including minister of interior and minister of planning, development and reform.Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-07 00:44:20|Editor: Chengcheng

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Relatives of Palestinian Bahaa Qudaih mourn during his funeral in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, on May 6, 2018. Qudaih and another Palestinian were killed by Israeli fire on Sunday near the Gaza-Israel borders, medical sources said. It brings the death toll among Palestinians in Gaza to 47 since mass anti-Israel rallies started on March 30. (Xinhua/Khaled Omar)

GAZA, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Two Palestinian young men were killed by Israeli fire on Sunday near the Gaza-Israel borders, medical sources said.

Bahaa Qudaih, 23, and Mohammed Abu Reida, 20, were shot dead by Israeli soldiers near the Gaza-Israel border fence east of the southern Gaza Strip city of Khanyounis, spokesman for health ministry in Gaza, Ashraf al-Qedra, said in a statement.

It brings the death toll among Palestinians in Gaza to 47 since mass anti-Israel rallies started on March 30.

More than 7,000 Palestinians have also been injured in the massive six-week rallies, known as the "Great Return of March."

The rallies, which always witness high turnout on Fridays, are expected to peak on May 15, the Nakba Day, while the Palestinians mark the forcible transfer of two thirds of the Palestinian people and the ethnic cleansing of 418 Palestinian villages.

Israel rejects the protests and vows to respond to any border infiltration attempts that may threaten its sovereignty as well as its residents.

Israel also accuses Hamas movement, which rules Gaza since its forcible takeover of power in 2007, of organizing the rallies.Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-07 00:49:21|Editor: Liangyu

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Wang Huning, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, speaks at a seminar held to mark the 200th anniversary of Karl Marx's birth, in Beijing, capital of China, May 6, 2018. (Xinhua/Yao Dawei)

BEIJING, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Wang Huning, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, has stressed the importance of studying Chinese President Xi Jinping's speech commemorating Karl Marx.

Xi, also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, delivered the speech at a grand gathering to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Marx's birth on May 4.

Addressing a symposium Sunday, Wang said that Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era represents "the newest theoretical achievement" of the CPC to uphold and develop Marxism in a new era.

It has enriched and developed Marxism with a series of original and strategic major thoughts and views, and is "Marxism in contemporary China and the 21st century," said Wang.

Wang urged theory circles in social sciences to continually accomplish new progress in researching and elucidating basic theories of Marxism and the newest achievements in adaptation of Marxism to the Chinese context.

Huang Kunming, head of the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, presided over the symposium.

Over 230 representatives, including government officials, experts and scholars, attended the symposium commemorating Marx's birth, which lasted Friday through Sunday.Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-07 01:29:27|Editor: yan

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by Keren Setton

JERUSALEM, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed Sunday the Iranian nuclear deal (JCPOA) "horrible," before U.S. President Donald Trump's possible withdrawal from the deal.

Netanyahu said the deal allows the continuation of uranium enrichment and "Iranian enrichment" referring to the lifting of crippling economic sanctions on the country.

Netanyahu has been a sharp critic of the deal since the days it was being negotiated by Iran and six powers as Russia, China, the United States, Britain, France and Germany.

When the deal was signed in 2015 during the administration of former U.S. President Barack Obama, the Israeli leader faced opposition to his stance at the White House.

Since Trump took office last year, Netanyahu has earned an ally in Washington. But Trump and Netanyahu find themselves largely alone in an international arena that is largely favorable of the nuclear agreement.

Israeli officials have said the nuclear deal does not prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

They have been critical of what they call "a weak inspection regime" in place and the fact that the deal does not address Iran's ballistic missile abilities which it has continued to develop.

Last week, the Israeli prime minister revealed tens of thousands of documents seized by covert intelligence operatives in Tehran, and the documents are called by Israel as the "Iranian nuclear archive," which could be viewed as an attempt to sway international opinion.

The latest documents date back to 2005, ten years before the agreement was signed, which raised questions as to its current relevance.

The European Union (EU) Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini said in an immediate response that they did not "put into question Iran's compliance with the JCPOA commitments, meaning post 2015 nuclear commitments."

But according to defense officials in Israel, the intelligence achievement was a significant one not to be underestimated.

"It gives us most of the pieces of the puzzle," said a senior intelligence officer speaking on condition of anonymity. "The Iranian nuclear program is more comprehensive and robust than we assessed before."

According to the intelligence official, the information seized in a daring operation on Iranian soil "takes us all the way to today."

"The nuclear facilities still exist, so does the organization," he added.

In his presentation last week, Netanyahu said high-ranking Iranian officials that were leading figures of Iran's overt nuclear program prior to the deal, had been transferred to different positions but still undertaking the same task -- promoting Iran's nuclear aspirations.

Tens of thousands of documents were reportedly seized in the beginning of this year.

"The issue is not whether they are new or not, because they are relevant. Iran is actively trying to keep its nuclear program," the intelligence official said.

According to a senior Israeli official speaking on condition of anonymity, the documents are a "blueprint for the coming few years."

"If this is all they have, then they are pretty advanced and not many years away from a nuclear arsenal," he added.

Just before speaking to journalists, Netanyahu told members of his cabinet that Israel is "determined to block Iran's aggression against us even if this means a struggle. Better now than later."

The comment came after weeks of rising tensions between the two countries.

Israel is believed to be behind several airstrikes carried out in Syria in recent months against Iranian targets in the country. Iran has sent thousands of fighters to help Syrian President Bashar al-Assad survive a seven-year civil war in Syria that has weakened his regime.

Iran, which is thousands of kilometers away from Israel, could improve its offensive positions against Israel by increasing its presence in Syria, which shares a border with the Jewish state.

Israeli defense officials have been quoted in the Israeli media saying they are expecting an Iranian retaliation in light of recent events.

Netanyahu has repeatedly said he will not allow Iran to consolidate its presence in Syria, but no Israeli official has ever confirmed or denied the reports that Israel is responsible for a series of recent attacks.

It seems the two countries are on the path to a head-on, deadly collision.

As the deadline for the U.S. decision on the nuclear deal comes closer, it is clear the Israeli prime minister is looking for a massive overhaul of the deal or it's complete annulment.LAGOS, May 6 (Xinhua) -- At least 45 people have been confirmed dead and others wounded during an attack at Gwaska village in Nigeria's central north Kaduna state, eyewitnesses said Sunday.

The victims were killed on Saturday afternoon when scores of suspected bandits raided Gwaska village, in Birnin-Gwari area of Kaduna state, a local vigilante group told Xinhua.

The group, Birnin-Gwari Vanguards for Security and Good Governance, said 45 bodies were recovered by vigilantes and volunteers with the assistance of soldiers on Sunday afternoon.

The attack came barely a week after the killing of 14 miners at a mining site at Janruwa area of the same state.

The bandits, on motorbikes, stormed the Gwaska village via Zamfara state, said Bala Abdulahi, a member of the vigilante group.

The bandits shot sporadically and killed anybody in sight, Abdulahi said.

Confirming the incident, the state government said a battalion of the Nigerian Army would be permanently stationed in the area to halt the killings.

State governor Nadir el-Rufai said he has been engaging with the federal government on the matter and that he has directed the State Emergency Management Agency to provide relief materials to those affected.Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-07 02:09:33|Editor: yan

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TEHRAN, May 6 (Xinhua) -- If the United States pulls out of the nuclear deal, it will be a "historical regret," Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said here on Sunday.

Rouhani dismissed Washington's threats, saying that the Iranians are not afraid of the United States. "This great nation will continue its progress and development" regardless of the threats, he said.

Rouhani said that the Islamic republic is prepared for any decision by the United States regarding the nuclear deal.

"We must know that (the United States) next week decision will not change our lives," he said.

The Iranian government has given necessary instructions to the executive bodies of the country since a couple of months ago, and "the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran has also received orders to deal with the possible U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear deal," he said.

Iran has threatened to resume nuclear enrichment activities in case U.S. President Donald Trump decertifies the nuclear deal.

Trump is expected to decide by May 12 whether to pull out of the nuclear deal, and he has said that he would not extend the waiver suspending the U.S. sanctions on Iran.

In January, Trump extended sanctions relief on Iran under the deal for the last time, threatening to withdraw from it if U.S. congress and his European allies cannot fix the alleged "disastrous flaws."

The whole world, except the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia, is supporting the nuclear agreement. The Iranian president lashed out at Trump's call on the Europeans to join his plan.

"I overtly announce to the whole world, Europe, America, the West and the East that we will not negotiate with anyone about our country's weapons and defense programs," said Rouhani.

"We will build and store any amount of weapons and missiles the country may need. It is none of anybody's business what decision the Iranian people have made for their defense," he stressed.

Moreover, Iranian Parliament Vice-Speaker Ali Motahhari said Sunday that the U.S. scrap of nuclear deal would be a "double win" for the Islamic republic.

In case Washington leaves the nuclear deal, on the one hand it will lose its international position and, on the other, Iran would no longer be obliged to fulfill its undertakings under the JCPOA, Motahhari was quoted as saying by Tasnim news agency.

On Sunday, Ali Akbar Velayati, senior advisor to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, also said that "if Americans opt to quit the nuclear deal, the Islamic republic is ready to counter their measure in a proportionate manner," Press TV reported.

Iran has an open hand to respond to any decision about the fate of the JCPOA, Velayati said, adding that the Americans can test this issue.

Also, Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Mohammad Baqeri said that the country's armed forces are ready to deal with any possible threat posed by enemies of the Islamic republic.

"At the present time, the armed forces are maintaining a high level of readiness to give a response to any threat and act of aggression by enemies of Iran," Baqeri told a gathering of military forces in Iran's southwestern Khuzestan Province on Sunday.

He added that "the world-devouring America, the usurping Zionist regime (of Israel) and regional reactionary regimes have been trying to threaten and deal a blow to the Islamic Revolution of Iran for the past 40 years," he said.

However, "the enemies of Iran" have not been able to deal even a slight blow to the Islamic republic, he said.Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-07 03:54:48|Editor: yan

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RIYADH, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Saudi air forces have intercepted a ballistic missile shot by Houthi rebels from Yemen towards border city of Najran, Al Arabiya local news reported on Sunday.

The southern city of Najran, close to the border with Yemen, has borne such missile attacks since the Houthi militia forces took over swathes of the country in a 2014 coup.

According to officials, the city has witnessed more than 10,000 rocket attacks mostly arbitrarily targeting civilians since the conflict in Yemen first began.

Various other cities were also targeted by the rebels as a response to the Saudi-led war in support of the exiled Yemeni government that started over three years ago.By Peter Mertz

LOS ANGELES, May 6 (Xinhua) -- California conservative lawmakers continued this week to support Trump Administration immigration policy, a move that enflamed again the war of words in the state and feud between the America's most populous state and Washington.

TANGLED LAW WARFARE

California made history by becoming the first "Sanctuary State" in the country as a new law, which was called SB (Senate Bill) 54 before being signed by Governor Jerry Brown last October, showing a will to resist the White House's immigration policy, went into effect from the first day of this year.

Then the Golden State had to face pressure from the federal government for its rebellious move. Early March, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the state, its governor, and its attorney general, accusing them of violating the U.S. Constitution.

This legal move was compared by Jerry Brown to "an act of war", but more challenges to the law, which vastly limits cooperation between state and local law enforcement officers with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, emerged inside his state.

Costa Mesa, a tiny city of 110,000 residents south of Los Angeles, made another loud national statement with a 3-2 vote last Wednesday to oppose the state's "sanctuary state" law. It is the latest Orange County governing body to declare official opposition.

The opposition to SB 54 started in March when Orange County's second-smallest city - Los Alamitos - voted 4-1 to exempt itself from California's sanctuary law.

That move triggered Orange County's Republican-controlled county council to vote unanimously later that month to do the same - defy the state sanctuary laws - and move immigration control to the local level.

County council members in the majority said SB-54 puts them at odds with the U.S. Constitution and also joined the federal lawsuit against California's sanctuary laws.

Orange County lawmakers cited examples of "illegal" immigrants convicted of domestic violence that were re-released into the public, while liberal opponents voiced dismay at a move that will target minority populations.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said he would fight Orange County in court, as all sides prepared for battle. "State law is state law," Becerra said in a news conference last month.

"We want to make sure that every jurisdiction, including Orange County, understands what state law requires of the people and the subdivisions of the state of California," he said, warning "It's my job to enforce state law and I will do so."

But now Becerra must file a long list of defendants to the court if he launched a law war against the rebellious cities. Besides of Costa Mesa, at least another 13 cities in Orange County voted against the "sanctuary law" and the neighbour San Diego County also decided to back Trump' s challenge against the state on this issue.

CLEAR DIVISION LINE

"Costa Mesa has been a conservative stronghold since the Nixon and Reagan years," said San Luis Obispo business owner John Ott.

"Lots of rich, retired white folk live there - not a surprise vote - in fact, I'm surprised it was so close," Ott told Xinhua Friday.

Orange County is more populous than 21 U.S. states, the sixth most populous country in America, and has only voted for only one democratic presidential candidate since 1936, who was Hillary Clinton.

"The 3-2 Costa Mesa vote was not unanimous - in fact very close," said Hollywood film editor Tim Craig, "Hey, it's Orange County, what else would you expect?"

The debate in Costa Mesa city council Wednesday morning was unexpected fierce. More than 100 people spoke on the issue over more than four hours in front of a large and sometimes rowdy crowd.

People in the audience expressed both sides of the issue, waving American flags and holding signs with messages such as "Immigrants in, racists out," "You must uphold the Constitution," "Respect our country" and "I support safe communities, I support SB 54."

Chairwomen of the meeting repeatedly admonished the audience for interrupting speakers with applause or boos. Several times she threatened to clear the chamber if the crowd didn't pipe down, and she asked police officers to temporarily remove people who were being disruptive.

Costa Mesa's vote dismayed civil rights groups across America.

"America is going backwards...marching to the Trump manifesto," political analyst David B. Richardson told Xinhua Saturday.

"There's been a real shift to a national, xenophobic acceptability in our society that is heartbreaking," said Rabbi Jonathan Klein, executive director of the Clergy & Laity United for Economic Justice group on Twitter.

"We're in an era of open bigotry," Klein said.

"It has nothing to do with bigotry," countered former U.S. Navy engineer Kirk Blue. "Police are trained to protect the public and if that means including demographic data, then it's crazy to hamper their work," he told Xinhua.

"Clearly the residents of Orange County want more law enforcement, not less," Blue said Saturday.

MORE SAFEY?

Costa Mesa's council members who supported the resolution said what they concerned most about SB 54 is that in many cases it prohibits local and state police agencies from notifying federal officials when they're about to release immigrants in their custody who may be subject to deportation.

"If you are putting people back on the street and then trying to re-apprehend them ... that puts people at risk," Mayor Sandy Genis said after the vote.

On the contrary, liberals told Xinhua that opposing the law would open the door to civil right's violations, and add work for already overburdened town cops who would be assisting in enforcement.

"The foremost spokesman for local enforcement of immigration laws - Arizona's Joe Arpaio - was also heavily criticized for ignoring reports of sexual assault when they came from Latina and Black women," said former U.S. State Department official Stewart King.

King told Xinhua that the Costa Mesa vote not only puts local cops on the firing line, but is simply not their job.

"This is the job for (U.S.) Immigration and Naturalization (INS) officials - not the work of local sheriffs," said Louis Cardona, a former Arizona resident who told Xinhua he was personally abused by Arpiao's forces.

"Arpiao had hundreds of sexual assault allegations go without investigation," said King, echoing social media concerned tweets after the Costa Mesa vote - that local law enforcement and immigration do not mix.

"Oregon has had a similar law since the 1980s," said King, a college history professor.

"State and local police are not empowered, funded, or trained to enforce immigration laws - that is the responsibility of federal immigration authorities," he told Xinhua.Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-07 05:05:01|Editor: yan

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JERUSALEM, May 6 (Xinhua) -- The Israeli army said on Sunday afternoon that it killed three Palestinians trying to infiltrate into Israel from Gaza.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) fired toward "four suspects" who attempted to infiltrate into Israel and damage security infrastructure, killing three of them, the IDF said in a statement.

The four Palestinians were carrying a camera, an axe, a fence cutter, gloves and an oxygen mask, according to the Israeli army.

The IDF did not provide the details about the fourth Palestinian, but Israeli media reported that the Palestinian was seriously injured and evacuated to a hospital in Gaza.

"The IDF will continue to ensure the safety of Israeli civilians and will operate against those who attempt to harm the safety of the State of Israel," the Israeli army noted.

Earlier on Sunday, Hamas vowed that Israel would "pay a heavy price" for an explosion in the central Gaza Strip on Saturday that killed six members of the group's militant wing.

The incidents came amid escalating tensions along the security fence between Gaza and Israel over the past weeks, where Palestinians hold weekly protests, known as the "Great March of Return."

Since the beginning of the protests on March 30, 45 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in the clashes.WARSAW, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Two miners found by rescuers in the underground excavation of Zofiowka mine in southern Poland, were confirmed dead upon being transported to the surface on Sunday.

Rescuers are still looking for the other three missing people. The two dead were found crushed in the excavation.

Seven miners went missing on Saturday after a tremor struck the mine at 11:00 a.m. local time, 900 meters under the ground, in Jastrzebie-Zdroj, south Poland.

Two of the missing miners were brought to the surface on Saturday. They were injured but conscious, and are currently hospitalized.

Polish President Andrzej Duda has arrived at the site.

Over 200 people are involved in the rescue operation. Daniel Ozon, president of the Jastrzebska Spolka Weglowa S.A. company, who runs the mine, said that the representatives of the company were in constant contact with the families of the miners, who have been provided with psychological help.HELSINKI, May 6 (Xinhua) -- A credibility crisis has hit the Finnish labor conflict mediation system as the news about the top national mediator's mid-term switch to work for the employers caused hot discussion this weekend.

Minna Helle resigned as the labor market mediator in late April, and is expected to start working with the technological sector employer organization in June. Media reports claimed that she was approached by the employer organization as early as in January with an offer.

Anger in the labor unions has been boosted by the fact that this winter season Helle continuously insisted that the 3.2 percent rate of pay raise agreed in the technological sector should be applied in the whole labor market.

"You will not get more than 3.2 percent in my mediation solution," the unions quoted her as saying.

Helle has denied any bias.

Despite the suspicion, there was no proof that Helle chose to help the employer organization on basis of knowing she would change job.

The national mediator is supposed to be the neutral top level help in bringing solutions to labor conflicts. In the Finnish bargaining system, if the employee and employer organizations do not reach an agreement and strikes or lockouts are imminent, they approach the national mediator's office. The mediator then arranges meetings and suggests a solution. He or she cannot enforce a solution though. The Finnish system is not arbitration.

Seppo Koskinen, professor of labor law at Turku University, said on Sunday that the strong reaction from the employee unions shows that a crack has developed in the credibility and trust that the mediator should have.

Koskinen told broadcaster Yle that Helle should have pulled herself out of mediation work instantly when she had begun talking about her personal employment plans with the technology sector.

Criticism from influential union leaders has increased over the weekend.

Riku Aalto, chairman of the the newly consolidated industrial union of metal and forest industry workers, told business weekly Talouselama that the role of the mediator is to mediate conflicts, not to define the level of payment increase.

Matti Harjuniemi, chairman of the construction workers, accused Helle of tilting towards the employer side in the current talks on construction industry where strikes are on and an employer lockout may take effect this coming week.

Since her resignation, Helle has transferred all mediations to her deputies.

No legally mandated cooling off period are required for the state mediator with a view to seeking new employment.MAPUTO, May 6 (Xinhua) -- A boat with more than 50 passengers on board operating from the Quirimbas to the village of Quissanga in northern Cabo Delgado province sunk, five passengers were killed on Sunday, according to the announcement of provincial authorities.

Authorities say that preliminary information indicates that excessive goods and passengers beyond the boat's carrying capacity including bad weather are among the reasons behind the incident.

"Information that we were able to gather indicates that the boat has capacity to load 21 passengers but they had more than 50 people on board and it also had excessive goods added to the passengers," said Provincial Permanent Secretary, Antonio Mapure.

Local media quoted the authorities as saying that a committee has been set up by the provincial government to investigate the causes behind the shipwreck and also provide support to the victims of the incident.

Government authorities appealed boat operators to be cautious when transporting people and goods, observing the limits established by the legal framework for these operations.

"To every transporters, they must respect the rules when transporting people and goods, the people behind the operations must be approved to operate the boats and also observe the weather forecast, because it is important in this area of transport," added Mapure.LONDON, May 6 (Xinhua) -- It caused moral outrage a century ago when it made its world debut.

Now one of the first original Speedo swimsuits is set to make a splash at the new V&A Dundee museum which opens in September.

Curators at the new Scottish museum revealed Sunday that a Speedo swimsuit from the 1920s will feature in its Scottish Design Galleries.

The Racerback caused moral outrage when it was first revealed in the 1920s and was banned from some beaches for being too revealing, revolutionised the swimwear industry.

The hydrodynamic design allowed swimmers more freedom of movement and reduced drag, quickly becoming a favorite among Olympic record breakers.

It was the swimsuit that made Speedo, an Australian company founded by Scottish immigrant Alexander MacRae, a household name and paved the way for future controversial innovations.

MacRae, born in 1888, grew up in a small fishing village in the West Highlands before moving to Australia in 1910, and setting up a hosiery knitting mill.

The firm supplied the Australian Army with socks during the First World War before catering for the growing popularity of beach sports.

At the time swimsuits were made of wool and had sleeves to protect the wearer's modesty.

Instead, the Racerback had straps that crossed at the back and was made of cotton or silk, which absorbed less water. The design was also significantly more tight fitting than other swimwear and included the distinctive Speedo tick logo.

In 1936 Speedo caused yet more controversy when it dressed the Olympic men's Australian team in swimming shorts instead of the traditional one-piece during the Berlin Games.

V&A Dundee assistant curator Meredith More said: "MacRae was one of many Scottish entrepreneurs who moved abroad to make his fortune. Capitalising on Australia's growing beach culture, he created a ground-breaking swimsuit design that appealed to competitive swimmers and sunbathers alike.

"The Racerback challenged moral codes in the 1920s, when mixed bathing was only just becoming acceptable, but nobody could deny his hydrodynamic design allowed swimmers to achieve faster times."

Swedish swimmer Arne Borg won five Olympic medals and broke 32 world records wearing the daring new design.

In 1932 Claire Dennis was almost disqualified from the Olympics in Los Angeles for wearing a Speedo deemed to show too much shoulder.

It was not just athletes who were won over by the new design, which was also marketed to surfers and sunbathers.

A Speedo catalogue described the Racerback as giving "maximum body exposure" making it the ideal choice for those in search of a tan.

A Racerback swimsuit, being loaned to V&A Dundee by Leicestershire Museums Service, is believed to be the only one in a British collection.

The Speedo will be one of around 300 beautiful and innovative objects from the V&A's world-famous collections of art, design and performance, together with objects from other lenders.State Sen. Pam Helming lauded Assemblyman Bob Oaks after the longtime lawmaker from Wayne County announced Friday he will not run for re-election this year.

Helming, R-Canandaigua, and Oaks, R-Macedon have overlapping districts. They both represent all of Wayne County and several of the same towns in Cayuga County.

In a statement released Saturday, Helming called Oaks "a friend and mentor."

"I wish him nothing but the best on his well-earned retirement," Helming said. "Throughout his career, Bob was a tireless advocate for the residents of Wayne, Oswego and Cayuga counties. He has left an indelible mark on our local community and an impact that will not be forgotten. Our region is a better place because of his service."

Oaks was first elected to the state Assembly in 1992. His district didn't include parts of Cayuga County until the 2002 election.Username: Password: or Register Thread Rating: 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average

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Page: 1 2 Florida woman's gruesome roach-in-ear tale goes viral 'When I woke up... LoP Guest

lop guest

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Post: #1 Florida woman's gruesome roach-in-ear tale goes viral 'When I woke up...

Advertisement



They're the collective sounds of primal anguish after reading a Florida woman's account of waking up with a palmetto bug in her ear. (That's the polite name for a flying cockroach, for those of you not acquainted with the reviled Sunshine State insects.)



Katie Holley's gruesome experience happened in the early morning hours of April 14. Soon after, her sister-in-law  who works as an editor for Self Magazine  asked her to pen an essay . She did, in frightening, gut-churning detail that's made thousands of people across the nation wonder if they should sleep with earplugs.



https://abcnews.go.com/Weird/wireStory/f...l-54942929 Those screams you hear?They're the collective sounds of primal anguish after reading a Florida woman's account of waking up with a palmetto bug in her ear. (That's the polite name for a flying cockroach, for those of you not acquainted with the reviled Sunshine State insects.)Katie Holley's gruesome experience happened in the early morning hours of April 14. Soon after, her sister-in-law  who works as an editor for Self Magazine  asked her to pen an essay . She did, in frightening, gut-churning detail that's made thousands of people across the nation wonder if they should sleep with earplugs. The Black_Man

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05-06-2018 01:42 AM



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Post: #2 RE: Florida woman's gruesome roach-in-ear tale goes viral 'When I woke up...

filthy house LoP Guest

lop guest

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05-06-2018 01:45 AM











Post: #3 RE: Florida woman's gruesome roach-in-ear tale goes viral 'When I woke up...

I woke up once with a cat frantically whacking the top of my head, nails extended, scratching my scalp and getting tangled in my long hair.



You know what he was after? A SCORPION! LOL The Black_Man

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Post: #4 RE: Florida woman's gruesome roach-in-ear tale goes viral 'When I woke up...

LoP Guest Wrote: (05-06-2018 01:45 AM) I woke up once with a cat frantically whacking the top of my head, nails extended, scratching my scalp and getting tangled in my long hair.



You know what he was after? A SCORPION! LOL

Look_No_Hands_

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Post: #5 RE: Florida woman's gruesome roach-in-ear tale goes viral 'When I woke up...

It's not really so gruesome. She had a bug in her ear and they flushed it out. This is more of a psychological terror than anything else. Your ear canal is totally sealed and a household insect isn't going to penetrate your ear drum. (This post was last modified: 05-06-2018 01:56 AM by Look_No_Hands_ .) The Modest Poster

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Post: #6 RE: Florida woman's gruesome roach-in-ear tale goes viral 'When I woke up...

One time, my dad played a practical joke on his brother-in-law, he put live lobsters under his blanket, the lobsters felt like really big bugs, so my uncle was terrified. (This post was last modified: 05-06-2018 01:56 AM by The Modest Poster .) The Modest Poster

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Post: #7 RE: Florida woman's gruesome roach-in-ear tale goes viral 'When I woke up...

LOP Secret Agent Wrote: (05-06-2018 01:56 AM) One time, my dad played a practical joke on his brother-in-law, he put live lobsters under his blanket, the lobsters felt like really big bugs, so my uncle was terrified.

It was like this:







It was like this: LoP Guest

lop guest

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05-06-2018 02:02 AM











Post: #8 RE: Florida woman's gruesome roach-in-ear tale goes viral 'When I woke up...

Look_No_Hands_ Wrote: (05-06-2018 01:55 AM) It's not really so gruesome. She had a bug in her ear and they flushed it out. This is more of a psychological terror than anything else. Your ear canal is totally sealed and a household insect isn't going to penetrate your ear drum.

Unfortunately, there are videos that prove otherwise. One girl in India - had a hell of a life and that's just one of many I've seen. Unfortunately, there are videos that prove otherwise. One girl in India - had a hell of a life and that's just one of many I've seen. Look_No_Hands_

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Post: #9 RE: Florida woman's gruesome roach-in-ear tale goes viral 'When I woke up...

LoP Guest Wrote: (05-06-2018 02:02 AM) Look_No_Hands_ Wrote: (05-06-2018 01:55 AM) It's not really so gruesome. She had a bug in her ear and they flushed it out. This is more of a psychological terror than anything else. Your ear canal is totally sealed and a household insect isn't going to penetrate your ear drum.

Unfortunately, there are videos that prove otherwise. One girl in India - had a hell of a life and that's just one of many I've seen.

I'm telling you a fact. The ear canal is sealed and no household insects in Florida can penetrate the ear drum. I'm telling you a fact. The ear canal is sealed and no household insects in Florida can penetrate the ear drum. LoP Guest

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05-06-2018 02:12 AM











Post: #10 RE: Florida woman's gruesome roach-in-ear tale goes viral 'When I woke up...

Look_No_Hands_ Wrote: (05-06-2018 02:06 AM) LoP Guest Wrote: (05-06-2018 02:02 AM) Unfortunately, there are videos that prove otherwise. One girl in India - had a hell of a life and that's just one of many I've seen.

I'm telling you a fact. The ear canal is sealed and no household insects in Florida can penetrate the ear drum.

Maggots got the India girl, you can't tell me there are no flies in Florida. I can't remember if she had been raped as a young teen ... but, she ended up living on the streets and then was mugged with a skull wound that was NOT treated. THAT did it. The maggots must have lived on her for a very VERY long time. She was mentally incapacitated after all the life trauma she had had - and not washing an gaping, large open wound is what started the whole thing. The maggots ate so much flesh they peeled the meat from her skull to remove the maggots. In the end, it took 3 or 4 months of recooperation to get her well enough to release back onto the streets. Maggots got the India girl, you can't tell me there are no flies in Florida. I can't remember if she had been raped as a young teen ... but, she ended up living on the streets and then was mugged with a skull wound that was NOT treated. THAT did it. The maggots must have lived on her for a very VERY long time. She was mentally incapacitated after all the life trauma she had had - and not washing an gaping, large open wound is what started the whole thing. The maggots ate so much flesh they peeled the meat from her skull to remove the maggots. In the end, it took 3 or 4 months of recooperation to get her well enough to release back onto the streets. LoP Guest

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05-06-2018 02:28 AM











Post: #11 RE: Florida woman's gruesome roach-in-ear tale goes viral 'When I woke up...

Look_No_Hands_ Wrote: (05-06-2018 01:55 AM) It's not really so gruesome. She had a bug in her ear and they flushed it out. This is more of a psychological terror than anything else. Your ear canal is totally sealed and a household insect isn't going to penetrate your ear drum.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/articl...GGOTS.html Uppity Me

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05-06-2018 02:37 AM



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Post: #12 RE: Florida woman's gruesome roach-in-ear tale goes viral 'When I woke up...



They live on brain tissue, they also like to lay their eggs there Quote: Les pauvres n'ont-ils des Euros ?

Alors laissez les pauvres 'sh*t' dans les rues (This post was last modified: 05-06-2018 02:38 AM by Uppity Me .) Uppity Me

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Post: #13 RE: Florida woman's gruesome roach-in-ear tale goes viral 'When I woke up...

The Black_Man Wrote: (05-06-2018 01:42 AM) filthy house

now now, let us not be the judge, my house ain't all that neat... now now, let us not be the judge, my house ain't all that neat... Quote: Les pauvres n'ont-ils des Euros ?

Alors laissez les pauvres 'sh*t' dans les rues LoP Guest

lop guest

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05-06-2018 03:14 AM











Post: #14 RE: Florida woman's gruesome roach-in-ear tale goes viral 'When I woke up...

Look_No_Hands_ Wrote: (05-06-2018 02:06 AM) LoP Guest Wrote: (05-06-2018 02:02 AM) Unfortunately, there are videos that prove otherwise. One girl in India - had a hell of a life and that's just one of many I've seen.

I'm telling you a fact. The ear canal is sealed and no household insects in Florida can penetrate the ear drum.

"As the doctor administered the Lidocaine, the roach began to...react. Feeling a roach in the throes of death, lodged in a very sensitive part of your body, is unlike anything I can adequately explain," she wrote.



A doctor removed three chunks  but that wasn't the end of the ordeal.



(You've been warned.)



Nine days later, Holley still had lingering discomfort and hearing loss, so she went to her family doctor.



"My physician proceeded to remove the leg and flush my ear again, only to examine it and see even more remnants. She ended up pulling out six more pieces of the roach's carcassnine days after the incident took place."



(Deep breath.)



Here's the bad news.



"This may be upsetting to many people, but it's a pretty common thing," said Dr. David Wein, chief of emergency medicine at Tampa General Hospital, who added that the hospital gets a dozen or so cases a year. "There are probably not a lot of preventative things you can do. In Florida it's really hard, because we all have bugs in our house, no matter how many times you spray."



In fact, Holley said, she and her husband had hired an exterminator about a week before the incident.



"I think it's one of those freak things, unfortunately," she said. "It happened to me, so it's probably not going to happen to you." "As the doctor administered the Lidocaine, the roach began to...react. Feeling a roach in the throes of death, lodged in a very sensitive part of your body, is unlike anything I can adequately explain," she wrote.A doctor removed three chunks  but that wasn't the end of the ordeal.(You've been warned.)Nine days later, Holley still had lingering discomfort and hearing loss, so she went to her family doctor."My physician proceeded to remove the leg and flush my ear again, only to examine it and see even more remnants. She ended up pulling out six more pieces of the roach's carcassnine days after the incident took place."(Deep breath.)Here's the bad news."This may be upsetting to many people, but it's a pretty common thing," said Dr. David Wein, chief of emergency medicine at Tampa General Hospital, who added that the hospital gets a dozen or so cases a year. "There are probably not a lot of preventative things you can do. In Florida it's really hard, because we all have bugs in our house, no matter how many times you spray."In fact, Holley said, she and her husband had hired an exterminator about a week before the incident."I think it's one of those freak things, unfortunately," she said. "It happened to me, so it's probably not going to happen to you." Uppity Me

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05-06-2018 03:36 AM



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Post: #15 RE: Florida woman's gruesome roach-in-ear tale goes viral 'When I woke up...

LoP Guest Wrote: (05-06-2018 03:14 AM) Look_No_Hands_ Wrote: (05-06-2018 02:06 AM) I'm telling you a fact. The ear canal is sealed and no household insects in Florida can penetrate the ear drum.

"As the doctor administered the Lidocaine, the roach began to...react. Feeling a roach in the throes of death, lodged in a very sensitive part of your body, is unlike anything I can adequately explain," she wrote.



A doctor removed three chunks  but that wasn't the end of the ordeal.



(You've been warned.)



Nine days later, Holley still had lingering discomfort and hearing loss, so she went to her family doctor.



"My physician proceeded to remove the leg and flush my ear again, only to examine it and see even more remnants. She ended up pulling out six more pieces of the roach's carcassnine days after the incident took place."



(Deep breath.)



Here's the bad news.



"This may be upsetting to many people, but it's a pretty common thing," said Dr. David Wein, chief of emergency medicine at Tampa General Hospital, who added that the hospital gets a dozen or so cases a year. "There are probably not a lot of preventative things you can do. In Florida it's really hard, because we all have bugs in our house, no matter how many times you spray."



In fact, Holley said, she and her husband had hired an exterminator about a week before the incident.



"I think it's one of those freak things, unfortunately," she said. "It happened to me, so it's probably not going to happen to you."

like I said, they will lay their eggs in that tissue like I said, they will lay their eggs in that tissue Quote: Les pauvres n'ont-ils des Euros ?

Alors laissez les pauvres 'sh*t' dans les rues Advertisement

















TRIPOLI, May 6 (Xinhua) -- The Libyan government said on Sunday that Italian companies will start the reconstruction of the Tripoli International Airport in June.

"The ministry has completed all technical and financial procedures to start implementing the airport reconstruction project," Milad Matug, Libya's minister of Transport and Communications, told Xinhua.

"The only thing left to be done is the completion of the security arrangements for the project site," Matug said, adding that the project will significantly help solve the civil aviation problems in Libya.

In July 2017, Libya signed a 79-million-euro (89.6 million U.S. dollars) contract with a consortium of Italian companies to rebuild the international airport in the capital Tripoli.

The airport was almost completely destroyed in 2014 during violent clashes between rival militias, which created the current political division in the North African country.Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-07 06:05:14|Editor: yan

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SANAA, May 6 (Xinhua) -- The World Health Organization (WHO), in cooperation with Yemeni local health authorities, has launched a wide-scale anti-cholera vaccination campaign in south Yemen, WHO said in a statement Sunday.

It said the campaign will last until May 10, and targeted, in its first phase, four districts in Aden city.

The government-run Saba news website quoted deputy health minister Ahmed al-Waledi as saying that the campaign will include Tawahee, Mualla, Khormaksar and Sirah districts.

He said the oral vaccine would target nearly 350,000 children at the age of five.

Though the number of cholera infection cases has declined rapidly in the Yemen, fears grow about a possible new cholera outbreak in this rainy season, according to United Nations humanitarian agencies.

The rainy season began in April and will last until August.

In November 2017, the United Nations reported more than 925,000 suspected cholera cases with over 2,200 associated deaths in the war-torn country since the epidemic started in April of the same year.

The infection rate has since been declining, by around 0.2 percent to 0.3 percent, according to WHO.

Yemen has been locked in a civil war for more than three years between Iranian-allied Houthi rebel group and the internationally-recognized government backed by a Saudi-led coalition forces.

The war has killed more than 10,000 Yemenis, half of them civilians, and triggered the largest humanitarian crisis in the world.Chinese and U.S. flags are set up for a meeting during a visit by U.S.Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao at China's Ministry of Transport in Beijing, China on April 27, 2018. Picture taken April 27, 2018. (REUTERS/Jason Lee)

SILICON VALLEY, the United States, May 5 (Xinhua) -- Remedies the Trump administration is prescribing for U.S. trade problems won't work, and forays in trade disputes with China will harm the United States, a veteran China expert with decades of experience in bilateral relations said here on Saturday.

"I believe that Washington has misdiagnosed our trade problems, that its remedies for them won't work, and that what it is doing will harm the United States and other countries as much or more than it does China," said Chas Freeman, senior fellow at Brown University's Watson Institute, when addressing the annual conference of a prominent Chinese American group, the Committee of 100 (C100).

"The United States and China are each too globalized and dynamic to contain, too big and influential to ignore, and too successful and entangled with each other to divorce without bankrupting ourselves and all associated with us," Freeman, also former U.S. assistant secretary of defense, said in an opening keynote speech.

Pointing out that there are many reasons for the United States to seek cooperative relations with a rising China, Freeman added that the Trump administration has decided "to pick a fight -- to confront China both militarily and economically."

"The fact that we Americans consume more than we save means that we import more than we produce. That creates an overall trade deficit. Ironically, the Trump administration has just taken steps guaranteed to increase this deficit," he said.

"It has reduced tax revenues and boosted deficit spending, mostly on military research, development, and procurement. These actions take the national savings rate even lower while inflating domestic demand for goods and services. They cause imports to surge," he added.

"Increased American consumption born of an overstimulated economy explains why China's trade surplus with the United States is again rising even as its surplus with the rest of the world falls," he said.

"Unless Americans boost our national savings rate by hiking taxes or cut our consumption by falling into recession, our overall trade deficit is sure to bloat," he said.

His comments came amid trade tensions facing the world's two largest economies. Against such a backdrop, hundreds of scholars and prominent leaders in business and technology communities joined the two-day C100 annual conference to explore the pressing topics on China-U.S. trade relations, as well as the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative in panel discussions.

Jin Liqun, president of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and two former U.S. ambassadors to China -- Gary Locke and Max Baucus -- among others, are also expected to deliver keynote speeches, according to the agenda.

Themed "Silicon Valley: Bridge Between the United States and China," the conference, the premier forum on China-U.S. relations and the advancement of Chinese Americans, will also focus on technology entrepreneurship, artificial intelligence, and the role of Silicon Valley and Chinese Americans as a bridge between the two countries.

"We spend Saturday talking about and listening to ideas, because ideas excite us, (and) ideas are (so) profound that they will change the world and they will bring us together across the Pacific," said Frank Wu, president of C100.

The New York-based C100 is a non-profit, non-partisan organization of prominent Chinese Americans in business, government, academia, and arts.

Founded in 1990 by world renowned architect I.M. Pei and internationally acclaimed cellist Yo-Yo Ma, among others, the group is committed to the twin missions of promoting full participation of Chinese Americans in all aspects of American life, and encouraging constructive relations between the two peoples.Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-07 06:20:18|Editor: Chengcheng

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Staff members of Tunisian elections authorities count ballots at a counting center in Tunis, capital of Tunisia, May 6, 2018. A leading statistical and polling institute said Sunday evening that early results showed the Islamist party Ennahda (Renaissance) won the municipal elections with 27.5 percent of votes. (Xinhua/Adel Ezzine)

TUNIS, May 6 (Xinhua) -- A Tunisia's leading statistical and polling institute said on Sunday evening that early results showed the Islamist party Ennahda (Renaissance) won the municipal elections with 27.5 percent of votes.

The ruling party Nidaa Tounes came in the second with 22.5 percent of votes, while the third place secured 14 percent of votes, said Hassan Zargouni, president of Sigma Conseil, in a statement broadcast by Tunisian central television.

"Compared to the last parliamentary and presidential elections in 2014, Nidaa Tounes gave the first position to Ennahda. But these two weights still control the political landscape of the country," Zargouni noted.

About two hours after the closing of the polls, Tunisian Prime Minister Youssef Chahed hailed the first municipal elections since the 2011 revolution as being "held under the standards of transparency and freedom."

"It reflects the will of the entire people, and it was a real political challenge," Chahed said in a short speech.

However, the relatively low turnout represents a black spot of the elections.

"The rate of participation is a negative index and will hurt the general picture of these elections," the prime minister said, adding that his government will have to learn from it.

According to the Independent High Authority for Elections (ISIE), the official preliminary results of the municipal elections are scheduled to come out on May 9, while the final ones will be announced no later than June 13, after the appeals are processed.Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-07 06:40:21|Editor: Chengcheng

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Rescued illegal migrants arrive at the Tripoli navy base, in the capital of Tripoli, Libya, May 6, 2018. The Libyan coast guard on Sunday rescued 316 illegal migrants of different African nationalities in three separate operations off the country's western coast.(Xinhua/Hamza Turkia)

TRIPOLI, May 6 (Xinhua) -- The Libyan coast guard on Sunday rescued 316 illegal migrants of different African nationalities in three separate operations off the country's western coast.

"The coast guard patrol rescued 114 migrants on a rickety rubber boat 13 miles (20.9 km) from the city of Zawiya," the Navy spokesman Ayob Qassem told Xinhua.

Zawiya lies some 45 km east of the capital Tripoli.

"In the second operation, 97 migrants were rescued on a board that almost drowned," said Qassem, adding that the operation took place 35 miles off the coast of Janzur town, some 15 km west of Tripoli.

All the rescued migrants were taken to the Tripoli navy base and then transferred to a migrant shelter in the east of the capital, Qassem noted.

The third operation managed to rescue 105 migrants off the coast of the city of Zuwara, some 120 km west of Tripoli, according to Basem Al-Ghrabli, head of the anti-illegal immigration department of the nearby Sabratha city.

Al-Ghrabli revealed that two Libyans wanted for crimes of murder and armed robbery were on the boat bound for Italy.

Libya is a preferred point of departure for illegal immigrants hoping to cross the Mediterranean toward European shores, because of insecurity and chaos in the country following the 2011 uprising that toppled former leader Muammar Gaddafi.U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley (C, Front) addresses a Security Council meeting on Yemen, at the UN headquarters in New York, on April 17, 2018. (Xinhua/Li Muzi)

WASHINGTON, May 6 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said Sunday Trump's "communication style" has made her uncomfortable, and has proven to have complicated relationships in the diplomatic sphere.

"He has his communication style, but you're not hearing me defend that," Haley told a CBS interview.

Haley illustrated her disagreement with Trump with a tweet in February accusing Latin American countries turning a blind eye on drug trafficking.

"They're laughing at us, so I'm not a believer in that, I want to stop the aid." Trump said in the tweet, referring to U.S. aid to the region.

Haley later embarked on a trip to Honduras to reconcile and reassure local authorities on U.S. foreign policy. "If they get education and they get training, then we know that they're going to be productive," Haley told the press after the trip, subtly walking back from the threatening tone of her boss.

"If there is anything that he communicates in a way that I'm uncomfortable with, I pick up the phone and call him," Haley said in the interview and added that Trump has been "receptive" her opinion.

Trump has been known to make sensational claims and blunt assertions on social media, which he said helps him get his "unfiltered" message across, but has created controversy and sometimes even rifts in the delicate world of diplomacy.

With his unconventional style, Trump has also created strains with American long time allies in Europe and Asia.Thank you for reading!

Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading.Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-02 17:57:34|Editor: pengying

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by Xinhua writer Cui Yuanlei

SANTO DOMINGO, May 1 (Xinhua) -- The establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the Dominican Republic will strengthen bilateral relations and promote cooperation across a number of fields, said Fu Xinrong, permanent representative of Office of Commercial Development of China in the Caribbean country.

China and the Dominican Republic signed a joint communique in Beijing Tuesday on the establishment of their diplomatic relationship.

It represents an irresistible trend and it has been a universal consensus of the international community to adhere to the one-China principle, said Fu on Tuesday.

In fact, before that, China and the Dominican Republic maintained good business and trade relations as well as cultural exchanges, all of which have paved the way for establishing the diplomatic ties, said Fu.

In October 1993, the two governments signed an agreement to set up offices in each other's capital city to promote trade. China's trade representative office in Santo Domingo opened in April 1994, and the Dominican Republic opened its office in Beijing in November 2005.

As the largest economy in Central America and the Caribbean, the Dominican Republic is now China's second biggest trading partner in the region, and China the country's second-largest source of imports, according to official data.

Fu revealed that there have been several Chinese companies investing or are planning to invest in the Caribbean nation, something that will create more jobs for the local labor market.

"There are great potential for the two countries to carry out cooperation in such fields as infrastructure, energy, tourism and trade," said Fu.

Take tourism for example. The Dominican Republic draws over 6.5 million tourists annually from Europe and North America who enjoy the country's beautiful beaches on the Caribbean Sea. Tourists bring in more than six billion U.S. dollars in revenue.

With tourism one of the three major pillars of its economy, the Dominican Republic has set a target to receive more 10 million tourists by 2021, said Fu, adding that attracting more Chinese visitors is crucial in meeting the goal.

In terms of infrastructure, the Dominican Republic has a deep demand in investment and technology and China is now a leading country in this area, which shows that there is great potential for the two counties to cooperate, she added.

According to Fu, the Belt and Road Initiative, proposed by China in 2013, aiming to build trade and infrastructure networks connecting Asia with Europe and Africa on and beyond the ancient Silk Road routes, is attractive to the Dominican Republic in improving its infrastructure.

Addressing the opening ceremony of the second ministerial meeting for China and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States Forum held in Santiago, Chile in January, China's top diplomat Wang Yi said China is willing to sign cooperation deals under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative with more countries in the region.

"Panama establishing diplomatic ties with China last June has set a good example for other countries in the region to follow," said Fu. Bilateral ties and cooperation between Panama and China have greatly improved since then.

Fu also called on companies in the Dominican Republic to actively participate in the China International Import Expo to be held in Shanghai in November.

It will be a good platform for companies from both countries to boost mutual interests and enhance cooperation, added Fu.SANTO DOMINGO, May 2 (Xinhua) -- The Dominican Republic has reached a milestone in its foreign policy by establishing diplomatic ties with China, a senator of the Caribbean country said.

"We could say we made it," said Senator Charles Mariotti, who is president of the senate's Industries, Commerce and Free Trade Zones Commission.

Mariotti recalled that in 2012, Dominican President Danilo Medina, soon after taking office, instructed him to travel to China to discuss the possibility of forging diplomatic ties.

Those early measures paid off when the two countries signed a joint communique in Beijing Tuesday (local time) on the establishment of the bilateral diplomatic relationship.

The decision will secure Medina's place in history books as the head of state who succeeded in consolidating ties with a country that the Dominican Republic needs, Mariotti said.

The new relationship is expected to boost bilateral cooperation in a range of areas, including infrastructure, trade, tourism, environment, energy, technology and security.

"With China, we have a lot to talk about -- rail transportation, ports, hydroelectric plants ..." Mariotti said.

China has become the Dominican Republic's second largest source of imports. Data from the Chinese Customs show bilateral trade was worth some 1.9 billion U.S. dollars in 2017, an increase of 10.3 percent from the previous year.

Together, the two countries should work to strike a balance in the commercial relationship, while the Dominican Republic should improve its legal framework, Mariotti said.

"We have to continue to make progress on our agenda to make it easier to do business. The Dominican Republic has a great challenge ahead and that is to strengthen the legal security so that Chinese investors and all others who come feel confident about investing in the country," the lawmaker added.

The island should also prepare for a rise in the number of tourists from China by diversifying the industry, he said, mentioning, in particular, his country's culinary culture.

"Now we have to ... mentalize and interiorize that we have to prepare ourselves for the interchange that will begin with this great nation," said Mariotti.Username: Password: or Register Thread Rating: 7 Vote(s) - 2.14 Average

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Page: 1 2 3 Mueller should be allowed to follow Russia probe 'wherever it takes him' spo snouou

Vocem sine nomine audivit!

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05-06-2018 05:01 AM



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Post: #1 Mueller should be allowed to follow Russia probe 'wherever it takes him'

Advertisement



In an interview with the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Murkowski said she firmly believes that Trump should not be permitted to meddle in the investigation.



I believe very, very firmly in that. And I think any efforts to thwart that are dangerous, she said. If the investigation takes them to an additional turn that needs to be followed, I think this is what we're asking for when we ask for an independent investigation.



That means that the president can't meddle, she added. That means that the attorney general can't meddle. That means that the United States Senate can't meddle.



Murkowski also diverted from Trumps claims that the probe is a witch hunt, and said that she would support legislation intended to protect Mueller from the president.



"I do not subscribe that this is some kind of a witch hunt," she told the paper.



more:

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/38633...herever-it GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) said this week that special counsel Robert Mueller should be allowed to follow his investigation into Russian meddling wherever it takes him.In an interview with the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Murkowski said she firmly believes that Trump should not be permitted to meddle in the investigation.I believe very, very firmly in that. And I think any efforts to thwart that are dangerous, she said. If the investigation takes them to an additional turn that needs to be followed, I think this is what we're asking for when we ask for an independent investigation.That means that the president can't meddle, she added. That means that the attorney general can't meddle. That means that the United States Senate can't meddle.Murkowski also diverted from Trumps claims that the probe is a witch hunt, and said that she would support legislation intended to protect Mueller from the president."I do not subscribe that this is some kind of a witch hunt," she told the paper.more: (This post was last modified: 05-06-2018 05:02 AM by spo snouou .) entropy

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05-06-2018 05:03 AM



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Post: #2 RE: Mueller should be allowed to follow Russia probe 'wherever it takes him'

I agree. It's not about what side one may be on, it's about the law and nobody should be above that. Eldog Wilbury

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05-06-2018 05:04 AM



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Post: #3 RE: Mueller should be allowed to follow Russia probe 'wherever it takes him'

Mueller was a dirty rotten patriotically oriented sycophant long before the t man came along...I predict he will be resigning very soon...He should be going to prison. The Ghost Of LOP

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05-06-2018 05:04 AM



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Post: #4 RE: Mueller should be allowed to follow Russia probe 'wherever it takes him'

How about let's send Mueller's ass to Russia and not let him come back. I am so confused !!! Magnus74

100% Right 48% of the Time

User ID: 1337

05-06-2018 05:27 AM



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Post: #5 RE: Mueller should be allowed to follow Russia probe 'wherever it takes him'

Counting Sheep Wrote: (05-06-2018 05:03 AM) I agree. It's not about what side one may be on, it's about the law and nobody should be above that.

exactly! couldn't agree more...



In 1999 Congress let the special prosecutor law expire and set up new rules for the attorney general to appoint a special counsel.



Under the current law, the special counsel's focus is somewhat more limited, with the scope of the investigation set by the attorney general and confined to investigating criminal matters.



https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44857.pdf



Oh.. did you mean only Mueller should be above the law?



Go back to law school. oh that's right. exactly! couldn't agree more...In 1999 Congress let the special prosecutor law expire and set up new rules for the attorney general to appoint a special counsel.Under the current law,Oh.. did you mean only Mueller should be above the law?Go back to law school. oh that's right. When you come to behead me be careful not to bruise the face. engineering

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05-06-2018 05:32 AM



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Post: #6 RE: Mueller should be allowed to follow Russia probe 'wherever it takes him'

Counting Sheep Wrote: (05-06-2018 05:03 AM) it's about the law and nobody should be above that.

LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 1337

05-06-2018 05:37 AM











Post: #7 RE: Mueller should be allowed to follow Russia probe 'wherever it takes him'

It's going to take him all the way to jail. pooky

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05-06-2018 05:51 AM



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Post: #8 RE: Mueller should be allowed to follow Russia probe 'wherever it takes him'

spo snouou

Vocem sine nomine audivit!

User ID: 1337

05-06-2018 06:17 AM



Posts: 67,593









Post: #9 RE: Mueller should be allowed to follow Russia probe 'wherever it takes him'

engineering Wrote: (05-06-2018 05:32 AM) Counting Sheep Wrote: (05-06-2018 05:03 AM) it's about the law and nobody should be above that.



pooky Wrote: (05-06-2018 05:51 AM)

LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 1337

05-06-2018 07:24 AM











Post: #10 RE: Mueller should be allowed to follow Russia probe 'wherever it takes him'

Since when did Stormy Daniels have anything to do with the Russians? LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 1337

05-06-2018 07:44 AM











Post: #11 RE: Mueller should be allowed to follow Russia probe 'wherever it takes him'

LoP Guest Wrote: (05-06-2018 07:24 AM) Since when did Stormy Daniels have anything to do with the Russians?

Dunno, but I have a strong urge to post some sweet arse Russian music videos, knowing it will make OP weep uncontrollably into his soy latte



"she should have won"



Dunno, but I have a strong urge to post some sweet arse Russian music videos, knowing it will make OP weep uncontrollably into his soy latte"she should have won" LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 1337

05-06-2018 07:48 AM











Post: #12 RE: Mueller should be allowed to follow Russia probe 'wherever it takes him'



I've got your Russian probe right here LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 1337

05-06-2018 07:52 AM











Post: #13 RE: Mueller should be allowed to follow Russia probe 'wherever it takes him'

He was allowed, it is just that he has spent MILLIONS and to date has found NOTHING ! LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 1337

05-06-2018 07:56 AM











Post: #14 RE: Mueller should be allowed to follow Russia probe 'wherever it takes him'

LoP Guest Wrote: (05-06-2018 07:52 AM) He was allowed, it is just that he has spent MILLIONS and to date has found NOTHING !

So very, very, VERY unlike the 30 years, hundreds of millions of dollars, and countless time wasted on HILLARY. Right?



Oh, just a minor difference though: in this case there have actually been, to date, 19 indictments, 4 guilty pleas, and who knows how many deals struck.

So very, very, VERY unlike the 30 years, hundreds of millions of dollars, and countless time wasted on HILLARY. Right? LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 1337

05-06-2018 08:00 AM











Post: #15 RE: Mueller should be allowed to follow Russia probe 'wherever it takes him'

LoP Guest Wrote: (05-06-2018 07:56 AM) LoP Guest Wrote: (05-06-2018 07:52 AM) He was allowed, it is just that he has spent MILLIONS and to date has found NOTHING !

So very, very, VERY unlike the 30 years, hundreds of millions of dollars, and countless time wasted on HILLARY. Right?



Oh, just a minor difference though: in this case there have actually been, to date, 19 indictments, 4 guilty pleas, and who knows how many deals struck.



What has Hillary been charged with ? What has Hillary been charged with ? Advertisement

















Lahore: Pakistan's Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal was on Sunday shot at and injured in a suspected assassination bid after he addressed a rally in Punjab province, police said.

Iqbal, 59, sustained a bullet wound on his right shoulder. He was attending a corner meeting in Narowal's Kanjrur Tehsil when the incident occurred, the police was quoted as saying by Dawn News.

He was shifted to the District Headquarters Hospital, the report said. Family sources confirmed that the interior minister is being shifted to Lahore.

The suspect has reportedly been taken into custody, according to police. District Police Officer Imran Kishwar said that the attacker used a 30-bore pistol to fire at Iqbal from a distance of around 18 metres.

"One of the shooters has been arrested and (is) being interrogated by the police," Punjab government said in a Twitter message.

Confirming the incident, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Tallal Chaudhry said Iqbal was out of danger. The arrested suspect is 20-22 years old, he added.

Corner meetings become common as elections come close with politicians interacting with supporters and common people.New Delhi: Superstar Salman Khan will be next seen in 'Race 3', the third instalment of the blockbuster 'Race' series. The edgy and glamorous thriller actioner is being helmed by ace choreographer turned director Remo D'Souza.

Recently, several reports did the rounds that the trailer of the much-awaited action thriller was to be released by the makers on May 5. However, the report turned out to be only a rumour. Now, a TOI report has claimed that the makers of the film are yet to finalise on a date for the trailer release.

The TOI quoted a source as saying that apparently, Salman was not happy with the first cut of the trailer which caused a delay. And now, the trailer will be revealed only next week. The source further revealed that after Salman's review of the first cut of the trailer, the team extensively worked day and night for a new trailer.

As per latest report, the film trailer will be released in 3D now and it is still under a production stage. Also, it is not yet known if the trailer will be launched digitally or the cast and crew will have an event to launch it.

The cast and crew of 'Race 3' recently returned to Mumbai after completing the Kashmir schedule.

Produced by Salman Khan Films and Ramesh Taurani under the banner of Tips Films, the film also features Anil Kapoor, Bobby Deol, Daisy Shah, Saqib Saleem, Freddy Daruwala, Amit Sadh.LONDON: The Indians residing in the United Kingdom are among the among most favoured migrants living in the country, a recent opinion poll has claimed. According to the YouGov poll, the Indian migrants have a more positive image in the UK as compared to other South Asian communities.

As compared to Indian, the Pakistanis and Bangladeshis were in the negative territory.

At least 1,668 British citizens were surveyed in the opinion poll, which was conducted last month.

During the survey, the respondents were asked a series of questions about the kind of contribution immigrants from various parts of the world make to British life.

The respondents gave Indians a big thumbs up - a strong figure of +25 - on the question about making a positive contribution to British life.

However, the other South Asian counterparts were not so lucky. Pakistanis scored a negative figure of -4 and Bangladeshis -3, according to the survey.

Net figures were calculated by taking away the figure for "negative contribution" from the figure for "positive contribution" in the survey.

The survey was conducted in the backdrop of a growing debate around the atmosphere for migrants in the UK.

A recent Windrush scandal, largely affecting Caribbean migrants who came to the UK before 1973, has thrown up the prospect of many Indians being caught up in similar issues of citizenship rights.

The Opposition Labour Party, while participating in a debate in a House of Commons earlier this week, had warned that the scandal engulfs immigrants from many Commonwealth countries, including "those who came from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh".

"This is an issue that has resonated around the Commonwealth. At a time when we are trying to build our relationship with the Commonwealth post-Brexit for trade and other reasons, it is extremely damaging what has been revealed about the way Commonwealth citizens have been treated," said Labour MP Diane Abbott, the UK's shadow home secretary, PTI reported.

The scandal relates to thousands of Commonwealth citizens who came to Britain many decades ago when there was little need for formal paperwork and are now legally resident in Britain but may not have all the documents to prove it.

The issue has snowballed into a major controversy with saw hundreds of Indian professionals staging a protest outside Parliament earlier this week against what they claim are unjust refusals of their right to live and work in the country.

Many have also taken to the courts to challenge the UK Home Office's use of a discretionary "good character" clause to deny them indefinite leave to remain (ILR) over legally permitted tax corrections.

Besides, there have been cases involving hundreds of doctors from India being denied visas after being recruited by the state-funded National Health Service (NHS) to fill staff shortages in the country's health service.

Ministers have reportedly been pressuring British Prime Minister Theresa May to ease the limited quota of such visas to allow doctors from outside the European Union (EU) to come to the rescue of the NHS.

Meanwhile, the Indian students are also among those who have been forced to abandon their courses in UK colleges and return to India as a result of a scam unearthed in an English language test programme called Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) in 2014.

Importantly, the YouGov survey concluded that overall public opinion in the UK towards immigration was negative.

Immigration remains one of the most emotive issues in the country's political landscape, with the vote in favour of Brexit in the 2016 EU referendum largely attributed to a belief that it would help shut down the country's borders to uncontrolled migrants.

(With PTI inputs)NEW DELHI: Days after the Centre completely removed the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) from Meghalaya and partly restricted it in Arunachal Pradesh, it emerged on Sunday that the Act may be removed from other states like J&K, Assam and Nagaland if the situation improves.

The indication in this regard came from Union Minister and MoS (Home) Kiren Rijiju who said that the AFSPA, which gives special powers to security forces operating in conflict zones, may be withdrawn from areas where security situation improves.

The MoS Home said this while referring to states like J&K, Assam and Nagaland where the controversial Act is in force.

Referring to the situation in Nagaland, Rijiju said that the ongoing Naga peace talks between the NSCN-IM and the government's interlocutor were being followed up with utmost sincerity and the outcome of the dialogue would be positive.

He, however, refused to give any time-frame for the signing of the peace pact.

"Since the security scenario in the Northeast has improved in the last four years, AFSPA has been removed from many areas. We are hopeful that with further improvement, it may be lifted from the remaining few areas in the near future, '' he was quoted as saying by PTI.

Referring to the ongoing dialogue between the Issak-Muivah faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN-IM) and the government interlocutor, the Minister said the Narendra Modi government was the most sensitive toward the issues of the Nagas and the Northeast.

The process of Naga talks are being followed up with utmost sincerity. So the outcome will be positive,'' Rijiju assured.

A framework agreement was signed on August 3, 2015 by NSCN-IM general secretary Thuingaleng Muivah and the government's interlocutor R N Ravi in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The framework agreement had come after over 80 rounds of negotiations spanning 18 years, with the first breakthrough made in 1997 when the ceasefire agreement was sealed after decades of insurgency in Nagaland which started soon after India's Independence in 1947.

The remarks from MoS Home came days after the Centre government completely removed the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act from Meghalaya and partly from Arunachal Pradesh.

''Union Home Ministry has removed Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) from Meghalaya and reduced it to eight police stations in Arunachal Pradesh, a senior Home Ministry official said on Monday.

"AFSPA was totally withdrawn from all areas of Meghalaya from April 1. In Arunachal, it is down from 16 police stations to eight," the official added.

Though removed from almost all of Meghalaya, the AFSPA has been extended by another six months in three eastern districts of Arunachal Pradesh - Tirap, Longding and Changlang. These three eastern districts of Arunachal Pradesh share the border with Myanmar and some specific areas under eight police stations in seven other districts bordering Assam. The three districts have been under the AFSPA since January 2016.

''The decision to remove AFSPA from Meghalaya and parts of Arunachal Pradesh was taken due to significant improvement of security situation in the two states,'' the Home Ministry official was quoted as saying by PTI.

While insurgency has been completely wiped out from Tripura and Mizoram, there has been a marked improvement in security situation in Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Manipur, according to the Home Ministry.

The controversial law, AFSPA, which empowers security forces to conduct operations, arrest anyone anywhere without prior notice, is also in force in Jammu and Kashmir.

There have been demands in the Northeast as well as in Jammu and Kashmir that the AFSPA be withdrawn completely as the security forces often allegedly use it whenever there is complaints of human rights violation and use of extreme force.

(With PTI inputs)There seems to be no end to controversies concerning Muhammad Ali Jinnah. After the uproar over his portrait in the Aligarh Muslim University, now objections have been raised by another Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader to Jinnah House and Jinnah Hall in Mumbai.

Mumbai BJP MLA Prabhat Lodha has demanded that Jinnah House and Jinnah Hall should be converted to cultural centres and that Jinnahs name must be removed from them. Jinnah House was home of Muhammad Ali Jinnah in Mumbai and the hall was named after the Muslim League leader.

This comes even as AMU students have been agitating for the past few days, demanding action against the right-wing protesters, who entered the campus and demanded the removal of Jinnah's portrait from the student union's office. The row started after local BJP MP Satish Gautam wrote to AMU, raising objections to the portrait.

On Thursday, 28 students and 13 cops were injured in a clash which broke out between AMU students and the police, forcing the administration to take several preventive measures.

The Muslim Mahasangh in Rampur also later announced a reward of Rs 1 lakh for burning the photo of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, which triggered a massive uproar at the AMU.

Blaming Jinnah for having broken the country at the time of partition, Farhat - the national head of All-India Muslim Mahasangh - announced that the reward would be given to anyone who burns Jinnah's photo which created ruckus at AMU.

However, Jamaat-e-Islami Hind on Saturday questioned the rationale behind the demands to remove the portrait of Pakistan founder from the AMU history.

"What is the rationale behind such a demand after it has been there in public view for the past 80 years? Even if someone has such a demand, they can move courts for the same... Why such a row over it?" its chief Maulana Syed Jalaluddin Umari asked.

Umari said that it was a small issue that has been blown out of proportion. Siding with the AMU students, Umari said that it has always been a practice in AMU to display portraits of its lifetime members of the students' union in the campus.

Responding to it, BJP hit back saying those standing with Jinnah also stood for terrorist Afzal Guru. BJP spokesperson Sudanshu Trivedi said that those who are standing for Pakistan founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah also stood for terrorists like Afzal Guru.

Speaking to ANI, Trivedi castigated sympathisers of Jinnah, who was responsible for country's partition.

"People who are standing with Jinnah today, are the same people who stood with terrorist like Afzal Guru. It is unfortunate that certain people are standing by the side of a person who was responsible for the division of this country," Trivedi said.Kochi: Days after the Centre rejected the recommendations of the Supreme Court Collegium on the elevation of Uttarakhand High Court Chief Justice KM Joseph as an apex court judge, a top court judge on Sunday said that 'this should not have happened'.

"Since this happened, there were lots of discussions... Such a thing should never happen again," Justice Kurian Joseph, a member of the apex court collegium, said.

Kurian Joseph, who is one of the top Supreme Court judges, is also a member of the apex court Collegium, which recommended the elevation of Uttarakhand HC Chief Justice KM Joseph to the Supreme Court.

The remarks from Justice Kurien Jospeh came days after the Supreme Court Collegium deferred its decision on the issue of Justice KM Joseph's elevation.

A decision in this regard was taken following a meeting of all the five member-judges of the SC Collegium, including Chief Justice Dipak Misra and justices J Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B Lokur and Kurian Joseph on Wednesday.

The Collegium's move to defer its decision on Justice KM Joseph came nearly a week after the Centre rejected its recommendation to elevate the Uttarakhand High Court Chief Justice as an apex court judge and asked it to reconsider its choice.

The apex court collegium also passed a resolution that it met "to consider the following agenda:'To reconsider the case of Mr Justice KM Joseph, Chief Justice, Uttarakhand High Court [PHC:Kerala], pursuant to letters dated 26th & 30th April, 2018 received from Ministry of Law & Justice, Government of India and also to consider the names of Judges from Calcutta, Rajasthan, and Telangana & Andhra Pradesh High Courts for elevation as Judges of the Supreme Court, in view of the concept of fair representation.'Deferred."

The Collegium' had first recommended the name of Justice KM Joseph for elevation to Supreme Court along with the name of Justice Indu Malhotra on January 10 this year.

After more than three months, the Centre cleared the file of Indu Malhotra and notified her appointment to the Supreme Court on April 26.

However, it refused to clear Justice Josephs file sending it back to the Collegium with a 6-page explanatory note on why it did not want him to be elevated to Supreme Court.

The Centre's rejection of Justice KM Joseph's name triggered a huge outcry with several legal luminaries alleging that this was a payback by the Centre for the judgement by Justice Joseph, striking down Presidential Rule in the State of Uttarakhand High Court.

Some lawyers had even mentioned the matter before CJI Dipak Misra and demanded that there should be a stay on the warrant of appointment of Indu Malhotra till the file of Justice Joseph is cleared.

However, CJI Dipak Misra later dismissed the petitions, saying that the Centre was well within its right to reject the Collegium's recommendation for Justice Joseph's elevation to the apex court.

Refused to stay the presidential warrant appointing senior woman lawyer Indu Malhotra as a Supreme Court judge, the CJI termed the plea of advocates challenging it as "unimaginable," "unthinkable," "unconscionable" and "never heard before."

The CJI said that it was inappropriate to put on hold the appointment of Indu Malhotra as a judge in the Supreme Court just because the central government has not cleared Justice KM Joseph's name.

(With PTI inputs)Bengaluru: The Karnataka Board (KSEEB) SSLC examination results 2018 is likely to be declared on Monday. The KSEEB SSLC examination results will be declared on the official website - kseeb.kar.nic.in and karresults.nic.in.

It is expected that the results will be out at 11 am on May 7, 2018. SSLC exam 2018 had concluded on 6 April 2018.

How to check Karnataka Secondary Education Board exam results 2018:

- Go to the official websites - kseeb.kar.nic.in or karresults.nic.in.

- Enter roll number and other details.

- Click 'submit' button and download KSEEB result 2018.

- Take a printout for future reference.

About the board:

Karnataka Secondary Education Examination Board came into existence in the year 1966 and has been conducting SSLC and other examinations. "Every year in April about 8.50 lakh and in June 1.50 lakh students are appearing for the SSLC examinations," as per the official website.

It further says, "The board has ventured to conduct the supplementary examination for the failed candidates of the examination of March in June month of every year itself. This will enable the students who would be successful in the June examination to join higher education courses in the same academic year from July itself. This process was introduced the first time in the country."Father of an aspirant of National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), passed away after suffering a heart attack in Ernakulam in Kerala on Sunday.

Krishnaswamy and his son Kasturi Mahalingam had checked into the Airlines Hotel on Saturday morning. News agency IANS quoted hotel staffer as saying that after his son left for the exam in an autorickshaw, Krishnaswamy complained of ill health.

"Our staff got an autorickshaw for the boy to reach the exam centre in the morning. Later, the father called the reception complaining of ill health and was taken to a hospital," a hotel staffer told IANS over phone from Ernakulam.

An official of City Hospital told IANS, "Krishnaswamy came to the hospital around 8.20 a.m. and his sugar levels were high. He was conscious and oriented. Unfortunately, he collapsed soon after that. We could not revive him."

The body of the deceased has been handed over to the family while Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Palaniswami has declared a compensation of Rs 3 lakh for his family. The deceased hailed from Tiruvar district in Tamil Nadu.

More than 1.20 lakh students appeared for NEET in Kerala on Sunday. About 1,20,792 candidates appeared for the test from the state in 226 centres spread across the districts of Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Kottayam, Alapuzha, Ernakulam, Thrissur, Palakkad, Malappuram, Kozhikode and Kannur.

The CBSE had issued strict guidelines and dos and don'ts for those appearing for the test. Candidates were asked not to carry stationery items like bits of paper, geometry box, pencil box, plastic pouch, pen scale, writing pad, eraser, mobile phone, blue tooth inside the examination hall.

A strict dress code, banning wallets, goggles, handbags, belt, cap and ornaments, pendants, badge and brooch, shoes and heels was also imposed. In Thiruvananthapuram, 24,000 students appeared for the test in 34 centres.

(With agency inputs)A passenger was on Sunday arrested at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi for allegedly carrying several Apple iPhone X. Custom officials reportedly seized 100 iPhone X worth at least Rs 85,61,169 from the possession of the passenger.

According to reports, the man was coming from Dubai with the iPhones and the air intelligence unit had prior information about his arrival in the national capital.

The 53-year-old accused was intercepted by the customs after his arrival on Friday.

"Hundred iPhone X handsets worth a total of Rs 85.61 lakh were seized from his baggage after a thorough search," Additional Commissioner of customs at the airport, Amandeep Singh, said.

(With PTI inputs)Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar has said that Namaz should be read in mosques and Idgahs and not in public spaces. Responding to questions on increase in number of incidents of disrupting Namaz in Gurgaon, Khattar said that it was the duty of the state to maintain law and order.

It is our duty to maintain law and order. There has been an increase in offering Namaz in open. Namaz should be read in Mosques or Idgahs rather than public spaces, said Khattar.

The statement by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader came just days after some right-wing organisations disrupted Friday Namaz at several places in Gurugram in Haryana. However, police presence at the spots prevented any violence from taking place.

Hindutva organisations have been trying to stop Friday prayers in Gurgaon over the last two weeks alleging that some people were trying to grab land in a bid to merge it with a mosque. There were disruptions to namaz at Wazirabad, Atul Kataria Chowk, Cyber Park, Bakhtawar Chowk and at South City, on Friday last.

Members of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Bajrang Dal, Hindu Kranti Dal, Gau Rakshak Dal and Shiv Sena arrived at the spots where people had assembled to offer Friday prayers.

Ritu Raj, a member of a Hindutva organisation, claimed that they organised a havan at Wazirabad to stop the Namaz.

They allegedly shouted slogans like Jai Shri Ram and Radhe Radhe to disrupt the Namaz.

(With PTI Inputs)spo snouou

Vocem sine nomine audivit!

User ID: kaput

05-06-2018 05:26 AM



Posts: 67,593











Post: #1 Trump's Israeli agency told to find incriminating material on Obama diplomats

Advertisement Trump team hired spy firm for dirty ops on Iran arms deal





Quote: It was the second time in around two months that Kerry had met foreign minister Javad Zarif to apparently strategise over rescuing a pact they spent years negotiating during the Obama administration. On Sunday Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, will arrive in Washington, hoping to persuade Trump to keep the deal, known as the joint comprehensive plan of action (JCPOA).



Straw, who was foreign secretary between 2001 and 2006, said: The campaign against the JCPOA has been characterised by abuse and misinformation. It is the best chance of ensuring Iran never develops a nuclear weapons programme, and it is insane to suggest abandoning the deal could do anything but endanger international security.

Aides to Donald Trump, the US president, hired an Israeli private intelligence agency to orchestrate a dirty ops campaign against key individuals from the Obama administration who helped negotiate the Iran nuclear deal, the Observer can reveal.



People in the Trump camp contacted private investigators in May last year to get dirt on Ben Rhodes, who had been one of Barack Obamas top national security advisers, and Colin Kahl, deputy assistant to Obama, as part of an elaborate attempt to discredit the deal.



The extraordinary revelations come days before Trumps 12 May deadline to either scrap or continue to abide by the international deal limiting Irans nuclear programme.



Jack Straw, who as foreign secretary was involved in earlier efforts to restrict Iranian weapons, said: These are extraordinary and appalling allegations but which also illustrate a high level of desperation by Trump and [the Israeli prime minister] Benjamin Netanyahu, not so much to discredit the deal but to undermine those around it.



One former high-ranking British diplomat with wide experience of negotiating international peace agreements, requesting anonymity, said: Its bloody outrageous to do this. The whole point of negotiations is to not play dirty tricks like this.



Sources said that officials linked to Trumps team contacted investigators days after Trump visited Tel Aviv a year ago, his first foreign tour as US president. Trump promised Netanyahu that Iran would never have nuclear weapons and suggested that the Iranians thought they could do what they want since negotiating the nuclear deal in 2015. A source with details of the dirty tricks campaign said: The idea was that people acting for Trump would discredit those who were pivotal in selling the deal, making it easier to pull out of it.



more:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018...clear-deal



Quote: The struggle over JCPOAs fate comes to a head at the end of this week, when Trump must choose whether to keep a set of sanctions suspended, or violate the deal by reviving them. Trump has reminded the world repeatedly that only he knows what he is going to do when the sanctions waivers fall due on Saturday, while hinting heavily that he will refuse to sign them.



If that happens, JCPOA could collapse quickly, or more likely stumble on wounded and weakened a while longer before crashing. Either way, the prospect of a new conflict in the Middle East will draw closer.



In view of these high stakes, European capitals are desperately seeking a compromise to satisfy Trump and salvage JCPOA by addressing the presidents complaints about the deal: that it does not address ballistic missile development or Irans role in conflicts across the region, and that some of the restrictions on Irans nuclear activities expire in the coming years.



White House visits by Frances president, Emmanuel Macron, and German chancellor Angela Merkel failed to achieve a breakthrough, but UK foreign secretary Boris Johnson is due in Washington today to try his luck. Meanwhile, diplomats in London, Paris, Berlin and Washington (all parties to JCPOA) continue to exchange ideas on possible compromises. There is agreed text on tougher action towards Irans missiles and containing its regional expansion, but not so far on JCPOAs sunset clauses.



In any case there is no guarantee that the US officials involved in these exchanges have any sway with Trump himself. He promised to kill the deal and seems bent on delivering. And his resolve has scrambled global alignments. The Europeans find themselves in agreement with Russia, China and Iran, as well as much of the rest of the international community. The US, meanwhile, finds common cause with Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.



As the struggle has sharpened in the run-up to Trumps day of judgment, the gambits on both sides have grown bolder. By flying, one by one, to Trumps court in a bid to appease him, the Europeans risk exposing their impotence.



For his part, Israels prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, showed a sure feel for his audience of one on Monday with an extraordinary stunt, displaying an Israeli intelligence trove on Iran  which in normal times would be quietly shared with allied agencies  in the style of a Las Vegas show. With a showmans flourish, Netanyahu ripped black sheets off bookcases of files and panels emblazoned with CD-roms, while screens displayed the message Iran lied in 3ft-high letters.



The substance underlying the show did appear to be a remarkable intelligence coup  Irans nuclear weapons archive reportedly swiped from a Tehran warehouse in the middle of the night in January  but has so far only confirmed what was already known to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA): that Iran began a concerted weapons design project in 2002, but shelved it a year later, then continued some theoretical feasibility studies until 2009.



It is not clear whether Netanyahus performance was intended to sway Trump, a counter-balance to Macron and Merkel, or to do the US president a favour by providing political cover for a decision he has already taken. Trump has set 12 May as a grand season finale, with himself at centre stage. However, even if he reimposes sanctions by refusing to sign a waiver it will not necessarily spell the end for JCPOA. The sanctions legislation in play is targeted at foreign countries and companies dealing with Irans central bank but contains exemptions for states that significantly reduce their purchases of Iranian oil.

more:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018...l-analysis



Aides to Donald Trump, the US president, hired an Israeli private intelligence agency to orchestrate a dirty ops campaign against key individuals from the Obama administration who helped negotiate the Iran nuclear deal, the Observer can reveal.People in the Trump camp contacted private investigators in May last year to get dirt on Ben Rhodes, who had been one of Barack Obamas top national security advisers, and Colin Kahl, deputy assistant to Obama, as part of an elaborate attempt to discredit the deal.The extraordinary revelations come days before Trumps 12 May deadline to either scrap or continue to abide by the international deal limiting Irans nuclear programme.Jack Straw, who as foreign secretary was involved in earlier efforts to restrict Iranian weapons, said: These are extraordinary and appalling allegations but which also illustrate a high level of desperation by Trump and [the Israeli prime minister] Benjamin Netanyahu, not so much to discredit the deal but to undermine those around it.One former high-ranking British diplomat with wide experience of negotiating international peace agreements, requesting anonymity, said: Its bloody outrageous to do this. The whole point of negotiations is to not play dirty tricks like this.Sources said that officials linked to Trumps team contacted investigators days after Trump visited Tel Aviv a year ago, his first foreign tour as US president. Trump promised Netanyahu that Iran would never have nuclear weapons and suggested that the Iranians thought they could do what they want since negotiating the nuclear deal in 2015. A source with details of the dirty tricks campaign said: The idea was that people acting for Trump would discredit those who were pivotal in selling the deal, making it easier to pull out of it.more:more:The Kerala government opened help desks at railways stations and bus stands in Ernakulam district as students arrived from within and outside Kerala to appear in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), being conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) for admission into medical and dental courses.

Apart from the help desks, medical booths were also set by the government for the ease of students.

Kerala govt has opened help desk at railways & bus stations in Ernakulam district to help students who are arriving from other states of the country to appear in #NEET examinations. Medical booths also set up. 58 examination centers have been set up in Ernakulam. (05.05.2018) pic.twitter.com/UjF2CmZk6n  ANI (@ANI) May 5, 2018

More than 1.20 lakh students are slated to appear for NEET in the state on Sunday.

About 1,20,792 candidates will appear for the test from the state in 226 centres spread across thedistricts of Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Kottayam, Alapuzha, Ernakulam, Thrissur, Palakkad, Malappuram, Kozhikode and Kannur.

The CBSE has issued strict guidelines and dos and don'ts for those appearing for the test.

Candidates have been asked not to carry stationery items like bits of paper, geometry box, pencil box, plastic pouch, pen scale, writing pad, eraser, mobile phone, blue tooth inside the examination hall.

A strict dress code, banning wallets, goggles, handbags, belt, cap and ornaments, pendants, badge and brooch, shoes and heels has also been imposed. In Thiruvananthapuram, 24,000 students would appear for the test in 34 centres, an official press release said.

Last year, the test had kicked up a controversy with a candidate from Kannur alleging that she was forced to remove her inner wear, while some others had to shorten sleeves and cut the pockets of their jeans.

(With PTI Inputs)If reports are to be believed, the Pakistan Army is making efforts make ties with India better. Pakistan-based Dawn News cited a report by a think tank saying the change in the attitude of the Pakistani military is because it feels that peace and prosperity could be achieved only by ensuring military cooperation between the two neighbours.

The report, released in London, was prepared by UK-based think tank Royal Unites Services Institute. According to the report, a recent move by Pakistan Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa to invite Indian military attache Sanjay Vishwasrao to Pakistan Day Military Parade in Islamabad shows that the relationship between India and Pakistan is warming up.

After two weeks, General Bajwa reportedly said that he wanted peace and dialogue with India.

The report said that India and Pakistan will also take part in joint military drills in Russia in September, with Chinese participation. "These initiatives come against a background of almost weekly exchanges of fire along the Line of Control in Kashmir," the report noted.

The report further said that senior Pakistani officer Lieutenant General Aamir Riaz headed the first ever high-level contact group with India as Director-General Military Operations.

According to the report, another top officer, Major General Ahmed Hayat, the Director General of analysis wing of the Inter-Services-Intelligence (ISI), authored the so-called "India Plan" in 2013, which tried to ascertain how and when Pakistan should approach India. General Hayat underscored that the Pakistani military would approach India after Islamabad strengthened it defence diplomacy without pressure or threats from Washington DC.

"It is a no-brainer that one cannot live in an environment of perpetual enmity with a neighbour six times your size, but the indicators have to be right," he said.

Meanwhile, India has rejected Pakistan`s offer of a transit trade dialogue on Afghan-Indian commerce, as per the report. The report further said that with a sustained approach by the Pakistani military to India, it could only be a matter of time before New Delhi agrees to at least talk to Islamabad for improving relations and pressing for peace and stability.

(With ANI inputs)A major sex racket has been busted by Bihar Police in Katihar. At least 32 people, including women, were arrested by the police as the prostitution racket was busted. The arrested include three minor girls who were part of the racket.

According to Prabhat Khabar, the sex racket was busted by the police in Gulab Bagh area of Katihar. The operation was conducted by Purnea police following a tip-off. They were informed that a prostitution racket was being operated in the area, which is often visited by traders.

After getting the information, the police formed a team and raided the suspected spot. The authorities are trying to ascertain the real identity of all the men and women arrested in the racket.

Once their identity is confirmed, the police will present them before the court for further action.KABUL: Six Indian nationals, believed to be employed with a power company in Afghanistan, were abducted by a group of heavily armed unidentified men in northern Baghlan province, said reports on Sunday.

According to PTI, the External Affairs Ministry (MEA) is fully aware of the kidnapping incident and is in touch with the Afghan authorities to ascertain more details about it.

TOLOnews said that some unidentified armed men abducted six Indians and one Afghan employee of Indian company KEC in Bagh-e-Shamal village of the provincial capital Pul-e-Khomre on Sunday, citing local officials.

The seven men were abducted while they travelling to the area where the company owns an electricity sub-station contract, it said.

Responding to queries on the reports of the abduction of the Indian nationals in Afghanistan, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson said in New Delhi that they are aware of the abduction of Indian nationals from Baghlan province in Afghanistan. ''We are in contact with the Afghan authorities and further details are being ascertained," the MEA official said.

Baghlan provincial council has, meanwhile, linked the incident to the Taliban.

However, no terror group has claimed responsibility for the abduction so far.



KEC is one of the largest Indian companies in Afghanistan that is responsible for electricity supply in the country.

The kidnapping of six Indians happened on the day when a powerful blast at a voter registration centre in Afghanistan's restive east killed or wounded at least 30 people.

The bomb had been placed in a tent being used to register voters on the grounds of a mosque, Khost provincial police chief Abdul Hanan Zadran was quoted as saying by AFP.

"A crowd of people who had come out of the mosque had gathered to register" when the blast took place, he said, putting the casualty toll at "about 30".

However, provincial deputy director of public health Gul Mohammad Mangal said at least 12 people had been killed and 33 wounded in the explosion.

Mangal warned the toll could rise, with several of the wounded in a critical condition.

It was the latest attack on election preparations and comes almost a week after 25 people were killed in a double bombing in the Afghan capital Kabul.

Nine journalists including AFP chief photographer Shah Marai were among the dead. BBC reporter Ahmad Shah was killed in a separate attack in Khost province.

The latest assault on a voter registration centre is likely to deter more people from signing up for the long-delayed parliamentary and district council elections scheduled for October 20.

On April 22 a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a voter registration centre in Kabul, killing 60 people and wounding more than 100.

Just over 1.2 million adults had registered by Saturday, three weeks after the two-month long process began, data compiled by the Independent Election Commission (IEC) showed.

(With Agency inputs)Thunderstorm and rains are likely in several areas of Delhi and adjoining NCR on Sunday. According to the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), light rain and thundershowers are expected in Faridabad, Ballabhgarh, Khurja, Greater Noida and Bulandshahr, apart from the national capital.

The weather department has also predicted light rain and thundershowers at isolated places in next 48-72 hours in Punjab. Similar predictions have been made for areas in Uttar Pradesh like Meerut, Hapur, Muzaffarnagar and Bijnor.

Even in Himachal Pradesh, IMD official said that rainfall is expected in many regions between May 6 and May 8. Thunderstorm and strong wind warnings have been issued for Shimla, Solan, Hamirpur, Mandi, Kangra and Una districts. The warning was confirmed by IMD Himachal Pradesh director Mangal Singh.

Sunday seems set to bring heatwave conditions back to Vidarbha, after a few days of respite. However, the northernmost pocket of the country - Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand - could face thunderstorms with squalls and even hail on Sunday. Assam and Meghalaya have been slotted for more rain.

Parts of northern India have been reeling under the effect of sudden and heavy bursts of rain combined with very windy conditions. The combination of these factors has claimed the lives of over 120 people and injured over 300, with the majority of cases in Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.New Delhi: Thunderstorms accompanied by squall, hail and heavy rains are likely to occur in at least 13 states and two Union Territories across the country on Monday, Indian Meteorological Department has said.

Thunderstorm accompanied with squall and hail are likely at isolated places over Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh while thunderstorm accompanied with gusty winds are likely on Monday at isolated places in Uttarakhand and Punjab. Heavy rains are likely on Monday at isolated places over Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura, it said.

Thunderstorm accompanied with gusty winds are likely at isolated places over Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi and Western Uttar Pradesh, the IMD added.

Dust storm and thunderstorm are also likely at isolated places in west Rajasthan, PTI quoted an official as saying.

Meanwhile, the Haryana government has decided that all government and private schools will remain closed on May 7 and 8, 2018. State Education Minister Ram Bilas Sharma said on Sunday that the decision to keep schools closed has been taken in view of the MeT department's warning.

Also, in view of the warning, the Haryana Revenue and Disaster Management Department, in an advisory, has suggested safety tips to be adopted in case of thunderstorms, dust storms and squall.

Parts of western UP were battered in the Wednesday's (May 2, 2018) storm which also struck the adjoining Rajasthan districts. More than 100 people died due to the storm.

(With PTI inputs)The Uttar Pradesh government is reportedly slated to release Rs 10.77 crore for the beautification of some sites in Ayodhya. According to the mayor of Ayodhya, a detailed project has been sent to Yogi Adityanath-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Uttar Pradesh for the same.

He said that the amount of Rs 10.77 crore would be released soon by the state government for the beautification of Sita Kund, Vidya Kund, Dantdhaavan Kund, apart from some other kunds.

Development and beautification of Ayodhya has been a prime focus of the Yogi government in Uttar Pradesh. A decision was also taken by the government last year to build a 100 metre statue of Lord Ram on the banks of Saryu river in Ayodhya.

The tourism department of the state had presented a proposal in this regard to Uttar Pradesh Governor Ram Naik in October 2017. It is a part of the state governments plan to promote religious tourism in the state.

Notably, during Diwali in 2017, the BJP government had gifted projects worth Rs 133 crore to Ayodhya as Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath celebrated a mega Deepotsav in the holy town. As many as 1.73 lakh earthen lamps were lit on the banks of Saryu river During the Deepotsav.

Other projects taken up by the state government include a Ram Katha Gallery, Queen Ho memorial for which Rs 7.23 crore was earmarked. A new bus station would also be built at a cost of Rs 7.04 crore and Rs 15.65 crore was sanctioned for construction of a parking lot at the old bus station.

A multi-purpose hall at the Digambar Akhada was also announced at a cost of Rs 2.75 crore, a shelter for pilgrims at Panchkosi Parikrama route at a cost of Rs 1.88 crore and Rs 23.37 crore for construction of a toilet and parking at the Pateshwaru temple premises, and a tourist information centre at the railway station is also slated to be built at a cost of Rs 5.38 lakh.

Adityanath laid the foundation stone for beautification works at Ram ki Paidi (Rs 12.04 crore), development of the Laxman Kila Ghat (Rs 9.73 crore), development and parking construction at Guptar Ghat, street rejuvenation and pedestrian streets. He also announced that there would be no dearth of funds for development of Ayodhya and said that the state government had big plans to develop the temple town as a major tourist draw.Chitradurga/Raichur: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday fired a barrage of bards at the ruling Congress in poll-bound Karnataka and labelled it as a "deal party" which was losing its relevance in the country.

Adding more fire-power to the BJP's campaign in the poll-bound state, the PM said that no can save the Congress, which will be completely wiped out from the country very soon.

PM Modi also blamed the Congress for "distorting history" as part of a conspiracy to divide the society.

The PM fired these barbs at the Congress party while addressing mega BJP rallies in Chitradurga and Raichur, during which he flayed the Siddaramaiah government for celebrating the "jayantis of sultans" (birth anniversaries of Muslim rulers) for the sake of "vote bank politics".

He was apparently referring to the Siddaramaiah government's controversial decision of celebrating "Tipu Jayanti" every year on November 10, commemorating Tipu Sultan, the legendary 18th-century ruler of Mysore.

While talking about rampant corruption in Karnataka, PM Modi accused the Congress of protecting the corrupt, adopting a divide-and-rule policy and making false promises.

Attacking the ruling side, PM Modi said that Congress has the only agenda of "abusing Modi."

Listing out a string of electoral defeats of the Congress, including those in Maharashtra and Tripura, he said, "From every corner of the country, the Congress has gone".

"...And in Karnataka?" he asked the crowd, which said the Congress will be ousted from power in the southern state as well.

"Now they cannot survive. No one can save the Congress now. For 70 years they have misled and be-fooled the people," PM Modi said, as he continued his campaign blitz across Karnataka where the party is heavily banking on him.

#WATCH PM Modi says in Hubbali, "Tell me by switching on the light of your mobile phones. Will you visit door-to-door? Will you make people vote for 'lotus'? Will you form BJP government in Karnataka? Will you form new #Karnataka?" Audience turn on the flashlights of their phones pic.twitter.com/7gJqSJSuvh  ANI (@ANI) May 6, 2018

Earlier, at his rally in Chitradurga, PM Modi slammed a minister, facing corruption charges, without naming him directly. "The Congress is a party that neither has dil (heart) nor is it pro-Dalit. It is a deal party," he said.

Targeting Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, the PM said he always keeps character certificates ready in his suitcase. "Whenever an allegation of corruption against a minister is made, he immediately takes out a character certificate, writes the name and tells the people he is honest.

"The time has come to bid farewell to the Congress party that is not interested in your welfare. Make it a clean sweep for the BJP and send this chief minister home as he only goes around giving clean chits," Modi told the crowd.

Accusing the Congress of side-lining stalwarts like BR Ambedkar and undivided Congress president and former Karnataka chief minister S Nijalingappa, he said the party was interested in promoting only one family and naming "thousands of schemes" after them.

At Raichur, he said the Congress' "new mantra is spreading lies".

The Congress has realised its "vote bank politics is shaken" and, therefore, it has started a campaign for "misleading and spreading lies" among Dalits, and asked them to be aware, Modi said.

Among other charges, the Prime Minister accused the Congress of disrupting the proceedings in Parliament as it feared he was "gaining the trust of the people by completing his works successfully one after the other".

The Karnataka elections were a contest between the Congress' "misdeeds and people's aspirations," the PM said.

"On one side is the BJP with the mantra of 'sab ka saath sab ka vikaas (together with all development for all). On the other side is the Congress party that believes in doing everything for one family," he said.

While the BJP was fighting against the corrupt system, the Congress protects the corrupt, he alleged. The BJP was progressing in politics with the"blessings of people", while the Congress was dividing people, creating the rift between brothers and following a divide-and-rule policy, PM Modi said.

PM Modi even asked Congress to give an account of its work in Karnataka in the last five years.

The state goes to polls on May 12. The counting of votes will take place on May 15.

(With PTI inputs)Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday continued his attack on the Congress party as he campaigned for the Bharatiya Janata Party for Karnataka Assembly elections in Chitradurga. He accused the Congress of distorting history and disrespecting leaders for the sake of votebank politics.

Look at the Congress leaders, they do not know, whom they should remember and celebrate. They are at the forefront of celebrating Jayantis of Sultansthey have insulted people of Karnataka and Chitradurga, said the Prime Minister.

#WATCH PM Narendra Modi addresses a public meeting in Karnataka's Chitradurga https://t.co/nXq33LmyOx  ANI (@ANI) May 6, 2018

He further accused the ruling Congress in Karnataka of playing with the sentiments of Chitradurga people, saying that they cannot be pardoned. Nijalingappa ji, the proud son of this land was insulted by one family who cannot tolerate independent leaders emerging in the Party. Nijalingappa ji committed the crime of questioning some of the policies from the time of Pandit Nehru, he added.

Congress does not care about 'Dil' (people's hearts and feelings) or Dalits. They only care about deals. If they cannot do welfare, then they should be bid farewell, said the BJP strongman.

He added, Congress is obviously uncomfortable today because the highest offices of the land are occupied by people from poor and humble backgrounds. That is why now Congress prefers to mislead in the name of the Dalit community.

The Prime Minister further declared that preparations for second phase of Indias Moon mission, Chandrayaan 2. Chitradurga will soon become the hotspot of science and technology. It is a matter of pride that the mission Chandrayan 2 is taking place on this soil by ISRO unit of Chitradurga, said PM Modi.

The Prime Minister is now expected to address rallies in Raichur, Jamakhandi and Hubli on Sunday. The series of rallies by PM Modi comes a day after he made a sharp attack on the Congress party, saying it will become 'Punjab, Puducherry, Parivar' Congress after its defeat in the Karnataka Assembly polls.Prime Minister Narendra Modi is slated to address at least four public rallies in poll-bound Karnataka, where elections are scheduled to held on May 12. The Prime Minister will address rallies in Chitradurga, Raichur, Jamakhandi and Hubli to campaign for the Bharatiya Janata Party in Karnataka Assembly elections, the results of which will be declared on May 15.

The series of rallies by PM Modi comes a day after he made a sharp attack on the Congress party, saying it will become 'Punjab, Puducherry, Parivar' Congress after its defeat in the Karnataka Assembly polls.

Upping the ante against the Siddaramaiah government, he alleged it has become a "corruption tank" for the Congress with a pipeline connected to Delhi, "where the money reaches directly". PM Modi also accused the top Congress leadership of auctioning tickets, party positions and even the CM's post.

"After May 15 (when poll results will be declared), Indian National Congress will be reduced to 'PPP Congress' - P for Punjab, P for Puducherry, and P for Parivar (family)," he told an election rally in Gadag, where he predicted the state's ruling party would be decimated in the elections.

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, however, flayed his 'PPP Congress' remarks and said that the BJP was synonymous with 'prison', 'price rise' and 'pakoda' party. The Congress leader took to Twitter and responded to PM Modi with an equally hard-hitting tweet.

"Heard you spun a new abbreviation PPP today. Sir, we have always championed the 3 Ps of democracy - Of the People, By the People, For the People. While your party is a Prison, Price Rise & Pakoda party. Am I right, Sir?", he tweeted.

With just a week left for May 12 assembly polls in Karnataka, the two main political parties  BJP and Congress - have stepped up attack on each other with their leaders not refraining from making personal attacks on their rivals.

Amid escalating war of words between the two parties, the BJP on Saturday released what it called ''Sins of Congress'' alleging rampant corruption during its tenure in the southern state.

In a series of tweets, the Karnataka unit of the BJP said with one scam after another, it is evident that the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government has been involved in loot and plunder during the past five years which is 'simply mind-boggling.'Username: Password: or Register Thread Rating: 1 Vote(s) - 5 Average

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The Navy is resurrecting a fleet to protect from Russia Uppity Me

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05-06-2018 01:48 PM



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Post: #1 The Navy is resurrecting a fleet to protect from Russia

Advertisement The Navy is resurrecting a fleet to protect the East Coast and North Atlantic from Russia



https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/the...ar-AAwNunq







The U.S. Navy has reactivated a fleet responsible for overseeing the East Coast and North Atlantic  an escalation of the Pentagons focus on a resurgent Russia and its expanding military presence.



The 2nd Fleet, deactivated in 2011 to preserve funds for new ships, will resume operations in Norfolk on July 1, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson told reporters Friday. Quote: Les pauvres n'ont-ils des Euros ?

Alors laissez les pauvres 'sh*t' dans les rues The U.S. Navy has reactivated a fleet responsible for overseeing the East Coast and North Atlantic  an escalation of the Pentagons focus on a resurgent Russia and its expanding military presence.The 2nd Fleet, deactivated in 2011 to preserve funds for new ships, will resume operations in Norfolk on July 1, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson told reporters Friday. Strategos

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Post: #2 RE: The Navy is resurrecting a fleet to protect from Russia

Wtf? Obama deactivated the 2nd fleet? Uppity Me

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Post: #3 RE: The Navy is resurrecting a fleet to protect from Russia

Strategos Wrote: (05-06-2018 02:22 PM) Wtf? Obama deactivated the 2nd fleet?

Looks like it, don't it and I'm willing to bet the funding was siphoned off to Iran Looks like it, don't it and I'm willing to bet the funding was siphoned off to Iran Quote: Les pauvres n'ont-ils des Euros ?

Alors laissez les pauvres 'sh*t' dans les rues (This post was last modified: 05-06-2018 07:50 PM by Uppity Me .) LoP Guest

lop guest

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05-06-2018 07:51 PM











Post: #4 RE: The Navy is resurrecting a fleet to protect from Russia

So the pentagon thinks Russia is going to attack the north atlantic? LoP Guest

lop guest

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05-06-2018 08:11 PM











Post: #5 RE: The Navy is resurrecting a fleet to protect from Russia

Uppity Me Wrote: (05-06-2018 07:49 PM) Strategos Wrote: (05-06-2018 02:22 PM) Wtf? Obama deactivated the 2nd fleet?

Looks like it, don't it and I'm willing to bet the funding was siphoned off to Iran

yeah....no on the Iran part

that's partisan hackery yeah....no on the Iran partthat's partisan hackery Magnus74

100% Right 48% of the Time

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Post: #6 RE: The Navy is resurrecting a fleet to protect from Russia

LoP Guest Wrote: (05-06-2018 08:11 PM) Uppity Me Wrote: (05-06-2018 07:49 PM) Looks like it, don't it and I'm willing to bet the funding was siphoned off to Iran

yeah....no on the Iran part

that's partisan hackery

Oh... understood. Thanks for clearing that up.



What about the rumors Obama needed the money to fund Solyndra and other pay to play clean energy programs to put solar panels on all the African mud huts? Oh... understood. Thanks for clearing that up.What about the rumors Obama needed the money to fund Solyndra and other pay to play clean energy programs to put solar panels on all the African mud huts? When you come to behead me be careful not to bruise the face. 1110.00

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Post: #7 RE: The Navy is resurrecting a fleet to protect from Russia

The invasion into the US East Coast could turn out to be European and largely Muslim. Russia might turn out to be behind it somehow, or backing it as though pushing forward a proxy invasion. In my opinion this is the specific nature of the Trojan Horse symbolism encrypted into the Statue of Liberty, which likely symbolizes an invasion plan and the Queen of England. The symbolism would link up with large statue symbolism associated with the Island of Rhodes.



A torch in one hand and a book in the other arm mirrors one foot on one side of a bay entrance and the other foot on the other side of the bay entrance. It relates to out-of-body vampirism (the scene in Argento's Inferno where the glass ball doorknob cracks in-half and cuts the dominant hand - an unexpected "climax-point" in the film). "The Precipitant has a smaller place in reality, thus it is mortal."

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8uMCQrAxylM

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0619bdpOolA (This post was last modified: 05-07-2018 12:25 AM by 1110.00 .) LoP Guest

lop guest

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05-07-2018 12:25 AM











Post: #8 RE: The Navy is resurrecting a fleet to protect from Russia

1110.00 Wrote: (05-07-2018 12:21 AM) The invasion into the US East Coast could turn out to be European and largely Muslim. Russia might turn out to be behind it somehow, or backing it as though pushing forward a proxy invasion. In my opinion this is the specific nature of the Trojan Horse symbolism encrypted into the Statue of Liberty, which likely symbolizes an invasion plan and the Queen of England. The symbolism would link up with large statue symbolism associated with the Island of Rhodes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Russia



Islam is Russia has already reached a double digit percentage of the population.



Which means in a few generations, they will be a majority of the population.



Women in Islam are nothing more than breeding machines. It's normal for them to have over a dozen children. In comparison, most other first world countries are experiencing population decline because cultured women don't breed like that. Islam is Russia has already reached a double digit percentage of the population.Which means in a few generations, they will be a majority of the population.Women in Islam are nothing more than breeding machines. It's normal for them to have over a dozen children. In comparison, most other first world countries are experiencing population decline because cultured women don't breed like that. 1110.00

Manifest Alchemy

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05-07-2018 12:26 AM



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Post: #9 RE: The Navy is resurrecting a fleet to protect from Russia

LoP Guest Wrote: (05-07-2018 12:25 AM) 1110.00 Wrote: (05-07-2018 12:21 AM) The invasion into the US East Coast could turn out to be European and largely Muslim. Russia might turn out to be behind it somehow, or backing it as though pushing forward a proxy invasion. In my opinion this is the specific nature of the Trojan Horse symbolism encrypted into the Statue of Liberty, which likely symbolizes an invasion plan and the Queen of England. The symbolism would link up with large statue symbolism associated with the Island of Rhodes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Russia



Islam is Russia has already reached a double digit percentage of the population.



Which means in a few generations, they will be a majority of the population.



Women in Islam are nothing more than breeding machines. It's normal for them to have over a dozen children. In comparison, most other first world countries are experiencing population decline because cultured women don't breed like that.

Cluster bombs have been made illegal to use also. Cluster bombs have been made illegal to use also. "The Precipitant has a smaller place in reality, thus it is mortal."

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8uMCQrAxylM

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0619bdpOolA 1110.00

Manifest Alchemy

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05-07-2018 12:28 AM



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Post: #10 RE: The Navy is resurrecting a fleet to protect from Russia

1110.00 Wrote: (05-07-2018 12:21 AM) The invasion into the US East Coast could turn out to be European and largely Muslim. Russia might turn out to be behind it somehow, or backing it as though pushing forward a proxy invasion. In my opinion this is the specific nature of the Trojan Horse symbolism encrypted into the Statue of Liberty, which likely symbolizes an invasion plan and the Queen of England. The symbolism would link up with large statue symbolism associated with the Island of Rhodes.



A torch in one hand and a book in the other arm mirrors one foot on one side of a bay entrance and the other foot on the other side of the bay entrance. It relates to out-of-body vampirism (the scene in Argento's Inferno where the glass ball doorknob cracks in-half and cuts the dominant hand - an unexpected "climax-point" in the film).

Great White at the Rhode Island fire.







https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ra1FFAc0ccE Great White at the Rhode Island fire. "The Precipitant has a smaller place in reality, thus it is mortal."

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8uMCQrAxylM

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0619bdpOolA Natura Naturans

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05-07-2018 12:57 AM



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Post: #11 RE: The Navy is resurrecting a fleet to protect from Russia

Correction, the US is ressurecting a fleet to funnel more billions to the military industrial complex, the one that is eating the world alive with endless attacks on innocent foreign countries and peoples The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free. --Baruch Spinoza LoP Guest

lop guest

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05-07-2018 01:13 AM











Post: #12 RE: The Navy is resurrecting a fleet to protect from Russia

They couldn't even handle some farmers in Afghanistan and now they are going to confront RUSSIA ! They couldn't even handle some farmers in Afghanistan and now they are going to confront RUSSIA ! NormalIsSubjective



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05-07-2018 01:21 AM



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Post: #13 RE: The Navy is resurrecting a fleet to protect from Russia

Uppity Me Wrote: (05-06-2018 01:48 PM) The Navy is resurrecting a fleet to protect the East Coast and North Atlantic from Russia



https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/the...ar-AAwNunq







The U.S. Navy has reactivated a fleet responsible for overseeing the East Coast and North Atlantic  an escalation of the Pentagons focus on a resurgent Russia and its expanding military presence .



The 2nd Fleet, deactivated in 2011 to preserve funds for new ships, will resume operations in Norfolk on July 1, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson told reporters Friday.



How do those peski Russkis manage to pose such a fearsome military threat on barely a tenth of the U.S. military budget?





Do American taxpayers ever get a kiss and a reacharound to go with that constant ass-reaming? How do those peski Russkis manage to pose such a fearsome military threat on barely a tenth of the U.S. military budget?Do American taxpayers ever get a kiss and a reacharound to go with that constant ass-reaming? LoP Guest

lop guest

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05-07-2018 01:34 AM











Post: #14 RE: The Navy is resurrecting a fleet to protect from Russia

LoP Guest Wrote: (05-07-2018 01:13 AM) They couldn't even handle some farmers in Afghanistan and now they are going to confront RUSSIA ! Russia took their shot at Afghanistan too, ya know. Russia took their shot at Afghanistan too, ya know. LoP Guest

lop guest

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05-07-2018 01:37 AM











Post: #15 RE: The Navy is resurrecting a fleet to protect from Russia

LoP Guest Wrote: (05-07-2018 01:34 AM) LoP Guest Wrote: (05-07-2018 01:13 AM) They couldn't even handle some farmers in Afghanistan and now they are going to confront RUSSIA ! Russia took their shot at Afghanistan too, ya know.

Yes but, Russia was fighting AMERICA and their allys at the same time tho ! Yes but, Russia was fighting AMERICA and their allys at the same time tho ! Advertisement

















New Delhi: Actor Ranveer Singh became a butt of jokes on social media recently when he claimed in an interview that his family 'wasn't rich enough' therefore they could only afford trips to Singapore, Indonesia and the United States. His statement was enough to hurt the sentiments of the custodians of social media aka trolls.

Reminiscing his childhood days,Ranveer Singh in an interview with Conde Nast Traveller magazine had said that his family didn't have enough money when he was a child, hence, they had to save for an International holiday. ''We didnt have a lot of money when I was growing up. So, my parents would save up and save up for that one big summer holiday abroad; I remember going to Indonesia, Singapore, Italy, but most often it was the US  we had a lot of family there. And December was always Goa with my grandparents,'' said the actor.

After reading this, we can't really blame the tweeples for questioning Ranveer's definition of poor. Soon after the interview surfaced on social media, several memes and videos with a Twitter hashtag #YoRanveerSoPoor started trending. One Twitter user wrote, "If making annual trips abroad in the 90s was the doings of the poor, we need new adjectives for the economic status of 65% of our countrys population.

#YoRanveerSoPoor."

Check out some of the hilarious outburst of emotions here:

#YoRanveerSoPoor he had to keep going to same old boring US just 'cause he had LOTS of relatives there.  Bhaskar Chawla (@BhaskarSirius) May 4, 2018

#YoRanveerSoPoor that his dad gifted him an expensive SUV for his bday but couldnt afford to get a one digit number plate for the car.  Od (@odshek) May 4, 2018

A wish to die for.

#YoRanveerSoPoor

Oh god please make me as poor as Ranveer or even more!  Silvereye Rosewoodian (@barbie_kriti) May 5, 2018

And thus spake a South Delhi girl

We didnt have enough money while growing up so my parents would save up for that big summer holiday. I remember going to Lado Sarai, Mehrauli, Paschim Vihar, even Punjabi Bagh. But most often it was Hauz Khas- we had a lot of family there. #YoRanveerSoPoor  Shivaani (@mcshivanisen) May 5, 2018

Its all about the name...

#YoRanveerSoPoor that he couldn't be Ranbir Kapoor so had to settle for being Ranveer Singh.  Alok Badri (@alok_TTID) May 5, 2018

Nonetheless, Ranveer Singh is still the biggest superstar in Bollywood inspite of having a slightly dubious notion about the rich and poor. After delivering a pathbreaking performance as Khilji in Padmaavat, the actor has some really interesting projects in the pipeline. He has finished shooting for Zoya Akhtar's Gully Boy which also stars Alia Bhatt. And if rumours are to be believed, the stellar actor will tie the knot with his lady love Deepika Padukone by the end of this year.Actor Salman Khan, who had been of late, completing the last schedule of his upcoming action-thriller 'Race 3' was on Sunday spotted by the paparazzi at the Mumbai airport. According to a Times of India report, Salman was heading to Jodhpur in order to be present at the court in connection with the Blackbuck poaching case.

Meanwhile, Salman looked uber cool in a grey-blue tee and jeans and completed his look with black shades. As expected, he flaunted his favourite turquoise stone bracelet which he makes sure to carry with himself, always.

Check out his photos here:

Only last month, Salman was convicted by the Jodhpur central jail for allegedly shooting and killing blackbucks in Kankani village near Jodhpur on the night of October 1, 1998, during the shooting of the film 'Hum Saath Saath Hain'.

The actor was sentenced to five years of imprisonment. However, the court acquitted other actors and Salman's 'Hum Sath Sath Hai' colleagues Saif Ali Khan, Tabu, Neelam and Sonali Bendre in the case. A fifth person, Dushyant Singh, a local from the area, was also been acquitted.

After spending two nights in jail, the 53-year-old actor was granted a bail by the court. The court, however, had said that the actor would need its permission if he wants to travel abroad while out on bail.New Delhi: Actress Sonam Kapoor and businessman Anand Ahuja are set to tie the knot on May 8. And guess what? With still two days left for her wedding, the bride-to-be is already been showered with gifts and flowers from her celeb friends and relatives - despite a 'no gift' request on the wedding card.

Take a look at some of the photos:

Meanwhile, according to reports, filmmaker Karan Johar, who shares a close bond with Sonam, may gift her Kanjeevaram saree along with Amrapali Jhumkas and chandelier earrings.

Anand and Sonam will marry on May 8 followed by a grand reception in the evening. The wedding preparations began few days back and several actors, who happen to be close to Sonam, were seen rehearsing for their Sangeet performance.

On Saturday, Kapoor and Ahuja family released a joint statement that read, "On behalf of the Kapoor & Ahuja Families, this is to inform all concerned media personnel, that the Mehendi ceremony on the 7th and the wedding on the 8th morning, are an intimate gathering of close friends and family. We request all esteemed members of the media to respect and understand that these are private ceremonies. Also please note that since the functions are taking place at residences, there are police and security concerns. However, rest assured that we will provide you with the relevant information at the right time.

We have already sent you the red carpet invite for the 8th evening wedding party."

For the unversed, Sonam and Anand have been dating each other for last four years. Though the couple never confirmed about their relationship, they never shied away from making appearances together at parties and events.

On the work front, Sonam is gearing up for the release of her upcoming film 'Veere Di Wedding'.New Delhi: Actress Sonam Kapoor, who is all set to tie the knot with businessman Anand Ahuja, has apparently decided to bury the hatchet with Aishwarya by inviting her to her wedding ceremony.

As per the latest report, the bride-to-be has personally invited Aishwarya Rai Bachchan to her wedding. Pinkvilla.com quoted a source saying, "Last week, when Sunita Kapoor bumped into Aishwarya at the wedding reception of Saudamini Mattu, the niece of designer Sandeep Khosla, she made it a point to greet her warmly and personally invited her for her daughters wedding. After a couple of days, Sonam also called Aishwarya and invited her."

It is to be noted that Sonam and Aishwarya's rumoured catfight began after 'Saawariya' actress openly referred to the former Miss World as 'aunty'. Their catfight aggregated further when Aishwarya got replaced by Sonam for a cosmetic brand as their brand ambassador. And since then, the two ladies haven't spoken to each other.

However, Sonam shares a cordial term with Aishwarya's husband Abhishek Bachchan. She has even worked with him in two films - 'Delhi 6' and 'Players'. On the other hand, Aishwarya is currently working on a project 'Fanne Khan' which also stars Sonam's father and actor Anil Kapoor.

In the meantime, the Kapoor mansion has been decorated beautifully for Sonam's D-day and the paparazzi has already installed themselves outside her house in Mumbai to capture all the activities.

On Sunday, a host of celebrities from the tinsel town including Karan Johar, Kirron Kher, Arjun Kapoor, Boney Kapoor with daughters Janhvi and Khushi, Sanjay Kapoor, Satish Kaushik, Rani Mukerji and David Dhawan among others were spotted at Anil's Juhu bungalow to attend the Mehendi function of Sonam and Anand.

On Saturday, Kapoor and Ahuja family released a joint statement that read, "On behalf of the Kapoor & Ahuja Families, this is to inform all concerned media personnel, that the Mehendi ceremony on the 7th and the wedding on the 8th morning, are an intimate gathering of close friends and family. We request all esteemed members of the media to respect and understand that these are private ceremonies. Also please note that since the functions are taking place at residences, there are police and security concerns. However, rest assured that we will provide you with the relevant information at the right time.

We have already sent you the red carpet invite for the 8th evening wedding party."

For the unversed, Sonam and Anand have been dating each other for last four years. Though the couple never confirmed about their relationship, they never shied away from making appearances together at parties and events.Washington: The US on Saturday termed as "Orwellian nonsense" China's attempts to compel private firms to use specific language of a political nature in their publicly available content and asked Beijing to stop threatening American carriers and citizens.

On April 25, the Chinese Civil Aviation Administration sent a letter to 36 foreign air carriers, including a number of American carriers.

The notice demanded that carriers change how Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao are identified on their websites and in their promotional material so that the references fall in line with the Communist Party's standards, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said.

"The United States strongly objects to China's attempts to compel private firms to use specific language of a political nature in their publicly available content. We call on China to stop threatening and coercing American carriers and citizens," she said in a strongly worded statement.

Noting that President Donald Trump ran against political correctness in the US, Sanders said he will stand up for Americans resisting efforts by the Chinese Communist Party to impose Chinese political correctness on American companies and citizens.

"This is Orwellian nonsense and part of a growing trend by the Chinese Communist Party to impose its political views on American citizens and private companies," Sanders said.

"China's internal Internet repression is world-famous. China's efforts to export its censorship and political correctness to Americans and the rest of the free world will be resisted," she said.

Sanders said the US respected the broad freedom private companies have in their interactions with their customers, both in the US and abroad.

"This respect is essential for a robust global marketplace," she said.Facebook ATO press center

One serviceman of the mechanized battalion of the Armed Forces was killed, two were injured in Donetsk region while undermining an unknown explosive device laid by the militants. This is reported in the press center of the headquarters of the United forces operation on Facebook.



"Today, on May 6, during the patrolling of the defense district, a group of servicemen of a mechanized battalion operating in the Horlivka direction was ambushed. On the patrol route an unknown explosive device was installed, from the explosion of which one soldier was killed, two were injured, "the report said.



A reserve group from the nearest stronghold came to the scene, and pro-Russian gunmen opened fire at them. After a short firing clash, the reserve group began to pursue the enemy, during which three militants were destroyed.



Related: Puigdemont again nominated for head of government of Catalonia



Related: Extreme fire danger in Kyiv today112 Agency

In London, three people were hospitalized after they were doused with an unknown "toxic substance". This is reported by BBC with reference to the police.



It is reported that three victims of 17, 22 and 27 years were found on Kingsland Street in Hackney in the north-east of London and taken to one of the hospitals.



The police have not yet told which substance was poured on the victims, but they specified that it is "toxic", not acidic.



We recall that on March 4, an ex-officer of the Russian intelligence Sergey Skripal was poisoned in the British city of Salisbury. Later, Prime Minister Theresa May stated that Russia was responsible for this, and the investigation confirmed the use of nerve gas in Salisbury, which is produced in Russia.



The United Kingdom expelled 23 Russian diplomats, the decision was supported by the United States, Canada, Ukraine and many European countries, which also announced the expulsion of Russians.

Related: Puigdemont again nominated for head of government of CataloniaPolice detained juveniles as well, drawing up reports on their parents

1607 people were detained during He is not our Tsar protests in 23 Russian cities, as Ovdinfo reported.

In particular, 704 people were detained in Moscow, 229 - in St. Petersburg, 164 in Chelyabinsk, 75  in Yakutsk, 69  in Astrakhan, 63  Tolyatti, 61  in Krasnoyarsk, 56  in Voronezh. Besides, people were detained in Krasnodar, Kaluga, Belgorod, Samara, Vladimir, Tver, Barnaul and other cities.

Earlier, Alexei Navalny was detained right after a protest started in Moscow. It happened a few minutes after he came on Pushkinskaya Square.

Police drew up a report on a father of a 12-years-old boy on breach of obligations concerning custody of a juvenile.

As it was reported earlier, 587 people were detained during the protests in Russia.

It should be noted that He is not our Tsar protests are dedicated to the inauguration of Russias President Vladimir Putin, which is to be held on May 7. It is expected that 90 cities of the Federation will join the all-Russian protest.Open source

Due to a power failure, residents of 11 settlements of Luhansk region remain without electricity. This was reported by the press service of the Luhansk Energy Association.



"Today, on May 6, in the controlled territory of the Luhansk region without electricity remain 650 consumers in 11 localities in the north-eastern part of the region. According to operational information, there were 4 settlements without light, 7 others were partially de-energized," said in a statement.



It is added that analysis of previous emergency shutdowns makes it possible to draw some conclusions. "Often emergency shutdowns are caused not only by unfavorable weather conditions, but also by the instability of the power system of Luhansk region, which resulted from the lack of proper maintenance for 1.5 years," the report says.



The energy industry warns that if it does not take measures, this will not only result in local outages, but also a large-scale blackout and the collapse of the power system of the Luhansk region, with all the ensuing consequences.



Let's note, till the end of the day in four regions of Ukraine deterioration of weather conditions is expected - thunderstorms and strong wind. However, Luhansk region is not included in the risk zone.

Related: Government committee approves 26 large enterprises to be privatized in 2018In the east of Ukraine, 200,000 schoolchildren are forced to attend school in conditions of hostilities.





This is reported by DW referring to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

"Children study in schools where bullet holes are visible, and windows are covered with sandbags, bombproof shelters in the cellars, and shell fragments remain in the courtyards. The education system in eastern Ukraine has been cross-fired for more than four years," said the

head of the UNICEF office in Ukraine Giovanna Barberis.





According to the organization, over the last four years of the conflict in Ukraine, hundreds of schools have been destroyed and damaged.

In particular, during the last 16 months - minimum 45 schools were damaged.





"UNICEF and partners reported at least eight cases when military facilities and objects of armed groups were located within 500 meters of kindergartens and schools, and in two places they were located only a few meters from educational institutions. In addition, since the beginning of the conflict, damage

received another 700 schools in the east of Ukraine," the UN Children's Fund said in a statement.





UNICEF noted that the threat to children - it is located on both sides of the line of demarcation in Donbas military facilities, in particular ammunition warehouses and checkpoints.





As reported, the film "School No. 3", showed the lives of children in the front-line school in Donbas, won a prestigious award at the Berlinale Film Festival.Username: Password: or Register Thread Rating: 6 Vote(s) - 3.67 Average

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Page: 1 2 BREAKING: Pakistan's Interior Minister Wounded In Gun Attack <merged> Isabella

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Post: #1 BREAKING: Pakistan's Interior Minister Wounded In Gun Attack:

Advertisement



https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pakis...I70J8?il=0 If you want to influence Trump, you got to be the last guy he talks to."



Steve Bannon AHORE, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistans interior minister Ahsan Iqbal survived an assassination attempt on Sunday, officials said, an incident likely to heighten political tensions ahead of general elections expected in late July.If you want to influence Trump, you got to be the last guy he talks to."Steve Bannon (This post was last modified: 05-06-2018 04:47 PM by Isabella .) A Visionary

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Post: #2 Breaking: Pakistan's interior minister wounded in gun attack: officials





Read More:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pakis...SKBN1I70J8 LAHORE, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistans interior minister Ahsan Iqbal survived an assassination attempt on Sunday, officials said, an incident likely to heighten political tensions ahead of general elections expected in late July.Read More: LoP Guest

lop guest

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05-06-2018 04:48 PM











Post: #3 RE: BREAKING: Pakistan's Interior Minister Wounded In Gun Attack:

And I'm sure you idiots will try to find a way to blame Trump for this. Isabella

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05-06-2018 04:55 PM



Posts: 26,513









Post: #4 RE: BREAKING: Pakistan's Interior Minister Wounded In Gun Attack <merged>

Ahsan Iqbal injured after being shot at Narowal corner meeting





"NAROWAL: Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal was shot and injured at a corner meeting in his constituency Narowal here on Sunday.



The assailant, Abid, shot at the interior minister at his right shoulder from a distance of 15 yards as he was sitting in his vehicle to leave the rally ground in Kanjrur, confirmed DPO Imran Kishwar.



Workers of Pakistan Muslim League - Nawaz (PML-N), standing near the assailant, tackled the man after he opened fire at Iqbal, said Punjab Government Spokesperson Malik Ahmed Khan. He further said the suspect was stopped from firing a second shot.



A 30-bore pistol was recovered from the arrested suspect, aged between 20-22 years, confirmed DPO Kishwar. Abid is reportedly a resident of Narowal.



Iqbal was shifted to the hospital immediately after the incident. His son, Ahmed, confirmed his father was conscious and out of danger.



"He is receiving initial medical treatment at DHQ Hospital in Narowal," Ahmed told Geo News, adding that his father would be shifted to Lahore for further medical aid."



continue

https://www.geo.tv/latest/194284-ahsan-i...er-meeting "NAROWAL: Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal was shot and injured at a corner meeting in his constituency Narowal here on Sunday.The assailant, Abid, shot at the interior minister at his right shoulder from a distance of 15 yards as he was sitting in his vehicle to leave the rally ground in Kanjrur, confirmed DPO Imran Kishwar.Workers of Pakistan Muslim League - Nawaz (PML-N), standing near the assailant, tackled the man after he opened fire at Iqbal, said Punjab Government Spokesperson Malik Ahmed Khan. He further said the suspect was stopped from firing a second shot.A 30-bore pistol was recovered from the arrested suspect, aged between 20-22 years, confirmed DPO Kishwar. Abid is reportedly a resident of Narowal.Iqbal was shifted to the hospital immediately after the incident. His son, Ahmed, confirmed his father was conscious and out of danger."He is receiving initial medical treatment at DHQ Hospital in Narowal," Ahmed told Geo News, adding that his father would be shifted to Lahore for further medical aid."continue If you want to influence Trump, you got to be the last guy he talks to."



Steve Bannon aqmah

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05-06-2018 06:04 PM



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Post: #5 RE: BREAKING: Pakistan's Interior Minister Wounded In Gun Attack <merged>

nothing to see here, its just a beautiful bloody evening in pakistan (This post was last modified: 05-06-2018 06:04 PM by aqmah .) LoP Guest

lop guest

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05-06-2018 06:53 PM











Post: #6 RE: BREAKING: Pakistan's Interior Minister Wounded In Gun Attack <merged>

Should have Nuked them when we found

Osama bin Laden hiding in their country.



They still get Foreign Aid Package from USA!

Is that BATSH!TCRAZY or what? Isabella

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05-06-2018 06:59 PM



Posts: 26,513









Post: #7 RE: BREAKING: Pakistan's Interior Minister Wounded In Gun Attack <merged>

LoP Guest Wrote: (05-06-2018 06:53 PM) Should have Nuked them when we found

Osama bin Laden hiding in their country.



They still get Foreign Aid Package from USA!

Is that BATSH!TCRAZY or what?

Trump administration freezes security aid to Pakistan | The Independent





Jan 4, 2018 - The US State Department announced it is suspending security assistance and aid to Pakistan until Islamabad takes action against the Afghan Taliban and Haqqani network terror groups after President Donald Trump accused Pakistan of "deceit and lies" when working with the US. The total amount ..



.

Trump's threat to cut aid funds to Pakistan, Palestinians triggers backlash

https://www.nbcnews.com/.../trump-s-thre...-trigge...





Jan 3, 2018 - President Donald Trump's threat to cut aid to the Palestinians and nuclear-armed ally Pakistan is not simply a case of saving a few hundred million dollars spent on problems in faraway countries, analysts and former officials said Wednesday. One expert warned that such a move could drive impoverished ...

US to withhold $255M in aid to Pakistan, Haley says - CNN - CNN.com

https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/02/asia/paki...index.html





Jan 3, 2018 - Her remarks came a day after President Donald Trump accused Pakistan of lying to and deceiving the US despite receiving billions in foreign aid. The Pakistani government said earlier Tuesday that recent comments from US leaders were "completely incomprehensible" and could damage the trust ...





Trump says U.S. has gotten 'nothing' from Pakistan aid - Reuters

https://www.reuters.com/...trump-pakista...from-pa...

Jan 1, 2018 - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday the United States has "foolishly" handed Pakistan more than $33 billion in aid over the last 15 years while getting nothing in return, and pledged to put a stop to it. Trump administration freezes security aid to Pakistan | The Independent https://www.independent.co.uk  News  World  Americas  US politicsJan 4, 2018 - The US State Department announced it is suspending security assistance and aid to Pakistan until Islamabad takes action against the Afghan Taliban and Haqqani network terror groups after President Donald Trump accused Pakistan of "deceit and lies" when working with the US. The total amount ..Trump's threat to cut aid funds to Pakistan, Palestinians triggers backlashJan 3, 2018 - President Donald Trump's threat to cut aid to the Palestinians and nuclear-armed ally Pakistan is not simply a case of saving a few hundred million dollars spent on problems in faraway countries, analysts and former officials said Wednesday. One expert warned that such a move could drive impoverished ...US to withhold $255M in aid to Pakistan, Haley says - CNN - CNN.comJan 3, 2018 - Her remarks came a day after President Donald Trump accused Pakistan of lying to and deceiving the US despite receiving billions in foreign aid. The Pakistani government said earlier Tuesday that recent comments from US leaders were "completely incomprehensible" and could damage the trust ...Trump says U.S. has gotten 'nothing' from Pakistan aid - ReutersJan 1, 2018 - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday the United States has "foolishly" handed Pakistan more than $33 billion in aid over the last 15 years while getting nothing in return, and pledged to put a stop to it. If you want to influence Trump, you got to be the last guy he talks to."



Steve Bannon TELL-A-VISION PROGRAMMING

lop guest

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05-06-2018 07:05 PM











Post: #8 RE: BREAKING: Pakistan's Interior Minister Wounded In Gun Attack <merged>

LoP Guest Wrote: (05-06-2018 06:53 PM) Should have Nuked them when we found

Osama bin Laden hiding in their country.



They still get Foreign Aid Package from USA!

Is that BATSH!TCRAZY or what?

Please stop drinking the kool aid ffs







Please stop drinking the kool aid ffs The Black_Man

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05-06-2018 08:13 PM



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Post: #9 RE: BREAKING: Pakistan's Interior Minister Wounded In Gun Attack <merged>





Isabella

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05-06-2018 08:15 PM



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Post: #10 RE: BREAKING: Pakistan's Interior Minister Wounded In Gun Attack <merged>

The Black_Man Wrote: (05-06-2018 08:13 PM)



Thank you! Thank you! If you want to influence Trump, you got to be the last guy he talks to."



Steve Bannon LoP Guest

lop guest

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05-06-2018 10:37 PM











Post: #11 RE: BREAKING: Pakistan's Interior Minister Wounded In Gun Attack <merged>



http://www.newjerusalemcalendar.com/PAKISTAN.pdf



And deciding if they should join the Kingdom

http://www.newjerusalemcalendar.com/THEKINGDOM.pdf Pakistan is checking out the New Jerusalem CalendarAnd deciding if they should join the Kingdom Isabella

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05-06-2018 10:40 PM



Posts: 26,513









Post: #12 RE: BREAKING: Pakistan's Interior Minister Wounded In Gun Attack <merged>



"As he got out of a car, a young man shot him. The assailant has been apprehended," Kishwar said.



Police identified the shooter as Abid Hussain, a 21-year-old from Neelum village in Narowal, Punjab.



A police source in Pakistan's Narowal district of Punjab said initial investigations suggest the motive for the shooting is linked to the issue that spawned violent anti-blasphemy demonstrations in Pakistan and was spearheaded by the hardline Islamist movement Tehreek-e Labbaik.



CNN does not know if the gunman is a member of the group. The police source went on to say that a report will be submitted to the Punjab district government and more details will be shared on Monday.

Last year, Tehreek-e Labbaik organized so-called anti-blasphemy demonstrations across Pakistan. The protesters demanded the resignation of Pakistan's Law Minister, Zahid Hamid, for what they considered blasphemy after parliamentary bills were amended, weakening rules that require lawmakers to reference the Prophet Mohammed when taking their oaths.

The protests turned violent after the Pakistan army was called in to restore order, and hundreds of people were reported injured, with at least two people dead. The government had stated that the issue was a misunderstanding and they never planned to change the blasphemy laws."

"



more

https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/06/world/pak...index.html "Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN)Pakistan's Interior Minister, Ahsan Iqbal, was shot and wounded in his shoulder while attending a provincial assembly meeting in Narowal, Punjab province, according to Imran Kishwar, Narowal district police officer."As he got out of a car, a young man shot him. The assailant has been apprehended," Kishwar said.Police identified the shooter as Abid Hussain, a 21-year-old from Neelum village in Narowal, Punjab.A police source in Pakistan's Narowal district of Punjab said initial investigations suggest the motive for the shooting is linked to the issue that spawned violent anti-blasphemy demonstrations in Pakistan and was spearheaded by the hardline Islamist movement Tehreek-e Labbaik.CNN does not know if the gunman is a member of the group. The police source went on to say that a report will be submitted to the Punjab district government and more details will be shared on Monday.Last year, Tehreek-e Labbaik organized so-called anti-blasphemy demonstrations across Pakistan. The protesters demanded the resignation of Pakistan's Law Minister, Zahid Hamid, for what they considered blasphemy after parliamentary bills were amended, weakening rules that require lawmakers to reference the Prophet Mohammed when taking their oaths.The protests turned violent after the Pakistan army was called in to restore order, and hundreds of people were reported injured, with at least two people dead. The government had stated that the issue was a misunderstanding and they never planned to change the blasphemy laws."more If you want to influence Trump, you got to be the last guy he talks to."



Steve Bannon Isabella

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05-06-2018 10:43 PM



Posts: 26,513









Post: #13 RE: BREAKING: Pakistan's Interior Minister Wounded In Gun Attack <merged>

This is a Sunni majority group and most of its members belong to Barelvi school of thought. [6]



Contents



1 Formation

2 Restoration of Khatm e Nabuwat Bill

3 References

4 See also



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tehreek-e-Labaik





"Stand on Blasphemy Law"



On 4 January 2011, the governor of Punjab, Salmaan Taseer, was assassinated by a member of the Barelvi group Dawat-e-Islami, Mumtaz Qadri, due to Taseer's opposition to the blasphemy law.[66][74] Over five hundred scholars of the Barelvi movement voiced support for the crime and urged a boycott of Taseer's funeral.[56][27][65][67][75] According to Time, Sunni Tehreek rewarded the assassin's family[76][77] and threatened Taseer's family,[66][78] while another Barelvi group abducted Taseer's son, Shahbaz Taseer.[79] Supporters attempted to prevent police from bringing the perpetrator to an anti-terrorism court, blocking the way and cheering on the assassin.[80] In 2014 a Sunni mosque was built in Islamabad named after Mumtaz Qadri, whose worshippers are Barelvis; as of 2014, the mosque was so popular that it started raising funds to double its capacity;[81] however, during the same period, a number of Barelvi scholars condemned the assassination.[82][83]

Criticism



Some commentators[who?] see the Barelvi movement as a radical movement which does not accept the views of the Deoband Ulama, the Ahl al-Hadith and some others.[84]"



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barelvi#St...sphemy_Law "Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP) is an Islamic political party in Pakistan. The movement was founded by Khadim Hussain Rizvi.[4] The political party is known for widespread (often countrywide) street power and massive protests in opposition to any change in the blasphemy law of Pakistan. It came into existence, and subsequently rose to fame, after the hanging of Mumtaz Qadri which the political party states was unjustifiable. They demand that Sharia law be established as law of Pakistan through a gradual legal and political process.[5][6]Contents1 Formation2 Restoration of Khatm e Nabuwat Bill3 References4 See alsoOn 4 January 2011, the governor of Punjab, Salmaan Taseer, was assassinated by a member of the Barelvi group Dawat-e-Islami, Mumtaz Qadri, due to Taseer's opposition to the blasphemy law.[66][74] Over five hundred scholars of the Barelvi movement voiced support for the crime and urged a boycott of Taseer's funeral.[56][27][65][67][75] According to Time, Sunni Tehreek rewarded the assassin's family[76][77] and threatened Taseer's family,[66][78] while another Barelvi group abducted Taseer's son, Shahbaz Taseer.[79] Supporters attempted to prevent police from bringing the perpetrator to an anti-terrorism court, blocking the way and cheering on the assassin.[80] In 2014 a Sunni mosque was built in Islamabad named after Mumtaz Qadri, whose worshippers are Barelvis; as of 2014, the mosque was so popular that it started raising funds to double its capacity;[81] however, during the same period, a number of Barelvi scholars condemned the assassination.[82][83]CriticismSome commentators[who?] see the Barelvi movement as a radical movement which does not accept the views of the Deoband Ulama, the Ahl al-Hadith and some others.[84]" If you want to influence Trump, you got to be the last guy he talks to."



Steve Bannon (This post was last modified: 05-06-2018 10:47 PM by Isabella .) LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 1337

05-06-2018 10:45 PM











Post: #14 RE: BREAKING: Pakistan's Interior Minister Wounded In Gun Attack <merged>

LoP Guest Wrote: (05-06-2018 10:37 PM) Pakistan is checking out the New Jerusalem Calendar

http://www.newjerusalemcalendar.com/PAKISTAN.pdf



And deciding if they should join the Kingdom

http://www.newjerusalemcalendar.com/THEKINGDOM.pdf

There is a situation going on in Pakistan There is a situation going on in Pakistan LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 1337

05-07-2018 12:16 AM











Post: #15 RE: BREAKING: Pakistan's Interior Minister Wounded In Gun Attack <merged>

Bump Advertisement

















The EU called Russian authorities for observing the international obligations for protection of mentioned rights and demanded to release peaceful demonstrators and journalists immediately

The European Union calls Russian authority for releasing peaceful demonstrators and journalists detained on Saturday immediately, as it is stated in the statement of Maja Kocijancic, Spokesperson for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.

The detention of over a thousand demonstrators and violence used against them by the Russian authorities across the country today threaten the fundamental freedoms of expression, association and assembly in the Russian Federation. The detention of journalists also threatens the freedom of the media. These fundamental rights are enshrined in the Russian constitution and we expect them to be protected, not eroded, the statement says.

It was also stressed that even if some of the demonstrations were not authorised in the location where they took place, this cannot justify police brutality and mass arrests.

The EU called Russian authorities for observing the international obligations for protection of mentioned rights and demanded to release peaceful demonstrators and journalists immediately.

In its turn, Heather Nauert, Spokesperson for the United States Department of State, commented the situation in Russia on Twitter:Being asked about how hard it is to destroy strong oligarchs circles in Ukraine while being an oligarch himself Poroshenko responded: I do not have any restraints in this

Ukraines President Petro Poroshenko stated that none of the oligarchs can hope for privileges in Ukraine and said that he does not like money. He said it in the interview for German news agency Focus, which Andriy Melnyk, Ukraines Ambassador to Germany, posted on Twitter.

Being asked about how hard it is to destroy strong oligarchs circles in Ukraine while being an oligarch himself Poroshenko responded: I do not have any restraints in this.

Over the past four years, I demonstrated that none of the oligarchs can count on the privileges. Instead, I am being attacked by some oligarchs, who spread fake news about me in mass media, he said.

When Poroshenko was asked to continue a sentence I like money, because the President said that he "does not like money. And being requested to continue the sentence When I compare my political and business careers he said: I would say I am doing everything possible and even more as a politician as the destiny of a great nation depends on this.

If necessary, I would give my life for it, the President added.The representatives of Ukraine's Foreign Ministry stressed that the detentions of the participants of a peaceful protest in Russia attest to an attempt to eradicate any dissidence in Russia

Open source

Ukraine condemns attacks from Kremlin regime punitive units on the participants of a peaceful protest He is not our Tsar, which was held in Russia before. This is reported on the website of Ukraines Foreign Ministry.

Detention and arrest of more than 1600 civilians is another evidence of a fear of the regime and a shameful state policy on suppression of human rights and fundamental freedoms, attempts to eradicate any dissidence in Russia. The violation towards juveniles and youth outrages most, the statement says.

Besides, it was stressed that Ukraine as other international partners demands an immediate release of illegally detained citizens and provision of their rights for a peaceful protest.

Earlier, EU member states and the U.S. expressed condemnation concerning the actions of Russian security forces during the protests.

It should be noted that He is not our Tsar protests are dedicated to the inauguration of Russias President Vladimir Putin, which is to be held on May 7. It was organized by the supporters of an opponent Alexei Navalny. Right after the protests started, the security forces started detaining people. At the end of the day, the number of the detained increased to 1500 people. Navalny himself was arrested as well.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!)Two important events occurred during the making of White Is Relic/Irrealis Mood. I became "Simulated Reality" paranoid and I fell in LOVE.

Well a lot more happened during the process of writing and recording, but those are the two big ones. I also reached a healthy point of self-forgiveness for my failed marriage and became deeply educated in the lies of America the Great.

I feel like a switch was recently turned on in my brain and now I'm beginning to see through the lies that have been fed to me my whole life by the masters of media and by those who control and manipulate the narrative of our cultural identity and social order.

My paranoia began during the presidential election cycle and reached a dangerous peak shortly after the inauguration. In the meantime I watched and read countless works of art in a mad effort to be reminded of how many truly brilliant people there are living/struggling among us and to try to maintain a positive outlook. The works of Angela Davis, Noam Chomsky, Chris Kraus, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and the Autobiographies of Malcolm X and Mark E Smith were all great inspirations, to name a few.

Musically, I was very inspired by the extended dance mixes that people used to make for pop singles back in the 80s. It's so cool how a lot of the 80's hits had these really intricate and interesting longer versions that wouldn't get played on the radio and could only be heard in the clubs. I used that template with these tracks, I wanted them all to feel like the extended "club edit" of album tracks. I also decided to abandon the "live band in a room" approach that I had been using on the recent albums and work more on my own or remotely with collaborators. I used the same drum sample packs throughout because I wanted the album to have a rhythmic continuity to it. I wanted the drums to have a strong and consistent identity, similar to how Prince's Linn Electronics LM-1 drum machine played such an important role on his classic albums. Zac Colwell also played a huge role on this album, adding saxophones and synths to most of the songs. I also got a lot of help from long time collaborators, and "of Montreal" touring members, Clayton Rychlik and JoJo Glidewell.

The two title concept came to me when I was thinking about how difficult it is to frame the message of a song with just one title, because so often the songs are about so many different subjects. White Is Relic was inspired by James Baldwins writings regarding the creation and propagation of a toxic American White identity. I've come to learn how it's just a tool wielded by the 1% to give poor white people a false sense of superiority in an effort to keep the masses placated and numb to how deeply we're all getting fucked by our capitalist rulers. An Irrealis Mood is a linguistic indicator that something isn't yet reality but does have the potential to become so.

I'm always searching for new identities so this concept of the death of "Whiteness" appeals to me greatly. Might be the only way to save the world.

-Kevin Barnes, January 2018

Locate S,1

https://locates1.com/Three Palestinians were killed when they tried to infiltrate Israel from the Gaza Strip on Sunday, the Israeli army said, the latest shootings linked to tensions along the border. The army said four people "attempted to infiltrate" by breaking through the security fence. "Troops arrived at the scene and fired shots towards the terrorists, as a result of which three were killed," an army statement said. It added that a bag was found with cutters, an axe and other materials. Gaza's health ministry identified two of the dead as Bahaa Rahman Qudeih, 23, and Mohammed Abu Rayda, 20. A name had not yet been provided for the third person. The latest deaths raised to 52 the toll of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces since protests and clashes began along the Gaza border on March 30. Hundreds more have been wounded by gunfire. Demonstrators are demanding Palestinian refugees be allowed to return to the homes they fled or were expelled from during the 1948 war surrounding Israel's creation. Israel argues allowing the so-called right of return would effectively spell the end of the country as a Jewish state. No Israelis have been hurt in the weeks of protests and the military has faced international criticism for its use of live ammunition. It says it only opens fire when necessary to stop infiltrations, attacks and attempts to damage the fence. It accuses Hamas, the Islamist movement that runs the Gaza Strip and with whom it has fought three wars since 2008, of seeking to use the protests as cover to carry out violence. Overnight Israel struck a facility belonging to Hamas in reaction to kite-borne fire bombings, which have reportedly caused significant damage to Israeli fields. A Palestinian protester uses a sling to hurl stones towards Israeli forces during clashes along the border of the Gaza Strip on May 4, 2018

A young New Zealand couple is appealing for help after their little girl was born 23 weeks premature during a trip to Adelaide.

Reginald, 23, and Mau Matekohi, 24, both university students from Tokoroa on New Zealands north island, were visiting another couple in Adelaide who they had served a church mission with, according to a crowdfunding page started by Regs mother.

But on April 20, Mau went into early labour and the couples little girl, Angelina, was born at the Womens and Childrens Hospital of Adelaide. The baby girl was born four months premature at 23 weeks.

Angelina only weighed 510 grams, equivalent to a pound of butter. She was less than the length of a school ruler at 29.5cm.

A New Zealand couple is appealing for help after their baby (pictured) was born four months premature on a trip to Adelaide. Source: Givealittle/ Angelina Matekohi

Mrs Matekhohi told the NZ Herald she was shocked by her daughters early arrival while her husband added the baby wasnt breathing when she came out. At one point the couple faced losing her altogether.

The doctor said it was highly unlikely she would respond, but then he put the ventilator in and she started breathing, he said.

We were really happy, we didnt want to give up on our daughter straight away, and that was the first ten seconds of her life.

He added his daughter is so tiny hes sometimes scared to hold her because you feel like any movement you make is going to break her.

Angelinas dad said hes sometimes so scared to hold her due to her tiny size. Adelaide. Source: Givealittle/ Angelina Matekohi

Aside from the early and unexpected birth, the young family are now appealing for financial support as they are both on student allowance thats likely to be cut and Angelina cant travel. They also have no family in Adelaide and are staying with friends from church.

The baby needs a breathing apparatus and an IV for blood transfusions.

Mau and Reginald Matekohi have vowed to stay with their daughter after she was born four months premature. Source: Givealittle/ Matekohi

Mr Matekohi is applying for work as the couple faces another four months in Adelaide caring for their daughter.

The New Zealand Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has been contacted for comment.Username: Password: or Register Thread Rating: 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average

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Iran warns the US on nuclear deal. LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: kaput

05-06-2018 05:24 PM











Post: #1 Iran warns the US on nuclear deal.

Advertisement

Iran has repeadetly warned that Israel days are numbered. Trump warned them that



Iran has big price to pay. Pay attention folks, this is it.







Iran warns US abandoning nuclear deal would be 'historic mistake'







Iran warned the US on Sunday that abandoning the nuclear deal would be a "historic mistake," less than one week before President Donald Trump is set to make a decision on the pact.

In a televised speech, President Hassan Rouhani said Iran had plans for "whatever decision is made by Trump" and that "when it comes to weapons and defending our country, we will not negotiate with anybody."

His comments come days before the May 12 deadline for Trump to decide whether or not to continue waiving sanctions on Iran that were lifted under the deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).





https://edition.cnn.com/2018/05/06/polit...index.html This is our doom right here. This is the most serious and delicate moment in our history.Iran has repeadetly warned that Israel days are numbered. Trump warned them thatIran has big price to pay. Pay attention folks, this is it.Iran warns US abandoning nuclear deal would be 'historic mistake'Iran warned the US on Sunday that abandoning the nuclear deal would be a "historic mistake," less than one week before President Donald Trump is set to make a decision on the pact.In a televised speech, President Hassan Rouhani said Iran had plans for "whatever decision is made by Trump" and that "when it comes to weapons and defending our country, we will not negotiate with anybody."His comments come days before the May 12 deadline for Trump to decide whether or not to continue waiving sanctions on Iran that were lifted under the deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). LoP Guest

lop guest

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05-06-2018 06:11 PM











Post: #2 RE: Iran warns the US on nuclear deal.

This is our doom right here. Dont have to wait long. May 12th. aqmah

Registered User

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05-06-2018 06:21 PM



Posts: 194









Post: #3 RE: Iran warns the US on nuclear deal.

i have a few games to play this month + a world cup event next month... so you Iranian madafakas please wait. LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 1337

05-06-2018 06:22 PM











Post: #4 RE: Iran warns the US on nuclear deal.





It did not change after 1979. They are still nice and hospitable the same, and very curious to know why we are going to their country. You get invited to people's homes as if you were a member of their family.



The food is absolutely wonderful.



The US and Israel are giving Iran such a bad name making you believe that Iran has bombs and they are going to wipe Israel off the map.



Iran has not attacked any country in centuries.



Israel murders Palestinians in high numbers for years.



Israel and the US have a huge nuclear arsenal. They never allowed UN inspectors in their facilities.



What is their goal? Who are they going to replace the Iranian government with?



Are they going to do another Shah or another Mossadegh? Another Saddam? Another Kaddaffi?



Netanyahu and Lieberman are the monsters. Can add Trump, Bolton and their crew, not Khamenei or Rouhani.



and then they are teaming with Saudi Arabia, the biggest financiers of terrorism on the planet.



Trouble is... the sheep have the nasty habit of believing everything they are being told.



I am due to be in Iran again mid September. I visited there a number of times from 1976 on, always individual travel - no travel agents or tour groups. Great country, so much history, the people there are really hospitable.It did not change after 1979. They are still nice and hospitable the same, and very curious to know why we are going to their country. You get invited to people's homes as if you were a member of their family.The food is absolutely wonderful.The US and Israel are giving Iran such a bad name making you believe that Iran has bombs and they are going to wipe Israel off the map.Iran has not attacked any country in centuries.Israel murders Palestinians in high numbers for years.Israel and the US have a huge nuclear arsenal. They never allowed UN inspectors in their facilities.What is their goal? Who are they going to replace the Iranian government with?Are they going to do another Shah or another Mossadegh? Another Saddam? Another Kaddaffi?Netanyahu and Lieberman are the monsters. Can add Trump, Bolton and their crew, not Khamenei or Rouhani.and then they are teaming with Saudi Arabia, the biggest financiers of terrorism on the planet.Trouble is... the sheep have the nasty habit of believing everything they are being told. Archangel

Michael

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05-06-2018 06:29 PM



Posts: 14,103









Post: #5 RE: Iran warns the US on nuclear deal.







A Message from Iran





. LoP Guest

lop guest

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05-06-2018 06:35 PM











Post: #6 RE: Iran warns the US on nuclear deal.

LoP Guest Wrote: (05-06-2018 06:22 PM) I am due to be in Iran again mid September. I visited there a number of times from 1976 on, always individual travel - no travel agents or tour groups. Great country, so much history, the people there are really hospitable.



It did not change after 1979. They are still nice and hospitable the same, and very curious to know why we are going to their country. You get invited to people's homes as if you were a member of their family.



The food is absolutely wonderful.



The US and Israel are giving Iran such a bad name making you believe that Iran has bombs and they are going to wipe Israel off the map.



Iran has not attacked any country in centuries.



Israel murders Palestinians in high numbers for years.



Israel and the US have a huge nuclear arsenal. They never allowed UN inspectors in their facilities.



What is their goal? Who are they going to replace the Iranian government with?



Are they going to do another Shah or another Mossadegh? Another Saddam? Another Kaddaffi?



Netanyahu and Lieberman are the monsters. Can add Trump, Bolton and their crew, not Khamenei or Rouhani.



and then they are teaming with Saudi Arabia, the biggest financiers of terrorism on the planet.



Trouble is... the sheep have the nasty habit of believing everything they are being told.





This is how I see it too.



If they terminate the deal Iran will be the next holocaust (sacrifice by fire, burnt offering to a daemon) to their chthonic deity. I find it curious that the chosenites selected this world to describe the events of WWII.



Look up etymology of holocaust. Cant post definition for some s T range REASON . This is how I see it too.If they terminate the deal Iran will be the next holocaust (sacrifice by fire, burnt offering to a daemon) to their chthonic deity. I find it curious that the chosenites selected this world to describe the events of WWII.Look up etymology of holocaust. Cant post definition for some srange LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 1337

05-06-2018 07:25 PM











Post: #7 RE: Iran warns the US on nuclear deal.

aqmah Wrote: (05-06-2018 06:21 PM) i have a few games to play this month + a world cup event next month... so you Iranian madafakas please wait.

There wont be a world cup this year. Russia will be at war. There wont be a world cup this year. Russia will be at war. LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 1337

05-06-2018 07:26 PM











Post: #8 RE: Iran warns the US on nuclear deal.

LoP Guest Wrote: (05-06-2018 06:22 PM) I am due to be in Iran again mid September. I visited there a number of times from 1976 on, always individual travel - no travel agents or tour groups. Great country, so much history, the people there are really hospitable.



It did not change after 1979. They are still nice and hospitable the same, and very curious to know why we are going to their country. You get invited to people's homes as if you were a member of their family.



The food is absolutely wonderful.



The US and Israel are giving Iran such a bad name making you believe that Iran has bombs and they are going to wipe Israel off the map.



Iran has not attacked any country in centuries.



Israel murders Palestinians in high numbers for years.



Israel and the US have a huge nuclear arsenal. They never allowed UN inspectors in their facilities.



What is their goal? Who are they going to replace the Iranian government with?



Are they going to do another Shah or another Mossadegh? Another Saddam? Another Kaddaffi?



Netanyahu and Lieberman are the monsters. Can add Trump, Bolton and their crew, not Khamenei or Rouhani.



and then they are teaming with Saudi Arabia, the biggest financiers of terrorism on the planet.



Trouble is... the sheep have the nasty habit of believing everything they are being told.





LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 1337

05-06-2018 07:38 PM











Post: #9 RE: Iran warns the US on nuclear deal.





They are free to travel there, but somehow they don't want to move there though they have been made constant offers to make alyah and move to the "motherland" they always go back to Iran which is the country they consider to be their real home.



Most of them are shopkeepers, the majority are in Tehran and Isfahan. They are allowed to consume alcohol. Go to their stores, they will offer you a glass of Vodka.



There are active synagogues, some private in people's homes, others are open to all.



I think they even have a couple of representatives in Parliament, like other religions have representatives in Parliament.



What will the Izzies do? Will they not mind bombing their own people knowing that they live in the country they are planning to attack?



What the sheep don't know is that Iran has the largest Gewish community residing outside of Israel.They are free to travel there, but somehow they don't want to move there though they have been made constant offers to make alyah and move to the "motherland" they always go back to Iran which is the country they consider to be their real home.Most of them are shopkeepers, the majority are in Tehran and Isfahan. They are allowed to consume alcohol. Go to their stores, they will offer you a glass of Vodka.There are active synagogues, some private in people's homes, others are open to all.I think they even have a couple of representatives in Parliament, like other religions have representatives in Parliament.What will the Izzies do? Will they not mind bombing their own people knowing that they live in the country they are planning to attack? LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 1337

05-06-2018 08:34 PM











Post: #10 RE: Iran warns the US on nuclear deal.

I've read about Americans who have made the trip to Iran. They come home saying the Iranian people welcome Americans and are most hospitable toward us. The world doesn't hate Americans, just the US Gov't. Can't say I blame them for all they've been through at the hands of our military and congress. We used to be like that, welcoming foreigners, but that was 50/60 years ago.















A blast at a voter registration centre in Afghanistan's restive east on Sunday killed or wounded at least 30 people, officials said, capping a bloody week in the war-torn country. The bomb had been placed in a tent being used to register voters on the grounds of a mosque, marking the latest attack on preparations for the long-delayed legislative elections. "A crowd of people who had come out of the mosque had gathered to register" when the blast took place, Khost provincial police chief Abdul Hanan Zadran told AFP. Zadran said the casualty toll stood at "about 30". But provincial deputy director of public health Gul Mohammad Mangal told AFP at least 12 people had been killed and 33 wounded in the explosion. Mangal warned the toll could rise, with several of the wounded in a critical condition. "Ambulances are still bringing more people," he added. It was the latest attack on election preparations and comes almost a week after 25 people were killed in a double bombing in the Afghan capital Kabul. Nine journalists including AFP chief photographer Shah Marai were among the dead. BBC reporter Ahmad Shah was killed in a separate attack in Khost province. The latest assault on a voter registration centre is likely to deter more people from signing up for the long-delayed parliamentary and district council elections scheduled for October 20. On April 22 a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a voter registration centre in Kabul, killing 60 people and wounding more than 100. That was among a series of attacks across the country on places where people were signing up to vote. - Low turnout fears - The Taliban and IS have made clear their intentions to disrupt the elections. Officials are concerned that a low voter turnout will undermine the credibility of the poll. Just over 1.2 million adults had registered by Saturday, three weeks after the two-month long process began, data compiled by the Independent Election Commission (IEC) showed. The IEC, which is overseeing preparations for the vote, hopes to register up to 14 million adults at more than 7,000 polling centres. But if the current trend were to continue, fewer than three million people would be registered by the mid-June deadline. Authorities have deployed planes to drop leaflets in a number of provinces raising awareness about the elections, which are seen as a test run for next year's presidential poll. A radio and television campaign is also under way and civil servants have been granted a day off to sign up. The IEC has placed many of the voter registration centres inside schools and mosques, triggering concerns that students and worshippers could be at risk. Another hurdle to voter registration is a sticker placed on national identification certificates showing the holder has signed up for the poll. There are concerns that the stickers could put voters in restive districts at risk of being targeted by Taliban or Islamic State militants. Map of Afghanistan locating Khost provinceA newspaper hailed as Cambodia's last independent English daily has been sold to a Malaysian investor with apparent business links to premier Hun Sen, rattling a journalist community that has been battered by the strongman ahead of elections. Bill Clough, the Australian publisher of the 26-year-old Phnom Penh Post, said in a statement Saturday that the paper had been purchased by a Malaysian investor identified solely as "Sivakumar G". The announcement did not disclose the price of the sale or any information on the new owner's other ventures. But a person close to the matter confirmed to AFP that the buyer is the head of Asia PR, a public relations firm based in Kuala Lumpur whose website describes its CEO "Siva Kumar G" as a journalist by training. The website lists as a former client Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, whose government stands accused of a sweeping crackdown on independent media, NGOs and rival politicians ahead of July polls. An Asia PR spokeswoman declined to comment. The sale, which caught the newspaper's staff by surprise, swiftly raised concerns about a contracting space for independent media in a country that lost its other main English newspaper last year. "The Post is really the last remaining newspaper that comes out every day and does long investigations on corruption, illegal logging and politics," said Abby Seiff, a Cambodia-based freelance journalist and former Phnom Penh Post editor. "The journalist community is concerned about what the implication (of the sale) could be. It's just two months until the election and there's not much independent media left," she added. In his statement, former owner Clough acknowledged that "turbulence" in Cambodia ahead of elections had put a spotlight on the Phnom Penh Post and left it as "the last remaining truly independent media group in the country". - 'Climate of terror' - The Post's chief rival, the Cambodia Daily, was forced to shut in August 2017 after it was handed an unpayable tax bill -- announcing its closure the same day authorities arrested opposition leader Kem Sokha on treason charges. The crackdown also saw dozens of radio stations taken off the air and the jailing of two reporters from Radio Free Asia, which shut its bureau after 20 years due to a series of legal threats. Cambodia fell 10 places in this year's media freedom ranking by Reporters Without Borders, which described the country as hosting a "climate of terror that has drastically curtailed press freedom". In recent months local media had reported that the Phnom Penh Post was facing tax troubles. Clough's statement said "publicised tax claims" had been settled with the government last week and that the paper now faces "no threat to its ability to continue its work". Chad Williams, a former Phnom Penh Post editor-in-chief, said the quick settling of the tax bill and appearance of a buyer "strongly suggests the government approves of the sale." "And it's hard to imagine they would approve if they thought the new ownership planned to maintain the paper's role as the country's sole remaining watchdog," he added. The Post, founded by American journalist Michael Hayes in 1992, is seen as a key pillar of the country's fragile democracy, which observers say has taken a nosedive in recent years as Hun Sen clears out opposition politicians and other critical voices. News of the Phnom Penh Post's sale caught staff by surprise and has raised fears about the future of independent media in CambodiaPortugal's Joao Sousa had to battle at the end before becoming the first home player to win the Estoril Open with a 6-4, 6-4 defeat of American Frances Tiafoe on Sunday. The 29-year-old Sousa, ranked 68th in the world, needed to call upon his reserves to claim the opening set by saving three break points in the final game. Serving for victory at 5-2 in the second, the Portuguese was broken as Tiafoe briefly delayed the festivities. But the local hero came good two games later as he clinched a third career title, a feat which quickly got the mainly Portuguese crowd into the mood for a mass sing-along chorus of celebration. "This is fantastic, it's such a special win, especially coming at home," Sousa said. "I'm so proud to win here. "There are no words to describe this emotion, the fans were fantastic all week. It was incredible, it was a dream come true. "I always wanted to win here in Portugal." The previous Portuguese high point at the event came in 2010 when Frederico Gil played the final, losing to Albert Montanes of Spain. Tiafoe, realising how much the victory meant to his opponent, crossed the net to speak with Sousa and congratulate him. "I knew how big this is for him, it would be big for me if I won. The whole country was behind him, I'm sure he felt that all week," Tiafoe said. "He's massive here, it's huge that he won. He played too good, too tough for me. "I'm happy for him, he's one of the nicest guys on the tour." Sousa, playing in his 10th final, also won Valencia in 2015 and at Kuala Lumpur five years ago. Tiafoe, 20, was thwarted in his bid to collect a second career title after making his trophy breakthrough in February at Delray Beach, Florida. The world number 64 fell short in the end as he failed to generate the momentum which had kept him in clay contention all week. - Sousa quick off the mark - Sousa improved to 18-10 this season after a poor start which he turned around with consistent results starting in March. Sousa made a fast start as he produced a break of Tiafoe in the third game of the opener to take a 2-1 lead which he held throughout as the set progressed on level-pegging. But NextGen player Tiafoe suddenly struck, putting the Portuguese hope into a hole and facing three break points in the 10th game of the set. Sousa calmly saved all three, then earned a set point before closing it out by winning his fifth straight point to take the lead 6-4 after 40 minutes. Sousa, sensing his chances, broke to start the second set, putting his less experienced opponent on the back foot. It quickly went to 2-0 as Tiafoe's mistakes mounted, with the youngster committing his fourth double fault to lose the second game. The American fell further behind before finally holding serve for 1-4 and launching a spirited rally, although one that came too late. "I didn't feel great during the match, I wasn't moving my feet," Tiafoe said. "He didn't give me too many chances, I was leaving a lot of balls short. "He took advantage, he could play like he wanted the entire match." Joao Sousa of Portugal, pictured in March 2018, needed to call upon his reserves to claim the opening set by saving three break points in the final gameA Brisbane man has been assaulted with a hammer after being lured out of his home when his attacker cut the power.

The victim was rushed to hospital with head injuries after the attack on Japonica Street in Inala, in Brisbanes south-west, late on Friday.

A Brisbane man has been lured outside his home before being attacked and robbed. Source: 7News

The attacker arrived at the house at about 11.30pm, turned off the power and assaulted the occupant when he came to investigate.

He fled the scene with a number of stolen items, while the victim was taken to Princess Alexandra Hospital with head injuries.Juventus are practically assured of winning a seventh successive Serie A title after second-placed Napoli were held 2-2 by Torino on Sunday. Juventus have a six-point lead in Serie A with two games left to play. Both teams are equal in head-to-head clashes but Juventus are well ahead of their southern rivals on goal difference. The now need just one point to officially retain their crown with games to come against Roma in the Stadio Olimpico and already-relegated Verona in Turin. Torino twice battled back from a goal down to steal a point from Maurizio Sarri's Napoli side who had been bidding for a first title since the days of Argentina legend Diego Maradona in 1987 and 1990. Dries Mertens celebrated his 31st birthday by putting Napoli ahead after 25 minutes after a shocking defensive error by Torino's Nicolas Burdisso, with skipper Marek Hamsik coming off the bench to add a second for the hosts after 71 minutes. But Torino dug deep with Daniele Baselli pulling the visitors level 10 minutes into the second half and Lorenzo De Silvestri heading in seven minutes from time to cancel out Hamsik's goal. Juventus had recovered from a goal down to beat Bologna 3-1 on Saturday to open up a seven-point lead, with Napoli losing 3-0 last weekend in Fiorentina. Massimiliano Allegri's Juventus would have to lose their final two matches and Napoli to achieve high-scoring wins against Sampdoria and Crotone to make up the goal difference. A late Torino equaliser at Napoli leaves Juventus all but guaranteed another Serie A titleIndian soldiers shot dead five Kashmir militants including a rebel university teacher in a gunfight Sunday that triggered violent protests in which five civilians were killed. Thousands took to the streets in south Kashmir to show support for the slain militants. Government forces opened fire to break up the protests, director general of police Shesh Paul Vaid said. Hundreds of people were injured in the protests, according to doctors. Government forces swooped on the village of Badigam, in Shopian district south of the capital Srinagar, following a tip-off about armed militants holed up inside a house. The rebels refused an offer to surrender, triggering a fierce gun battle, Vaid told AFP. A special appeal was made to Mohammad Rafi Bhat, a university sociology teacher who only went underground with the rebels on Friday. Kashmir University, where he taught, was ordered closed for two days, according to a university statement. "We brought his father from his home to persuade him to surrender, but he, like all of them, refused," Vaid said, confirming five rebels died in the firefight. A top commander of Hizbul Mujahideen, a key rebel group, was also among the dead. As news of the trapped militants spread, residents took to the streets across southern Kashmir shouting slogans demanding an end to Indian rule, witnesses and a police officer said. Another police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said at least 30 people were injured in clashes with government forces who fired live ammunition, pellet guns and tear gas. A doctor at a hospital in Shopian said hundreds of injured needed treatment. "We have reached our full capacity. We have run out of essential medicines, there are no more ambulances," he told AFP. On Saturday, three rebels and a civilian had died during a firefight in Srinagar -- the latest in a string of gun battles in recent weeks across the territory disputed by India and Pakistan since they split in 1947. A curfew was ordered in the capital on Sunday and mobile internet services were shut down in much of the Indian-administered region. Fighting in Kashmir this year has left 120 dead, according to officials, including 22 civilians, 67 militants and 28 security forces. India has deployed more than 500,000 soldiers in the restive region to tackle rising militancy as civilian support for the rebels grows. India accuses Pakistan of fuelling the insurgency, a charge Islamabad denies saying it only provides diplomatic support to Kashmiris' right to self-determination. India has deployed more than 500,000 soldiers in restive Kashmir to tackle rising militancy as civilian support for the rebels growsUsername: Password: or Register Thread Rating: 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average

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Page: 1 2 Big Quake in the Gulf of Mexico Outcast Info

lop guest

User ID: kaput

05-06-2018 08:40 PM











Post: #1 Big Quake in the Gulf of Mexico

Advertisement







Is something going on in the Gulf of Mexico bc the last four months have been different for sure. Is something going on in the Gulf of Mexico bc the last four months have been different for sure. LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 1337

05-06-2018 08:43 PM











Post: #2 RE: Big Quake in the Gulf of Mexico

I don't think 4.5 is a big quake LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 1337

05-06-2018 08:44 PM











Post: #3 RE: Big Quake in the Gulf of Mexico

LoP Guest Wrote: (05-06-2018 08:43 PM) I don't think 4.5 is a big quake

It is for an area that never receives quakes and is near a volcano. It is for an area that never receives quakes and is near a volcano. LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 1337

05-06-2018 08:46 PM











Post: #4 RE: Big Quake in the Gulf of Mexico

LoP Guest Wrote: (05-06-2018 08:44 PM) LoP Guest Wrote: (05-06-2018 08:43 PM) I don't think 4.5 is a big quake

It is for an area that never receives quakes and is near a volcano.

How do you know it never receives quakes? It received 1 today. How do you know it never receives quakes? It received 1 today. LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 1337

05-06-2018 08:47 PM











Post: #5 RE: Big Quake in the Gulf of Mexico



Don't know what it means, if anything.



Oil spill co-ords. 28.736628 -88.365997

Quake co-ords. 27.874N 88.702W



http://latitude.to/articles-by-country/g...-oil-spill Thanks for posting. I saw it earlier and noticed it wasn't on a fault however what I did notice was how close it was to the BP Deep Horizon oil spill.Don't know what it means, if anything.Oil spill co-ords. 28.736628 -88.365997Quake co-ords. 27.874N 88.702W LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 1337

05-06-2018 08:50 PM











Post: #6 RE: Big Quake in the Gulf of Mexico

LoP Guest Wrote: (05-06-2018 08:46 PM) LoP Guest Wrote: (05-06-2018 08:44 PM) It is for an area that never receives quakes and is near a volcano.

How do you know it never receives quakes? It received 1 today.

I know it received 1 quake today but it hasn't had one single quake there in at least 3 years. Some places have them regularly like Puerto Rico. Some have them occasionally like the New Madrid area.



This area is not a known quake area. This one is significant. I know it received 1 quake today but it hasn't had one single quake there in at least 3 years. Some places have them regularly like Puerto Rico. Some have them occasionally like the New Madrid area.This area is not a known quake area. This one is significant. LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 1337

05-06-2018 08:53 PM











Post: #7 RE: Big Quake in the Gulf of Mexico

LoP Guest Wrote: (05-06-2018 08:47 PM) Thanks for posting. I saw it earlier and noticed it wasn't on a fault however what I did notice was how close it was to the BP Deep Horizon oil spill.

Don't know what it means, if anything.



Oil spill co-ords. 28.736628 -88.365997

Quake co-ords. 27.874N 88.702W



http://latitude.to/articles-by-country/g...-oil-spill

There was a YouTube video called the "Great Earth Expansion Theory". This woman said that all the drilling sites are pin pricks into a vast area that when under pressure would serve as vents to release whatever.



Your info is very helpful. I'm sure that BP accident is not going to help the stability of the area if it is in the process of being compromised. There was a YouTube video called the "Great Earth Expansion Theory". This woman said that all the drilling sites are pin pricks into a vast area that when under pressure would serve as vents to release whatever.Your info is very helpful. I'm sure that BP accident is not going to help the stability of the area if it is in the process of being compromised. LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 1337

05-06-2018 08:57 PM











Post: #8 RE: Big Quake in the Gulf of Mexico

LoP Guest Wrote: (05-06-2018 08:43 PM) I don't think 4.5 is a big quake

ten times bigger than a 3.5 I think ten times bigger than a 3.5 I think LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 1337

05-06-2018 08:59 PM











Post: #9 RE: Big Quake in the Gulf of Mexico

LoP Guest Wrote: (05-06-2018 08:53 PM) LoP Guest Wrote: (05-06-2018 08:47 PM) Thanks for posting. I saw it earlier and noticed it wasn't on a fault however what I did notice was how close it was to the BP Deep Horizon oil spill.

Don't know what it means, if anything.



Oil spill co-ords. 28.736628 -88.365997

Quake co-ords. 27.874N 88.702W



http://latitude.to/articles-by-country/g...-oil-spill

There was a YouTube video called the "Great Earth Expansion Theory". This woman said that all the drilling sites are pin pricks into a vast area that when under pressure would serve as vents to release whatever.



Your info is very helpful. I'm sure that BP accident is not going to help the stability of the area if it is in the process of being compromised.

Horizon was only one of many off shore rigs there. The map below shows that location uses deep well methods.



https://www.awesomestories.com/images/us...07900c.jpg Horizon was only one of many off shore rigs there. The map below shows that location uses deep well methods. LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 1337

05-06-2018 09:02 PM











Post: #10 RE: Big Quake in the Gulf of Mexico

LoP Guest Wrote: (05-06-2018 08:59 PM) LoP Guest Wrote: (05-06-2018 08:53 PM) There was a YouTube video called the "Great Earth Expansion Theory". This woman said that all the drilling sites are pin pricks into a vast area that when under pressure would serve as vents to release whatever.



Your info is very helpful. I'm sure that BP accident is not going to help the stability of the area if it is in the process of being compromised.

Horizon was only one of many off shore rigs there. The map below shows that location uses deep well methods.



https://www.awesomestories.com/images/us...07900c.jpg Wow. That information is both incredible and scary. The possibility of coastal wipeout is theoretically there. Wow. That information is both incredible and scary. The possibility of coastal wipeout is theoretically there. LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 1337

05-06-2018 09:04 PM











Post: #11 RE: Big Quake in the Gulf of Mexico

LoP Guest Wrote: (05-06-2018 08:57 PM) LoP Guest Wrote: (05-06-2018 08:43 PM) I don't think 4.5 is a big quake

ten times bigger than a 3.5 I think

Correct Correct LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 1337

05-06-2018 09:06 PM











Post: #12 RE: Big Quake in the Gulf of Mexico

LoP Guest Wrote: (05-06-2018 09:04 PM) LoP Guest Wrote: (05-06-2018 08:57 PM) ten times bigger than a 3.5 I think

Correct

I felt something 5 days ago that was like an earth quake in central ohio but maybe I imagined it??



Ohio almost never gets quakes. I felt something 5 days ago that was like an earth quake in central ohio but maybe I imagined it??Ohio almost never gets quakes. LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 1337

05-06-2018 09:09 PM











Post: #13 RE: Big Quake in the Gulf of Mexico

LoP Guest Wrote: (05-06-2018 08:47 PM) Thanks for posting. I saw it earlier and noticed it wasn't on a fault however what I did notice was how close it was to the BP Deep Horizon oil spill.

Don't know what it means, if anything.



Oil spill co-ords. 28.736628 -88.365997

Quake co-ords. 27.874N 88.702W



http://latitude.to/articles-by-country/g...-oil-spill This, and along with the recent high temperatures in the waters in the area is concerning This, and along with the recent high temperatures in the waters in the area is concerning LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 1337

05-06-2018 09:09 PM











Post: #14 RE: Big Quake in the Gulf of Mexico

LoP Guest Wrote: (05-06-2018 09:06 PM) LoP Guest Wrote: (05-06-2018 09:04 PM) Correct

I felt something 5 days ago that was like an earth quake in central ohio but maybe I imagined it??



Ohio almost never gets quakes.

It isn't unthinkable. The New Madrid was acting up the last week and the Great Lakes/Ontario area had a quake. A West New York lake had a 1.9 this week so it isn't impossible. It isn't unthinkable. The New Madrid was acting up the last week and the Great Lakes/Ontario area had a quake. A West New York lake had a 1.9 this week so it isn't impossible. LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 1337

05-06-2018 09:15 PM











Post: #15 RE: Big Quake in the Gulf of Mexico

LoP Guest Wrote: (05-06-2018 08:43 PM) I don't think 4.5 is a big quake

it's a puny quake. I get so sick of headlines and thread titles about miniscule quakes. it's a puny quake. I get so sick of headlines and thread titles about miniscule quakes. Advertisement

















The United States on Saturday scolded China for attempting to impose "political correctness" on American carriers by asking them to classify Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau as Chinese territories. A sternly worded White House statement excoriated Beijing for the demands, which it termed "Orwellian nonsense." "President Donald J. Trump ran against political correctness in the United States," it said. "He will stand up for Americans resisting efforts by the Chinese Communist Party to impose Chinese political correctness on American companies and citizens." The statement added that the Chinese Civil Aviation Administration sent a notice to 36 foreign air carriers, including a number of American carriers, on April 25, asking them to comply with Beijing's standards. As of Saturday, the website of American Airlines listed Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau as entities separate from China. Rivals United Airlines and Delta listed Taiwan separately but not Hong Kong or Macau. Taiwan has been self-ruled since splitting from the mainland after a 1949 civil war, maintaining its own government, military and independent foreign policy. But Beijing has refused to recognize the island, viewing it as part of its territory awaiting reunification with the mainland -- by force, if necessary. The US has maintained a delicate diplomatic balance since 1979, recognizing Beijing's sovereignty as part of its "One China" policy, while remaining Taiwan's most powerful unofficial ally and main supplier of arms. Meanwhile, Hong Kong, a British colony until 1997, and Macau, a Portuguese colony until 1999, are now "special administrative regions" of China. The move came after the US and China held high-stakes trade talks in Beijing aimed at forestalling a looming conflict between the world's two largest economies. In January, Australia's Qantas Airways changed its website classification of Taiwan and Hong Kong from separate countries to Chinese territories, blaming its earlier approach on an "oversight." As of May 5, the website of American Airlines listed Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau as entities separate from ChinaCruise ship passengers have filmed the horrific moment when water began gushing into an area on board the ship.

Footage from inside the Carnival Dream, taken during a cruise in the western Caribbean this week, was posted on Facebook by Marla DeAnn Haase and captured the unexpected occurrence.

It shows the water pouring out inside a flooded hallway, reportedly after a water line break.

Um.FB folks..this is a rare moment of internet connection .we are flooding on a cruise, we heard the violins and the silverware all came crashing down. What in the world.say a prayer for us all, the passenger, Marla DeAnn Haase wrote.

It is reported that about 50 staterooms on the ship were impacted by the flooding.

About 50 of the staterooms were impacted by the flooding. Source: Marla DeAnn Haase/ Facebook

The holidaymakers had been nearing the end of their week-long trip when the incident occurred on Thursday.

Marla DeAnn Haase uploaded another clip, which shows staff cleaning up the inundated corridor. They appear to be filling up buckets of water and removing them from the flooded hallway.

A brand ambassador for Carnival Cruise Line John Heald, posted a video after the area was cleaned up, saying they apologise about the incident and appreciate guests understanding.

A passenger posted a video and images of the flooding on board the cruise liner. Source: Marla DeAnn Haase/ Facebook

Mr Heald wrote, On Thursday, May 3 at approximately 6pm, there was a water line break on Carnival Dream that impacted guests in approximately 50 staterooms on Deck 9.

Our onboard teams began cleanup immediately related to this clean water from a fire suppression system.

A video of the clean up operation was also shared by the passenger. Source: Marla DeAnn Haase/ Facebook

According to the ambassador, impacted guests would receive a full refund and a 50 per cent credit for another cruise in the future.

They were also given the option to leave the ship prior to the end of their voyage, Mr Heald said.

The next cruise is not expected to be impacted.Now that it is fully apparent, to all who have the ability to pay some modicum of attention, that Imposter President Biden has extreme cognitive issues, in addition to being an inveterate liar: Can OUR Republic continue with this Executive Office that has completely failed, so many times, on far too many issues here at this early date in this abysmal presidency?

No, Joseph R. Biden is completely unqualified, morally and cognitively, to represent real Americans, and lead this Republic of disparate peoples.

Yes, Joseph R. Biden has started whispering again, even softer now than before; so, I know he still cares, plus, OUR media will soon stop reporting on Afghanistan in favor of OUR Socialist ideals.Students will miss mandatory exams; Cooper mum on wisdom of canceling classes

May 16 promises to be busy day for the General Assembly. Not only will the short session begin. But also lawmakers expected to be confronted with thousands of teachers rallying for higher pay and education spending.The Durham County Board of Education made the most dramatic statement backing the protest so far. The school board voted 6-1 Wednesday night in a special meeting to close schools for the day and let teachers join the rally, even though standardized tests are scheduled that day.The March for Students and Rally for Respect will begin with a 10 a.m. march from the North Carolina Association of Educators building to the Legislative building. Across the street at 3:30, a rally will be held at the Bicentennial Plaza.After more than 1,000 Durham teachers asked for the day off to attend the event, the board discussed whether to close schools or attempt to fill vacancies with substitute.Durham Superintendent Pascal Mubenga offered three options: Keep schools open and find substitutes for the absent teachers; close schools and reschedule testing requirements like the AP exam; or compromise with a half day, requiring 250 substitutes to cover morning classes.Most board members, including chairman Mike Lee, supported closing the schools in support of the disgruntled teachers. Lee, vice chairman Steven Unruhe, and Natalie Beyer said they would join teachers for the rally.The board voted 6-1 to close Durham schools and declare May 16 an optional "work day." Board member Minnie Forte-Brown voted against the measure, but voiced support for the movement.Lee said.On May 16, teachers plan to do more than protest. They say they'll meet with lawmakers during the day on a host of education issues including school safety, school building repairs, and raising teacher wages.North Carolina Association of Educators President Mark Jewell told WRAL Gov. Roy Cooper didn't respond to Carolina Journal's inquiry on whether he supports the day of advocacy.One of the main drivers behind the march and rally is a recent report on average teacher salaries across the country.The National Education Association released their annual Rankings and Estimates report showing North Carolina's average teacher salary for 2018 ranked 37th in the nation. The average teacher salary is $50,861 for the current school year, about $9,600 behind the national average.Terry Stoops, the vice president of research and director of education studies at the John Locke Foundation, said NEA's figures are not adjusted for cost of living. Stoops argues that when cost of living adjustments are included, North Carolina's rank jumps to 29th in the country.And as CJ reported in 2014, the U.S. Department of Education has said it's difficult to compare teacher compensation because states report the numbers differently. There's no consistent state-by-state figure covering salary, benefits, and other forms of compensation, so ranking statewide averages may have little meaning.The decision to close Durham County Schools has consequences.Closing the schools so teachers won't have to take a personal day means many families will have to find child care or take time off work to watch their children. Students from low-income families won't have access to schools' breakfast or lunch programs.School employees like bus drivers will lose a day's pay and child nutrition will lose $100,000 in federal reimbursement for meals. Faith groups and community organizations have announced they will help families and their children deal with the unplanned teacher "work day."AP exams will have to be rescheduled to May 23, but International Baccalaureate exams must be taken May 16. DPS will work with N.C. Central University to figure out how students can take their mandatory exams.Andy Wells (incumbent, two terms). Education: N.C. State University, two engineering degrees. Occupation: Real estate developer, and owner of Prism Development in Hickory. Career highlights: Chairs or co-chairs Senate committees on Agriculture/Environmental/Natural Resources; Pensions and Retirement and Aging; Joint Legislative Administrative Procedure Oversight Committee; Agriculture and Forestry Awareness Study Commission. Served one term in House District 96. Harold and Margaret Deal Foundation board member in Hickory. Former president of the Piedmont Council Boy Scouts of America, and served on the board of the John Locke Foundation.

Mark Hollo. Education: Southern Illinois University, bachelor's degree; Wake Forest University Bowman-Gray School of Medicine, physician assistant program. Occupation: Physician assistant. Career highlights: Three-term House member; chaired Appropriations Subcommittee on Health and Human Services; Health and Human Services Policy Committee; Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Health and Human Services; Joint Legislative Oversight Subcommittee on Medical Examiners; Legislative Ethics Committee;. Former U.S. Air Force Reserve captain. Order of the Long Leaf Pine recipient.

Dustin Long. Education: Mitchell Community College, associate of applied sciences in mechanical engineering technology. Occupation: Project engineering technologist at Liburdi Turbine Services. Career highlights: Interim vice president of operations for The Fathers Rights Movement, a national nonprofit that promotes shared parenting legislation.

Ryan Huffman. No information available.

Republican primary, Senate District 42 (Catawba and Alexander counties).Republican incumbent Andy Wells was unopposed in his two previous Senate District 42 primaries, and was uncontested in the 2016 general election. But three challengers are seeking the seat in the May 8 GOP primary. Mark Hollo of Conover is a former state representative. Dustin Long of Stony Point is a Navy veteran. A third opponent, Ryan Huffman of Hiddenite, is flying under the radar.The N.C. FreeEnterprise Foundation, which closely tracks state elections, lists the district as strong Republican. About 43 percent, or 55,247 of the district's 128,117 registered voters, are Republican.The winner of the primary will face Democrat Ric Vandett of Hickory, the former superintendent of Hickory public schools, in the Nov. 6 general election.Wells, 63, of Hickory, said he prefers lower overall tax rates to incentives for businesses to boost the economy. In 2016 he criticized state incentives of $2.35 million over a dozen years to lure Corning Inc.'s optical communications business headquarters from Hickory to Mecklenburg County.Wells said.Wells represented House District 96 in the 2013-2014 term before being elected to the Senate.Wells said he has voted to cut state taxes by more than $1 billion.Wells said.Wells said he supports building the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which will carry natural gas from West Virginia to eastern North Carolina. He said Gov. Roy Cooper was wrong when he had the companies building the pipeline pledge $57.8 million for a fund under his control for economic development, renewable energy projects, and pipeline mitigation.Wells said. House Bill 90 directed the funds to school districts in the eight counties the pipeline will traverse.Wells is an advocate of welfare reform.Wells said.Wells is a small business owner, and has investments in about a dozen LLCs, according to state filings.He raised $51,950, and had about $133,934 in his campaign fund, according to the Bipartisan State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement.He also was the first Senate primary candidate endorsed by Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham.Long, 35, is a Navy veteran. He said unlike his opponents his life resembles that of most of the voting public.said Long. His family income is between $60,000 and $65,000 annually.Long became involved in politics by advocating shared parenting and children's protections after he and his first wife divorced.Long supports House Bill 90, shifting money from Cooper's fund to school districts.He criticized corporate subsidies.Long said.Long raised $726 and had about $103 in his campaign fund, according to his report with the state Board of Elections.Hollo and Huffman did not respond to emailed questions from Carolina Journal, and could not be reached by phone.On his website Hollo says he will fight for increased access to quality health care at reduced costs, improve schools, and reward teachers. He said he would hit the ground running to tackle the opioid crisis, and stand up for conservative values. He said he led the way on stopping the expansion of Obamacare in North Carolina.Hollo said on his website.Huffman did not list an employer, and was living with his mother and stepfather, according to state filings. He said he did not earn more than $5,000 in 2017.Hi, Im Donna Lay, the author of historical fiction and true crime. I have written several books as a ghost writer and have started publishing my own books. I have published two books, ERA! and my latest is From Blackbeard To The Revolution a historical fiction written about the famous pirate Blackbeard, and Bath County, now known as Beaufort County.

From Blackbeard To The Revolution, is a historical fictional novel that is not written in the traditional manor as historical fiction goes. The pages are filled with entertaining character wit and dialogue giving it spice, and peppered with historical facts. As you read it, I hope you as thrilled with the story as I was to write it. To learn more about my upcoming books, visit my website: authordalay.com.

I will post excerpts from the book from time to time for you to enjoy. Read below what some of my readers had to say about the book.

Love Donna

"D. A. Lay's book, From Black Beard To The Revolution, tells the story of the early days of Bath County, and those who helped to influence its history. A wonderful read written in a way that is entertaining and educational." - Roberta E.

"As a lover of genealogy, history and good yarn, this book met all those needs. D. A. Lay has done a tremendous job in combining fiction with history and capturing the history and people of that area and time. I was drawn in and could not put it down. I would recommend this book to anyone who loves fiction and enjoys the history of Eastern North Carolina. A great read." - Marilyn Smith

Louis EdwardsJack Phillips and his attorney, Kristin Waggoner, outside the Supreme Court building after Oral Arguments. photo by Diane Rufino

We've all heard of the case of the Christian cake artist who declined to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple because of his deeply-held belief in the Biblical view of marriage. What most people don't know are the details of the case.For example, the cake artist is Jack Phillips and he and his cakeshop (Masterpiece Cakeshop) were found guilty of discrimination in Colorado, in violation of an anti-discrimination law, at a time not only when the state constitution defined lawful marriage as only between a man and a woman, but also the law stated that no other type of marriage would be legally recognized in the state.Also, for example, Phillips himself was discriminated against on account of his particular religious views when the state granted multiple exceptions to other bakers to deny goods and services (ie, to "discriminate") when themes offended their sensibilities.You hear people refer to the man at the center of the case as a "Christian baker." What you don't hear is people referring to him as a cake "artist." You will hear this case referred to as one addressing the baker's free exercise of his religion; what you won't hear is that this case is also about his freedom of speech and expression.Most people hearing the limited facts gravitate to an issue that they are familiar with - religion v. gay rights - or the Right of one person to the Free Expression of Religion vs. Society's interest in not having certain individuals suffer discrimination. They right away see that the right that the state of Colorado is violating in the case is Phillip's right to live his life according to his religious beliefs. They see that Colorado is more interested in protecting the rights of homosexuals than in upholding the most essential right of all - the First Amendment's religious liberty guarantee.As it turns out, the case has not moved forward on that legal theory but rather on one most people would never have anticipated. Instead, the case is one about the scope of the Right to Free Speech and Expression. Under this umbrella of speech and expression, Phillips is bringing in his right to religious liberty by asserting that his religious beliefs, his creed, dictates how he will expresses himself.This (long) article seeks to acquaint you with the details and the many issues involved, including its inquest before the Supreme Court.The Supreme court must decide whether the First Amendment bars application of Colorado's public accommodations law (aka, the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act) to compel a person to create expression (here, a wedding cake) that conflicts with that person's sincerely held religious beliefs about same-sex marriage. In other words, it must decide if Phillips deserves an religious exemption under the CADA.On Tuesday morning. December 5, 2017, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case (Phillips v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission). I traveled to Washington DC, to the Supreme Court building for this event because I wanted to hear the issues on both sides in order to fully understand this case. I heard the issues and now I believe I understand what the case boils down to, in the minds of the justices.It was interesting to learn that the views and concerns of ordinary people are not necessarily the views held by the justices of the Supreme CourtI snapped the photo above as Jack Phillips emerged from the Supreme Court building with his attorney Kristin Waggoner from the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). In their comments to the media and to the groups there in support of their cause, they were optimistic and hopeful. They appreciated the justices' questions and felt their case resonated with Justice Kennedy, the Court's critical swing-vote member.I hope the high Court will be able to weed out the critical issues at stake by the time it hands down its opinion next year, on June 26 or thereabouts.In July 2012, when same-sex marriage was still prohibited in the state of Colorado, residents Charlie Craig and David Mullins decided to get married in Massachusetts, where it was legal. They would return and celebrate with family and friends at a "wedding reception" for themselves in Lakewood, which is a suburb of Denver. When it came time to pick out a cake, they were referred by their wedding planner to the Masterpiece Cakeshop, also located in Lakewood. (The shop is located about 10 miles outside of Denver).The founder, owner, and proprietor of Masterpiece Cakeshop is Jack Phillips, a skilled baker and a talented artist. He calls himself a cake artist, and that is what he is known as. But most important for this case, he is also a devout Christian. His religious beliefs guide him in every aspect of his life, including his profession. "My bakery, the work I get to do... they are gifts from God and I want to honor him in everything that I do, including my art. When I finish in this life, I want Him to say: 'Well done. You've been a good and faithful servant." The name "Masterpiece" has particular meaning for him. First, it refers to artistry. Masterpiece Cakeshop indicates that the artistry is in relation to cakes - his cakes are artistic, not mass-produced. Second, the name "Masterpiece" refers to his belief that each person is created as a masterpiece by God. And third, the name "Masterpiece" includes the term "Master" which, as Phillips explains, references the gospel of Matthew which says that 'no man can serve two masters." (Matt: 6:24).Phillips believes he is serving Christ with each cake he makes. He especially believes so when it comes to creating wedding cakes. He sees a wedding as a religious sacred event and he knows the particular significance of the cake in the reception ceremony. The feeding of the cake to one another and sharing it with guests is probably the most significant part of the reception (with the giving of the toasts perhaps being the most entertaining!) Historically, the cake was a symbol of good luck, stemming back before Roman times - back to at least 1175 B.C. Of any form of cake, wedding cakes have the longest and richest history. In modern Western culture, the wedding cake serves a central expressive component at most wedding receptions; it not only communicates that the couple is now married, but forms the centerpiece of a ritual in which the couple celebrates their marriage by feeding each other cake and then sharing cake with their guests. Only a wedding cake communicates this special celebratory message; certainly the reception meal doesn't do this, nor does the liquor. Wedding cakes are so essential to a modern wedding that one author suggests, "A memorable cake is almost as important as the bridal gown in creating the perfect wedding." Because they are so important to creating the right celebratory mood, wedding cakes are uniquely personal to the newly married couple and require significant collaboration between the couple and the artist to create the perfect design.And so, Phillips devoted himself to creating a special unique cake for each customer, helping to celebrate the religiously sacred union of a man and a woman, and integrating his faith into each creation.The process of creating the perfect cake (the perfectly unique cake) involves input from the couple. Phillips meets with the soon-to-be man and wife to find out how they met, how he proposed marriage, what they love about each other, what their interests are... in short, what "their story is." Listening to the couple, Phillips tries to figure out what the predominant theme is to their relationship.... What it is about them that will hold them together and strong throughout their marriage. He wants the cake to embody that message as a way to celebrate their special day, and that is where the creativity comes in. He combines what he has learned about the couple, with some research, and maybe some meaningful phrases or words, to create an artistic cake that "shares their story" with family and friends. With each cake project, Phillips pours himself into its design and creation, marshaling his time, energy, and creative talents to make a one-of-a-kind "masterpiece" celebrating the couple's special day and reflecting his artistic interpretation of their special bond.Phillips opened Masterpiece Cakeshop in 1993 and has joyfully served the community of Lakewood for 22 years. In his years of business, he has been a part of major milestone events for many in the community. He's watched families grow from young couples requesting wedding cakes to parents requesting graduation cakes for their children.Wedding cakes and graduation cakes are not the only cakes created at Masterpiece Cakeshop. All kinds of people and groups have requested cakes for their various parties and celebrations. But Phillips is always guided by his conscience and his beliefs. And that has caused him to decline to bake cakes in the past. In fact, he has declined to bake cakes on several occasions since he started the business. He has turned down requests to create Halloween-themed cakes, lewd bachelor-party cakes, cakes with any type of profanity on them, cakes disparaging the LBGT community, cakes with anti-American themes, and a cake celebrating a divorce. No one has ever complained about these restrictions nor has he never been reprimanded over those decisions. But it would be the cake requested by Craig and Mullins that would get him in trouble.When the couple entered Masterpiece Cakeshop on that July afternoon in 2012, same-sex marriage was not allowed in Colorado; the Colorado Constitution stated that "Only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state." It was before the Obergefell decision which struck down state bans on same-sex marriages and gave the red light on gay marriage. That opinion wasn't handed down by the Supreme Court until 2015. Anyway, the couple arrived with Craig's mother and a book of ideas. As soon as the couple told Phillips that the cake was to celebrate their wedding, he cut them short and explained that he could not create a cake celebrating a same-sex wedding. As acknowledged by all parties, Phillips told the men, "I'll make you birthday cakes, shower cakes, sell you cookies and brownies, I just don't create cakes for same-sex weddings." He recommended a baker who would certainly bake them a special cake. The couple became very angry, swore at Phillips, flipped him off, and stormed out of the bakery.This point is very important: Phillips was willing to sell them any pastry, and any type of baked goods they wanted for their affair. And he was perfectly willing to sell them a cake, one suitable for a reception. But what he couldn't do, due to his religious beliefs, was decorate it with a gay wedding theme or to custom design one specifically celebrating gay marriage. As Justice Alito emphasized strongly during oral arguments, the record was undisputed that Phillips did not refuse to sell the couple a wedding cake; he refused to "create" a special cake for them. Phillips was very careful to use the word "create." (see pg. 67 of the transcript of Oral Arguments)The couple, as anyone would understand, felt humiliated and demeaned. The outcome at the bakery bothered Mullins so much that he immediately took to Facebook, describing in a public post what happened. "If you feel like the treatment we received is wrong, please contact Masterpiece Cakeshop and let them know you feel their policy is discriminatory."[NOTE: Colorado's state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage was struck down in the state district court on July 9, 2014, and by the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado on July 23, 2014. Furthermore, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals had already made similar rulings with respect to such bans in Utah on June 25 and Oklahoma on July 18, which are binding precedents on courts in Colorado].Pretty soon, newspapers started calling the couple. And almost immediately, members of the LGBT community and supporters began calling Masterpiece Cakeshop. Phillips, his daughter, and others were called all kinds of names and they began receiving death threats. According to Mullins, it was only after they were turned down service that they learned that Colorado has an Anti-Discrimination Act (the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act, or "CADA") which includes a provision banning discrimination, including based on sexual orientation, in public accommodations.The pertinent part of that statute reads: "(2)(a) It is a discriminatory practice and unlawful for a person, directly or indirectly, to refuse, withhold from, or deny to an individual or a group, because of disability, race, creed, color, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, or ancestry, the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations of a place of public accommodation......"Although Craig and Mullins easily obtained a wedding cake, and a free one at that, with a rainbow design from another bakery, they went ahead, on Sept. 4, and filed a charge of sexual orientation discrimination with the Civil Rights Division, the board created by CADA to review its complaints. Phillips responded in a timely manner and explained his refusal to bake the cake. Phillips argued that he did not discriminate based on sexual orientation in violation of CADA because his religious objection to creating custom wedding cakes for same-sex wedding ceremonies is based on the celebratory message those cakes promote. He explained that he serves all customers regardless of their sexual orientation. He simply believes that only marriage between a man and a woman should be celebrated. Thus, he declined to create custom art for a specific event because of the message it communicated, not because of the persons requesting it. In addition, he argued that CADA should be read narrowly to avoid a constitutional violation because requiring him to create custom wedding cakes to celebrate a same-sex wedding ceremony would violate the "Compelled Speech Doctrine" (an element of Free Speech) and his right to the Free Exercise of religion under the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the US Constitution.The administrative law judge ("ALJ") did not side with Phillips, declined to interpret CADA narrowly, and on May 2013, it filed a formal complaint against Phillips and Masterpiece Cakeshop alleging that the refusal to create a wedding cake celebrating Craig and Mullins' wedding constituted sexual-orientation discrimination in violation of CADA. It disregarded his religious liberty argument. It further alleged that requiring Phillips to create custom cakes to celebrate same-sex weddings did not violate his rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The ALJ reached this conclusion by not characterizing the cakes as "art" or "artistic creations"; in other words, because he did not characterize the products as "art" which implies creativity and expression, he avoided characterizing the cakes as speech and hence the First Amendment - and by incorporation to the States, the Fourteenth Amendment - do not apply.Again, note that the Commission interpreted the law to be able to force a baker to bake a cake to celebrate a same-sex wedding even though the state constitution said that "Only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state."Finding that Phillips violated the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act and rejecting his First Amendment defenses, the ALJ proceeded to order him to: (1) create custom wedding cakes celebrating same-sex marriages if he creates similar cakes for one-man-one-woman marriages, (2) retrain his staff to do likewise, and (3) report to the Commission every order he declines for any reason for a period of two years. In contrast, and this is especially important, while this case was still ongoing, the Commission found that three secular bakeries did not discriminate based on creed when they refused a Christian customer's request for custom cakes that criticized same-sex marriage on religious grounds (despite "creed" under CADA encompassing "all aspects of religious beliefs, observances, and practices ... including the beliefs or teachings of a particular religion").On Friday, Slate published a beautifully-written essay by Jamelle Bouie about the new National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, which pays tribute to those who were lynched by white mobs between the Civil War and the civil rights movement. Here's Bouie's description:Bouie's searing description of his tour of the museum is compelling stuff, and a necessary reminder of what many Americans once were. This description of lynching photos is heartbreaking and shocking:The pictures had a purpose: They were circulated by perpetrators as mementos, souvenirs, and propaganda, meant to warn blacks of the danger of stepping out of line, no matter how innocuous the offense. A 1935 photograph from the lynching of Rubin Stacy, a young homeless tenant farmer, shows the perpetrators and their families in comfortable, seemingly well-constructed clothing. The men are wearing slacks, the women and girls are in dresses. At their center is Stacy's lifeless body, hanging from a tree, his hands cuffed. One of the girls is smiling. A 1930 photograph from the lynchings of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, both 19, shows a crowd that is large, well-dressed, and visibly interested in the grim spectacle. Another photograph-from the 1916 lynching of 17-year-old Jesse Washington in Waco, Texas-shows a crowd of thousands watching as his body burns and smolders.But he goes wrong when he begins to compare the horrors of the past with the situation of black Americans today. He writes that some people may ask why the museum must exist - "Why dwell on this painful period of American history?" The answer should be obvious: to remind us what human beings are capable of, and to remind us not to answer the call of the evil impulse within us.But according to Bouie, that impulse isn't just something we have to fight, it's currently winning. Here's Bouie:We live in a moment when racism-explicit and unapologetic-has returned to a prominent place in American politics, both endorsed by and propagated through the Oval Office. And in that environment, a memorial to racial terrorism-one which indicts perpetrators as much as it honors victims-is the kind of provocation that we need, a vital and powerful statement against our national tendency to willful amnesia.What's the evidence that widespread racism is rearing its ugly head again? Bouie states:Except, of course, that nobody defended actions of the homeowner - and the man who shot at the teen was charged by police. The murderer of Renisha McBride was convicted of second-degree murder and manslaughter. In the era of lynching, the police would have stood by or helped out with the lynching itself.Bouie also tries to bring back the discredited "hands up, don't shoot" slogan from the Michael Brown trial:To pretend that the police of today are the police of Bull Connor is a lie, and an insulting one at that. But finally, Bouie gets to his main target: President Trump. He says of Trump:Lynching echoes in other ways. ... As a candidate for president, Donald Trump promised state action against Hispanic immigrants and Muslim refugees. Not as punishment but as defense-a way to keep America free of people that, in his view, cannot assimilate. How did he describe these groups? As "rapists," criminals, and drug dealers-dangerous gang members who defile and kill innocent American women. Far from repelling voters, this language primed and activated racial fear and resentment among many white voters, supercharging its electoral potency. Trump wasn't just defining an enemy, he was speaking a language of racial threat-of purity and morality-that has its roots in the lynching era.There's little question that Trump's language was overbroad and borderline racist (in the case of Judge Curiel, just plain racist). But the Trump talk Bouie references was of immigration specifically: he was talking about taking action against illegal immigrants and those who have not yet entered the country, not about citizens of the United States. That's a distinction worth noting at the very least. Trump certainly wasn't campaigning on the lynching of Hispanic Americans or black Americans or anyone else. Bouie concludes:Racism still exists in America. Racism will always exist. And it's deeply worthwhile for us always to remember our past, so that we can course-correct.But America has largely course-corrected. To ignore that fact is to destroy solidarity around racial progress itself by lumping today's Americans in with those who stood by as black men were lynched. Labeling all Trump voters racist, labeling our police departments racist, labeling white America at large racist, is disingenuous at best and highly damaging at worst to the promise of a better America.READ MORE: RACISMBusiness / Companies

by Staff Reporter

HWANGE Colliery Company Limited (HCCL) saw production rising by more than 100 percent to 232 000 tonnes in the first quarter of the year, driven mainly by the reliability of equipment and improvement in operational efficiencies, a top official has said.This comes at a time when HCCL has been implementing a Scheme of Arrangement that resulted in creditors agreeing to reschedule the US$352 million debt.The Scheme of Arrangement has afforded the 119-year-old coal mining firm some breathing space to allow it to finance production and boost output.HCCL managing director Engineer Thomas Makore told The Sunday Mail Business last week that the firm's equipment has generally been readily available and reliable, resulting in high output in the first quarter.". . . the company closed the first quarter of this year at about 232 000 tonnes, which is more than 100 percent improvement compared to the same period last year," said Eng Makore."I think this was mainly because of two major reasons; our equipment has been available and reliable, and we were able to improve the efficiencies in our operations."The company will continue on this path to make sure we turn the fortunes of the company that has been in operations for years."HCCL's production levels had recently tumbled on the back of obsolete equipment, even when the company invested US$31,2 million into equipment which was acquired from Belarus and India.Part of the equipment immediately broke down due to hydraulic system problems. But ever since the equipment was attended to, and the Scheme of Arrangement agreed to, production has been steadily rising amid high hopes that HCCL will soon receive machinery to enable underground mining.Said Eng Makore: "In the second quarter of 2018, we are pleased to announce that Hwange Colliery Company Limited's efforts to recapitalise and turnaround its fortunes will receive a major boost with the arrival of supporting equipment for our underground mine which includes the additional shuttle cars, a transformer, LHD, and a roof bolter, among other critical components."The move will allow the company's 3 Main Underground Mine to operate at optimum level from an average of 10 000 to 50 000 tonnes per month.Underground mining operations enhance HCCL's product mix, thereby improving product quality, production margins and revenue.Eng Makore said they are working closely with a European firm which will be conducting exploration and drilling at its new concession in Western Areas.Preliminary reports show that the new concessions have an estimated underground resource of about one billion tonnes. HCCL took delivery of its continuous miner, which was being repaired in South Africa, in August last year as it gears for underground mining. The continuous miner  which accounts for 45 percent of underground mining activities  had broken down back in 2014. When operating optimally, a continuous miner processes about five tonnes of coal per minute. The coal miner paid a deposit of US$1 million for repairs on the continuous miner to start.The payment came after the coal miner had secured a $3,2 million loan from some international financial institution to repair key equipment.Last year, Hwange said it required about $6 million to repair all its equipment. Underground mining helps HCCL to produce high value coking coal, making it a good addition to the company's product mix and consequently volumes and profitability.News / National

by Staff Reporter

Zanu-PF's Politburo has endorsed the candidature of just below 2 000 cadres who won intra-party polls to represent the ruling party in the 2018 harmonised elections.However, there will be re-runs in about 10 National Assembly constituencies because legitimate concerns were raised about the polling processes there.The thumbs up was given to around 200 National Assembly aspirants, 60 Senate candidates, 60 Women's quota representatives, 48 provincial council hopefuls, and about 1 900 prospective local authority councillors.The endorsements sound the death knell for several Politburo members and ministers who lost in the primaries as Zanu-PF continues on its renewal path.The candidates were to be officially named on Friday at Zanu-PF's 2018 Election Manifesto and Campaign Launch in Harare, but this was postponed to give the Politburo an opportunity to make a determination on grievances raised by losing aspirants.A record number of more than 8 000 candidates took part in the primaries that gripped national attention and showcased the ruling party's reinvigorated internal democracy.After yesterday's Extraordinary Politburo meeting, Zanu-PF National Secretary for Administration Dr Obert Mpofu said: "Sitting at our extraordinary session, the Zanu-PF Politburo has been deliberating on the primary elections which were held across the country from the 29th of April to the 1st of May 2018."A list of successful candidates to represent the party for the National Assembly, Senatorial seats, Women's representatives quota and councillors was approved by the Politburo."The results will be published by the Commissariat Department and communicated to all provinces in due course."The Politburo also resolved to send independent investigations teams to all areas where malpractices could have been conducted or noticed."As a party, the primary elections were a learning curve for our preparations for the 2018 national harmonised elections."The Politburo has also resolved to have a rerun in constituencies where gross malpractices were noted or identified. The Commissariat Department will inform the affected constituencies at the earliest possible time."Asked how many constituencies were affected, Dr Mpofu said: "They are very few, they are less than ten and they are mostly in Mashonaland West and Harare provinces. But full details of these constituencies will be pronounced by the Commissariat Department."We have areas where we have not received results and we expect to receive the results anytime from now and they are also going to be dealt in the manner other results have been dealt with."Dr Mpofu said the record number of participants in the primaries exhibited a healthy democracy in Zanu-PF.He said all candidates were expected to popularise the manifesto.". (On Friday) we launched our party manifesto, regalia and campaign for the 2018 national harmonised elections and now all our provinces are geared for the massive campaign with our President, Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa, as our Presidential candidate."The manifesto has been translated into most of the official languages and these have been distributed to areas relating to those languages in the manifesto. This is something we have not done before," he said.Dr Mpofu added:"Our regulations and guidelines state that if you have pending cases of criminal nature, you may not be allowed to stand for the elections."He said the arrest of candidates and members who tried to disturb the primary elections was an indication of President Mnangagwa's resolve to uphold the rule of law and promote free, fair and credible polls at party and national level.News / National

by Staff reporter

Tourism mother board, the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA), has said the Zimbabwe tourism destination is not ready for the Chinese market and must undergo training and certification to achieve this.ZTA chief executive, Dr Karikoga Kaseke recently said the Zimbabwean tourism sector is not China ready at the moment, and a lot still needs to be done.The China ready training prepares people and businesses for the opportunities of engaging with China and the Chinese.The Sunday Mail Business is informed that the Zimbabwean tourism sector is yet to be certified to receive Chinese tourism business and a lot of work still needs to be done.There has been a drastic decline of Chinese tourist arrivals into Zimbabwe over the past few years and the ZTA is targeting to bring at least 100 000 Chinese tourists into the country in the next three years.While Zimbabwe enjoys excellent relations with China, the country's tourism industry has not been able to fully tap into this huge market.Analysts are of the opinion that the country needs to translate the political goodwill into economic benefit.Said Dr Kaseke: "We need to train our inbound tour operators on China readiness. There is a training program that every hotel must undergo for it to be China ready."Everyone involved in tourism must undergo that training program and get certified so that they can deal with Chinese tourists."Other countries that have done that are now boasting of heavy arrivals from China. For example, South Africa and Zambia completed that last year. However, the China readiness program requires a bit of funding," said Dr Kaseke.Dr Kaseke said a country is deemed China ready when more than 60 percent of the country is certified ready to receive Chinese tourism business."Zimbabwe is not China ready. For as long as we remain on the terraces, we will continue admiring other countries that are reaping rewards from China," he said.China is currently the world's largest source market for outbound tourists and most countries are putting various strategies to tap into it.Pricing for tourism productsMeanwhile, analysts are of the opinion that Zimbabwe is an expensive tourism destination. They argue that Zimbabwe is pricing itself out of the market and needs to correct its fee structure for sustainable growth.Dr Kaseke agrees that the country is arguably one of the world's most expensive tourist destinations, noting that Zimbabwe could be prejudicing itself of thousands of potential tourists due to its exorbitant charges.It costs between $100 and $200 to book into a decent hotel, while the price can double in major tourist resorts like the Victoria Falls.Zimbabwe, as a destination, becomes even more expensive given the South African rand's slump against the United States dollar.According to the Zimbabwe Tourism Council (ZTC), South Africa contributes 30 percent of tourists that come into Zimbabwe every year.Dr Kaseke said for the destination to become more competitive, there is need to urgently address the pricing of tourism products in the country."Most tourists have been shunning this destination due to our pricing. I am sure this can be addressed. Our products are currently the most expensive."However, I am happy that the challenge of too many police road blocks is now a thing of the past," said Dr Kaseke.News / National

by Staff reporter

ZANU-PF has reaffirmed its commitment to fighting corruption with those caught on the wrong side of the law set to face the music.Over the years, the scourge had hampered economic growth.According to the newly launched Zanu-PF 2018 election manifesto, the fight against corruption is on the ruling party's top priority list.This year's manifesto is themed "Unite, Fight Corruption, Develop, Re-engage and Create Jobs" and was launched by President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Friday in the capital.The people's manifesto reads in part: "The people of Zimbabwe have demonstrated tremendous resilience and perseverance in the face of threats to achieving their aspirations, which have been championed by Zanu-PF over the years, despite facing a myriad of challenges that included MDC-engineered sanctions, corruption, State capture by the G40 cabal and HIV/AIDS and rising cases of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). "Corruption has been prevalent through bribery, embezzlement of public assets, fraud, smuggling, externalisation of funds, concealment of information, abuse of office for personal gain, extortion, misrepresentation, nepotism and tax evasion. This has greatly stalled economic development, ultimately robbing the people of decent livelihoods."The Zanu-PF People's Manifesto says the new dispensation has adopted zero tolerance to corruption. This has seen the Government embarking on a blitz to prosecute offenders.The new administration has already started fighting externalisation with about US$600 million of looted funds having been brought back into the country while those who turned a deaf ear on President Mnangagwa's amnesty to repatriate externalised money and properties face imminent arrest. A number of high profile figures including former Finance Minister Dr Ignatius Chombo, Mines and Mining Development ex-Minister Mr Walter Chidhakwa, Professor Francis Gudyanga (former secretary for Mines and Mining Development and Mr Walter Mzembi (Foreign Affairs former Minister), among others, have been dragged to court over corruption allegations.Former Higher and Tertiary Education Professor Jonathan Moyo, although he skipped the border, is facing fraud charges after misappropriating US$400 000 from the Zimbabwe Manpower Development Fund (Zimdef). In part, the manifesto also reads: "To buttress its stance on corruption, the public management and governance systems have been revamped to enhance efficient service delivery, accountability and transparency. A clique of corrupt and criminal counter-revolutionaries had coalesced around the former First Lady (Dr Grace Mugabe), took advantage of an aged former President (Mr Robert Mugabe) and illegally usurped executive power which they exercised without a Constitutional mandate from the electorate."This paralysed the Government machinery and hampered the implementation of policies, thereby depriving the people of much-needed development."Zanu-PF also paid tribute to thousands of people who took to the streets on November 18, 2017, demanding Mr Mugabe to resign after failing to uphold and defend the Constitution. "This ushered in a new dawn under a united and rejuvenated Zanu-PF, which respects the ideals of the liberation struggle and is committed to supremacy of the people's aspirations and their fulfilment under its reverent guardianship," reads part of the manifesto.News / National

by Staff reporter

ZANU-PF's election manifesto is just hot air and only proves the ruling party has nothing new to offer long-suffering Zimbabweans after 38 years in power, analysts have said.The party released its 2018 election manifesto - themed "Unite, Fight Corruption, Develop, Re-engage and Create Jobs" - last Friday at a colourful occasion in Harare, in which it made several promises to the electorate.With the country's economic crisis deepening, among a myriad other challenges, analysts believe Zanu-PF has nothing new to offer, especially considering it is yet to fulfil its 2013 election promises, which include the creation of 2,2 million jobs.People had expected some changes in the economy since former president Robert Mugabe's resignation last November, which saw President Emmerson Mnangagwa taking office, but five months down the line, nothing significant has changed. Mnangagwa has been pushing for economic reforms through engaging Western countries, claiming the "new dispensation" is aimed at improving the people's lives.But, political analyst Shakespeare Hamauswa, said so far, the "new dispensation" has remained theoretical."Zanu-PF is taking promises simply as expected statements given during an election time. It is not clear how they are going to build infrastructure, improve transport system and create jobs."They need to bring up clear and simplified policy alternatives than mere promises. When Mnangagwa came in they talked much about FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) and fighting corruption but what is happening is an increase in cases of corruption and continued cash crisis," he said.While Zanu-PF seeks to extent its 38-year rule with another five-year term, the past five years have gone by since the 2013 election and its 2,2 million new jobs promise has not yet been achieved, together with a host of "mega deals" with Russians and the Chinese signed over the years.For the past 38 years that Zanu-PF has been in power, it has been accused of running down the economy, with at least over 90 percent of the country's population driven into the informal sector.The health sector is also in shambles, with no medicine and sufficient equipment and civil servants are disgruntled over the conditions of service. Teachers have also threatened to down their tools when schools open on Tuesday.The party's promises have remained a pie in the sky and it is against this background that crisis-weary Zimbabweans and opposition political parties are seeking tohold Zanu-PF to account, after being sold a dummy on a number of occasions.Political analyst Maxwell Saungweme added: "Expecting Zanu-PF to deliver on these promises is like expecting the devil to deliver a church sermon based on the Bible."The guys at the helm of Zanu-PF and government are tried and tested failures who have been key drivers of failure under Mugabe regime."The manifesto, for instance, talks about eradicating corruption yet some of candidates for Parliament under that party were implicated as "currency externalisers" by the same Zanu-PF government."Unless we believe too much in miracles and not rational science and logic, expecting Zanu-PF to deliver on these promises is like promising to give birth before even getting pregnant."Respected political analyst Alex Magaisa, writing on his Twitter account, said Zanu-PF was associated with dodgy characters, because it promises to fight corruption, yet at the same time it protects the suspected criminals and retains them in its structures.Magaisa illustrated Zanu-PF's commitment to fight corruption through a picture of its manifesto, which alludes to its intention to deal with the scourge, while placing the picture of Home Affairs minister Obert Mpofu on the other side."Mpofu's attitude towards a parliamentary committee probing corruption in the diamond sector encapsulates Zanu-PF's approach to corruption. No wonder dodgy characters flocked to represent Zanu-PF in primaries," Magaisa said.This comes after Mpofu walked out on a parliamentary portfolio committee on Mines and Energy declaring that as long as the committee was chaired by independent legislator for Norton, Temba Mliswa, he was not going to give evidence.MDC's deputy treasurer general, Charlton Hwende, also criticised Zanu-PF's manifesto, claiming there is nothing new to expect, considering that the ruling party has not yet fulfilled the 2013 promises."As Zanu-PF prepares to launch its manifesto for 2018, not even one promise from the 2013 manifesto was fulfilled," he said.But some Zanu-PF activists, like Nick Mangwana, believe the party can achieve its promises."Realistic goals and targets articulated and not some pies in the sky," he said.News / National

by Staff reporter

It never rains but it pours for businessman, James Makamba.Less than five months following his return to his motherland, analysts fear that Makamba could be contemplating going into self-imposed exile once again after falling out with the new government of President Emmerson Mnangagwa.Makamba ended his 12-year-long absence in December last year and immediately claimed that he was answering Mnangagwa's call to Zimbabweans in foreign lands to return, help rebuild the economy and make the country great again."I feel great to be back home," he said as soon as he arrived. "Anyone who has stayed away from their respective home for an extended period of time will tell you that it is no fun being away from home."So much happens during your absence, in my case I lost a dear daughter, Chiedza, known to most people. Friends, relatives and family had to stand in on my behalf at her burial, a thing that I found extremely painful, but, however, life goes on."We are answering the call by the new president, Cde Mnangagwa, to come home, work with others in rebuilding our economy because Zimbabwe is going to be great once again."Upon returning home, he set his sights on the National Assembly, thinking that the new Zanu PF regime would allow him to represent Mt Darwin South constituency in the legislative assembly.That was not to be.While Zanu PF structures had initially cleared his name to stand in the party primary polls held last week, with the governing party's supreme decision-making organ in-between congresses  the politburo  even endorsing his candidature, there was a change of heart at the last minute.Suddenly, a decision was made to bar the businessman from contesting. His name had to be deleted from the ballot papers.Zanu PF insiders told the Daily News on Sunday that his name was withdrawn not because he had fallen short of the selection criteria.His coup de grace was the leaking of an audio, where he was gunning for Information Communication Technology minister Supa Mandiwanzira and accusing senior government officials, including Mnangagwa and his powerful deputy, Constantino Chiwenga, of failing to assist him regain control of Telecel.In the leaked audio, Makamba is recorded allegedly plotting a smear campaign against the minister.He is also heard taking a dig at Chiwenga and his wife, Marry.Political analysts yesterday said Makamba's political career was bleak.University of Zimbabwe senior lecturer Tawanda Zinyama told the Daily News on Sunday yesterday that if the video recording was anything to go by, then Makamba "will definitely have to go back to exile. This may take place soon after the general elections"."If he decides to stand as an independent candidate, no one can stop him. The question is, is he going to make an impact? No, he is different from a Jonathan Samukange or a Munyaradzi Kereke. Zanu PF will also frustrate and throw spanners along his political road," said Zinyama.In 2013, Samukange went through hell in Zanu PF in his bid to represent Mudzi South in the National Assembly amid fierce resistance from bigwigs in the ruling party.Samukange had to stand as an independent at the 2013 polls, which earned him summary dismissal although he was later re-admitted into Zanu PF after the tables were turned on those who were persecuting the top lawyer.Kereke, who rose to fame as an advisor to maverick former Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor Gideon Gono, went through a similar ordeal in his bid to represent Bikita West constituency.After a gruelling political battle, he won the seat but eventually lost the seat following his conviction for rape in 2016.Political scientist Ibbo Mandaza was blunt on Makamba's prospects of endearing himself with the current government in the wake of the leaked audio, saying he was his own worst enemy."This is not the first time that Makamba has been frustrated by Zanu PF and I don't know why he keeps going back there. He has been rebutted a few times before; this must be the third or fourth time. It's entirely his fault. Now they may pursue his old cases and we might see him running away from the country again," Mandaza said.An ally of the late retired army general, Solomon Mujuru, Makamba has never had it easy with the powers-that-be ever since the liberation war icon fell out with former president Robert Mugabe in the late 1990s over his continued hold on power.Born on January 1, 1952, Makamba  who could not be reached for comment yesterday as his mobile phones went unanswered and he did not respond to text messages forwarded to him  had his television project (Joy TV) shut down after it was refused a licence renewal by government in 2002.In 2004, he lost his investment at a farm he was leasing from government in Mazowe after he was evicted from the property. Makamba had borrowed heavily from a local bank to build Blue Ridge Spar Mazowe Supermarket, which had been officially opened by the then vice president Joseph Msika.His dream to become mayor for Harare had earlier been frustrated by Mugabe, who had also twice prevented him from standing as a Member of Parliament for Mt Darwin in 1996 and 1999.When he went into exile in 2005, he was being hounded by government for violating the Exchange Control Act.He skipped bail and fled the country as the State prosecuted him on charges of allegedly externalising 3,7 million, $2,1 million and R15 million.He set temporary bases in several countries before eventually settling in neighbouring South Africa.Although the official reason for his prosecution was that he had externalised funds, many still believed that he was suffering personal persecution at the hands of the then president, Mugabe; which perhaps explains why he did not wait too long to return home after the despot was deposed in a soft military coup last year.Political analyst Maxwell Saungweme said Makamba should not be fooled that things have changed."After elections, these chameleonic political beasts will show their true colours. So he has a high chance of facing the same fate he faced under Mugabe. This case shows that Zanu PF never changed a bit. It was merely removing a 94-year-old head and replacing it with a 75-year-old one," said Saungweme."The people who were persecuting him under Mugabe are still the same in power. It's only that they are trying to appear to be different, tolerant and keeping a veneer of democracy while eviscerating its very substance," he added.Makamba is an entrepreneur with a diverse portfolio of interests covering telecommunications, retail, mining and consultancy.He came to prominence as a disc jockey at the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation and was part of a consortium awarded a licence to operate the country's second mobile operator Telecel.businessman may go into exile again.News / National

by Staff reporter

Vice President Kembo Mohadi has donated two tonnes of mealie-meal to the disadvantaged communities in Bulawayo.Following a poor harvest due to erratic rainfall last season, Mohadi has donated some meali-meal to help the elderly and the vulnerable members of the community.Speaking on behalf of the Vice President, the Secretary in the Vice President's Office, Reverend Paul Damasani said their office is assisting the vulnerable in society and encouraged others to follow suit."This mealie meal was donated to a total of five churches that include the Anglican Church and UCC as well as the Bulawayo Residents Association," said Reverend Damasani.Some of the residents, who spoke to the ZBC News said they were grateful for the donation as their fields did not yield much this year.With climate change affecting agricultural practices in Zimbabwe, communities have been urged to find alternative sources of water such as water harvesting in order to irrigate their crops and guarantee food security for the nation.Opinion / Columnist

"President Emmerson Mnangagwa has reiterated his promise to deliver a free and fair election and is confident of winning the looming elections despite the rigging allegations and incidents of violence in the just ended party primaries," reported Bulawayo24."Mnangagwa took it to micro blogging Tweeter saying, "The upcoming elections will be free and fair, and l am confident that with this ambitious and achievable plan for Zimbabwe, we will be victorious. The voice of people is the voice of God!"Considering that President Mnangagwa has stubbornly refused to implement even one democratic reform one has to question his sincerity in his insistence these elections are going to be free, fair and credible. He has certainly known about the democratic reforms since Zanu PF was forced to sign the 2008 Global Political Agreement (GPA) following that year's landmark elections.The elections were noted for the blatant vote count cheating followed by wanton violence, the rigging was so bad that not even SADC and AU, known for turning a blind eye to questionable election processes, would pretend these were free and fair elections. It was SADC that proposed the implementation of a raft of democratic reforms, designed to stop Zanu PF rigging future elections and a repeat of the 2008 fiasco.When the Zimbabwe political players failed to get even one democratic reform implemented in the five years of the GNU, SADC did not hesitate for a moment in calling the 2013 elections to be postponed until the reforms were implemented."If you go into next month's election, you will lose; the elections are done!" SADC leaders warned Morgan Tsvangirai and his fellow MDC leaders.There tell-tale signs of vote rigging signs that SADC leaders had seen before the 2013 elections are there today too, since no reforms have been implemented since the rigged 2013 elections. Zanu PF has once again deployed the war veterans, Chiefs and security services personal to intimidate the voters as it did in 2008 and 2013. There is no free public media. Zanu PF is spending millions of dollars in its vote buying and other vote rigging schemes; all counted, it is set to spend as much as $4 billion compared to $2 million, at most, by the opposition.It is already a foregone conclusion that ZEC will NOT produce a verified voters' roll this year. There was no verified voters' roll and it opened the door to manner blatant vote rigging activities, as one can well imagine.It is no exaggeration, to say these elections are done!So, President Mnangagwa's continued insistence that these elections are going to be free, fair and credible when there is already glaring evidence to the contrary can only mean one of the following:1) Either President Mnangagwa has no clue what constitute free, fair and credible elections and so has never seen anything wrong with the way Zanu PF conducted the 2008 elections. He has never understood why the country needed to implement the democratic reforms and hence the reason why he has dismissed all those calling for reforms with contempt.2) Or else he knows what constitutes free and fair elections, after all it is common sense, but does not care. All he and his junta regime care about is that Zanu PF must retain absolute power at all cost.As one of the ordinary Zimbabwean who has been systematically denied their freedoms and basic human rights including the right to free and fair elections; I am pleased that the international community will be in the country to observe this year's elections. What every thinking Zimbabwean will be asking the observers to do is judge whether these elections are indeed free and fair."The voice of people is the voice of God!" True but first the elections must free, fair and credible and unscrupulous so! We must allow the international election observers to be the judge of that!Opinion / Columnist

Chamisa's personal friend, Bekithemba Mpofu wrote on his Facebook page that he was elated to be on the final MDC-T senatorial list. What a shame. The other article on Bulawayo24.com went on to say the VP presidential aspirant on the FRONT PAGE. It's quite disturbing that such a person who is not known in the MDC T structures could aspire for such an office.Bekithemba Mpofu was last seen on line in the MDC T structures during his student activism period with the likes of Chamisa. He just went awol for 15 years and has to be smuggled into the MDC-T senatorial list for Matebeleland South. What a shame. One person reached in Gwanda standing committee stated that people where given money, as in hard cash. He bought his way in the senatorial short list. What a shame.On the article he went on to articulate his academic and business achievements. I never read a single line he talked of his political life. Such is the man whom Chamisa want to impose on the people of Matebeleland.Matebeleland is full of able leaders who have been there throughout the struggle without stumbling or backtracking. Those have to be rewarded other than this friend of Chamisa.What is wrong with the leadership we have as far as imposition of leaders. For the last fourteen years Matebeleland was saddled to Thokozani Khupe who was imposed on them. This is what is being tried again by Chamisa.MDC-T is a democratic movement that should reward seniority, experience and loyalty and dedication to public service. It has able people in the form of Thabitha Khumalo, Gift Banda , Dorcas Sibanda and Felix Mafa Sibanda to mention but a few. It is my hope that the leadership of the party would see sense and do as the people want. Mnangagwa aptly says the voice of people is the voice of God. I hope Chamisa would respect the people of Matebeleland and do as they wish.Bekithemba Mpofu must realize that leadership is from the people and cannot be bought.Because we have good people who let bad people do bad, it's more likely he has paid the good people of Zim Eye and Bulawayo 24 to help him be VP and force him into structures of the party to enable this corn game. Chamisa Hand is written all over. This is one crime that should be used to impeached Chamisa if he ever wins the race. He will not be fit to be president if he continues this habit of imposing candidates as we the Zimbabweans and Bulawayo south residents are fools.We will be fools to allow Bekithemba to be here in our region. It is factual that he has been making calls to all Bulawayo structures paying many in a bid to be recommended to Chamisa. What a shame. All they must do is mention his name to Chamisa and Chamisa will do the rest. What a shame.Bekithemba has even called the Tsvangirai family members and promised them access to Chamisa after the rift occurred in the power wrestling by Chamisa. Remember how minions piled on gogo Tsvangirai and the family. The blood is still bad between Chamisa and the family. Here, Bekithemba has been promising them to be the ambassador for them to have access to Harvest house if they help him land the Senatorial post or the VP post. What an opportunist. We have a new nickname for you Bekithemba, "Opportunist Becky."Yes, Becky is a girl name for a white girl who is a prostitute."Hey Chamisa, go ahead and appoint your friend. Us here in Gwanda and Matebeleland South won't be voting for you at congress in 2019. It's been decided and we discussed how much foolish you must think Ndebele people are.We are not your children and we are not fools.Your actions will make many stay home and not even vote at all in the watershed election. Why risk a low turnout, even a 1% low turn out can be bad for all of us.OH, and by the way, KHUPE HAS ALL THE STRUCTURES HERE AND HAS MADE MORE INROADS. SUCH IS THE REASON WHY WE ARE LOSING TO KHUPE IF WE DONT ALLOW THE PEOPLE TO SPEAK.Voice of the struggle.Revolutionary Salutations.Thandekhile Dhlamini(Home Office)

50 crocodiles due to be bred for meat on a farm in Cambridgeshire have been seized at Heathrow Airport.

The juvenile Saltwater crocodiles, each around a foot in length, had been packed into five boxes and weighed around 40kg in total.

They were found by staff from City of London Corporation who were making welfare checks on the shipment, which had arrived on a cargo ship from Malaysia.

Although a permit was in place to allow the live creatures to be transported on the plane, it was discovered they had not been packed in accordance with regulations.

There was room for four crocodiles in each box, but 10 had been squeezed into each one.

(Home Office)

The year-old animals had also started to fight, as they hadnt been packed individually  a requirement under International Air Transport Association (IATA) regulations.

Grant Miller, head of the national Border Force CITES team at Heathrow, said: It is just not acceptable for reptiles to be transported in this way.

(Home Office)

The crocodiles had started to fight each other during the flight as space was limited, so little attention had been paid to their welfare.

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Andrea Gruber, International Air Transport Associations head of Special Cargo, said: The IATA Live Animals Regulations are the worldwide standard for transporting live animals by air and have been established to ensure all animals are transported safely and humanely.

Industry must comply with the Regulations, which are enforced by government authorities. Any failure to meet with the existing requirements can impact animal safety and welfare.

One crocodile did not survive the journey but the remaining 49 are being cared for and will be safely re-homed.Somewhat overlooked in Facebook's announcement this week that it will launch a new dating service was CEO Mark Zuckerberg's repeated commitment to have 20,000 people screening the platform for unwelcome content by the end of this year. The content Facebook says it wants to screen out ranges from fake news to violent livestreams.

But, those who've been investigating just how that content is screened out  and, more precisely, who is actually doing it  noted Zuckerberg didn't specifically say if those people would be employed directly by Facebook, or whether the work will be contracted to third-party contractors, as much of it is now.

"It's not just about the quantity [of people]. It's also about the quality," said Hans Block, a Berlin-based documentary filmmaker. "You have to train really well-educated people, a diverse number of people doing that job. Not just low-wage workers."

Block and Moritz Riesewieck's recently finished film The Cleaners investigates how companies like Facebook, Google and Twitter are dealing with the flood of violent and abusive content flowing onto their platforms.

Companies do not offer psychological support

They found much of the "cleaning" has been contracted to third-party companies in Manila, Philippines, who employ young workers to watch as many as 25,000 flagged images a day to decide what should be deleted.

"There are thousands of young Filipinos sitting in front of a desk, and they review child pornography, beheadings, terrorist videos, violence and all that cruel stuff," Block told The Investigators this week. "That has an effect on your mental health."

And the companies do not offer psychological support, he said.

- Watch the full interview with Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck on The Investigators, Saturday at 9:30 p.m. ET and Sunday at 5:30 p.m. ET on CBC News Network.

Block and Moritz Riesewieck began their project three years ago. Finding out how the work was being done was a difficult task. "The new tech companies are incredibly secretive," Block said.

Story continues

They gradually made contact with workers who revealed to them what the job is like.

"We chatted [online] with a lot of them and they gave us insights into their actual work," Riesewieck said.

The documentary illustrates the split-second choices the workers say they are asked to make about whether a video violates guidelines around sexual assault or child abuse, for instance.

Riesewieck said it wouldn't have been enough to simply send a hidden camera in with one of the screeners to document the work.

"It's about digging deeper," he said. Some of the workers they connected with ended up leaving the company and worked with the filmmakers to recreate their experiences using a vacant Manila office space.

"We could transport the feeling of somebody sitting on the 20th floor, high above the city of Manila, and getting all the material of the world on screen, and how overwhelmed somebody must feel being in that position," Riesewieck said.

No response from companies

Block says they've offered those who took part in the documentary the services of a psychologist.

But Riesewieck said in many cases, even where it appeared the work had taken a psychological toll, "most of them are actually quite proud about what they do because they told us 'we do one of the most important jobs of the internet, and the world should know what we are doing. Because without us, the internet would be a mess.'"

As to Facebook, Twitter and Google, all three of whom are featured, Riesewieck said they made repeated attempts to get the companies to comment.

"There was no response," he said. "We even sent them the finished cut and, no ... no reaction."

Also this week on The Investigators with Diana Swain: CBC Ottawa journalists David Cochrane and Lisa Laventure talk about their investigation into the role of a federal prosecutor in the extradition of a Canadian man.Jason Kenney vowed in a fiery speech Saturday to a hotel ballroom packed full of United Conservative Party members that he will fight the "green left," and cut off the foreign money he says is being spent by "anti-Alberta" groups.

The UCP leader outlined his strategies he would take to defend the oil and gas industry in an hour-long speech that frequently brought the crowd to its feet.

"If I am elected premier of Alberta, I will not relent. I will go to the wall. I will form alliances. I will go to court," Kenney proclaimed. "I will use every tool available to defend this province."

These tools include setting up a "fully-staffed, rapid response war room" within government to defend the resource sector and, "effectively rebut every lie told by the green left."

Kenney also pledged to establish a legislature special committee to investigate foreign funding behind "the anti-Alberta special interests."

"We will go to court if necessary to get the federal government to strip charitable status from bogus charities like Tides Canada and the David Suzuki Foundation," he said.

Kenney plans to travel to Ottawa Monday to appear before the House of Commons finance committee. He plans to bring the party's anti-carbon tax resolution that will likely be passed on Sunday.

Loud cheers

The hour-long speech, which Kenney said he wrote himself, repeated many familiar themes.

He criticized the NDP government for taking too long to fight for the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, allying themselves too closely with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and for turning the province into as a "fiscal train wreck."

But Kenney was rewarded with his biggest cheers of the night for stating the NDP was "re-writing the curriculum in secret" and engaging in social engineering in the classroom.

"If the NDP tries to smuggle more of their politics into the classroom through their curriculum, we will put that curriculum through the shredder," he said.

Story continues

He also addressed a CBC News story that revealed Alberta Premier Rachel Notley has received at least 11 death threats since she took office three years ago.

Kenney said frustration with the NDP government does not justify those kinds of vicious, personal attacks.

"If you feel that's what you need to do, well, shame on you and you're not welcome in the United Conservative Party," Kenney said.

Kenney was preceded by former Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall, who played to the crowd with jabs at the NDP governments in Alberta and British Columbia and self-depreciating remarks about his life after politics.

"Thank you for all the advice about my beard," Wall joked about his new look. "Not really interested.

"I'm going to shave it off when we defeat the carbon tax. Based on this room, I'm think we're closer to that than we ever thought."

Wall said if Kenney becomes premier, Saskatchewan will have an ally in fighting against the federal government's carbon tax.The Emergency Measures Organization in Saint John said Friday that another six inches of floodwaters will force the full closure of Westfield Road and it's urging area residents to get out of their homes while they still can.

If residents don't leave, EMO warns they do so at their own peril since "first responders may not be able to reach those who require emergency services."

The city said Friday night it anticipates having to close a large section of Westfield Road, from the Gault Road to Mellinger Crescent, sometime Saturday. That would isolate about 800 households.

Saint John police officers have been going door-to-door, encouraging the estimated 1,400 residents to leave voluntarily.

And New Brunswick Southern Railway once again offered a free one-way evacuation train shuttle Friday to residents in the recommended evacuation areas, including Morna, Morna Heights, Belmont, Ketepec, Acamac, and South Bay.

Another shuttle will run Saturday at 5 p.m.

On Friday, only one family took advantage of the train, which departed the WorksafeNB rehabilitation Centre at 5 p.m. and made stops at the Ketepec, Acamac Backland, Grenville Lane and Galbraith Property crossings.

Stephanie Fallon said she, her husband and their two young children had no other way to get out of the flood zone and they didn't want to end up stranded because she works in town and he attends college. They're going to stay with family.

The city hasn't had passenger rail service for years but the railway, part of Saint John-based J.D. Irving Ltd., has offered a train to assist with ongoing evacuation efforts.

The company also has a helicopter on standby for EMO to conduct aerial surveys of the flooding, said spokeswoman Mary Keith.

Tony Palise's house on Penny Roadway, just off of Westfield Road, is completely surrounded by water. His basement is flooded and his wife and dogs already gone, but he and his neighbour Wayne Chamberlain plan to stay put.

Story continues

"They came around and told us they might be closing the road," said Palise. "Wayne and I, our plan was, if we left our vehicles up there, we'd walk down the railroad tracks to get to the cars."

Chamberlain's house is higher, but he has still moved his family out. If he and Palise feel they're in danger, they will leave, he said.

"We certainly don't want to put anybody's lives in danger or anything, but when you're here, there's certain things you can control and help."

Juliette Bosse and her partner left the area late Wednesday night in case their road was closed or they lost water or electricity, but she said she understands why some of her neighbours won't leave.

"It's a hard decision to make and it's surreal," said Bosse, who went back on Friday to check their property on Atkins Roadway after spending two nights in a hotel.

"These are our homes that we get up everyday and we work hard to protect.  It's an individual decision."

Infrastructure damage

Water levels in the Saint John area have already hit record levels and they aren't forecast to let up in the near future.

The St. John River reached 5.5 metres Friday morning as forecast and the river is set to hit 5.9 metres by Monday morning, according to the province's Emergency Measures Organization.

Flood level for Saint John is 4.2 metres, and the 1973 flood, until now the worst on record for the city, was 5.31 metres.

- On mobile? Check out CBC NB's 2018 flood live blog here.

Geoffrey Downey, a spokesperson with New Brunswick Emergency Measures, said residents shouldn't expect water levels to go down anytime soon.

"Saint John has already beat its flood record, Jemseg and Maugerville are certainly on the cusp, and other points like Sheffield and Grand Lake and Oak Point, they could do so as well," he said.

Some city-owned infrastructure in Saint John has already been impacted by the flood.

Saint John Mayor Don Darling said the city has had to shut off some pumps at water treatment plants and more infrastructure damage could be on the way.

"We could have a loss of power, we could have a loss of water and we could have a loss of sewer," said Darling in an interview with Information Morning Saint John.

"Get out, stay out and stay away," mayor says

On Thursday, the Saint John Emergency Measures Organization recommended that everyone living on the Westfield Road between Gault Road and the eastern end of Mellinger Crescent get out of the area.

But the fact that no one took advantage of the evacuation train shuttle on Thursday didn't sit well with mayor Darling, who urged people in affected areas to leave.

"Get out, stay out and stay away," he said. "I think it's getting very serious here and there's a lot more water to come and it's unpredictable."

A voluntary evacuation order had been in place for several other Saint John neighbourhoods including:

- Randolph

- Ragged Point Road in the north end

- Beach Road by Rockwood Park

- Any isolated areas along the St. John River

As of Friday afternoon, 747 people from across the province were registered with the Red Cross as evacuees.

"We're encouraging people to [register] so we can have an accurate picture of an area and know that people are safe and OK," said the mayor.

Kevin Clifford, the head of Saint John EMO, said while evacuations are recommended, a mandatory evacuation is not likely.

"Ordering people to leave their home is a significant undertaking,"

"We really don't have the resources, we really don't want to do that."

Darling also urged people to avoid visiting flooded areas in and around the city.

"We don't need flood tourism, that's not an industry in Saint John," he said.

"Every time you drive down and take a picture of someone's house that they're trying to save from flood waters, can you imagine how that would feel if it were you?"

Weather and cancellations

Above-normal temperatures and rain are in the forecast for Saint John, which may exacerbate flooding.

Environment Canada is forecasting as much as 15 mm of rain overnight Friday into Saturday.

On Friday low tide will occur at 9:37 a.m. and 9:56 p.m. with high tide arriving at 3:46 p.m. The Belleisle Bay, Evandale, Westfield and Summerville-Millidgeville ferries are not running.

The Department of Transportation and Infrastructure was raising the landings at the Gondola Point ferry, so only one of the two ferries there has been operating most of Friday.

Road closures continue to pile up in the province because of flooding.

CBC New Brunswick's extensive list of road closures can be found here.As I am writing this, I have just been reflecting on another fantastic Anzac Day.

Anzac Day, after Christmas and Easter, has got to be one of my favourite days of the year. I just love the whole day, every Anzac day has been memorable for me for different reasons.

One year that particularly stood out for me was 2015.

Anzac Day 2015 reflections

I was living in South Grafton at the time and for the very first time I went to a Dawn Service in a Country town.

I had been going to the dawn service since 2010 after I was sent there as a Cadet Journalist to report on the Dawn Service for the local Radio Station. I have only missed one since.

I was in Sydney for two of them. I stayed very close to Martin Place both times and we went to the Dawn Service at Martin Place when we were in Sydney for those years. So I had been to Dawn services in Sydney and Canberra but never in a regional town.

I woke up at an ungodly but grateful hour and walked about 100m to the Post Office where they began the march to the cenotaph.

The idea of the veterans marching in front of the local battalion and then the community behind them on Anzac Day is one of the many reasons why country towns are so unique. The bond in the community is something that is very hard to create in a major cityeveryone knows everyone in the country and being together to honour those, especially from your town who served, died and fought in wars where there is a good chance you are standing next their grandson, is one of the many reasons why a Dawn Service in the country is so special.

So I found that so special, but what really completed the day was that I spent a good 15 hours from going to the Dawn Service with them at 5:30am til about 9pm with mates, and we just had a great time together.

We enjoyed a Rum and Milk after the first service, then we had breakfast together, went to the later service across the river in Grafton, before spending the rest of the day playing a bit of two-up, giving each other a bit of banter and watching the footy.

Anzac Day fell on a Saturday that year so we watched about four games on a Saturday. For this sports-tragic, watching four games of footy with my mates is very easy.

Why Anzac Day was so unique to me that year

This is what makes Anzac Day special to me: remembering those who paid the ultimate price for this nation, but also sharing it with your mates.

They died for their nation and their mates so we can enjoy spending time with our mates and that is Anzac Day for me.

For the last five years, I have lived away from my immediate family. I have no wife and no children, my nearest family is in the Hunter Valleya good 10 hour drive from where I live now and a good seven hour drive when I was living in Grafton, that has been my lot for the last five years.

My mates are my family. I believe when you are with those you love on Anzac Day and youre embracing the day together like we were in 2015, the Spirit of the Anzacs is well and truly alive and will continue from generation to generation, when mates embrace what Anzac Day truly is together.

I also really love seeing the kids involved. This year I was in Murwillumbah for Anzac Day and I thought the local RSL nailed it!

They got the school captains from the local high school to conduct the mid-morning service, plus it is also common in country towns to invite the school kids to march behind our Service Men and Women.

The Gospel is relevant at Anzac Day

Involving the kids and teaching the kids about Anzac Day and the spirit behind it ensures it lives on (if only we were this diligent about teaching our kids the Word of God!).

After all Jesus teaches us in John chapter 15 verse 13, Greater love has no one than this: to lay down ones life for ones friends.

Perhaps the Anzac Spirit of laying ones life down for their mates, can be found in Christ laying down his life for us.

When we discover that truth, we truly understand love and understand just what it means to love others. Then we have truly caught the Anzac spirit.

Ben Kruzins has earned a number of degrees and now in ministry at Ocean Shores NSW

Ben Kruzins previous articles may be viewed at https://www.pressserviceinternational.org/ben-kruzins.htmlFor the fifth time, Padron Cigars is releasing an exclusive pair of cigars to members of the Tobacconist Association of America (TAA). At this years 2018 TAA Convention held at Casa de Campo in La Romana in the Dominican Republic, Padron Cigars made a big splash bringing the Padron Black No. 89 as its contributions to the 2018 TAA Exclusive Series of cigars.

The Padron Black Label No. 89 is a rounded 6 x 46 Corona Gorda. It is available in both a maduro and natural format, but not much else has been revealed about the blend.

While the previous four pairs of cigars have been extensions to the Padron 1926 Serie or Padron 1964 Anniversary lines, the Padron Black is something that is quite different. At the same time, its not a completely new cigar. It was originally released as a special pair of cigars that was sold exclusively at Smoke Inn at a January 2016 event held to commemorate the late Jose Orlando Padrons 89th birthday. There it was simply known as the Padron No. 89.

Smoke Inn Owner Abe Dababneh confirmed on his KMA Talk Radio show on 5/3/18 that he spoke to the Padron family and they confirmed to him that the Padron Black Label No. 89 is indeed the Padron No. 89 birthday cigar for Jose Orlando Padron.

Pricing has been reported at $16.50 and the cigar will ship in ten-count boxes. Dababneh says the packaging will also be slightly different as the Smoke Inn release had the event date on it.

The Padron Black Label No. 89 marks the fourth time in five years, and fifth time overall, a pair of cigars has been made exclusively for the Tobacconist Association of America. Each installment has featured a natural and maduro wrapper. The other TAA releases include:

The Padron 1964 Anniversary Toro has been an ongoing annual TAA release. Meanwhile, the Padron 1964 Anniversary Belicoso and Padron 1926 Series No. 47 have been made regular production offerings by the company.SUNDAY, May 6, 2018 (HealthDay News) -- When it comes to having "the talk," many teens admit they're not communicating with their parents or their doctors about sex, new research reveals.

"Teens and young adults account for more STIs [sexually transmitted infections] than all other ages combined," said study co-author Dr. Kari Schneider, an assistant professor in the department of pediatrics at the University of Minnesota.

"Pediatricians and parents play a vital role in discussing STIs and safer sex practices with adolescents," she added in a news release from the Pediatric Academic Societies.

For the new study, researchers asked close to 600 teens, aged 13 to 17, how often they talked to their parents about sex.

The teens were also asked if they'd seen a doctor in the past year, if they had talked to a doctor about sex, and if they had been screened for a sexually transmitted disease.

In addition, the researchers polled 516 parents of teens, asking them how often they talked about sex with their children and if they were aware of discussions their child had with a doctor about sex.

The poll showed that 45 percent of the teens were not routinely asked about sex by their doctor. And sexually transmitted disease screening was offered to only 13 percent of them.

Interestingly, just 39 percent of the teens said they talked to their parents about sex, while 90 percent of the parents reported having such a discussion with their teens.

The researchers noted that teen girls were asked about sex more often than boys. And mothers were more likely to talk about sex with their children.

Race also played a role. White parents were more likely to discuss sex with their teenage children, but white teens were less likely to be offered screening for sexually transmitted diseases, the poll found.

According to the report, older teens were more likely to have discussions about sex and be offered screening.

The researchers pointed out that nearly half of the parents polled were aware of discussions about sex between their teen and a doctor, but 25 percent of the parents in the study didn't think these conversations should take place.

These findings were to be presented on Sunday at the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies, in Toronto. Research presented at meetings should be considered preliminary because it hasn't been published in a peer-reviewed journal.

More information

The U.S. National Library of Medicine has more about teen sexual health.The United States, the Global Coalition, and local partners, including the Syrian Democratic Forces, are launching operations to liberate the final ISIS strongholds in Syria. The fighting will be difficult, said State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert, but we and our partners will prevail. We will defend United States, Coalition, and partner forces if attacked. The days of ISIS controlling territory and terrorizing the people of Syria are coming to an end, she declared.

The United States will work with its NATO Ally Turkey and partners Israel, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon to secure their borders from ISIS. The U.S. will seek to share in a fair manner contributions in forces, material, and resources from regional partners and allies to stabilize liberated territories.

As President Donald Trump said in remarks with President Emmanuel Macron of France, we will ensure that there is a strong and lasting footprint in Syria such that ISIS cannot return and populations liberated from ISIS are not exploited by the regime of Bashar al-Assad or its Iranian supporters.

The U.S. will seek to reinvigorate the Geneva process under United Nations Security Council Resolution 2254, and mobilize international resources to address Syrias urgent humanitarian and stabilization needs. Syrias civil war is in its eighth year. The carnage has been unspeakable: hundreds of thousands dead; millions displaced; untold thousands disappeared into prisons.

The United States is committed to ensuring a future political settlement in Syria that honors the will of all Syrians, including Sunni Arabs, Kurds, Christians, Turkmen, and other minorities.President Donald Trump has said that other than the vast military power of the United States Iran's people are what their leaders fear the most:

This is what causes the regime to restrict Internet access, tear down satellite dishes, shoot unarmed student protestors, and imprison political reformers.

The fear the President spoke about was in evidence again this past week when Irans judiciary ordered internet providers to block access to Telegram, the popular messaging app used by a reported 40 million Iranians.

State media claimed the move came in response to complaints against the Telegram social networking app by Iranian citizens, and based on the demand of security organizations to confront the illegal activities of Telegram.

In fact, Irans leaders put the ban in place after Telegram founder Pavel Durov refused to accede to their demands to shut down Telegram channels that were used by peaceful protesters.

In recent months Iran has seen several peaceful protests, including the large anti-government demonstrations that started in December; the protests throughout the country against the compulsory hijab; and the demonstrations in Ahwaz and other towns in Khuzestan province by members of the Arab minority.

Human Rights monitors have condemned Irans banning of Telegram. Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East Director at Human Rights Watch said, Iran is again stifling access to information to try to make its problems go away, but censorship should never be used to protect leaders from scrutiny. Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran, called the ban on Telegram another example of the states blatant hostility toward freedom of speech and a futile attempt to block the free flow of informationThe only thing Iran has achieved by blocking Telegram is revealing its fear of its own people being able to freely access information and communicate.

As U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan has said, The right of peaceful assembly and freedoms of association and expression are the legitimate expectation of all individuals worldwide. Unfortunately for the Iranian people, these human rights are under attack almost daily.

It is past time for the Iranian government to stop violating the Iranian peoples human rights, and, as President Trump has challenged it to do, begin serving them instead.Daughters of Reformist Green Movement Leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Zahra Rahnavard have refuted statements by some Iranian political figures, who had claimed Ms. Rahnavard is no longer under house arrest.

The couple and reformist cleric Mehdi Karroubi led the Green Movement following the disputed 2019 re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but security forces put them under house arrest in February 2011 after months of massive protest demonstrations by citizens who believed the election was rigged and that Mousavi had won it.

Reformist daily newspaper Etemad on Sunday May 6 quoted Esmail Dousti, a prominent member of Etemad Melli Party, as having said that Ms. Rahnavards problem has been solved and she is free to come out of her house and go back there as she wishes.

Meanwhile, reformist MP Qasem Mirzai Nikou told the Iranian Labor New Agency (ILNA) that Irans Supreme National Security Council put an end to Rahnavards house arrest two months ago.

Nikou added in another interview with pro-administration website Entekhab that it was Rahnavards own choice to remain indoors with her husband Mir Hossein Musavi.

Rahnavard and Mousavis daughters have rejected these statements by as fabricated news and told opposition website Kalemeh that their parents are still in custody in their home and no measure has been taken to put an end to their house arrest.

In February, when Rahnavard was allowed to go out of her house in order to attend her mothers funeral, she denied earlier reports that claimed the government had lifted the ban on her freedom of movement.

Putting an end to the house arrest of the three Green Movement leaders was one of President Hassan Rouhanis election campaign promises in 2013 and 2017, and he has been under constant pressure by the inmates supporters to try to secure their release. However, hardline political and judiciary officials have refused demands for releasing Musavi, Rahnavard and Karroubi.

Restrictions on the trio appeared to have been relatively relaxed in mid 2017 when several politicians, often linked to security organizations, held meetings with Mehdi Karroubi at his house.

Dousti had said at the time that Karroubis relatives are allowed to visit him.

ILNA on Sunday quoted Karroubis son, Hossein, as having said that family members now have regular meetings with the cleric under house arrest, adding that Mousavis sisters and brother have recently visited him and Rahnavard, and that the couples daughters can now stay over with their parents when they want. He said that is also true about Karroubis children who can now spend the night at their fathers house.

The outspoken parliament Deputy Speaker Ali Motahari has said that the reason why the house arrests have been prolonged is the disagreement between Judiciary and security officials.

Former President Mohammad Khatami has recently criticized Rouhani for not being serious in pursuing the issue of putting an end to the three politicians house arrest.

Members of a parliamentary committee that closely follows the matter have said Rouhani has refused to meet with them.Some representatives, who see the good that chaplains can provide, particularly when they are chosen in a nonpartisan manner, have put forth the idea that Congress should overrule Ryan and rehire Conroy. Conroy seems to be pressing this by rescinding his resignation. Since Ryan is essentially a lame duck, albeit one who can still quack from the speakers rostrum, it is quite possible that the returning members can do so as soon as Ryan vacates his office, or is replaced in January. On this point, the House is showing its fractiousness when compared to the Senate, where Seventh-day Adventist chaplain Barry Black seems to be steering clear of controversy. It should be noted that Conroy is the first chaplain to be dismissed in this way. The fact that both Conroy and Ryan are Catholics adds some extra theological intrigue to their parish pews.

While I tend to side with Madison and Zorn, I believe that it is important that chaplains be provided with freedom of the pulpit when they are asked to pray, and not to do the bidding of either party.The most influential Sunni cleric in Iran, Molavi Abdul-Hamid Ismaeelzahi, has once again called on the Iranian authorities to respect the constitution and end discrimination against minorities.

Molavi Abdul-Hamid, also known as Mawlana (Our Master) among Sunnis, said on May 4 that banning Iranian Sunni clergy from traveling to other Sunni-populated regions of the country is explicitly against the Iranian Constitution.

High-ranking Sunni clergies in Irans Sunni populated provinces including Kurdistan, as well as Sistan and Baluchistan have recently complained about a travel ban imposed on them by security officials.

Delivering his Friday Prayer sermons in the city of Zahedan in Sistan and Baluchestan Province, Molavi Abdul-Hamid insisted such security bans should be lifted. According to the constitution, no organization has the right to ban an Iranian citizen from traveling to different parts of the country, the Sunni Online website cited him as saying.

According to his official website, Molavi Abdul-Hamid is banned from traveling outside Sistan and Baluchestan Province, although he is allowed to visit Tehran. He first broke the news about the ban in October 2017.

Previously, intelligence agents had barred the Sunni cleric from attending funerals in Khaf and Taybad in Razavi Khorasan Province, and Rameshk, in the province of Kerman.

In mid-April, the dean of Imam Bukhari Religious Sciences School (a Sunni seminary), Hassan Amini, also criticized restrictions imposed on Sunni clergy, saying the situation for them had worsened during the presidency Hassan Rouhani who is considered to be a relatively moderate official.

Another prominent Sunni cleric, the Baluchi Sunnis Friday Prayer leader in Azadshahr, Mohammad Hussein Gorgij, also criticized the Rouhani administration for the travel ban.

Rouhanis Intelligence Ministry banned Gorgij from traveling to Sistan and Baluchestan for a Sunni clergy graduation ceremony in Zahedan on April 12.

Officials should not act according to their personal views. It is unfair to forbid your fellow countrymen from travelling around in their own country, Gorgij said, adding that Sunni clergy should be free to take part in such ceremonies; it strengthens national unity.

Last August, Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei remarked on the need to respect Sunnis rights.

All elements of the Islamic Republic are duty-bound, in accordance with the religious teachings and the constitution, to refrain from allowing any discrimination and inequality among Iranians from any ethnicity, race or faith, he said.

Sunnis are not the only religious minority in Iran suffering from what they have described as totally illegal and unjust discrimination. The followers of the other three officially recognized religions -- Zoroastrianism, Judaism, and Christianity -- are also deprived of the right to serve in high governmental posts. Meanwhile, followers of Bahaism are even deprived of many basic rights, including the right to higher education.Baku, Azerbaijan, May 6

Trend:

Over the past 24 hours, Armenias armed forces have 82 times violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said May 6.

Armenians were using sniper rifles and heavy machine guns.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.Baku, Azerbaijan, May 6

Trend:

On May 5-6, 2018 the 45th session of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) member states was held in Dhaka, Peoples Republic of Bangladesh, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said in a message.

The delegation headed by Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov represented Azerbaijan at the event. At the session Mammadyarov delivered a speech.

Dhaka Declaration adopted at the Session (para18) underlines the need for earliest political resolution of all crisis and conflicts in order to avoid their negative and destructive impact in accordance with the principles of the UN and OIC Charters and in this context, reaffirms firm solidarity with Azerbaijan and stresses the resolution of conflict on the basis of principles of territorial integrity and sovereignty.

The session adopted a number of important resolutions on Azerbaijan, including resolutions on Armenia's aggression against Azerbaijan and the destruction of religious and cultural heritage in the occupied territories.

The resolution entitled "The aggression of the Republic of Armenia against the Republic of Azerbaijan" demands the implementation of the relevant UN Security Council resolutions and expresses concern that Armenia has not yet implemented demands contained therein. Also, all states are urged to refrain from providing any supplies of arms and military equipment to Armenia and not to allow the use of their territories for transit of such supplies. At the same time, acts of destruction, plundering and vandalism of archaeological, cultural and religious monuments in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan are sharply condemned.

It also calls for the earliest settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict on the basis of sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability of the internationally recognized borders of the Republic of Azerbaijan, in accordance with the generally accepted norms and principles of international law, relevant UN Security Council resolutions, as well as OSCE documents and resolutions.

Another important issue in the aforementioned resolution is that the Council of Foreign Ministers decides to instruct the Permanent Representatives of Member States to the United Nations, while voting in the UN General Assembly, to give full support to the issue of territorial integrity of the Republic of Azerbaijan. The resolution also reaffirms its total solidarity with and full support for the efforts undertaken by the government and people of Azerbaijan to defend their country.

The resolution titled "Solidarity with the Victims of Khojaly Massacre of 1992" strongly condemns the mass atrocities against the Azerbaijani civilians and military personnel committed by the armed forces of the Republic of Armenia in the town of Khojaly, Republic of Azerbaijan, in February 1992, and other occupied territories of the Republic of Azerbaijan during the conflict. It also calls upon Member States to exert due efforts for recognition of the crimes perpetrated in the town of Khojaly and other occupied territories of the Republic of Azerbaijan during the conflict as war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide at the national and international levels.

The resolution also highlights the activity of the "Justice for Khojaly" International civil awareness campaign, and invites Member States to continue supporting the campaign and actively participate in its activities.

The resolution adopted under the name of "Destruction of monuments belonging to Islamic history and culture in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan as a result of Armenia's aggression against Azerbaijan" describes historical, cultural, archaeological, anthropological and ethnographic monuments and cultural samples of the occupied territories of Azerbaijan as an integral part of the Islamic heritage and strongly criticizes the destruction of that heritage.

It is noted that the Republic of Armenia by such actions has violated the Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property and its Additional Protocols during armed conflicts.

The resolution titled Higher education matters highly appreciates the establishment of 100 scholarships within the five year program for the students from the OIC member states by the Government of Azerbaijan.

The resolution entitled Candidacies for positions at the international organizations called the member states to support the candidacies of Azerbaijan in hosting Expo-2025 and election to the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage.Baku, Azerbaijan, May 6

Trend:

Relations with the dynamically developing Azerbaijan - a progressive, open Muslim country are of particular value for Israel, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak said in an interview with stmegi.com portal.

In my opinion, both countries are young modern nations with a thousand-year history and great traditions of seeking peace and stability. We have developed interaction and cooperation in such areas as defense and security, which benefits both sides. We have taken important steps in many other areas, he said.

He noted that Israel especially appreciates the open dialogue held with Azerbaijan under the leadership of the national leader of the Azerbaijani people Heydar Aliyev.

I am proud to have personally known him and worked with him on international issues as the prime minister of Israel. And, of course, we are happy to work with the highly respected President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, Barak added.

The politician said that the countries already cooperate in many spheres, and expressed confidence that agriculture could be a promising area for cooperation, where Israel can develop progressive and efficient agrarian systems.

Another field of cooperation may be the energy sector, where Azerbaijan has had vast experience in such fields as oil, gas, pipelines. Israel is a newcomer to this field and can learn a lot from Azerbaijan," the former minister added.

Ehud Barak also noted that a long history of the great tolerance under which Jews lived among the Azerbaijani people can become an example for the whole world.

Jews from Azerbaijan play an ever-increasing role in all spheres of life of Israeli society and are a living bridge between our peoples, Barak said.

Regarding cooperation in the military sphere, Barak said that today the Azerbaijani-Israeli military cooperation is developing very actively.

Baku buys drones and armored vehicles, anti-tank missiles, antiaircraft and many other modern weapons from Israel. Some of these weapons were successfully used in combat conditions. By the way, during the years of cooperation, Israel and Azerbaijan signed contracts worth almost $5 billion, most of which, as President Aliyev noted earlier, has already been realized. According to the recently published report of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Azerbaijan is among the three largest buyers of Israeli weapons, military equipment and technology. According to SIPRI, Azerbaijan has bought arms from Israel for $137 million", he added.Baku, Azerbaijan, May 6

By Azad Hasanli  Trend:

On May 7-8, Baku will host a meeting of the Global Gas Flaring Reduction Partnership (GGFR), initiated by the World Bank (WB), the local office of the World Bank told Trend.

The representative office noted that this year marks the 10th anniversary of the accession of the Azerbaijani state-run company SOCAR to this initiative. In this regard, it was decided to hold an event in Azerbaijan.

The participants of the Baku meeting will discuss the elimination of barriers impeding the reduction of gas flaring through the use of international experience and the implementation of special country programs, the experience of SOCAR in this area, and other issues.

GGFR assists governments and oil companies in their efforts to reduce the flaring and dispersion of gas in fields around the world, including Europe and Central Asia (Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan). As previously reported by the World Bank, these countries have approximately the same conditions and experience similar problems in the reduction of associated gas flaring.

In 2017, SOCAR reduced gas emissions under its projects to 5.891 million tons. Since 2010, harmful emissions have been reduced by 45 percent.

According to the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources, Azerbaijan's emissions total 51 million tons per year, which is about 30 percent lower than in 1990. Azerbaijan hopes to reduce this figure by another 35 percent by 2030 as a contribution to global efforts against climate change.

Experts say 140 billion cubic meters of associated gas are flared annually at oil fields around the world, resulting in emission into the atmosphere of more than 300 million tons of carbon dioxide, which is equivalent to exhaust emissions from about 77 million cars.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @AzadHasanliTehran, Iran, May 6



By Kamyar Eghbalnejad - Trend:



Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zangeneh warned that the global energy market should not be politicized, noting that the market should be managed free from politics.



Politicizing the energy market through imposing financial, commercial and technological restrictions on major producers and clients could harm the market, Zangeneh said on Sunday addressing the 23rd International Oil, Gas, Refining and Petrochemical Exhibition (Iran Oil Show-2018) Tehran.



He added that Iran has practically proved in its trades that it has safeguarded a free trade system and the issue of energy security in the global market free from politics.



The International exhibition kicked off in the Iranian capital Tehran on Sunday.



Exhibitors from 38 countries represented over 4,000 Iranian and foreign international companies at the showcase, touted as the largest annual convention in Iran's petroleum industry, Shana reported.



The four-day exhibition is sponsored by the Iranian Ministry of Petroleum and its subsidiary the National Iranian Oil Company.



The exhibitors see the event as a great opportunity to directly get in touch with major foreign companies and domestic producers to undertake mutual cooperation and strike contracts in the upstream and downstream oil sectors.



Last year's exhibition was attended by 800 international companies from China, South Korea, Turkey, Italy, Spain, France, Austria, Germany and Finland.Tehran, Iran, May 6



By Kamyar Eghbalnejad - Trend:



The managing director of Tehran refinery said the factory has signed agreements with two Japanese corporations to enhance the quality of its gasoline.



Tehran refinery has inked two memoranda of understanding with the Japanese corporations of JGC and Marubeni to improve the quality of its gasoline and cut down its use of fuel oil, Lotfollah Hangi said, according to a statement released by Irans Oil Ministry on Saturday.



With the implementation of the first part of the agreements, Tehran refinerys gasoline output will increase by 24 percent, he said.



According to the terms of the deals, the two Japanese corporations will build gasoline-processing units at the refinery to delete Benzene, adopt tougher quality standards for gasoline and finally produce Euro-5 quality gasoline, Hangi further said.



The project will be completed within three years, he said.



Gasoline production turned into Irans strategic vulnerability after the West started imposing sanctions on the country in 2012.



The countrys total production of gasoline, as announced by the NIORDC (the National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company), stood at 74.4 ml/d on average, around 8 percent higher than a similar period in 2016.



Production of normal gasoline also saw a rise of 4 percent, reaching as high as 48.7 ml/d.



The bulk of Irans gasoline production came from Shazand with 15 m/d. Other top producers were Abadan and Isfahan refineries with a similar production capacity of 11 ml/d.



The NIORDC further in its statement said the production of gasoline from the newly inaugurated Persian Gulf Star Refinery stood at 3.5 ml/d, adding that this could rise to as high as 12 ml/d within the next few weeks.Tehran, Iran, May 6

By Kamyar Eghbalnejad - Trend:



Purchase of short-haul regional planes by Iran following the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers has revived the countrys small airports, a report said.



According to the report from Iran's Ministry of Roads and Urban Development, plans for adding 20 planes to the countrys ageing aviation fleet in the light of the nuclear agreement has made Irans small airports busy again.



The 20 aircraft are ATR 72-600s, which flag carrier Iran Air signed in 2017 as part of the countrys bid to renew its aviation fleet after years of sanctions.



Iran took delivery of the first four ATR aircraft in May and two more in September. So far, Iran has received eight new ATR turboprops. The rest are expected to be delivered to the country by the end of 2018.



The 70-seat planes are aimed at underserved local economies, used in flights over a maximum distance of 1,528 kilometers. They will be operating among regional cities as part of a commercial plan, covering a populous crescent straddling Irans northwest and northeast.



Iran Air, using the short-haul planes, have been able to establish routes among various cities, including Sanandaj, Abu Musa, Sari, Jahrom, Khoy, Pars Abad, Bandar Lengeh and Kalaleh, the report added.



Irans aviation officials have reportedly said the ATR fleet are based in the Caspian city of Rasht to connect small towns to big cities, such as Tabriz and Mashhad in Iran and the Azerbaijani capital of Baku.Tehran, Iran, May 6



By Kamyar Eghbalnejad - Trend:



Deputy Managing Director of NIOC (National Iranian Oil Company) for Development and Engineering Affairs Gholamreza Manouchehri said Iranian contractors will develop the countrys major oil projects in the south of the country under the engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contracting arrangement.



Some 35 EPC contracts worth $6 billion will be awarded to Iranian contractors to implement major oil and gas projects in the countrys southern Khuzestan Province, Manouchehri told the Trend news agency on May 6.



He added that contractors are required to source their equipment from domestic companies in line with the policy of job creation and avoiding capital flight.



The senior Iranian oil official also said that the NIOC has set sight on more than 100 projects in the current Iranian calendar year, beginning March 2017.

Iran needs foreign investments to search and increase the production potential of its oil and gas fields, since the production capacity of Iranian oil wells annually falls by 8 percent.

The Islamic Republic is expected to find many foreign investors for the development of its oil and gas fields. Presently, contracts have been signed for the development of the 11th phase of South Pars (the South Pars gas field is the biggest in the world, with reserves of 14 trillion cubic meters of gas and 18 billion barrels of gas condensate) with France's Total and China's CNPC, as well as a contract for the re-development of the Aban and Paydare Qarb oil fields with the Russian company Zarubezhneft.Baku, Azerbaijan, May 6

Trend:

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that the possible US withdrawal from the nuclear deal next week will not bring any change to lives of Iranians.

Rouhani made the remarks May 6 while addressing a group of people in north-eastern city of Sabzevar, Razavi Khorasan province, the state-run IRINN TV reported.

Rouhani said that the Islamic Republic has a plan for every decision that the US President Donald Trump may make.

Trump said that he wants to reimpose US sanctions on Iran that were lifted in 2015 in exchange for Iranian commitments to curb its nuclear program.

He has given UK, France and Germany - which still back the deal - a May 12 deadline to fix what he views as its flaws. These include its failure to address Irans ballistic missile program, the terms by which inspectors visit suspected Iranian sites, and sunset clauses under which some terms expire.

Meanwhile Rouhani said that all countries excluding the US, Saudi Arabia and Israel say that the nuclear deal reached between Tehran and the six world powers is good.

He added that the Islamic Republic will not negotiate over the arms and its defence capabilities.

We will produce and store as many as missiles that the country needs, Rouhani said.

He further said that if the US exits the nuclear deal it will soon face a historic regret.

Necessary directives have been given to related organizations and the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) to proceed in case of the US withdrawal from the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action aka nuclear deal).Baku, Azerbaijan, May 6

Trend:

An Iranian MP said that the countrys Supreme National Security Council has lifted the house arrest of Zahra Rahnavard, a dominant opposition figure.

Qasem Mirzaei Nikou told ILNA news agency on May 6 that the Supreme National Security Council, in a mandate, has lifted the eight-year-long house arrest of Zahra Rahnavard, wife of opposition leader, Mir Hossein Mousavi.

However, he added that Rahnavard has decided to stay with her husband.

Mehdi Karroubi, Mousavi and Rahnavard have been under house arrest since 2011 due to protests against the disputed presidential elections of 2009.

The arrestees, as well as their supporters, even sometimes senior conservative politicians such as MP Ali Motahari, have denounced the house arrest as unjustified, calling for legal proceedings to be taken against them.

In 2009, after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected president of Iran for the second term, the opposition leaders protested the decision, which later resulted in massive protests across Iran, in particular in Tehran. Many people were arrested.Tehran's Prosecutor Abbas Ja'afari Dolatabadi says 16 women have been sentenced to prison terms for joining Daesh terrorist group, Press TV reported.

Dolatabadi added on Sunday that the women were also ordered to turn over more than three billion rials (about $72,000), which they had received from the terrorist group.

He noted that the women had gone to Syria to join and support Daesh Takfiri group and had received training to carry out acts of terror. They also conducted some operations there.

The Iranian judiciary official said the female terrorists were arrested upon their return to Iran from Syria.

This is not the first time that Iran's security forces arrest members of the Takfiri terrorist outfit.

A division of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said in January that it had arrested a number of Daesh terrorists in the west of the country.

Following intelligence activities, the IRGC Ground Forces' Najaf Base engaged in clashes with 21 members of the Daesh terrorist group, who had entered the country through its western borders.

Brigadier General Mohammad Pakpour, the commander of the IRGC Ground Forces, said that 16 Daesh terrorists were arrested during the operation while a number of them were killed.

Iranian security forces also in June 2017 arrested a number of terrorists linked to Daesh before they could carry out any act of terror in the countrys religious cities.

According to a statement by Irans Intelligence Ministry, Iranian security forces managed to identify and arrest the Daesh-linked terrorists, who were planning to carry out terrorist acts in provinces deep in the country as well as religious cities.Baku, Azerbaijan, May 6

Trend:

Historically, politically, physically and financially Armenia is a burden for Russia, Mikhail Leontyev, well-known Russian journalist and TV anchor, vice president and spokesman for Rosneft oil company told Komsomolskaya Pravda radio station.

"There was such a burden from the very beginning, he said. If Armenia wants to get out, then lets sort things out. Now Armenia is holding rallies for a man who was making his political career with an intention to get out. This was the main point of his political manifestation. Stop spoiling our relations with fraternal Azerbaijanis.

Leontyev said that Russia itself will not betray Armenia.

"We will never do it ourselves because we are not betrayers, he said. Who needs Armenia? No one needs Armenia except us. Armenians, existing thanks to Russias support, have no right to blackmail us with betrayal. Armenians just have no right. If anyone says something like that, then this person must understand this fact - they do not have this right. There would not be any Armenians and Armenia, if not for Russia.Saudi Arabias air defense forces said they destroyed a ballistic missile fired by Houthi militias from inside Yemeni territory that targeted toward the border city of Najran, Al Arabiya reported.

The southern city of Najran - close to the border with Yemen, has borne the brunt ever since the Houthi militia forces took over swathes of the country in a 2014 coup.

According to officials, the city has witnessed more than 10,000 rocket attacks mostly arbitrarily targeting civilians since the conflict in Yemen first began.British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is traveling to the United States on Sunday for a two-day visit, during which he will meet Vice President Mike Pence and national security adviser John Bolton, Britain said, Reuters reported.

The discussions in Washington will center on Iran, North Korea, Syria and other issues, according to Britains foreign ministry, and come ahead of a visit to Britain by President Donald Trump planned for July 13.

On so many of the worlds foreign policy challenges the UK and U.S. are in lockstep, Johnson said in a statement, citing the poisoning in Britain of Russian double-agent Sergei Skripal, and opposition to the use of chemical weapons in Syria and to the development of nuclear weapons in North Korea.

The UK, U.S., and European partners are also united in our effort to tackle the kind of Iranian behavior that makes the Middle East region less secure - its cyber activities, its support for groups like Hezbollah, and its dangerous missile program, which is arming Houthi militias in Yemen, he added.

Trump has said he wants to reimpose U.S. sanctions on Iran that were lifted in 2015 in exchange for Iranian commitments to curb its nuclear program.

He has given Britain, France and Germany - who still back the deal - a May 12 deadline to fix what he views as its flaws. These include its failure to address Irans ballistic missile program, the terms by which inspectors visit suspect Iranian sites, and sunset clauses under which some terms expire.

Trump also caused upset in Britain and France on Saturday by suggesting U.S.-style gun rights might have stopped a recent surge in knife crime in London and past deaths from terrorist attacks in Paris.The Metropolitan Police has confirmed that two boys aged 12 and 15 were shot on Sunday afternoon in Harrow, London, Sputnik reported.

According to the police, the teenagers were non-fatally shot within minutes from each other on High Street, Wealdstone, on Sunday at around 13:17 GMT.

A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police said that a 15-year-old teen and a 12-year-old boy suffering from gun wounds were treated by an ambulance at the scene before being transported to a hospital for further medical treatment.

Their injuries are still being assessed and the police are waiting for details as well as an update on the boys' condition, according to the representative.

Nobody has been arrested so far and an investigation is underway.

The incident comes amid a major surge in violence in the British capital. The latest crime statistics for London reveal that since April 2017, the number of people murdered in Britain's capital has risen by 44 percent.

Over the past few months, the British government has been heavily criticized for cuts to the budget of police forces across the UK, with many blaming these austerity measures for the increase in violent crimes. However, Home Secretary Amber Rudd has recently dismissed this correlation, arguing that there were "enough police" personnel to tackle the problem.

On April 9, the British government published a new crime prevention strategy, which aims to tackle the rise in violent crimes. The document, in particular, blames illicit drug markets for the high crime rate in the UK.

In April, Louise Haigh, the shadow policing minister of the UK Labour Party, accused the Conservative Party of a failure to protect the public, since it shrank the nation's police force by 21,000 in comparison to 2010.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due to discuss the situation in the Middle East at talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on May 9, the Israeli Prime Ministers Office said on Saturday, TASS reported.

"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, 9 May 2018, in Moscow, in order to discuss regional developments," the press release says.

"President Putin invited Prime Minister Netanyahu to join him at the parade for Victory Day over Nazi Germany. The leaders will meet at the Kremlin after the parade."

Netanyahu and Putin agreed to hold a meeting during a phone conversation on April 30, the PMs Office said.

"The meeting will be in continuation of their telephone conversation this past Monday (30 April) during which they decided to meet soon," it says.Nine men were found murdered in the back of a small cargo truck Saturday in the troubled southern state of Guerrero, Mexican authorities said, The Washington Post reported.

State prosecutors said in a statement that the men were apparently kidnapped Thursday and reported missing the following night.

The truck was discovered Saturday morning along a highway between the state capital, Chilpancingo, and the city of Tixtla.

Prosecutors said the men lived in Tixtla and Chilpancingo and used the vehicle, which was registered to one of the victims, to sell possibly ill-gotten food products.

Guerrero, which has one of the highest homicide rates of Mexicos 31 states plus the capital district, is home to opium poppy plantations and splintered gangs at war with each other for control of the drug trade and extortion rackets.

In the State of Mexico, a candidate for mayor of the town of Tenango del Aire became the latest of a number of politicians to be murdered in the run-up to nationwide elections July 1.

A government statement identified the man as Adiel Zermann Miguel, 39, and said his body was found on a street in Ixtapaluca, a suburb of Mexico City. Earlier it had given his first name as Addiel.

Horacio Duarte Olivares, head of the Mexico State branch of presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obradors Morena party, condemned the killing and called for an investigation and a halt to political violence.

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Baku, Azerbaijan, May 6

Trend:

The Iraqi Air Force attacked the positions of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group in Syria, TASS reported May 6 citing the press-service of Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.

The purpose of the operation was to kill the terrorist leaders in Syria. The order for carrying out the operation was given by the Iraqi prime minister.An explosion at a mosque used as a voter centre in the eastern Afghan province of Khost on Sunday killed at least 17 people and wounded 34, local officials said, in the latest attack on preparations for long-delayed parliamentary elections.

Basir Bina, spokesman for the provincial police, said people were gathered after afternoon prayers in the mosque, which was also being used as a voter registration centre for parliamentary elections due in October.

He said the blast appeared to have been caused by explosives left in the mosque rather than by a suicide bomber.

Habib Shah Ansari, head of the health department in Khost, a mountainous region on the border with Pakistan, said 17 were confirmed dead from the blast with 34 injured.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the explosion, which adds to a series of attacks on voter centres since the registration process began in April. The Taliban, which has warned people against taking part in the election process, issued a statement denying any involvement.

Medical aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres said it had donated emergency supplies to the Khost provincial hospital where many of the wounded were taken.Baku, Azerbaijan, May 6

Trend:

If the US halts the supply of F-35 fighter jets, Turkey will retaliate, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in an interview with CNN Turk.

"Next week I will pay a visit to the US, he said. During the negotiations I will stress that it is unacceptable to cancel the sale of F-35 fighter jets and if this happens, Turkey will retaliate."

Earlier, the US authorities announced the imposition of sanctions against 38 Russian individuals and legal entities.

US Assistant Secretary of State Wess Mitchell said that Ankara's purchase of S-400 Triumph air defense systems from Russia may negatively affect the supply of the US F-35 fighter jets to Turkey.Baku, Azerbaijan, May 6

Trend:

Ankara will cancel the visa regime with Russia, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in an interview with CNN Turk.

"First, we will try to partially abolish the visa regime, he said. Perhaps by the end of this year the presidents of the two countries will take a step."

Russia introduced a visa regime for Turkish citizens amid the cooling of relations between the two countries in November 2015, when the Turkish Air Force shot down Russias Su-24 fighter jet over Syria.KYODO NEWS - May 3, 2018 - 21:16 | All, World

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is planning to hold telephone talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday, Japanese government sources said Thursday.

The talks are expected to focus mainly on North Korea before its leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump meet in the coming weeks in the first-ever U.S.-North Korean summit, the sources said.

Abe is also likely to seek support from Beijing in resolving the issue of Japanese nationals abducted by Pyongyang in the 1970s and 1980s, the sources said.

The president of China, a major ally of the North, met with Kim in Beijing in March, before the leaders of North and South Korea held a summit meeting last Friday.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang will visit Japan next week to attend a trilateral summit with Abe and South Korean President Moon Jae In.KYODO NEWS - May 6, 2018 - 22:07 | Arts, All

The talent agency of Japanese all-male pop group Tokio said Sunday it has terminated its contract with group member Tatsuya Yamaguchi, who came under fire for forcibly kissing a high school student.

Johnny & Associates made the announcement after Yamaguchi submitted his resignation letter to the other four group members on April 30. He expressed his intention to resign directly to the agency on Sunday.

The group's leader, Shigeru Joshima, handed Yamaguchi's resignation letter to Johnny Kitagawa, president of the agency, the same day.

The 46-year-old musician and TV personality had admitted to the allegation and was referred to prosecutors in April, but they withdrew their indictment. The girl is believed to have withdrawn her victim report after agreeing to a settlement.

A statement released by the remaining four members -- Joshima, Masahiro Matsuoka, Tomoya Nagase and Taichi Kokubun -- read, "Words are not enough to express our emotions."

"If there is something that we can change, then that is the future that lies ahead of us," the statement added.By Mohammad Gharebag, KYODO NEWS - May 6, 2018 - 19:35 | World, All

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Sunday that Israel's claim that Iran has a secret nuclear weapons development program is a lie, which Tehran says was timed to provide cover for a U.S. decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear moratorium deal.

Referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's televised presentation last Monday of "evidence" about Iran's secret nuclear activities, Rouhani said Israel's "propaganda against Iran is totally a lie." Rouhani made the comment in a public speech in the eastern city of Sabzevar, broadcast live on state television.

On April 30, Netanyahu claimed that Israeli intelligence agents had obtained volumes of classified documents and dozens of CDs which prove Iran has lied to the world and the International Atomic Energy Agency about its nuclear activities.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who was Iran's top nuclear negotiator, appeared on state television soon afterwards to refute the claim that Iran has a secret nuclear program, and called it theater to impact the upcoming decision by U.S. President Donald Trump about whether to withdraw from the Iran nuclear moratorium deal.

Referring to the May 12 deadline for Trump to decide whether or not the United States will remain a party to the 2015 nuclear deal, Rouhani said Washington is going to make another wrong decision and won't be successful in its confrontation with Iran.

"If the U.S. decides to withdraw from the JCPOA, it will experience historic regret," Rouhani said.

(JCPOA meeting held in Vienna on Jan. 10, 2017)

JCPOA is the acronym for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the agreement signed in mid-2015 by China, France, Germany, Russia, United Kingdom, United States, European Union, and Iran.

Under the 2015 pact, Tehran agreed to actions to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons, and to ensure its civilian nuclear program remained exclusively peaceful, in return for the lifting of crippling financial sanctions.

Trump has threatened to withdraw the United States from the deal if an effort to revamp it to his satisfaction cannot be agreed upon by May 12.

Referring to an EU proposal to negotiate a side agreement covering Iran's missile development activities and other matters that Trump wants addressed, Rouhani again totally rejected the suggestion.

"I'm talking to the U.S., EU, East (Russia and China) and West. We will not negotiate about our defense capability and our weapons," Rouhani said.

"We will produce as many missiles and weapons as we need and we will store them. It's none of anyone's business what decisions we make about our defense power," he added.Two lawyers had on Tuesday written a letter to the CJI seeking a high-level judicial inquiry, involving the CBI, under the supervision of the apex court into the incident.The dip in the number of COVID-19 detection tests undertaken recently is one of the main reasons for the decrease in the number of cases reported.[caption id="attachment_18875" align="alignnone" width="620"]

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, Atlanta[/caption]

With time running out, a federal appeals court sided with Florida in an escalating battle over the state's process for restoring voting rights to former prisoners.

U.S. District Judge Mark Walker in Tallahassee gave Florida until Thursday to create a new process after ruling in February that the state's current system is unconstitutional and arbitrary, with decisions possibly swayed by politics and racial factors.

But a split three-judge panel of the Atlanta-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit blocked Walker's ruling from taking effect while it considers an appeal from Gov. Rick Scott and other Florida Republican officials. "We are glad that the Elevetnth Circuit Court of Appeals has stayed the lower court's reckless ruling," said John Tupps, a spokesman for Scott. "Judges should interpret the law, not create it. Gov. Scott will never stop fighting for victims of crime and their families." The decision by the appellate court came less than two hours before Scott and GOP officials were scheduled to hold an extraordinary late-night meeting of the state's clemency board Wednesday where they were poised to adopt new rules. The meeting was scrapped after the panel sided with Florida 2-1. Judge Stanley Marcus wrote the opinion, with Judge William Pryor concurring. Judge Beverly Martin wrote a dissent. Florida's clash over voting rights comes as Scott campaigns for the U.S. Senate seat of Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson in a state where as many as 1.5 million felons remain disenfranchised by the state's ban in the Florida Constitution. Walker's ruling kept the ban intact, but he challenged the current system that requires a former prisoner to wait five to seven years before they can even ask to have their voting rights back. The governor and the three elected Cabinet members decide each request individually, subject to the governor's unilateral veto, and the waiting list has grown long. It wasn't always this way. Shortly after taking office in 2007, then-Republican Gov. Charlie Crist persuaded two of the state's three Cabinet members to approve rules allowing the parole commission to restore voting rights for nonviolent felons without hearings, and ultimately more than 100,000 felons were allowed to vote again. Scott and state officials changed the process in 2011, and since then fewer than 3,000 have had their rights restored. The governor has defended the change, saying former prisoners should have to demonstrate they can remain out of trouble before their voting rights are returned. Last year, however, a group of former prisoners whose applications were turned down sued the state. In its split ruling, the federal appeals court concluded Florida has a good chance of prevailing in its appeal and questioned Walker's decision to order a new process. Marcus wrote there should not be a "rushed decision-making process created on an artificial deadline." "There is wisdom in preserving the status quo ante until a panel of this court, on an expedited basis, has had an opportunity on full briefing to come to grips with the many constitutional and equitable issues that have been raised," Marcus wrote. Walker first ruled in February the process was unconstitutional and then in late March ordered changes must be put in place by this week. The clemency board  without holding a public meeting to discuss the ruling  appealed. While the governor's office has said the decision to appeal was handled properly, Barbara Petersen of the First Amendment Foundation has questioned whether Scott and GOP officials sidestepped the state's open meetings law. She said it "doesn't pass the sniff test to my way of thinking." Scott and the Cabinet were sued for open meeting violations in 2015 and ultimately settled the case without admitting wrongdoing. The legal battle over voting rights for former prisoners is occurring just months before Florida voters will be asked to alter the current ban. Backers of a constitutional amendment won a place on the November ballot. If 60 percent of voters approve, most former prisoners would have their rights automatically restored when they are released. Gary Fineout reports for the Associated Press.SPARTANBURG, S.C.  The long-awaited, much-discussed BMW X7 finally enters the home stretch. Barely four months away from the start of production, BMW brought six early X7 prototypes to the Spartanburg, South Carolina, plant that will build the new crossover, and invited a small group to sample the driving dynamics. Munich's other full-sized SUV hopes to prove itself the lively, luxurious, and laudable answer to the question, "What took so long?"



Company engineers said their two priorities were to avoid simply building a larger X5, and to ensure the husky X7 performed like a BMW. The short answer is that they succeeded on both counts. The slightly longer answer is that they might have scored better on the second count than on the first.



Perhaps it was the optic-distorting effects of camouflage, but the X7 did not look flagrantly larger than the X5. It wasn't until the X5 camera car sidled up to one of the X7 testers on the highway that the slight difference in bulk became apparent, at least from the rear. BMW didn't want to get into specific dimensions; all an engineer would tell us is that the X5 is less than five meters (4.91 to be exact, or roughly 16 feet) whereas the X7 stretches beyond five meters.





BMW X7 PreDrive





Not only does the X7 sit on a longer wheelbase than the X5, the X7's body's been skewed rearward. Comparing the X7 to the current X5, the rear overhangs are proportionally similar, but there's barely any sheetmetal ahead of the X7's front wheels. Every X7 comes with a third row, so the sliding adjustment carves out as much practical room possible for those two extra chairs.



The cabin's more spacious than the X5 in every dimension, especially fore-and-aft, but doesn't deliver 7 Series roominess in the second row. I'm a long-legged 5' 11" and had plenty of knee room, but I apparently wore the wrong shoes to the ball: The toes of my cowboy boots wouldn't fit under the front-row BMW Comfort Seats. That might have been due to the seats or the messy under-seat wiring in the prototypes. We didn't hear a single complaint from colleagues, so it's likely that passengers with less rowdy footwear won't experience any issues.



The X7 doesn't do manually-adjusted seats. Models with a second-row bench get power seatbacks and bolsters, split 60/40. Flipping a switch on the seatback shoulder folds the seatback forward and hinges the seat up off the floor for access to the third row, automatically sliding the front seat forward when more room is needed. The wide rear doors and chair ballet make third-row entry uncomplicated.





Story continues

BMW X7 PreDrive

BMW X7 PreDrive

BMW X7 PreDrive

BMW X7 PreDrive





An easier way to the nosebleed seats is to order second-row captain's chairs, making the X7 a six-seater. Offspring can step between the captain's chairs to get to the back, and if the chair armrests intrude, they can be removed and stored in an accessory cargo space under the rear load floor. The captain's chairs can also tilt forward for third-row access when the old-fashioned way is necessary. They're good looking seats that offer more power adjustment and comfort than the bench, but we wished they were wider and had more bolstering. The X7 project manager told us both modifications are on the way for a future prototype.



The third row provided perfectly serviceable contingency seating for an adults-only posse  a day out for polo and dinner won't cause arguments over which pair gets sent to the back of the X7 class. We had an inch or so of extra headroom, and the bench and second-row captain's chairs were unexpectedly more accommodating to boots.



Behind the third row, the cargo area can swallow a few carry-on suitcases and soft-sided bags. Put the third row down and the flat floor handily holds luggage for four road-tripping adults. Lifting the floor reveals surprisingly spacious under-floor stowage, and BMW told us there's a spare tire underneath that. Loading convenience gets a boost from a set of buttons near the hatch opening that can move both the second and third rows. Even better, the split tailgate is entirely power operated; when both halves are open, pressing a button on the upper hatch electronically closes the entire hatch.





BMW X7 PreDrive





At the other end, most of the cockpit remained under black sheets of camouflage, but we still made out BMW's new interior design. The recently teased digital dashboard faces the driver. Refined, crisp graphics look the futuristic part, making the current, orange-hued analogue units  which we love, by the way  seem like relics already. Designers broke the instrument panel into three vertical focal points: a 12.3-inch screen atop the dash and slightly canted toward the driver; a slim, elongated hexagon housing HVAC controls and a small screen between two vents; and an even slimmer hexagon below with audio controls. Beneath the audio buttons, the console slopes to the center tunnel. A large pocket with a sliding cover connects the two, hiding a wireless charging area for a phone, two cupholders, and a traditional Type A USB port. The only other USB ports in the X7 need USB-C plugs.



A reorganized control panel on the center tunnel groups the engine starter button, shifter, suspension mode buttons and iDrive controller into another chrome-trimmed hexagon motif. A stubby shift knob topped by a round-ish ball replaces the oblong paddle. The shifter is made for resting a hand on, or, you know, shifting, so it's surprising to see it introduced on a three-row crossover before a sedan.



Every X7 gets adaptive air suspension on both axles as standard  double wishbones all around, a redesigned five-link system in back. Optional upgrades are BMW's Integral Active Steering, and Dynamic Drive active anti-roll bar system. A new toggle on the lower right of the tunnel control panel adjusts the X7's height through five settings, with 1.6-inch spread between them. Comfort is the default, at Level 0. Levels +1 and +2 raise the X7's height 1.6 and 3.1 inches respectively, for ground clearance. Engineers haven't finalized the X7's underbody, so they couldn't provide a ground clearance number. We'd expect it to be right around the 8.2 inches afforded by the X5, and with 3.15 extra inches at Level +2 height, the X7 would boast clearance numbers close to those of a main rival, the Range Rover. Level -1 drops the X7 down 1.6 inches automatically when the driver chooses Sport mode or achieves a certain highway speed, Level -2 lowers the X7 3.1 inches for loading. The X7 can't be driven at the loading height.





BMW X7 PreDrive





BMW will offer 20-, 21-, and 22-inch wheels; our six test vehicles were fitted with either 21- or 22-inchers. The 21-inchers were shod in 285/45 R-rated Pirelli P Zeros. The 22-inchers get staggered tire sizes, sacrificing a touch of comfort for looks, with R-rated Continental Premium Contact 6 sized 274/40 in front, 315/35 in back.



BMW brought two 3.0-liter diesels, two 3.0-liter inline-sixes and two 4.4-liter V8s to test. The six and the eight will get horsepower bumps over the current units, so the carmaker wouldn't talk numbers.



We drove the diesel first, a Korean-market oddball in that it was fitted with the base suspension  no rear steering nor active roll bars  and the largest wheels. The diesel was the weakest of the three variants we drove, with excessive wind noise, rumbling tires and a coarse ride. An engineer told us that some of the prototypes had been hand-built in Germany, the rest were the very first off the Spartanburg line. That put each prototype at a different point on the spectrum of fit and finish. Another engineer told us the next suspension update was ready to be loaded into the vehicles but couldn't be installed until the other control modules were ready for their updates as well. Hence, we weren't sure how much of the compromised ride and NVH to put down to the inherent nature of any prototype vehicle, the state of the suspension tune, or the big wheels. Oh, but don't expect the diesel to come to the U.S. anyway.



The good news is that the diesel exhibited BMW-appropriate driving responses. Throttle inputs are quick, and linear in response. The steering loads up quickly after a small but noticeable lazy spot on center. There isn't a great deal of feeling through the wheel, but it's a cinch to point the X7's nose where you want it. The body holds steady when pushed through turns even without the additional suspension goodies. The brakes  four-piston in front, single floating piston in back  delivered on all the irrational deceleration demands of a high-speed, heavyweight, seven-car platoon snaking through Southern back roads. The optional M Sport steering wheel sported paddle shifters, but the updated eight-speed transmission downshifts quickly even in Comfort. Our German tour guide in the X6 M lead vehicle practically challenged his X7 ducklings to keep up, and we did. On top of that, we might have had a more relaxed time of it in the comfort-focused X7 than in the growly X6 M.





BMW X7 PreDrive





We drove the V8 next. It rode on 21-inch wheels and had rear steering and active anti-roll bars. It felt like a proper BMW from the start. Muted wind and tire noise, excellent composure on the straights, zero roll around the bends, a constantly rumbling V8 that erupts when given the whip and serious giddy-up. Active Integral Steering quells the slight lateral accelerations during high-speed direction changes  subtle agitations that get exacerbated for passengers in the second and third rows. Only princesses with a profound sensitivity to peas could complain. Active Integral Steering also means a faster rack; about two and a third turns to lock with rear steer and an impressive turning circle, about three turns to lock without.



Sport mode downshifts a gear, tightens up the steering, throttle response, and shift timing, and stiffens the dampers. The X7's input reflexes were clearly snappier in Sport, but the ride didn't move as far away from Comfort as we expected. The X7 didn't put on its sprinter's cleats in Sport. An engineer told us that a wider spread between the two modes is in the works. In truth, we're not sure a wider spread is necessary unless BMW simply wants to brag. The V8-powered X7 likely weighed a little more than 5,000 pounds and already hides its weight when hustling. Furthermore, the dynamic bounds are so broad in Comfort that most drivers will never touch them.



The inline-six was our favorite, though, also riding on 21s and upgraded with the top-tier suspension. Being notably lighter (360 pounds separate the I6 from the V8) and nimbler more than made up for being notably less powerful. It's also more mellow, belting out engine noise only when being punished, as opposed to the perma-growl of the V8. The inline-six also had the nicest interior, with a black Alcantara headliner lording over white, quilted-leather seating. This is the one we'd buy.





BMW X7 PreDrive

BMW X7 PreDrive

BMW X7 PreDrive

BMW X7 PreDrive





The X7 goes where no production, four-wheeled BMW has gone before off-road. An optional Off-Road Package adds a second toggle on the center tunnel that controls four terrain drive modes: xSand, xRocks, xGravel, and xSnow. The X7 then gets beefed up with an aluminum rather than plastic skid plate, a wider side sill that acts as a step, and a fully variable, electronic limited slip differential on the rear axle  until now the exclusive purview of M cars. Inside, the package adds an infotainment screen of off-road gauges displaying compass direction, incline percent and angle and roll angle.



We did a loop at the Gulches Off-Road Vehicle Park, traversing obstacles and ruts threatening enough that we were told the current X5 doesn't have enough ground clearance to clear them. Knowing that 98 percent of U.S. X7 drivers will never put their charges through such dirt and danger, and 1 percent of those who do are merely lost, we asked what the point was. An engineer told us the feature was for owners who want to take their X7s to their hunting cabins. We are happy to inform all eight of those owners that they'll have no problem reaching their lodges. More relevant we think, the Off-Road Package keeps the X7 au courant with the luxury competition, now that a plush SUV can't make rank if it can't handle having two wheels off the ground simultaneously. Further testament to carry-all possibilities are the factory-installed tow hitch and 7,700-pound tow rating.



Naturally, BMW wouldn't go into specifics about pricing, yet we did learn enough to know that a number in the mid to high $80,000s for the inline-six is a safe bet, and BMW might sneak the V8 in under the $100K mark for launch. The V8 X5 xDrive50i is only $150 more expensive than the 5 Series M550i xDrive.





BMW X7 PreDrive





The X7, even unfinished, does its job well. BMW succeeded in making the BMW of full-sized SUVs a true BMW and a distinctly different proposition than the primary competitors. The X7 is much sportier and more German than the Range Rover, and nicer in every way than the Cadillac Escalade. It's useless to compare the brand new X7 to the ancient and soon-to-be-replaced Mercedes-Benz GLS, but Mercedes' hallmark comfort-forward brand ethos will put ample space between the coming GLS and the X7.



The X7s we drove fly around the world for testing and final tuning before production begins in August. Expect an unveil either at the Frankfurt Motor Show or, more likely, the L.A, Auto Show. Then the X7 arrives at dealers in the first quarter of next year as a 2019 model. After that  unless BMW somehow cocks things up terribly in the next six months  you can expect to see a ton of X7s on the streets.



Related Video:Wells Fargo

Despite Wells Fargo's ongoing account fraud controversy, Warren Buffett is sticking by his investment in the firm.

Follow Business Insider's coverage of Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting 2018.

Warren Buffett is no fan of Wells Fargo's misdealings  but that doesn't mean he's going to dump his position in the company.

That was the message delivered by the Berkshire Hathaway chief executive officer on Saturday during the firm's annual shareholder meeting in Omaha, Nebraska. He was responding to a question from New York Times DealBook founder and editor-at-large Andrew Ross Sorkin, who asked if the billionaire investor would ever consider fleeing Wells Fargo's "leaking boat."

"They had the wrong incentives," Buffett said, referring to the firm's ongoing account-fraud controversy. "That was and they committed the much greater error of ignoring the fact that they had a bad incentive system."

"That's the cardinal sin at Berkshire," he continued. "You cant have 337,000 employees and expect that everyone is behaving like Benjamin Franklin. When we find that somethings going on, we have to do something about it. Wells Fargo didnt do it."

Buffett noted that he's previously purchased stakes in companies that were fresh off scandals, highlighting American Express  which he bought in 1964  and Geico. Both firms came out fine, and have proved to be lucrative investments, he argued.

"The fact that youre going to have problems at some large institution is not unique," Buffett said. "All the big banks have had troubles of one sort or another. I see no reason to think Wells Fargo, going forward, is anything other than a very, very large, well-run bank that had an episode in its history it wishes it didnt have."

Follow Business Insider's coverage of Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting 2018.

Story continues

NOW WATCH: Why Apple makes it so hard to get a new iPhone battery

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SEE ALSO: The stock market's most important driver has already peaked  but Bank of America offers 5 reasons why you shouldn't panicOil scores weekly gain on bets Trump will exit Iran accord

Investing.com - The showdown between President Donald Trump and Iran will likely continue to be the main driver of sentiment in the oil market this week, after prices reached their loftiest levels in more than three years.

President Trump has until May 12 to decide whether to pull the United States out of a 2015 international accord to curb Irans nuclear program and restore sanctions on one of the world's biggest oil producers.

Trump has repeatedly threatened to abandon the deal, reiterating last week that unless European allies rectify the "terrible flaws" in the agreement, he will refuse to extend U.S. sanctions relief for the oil-producing country.

If sanctions are reinstated, that could contribute to tighter global oil inventories, as it would likely result in a reduction of Tehran's oil exports.

Iran, which is a major Middle East oil producer and member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), resumed its role as a major oil exporter in January 2016 when international sanctions against Tehran were lifted in return for curbs on Iran's nuclear program.

President Hassan Rouhani said on Sunday Iran had plans to respond to any move by Trump and the U.S. would regret a decision to exit the accord.

Crude prices have been well-supported in recent weeks as traders increased their bets the U.S. would pull out the Iran nuclear deal, raising the potential for tighter global crude stockpiles.

New York-traded WTI crude futures settled at a three-and-a-half-year high on Friday.

The U.S. benchmark rallied $1.35, or about 2%, to end at $69.72 a barrel by close of trade, leaving it up 2.4% for the week. The contract rose to an intraday high of $69.97, its best level since Nov. 28, 2014.

Meanwhile, London-traded Brent crude futures, the benchmark for oil prices outside the U.S., jumped $1.25, or 1.7%, to settle at $74.87 a barrel.

It logged a fourth week of gains, up by 1.5%, bolstered by geopolitical tension in the Middle East and concerns about supply disruptions in key oil-producing nations, such as Venezuela.

Story continues

Aside from geopolitics, oil traders will also continue to weigh a steady increase in U.S. production levels in the week ahead as the rise in U.S. drilling marked one of the few factors tamping back crude in an otherwise bullish environment.

U.S. drillers added nine oil rigs in the week to May 4, bringing the total count to 834, the highest number since March 2015, General Electric (NYSE:GE)'s Baker Hughes energy services firm said in its closely followed report on Friday.

That was the fifth consecutive weekly increase in the rig count, underscoring worries about rising U.S. output.

Indeed, domestic oil production - driven by shale extraction - rose to an all-time high of 10.62 million barrels per day (bpd) last week, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said.

Only Russia currently produces more, at around 11 million bpd.

Fresh weekly data on U.S. commercial crude inventories on Tuesday and Wednesday to gauge the strength of demand in the worlds largest oil consumer and how fast output levels will continue to rise will capture the market's attention.

Ahead of the coming week, Investing.com has compiled a list of the main events likely to affect the oil market.

Tuesday

The American Petroleum Institute, an industry group, is to publish its weekly report on U.S. oil supplies.

Wednesday

The U.S. Energy Information Administration will release its weekly report on oil and gasoline stockpiles.

Thursday

The U.S. government will publish a weekly report on natural gas supplies in storage.

Friday

Baker Hughes will release weekly data on the U.S. oil rig count.

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Gold / Silver / Copper Prices - Weekly Outlook: May 7 - 11

Venezuela brings Zerpa, sanctioned by U.S., back to PDVSA

Saudi Aramco awards 16 local firm deals worth $7 billionStay with Yahoo Finance for comprehensive coverage of Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway.

Billionaire Warren Buffett says hes sticking with Wells Fargo (WFC) despite the myriad scandals that have engulfed the company over the past few years. In response to a question during Berkshire Hathaways annual shareholder meeting on Saturday, Buffett said he still likes Wells Fargo for a number of reasons, but mainly its because of his previous experience with troubled companies.

Buffett referenced previous investments hed made in American Express, Geico and Salomon Brothers as companies that had made big mistakes, but worked hard to turn things around.

I see no reason why Wells Fargo as a company  going forward is in any way inferior to other big banks in which it competes, Buffett told attendees.

He noted that he still likes the company as an investment and stands behind chief executive Tim Sloan, noting that Sloan is correcting mistakes made by other people.

Berkshire Vice Chairman Charlie Munger even stepped in to compare it to mistakes made by ousted Weinstein Co. head Harvey Weinstein, the now-disgraced Hollywood producer.

I think Wells Fargo will come out stronger than if these leaks had never come out, Munger said. I think Harvey Weinstein has done a lot for improving behavior too.

A Wells Fargo branch is seen in the Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois, U.S. REUTERS/Jim Young

The bank is clearly aware of their bad behavior and as a result, Munger said, If I had to say which bank is going to behave the best in the future it might be Wells Fargo out of all of them.

Responding well to errors of judgment is a key to smart business, but perhaps even more important is getting ahead of bigger problems that could happen in the future, both men argued.

Mistakes, Buffett said, are going to happen, you try to minimize it. An ounce of prevention isnt worth an ounce of cure, its worth a ton of cure.

Wells Fargo is being held back by the Fed

The Federal Reserve accused Wells Fargo of widespread consumer abuses and leveled an asset growth restriction on the bank last year. The bank admitted employees created millions of fraudulent accounts for real customers in an effort to hit aggressive sales targets. The company also reportedly sold unneeded auto insurance to as many as 570,000 customers.

Story continues

Wells Fargo will be restricted from growing its assets beyond its current $2 trillion level until it can prove it has improved internal controls and risk management as a result of the Fed restrictions. Berkshire still owns more than 482 million shares of Wells Fargo stock representing roughly 9.9% ownership of the company, according to the most recent shareholder letter.

I see no reason to think that Wells Fargo going forward, is other than anything other than a large bank that had an episode, Buffett said.

In fact, Buffett even gave a guarantee in his repose, though it may not have been the one that shareholders were hoping for.

I will guarantee you that we will get some unpleasant news at Berkshire [going forward], Buffett said. The question is what will we do about it.

Dion Rabouin is a markets reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter: @DionRabouin.

Read more:

Investors are ignoring a massive source of growth thats soon to come, expert says

Currency experts cant figure out whats going on with the dollar

Interest rates wont get much higher, analysts sayIn Indonesia, a country with 250 million people living across 17,000 islands, both the private and public sectors are actively exploring blockchain technology to overcome challenges managing data for everything from food output to election results to trade financing.

The government has clearly taken a leadership role in exploring blockchain technology. Fithri Hadi, the director of financial innovation for the countrys Financial Services Authority, said the regulator has a dedicated team to study how blockchain technology can help the countrys financial services industry, Reuters reports.

Improving Government Accountability

Government policymakers also hope the technology can reduce graft in the countrys public programs, one of several areas where blockchain could be used to improve accountability.

Estimates on harvest production, for example, face the risk of being overstated since farm subsidies are allocated based on previous years harvests. The estimates are hard to verify. The government is also exploring using the technology to verify information from fund recipients.

Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawat said her staff is investigating the use of blockchain technology for microloan programs and subsidy disbursement and to identify those groups who need government benefits.

Improved Election Verification

Blockchain technology can also improve the verification of election results.

Horizon State, an Australia based polling service, intends to introduce a phone app on Sumatra island in Indonesia in July, allowing direct polling of local policy issues.

Horizon States community engagement platform allows constituents, including staff citizens or members, to participate in collaborative decision-making processes for greater economy, decentralization and convenience. The polling system could reduce voting fraud and address issues for countries with populations dispersed across Indonesias islands, said Nimo Naamani, Horizon States co-founder.

Story continues

Jamie Skella, the chief product officer for Horizon State, recently welcomed participants to the first regional Global Forum on Remittances, Investment, and Development  Asia-Pacific to vote in the RemTECH Industry Choice Award, calling the event a great opportunity to encourage discussion about the merits and use cases of blockchain technology.

Private Initiatives On The Rise

Several private initiatives are also underway throughout the country.

Online Pajak, an electronic tax filing solution, has introduced a blockchain supported app to allow customers to share encrypted tax data with treasury offices and banks. Charles Guinot, Online Pajak founder, said the tool for the first time will assure taxpayers they have paid their taxes.

OnlinePajak provides an additional layer of authentication for election results. The user creates an API key to authenticate the marketplace, then creates a user ID to append a new user to the user list of this marketplace. Indonesias second-largest bank, Bank Mandiri, is exploring the use of blockchain technology for trade financing, according to Rico Usthavia Frans, the banks director of digital banking and technology. Lenders are currently waiting for guidelines from regulators.

Indonesias largest private bank, Bank Central Asia (BCA), meanwhile, has invested 200 billion rupiah (approx. $15 million) in financial technology startups and companies. The bank is establishing Central Capital Ventura, owning all 100% of the new capital venture firm. According to an official BCA statement submitted to the Indonesia Stock Exchange, investments will directly benefit BCA and its financial services offerings in the country.

Blockchain technology has been introduced to other emerging markets, such as Estonia, where it has been deployed since 2012. Its applications include judicial, legislative, national health and commercial code systems.

Iwan Djuniardi, director of transformational technology for the tax office, cautions Indonesias adoption of the technology could be slower since it takes time to process management changes. Even cloud technology is still being debated in the country.

Featured image from Shutterstock.



The post Indonesias Public And Private Sectors Explore Uses For Blockchain appeared first on CCN.

On Sunday some of the worlds most beautiful people will flock to New York City for the party of the year, at least on this side of the country. The Met Gala--or the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute benefit, as its officially called--is an annual production put on by the art museum to raise funds for its fashion collection. Each years party has a different theme, and this years is Catholicism: "Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination." The hosts are Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, hip-hop star and fashionista Rihanna, couturier Donatella Versace, and civil rights attorney (and sartorial envy of many) Amal Clooney. Heres a breakdown of what the event will look like, for the quant lovers among us:

Expected guests at the Met Gala: 550+

While details are hush-hush, the New York Times notes that last years event hosted 550 people, and that was for an intimate show. By contrast, this years exhibition will be the biggest exhibition the Costume Institute has produced--about 58,600 square feet, stretching over three galleries: the Anna Wintour Costume Center and the medieval rooms in the Met on Fifth Avenue, and the Cloisters in far northern Manhattan--and odds are the gala will be equally ambitious.

Cost of attending the Met Gala: $30,000 per person (or $275,000 per table)

And thats just the price of entry. Add a gown by a designer--which can cost some $35,000--and jewelry, and youve got a heck of an expensive evening. Though, as Fortune noted last year, celebrities are usually not the ones who eat the cost, and A-list celebrities can be offered up to a million dollars to wear a designer's jewelry.

Funds raised at the Met Gala: $12 million+

Last years event raised just over $12 million. Considering that this event is expected to be even bigger in scope, one can expect an even larger haul.

Years the Met Gala has been held: 73

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The first Met Gala was held in 1948 as a midnight supper that invited guests could attend for fifty dollars a ticket, according to the Metropolitan Museums website. It was during the 1970s and 80s, though, that the event earned party-of-the-year status, thanks to former Vogue editor-in-chief Diana Vreelands years as a special consultant to The Costume Institute. This years fete will be the Mets 73rd.

Pieces on loan from the Vatican: 50

Approximately 50 pieces from the Sistine Chapel will be on display at the Costume Institute, in addition to works from the Met's own collection of religious art and 150 designer garments that have been inspired by Catholic iconography or style, per the Times.

For more, subscribe to the Broadsheet, Fortune's newsletter on the world's most powerful women.

See original article on Fortune.com

More from Fortune.comPhoto credit: Getty Images

From Popular Mechanics

In the not so distant future, for-profit space-mining companies (like Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries) will be collaborating with NASA to send out tiny satellites to measure and assess comic debris, harvesting lucrative options. But just because we can start mining in space, does that mean we should? Ramin Skibba, an astrophysicist and space enthusiastic, explores at Nautilus.

The Space Act, passed in 2015, authorized the U.S. president to facilitate the commercial exploration and utilization of space resources to meet national needs. Earlier international laws warned against it: the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, and later, the 1979 Moon Agreement, forbid nations on Earth to claim to cosmic resources. Though today's major space-faring nations are not among the small list of countries that signed the treaty, competing over natural resources could lead to conflicts.

Imagine, for instance, an asteroid that contains as many platinum-group metals as all reserves on Earth. Businesses will compete for the precious resource, and the competing may soon turn into battle by armed satellites, which can lead back to conflicts on Earth. The act of mining itself could also be dangerous: if space-mining break up asteroids, it could harm other satellites, spacecrafts and astronauts.

Commerical space mining could lead to conflicts between profitability and public interest. "Once youre on board with the commercial space industry, then you as a researcher must accept, if not support, everything that comes with it," Skibba writes. "To succeed, these businesses will seek profitable missions, while science, exploration, and discovery-goals that stimulate public interest-will inevitably have lower priority,"

The solution, according to Skibba, is to treat outer space as we do Antarctica: a place to encourage scientific investigation and discourage territorial claims. It's a commendable idea, but is it likely? Last week, President Trump has already suggested the idea of adding a "Space Force"to the military. According to The Independent, "experts have warned that space will be increasingly contested in years to come, as increasingly complex weapons are built and more opportunities are opened up for exploring the area outside the Earth."

Story continues

(via Nautilus)

You Might Also LikeSouth Carolina legislators on Thursday night attempted to pass a bill that would make virtually all types of abortion illegal in the state.

A lengthy filibuster by Democrats, however, torpedoed the efforts, resulting in a 24-21 Senate vote that sent the bill back to a subcommittee. Its now not expected to move forward this session.

Under the proposal, all abortions--except those in cases of rape, incest, or when the mothers life is in danger--would have been banned. South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster had previously made it clear he would sign any abortion bill.

Had it passed, the bill would ignore the historic 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, which would have certainly resulted in a legal fight. South Carolina Republicans said they hoped they were courting that battle, in hopes of reversing the ruling.

Democrats, though, launched a filibuster and refused to yield the floor. State Sen. Marlon Kimpson spoke for six hours, before passing the baton to two colleagues. A vote came at 1 a.m. ET, when Democrats were certain they had enough votes to send the proposal back to committee.

The abortion ban in SC is no longer. After hours of filibuster, the bill has now been recommitted to committee. Women will continue to have the right to choose and make their own personal decisions about their bodies in consultation with their faimilies and doctors.  Sen. Marlon Kimpson (@KimpsonForSC) May 4, 2018

Five Republicans sided with the Democrats in that vote. One said he opted to do so as there were many issues still facing the Senate, which is scheduled to end its session next week.

Abortion has been a hot button issue in South Carolina for some time. Last August, McMaster cut off all public funding to abortion clinics throughout the state.

See original article on Fortune.com

More from Fortune.comtrump xi china

Andrew Harnik/AP

Warren Buffett was asked at the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting about the recent trade tensions between the US and China.

Buffett downplayed the recent spat of protectionism and said that both countries will realize that trade is a good thing.

Buffett said, when you have two major economic players "there will be times when there are tensions."

Follow Business Insider's coverage of Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting 2018.

Warren Buffett downplayed the risks of the recent spat of trade tensions between the US and China during Saturday's Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting.

Buffett said the US and China are the two dominant economic players in the world, which inevitably leads to conflict.

"Like any two big economic entities, there will be times when there are tensions," Buffett said.

Buffett also said that he doesn't think the two countries will "do anything that will precipitate in a trade war."

But, the legendary investor thinks both countries will recognize the long-term benefits of free trade and it's unlikely that trade between the two will grind to a halt.

"It's just too big and too obvious that the benefits are huge and the world is dependent on it in many ways for its progress," Buffett said.

The comments come after President Donald Trump's recent trade attacks on China including proposed tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods and tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum. A delegation made up of representatives from the Trump administration spent Thursday and Friday in China negotiating possible changes to the US-China trade relationship.

The tariffs and demands made by the US delegation  most notably a 60% reduction in the US-China trade deficit  worried economists and raised the possibility of a trade war between the two nations.

Buffett hinted at the idea that these crackdowns might be a temporary hiccup in the trading relationship.

Story continues

"We both may do things that are mildly foolish from time to time," the Berkshire Hathaway CEO said.

Buffett also insisted the trade deficit, which Trump has consistently bemoaned, is not really a problem for the US.

"When you think about it, it's really not the worst thing in the world for someone to send you things you want and you hand them a piece of paper," Buffett said.

The legendary investor also said that the president should try and explain the benefits of trade to citizens because they are sometimes hard to see.

Follow along with all of Business Insider's coverage of the Berkshire Hathaway meeting here.

NOW WATCH: Jeff Bezos reveals what it's like to build an empire and become the richest man in the world  and why he's willing to spend $1 billion a year to fund the most important mission of his life

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SEE ALSO: Trump is demanding China make a gargantuan economic change[caption id="attachment_11445" align="aligncenter" width="620"]

Wells Fargo branch in San Francisco. Credit: Mike Scarcella/ ALM [/caption] SAN FRANCISCO  Wells Fargo & Co. has settled a set of federal securities fraud class actions over the bank's fake accounts scandal for $480 million, the company said on Friday. The company's defense counsel, led by Sullivan & Cromwell, said in a court filing that it has "reached an agreement in principle" to settle the shareholder suits. The bank disclosed that it had agreed to pay $480 million in a separate filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The settlement will still be subject to final approval by the court, it noted. The federal securities class action litigation against Wells Fargo has been consolidated in front of U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar of the Northern District of California. We are pleased to reach this agreement in principle and believe that moving to put this case behind us is in the best interest of our team members, customers, investors and other stakeholders, CEO Tim Sloan said in a statement. We are making strong progress in our work to rebuild trust, and this represents another step forward. The firms leading the case for the shareholder plaintiffs are Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann, Klausner, Kaufman, Jensen & Levinson, and Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd. The settlement is the latest in a line of payments that Wells Fargo has agreed to make since the San Francisco-headquartered banking giant acknowledged in 2016 that bank workers had opened fake accounts for consumers in order to meet aggressive sales targets. The bank agreed to pay $142 million to affected consumers in a settlement currently pending in front of U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria of the Northern District of California. A final approval hearing for that settlement is set for May 30. In 2016, the bank also agreed to pay $190 million to various government entities for the misconduct. But Wells Fargo is not out of the woods yet. The company noted in its SEC filing that there are still pending derivative shareholder suits in state and federal courts in California, as well as in Delaware, and various related litigation on behalf of bank employees around the country.Afghan officials say at least 13 people have been killed and some 30 others wounded in an explosion at a mosque in eastern Khost Province that was being used as a voter registration center.

Talib Mangal, a provincial government spokesman, said that an explosive device placed inside the Yaqoubi mosque detonated at around 2.30 p.m. local time on May 6 and caused casualties among civilians who had gathered both for prayers and to register to vote.

Abdul Wali Wahidzai, a provincial council member, said the number of casualties might rise.

No one immediately claimed responsibility, but the extremist group Islamic State (IS) has carried out similar attacks in the past. Taliban militants have also warned people not to take part in the elections.

There have been a number of attacks on voter registration centers since the process began last month.

On April 22, a suicide bombing outside a voter registration center in Kabul killed at least 57 people and wounded 119 others.

IS claimed responsibility for the attack, which occurred in a heavily Shi'a-populated area in the Afghan capital.

Afghan parliamentary elections are scheduled for October 20.

In a separate incident, a vehicle carrying shopkeepers on their way to a market struck a roadside bomb in Afghanistan's northern Faryab Province, killing seven of them.

Based on reporting by AP, AFP, Reuters, dpa, and the BBCSeven Indian engineers and an Afghan national have been kidnapped in Afghanistan's northern Baghlan Province, officials said on May 6.

Zabihullah Shuja, a spokesman for the Baghlan police, said the engineers were traveling to a government-run power station in a minibus when unknown gunmen abducted them and their Afghan driver.

The engineers worked for the Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat (DABS) that operates power-generating stations.

Baghlans Governor Abdul Hai Niamati told RFE/RLs Radio Free Afghanistan that efforts are under way to release them.

It is not known who is responsible for the kidnapping. Niamati blamed armed groups opposed to the Afghan government.

The kidnapping of locals for purposes of extortion is common in Afghanistan amid rampant poverty and rising unemployment.

In 2016, an Indian aid worker was kidnapped in Kabul. She was released after 40 days.

Based on reporting by RFE/RLs Radio Free Afghanistan, Reuters, and dpaVANCOUVER, British Columbia, May 04, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ashanti Gold Corp. (Ashanti or the Company) - (TSXV:AGZ) announces drilling has started at the Kossanto East project (the Project). First work is being conducted on the Gourbassi East target with the first hole completed on May 3. The drill program at the Project is for 10,000m of drilling with approximately 8,000m dedicated to reverse circulation and 2,000m of diamond core (see press release of April 25, 2018).

Tim McCutcheon, Ashantis CEO, said The Ashanti team has done a great job of drill program mobilization at Kossanto East and I would like to take this opportunity to thank the crew for their performance. I look forward to sharing with the market a steady stream of drill results over the coming months.

ABOUT ASHANTI GOLD

Ashanti is a gold-focused, exploration and development company that targets projects where it has a competitive advantage due to past work experience of the team and specific project know-how. The Company is driving forward its 100%-owned Kossanto East project in Mali on the prolific Kenieba Belt, which hosts such deposits as Loulo, Fekola and Sadiola. Ashanti is also working to advance, together with its earn-in partners, the Anumso project and the Ashanti Belt project in Ghana, which are near-adjacent to the Akyem deposit.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors of

ASHANTI GOLD CORP.

"Tim McCutcheon"

Tim McCutcheon

CEO

For further information, please contact:

Ashanti Gold Corp.

2300  1177 West Hastings Street

Vancouver BC, V6E 2K3

Phone: 604-638-3847

Qualified Person and Historical Data

The information presented in this Press Release has been reviewed by Dr. Paul Klipfel CPG of Mineral Resource Services Inc. and a Qualified Person as defined by Canadian NI 43-101. Dr. Klipfel is not an Independent Person, as he is a shareholder of Ashanti. Historic data presented has been generated by historic explorers. The company has endeavored to check all data through resurvey of collars and check samples, but has not completed thorough, independent verification of historic data, and readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance thereon.

All drill, soil, rock, and trench samples are subject to standard QA/QC procedures with certified standards and blanks inserted into all sample streams at the rate of 1:20. Duplicate samples are also inserted at the rate of 1:50. All assays are performed by international known (SGS in Mali) and accepted laboratories which insert their own QA/QC samples into the sample stream. Their results and Ashantis results are monitored for bias and errors in absolute and temporal terms. Batches with certified standards or blanks that do not meet QA/QC requirements are reassayed.

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 press release.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Except for the statements of historical fact contained herein, the information presented in this news release and the information incorporated by reference herein, constitutes "forward looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws concerning the business, operations and financial performance and condition of Ashanti Gold Corp. (the "Company"). All statements, except for statements of historical fact, that address activities, events or developments that management of the Company expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future including such things as future exploration plans concerning the Company's mineral properties, acquisitions, capital expenditures (including the amount and nature thereof), business strategies and measures to implement strategies, competitive strengths, goals, expansion and growth of the business and operations, plans and references to the future success of the Company, and such other matters, are forward looking statements. Often, but not always, forward looking information 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 information involves 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 information. 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 Project (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 availability of a sufficient supply of water and other materials, requirements for additional capital, future prices of precious metals, 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 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, 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 Management Information Circular (December 2017) 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 information. The Company undertakes no obligation to update any of the forward looking information in this news release or incorporated by reference herein, except as otherwise required by law.

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://resource.globenewswire.com/Resource/Download/dcf43119-4b32-4d38-be08-6bc97f997e33Here is latest analysis of trends observed in round1 of 2017 application season.. https://gmatclub.com/forum/r1-admission ... 32055.html

Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton

Other Super Elite Business School

Kellogg, Chicago Booth, MIT Sloan, Columbia, Fuqua, ISB, and Berkeley Haas.

Elite Business Schools

Michigan Ross, INSEAD, Tuck, UCLA, NYU Stern, UVA Darden, Yale SOM, McCombs, UNC Kenan-Flagler, Cornell Johnson, CMU Tepper, London Business School, and Kelley

As we can see at all schools, except for Kelley and LBS, applicants with higher GMAT tend to have greater chances of admission.



For 99 percentilers, admission rates at Johnson, Yale, McCombs, Darden, UCLA, and Ross are even greater than 50%. Can we call them GMAT friendly schools?



Admission rates of low GMAT applicants at Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Sloan, Tuck, and Ross are almost equal to zero. Clearly anyone applying at these schools have to have a killer profile and compelling story to tell to adcoms.



We surprised to learn that admission rates of low GMAT applicants is greater than even those of 99 percentilers.



We also noted that LBS, Kelley, Fuqua, and (to some extent) UCLA are giving better chance to low GMAT applicants in comparison with other schools surveyed here.

Hello GMAT Club!!Taking GMAT is often called as foremost step in the MBA application process. It's also termed as crucial factor of the MBA application. Almost every applicant strive hard to obtain highest possible score on the GMAT. Many applicants think of GMAT as a most significant factor of the MBA application. Sometime we even hear extreme arguments such as a high GMAT score is an entry pass at any Bschool of your choice. Admission committees of business schools and MBA experts, on the other hand, always reiterate that GMAT is just one of the many factors that adcoms consider while evaluating applicants and that all other factors have equal importance. To determine how much of a role GMAT plays in the application process, we decided to do a thorough analysis of GMATClub members who applied to world's top 25 business schools this year.For our analysis we classified these schools in to 3 categories. In first category we included three most prestigious business schools: Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton. In second category we included other super elite Bschools such as Booth, Kellogg, Columbia, etc. Third category consists of rest elite schools of the world.These three are most competitive schools. Every year thousands of applicants apply to these schools but only few get admitted. Last year Harvard had received 9543 applications on which only 1053 were admitted; Numbers speak for themselves! These are the most coveted MBA programs on the earth. Since their admission stats are very different than all other top schools, we decided not keep them in a different category.We surveyed a total of 609 applicants who applied to these programs in Round 1 this year and who reported their GMAT scores on forum. As we can see only a handful of applicants with GMAT below 700 were lucky enough to get admitted in to HSW. Compitition is also extremely fierce among applicants whose GMAT is the range of 700 - 750 inclusive. For applicants with GMAT above 750 there is some ease on GMAT's front and they can work on rest parts of their application. If your GMAT is above 750 (i.e. 99th Percentile) no one will advise you to retake and get a better GMAT score. Any improvement beyond this point won't matter. So it's wise to stop working on GMAT and focus on other parts of the applicationHere we can see there are very few applicants in the HSW applicant pool with less than 700 GMAT. So those who are planning to apply HSW with lower GMAT should prepare themselves for tough fight from folks with higher GMAT. Those with very decent profiles can survive and win here.This category comprises 7 other popular Bschools among applicants:Here figures are slightly improving for low GMAT applicants. Fuqua (with low GMAT admission rate of 23%), Columbia (15%), Berkeley (12%) are giving some cheer to applicants falling in this score range.We can't see significant change in the applicant pool of Super Elite Schools and HSW except for proportion of applicants in 99 percentile range is reduced to 10%This category includes 13 other best MBA programs. The schools in this category areWhile admission rate for low GMAT applicants at these schools is almost same as it is at super elite schools (which is quite surprising), we can see the admission rates for applicants whose GMAT is above 700 have improved by atleast 5 percentage points.No surprise that proportion of applicants with low GMAT score is increased in Elite schools.This chart shows the admission rates by GMAT of all Bschools that we selected for our analysis.

What We learnt from this survey??

GMAT is the very important component of your application. While other factors i.e. GPA, professional achievements, post MBA goals, essays, recommendations, mutual fit, are also important GMAT score is still the crucial factor.Aggregate admission rate of low GMAT applicants is 11%. This clearly shows that schools evaluate these applicants very critically. Without a strong application and convincing reasons for the low GMAT score, these applicants are very likely to struggle in getting interview invites from these schools.We do not claim that the findings of above survey are completely true. We are aware of the limitations of survey sample and self reported data. The objective of this survey is to analyse general admission trend.If anyone doesn't agree with above findings, we respect their opinions. In fact the whole idea behind this project is to generate thoughtful discussion which will shed light in various components of MBA application process._________________The school selection process is indeed a process, and one must consider a number of different factors when selecting the right program. Here is some help on drafting a list of target universities: https://siaadmissions.com/sia-blog/six- ... -b-schools

People work towards a variety of different approaches to eCommerce. The question shouldn't be about what others do; rather, you should ask what do you want to do in the space.

The Product Manager role varies from company to company. If you are seeking a Project Manager role within an organization that does require coding experience, then I recommend you learn to code. Your coding skills, however, should not impact your MBA application.

This depends on a lot of factors, including the institutions you are targetting, and the strength of your application as a whole.

rakshitsharma1989 wrote:

Hi

I am Rakshit,

Profile

Age: 29

Gender: M

Ethnicity: Asian (Indian)

GMAT: 730, Q50 V38 IR8 AWA4

Education: B.Tech Civil Engg IIT Roorkee 2006-10 (GPA 7.51/10) and M.B.A Marketing & Operations M.D.I Gurgaon 2012-14 (GPA 6.96/10)

Work Experience: Total 6 years of experience.



Post B.Tech: 2 years of construction project management experience in Oil & Gas sector with a public sector undertaking (GAIL India Ltd.) 2012-14

Post M.B.A: 4 year with PepsiCo so far in Future Leadership Program as follows (2014-Current):



*2 years of sales & distribution experience as Area Head for the business driving large teams & responsible for delivering topline for the territory.

*2 years of experience in handing eCommerce channel for PepsiCo, responsible for driving account relationships with online Groceries in India (Amazon, Flipkart * other eGroceries) & delivering P&L objective metrics for the organization.



Working in the eCommerce role exposed me to the way digital is shaping businesses in every function. Met Indira Nooyi in India & her words of guidance to us was: Run eCommerce channel in PepsiCo like a Tech Company not like a CPG Org. Realized hands on that eComm is not just a platform for purchase but a medium now to transform GoToMarket channels (Online B2B, B2C, HoReCa) , Marketing strategies (Amazon Media Services), Communication modes (Amazon search competing with Google now) & a whole new experience to connect with consumers.



Academic:

1. Cohesive Leader Award, PepsiCo

2. Highest Growth Area Head, PepsiCo

3. Selected for ILEAP, Leadership Academy of PepsiCo Globally

4. Best Summer Project, MBA

5. Runners Up, PepsiCo Indra Nooyi Case Study, MBA

6. Runners Up, Deloitte National Case Study, MBA



Extra Curricular:

1. Placement Committee Member, MBA

2. Member, Summer Mentorship Program - Coaching students on summer internships interviews & skill sets

3. Organizer Sports News Letter - IIT Roorkee

4. Dance & Dramatics On Stage events



Post MBA Goals:

Short Term: Working in Strategy/Channel Development/Marketing roles in eCommerce/Tech sector, leveraging past experience in consumer goods & online channel along with driving businesses through digital integration learning at MBA



Long Term: General Manager roles in retail sector demonstrating leadership across multiple geographies & leveraging digital capabilities in driving business P&Ls and growths.



Queries:

I have following queries regarding the application:

1. Which schools should i target with the profile & score.

2. What are the possibilities one can explore in eCommerce space in terms of roles - Do people pursue Strategy/GoToMarket roles in tech ?

3. I wanted to write Product Manager roles in eComm but dont have a coding experience per se. How critical is that & would that impact the application ?

4. Is Indian GPA at IIT Roorkee 7.51/10 decent enough when converted to 4 scale GPA ?

5. To answer why another MBA, i really feel that my MBA 4 years back helped me gain experience in driving businesses traditionally. But in the span of 4 years, i saw quite massive drifts in the way digital is shaping businesses these days. And that's what i wish to seek ahead in my learning pursuit. (Crude form currently).

Minutes to Admission Weekly newsletter, were, in a 5-min video, we share admissions insights that help you stand out. To sign up for the FREE newsletter, register Join ournewsletter, were, in a 5-min video, we share admissions insights that help you stand out. To sign up for the FREE newsletter, register here . Or copy and paste the URL in your browser: https://www.siaadmissions.com/minutes-to-admission





Susan Berishaj

Sia Admissions

info@siaadmissions.com

+1 (646) 690 - 9996

website:



Contact us for a complimentary profile evaluation Susan BerishajSia Admissionsinfo@siaadmissions.com+1 (646) 690 - 9996website: http://www.SiaAdmissions.com Contact us for a Signature Read MoreNew York State Department of Health Warns of Potential Measles Exposures in Chemung, Genesee, Niagara, and Livingston Counties

ALBANY, N.Y. (May 5, 2018)  The New York State Department of Health announced today that an international traveler from Europe who has been confirmed to have measles visited multiple venues in New York State potentially exposing others to measles on April 30th, May 1st, and May 2nd.

Anyone who visited the following locations may have been exposed:

Old Country Buffet, 821 Country Route 64, Elmira, NY on April 30 th between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m.

between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. Ontario Travel Plaza on NYS Thruway (I-90) in Leroy, NY on April 30 th between 4 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.

between 4 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. Sheraton Niagara Falls, 300 3 rd Street, Niagara Falls, NY from 5:30 p.m. on April 30 th to 9:30 a.m. on May 2 nd

Street, Niagara Falls, NY from 5:30 p.m. on April 30 to 9:30 a.m. on May 2 Niagara Falls Urgent Care, 3117 Military Road Suite 2, Niagara Falls, NY on May 1 st between 3:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m.

between 3:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. Exit 5 on Interstate 390 in Dansville, NY, on May 2nd between 9:30 a.m. and noon

These times reflect the period that the infected individual was in these areas and a two-hour period after the individual left the area, as the virus remains alive in the air and on surfaces for up to two hours.

Individuals are considered protected or immune to measles if they were born before 1957, have received two doses of measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine, have had measles disease, or have a lab test confirming immunity. Individuals who are not immune to measles and were exposed are at risk for developing measles. The risk of developing measles is low for people who have been vaccinated or are immune.

All individuals who were exposed, especially those without immunity or who are not sure if they have been vaccinated, should monitor for symptoms of measles. Symptoms include a fever, rash, cough, conjunctivitis or runny nose. Symptoms usually appear 10-12 days after exposure but may appear as early as 7 days and as late as 21 days after exposure. Individuals should contact their health care provider if they develop measles symptoms.

To prevent the spread of illness, the Department is advising individuals who may have been exposed and who have symptoms consistent with measles to contact their health care provider, a local clinic, or a local emergency department before going for care. This will help to prevent others at these facilities from being exposed to the illness.

Measles is a highly contagious respiratory disease caused by a virus that is spread by direct contact with nasal or throat secretions of infected people. People first develop a fever, then may have a cough, runny nose and watery eyes, followed by appearance of the rash. People are considered infectious from four days before to four days after the appearance of the rash.

The single best way to prevent measles is to be vaccinated. Individuals should receive two doses of MMR vaccine to be fully protected. If a person is unsure if they are immune they should contact their healthcare provider. Typically, the first dose of MMR vaccine should be given at 12-15 months of age and the second dose should be given at four to six years of age (age of school entry), although individuals may also be vaccinated later in life. In New York State, measles immunization is required of children enrolled in schools, daycare, and pre-kindergarten. Since August 1990, college students have also been required to demonstrate immunity against measles.

Health care providers should report all suspected cases of measles to their local health department. More information about measles can be found at https://www.health.ny.gov/publications/2170.pdfAs of August 26th, 2021 Yahoo India will no longer be publishing content. Your Yahoo Account Mail and Search experiences will not be affected in any way and will operate as usual. We thank you for your support and readership. For more information on Yahoo India, please visit the FAQIt has been 25 years since a major Hollywood movie company has released an English-language film with mostly Asian actors.

The last was Wayne Wangs film The Joy Luck Club, which was released in 1993.

Now, many people in Hollywood are excited about a romantic comedy called Crazy Rich Asians. The film is based on Kevin Kwans best-selling book about a Chinese-American woman who gets a culture shock when she meets her boyfriends family in Singapore.

Longtime producer Nina Jacobson said that when she and her business partner Brad Simpson read Kwans script, they knew it had to be a movie.

Jacobson said, It was so specific that it became really universal: Anybody who has ever faced in-laws who felt that they were not worthy of their beloved.

However, Jacobson and Simpson believed the film would likely never survive the film studio development process. They decided to have a plan, a script and a budget to sell together before going to the big studios to create the film.

John Penotti of Ivanhoe Pictures agreed to help them and Warner Bros. agreed to partner with them and release the film.

Hollywood has been wrong to avoid films that closely examine the world of different ethnicities, Simpson said. She added that successful films like Black Panther show people really like these kinds of films.

Jon M. Chu is the director of Crazy Rich Asians. He heard about the new book from his family. He knew why. His last name is the same as that of the main character, Rachel Chu. Also, both are from Cupertino, California. His family is even mentioned in the book.

I think a lot of Asian-Americans go through the same journey, Chu said. He said that he feels both American and Chinese.

I remember going to Asia for the first time and theres a very specific emotion that you feel thats like, Oh, this feels like home but its not my home and these people dont see me as being part of this, he said.

Having known Jacobson and Simpson for years, he knew they would protect the film and do it the right way. He wants people who see the movie to see an unbelievable world of wealth and tradition.

Chu asked Malaysian-born screenwriter Adele Lim to give the script an Asian feel. Then, company officials looked in Canada, New York, Los Angeles, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, London, Australia, Singapore and Malaysia for the right actors. Candidates had to be English-speaking and have the right accents.

Constance Wu was chosen to play the lead, Rachel. They found Henry Golding, a popular TV host to play Rachels boyfriend, Nick. He had the right English accent to play the London-schooled wealthy young man.

International actress Michelle Yeoh was chosen to be his disapproving mother, Eleanor.

Some people  especially on the internet  said the actors did not have the right ethnicities to match the ones written in the book.

However, Chu said that having a film with an Asian-American lead is important. A USC Study found that 44 of the top 100 films from 2016 did not have Asian-American speaking characters.

Wu said he has never played the main character in a movie since he finished drama school. He added that parts for Asian-Americans are not going to be complex until they get to play main characters.

Actress Michelle Yeoh was different from the rest of the actors, Chu said. She had acted in majority Asian films so she did not understand why the film was so important to the Asian-Americans and it shocked her.

Jacobson said making the film created a joyful sense of purpose that we all shared.

Wu also is a strong supporter of Asian representation on social media. He said the film is important because it shows the difference between the Asian experience and the Asian-American experience.

The film is expected to open on August 17. However, the film trailer already has been released and an early showing of the movie received good comments.

Chu said that if the film is successful, Hollywood will make more stories about Asian-Americans.

Im Susan Shand.

Susan Shand adapted this story for Learning English based on a report from the Associated Press. Mario Ritter was the editor.

Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page.

_______________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

romantic  adj. involving love between two people

script  n. the written form of a play, movie, television show

specific  adj. special or particular

in-laws  n. the parents of ones husband or wife

beloved  n. the person one loves

studio  n. the company that produces a film

character  n. a player in a film

journey  n. a trip or adventure

accent  n. the style of word pronunciationThousands of German students are accusing school officials of creating an English exam that was unfairly difficult.

The exam is important because it is part of Germanys Abitur system. The Abitur test is given to students who are completing high school and preparing to enter college.

More than 35,000 people have signed a petition to voice their concerns about the test which was recently held in the state of Baden-Wurttemberg.

The students say the English part of the 2018 Abitur was clearly more difficult than tests given in recent years. They are calling on school officials to consider their criticisms while judging student performance and giving test results. School officials have defended the test. The said the questions were appropriate for the students.

The exam is designed to test a students understanding and skill level in English. Part of the test requires students to read examples of English writing and then answer questions to measure how much they comprehend.

Test unfairly difficult?

The petition says some of the English examples were very difficult to understand, even for students who usually perform well in English classes. It said some examples were written a long time ago and contained old words.

The petition also noted that metaphorical language was a problem.

One of the most criticized examples was a description of New York Citys Statue of Liberty.

This is part of the example on the test--it contains many words not usually used in VOA Learning English.

"Against the luminous sky the rays of her halo were spikes of darkness roweling the air; shadow flattened the torch she bore to a black cross against flawless lightthe blackened hilt of a broken sword. Liberty."

The students were required to answer questions about that example.

The petition says such language should not have been used to measure reading and comprehension. Students said it contains too many unknown words and symbolic meanings, making it difficult to understand and analyze.

Even some native English speakers pointed out on social media that they too would have difficulties with the writing in the example. One of those was a British Twitter user living in Frankfurt, Germany.

I'm a native English speaker and roweling is a new word to me, too. I'm pretty sure you can get by without it, the user tweeted.

The petition noted another English example from the 1934 book Call It Sleep by Henry Roth. The students said many of the words used in the example are so outdated that some modern dictionaries do not even include them.

The petition said some examples dealt with character development. The students said this meant the comprehension questions required them to interpret feelings and relationships.

They said this meant the right answers were not necessarily provable and required a lot of time to try to read between the lines.

The BBC reported that the English exam also asked the students to compare two cartoons. They both dealt with the issue of Britain leaving the European Union, or Brexit.

One image was called Project Fantasy, the other The Realities. The cartoons required some current affairs knowledge and also English skills, BBC noted.

For all of these reasons, the petitioners declared, The Abitur 2018 in Subject English was unfair!

Officials: judges will take a balanced corrections

The local official in charge of the testing process in Baden-Wurttemberg is the areas minister of culture, Susanne Eisenmann.

In a statement, she said officials had carried out a full review of the exam and decided it was appropriate for the students being tested. She said the review included experts in charge of graduation requirements and outside English experts.

Eisenmann said she does not think the students should worry too much about their exam results. "I have full confidence in the teachers that they will use their discretion to make responsible and balanced corrections, she said.

Im Bryan Lynn.

Bryan Lynn wrote this story for VOA Learning English, based on reports from the BBC and other news sources. Mario Ritter was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page.

_____________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

appropriate  adj. suitable or right for a particular situation or person

comprehend  v. to understand the meaning of

metaphorical  adj. an idea that is used as a symbol for something else

symbolic  adj. representing something

analyze  v. to study something closely and carefully

character  n. a person included in a story

cartoon  n. a picture that looks at people or objects in a funny way

assess  v. make a judgement about something

review  n. the act of carefully looking at or examining something

confidence  n. feeling of being certain of your ability to do something well

discretion  n. right to choose what should be done in a particular situation46 minutes ago

Ex-CEO who oversaw doomed nuclear project to be sentenced

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP)  The executive who oversaw a $9 billion plan to build two nuclear reactors in South Carolina is getting ready to go to prison, more than four years after he announced the mammoth project had failed without ever generating a watt of power. Former SCANA Corp.

Read Article American Consumer News, LLC dba MarketBeat 2010-2021. All rights reserved.

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 2021 Market data provided is at least 10-minutes delayed and hosted by Barchart Solutions. Information is provided 'as-is' and solely for informational purposes, not for trading purposes or advice, and is delayed. To see all exchange delays and terms of use please see disclaimer. Fundamental company data provided by Zacks Investment Research.China Hydroelectric Corporation is a developer, owner and operator of small hydroelectric power projects in China. The projects are located in Zhejiang, Fujian, Yunnan and Sichuan. As of December 31, 2012, wholly owns 22 operating hydroelectric power projects and have controlling interests in three operating hydroelectric power projects. In March 2012, the Company sold 100% of the Yuanping hydroelectric power project. In April 2013, the Company sold the Yuheng hydroelectric power project, a 30 megawatt (MW) project located in Fujian province. In July 2014, the Company announced that it has completed the merger with CPT Wyndham Sub Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of CPT Wyndham Holdings Ltd.

Read MoreHenkel AG & Co. KGaA, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the adhesive technologies, beauty care, and laundry and home care businesses worldwide. The company's Adhesive Technologies segment offers adhesives, sealants, and functional coatings for various business areas, including packaging and consumer goods; automotive and metals, electronics and industrials, and craftsmen, construction, and professional industries. This segment markets its products primarily under the Loctite, Technomelt, Bonderite, Teroson, and Aquence brand names. Its Beauty Care segment offers hair cosmetics; and body, skin, and oral care products, as well as operates professional hair salons. This segment distributes its products through brick and mortar stores, hair salons, third party online platforms, and direct-to-consumer channels primarily under the Schwarzkopf, Dial, and Syoss brands. The company's Laundry & Home Care segment offers heavy-duty and specialty detergents, fabric softeners, laundry performance enhancers, and other fabric care products; hand and automatic dishwashing products; cleaners for bathroom and WC applications; household, glass, and specialty cleaners; and air fresheners and insect control products for household applications. This segment markets its products primarily under the Persil, Bref, Purex, all, and other brand names. Henkel AG & Co. KGaA was founded in 1876 and is headquartered in DAsseldorf, Germany.

Read MoreVedanta Ltd. is a natural resource company, which engages in the exploration, extraction, and processing of minerals, oil, and gas properties. It operates through the following segments: Copper, Aluminum, Iron Ore, Power, and Oil & Gas. The Copper segment focuses in custom smelting and also include a copper smelter, a refinery, a phosphoric acid plant, a sulphuric acid plant, a copper rod plant, and three captive power plants. The Aluminum segment comprises refinery and a captive power plant at Lanjigarh and a smelter, a thermal coal based captive power facility at Jharsuguda both situated in the State of Odisha in India. The Iron Ore segment explores, mines, and processes iron ore, pig iron, and metallurgical coke. The Power segment consists 600 MW thermal coal-based commercial power facility at Jharsuguda in the State of Odisha in Eastern India. The Oil and Gas segment involves in the exploration and development and production of oil and gas. The company was founded by Dwarka Prasad Agarwal on June 25, 1965 and is headquartered in Mumbai, India.

Read MoreAUBURN  The 46th annual Political Memorabilia Show and Sale drew collectors old and new to Auburn Saturday afternoon.

Held at the Auburn United Methodist Church on South Street, the show featured vendors selling and showcasing various American political campaign and presidential collectibles and memorabilia from the first days of George Washington through todays political members.

Its really a passion that gets into your soul, said longtime collector and seller Gary Cohen. Everyone that collects and attends the shows has a particular era and candidate that has grabbed them in some way.

Cohen, who resides in Las Vegas, started collecting as a teenager and tries to attend as many shows throughout the United States as possible.

Items such as buttons, posters and coins were on display throughout the hall.

Syracuse native Ed Burns found his political passion as a 6-year-old when his older brother gave him an I Like Ike button. He has a particular liking for President Dwight Eisenhower but said that Harry Truman is another figure that fascinates him.

It's the one show that I am sure to attend each year, he said. Its good to see what is out there and what has survived the years. Not a lot of things have.

Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0West Jordan Detective Brent Jex arrived at the Jordan Winds business park early on Nov. 8 to scope out the identical beige stuccoed offices used by real estate agents and home health care firms. From the street, no one could tell a therapist worked there, but Jex still felt exposed. He backed his car into a spot at the far end of the lot.

A friend from the West Valley City Police Department coaxed him by phone, encouraging him to go into the office of therapist Brian Murdock. Jex walked about halfway and froze. He hurried back to the safety of his car and called his buddy. "I don't think I can do this," he said. Urged to try once more, Jex timed the gap between red lights on the adjacent street. He wanted to miss the rush of cars driving by, making it less likely he'd be seen. "You'd have thought I was breaking into Watergate."

On the second attempt, he made it through the front door.

Murdock stands over 6 feet tall and is solidly built. He speaks in a soft voice that is measured and confident. He keeps his hair short and has a goatee that at this point is mostly gray. His cozy office is designed to look like a living room, with a small desk in the corner, plush leather seats and a couch.

Therapist Brian Murdock saw Officer Brent Jex and now works with Utah's Fraternal Order of Police to provide up to two free visits for police officers.

Photo by Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune

Jex expected touchy-feely. Instead, "I just found myself having a conversation." So sleep deprived he thought he was going crazy, Jex wanted Murdock to write him a prescription. Murdock declined, saying the detective's body needed to come up with its own answer. He also warned that going through therapy, facing down each tragedy that weighed on him, would likely make everything worse before it got better.

The possibility that things could get worse had never occurred to Jex.

Murdock spent their first visit explaining the therapy he thought would be the most effective to treat Jex's panic attacks, inability to sleep, uneasiness in crowds and hypervigilance. It's called eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing, or EMDR for short. Jex would think intensely about a traumatic event while grasping small plastic paddles that would vibrate  alternating stimulation intended to help him "reprocess" the event. By splitting the brain's attention between the memory and the vibrating paddles, the therapy is thought to reduce the power of the troubling memory.

Reprocessing, Murdock explained, helps put the memory "in the healthy part of the brain so it is no longer a trigger, no longer frozen in time, where it can come back on you." Many psychologists thought EMDR was a gimmick when Francine Shapiro developed it in 1987, but it has since become an accepted tool for working with rape victims, combat veterans and others.

A person stores intense memories in four ways, Murdock explained: through images, thoughts, emotions and body sensations. During therapy, Murdock wheels his chair close to his patients, often just inches away. He asks them to think of an image tied to the traumatic event. Next, he asks patients to identify any negative thoughts about themselves and recall what they felt in that moment, anything from a pit in their stomach to goosebumps.

He then asks that they let their minds wander as he turns buttons on a white plastic box, controlling the intensity and longevity of the vibrations in the paddles they're holding. Therapist and patient sit quietly for about 30 seconds. Murdock turns off the device, encourages his patients to take a deep breath and asks if any thoughts bubbled to the surface.

Murdock repeats this cycle until they say the traumatic memory no longer holds so much emotional power over them, rating it on a scale of zero to 10. Getting to a zero, which is neutral, can happen quickly, or it can take many cycles over many visits. Jex's reaction to learning about EMDR therapy was: "No way, but I'll humor you." He was burned out and desperate. Murdock asked him to name his first big trauma and the worst trauma he experienced. The answer to both questions was Ron Wood's murder, which is where they began the following week.

When Murdock prompted Jex to think of an image, he recalled bumping into Wood at the police station, shortly after Justin Van Roekel ran away at the high school. Jex told him he was looking for "some problem children." It was the last time he'd see Wood alive. Murdock asked him what he felt, and the first word that popped into his head was "failure." Next were body sensations: being consumed by the cloud of anxiety. Jex thought, "I hope this works, because I'm sick of this."

The paddles buzzed.

In the second round, he saw Wood's casket at his graveside service, with the medical helicopters overhead and dispatch performing the ceremonial last call. His anxiety subsided a touch. He was surprised his thoughts weren't always logical or linear, and Murdock encouraged him to let his brain unwrap the case any way it wanted to.

After a few reprocessing rounds, they talked. Murdock, playing devil's advocate, wanted Jex to explain how he botched the case. Jex described the robberies and the police stop in September of that year, when Justin, Tyler Atwood and Sean Tims got caught with guns but juvenile detention wouldn't lock them up.

"So you had enough to book him on the robberies?"

Jex fell silent.

What did they really have on Justin? Not much. They didn't directly tie him to the robberies until after the shooting. Maybe Jex could have tried to book him on something related to his violent statements to teacher Jana White, but Jex had secondhand knowledge of the comments, and everyone at the school was encouraging counseling.

Sitting in Murdock's office, with the therapist leaning well into his personal space, Jex saw the case from a different perspective. He realized his guilt had weighed on him for so long that the details had become largely irrelevant. He wished he had responded differently, but there was no egregious errors. It was revelatory. His self-loathing didn't magically evaporate, but his guilt eased. In its place came annoyance.

"I felt stupid for how it influenced me," he said. "All the things I didn't realize before because I was clutching onto it too tight and not in the right frame of mind." After that visit, Jex was a believer in EMDR. In two more hourlong sessions, he grappled with his actions, his concern for Wood's widow, and his anger  at himself and at the other detectives there when Justin ran away. In between those sessions, the department recognized the anniversary of Wood's death and Jex, for the first time, was able to talk about his fallen colleague without breaking down.

In his first discussion with Murdock, Jex had said Wood's death was at least an eight on the 10-point trauma scale. By the end of his third appointment, it hit zero. His thoughts shifted to Draper Sgt. Derek Johnson. One trauma rolled right into the next.

How had Jex not recognized Johnson as paramedics performed CPR on the side of the road? Or at the hospital, moments before Johnson died? What did it say about his mental state? Murdock had plausible answers. "In traumatic situations, our brain can shut down to try to deal," he explained. "But, in his mind, it meant he wasn't a good friend because he didn't recognize him."

Jex started to get some real sleep, sometimes as much as seven hours a night, making him feel more like himself.

The paddles kept buzzing as Jex worked through the suicides of Mike Valdes and a co-worker in West Jordan who intentionally drove off a cliff. He talked about trying to save the baby girl by performing CPR. By January, he was amazed at how well the therapy had worked. He still felt sadness and pain, but the panic attacks stopped, as did the nightmares. He was making steady progress with no major relapses.

"There was definitely a clearing," he said. "We powered through the worst of it."

IN THIS VIDEO: Brian Murdock simulates a reprocessing therapy session, talking into the camera, as if you are the patient.

Jex's back is never to a door or a window, and he scopes out all entryways. That's pretty common for a cop. Even at church, he'd pick a pew that had good sightlines. While he was supposed to be listening to speakers at a Mormon worship service, he would run through how he'd react if an armed intruder burst in and started firing. When he would come up with an acceptable scenario, he'd run through alternatives. What if there were two shooters? "I would game-plan it out," he said, "and that was normal to me."

There's a difference between healthy preparedness and what Jex was repeatedly doing. Murdock told Jex the trauma experienced by soldiers and cops has similarities. Soldiers tend to witness more extreme trauma, then leave the battlefield behind, at least physically.

"You guys work in your horrific zone, and your family lives in those horrific zones and your children go to school in your horrific zone," Murdock told Jex. "It's just destructive."

 You guys work in your horrific zone, and your family lives in those horrific zones and your children go to school in your horrific zone." Brian Murdock to Detective Brent Jex

It makes sense that police officers can start to see everyone in the cities in which they serve as threats. With this in mind, Murdock asked Jex: "When was the last time you left your house without your gun?"

"Why would I leave my house without my gun?" Jex asked with some alarm.

"So that you would know that you could."

Jex argued that if he left his house without his reliable Glock 43, then that would be the day of a theater shooting or a convenience store robbery.

"Constantly having his gun was kind of a representation of always having to be on guard," Murdock said, looking back on the conversation. It reflects the mindset: "'I have the responsibility to defend because I have the means to defend.' But sometimes he needs to just be a guy."

Being hypervigilant is counterproductive, Murdock said, because it leaves an officer like Jex drained and raw, meaning he might react poorly in a crisis. Jex believes this is the most important thing he learned during his months in therapy.

"You want to see the person coming through the door with the gun so you can react before anything happens, and it's dangerous, because then you're constantly on edge and hypervigilant and that translates into lack of sleep, and lack of sleep turns into anxiety; anxiety turns into misreading situations," Jex said. "It was seriously the most eye-opening thing that I've gone through in 17 years."

He agreed to start small. He left the house without his phone and survived. Then, he got up the courage to place his Glock in the gun safe and his phone on his nightstand and push a cart around a grocery store. He felt uncomfortable, but nothing happened. He's done it since, not often, but enough to know he doesn't need to be armed at all times.

By March 2015, after 14 sessions, Jex felt centered. Murdock told him he should check back in if he started to feel stressed. As he went through the sessions, Jex also talked to Murdock about his marriage. He realized he had shut Katie out of a major portion of his life. He did so thinking he was protecting her; instead, he left himself without someone to confide in when he needed that the most.

"I had hit bottom, and it was like I'm drowning and I knew communication was a life vest," he said. "She had a lot of patience with me."

Jex even asked Katie to meet with him and Murdock for a session, during which they talked about his progress and potential warning signs. They started talking more and going out to lunch together, and occasionally caught a movie  normal relationship stuff they had set aside too long as they focused on their jobs and their children.

"I thought our marriage was great before this started," she said. "But it was just amazing to watch how this whole thing pulled us together."

Ten months later, another "officer down" call would put Jex's progress to the test.

Officer Doug Barney approached a man running from a car crash. Without warning, 31-year-old fugitive Cory Lee Henderson turned around and shot Barney in the head.

Officer Doug Barney

Courtesy photo

Fellow cops with the Unified Police Department in Salt Lake County converged and killed Henderson in a barrage of more than 20 bullets. But before he died, Henderson returned fire, striking Officer Jon Richey in the leg and torso. Those injuries weren't life-threatening.

When Katie Jex heard about the shooting, she wondered if it would trigger an emotional relapse in her husband, who had known Barney for years. Would he withdraw again, become moody, fall back into hopelessness? Jex also wasn't sure how he'd react.

"I was actually really nervous about going to the hospital," he said.

Doctors placed Barney on life support, giving the family a chance to gather for a final goodbye. Jex paid his respects to Barney's wife and family, then he visited with the police officers who lined the hallways. He made sure to find Lt. Lex Bell, an exceptionally close friend of Barney's who also served as the news media's main point of contact on his shooting. Jex counseled the lieutenant to take time to grieve. And he asked Bell to keep an eye on the other officers who were at the scene, particularly Richey, to make sure none of them blamed themselves. (Richey recovered from his injuries but suffered a fatal heart attack in February 2017.)

Shante Johnson, widow of Draper Sgt. Derek R. Johnson, at the vigil held in Holladay for slain Officer Doug Barney.

Photo by Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune

While crushed at the loss of Barney, Jex managed his emotions. Still, that day and in the days to come, he kept returning to an idea he'd begun to form while in therapy.

Protecting the public comes at a personal cost. The longer officers stay on the job, the more likely they are to construct emotional armor to protect themselves from the awful things they see. This leaves cops feeling a step removed from the people they are supposed to serve, their neighbors and even their own families. As a result, they find solace only when surrounded by colleagues; who else can understand what they're going through? And yet, to let those trusted fellow officers know they are struggling, to acknowledge they feel disconnected or have a loss of empathy or even a loss of control, that would be like conceding that they don't belong.

This is the mentality Jex believes drives officers to hide their pain; this is why he knows of so many cops over the years who abuse drugs or alcohol, have emotional problems or have died by suicide. This is what drove him to the edge, and now he felt compelled to combat it. But how?

Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014.

Walter Scott in North Charleston, S.C., in 2015.

Philando Castile in St. Anthony, Minn., in 2016.

Stephon Clark in Sacramento in 2018.

The deaths of these men and scores of others in police shootings have driven a nationwide debate over the militarization of law enforcement and racism within the ranks.

That conversation infuriates Jex, who is, above all else, a defender of his profession. He finds it almost intolerable that so many see cops as the problem. He feels the criticism is often unjust and amplifies the us-vs.-them mentality with which some officers already struggle. He says it leaves them thinking: Who are these politicians and journalists? Who are these protesters? They have never had to make life-or-death decisions in a flash. They don't know what it is really like out there. But his post in the Fraternal Order of Police and his experience in therapy also give him a different perspective. He knows all too well that stress can warp reality. One traumatic experience after another can lead to poor decision-making. Jex believes police departments must devote more attention to mental health. If they do, there may be fewer questionable shootings.

"I'm 100 percent convinced that if we did a better job as a society, and especially as a profession of helping cops get through these things, we wouldn't see the things we see," he said, adding alcohol and prescription-drug abuse and domestic violence to debatable times when officers fire their weapons. "We want guys out there with a clear mind and not having a reaction or a flashback to something and reacting in the wrong way. It would be very naive to think that doesn't happen, and I think there are some uses of force that are tied directly back to responses like that."

But how do you persuade police to seek help? The long-stalled FOP mental health program was a start.

At a state convention, Jex told FOP lodge presidents, representing 2,700 Utah officers, about his experience in therapy and how the plan would work. They supported him unanimously, funding his plan to cover the first two therapy sessions for officers. Murdock is one available therapist; they found another with offices in southern Utah. Both promised anonymity. In its first year, 10 officers took advantage of the program. A dozen more received help the next year, and Jex continues to promote the free therapy.

He didn't stop there.

Weeks after Doug Barney's death, Jex went to the state Capitol to talk privately with Utah Gov. Gary Herbert and criminal justice officials. He started by describing his panic attacks after giving the dying baby girl CPR and his reluctance to seek therapy, fearing it would end his career. The room remained quiet. "It was one of the most compelling things I've ever seen," said Kelly Atkinson, a former FOP lobbyist. "It moved me to tears. I couldn't believe his honesty."

Jex urged the state to study post-traumatic stress in cops and create a training course with the goal of educating officers about the psychological effects of the job. When he finished, the governor turned to Ron Gordon, who then led the Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice, and said: "Ron, we need to do something about this. We need to make something happen." Gordon had worked for the commission for 20 years, and this was the first time he was asked to address the mental impact of policing. He invited Jex to speak to his group, which was made up of judges, prosecutors, police chiefs and victim advocates. They explored creating a new police academy course, which is still in the works. Eventually, the commission gave Jex and the FOP a $20,000 grant.

He used the money to build a makeshift TV studio in the FOP's spartan basement offices. Over a few months, fellow officers ran the camera and served as sound technicians while Jex interviewed people in and around law enforcement about stress and trauma. In one, widow Shante Johnson, fighting tears, says: "It is really hard to watch somebody struggle. ... I feel like, as cops, you guys internalize so much and you try to hide so much from your spouses and your children." Jex plans to post the videos on DunamisPolice.org, a website he and his team created that takes its name from the Greek word for strength.

He was also heartened to see the 2018 Utah Legislature pass a bill granting anonymity to officers and members of peer-support teams, unless in their conversations officers are a clear danger to themselves or others, or confess to a crime. Many cops have worried that peer-support officers could be compelled to testify in court, including in divorce cases. This law, which Jex aggressively pushed in past years, would help additional responders, such as firefighters. As Jex's career nears its end  he is considering retirement in early 2019  he wants to leave behind a Utah law enforcement community that is better prepared to care for itself.

After Ron Wood was killed in 2002, Jex desperately wanted Tyler Atwood to serve his time in prison and then some for Justin Van Roekel, at least enough so that by the day he walked free, Denise Vincent, Richard Davis, Richard Schaffnit and anyone else who was close to Wood had retired. Jex considered that justice. Despite a supportive prosecutor and judge, that's not what happened.

Atwood got paroled from the state prison in May 2008 and transferred immediately to a federal lockup in Texas, where he served four more years on federal gun charges. He became a free man Nov. 23, 2012, after spending 9 years incarcerated, roughly a third of what Jex originally envisioned.

Jex didn't even know Atwood had been released until a reporter brought it to his attention. He bristled initially, took a moment and then shrugged it off.

Nearly 10 years is a pretty long sentence for a 17-year-old convicted of two armed robberies. And so far, Atwood has had no other run-ins with the law.

"Reality and reason have set back in," Jex says. "I'm confident that I could deal with him today and not have any residual ... anything."

Unlike Wood's family, Jex can't forgive Atwood for his role in the crime spree or Van Roekel for pulling the trigger. But he feels he's reconnected to his own humanity and to the reason he became an officer: to protect both the public and his fellow cops. He knows he can't stop an officer from being ambushed or end the national debate over police shootings. But by sharing his story, and by striving to make it feel less risky to reach out, he hopes to guide more officers to get help.

And in the end, that is all the justice he needs.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday stepped up his calls to end the Iranian nuclear deal as President Donald Trump weighs whether to withdraw the United States from the 2015 agreement.

In a briefing to foreign reporters Netanyahu said a deal that enables Iran to keep and hide all its nuclear weapons know-how, is a horrible deal.

The deal has to be either fully fixed or fully nixed, he said. But if you do nothing to this deal, if you keep it as is, you will end up with Iran with a nuclear arsenal in a very short time, he said.

Trump faces a May 12 deadline over whether to uphold 2015 nuclear deal, which he long has criticized. Trump has signaled he will pull out of the agreement by May 12 unless it is revised, but he faces intense pressure from European allies not to do so. Netanyahu has found a welcome partner in Trump, who has called the agreement the worst deal ever.

Netanyahu is an outspoken opponent of the deal, which requires Iran to limit its nuclear enrichment in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions. Netanyahu says the deal will not prevent Iran, Israels bitter enemy, from reaching nuclear weapons capability.

Last week, Netanyahu said a half ton of Iranian nuclear documents seized by Israeli intelligence revealed that Iran had lied about its past efforts to produce nuclear weapons. He did not provide any evidence that Iran has violated the 2015 nuclear deal, but said the documents prove Tehran cannot be trusted.

Iran dismissed Netanyahus presentation as a ridiculous show but did not address the documents he displayed. Iran has denied ever pursuing nuclear arms.

Netanyahu said yesterday that Israel is passing on the findings to the main intelligence services and others. If you dont violate a dangerous deal, it doesnt make it less dangerous, Netanyahu said.

European countries, which have been pressing Trump to stick with the deal, have said Netanyahus presentation only reinforced the importance of the agreement, which provides for inspections.

Earlier, Netanyahu accused Iran of supplying advanced weapons to Syria that pose a danger to Israel, saying its better to confront Tehran sooner rather than later.

Israel has repeatedly warned it will not tolerate a lasting Iranian military presence in neighboring Syria, and is believed to have been behind recent airstrikes on Syrian military bases that killed Iranian soldiers, prompting Tehran to vow retaliation. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement.

Netanyahu told the Israeli Cabinet that Iran has delivered advanced weapons to Syria in order to attack us both on the battlefield and on the home front.

We are determined to block Irans aggression against us even if this means a struggle. Better now than later, he said. We do not want escalation, but we are prepared for any scenario.

Israel has long viewed Iran as its biggest threat because of Tehrans nuclear activities, its support for armed groups across the region and its leaders frequent calls for the destruction of the Jewish state. In recent years, Iran has provided crucial military support to Syrian President Bashar Assad. Josef Federman, Jerusalem , APWe would like to be able to say that out of the blue, the Legislative Assembly took the bold step to recommend to the MSAR government an overall amendment of the 1993 laws regarding the rights to public demonstrations and public meetings. But we cannot since this move has, to some extent, followed logically from an apparently revisionist will to challenge certain legislation such as the judiciary law. Albeit the general intention is one to update and upgrade, or to reform and adapt, we have to be prudent when evaluating this ambitious aggiornamento, regardless of whether or not the package is wrapped up and labeled as a legitimate and necessary improvement in keeping with the development of society, and far from any veiled plan to discard the laws of Macau as if it was about a maladjusted cast or fundamentalist rococo.

First, we have to admit that the modus operandi strikes a note of awe at something that is usually named political strategy, and secondly, we would care to point to some potential flaws and actual worries. Phase one of the legislative amendment took the shape of an apparent innocuous replacement of the Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau as the department to be notified of a demonstration or public meeting for the Public Security Force. However, it is a switch that would not go unnoticed anywhere else  forgive the double negative.

From this bureaucratic phase, the idea to amend the law followed sound analogy and common sense in the form of an interrogation: if we are to pick the regulatory framework to put PSP as the place to notify about demonstrations and meetings, why not take the opportunity to address other flaws?

At this point a related question emerges: flaws, what flaws? Disconnected sentencing is not only a symptom but proof that the law should be improved to avoid different verdicts on similar cases.

Should we be concerned about a revision of such an important right for MSAR people? Yes and no!

No, if we are to extrapolate a mantra from the explanation the government gave about the replacement of IACM by PSP: the change would not decrease a residents right to demonstrate. No, if we acknowledge that there is no draft proposal yet!

Should we worry? Yes, cautiously. When the zeitgeist seems to be one of integration we have to demand that the autonomy of the Basic Law should not be diminished vis-a-vis a particular reading that Chinas constitutional framework makes of fundamental rights.

If Macau is to nurture its own system, it has to cherish article 40 of the Basic Law which grants that the rights and freedoms enjoyed by Macau residents shall not be restricted unless as prescribed by law. Such restrictions shall not contravene the provisions of the first paragraph- ICCPR and ICESCR.

The truth is that the dwindling numbers seen in the 2018 May First demonstrations seem to endorse that legislative priorities be given to other areas of law. Eight hundred residents voicing their concerns about Pearl Horizon or the Gaming world, plus a sole demonstrator on his own  it almost behooves one to help the solitary voice by jumping into the crowd so as not to support ideas of a hypothetical theory on representative demonstrations.

Forgive us for the gloomy note but to nurture the second system  as is the convention to address Macau autonomy  does not sit well as per the famous line of the cynical expatriate in Casablanca: we`ll always have Paris! Memories to fall back on!Pablo Picassos Young Girl with a Flower Basket, will star in a Rockefeller collection going on the block starting May 8 at Christies. The Picasso, estimated at about USD100 million, is the highest valued of more than 1,500 Rockefeller lots, which include other Impressionist masterpieces, duck decoys and the dinner service that Napoleon took to his exile in Elba.

The painting is among 45 Picasso works estimated to fetch more than $305 million at New York auctions in the next two weeks. Sellers include embattled billionaire casino mogul Steve Wynn and the estate of Joan and Preston Robert Tisch.

With $212 million of Picasso works having already sold at auction this year, according to Artprice.com, 2018 is shaping up as the best ever for the Spanish master.

Wynn is parting with Picassos 1943 self-portrait in a striped sailor shirt, Le Marin. Estimated at about $70 million, it will be offered during Christies evening sale of Impressionist and modern art on May 15.Italys worst ever earthquake has killed more than 550 people and left 80,000 homeless.

At least 1,000 people were injured when the quake struck the northern region of Friuli last night, affecting 11 villages near the Austrian and Yugoslav borders.

A government spokesman said as many as 1,000 may have been killed. It is likely the death toll will rise as rescue workers find more bodies under the rubble of fallen buildings.

The local military and Red Cross are on the scene. They are due to be joined by rescue workers from Venice and Trieste.

Officials from the affected towns are appealing for medicine and emergency lights for hospitals. American army units in the area have flown in equipment and medical staff by helicopter and flown out the injured.

President Giovanni Leone and the Interior Minister, Francesco Cossiga, visited the earthquake zone by helicopter. They were moved to tears when they spoke to the injured at a hospital in the small town of Maiano, 10 miles (16km) north-west of Udine.

The hill town of Gemona, further north, was almost flattened, killing at least 100 people. A cemetery worker told reporters: We just havent got enough coffins.

Inmates of the towns prison tried to scale the walls in their panic to get out but were beaten back by machine-gun fire.

This last quake, which measured 6.5 on the Richter scale, was by far the strongest of the 23 tremors which began on the night of 5 May. It could be felt in France, West Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Yugoslavia.

Most of the 180,000 people who live in the Friuli region spent the night outdoors for fear of further aftershocks.

The Italian tourist office in London has said that there were no known British casualties.

The Queen has sent a message of sympathy to the Italian Government.

Courtesy BBC News

In context

The following 12 months saw hundreds more tremors in the region, the largest of which struck in September.

Altogether, the May and September quakes killed 951 people, injured 2,400 and left 45,000 homeless. Damage was estimated at 3,000m.

The Italian government came under strong criticism for allowing red tape to hamper reconstruction of the area.

When Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti visited the region in September, he was greeted with angry protests from refugees who had been living in tents for four months.

Tent cities were  eventually  replaced with 20,000 prefabricated houses.

Using donations from the European Community, the government had spent 250m by the end of 1976 to rebuild the infrastructure of the region and rehouse its inhabitants.

Northern and central Italy are susceptible to earthquakes, with many minor tremors occurring on a regular basis.Targa Resources Corp. provides midstream natural gas and natural gas liquids services. It also provides gathering, storing, and terminaling crude oil and storing, terminaling, and selling refined petroleum products. It operates through the following business segments: Gathering and Processing, and Logistics and Transportation. The Gathering and Processing segment includes assets used in the gathering of natural gas produced from oil and gas wells and processing this raw natural gas into merchantable natural gas by extracting NGLs and removing impurities; and assets used for crude oil gathering and terminaling. The Logistics and Transportation segment includes all the activities necessary to convert mixed NGLs into NGL products and provides certain value added services such as storing, fractionating, terminaling, transporting and marketing of NGLs and NGL products, including services to LPG exporters; storing and terminaling of refined petroleum products and crude oil and certain natural gas supply and marketing activities in support of its other businesses. The company was founded on October 27, 2005 and is headquartered in Houston, TX.

Read More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..May 5, 2018 23:43

A new poll busts stereotypes about the sex lives of older Americans  and reveals gender and health-related divides on key aspects of sexual health, while highlighting the need for more people to talk with their health providers about sexual issues.

Forty percent of people between the ages of 65 and 80 are sexually active, according to the new findings from the National Poll on Healthy Aging. Nearly three-quarters of people in this age range have a romantic partner and 54 percent of those with a partner are sexually active.

Whether or not they have an active sex life, nearly two-thirds of older adults say theyre interested in sex, and more than half say sex is important to their quality of life.

And when asked if they are satisfied with their current sex life, 73 percent of the nationally representative sample of 1,002 people polled said they were. The poll was conducted by the University of Michigan Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, and sponsored by AARP and Michigan Medicine, U-Ms academic medical center.

The poll explored how older adults might seek help or advice for sexual problems, and if theyve talked with their doctors about their sexual health.

In all, 18 percent of older men and 3 percent of older women say theyve taken medications or supplements to improve sexual function in the past two years. But only 17 percent of older adults said they have talked with their doctor or other health care provider about sexual health in the past two years. Most who had engaged in such discussions said they brought the topic up, suggesting the need for more proactive conversations by clinicians with their older patients.

Sexual health among older adults doesnt get much attention but is linked closely to quality of life, health and well-being, says U-Ms Erica Solway, Ph.D., co-associate director of the poll. Its important for older adults and the clinicians who care for them to talk about these issues and about how age-related changes in physical health, relationships, lifestyles and responsibilities such as caregiving, affect them.

Follow NEWS.am Medicine on Facebook and TwitterMagellan-Elcano circumnavigation

In 1519 a Spanish fleet of five vessels, under the command of Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, set sail from Seville in search of a route across the Pacific Ocean to East Asia. Magellan was killed in a battle during the voyage, leaving Spanish navigator Juan Sebastian Elcano and 18 surviving crew to become the first to circumnavigate the globe in a single expedition. Their expedition finally returned home to Spain in 1522

Magellans arrival in the Philippine Archipelago on March 15, 1521 was the first encounter between Spaniards and the people of the Philippines

The tornaviaje discovery

Between 1526 and 1540, Spain sent two more expeditions to the Philippines, but neither completed the return journey to the Americas. A fourth expedition, led by Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, arrived in the Philippines in 1565. While many of the crew settled on the islands, one sailor named Andres de Urdaneta had a very important job to doTinder is a lot like Pinterest except instead of looking at DIY projects Im not going to make, Im looking at men Im not going to date.

When I was in a relationship, Id scroll through Pinterest photos of tiny houses and makeup tricks any time I was bored. As a single woman, I switched to Tinder, swiping left, meaning I dont like you, or right, meaning I might, just to fill the time.

Just like the beeswax candles I never actually made, I wasnt going to start something with any of these guys on Tinder.

I mostly found it amusing. The men all seemed to follow the same script: photo with dog, photo with someone elses baby, photo with super attractive model who isnt their girlfriend, and a shirtless mirror selfie.

I get it  theyre trying to show that they either have a cute dog you should come play with or that they arent serial killers; after all, they like animals. They want you to know that they dont have kids, but they want you to think that theyre good with them since thats what women like. And, of course, he wants you to see how sexy he is, even when hes not.Early Saturday afternoon, an hour or two after Bob completed his reunion march back in New Jersey, Cathy and Russ were in Napa, knocking on our front door.

Bobs kid sister is no kid now. Times passage had made us age mates with a lot in common. We share Bob, multiple marriages, New Jersey, the Bay Area, journalism and vivid memories of her mother.

As it turned out, Russ, a former editor, has a phenomenal sense of humor. He started giving me fist bumps whenever we found a preference or prejudice in common. By afternoons end, my fist was sore.

As if all this werent special enough, there was more. Cathy had arrived with a gift: One of her mothers acrylic paintings.

Shed remembered me always wanting a Maclay. She had an attic full of them.

I was so happy. I felt transported back to Haddonfield, New Jersey, circa 1964, with Cathy the dazzling teenager and Bobs mother all smocked up, painting to her hearts content.

The painting was abstractly floral and dripping with color. Maybe too much color for Cheryl who is the keeper of our homes subdued decor? But Cheryl liked it too. She even picked out a spot on a living room wall where the brilliant colors would illuminate, not overwhelm.Napa Police reported the arrests of three motorists between Saturday night and early Sunday morning during its latest saturation patrol to stop suspected drunken drivers.

The drivers detained on suspicion of driving under the influence were a 36-year-old Vacaville woman, a 74-year-old man from Brazil, and a 19-year-old Napa man whose blood-alcohol percentage of 0.17 was more than twice the California legal limit, Sgt. Kristofer Jenny said in a news release.

Five other people were cited for vehicle code violations, and 42 vehicles were stopped during the patrol, which took place from 6 p.m. Saturday to 1 a.m. Sunday, according to Jenny.

Napa Police's anti-DUI patrols are funded by a grant from the state Office of Traffic Safety, using funds from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.Social solidarity has to be about more than merely being there. It involves a sense of mutual obligation  and not just whats required by law. Like citizenship, social solidarity is both inclusive and exclusive. Its inclusive because it binds people together. Its unavoidably exclusive because not everybody gets bound in.

As long as national politics is the principal driver of government action, liberal democracies will need citizens who think of themselves as citizens  even if that does entail a degree of moral blindness. The strand of progressivism that favors open borders is founded on a contradiction.

A liberal conception of citizenship recognizes certain universal human rights and the demands of ordinary decency so far as non-citizens are concerned. It understands that people are people, and owe each other something on that account alone.

For that reason, it rejects ethno-nationalism and other kinds of racism out of hand. It also understands the benefits that a liberal immigration policy can bring to existing citizens. But it doesnt deny citizens the right to make that judgment. It puts citizens first. It never suggests that citizenship doesnt much matter.

The weaker the commitment to citizenship, the worse the prospects for liberal democracy.

Clive Crook is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and writes editorials on economics, finance and politics. He was chief Washington commentator for the Financial Times, a correspondent and editor for the Economist and a senior editor at the Atlantic.

Clive Crook is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and writes editorials on economics, finance and politics. He was chief Washington commentator for the Financial Times, a correspondent and editor for the Economist and a senior editor at the Atlantic.In some ways, the border is porous - more than 300,000 people were apprehended last year for crossing into the country illegally. But what does it mean to have a secure border? The number of Border Patrol agents has increased more than fourfold since the early 1990s, and that 300,000 figure is the lowest recorded since 1971, meaning that the border is as secure as it has been in nearly five decades. Without a nationally agreed-upon way of measuring border security, we are stuck in a political debate as much about semantics as substance.

Myth No. 2: A border wall would stem the opioid epidemic.

Trump offers a border wall as a solution to the skyrocketing number of opioid-related deaths around the country."Ninety percent of the heroin in America comes from our southern border, where eventually the Democrats will agree with us and build the wall to keep the damn drugs out," he said in a speech in New Hampshire in March. Others, including the Border Patrol union, agree that a wall would help stem the flow of drugs. Hector Garza, a border agent, told Fox News recently that "we definitely need a physical barrier that's going to save American lives."World oil prices dropping

Serial killer in US lured by social media is sentenced to 160 years in prison

Newspaper: Armenia authorities face new problems in setting up parliament committee of inquiry into 44-day war

Newspaper: Opposition Armenia bloc plans to hold forums, rally

Armenia PM admits that in 2018 he could have disclosed Karabakh negotiation process content

Armenia health minister: Out of 2,446 hospital beds for coronavirus patients, 2,300 are occupied

China-Taiwan military escalation reaches peak in past four decades

Armenia President: We welcome pro-Artsakh documents adopted by nearly 50 regional and city councils of Italy

Armen Sarkissian meets with President of Italian Senate

Nikol Pashinyan: Armenia to build new nuclear power plant, negotiations have been launched

Italy's Quirinal Palace hosts exhibition featuring works of Aivazovsky, Saryan and other Armenian painters

Armen Sarkissian meets with President of Italy's Chamber of Deputies Roberto Fico

Catholicos of All Armenians meets with Pope Francis at the Vatican

Armenia ex-Ambassador to The Netherlands Vigen Chitechyan dies

Armenia PM again says he is guilty for all the failures of the Armenian side during last year's war

FM: Discussion on occupied territories of former NKAO will create new threats to Armenia

Karabakh emergency situations service: Rescue squad finds remains of another Armenian soldier in Jrakan

Mattarella: Armenia and Italy can boast about their friendly relations

Nikol Pashinyan: Armenia agreed to stop the hostilities on October 7, 2020

Iran, EEU begin talks to reach agreement over permanent treaty on free trade zone

An abundant TechnoFall with Inecobank - NFC payments and more

Armenia FM says his Indian counterpart will visit Yerevan in the next few days

Deputy PM: A comprehensive study of documents agreed by Armenian and Azerbaijani is necessary

Digest: Azerbaijan using Armenia's airspace, Baku says it's ready to mend relations with Yerevan

Health minister: All coronavirus vaccines in Armenia meet quality standards

Armenia health minister: Those who recovered from COVID-19 also need to get vaccinated

Armenia Deputy PM announces name of another POW returned from Azerbaijan

Armenia and Italy Presidents hold personal talks at Quirinal Palace

Armenian FM: MFA welcomes Iran's stance on inviolability of Armenia's borders

EU ready to share experience with Azerbaijan and Armenia in borders demarcation and delimitation

Dollar dropping in Armenia

Lavrov: Russia, Iran discussed 3 + 3 format concept with Turkey, Caucasus countries participation

Hossein Amir-Abdollahian: Iran won't accept geopolitical changes in the Caucasus

Armenia Ambassador meets with Iranian Deputy FM

Armenia Parliament Speaker visits Armenian church of Russia and New Nakhijevan Diocese

Armenia to host event with companies having made investments worth over $2,000,000,000

Aliyev announces start of process of opening communications with Armenia

Civil Aviation Committee confirms Baku-Nakhchivan flight through Armenia airspace Wednesday

Armenia government programs under EU assistance package are discussed

Azerbaijan lodges complaint with ECHR for review of case of assassination attempt against Lapshin

Armenian MP also on list of Erdogan's petition to strip several Turkey lawmakers of parliamentary immunity

Armenia Deputy PM Suren Papikyan has new advisor

Armenia State Revenue Committee chief has new deputy

Italy President to Armen Sarkissian: OSCE Minsk Group is the format for sustainable and peaceful solution

Armenia ombudsman emphasizes to Vatican Secretary of State urgency of returning Armenian captives in Azerbaijan

Aliyev: Azerbaijan is ready to launch negotiations with Armenia for normalization of relations

Armenia Parliament Speaker meets with Russian State Duma chairman

Ruling faction MP: Armenia airspace has never been closed to Azerbaijan civilian air transportation

New France ambassador visits Armenian Genocide Memorial in Yerevan

Opposition MP: Not only is there no security system in Armenia but there is no one who wants to maintain that system

Not first time that reports are made on opening of Armenia airspace to Azerbaijan

Armenia flag raised on Italy presidential palace

Armenia Competition Protection Commission chief heads for Greece, memorandum of cooperation to be signed

It is snowing with large flakes in Armenias Vanadzor

Civil Aviation Committee silent on issue of allowing Baku-Nakhchivan flights through Armenia airspace

Armenia State Revenue Committee hosting meeting of council of CIS tax authorities heads

Fall forward: Gurgen Khachatryan, Co-Founder of Galaxy Group of Companies, addresses message to Armenia youth

Gas price in Europe exceeds $ 1,600 per thousand cubic meters

Those displaced from Artsakhs Hadrut again protesting outside Armenia government building

World oil prices stabilizing

1,155 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Baku starts using Armenia airspace for flights to Nakhchivan

Armenia National Assembly passes important law initiative

Russia peacekeepers monitoring ceasefire in Karabakh

Snow falls at Armenias Dilijan road bends

Greece-Turkey arms race: France frigates vs. Germany submarines?

Armenia legislature continues regular sessions

Newspaper: Armenia employees to pay considerably for tests if not vaccinated against coronavirus

Newspaper: Court denies Armenia parliament speakers petition for opposition MP

Hundreds of kilograms of cocaine found in Scotland historic castle ruins

Iran FM to discuss developments in Caucasus with his Russian counterpart

Armenia FM receives Special Representative of OSCE Chairperson-in-Office in South Caucasus

Karabakh emergency situations service: Remains of 2 more Armenian servicemen found in Jrakan

330,000 children were sex abuse victims in French Catholic Church

Armenia ex-defense minister: We need to ask Pashinyan what he agreed with Aliyev with regard to mine maps

Belgium returns to Egypt artifacts that were illegally exported from country

Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff vows to continue military operations to counter Iran

Opposition MP: Turks are pressuring Armenia more and more since there is no response from Yerevan

Greece proposes pan-European hedging mechanism against sharp fluctuations in gas prices

ARF-D member: I am certain that there will be rallies in Armenia in November

Czech Republic signs deal to buy new air defense system from Israel

Macron and Blinken discuss tensions between Paris and Washington

Kharrazi warns Azerbaijan to not be under any illusion about relying on foreign forces for security

Armenia President arrives in Rome on state visit

Truck providing for rear of Armenia's army damaged after gunshots fired by Azerbaijan in Yeraskh section of border

EU: Facebook outage shows need for more players

Digest: Putin-Pashinyan's meeting rumored, quake hits Armenia

Armenia PM congratulates teachers on their professional day

UK officials hold talks with Taliban in Afghanistan

Armenia opposition MP: Ruling party deputy is granting AMD 1,000,000,000 in assistance to Goris, why isn't he arrested?

Louise Mushikiwabo: International Organisation of La Francophonie is very sensitive to Armenia's political issues

Louise Mushikiwabo to Pashinyan: You have much more difficult issues to manage for the country and the region

Armenia government intends to tax electronic services provided by non-resident organizations

Ohanyan on Iran-Azerbaijan relations: Everything must be done do prevent hostilities in Armenias Syunik Province

Opposition "Armenia" faction MP: Authorities shouldn't ruin relations with Iran

Aliyev threatens Iran, advises not to pry its nose into Azerbaijans affairs

Karabakh President receives members of "Aramazd" military detachment

Anti-Corruption Committee chief, US Ambassador discuss justice sector reforms in Armenia (PHOTOS)

Armenia ex-defense minister Seyran Ohanyan on detention of Davit Tonoyan

Karabakh President meets with relatives of teachers who fell in 2020 warHome | News | General | I remain loyal to Asiwaju Tinubu  Senator Boroffice

Honoured with Role Model Award

By Dayo Johnson

NATIONAL Vice Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, South- West, Chief Pius Akinyelure, has described Senator Ajayi Boroffice (Ondo North) as a good representative of the state in the National Assembly.

Asiwaju Bola Tinubu

Akinyelure spoke at the first Ondo State Role Model Award in honour of Boroffice given by Omoluabi Reporters in Akure.

The party chieftain said that the South-West leaders of the PDP were proud of the contributions of Boroffice in the Senate.

Akinyelure noted that reports from the party leaders and members in Ondo North had good testimonies that he had delivered dividends of democracy.

 I want to say that we are satisfied with the achievements of Senator Boroffice in the Senate, he added. The Olubaka of Okaland, Oba Yusuf Adebori, also speaking at the occasion, said: Senator Boroffice is a good representative of our people. We are proud of his achievements in Ondo North.

Responding, Boroffice, who is Chairman, Senate Committee on Science and Technology, promised to continue to work for the people of his constituency.

He said that he remained loyal to Asiwaju Bola Tinubu who he described as a leader of leaders.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: GeneralDARAGAAlbay Second District Rep. Joey Sarte Salceda has launched a P100-million pilot training program here that focuses on the technical-vocational aspect of the newly implemented Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act, the new free college tuition law. The pilot program targets at least 8,300 youth beneficiaries. Salceda, principal author of RA 10931, said the program aims to address the diverse range of skills and learning styles of his constituents who may not avail of the free four-year standard college courses. RA 10931, he said, was designed to highlight not only the free four-year college courses, but also technical-vocational education, which was not given equal focus previously under the Technical Vocational Education and Training or TVET program. He said his pilot program aims to improve, maximize and enhance the services of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority in Albay, the Daraga Human Resources Development College, the Daraga Community Collegeas pilot institutionsand later all other accredited tech- voc schools in the province run by LGUs, under the UAQTEA. Salceda said his 2nd District office has allocated 5,000 slots for Training for Work Scholarship (TWSP) with a budget of P25 million and 1,500 slots for the Special Training for Employment Program, with P15 million, administered by TESDA. Another 1,800 slots will also be allocated by June, with a budget of P54 million for the free TVET under RA 10931. He explained that giving special attention to the tech- voc aspect of the UAQTEA will allow the countrys educational program to answer the emerging global demand to bring back and revitalize technical-vocational training in schools. Citing recent findings on global educational trends, Salceda said focus on vocational training is hinged on the fact that people have a huge and diverse range of different skills and learning styles. An article published by Forbes Magazine titled Why We Desperately Need to Bring Back Vocational Training in Schools, states that), notes that Not everyone is good at math, biology, history and other traditional subjects that characterize college-level work And not everyone goes to college.The latest figures from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics show that only about 68 percent of high school graduates attend college; this implies that over 30 percent of them end up with neither academic nor job skills. The same report said that almost 40 percent of students who begin four-year college programs dont complete them, which translates into a whole lot of wasted time, wasted money, and burdensome student loan debts. Salceda noted that the Philippines, most certainly shares the same predicament, and free technical-vocational training would effectively address the issue. Albay has been the testing ground for the UAQTEA that was formulated based on the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education program Salceda carried out when he was governor of the province for nine years before he returned to Congress in 2016. He subsequently filed the free college tuition bill that became RA 10931. Now Albay is set to benefit from that pioneering effort, with an initial batch of 30,000 enrollees under UAQTE in SY 2018-19. Of this number of Albayano scholars, about 17,000 will enroll in state universities and colleges (SUCs) and another 12,000 in local universities and colleges (LUCs). Free tuitions and miscellaneous fees in state-run universities and colleges, as well as TESDA-accredited technical vocational schools is no longer a dream. I am humbled to have been the principal author of its enabling law, Salceda said. I have worked so hard so that students of community colleges in Albay especially the Daraga Community College, Manito Community College and Rapurapu Community College will benefit from the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education or RA 10931, he added. There are 112 SUCs and 78 LUCs presently accredited by CHED and about 122 technical vocational institutions accredited by TESDA in the country.A company made history on Monday by launching a Bitcoin mining rig called Space Miner One into the stratosphere, where it confirmed transactions and mined Bitcoin over 100,000 feet from the surface of the planet.

Attached to a weather balloon, the Space Miner One rig drifted through the lower atmosphere before returning to Earth on a parachute where it was safely recovered from a field in Lithuania. The rig was connected to the internet via satellite phone and was also fitted with an ASIC mining chip, a Raspberry Pi 3, battery, GoPro Hero 5, and a metal souvenir coin for a competition winner.

We spoke to Miner One CEO Pranas Slusnys about the meaning of the launch and his plans for the future.

The goal of Space Miner One is to symbolically express our belief that bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general is about the future and the revolutionary technology at its heart: so-called blockchain technology. And with this new technology, the skys the limit.

Mr. Slusnys boasts an impressive resume including over 20 years experience in IT&T business and data center construction and management. The Miner One project is currently raising funds to build a mining farm in northern Sweden where low temperatures and energy costs will all aid the success of the projects crypto-mining operation, which the team believe will grant investors better returns than mining at home.

The next step of the project is building the mining facility. Mr. Slusnys informed us that they are eager to start mining, particularly with the rebounding prices of Bitcoin and Ether, stating that this will help pay for more of the cutting-edge equipment the project needs to grow. The project has committed to begin payouts to investors by the end of the summer.

Miner One CEO told CCN that while Mondays launch was symbolic, he firmly believes mining cryptocurrency in space will be a reality in the future.

We think mining and the technology it is based on will, of course, eventually reach outer space. In a sense, it already has to the extent that communications channels carrying information around the bitcoin network use satellites. We even hear word that NASA is researching the possibility of using blockchain technology for communication and navigation in space.



Story continues

While the Miner One team will be keeping their feet on the ground, NASA has indeed begun blockchain research for deep space navigation, and it may well be that in the future, satellites armed with mining nodes and solar panels could operate cryptocurrency networks and generate returns from outer space.

Images from MinerOne.



The post Bitcoin Mining in Space: An Interview With Miner Ones CEO appeared first on CCN.

Philippine medical experts called for an end to the spread of false and malicious information on the Dengvaxia vaccine in a recent multi-stakeholder forum hosted in Pasay City by the Philippine Foundation for Vaccination at the SMX Convention. Dr. Charles Yu, past president of the Philippine College of Physicians, who admitted to having his own child vaccinated with Dengvaxia, expressed alarm over the unnecessary panic and hysteria felt by parents like him caused by wrong reports and erroneous claims on the dengue vaccine. The stress from daily barrages from media causes stress on Dengvaxia parents like me. Do not listen to those who arent experts. Theyre already being debunked by world experts, yet you still listen, Yu said. He was referring to the recommendation of the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization on the dengue vaccine released this April to the World Health Organization, which confirmed the public health value of the vaccine, where the over-all population benefit of the vaccination is seen as favorable. Meanwhile, Dr. Edsel Salvana, an infectious diseases expert and an Outstanding Young Scientist 2010 awardee, clarified significant points of the report. Dengvaxia vaccine efficacy is confirmed in seropositives. In other words, it is safe and effective when used properly in those with previous dengue infection. The risk in seronegatives is 0.2 percent or two out of 1000, Salvania said. It is the same level of risk on those people who had dengue, but had not been vaccinated for severe dengue, which is 4.8 out of 1000, he added.The report also affirmed vaccination without screening in hyper-endemic settings, such as the Philippines, which means vaccination without pre-screening is permissible in countries with high cases of dengue. Jun David Enough is enough. Were not just damaging the country, the rest of the world is being damaged because others who have heard about our situation dont want to be vaccinated too. It is time to stop and is time to regain our trust in vaccines, Yu emphasized. The WHO SAGE report, which can be accessed at the WHO website also did not include statements about viscerotropism and neurotropism which were earlier mentioned by Public Attorneys Office (PAO) forensic experts as causes of deaths of children previously vaccinated. Salvana said he is not in any way connected to any pharmaceutical company and only hopes to objectively assess the facts to help people understand the science behind this incident which is causing confusion in the country.all the other european royal families do birthday photo releases so much better, like dang can't charlotte even get one solo shot for her birthday

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have you seen the new dutch royal family photos? looks like ads for a new e or cw show.

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idk why Kate insists on taking the photos herself when she can probably only use the auto setting on her fancy dslr.

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I wonder if Kate or will have private instagrams they have .

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Edited at 2018-05-06 01:26 am (UTC)

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lmao the best

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I love that Kate is the one who takes the official pictures they release. Idk it's sweet.

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omg his little double chin 

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looking like his 7x great grandfather!

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spitting image lol

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Cute photo of the two of them. I never find babies cute though.

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same. also, to be totally ageist, all babies look the same to me. and people will say "oh, s/he has got their daddy's eyes!" or "mommy's nose!" or whatever, but I can't see it at all.

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I thought the same thing but then my favorite cousin got pregnant and then you can tell like oh wierd he moves his hand like you do

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and don't all babies have the same kind of button nose anyway? THEY ALL LOOK THE SAME.

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That sure looks like a baby.

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lmao this is cracking me up

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Always my reaction to newborns. They all look the same, lmao. Charlotte is cute though.

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lmao but true

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i read your comment in the hounds voice, i cant stop laughing* now



Edited at 2018-05-06 05:39 am (UTC)

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Ok maybe I'm high af but that kid looks brown

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I think he's just really red for some reason

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Im sober and I thought the same

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He looks sun burnt.

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He may have like a touch of jaundice or something.

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His eyes look yellow. I came in here to say this and I'm glad someone noticed

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the Middleton spray tan is genetic?

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I thought he looked a touch on fire, which is how I looked around that age.

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Newborns have trouble regulating their endocrine system. Flushed babies are fine, just means theres lots of oxygen in his blood.

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I'm glad I'm not alone in this. I thought 'of course, because of Megan', only to realise.. different family.

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Poor Jan.



Edited at 2018-05-06 04:59 am (UTC) Poor Jan.

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Damn, she can't even put Charlotte in focus on her birthday.

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Lol mte poor Charlotte!

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miss middle child. At least she's the only girl!

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I genuinely like that Kate takes all the photos. It's sweet.

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That first picture is actually very sweet



(charlotte really is a mini-queen in looks)

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Charlotte should have gotten her own picture for her birthday but the one with Louis is just so cute I can't even.

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Middle children live hard lives, or so I've been told.

I'm the eldest so obviously I'm living my best life.

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Im the oldest too and my sister after me is so annoying because she has a 2nd born club she intiates every 2nd born because were always neglected and yet grow up the strongest gtfo

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middle children are cry babies, the oldest have the hardest lives lol

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Not in that family. George is their least favorite child.

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Seems like the feeling is mutual tbh.

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how

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lmao in my experience... middle children get away w/ more



charlotte will be the darling of the fam

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Linki love her confidence and she is beautiful but i feel like all the stuff she's designed that i've seen is kinda tacky

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im looking at the website and im just imagining all of the horrible tan lines people would get. a lot of straps and stuff.

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exactly! like why does everything need so many fucking straps and cut outs now??

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so they didnt use any pictures from the actual photographer? that seems odd. why couldn't they just use the pictures that the photographer was paid to use and just not edit them....am i missing something here? lol it's early and i havent had coffee yet.



her swimsuits are cute though. i like that deep v black one but one pieces look ridiculous on me. i have a super short torso and really long legs and one pieces just emphasize that. at least bikinis give me the illusion of having a longer torso.

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I could be wrong but Im getting the impression that unedited paparazzi shots is just the aesthetic of the campaign images

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im not sure they had a photographer... i think she got the paps to take them probably paid them

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This is so nice. I wore a swim suit for the first time in two years in january and i felt amazing (even though my titties were popping out bc it was a size too small) even though i'm plus sized. It was such a nice feeling.

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She's so friggin gorgeous! That black swimsuit is hideous and tacky though.

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She looks good

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I love this





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i legit thought the first pic was Caitlyn Jenner

how is Ashley only 30? she styles herself sf old

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wait what? she's 3 years younger than me? i mean, she's fucking gorgeous, but i would have thought she was like mid 30s.

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I wish I could love my body, but I don't. I admire women who do though.

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Same. Its such a struggle.

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Same

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Same. I wish I had an ounce of confidence I see in other women.

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same. some days i'm pretty ok with it, but most times i absolutely hate my boobs and my belly :-(

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yup same. Today is the first day I've worn shorts since 2012

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i just bought shorts over the weekend. they look really cute and i didn't feel like dying in them, even though i'm up 2 sizes from 2 summers ago and feel disgusting.

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Same. This time of year I feel so jealous of woman who can wear shorts without feeling self conscious, because ugh, cellulite.



I've also got stretchmarks on my upper arms left over from puberty, so I feel very self conscious in sleeveless things too (although I've been derma rolling once a month for about a year and have seen some improvement).

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same. I see women all the time wearing outfits that I'm like "oh that's cute I wish I could pull it off if I was thinner" but I could wear whatever tf I want to, I just don't.

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Yep, feeling this intensely tbh! I LOVE and adore and praise women who do, but definitely can't about my own.

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I wish I loved my body. I just hate my thighs/stomach/arms/face 

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me too.

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same :(

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i used to be very body confident when i was young but as i get older (i'm 28) im becoming more and more self conscious. i know it's because my body is changing and is no longer as close to the "ideal" as when i was young and my metabolism was doing all the work. it's just sad to realize that all the confidence i thought i had, was due to how close i was to the "ideal", not because i was actually confident inside. :(

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I feel you. That's probably why I love drunk sex, I always feel super sexy and liberated, which I hardly ever do when I have sex sober :(

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I wonder if thats her aesthetic or she couldnt afford a professional photographer and a make up artist.

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thats so pretty. I live in Finland where basically every family owns a sauna and nudity is a rather normal thing here (I mean the non-sexual kinda nudity). I just talked with my uni English teacher whos from the US, and she said she was super happy she got to bring her daughters to a Finnish swimming hall. Women dont cover their bodies at all in the dressing rooms, showers and saunas (the rooms, showers and saunas are women only ofc), they just walk around naked till they put their swimsuits on. There are alllll kinds of different shapes and sizes of women there and its such an important experience to have and Im glad I got used to seeing real bodies since I was a little kid and mama brought me to swimming halls too



Edit: wording



Edited at 2018-05-06 02:47 pm (UTC)

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This simultaneously makes me so happy (because it exists) and so sad (because it doesn't exist everywhere).

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on the other hand those swimming lessons in P.E. after the 6th grade can spook you away from swimming pools til the rest of ur life

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they have them in Japan and it's the same too. Although if you're the first non-Japanese body they've seen in a long while they'll give you a LOT of attention, which can be a nightmare if you're self-conscious.



but it's great being in an environment where nobody cares if there is body hair, flabby skin, and sagging for days.

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There is a spa here where you go into the jet pools area complete nude, so most women just walk around the locker room, sitting area nude (you carry a modesty towel if you like/to sit on)



The entire experience was so amazing as a fat girl who struggles with feeling normal.

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i lived a few years in Denmark and it did wonders for me. Germans are quite chill abt nudity but we still have separate lockers and everyone showers in swimsuits, and in Denmark nobody gives a fuck. I never thought I'd jump naked into a lake in bright daylight w people I barely know, but there you go. And that's w me being p chubby these past years.



Scandinavia rly has a thing or two to teach other cultures abt being comfy in your body.

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Slay

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I really wish my body was proportioned like hers. All my fat goes to my stomach and waist. I would feel so much better if my fat distributed to my tits, hips, and butt.

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mine goes to my hips and butt and i hate it. people feel like they have a right to constantly comment on my ass or my hips or w/e, and i hate it. i much happier 15 lbs lighter.

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LinkPortugal's Joao Sousa had to battle at the end before becoming the first home player to win the Estoril Open with a 6-4, 6-4 defeat of American Frances Tiafoe on Sunday. The 29-year-old Sousa, ranked 68th in the world, needed to call upon his reserves to claim the opening set by saving three break points in the final game. Serving for victory at 5-2 in the second, the Portuguese was broken as Tiafoe briefly delayed the festivities. But the local hero came good two games later as he clinched a third career title, a feat which quickly got the mainly Portuguese crowd into the mood for a mass sing-along chorus of celebration. "This is fantastic, it's such a special win, especially coming at home," Sousa said. "I'm so proud to win here. "There are no words to describe this emotion, the fans were fantastic all week. It was incredible, it was a dream come true. "I always wanted to win here in Portugal." The previous Portuguese high point at the event came in 2010 when Frederico Gil played the final, losing to Albert Montanes of Spain. Tiafoe, realising how much the victory meant to his opponent, crossed the net to speak with Sousa and congratulate him. "I knew how big this is for him, it would be big for me if I won. The whole country was behind him, I'm sure he felt that all week," Tiafoe said. "He's massive here, it's huge that he won. He played too good, too tough for me. "I'm happy for him, he's one of the nicest guys on the tour." Sousa, playing in his 10th final, also won Valencia in 2015 and at Kuala Lumpur five years ago. Tiafoe, 20, was thwarted in his bid to collect a second career title after making his trophy breakthrough in February at Delray Beach, Florida. The world number 64 fell short in the end as he failed to generate the momentum which had kept him in clay contention all week. - Sousa quick off the mark - Sousa improved to 18-10 this season after a poor start which he turned around with consistent results starting in March. Sousa made a fast start as he produced a break of Tiafoe in the third game of the opener to take a 2-1 lead which he held throughout as the set progressed on level-pegging. But NextGen player Tiafoe suddenly struck, putting the Portuguese hope into a hole and facing three break points in the 10th game of the set. Sousa calmly saved all three, then earned a set point before closing it out by winning his fifth straight point to take the lead 6-4 after 40 minutes. Sousa, sensing his chances, broke to start the second set, putting his less experienced opponent on the back foot. It quickly went to 2-0 as Tiafoe's mistakes mounted, with the youngster committing his fourth double fault to lose the second game. The American fell further behind before finally holding serve for 1-4 and launching a spirited rally, although one that came too late. "I didn't feel great during the match, I wasn't moving my feet," Tiafoe said. "He didn't give me too many chances, I was leaving a lot of balls short. "He took advantage, he could play like he wanted the entire match."Malaysia has arrested more than a dozen members of an alleged people trafficking syndicate after intercepting a ship carrying 127 Sri Lankan migrants believed to be bound for Australia and New Zealand, authorities have said. Maritime authorities on Tuesday halted a modified tanker named "Etra" in Malaysian territorial waters off southern Johor state, national police chief Mohamad Fuzi Harun said. Nearly 100 Sri Lankan men, 24 women and nine children were aboard the ship, which was making its way to international waters when it was stopped. The police chief said in a statement that authorities arrested 16 people involved in an "international network" of people smugglers, including three Indonesians and four Malaysians aboard a fishing vessel used to transport the migrants from the Johor coast to the tanker. Another four Malaysians were arrested in the nearby state capital of Johor Bahru, while a fifth was taken into custody in northern Penang state. Four Sri Lankan men were arrested aboard the tanker for suspected involvement in the trafficking network. Mohamad Fuzi said the remaining 127 passengers aboard the vessel had been detained for violating immigration laws, according to news reports which did not say where they were being held or if they had been allowed to disembark. He said the international syndicate, which covered Sri Lanka, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia and Malaysia, had been operating since the middle of last year. Sri Lanka's foreign ministry said Sunday it was working closely with the Malaysian authorities to establish the identities of those detained. "While the identities of the 131 persons are still in the process of being determined, initial information indicate that 43 of the 131 persons arrested hold identity cards issued by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) ," the ministry said. Tens of thousands of Sri Lankans who fled decades of ethnic war are refugees in neighbouring India and other countries despite the end of the conflict in 2009. It is relatively rare for people-smuggling boats seeking to take people to Australia to be stopped off Malaysia. Boats typically bypass Malaysia and head to neighbouring Indonesia, the traditional staging post on the route to Australia. Over the years, many such vessels have been stopped or have sunk off Indonesia. This flow has largely stopped in recent years however after Australia introduced tough policies in 2013 of turning back boats when it is safe to do so, an approach that angered Jakarta. In 2015 some boats carrying Rohingya, a stateless Muslim minority from mostly Buddhist Myanmar, arrived in Malaysia after Thai authorities clamped down on regional trafficking networks and preventing them from coming ashore in Thailand. A Rohingya boat arrival in northwest Malaysia last month was the first for some time, and came as fears mounted more might be set to take to the high seas after a military crackdown in Myanmar sent many members of the minority fleeing their homeland. However experts have played down the potential for a mass exodus via the high seas, as stormy weather over upcoming months makes boat trips far more risky.Lebanon held a much-delayed general election Sunday, with a new civil society list hoping for a breakthrough but traditional parties expected to renew their fragile power-sharing bargain. Polling stations closed after 12 hours of voting that were marred only by minor incidents and were marked by what provisional estimates suggested was a low turnout. Lawmakers extended their own mandate three times since 2009, ostensibly over security concerns linked to neighbouring Syria's war and political divisions that led to long and crippling institutional crises. "This means that I voted, and I'm happy that I voted and took part in change," said Guy Farah, a 36-year-old salesman showing the ink stain on his thumb as he walked out of a Beirut polling station. One of the main changes in this election is a complex voting system that introduces a degree of proportional representation which has allowed smaller parties to contend. The traditional big players of Lebanon's sect-driven political life were under no immediate threat of having to loosen their decades-old stranglehold on parliament however. Analysts predict that influential Shiite movement Hezbollah, backed by Iran and wielding a formidable arsenal it refused to give up after the civil war, would retain or slightly increase its clout in the legislature. Prime Minister Saad Hariri's Sunni-dominated movement, which seems to have lost the lavish support it once enjoyed from Saudi Arabia, may shed a few seats but the 48-year-old is tipped to save his job. - Weak turnout - Lebanon has often been a scene where the rivalry between the region's two heavyweights has played out, but their political clients in this election seemed content to maintain the status quo. With the turnout figure on course to fall short of the 54 percent mark set in 2009, several senior political leaders to made televised appeals for an eleventh-hour rush to the ballot boxes. "No one should underestimate the importance of their vote or think that heading down to the ballot box is too much to ask," said Ahmad Hariri, the secretary-general of the premier's Future Movement. An hour before voting was set to end, turnout stood at 46.8 percent, the interior ministry said. No polling extension was decided but in some areas, large numbers of people already queueing when the clock struck 7:00 pm (1600 GMT) were still voting. In other polling stations, the counting was already under way. More than 3.7 million Lebanese are eligible to vote, and will chose from 597 candidates who are running on 77 closed lists for a seat in the 128-strong parliament. President Michel Aoun's position is not up for renewal but his Christian party is a key player in the vote, for which a reformed, more proportional electoral law is in force. "The low turnout as of midday is without a doubt an indicator of the disillusionment among Lebanese," political analyst Karim Mufti said. Experts differed on who would benefit the most from a low turnout as scenarios vary across the country's 15 districts, whose size and sectarian fabric are all different. The new, pre-printed ballots used on Sunday perplexed some voters, causing delays in polling stations. - First-timers - Other voters explained that they refused to endorse their usual candidate because of an unsavoury alliance on a list that the new voting system no longer allows them to modify. Many first-time voters in Beirut seemed keen to see new faces in parliament and voted for a civil society movement that has sought to compensate its lack of patronage networks and financial firepower with a dynamic social media campaign. "It's the first time I vote," Therese, 60, told AFP outside a voting centre in central Beirut. "I've come to support civil society because there's nobody else I like in this country, but I doubt they will win," she said. The diagram of alliances across Lebanon's gerrymandered constituency map is an almost comical spaghetti jumble of local deals between parties working together in one district and competing in the next. That has fuelled already deep disillusionment in a country where the same dynasties have held political power for decades and are widely seen as self-serving and corrupt. Results, which are due to start coming in during the night, will be closely watched but analysts say that there is little room for surprises and that uneasy, sometimes fluctuating alliances between the main parties would remain the rule. Scuffles broke out around several polling stations across the country and monitors reported a number of mostly minor incidents and violations but the European Union's observation mission said its assessment was positive.This NASA handout image shows an unmanned SpaceX Dragon cargo craft approaching the International Space Station in August 2017

SpaceX's unmanned Dragon cargo ship splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on Saturday, the company said, a few hours after leaving the International Space Station Saturday carrying 4,000 pounds (1,800 kilograms) of gear.

"Good splashdown of Dragon confirmed, completing SpaceX's third resupply mission to and from the @Space_Station with a flight-proven spacecraft," tweeted the company owned by Elon Musk around 1900 GMT.

The white supply vessel detached from the orbiting outpost at 1323 GMT, fired its engines three times and slowly began its journey to Earth.

"Release confirmed," commentator Rob Navias said on NASA TV, noting that separation occurred as the ISS was 256 miles (411 kilometers) above the Earth, passing over just south of Australia.

"Dragon is safely on its way."

The spacecraft is bringing back a host of science experiments, including lab mice that were studied in orbit to see how their bones changed in weightlessness.

"Other critical biological samples preserved in science freezers, such as plants, insects and human tissue, have also been transferred into Dragon for retrieval and analysis," said a NASA statement.

SpaceX's Dragon is currently the only cargo ship designed to return to Earth intact. The other US commercial supply ship, Orbital ATK's Cygnus cargo carrier, burns up on re-entry to Earth's atmosphere.

The cargo ship arrived at the ISS April 4 after launching from Cape Canaveral, Florida, with 5,800 pounds of food, supplies and science experiments to enable the study of thunderstorms, anti-cancer drugs and technology to remove debris in orbit.

The mission was the 14th for SpaceX under a $1.6 billion contract with NASA to resupply the space station over multiple years.

Explore further Cargo-packed Dragon arrives at space station

 2018 AFPPresident Rodrigo Duterte said he would assert the Philippines victory in an international court before his term ends in 2020 to get back the territory now occupied by China, as he blamed former President Benigno Aquino III and the United States for their failure to stop China from occupying and militarizing the disputed South China Sea some eight years ago. Before my term ends, I will have to demand to talk about this arbitration. I cannot let my administration pass without really insisting because I am doing it for my country. I am not doing it for myself, the President said in his speech during the 37th Philippine Principals Training and Development Program and National Board Conference in Davao City on Friday. In related developments:  An opposition lawmaker on Saturday urged Malacanang to safeguard the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Philippines as provided in its published National Security Policy for 2017-2022. Magdalo Party-list Rep. Gary Alejano made the call following overt militarization efforts of China in the South China Sea with installation of missiles as the most recent one. Alejano noted that since 2016, the Duterte administration had shifted to China instead of pursuing a genuine independent foreign policy. When Duterte sidelined the favorable ruling of the UN arbitral tribunal, we know this so-called independent foreign policy is a farce, Alejano said.  China should strictly abide by international law if it wants to become a superpower and have claims on the disputed South China Sea, UP political science professor Dr. Clarita Carlos said Saturday. Carlos said the Philippines used to seek assistance from the US on the disputed seas, but with US President Donald Trump challenging Chinas territorial waters and air space as well, Philippines has been put on the sidelines. The UP professor said that in the meanwhile diplomatic protest is the most we can do.  In Singapore, a veteran foreign diplomat has advised the Duterte administration to stay calm amid Chinas reported installation of anti-ship cruise missiles and surface-to-air missile systems in the South China Sea. Kishore Mahbubani, Singapores former permanent secretary at the Foreign Ministry and founding dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, admitted that the situation would become difficult but the Philippines should not escalate the issue. I think it will become more and more difficult definitely. It is important to stay very calm because the last thing you want is to have any kind of a conflict with China in the South China Sea, Mahbubani told GMA News Online at the sidelines of the 2nd Asean Media Forum Friday afternoon, in reply to a question. He said China might see the issue as putting them under the spotlight. If you escalate the issue now, at the time when the Chinese feel already under some pressure from the United States, they will see this as a coordinated move to try to embarrass them. So they [Philippines] have to be very careful, he said. American news network CNBC reported on Wednesday, quoting US intelligence assessments, that the missiles were moved to Fiery Cross Reef, Subi Reef and Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands within the past 30 days. Aside from the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan also claim jurisdiction over the islands. Duterte in his speech said the US, a superpower with their seventh fleet stationed in the Philippines, did not do anything to stop China some eight years ago, saying US warships could have patrolled or put up a station in the disputed region which could have prevented the building of artificial islands in the disputed SCS. You cannot build an island, artificial island on the high seas. Thats not allowed. And the only country who could have stopped them was America, the President said. He said the US was already around when the arbitration was being heard. Im sure seven or eight years ago, there were already intelligence reports over flights by so many countries, including ours, that something was afoot there, that they were trying to build reclamation. At that time, because its a violation of the International Law of the Seas, UNCLOS, the only country who could have stopped the Chinese was America, he said. The President also faulted the Aquino administration who filed an arbitration case which the country won. He was still there. You won. Aquino was still there then, not so many months there. Why he had not visited or warned them? Then when he left, there were already some additionalwell, accretion, but artificial, the Chief Executive said.The Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration said China had no historical rights to the resource-rich waters but China refuses to recognize the ruling. Duterte claimed the reclamation in the disputed region could have been prevented had his predecessor initiated the international ruling. You claim it by historical right; by judgment, we won and its ours, he said. However, the President admitted he would not go to war with China and preferred to have to explore diplomatic means to resolve the issue. Manila and the nearest military airport of China is only 17 minutes away. If you declare war, pulpog tayo lahat. Well, that is the reality of it, he added. Pulpog is a Cebuano term that means pulverized. China, for over several years, has taken a more assertive stance in the SCS, and transformed previously submerged features into artificial islands with multi-level buildings and runways. According to US intelligence reports, China has installed missiles on the three areas, Mischief Reef, Subi Reef and Fiery Reef being claimed by the Philippines. Meanwhile, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said the government has viewed the matter with concern but they were still verifying the reports that China installed missiles in the disputed region. Let me begin by saying we are still verifying. Everything that we have read on the papers is based on a US media report, which really we should not completely rely on, okay. So we are first verifying if it is true, and we have not had any verification, the Palace spokesperson said. If it is verified of course, we view it with much concern, because any form of militarization of, really, in the West Philippine Sea is worrisome given that it is one of the busiest sea lanes in the world. Okay, so that is our concern. It is a concern common to the international community, Roque said. In 2017, the Duterte administration drafted and released its NSP for 2017-2022. The document contains enumeration of national interests which includes Safeguard of the Philippine territorial integrity and sovereignty. Alejano reiterated the NSP and reminded the Duterte administration to abide by its own national security policy. The NSP identifies safeguarding of territorial integrity and sovereignty as one of our national interests. Under this, the objectives that the Duterte administration is expected to fulfill include pursue international support for a rules-based regime in West Philippine Sea and respect the Award of the Permanent Court of Arbitration while engaging claimant states for the management and settlement of disputes. May I remind this administration of its own policy, Alejano said. The Philippines is counting on China to advance the bulk of the estimated $7.5-billion cost of a new natural gas project in the West Philippine Sea under a proposed joint exploration and development agreement, Buhay Rep. Lito Atienza said on Saturday. This is the reason why we are bringing the Chinese infor them to shoulder the costbecause we simply do not have the wherewithal to develop a second deep-water gas field there, Atienza said. Everybody is convinced that we have vast gas deposits in the West Philippine Sea Basin. The only problem is where to drill the wells precisely to hit the biggest reservoir, Atienza said. In fact, we gave the Dutch and the British 45 percent, and the Americans another 45 percent in Malampaya, Atienza said, referring to the countrys first offshore gas project located some 65 kilometers northwest of Palawan. But Alejano stressed the need for maritime boundary delimitation and the enactment of laws on Maritime Zones and Archipelagic Sea Lanes and those in pursuit of our international commitments as also stated in the NSP. Especially with Chinas non-recognition of the PCA ruling and continuous determination to lay claim on the whole South China Sea, it is imperative that we clarify our maritime boundary which will guide our assertions and actions in the West Philippine Sea, Alejano said.Wind turbine blades stored at Haizea Wind Group's headquarters at Bilbao's harbour. Spanish wind power firms are fighting to hold their own against European and Chinese competitors

With a brand-new factory and a cluster of specialised firms, the Basque city of Bilbao is the focus of Spain's wind power industry which is fighting to hold its own in the face of fierce competition from China and northern Europe.

Iberdrola and Gamesa, two of the most important players in the sector, have their headquarters in the northern Basque region's biggest city and its verdant surrounding area. Gamesa merged with Germany's Siemens in 2017.

Both companies lead the Spanish wind power sector whose domestic growth stalled after an economic downturn led the central government in 2012 to end incentives for renewable energy.

Despite this Spain remains the fifth country in the world in installed wind power capacity and the outlook for the sector has improved with new tenders launched in 2016.

The wind power sector is expected to invest 5.0 billion euros ($6.0 billion) in Spain by 2020, according to the Spanish Wind Energy Association (AEE).

The new context is fueling the optimism of Basque wind power firms, which drive the sector in Spain.

"We want to be a benchmark in the European Union," said Arantxa Tapia, the minister for economic development with the Basque regional government during a recent meeting with the press organised by WindEurope, a European wind power association.

Markus Tacke, the chief executive officer of Siemens Gamesa, said Bilbao is "attractive for our industries" since there is "a very good combination of industrial leadership... and support from the (regional) government".

The Basque Country barely represents 0.6 percent of Spain's installed wind power capacity but it is home to 112 firms that cover almost the entire production chain for both land and off-shore wind farms.

Since 2013 they have been clustered in Windbox, a public-private consortium which has a spacious and modern test centre in Eibar, 50 kilometres (30 miles) east of Bilbao.

A power on land

Spanish wind power is concentrated on land in a country which has vast, sparsely populated regions in the interior such as Castilla-La Mancha, whose wind-swept plain is depicted in "Don Quixote", the most famous work by Miguel de Cervantes.

Wind turbine towers are loaded on a ship at Haizea Wind Group's headquarters at Bilbao's harbour

It is a segment of the industry known as "onshore" and on which local firm Haizea focuses completely with factories that build giant wind turbine towers that are up to 160 metres (525 feet) high.

They will build them in a recently completed factory in Bilbao's port that is 500 metres long by 130 meters wide.

Haizea faces competition from China given that paradoxically, under current EU anti-dumping measures, Chinese steel cannot be imported but already manufactured wind turbine towers can.

"Clearly it is a threat we are not comfortable with," said Jordi Mas, Haizea's commercial director.

Offshore wind power challenge

Haizea also wants to be a strong challenger in the "offshore" segment that makes marine wind turbines and the cylindrical foundations needed to anchor them.

Iberdrola and Siemens Gamesa already have a strong presence in offshore wind power outside Spain.

In fact, in Europe this segment is dominated by five northern countriesBritain, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Belgiumwhich account for 98 percent of the EU's installed capacity.

The future of offshore wind power in Spain is in floating farm technology, in which wind turbines are anchored to the sea floor using chains and anchors instead of a cylindrical foundation, Juan Virgilio Marques, the head of the Spanish Wind Energy Association, told AFP.

Hywind located north of Scotland is the only wind farm with these characteristics to date in the entire world.

"The Basque Country and Canary Islands are the two areas in Spain where floating wind farm technology makes sense" since it is designed for deep waters, said Marquez.

But Juan Rivier Abbad, head of regulatory affairs for Iberdrola Renewables, predicted Spanish wind power firms will continue to focus on the "onshore" segment in the near future since there are plenty of suitable land in Spain to install wind turbines.

"Perhaps when 'onshore' is filled to capacity we will move to 'offshore' but for the moment we have much land area which can be developed. And much cheaper," he said.

 2018 AFPA year ago, my wife and I were still paying through the nose for two cellphone lines from Verizon Wireless that somehow consistently cracked the $200 monthly barrier.

We made the switch to T-Mobile in September and quickly saw so many things for the better. We got lower ratesunder $100 of unlimited calls and data with no extra fees or taxes, the ability to make free calls in Mexico, text and use data in Japan at no extra charge, and get a mobile hot spot for those times when access to Wifi just wasn't there.

The network wasn't as great as Verizonbut my complaints were minimal. With savings like that, who cared?

The proposed mega-merger of T-Mobile and Sprint meant it was time to go back to the big four wireless carriers to compare pricing, and get a real sense of deja vu.

While the language may seem different, little has changed. the big two, Verizon and AT&T, continue to charge more and offer fewer benefits than scrappy No. 3 T-Mobile or No. 4 underdog Sprint.

The spin on the $26 billion merger is that by combining, the wireless industry will be more competitive and the contenders can have more oomph to be ready for 5G, the next step in wireless that will be way stronger than the 4G we have today.

Maybe, maybe not.

But let's take a quick look at recent history, and the consumer-friendly innovations T-Mobile sold to us:

The Seattle-based company:

Lowered rates and ushered in the return of unlimited data. That's what we had back in the early days of the smartphone revolution, only to see the carriers pull back on it when we started using it all the time.

The end of the two-year contract, and the offer to buy out your current contract to switch.

International data and texts.. T-Mobile offers the ability to make these in 140 countries at no additional charge. The speed is slower than back home, but it beats paying the average $10 a day to use your phone internationally that Verizon quoted me on a Japan trip before I switched. .

Monthly freebies, like T-Mobile's Netflix on the house. Sprint has free Hulu and AT&T complimentary HBO.

No taxes or fees. Just the advertised rate.

Sadly, rates are still sky high for all the carriers, and it's really hard to compare their terms.

In a nutshell, for one line of service with unlimited data, Sprint is the lowest at $65 monthly, followed by T-Mobile and Verizon at $70 and $75 for AT&T.

It's the add-ons and the bundles where you see the big difference.

A four-person Verizon family plan goes to $160 with a free mobile hot spot, but it's one with limited data. If you want unlimited, you need to step up to the $200 monthly planplus taxes and fees. Additionally, Verizon's unlimited plan is cappedmeaning if you use too much of it, Verizon will cut back on your speed.

AT&T's family plan is $180 without the hot spot, or $210 with it, plus the free HBO. AT&T will also cut back on your speed "when the network is congested," the company says.

T-Mobile charges $160 for 4 with the free hot spot, unlimited data, Netflix and free international data and texting

Sprint's family plan is a bargain priced $100 for two lines, but additional lines are free and you get the free subscription to Hulu.

It doesn't take a brain surgeon to read through the plans and see which companies are giving consumers the most for their money.

Mergers tend to make companies less competitive, not more so, and those sweetheart deals that got them to the bargaining table can tend to disappear.

The proposed merger raises many questions. Will the two companies fight harder for your business? Will the Sprint network, traditionally the weakest, actually become competitive? And what becomes of all those thousands of retail T-Mobile and Sprint stores? Do they remain standalone, or will many shutter their doors?

Either way, we know most consumers care most about one bottom line: keep the add-ons coming and prices lower, and I stand with them.

2018 USA Today

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.The Judicial and Bar Council has been asked to include Supreme Court Associate Justice Teresita Leonardo-de Castro in the shortlist of nominees to replace Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales, whose term will end in July. Retired Supreme Court justice Arturo Brion nominated De Castro, who is set to retire in October, in a letter to the JBC dated May 3, 2018, which cited her 45 years in government serivice. Through all these years, she has served the government with competence, probity and integrity, Brion said in his nomination letter. Her long years in the prosecutorial service [almost 19 years] and in the Sandiganbayan [more than 10 years], not to mention her more than a decade of experience as an associate justice of the Supreme Court qualify her for the position of Ombudsman, Brion added. Before her appointment to the Supreme Court in December 2007, De Castro served as presiding justice of the Sandiganbayan and chaired the special division of the anti-graft court that convicted former President Joseph Estrada of plunder in 2007. De Castro was elected president of the International Association of Women Judge and served a term from 2012 to 2014. A product of University of the Philippines College of Law, she joined the government in 1973 as law clerk and legal assistant in the Supreme Court. She then moved to the Department of Justice as a state counsel from 1978 to 1995 before her appointment to the Sandiganbayan. As proof of De Castros competence and integrity, Brion cited the numerous awards received by the retiring justiceincluding the Presidential Medal of Merit in 1998 for her service as one of the peace negotiators during the terms of the late former President Corazon Aquino and former President Fidel Ramos and the Chief Justice Hilario Davide Reform Award for the reforms she implemented in the Sandiganbayan. De Castro is a vocal critic of Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, with whom she had a shouting match last month during the tension-filled oral arguments on the quo warranto case against the embattled SC chief in Baguio City. She was also among the five justices who testified in the impeachment hearings against Sereno in the House of Representatives earlier this year.A private citizen, Jocelyn Marie Acosta, recently asked Solicitor General Jose Calida to also initiate quo warranto petition against De Castro before the Supreme Court based on the same grounds used against Sereno, particularly the alleged failure to file Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net worth. Acosta said De Castro should be removed from her post for submitting only 15 SALNs when she has been in government service since 1973. However, Calida rejected the request, citing lack of basis and evidence. The JBC, the seven-member constitutional body tasked to screen nominees for positions in the judiciary and the Office of the Ombudsman, has extended the deadline for application and nomination for the Ombudsman post from May 2 to May 15. Morales, 76, is also a retired SC justice who was appointed by former President Benigno Aquino III as Ombudsman in 2011. She replaced Merceditas Gutierrez, who resigned on May 6, 2011 from the post to avoid an impeachment trial in the Senate, leaving an unexpired term until Nov. 30, 2012. In summer session last month, the SC dismissed petitions seeking to remove Morales from her post for alleged overstaying. Justices voted unanimously to dismiss the petitions filed last year by former Metro Rail Transit Line 3 general manager Al Vitangcol and lawyer Rey Nathaniel Ifurung for lack of merit.The album of 48 images was owned by Emily Howland, of Sherwood, Tubman's friend and fellow abolitionist. Hartsell said the album was a gift from Howland's friend Carrie Nichols in 1864, when the two were teaching at the Camp Todd school on the Arlington estate of Gen. Robert E. Lee. The album also contains the only known photo of John Willis Menard, the first African-American elected to Congress. Other subjects are less well-known, and the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian are researching them, Hartsell said.

The Library of Congress joined with the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture to buy the album at a March 2017 auction for $161,000. Hartsell called it "a most unusual collaboration between two public institutions." When the album was received, the Library of Congress's Conservation Division cleaned it, strengthened its spine and rebuilt the cover with layers of textile and leather toned or dyed to match the original. The photos were also gently cleaned and repaired, though they were in good shape, Hartsell said.

All 48 images of the album are available to be viewed at loc.gov.SINGAPOREMalaysias racially divisive elections are fanning resentment among the minorities, and risk escalating a brain drain of disillusioned ethnic Chinese and Indians in an exodus experts say is hurting the nations economic ambitions. About 60 percent of Malaysias 32 million people are Muslim Malays but the country is also home to large minorities, with about a quarter of the population ethnic Chinese and a substantial number ethnic Indian. The Barisan Nasional coalition, which has been in power since independence from Britain in 1957, has long promoted affirmative-action policies that confer Malays and other indigenous groups with many advantages, including access to cheaper housing and priority in government jobs. The program, introduced in the 1970s after deadly race riots, was aimed at helping the poorer Malays catch up with the wealthier, more business-savvy Chinese and has been credited with creating a Muslim middle class and maintaining racial harmony. But it has also been blamed for fueling resentment among ethnic minority groups and encouraging their better-educated members to move abroad. Some young members of the Chinese and Indian communities say they feel like second-class citizens in their own country, and that staying in Malaysia would likely limit their career opportunities as they hit ethnic glass ceilings. Gabey Goh, a 34-year-old marketing executive, is one of many Malaysian Chinese who have headed to neighboring Singapore, which is predominantly ethnic Chinese, more affluent, and which she regards as having a more merit-based culture. I was never very comfortable, and I never agreed and I dont agree, with the affirmative action policy, said Goh, who left Malaysia more than three years ago. Theres too much anger, too much of a divide. In the run-up to Wednesdays general election, Prime Minister Najib Razak has been accused of amplifying racial tensions as he scrambles to shore up his Malay voter base with moves that may further alienate minorities. Analysts say electoral boundaries have been redrawn along racial lines, creating constituencies dominated by Malays. Najib has also warned that an opposition victory would be a nightmare for the countrys Muslims. Speaking in December at the annual assembly of his ruling party, he said that if the opposition wins, the bumiputras will be cast aside, insulted and damned, and left destitute in our own country. Bumiputra, or sons of the soil, is the term for Malays and other indigenous groups.While Najib is expected to win at the polls, he faces a tough opponent in veteran politician Mahathir Mohamad, a staunch Malay nationalist who led the country for 22 years and has come out of retirement to join forces with the opposition. A scandal surrounding state fund 1MDBfounded by Najib and allegedly looted by senior fund officials and their associatesand the challenge from Mahathir has only pushed the premier to further focus on his Muslim base. Tian Chua, vice-president of opposition group the Peoples Justice Party, said Najibs approach would worsen relations among Malaysias different ethnic groups. It is not helping people to feel they are part of larger society, he told AFP. The World Bank has estimated that at least one million Malaysians have left to live abroad since independence, threatening the countrys competitiveness. The migration of talent across borders touches the core of Malaysias aspiration to become a high-income nation. Human capital is the bedrock of the high-income economy, it said in a 2011 report. Brain drain does not appear to square with this objective: Malaysia needs talent, but talent seems to be leaving, said study which is still seen as the most authoritative on the subject. In such a toxic atmosphere, Neeta Ravioriginally from Malaysias ethnic Indian communityis glad she is not around for the election. She left her homeland in the 1990s and settled in Canada. We felt that while we had the opportunity, we would go somewhere where we were treated on the same level, the 63-year-old told AFP, using a pseudonym as she still has family in Malaysia. She said her family preferred a place with no first-class, or second-class citizens while back at home her son would have needed better grades to get into the same university course as a Malay boy. There is little sign the situation is improving. Goh said that inquiries from friends about life in Singapore have only increased in the past year. And many of those who have left say they will not return while affirmative action remains in place. If Malaysia becomes a more just and equitable and fair country, we will pack our bags tomorrow and go back, said Ravi. AFPThe Palace has spoken on the two hottest diplomatic concerns we are having at the momentthe reported continuing militarization by Beijing of the disputed areas in the South China Sea or, for political correctness by the standards of some quarters, the West Philippine Sea, and the DFA-led rapid rescue operations in Kuwait. On SCS/WPS, Malacanang has advised that the government ...will exhaust all possible diplomatic options..will resort to diplomatic protest as needed once there is a validation of the latest Chinese move on the disputed islands they have been occupying for sometime.. No need for harsh language or to send any vessel specially a gray one as the previous administration did at the first sight of pictures of militarization sent by US-based groups. President Duterte himself has time and again reminded the public, local and international, that the Philippines will not go to war over these islands. That will be a disaster worse than anybody ever dreamed of. Even the Americans. Better to hold our horses (including the Hague Declaration on our earlier claim) and wait for a better opportunity to have this and other possible winning cards on the table as and when our friendly initiatives towards Beijing get some traction.) Obviously, Malacanang has been chastised by the Aquino administrations stridently anti-Chinese, anti-negotiations stance. Nothing but heartache and more Chinese reclamation in the contested areas came out of our braggadocio for six years. Plus occasional fleet visits and condemnation from the Americans and their allies. This time he would rather do things quietly, conduct even more research on the conflicting claims of the five countries presently in the area and people-to-people contacts with Beijing. We all know that war cries and shows of force have their limitations specially in cases such as this. After all, as Bill Hayton, an acknowledged expert on China and the SCS dispute noted, there is no new territory that the Chinese are claiming or working on in the area. Said Hayton ....Most of the international media coverage on the island building program of the Chinese...contained an element of panic about Chinas apparent swallowing of the South China Sea..The scale of the construction tended to obscure the fact that China had not occupied any new territory; it had built on reefs it had occupied for two decades... In a word, they are merely consolidating their position in an area they believe and have said so, as part of their national territory and to strengthen their defense of their national interest.Which begs the question: if the Chinese are strengthening their hold over territories in the SCS/WPS they have occupied for years, why are we hesitating to do the same in our own islands? Money should not be a problem. If we can allocate P157 billion for DAP, why cant we allocate funds to buttress our hold on our own piece of property in the disputed areas? Better still, why dont we ask the Americans, if they are so concerned about the Chinese take over of their own occupied areas? To ensure that the Chinese know Big Brother is watching? * * * Now, as to the Kuwait issue, the Palace has also made things very, very clear after that botched (and diplomatically embarrassing DFA- led rapid rescue operation) which led to the expulsion of our own Ambassador Rene Villa, the recall of Kuwaits envoy in Manila, the issuance of arrest warrants on three other Filipino diplomats now holed up in the Embassy, the blacklisting of longtime Filipino residents in Kuwait who assisted the 47-man rapid rescue group, the temporary stoppage of the repatriation of our nationals still languishing in our shelters in Kuwait and the halt in the deployment of our workers, even those skilled or on vacation, to that country. Soft landing muna. No need to exacerbate things. And proceed to back channeling. Which is as it should be at this point. There is no question that we should exert all efforts to ensure the safety and well being of our workers. There is no question that we should try as best we can to put in place the best possible working and living conditions for our nationals abroad whether in Kuwait or elsewhere. That is a responsibility we cannot outsource or renege on. But there is a limit to what we can do in the host countries. We cannot be their policemen. We cannot be their judges or justice system. We cannot be doing things as we please. We have to work with the authorities in the host countries at all times. Otherwise, if we do things on our own involving say, commercial disputes and employment ones. As in the case of our household workers. We cannot just be knocking at each and every house employing our nationals and start making all kinds of moves to rescue them if they as much as complain about their conditions. That is an affair needing the assistance and concurrence of the local authorities to do. That is what the DFA led posse did. Worse, they officially uploaded it on the DFA website and urged Duterte followers to copy and share. What were they thinking? That Kuwaiti authorities will just look the other way and let this to happen? Not at all. Even in Manila, any such intrusive operation will really be looked with utmost disfavor and dealt with accordingly. So for now, let the landing be soft. Let the spoken and written words be as diplomatic as possible. Let the stalled discussions on the proposed MOA to improve the working and living conditions in Kuwait resume and let this unfortunate incident in our relations be resolved as quietly and properly as possible.National Australia Bank Limited provides financial services to individuals and businesses in Australia, New Zealand, and internationally. It operates through Business and Private Banking, Personal Banking, Corporate and Institutional Banking, and New Zealand Banking segments. It operates through Business and Private Banking; Personal Banking; Corporate and Institutional Banking; New Zealand Banking; Corporate Functions and Other; and MLC Wealth segments. The company accepts transaction accounts, savings accounts, deposit accounts, and term deposits; and specialized accounts, such as foreign currency, business interest, statutory trust, community free saver, farm management, and project bank accounts, as well as farm management deposits. National Australia Bank Limited also provides home loans; personal loans; business loans; vehicle and equipment finance; and trade and invoice finance, as well as business overdrafts and bank guarantees. In addition, the company offers insurance products consisting of car, home and content, landlord, travel, caravan and trailer, life, and business insurance products; and pension, superannuation, self-managed super funds, cash management, and financial planning and advisory services. Further, it provides investment products; credit, debit, and business cards; payments and merchant services; travel services; online and internet banking services; small business services; international and foreign exchange solutions; and industry specific banking services. National Australia Bank Limited was founded in 1834 and is based in Docklands, Australia.

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Ltd., Sealed Air Packaging LLC, Sealed Air Packaging Materials (India) LLP, Sealed Air Packaging Materials (India) LLP, Sealed Air Packaging S.L.U., Sealed Air Paketleme Malzemeleri Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Sealed Air Peru S.A.C., Sealed Air Polska Sp. Zoo, Sealed Air Pty Limited, Sealed Air S.A S., Sealed Air S.A.S., Sealed Air S.r.l., Sealed Air South Africa (Pty.) Ltd., Sealed Air Svenska AB, Sealed Air Taiwan Limited, Sealed Air US Holdings (Thailand) LLC, Sealed Air Uruguay S.A., Sealed Air Venezuela Corporation, Sealed Air Verpackungen GmbH, Sealed Air de Mexico Operations S. de R.L. de C.V., Sealed Air de Venezuela S.A., Sealed Air s.r.o., Shanklin Corp, Shanklin Corporation, Soinpar Industrial Ltda., TART s.r.o., TART s.r.o. Joint Venture, TTS-Ciptec, TXAFP Asia Pacific Ltd., TXAFP GP LLC, TempTrip LLC, Trigon Industries, and Vietnamese Rep Office of Sealed Air Hong Kong Limited.While leaders of North and South Korea held a historic summit along the Demilitarized Zone that resulted in a denuclearized Korean Peninsula, international observers are hopeful the two Koreas would someday sign a treaty for reunification. This evolved in East and West Germany with the reunification resulting in a more prosperous Germany. The same thing could happen if the two Koreas decide to unite. China on the other hand has crossed the red line by installing and deploying cruise missiles on one of the reefs in the West Philippine Sea. The Philippine government, in its usual business-as-usual response, said it would file a diplomatic protest with the Chinese Embassy in Manila but will trust its friendship with China to smooth things out. This latest Chinese provocation was flagged by US intelligence satellite and has raised concerns in the international community because it could impede the flow of commercial cargo vessels which use the vital navigational lanes in the South China Sea. Parts of the South China Sea are contested by Vietnam, the Philippines and Taiwan. The militarization of the South China Sea by China could incur the wrath of US President Donald Trump and trigger an armed response from American jet fighters and warships. The Chinese are really pushing the red line. This is an alarm bell that the US raises when a military power like China or Russia exceeds its aggression. Last week Chinese laser weapons nearly sent down US fighter jets over Djibouti airspace in the Horn of Africa. China denied the incident but the US pilots maintained the laser attack happened. * * * Red tide of Chinese gamblersThere was an interesting article from Bloomberg News recently that didnt draw much attention in the local newspapers. An estimated 100,000 migrants, mostly Chinese, have flooded into pockets of the Philippines capital since September 2016, and the deluge is rippling through the citys real estate market in ways that are unique among the worlds urban centers. While Chinese investors have been snapping up big swathes of high-end is motivated by something different: Manilas housing in Hong Kong, London and New York for years to move their money offshore, this new rush booming gaming industry. More than 50 offshore gambling companies that cater to overseas Chinese punters have received permits to operate in the city since President Rodrigo Dutertes government began awarding licenses 19 months ago. While bets are placed remotely, the operators need Chinese speakers in Manila to handle everything from marketing and customer queries to payment processing for overseas clients. The resulting migration, while only a fraction of the metropolitan areas 12.9-million population, is propelling home prices to record levels in neighborhoods favored by Chinese workers. Its reinvigorating Manilas commercial property market as owners convert offices and shops into gaming centers with card tables and webcams. And its boosting the bottom lines of local developers including Ayala Land Inc. and SM Prime Holdings Inc. The story, headlined Chinese Money Triggers a Dizzying Rally in Manila Property, was published May 4. While hundreds of thousands Chinese gamblers come in from the Mainland, spur the economy and provide jobs to Filipinos, the influx poses danger to national security and is a serious concern.A newspaper hailed as Cambodia's last independent English daily has been sold to a Malaysian investor with apparent business links to premier Hun Sen, rattling a journalist community that has been battered by the strongman ahead of elections. Bill Clough, the Australian publisher of the 26-year-old Phnom Penh Post, said in a statement Saturday that the paper had been purchased by a Malaysian investor identified solely as "Sivakumar G". The announcement did not disclose the price of the sale or any information on the new owner's other ventures. But a person close to the matter confirmed to AFP that the buyer is the head of Asia PR, a public relations firm based in Kuala Lumpur whose website describes its CEO "Siva Kumar G" as a journalist by training. The website lists as a former client Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, whose government stands accused of a sweeping crackdown on independent media, NGOs and rival politicians ahead of July polls. An Asia PR spokeswoman declined to comment. The sale, which caught the newspaper's staff by surprise, swiftly raised concerns about a contracting space for independent media in a country that lost its other main English newspaper last year. "The Post is really the last remaining newspaper that comes out every day and does long investigations on corruption, illegal logging and politics," said Abby Seiff, a Cambodia-based freelance journalist and former Phnom Penh Post editor. "The journalist community is concerned about what the implication (of the sale) could be. It's just two months until the election and there's not much independent media left," she added. In his statement, former owner Clough acknowledged that "turbulence" in Cambodia ahead of elections had put a spotlight on the Phnom Penh Post and left it as "the last remaining truly independent media group in the country". - 'Climate of terror' - The Post's chief rival, the Cambodia Daily, was forced to shut in August 2017 after it was handed an unpayable tax bill -- announcing its closure the same day authorities arrested opposition leader Kem Sokha on treason charges. The crackdown also saw dozens of radio stations taken off the air and the jailing of two reporters from Radio Free Asia, which shut its bureau after 20 years due to a series of legal threats. Cambodia fell 10 places in this year's media freedom ranking by Reporters Without Borders, which described the country as hosting a "climate of terror that has drastically curtailed press freedom". In recent months local media had reported that the Phnom Penh Post was facing tax troubles. Clough's statement said "publicised tax claims" had been settled with the government last week and that the paper now faces "no threat to its ability to continue its work". Chad Williams, a former Phnom Penh Post editor-in-chief, said the quick settling of the tax bill and appearance of a buyer "strongly suggests the government approves of the sale." "And it's hard to imagine they would approve if they thought the new ownership planned to maintain the paper's role as the country's sole remaining watchdog," he added. The Post, founded by American journalist Michael Hayes in 1992, is seen as a key pillar of the country's fragile democracy, which observers say has taken a nosedive in recent years as Hun Sen clears out opposition politicians and other critical voices.People gathered at polling centers across Lebanon on May 6 to cast their votes in the countrys first parliament elections since 2009.

About 3.6 million people were eligible to vote in the elections, in which 586 candidates, including 86 women, were running for the 128-seat parliament, local reports said.

This footage shows Lebanese Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk casting his vote in Beirut. Credit: Nouhad Machnouk via StoryfulANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey will carry out new military operations along its borders after its two previous offensives into Syria, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday, as he announced his manifesto for next month's snap elections.

Turkey is now carrying out an offensive into northern Syria's Afrin region against the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, which Ankara considers a terrorist organisation linked to Kurdish militants waging an insurgency on Turkish soil.

The Afrin campaign is Turkey's second cross-border operation into Syria during the seven-year-old civil war. The first, dubbed "Euphrates Shield", targeted Islamic State and Kurdish fighters further east than Afrin, and was completed in early 2017.

Speaking to thousands of supporters in Istanbul, Erdogan said Turkey's operations along its southern border would continue "until not a single terrorist is left."

"We will not give up on constricting terrorist organisations. In the new period, Turkey will add new ones to the Euphrates Shield and Olive Branch operations in order to clear its borders," Erdogan said.

"We shattered the terror corridor being formed on our southern border with these operations. Our soldiers, who lastly wrote an epic in Afrin, are ready for new missions," he said.

Erdogan has previously threatened to push its Afrin offensive against the YPG further east to Manbij, where U.S. troops are stationed, risking confrontation between the NATO allies.

Turkey considers the YPG an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and has been infuriated with U.S. support for the militia.

However, Ankara and Washington have reached an understanding on a roadmap in Manbij in which the militants will leave the area, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Sunday, adding that the details were being discussed with the new U.S. secretary of state, Mike Pompeo.

Erdogan has also said Turkey could carry out a joint offensive against Kurdish militants in northern Iraq with Baghdad. Cavusoglu said the operation was still on the agenda.

(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; editing by Adrian Croft, Larry King)IF a neighbor were to build a guard house in your backyard then mount a machine gun on its window, would you say, We are confident that the gun is not aimed at us, because were friends? Absolutely not. Viewed from this perspective, the words emanating from the presidential spokesmans mouth as he answered questions about the surface-to-water and surface-to-air missiles that China has installed on several Spratly islands that we own seem ridiculous to the point of being delusional. Even more ludicrous is that the administration is making such statements when the world through a United Nations tribunalhas acknowledged the Philippines ownership over Fiery Reef, Subi Reef and Mischief Reef in the Spratly archipelago, and dismissed Chinas territorial claims in the South China Sea as excessive. Reacting to criticism that the administration is not doing enough to protect the countrys territorial integrity, President Rodrigo Duterte lashed out at the United States and former President Benigno Aquino III for failing to stop Chinas militarization of the region.

The only country who could have stopped the Chinese was America, Duterte said in a speech in Davao City. The President also mistakenly blamed Aquino for doing nothing after winning the case before the UN-backed arbitral tribunalclearly forgetting the indisputable fact that the court decision was handed down after he (Duterte) came to power. In fact, it was Duterte who has done nothing with that decision, making it a point not to bring it up with the Chinese.We do understand that the Philippines has a lot to gain from cordial relations with China, the lynchpin of Mr. Dutertes policy to step softly when it comes to our conflicting territorial claims with Beijing. To the extent that China has offered the country more loans and investments, it is clear that there are distinct advantages of such an approach. It is also clear that taking a bellicose approachthe path taken by the previous administrationhas not worked very well for the Philippines. But there must be a line that not even the most accommodating neighbor will not allow anyone to cross. Since Mr. Duterte has been so vocal about his excellent ties with our northern neighbor, having once expressed his great affection for their president, it behooves him to use those special relations now to register our stringent opposition to the missiles theyve put on our territory. This is not what friends do. This is not what good neighbors do, regardless of whether or not they are aimed at us.The Associated Press

Paris, France.- Air France-KLM CEO Jean-Marc Janaillac announced his decision to resign Friday as Air France crews and ground staff held their 13th day of strikes over pay and rejected the companys wage proposal.

In an electronic vote Friday, Air France employees rejected managements offer for a 2 percent pay rise this year and additional 5 percent raise from 2019 to 2021. A report showed that 55 percent of responders voted against the proposal.

You may also find interesting: US adds a modest 164,000 jobs; unemployment down to 3.9

Unions want a 5.1 percent pay rise this year, arguing that their wages have been frozen since 2011 amid restructuring and noting that the companys profits are up.

The company argued it must preserve its ability to stay competitive against low-cost airlines and bigspending Mideast and Asian carriers. This is a huge waste that can only make our competitors rejoice, Janaillac said of the failed vote.

Air France-KLM shares fell earlier Friday after the company announced the strikes had already cost the airline at least 300 million euros ($359,000). Air France- KLM also forecast a notably lower income this year compared to 2017.

Janaillac, who had been in the post since July 2016, met with the company board Thursday to discuss the quarterly results and the forecast.Fares Akram

Gaza City, Gaza Strip.- Black smoke from burning tires mixed with streaks of tear gas fired by Israeli forces Friday as several thousand Palestinians staged a sixth weekly protest on the Gaza-Israel border. At least 70 Palestinians were wounded by Israeli fire, the lowest casualty toll since the protests began.

Hundreds of demonstrators broke into the Gaza side of a cargo crossing with Israel, damaging pipelines that carry fuel and gas into Gaza, the Israeli military said. Photos on social media showed large flames near the Kerem Shalom crossing, near where the borders of Gaza, Israel and Egypt converge.

Palestinian officials said protesters smashed some equipment near the crossing but were unaware of any damage to pipelines. The Israeli military called the incident a cynical act of terror that harms Gaza civilians.

You may also find interesting: Gaza protest camps moved closer to Israel border fence

Elsewhere, witnesses said small Israeli drones faced off against flaming kites that were flown by Palestinians over the border fence in recent weeks to set ablaze dry wheat fields on the Israeli side. The witnesses said two kites with burning rags were brought down by the drones, while two other drones crashed after being hit by stones.

The protests are part of a weekly campaign organized by Gazas Hamas rulers. The marches each Friday are aimed, in part, at breaking a decade-old blockade of the territory that imposed by Israel and Egypt after the Islamic militant group took control there in 2007.

The Islamic militant group Hamas has said the protests would culminate in a mass march on May 15, with some officials suggesting a possible border breach at the time and others saying the protests might continue beyond that date.

Israel has warned that it will prevent such a breach at any cost. May 15 is the day Palestinians commemorate their mass uprooting in the 1948 war over Israels creation.The Associated Press

SEOUL, South Korea.- North Korea readjusted its time zone to match South Koreas on Saturday and described the change as an early step toward making the longtime rivals become one following a landmark summit.

Pyongyang Time was created as tensions between the authoritarian country and the U.S. grew over Pyongyangs nuclear weapons program and international sanctions aimed at dismantling it".

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un promised to sync his countrys time zone with the Souths during his April 27 talks with South Korean President Moon Jae-in. A dispatch from the Norths Korean Central News Agency says that promise was fulfilled Saturday by a decree of the nations Presidium of the Supreme Peoples Assembly.

The Koreas used the same time zone for decades before the North in 2015 created its own Pyongyang Time by setting its clocks 30 minutes behind South Korea and Japan. It said at the time that it did so to root out the legacy of Tokyos 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula, when clocks in Korea were changed to be the same as in Japan.

Pyongyang Time was created as tensions between the authoritarian country and the U.S. grew over Pyongyangs nuclear weapons program and international sanctions aimed at dismantling it. But in recent months relations between the Koreas have warmed dramatically, with Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in pledging at their summit last week to rid the peninsula of nuclear weapons.Matthew P. | Zeke Miller

WASHINGTON, US.- President Donald Trump offered his latest teaser Friday for a historic U.S. summit with North Korea: The time and place have been set but hes not saying when and where.

Trump also pushed back on a report that hes considering the withdrawal of U.S. forces from South Korea.

Trump said that withdrawing U.S. forces from South Korea is not on the table.

Earlier this week, Trump expressed a preference for holding the big event with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in the demilitarized zone or DMZ between the two Koreas. He also said Singapore was in contention to host what will be the first summit of between a U.S. and a North Korean leader.

We now have a date and we have a location. Well be announcing it soon, Trump told reporters Friday from the White House South Lawn before departing for Dallas. Hes previously said the summit was planned for May or early June.

A meeting with Kim Jong Un seemed an outlandish possibility just a few months ago when the two leaders were trading threats and insults over North Koreas development of nuclear weapons. But momentum for diplomacy has built this year as the rival Koreas have patched up ties.

In March, Trump unexpectedly accepted an offer of talks from Kim after the North Korean dictator agreed to suspend nuclear and ballistic missile tests and discuss denuclearization.

According to South Korea, Kim has said hed be willing to give up his nukes if the United States commits to a formal end to the Korean War and pledges not to attack the North. But his exact demands for relinquishing weapons that his nation spent decades building remains unclear.Sen. John McCains closest friends and advisers are already getting ready for the inevitable.

Although no one is explicitly saying goodbye to the longtime Arizona senator who is battling brain cancer quite yet, he is receiving a stream of visitors at his home and their conversations often turn to reminiscing and taking care of unfinished business, the New York Times reports. Part of that involves planning for his funeral and his inner circle has let the White House know that as of now Vice President Mike Pence should be planning to attend the service that will be held in the National Cathedral in Washington rather than President Donald Trump.

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The decision isnt too surprising considering Trump and McCain have clashed more than once. But it does come shortly after Trump didnt attend former first lady Barbara Bushs funeral. Trump said he wanted to avoid disrupting the service but it was an open secret that the Bush family didnt quite want the commander in chief there.

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The revelation about the early planning for McCains funeral comes as part of a larger Times story on how McCain, who is refusing to give on-the-record interviews, is spending his time at his beloved ranch. He is carrying out long physical therapy sessionsand rewarding himself most days with a tall glass of Absolut Elyx on icewhile continuing to lead conference calls with his staff. The senator is also taking a look back, having participated in an HBO documentary and co-writing what he has acknowledged will be his last book. McCain is critical of Trump in his book, and also of himself, expressing regret for not having selected former Sen. Joseph Lieberman to be his running mate rather than Sarah Palin. Lieberman said he didnt know about his longtime friends regret until he watched the HBO documentary. It touched me greatly, he said.North Korea seems none too happy about President Donald Trumps bluster ahead of the highly anticipated talks between the two leaders. Pyongyang warned on Sunday that Trumps misleading statements amounted to a dangerous attempt to ruin the peaceful atmosphere that has been built on the Korean Peninsula. In addition, North Korea wants to make clear that U.S. sanctions are not the reason why it agreed to sit at the negotiating table.

The U.S. is deliberately provoking the DPRK at the time when the situation on the Korean Peninsula is moving toward peace and reconciliation, a Foreign Ministry spokesman told the Norths official news agency KCNA, which refers to North Koreas formal name of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea. This act cannot be construed otherwise than a dangerous attempt to ruin the hardly-won atmosphere of dialogue and bring the situation back to square one.

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The spokesman went on to warn the United States that it shouldnt misinterpret the peace-loving intention of North Korea as a sign of weakness while it continues to pursue its pressure and military threats. Continued talk of human rights violations and the moves by the military also havent helped the process, the spokesman said.

Ahead of the summit that is likely to take place in June, Trump and several White House officials have been quick to pat themselves on the back, saying their tough policy toward North Korea worked. Yet the statement issued Sunday was a stark reminder that Pyongyang and leader Kim Jong Un are seeking to enter talks from a position of strength and not weakness. We now have a date and we have a location. Well be announcing it soon, Trump told reporters on Friday.

A separate KCNA article is full of praise for Kim, crediting his strong grit, bold decision and ardent love for the nation and outstanding and tested guidance for the recent progress in talks with South Korea. The summit at the border was the result of the firm will, outstanding political ability, warm love for the nation and bold decision of Kim Jong Un to build a dignified, prosperous and reunified power.Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trumps new attorney and foot-in-mouth artist, has struggled to explain Trumps role in paying off Stormy Daniels. But hes also struggling to explain why Trump, a year ago, fired thenFBI Director James Comey, who was leading the Russia investigation.

In an interview with Sean Hannity on Wednesday, Giuliani complained that special counsel Robert Mueller wants to ask Trump questions about what the president thought and felt when he fired Comey. Those are all questions intended to trap Trump into contradicting what is in fact a very, very solid explanation, said Giuliani.

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Its an odd complaint. Most of us wouldnt consider it a trap to be asked why we did something. But for Trump, its a nightmare, because he has told so many conflicting stories. He has rationalized the Comey ouster in a draft termination letter, a final termination letter, a memo, and numerous interviews and tweets. None of these accounts can be reconciled with the others.

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Start with Giulianis very solid explanation. Giuliani told Hannity that Trump fired Comey because Comey would not, among other things, say that [Trump] wasnt a target of the [Russia] investigation.  So he fired him, and he said, Im free of the guy, and he went on Lester Holt.  and Lester Holt asked him, Why did you do it? [Trump] said, I did it because I felt that I had to explain to the American people the president was not the target of the investigation. 

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Actually, no. Thats not what Trump said. Trump told Holt that he had fired Comey because Comey was a showboat and the FBI was in turmoil. Trump called collusion with Russia a made-up story. But when Holt asked Trump whether he was angry with Mr. Comey over taking up the Russia investigation, Trump said, No, I dont care.

Trump did mention, in his termination letter to Comey, that the FBI director had told him on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation. But that wasnt the reason Trump gave for the firing. The reason, Trump wrote, was the attached letters from Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein recommending your dismissal. Sessions letter was a cover letter for Rosensteins memo. And that memo is what Trump cited again on Friday to justify the firing. Take a look, as an example, at the Rod Rosenstein letter to me prior to the firing of James Comey, Trump told reporters. Just read it. Put it in the air. Your viewers dont know about it. Put that letter on the air. It very much speaks very loudly.

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OK, lets read it. In the memo, Rosenstein faulted Comey for exceeding his authority on two occasions. The first was July 2016, when Comey publicly chastised Hillary Clinton for her email practices. We do not hold press conferences to release derogatory information about the subject of a declined criminal investigation, Rosenstein wrote. The second incident was Comeys October 2016 letter to Congress, which declared a resumption of the investigation. The Justice Department, Rosenstein wrote, has a longstanding policy that we refrain from publicizing such steps.

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Rosensteins argument is the opposite of what Trump has said all along. To this day, Trump maintains that Comey conspired to help Clinton. Comey drafted the Crooked Hillary exoneration long before he talked to her, Trump tweeted on April 16. Quoting Fox News, the president called Comeys investigation of Clinton rigged, saying, they exonerated her even before they ever interviewed her. On Wednesday, Trump touted a book about the illicit scheme to clear Hillary Clinton.

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So Trump seems not to have taken Rosensteins memo seriously. Or maybe he didnt understand it. Or maybe he never read it. In any event, Trump told Holt, the memo was irrelevant. In the interview, he said Rosenstein had made a recommendation. But regardless of recommendation, I was going to fire Comey.

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You can see why Giuliani worries that Trump will contradict himself in a sit-down with Mueller. Were now talking about five incompatible accounts: the termination letter, the attached memo, the interview with Holt, the tweets, and Trumps comments to reporters.

The more you look at these accounts, the more chaos you find. The termination letter attributes Comeys firing to the memo, but the memo doesnt say Comey should be fired. In fact, a week after he wrote the memo, Rosenstein told Congress that it wasnt a survey of FBI morale or performance or a statement of reasons to justify a for-cause termination. That contradicts both the termination letter and what Trump said about FBI morale in his interview with Holt.

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The memo also emphasizes that the FBI director shouldnt make public statements about investigations without Justice Department authorization. But thats exactly what Trump, according to Giuliani, sought from Comey. He wanted Comey to tell the public that Trump wasnt under investigation. And when Comey asked Trump to go through proper DOJ channels, Trump fired him.

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Then theres a sixth version of why Trump fired Comey. Its a draft letter, prepared in the week before the firing, that supposedly represents Trumps true feelings. According to the Washington Post, aides who have seen the letter say it blasted Comey over his investigation of  Clinton. The draft hasnt been released, but Mueller has it. You can imagine how tricky it will be for Trump to square that draft with the final version, in which he attributes the firing to a memo about how unfairly Comey treated Clinton.

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And I almost forgot a seventh account: the one Trump gave to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov the day after he sacked Comey. I just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job, Trump told Lavrov, according to internal White House notes. I faced great pressure because of Russia. Thats taken off. Personally, I give extra weight to this account, since Trump delivered it in private. Unfortunately for Giuliani, it contradicts all the others.

Trump and Giuliani cant even get their story straight about Rosenstein. Trump never should have appointed Rosenstein, Giuliani told Hannity on Wednesday. Do you know that Rosenstein was with Mueller the night, or the day, he was interviewed by President Trump to be FBI director? Walked out, knew that he was turned down, and then appointed him the next day? Giuliani struggled to explain how this showed bias against Trump. He said it showed that Rosenstein was a witness to critical information. To be fair, thats probably true, since Rosenstein may have witnessed the use of his memo to obstruct justice. But Trump couldnt even stick to Giulianis story. On Friday, disregarding Giulianis attack on Rosenstein, Trump was back to touting the deputy attorney generals memo.

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Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, can barely keep track of all these tales. James Comey was fired for lying, leaking, and politicizing the FBI, she said Thursday.

When reporters pointed out that the firing preceded the alleged lies and leaks, she all but threw up her hands. There are a number of reasons that James Comey was fired. The president has named several of them. But the bottom line is he doesnt have to justify his decision, she pleaded. He can hire and fire whomever he wants.

Poor Sarah. Poor Rudy. Defending the presidents story is hard work. Particularly when youre not sure which story to defend.President Donald Trump was able to anger people in two different European countries with his speech at the NRA convention as trauma surgeons in London pushed back against a ridiculous claim about knives and French leaders expressed disgust that the president mimicked the shooting of people in Paris in 2015 to make his point.

Trump told the audience in Dallas that a once very prestigious hospital in London was suddenly finding it difficult to deal with a surge of knife-attack victims. They dont have guns. They have knives and instead theres blood all over the floors of this hospital, he said. They say its as bad as a military war zone hospital. Knives, knives, knives, knives. The ever-classy president went on to make stabbing gestures.

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Although he didnt name what hospital he was referring to, it seems to be related to a BBC Radio 4 interview last month in which London trauma surgeon Martin Griffiths said the hospital where he works, the Royal London Hospital, had been likened to a war zone.

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"We're treating children in school uniforms for knife and gun injuries". One London trauma surgeon - Martin Griffiths @NHSBartsHealth, says his practice is like a war zone #r4today pic.twitter.com/rvL1PEF5ZM  BBC Radio 4 Today (@BBCr4today) April 5, 2018

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Some of my military colleagues have described their practice here as being similar to being at Bastion, Griffiths said in the interview that was then used as the basis for a Daily Mail article. About a quarter of what we see in our practice is knife and gun injury. And its now were doing major life-saving cases on a daily basis. Griffiths took to Twitter to say Trump had missed the point of his comment and extended an invitation to visit the hospital where he works. Karim Brohi, director of Londons major trauma system and a trauma surgeon at the Royal London Hospital, issued a statement saying it was ridiculous to suggest guns are part of the solution to the problem of knife attacks. Gunshot wounds are at least twice as lethal as knife injuries and more difficult to repair, he said.

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Happy to invite Mr Trump to my (prestigious) hospital to meet with our mayor and police commissioner to discuss our successes in violence reduction in London @SadiqKhan @metpoliceuk @NHSBartsHealth #WindrushAwards pic.twitter.com/G4vYqTkfbL  Martin P Griffiths (@martinpgriff) May 5, 2018

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When it came to talk about the 2015 terrorist attacks on Paris, Trump mimicked gunmen summoning and shooting victims one by one. Boom! Come over here! Trump said as he used his hand to imitate firing a gun to make his point that anyone with a gun could have stopped the attacks.

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Les propos honteux et les simagrees obscenes de Donald Trump en disent long sur ce quil pense de la France et de ses valeurs. Lamitie entre nos deux peuples ne sera pas entachee par lirrespect et loutrance. Toutes mes pensees vont aux victimes du 13 novembre.  Francois Hollande (@fhollande) May 5, 2018

The French Foreign Ministry was none too pleased with Trumps antics. France expresses its firm disapproval of the comments by President Trump about the attacks of 13 November 2015 in Paris and asks for the memory of the victims to be respected, foreign ministry spokeswoman Agnes von der Muhll said. Francois Hollande, who was French president at the time of the attacks, took to Twitter to call Trumps remarks shameful and obscene. Manuel Valls, who was prime minister during the attack, kept his Twitter comment short: Indecent and incompetent. What more can I say?

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AdvertisementA video of an odd encounter with law enforcement at a gas station in California appears to illustrate how police officers can overreact to what they perceive as tiny slights and often have a hard time accepting when theyre wrong. The video clearly shows how Jose Arreola went from being just a regular guy buying a pack of Mentos at a service station one minute to being an accused thief with an off-duty police officer pulling a gun on him. Arreola now says he believes he was the victim of racial profiling.

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The 49-year-old man went into the Chevron station in Buena Park in mid-March to go to the ATM. Arreolas wife had asked him to buy some mints so after he withdrew $60 from the ATM he went to the counter and plunked down a $20 bill for the $1.19 roll of Mentos. While waiting for his change, Arreola put the mints in his pocket. Thats when the man standing behind Arreola in line, who came into the store after he had handed the clerk the cash, identifies himself as a police officer and takes out the gun from his pocket. Despite Arreola protesting that he had just paid for the item, the officer insists that he must put the mints back on the counter. It is only after the clerk confirmed the purchase that the officer apologized and handed him the candy.

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Its been a month and I still cant shake it, Arreola told the Orange County Register.

It was traumatic, the whole incident. The paper talked to experts who agreed the whole episode is astounding, considering a gun should only be pulled as a last resort. In a statement, Buena Park Police Chief Corey S. Sianez said the department is carrying out an internal investigation. I want you to know that after I watched the video I found it to be disturbing, as Im sure it was to you, he wrote in the statement that was posted on Facebook.Posted Sunday, May 6, 2018 5:30 am

May 6, 1993 - 25 years ago

Despite a warning from Webster County Prosecuting Attorney Don Cheever, Wal-Mart opened on Sunday for the second week in a row.

In a letter delivered to manager Steve Horsch on Thursday, Cheever said he had received several letters, telephone calls and one written complaint concerning Wal-Mart store in Marshfield having been open for business on April 25, 1993.

The Blue Law prohibits the sale of non-essential items on Sunday, including clothing, furniture, housewares and clothing accessories.



Although Friends of the Library President Jack Watters said nothing earth-shattering has happened since last week in the Kinderhook Regional Librarys quest to receive a gift from the Garst family to build a new library, strategies are currently being planned.

The FOL met Tuesday night to discuss the upcoming meeting with the Marshfield Rotarys current board of directors and President Dan McMillan and incoming board of directors and President Larry Emrick. That meeting is scheduled for May 10.

Watters said at that time he hopes the Rotary will look favorably at the possibility of taking on the library as this years project and helping to raise the necessary $100,000 to receive the $100,000 gift from the Garst family.



Although officials with the Webster County Health Unit have not located an acceptable site for the health clinic to move in to, Director Louella Tunnell said earlier this week that several possibilities are being explored.

Voters passed a 5-cent levy increase in the April election to support the health unit and enable it to move out of its current location in the basement of the Webster County Courthouse.

Tunnell said the new building will have to have a minimum of 5,000 square feet, with additional space being a bonus.



Mr. and Mrs. Larry Schulz celebrated their 25th anniversary with their children, Angela and Vinson McCowan and Shawnee of Conway, Larry and Kandy Schulz of Lebanon, and Jeremy Schulz of Conway.

Larry Schulz and Joyce Henderson were married April 20, 1968, at St. Marks United Methodist Church in Niangua by the Rev. Anson L. Gray.



Deaths reported in this issue: Rea Atteberry, 85, Elkland; Mary E. Hockman, 91, Conway; James E. Storie, 68, Conway; Freda L. Williams, 88, Niangua.



Marshfields Blue Jays continued to find ways to win against a very good Mountain Grove team Tuesday night. The Jays beat Mountain Grove 5-4 behind another strong pitching performance by Bryce Emrick.

The win extended Marshfields winning street to three straight and the Jays have now won four of their last five.

Marshfield scored three runs in the third inning, and held on to the win, allowing Mountain Grove to score once in the first, third, sixth and seventh innings.

May 2, 1968 - 50 years ago

John Greer was elected president of the Marshfield Lions Club last Thursday evening. He will succeed Jack Watters the first of July.

Other officers elected were: Ireland Young, first vice-president; Bob Abbott, second vice-president; Claude Lewis, secretary; Don Fraker, treasurer; Oral Edwards, tail twister; Dean Cansler, lion tamer; Al Stapleton, and Tom Vestal, directors.



Three Marshfield teachers will be honored for long service at an open house to be held Sunday, May 5. The teachers are Arilla Deckard, elementary principal, Olive Robertson, high school teacher and Joyce Greer, elementary teacher.

The open house will be held at the Marshfield Junior High School cafeteria and gymnasium from 2 to 5 p.m. At 2:30, special recognition will be paid to these teachers. Host organization for the occasion are the Marshfield PTA, Marshfield Education Association and the Marshfield R-I school board.

The three have a total of over 111 years of teaching with most of it in the Marshfield school system.



The date for starting the new Direct Distance Dialing (DDD) was moved up to April 28 by the Webster County Telephone Co., due to a telephone strike in city centers which was slowing down long distance service.

People here can now do their own long-distance dialing. Instructions have been mailed by the company to all patrons.

The Webster County Telephone Co. now has one of the first completely automatic installations in Missouri, and is the first of the independent telephone companies in south Missouri to have this service.Slovaks have learned how to combat malware

Slovakia took the top position in a global ranking on cyber security.

Slovak users are prone to internet scams, such as phishing through emails. (Source: SME)

Today, the internet is a global network with millions of users connected through various smart devices. Cyber attackers, therefore, have a sufficient target group to attack regardless of their location.

Slovak internet users do not avoid cyber attacks, but they know how to defend themselves against them. Security experts now point out that Slovakia is one of several countries that prevents these attacks responsibly, due to the historical development of protection and education in this country, according to Zuzana Hosalova, spokesperson of the Slovak cyber security company Eset.

Up to three worldwide security companies have been established in this region and all of them have been more or less devoted to edification, Hosalova told The Slovak Spectator.

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Read also: Online attack forms are changing Read more

However, Ondrej Macko from the TouchIT.sk website considers Slovaks to be careless users of the network.

Slovaks install video players to watch arousing scenes without any problems, Macko told The Slovak Spectator.

First in cyber security

Slovakia placed first in the National Cyber Security Index of the Estonian non-governmental organisation e-Governance Academy Foundation, a global ranking on cyber security. This reflects Slovakias excellent prevention of attacks in cyberspace. The country overtook Germany, Lithuania, Spain, United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Portugal and 63 other states.

In a total of 12 categories, Slovakia received the best score in seven. including cyber security policy, protection of digital services, protection of basic services, protection of personal data, e-identification and trust services, 24/7 detection and response to cyber incidents and the fight against cybercrime, the ranking website reported.

The country received its lowest scores in participation in military cyber operations and contribution to international cyber security.

(Source: Source: e-Governance Academy)

Worldwide attacks

Slovak users can be subject to any cyber attack, not excluding the latest types. While 2017 was still full of ransomware, which encrypts the content in the infected device and requires a ransom for decryption, 2018 was characterised by new attacks using target devices to exploit cryptocurrencies.

6. May 2018 at 6:30 | Peter AdamovskyOnline attack forms are changing

At the beginning of 2017, the number of recorded and blocked crypto-mining and crypto-jacking attacks equalled hundreds of attempts per day, but today there are thousands.

One of the main targets in 2018 are cryptocurrencies, like bitcoin. (Source: AP/TASR)

Malware has existed since the first computers came into use. However, its forms, methods of attacks and purposes constantly change.

In 2017, another breakthrough in the structure of cyber attacks occurred, says Michal Salat, security expert of the Czech IT security company Avast.

While the turn of 2016 was marked by the mass usage of ransomware, from the end of 2017 until now, mainly crypto-mining attacks have taken place, Salat told The Slovak Spectator.

Main trends

2018s main trend is crypto-miners who seek to misuse infected devices to exploit cryptocurrencies without the users knowledge. Most often, attacks occur in the form of crypto-jacking, or exploiting the Monero currency through an internet browser, said Zuzana Hosalova, spokesperson of the Slovak cyber security company Eset.

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Read also: Slovaks have learned how to combat malware Read more

Profit from this activity goes either to the owner of the website or the attackers who infected the website, Hosalova told The Slovak Spectator.

While at the beginning of 2017, the number of recorded and blocked crypto-mining and crypto-jacking attacks equalled hundreds of attempts per day, today there are thousands, she said.

Czech Avast registered the first strong wave of attacks in September 2017, after which a huge rise in bitcoin prices occurred. Although this currency has roughly half the value it did in September 2017, it remains an interesting way to get money for attackers, said Salat.

6. May 2018 at 6:30 | Peter AdamovskyGuyana Goldfields Inc. provides exploration and production of gold. It engages in the acquisition, exploration, development, production, and operation of gold mineral properties. The company also owns and operates gold drilling rights. The company was formerly known as Chiboug Copper Company Limited and changed its name to Guyana Goldfields Inc. in January 1995. Guyana Goldfields Inc. was incorporated in 1994 and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada. As of August 25, 2020, Guyana Goldfields Inc. operates as a subsidiary of Zijin Mining Group Company Limited.

Read MoreOrmat Technologies, Inc. operates as a holding company. The firm engages in the provision of geothermal and recovered energy power business. It operates through the following segments: Electricity, Product and Energy Storage. The Electricity segment focuses in the sale of electricity from the company's power plants pursuant to PPAs. The Product segment involves in the manufacture, including design and development, of turbines and power units for the supply of electrical energy and in the associated construction of power plants utilizing the power units manufactured by the company to supply energy from geothermal fields and other alternative energy sources. The Energy Storage segment consists of battery energy storage systems as a service and management of curtailable customer loads under contracts with U.S. retail energy providers and directly with large commercial and industrial customers. The company was founded in 1965 and is headquartered in Reno, NV.

Read MorePress Release

ICAI compliments Union Cabinet for Approving MoU with The South Africa Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA)

The Union Cabinet chaired by Honble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has approved the Mutual Recognition Agreement between the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) and The South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA) to establish a mutual co-operation framework for the advancement of accounting knowledge, professional and intellectual development, advancing the interests of their respective members and positively contributing to the development of the accounting profession in South Africa and India.

Accountancy and Finance Services had been identified as one of the 12 Champion Sectors by Government of India wherein ICAI is taking all possible efforts for mutual recognition agreements with maximum foreign accounting institutes which is the first step for promotion of export of accountancy services in the overseas market.

Signing of the Agreement between ICAI & SAICA would facilitate recognition of Indian Accountancy Professionals with local Accountancy qualification in addition to existing ICAI qualification, which will increase their professional avenues in South African markets. The agreement would foster strong working relations between the two accounting institutes and would increase mobility of professionals at either end and would herald a new dimension for small and medium businesses in both countries.

The recent Union Cabinet approval on SAICA MRA indicates Indias determination for facilitating export of accountancy services and promotion of global mobility of accountancy services in digital world which is earmarked as one of the important Champion Sectors initiative and ICAI compliments the move and support the Government of India and look forward to work together for other areas of Action plan of Champion Sectors.

MoUs with National Board of Accountants and Auditors (NBAA), Tanzania; Saudi Organization for Certified Public Accountants (SOCPA); Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya and CPA Afghanistan are going to be signed once cleared by Government of India. The agreement would facilitate recognition of Indian accountancy professionals in foreign land and would increase mobility of professionals.

About ICAI

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India(ICAI) is a statutory body established by an Act of Parliament viz., The Chartered Accountants Act, 1949 in the year 1949 for regulating the profession of Chartered Accountants in the country. The Institute, which functions under the administrative control of Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Government of India, has five Regional Councils and 163 branches covering the length and breadth of the country. In addition, it has also set up 31 chapters outside India.

The main functions of the Institute are prescribing qualifications for membership, holding examination and arranging practical training of candidates, enrollment of members, publication and maintenance of register of members qualified to practice the profession, carrying on activities for development of the profession and regulation and maintenance of status and standard of professional qualification of the members.

About SAICA

The South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA) is the foremost accountancy body in South Africa and one of the leading Institutes in the world. It plays an influential role in a highly dynamic business sector. SAICA provides support, advice and services to its CAs throughout their professional lives. SAICA members are business advisors, business leaders and entrepreneurs.Posted Sunday, May 6, 2018 7:45 am

The Second (Indianhead) Division Association is searching for anyone who served in the U.S. Army's 2nd Infantry Division at any time. For information about the association and our 97th annual reunion in Jacksonville, Florida, Sept 19-23, contact Mike Davino at 2IDA.PAO@charter.net, visit www.2ida.org/2018-reunion or call 919-498-1910.Eight student-athletes from the Texas Tech softball program were recognized on the Academic All-Big 12 teams, announced by the league office Thursday.Six Red Raiders earned first team honors, including senior, juniorsand sophomoresand. Seniorand juniorearned second team awards.This marks the fifth straight year the program has had six or more student-athletes awarded first team honors, the longest active streak among Big 12 softball programs. All six Red Raiders on the first team are appearing there for the first time in their careers.Hartwell is being recognized for the third straight year after taking Academic All-Big Rookie Team honors in 2016 and a second team nod last season. This is the second academic accolade for Davis, Hamilton, Scott, Strickland and Workman, and the first time Knopp and Cochran have been eligible.First team members consist of those who have maintained a 3.20 or better GPA while the second team selections hold a 3.00 to 3.19 GPA. To qualify, student-athletes must maintain a 3.00 GPA or higher either cumulative or over the previous two seasons.Each student-athlete must have also participated in 60 percent of their team's scheduled contests. Freshmen and transfers are not eligible in their first year of academic residence. Senior student-athletes who have participated for a minimum of two years and meet all the criteria except percent of participation are also eligible.For all of the most up to date information on Texas Tech softball, follow the Red Raiders on Twitter at @TexasTechSB and online at www.texastech.comLocated from ten to 20 meters underground, the second tunnel has had 470 meters out of its total length of 781 meters completed.

At the current pace, approximately ten meters of the tunnel can be installed with concrete slabs every day.

Construction of this second tunnel began in January and is expected to complete at the beginning of June.

The second tunnel runs from Ba Son Shipyard, going under streets including Ton Duc Thang, Ngo Van Nam, Nguyen Sieu, to the Ho Chi Minh Citys Municipal Theater in District 1.

Following the installation of concrete walls and railways, the lighting systems and other supporting structures will be set up, a representative of Shimizu - Meada, the Japanese main contractor in charge of the metro line project, said.

The metro line No. 1 in Ho Chi Minh City, stretching 19.7 kilometers, will connect Ben Thanh Market in District 1 with Suoi Tien Theme Park in District 9, passing through Binh Thanh District, Thu Duc District, and District 2.

The metro line is mainly aboveground with two tunnels located in the citys downtown area.

The first tunnel, also connecting Ba Son Shipyard with the Municipal Theater, began in May and completed in October last year.

The whole metro line is expected to complete in 2020.

Engineers and workers check a section of the second tunnel. Photo: Tuoi Tre

Workers transport concrete slabs in the second tunnel. Photo: Tuoi Tre

A worker cleans a concrete slab before installation. Photo: Tuoi Tre

Inside the Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) placed underground. Photo: Tuoi Tre

A group of workers install a concrete slab. Photo: Tuoi Tre

Two workers operate the machine to place a concrete slab into its correct position. Photo: Tuoi Tre

Workers begin their shift from 7 am to 18:30 pm every day. Photo: Tuoi Tre

An engineer inspects an already installed concrete slab. Photo: Tuoi Tre

People work inside the control room of the TBM robot. Photo: Tuoi Tre

A supervisor takes photos of a complete section of the tunnel. Photo: Tuoi Tre

A section of the tunnel is already finished with lighting system and pipelines. Photo: Tuoi Tre

Workers prepare the foundation of a section of the tunnel. Photo: Tuoi Tre

A worker puts on a smile although the working condition underground is hot and dusty. Photo: Tuoi TreA female teacher at an English center in Hanoi has been captured repeatedly yelling at a student and calling him pig brain after he refused to pay a fine for his violation in class.

The video clip was uploaded to social media on Saturday and has attracted over one million views along with countless comments and shares.

An initial probe by Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper showed that the incident took place inside a classroom of the MST English Center in the Vietnamese capital.

Both the teacher and representative of the English center have refused to give their comments on the incident.

In the nearly two and a half minute footage, the teacher demanded one of the students in her class pay a fine worth VND100,000 (US$4.4) as he had broken the rules.

While the learner declined, the teacher insisted that he pay the money as he had signed a commitment at the beginning of the course.

The teacher also stated that this was not the first time the student had violated the rules and that she would not continue teaching unless he paid.

After the learner called her a fraud, she appeared to lose control and started yelling at him and using offensive words, including calling him pig brain and pig face.

This is my playground, where my rules apply, she asserted.

The verbal confrontation escalated as the learner fought back.

At the end of the clip, he threw his books on the floor and stormed out of the classroom, stressing that he would sue her and the center.

According to the student, he did his homework but left it at home.

He would hand it the following session, but the teacher underlined that it was a violation.

The English center highlights on its official website that discipline of steel is applied at the facility, stressing that fines from VND50,000 ($2.2) to VND100,000 must be paid if learners fail to hand in their homework on time.

A four-sided commitment between the center, teachers, learners and their parents is signed at the start of the course.

While the majority of viewers expressed their opposition to the teachers manners, some said she was right as the fines were clearly stated in the rules and commitment.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!WARSAW -- Rescuers battled in the early hours of Sunday to reach four coal miners who remained trapped nearly one kilometer (0.6 mile) underground in southern Poland after an earthquake.

The 3.4 magnitude quake hit the Borynia-Zofiowka-Jastrzebie mine on Saturday morning, initially trapping seven miners at a depth of about 900 meters (2,950 feet), state mining office WUG said.

Two had been rescued by mid-afternoon, and one was found late on Saturday but showed no signs of life, the deputy chief executive of the mine owner JSW, Tomasz Sledz, told reporters.

He said the third miner was buried and that it was not yet possible for rescuers to confirm he was dead. He said there had been no contact with the remaining four miners.

The two rescued miners were taken to a hospital in Jastrzebie-Zdroj city in relatively good condition and could walk unaided, JSW Chief Executive Daniel Ozon told reporters.

We are doing all we can to save the miners, Ozon said.

There were about 250 people working in the mine at the time of the quake, JSW said. The missing miners were from a team of 11 that was drilling a new tunnel. Four escaped by themselves.

The 200-person rescue operation was earlier hampered by high levels of methane, which reached a concentration of up to 58 percent.

A spokeswoman for JSW, the European Unions largest coking coal producer, said earlier that the quake had damaged communications lines in the area.

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who reached the mine on Saturday evening, said the rescue operation was very difficult and that he hoped the remaining miners would be saved.

He also visited the two rescued miners at the Jastrzebie-Zdroj hospital.

WUG said the quake was of a type that can occur in coal mines after the removal of deposits builds up tensions in the rocks.

Polish news agency PAP said family members of the missing miners had gathered at the mine and were being counseled by psychologists.Emmerdale will tackle the issue of child abuse in a special upcoming episode.

The flashback episode will see Charity Dingle (Emma Atkins) open up about her troubled past. The UK soap has been advised throughout by North Yorkshires Rape Unit.

Emma Atkins said, Its such a brilliant opportunity for me to explore Charitys past and a chance to discover why Charity behaves the way she does a lot of the time. Its stuff thats been locked away for years, very painful stuff, and she finally feels able to talk about it. The storyline is very serious in nature compared to the comedy Ive done more recently so it is a wonderful challenge. The relationship between Charity and Vanessa is showing a different dimension to the usual gold digging Charity. Its a love story and its breathing new life into my character, especially seeing her finally face up to her secret, dark past. Its obviously the hardest storyline Ive had due to the subject matter and I am duty bound to play it as truthfully as I can. If it in any way helps give anyone out there whos suffered any kind of abuse the strength to open up, even just to talk about it, then that can only be the start of a good thing.

Series Producer, Iain MacLeod said, Charity is a character with a complicated, fascinating and heartbreaking history  some of which has previously only been alluded to on screen. We wanted to do one of our signature, stylised episodes to fill in the blanks and explore the devastating, formative experiences she went through as a vulnerable teenager  adding in a massive surprise for viewers in the process.

A spokesperson for North Yorkshire Rape Unit said: This is the third occasion that we have assisted Emmerdale with the storylines they have run around safeguarding and incidents involving victims of serious sexual crimes. They are so careful to ensure that they are portraying events correctly and providing the right information. They have always made sure the facts are correct and that victims can, and do get, the help and support they may need.

An Australian airdate is not due until 2019.

Until recently Charity Dingle, played brilliantly since 2000 by Emma Atkins, has been one of lifes survivors. A tough, no-nonsense character used to shrugging off lifes disasters and moving on to the next scam or scrape with the law. Scheming has been her modus operandi as shes struggled to raise her family, son Noah with Chris Tate and toddler son Moses with Ross Barton. Daughter Debbie flew the nest a long time ago and has followed in her mothers footsteps for picking the wrong partners and attracting trouble.

Charity has never really showed her true feelings apart from her ill-fated relationships with Cain Dingle, but they were too alike to ever turn passion into a long-standing union. Love seemed to allude Charity until recently when she began a passionate affair with Emmerdale vet Vanessa Woodfield, played by Michelle Hardwick. Although still one to tease and taunt Vanessa about their relationship, Charity appears to have found her match in Vanessa and has begun to open up to her partner about the abuse she suffered as a child. In a landmark hour long episode which airs on 29 May well flashback to the life of a young Charity, played by Mica Proctor, and witness the pain, heartbreak and confusion she felt as a girl.This week on Insight students and teachers of Sir Joseph Banks High share stories of strength and reveal what it took to turn their school around.

Six years ago, when Junior arrived at Sir Joseph Banks High School as a year 7 student, the school didnt have a great reputation in the community.

[A] lot of bus drivers wouldnt stop for us because they know how rowdy our school could have been in the bus, he tells Insights Jenny Brockie.

The same year Junior arrived, only 30 per cent of year 12 students on an ATAR pathway went to university. But for the last two years, that number has risen to 100 per cent. Kids say they are now being enrolled because Sir Joseph Banks is the best school in the area.

Ninety-two per cent of students at the school, located in Sydneys south-west, come from a non-English speaking background and 61 per cent of students fall in the most disadvantaged quarter of all Australian students.

For many students at Sir Joseph Banks, school is like a second home and the principal, Murray Kitteringham, says the belief that happy kids learn is central to the schools focus. Junior agrees.

[The teachers] dont just care about your marks, they care about your wellbeing and ultimately that care about your wellbeing will help improve your marks and help get you to that end role, he says.

Marouf is School Captain and has been dux of his year every year since year 8. He is aiming to study medicine next year and like many students at the school, hell be the first one in his family to go to university.

Id like to break that mould kind of for my sisters, let them know that it is possible if they want to go down that path, he tells Insight.

[We] might not have that head start that some people may have  but I guess thats what motivates me personally to just continue going when I dont want to or dont feel like it.

8:30pm Tuesday on SBS.This article originally appeared on the Conversation.

In the U.S., if you want a face lift or a tummy tuck, its generally assumed that youll be paying out of pocket. Insurance will tend to cover plastic surgery only when the surgery is deemed medically necessary and not merely aesthetic.

In Brazil, however, patients are thought of as having the right to beauty. In public hospitals, plastic surgeries are free or low-cost, and the government subsidizes nearly half a million surgeries every year.

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Brazil Plastic Surgery

ANTONIO SCORZA/AFP/Getty Images

As a medical anthropologist, Ive spent years studying Brazilian plastic surgery. While many patients are incredibly thankful for the opportunity to become beautiful, the right to beauty has a darker side to it.

Everyone I interviewed in Brazil admitted that plastic surgeries were risky affairs. In the public hospitals where these plastic surgeries are free or much cheaper than in private clinics, I heard many patients declare that they were cobaias (guinea pigs) for the medical residents who would operate on them.

Yet these patients, most of whom were women, also told me that living without beauty in Brazil was to take an even bigger risk. Beauty is perceived as being so central for the job market, so crucial for finding a spouse and so essential for any chances at upward mobility that many cant say no to these surgeries.

The very long queues for plastic surgery in public hospitalswith wait times of several months or even yearsseem to confirm this immense longing for beauty. Its made Brazil the second-largest consumer of plastic surgery in the world, with 1.2 million surgeries carried out every year.

Story continues

Brazils pope of plastic surgery

Today, Brazil considers health to be a basic human right and provides free health care to all its citizensa hard-won victory of social activists after Brazils dictatorship fell and a new democratic constitution was written into law in 1988. However, public hospitals remain severely underfunded, and most middle-class and upper-class Brazilians prefer to use private medical services.

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In effect, Brazil has a two-tiered system. There is a private health care system that is cutting-edge and luxurious and a public one that is strapped for cash but provides essential services to the working class.

Plastic surgery is considered an essential service largely due to the efforts of a surgeon named Ivo Pitanguy. In the late 1950s, Pitanguynow known as the pope of plastic surgeryconvinced President Juscelino Kubitschek that the right to beauty was as basic as any other health need. Pitanguy made the case that ugliness caused so much psychological suffering in Brazil that the medical class could not turn its back on this humanitarian issue.

In 1960, he opened the first institute that offered plastic surgery to the poor, one that doubled as a medical school to train new surgeons. It was so successful that it became the educational model followed by most other plastic surgery residencies around the country. In return for free or low-cost surgeries, working-class patients would help surgeons learn and practice their trade.

Brazil was the perfect testing ground for this idea. In the early 1920s, Brazilian eugenic scientists suggested that beauty was a measure of the nations racial progress. Beauty started to assume more cultural clout, and plastic surgeons inherited these ideals, seeing their trade as fixing the errors of too much racial mixture in Brazil, particularly among the lower classes.

Beautys hidden costs

In my recently published book, The Biopolitics of Beauty, I question the idea that humanitarianism is the driving force of plastic surgery in Brazilian public hospitals.

Burn victims and individuals with congenital deformities were once the main beneficiaries of plastic surgery in these hospitals. But at many of the clinics where I carried out my research, nearly 95 percent of all those surgeries have become purely aesthetic. I documented hundreds of instances where surgeons and residents purposely blurred the boundaries between reconstructive and aesthetic procedures to get them approved by the government.

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Since most of the surgeries in public hospitals are carried out by medical residents who are still training to be plastic surgeons, they have a vested interest in learning aesthetic proceduresskills that theyll be able to later market as they open private practices. But they have very little interest in learning the reconstructive procedures that actually improve a bodily function or reduce physical pain.

Additionally, most of Brazils surgical innovations are first tested by plastic surgeons in public hospitals, exposing those patients to more risks than wealthier patients. Working-class patients are understood as subjects for inquiry, and I spoke to the small but significant number who were very unhappy with the results of their surgery.

Take one woman I interviewed named Renata. The medical resident who operated on her left her with deformed breasts and uneven nipples. She also developed severe infections that took months to heal and left significant scars. She considered suing the doctor, but discovered she would need a costly expert medical evaluation. She also knew that the Brazilian legal system would likely grant her very little in terms of damages. In the end, she settled for another free surgery, one that she hoped would provide a better result and leave her less unhappy.

This was a typical story among low-income patients that were harmed by plastic surgeons. Their lack of financial resources made it nearly impossible for them to find any justice if anything went wrong, so they assumed all of the risk.

Plastic surgeons, on the other hand, are eager to try new techniques if they seem promising, no matter how risky they might be. A technique known as bioplastia, for example, consists of injecting a liquid compound called PMMA into the body in order to permanently reshape a patients features. The compound, which is similar to acrylic glass, doesnt cause problems in most patients. But in a small minority it causes very severe complications, including necrosis of facial tissue. Yet many doctors I interviewed strongly defended the technique, claiming it was a phenomenal tool that allowed them to transform the human body. Risk, they argued, was inherent in any surgical procedure.

Around the world, Brazilian plastic surgeons are known as the best in their field, and they gain global recognition for their daring new techniques. During an international plastic surgery conference in Brazil, an American surgeon I interviewed told me, Brazilian surgeons are pioneers You know why? Because [in Brazil] they dont have the institutional or legal barriers to generate new techniques. They can be creative as they want to be.

In other words, there are few regulations in place that could protect low-income patients from malpractice.

In a country where appearance is seen as central to ones very citizenship, patients agree to becoming experimental subjects in exchange for beauty. But its often a choice made under duress, and the consequences can be dire.

Alvaro Jarrin, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, College of the Holy Cross.

The Conversation

This article was first written by Newsweek

More from NewsweekKeen to get a new generation of Europeans excited about the countries around them, the EU will pay for tens of thousands of teenagers to spend their summer traveling.

A European Union initiative called Discover EU will issue up to 30,000 Interrail passes for 18-year-olds to explore the continent at their own pace this year. The European People's Party (EPP) group, which proposed the idea, announced that officials had officially approved the idea and have earmarked $14 million to kickstart it this year.

"This project will enable young people from all the EU member states to discover the beauty and diversity of our continent, to get to know and become friends with young people from other countries all over Europe and discover all the richness of their differences, Manfred Weber, head of the EPP, said on Thursday. It will also allow them to realize what unites them and contribute to a feeling of European identity."

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The rail card will allow young people to plan their own journey through any of the 28 member countries of the bloc. They will be free to use their Interrail pass between July and September 2018. The purpose of the project is to convince young Europeans that the EU, which has been at the receiving end of attacks from populist parties across the continent, is much more than a law-making machine."

05_04_Train

Rob Stothard/Getty Images

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The Discover EU initiative is not about a free train ticket. It is about a new vision for Europe, a new way to really involve our young generations in the kind of Europe they want, to make Europe real in their daily lives, Weber said.

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The first 15,000 tickets will be rolled out as a pilot scheme, and interested 18-year-olds from the EU will undergo an online application process. The system incorporates quotas to even out participation between member states and includes an EU heritage trivia quiz.

Officials are encouraging young people to share their experiences with the pass online using the hashtag #DiscoverEU. Weber said the EPP was working on a proposal to broaden the project to make free Interrail passes available to more people, increasing spending to $120 million a year and giving 200,000 youths free rail travel.

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A central argument in favor of the project was that it would counter the threat of misinformation and the current growth of populism in Europe.

The 28-strong bloc is in the midst of the voluntary exit of one of its largest members, the United Kingdom, and parties favoring leaving the bloc have increased in popularity in France, Germany, Italy and several of Europes smaller economies. While not favoring a clear-cut exit from the union, the governments of Poland and Hungary have entered into serious disputes with the EU, which has expressed alarm at their increasingly illiberal domestic agendas.

This article was first written by Newsweek

More from NewsweekHundreds of people have left their homes in Hawaii after a volcano eruption and an earthquake hit the island, destroying at least two properties.

Lava from Kilauea Volcano destroyed two homes on the Big Island of Hawaii shortly before a 6.9-magnitude earthquake shook the area on Friday.

"We all have to understand how traumatic it is for the people being affected," Harry Kim, the mayor of Hawaii County said at a conference, ABC reported. He confirmed that besides the two ruined homes, the lava also damaged a subdivision road and heavily forested private property.

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Kilauea is one of the worlds most active volcanoes, existing in a state of constant eruption for 35 years, according to Reuters. Its lava flows have spread over an area of around 48 square miles, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, though predicting how long the eruption lasts is nearly impossible.

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The earthquake, although the most powerful on the island since 1975 according to CNN, was not as destructive as feared, authorities said. Four or five landslides forced a road closure near the coastline and a handful of buildings sustained "minor" damage, Talmadge Magno, Civil Defense administrator said. But beyond that, he concluded that nothing came out of the jolts.

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On the other hand, the volcano devastation showed no signs of abating as Magno said on Friday the at least five volcanic vents had opened and the eruption did not  look like it is slowing down.

05_05_Volcano

Marco Garcia/Getty Images

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Authorities have ordered at least 1,800 people ro evacuate in the areas close to the volcano, currently mostly in the south. The states National Guard was deployed on Governor David Iges orders, "to provide support to county emergency response personnel to help with evacuations and security."

The guard will help evacuate around 770 structures that near the lavas path in the islands mountainside subdivision. Locals moved from their homes are being settled into shelters opened at two community centres, local NBC affiliate KHNL reported. So far, there are no immediate reports of injuries, according to Doug McCormick of Hawaii County's health and safety departments.

This article was first written by Newsweek

More from NewsweekDUBAI (Reuters) - A committee investigating a collision between an Iranian tanker and a Chinese freighter has come to diverging conclusions over the causes of the worst oil ship disaster in decades, Iran's state television reported on Saturday.

The Panama-registered Sanchi, run by Iran's top oil shipping operator NITC, collided with the CF Crystal, registered in Hong Kong, off the coast of China near Shanghai and the mouth of the Yangtze River Delta on Jan. 6.

The Sanchi sank on Jan. 14 after burning for several days. The entire crew of 30 Iranians and two Bangladeshis, are presumed dead.

"(Representatives of) China and Hong Kong believe that both vessels were to blame, but Iran, Panama and Bangladesh see the veering to the right by the Crystal as the cause of the disaster," Iran's state TV quoted Nader Pasandeh, the country's representative on the investigating committee, as saying.

Pasandeh later told the television that a court will likely have to rule in the case.

"The issue of the main cause of the disaster is a legal one and it will have to be decided by a court," he said, without elaborating.

The Sanchi was carrying the equivalent of nearly 1 million barrels of ultra-light crude, plus its own fuel, to South Korea. According to the International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation, the collision led to the worst tanker spill in 35 years.

(Reporting by Dubai newsroom; Editing by Clelia Oziel)Jamie Acourt - one of Britain's most-wanted fugitives  will not be challenging his extradition to the UK following his arrest in Barcelona.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) confirmed that Acourt has accepted he will be returned to the UK.

The 41-year-old, from south London, was arrested by armed officers in a joint police operation after he left the Metropolitan Sagrada Familia Gym on Friday afternoon.

Acourt was one of the suspects in the murder of Stephen Lawrence but but has always maintained his innocence and the charges against him were dropped because of a lack of evidence.

He had been wanted by the Metropolitan Police since 2016 on suspicion of involvement in a large-scale drugs supply operation, and the force was assisted in the arrest by the National Crime Agency (NCA) and Spanish National Police.

The NCA and the Spanish authorities, in partnership with Crimestoppers, had pursued him through Operation Captura, a joint initiative which has now located 81 of 96 wanted fugitives.

Acourt was apprehended on a European Arrest Warrant.PARIS (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in Paris on Saturday to protest against the stream of economic reforms brought in by French president Emmanuel Macron since coming to power a year ago.

Protestors bearing "Stop Macron" banners and chanting "one year is enough" were cheered on by drummers and marching bands in an anti-celebration of Macron's time in office organised by a member of the hard-left France Unbowed movement.

The carnivalesque atmosphere follows a tense May Day rally in Paris, when hundreds of masked and hooded anarchists torched cars and hurled rocks at police on Tuesday, hijacking a demonstration called by labour unions.

Saturday's demonstration, under a large police presence, comes almost a year to the day since 40-year-old Macron won the presidential race on a centrist platform and with a pledge to shake-up rigid institutions and revitalise the economy.

A wave of reforms soon followed, including an overhaul of labour laws that has made it easier for companies to hire and fire, earning Macron the tag of "president of the rich" among detractors and sparking discontent from labour unions.

With a political opposition in tatters, Macron has vowed to press on with his bid to reboot the economy, even as he faces one of his sternest tests to date with a rolling strike by rail workers protesting a shake-up at state-owned train company SNCF.

Members of France Unbowed, headed by Jean-Luc Melenchon who also stood for the presidency last year, have sought to fire up a backlash against Macron's policies by getting backers onto the streets.

The party estimated 160,000 people took part in Saturday's protest - the Paris prefect's office put the tally at 40,000 - and France Unbowed is pushing to hold a much larger rally with unions and other forces on May 26.

"The issue here are the endless gifts being made to the rich while the French people are struggling," Melenchon told TF1 television ahead of the march, which drew a diverse crowd, from hospital workers and parent groups to communist supporters.

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There were a few isolated scuffles at the march and at least four people had been arrested, while one policeman was injured, the police prefect's office said.

Yet despite simmering protest movements, on the 50th anniversary of the May 1968 student riots that brought France to its knees, unions have lost clout and the mood is far from revolutionary.

Some 45 percent of French people gave Macron's first year in office the thumbs up, according to a poll of more than 13,500 by Ipsos-Sopra Steria published on Saturday in Le Monde, with the planned overhaul of the SNCF proving the most popular reform.

But when asked about the government's reform methods, 55 percent of people taking part in the survey said they thought they were too authoritarian.

(Reporting by Sarah White and Elizabeth Pineau; Editing by Clelia Oziel)By Maximilian Heath

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Around 60 ships faced delays on Friday near Argentina's grains hub of Rosario after a vessel on the Parana River ran aground and blocked passage downriver towards the Atlantic Ocean, the head of Argentina's Chamber of Port and Maritime Activity said.

The cargo ship, contracted by Glencore and en route to Australia, was stranded on Thursday about 85 kilometers (53 miles) south of Rosario on the Rio Parana, the country's principal commercial waterway.

The grounded boat was loaded with 42,500 tonnes of soybean meal, the chamber said, at a time when farmers in Argentina are beginning their seasonal harvest of corn and soy and port activity is increasing.

"At this time no boats can move downriver and they are starting to hold shipments at port," said chamber manager Guillermo Wade.

Wade said a tugboat was currently trying to pry the boat, called the Pilatus Venture, off the bottom.

Argentina is the world's top exporter of soymeal livestock feed and the third biggest supplier of raw soybeans.

(Reporting by Maximilian Heath; Writing by Dave Sherwood; Editing by Sandra Maler)

See Also:FILE PHOTO: Statoil's logo is seen during a company results presentation in London February 6, 2015. REUTERS/Toby Melville/File Photo

Thomson Reuters

By Ron Bousso and Nerijus Adomaitis

LONDON/OSLO (Reuters) - Norway's Statoil said it aims to cut its carbon footprint more aggressively as measures to reduce global warming could reduce the value of its assets, leaving some of its reserves stranded underground.

The possibility that large quantities of the world's oil will never be developed due to the increase of renewable energy and the electrification of transport has been a growing worry for investors in the oil sector.

Statoil, Norway's largest company, started stress testing its portfolio of oil and gas assets against global energy scenarios set out by the International Energy Agency (IEA) at shareholders' request in 2015.

The IEA's Sustainable Development Scenario analyses the likely impact of energy policies by 2040.

"The net present value (NPV) (of Statoil's portfolio) will be reduced by 13 percent ... under the IEA (Sustainable Development) Scenario," Statoil's Chief Executive Eldar Saetre told Reuters. However, he said that would still leave Statoil's portfolio with a "massive" NPV.

The IEA says its scenario is aligned with the Paris Agreement goals to keep global warming from exceeding 2 degrees Celsius.

Saetre was speaking on the sidelines of a Statoil presentation to investors in London, where the company announced plans to reduce emissions from some of its new fields to 3 kg of CO2 per barrel of oil equivalents (boe), less than a fifth of the global average.

Its carbon intensity at its offshore fields stood at 9 kg per boe in 2017, compared to a global average of 17 kg per boe.

Statoil said optimization and efficiency improvements have substantially strengthened its portfolio, which includes the giant Johan Sverdrup oilfield off Norway.

The field will be powered from shore instead of generating electricity by offshore gas turbines, the main source of emissions on the Norwegian continental shelf.

Statoil reduced its emissions from 11 kg of CO2 per boe in 2014, partly by divesting its carbon-intensive oil sand operations in Canada in 2016.

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Last year, it said it would no longer explore for heavy oil, which requires more energy and produces more emissions to lift barrels from the ground.

However, the company still operates two heavy oilfields in Brazil and Britain, and is working with Rosneft to develop a high-viscous field in Russia.

"Despite the negative impact on NPV in the 'sustainable development scenario', we see very limited stranding of assets," Statoil said in its latest sustainability report.

Royal Dutch Shell said last month that it saw little risk of having "stranded assets" in its portfolio because four-fifths of the oil major's current oil and gas reserves would be extracted before 2030 anyway.

(Editing by Susan Fenton)

See Also:The victim was found with gunshot wounds just after 6pm (Google Street View)

A teenager has been shot dead in broad daylight in London.

A 17-year-old boy was found with a gunshot wound in a street in the south of the capital.

He was discovered with critical injuries on Warham Street in Southwark on Saturday evening.

Scotland Yard confirmed that officers were called to reports of gunshots on nearby Cooks Road at about 6.05pm.

Paramedics from the London Ambulance Service and Londons Air Ambulance rushed to the scene, but the victim could not be saved and was pronounced dead just before 7pm.

Officers responded to reports of gunshots (PA)

The death is the latest in a spate of violent crimes in the capital, as police investigate more than 60 alleged murders so far this year.

Earlier this week Donald Trump compared London hospitals to an Afghan war zone.

The teenage gun victims next of kin have been informed but formal identification is yet to take place.

A post-mortem examination will take place in due course.

No arrests have been made.

Anyone with information should contact officers on 101 quoting reference cad 6414/5May, or call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.Global warming has led to drought in Navajo Nation and 191 feral horses perished in their search of water. It seems they got stuck in a stock pond as they tried to locate a source of water to quench their thirst. They fell victim to the ongoing drought and famine in the region, as explained by Navajo leaders.

CNN reports that Navajo Nation Vice President Jonathan Nez has clarified the incident. The feral horses needed water for survival and were searching for a source but, they burrowed themselves into the mud and were not able to come out. They lacked the strength to escape to freedom.

It is a major humanitarian issue

The stock pond was located in Gray Mountain and some of the feral horses were found submerged in the mud at various depths. This was revealed by an official of the office of the president and vice president. In order to take care of the situation, chemicals will be used to hasten the decomposition process and the carcasses will be disposed of on-site. Incidents of this nature are not new to the area and it is a seasonal issue.

Navajo Nation President Russell Begaye has indicated that overpopulation of feral horses is a major problem with more than 50,000 of them around. A drought emergency was declared for the Navajo Nation in March because it has hit the southwestern United States resulting in dry conditions in northern New Mexico and adjoining regions.

In fact, millions of people in Arizona are at the receiving end of such vagaries of nature.

No signs of foul play

According to KOB 4, President Russell Begaye and Vice President Jonathan Nez of Navajo Nation had visited Tuba City, Arizona, to assess the situation. Preliminary investigation has revealed that the feral horses were found dead in a stock pond in Gray Mountain.

They were presumed to be searching for water in the drought-stricken region to stay alive. There was no question of any foul play because there are no signs of them being shot down or maliciously killed by anyone. The animals burrowed themselves into the mud, and could not escape since they did not have the strength.

This is an example of global warming and its effect on our surroundings.

When there is drought, there is a drop in ground water levels and consequent shortage of water. The animals had gone in search of water and died. When it comes to humans, they will have to wait for relief from the administration or migrate to other places where such a situation does not exist.Whether intentionally or unintentionally, Americans have been slapped in the face with lie after lie from the POTUS and his administration. On Wednesday (May 2) Rudy Giuliani, Trumps new personal lawyer, went on FOX News and told the nation that Trump lied about knowing anything about the payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels/Stephanie Clifford.

Mayor Giuliani told Hannity, the FOX host, that Trump re-paid Michael Cohen, his former personal lawyer, and fixer, the hush money paid to Stormy. Rudys statements, contrary to Cohen and Trumps previous statements, have now opened the POTUS up to extreme scrutiny, legal implications, and political homicide.

Not to mention, buried poor Cohen and destroyed any chance of the fixer getting out from under the Stormy Daniels lawsuit unscathed.

I will not go down

In efforts to save himself, after Rudys shocking admissions on FOX News, Trump publicly threw Rudy under a moving bus, saying the former mayor is new to the team and is just learning the subject matter. Donald went on to say there was some "misinformation" and that Rudy needed to get his facts straight first and promised Giuliani would make a statement later. All of this is contrary to Trumps tweets confirming Giulianis statements in the interview.

Giulianis statement

Rudy followed through on the presidents promise and released a public statement saying his intent was to clarify his views recently expressed in the FOX News' interview.

An interview, according to CNN sources, that Trump's legal team called a "s*** show."

Rudy began with the central question about the infamous $130,000 payment. and attempted to reiterate what hed previously told America about there not being any campaign violations. He emphasized that the payment made by Michael Cohen was to resolve a problem and protect Trump and his family from the false allegations.

He even tried to justify and rationalize the payment saying the Daniels' situation was of a personal nature, and the agreement would've been made even if Trump wasnt running for office. This was clearly an attempt to distance the funds from being tied to the 2016 campaign and election. Giuliani also addressed the issue of timing, saying his comments about the timeline of the payment was not that of Trump but his own understanding of how the Stormy Daniels' dilemma unfolded.

And lastly, he tried to clean up the reason, why the FBI director, James Comey was fired by simply stating it was well within the powers of the president. This was to deflect any possibility of the firing looking like an obstruction of justice.

None of this helped

Rudy doing two FOX interviews and then releasing a statement does not help him, Trump, or Cohen. In fact, it has stained any and all credibility any of them had, especially Giuliani and Trump. This is because they have already confirmed to America, as reported by FOX, the Wall Street Journal, and CNN, that the two met before and after Giuliani's interview. In fact, after the interview, Trump tweeted out confirming statements underscoring what Rudy said publicly.

Undoubtedly many Trump supporters, are feeling duped and lied tosomething a majority of America already knew. And now, Americas Mayor has to double down and walk back his statements because it did not play out the way he and Donald planned?

This may be the primary reason why the president ran Rudy over with a bus seeing that the truth did not sit well with the Trumpians. FOX News anchor Cavuto made sure of that. The news anchor spoke on air directly to the POTUS via the news camera and told Trump that he is "the swamp."

Should America hire Trumps Fredo, Michael Cohen, to pay Giuliani and Trump hush money? Because the more Rudy and his buddy Donald continue to talk, they dig themselves deeper into a hole. It is a hole that neither of them will be able to climb out.According to Elle magazine, Kylie Jenner planned the first major holiday for the family to Turks and Caicos to celebrate Travis Scott's 26th birthday, as well as baby Stormi's three-month birthday. Travis turned 26 on Monday, April 30, while Stormi turned three months old on Wednesday, May 2. Kylie Jenner has been keeping fans updated with photographs of their vacation via Instagram and Facebook.

Kylie Jenner struggles with baby Stormi

In February, Kylie Jenner was having trouble taking care of baby Stormi. According to Radar Online, Travis Scott was accused of not supporting Kylie, while she was stressed.

However, Travis did cancel his pre-Super Bowl show to be with Kylie while baby Stormi was being born, but he has not spent enough time with them since. However, it seems that the couple is getting along well. It was reported by People Babies that Travis did eventually move in with Jenner, and has been a great help. Kylie and Travis have been spending more time together, and with their baby. Parenting is hard, and even dedicated parents need a holiday. Perhaps, this is why Kylie planned a much-needed family time vacation. Even so, by the looks of the photographs, the family is having a wonderful time together on holiday.

Vacation time

The photographs on Instagram and Facebook show Kylie, Travis, and Stormi having a relaxing vacation.

Kylie first posted photographs of their vacation on May 2, in Turks and Caicos. The photograph is of Kylie and Travis tanning on top of a boat. Other photographs of the same day include Kylie and Travis walking on the beach, Kylie sitting on the beach, and a picture of baby Stormi as seen in the Facebook post below.

On May 3, Kylie posted a beautiful photograph of herself standing in front of a sunset on the beach.

Just recently, on May 4, Kylie Jenner posted on Instagram, two photographs of herself on a paddle boat, with the sun shining in the background. One photograph, with over two million likes already, is shown below. There have been no recent photographs of Travis or baby Stormi, but we assume they are there behind the camera.

Hopefully, the family is having a relaxing time together.

Getting away from their busy lives to spend time together will hopefully strengthen their relationship. According to Radar Online, there are rumors of Kylie and Travis having a second child. It may be too soon for Kylie to be pregnant again, for she just had Stormi three months ago. It would be smart for them not to rush into having another baby right away, considering the struggles Kylie had. However, as long as they are strengthening their relationship, and dedicating themselves to parenthood, then a second child may be in their future.Saudi Arabias Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud has recently brought about a lot of radical changes within the oil-rich nation and he apparently doesnt plan to stop anytime soon. The Crown Prince, who also serves as the First Deputy Prime Minister, President of the Council for Economic and Development Affairs, and Defense Minister, has reportedly signed a historic agreement with the Vatican. The agreement basically allows the construction of Christian churches within the kingdom, which a big step forward in promoting religious freedom within the country.

Rapid modernization

According to a report from Al Jazeera, the Princes latest move is part of his promise to drastically modernize the country for it to catch up to the rest of the world. The move is apparently also part of the Princes proposed Saudi 2030 vision, which is a plan to enact radical economic, religious, and social changes within the kingdom. The 32-year-old monarch also plans to rid the country of the corruption that has so far been very prevalent within the royal family, its business partners, and local government officials.

Religious freedom

Prior to the signing of the agreement, the construction of any kind of church within the Islamic nation was considered illegal. The Crown Prince is likely aware that religious freedom is an important matter to resolve if he wishes for Saudi Arabia to become a progressive nation.

The country currently has an estimated 1.5 to two million Christians living within its borders. With the signing of the contract, Christian residents may soon be able to worship openly inside their own churches without fears of discrimination or legal repercussions.

Last week Saudi Arabia and the Vatican signed an agreement which promotes peace and tolerance between religions. Some believe it may pave the way for the opening of the first Catholic Church in the Arab Kingdom. https://t.co/B74fPkyGU3 pic.twitter.com/mJdkYQtpWX  OLA Ireland (@OLAireland) April 26, 2018

Religious tolerance

According to MSN, the agreement was reportedly finalized when Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran visited Saudi Arabia in April to talk with the Secretary-General of the Muslim World League, Mohammed bin Abdel Karim Al-Issa.

The President of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue visited the country to discuss the issues facing the worlds different religions and to spread the adoption of religious tolerance. In an article published in the Jerusalem Post, Cardinal Tauran explained that ignorance is one of the biggest dangers facing all religions.

He also reiterated that countries must not discriminate or consider people of other religions as second-class citizens.

Saudi Arabia will allow ... construction of Church ....and hopefully Vatican will allow construction of Mosque .....this is a big news BC now .... the argument that my religion is the only correct one goes away for both ......

---https://t.co/pCmUQLr1Kf  No Conversion (@noconversion) May 5, 2018

Update: As of this writing, the Vatican and the Saudi Arabian government have not yet released any official statements to confirm that an agreement was indeed reached.ALBANY  In New York state government news, Republicans push back against Gov. Andrew Cuomo's pessimistic assessment for the rest of the session.

A look at stories making news:

MUCH ADO ABOUT DOING MUCH

Republican lawmakers in the state Senate are pushing back against Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo's lackluster forecast for the rest of the legislative session.

The Senate's GOP leaders pointed to bills cutting taxes, toughening penalties for drug dealers and making it harder for convicted violent offenders to get parole as evidence there's still a lot to do before the session wraps up in June.

Last month, Cuomo said "no significant legislation currently has the chance of moving" before the session ends. The comment was prompted by the ongoing fight for control of the state Senate. Democrats recently picked up two seats in special elections, giving them a numeric majority in the 63-seat chamber.

But Republicans will stay in charge for the session thanks to the support of a single rogue Democrat, Sen. Simcha Felder, of Brooklyn, who has long allied himself with the Senate's GOP leadership.As the Yemeni civil war rages on, causing the deaths of thousands of civilians, the regional powers further enrich themselves at Yemen's expense. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has invaded the island with a full military presence and raised their flag atop most military and government structures. To avoid the language of war, they claim that Yemen granted them a 99-year lease, though the UAE has shown no paperwork and Yemen has denied the lease. Previously, the UAE had supported the Yemeni government. Reports by J Post and the Washington Post provided many of the details used in this article.

Socotra

Socotra is an island off the coast of Yemen that was a part of the domain of the empowered sultanate in mainland Yemen under British colonial rule. When Yemen gained freedom in 1967, they retained control of the island, giving them a powerful position in the Gulf of Aden, a main trading route for the Middle East. The island was relatively underdeveloped compared to the rest of the Middle East, but so was mainland Yemen. Iran, a foe of Saudi Arabia and other nearby Sunni states, began funding projects on the island, such as the Socotra Airport strip in 2003. In response, in 2008 Saudi businessmen visited the island looking for counter investment opportunities. Residential communities, hospitals, and other vital non-trade infrastructure were built by Sunni investors, increasing their soft power significantly.

When the Yemeni civil war broke out the island was unaffected. There are no Huthi rebels on the island and little to no fighting has occurred. In 2017, the governor of the island took his chance to align the island with the major regional powers and back their new government in Yemen, the Southern Transitional Council (STC), lending them political credibility.

Despite his cooperation, the UAE seems to have invaded the island under false pretenses.

Invasion

The UAE has moved 300 troops, armored vehicles, and logistical support, including communications and flight equipment, onto the island under false pretenses. They claim they were granted a 99-year lease, though there is no evidence of negotiations or a finalized deal.

Because the governor is under the political rule of the STC, the STC has the final say in any land-leases and has denied authorizing one. The UAE is a major backer of the STC and legally procuring a lease might be easier than this, but the STC was taken by surprise, meaning it's possible that the UAE's intentions are to operate outside the law.

The UAE has also been conducting a mass public image campaign on the island since the start of the conflict. Throughout the war, the UAE has guaranteed food security to the island, while the UAE's partner on the mainland, Saudi Arabia, purposefully starved civilian populations. In addition to taking over the major infrastructure of the island, the UAE has been flying civilians to the UAE for medical treatments and providing education to the children in the absence of a Yemeni central government. The plan is malicious, taking advantage of a civil war the UAE is fueling in an attempt to annex sovereign, wealth-generating land from an impoverished nation.Pakistan on Sunday urged Indias ruling BJP to stop dragging Islamabad in the election campaign in Karnataka.

BJPs concoctions continue unabated. Be it Gujarat or Karnataka, Pakistan is sadly invoked to try to get electoral gains within India, Foreign Office spokesperson Mohammad Faisal tweeted.

The Karnataka Assembly elections are due on May 12. In his election speeches, Modi has referred to the Indian surgical strikes on terrorist hubs in Pakistani territory in September 2016.Militants abducted six Indian and an Afghan employees of an Indian company KEC early on Sunday in Baghlan province in Afghanistan, officials said.

The kidnapping took place in Bagh-e-Shamal village, TOLONews reported.

According to local officials, the incident occurred while the employees were travelling to the area where the company has a contract for an electricity sub-station.

The Baghlan provincial council linked the incident to the Taliban, who have not commented.KAZ Minerals PLC, together with its subsidiaries, engages in mining and processing copper and other metals primarily in Kazakhstan, Russia, and Kyrgyzstan. It operates through Bozshakol, Aktogay, East Region and Bozymchak, and Mining Projects segments. The company operates the Aktogay and Bozshakol open pit copper mines in the east region and Pavlodar region of Kazakhstan; three underground mines in the east region of Kazakhstan; and the Bozymchak copper-gold mine in Kyrgyzstan. It also develops greenfield metal deposits; operates Koksay deposit in Kazakhstan, and the Baimskaya licence area in the Chukotka region of Russia; and produces and sells various by-products, such as gold, silver, molybdenum, and zinc. In addition, the company supplies and distributes heat, water, and electricity; and offers construction, project management, financing, management, sales and logistics, and repairs and maintenance services. The company was formerly known as Kazakhmys PLC and changed its name to KAZ Minerals PLC in October 2014. KAZ Minerals PLC was founded in 1930 and is based in London, the United Kingdom.

Read MoreThe following companies are subsidiares of Lloyds Banking Group: A G Finance Ltd, A.C.L. Ltd, ACL Autolease Holdings Ltd, ADF No.1 Pty Ltd, Addison Social Housing Holdings Ltd, Alex Lawrie Factors Ltd, Alex. 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(NYSE:TLRD) issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, March, 18th. The company reported ($0.46) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the Zacks' consensus estimate of ($0.54) by $0.08. The firm had revenue of $690.90 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $708.46 million. Tailored Brands had a negative trailing twelve-month return on equity of 138.49% and a negative net margin of 14.39%. The business's revenue was down 12.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted ($0.28) earnings per share.

View Tailored Brands' earnings history.Moog Inc. designs, manufactures, and integrates precision motion and fluid controls and controls systems for original equipment manufacturers and end users in the aerospace, defense, and industrial markets worldwide. The company's Aircrafts Controls segment offers primary and secondary flight controls for military and commercial aircrafts; aftermarket support services; and ground-based navigation aids. Its Space and Defense Controls segment provides controls for satellites, space vehicles, launch vehicles, armored combat vehicles, tactical and strategic missiles, security and surveillance, and other defense applications; and gun aiming, stabilization, and automatic ammunition loading for armored combat vehicles. This segment also offers controls for steering tactical and strategic missiles, and naval surface ships and submarines; and weapons stores management systems for light attack aerial reconnaissance, ground, and sea platforms, as well as slip rings, fiber optic rotary joints, and motors. The company's Industrial Systems segment provides components and systems for applications in injection and blow molding machinery, metal forming presses, and heavy industry customers in steel and aluminum production; supplies electromechanical motion simulation bases for the flight simulation and training applications; and supplies solutions for power generation applications, as well as custom test systems and controls for automotive, structural, and fatigue testing. This segment also offers systems and components for applications in oil and gas exploration and production; components for wind turbine applications; components and systems for diagnostic imaging CT scan medical equipment, sleep apnea equipment, oxygen concentrators, infusion therapy, and enteral clinical nutrition; and hydraulics, slip rings, rotary unions and fiber optic rotary joints, motors, and infusion and enteral pumps. The company was founded in 1951 and is headquartered in East Aurora, New York.

Read Moreby Bill Benzon

When I was a child back in the nuclear-anxiety-Cold-War 1950s I went to see a film called Godzilla, King of the Monsters. I probably noticed that the people on screen didnt look like Americans. They looked  well, I dont know what I would have called them then, but they were in fact Japanese, except for this reporter guy (Raymond Burr) who talked a lot. What I remember is being scared out of my wits by this HUGE monster that seemed determined to destroy the world.

What I didnt know at the time  I suppose that almost no one in the American audience did  is that this was somewhat different from the Japanese original, which came out in Japan in 1954 as Gojira. The Japanese original has two interlinked storylines: the story about the monster from the sea and a story about love vs. arranged marriage, which grapples with tradition vs. change. That second one was dropped from the American re-edit; the idea of an arranged marriage was and is all but meaningless in America, though it remains alive in Japan and in other nations. With a sense of grave ritual that is missing from the Americanized version, the Japanese original is a richer film.

* * * * *

Gojira, Ishiro Honda, dir. Toho Co, Ltd. 1954; reissued by Classic Media 2006.

On March 1, 1954, the United States detonated Castle Bravo at Bikini Atoll in the South Pacific. Castle Bravo was a hydrogen bomb with a yield of 15 megatons, roughly two or three times what had been expected. It was the largest radiological accident ever caused by the land of the free and the home of the brave and poisoned the crew of a Japanese tuna boat, the Daigo Fukuryu Maru (Lucky Dragon No. 5), with one crew member eventually dying of leukemia. This led to a tuna scare in Japan and a petition drive to ban the bomb.

Tomoyuki Tanaka was one of many Japanese who followed the story closely. He worked as a producer for Toho Company, Ltd., one of Japans major film studios. When a deal fell through and created a hole in the studios release schedule, Tanaka decided to fill it with a new kind of film, a sci-fi horror story filmed in noir style and featuring a prehistoric beast awakened by an atomic explosion. The beast was named Gojira and the film was released in Japan on November 3, 1954.

If you look closely, youll see a reference to Lucky Dragon No. 5 early in Gojira. The movie opens on a freighter at sea off Odo Island, the Eiko-Maru. Its evening and some of the sailors are gathered together while one of them plays the guitar and another the harmonica. Theres a sudden bright light and a loud noise. The sailors rush to the side of the ship to see whats happened:

Notice the number on the life preserver, No. 5. The freighter sinks and all hands are lost.

Thus begins Gojira. It builds slowly. Another ship is lost, meetings are held, decisions made, and eventually a scientific team is sent Odo Island to investigate. The team is headed by Dr. Kyouhei Yamane, a noted paleontologist, who is accompanied by his daughter Emiko and Hideto Ogata, who works for the steamship company thats lost two boats. At long last, 21 minutes into a 98 minute film, we catch our first glimpse of Gojira:

Gojiras footprints are saturated with Strontium 90, as is the Islands well water, evidence that Gojira as been tainted by radiation from some otherwise unidentified nuclear test. Beyond that, we know and learn little about why Gojiras on the rampage. Its simply an ugly fact, the monsters been awakened and is heading toward Tokyo, what do we do?

Not much thats effective. Gojira arrives at night and wastes Tokyo. Heres Gojira crushing a passenger car from a commuter train:

Gojira is unfazed by the high-voltage fence erected as a defense measure:

Here we see Gojiras atomic breath and glowing dorsal plates:

A birds eye view:

Well be joining your father in just a moment, says a mother to her young children:

Now Gojira marches on the Diet building:

When the attacks over, devastation:

Here we see children being checked for radiation:

Emiko comforts a little girl whose mother has just died:

And so it goes. Add in a final battle in which the good humans triumph over the evil monster, leaven with some romance, and you have your standard-issue creature feature.

But thats not how Gojira works. There is a little romance, with a Japanese twist, and theres more. First the romance.

We first see Emiko, the Professors daughter, and Ogata, a young official and diver with Southern Sea Steamship company, early in the film, just after the Eiko-Maru is lost. Hes just come out of the shower at his office and is toweling off while in slacks and an undershirt. He gets a phone call about the lost ship. Emiko enters the room while hes still on the phone. When the call is over, he talks to her as he continues to dry himself:

Hes got to see about the lost ship and so, alas, must cancel their date for the evening.

These two are obviously a couple. As the film moves to Emikos fathers house, we see Ogata there as well, and quite comfortable. Hes obviously well known in the household and, in particular, Prof. Yamane knows him.

A half hour later in the film a reporter refers to one Dr. Daisuke Serizawa as Yamanes future so-in-law. Whoa! Son-in-law? Whered that come from?

One infers that, at some time in the past, Dr. Yamane arranged for Emiko and Daisuke to become betrothed and thats their public status as these events unfold. But, as she explains to Ogata, she thinks of Serizawa as a much-admired older brother. Serizawa is certainly aware of Emikos attraction to Ogata, who is not at all comfortable with the situation. We never know or hear what Dr. Yamane thinks of the situation, but he must know that Emiko and Ogata are seeing one another. No ones being sneaky and secretive.

So, weve got a problem, two men and one woman. But its not simply a conflict between the men. Its also a conflict between traditional Japanese marriage custom, marriage by parental arrangement, and a new mode of marriage, by free choice of the members of a couple. When Ogata finally decides to broach matters with the Professor, the conversation goes awry. Instead, they talk about Gojira. The Professor wants Gojira to live so that he can be studied: how does he keep alive after his exposure to radiation? Ogata believes that Gojira must be killed for the good of the greater community. They quarrel and Ogata is kicked out of the house.

Now the monster plot and the marriage-romance plot have become intertwined. I leave it as an exercise for the psychoanalytically-minded to demonstrate that the two plots are, in fact, one and the same. As such they will be resolved together.

Dr. Serizawa is a young but distinguished, scientist. Hes discovered a horrible device that he calls the Oxygen Destroyer, the physics of which is deeply obscure. Its quite capable of killing Gojira, but its also capable of being used as a doomsday device. For that reason Serizawa decides to keep his discovery secret. He knows that, if it is used against Gojira, the politicians will then force him to build another one to be used against humans. He reveals his secret to Emiko and swears her to secrecy.

Subsequently she is so horrified at the devastation of Tokyo that she reveals his secret to Ogata and the two confront him about using the Oxygen Destroyer against Gojira. Ogata and Serizawa get into a struggle and Ogata receives a small head wound. Serizawa is horrified at his behavior and, reluctantly, agrees to use the device. He starts burning his papers so that no one can find out the secret. Anyone with half a brain can see, at this point, that hes decided to kill himself as the Oxygen Destroyer kills Gojira.

Thats exactly what happens. But . . . theres more.

Children are a significant presence in the film. Five minutes into the film families of sailors from the lost ships (the Eiko-Maru was not the only ship Gojira attacked) have gathered at the steamship company to learn what happened; children are quite visible in the small crowd. We see children during evacuation and destruction scenes and in the hospital. And they play a critical role in convincing Serizawa to allow the use of his Oxygen Destroyer.

After the fight with Ogata, as Emiko is bandaging Ogatas head wound, Serizawa turns to the television, where he sees and hears a choir of teenaged Japanese girls singing a hymn for peace. The hymn runs for two and a half minutes as we see shots of the physical devastation, people in hospitals, people gathered together in prayer, and, finally, the young girls singing:

It is when the hymn is over that Serizawa starts destroying his papers and announces that he will allow the device to be used.

The fact that this hymn runs for two-and-a-half minutes is important. During that time only one thing happens which advances the plot: Serizawa makes his decision. Honda, the director, could easily have allotted no more than 10, 20, 30 seconds to that one event and it wouldnt have changed the blow-by-blow in any significant way. The effect of running that hymn for so long while recapping the carnage is that it changes the mood of the rest of the film. Gojiras death will be staged as a solemn sacrifice, a mutual sacrifice between man (the death of Serizawa) and nature (the death of Gojira).

Honda began preparing for this ritualized ending roughly eleven minutes into the film, on the first trip to Odo Island. While were watching a ritual, an old man explains that, in the old days the islanders would sacrifice young girls to a sea monster named Gojira to keep him from coming out of the sea to eat the islanders. This new monster was named after that old legend. The ritual were now watching is all thats left of those old customs:

Similarly, an hour later, there is a ritual solemnity in the way Serizawa burns his papers, putting them on the fire one at a time. The film cuts from a close-up of burning paper to a ship at sea sailing out to meet Gojira in his own territory. We hear march music on the soundtrack.

This music ends quickly and were on board the ship as a radio announcer delivers a running commentary on the days events. There is no music on the soundtrack. As Ogata and Serizawa descend into the sea, Emiko is playing out lines for one of them, but we dont know which one. The camera follows them down and a slow instrumental dirge comes up on the sound track. The divers move slowly and come upon Gojira:

There is no violent confrontation between the men and Gojira. They all move slowly until the men are in position. Ogata comes to the surface while Serizawa in effect presents the Oxygen Destroyer to Gojira in a ritual gesture:

The device does its work; Gojira dies as Serizawa cuts his lines and remains with him. Serizawas speaks his last words through the intercom to Ogata, who is now at the surface: Ogata, it worked! Both of you, be happy. Good-bye . . . farewell! When it becomes evident that Serizawa too is gone, Yamane doff his cap to the man who can no longer be his son-in-law and utters his name, Serizawa. Gojira rises to the surface for a final death cry:

Gojira sinks to the bottom and dies, the flesh melting away and leaving nothing but the skeleton.

Ogata to Emiko: He wanted us to be happy. The youth choir comes up on the sound track.

Yamane: I cant believe that Gojira was the only surviving member of its species. But if we keep on conducting nuclear tests, its possible that another Gojira might appear. . . . somewhere in the world, again.

There is a final salute, but to whom? Serizawa, Gojira?

* * * * *

When I decided to watch Gojira (aka Godzilla) I had few specific expectations. I expected cheesy special effects and was not disappointed. As Roger Ebert had noted:

In these days of flawless special effects, Godzilla and the city he destroys are equally crude. Godzilla at times looks uncannily like a man in a lizard suit, stomping on cardboard sets, as indeed he was, and did. Other scenes show him as a stuffed, awkward animatronic model. This was not state of the art even at the time; King Kong (1933) was much more convincing.

Nor was that Eberts only objection to the film. He thought much of the dialogue was poor, and has pronounced the film to be bad without reservation.

I cannot agree with that judgment. Eberts review misses too much, saying nothing about the marriage plotline. I suspect that Ebert read it as a fundamentally realistic story  one can almost believe that a monster such as Gojira does exist and could be aroused  and thus finds its flaws, the effects, the dialog, to be fatal. For all I know he might also have been puzzled at Prof. Yamanes apparent obliviousness to his daughters relationship with Ogata, which I too find a bit troublesome.

But I dont think we should read the film as fundamentally realistic with, however, some farfetched elements. As I have already indicated, it is a ritual. As such, the obvious monster costume does not matter, nor does the dialog, nor even Yamanes obliviousness. In fact, those failings force us to attend more closely to how everything thing works together, to the pacing, the lighting, and the music. Akira Ifukubes spare and elegant score plays a major role in the film, from Gojiras theme to the dirges and, above all else, the hymn for peace.

Whatever expectations I had beyond the cheesy special effects, I was not expecting to be moved to tears by a hymn for peace sung by a youth choir. Being moved to tears is not in itself indicative of much; cheap sentiment will do the trick.

But Im not willing to dismiss that particular segment  and others, as mere sentiment. The music itself was fitting: slow and stately, simple, and well performed. It was accompanied by imagery of the most serious sort, massive destruction of a great city and the suffering of its people. To put that music together with those images at that point in the film required artistry of a high order.

It is not clear to me how one weighs Gojiras virtues with its limitations. The film is thus itself something of a monster; it defies easy categorization and quick judgment.

* * * * *

For more on Gojira see The Gojira Papers.by Evert Cilliers

There are the Bill Cosbys and Harvey Weinsteins and Matt Lauers of this world, and then there are the Al Franklins and the Aziz Ansaris.

There are those who need to be in jail  Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer, Bill OReilly, Russell Simmons, Bill Clinton, Donald Trump  and those who only need to be fired, censured, shamed or  maybe forgiven?

So, the first question is: why arent Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer, Bill OReilly, Russell Simmons, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump being criminally prosecuted, if Bill Cosby was? What makes them more special than Cosby?

And the next question: who among these assholes may be worthy of actually being forgiven?

I was all for coming down on men like a ton of bricks for anything unwanted  an awkward comment that embarrasses, asking out someone who works for you after she said no the first time, stroking a back or massaging a shoulder without asking permission first, pinching a bum, stealing a kiss (whatever that means)  until the whole Al Franklin thing.

Im a great fan of the guy (just google him doing a Mick Jagger  down to a tee  and you cant help but like the man). Hes a comic genius. He was a damn good Senator, and a straight-up left-of-center liberal. He was beloved by his staff and his constituents. Heck, someday he might even have been a credible candidate for President.

Then a woman complained that Franklin gave her an unwanted kiss and stuck his tongue down her throat, and afterwards put out that photo of him comically holding his hands over her breasts while she was sleeping (bad taste on his part, for sure, and not very funny either). Then others complained that he had pinched their butts while they were being photographed together. Thats all I heard, and if theres more, please enlighten and correct me.

Then Franklin said he would welcome an investigation, and then Kristin Gillibrand said he should resign, and then more women called for his resignation, and then he did resign.

1. Are There Degrees Of Sexual Misconduct?

And there was no investigation into what Franklin did.

Which I think is a shame. Because if there had been, maybe there wouldve been a discussion about whether there is a line between behavior which crosses the line, and behavior which is sort-of-forgivable: forgivable because what the guy did was not that bad, forgivable because he was just being a jerk, forgivable because it happened only once or twice, forgivable because the man said hes sorry and the woman accepted his apology.

Now I still think we should come down on men for any unwanted behavior, but this question still nags at me: what is a firing offense and what is not?

Are there different types and degrees of offenses?

1. Offenses for which a man should be jailed.

2. Offenses for which a man should be fired.

3. Offenses for which a man should not be fired but punished or censured in some way.

4. Offenses for which a man should he forgiven if his apology is heart-felt enough.

If there are these four different types of offenses, what exactly are they? We know what the criminal or firing offenses are: rape, assault, persistently targeting a woman with predatory or rude or sexist behavior, etc.

If there are others that are not this bad, what are they?

Where do we put jerking off in front of a woman who did not expect it? Is it less bad than rape or not? Should Louis C.K.be forgiven for jerking off in front of women, because, heck, although it was in really bad taste, and not anything that the women wouldve wished for their eyeballs to peruse, he did not touch them, he only touched his dick, so whats the harm, really? Can he be allowed to come back from that? (Charlie Rose wants to make a TV comeback with a series where he interviews other sexual misconducters  oy vey, what will they talk about  the great time they had before they were exposed?)

Where do we put an unwanted kiss? A butt pinch?

Where do we put planting an unwanted kiss or pinching a butt or making a rude comment only once or twice, and apologizing then and there, or shortly afterwards?

In other words, where do we put a one-off thing when theres never been a pattern of behavior?

Or for a pattern of behavior, what do we do about serial butt-pinchers? Do we have to lock up all the men in Italy?

2. Tarentino, Roman Polanski, Woody Allen

And what do we think of guys like Tarentino who knew that Harvey Weinstein was up to no good, but sat on their hands?

And where do we stand in the Dylan Farrow-Woody Allen she-says he-says controversy?

And what do we think of actors and actresses who laud Roman Polanski as a great director?

And what do we think of Matt Damon and Andrew Sullivan when they point out that its not all black and white  that there are nuances to consider?

And what do we think of Camille Cosby, the wife? Does she think Bill never did what 80 women said he did?

3. The Feminist Pushback Against @MeToo

Should Franklin have resigned? Should there have been an investigation? I still dont really have an answer.

And I dont know what to think of the pushback theres been from some feminists against #MeToo. Martha Gessen says in the New York Review of Books that we should beware of a sex panic. Katie Roiphe says in Harpers that women neednt be so damn fearful. Or get totally creeped out if a guy merely leers at them.

Much of what women are reporting as sexual misconduct is not really all that scary, Roiphe appears to be saying. I cant imagine sitting with one of my smart, ambitious students in my office, she writes, lined with shelves of books like The Second Sex and A Room of Ones Own and I Love Dick and The Argonauts, saying, Before you go work there, I just want to warn you, that guy might leer at you. I would worry I was being condescending, treating her like a child who doesnt know how to handle herself in the world.

And then Catherine Deneuve and many French women wrote that this #MeToo thing is not all that amazingly great, because it messes with the good stuff that women should be into, like flirting and seduction. You know, all that naughty mistress stuff the French get up to  like President Mitterand having had another semi-secret family that nobody minded about because what does a mans sex life have to do with him running the country?

4. The Whole Aziz Ansari Thing

Then there is the Aziz Ansari thing. That first date that ended up in his room, when Aziz pushed for sex, but the woman wanted him to slow down, and said so. That date when she interrupted his sexual advances a few times, and when he backed off a few times. That date when she gave him oral, twice (so what was he supposed to think, one may ask). That date when they never got around to actual fucking. That date when she was free to leave in the end.

Afterwards she felt so bad, she figured she had been assaulted.

So what do you think (and I think what you think might be colored by your gender)?

What do I think?

Maybe she should have had more agency. Been more non-consensual. More firm. Maybe she should have left early on. Maybe she shouldve realized that going to his room was sort of consensual. Probably she did, but she could not foretell that what was going to happen would make her feel bad. She was probably hoping for a wonderfully romantic and loving encounter, which it was not.

Lots of maybes. Its a situation to which most women can relate.

And maybe Aziz Ansari shouldve been less pushy. Or at least more sensitive. Actually, thats no maybe. If he is as woke as his book about modern dating says he is, he ABSOLUTELY should have been more sensitive, and stopped pushing hard for sex.

But whatever your opinion, Aziz is not going to lose his career over this.

So there we are: gray area. The area that The New Yorker short story Cat Person covered so well, the story went viral and got the author Kristen Roupenian a big two-book deal.

The area that porn actress and director Stormy Daniels alluded to when she told Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes that she went to the bathroom in Trumps hotel room, and when she came back out, Trump was sex-expectantly perched on the bed, and I realized exactly what Id gotten myself into. And I was like, ugh, here we go. And I just felt like maybe  it was sort of  I had it coming for making a bad decision for going to someones room alone and I just heard the voice in my head: Well, you put yourself in a bad situation and bad things happen, so you deserve this. Stormy told Anderson Cooper that she was not attracted to Trump and did not want to fuck him, but she did it anyway, because she had walked open-eyed into the situation in the first place, so what the hell, lets get it over with.

Is her response a grownup one, and the Ansari womans response a childish one?

I do say this: however nice a woman thinks she should be, however much shes been trained by society (translation: the patriarchy) to be over-polite  which can lead to these bad sex moments  I hope from now on that if any woman feels the least bit uncomfortable, feels the least bit that shes in an Aziz Ansari situation, she will tell the guy no! or stop! in no uncertain terms, or leave the room, or slap the guy in the face, or do something demonstrably non-consensual. Myself, Im all for a strong no! PLUS a slap.

That wouldve given Aziz the message. Giving him two blowjobs clearly didnt.

Of course, its easy for me to say a woman could simply say no! and slap the dude. What about when a woman is in a situation where she doesnt want to upset the guy to the point that he gets violent? In those situations, a woman is always faced with the horror of the guy being stronger than her, and being able to force her to do crap she doesnt want, if she dares to resist in a way that might make him mad.

Back to Ansari: I think this woman felt bad afterwards because she expected to be romanced, not just to be pushed for sex.

I also think Ansari behaved the way he did not doing the romance thing very heavily, for example  because he takes his celebrity privilege for granted. And I think that really sucks. A guy who thinks hes worth fucking just because hes a celeb is a stinky moron. Women want, at the very least, to be sweet-talked into sex, Aziz, not stiff-armed, you asshole.

One hopes that women, standing proud in this #MeToo moment, will stand up more for themselves in uncomfortable situations. But I know its not bound to happen all the time everywhere. Theres just too much ambiguity and uncertainty and too many over-eager and plain bad dudes in this patriarchal world.

5. Listen Up, Fellas

I would say to men: please try and help yourself, and dont be pushy. Dont go fast. Dont leap to conclusions. Let her take the lead. I, for example, will do consensual foreplay unto eternity, to the point of utter frustration or complete boredom, and not make a move towards actual sex, or go anywhere near her pussy, unless and until the woman says something like, lets go to the bedroom, or takes off her panties and gives me that look that makes my heart go thumpety-thump.

Now that Ive brought all this up, I must add that I am a man, so what do I know? Sweet blow-all, really.

I do know that I and, I suspect, many other blokes are looking back at our lives and wondering if we ever said or did something that upset a woman, and fervently hope that we didnt, and feel terribly ashamed if we remember any such moment, and swear to the highest heaven that we will take care never ever to be a boor in our male futures. Thats the part of #MeToo that women should know about. Ladies, youve driven all of us semi-woke guys into deep self-examination. Thank you for that.

I do know that I have three sisters. I do know that I have more female friends than male friends, and that we can talk about anything. My platonic woman friends have talked to me about their problems with their pussies, for example. (And God, do women have problems with their pussies!) Ive never had a problem with my cock, so it always amazes me  the things that can go awry with a pussy.

I also know that having a statute of limitations for sex crimes is probably not kosher at all. It can take victims years of trauma to get over what theyve suffered, before they might feel ready to report it.

And I know that #MeToo and Times Up are culture-changing events that shouldve happened long ago, but thank god theyre happening now (just like the pink pussy-hatted Womens March on Washington and many more women deciding to go into politics are culture-changing events, and Black Lives Matter and March For Our Lives and Red-for-Ed teachers walking out all over the land for higher pay and more education funding are nation-changing movements  because suddenly we the people are speaking up because our politicians dont represent the interests of we the people anymore, but only the interests of we the very rich people).

Anyway, Im hoping women will read this without finding it too distasteful, and will comment, and school me and the guys about the matter of where to draw the line between unforgivable and forgivable behavior, and what forgivable sexual misconduct might actually be.

Or whether there is such a thing as forgivable sexual misconduct at all.

Ive said my say, so heres hoping you will say yours.by Namit Arora

The cryptocurrency movement may be a mainstream media story but confusion about it is widespread. It evokes deeply polarized opinion, what with daily stories of scams, speculative booms, crypto billionaires, and government bans amid tall claims about how cryptocurrencies (and blockchain) are about to transform life and society as we know it. I call it a movement because its acolytes imagine it as a totally disruptive force for economics, politics, governance, the Internet, and much more, even though there is little empirical evidence yet to ground that imagination.

The cryptocurrency (aka crypto) movement is excitingfull of brainy people, venture capital, heady innovation, and high hopes. It behooves us to more clearly understand the animating ideology of the crypto movement. Should it ever succeed, where might it fit into our political economy and what might be its effects on society? And finally, just how likely is it to succeed?

The Ideology of Crypto

As I see it, the crypto movement, which gathered pace with bitcoin after 2009, is driven by a confluence of three types of instincts:

(1) Anarchistic instincts, often left-leaning, that despise the State for its coercive authority, legalized corruption, misuse of taxes for war, power to censor and spy. Such instincts seek to weaken the State to make room for a Stateless, decentralized society of sovereign, self-organizing individuals. Cryptocurrencies, by using encrypted transactions and decentralized data storage, enable censorship resistance, anonymity, and tax evasion. Crypto-anarchists also hate Central and corporate banks (cryptocurrencies bypass them) and hope to rescue the Internet from the dominance of big corporations (like FAANG), towards a more open and decentralized Web 3.0. Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious creator of bitcoin, had strong anarchist leanings, as does Vitalik Buterin, 24, who founded Ethereum at 19 and wants more open, free, egalitarian and efficient systems for human cooperation, including improving or replacing present-day corporations and governments.

(2) Capitalistic instincts, close to libertarian, that want true capitalism with a genuinely free market, instead of the one we have now: hampered by regulations seen as rigged, onerous, or inefficient, and dominated by monopolies and crony capitalists in cahoots with the State. Such instincts value the radical freedom that cryptocurrencies grant to a market-maker to issue his own coin, set his own transparent market rules, regulations, and monetary policy, with incentives from game theory driving the right market behavior, where people choose the value of goods and services that they freely exchange with others via smart contracts and without middlemen, preferably anonymously and beyond government interference and taxation. This vision also implies privatizing all State services, and sees markets, or algorithmic cost-benefit decisioning, penetrating more and more areas of our lives. Both Nakamoto and Buterin display strong free-market leanings.

(3) Opportunistic instincts, which get people in every time and place to jump on the latest bandwagon, make a fast buck, or have fun making cool new things in an exciting space. Such instincts pull in a wide variety of people: techno-geeks, idiot savants, trend-riding entrepreneurs, ladder climbers, con men, hucksters, kooks, scamsters, boosters, futurists, problem solvers, etc. Among them are folks who launch crypto ICOs (so far 80+ percent of them scams), build crypto trading platforms, and serial evangelists like Don Tapscott whove made a career out of glibly boosting every next-gen tech as having revolutionary, world-saving and happiness-spreading potential, through which people will automagically learn to collaborate, self-organize, create unprecedented value, change the old laws of business, lift each other up, and sing kumbayawith no consequences whatsoever for inane predictions. Wikinomics, wrote Tapscott in 2009, may be the birth of a new era, perhaps even a golden one, on par with the Italian renaissance, or the rise of Athenian democracy. WTF, right?!

So the primary ideology that drives the crypto movement, mixing anarchism and capitalism, is anarcho-capitalism, with its strongest roots in the US. Its followers see it as a force for good thatll usher in a golden era of growth, redistribution, and prosperity. A board member of The Bitcoin Foundation called cryptocurrencies a decentralized revolution in individual freedom and financial sovereignty leading to a restructuring of global economics and power and a shift in favor of the people, rights, peace and liberty the likes of which the world has never imagined. To a small new breed of left-leaning crypto-anarchists like Buterin, cryptocurrencies and their blockchains permit the creation of decentralized and radically free markets run by open source software algorithms. As these markets spread, they will cause the withering away of the State and bring us to the Promised Land: an egalitarian, self-governing, classless society without borderswet dreams of Marx, Engels, and Lenin.

The Political Economy of Crypto

What should we make of this vision of hope and change? Can anarcho-capitalists deliver the goods? I dont think so. I think they are victims of self-delusion and naive ideological optimism based on ignoring nearly all of basic social science and the human material. Theirs is a great example of magical thinking. Yes, I know what theyll say: Im a man lacking in imagination, too attached to the status quo (JSYK, I identify as a Liberal, a social democrat). But what I (and others) see crypto fans effectively rooting for, knowingly or not, is anti-Statism with free markets. I think this is a terrible idea. It cherry picks theory from both anarchism and capitalism to make an awful brewa toxic concoction. Let me explain.

Crypto-anarchists are among the most privileged, globalized techno-elites who find it easy to grossly undervalue the State and vastly overvalue the ability of crypto economics and its unproven and dubious consensus algorithms to solve real human problems. They tend to be idealistic young men who get off on mouthing fashionable anti-State nonsense while sucking on its teats. They wont be caught worrying about how their vision would make up for all the good that most democratic States also providesuch as redistribution, regulation, equal civil rights, legal and social justice, security, labor laws, consumer protection, public services, constitutional checks and balances, being lender of last resorteach of which has been achieved, to the extent it has, after much collective struggle. If the State often corrupts free markets to privilege some over others and commits other wrongs, doesnt history also bear witness to corruptions and wrongs in decentralized socioeconomic life? Before deciding which is worse, we should at least understand the long vision of anarcho-capitalists: no State; no fiat currency like USD, Pound, or Rupee; no Central Bank and no commercial banks regulated by itonly hundreds of self-regulated, anonymity enabling, tax resistant free markets and cryptocurrencies, mostly run by smart algorithms with no pesky middlemen, fueling competition in existing and new areas of lifeessentially, a Stateless libertarian free market society on steroids.

Were not angelic beings. In our flesh-and-blood world, even the freest of markets with clear rules will heavily shape outcomes by the social lottery of birth and narrow ideas of merit. Free market competition and property rights inevitably produce winners and losersand class and culture wars. The winners accrue wealth for their families, clans, tribes, and use their power to shape knowledge, dominate others, and perpetuate their privileges. This too is what makes us human and its only worsened by scarce resources, economic competition, and rapid cultural change. Without the modern liberal State, such forcesoften led by aggressive, predatory, and reactionary interestswill be far more vicious. Without redistribution through taxation, theyll vastly amplify inequality and make our democracies even more oligarchic. This may seem obvious to most people but not to anarcho-capitalists, who fail to see why their techno-utopian solution to the ills of the modern nation-state is like jumping from the frying pan into the fire.

A very different idealism informs the real card-carrying Anarchists who, even as they reject the State, at least have the intellectual honesty and consistency to also oppose capitalism and the idea of private property, and promote the mindset of communes and cooperatives. No wonder they hate the incoherent mess that is anarcho-capitalism. For instance, here are two prominent living Anarchists on anarcho-capitalism, the intellectual ideology of the crypto movement:

Anarcho-capitalism, in my opinion, is a doctrinal system which, if ever implemented, would lead to forms of tyranny and oppression that have few counterparts in human history. There isnt the slightest possibility that its (in my view, horrendous) ideas would be implemented, because they would quickly destroy any society that made this colossal error. The idea of free contract between the potentate and his starving subject is a sick joke, perhaps worth some moments in an academic seminar exploring the consequences of (in my view, absurd) ideas, but nowhere else. [Noam Chomsky]



To be honest Im pretty skeptical about the idea of anarcho-capitalism. If a-caps imagine a world divided into property-holding employers and property-less wage laborers, but with no systematic coercive mechanisms  well, I just cant see how it would work. You always see a-caps saying if I want to hire someone to pick my tomatoes, how are you going to stop me without using coercion? Notice how you never see anyone say if I want to hire myself out to pick someone elses tomatoes, how are you going to stop me? Historically nobody ever did wage labor like that if they had pretty much ANY other option. [David Graeber]



The Prospects of Crypto

Can the crypto movement succeed? Opinion is very divided. Personally, I would be quite worried about the crypto movement if I thought it likely to succeed. But I dont think this will happen for a host of technical, economic, regulatory, political, social, human, structural, governance, trust, spiritual, and other reasons, many likely to be independently fatal to its viability. Public blockchains do not even deliver whats said to be best about them. For example, they do not decentralize some of the most important elements of higher-order trust necessary to significantly transform peer-to-peer economics (such as trust in a protocols designers, trust in accountable protocol governance). Trust is hard earned and based on a lot more than cryptographic proof. As many have noted, Blockchains are not magic trust machines. At considerable expense, they can only ensure the integrity of the data that is in them. They do not ensure that the data in them was good in the first place or that the actors who put the data in them are good actors.

Yet, many evangelists call public blockchains A novel solution to the age-old human problem of trust. Among these votaries, The claim being made is not that we can engineer greater levels of cooperation or trust in friends, institutions, or governments, but that we might dispense with social institutions altogether in favor of an elegant technical solution. This naive assumption betrays a worrying politics that believes it can replace politics itself with economic games. It must take a positivistic, scientistic, or at least a simple mind to presume that the problem of trust deficits, including those related to incumbent power relations of class etc., can be effectively tackled by an unregulated private sector and the free markets it runs via code sans middlemen.

Except in failed States, most people may find it harder to trust this new intermediary with their moneythe intermediary of a decentralized consensus algorithm in an unregulated blockchain, beneath a volatile currency, with few safeguards or corrective recourse, and painfully slow and unaccountable governancethan the named and regulated intermediaries they already trust and use today: banks, credit cards, PayPal, WeChat, all of which, unlike cryptocurrency networks, also provide a toll-free number for complaints; protection against loss, fraud, and user error; and transaction reversal. Moreover, behind the illusion of decentralized apolitical money lurks centralization by other meansas in mining, exchanges, leadership, new middlemen, infrastructure, etc.and crypto projects continue to be very much in the grip of all-too-human and unreliable market makers.

Add to this the unavoidable and deeply unappealing trade-offs that cryptocurrencies require in nearly all aspects of their functioning. They can fully realize only two out of their three primary goals: decentralization, security, scalability. Choosing decentralization makes them inherently slower, more expensive, less scalable, with worse user experiences and uncertain governance. A necessary trade-off, writes crypto expert Adam Ludwin, This wont fundamentally change with bigger blocks, lightning networks, sharding, forks, self-amending ledgers, or any other technical solutions. Furthermore, their code may be open source but it can be hacked, 51 percent attacks remain a major threat, and crypto assets are often lost or stolen, forever. Due to the very nature of crypto, its hard to imagine crypto exchanges ever offering what consumers now take for granted, such as this security assurance from a fiat brokerage firm: Schwab will cover 100% of any losses in any of your Schwab accounts due to unauthorized activity. Integral to the design of cryptocurrencies are so many disadvantagesand so few advantagesthat only those mainly interested in censorship resistance (or, say, need to solve the double spending problem) are likely to embrace apps built on them. No wonder crypto adoption remains very lowthere is no killer app yetand while this could change in the future, its not a given.

Or take decentralization, an idea with merit but one that has become a silly mantra in cryptoland, as if it were always and ipso facto superior to centralized alternatives (recall that feudalism, casteism, racism, slavery, and patriarchy are all instances of decentralized oppression, now being disrupted by centralized Constitutions, Human Rights, and Law). With no evidence at hand, the orthodox even speak of an imminent wave of decentralized innovative businesses on the blockchain, but wont they be eaten alive by nimbler actively-managed centralized competitors? There are exactly zero decentralized businesses in Silicon Valley, long obsessed with organizational efficiency, though theyve long had the means to decentralize their own governance. Could it be that inappropriate decentralization impedes competitive innovation and business success?

Instructive here is the failure of the original purpose of bitcoin, the best known cryptocurrency on blockchain. For very good reasons, bitcoin is little used as currency now (especially as a means of exchange), and is used more as digital gold. With 80 percent of the 21 million bitcoins already mined, the gini index of bitcoinlandia may be worse than that of every single country in the world. Pause to think about this. Bitcoin was meant to be a decentralized currency for everyday use by ordinary people, possibly replacing fiat currencies. However, just 4 percent of bitcoin addresses own 96 percent of all bitcoin while the richest one thousand people own 40 percent; furthermore, the poorest 70 percent of bitcoin owners own less than 1.7 percent of all bitcoin [versus around 9 percent of all dollars in the US]. This distribution of wealth and power is reminiscent of feudal times, turning bitcoins apparent nirvana of decentralization into a parody and dystopia. Bitcoin is akin to a land grab where the early ones gain disproportionately and, without moving a finger, keep getting richer as demand for bitcoin surges but supply does not (by design). Are crypto bros agitating about this obscene new centralization of power? Instead, they cheer bitcoin price rises, even as they, bless their hearts, earnestly tweet about how crypto will save rural Africa by bringing banking to the unbanked, never mind that this can already be done perfectly well with fiatlack of will, not tech, is once again the more common and far bigger hurdle.

Bitcoin however is far from unique. Wealth concentration, price manipulation, and insider trading will plague every cryptocurrency that starts with unequal coin distribution to a fewbut such wealth concentration is a feature, not a bug, to every crypto project team (surprise, surprise!). Nor does a private price-stable cryptocurrency seem likely. Anarcho-capitalists also tend to be worryingly archaic in insisting on non-inflatable cryptocurrencies, and in their gross overestimation of the odds of algorithmic governance outpacing a major Central Banks public trust and deliberative governance in a fluid economy liable to exception handling, as during the financial crisis of 2007/8.

The untethered hopes and dreams of crypto fanboys in fact remind me of early AI, whose hopes and dreams, even decades later, remain outlandish. The speculative allure of crypto coins has corrupted too many minds and their sense of reality. Many crypto bros suffer delusions of grandeur of being Che Guevaras of the bitcoin age. When leading economists criticize it or governments crackdown on unregulated, anonymous trading, as they rightly must, the boyos of crypto come alive with howls and conspiracy theories about the evil empire coming after them. They take it as yet another sign that theyre doing something right. When critics invoke earlier follies that once drew similar fervor (tulip mania, eugenics, behaviorism), crypto True Believers rush to dismiss the critics as akin to naysayers about earlier big innovations (Internet, railways, automobiles).

Will there be a killer app for crypto soon? Perhaps the killer app is already knownanonymous tradingwithout which the crypto movement may well collapse. However, its worth noting that while cryptocurrencies may never rival major global fiat currencies, they will likely set a low bar for Central Bank management and serve as crisis currencies for digital elites in States like Venezuela that face hyperinflation (but citing this as justification for crypto is like the NRA defending assault weapon ownership by citing situations when civilians used them for self-defense). Otherwise, unless regulated (not clear how), cryptocurrencies will continue to be havens for scamsters, criminals, money launderers, and tax evaders.

At best, cryptocurrencies are a revolutionary technology built on reactionary economics. That first part has blinded people to the second. Perhaps the glitter of crypto coins has biased even our estimation of blockchain tech. As the hype clears and reality dawns, odds are that smart money and minds will sharply lower expectations of imminent revolucion. In time the crypto movement may be remembered mostly for its irrational exuberanceyet another of many movements in history that were overhyped but largely failed due to their own contradictions.

That said, parts of the innovation currently driving crypto will surely live on and bring some conveniences into our lives, say, through blockchain projects sans cryptocurrencies, perhaps managed or regulated by trusted entities like governments. We may get another way to invest in startups via regulated security tokens and in regulated micro-markets via utility tokens. Crypto stablecoins, collateralized by already trusted and regulated fiat, may enhance P2P payments. A fallout of crypto may be new business entities whose governance is nearly as centralized as before but with greater data security, privacy, and consumer participation. Perhaps other social conditions, regulatory frameworks, and use cases will emerge in timehowever remote this seems todaywhen the pros of certain cryptocurrencies (as currencies) may even outweigh their cons.

One also hopes that the smarter boys of cryptoland will reassess their anarcho-capitalistic follies and join the unsexy but far more grounded means of fixing our broken world: antitrust action, informed citizenry, public debate, anti-authoritarian instincts, equal opportunity, humane safety nets for all.

___________________________

NB: After 20 years in Silicon Valley tech shops, I shifted my focus to the social sciences and the humanities. This piece owes much to my animatedand sometimes exasperatingconversations over many months with my good friend Aditya Dev Sood, who heads Startereum.



A Spanish translation of the above article was published in the social science journal Nueva Sociedad.

Image sources: one, two, three | More writing by Namit Arora?

___________________________Megan Molteni in Wired:

For the dozen years between 1974 and 1986, he rained down terror across the state of California. He went by many names: the East Side Rapist, the Visalia Ransacker, the Original Night Stalker, the Golden State Killer. And on Wednesday, law enforcement officials announced they think they finally have his real name: Joseph James DeAngelo. Police arrested the 72-year-old Tuesday; hes accused of committing more than 50 rapes and 12 murders.

In the end, it wasnt stakeouts or fingerprints or cell phone records that got him. It was a genealogy website.

Lead investigator Paul Holes, a retired Contra Costa County District Attorney inspector, told the Mercury News late Thursday night that his team used GEDmatch, a no-frills Florida-based website that pools raw genetic profiles shared publicly by their owners, to find the man believed to be one of Californias most notorious criminals. A spokeswoman for the Sacramento County District Attorneys Office reached Friday morning would not comment or confirm the report.

GEDmatcha reference to the data file format GEDCOM, developed by the Mormon church to share genealogical informationcaters to curious folks searching for missing relatives or filling in family trees. The mostly volunteer-run platform exists to provide DNA and genealogy tools for comparison and research services, the sites policy page states. Most of its tools for tracking down matches are free; users just have to register and upload copies of their raw DNA files exported from genetic testing services like 23andMe and Ancestry. These two companies dont allow law enforcement to access their customer databases unless they get a court order. Neither 23andMe nor Ancestry was approached by investigators in this case, according to spokespeople for the companies.

But no court order would be needed to mine GEDmatchs open-source database of more than 650,000 genetically connected profiles.

More here.by Dave Maier

One starting point for any philosophical account of language is that the truth of a statement depends both on what it means and on how the world is. Handily for contemporary pragmatists of my stripe, this fits neatly with the post-Davidsonian project of overcoming the dualism of conceptual scheme and empirical content. All we need to do is show that the two factors that make up truth are not so detachable as contemporary dualists claim.

If it were as easy as that, though, wed be done by now. Last time I said some things about semantic externalism, the idea that our meanings and other mental contents depend in some way on how things are in the world (as opposed, that is, to being transparently internal to the mind in the Cartesian manner). While not uncontroversial (there are a number of versions of this idea, some of which lead to serious problems), this thought is not generally regarded as scandalously radical or insane  possibly because when it goes bad, it does so in the direction of realism, contemporary philosophys default metaphysical assumption. The world, and the semantic content it determines, turns out to be too independent of our minds for us to know for sure what we are even saying. But again, for most contemporary philosophers, metaphysical realism, even of a problematic sort, has always seemed preferable to the unthinkable alternatives.

Things get dicier, or can easily seem to, if we consider the converse thought: that how things are in the world depend in some way on our meanings and beliefs. Stated so baldly, the only people who accept it are the most hard-bitten idealists. Not only does this thereby fall off to the forbidden side, its not at all clear how to state it in any more acceptably hirsute fashion. (I except the obvious cases, the subject of an entire book by contemporary realist John Searle (The Construction of Social Reality), such as the straightforwardly conventional, mind-created, but thereby no less real, truth that this sawbuck is more valuable than that fin  although inventive if also perverse counter-examples are available even for that one.)

I wont be arguing for any particular doctrine today, let alone anything controversial, but instead simply batting about some examples, in the hope of a better understanding of a few important and interrelated things: first, how diverse our semantic options really are, and how little the dictionary really tells us about them; second, how essential to meaning are the creative and expressive aspects of language use; and third, the overlapping and indeed interconstitutive notions of a) knowing what a word means; b) knowing how to use a word appropriately; c) knowing the words referent; d) knowing what such a thing is. With any luck this may clear the way to discussing matters of meaning and truth without the threat of linguistic idealism seeming to hover over us at every turn.

This background of examples is important here because none of them work as a proof, as philosophers typically look to examples to provide, that actual linguistic practice entails this or that philosophical doctrine. I aim instead for a Wittgensteinian focus on intermediate cases where, as Wittgenstein definitely does not say, the rubber hits the road. This procedure requires a certain tolerance for not knowing what to say which makes some philosophers uncomfortable or even angry. However, it may be that the place in which you are pulled in various different directions is the best place to see whats going on.

Take for example the third issue I just mentioned. We do distinguish, in particular cases, between knowing what davenport means and knowing what a davenport is. For example, in speaking to you, I may attribute the latter knowledge to a third party, based on their experience and understanding of those things which we call davenports, without thereby, or ever, attributing the former (as that person may call such things sofas). That is, he knows perfectly well what they are; he just doesnt know that thats what theyre (also) called.

In other cases, especially depending on how the question has come up, that distinction may make little sense. Maybe the context is one for which the term davenport is essential. Lady Bingham demands of her servants that the davenport be moved into the parlour. If they fail to understand, without her pointing at what is directly in front of them, what she means, there doesnt seem to be any important difference between the one sort of knowledge and the other. Here, if they knew the one, they would thereby know the other in the relevant sense. Knowing all there is to know about sofas wouldnt help.

The intent and context of an utterance is, perhaps not surprisingly, often the key, and meaning may have rather different ways of playing the same practical role. Lets say (counterfactually) Im a connoisseur of Japanese cuisine and sushi in particular. I am thus acutely aware of the difference between what I might call real wasabi, which is made from the wasabi plant (Eutrema japonicum, a.k.a Japanese horseradish), and the green paste typically offered in non-insanely-expensive Japanese restaurants in the USA, which is made of (regular) horseradish powder, water, and green food coloring, and which I may call imitation wasabi, to make clear my preference or simply to show off.

If I am asked the simple question  a question seemingly about the world, rather than about what we say  Is that stuff wasabi or not?, I will answer certainly not! But it is uncontroversial that we do not need to talk that way, and even that I myself might not consistently do so, even while maintaining to the last that the distinction between the two substances is an important one. You and I have eaten at a particular restaurant many times, one where only the poor substitute is available, and you are well aware of and indeed tired of hearing about my preference for the finer stuff. Yet faute de mieux I still put it on my tuna roll; and when I need it to be passed to me I ask not for the imitation wasabi  thats all there is, after all  but simply for the wasabi. If instead of passing it you instead feigned ignorance of my meaning, protesting that there is unfortunately no wasabi here to be had, you would be being perverse.

So is the stuff wasabi or not? There is no real puzzle here, of course: if wasabi means the stuff made from E. japonicum, then no; if instead it means the green stuff, of whatever origin, yet still capable of blowing out ones sinuses, that one puts on ones sushi, then yes. Still, given the form of the question, which presents itself as being about the world rather than about what we say, we can easily let ourselves assume that the world itself, and not our intention, decides which meaning is the real one, and which merely contextual or something. The former meaning, for example, makes a real distinction between types of thing, while the latter does not.

Or does it? Its very easy to let our examples go before were done with them; yet with a little invention we can easily construct variations in which wasabi plays all kinds of different roles. Even now, when I ask for it to be passed to me, I distinguish between it and the pickled ginger, which is already within my reach. That I would say the same were real wasabi to be had doesnt mean Im not making a contextually important distinction here as well.

Or how about this. If I am making a film, in which one scene takes place in a Japanese restaurant, the background prop need not be wasabi of any kind, but instead some green stuff in a jar. Yet I will demand of the prop guys, in these very words, that the wasabi be to the right of the soy sauce instead of to the left. Here the word literally refers to that green stuff, even though no one will be putting it on anything. Maybe I even wish to distinguish between it and what I would in contrast call real wasabi  here meaning either E. japonicum or mere horseradish paste, between which it would now be pointless to distinguish  because neither of the latter film well, while the former looks just right.

It seems to be a general principle that one may use a word literally to refer to something which is (merely) imitating the normal referent of the word, which in the following case doesnt even exist in the first place. Five trick-or-treaters are at my door, but I dont see the fifth, standing in back, and only distribute four treats. In this case, the natural objection could perfectly well be you missed the ghost in back  and it is no proper reply to this to say that wasnt a ghost  ghosts dont exist. That is, though the dictionary doesnt say so (and why should it?), it is a perfectly cromulent use of ghost to mean someone dressed up (say, on Halloween) as ghosts are typically thought of: that is, hes wearing a white sheet with eyeholes or something.

Similarly, again, wasabi can perfectly well mean wasabi/imitation wasabi (or even, given the proper context, imitation imitation wasabi, etc.). Consider this actual sentence Google provides in response to the question What is the difference between horseradish and wasabi?: Most wasabi sold in the United States is just horseradish. We might say: use erodes scare quotes. Or, as Davidson notes, metaphors die and become literal speech; although I am reluctant to say even that the use of ghost here is not literal. (Incidentally, I live for the day when cromulent itself makes the dictionary.)

One more group of examples should do us for now. One key principle of Kripkes (orthodox-externalist) semantics  one which provides both the real anti-internalist power of his view as well as its equally real difficulties  is that the reference of our terms depends essentially on an initial baptism in which the coiner of a term points to a thing and says something like Xs are those things. After that (heres where the hardcore essentialist realism comes in) the world takes it from there. Much as I may want to, I may not use the term properly to refer to anything but things with the same metaphysical essence as the original thing.

I hear an echo of this attitude, if perhaps only that, in the idea that etymology in general (that is, not necessarily a baptism of the Kripkean sort) determines proper reference. I referred above to sushi as Japanese cuisine, but the origin of the word (French cuisine, Latin coquina) suggests that cuisine is something which is cooked (as sushi is not). (Note: I have never heard anyone make this specific objection; but see below.)

Or consider gratuities. This word for tip comes from the French word gratuit, meaning free: I am required by law to pay my food bill, but I may reward or stiff my waitstaff as I please. But some restaurants include a service fee in the bill itself. In some sense this is the same thing, and in others not. As a matter of semantics, must I register that difference by denying that this service charge is in fact a gratuity? As a native English speaker I say no, and it seems that even Merriam-Webster leaves it open: gratuity sends us to tip in sense #10: a gift or small sum given for a service performed or anticipated. (Not, again, that I think we should let the dictionary order us around.)

Returning to the kitchen: I once got into it (evidence at my old blog) with a philosopher who claimed that since biscotti means twice cooked, nothing counted as a biscotto until it emerged from the oven a second time. Similarly, on this view, nothing counts as a cookie unless it has been cooked: balls of uncooked dough do not count. And indeed, if I ask you to bring me a cookie from the kitchen, the default (but of course entirely context-dependent) assumption is that since I want a cookie because I intend to eat it, if you bring me instead a ball of uncooked dough, I will protest that such a thing is not a cookie at all.

But of course it can perfectly well go the other way. If Im (in the middle of) baking cookies, I guess theyre not done yet, nor are they so when the cookies are in the oven. Even if I am approaching the oven with a tray of what are clearly balls of uncooked dough, I may not be able to answer the phone right now because, like I just said, I am in the middle of putting a tray of cookies into the oven. (Consider also snickerdoodles, which seem to have no etymological obligation to emerge from the oven before they attain full snickerdoodlehood; yet of course snickerdoodles are cookies, so if something is the former then it is the latter as well.) Again, as a native English speaker, I take these things to be flatly uncontroversial; but maybe we need to get the experimental philosophers on the case. Will the idea of putting a tray of cookies into the oven really provoke vox populi to protest why are you putting cookies into the oven? Theyre already cooked, or they wouldnt be cookies! Ill believe that when I see it. (Or, I guess, we could be making biscotti.)

So lets say we agree that we have two semantic options here: that we may say, of a tray of balls of dough ready for the oven either a) that it is a tray of cookies, or b) that it is not (yet) a tray of cookies. This does not mean that it is metaphysically indeterminate whether the thing is or is not a tray of cookies. It does not exist in a quasi-quantum superposition of states (cookies/non-cookies) until someone comes along and says one thing or another, thereby making it so. (That would be idealism.) It simply means that to ask whether something is a cookie is not the same as asking whether the term cookie applies to it.

But a natural response to this is that if something is a cookie the term does indeed apply, and not otherwise! So it may not seem that we have gotten anywhere. Indeed, it may seem that I have deliberately courted confusion. But as I noted at the beginning, this is where we want to be: not in confusionland itself, but rather in a place where we can see it up close, really feeling the pull in different directions rather than giving the wrong one perfunctory lip service. In any case, this hard-fought vantage point seems to me to be preferable, for pragmatist purposes, to the sort of clear-cut yet arbitrary distinctions out of which all too many philosophical doctrines are constructed. But the proof of this pudding is in the eating; and right now its still in the oven.Molly Crabapple in the New York Review of Books:

After, when the sea will curl violently

They will say: it is the fatal conscience of that girl,

She had many sins because she always lived in verse

And what you do on earth, on earth you pay for.

From After, by Julia de Burgos

In 1928, when Julia de Burgos was fourteen, Hurricane San Felipe devastated Puerto Rico. The Category Five storm left not a single building unscathed, least of all the wood casita in a mountain barrio in Carolina where De Burgos was born. Three hundred people died in what would be, for the next ninety years, the most violent storm in the islands history. Julia de Burgos did not record her experience.

Puerto Ricos most famous poet and greatest literary figure, De Burgos is as significant a cultural icon for the island commonwealth as the artist Frida Kahlo is for Mexico. Every line of De Burgoss verse is imbued with passion, feminist self-assertion, and love of homeland. As with many female artists, De Burgoss life story added to her legend, though her romantic life and untimely death threatened to overshadow her work by turning her into an allegorical figure for the patrias humiliations. Yet, outside of Puerto Rican communities, she is largely unknown despite the fact that her poetry, while firmly rooted in place, addresses the universal human subjects of love, war, and self-creation.

De Burgoss life spanned Puerto Ricos full entrenchment as a colony of the United States, while her public life as a writer took place against the backdrop of the twentieth-centurys global conflict between fascism and democracy. The problems Puerto Ricans face today, as their impoverished island fights for survival in an era when the international order seems to be coming apart, are the legacy of the struggles De Burgos faced. In January, I traveled to Puerto Rico with my father, carrying a copy of Julia de Burgoss letters, visiting the places she had lived, trying to hear her voice.

More here.Martin Parker in The Guardian:

Visit the average university campus and it is likely that the newest and most ostentatious building will be occupied by the business school. The business school has the best building because it makes the biggest profits (or, euphemistically, contribution or surplus)  as you might expect, from a form of knowledge that teaches people how to make profits.

Business schools have huge influence, yet they are also widely regarded to be intellectually fraudulent places, fostering a culture of short-termism and greed. (There is a whole genre of jokes about what MBA  Master of Business Administration  really stands for: Mediocre But Arrogant, Management by Accident, More Bad Advice, Master Bullshit Artist and so on.) Critics of business schools come in many shapes and sizes: employers complain that graduates lack practical skills, conservative voices scorn the arriviste MBA, Europeans moan about Americanisation, radicals wail about the concentration of power in the hands of the running dogs of capital. Since 2008, many commentators have also suggested that business schools were complicit in producing the crash.

Having taught in business schools for 20 years, I have come to believe that the best solution to these problems is to shut down business schools altogether. This is not a typical view among my colleagues. Even so, it is remarkable just how much criticism of business schools over the past decade has come from inside the schools themselves. Many business school professors, particularly in north America, have argued that their institutions have gone horribly astray. B-schools have been corrupted, they say, by deans following the money, teachers giving the punters what they want, researchers pumping out paint-by-numbers papers for journals that no one reads and students expecting a qualification in return for their cash (or, more likely, their parents cash). At the end of it all, most business-school graduates wont become high-level managers anyway, just precarious cubicle drones in anonymous office blocks.

More here.Technology is giving the average Joe and Joanna new ways to exchange goods and services  sometimes for money, sometimes for free  with strangers they connect with online.

British-born author and public speaker Rachel Botsman calls this way of interacting for mutual benefit collaborative consumption and she maintains that the currency of this new economy is trust.

Botsman gave a TED talk about the phenomenon in 2012, and wrote about it in her book Whats Mine is Yours: How Collaborative Consumption is Changing the Way We Live, published in 2010.

The possibilities keep expanding. You can rent out a spare room (Airbnb), a parking space (pavemint.com), drive people around (Uber/Lyft), hire someone to assemble your Ikea furniture (taskrabbit.com), locate a pet-sitter (rover.com)  even find a mate (match.com).

Reilly White, assistant professor of finance at the University of New Mexicos Anderson School of Management, has been watching the trend. From an economic perspective, he sees it as the latest development in a long history that stretches back to when people used to barter for goods instead of exchanging currencies.

Its almost a return to that age of bartering where people possess assets and they realize they dont need or use all of the assets fully so theyre able to lend out those assets, he said. So we see it as something thats been there all along, but this has been an increased formalization of it, an increased awareness of it and certainly an increased market of it.

The great technological challenge, White says, is being able to assure those on each side of the deal that everything will be above board and ethical. In other words, how to generate trust between people who havent met each other face to face.

Botsman contends that the ability for each party to rate the experience is what builds a reputation, and thus trust. For example, on Couchsurfing.com  a website where members can arrange homestays or offer lodging for free  hosts can read references before deciding to accept a request from a visitor seeking accommodations. Similarly, Uber drivers and riders are prompted to rate each other. Good references or ratings create a good reputation, and vice versa.

Its using the power of technology to build trust between strangers, Botsman said in her TED talk.

Ryan Jacobson, associate professor of organizational behavior at the Anderson School, said the extent to which ratings affect trust perceptions is open for more research. However, he said, extensive research has demonstrated that people tend to evaluate others based on perceived warmth and perceived competence.

The warmth judgment plays a very large role in determining how much we like and trust others, Jacobson said.

Santa Fe residents Kerry Brock and his wife, Mary Lawton, have arranged dozens of house-swapping vacations through HomeExchange.com and havent had a bad experience.

Weve questioned ourselves about trust  Santa Fe is our only home and its beautiful and were a bit anal about it, Brock said. They decided early on to only do direct swaps, where the other homeowner stayed in their house. They check the other homeowners references on the website and exchange multiple emails and photos before they proceed with an arrangement.

By the time we do an exchange, we have a good sense of the people, Brock said.

Bob and Annie Foley have been finding house-sitting opportunities for five years through Housecarers.com, a website that matches homeowners with house sitters. House sitters benefit from free accommodations in return for caring for the owners home and pets.

When he finds an interesting house-sitting opportunity, Bob Foley said, he contacts the homeowner through the website, sends references and asks to chat via FaceTime or Skype.

I place a great deal of importance in a video face-to-face. Plus pictures of the home are essential. Over the years, 20 percent did not feel right. But 80 percent have been terrific, he said.

Once trust is established, the collaborative consumption enterprises can offer unique ways of meeting new people and appreciating other cultures.

Austin, Texas, resident Annabelle Peskin frequently uses Couchsurfing.com to find free accommodations when traveling, including a recent stop in Albuquerque.

I Couchsurf to have a local experience and meet city locals, hear their stories and see the city from their perspective, said Peskin.

Avid cyclist Martha Rosenau has used Warm Showers, the bicycle tourists version of Couchsurfing, to find accommodations in New Mexico and other states.

Hosts turn you onto all the best aspects of their area and help out-of-towners feel right at home, she said. Shes also hosted cyclists at her Colorado Springs home.

I enjoy having houseguests. Its a wonderful opportunity for companionship and community and connection, said Rosenau.Prev 1 of 6 Next

The gleam of molten metal rivers through Norbert Peshlakais veins.

His last name means beeshligaii, literally white metal.

The winner of countless ribbons at both the Santa Fe Indian Market and the Heard Museum Indian Fair, this silver master stars in his first one-man show at Santa Fes Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian opening Sunday, May 13.

Hes a perfectionist, the Wheelwrights Case Trading Post Manager Ken Williams said. It shows in his work.

The artist made his first silver pot in the early 1970s. He makes his own stamps (so far, he boasts more than 300) from concrete nails. He developed his own style of textures and overlays.

Countless critters scamper across his pottery and jewelry: Mimbres figures, dogs, cats, quail, owls, deer, goats and fish. His often whimsical pieces spill over with imagination.

Its just like painting to me, Peshlakai said in a telephone interview from his Gallup home. You can do landscaping or figures; you can do all kinds of things with your stamps.

Some designs resemble intricate mazes of figures and textures. Others incorporate stones and gold.

A lot of his work contains humor and whimsy, Williams said. Thats how he is as a person.

The rounded silver seed pots provided some shaping challenges. At first they collapsed. Through trial and error, Peshlakai learned to shape two cup forms from flat sheets of silver, then solder the halves together, leaving no trace of a line.

A single animal involves several stamps, he said; one for the body, another for the face, the ears, the eyes and the legs.

He doesnt have one single stamp that stamps quail, Williams explained. His hummingbird is 12 different strokes.

Peshlakais trademark Cowboy Slim figure was born in the early 1980s, often surrounded by a swirl of horses and horseshoes.

That Slim Cowboy went through many variations, he said. Some didnt have a cowboy hat.

Then his wife, Linda, offered a suggestion. My wife said, Slim Cowboy looks lonely,  he said. You need to make him a girlfriend.

The result was a cowgirl with curly hair cascading from her hat.

His Peyote Dream seed pot features a hallucinating face bookended by soaring birds and peyote buttons.

Im not really in the peyote ceremony, he said. I went to one ceremonial. That (piece) was from a magazine (article) and I was trying to understand the symbols.

Sometimes regular customers ask for commissions, like Woofs Catch, a dog catching a Frisbee.

Hes already working on his Indian Market pieces, including a pin of a woman driving a pickup, her dogs ears soaring in the wind.

A graduate of Albuquerques Highland High School, Peshlakai attended what is now Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kan.

A misunderstanding with an adviser landed him in a commercial house painting class, complete with overalls and a pail, instead of the painting class he wanted. All of the arts classes were full, except for a jewelry class, so he signed up to fulfill his credits.

He never took the jewelry class seriously, disliked soldering and had been skipping class when his teacher Clint Leon confronted him.

He came up to me and said, I miss you in class; youre failing, Peshlakai said.

Leon told his student to bring his sketchbook, learn all the basic tools and create six pieces of jewelry. The teacher then photographed all of the student work and invited Peshlakai to look into the camera lens. The artist finally spotted his own nascent talent.

It caught my eye, he said. It was through the lens of the camera that got me.

The exhibition runs through Oct. 7 concurrently with Memory Weaving: Works By Melanie Yazzie.

If you go

WHAT: Peshlakai Vision Memory Weaving: Works by Melanie Yazzie

WHEN: Public opening 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday, May 13; panel discussion in the Mary Cabot Wheelwright Library from 1-2 p.m. with Norbert Peshlakai and Ken Williams. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily through Oct. 7

WHERE: Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, 704 Camino Lejo, Museum Hill, Santa FeHOW MUCH: $8, free first Sunday of the month, members, Native Americans, children under 12, students with ID and active military. Information at wheelwright.org.Prev 1 of 4 Next

Just in time for Mothers Day, art lovers can roam Placitas rolling hills and sweeping vistas for the 21st Annual Studio Tour next weekend.

The free event will showcase the work of 55 artists who will welcome visitors to their homes for a personal look at their artwork.

This years tour features baskets, fiber, ceramics, steel, glass, sculpture, mosaics, mixed-media, weaving, folk art, collage, stained glass, wood, jewelry, painting, pottery, photography, paper and quilting at 48 studios.

Pastel artist Meg Leonard spent 30 years visiting New Mexico before moving to Placitas 11 years ago. The studio tour clinched her decision when she discovered the area had become an artistic magnet. She prefers to work with pastels because of their portability. She never works from photographs.

I enjoy working as quickly as I can, because the light changes to quickly when youre outside, she said.

Beneath, Afternoon at Cabezon grew from hiking trips she took to the iconic peak with the late sculptor Jim Fish.

We spent the entire day circling around the Cabezon, Leonard said.

It was about what was not seen, she said. What really intrigued me was the foreground in shadow. I used different colors and shapes and forms. Its really what happens beneath the surface.

The National Park Service recently chose Leonard to be artist-in-residence at Montanas Glacier National Park in September.

Painter-sculptor Barbara Burzillo turned to art full time when she retired after 36 years in broadcast advertising. She creates abstracted figures in bronze and paints using alcohol ink.

Artists do play dates together, Burzillo said. I was with an artist friend last year, and she had these beautiful cards. It was alcohol ink; its like watercolor on steroids.

Burzillo begins by composing an abstract canvas, then lets the paint dictate the imagery.

I can see images of landscapes and people within the paint, she said. The compositions sometimes resemble sheer folds of silken fabric.

Burzillo turned to bronze after struggling with clay, which sometimes exploded in the kiln.

Bronze is permanent and offers the advantage of multiples, she said.

I dont have any children, so I kind of consider it my legacy, she said.

Her current series revolves around fairies.

One looks at her wings, saying, Do these make my butt look big?  she said. I want to call these Vanity Faeries. In his 2012 book Apocalyptic Planet, Field Guide to the Everending Earth, Craig Childs looks to the future. Childs suggests alternative futures, some violent.

One location in the Western Hemisphere he visited was Alaskas St. Lawrence Island in the Bering Strait.

That same island, inhabited by the Yupik people, is one of the places where Childs locks in his narrative in his captivating new book Atlas of a Lost World  Travels in Ice Age America.

He invites readers to join him on his wanderings and share his wonderings about a time when Homo sapiens and scary, supersized animals once roamed. Were talking about humans knowing, killing and being killed by woolly mammoths the size of garbage trucks. Their trunks 13 feet long and curved upward.  A healthy mammoth would have taken in more than 600 pounds of browse a day and put out 400 pounds of dung.

Childs has strong storytelling and descriptive skills, artfully leaping among moments of personal adventure, geology, archaeology and natural history.

Visiting St. Lawrence Island, he brings up the much-debated questions of who were the first humans in North America. Did they cross from Siberia over a navigable glacial passage (the Bering land bridge?) at one or more moments in prehistory? It wasnt, he writes, a shaky catwalk linking the two hemispheres, but a flat subcontinent fully exposed when sea levels were at their glacial low.

Childs contends the land bridge is hypothetical.

Though early people have been found on both sides, no physical artifacts or sites have been discovered to prove they crossed through here.

Whoever they were, they didnt come to colonize. They would have traveled east because of the push and pull of the climate, the drive of human curiosity and the tidal movement of other animals within which the people flowed, Childs wrote.

He doesnt think they sensed the scale of emptiness that lay ahead, but the hemisphere was alive.

Even if they didnt know what lay ahead, humans encountered new megafauna  the first appearance of short-faced bears, the last sight of woolly rhinos, Childs writes.

In a Yukon Territory cave, he writes, a butchered horse jaw has been dated to 24,000 years ago. The bone was cut when it was still fresh.

How did these Pleistocene Age humans hold on? Living around big Ice Age cats and dire wolves, the only way they could have survived to populate this hemisphere was by not getting eaten or gored by giant bison or mammoth, Childs said in an email.

As part of his research, Childs explored New Mexico sites that have parallels in the modern world. Raw materials for both the first atomic bomb and Clovis weapons, 13,000 years apart, came from the same region of northern New Mexico and were employed several miles from each other near White Sands, Childs said.

In Mockingbird Gap, only eight miles from Trinity Site, where the first nuclear weapon was exploded in 1945, artifacts revealed humans had worked a 35-acre tool- and weapon-preparation camp, the largest, most stratified Clovis site archaeologists have unearthed. The camp produced Clovis points, unfinished points, knives, gravers, endscrapers, sidescrapers, flakes  Childs wrote in the book.

Childs said it would be reasonable to describe him as an adventurer, a naturalist, a historian and a journalist, though he doesnt claim any as a profession. I research, write and explore, and am willing to indulge in challenging environments, he said in the email.

A longtime Colorado resident, he said most of his family is from New Mexico.

Is there meaning to the face paint he wears in an author photo? Not really. Its something you do when youre that far out there (on 700 square miles of ice). Maybe its a way of reminding yourself youre human, and not to slip into oblivion, he said.

Infobox hedAmericas national parks are brimming with natural wonders: cascading waterfalls, towering redwoods, white sand beaches. But visiting these gems can cost money and soon will get a little pricier: Many national parks will increase their entrance fees by $5 beginning June 1.

Here are seven ways to plan a cheaper national park trip.

TRAVEL OFF-PEAK

Mikah Meyer, 32, wants to become the youngest person to visit all 417 National Park Service sites. In the past two years, the Nebraska native has crossed more than 300 off the list while living out of his trusty 2014 Ram ProMaster, a white, windowless cargo van hes dubbed Vanny McVanface.

Hes just one of the more than 330 million people who visited the national park system in 2017. Rooms and campsites fill up fast during weekends, spring break and summer. Meyer suggests visiting offseason to save money and avoid crowds. But there are trade-offs.

Sometimes youll go to parks like Yosemite where certain trails and waterfalls are closed because theyre snowed in, Meyer says.

Research seasonal conditions to prevent surprises, and note that some destinations have atypical high seasons. Warm-weather parks such as Death Valley and Everglades are busiest in winter.

VISIT FOR FREE

More than two-thirds of the parks in the national park system are free year-round. The others waive entrance fees on certain dates. The remaining fee-free days in 2018 are:

 National Public Lands Day: Sept. 22

 Veterans Day: Nov. 11

With free days dwindling  down from 10 in 2017 to four in 2018  and potential fee hikes looming, take advantage.

ANNUAL PASSES AND DISCOUNTS

An annual pass costs $80 and can pay for itself if you plan to visit multiple parks in a 12-month period.

U.S. military members can get the annual pass for free, as can fourth-grade students and certain volunteers.

For seniors, annual passes cost $20 and lifetime passes $80. Lifetime passes are free for those with permanent disabilities.

Travelers can also leverage perks offered by wholesale clubs, frequent flyer programs and other memberships, such as AAA.

SKIP THE EXPENSIVE LODGE

Camp by tent or vehicle to cut costs. Backcountry campsites, which are generally in remote areas accessible only on foot, are usually cheaper than developed campsites, says Kathy Kupper, public affairs specialist for the National Park Service. Campsites at Glacier National Park cost a maximum of $23 per night during peak season, for example, compared with the hundreds of dollars a night you might pay to stay in a lodge.

To avoid camping fees outright, Meyer parks in Walmart or hotel parking lots that allow it. He also camps free in U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management areas near national parks.

Sometimes they have actual campsites with running water and bathrooms, and other times its just wherever you can fit your car, there you go, Meyer says. Contact local agency offices for details.

If roughing it doesnt appeal to you, try hotels or rentals in gateway communities. Neighboring towns typically have more rooms and are less expensive than park lodges.

BUY SUPPLIES BEFOREHAND

Dont wait until youre near or inside the park to stock up on food, gas and other essentials.

The closer you get to these places, especially when theyre out in the wilderness, theres going to be that convenience charge, Meyer says. Something you might buy for $3 at your local grocery store could be $7 or $8 in the middle of nowhere.

EXPLORE YOUR BACKYARD

Every state has at least one national park site, so you dont necessarily have to spend a lot of money to travel to one.

Its not always saving up for that once-in-a-lifetime trip to the Grand Canyon. You can go for a day or a weekend to a park near you, Kupper says.

LOOK FOR FREE ACTIVITIES

National Park Service programming, with few exceptions, is free, Kupper says. That includes activities like ranger-led hikes, snowshoe walks and kayak tours.

You can see potential itineraries and book tours at the National Park Service website. Once in the park, stop by a visitor center for more information.

Spending time in nature is good for body and soul, Kupper says. Doing it cheaply can be good for your wallet, too.Deb Haalands path to political prominence in New Mexico started with a phone bank.

The New Mexico Democrat and Laguna Pueblo member was working the phones for presidential candidate John Kerry during the 2004 election and found herself energized by the buzz and purpose of the campaign. That effort led to volunteer work on other campaigns, and then she became a candidate herself, winning the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor of New Mexico in 2014. Although she lost in the general election, New Mexico Democrats elected her as state party chairwoman a year later.

Now, Haaland, 57, has set her sights on the open 1st Congressional District seat and hopes to become the first Native American woman elected to Congress.

Every time I got more involved, it made me feel increasingly like I wanted to serve the people of New Mexico, Haaland recalled in a Journal interview. I feel like I have something to offer this state that I love and the district I love. I know what its like for a lot of folks in this district. Ive had to struggle myself so I feel like I can take that experience and fight for things that I think the people here need and deserve.

Haaland said as shes traveled the state and 1st District as party chairwoman and now as a congressional candidate shes spoken with thousands of voters and found that economic issues dominate their lives.

Their struggles are about their status as a single parent or working to pay off student loans and trying to support a family and these are all the same things Ive been doing myself, said Haaland. I have the same story as a lot of people, and I think I can be effective that way.

Born into a military family in Winslow, Ariz., Haaland said she moved around as a child but frequently visited relatives in New Mexico. She settled in the state permanently 30 years ago while obtaining an undergraduate and law degree from the University of New Mexico. She has since worked as a tribal administrator for Laguna Pueblo and was elected chairwoman of the Laguna Development Corp. board of directors, where she said she oversaw business operations of the second-largest tribal gaming enterprise in New Mexico.

Haaland has one adult daughter. In her first campaign television advertisement, she notes that she has been sober for 30 years.

Haaland said that if elected, combating climate change and creating new jobs through clean energy, pushing for universal health care, protecting unions and ensuring equality for LGBT residents would be among her top priorities.

We have almost 300 days of sunshine right here in New Mexico; we can start this renewable energy revolution, Haaland said. New Mexico can be on the forefront of that. At the same time, it can create a lot of jobs we need here.

Haaland also said she would support Democratic congressional legislation to open the federally subsidized Medicare program to all Americans.

If we had health care for everybody, parents wouldnt have to send their kids to school sick, she said. When you dont have a healthy community, it affects our economy.

Haalands first television commercial of the campaign, which began airing last week, highlights her Native American ancestry. Asked why its important that New Mexico elect a Native American to Congress, she said, Diversity matters.

We have a nice, diverse state here in New Mexico, when you have folks who have never had anyone in a body of legislators who looks like them and youve never had anyone who looks like them they tend to feel that they are underrepresented, she said. Its not why Im running; its who I am. Im running because I feel like I can be an effective voice for folks here in District 1 and across the state.

Haaland has been endorsed by more than a dozen New Mexico pueblos, as well as the American Federation of Teachers New Mexico, National Education Association  New Mexico, the Congressional Black Caucus, Equality New Mexico and others.Damian Lara, a lawyer and former congressional staffer, views his life story as the embodiment of the American dream, and he said hes running for Congress to help others achieve the dream for themselves.

Raised by a single mother and an aunt in the eastern New Mexico farming community of Melrose, Lara, 40, said he grew up working in the potato and onion fields before moving to El Paso, where he finished high school and was accepted to Brown University, an Ivy League school in Rhode Island.

Lara says that he worked his way through high school and college and that after graduating, he took a job with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in Washington. He eventually made his way back to New Mexico, where he received a law degree at the University of New Mexico in 2007. Since then, Lara has served as counsel in the state House of Representatives, deputy assessor of Bernalillo County and as an immigration and family lawyer.

For me, it really is the best way I know how to give back to the people of New Mexico, Lara said of his decision to seek the 1st Congressional District seat. I know what its like to not only struggle and work hard and achieve the American dream, but because of my education and professional career  15 years of reading and drafting legislation  I know how to draft laws that can improve the lives of New Mexicans.

In a Journal interview, Lara touted his experience with the legislative process as distinguishing him from the pack of five other Democratic candidates in the 1st District.

It was my job to implement the legislative strategy  everything from following the appropriations process to working on things like the farm bill, the (military) Base Realignment and Closure process, and those things that we are heavily dependent on in New Mexico, Lara said. Im completely and intimately knowledgeable with the issues of New Mexico, whether its the jet fuel (leak) at Kirtland Air Force Base or securing funding for uranium mining reclamation in Indian country. Those are issues that we are heavily involved in here in New Mexico, but they also impact directly with the policies and funding in Washington, D.C.

No disrespect to the other candidates, but I am the only candidate who has the critical work experience in Washington, he added.

He also says he is the only candidate who has had a business that has employed other people.

Lara said that if 1st District voters send him to Washington, he will focus on policies that can help alleviate poverty, including increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour and supporting tax reforms that benefit the middle class. He also vowed to fight for easier access to loans for hardworking New Mexicans, including small business people, farmers and ranchers. Lara said he and his wife, who both hold law degrees, were unable to get affordable loans and had to rely on an older friend to help start their firm.

While the rest of the country is at 4 percent or 3 percent unemployment, were still twice that, at 6 or 7 percent unemployment, Lara said. We really need to make sure we fix that, and part of the way we do that is to make sure we address wealth inequality.

We have to make sure the priorities are for hardworking New Mexicans and not the 1 percent.

Lara has been endorsed by Albuquerque Our Revolution; Bernalillo County Bernie Dems; former state Rep. Eleanor Chavez; Teresa Garcia, founder of One of Many; and others.At this years legislative session, Rep. Deborah Armstrong, D-Albuquerque, sponsored House Memorial 29 to set up a health care cost, quality and coordination commission. True Health New Mexico supported the memorial in the hopes it would lead to cost transparency and containment. The bill died, but the need for cost transparency and containment is more important than ever.

True Health New Mexicos medical management team, formerly the medical management team at New Mexico Health Connections (NMHC) and now providing services for both companies, sees measurable results in our advanced practices that lead to cost containment and better outcomes. We hope that some of these successes can translate into statewide policies and procedures.

Rep. Armstrongs memorial brought to light the areas in which consumers can be more empowered and benefit from more clarity in how they seek care. It promised better care at lower costs, which is good for the consumer, the health care provider and the health plan  and it helps our communities thrive. When the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was created, the guiding principle was that the tired, cynical business model of insurers running away from financial and health risks was no longer acceptable. The ACA challenged insurers to embrace their populations and manage their health.

NMHC and True Health New Mexico have done exactly that by working closely with both the insureds and the medical providers early on in patients care to keep insured members out of the hospital. When insurers manage health so that patients have better outcomes and lower expenditures, it is good for everyone, aside from maybe a handful of hospitals that would be disappointed  from a business perspective  to have fewer sick people coming through their doors.

Our team has created an advanced analytic system that uses data from health plan claims and the New Mexico Health Information Exchange to identify and stratify members who are at health risk, and intervene before avoidable health issues occur. For example, we connect with people who, sometimes despite best efforts, simply do not refill their chronic medication prescriptions. We also connect members with primary care clinicians when we identify the need through member outreach driven by advanced analytics.

We have a robust team of case managers and care coordinators, and we are invested in medical management personnel beyond what a standard health plan would do. We arent shy about reaching out to the providers, and helping them optimize care and remove barriers for their patients. We regularly have peer-to-peer conversations to facilitate highly coordinated and individually customized care.

We have found that this level of high touch leads to a reduced need for more expensive care. The results speak for themselves:

Our members historical hospital admission rate runs 41 to 43 admissions per 1,000 members per year  significantly below both the well-managed mark of 50+ per 1,000 and the New Mexico commercial average of 55 per 1,000.

Our 30-day all-cause hospital re-admission rate historically has run between 4.5 percent and 6 percent  again, well below national and local benchmarks, which run from 9 percent to 12 percent for similar populations.

Our successes in consumer empowerment showcase the ways in which legislation like House Memorial 29 can help all New Mexicans. The bill stated the need to set up the independent commission because health care costs are consuming an increasing percentage of the New Mexico state budget, which necessitates that the state seek ways to manage health care costs without causing widespread disruption.

The state needs to shine a light on the need for cost management and transparency. It is possible and necessary to have cost containment and transparency coupled with excellent care and improved outcomes for New Mexicans.

Lets urge our leaders in the next legislative session to create new initiatives to lead the nation in more effective medical management and consumer empowerment in health care to benefit everyone.In New Mexico, food is at the heart of our culture. In this collective identity we have a shared understanding that no one in the community should ever go hungry. Unfortunately, 20 percent of New Mexicans do not have enough to eat right now, including as many as one in three children.

The 2018 U.S. Farm Bill, proposed by Republicans in Congress, would make the situation unbearably worse for our families by cutting SNAP  the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program  and preventing more than 120,000 New Mexicans from putting food on the table. New Mexico can simply not afford such a huge step backward.

Currently, SNAP helps one in four New Mexicans buy and cook food for their families and generates economic activity in local grocery stores and in our agricultural industry. But just months after congressional Republicans passed a tax bill that increased government aid to the wealthiest households and corporations, their proposal would now end or cut food benefits for a large portion of low-income families and take money directly out of our local economy.

The proposal will cut $20 billion over the next 10 years in SNAP resources, increasing hardship and inequality in our country and state. The bill further mandates that our state government develop a large new bureaucracy to administer ineffective work requirements. These requirements are proven to both increase food insecurity and fail to increase employment or income.

New Mexicans already rejected two attempts by Gov. Susana Martinez to impose similarly counterproductive and costly work requirements in the New Mexico SNAP program. When the state tried to move forward with the requirements despite widespread public opposition, the program was administered so poorly that a judge ordered the Human Services Department to stop implementation  twice.

SNAP is a proven poverty-busting program that provides a critical work support for New Mexicans. Most people on SNAP that can work, do work. In New Mexico, 51 percent of families that participate in SNAP include a working adult. The average participant receives SNAP for just 15 months and 52 percent of participants worked the month after they first received SNAP.

The congressional bill isnt just an attack on families in New Mexico who use SNAP, its an attack on our local economies. Federal SNAP dollars flow into our local economy and directly invest in our vibrant local food systems. Over $63 billion in SNAP dollars are spent every year at SNAP retailers, like local grocery stores and farmers markets, creating jobs and improving access to healthy and fresh foods, and strengthening New Mexicos culture and communities.

If lawmakers want to increase income and employment for low-income Americans, they should invest in evidence-based policies that will make an impact. New Mexicans have for years been asking elected leaders to take action we all know would increase employment and earnings in our state: improve access to affordable health care; fully fund our education system, especially early childhood education; raise and enforce the minimum wage; end predatory lending practices; and invest in safety net programs that help families meet basic needs. The Farm Bill proposal is a threat to our entire state. New Mexicos congressional delegation should reject the proposal.Albuquerque City Councilor Pat Davis has a ready reply when voters ask what distinguishes him from five other Democratic candidates in New Mexicos 1st Congressional District race: Hes the only one whos been elected to public office and passed legislation.

A former Washington, D.C., police officer and founder of the liberal advocacy group ProgressNow New Mexico, Davis was elected to the Albuquerque City Council in 2015 representing Nob Hill, the International District, Mesa Del Sol, the University of New Mexico and much of the Southeast Heights.

During his tenure in office, Davis, 39, has sponsored legislation that was signed into law to improve school shooting investigations, promote clean energy and reform the Albuquerque Police Department. He has also noted in interviews and in campaign advertisements that hes supported pro-LGBTQ positions and that, if elected, he would be New Mexicos first openly gay member of Congress.

They want to see somebody whos got a record, Davis said of 1st District voters. What they keep saying is, Show me what youve done. Folks who care about immigration, the war on drugs, criminal justice and climate change, they are coming back to candidates like me who have actually worked on those issues and shown how we turn rhetoric into results and have actually passed legislation.

Davis acknowledged that he earned a reputation as a political bomb-thrower while at ProgressNow New Mexico. The Santa Fe New Mexican dubbed him Republican Gov. Susana Martinezs harshest critic at one point. But Davis said working effectively as an elected official requires compromise, and said hes learned to do that, passing police reform and renewable energy legislation with the help of Republicans.

Nobody is more surprised than me that I sponsored more legislation with (Republican Albuquerque City Councilors) Trudy Jones and Brad Winter than I did with (Democrat) Ike Benton, Davis said, before making it clear that his national priorities align very closely with the Democratic Partys. As a Democrat, Im going to vote with Democratic leadership most of the time  for the agenda that we think the country needs to take the White House back in 2020.

Davis said economic issues dominate voter concerns in the 1st District and that, if elected, he would work in concert with state and local officials in New Mexico to set priorities at the federal level aimed at job creation. He said that too often in the past, local, state and federal leaders have failed to coordinate agendas.

I think you have to have somebody who is willing to get on a plane and work with (Albuquerque Mayor) Tim (Keller) and whoever the governor is and press a united agenda, Davis said. Thats one of the reasons in the last eight years or so that we havent gotten very far, because Santa Fe and Albuquerque and folks in D.C. are working in totally different directions. We have to reform our economy.

Davis also said he would prioritize criminal justice reform, including relaxing the nations harsh drug laws and working on sentencing reform, as well as advocating for policies that combat climate change.

Having a record on that, and my experiences, will help me fast-track a way to being a valuable tool in the process, Davis said.

Davis was raised in Newnan, Ga., by a postal worker father and mother who taught elementary school and later became a principal. After working as a police dispatcher to help put himself through Berry College in Georgia, Davis joined the U.S. Capitol Police force, protecting members of Congress, and later he worked for the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department, where he was a foot patrol and bicycle officer.

In 2004, he moved to New Mexico to accept a job as a lieutenant on the University of New Mexico police force.

Davis campaign has been endorsed by the International Union; United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America; National LGBTQ Victory Fund; The Pride Fund to End Gun Violence; Moms Demand Action For Gun Sense in America; Demand Universal Healthcare (DUH!) and some state and local elected officials.After growing up on an alfalfa farm and graduating from Los Lunas High School, Paul Moya left home to attend Notre Dame and then Harvard University, where he obtained a masters degree in education policy and management.

Moya, now 30, said he entertained job offers from firms in cities such as Los Angeles, Boston and New York after earning his graduate school diploma in 2013, but he wanted to return home.

The only place I wanted a job offer was a place nobody was hiring because the economy was broken, Moya said, referring to New Mexico in a Journal interview about his decision to run as a Democrat in the 2018 1st Congressional District race.

I moved away for opportunities to grow, but this is and always will be my home  so I created my own path. I created a company because that was my ticket home.

Moya is CEO of Millennial Labs, a business strategy consulting firm that  according to its website  can leverage data-driven analytics, real-world case studies, and behavioral economics to solve generational challenges in the workplace, marketplace, and voting booth.

He has been described by clients as an expert in helping companies engage millennials, defined as people who reach adulthood in the 21st century.

While Moya has not held public office, he served as national president of Future Farmers of America in 2008-2009 and was student body president of his graduate school at Harvard. He said his education and work experience is more relevant to New Mexico, which has long-standing trouble in both areas.

More political experience isnt going to solve these problems, Moya said. We need economic development and education policy experience. I am deeply entrenched at work in those policy issues every day.

Moya said he was compelled to run for New Mexicos open 1st District seat because he wants to help.

Too many people in this community feel like they dont have a voice and that no one is fighting for them, Moya said. Were 49th in job growth, we have one of the worst economies, one of the highest rates of childhood poverty and hunger, No. 1 in property crime, one of the highest rates of opioid overdoses. New Mexico is at the crossroads of a broken economy and a struggling education system, and from that intersection the rest of our problems come.

Moya said that although he respects the field of five other Democratic candidates in the 1st District race, his experience trumps theirs.

When nobody in the field had significant experience in economic development nor did anyone have a background in K-12 education  I began to look in the mirror and feel this conviction, Moya said about his decision to run. Its a deep sense of responsibility that led me to this place.

He also said that while he is aligned with mainstream New Mexico Democrats on most major issues, if elected, he would focus heavily on legislation that could improve education and job growth.

For me, those are the prerequisites, Moya said. But the heart and soul of our challenge comes down to those two things: A broken economy and a failing education system that we absolutely have to fix.

And, he said, the two issues are deeply linked.

Our students arent struggling in school because our teachers arent working hard, Moya said. We know there are eight hours in a (school) day and nothing helps impact a students ability to learn more than the time with those teachers for eight hours.

But there are 16 other hours in the day, and we know from cognitive development studies and the way that the brain forms that when a child is living in hunger that impacts their ability to learn, when a child is living in poverty it affects their ability to learn, or when a child is living in a home with alcohol or drug dependency or they are getting evicted  that affects their ability to learn.

He added, You cannot fix education in a vacuum.

Moya also said that growing up on a farm in a rural area gives him unique insights into the politically conservative mindset and that he would work with Republicans where possible on issues related to small businesses and taxation, and other economic issues.

Partisanship and gridlock doesnt move anything forward for anybody, Moya said. Were 49th in the country for job growth, so we cant afford for only one side to win. Its essential that we maintain a willingness to search for common ground.Intel has announced it will work with several nonprofits in northern New Mexico to help with water conservation in the Rio Grande watershed.

Linda Qian, Intel communication and media relations manager, said the company returns 80 percent of the water it uses back to the communities it works in.

The rest of it is lost to either evaporation or irrigation, Qian said. So a few years ago, we sat down and realized that there was more we could be doing.

Last fall, she said, Intel announced a new global goal to restore 100 percent of its water use around the world back to the communities surrounding its plants.

We are doing this by going out into the community and working with non-profits, like the National Forest Foundation and Trout Unlimited locally, Qian said. We really want to fund the collaborative community projects that benefit the watershed.

According to Qian, Intel has already funded environmental projects in California, Oregon and Arizona.

This is the first one we will be funding in New Mexico, and it should be in full swing in just a couple of months, Qian said.

The first project to begin in New Mexico is not at an Intel facility, she said, but in northern New Mexico.

In the winter time, not as much water flows through the Rio Grande and it impacts how fish are able to rear and spawn, and so what we are doing with Trout Unlimited is we are actually paying landowners in the area to release additional water into the watershed during those low-flow times, Qian said.

Work has already yielded results, she said.

This year the Rio Grandes flow was increased by 12 percent, which shows how impactful the work is, Qian said.

Now that this project is in place with funding, Qian said, Intel would like to continue it for the foreseeable future.After President Donald Trump replaced Damon Martinez as New Mexicos U.S. attorney along with 45 others around the country in March 2017, Martinez said he did some soul searching about what to do next.

At 51, he had cultivated a successful career in government and law, having previously served in the Washington offices of Sen. Jeff Bingman and then-Rep. Tom Udall. He also was nearly 15 years into a rewarding second career as an officer in the U.S. Army Reserve, which he enlisted in after the Sept. 11 attacks.

I just kept coming back to unfinished business, Martinez said. So many of the things Ive been working on my entire career caused me to actually think about running. In addition to my differences with President Trump and his administration on policy and many things, Im running to protect those institutions we hold dear to actually uphold democracy itself, whether its the free press, the courts, Congress, funding the EPA or the State Department.

Martinez, 52, said his career experience gives him unique insight into the challenges facing New Mexicos Albuquerque-based 1st Congressional District.

I have the background in which to do something and make a meaningful change, Martinez said.

Born in Albuquerque with family roots that span 10 generations in the state, Martinez attended the University of New Mexico and earned a bachelors degree, a Master of Business Administration and a law degree. After a stint as an assistant district attorney in Bernalillo County, Martinez moved to Washington, D.C., in the mid-1990s to work as a legislative assistant for Bingaman and later served as legislative director in Udalls House office. In 2000, he returned to New Mexico and launched a career as a federal prosecutor in Las Cruces. He was named U.S. attorney for New Mexico in 2014 by then President Barack Obama.

If elected to Congress, Martinez said he would focus heavily on legislation that could improve the health care system, protect civil rights and the environment and encourage clean energy sources that he says can create jobs for New Mexicans.

When I was U.S. attorney, we did a first-of-its-kind investigation at the University of New Mexico concerning sexual assault, and what we found was a system that benefited the perpetrator at the expense of the victims, so we changed the system there, Martinez said, adding that U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos wants to reverse that. Civil rights is absolutely crucial to me. I prosecuted a sheriff for civil rights violations, and he was held accountable for what he did.

Martinez was referring to the conviction and 10-year prison sentence handed down to former Rio Arriba County Sheriff Tommy Rodella.

Martinez noted the opioid crisis ravaging New Mexico families and said it has also affected a close family member of his own.

By being personally affected by this issue, I realize we cant prosecute our way out of it, he said. Im going to Washington to hold the big pharmaceutical companies accountable for devastating an entire generation of Americans with this opioid epidemic.

Martinez also vowed to continue work by New Mexicos congressional delegation to spur technology transfer from the Department of Energy and military research institutions in the state.

I want to continue that process and get technology out to entrepreneurs who can grow our industries here, he said. Were 48th in the nation in developing our renewable technology, and we should be No. 1. If we can create businesses from the technology we have we can expand our economy to include more than just federal money.

As an active member of the military, Martinez also said he would be well-positioned to protect Kirtland Air Force Base in the event of another Base Realignment and Closure round in Congress.

We cant afford to have it closed, and Im in a unique position to defend it, he said.

We have a duty to provide a better life than we inherited from our parents, and so thats how Im going forward in this race, he added.

Martinez has been endorsed by Bingaman, former Ambassador to Spain Ed Romero and the military supporting organizations VoteVets and With Honor.As a longtime law professor and civil rights activist, Antoinette Sedillo Lopez never saw herself as a potential politician, but others did.

After Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, a former law student of hers told Sedillo Lopez that her understanding of constitutional law would be of immense value in a Congress likely to be challenged by Trumps leadership. Sedillo Lopez took the advice to heart, and after watching millions of women pour into the streets to protest Trump the day after the inauguration, she decided to jump into New Mexicos 1st Congressional District race.

We need someone who has a deep understanding of the Constitution and someone who knows how government works, she said in a Journal interview. I think thats absolutely critical in these times with this president. Im one of these people responding to our current crisis.

Sedillo Lopez, 61, said as shes traveled the Albuquerque-based district listening to voter concerns, shes become heavily focused on a few key issues: extending legal protections for so-called Dreamers whose parents brought them to the U.S. illegally, enacting Medicare health care coverage for all, expanding renewable energy, raising the federal minimum wage and pushing for bigger middle-class tax cuts.

We have really serious economic and social problems, which leads to really serious crime problems, Sedillo Lopez said. I will use my experience to help provide relief for the people and the working families in this district.

She also said that although shes a Democrat, she views the fierce partisanship on Capitol Hill as disturbing. She said the current pattern of whipsawing from bill to bill based on whichever party controls Congress is bad for the country.

I think our best legislation has been bipartisan  the Civil Rights Act, labor laws, trade issues, Sedillo Lopez said. I think we need to work on immigration jointly. As a law professor, Im not about sound bites. Im about communication and that is what Ive tried to do all my life. And if we can get Congress to work together its going to be much more effective.

At the same time, Sedillo Lopez suggested she may be willing to support impeachment proceedings against Republican President Trump if they arose in Congress before the end of his term.

If we (Democrats) dont take back the House and Senate, there will not be accountability for this president, Sedillo Lopez said. There is a lot of evidence, and we will see more, I think, that will justify impeachment, and nothing is happening. There is not enough integrity and accountability in the system right now, and I plan to be a very loud and powerful voice.

Sedillo Lopez noted her long track record as an advocate for women, immigrants and the disadvantaged, including setting up free legal clinics at the University of New Mexico, serving as a member of the board of the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund and as president of the Southwest Womens Law Center.

I have a track record that far exceeds any of the other candidates, she said.

The candidate grew up on her parents farm in Los Chavez. She attended the University of New Mexico and then earned a law degree from the UCLA School of Law, where she met her husband, Victor. Sedillo Lopez lives in Albuquerque and has three grown children.

She has been endorsed by the Latino Victory Fund, the NM Building & Construction Trades Council, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus PAC, The People for Bernie (Sanders) and the Working Families Party of New Mexico, among numerous state and local officials.LAS CRUCES  Barbara Damron said she is ready to hit the ground running if selected to be the new chancellor of New Mexico State University.

Damron met stakeholders in an open forum at Corbett Center Student Union on Friday, the last of five chancellor candidates to do so. She said her experience and dedication to the state of New Mexico are what set her apart from the other candidates.

I bring a multifaceted approach, Damron said. And I have a higher education background. Ive served as staff, Ive served as faculty and Ive served as an administrator.

Damron brings with her a resume that includes positions in the private sector as a nurse, in the state legislature and the United States Senate and in higher education with her current position as cabinet secretary for the New Mexico Higher Education Department, among others.

This, Damron said, is why she is the perfect person for the job, adding that as the sitting cabinet secretary she has experience in advocating for higher education, and in fact has her pulse on all things higher ed in the state.

Enrollment and retention

NMSUs has seen a decline in enrollment and retention, which has led to funding issues and staff cuts. Damron said these are two things that need immediate attention at the university and she plans to jump on in with a plan if selected as chancellor

Damron said she would take a three-pronged approach to addressing the issue starting with visiting the states high schools herself to help create a pipeline between high school students and NMSU. Damron said that, as cabinet secretary, high schools tell her their students never see the face of a president of a university. She would change that.

I need to be out there and recruiting those students to this amazing university thats here, Damron said.

Damron added that she would also increase active recruiting to neighboring states who have more students than they can accept.

Third, Damron wants to see NMSU open its arms to adult learners, including military veterans and those who have taken a few courses but have not received a degree.

We need to change how we approach those, Damron said. Lets give credit for prior learning, lets do competency-based education, lets make our schedules fit for their needs.

Theres a whole group we have not done a good job statewide at attracting.

Damron said she feels confident the university can turn around its numbers in enrollment and retention adding, I see (NMSU) as the pre-eminent university not only in the state but in the region and of all the land-grant universities, because we are a unique land-grant university.

Emphasis on research

Damron also said she believes in investing in strong research enterprises and said she would focus on building a research infrastructure.

I recognize the cuts youve been through, but there are some cases where we need to put more resources into where we want to grow and research is one, Damron said.

The infrastructure would include having adequate staffing, whether grant money is coming in or not, Damron said. She added that she understands its a risk, but that by going to donors, asking for money and time, NMSU would be able get a return on their investment.

Once an infrastructure is established, Damron said, administration would need to create an enthused culture among faculty which in turns brings in students excited to learn.

Success breeds success, Damron said. And successful research entities grow on that, they breed on that.

A love for New Mexico

Damron grew up in New Orleans and studied in Nebraska and Texas, but claims herself a New Mexican, saying that she and her husband have lived in the state for decades and have no intention of leaving.

She added that she is dedicated to New Mexico and is excited about taking the knowledge she has to work where the state needs her most.

Im from New Mexico  I love it here, Im staying here, Im not looking anywhere else, Im not going anywhere else, Damron said.

Damron said she was most attracted to the position by the unique qualities NMSU holds including its location, its position as a university system with four other community college locations that feed into it and its work in serving Hispanic and Native American communities.

I feel like NMSU is calling me, I am called to it, Damron said. I love this institution. I think its amazing, and I can say that, because Ive been to every single higher education institution in the state multiple times.

Damron was a candidate for the recent presidential opening at the University of New Mexico, though she was not among the finalists, the Albuquerque Journal reported.SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas  A new church has broken ground in the Texas town of Sutherland Springs six months after a gunman killed more than two dozen people during a Sunday service.

Sherri Pomeroy of First Baptist Church says Saturdays groundbreaking was held on the six-month anniversary of the deadliest mass shooting in Texas history to celebrate the lives that our friends and family lived.

Pomeroys husband is the pastor of the church where Devin Patrick Kelley opened fire. Their 14-year-old daughter was among those killed. Authorities put the official death toll at 26 because one of the 25 people killed was pregnant.

The San Antonio Express-News reports that community members reiterated during the weekend ceremony that no victims funds would be used for construction of the new $3 million church.

___

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Please enable notifications in your browser and reload the page.GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip  Despite Gazan societys negative reaction toward fashion models, Reham al-Kahlout, one of the pioneers in this profession, firmly advocates a modeling career to her peers.

Kahlout, a 19-year-old model from Gaza City, started working as a fashion model about a year ago. Despite her reluctance to venture into the field because of the negative social outlook, her family encouraged her to go for it, believing it to be a unique experience.

When I walk in the streets, I get negative and sometimes abusive comments, but I do not care about that. I have my familys support, she told Al-Monitor, adding that one has to have courage, the ability to shrug off negative comments and a supportive family.

Gaza held its first fashion show in April 2016 at a beachfront hotel in the presence of local media outlets. Young women modeled traditional costumes during the show to shed light on Palestinian heritage. And while these young women were criticized on social networking sites, the criticism they received was not too harsh because their costumes were conservative.

After the fashion show, various clothing shops and boutiques discovered that using real models to show collections proved to be a better marketing tool than using mannequins. So they started using models for the fashion photos they posted on social media, thus creating a new profession for women.

Kahlout explained that shop owners encouraged her to become a model. Many of the clothing dealers were very eager to do their first photo shoot with me, she said.

Kahlout gets paid well. I get $100 for half an hour of clothes modeling and photo shooting, which is very good, she said

Nesma Hamed, 23, who studies business at the Islamic University of Gaza, was forced to drop out of school because her father could no longer afford her university fees. Three months ago, she decided to work as a model, despite social pressures.

My friends encouraged me to [become a model]. They told me that I have a beautiful face that qualifies me to be a model, so I decided to break with the social stereotype and do my first photo session for a women's clothing store in Gaza, she told Al-Monitor.

I faced wide criticism. My fiance broke up with me because he thought my work disrespected our religion and morals, but this did not stop me either, she said.

With the start of the modeling phenomenon on social networks in the Gaza Strip, Mohammad Abu Alkomboz, the co-founder of Bassma Digital News agency and a specialist in building digital strategies and policies in Gaza, made an offer in November 2017 to young women on his Facebook page: We are looking for girls to model women's clothing, including jilbab [loose cloth that covers the body]. The models faces will be photographed.

He immediately came under fire. Abdel Salam Obaid commented on the post, writing, Hard luck, my friend, our customs and traditions do not tolerate this. Rana Shemali wrote, Choose your sister or wife! They might be better at modeling!

Others, however, welcomed the announcement. Khouloud Shaaban replied to the negative comments by saying, Why the negativity? Rama Tamer wrote, It's a very nice idea.

Abu Alkomboz told Al-Monitor that he had expected negative comments on his Facebook post because Palestinian culture does not approve of allowing women to work as models, but he wanted to encourage young women to join the profession and break with community restrictions. He said clothing stores in Gaza prefer to promote goods through models instead of mannequins, as seeing clothing items on human bodies is more attractive to buyers.

The social criticism prompted 19-year-old Samaher, who only gave her first name during her interview with Al-Monitor, to pass on her dream of becoming a model. I did one photo shoot for a clothing shop, but when my photos were published on Facebook, my family was mad at me. They also contacted the owner of the shop, asked him to remove my photos immediately and gave him the money back, she said.

Many shop owners who recently used live models to market their clothes refused to talk to Al-Monitor. One shop owner, who asked Al-Monitor not to use his name, said many of the aspiring models would impose conditions such as wearing long dresses only or simply not showing their faces at all during the photo shoot.

When such conditions are imposed, models receive no more than 100 shekels [$27.50] for each photo shoot, the shop owner said, describing Kahlout as courageous and unique as she is the only model in Gaza who agreed to model without wearing a veil.

Kahlout said that she doesn't mind modeling without a veil and that she doesn't mind modeling other types of clothes such as denim pants, pajamas and jackets. The clothes I pose in have to be decent and should not show any part of my body, but that is all I request, she said.This week US President Donald Trump will decide whether the United States will stay or go with regard to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran nuclear deal.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with an eye on Trumps May 12 decision deadline, offered his own political trifecta April 30, all hedged toward the prospect of escalation with Iran.

First, Israeli F-15 fighter jets destroyed a cache of 200 Iranian-origin missiles in Syria, killing perhaps dozens of Iranians in the process. Second, the Knesset approved a proposal authorizing the prime minister and defense minister to declare war under extreme circumstances. And third, Netanyahu announced an intelligence windfall of Iranian nuclear documents, procured by Mossad operatives in Iran, which provide further detail of Irans clandestine nuclear program prior to the JCPOA.

The question of why it was urgent for Netanyahu to push forward right now a law that grants him great power and simultaneously weakens the diplomatic-security Cabinet in a consequential decision to declare war was not subject to an in-depth or serious public discussion, Mazal Mualem reports. Naturally, it was overshadowed by the drama of the speech Netanyahu delivered.

Netanyahu looked like a groom on his wedding day, Ben Caspit writes. He had the demeanor of an Apple executive introducing the world to the latest iPhone, not the darkest secrets of Irans nuclear program. Ostensibly, it was another productive day for Israels leaders and their security forces. In reality, Israel and Iran were still dancing a deadly tango on the mouth of the Middle Eastern volcano.

One frightening answer to the rationale for the prime ministers actions, writes Akiva Eldar, is that Netanyahu is riding high on the Iranian files to divert attention from the police investigations dogging him and his wife.

Netanyahus public revelation of the documents may have undermined Mossads future operations inside Iran. The exposure  claimed a former very senior Mossad official who spoke to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity  could exact a steep price from the agency, both because the Iranians would seek to quickly plug the leak and because it could endanger operatives and operational procedures, writes Yossi Beilin.

Netanyahus mistake was in exposing an open secret, Beilin adds. The Iranians have been claiming for years that they do not intend to develop nuclear weapons, that they themselves were victims of nonconventional weapons (referring to the chemical warfare waged against them in the 1980s by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein) and that such weapons contradict the path of Islam. They also argue that the person who started developing Irans nuclear capability was the shah prior to the Islamist Revolution in 1979, and he did so with American help in order to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. The truth is that Iran did begin to develop atomic weaponry, initially probably against Saddam and subsequently against everyone else, and tried to cheat the whole world.

There is also the sense that an Iran-Israel conflict, already on a low boil, is about to heat up. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) freedom of action against Iran can also be attributed to the fact that until May 12, when President Donald Trump is scheduled to decide the fate of the Iranian nuclear deal, Tehran has put all its actions on hold, Caspit writes. The last thing that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leader Qasem Soleimani need now is a major war in the Middle East targeting Israel. That is why Israel is allowing itself to tug on the rope and raise the threshold on an almost daily basis.

In Iran, writes Saeid Jafari, the assortment of broken promises by the United States, Israel's attacks on Syria and the joint US-French-British missile strikes have all contributed to the emergence of deeply negative views among Iranian political elites of the prospects of any form of negotiations with the West over the country's missile program. Although this viewpoint is more strongly felt among hard-liners, moderates and even Reformists appear convinced that any such negotiation will only be a pretext for weakening Iran's capabilities and setting the stage for a more vulnerable Tehran in the future. If anything, this sentiment will likely increase manifold should Trump withdraw from the nuclear deal on May 12.

Now that the IDF is bracing for an Iranian response to recent alleged Israeli attacks in Syria (which, it is thought, left dozens of Iranian troops dead), Israel will be forced to decide how exactly it will respond, Caspit writes. The intelligence assessment is that Iran will attempt a response that exacts a similar cost and mode of operation to those taken by Israel. In other words, it would attack an Israeli military target and try to take a toll on uniformed troops. If that is the case, will Israel 'contain' the Iranian response and react in a measured and tempered way so that the situation doesnt deteriorate any further? It all depends on the circumstances of the attack. Should Israel respond against Iranian targets in Syria, or should it attack Iran itself? This lies at the base of a significant debate, which has yet to be decided.

Previous articles in Al-Monitor revealed that some members of the Israeli Cabinet support moving this war against Iran directly to the territory of Iran itself, after allowing it to simmer on a low burner for such a long time. Caspit adds. In other words, if something blows up in Israel, something should blow up in Tehran as well. The purpose would be to ensure that Iran cannot hide behind its various proxies in the region, whether Hezbollah, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad or the Shiite militias.

Another trend to watch is the outcome of Lebanons parliamentary elections, which are taking place as this column goes to press. Hezbollah is running candidates across Lebanon for the first time to expand the scope of a Hezbollah-friendly parliament, Joe Macaron reports. There is no doubt that the Shiite coalition (Hezbollah and Amal) is preparing a contingency plan by enlisting hawkish figures as candidates in case a political confrontation with Hariri is renewed. Hezbollah sees the elections as a chance to demonstrate that its legitimacy in Lebanon is not coerced. The challenge, therefore, is not to merely score a definite victory, but to secure a decent turnout in the predominantly Shiite areas, where there is growing socio-economic discontent. Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah has made corruption a central campaign issue for the first time, setting the stage for a new phase in expanding Hezbollahs role in governing.Turkeys top Kurdish leader Selahattin Demirtas, one of the few names who proved he could challenge President Recep Tayyip Erdogans charisma, has decided to run in the June 24 presidential elections, seemingly undaunted by the bars of his prison cell.

Turkeys pro-Kurdish Peoples Democratic Party (HDP) announced Demirtas candidacy May 4. Our candidate is Selahattin Demirtas, who is being held as a hostage in Edirne Prison, HDP Co-chair Pervin Buldan was quoted by Hurriyet Daily news as saying in a statement.

Turkeys westernmost province of Edirne is the farthest point from the predominantly Kurdish southeast where Demirtas main constituency is located.

Demirtas ran against Erdogan in the August 2014 presidential race, winning 9.8% of the votes, and, more importantly, raising hopes that for the next parliamentary elections a pro-Kurdish party might pass the 10% national election threshold for the first time in history.

Indeed, the HDP led by Demirtas won 13.1% of the vote on June 7, 2015, passing the threshold. Kicking that campaign off with a powerful slogan referring to Erdogans dream of an executive presidency  We wont let you become president  the HDPs election success also stripped the ruling Justice and Development Partys (AKP) of the parliamentary majority required to form a single-party government.

Erdogan in return pushed for a rerun election held in November 2015 and terminated the peace talks between the Turkish government and Kurdish militants. The political climate during the fight against the Kurdistan Workers Party managed to unite Turkeys nationalist voter base behind Erdogan. The AKP won a constitutional majority to form a single-party government, paving the way for Erdogan to further strengthen his one-man rule. The July 2016 coup attempt provided the most important ammunition for this cause, giving him a pretext to imprison dissidents against his rule, including Demirtas.

However, Demirtas never gave up his defiant tone.

Despite all the pressures, the virtuous stand of the millions whose hearts are beating with me showed that there is no prison cell that can accommodate 6 million people, he said in one of his messages from his prison cell, referring to the total vote the HDP acquired in June 2015.

Demirtas also penned two articles and managed to leak them to the press, one of which was published by Yeni Ozgur Politika, a pro-Kurdish media outlet banned in Turkey.

The political arena is shaking with various tactical moves as the June 24 snap elections draw closer. The 50% threshold introduced by the AKP itself and the alliances act seem to have turned into a nightmare for the AKP-MHP [Nationalist Action Party] extreme right-wing bloc, Demirtas wrote. As the AKP and its leadership approach the end of their life, they keep making greater mistakes. The AKP's trying to break the hand that the Kurdish people offered for peace  instead of embracing it  was the beginning of the end for the AKP.

He continued and challenged the Islamist credentials of the AKP, writing, Looking with an objective lens, one can see that even cultural Islam has deteriorated and degenerated during their term, let alone political Islam.

Indeed, various Islamic communities in Turkey, including the tiny Islamist Felicity (Saadet) Party, now consider the AKP and its leadership as being like "the men who sold out the Islamist cause."

In his letter to the daily Cumhuriyet  perhaps the only remaining mainstream newspaper that is not subject to the control of Erdogan  Demirtas said the upcoming elections will be a historic breaking point for Turkey.

Fostering left-democratic values against fascism and carrying them to power is possible more than ever. If all progressive, revolutionary, public-spirited powers and cadres, youth and women present a united stance worthy of the leading role and put all of their energies and time to this struggle, then oppressed people could be the winning side of this historic breaking point, he wrote in his letter published May 2.

In his second article, published on the day his nomination was announced, he reiterated his call for a united opposition. If the opposition manages to agree on a principled arrangement, we may witness the 'tragic' end of the AKP.

However, such an arrangement does not seem to be in the cards. Four opposition parties who have formed an alliance for the parliamentary elections  including the main opposition Republican Peoples Party (CHP), the Good (Iyi) Party led-by Meral Aksener and the Felicity Party  excluded the HDP. The parties are running their own presidential candidates, however.

Now the danger is that if the HDP is unable to pass the 10% threshold to enter parliament, its current seats will be taken over by the AKP as the next most popular party in Turkeys mainly Kurdish southeast. Some Turkey observers and analysts argue that the government was counting on this scenario when deciding to hold snap elections.

The snap elections pre-empt any attempt by the AKP to veer off the nationalist course in order to secure the Kurdish vote. A few weeks before the snap elections were called, the governing party was reported to be considering a new 'opening' to the Kurds, to stem the rapid defection of Kurdish voters  not least as a result of Turkeys recent military intervention against the Kurds in Syria, Halil Karaveli, a senior fellow with the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute and Silk Road Studies Program, wrote.

Yet the Kurdish electorate could foil this plan. If the conservative and religious-minded Kurds who used to vote for the AKP abandon Erdogan and rally around Demirtas as some of them did in the June 2015 elections, Erdogan may not get elected in the first round. If Erdogan cannot get over 50% of the total vote June 24, the second round of the elections will be held July 8.

Considering the votes that will be won by his rivals  Demirtas, Aksener, CHP candidate Muharrem Ince and Felicity Party leader Temel Karamollaoglu  Erdogans first-round victory is far from certain, setting aside possible election rigging.

In any case, if the HDP manages to pass the election threshold, then we might be watching a different ballgame this summer.

The seemingly unshakable power of Erdogan could only be challenged by somebody with the composure of Demirtas. Only Demirtas could prevent Erdogan from reaching his goal; and he is doing it from his prison cell. If you can do this from a prison cell, you look indomitable.A fire at a Michigan supplier plant has temporarily halted some activity at the Mercedes-Benz plant in Vance, according to the company.

The fire at Magnesium Products of America, Inc. (MPA) in Eaton Rapids, Mich. happened Wednesday, according to Automotive News.

According to a statement from Mercedes-Benz, the fire "is interrupting the supply of key parts for MBUSI."

"Magnesium Products of America, Inc. (MPA) will provide media with updates on their operations," the statement reads. "Hopefully, you understand that we are not able to publicly discuss our relationship with suppliers. We can confirm that we are working diligently to keep parts shortfalls for MBUSI to a minimum.

"Some of our operations have not been affected by the MPA incident, but we do have some MBUSI shops that will temporarily halt production through Wednesday until an assessment and recovery plan is confirmed. No other details are available at this time."

Last week, workers at the MPA plant in Michigan were told the company was assessing the damage to identify when it will be safe for workers to return. Two workers were hospitalized and treated and released with minor injuries.Jennifer R. Statham Special to AL.com

Huntsville is home to one of The Boeing Company's top suppliers from around the world.

In February, Boeing awarded nLogic the Gold Boeing Performance Excellence Award for the tenth consecutive year. nLogic was then honored in April as one of Boeing's top 13 companies in performance, awarding nLogic the Supplier of the Year in Outstanding Performance category.

"In the aerospace defense industry, Boeing is a significant entity. They're in the top two or three aerospace defense companies in the country clearly," nLogic Founder, President and CEO Tim Thornton said. "They have 13,000 active suppliers, so to be the Outstanding Performance winner among 13,000 in the world, this is a very significant award."

NASA nominated nLogic for the Supplier of the Year award for its work on Space Launch System program. The company provides services to Boeing including systems engineering and integration, software life cycle, modeling and simulation, test and evaluation, logistics, information technologies, and cybersecurity.

The company has several contracts with Boeing including NASA's Space Launch System; Missile Defense Agency Ground-based Midcourse Defense; MDA Redesigned Kill Vehicle; MDA Multi-Object Kill Vehicle; U.S. Air Force Ground-based Strategic Deterrent; and US Army Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System.

"To me it's a very special one, because clearly, performance is everything. Doing an outstanding job is so important to us as a company to support our customers. In order to even qualify for this award you had to receive the Boeing Performance Excellence award at least five years consecutive, and we've actually achieved it an amazing 10 consecutive years since we've started the company," Thornton said.

"The Boeing Performance Award is very hard to achieve in a single year. You have to have a stellar performance and revenue at a certain level to even qualify. To win it 10 years in a row is tremendously hard to do."

Following footsteps

nLogic began in 2009 as a spin off of Torch Technologies. At the time, Thornton was the President of Torch Systems, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Torch Technologies. His team was divested from Torch because of changes in governmental conflict of interest rules and regulations.

"Both companies (Torch and nLogic) have done quite well and we've been following in their footsteps. A lot of the things we've accomplished, they've accomplished a few years prior to us, including last September we became a 100 percent (employee owned), just as Torch did a few years ago. So we have a lot in common," Thornton said.

nLogic started out with 20 employees with the company's main focus on engineering services. The group spent part of the 2009 year as Torch Systems and then part of the year as nLogic, closing out the year with about $5 million in revenue.

Now, the company has about 350 employees across nine operating locations around the country and six field service groups. nLogic's services now span aerospace defense, engineering, programmatics, logistics, and cyber and IT.

The company's customer base includes U.S. Army, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, U.S. Special Operations, U.S. General Services Administration, U.S. Strategic Command, Missile Defense Agency, Defense Commissary Agency, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and U.S. Department of Interior. nLogic closed out 2017 with $41.6 million in revenue.

Recent awards include: Inc. Magazine's Best Workplace Awards for 2016 and 2017, as well as the eight consecutive years recognized by Inc. Magazine among the Fastest-growing Private Companies in America; the 2016 U.S. Chamber of Commerce DREAM BIG Blue Ribbon Award; the 2017 winner of the Business of Character Award from Character Foundation of North Alabama; the 2017 Huntsville Association of Small Businesses in Advanced Technology Professional of the Year; The 2014 Huntsville/Madison County Chamber of Commerce Small Business of the Year in the 51 to 350 Employees Category; the 2016 Huntsville/Madison County Chamber of Commerce Russell G. Brown Executive Leadership Award; and the 2014 Better Business Bureau of North Alabama's Torch Award for marketplace ethics in government contracting category.

"We have so many government agencies that are located here at Redstone Arsenal and it provides an outstanding environment for small business to start and grow. There's a great talent pool of research, engineering and analysts here in this community. It's great to form partnerships with the government agencies and also the other large prime contractors, like Boeing, that have a significant presence here in the Huntsville area. It's a super exciting place to be and build a company."

Paying it forward

Thornton said nLogic went employee-owned in 2017 because, being a services company, the employees are the company's greatest asset. Employees are "on their game everyday" diligent and persistent in their proposal writing among other tasks. If the employee succeeds the company succeeds and that "pay if forward" belief sets the tone for nLogic, he said.

"We're an employee-centric company and putting the company into the hands of the employees, from an ownership perspective, keeps us from having to do a strategic acquisition or an equity buyout or something like that. Now the company's firmly in the hands of all of the employee-owners and I'm just an employee owner just like the rest of everyone else and it's a very motivating situation. The employees are more motivated, they deliver better products and services to our customers, the customers gain, that increases our revenue and then that piles back into the share price, so the employees end up winning again," Thornton said.

Not only does Thornton believe in paying it forward within the company but through mentoring individuals and companies within the community. Thornton is involved in several community and civic organizations where he mentors individual entrepreneurs. Additionally, as a company nLogic advises other companies.

In fact, nLogic agreed last year to collaborate with another Huntsville-based business, Enlogica Solutions, for business development efforts und the Small Business Administration "Mentor-Protege" program, where the company mentors and provides contracting technology transfer, technical and Managerial support to help Enlogica expand its client base.

"I've been mentored. The last three companies that I've worked for, the leaders, the CEOs of all three of those companies served as my mentor under their leadership. I'm grateful and indebted to each of them. They all three went on to win Small Business of the Year, as we did, from the local Chamber. It's an interesting experience to have shared that we each of these companies, and now I'm trying to give back and pay it forward to the next generation."Fire swept through a Hoover apartment complex early Saturday evening, leaving about 40 people displaced.

Hoover firefighters were dispatched at 5:45 p.m. to the 2005 Building at the Abbey at Riverchase apartments on Longleaf Drive. Capt. Rusty Lowe said 911 dispatchers received a call of a deck on fire at one of the apartment units.

When they arrived on the scene, the blaze had climbed to the attic and spread. In all, Lowe said, The apartment where the fire started suffered heavy fire damage and 19 other units received varying degrees of smoke, water and some fire damage. It took firefighters about 40 minutes to control the fire.

All of the residents were able to get out and there were no injuries to them or firefighters. The Red Cross is en route to the complex to assist the displaced residents.

Lowe said the cause of the fire remains under investigation.Two Alabama residents were among three people shot and killed in a Panama City Beach, Fla. hotel room Saturday morning, according to a report in the Panama City News Herald newspaper.

According to the News Herald, Amanda Stokes, 28, and Mark Stokes, 37, of Enterprise, Ala. were found shot to death in a room at the Hampton Inn and Suites on Front Beach Road in Panama City Beach, along with Kenneth Krause, 30, of Bonifay, Fla.

Police say all three sustained gunshot wounds, and that the crime scene was limited to the hotel room. The PCBPD says it is not searching for additional suspects in what appears to be a murder-suicide.

Police responded to a call of a possible suicide just after 8 a.m. Saturday, when they discovered three bodies.

The investigation into the incident is still ongoing.The reenactment of the 1963 Children's Crusade marches at St. Paul United Methodist Church in Birmingham brought foot soldiers, old and young, together to renew their commitment to fighting for justice and equality for all people.

Encouraged by that renewed spirit while acknowledging the crusades left to fight, Saturday's event served as a passing of the baton, from those who marched in 1963, to the young Birmingham leaders on the front lines of the battle against gun violence.

Young and old wore the signs handed out during the reenactment of the march: I am a foot soldier.

Birmingham civil rights leader Shelley Stewart at St. Paul United Methodist Church on May 5, 2018.

Shelley Stewart is encouraged by what he sees. "Young people now are not just talking about race," he said. "They're talking about the human race."

Stewart is famous for organizing meetings of Birmingham's black residents in the 50s and 60s through his radio broadcast, often misdirecting police while telling others in code where they could meet safely to plan how to break down resistance to integration.

Stewart sat in the first pew on Saturday alongside more than 20 of the foot soldiers who were among the thousands that marched in 1963. St. Paul was one of the churches where black Birmingham residents held planning meetings to create strategies to end state-sponsored segregation.

In the first week of May 1963, thousands of black children left school to march from the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church toward downtown Birmingham's business district to protest segregation. Children were jailed by the hundreds, and the images of police dogs and fire hoses being turned on children shocked the nation's conscience and forced President John F. Kennedy to take action.

The comparisons between the marches of 1963 and the more recent student-led marches and walkouts protesting gun violence are unavoidable.

National media made the connection soon after the tragedy at Florida's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where a gunman killed 17 students and faculty on Valentine's Day. The similarities between the impact the Children's Crusade had on the Civil Rights movement and the impact students from Stoneman Douglas have had in forcing the nation to have a conversation about gun law reforms are easy to make.

As the choir from Birmingham's Parker High School filled the church with young people's voices, a slideshow projected onto the walls of the church interspersed images of the 1963 marches with social media posts from the March for Our Lives events in Birmingham and in Washington and of the recent town hall against gun violence created and produced by middle- and high-school students in Birmingham City Schools.

Justin Smith, a 10th-grader at Wenonah High School, is humbled by the comparison. Smith conceived the idea for the town hall in the days following the shooting death of Huffman High School senior Courtlin Arrington.

Smith and other student leaders had breakfast with the original marchers before Saturday's meeting. "It felt like they were giving us the instructions on how to carry on and fight the same fight that they fought in the early 60s and late 50s," Smith said.

Catherine Barnes Gooden and Vidal Lanier at the reenactment of the 1963 Children's Crusade marches on May 5, 2018, at St. Paul United Methodist Church in Birmingham, Ala.

"I feel as if the torch was being passed over to us," he said. "It was very emotional but also inspiring at the same time."

Ashley Causey, a senior at Shelby County's Helena High School who led the Birmingham March for Our Lives, said it is because of the foot soldiers' perseverance that demonstrations like the march were able to happen. "We wouldn't have been able to do that today if they hadn't stepped up first."

Causey was uncomfortable with comparisons to the children of 1963 saying, "They had to face so much more than we did. We face people behind screens on social media, but they faced people in front of them with weapons and hoses and dogs."

Foot soldiers of the 1963 Birmingham Children's Crusade during the 55th commemoration of the marches at St. Paul United Methodist Church on May 5, 2018, in Birmingham, Ala.

Vidal Lanier is a youth leader at the church. Lanier grew up in Birmingham and said while it appears that some things have changed since the original foot soldiers marched, much hasn't.

"We're still running away from violence every day," he said. Young people often choose rebellion and fighting instead of the peaceful methods of the original marches, he said, and that needs to change.

"We have to start as people to spread positivity," Lanier said, adding that people have a choice in how they respond to challenging events in their lives.

That can be hard for young people who often feel disconnected from the larger community, though. Noah Ogunmakin is a ninth-grader at Holy Family Cristo Rey High School in Birmingham. Noah said his family has seen its share of struggles, and he'd like to see people unite and help each other through those struggles.

"I'm here to let the community know that we can come together as one," he said, adding, "we don't always have to fight to be the one on top."

Catherine Barnes Gooden was baptized at St. Paul and participated in the marches in the 50s and 60s. Gooden, now in her mid-70s, said she fears people have become too complacent in recent years, and the rights she and others fought for have been slipping away.

Paulette Roby, who marched in the Birmingham Children's Crusade in 1963, at St. Paul United Methodist Church in Birmingham, Ala., on May 5, 2018.

"We somehow thought we had arrived," she said, "and it was all over, but now we're out of balance."

"We got too comfortable." But, Gooden said, "I'm excited to see these young people out here now with their parents who are leading them in teaching them that it's not over. That the struggle still exists."

Paulette Roby was 13 years old during the children's marches. She now serves as chair of the Civil Rights Activist Committee at the Foot Soldiers Headquarters in Birmingham. Progress was made in the movement, she said, but, "This battle has no end." She, too, is encouraged by the visibility and courage of today's young leaders, she said, and they are needed.

"There will be a demand for soldiers throughout the generation of eternity," Roby said, "who are willing to continue the battle for justice, peace, and equality."

Students from Sumter County, Ala., at the 55th commemoration of the Children's Crusade marches in Birmingham, Ala., on May 5, 2018.

Morgan Tate, a ninth-grader at Birmingham's Ramsay High School, said young people "are more than ready for this challenge," but they need help. "We just don't know necessarily how to make it happen."

That's one of the reasons why events connecting the young and the old are important. Andrea Taylor is the president of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, the sponsor of Saturday's event.

Taylor said she believes the young people are ready to go. "They're in a new world and a new moment, and they have to forge the path," she said. "And I think the elders are ready to help them."

Ellen "Kat" Walton is a senior at Vestavia Hills High School in a suburb outside Birmingham. Walton took a leadership role in the Birmingham March for Our Lives event and knows the difference young people can make.

"Just like we were a catalyst for change in the 60s," Walton said, "we can be a catalyst today."The body of Jennifer Marshell White, the Moulton woman who went missing last month and whose case has received national attention, was found Sunday during a search in Bankhead National Forest, police said.

Moulton Police Chief Lyndon McWhorter, citing Winston County officials, told AL.com that White's body was found Sunday afternoon. McWhorter said he left the scene so he could not be 100 percent certain it was White because he wasn't at the crime scene, but said the Winston County Sheriff told him, "it's her."

The Winston County Sheriff's Office Facebook page said Moore's body was found by a search party about a quarter mile from Alabama 33 near the Winston/Lawrence County line.

"I extend my deepest condolences to Mrs. White's family. I am thankful for any measure of comfort and closure that today's discovery might bring," said Sheriff Tommy Moore. "I ask everyone to keep this family in your prayers during the many difficult days ahead."

White's vehicle was found Sunday, the private investigator leading the search party confirmed to AL.com.

"We have looked into the vehicle. It is hers," private investigator Dawn Hendricks said, adding that her investigation was ongoing. Hendricks, a former Huntsville police officer, did not provide any further details.

Huntsville CBS affiliate WHNT reported the Winston County Sheriff's Office and the Winston County Coroner were on the scene near Alabama 33 in Bankhead National Forest.

White - a 55-year-old nurse, grandmother and wife of Moulton City Councilman Brent White - was last seen at around 1:30 p.m. April 8, where convenience store footage showed her buying gas about a mile from her home.

The next day, White's two daughters said they both received text messages from their mother's cell phone that told them to take care of their children.

The case has received national attention, including late last month from Dateline NBC.

Brent White told Dateline NBC said he received a text from his wife's phone that said, "Please know that I love you and I'm sorry for any pain. I love you forever. Not goodbye. Just see ya later."

But when White's daughters tried calling her cell phone, no one picked up on the other end.

White's children accused the Moulton Police Department of a conflict of interest in the case after "unprofessional" comments about White's marital problems and health were posted to the department's Facebook page on Friday. The department later deleted the comments and its entire Facebook page.

"We're completely devastated by this," said White's daughter Allison Hutto Cross. "That the lead department investigating my mother's case would do something that is so disheartening and so unprofessional and release information about an ongoing case and make accusation and assumptions and violate [HIPAA] is so disturbing."While his father and other national Republicans have refrained from weighing in on West Virginia's Republican Senate primary, Donald Trump Jr. has called on the state's voters to reject controversial candidate Don Blankenship, imploring the GOP not to commit "more fumbles like Alabama."

Trump was referring to December's special election where Republican Roy Moore won the GOP primary and was then defeated by Democrat Doug Jones.

Like Moore, who faced allegations that he had inappropriate sexual contact with women when they were teenagers, Blankenship, a former mine owner who went to prison in connection with the deaths of 29 miners in a 2010 explosion, has baggage. Aside from the explosion, Blankenship has aired controversial ads that labeled Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell "Cocaine Mitch" and referred to McConnell's "China family." McConnell is married to Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, who is from Taiwan and whose family owns a shipping company.

Trump took to Twitter to call on West Virginians to back another candidate to face Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, suggesting that Blankenship is a liability for Republicans.

I hate to lose. So I'm gonna go out on a limb here and ask the people of West Virginia to make a wise decision and reject Blankenship!



No more fumbles like Alabama. We need to win in November. #wv #wvpol  Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) May 3, 2018

Blankenship attacked Trump Jr. for weighing in on the race, calling him the "establishment." Trump fought back:All the elements were in place for Alabama lawmakers to hit a legislative home run on civil asset forfeiture reform: Support from lawmakers in both parties, the backing of left- and right-leaning special interest groups, and strong public approval.

In the end, lawmakers were left standing after a called third strike.

"Unfortunate," state Rep. Patricia Todd, D-Birmingham, said.

"It's a complicated issue," said state Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur.

Said Sen. Dick Brewbaker, R-Pike Road: "If you go interview legislators one-by-one, it's hard to find one who will defend our civil asset forfeiture law. There is very little debate on whether the current law is being abused."

Unpopular practice

This spring in Montgomery, state lawmakers considered two reforms aimed at changing state law that allows law enforcement agencies to seize and keep private property even when no one is convicted of a crime.

That Alabama was considering is nothing new. State legislatures throughout the U.S. have implemented reforms in recent years to address what reform advocates believe is a system ripe with abuse.

They are making progress based on public opinion polling from 2016 that shows 84 percent of Americans opposed the taking of private property from someone suspect of being involved in a crime, but who has not yet been convicted.

But the system is strongly backed by law enforcement agencies who often benefit from keeping suspect cash. Law enforcement advocates claim it's an important crime-fighting tool, as it allows them to remove the ill-gotten gains of illegal activity.

They have an important ally at their side: U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the former U.S. senator from Mobile, who has backed federal policy strengthening civil asset seizures.

In Alabama, a civil court determines if the agency involved in the seizure can keep the property. And that determination can be made even if a person is never convicted or even charged with a crime, a fact that has drawn a heavy dose of criticism and analysis.

No conviction, no seizure

The changes came in the form of SB213, sponsored by Orr and state Rep. Arnold Mooney, R-Birmingham. The legislation came in two forms: The first, introduced in January, offered up a sweeping change to how civil asset forfeitures are handled in Alabama.

The original bill included a requirement for a criminal conviction before property could be seized, taking the entire process out of civil courts.

In addition, the legislation prohibited state and local law enforcement agencies from receiving proceeds from federal forfeiture actions. It also required annual, centralized reporting on how law enforcement was utilizing forfeiture assets.

The Orr-Mooney bill, had it been adopted, would have represented a noticeable change: Alabama would have become only the fourth state in the nation to completely abolish the police practice of seizing assets without having a criminal conviction.

The change would have also gone a long way toward repairing the state's reputation in the eyes of criminal justice watchdog groups, such as the libertarian-leaning Institute for Justice. The group, which is backed by conservative heavyweights like David and Charles Koch, tagged Alabama's civil asset forfeiture law as "among the worst in the nation."

"It really boiled down to what measures of due process do we need to make sure are in place before the property can be just seized and forfeited to the government," said Orr. "That was the overall philosophy behind the original legislation."

He added, "When we got into it, and the conviction component, there was substantial pushback."

Police pushback

The chief critics of the legislation were associations representing the state's largest law enforcement organizations: The Alabama Sheriff's Association, the Alabama Association of Chiefs of Police (AACOP), and the Alabama District Attorneys Association.

Their opposition scuttled the advancement of the original version of SB213.

Initially, according to Mountain Brook Police Chief Ted Cook, it appears they might even get to have a say. While the District Attorney's Association was invited to early negotiations on SB213, Cook said that the police chief and sheriff's associations did not join in until the talks headed toward arbitration.

"The vast majority of police chiefs across the state were not in favor of it," said Cook, president of AACOP. "We felt like (the law) had been worked on a number of times over the years, and that it was pretty good."

That sentiment was expressed in a Feb. 12 AL.com Opinion piece written by Brian McVeigh, president of the Alabama District Attorneys Association, and Dave Sutton, president of the Alabama Sheriffs Association.

In it, they claim that Orr-Mooney legislation would "gut what is an effective crime-fighting tool" and make it easier for drug dealers and other criminals to hang onto "their ill-gotten gains."

They also criticized the proposal's intent to divert forfeited assets from local law enforcement coffers into the state's General Fund.

"What incentive would local police and sheriffs have to invest manpower, resources and time in these operations if they don't receive proceeds to cover their costs?" the article states.

'Forfeiting Your Rights'

Criminal justice reform groups, like the Montgomery-based Southern Poverty Law Center and the Alabama Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, have seized on that statement as evidence that the practice in Alabama represents "policing for profit."

It's not unlike, they claim, the recent revelations that sheriffs are pocketing excess money from feeding jailed inmates for their personal gains.

Said Shay Farey, Alabama policy counsel with the Southern Poverty Law Center: "Undermining any Alabamian's constitutional protections because of budget concerns is unacceptable."

"They've admitted to policing for profit," said Frank Knaack, executive director with Alabama Appleseed. "They said what incentive would we have to go after the bad guys if we cannot profit off the system. We've pointed out that they were not going after bad guys at all, but 25 percent of the cases (involving asset forfeitures) involved people who weren't charged with a crime."

Indeed, SPLC and Alabama Appleseed, have changed the conversation through detailed analysis and powerful testimonies from victims of questionable asset seizures by police. Their revelations are included in a report, released in January, titled "Forfeiting Your Rights."

The report breaks down their findings of court cases in 14 counties during 2015.

According to the analysis, 70 agencies - including police and sheriffs departments, city governments, district attorneys' offices, etc. - were awarded $2.2 million by the courts in 827 cases.

In 25 percent of those cases, as Knaack said, the property owner was not charged nor linked to a crime. And in half of all the forfeiture cases in the state, the amount of cash seized was $1,372 or less.

Such small amounts, SPLC and Appleseed contend, is evidence that law enforcement isn't utilizing civil asset forfeiture as originally intended back in the 1980s, when the aim was to take down powerful drug lords.

Marijuana possession

Barry Matson, executive director with the Alabama District Attorneys Association and Office of Prosecution Services, has characterized the report as "grossly false" with "incorrect facts" about how law enforcement handled the program.

He said in many of the cases cited by SPLC and Appleseed, the seized properties were the result of an informant.

"If you catch a guy with a backpack filled with crack cocaine and cash that is making from selling crack cocaine, and you flip him to help catch someone higher up in the organization, he doesn't get to keep the money," said Matson. "We follow them. There is a process, but he's not charged and if we charge him and he makes bond, (the criminal enterprises) will know he's an informant. It's a safety issue."

SPLC and Appleseed's analysis, however, indicates that 55 percent of the cases where criminal charges were filed, and property was seized, were related to marijuana arrests.

In 18 percent of cases where criminal charges were filed, the groups note, the charge was simple possession of the drug.

Seeking transparency

Despite the findings, law enforcement groups weren't convinced a major overhaul was needed. Instead, all parties involved in negotiations - which included left-leaning SPLC and Alabama Appleseed, as well as right-leaning Alabama Policy Institute - zeroed-in on requiring more transparency.

As the parties squared off, "It was clear we needed to seek a narrower bill, not to repeal forfeiture, but require extensive amount of detailed reporting of the forfeiture activity that goes on," said Artur Davis, senior consultant with The Institute of Justice and former U.S. congressman, who was involved in the negotiations.

A mediator was added to the negotiations, which occurred from February through April.

What surfaced was new legislation requiring the Criminal Justice Information Center Commission to collect and analyze data provided by law enforcement agencies.

The data that was sought through SB213 included:

Name of the agency that seized the property, the location where it was seized and the date it occurred.

The type of property seized, whether it was currency, an automobile or any other type of property.

The type of underlying criminal offense that led to the seizure, and any crime for which the suspect was charged.

The date the forfeiture was ordered.

Whether the forfeiture was multi-jurisdictional, and was sought under federal law the result of a joint investigation.

Matson, with the DA association, said there was no opposition on his end with requiring transparency. "We are all committed to going forward with transparency and all that kind of stuff," he said.

Cook, though, has a different take. He said the legislation did not include funding for the database, and questions existed on which state agency would be charged with maintaining it.

"First and foremost, our position is that it's already an open record," said Cook. "It's all handled through the judges and the courts. If the senators don't think the judges are doing an adequate job of overseeing that, I don't know what else we can do."

Other law enforcement leaders also had doubts. Among them was Mobile County Sheriff Sam Cochran, who said the rewritten SB213 amount to the creation of "more bureaucracy."

Cochran said law enforcement agencies are already required to report how much money and property they obtain during an arrest. He said his agency, every two years, is audited and those findings are documented by the Alabama Department of Examiners of Public Accounts.

"There are all kinds of records there," Cochran said. "It's not like it isn't transparent."

'Poison pill'

Despite the disagreements, a negotiated agreement for SB213 made it to the Senate floor. And in late March, Senators debated it.

"It was a big deal," said Davis. "It would've, for the first time, included forfeiture in that process of data collection. Whenever there is an arrest in Alabama, law enforcement would have had to fill out a report. We would have required, for the first time, comprehensive reporting of that data."

On the Senate floor, Sen. Rodger Smitherman, D-Birmingham, interjected. Smitherman, a co-sponsor of Orr's legislation, inserted an amendment that required law enforcement to prove that property seized was used in or was intended to be use in a felony criminal offense.

The amendment, Davis and others have said, amounted to a "poison pill." Davis said the amendment was not something agreed upon by law enforcement during negotiations.

"To inject other issues after negotiations have been completed is bad form, it's bad faith and not surprisingly, law enforcement felt they were blindsided and they withdrew their support."

Said Matson, with the District Attorneys' Association: "Rodger, I think the world of him. He would say the same about us. But I think the amendment, that amendment really spoke to the original bill and not the compromised bill. It was in an odd place."

Farley, with SPLC, disagrees that Smitherman's addition amounted to a "poison pill." She said, "No one owns a piece of legislation but the Legislature. Neither the D.A. nor the advocates should have a final say on that. This was something (Smitherman) did for his district. I cannot see how that was a poison pill."

Smitherman, in an interview last week with AL.com, said he was not part of the negotiations that led up to the Senate debate. He said he added the amendment out of concern over innocent people losing their assets.

"The forfeiture process should not start until the criminal process had concluded," he said.

Orr said he doesn't blame Smitherman for the legislation's defeat. While it passed out of the Senate, there wasn't enough time in the legislative session to renegotiate.

"Anytime there is an unexpected amendment like that, it can certainly be pulled off in the House or in a conference committee," said Orr. "I don't buy the argument that (Smitherman's) amendment torpedoed the bill. You don't have to live with the amendment if it impedes the overall generally-agreed upon bill."

Said Smitherman: "Anytime you have opposition, it will create stumbling blocks. But that's what politics is about. The art of the compromise. We'll get back at it next session."

'Not going anywhere'

Artur Davis with the Institute for Justice, though, isn't as confident that all sides will return to the negotiating table.

"It's entirely possible in the way this ended, that it could be difficult for good faith negotiations to begin again," he said.

Cochran, the Mobile County Sheriff, said he could see civil asset forfeiture becoming a "non-issue," especially if a new swath of elected officials join the Legislature in 2019, who are "more supportive of law enforcement."

But most others, including Matson with the District Attorney's Association, are eager to return to the talks.

"Well get there," he said. "We're fully committed going forward."

Orr said he's going to reintroduce the transparency legislation next year. He said "it's healthy for there to be a level of accountability" in the process, and anticipates talks restarting in the winter.

The SPLC and Appleseed are also likely to be engaged.

"This issue is not going anywhere," said Farley, with SPLC. "There will definitely be legislation again. I think all of those players will be back at the table again."Alexei Navalny has emerged as the only political leader able to mobilise the Russian streets against the Kremlin.

On the eve of Russian President Vladimir Putins inauguration, thousands of Russians took to the streets to protest against his fourth term.

The demonstrations, which came just days after some 10,000 people attended a major rally in Moscow against the banning of popular messaging app Telegram, were held under the banner Hes Not Our Tsar! in 90 cities across the country.

They were organised by opposition activist Alexei Navalny, who was among 1,600 detained by the police at the anti-Putin rally.

Commanding a vast network of supporters across the country and running a popular anti-corruption campaign, Navalny is poised to capture and mobilise the growing discontent against the ruling regime.

For better or worse, Navalny has emerged as Putins sole political opponent able to challenge him during the next six years of his rule.

As the Russian president is about to embark on his fourth term, which would see him surpassing Leonid Brezhnev as the countrys longest-serving leader in modern history, Navalny is flexing his political muscle to demonstrate what is yet to come.

Navalnys political swings

A lawyer by profession, Navalny entered politics through the liberal opposition party Yabloko, of which he became a member in 2000. He climbed to the ranks of the party eventually becoming a deputy head of its Moscow branch only to be forced to resign in 2007 over his dealings with ultranationalists.

Navalny has not only attended the far-right Russian march and engaged with its organisers, but has also made a number of racist statements, including calling Georgians rodents during Russias war with Georgia in 2008 and comparingmigrants to insects. He also was the cofounder of a short-lived nationalist movement aimed at fighting for democracy and the rights of ethnic Russians.

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During the 2011 and 2012 mass protests prompted by accusations of a rigged parliamentary election, Navalny became one of the leaders of the protest movement.

In October 2012, he was elected to the coordination committee of the Russian opposition, which was formed to negotiate with the Kremlin after Putins 2012 reelection.

In the following years, the Russian authorities gradually increased pressure on the opposition and its leaders. According to Russian journalist and commentator Oleg Kashin, this political campaign of repression and the weakening of the opposition eliminated Navalnys competitors.

During the [2012] Bolotnaya protests, Navalny was one of the leaders of the Russian opposition, along with Boris Nemtsov, Garry Kasparov, Mikhail Kasyanov, etc, says Kashin. Then, it was like the nursery rhyme in Agatha Christies novel And then there were none  one by one, [these leaders] either got killed, left the country or just decided to retire from active work.

Navalnys greatest success was to get the Kremlin to recognise him as the sole opposition leader, says Kashin. As a result, the authorities focused their repressive tactics on him and his followers.

Navalny faced what he alleged was a politically motivated charge of embezzlement in 2014, multiple arrests, and various physical assaults, including one that almost blinded him. His supporters were also frequently attacked and detained.

But he pressed on with blogging, posting political videos on his popular YouTube channel and running anti-corruption investigations, which attracted a broader base of supporters.

In late 2016, he announced his intention to run in the presidential elections. Then in early March 2017, he released a Youtube video of an investigation into Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedevs luxury properties. The video got more than 27 million views to date.

Riding the wave of public anger that the investigation provoked, Navalny organised nationwide demonstrations on March 26  the biggest since the 2011-2012 protest wave.

He then embarked on building a network of offices across the country to support his presidential campaign. Releasing what some called a populist programme based on anti-corruption slogans and contradictory liberal and leftist socioeconomic policies, Navalny managed to attract a broad base of support.

Through various pressure tactics  including searches and arrests  the authorities interfered with his campaign and eventually officially barred him from running in the elections, citing the criminal conviction from the 2014 embezzlement case.

Mobilisation power and the youth

Despite not being able to run in the elections, Navalny was still successful in building a vast network of supporters. His campaign opened offices in some 80 cities across the country, reaching even smaller cities where opposition politics had almost died down.

Until I joined [the Navalny campaign], I was a very apolitical person. I was angry [about the situation in the country], but I didnt see who can challenge those in power, said 28-year-old Evgeny Pashutkin, the coordinator for Navalnys campaign in Saransk, a city of 300,000, about 650km southeast of Moscow.

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The city had an office of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) and one coordinator for Yabloko Party, but Pashutkin said they were not very active and he did not see them as parties that could make any difference.

Everything changed for him last year after he watched Navalnys video about Medvedevs properties and decided to join the March 26 protest in Saransk. He was also involved in establishing Navalnys campaign office in the city.

I saw how [the authorities] dont like what we were doing, how they were trying to pressure us, to interfere, that was the biggest motivation [to keep doing it], said Pashutkin.

He continues to work for the Navalny campaign, even after it had to restructure after the elections and stop paying for coordinators salaries and rent for dozens of regional offices due to lack of funding, including the Saransk one.

Although currently, the campaign is maintaining only 45 offices across the country, on May 5, it managed to organise protests in some 90 cities. One of these cities was Saransk, where 160 people attended the demonstration, in Pashutkins estimation.

Many of Navalnys volunteers responsible for the mobilisation effort are young people. Most of those who have volunteered in Saransk are below 35, the youngest of them being a 15-year-old, Pashtkin said.

In Novosibirsk, a Siberian city with a population of 1.4 million, more than half of the people who volunteered at Navalnys campaign office were between 18 and 35 years of age and a significant number were minors, said Sergey Boyko, who had been the local campaign coordinator.

[The minors] became many more when the authorities started to fight it, when in schools they started telling them that its not allowed to wear Navalny badges or put Navalny stickers on mobile phones, said Boyko, who now manages the Moscow campaign office. The authorities themselves popularised Navalny among the youth because they started [these] repressions in schools.

According to him, Navalny has been able to attract such following among the youth because he speaks their language.

His campaign has maintained vast and sophisticated social media presence, which has emerged as an alternative source of information and criticism of the regime. It has been producing live and recorded high-quality content for YouTube and actively engaging with supporters on all major social media networks.

This level of success in communicating with a younger audience has not been achieved by any other political power, said Boris Kagarlitsly, the director of the Institute of Globalisation and Social Movements in Moscow.

While Navalny is very much fitting [in] this culture, this generation, the left, which is much more intellectual, is totally unfit in cultural terms, he said.

Navalny as Putin 2.0

But while Navalny has managed to wield significant mobilisation power, his political model might not be sustainable in the long term. According to Kagarlitsky, Navalnys political programme is shaky and contradictory.

Its as if Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn decided to write a programme together, he said.

It currently attracts members of the business community with a promise of neoliberal economic reforms and radicalised youth with its progressive leftist social policies. But if Navalny is to get to power, these contradictions would be exposed, said Kagarlitsy.

I think people like Navalny can have a lot of success in a situation of crisis. The problem of these people is that once they get to power or close to power, they [falter] usually because they cannot draw a political line, he explained.

Navalnys political project has another weakness  it is centred around him, says Kagarlitky. Without him, the system collapses, he said.

The absence of other prominent figures from Navalnys political project in the media spotlight has prompted some Russian commentators to talk about a personality cult. Navalny has also been accused of being authoritarian and mistreating his staff and volunteers. Some have gone as far as calling him Putin 2.0.

According to Kashin, his political project mirrors the dynamics of Putins power.

Navalny is an anti-Putin. Putin is the leader of Russia without any alternatives and Navalny is the leader of the opposition without any alternatives, he says. His biggest weakness is the same as Putins  a tendency towards authoritarianism, intolerance towards opponents and the desire to be the only one.

Boyko, however, rejects these accusations. He says there are open discussions and disagreements in the team and Navalny does admit his mistakes.

Russians, in general, are used to paternalistic structures and people often look for leaders. Inside our structure, I dont think we have that, we dont have personality cults, he says.

Asked about what would happen to the pollical project if Navalny were to leave, Boyko says it is difficult to answer.

It is not very good that theres Putin and Alexei and no one else. I would like it if there were other people, other political leaders at the level of Alexei, who challenge those in power and with whom we can work together, he says.

Follow Mariya Petkova on Twitter: @mkpetkovaIn violence-prone Kashmir, groups band together regardless of religion, despite tensions in India.

Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir  Unaware of the tragedy that happened to his family, five-year-old Rohit Koul played in the courtyard while his three elder siblings sat in a dimly lit room of their house in Lavdoora village, in south Kashmirs Anantnag district.

The children have not spoken much after their mother, Baby Koul, died three months ago due to chest disease. Nearly a year ago, their father, Maharaj Krishan, also died a natural death.

Muslim neighbours gathered at the home to offer emotional support to the Hindu children.

At a time of strained Hindu-Muslim ties in India, this unity in a remote village in divided Kashmir is exemplary.

Polarisation between the two communities has hit the country as right-wing groups engage in violence against Muslims because of their food and other social habits.

In April 2017, a Pew Research Centers study ranked India the fourth-worst country for religious intolerance out of 198 nations.

Indian-administered Kashmir is a Muslim-majority Himalayan region with Hindu, Sikh and Christian minorities, but living in harmony.

But the area divided by India and Pakistan had its share of tensions in the early 1990s, when turmoil forced many Kashmiri Hindus, known as Pandits, to abandon their homes and seek shelter in neighbouring Jammu and other parts of India.

Orphaned children of Koul family in their house in Levdoora [Sameer Mushtaq/Al Jazeera]

According to one study, Kashmir had 140,000 Pandits in the early 1990s, but that number was reduced to 19,865 by 1998.

The Kouls are one family that decided to remain. The warmth and support demonstrated by their Muslim neighbours after Baby Kouls death vindicated their choice.

Like our own

To pay tribute to Baby Koul, villagers of differing faiths gathered to perform her last rites according to the Hindu tradition.

Baby Koul and her husband raised their children while fighting poverty. Their death shocked everyone in the village. These children are innocent and losing parents in less than a year is a catastrophe for them. Their parents were young and very gentle, Sameena, a local woman, told Al Jazeera.

According to villagers, the children are reluctant to go with their relatives because they get much love from their neighbours.

The children were not emotionally ready to talk to this reporter because their mother died just a few days earlier.

Villagers have helped the family and we will keep doing this. They are like our own children and we will not let them suffer in any way, resident Ghulam Nabi Dar told Al Jazeera.

The example of Hindu-Muslim togetherness displayed in Lavdoora village is not isolated.

Mehjabeena has created this mud house on the piece of land, which was donated by the Hindu neighbour [Sameer Mushtaq/Al Jazeera]

During Amarnath Yatra, Muslims help their Hindu brethren to undertake the annual pilgrimage in the snow-capped mountains in southern Kashmir.

Earlier this year, villagers in Sumbal in Bandipora in north Kashmir cleaned the premises of a Hindu temple to perform puja (prayer) on the occasion of Maha Shivratri, an important festival for Pandits.

The acts of kindness have also been reciprocated by Hindus. Last November, a Hindu couple greeted the procession marking Eid-e-Milad-un-Nabi the birthday of Prophet Mohammad, by distributing candies to Muslims as a symbol of love and affection. A video of the Hindu couple handing out the candies went viral on social media.

Worshipping together

In Mattan, the houses of worship for Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims are just a few metres apart.

Ramji, 60, is a priest at the temple in Mattan. We share a good bond with our Muslim and Sikh brothers. We take part in each others festivals. We also attend funerals when someone dies in Muslim neighbourhood, he told Al Jazeera.

The Tral area of Pulwama, which has been at the centre of anti-government protests in the last two years, also has Sikh population of 8,165 as of the latest census of India living happily with 98,632 Muslims.

We never feel differences with each other. We are always there for each other in good and bad times. They even attend funeral prayers of militants, Faizan Ahmad, a student from Tral, told Al Jazeera.

Mehjabeena lives in a village in the Quazigund area. Twelve years ago, her husband abandoned her with two children. She returned to her home to live with her father for several years.

However, being poor, her father could not feed the family and she started living in a rented accommodation. I used to wash clothes and dishes of the people to pay the rent and feed my family, she said.

Then a Pandit, Brij Nath, donated a piece of land to her where she built a one-room mud-brick house with the help of her father.

I have lived in the village with her father and there was the association of oneness. I gave her a piece of land as she is very poor and has no place to live, Nath told Al Jazeera on the phone.

Generations of cooperation

In October last year, a church bell rang for the first time in 50 years at Holy Family Catholic Church in Srinagar. Christians, Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus inaugurated the bell weighing 105kg.

According to village elders, examples of communal harmony have been passed on through the generations.

Kashmiri culture is a mix of three religions  Hindus, Buddhist and Muslims  which has come from our ancestors, said Zareef Ahmad Zareef, a Kashmiri poet and social activist.

Temples have bells hanging at their entrance. Similarly, we have chains at Sufi shrines in the valley, which is a cross-ritual. We had some Hindu artists who have written Naats [poetry in praise of the Prophet] while there are Muslim artists who have written kirtans [divine Hindu songs].

But Zareef accused politicians of trying to create barriers between the different communities.

Our thoughts have been divided. We had oneness in Kashmir culture irrespective of religion, he said.Bekaa Valley, Lebanon  An estimated 1.5 million Syrian refugees now live across Lebanon, either with host communities or in informal tented settlements.

While Lebanese communities have shown solidarity with Syrians fleeing the war, tensions have arisen over limited resources and growing insecurity.

Individual stories provide an insight into the lives of Syrian refugees and their Lebanese hosts in Akkar in northern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley.On the 20th anniversary of the Eritrea-Ethiopia war, an opportunity for sustainable peace may finally be on the horizon.

The Ethiopian-Eritrean conflict of 1998-2000 erupted 20 years ago today, when the two countries went to war over the scrubby and desolate plains of Badime that are hardly useful for anything. Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia and President Isaias Afwerki of Eritrea, former comrades-in-arms who fought side by side and defeated one of Africas largest and best-trained armies, morphed into absolutists. Belligerent narratives swiftly became dominant, causing a structural breakdown of communications between the two countries.

The result was a bloody and senseless WWI-style trench war in which tens of thousands of soldiers ran into machine guns, tanks and artillery fire in waves. The war left an estimated 100,000 dead and more than a million displaced.

The war also had a devastating effect on the social fabric and the economy of the two countries. Both countries resorted to nationalist framings of identity, territory, and shared history, precipitating conflicting narratives. Both countries diverted scarce resources from vital public services and developmental endeavours into weapons procurement.

At the height of the war, Ethiopia increased the total size of its army from 60,000 to 350,000 and increased its defence expenditure from $95m in 1997/98 to $777m in 1999/2000. Overall, the cost of the war for Ethiopia was nearly $3bn.

In the meantime, the size of Eritreas army increased to 300,000 (almost 10 percent of the population) through National Service Conscription following the outbreak of the war, and the government has been using the intractable stalemate between the two countries as a justification not to demobilise the unsustainably high number of troops for a small nation like Eritrea.

Conflicting interests, hegemonic aspirations

The outbreak of the war between the two countries was universally described as astonishing and bewildering. Scholars and commentators across the world, exasperated by the senselessness of the conflict over an imaginary line that runs through the craggy piece of land, offered various explanations ranging from Eritreas economic woes to the divergent ideologies between the leadership of the two countries and Ethiopias desire to regain access to the sea.

What is clear, however, is that the border dispute that was presented as the official reason behind the outbreak of the war was simply a mask for other much deeper and complex problems and hegemonic aspirations.

Although officially an armed conflict between two sovereign nations, the Ethiopian-Eritrean War was largely viewed as a conflict between the ruling elites belonging to Peoples Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ) and the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF), the two political movements which dominated the politics of the two countries at the time. At most, it is a conflict between the Tigrinya speaking people of the Eritrean highlands, and the Tigrayans of Ethiopia. As Gerbru Asrat, former Politburo member of the TPLF observed, only Tigray, not the whole of Ethiopia, is Eritreas target.

Though the underlying political and economic differences were far from being insurmountable, the animosity, rage, scorn and bitterness between these two movements and their leadership made a political resolution impossible.

The Algiers Agreement

After the fall of Badme to Ethiopia, the series of international mediation efforts within the Organization of African Unity and other multilateral organisations culminated in the adoption by the two countries of the Algiers Peace Agreement. In June of 2000, the two countries agreed to permanently terminate military hostilities and establish a neutral Boundary Commission that will have full authority to delimit and demarcate the boundaries. The peace treaty, which was also signed by the United States, the European Union, the African Union, and the United Nations, as guarantors, authorised the Commission to issue a final and binding decision. In April 2002, the Boundary Commission rendered its decision, ruling that the flashpoint town of Badme is part of Eritrea. Ethiopia refused to comply with the decision, setting the stage for a stalemate that still reverberates across the Horn of Africa.

Intractable predicament

The political stalemate that ensued from the war and stubbornly persisted for two decades proved to be exclusivist and alienating. The conflict shattered family lives of millions of people on both sides of the border. It deprived landlocked Ethiopia of access to Eritrean ports. It cut off Eritrea from access to the largest market in the region. Both countries diverted massive resources from their already meagre budgets for military activity and still have thousands of troops manning their borders. In pursuit of their respective interests, the two countries engaged in hostile activities against one another, making a rapprochement even more difficult.

The dispute between the two countries has also been a vital factor of intractability for the Horn of Africa region. In 2006, Ethiopia sent troops to Somalia to fight the Islamic Courts Union. Although Ethiopias targets were Eritrean advisors in Mogadishu and Ethiopias concern about the long-term consequences of Eritrean influence in Somali politics, Ethiopia announced the war as part of the global war on terror to garner US financial and diplomatic support. The US fell for the ruse and became a key sponsor of Ethiopias mission.

Despite the intensity of the hostilities, the political landscaping is shifting, and there is a growing recognition by all the parties that the status quo is unsustainable.

Driven by both domestic and regional considerations, Ethiopia sought to build a reputation as a critical partner in the global war on terror, becoming a key ally of the West and one of the top recipients of the Counterterrorism Partnership Fund and the Department of States East Africa Regional Strategic Initiative. Ethiopian leaders used this alliance with the West to isolate and contain Eritrea, playing a key role in the 2009 US-sponsored UN arms sanction against Eritrea imposed for its alleged support of terrorist movements. Although a UN panel of experts found no evidence of Eritrean support and recommended the lifting of the sanctions, the Security Council extended the sanctions in November 2017.

In 2016, Eritrea reportedly leased the Port of Asab to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) who set up a military base there. Although Eritrea denied the report, there are credible claims that UAE is developing the base and using it for the war effort in Yemen.

Despite the intensity of the hostilities, the political landscaping is shifting, and there is a growing recognition by all the parties that the status quo is unsustainable.

Unique opportunities

In a gesture of reconciliation, Ethiopias brand-new prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, expressed his readiness to resolve the differences between the two countries through dialogue. With the government of Eritrea, he said, we want from the bottom of our hearts that the disagreement that has reigned for years to come to an end. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, from the Oromo ethnic group, has a unique chance of ending the stalemate and opening a new chapter towards a peaceful coexistence by highlighting the transformative economic and social opportunities peace would bring both sides. He does not have the baggage that Meles Zenawi had and has a much better room for manoeuvre than his predecessor, Hailemariam Desalegn.

However, the real test he faces is going beyond reconciliatory gestures or diplomatic pleasantries attempted by his predecessors. Most importantly, Abiy must commit Ethiopia to full compliance with the Commissions decision and reverse Ethiopias legally and politically unsustainable position on Badme. He must send a clear signal to the Eritreans and the international community that Ethiopia will honour its end of the deal. Eritrea has the weight of an internationally binding judgement on its side and is right to demand Ethiopias compliance with that decision.

This would serve as a critical confidence-building measure between the two countries, and would pave the way towards the complex and gruelling task of working through the political and economic conditions that led to the war that ripped the fabric of the two societies apart.

There is also a change in attitude in Washington and Brussels. On April 22, Undersecretary of State for African Affairs Donald Yamamoto visited Eritrea and there are reports that the current administration is open to talks. Europeans have already begun engaging with the Eritrean government. Under pressure to address the refugee crisis, they have been engaging the government and they would not hesitate to end the sanctions and support a peace initiative between the countries.

The peaceful resolution of the Ethiopian and Eritrean conflict would strengthen regional stability and restore confidence and resilience to the economy of both countries. It is imperative for all those who care about the long-term stability and economic viability of the region to do everything they can to help the two countries move beyond the senseless war that wrought so much suffering on both people.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance.Explosion hits Khost mosque used as voter registration site, raising more security concerns about process before poll.

At least 14 people have been killed by an explosion at a mosque in eastern Afghanistan that was being used as a voter registration centre, according to a health official.

Waheed Majrooh, a spokesman for Afghanistans Ministry of Public Health, told Al Jazeera more than 30 others were wounded in Sundays attack, which took place inside Yaqoubi mosque in the city of Khost.

The bomb went off as civilians gathered both for prayers and to register.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, told Al Jazeera that the group was not involved in the attack.

Safety concerns

Afghanistan is scheduled to hold parliamentary elections in October.

Earlier this month, bombings at voter registration centres in the capital, Kabul, and in Baghlan province killed at least 63 people and wounded more than 100.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group claimed responsibility for the attack in Kabul.

Attacks on voter registration centres, on election officials and election workers [show] clearly opponents of the government are trying to derail these long-awaited elections, said Al Jazeeras Jennifer Glasse, reporting from Kabul.

An estimated one million people have so far registered to take part in the ballot since the process began last month, Glasse noted, still well short of the governments target of 15 million registrations by mid-June.

That now seems a very distant prospect, added Glasse, noting that many people in Kabul were frightened to go to any of these voter registration centres.

Some of them are in schools and parents have objected to this because they are worried about the safety factor.

Low turnout

Election officials have also admitted that the registration turnout has so far been low.

Aminullah Habibi, a Kabul-based former adviser to international forces in Afghanistan, told Al Jazeera that the reason for the low figure is the lack of security around registration centres.

If such attacks continue to happen, it will definitely deter people from registering. This raises a lot of questions about the ability of the government to have this election, he said.

It has been only a month since the registrations are open and so far we have only seen about a million people who have registered for voting.

The government is not able to manage security properly, despite having enough resources for it.Cambodias opposition threatens to withdraw from election

Officials within the Grassroots Democracy Party are threatening to pull out of the national elections in July.Secessionists view Puigdemont as legitimate candidate for regions presidency but Spain wants him tried for rebellion.

Catalan politicians are attempting to put forward former regional President Carles Puigdemont as a candidate for the regions presidency, despite a European arrest warrant issued by Spain.

Puigdemont met with members of his Together For Catalonia, known by its Catalan acronym JxCat, in Berlin on Friday.

They proposed nominating Puigdemont, who could accept the presidential nomination from abroad thanks to a law recently passed in the regional Catalan parliament.

JxCat spokesperson Eduard Pujol said at a news conference on Friday that his party wants to vote on the investiture of Puigdemont, calling him a legitimate president.

Catalonia held snap polls in December, called by the Spanish government, to form a new parliament after separatists led by Puigdemont tried to secede the region from Spain.

Secessionist parties maintained their majority, continuing the struggle between the national and regional governments.

Catalonia must form a new government by May 22 or hold new elections. Four attempts to form a government have failed so far.

 @PujolBonell despres de la reunio a Berlin: "Volem votar la investidura de @KRLS, president legitim, el que surt del mandat de les urnes, aprofitant la Llei de Presidencia abans del 14 de maig" pic.twitter.com/ieZ6Xm6ey1  Junts per Catalunya  (@JuntsXCat) May 5, 2018

Puigdemont, who was dismissed by the Spanish government after declaring independence from Spain last October, is waiting on a German court to rule on a request by German prosecutors to extradite Puigdemont to Spain.

Spain assumed control of the breakaway region and has administered it since.

The Spanish Supreme Court reinstated European arrest warrants for Puigdemont and four other Catalan politicians.

The former Catalan president was apprehended by German authorities while travelling from Finland to Belgium, where he has lived since fleeing Spain after the independence declaration.

He was released from German prison on April 8 and is allowed to move freely throughout Germany until courts come to a decision on his extradition.

Spain has said it respects the German courts decision but has repeatedly denied any possibility of Catalonias secession.Thousands of Windrush immigrants have lost their jobs and face deportation under the UKs immigration system.

London, UK  A daughter of the Windrush generation has been left scarred by the UKs immigration system as she risks being forcibly removed back to her home country of Jamaica, despite all her family having British citizenship.

Yvonne Williams, 58, said her mother had moved to the UK in 1962 as part of the Windrush generation, and because of that, she should have the legal right to remain indefinitely in the UK.

Her children and grandchildren also moved to the UK and became British citizens. Yet the Home Office has repeatedly rejected her applications to remain, claiming she fails to have the necessary family ties.





The Jamaican national was one among the hundreds protesting outside Downing Street on Saturday, in support of the thousands of Caribbean immigrants affected by the Windrush scandal that has rocked the UK in the past months.

Williams has already been detained twice at one of the UKs most infamous immigration removal centres, Yarls Wood.

Her entire family lives in the UK, yet authorities have been telling her that she has no family ties in the country and has to go back home.

But Williams said she dreads going to Jamaica as she doesnt know anyone there and has nowhere to go.

The Right to Remain

Thousands of Windrush immigrants have recently been denied access to healthcare, lost their jobs and face deportation because they do not have the documentation to prove their right to remain.

The documentation is a new requirement under Prime Minister Theresa Mays hostile environment policies, which she implemented while serving as home secretary.

Windrush immigrants are facing deportation despite the fact that they were given indefinite leave to remain under the 1972 Immigration Act.

They had migrated to the UK upon invitation of the British government to help rebuild the country after it was destroyed during World War II.





Williams explained how her own mother, now 82 and ailing in a care home, dedicated decades of her life in the UK to nursing people in need.

My mum came here and she worked all these years to build these places and to look after these old people and thats for nothing as it appears they are now refusing her rights to remain, Williams said.

Williams pointed out the irony of her own children getting citizenship before her.

Home Secretary Amber Rudd was forced to resign last week over the scandal, after it emerged she had misled the public over the UK immigration removal targets.

Karen Doyle, from campaign group Movement for Justice who helped stop Williams from being put on a charter flight back to Jamaica, told Al Jazeera that Rudd promised in her apology that there would be justice for the children of the Windrush generation.

Yvonne is one of those children, Doyle said. She is much a child of the Windrush generation as anyone else, even though she came in 2000 and should, therefore, be granted citizenship on that basis.

Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott, speaking at the protest, said she was pleased she had spearheaded calls for Rudd to resign as the scandal had unravelled under her watch.

But she said May is the one who should be held to account.





I am not under any illusion when it comes to the Windrush scandal, all roads lead back to Theresa May, Abbott told protesters in Central London

It was Theresa May who brought in the hostile environment.

She explained how the hostile environment meant teachers, doctors and nurses acting as immigration officers on wheels, and people being humiliated trying to get the services they were entitled to.

Abbott called for the government to release figures on how many Windrush immigrants had been removed and detained.

The Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington has previously suggested those affected by the scandal get financial compensation.

Williams, who claims she spent over 10,000 ($13,500) on repeated efforts to legalise her status in the UK, agreed with this call.

She also called for amnesty for the whole Windrush generation, demanding they all be given the papers they need to carry on with their lives in the UK.Militia responds to attack by armed bandits on Gwaska village in Kaduna state as fighting leaves dozens dead.

At least 45 people have been killed after bandits raided a village in northern Nigeria and local militiamen came to their defence.

The fighting, which took place on Saturday afternoon in Kaduna state, follows a recent spate of attacks in the countrys rural areas.

Austin Iwar, police chief for Nigerias northern Kaduna state, told AFP news agency 33 people were buried on Sunday, following the burial of 12 a day earlier.

There was violence between the militias, who are very powerful, and bandits, Iwar said.

According to local media reports, the bandits attacked Gwaska village in the Birnin Gwari area at about 2:30pm local time (13:30 GMT) and fought local defence forces protecting the community.

The village is in a region known for banditry, where thick forests provide remote hideouts from law enforcement.

Bandits have for years frustrated authorities attempts to apprehend them, and in some cases have amassed thousands of stolen cattle and fought off security forces sent to deal with them.

The attackers, who Gwaska residents allege are former cattle thieves from neighbouring Zamfara state, reportedly set fire to a number of homes in the village. Police Inspector General Ibrahim Idris said 200 policemen and 10 patrol vehicles were deployed to the scene.

The killings follow the death of at least 25 people in separate attacks in northern Nigeria since the beginning of May.

On Thursday, at least 13 people were killed in fighting between cattle thieves and militia in Zamfara state.

A day earlier, in northeastern Adamawa state, at least 12 people were killed in an attack on several villages.Torrential downpours turn several streets of Turkish capital into raging torrents of water.

Flash floods caused by heavy rain have wreaked havoc in Ankara.

The heavy downpours occurred in the Mamak district of the Turkish capital on Saturday, injuring six people, according to state-run Anadolu news agency.

There were dramatic scenes of drivers trying to escape from their vehicles and several cars being swept down the street by flood waters.

Municipality workers rushed to the scene to pull out stranded motorists. Dozens of vehicles were damaged and many shops were flooded.

Ankaras Mayor Mustafa Tuna said it was a natural disaster like never before.

A Turkish official explained that the rain was expected to last three hours on Saturday afternoon. It came down in just nine minutes, causing the flash flooding.

Turkeys labour and social security minister said six people were injured in the floods, which damaged more than 160 cars and 25 businesses. The minister said the government was working to assess and alleviate the damage.

Footage showed cars and trucks being swept away in the floods. One man escaped being submerged by climbing on top of a car caught in the flood.

Showers remain in the forecast for much of the week ahead and some of them will be heavy and thundery. It may even be next Saturday before the wet weather finally clears away.Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi says ISIL, which is holding positions on the Syrian border, still threatens Iraq.

The Iraqi air force has attacked ISIL positions in Syria that were reportedly used by the groups commanders.

Iraqi Prime Minister Abadis office confirmed the attack in a statement released on Sunday morning.

One of the strikes targeted a position south of the town of Deshaisha, the statement said.

ISIL commanders, according to Abadi, used the base, situated near the city of Deir Az Zor in the countrys east.

Iraq launched air raids on Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) positions several times over the past year with the support of the Syrian government and the US-led coalition fighting ISIL.

                          

PM Al-Abadi orders the Air Force to strike Daesh leadership near Al-Dashisha in Syrian territory  Haider Al-Abadi   (@HaiderAlAbadi) May 6, 2018

ISIL, also known by its Arabic acronym Daesh, controlled significant portions of Iraq and Syria. At its peak, the group ruled over roughly 110,000sq km between the two countries.

By October 2017, the groups territory had been reduced to about 10,000sq km, mostly in Syrias east.

ISILs administrative capital was once in Mosul, a large city in western Iraq. Mosul was freed by the Iraqi military and militias collaborating with the US-led coalition in July 2017 after nearly a year of battles.

Abadi stated at an April meeting of his ruling Darwa party that Iraqs land war with Daesh has ended. We have saved all the land of our country and taken control of the Syrian border.

But the danger of Daeshs ideology and sleeper cells remains. I should warn everyone about that, he said.Palestinian protesters have used flaming objects attached to kites to set fire to land just over the Gaza border.

Israel has carried out an air raid in northern Gaza Strip, saying it was retaliating for Palestinians setting fire to Israeli land.

In recent days, Palestinian protesters have used flaming objects attached to kites to set fire to agricultural land just over the Gaza border.

The target of the Israeli strike was a location from where the kites were being launched, according to army spokesperson Avichay Adraee.

No casualties were reported on the Palestinian side as a result of the attack.

Israeli fire services spokesperson Yoram Levy told DPA news agency that at least 15 fires were caused by the kites so far.

The news comes after at least six people were killed and three others wounded by an explosion in the Gaza Strip, according to the Palestinian health ministry in the Hamas-administered territory.

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Hamas military wing has said Israel was responsible for the explosion, which it said took place during a complex security and intelligence operation, AFP news agency reported.

Israeli officials have denied the allegation.

Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip have been protesting for weeks as part of the Great March of Return movement.

On Saturday, Israeli forces again fired live ammunition and tear gas at Palestinians.

Demonstrators burned tyres near the fence to use as a smokescreen from Israeli gunfire.

At least 350 people have been injured in this weekends rallies  three of them critically.

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The rallies are part of a six-week protest that will culminate on May 15 to mark what Palestinians refer to as the Nakba, or catastrophe  a reference to Israels establishment in 1948 and when 750,000 Arabs were removed from Palestine.

Since the protests began on March 30, at least 41 Palestinians in the coastal enclave have been killed by Israeli forces and more than 7,000 wounded in total.

Marchers are demanding the right to return to their homes seized by Israel in 1948.Killings raise death toll of Palestinians shot dead by Israeli soldiers since protests began on March 30 to at least 43.

Israeli forces have shot dead at least two Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to Palestinian health officials.

The killing on Sunday of Baha Abdul Rahman Qdeih, 23, and Mohammad Khaled Abu Rideh, 20, raised the death toll of Palestinians killed by Israeli soldiers since a new wave of protests began on March 30 to at least 43.

Ashraf al-Qudra, Gazas health ministry spokesman, said the two men were killed after Israeli soldiers opened fire of Khan Younis city in the southern part of the besieged enclave.

Qdeih died on the scene, while Abu Rideh succumbed to his wounds shortly after being transferred to Gazas European Hospital, the Palestinian Wafa news agency reported.

A spokesperson for the Israeli military told Al Jazeera Israeli troops had opened fire and shot dead three Palestinians, claiming that a group of four people were attempting to infiltrate into Israel and damage [security] infrastructure.

There was no comment regarding the condition, or whereabouts, of the fourth individual.

The Great March of Return

The killings follow weeks of protests in the besieged Gaza Strip as part of the Great March of Return movement, with marchers demanding the right to return to their homes seized by Israel 70 years ago.

The rallies are part of a six-week protest that will culminate on May 15 to mark what Palestinians refer to as the Nakba, or catastrophe  a reference to Israels establishment in 1948 and when 750,000 Arabs were removed from Palestine.

At least 350 people have been injured in this weekends demonstrations, three of them critically, after Israeli forces again fired live ammunition and tear gas at Palestinians.

More than 7,000 Palestinians have been wounded in total.

There have been no Israeli casualties.Beirut, Lebanon  Voting wound down in Lebanons first parliamentary election in nearly a decade after perpetual delays stymied the countrys ability to resolve its most pressing issues.

Sundays vote saw 583 candidates, including a record number of 86 women, compete for 128 seats in parliament: 64 for Muslims and 64 for Christians.

A new electoral law redrew the country into 15 electoral districts, further entrenching Lebanons foundational sectarian makeup, and introduced proportional representation for the first time.

Under terms of the new law that introduced proportional representation, voters cast two votes; one for a list of candidates and one for a single preferred candidate.

Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk will hold a press conference at 9am local time (06:00 GMT) on Monday to announce the election results.

The election came after an intense campaign cycle where establishment parties hastily glued together a dizzying map of local alliances to navigate the new electoral law, which appeared to offer an opportunity for change.

Some 3.8 million Lebanese were registered and about 800,000 were new eligible voters. About 6,800 polling stations opened across the country under the close watch of security forces.

Voting ended at 7pm local time (16:00 GMT) but some stations stayed open longer to allow those in line to cast their ballots.

The Daily Star newspaper quoted the interior ministry as saying voter turnout stood at 46.9 percent as of 6pm.

Happy with change

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Sundays election took place for the first time after nine years of political turbulence that left the country without a president for two years, and saw parliament extend its tenure several times.

A young couple smiled as they walked out of one polling station in Achrafieh, an affluent Beirut neighbourhood.

I am honestly very happy. Its been a while since we last voted, said Nisreen Affar, an insurance company employee.

I am happy with the change this will bring about  something we have a role in, something that has our imprint, she said. We have to serve the country for it to serve us.

Nisreens husband, Elias Affar, a civil engineer, said he hopes for change. If our choices are wrong, we will sort it out in four years, he said.

Lena Misakyan, of Armenian descent, agreed. One of my sons couldnt find a job here and so he left to Italy. My eldest son is a policeman but he cant afford to build a house or get married. Its time for change, she said. Our sons are fleeing abroad.

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Shortly after he cast his ballot on Sunday morning, President Michel Aoun gave a brief statement to the press, addressing one of the more perplexing aspects of the new law  the preferential vote.

The new electoral law drove political parties to form a spectrum of new and unlikely alliances on candidate lists across the country. Aoun said the preferential vote was necessary as it was unlikely most voters wouldnt care for every name on the candidate list.

Calling voting a sacred duty, the president said that while many other countries enforce mandatory voting, Lebanon values the freedom of each citizen to make their own choice.

But the Lebanese should not neglect this right, he added.

In 2013, elections were postponed because of security reasons and again in 2014 and 2017 as politicians disagreed on the particulars of a new electoral system.

Garbage crisis

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Lebanons political paralysis over the past decade has frustrated an already disillusioned public.

The situation came to a climax in 2015 with massive protests on the streets of Beirut dubbed the garbage crisis, as politicians failed to deal with rubbish building up in neighbourhoods.

A popular movement that arose in 2015 was You Stink, which bolstered the efforts of Lebanons first political outsiders. Calling themselves Beirut Madinati, they sought votes in the capitals municipal elections in 2016.

In less than two years, the movement has expanded into a coalition of 11 different civil society groups and independents competing for seats under one banner called Kollouna Watani  Arabic for We Are All the Nation.

The system is ready for reform, but it wont reform itself. Thats why we need reformists to go into the system and start change from within, said Laury Haytayan, a candidate running with Kollouna Watani, in an interview with Al Jazeera days before voting commenced.

After the war, it was more or less a continuation of the war but without the violent conflict  They [politicians] wanted to stay in power and they thought the only way [to] stay in power is to really highlight religious differences, she said, in reference to Lebanons 15-year civil war that ended in 1990.

Many current leading political figures previously led rival militias during the bloody conflict, or are the sons and daughters of civil war-era leaders.

Nobody is saying the battle we are having is an easy one. Yes, we are going against a sectarianism that has been really deeply rooted in the conscience of the Lebanese [people]. But if we pull through, it means that enough people are ready for change, said Haytayan.



Deep scepticism

Despite the emergence of independent groups participating in the vote on anti-establishment platforms, some Lebanese expressed deep scepticism their efforts would succeed.

There is no water, no electricity, no insurance, no healthcare, no retirement benefits. Would any of that change if I vote? No, said an elderly street bookseller, who refused to give his name in eastern Zahle city on Saturday.

Pressed as to why he would not be voting for independents, he said: Elections here are for big fish with a lot of money. Good guys are stepped on here. They wont succeed in getting votes here.Macron: Reconciliation needed before New Caledonian referendum

Frances president joined the commemoration of the hostage crisis 30 years ago, resulted from the remote islands last vote on independence, a result Macron would like to avoid this time.The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation says it will create a committee on accountability for crimes against Rohingya.

Dhaka, Bangladesh  The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has expressed regret for not responding immediately to the Rohingya crisis, while vowing to assume a strong role in dealing with the ongoing situation in Myanmar and Bangladesh.

Yousef bin Ahmad al-Othaimeen, OIC secretary-general, urged on Sunday the organisations member states to defend the Rohingya, hundreds of thousands of whom have fled to neighbouring Bangladesh as a result of what the UN has described as a textbook example of ethnic cleansing by Myanmars security forces.

We affirm the commitment of the OIC to continue to act at all international and regional levels in support of the cause of the Rohingya people, said al-Othaimeen, speaking at the 45th Session of the OICs Council of Foreign Ministers n the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka.

Prior to the two-day OIC summit, a delegation from the 57-member organisation visited Rohingya refugee camps in southern Bangladesh.

Some 670,000 Rohingya have fled Myanmar since security forces launched a violent crackdown in the countrys western Rakhine State last August, according to the UN, in the wake of deadly attacks on military posts by members of the Arakan Rohingya Solidarity Army (ARSA).

Since then, Myanmar security forces have been accused of rape, murder, torture and setting Rohingya homes on fire.

We will [now] play a strong role along with Bangladesh, the United Nations and the international community, Hesham Youseff, assistant secretary-general for OICs humanitarian affairs division, said on Saturday.

He added that the OIC, which bills itself as the collective voice of the Muslim world, regretted not responding immediately to the situation.

Committee on crimes against the Rohingya

The OIC has said it will create a new committee on accountability for crimes against the Rohingya, in line with its newly adopted stronger role.

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The committee will gather evidence of crimes against the Rohingya to ensure those guilty of human rights violations are appropriately convicted, AH Mahmood Ali, Bangladeshs minister of foreign affairs, said on Sunday.

Earlier this month, Britains ambassador to the UN called on Myanmar authorities to carry out a proper investigation into alleged crimes against the countrys minority Rohingya population.

In order to have accountability, there must be a proper investigation, Karen Pierce said, speaking on May 2 as part of a four-day UN Security Council (UNSC) envoy visit to Myanmar and Bangladesh.

The probe could be carried out either by the International Criminal Court or Myanmars own government, Pierce added.

Myanmar officials deny the countrys military is complicit in instigating violence against the Rohingya, though have pledged to take harsh action against any perpetrators of sexual violence.

Rohingya repatriation

Addressing OIC delegates on Sunday, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed urged members to pressure Myanmar into ensuring a safe return for all Rohingya forced to flee their homes.

The Rohingyas deserve the right to life, dignity and existence like us all, Hasina said.

Myanmar and Bangladesh announced a repatriation deal in January, but rights groups and Rohingya have raised concerns about the agreement, saying it does not guarantee full citizenship or safety for those who return.

The UNs refugee agency has said conditions in Myanmar are not yet conducive for returns to be safe, dignified and sustainable.Ahsan Iqbal out of danger after being shot in the shoulder at political gathering in Narowal district, officials say.

Islamabad, Pakistan  Pakistani Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal has been wounded by an unidentified gunman at an election rally in central Punjab province, according to officials.

Iqbal, 59, was shot in the shoulder on Sunday after addressing the crowd gathered in his native Narowal district, Federal Minister Talal Chaudhry told local TV station Geo News.

Jam Sajjad Hussain, a rescue services spokesperson, told Al Jazeera that Iqbal was getting into his vehicle to leave the rally when a young man fired at him several times.

One bullet hit him in the shoulder. He was transferred to the local district hospital, where he is being treated, he added.

Provincial authorities and Iqbals son said the minister had not suffered any life-threatening wounds.

He is conscious and out of danger, Ahmad Iqbal told Geo News.

As per the doctors at DHQ Narowal, the condition of @betterpakistan is out of danger.  Punjab 2013-18 (@Punjab13to18) May 6, 2018

Television footage showed a prone Iqbal being wheeled into the government-run hospital following the attack. He was later moved to Lahore for further treatment.

Chaudhry said that at least one man had been arrested at the scene of the attack, adding that investigations were ongoing.

Pakistani Prime Shahid Khaqan Abbasis office issued a statement condemning the attack.

The prime minister has called for an immediate report into the incident from IG Police Punjab.

Iqbals ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) party will complete its five-year tenure in government later this month, with Pakistan due to hold a general parliamentary election in July.

Iqbal was made interior minister last year, but has been a member of the cabinet since the PML-N came into power in the 2013 elections. He is also the head of the Ministry of Planning, Development and Reforms.

Asad Hashim is Al Jazeeras digital correspondent in Pakistan. He tweets @AsadHashimFirefight between rebels and security forces leave 10 dead in Indian-administered Kashmir, including five civilians.

Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir  Protests erupted in southern Kashmir after the killing of five civilians and five rebels  including a top commander  in a gun battle with Indian security forces.

State Police Chief Shesh Paul Vaid told Al Jazeera security forces confronted rebels in a house on Sunday in Zanipora Badigam village in Shopian district, 60km from the main city of Srinagar, after receiving intelligence about their presence.

The gunfight is over and all the five terrorists have been killed. We made repeated appeals to them to surrender, but they did not, Vaid said.

According to Indian officials, rebel commander Saddam Padder, who belonged to the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen organisation, was among the dead.

After news spread of fighters being pinned down in a house, hundreds of residents marched towards the gun battle to help the rebels escape, triggering violence between civilians and Indian security forces. Some civilians pelted security officers with stones, said Vaid.

We heard the firing since 3am. We knew something had happened because the noise of guns has become routine now. What follows is more killings and bloodshed, said Shahid Ahmad, 29, a resident of Shopian.

It is a war going on here. People are being killed every day.





Dr Saleem Tak, superintendent of Shri Maharaja Hari Singh hospital, told Al Jazeera one of the dead civilians suffered a bullet wound to the head.

Intensifying situation

On Saturday, three rebels were killed in a firefight with security forces in Srinagar during a six-hour confrontation, including a top commander of the Lashkar-e-Taiba group.

The killings triggered stone-throwing by civilians against Indian security forces. A protester was crushed to death under an army vehicle and video of the incident surged on social media.

To protest against the killings, a complete shutdown was being observed in the region on Sunday.

In Kasmirs southern districts, which have become hotbeds of violent confrontation between rebels and security forces, clashes often end with the killing of civilians who flock to the scene in support of the separatist fighters.

More than 270 rebels have been killed in intensified operations led by the Indian army since last year, officials say.

Tens of thousands of people have died in the decades-old conflict in the Himalayan region, over which South Asian rivals India and Pakistan have fought three wars. Both countries claim divided Kashmir in its entirety.

Anti-India sentiment runs deep among Kashmirs mostly Muslim population after decades of Indian rule.Iranian president says Tehran is ready to confront any decision by Trump, who said he would withdraw from the agreement.

Irans President Hassan Rouhani said that the United States will face historic regret if it pulls out of the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and Western powers.

In an address on state TV on Sunday, Rouhani said that Iran has plans in place to confront any decision by US President Donald Trump, who said he would withdraw from the nuclear agreement.

Necessary directives have been given to related organisations and the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran [to proceed in case of withdrawal], the president said.

If America leaves the nuclear accord, this will entail historic regret for it, Rouhani added.

Trump has repeatedly threatened to end the deal. In January, he announced he is waiving the US sanctions against Iran for the last time.

He said, if his demands are not met within 120 days, the US will withdraw from the deal.

The deadline is on May 12, although he hinted that the US could cut loose before that date if he sees no progress in negotiations.

Irans Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said on Thursday that his country will not be bullied into renegotiating the multilateral deal that was years in the making.

Iran stands firm in the face of futile attempts at bullying, Zarif said in a recorded message.

If the US continues to violate the agreement, or if it withdraws altogether, we will exercise our right to respond in a manner of our choosing, he said referring to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the official name of the agreement.

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He also rejected efforts to renegotiate the deal, saying: We will neither outsource our security, nor will we renegotiate or add on to a deal we have already implemented in good faith.

Zarif added that the US will have to accept responsibility for the consequences of not honouring its commitment to the deal.

Irans most senior diplomat issued the statement as Irans ambassador to the United Kingdom, Hamid Baeidinejad, said Tehran is ready to go back to the previous situation if Washington ditches the deal.

In April, senior Iranian cabinet officials warned that the country could ramp its uranium enrichment to 20 percent on short notice, if the US withdraws from the nuclear agreement.Navalny was arrested on Saturday after organising and attending a massive anti-Putin protest in Moscow.

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been released from detention after he was arrested on Saturday amid widespread protests against President Vladimir Putin.

Navalny was detained in Moscow where he was attending a demonstration organised by him against the inauguration of the Russian president.

Navalny, who has been jailed in the past for organising unauthorised rallies, had called for people critical of Putins leadership to take to the streets in advance of the presidents inauguration for a fourth term on Monday.

According to OVD-info, a human rights monitor, about 1,600 people had been detained nationwide during Saturdays protests.

More than 700 of those arrests made were in Moscow.

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Al Jazeeras Rory Challands, reporting from Moscow, said it was difficult to tell exactly how many people had shown up at the protests due to different estimations from police and protesters themselves.

But certainly this is a countrywide event that has brought thousands and thousands of Russians out on to the streets, Challands said.

The demonstrations are intended to keep the [opposition] momentum going, Challands added, following Putins recent re-election to office in a ballot Navalny was prevented from entering.

Navalny has been one of Putins most staunch opponents. In the run-up to the 2018 presidential elections, Navalny ran a campaign focusing on battling corruption.

However, Navalny was barred from running in the elections after a Russian court reinstated a past criminal conviction for embezzlement.

The conviction had been previously overturned by the European Court of Human Rights, which ruled that Russia did not give Navalny a fair trial.

The European Union said the circumstances surrounding Navalnys removal from the race cast serious doubt on the election.

Putin won the contest with 76 percent of the vote, his best ever showing.

Following those results, Navalny has remained critical of Putin.Trump tells NRA: Gun owners rights will never be under siege

Protesters calling for stricter gun controls say they will show their power in the upcoming midterm elections.Municipal polls were delayed four times since 2011 uprising due to logistics, administrative and political hurdles.

Tunisias Ennahdha Movement has scooped the largest share of the vote in the countrys first free municipal elections since the removal of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and his government in 2011, according to reports on state-run TV.

The Ennahdha party reportedly won an estimated 27.5 percent of votes in Sundays ballot, ahead of the Nidaa Tounes party, which came second with an estimated 22.5 percent.

In total, more than 57,000 candidates  half of them women and young people  ran for office in Tunisias 350 municipalities.

Official results are expected to be announced by May 9.

Analysts predict that the Ennahdha Movement and Nidaa Tounes, Tunisias two political heavyweights, will come out on top in nearly every district.

Low turnout

Overall turnout for the election is predicted to have been low, with Tunisias High Election Commission saying just 21 percent of registered participants had cast their vote by 3pm local time (14:00 GMT).

Polls closed at 6pm local time (17:00 GMT).

Prior to the vote, Tunisian President Caid Essebsi had called for a massive turnout.

This Sunday will not be like other days. For the first time, the Tunisian people are called to participate in municipal elections, something that seems simple but it is very important, Essebsi said on Saturday.

Local government law change

Tunisias parliament adopted a new law on local authorities on May 1, only a few days before the municipal elections.

The local government code is a major law. This is perhaps the most important law passed after the constitution. This will completely change the development model in Tunisia. Its the decentralisation process, Minister of Local Communities and Environment Riadh Mouakher said earlier this month.

The former law  which dates back to 1973  recognised neither their administrative nor financial independence.

While Tunisia has voted in parliamentary and presidential elections since 2011, municipal polls have been delayed four times due to logistic, administrative and political hurdles.

The municipal elections, enshrined in the new constitution and one of the demands of the 2011 revolution, mark the first tangible step of decentralisation since the end of Ben Alis rule.

Further elections ahead

But interest in the poll among Tunisians appears to have remained muted as struggles with corruption and poverty continue.

The country was hit by a wave of protests at the start of the year over a new austerity budget introduced by the government.

Some 60,000 police and military personnel were mobilised for the polls in a country still under a state of emergency after a string of deadly attacks three years ago.

Sundays vote will be followed by legislative and presidential elections in 2019.Municipal polls were delayed four times since 2011 uprising due to logistic, administrative and political hurdles.

Tunisians are heading to the polls on Sunday to vote in the countrys first free municipal elections since the removal of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and his government in 2011.

While Tunisia has since voted in parliamentary and presidential elections, municipal polls have been delayed four times due to logistic, administrative and political hurdles.

This Sunday will not be like other days. For the first time, the Tunisian people are called to participate in municipal elections, something that seems simple but it is very important, Tunisian President Caid Essebsi said on Saturday.

He has called for a massive turnout, but observers expect a low attendance.

The municipal elections, enshrined in the new constitution and one of the demands of the revolution, mark the first tangible step of decentralisation since the end of Ben Alis rule.

But interest in the poll among Tunisians remains muted as struggles with corruption and poverty continue.

The country was hit by a wave of protest at the start of the year over a new austerity budget introduced by the government.

Experts predict Tunisias two political heavyweights  the Islamist Ennahdha movement and the secular Nidaa Tounes party  will come out on top in nearly every district.

More than 57,000 candidates, half of them women and young people, are running for office in Tunisias 350 municipalities.

Some 60,000 police and military personnel have been mobilised for the polls, while Tunisia remains under a state of emergency, imposed in 2015 after a string of deadly attacks.

Voting runs from 8am to 6pm local time (07:00-17:00 GMT) and results are expected in the coming days.

The municipal polls will be followed by legislative and presidential elections in 2019.

Tunisias Parliament adopted a new law on local authorities on May 1, only a few days before the municipal elections.

The local government code is a major law. This is perhaps the most important law passed after the Constitution. This will completely change the development model in Tunisia. Its the decentralization process, said Tunisian Minister of Local Communities and Environment, Riadh Mouakher earlier this month.

The former law  which dates back to 1973  recognised neither their administrative nor financial independence.Windrush protesters march against deportation policy

Members of the Windrush generation called for the end of the hostile environment deportation policy at a rally outside Downing Street.Unofficial results say South American nations leftist president has swept poll with 59.5 percent of the vote.

Evo Morales has won a third term as Bolivias president with a landslide win, according to an unofficial quick count of the vote.

Morales, a native Aymara from Bolivias poor Andean plateau, received 59.5 percent of Sundays vote against 25.3 percent for cement magnate Samuel Doria Medina, the top vote-getter among four challengers, according to a quick count of 84 percent of the voting booths by the Ipsos company for ATB television.

Al Jazeeras Latin America editor Lucia Newman, reporting from La Paz, said Moraless ecstatic supporters waved flags, set off firecrackers and sang songs, celebrating his victory.

Morales spoke to his supporters from the balcony of the presidential palace in La Paz on Sunday [Lucia Newman]

Morales, who has been struggling to recover from a bad cough, spoke to his supporters from the balcony of the presidential palace, she said.

He thanked them for supporting the fight for liberation and vowed to continue his fight against imperialism and capitalism. He also said that in this third term he would build a nuclear power plant for peaceful energy purposes and turn Bolivia into an energy hub.

Morales, a former coca grower, has promised to consolidate his brand of indigenous socialism that has extended the role of the state in a booming natural gas-powered economy.

He has pledged to consolidate his socialist system that has expanded the role of the state in the economy and sharply reduce poverty levels.

Economic growth has averaged five percent annually, well above the regional average.

Nearly six million Bolivians cast their ballots on Sunday in presidential and congressional polls.

Morales was more than 40 points clear of his rival in the pre-election public polls.

Commodities boom

Since Morales first came to office in 2006, a boom in commodities prices has increased export revenues ninefold and the country has accumulated $15.5bn in international reserves.

Morales rivals accuse him of using his power to control the courts and of violating the constitution which limits a president to two consecutive terms.

Last year, the Supreme Court decreed his 2006-2009 period in office should not be counted as a first term as it preceded the adoption of the new constitution. Opponents criticised the decision.

Morales has also drawn opposition from environmentalists and many former indigenous allies by promoting mining and a planned jungle highway through an indigenous reserve.

Despite Bolivias economic advancements, it remains one of South Americas poorest countries and many economists think it depends too much on natural resources.

In the first half of 2014, natural gas and minerals accounted for 82 percent of export revenues.

Last year, Transparency Internationals perception index ranked Bolivia as South Americas third most corrupt country after Venezuela and Paraguay, and Morales opponents say he has spent millions in government money on his campaign, giving him an unfair advantage.

NOTES FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT IN THE FIELD

Al Jazeeras Lucia Newman

Opponents of President Evo Morales told us they were unhappy about his authoritarian style and control of the media, but pleased with Bolivias economic growth.

Morales combines conservative economics with leftwing rhetoric and social spending, policial analyst Andres Torrez told Al Jazeera.

Everyone is making money, wages have doubled and while the opposition loathes him, they say they are no hurry to see Morales leave.

A female Bolivian minor told Al Jazeera that Morales had changed her life and made women no longer invisible in Bolivia.

Jorge Chawanca, a 65-year-old driver from Cochabamba in central Bolivia, said Evo taught those men in ties [politicians] a lesson. When Goni [Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada] was president, we thought because he spoke better English than Spanish he would develop Bolivia. All they did was steal and govern for themselves. Who would have thought an uneducated indigenous Aymara, a coca farmer, end up being the best President weve ever had.

President Evo Morales still holds the post of president of the coca growers union in El Chapare, the tropical region in Bolivia where he voted.

Its more of an honorary title, he told Al Jazeera. I have no time to run the union.

But it is an honour for the farmers and for me. This is where I learned about life and forged my political career. We learned to struggle, to cry and to succeed together.About the show

A weekly programme that examines and dissects the worlds media, how they operate and the stories they cover. Watch The Listening Post every Saturday at 0830GMT"It gives us a very special, secret pleasure to see how unaware the people around us are of what is really happening to them." When he said this, Hitler could have been speaking about America today. The "secret" in Nazi Germany and democratic America is that minds were and are getting washed with propaganda from government and "official" channels of information and news. By mid-century, the American press was virtually a branch of government, and it was a secret only to uninformed citizens that the public was being hoodwinked.

American labor organizer and former general secretary of the Communist Party USA, William Z. Foster, spelled out the plan for America in 1932:

The proletarian revolution in the United States will at once make a devastating slash into this maze of hypocrisy and intellectual rubbish. Not less than in the Soviet Union, it will usher in a profound cultural revolution[.] ... [Education] will be revolutionized, being cleansed of religious, patriotic and other features of the bourgeois ideology. The students will be taught on the basis of Marxian dialectical materialism, internationalism and the general ethics of the new Socialist society. Present obsolete methods of teaching will be superseded by a scientific pedagogy.

Was this just a political rant, like that proliferating throughout Europe and America after World War I? Or was it the "writing on the wall" by a vanguard of dedicated enemies of America? By mid-century, the mission of Marxist activists to transform America into a Soviet-style collective was considered by many in the mainstream "a thing of the past" and all but forgotten. When war broke out in Vietnam in the 1960s, however, and violent demonstrations on college campuses and riots erupted across America, older Americans suspected that the Marxist movement had been relegated to the dustbin of history too soon. Student confrontations with police became daily news, blood was spilled, buildings were blown up, in brutal waves of protest against "the Establishment." Accused of crimes against humanity, "the Establishment" was summarily convicted and sentenced to "justice" according to Marxist rules. In their execution of "justice," the younger rebels practiced violence while their seniors engaged in planning and subversion.

Postwar activists, funded by agents in and out of government, had geared up to the wholesale trashing of Western culture, in preparation for the communist takeover planned early in the 20th century. Marxists had already begun to inject their poison ideology in public schools by the start of World War II in a program of education called "Progressive," designed to prepare the young for a collectivist society. How could such a trick be pulled off in a democratic country? Democracy, according to John Dewey, the "father of Progressive Education," is a tool, not a form of government. That's how. A twist of words converted the will of the people into the will of the State!

By the time of the 1960s uprisings, it was clear to all but the blind that America was under attack from within. Where were the news media reports of subversion? Why was the public kept from knowing, for example, that the Soviet Union provided $1 billion to the U.S. anti-war movement (AKA peace movement)?

I was aware of the deadly mixture of truth and falsehood being fed the public in the news, on campus, in the school room, in church  distortions of truth dressed in noble language that concealed the intent of political rebels "to demolish beyond hope of repair the engine of Western metaphysics"  to use the words of J. Hillis Miller, an outspoken academician of the political left.

The Vietnam War was fuel for the social firestorm breaking out across America in the 1960s, staged and started by rebels and dissenters of every stripe. The Vietnam War  let it be clear  was an excuse, not a cause for the violence on this side of the Pacific. Where were the brigades of concerned citizens to quell the skirmishes and fight the battles?  where the groundswell of voices drowning the political drivel in the press, on TV, on college campuses? In a country where part of a soldier's oath is to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic"  for which they were sent to all corners of the world  such "oversight" of internal warfare amounted to treachery!

Regardless of congressional action like that of Senator Joseph McCarthy to identify communists in an effort to quash plots against the government, and despite the abundance of anti-communist commentary and calls to action from books, pamphlets, periodicals, talk programs, and church leaders, no effective measures were put in place by the government to counter the threat to the American way of life. And instead of sounding an alarm to alert the public that their way of life was being threatened, the mainstream news media continued to justify and support the 1960s social revolution and its culture-bashing aftermath.

By the 1980s, an entire new generation was disoriented. School and media had turned young minds toward an ideology at odds with America's founding principles and values. Americans progressively lost their moral bearings and their identity as Americans. Marxist activists and other crusaders for a collectivist nation had by now taken positions of leadership in academia, government, and church. Public schools were beginning to pit students against their parents and filling their heads with ideas calculated to undermine the core values of their country and heritage.

Americans who got all their news from the mainstream press or TV were unaware that a culture war had broken out across the country. Mainstream media reporters, allegedly on the side of truth, were either ignorant or complicit. Reporting the truth, never safe, was more than ever a sure way of getting fired. If you, as an honest writer or editor, didn't like what was going on, you could join the ranks of publications and organizations that were blacklisted or struggling to get the word out.

As in "the invasion of the body-snatchers," America changed from a relatively free and happy land to a fretful and contentious one. The atmosphere throughout the land soured, with a slew of legally backed prescriptions for thought, speech, and behavior, facetiously dubbed "political correctness"  rules that pit oppressor class against victim class (a Marxist trick to divide and control people). Most damaging was the fact that these "politically correct" instructions were being fed to schoolchildren and reinforced in the mainstream media by groups and agencies that were not elected by or represented the people.

The left's brainwashing of American minds was accompanied by a progressive deterioration of morality, due in great measure to the failure of religious leaders to publicly condemn those in the public eye who acted amorally or immorally. "Anything goes" hoaxes against the mind (such as the so-called "sexual revolution") to detach the mind from the heart weakened the moral sense and the mental acuity of mainstream Americans. It also weakened the initiative and enterprising spirit that once formed the character of American society.

All the foregoing said, it must be everyone's hope and prayer that the long journey back to political and social sanity be conducted with honesty and love for one another.

Anthony J. DeBlasi is a Korean War veteran and lifelong defender of Western culture.

Image: FaceMePLS via Flickr.In November 1947 the United Nations voted to approve a partition plan that would have created a Jewish-majority state and an Arab-majority state in historic Palestine, and shared Jerusalem between the two parties. The Jews accepted the partition plan, and the results of the UN vote, though it provided insecure borders in a fragmented new state. Reaching a compromise is always a process in which neither side gets everything they want, but it is better than war, with all the destruction and upheaval which war brings.

The Arab nations voted against the partition resolution in the GeneralAssembly, and never accepted the results of the UN vote. The Arabs had never accepted the idea of a Jewish-majority state in any part of historic Palestine, and began a campaign of violence against the Zionists the very night the resolution was passed. During World War 2, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, holed up in Berlin, encouraged Adolf Hitler to turn his death machine against the Jews in Palestine while the Nazis were working to murder all the Jews in Europe. During the British mandate period, the Arabs had rejected earlier partition plans more favorable to them, such as the 1938 Peel Plan, because it allowed a tiny Jewish state to be created. In essence, the Arabs had fought Zionism for half a century, and were determined to deal t he Jewish state a knockout blow as soon the British left in May 1948.

Five Arab nations attacked Israel the day it became a new nation, assisting the Arabs in Palestine in their effort to destroy Israel. Despite enormous advantages in armed men, planes, tanks, and other weaponry, the Arabs were unsuccessful. Israel survived the onslaught, and defeated the Arab armies , creating new borders for the Jewish state, as well as for Jordan and Egypt. At the end of the war, Jordan held Judea and Samaria (also known as the West Bank) and the eastern part of Jerusalem, including the old city, and expelled Jews who had lived there for thousands of years. Egypt captured Gaza in the war. At no point did Egypt and Jordan attempt to create a new Arab state of Palestine with the territories they had picked up in the war. Instead Jordan annexed the West Bank, a seizure recognized by only two nations, and Egypt held Gaza as a territory.

During the war, there were many people displaced on both sides. More than half a million Arabs became refugees. Most of them had left their towns as instructed by invading Arab armies to get out of the way of the coming planned slaughter of the Jews. Tens of thousands had left even before the UN partition resolution. Some fled a war zone, where there was very close fighting, a sensible thing to do. In some cases, the Israeli forces consolidated territorial corridors, particularly to Jerusalem. The Arabs also spread stories of civilian killings, which frightened many Arab residents to leave their towns, even though the stories were false or greatly exaggerated.

After the war, the Arabs demanded that the partition borders be restored, and all the refugees be allowed to return. This was a novel demand. If you start a war meaning to annihilate the enemy and you lose, you dont get a do over. There are no do overs in history. The smart thing would have been for the Arabs to have accepted the partition plan and not started a war. There are consequences to starting a war and losing.

The Syrian Prime Minister during the war of 1948-1949, Haled Al Azm, wrote in his memoirs in 1973:

Since 1948 we have been demanding the return of the refugees to their homes. But we ourselves are the ones who encouraged them to leave. Only a few months separated our call for them to leave and our appeal to the United Nations to resolve on their return.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas wrote in 1976:

The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from the Zionist tyranny but, instead, they abandoned them, forced them to emigrate, and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettoes in which the Jews used to live.

This is the real tragedy of the Palestinian Arabs. Those who left their homes wound up not far from home, in Arab countries which had supported their cause during the war. They were among other Arabs, who spoke the same language, had the same culture, and the same religion. No refugee population should have had it easier, given that Arabs wound up among their own people. But the Arab countries refused to allow normal resettlement, as usually occurs with refugees, instead relegating many refugees to squalid camps, in which their families have lived now for 3 or 4 generations. Many Palestinians have chosen to remain in these camps dreaming of a return to Israel, clanging old keys from 70 years back, or been threatened if they wanted to leave. But how can you return to a place where you have never lived or even visited? The truth of the matter is that there may be no more than 25,000 refugees remaining alive from the 1948 war. The rest are descendants -- children, grandchildren even great grandchildren of original refugees, none of whom have been in Israel or left it.

All the refugee populations in the world come under the jurisdiction of a single UN agency, except for the Palestinians. All other refugees do not pass refugee status on to descendants, only the refugees themselves are counted as such. Only the Palestinians are allowed to count all descendants as refugees, and many have chosen to live off their collective grievance, rather than move on with their lives.

Sephardic Jews, more than 800,000 of whom were expelled or encouraged to leave Arab countries in the years after the creation of Israel, provide a far better and more humane approach for dealing with refugees. Israel absorbed more than 70 per cent of these refugees (France and the United States took many others) and within a few short years, had moved them out of temporary housing and allowed them to start new lives in Israel. I know because my father and his 4 brothers and parents left all of their lives and assets behind when they fled from Iraq and they made themselves a new life in Israel.

Today there are 6.6 million Jews in Israel, and 1.8 million Arabs, more than 11 times as many Arabs as resided within the borders of Israel at the end of the fighting in 1949. So much for the absurd notion of ethnic cleansing. In essence, Israels war of independence resulted in a population exchange, something that is very common during wars or when new nations are created. 20 million Muslims and Hindus moved to new countries when India and Pakistan became nations.

The demand for a right of return for millions of Palestinians, including all the descendants of refugees, signals one enduring Palestinian goal -- to destroy the state of Israel, by overwhelming it with Arabs from abroad. The Palestinians still do not accept a two-state solution, just as they refused the partition in 1948, but demand a single state they can dominate.

Israel will not commit national suicide to endorse a false narrative of what happened 70 years back.

Aviv Ezra is Consul General of Israel to the Midwest.When former president Obama's cheerleaders, greedy Europeans, and the leftist echo-chamber media argue in favor of keeping the nuclear deal with Iran, their main argument is that the world is a safer place with it because the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors have confirmed that Iran has not violated the deal since its signing in 2015.

They further state that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's recent revelation of a treasure trove of Iranian nuclear intelligence obtained by the Israeli spy agency Mossad, which proved that Iran has been lying about its nuclear weapons program, was well known and that no "smoking gun" proving any Iranian violations of the nuclear deal was provided.

The European Union, in response to the Netanyahu presentation, stated that the "nuclear agreement, is not based on assumptions of good faith or trust, it is based on concrete commitments, verifications mechanism and very strict monitoring of facts done by IAEA and as a result the IAEA has published 10 reports, certifying that Iran has fully complied with its commitments."

In reality, the IAEA inspections could not truly confirm or certify such compliance because the deal itself was bad and the supposed inspections specified in the deal were a total farce.

The agreement gave a lot of discretion to the Iranian terrorist regime to cheat by allowing regime members to decide the nature, extent, time, and place of the inspections. It seems that the deal gave the fox the keys to the henhouse while the world and media pretend the so-called findings from the fake inspections are true and credible.

The liberal media will cheer anything in order to protect Obama's legacy, and the Europeans will cheer any deal providing them with hard cash, regardless of the dangerous consequences from a nuclear-armed Iran.

In 2015, President Obama promised when he tried to sell the deal to a skeptical American public that the Iranians agreed to the "most robust and intrusive inspections and transparency regime, ever negotiated for any nuclear program in history," based on "unprecedented verification." Moreover, Obama adviser Ben Rhodes reassured the public repeatedly that the deal included "anywhere, anytime" inspections and 24-7 access to Iran's key nuclear facilities.

But in reality, the administration repeatedly lied to the American public by misrepresenting the deal and the nature of the inspections Iran agreed to. The robust inspections referred only to Iran's declared nuclear sites. Other sites that the IAEA has suspicions about, including all military sites and undeclared nuclear sites, fell under a separate cheating-friendly procedure.

One of the most controversial issues in the 2015 negotiations was whether the U.N.'s IAEA would be able to visit military sites if they had questions about suspected nuclear activities or facilities within them. In the end, Iranian leader Ayatollah Khamenei on June 23, 2015 stated that granting access to Iran's military sites was a red line, and the U.S. and its partners gave in and agreed on language with Iran avoiding a direct mention of the military sites issue.

Instead, the deal stated that in order to allay IAEA concerns, Iran would give access within a 24-day time frame, after the IAEA made a request to visit a suspected site. Furthermore, the deal stated that if Iran refused the access, the Islamist state and the IAEA would have additional 14 days to resolve the agreement among themselves. If they failed to agree, a joint commission comprising the six member-nations who are parties to the agreement would consider the matter for an additional week.

In conclusion, according to the agreement, Iran can continue its uranium enrichment program and continue developing its weapon program at its many military sites, and every time the IAEA suspects anything, the Iranians can have 24 days at a minimum and 45 days maximum to delay the access, sanitize the sites, or transfer the unauthorized nuclear work to another unauthorized military site.

The word "military" was mentioned only once in the deal by saying that "access requests would not be aimed at interfering with Iranians military or other national security activities." Legally, such catch-all language was included purposely to protect most sites from the IAEA inspections, because in this totalitarian regime, protected by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, everything is considered "national security activities."

Furthermore, as part of the deal, Russia, with a growing strategic partnership with Iran, was the one to be responsible for transferring and keeping almost all of Iran's stockpile of low-enriched uranium, which in theory would leave Iran with too little fuel to manufacture a nuclear weapon. On December 29, 2015, it was reported that a Russia ship left Iran carrying almost all of Iran's stockpile of low-enriched uranium. At the time, John Kerry called this shipment " one of the most significant steps Iran has taken toward fulfilling its commitment."

Moreover, as part of the 2015 deal, Tehran got two shipments from Russia in the amount of 116 metric tons of "natural uranium," one in December 2015 and another in January 2017, as a swap for the enriched uranium Iran supposedly sent to Russia. Uranium can be enriched to levels ranging from reactor fuel to the core of an atomic bomb.

At the time the agreement was signed, Iran insisted on its "nuclear innocence," that it had never had interest in building nuclear weapons and that it intends to use the natural uranium shipments only for peaceful purposes.

Now, after Netanyahu's revelations of Iranian archives of thousands of original official documents with the stamp of the Iranian regime, there is no room for any doubt that Iran lied and that they were working on a military nuclear program.

How can we trust the IAEA verification of Iranian compliance when we now know conclusively that Iran falsified all its reports to the IAEA? How can we trust the results if the IAEA cannot inspect any military site any time with no notice?

How can anyone trust Russia's honest involvement in getting rid of the Iranian enriched uranium in light of the recent Russian lies and denials about obvious Syrian use of chemical weapons against that country's own people in Duma last April, as well as its efforts to internationally protect Assad's monstrous behavior?

Ironically, in 2013, rather than take military action, Obama agreed to a Russian deal to dismantle Syria's chemical weapons program. Under the agreement, Syria, an Iranian proxy and Russian ally, was supposed to turn over its entire chemical weapons arsenal to be destroyed. In April 2018, the world realized that the Assad regime had lied.

On May 12, Trump must decide whether to abolish the dangerous Iran nuclear deal and resume sanctions or continue the deal.

Hear no evil and see no evil was the Obama negotiation strategy in his desperation and obsession to sign the Iran nuclear deal. If Iran was able to hide a detailed nuclear weapons program from the West and its many intelligence agencies prior to 2015, how can anyone believe that the same lying regime can't or won't do it again?

With Netanyahu's revelations, modifying the deal is too little, too late. After the Mossad raid, history will hold Trump, not Obama, responsible for the nuclear deal's foreseeable dangerous consequences, because he knew with 100% certainty that the Iranians were liars.

Shoula Romano Horing is an Israeli-born and raised attorney. Her blog: www.shoularomanohoring.com .New York penal law provides for what are known as "indeterminate sentences," whereby there is a fixed minimum time (which is the initial parole eligibility date) and a fixed maximum (which, for crimes such as murder, can be for the life of the inmate). Once there is parole eligibility, the Board of Parole has discretion to grant the parole before the maximum sentence time.

New York Executive Law 259-i(c)(A) prescribes the requisite standards for the Board's decision to grant (or to not grant) release to the inmate prior to the completion of the maximum sentence term. The Parole Board is required to strike a balance of fairness to both the public and the inmate. "Fairness" to the inmate does not necessarily require that the inmate be released from incarceration; what "fairness" does require is that the inmate be accorded due process as specified by law.

Once a New York inmate becomes eligible for parole, he is entitled to a new hearing every two years if parole has not been granted. The victims and their families are thus subjected to a biennial cycle of uncertainty and stress as they submit their statements to the board and wait in dread of the board's decision.

Of late, the New York State Board of Parole has been subjected to criticism that it has been overly fixated with the "seriousness of the offense" factor in denying parole to inmates and, in doing so, depriving the inmate of the due process to which he is entitled.

On 27 May 2015, New York state Supreme Court justice Sandra Sciortino found that the Parole Board misapplied Executive Law  259-i(c)(A) and did not follow the requisite procedures for reaching its decision to deny Michael Cassidy parole. She found that the board's written decision denying parole to Cassidy failed to establish a nexus between the facts of the crime and the probability that Cassidy's release will or will not be successful and consistent with the good of society.

All of those things were required in a prior order by Justice Sciortino, and so, the judge found the board in contempt of her prior order and required the board to revisit its denial decision within 60 days, and to pay Cassidy's legal expenses associated with the action.

(Do not be overly impressed by the name of the tribunal. For reasons rooted more in history and nostalgia than in logic, the "Supreme Court" is the lowest court of general jurisdiction in New York, each county having one. "Supreme Court" decisions are appealable to the "Supreme Court Appellate Division," and from thence to the Court of Appeals of the State of New York, the highest state court in New York.)

Justice Sciortino's order did not require the board to grant Cassidy's application for parole; it did not require the board to give any particular weight to any of the mandatory consideration factors; and it did not interfere with any future Parole hearings that may pertain to Cassidy. The board granted Cassidy another hearing, apparently conducted within the parameters of Justice Sciortino's order, and Cassidy was once again denied parole. Cassidy remains incarcerated, and his next parole hearing is slated for December 2018.

Laurie Kellogg evokes far more public sympathy than does Michael Cassidy. Ruling on Ms. Kellogg's appeal of her denial of parole, on 20 March 2017, New York State Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron similarly found that:

... what the Parole Board has done here is to re-sentence petitioner, which the law does not authorize it to do. The Parole Board is not all-powerful; nor does not write on a clean slate. It may not act as an appellate court to the sentencing judge. It is not a super-legislature, tasked with sentencing discretion.

But Justice Engoron went even farther than his sister Justice Sciortino; he ordered the board to actually grant parole to Ms. Kellogg. The "immediate release" part of Justice Engoron's order was subsequently reversed on appeal, the Appellate Division implicitly finding Justice Engoron's directed remedy to be an excess of his own authority, on par with the very excesses he found in the board's actions. Ms. Kellogg's next parole hearing is slated for May 2018 (and may have already occurred by the time this is posted, inasmuch as the board embargoes posting the results of its hearing calendar for five business days).

(Full Disclosure: Arthur and I were each included in the same group admission to practice before the United States Supreme Court, and I subsequently attended his robing ceremony when he ascended to the bench.)

The infamous and deadly 1981 Brinks Robbery in Nanuet, New York, was carried out by members of the May 19 Communist Organization, a violent radical revolutionary group formed by members of the Black Liberation Army and the Weather Underground. Three people were killed in the robbery, including Nyack Police sergeant Edward J. O'Grady, Jr. and Officer Waverly L. Brown.

Judith Clark, who drove a getaway car in the robbery, was convicted of felony murder and sentenced to three consecutive 25-years-to-life terms of imprisonment. In December 2016, New York governor Andrew Cuomo commuted Ms. Clark's sentence, thereby making her immediately eligible for parole. (This was a political risk on the part of Cuomo; just ask Mike Huckabee.)

As it typically does in the cases of violent offenders, the board denied Ms. Clark's first application for parole. On 26 April 2018, acting New York State Supreme Court justice John J. Kelley overturned the New York State Board of Parole's denial of parole for Judith Clark and ordered a rehearing.

There are many valid and compelling arguments both for and against granting Ms. Clark's parole. As mentioned above, the New York statute requires a finding that release on parole will "not so deprecate the seriousness of [the] crime as to undermine respect for law."

If respect for the law is a salient factor (as it well should be), then several matters come into play against Judith Clark. In addition to two dead law enforcement officers, the trend of imposing civil if not criminal liability upon accomplices and facilitators is on the increase, most notably in the fight against terrorism. New York court decisions are cited as precedent not only in other states, but also in foreign countries (including Israel, where terrorism is a salient problem for the legal system). Undue lenity for crime accomplices and facilitators cannot help but impede effective legal remedies against terror.

Ironically, Judith Clark, who embarked upon her crime to make a political statement, nay, to violently reshape the political order, is now entangled in politics as she seeks her freedom. While her release would damage respect for the law by detracting from sanctions against cop-killers and terrorists, her continued incarceration would cast additional shadows upon the due processes of the New York State Parole Board.

New York State's parole system is broken, and is under siege. The Parole Board is under too many distractive influences from political and judicial quarters, and lacks the direction to function as intended. The situation is not stable, and something will have to give way if there is no overhaul.

While indeterminate sentences avail the corrections professionals valuable incentives to offer inmates in return for good behavior and rehabilitation, the same lack of certainty exacerbates the angst and anguish of victims and their survivors, who are biennially compelled to relive the cycle as long as the criminal remains alive and incarcerated; determinate sentences would remove much of the uncertainty for the crime victims and their families. There are some crimes which do warrant life imprisonment without the possibility of parole (if not capital punishment). The whole legal framework for parole in New York needs to be recast.

The New York State Board of Parole must now make parole approval and denial decisions not only for Judith Clark, but for many other inmates dumped into its lap by New York's dysfunctional system. I do not envy the members of the Board in the least.

Kenneth H. Ryesky is a freelance writer, currently based in Israel, who has taught business law and taxation at Queens College CUNY. He is admitted to the Bars of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and the United States Supreme Court.A charter school in Chula Vista, Calif., just south of San Diego, got its name in the news for hosting a mural featuring a bloodied severed head of President Trump.

After a public outcry, the school acted quickly to cover it up, and got the "artist" (Sasha Andrade, who has no record at all on the Internet of creating any art) to change it, apparently under protest.

The famous mural, via YouTube screengrab, after the Daily Caller

Instead of citing the highly politicized content of the mural, which would make it Cuban-style propaganda, or perhaps something redolent of what the Sandinistas of Nicaragua put up before the voters threw them out in 1990, the school's director piously cited the "violence" in the imagery as the problem. The full statement is here:

MAAC Community Charter School's mission is to provide a safe and accepting environment where diversity of thought is recognized, valued and celebrated. There was a mural painted at the event this past weekend that does not align with our school's philosophy of non-violence. This mural has been painted over and we have been in communication with the artists who have agreed to create a new mural that better aligns with the school's philosophy.

It's nonsense. A mural going up anywhere on a school grounds would normally be subject to approval by a school board and it would be normal to ask why the board of this charter independent school approved this. Someone wanted this up and backed off when the school got caught in the glare of negative publicity. The San Diego Union-Tribune asked that question and didn't get a straight answer: the school's marketing director said the school was "looking into" whether anyone approved it.

Let's keep waiting on that.

A look at who's running the school pretty well tells us what was going on. The school, whose MAAC initials stand for Metropolitan Area Advisory Committee on Anti-Poverty of San Diego County, Inc. is a project of a group of Chicano militant groups, some dating from the brown-beret era of the 1970s and earlier, and their school has been around since 2001. One name on the board stands out: Hermandad Mexicana, a Soros-funded group whose chief impact has to promote the interests of illegal immigrants. Hermandad Mexicana was the group that organized and pulled the stunt using a child to break through lines and give visiting Pope Francis a note calling for legalization of the parents of illegal immigrants in 2015. I wrote about the staging with that here.

So now they have a charter school, and that charter school claims it serves the underserved - obviously, with Chavez-style propaganda if the Trump severed head mural is any indication, just as Chavez did with the Caracas shantytown dwellers, offering goodies in exchange for political loyalty.

Charter schools get both state and federal funds, and in California, are only permitted to exist if they maintain a sufficient student ratio as well as live up to performance standards. This one doesn't.

According to this statistic (dated to 2012, so it may be changed) they get an average of $7,131 per pupil of federal funding, plus state funding conditioned upon performance. The school has 243 students enrolled, according to its School Accountability Report Card for 2016-2017, which if the numbers are correct, would mean it gets $1,732,833 in federal funding alone.

Now let's take a look at who's enrolled - it's a doozy.

According to the SARC, the school educates students up to the age of 24, and has 167 students enrolled as seniors, or, grade 12. Sixty-one are in Grade 11, a huge drop. Thirteen are in Grade 10, a more precipitous drop still, and all of two, repeat, two, are in Grade 9. There are no student rosters listed for lower grades, although the SARC forms include them as a category together with higher grades further down on the report, which could be a category placeholder.

Assuming these are all the students they have, this stands out because it suggests that most of these kids aren't high-schoolers, they are likely adult illegal immigrants from Mexico and beyond who are the typical military-aged young men who are playing student to keep this school's enrollment up, its funds coming, and probably to obtain Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals benefits. The Grade 12 classification is likely high because it includes 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 and 24 year-olds.

Statistics show that, too.

According to 2016-2017 student data on the SARC (and it contradicts itself in places)

95.9% are identified a Hispanic.

70.4% are listed as socially disadvantage (the figure rises to 90% later in the report)

65% are identified as "English learners," which would likely mean Spanish-only speakers, or unassimilated immigrants.

Combine it with the huge age gaps for the high school and it has the look of a propaganda school for young Chavista soldiers from among the illegal immigrant community.

It gets worse - look at the academic record of the place, which is the main rationale for keeping it open at all:

The SARC shows that the students, most of them young adults, not kids, all have books and the school grounds have an overall exemplary rating. Yet the performance is utterly abysmal.

English language arts / literacy for grades 3, 8, and 11 is 8%, compared with 53% for the district and 48% statewide.

Science proficiency is at 5%, compared to 49% for the district and 54% for the state.

Math is not even rated because fewer than ten students at Grade 11 are enrolled in any math, although there are some math enrollment statistics further down in the report - which would make one question then why the space was left blank.

Between 89% and 91% of the students were tested.

And 98.7% of the students were enrolled in courses required for University of California or California State Universities for admission. A mightly 0.7% completed all of them.

Which makes one wonder about this school. It's got a facile ideological militancy of the left, it's got a questionable student body of few high-school age students, and its academic record is abysmal.

Is this really a school that should be taking federal funds and allowed by the state to exist as an alternative to public schools?

It has the look of a front group for something else, something that doesn't resemble education.The Iran deal, (and for that matter, the Cuba deal), make so little sense for America's interests that one might wonder if former White House Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes, and Vice President Joe Biden's National Security Advisor Colin Kahl and other deep staters who have consistently worked to undermine the Trump administration yet loudly defend such deals, might just be personally benefitting from it.

Well, are they? Do tell.

So, someone in the Trumpsters' camp reportedly sicced an Israeli opposition research outfit on them to find out. No idea what they found, but the whole quest seems to be fair game, given President Obama's White House's behavior during the Trump transition. In other words, gave Ben Rhodes, who is so closely involved with sniping from the sides and other manipulative acts directed at President Trump, a taste of his own medicine.

As you may imagine, the Guardian and its satellite publication, the Observer, are aghast.

Aides to Donald Trump, the US president, hired an Israeli private intelligence agency to orchestrate a dirty ops campaign against key individuals from the Obama administration who helped negotiate the Iran nuclear deal, the Observer can reveal. People in the Trump camp contacted private investigators in May last year to get dirt on Ben Rhodes, who had been one of Barack Obamas top national security advisers, and Colin Kahl, deputy assistant to Obama, as part of an elaborate attempt to discredit the deal. The extraordinary revelations come days before Trumps 12 May deadline to either scrap or continue to abide by the international deal limiting Irans nuclear programme

Extraordinary, yes, but it has the look of fighting fire with fire. Where was the Guardian or Observer when Team Obama, of which Ben Rhodes, famous for being a creative writing major, was a driving part, politicized the intelligence agencies and allowed miscreants such as IRS nonprofits director Lois Lerner to get off scot-free? Where was this paper when Democrats paid opposition researchers of their own to dig up dirt on Donald Trump, via Fusion GPS, and apparently made up quite a bit of what became known as the "Steele dossier"? Where was this paper when Rhodes himself continually used his inside-the-White House operatives to leak and attempt to damage President Trump as he was just taking office. A co-conspirator, my White House sources told me more than a year ago, just happened to be ... Rhodes' Twitter sidekick, Colin Kahl.

What goes around comes around. Ben Rhodes and all his buddies started this sort of skulduggery to oust Trump when the election didn't go their way, lowering the political bar. Now they're learning that two can play that game.Oh, that Bernie Sanders  thanks to his dopey thinking, he is our time's ultimate reverse indicator. His latest scheme is a guaranteed job for everyone that is wildly impractical. This is coming at a time when it is now dawning on economists and market-watchers the United States is entering a multi-decade labor shortage  the kind that will drive up wages for low-income minorities and others who most badly need to be in the workforce on a regular basis. That most American of all industries, fast food, is even facing an existential employment crisis thanks to this permanent worker shortage.

This new economic reality will really hit home if President Trump is successful in reducing marginal skill immigration, especially the illegal kind, that competes against our native-born, entry-level workers and limits their opportunities, as Harvard's George Borjas has studied for years.

President Trump's policies of low corporate income tax rates are also going to help keep things humming along, something Ronald Reagan long advocated, especially as this tax most hurts domestic manufacturers.

This is not the first time Bernie has been spectacularly wrongheaded. I wrote a few years ago about how unnecessary his free college plan had become. Private organizations have already taken the lead, and the cost problem of college is being successfully addressed. We may even see the last of crazy professors like Randa Jarrar. Much as the energy crisis was ended by the frackers , we are getting to nearly free college, all no thanks to the feds.

Bernie, if nothing else, is an extreme example of how little our leaders in Washington are able to think and grow and take in new information. His world has not changed at all since his 1960s days goofing off at a hippie commune.

President Trump, in contrast, is succeeding despite all the opposition, because he seems to have a tactile understanding of what is happening now in the world and how to proceed. He may not be a well read deep policy thinker, but he is proving to be a commonsense decision maker, which is more than good enough for government work.

Compare him to Paul Ryan, who is leaving his post because, fundamentally, he just ran out of ideas. He has a great pedigree, as a protege of Jack Kemp and Bill Bennett, but he has never been able to translate his understanding of the "high-water Reaganism" of the 1980s into a compelling politics for today. Ryan's biggest project was his Roadmap in various iterations that would address the long-term fiscal health of the federal government. Only most voters just don't care, and politicians won't act on anything like this unless there is a crisis, like the 1983 Social Security reforms Reagan got through, only because the system was literally out of money.

Trump, showing his political acumen, is trying to put off social welfare reforms until money problems again force Congress to act. That may be cynical, but it's the only practical way to proceed. And Trump, unlike Ryan, embraced from the get-go some of Rand Paul's most attractive ideas on Obamacare alternatives. Ryan was the guy who had nothing interesting to offer in the Obamacare repeal battle in 2017.

Anyway, this new Trump era has lots of new challenges but plenty of new opportunities as well. It's a great time for anybody, including members of Congress, to go looking for a new job and career. Too bad Bernie Sanders won't be doing so anytime soon.

Frank Friday is an attorney in Louisville, Ky.

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr.Actress Alyssa Milano attended an anti-NRA protest in Dallas yesterday. Milano, a child actress known for her work in series TV, tweetet her opposition to the NRA, suggesting people vote for candidates who received no NRA money.

The best way to defeat the NRA is to vote for candidates who dont take their money. Register to vote at https://t.co/fRXtJpSIXv. #NoRA #Vote pic.twitter.com/2kiZIk9OEq  Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) May 5, 2018

How very noble of her. There's only one problem with her advocacy; she attended the event flanked by armed bodyguards.

The American Mirror:

In video captured by Ben Howe, NRA member Will Haraway asked Milanos security if he was armed and the man clearly wasnt amused by the question. Im going to ask you to leave, the guard said repeatedly, physically backing Haraway up by getting in his face. How far do I have to go? Haraway asked. Im going to need you on the sidewalk, the agent responded. Hypocrite! Alyssa youre a hypocrite! You have armed security here! an observer yelled. Milanos friends, meanwhile, had no problem denouncing guns while benefiting from her special protected status. I will change the world, Khary Penebaker declared, posing next to the safe Milano. Not one more gun death. Not one more broken hearted family. NOT. ONE. MORE, he said. The irony, of course, was lost on the Hollywood celebrity as she denounced the Second Amendment group.

As I wrote yesterday about Greens feeling like they have a moral license to pollute, so, too, anti-gun Hollywood celebrities feel that because they are on the "right side" of the gun issue, there is no hypocrisy in having armed guards protect their precious rear ends.

Of course, the rest of us know better. The Second Amendment gives all Americans the right to protect themselves (or hire bodyguards to protect them.). But along with a moral license, there is a towering sense of entitlement on the part of rich celebrities that allows them to lecture us about all sorts of behavior and ways of thinking. We "little people" are in great need of guidance and who better to instruct us than empty-headed Hollywood types whose knowledge of any issue is dictated by Democratic party talking points?

Everyone should point their finger and laugh at Milano.Amidst signs that death approaches for Senator John McCain, as it will for us all, the senators representatives are staying true to his negativity about President Trump. At least that is my reading between the lines of this report in The Hill by Max Greenwood:

Former Presidents George W. Bush and Obama are expected to deliver eulogies at Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) eventual funeral, NBC News reported Saturday. The news that the two former presidents plan to speak at the event comes amid revelations that those close to McCain have informed the White House that they plan to have Vice President Pence attend the senator's funeral  but not President Trump.

This certainly sounds like a backhanded slap across the face. It is in character with his forthcoming book:

In excerpts from his upcoming memoir, McCain offers a sharp rebuke of the president, questioning his convictions as a leader and hitting him for his attacks on refugees and the press. "I'm not sure what to make of President Trump's convictions," he writes

I have no idea if President Trump would have wanted to speak at the funeral. But it might have been an opportunity for some healing in the face of the universal human condition.

But Senator McCain is leaving this realm as he lived in it.

I will say no more, for his cancer is serious and he is to be regarded with compassion. There will be plenty of time ahead for evaluating his legacy.

Photo by Gage Skidmore, via FlickrThe Wall Street Journal is reporting that the investigation into collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians during the 2016 presidential election may either wrap up or be put on hold before the mid term elections 6 months from now.

Though Mr. Mueller doesnt face any specific legal deadline, the fall midterms amount to a political one, according to experts and prosecutors. He will reach a point this summer when Justice Department habits dictate that he will have to either finish his inquiries or go dark and stretch out his work until past November so he doesnt appear to be trying to sway voters decisions, which would be at odds with Justice Department guidelines for prosecutors. Mr. Mueller has a lot still to doprepare several reports, bring expected charges against alleged Russian hackers behind the breach of the Democratic National Committee and make decisions on whether to prosecute other cases. Perhaps the most politically sensitive issue he has yet to resolve is whether the special counsels office will interview President Donald Trump. He might get all those things done in the next few months. But if he cant, he may have to go quiet during the political season and resume afterward. On Friday, Mr. Trump said he wants to grant an interview to Mr. Mueller but his lawyers have counseled him otherwise. One of Mr. Trumps lawyers, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, said on Fox News last week he could envision a conversation of two or two-and- hours at most. The probe to date has produced five public guilty pleaslargely for lying to investigators or for conduct unrelated to the 2016 campaign. A sixth defendant, former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, is scheduled to face trial on bank and tax fraud charges stemming from alleged misconduct that primarily predated the presidential election. Mr. Mueller has also charged 13 Russians with election interference.

First, it is extremely unlikely Mueller will wrap up his investigation before the election. He has yet to find any evidence of collusion between the Russians and the Trump campaign (and isn't likely to) and he has yet to find anything impeachable against Trump.

He may "shut down" the investigation during the lead up to the mid terms, but that only means there will be no public information released. Since most "news" is generated via leaks to reporters, it won't seem like anything has been "shut down" at all.

Finally, that last paragraph in the WSJ article is extremely telling. No one has been indicted for anything related to the 2016 election campaign and no one is likely to be. If this had been a Republican investigation, the media would be up in arms that a special counsel had spent all this time investigating and found nothing related to his primary mission.

But since it's Trump, the media will smoothly segue from "collusion" to whatever wrongdoing Mueller is going to get on Trump. The whole notion of "collusion" will be forgotten as if it never existed. Whether it's payments to a porn star or some other financial misdeed committed by Trump before he ran for president, Mueller will come up with something to satisfy his constituency - Democrats in Congress.Television personality Rosie O'Donnell, who has a big mouth, a loathing for President Trump, and a lot of money to throw around on campaigns, has exceeded the limit for her donations to Democrats.

That means Doug Jones, the Democrat who won the Senate race in Alabama, Adam Schiff, the California Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, and Conor Lamb, the Democrat who won the House race in the pivotal Pennsylvania special election, got their legs up on illicitly donated money.

That's real interesting, given the heavy focus the press has been engaged in around the issue of whether President Trump's $130,000 payoff to porn actress Stormy Daniels to keep her mouth shut (which she failed to do) about an illicit affair more than a decade ago, amounted to an illegal campaign violation, which it probably didn't.

Democrats violate campaign finance laws all the time, pay the fines, and go right on doing what they do. President Obama's campaign, for instance, paid $375,000 in fines for sleazy campaign behavior such as hiding donors and keeping illegally obtained donations, something U.S. News noted was one of the largest campaign finance violation fines ever. Cost of doing business, it seems. Trump by contrast gets wall-to-wall news coverage and loud calls for impeachment.

Now Rosie O'Donnell is at it, doing the same things the Obamatons did, exceeding campaign donation limits, and rather incredibly, claiming it's not her fault, because the donations were therapeutic. Kid you not, get a load of what the New York Post found:

If 2700 is the cut off  [candidates] should refund the money, she wrote. I dont look to see who I can donate most to  I just donate assuming they do not accept what is over the limit. ODonnell said she donates often, and uses the online liberal fundraising platform ActBlue. My anxiety is quelled by donating to those opposing trump [and] his agenda  especially at night  when most of these were placed.

Let's see what would happen to one of us if we over-donated to a campaign. Or let's see how this idiotic excuse would go over with a traffic cop if one of us ran a red light.

Obviously, she thinks it's someone else's responsibility to get her to comply with the law, and naturally, Democrats aren't bothering to do the job. It's a win-win for them all, it seems.

The only losers in this are the voters. Why have campaign finance laws at all with attitudes like this going around, and thus far, nobody getting punished?

Image credit: Dan Cox via Flickr / Creative Commons SA 2.0Yesterday saw a landmark of sorts, as the United States began pushing back on Chinas attempts to enforce its own version of political correctness on foreign companies that do business in China. David Shepardson of Reuters reports:

The White House on Saturday sharply criticized Chinas efforts to force foreign airlines to change how they refer to Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, labeling Chinas latest effort to police language describing the politically sensitive territories as Orwellian nonsense. (snip) the White House said Chinas Civil Aviation Administration sent a letter to 36 foreign air carriers, including a number of U.S. carriers, demanding changes. The carriers were told to remove references on their websites or in other material that suggests Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau are part of countries independent from China, U.S. and airline officials said. The White House said in a statement that President Donald Trump will stand up for Americans resisting efforts by the Chinese Communist Party to impose Chinese political correctness on American companies and citizens. This is Orwellian nonsense and part of a growing trend by the Chinese Communist Party to impose its political views on American citizens and private companies. ... We call on China to stop threatening and coercing American carriers and citizens.

China actually already has come a long way on tolerating airlines that serve both China and Taiwan since it first opened to the West. When the first foreign airlines asked to serve Chinese airports, the government insisted that they could not serve both Taiwan and China, but allowed a technical ruse. I was living in Japan at the time, and remember well that Japan Airlines went to the trouble of establishing a separate, wholly-owned carrier, called Japan Asia Airways to serve Taiwan, repainting aircraft, and designing slightly different uniforms for the cabin and cockpit crews. KLM did the same thing, as I recall.

Now, not only can carriers fly to Taiwan, there are many airline flights directly from Taiwan to the mainland, in part because Taiwanese firms are massive investors in China, where labor is considerably cheaper than in Taiwan, which now enjoys a Western European standard of living. So, the Chinese are willing to tolerate immense direct relations between itself and Taiwan (and Hong Kong and Macau), but insist on the formality of calling Taiwan a renegade province, soon to be reunited with the mainland.

And China is willing to bully to enforce politically correct language on those who do business with it.

I believe that all of this is coming to a head because Taiwan is a democracy where native Taiwanese comprise 80% of the population or more, as opposed to the mainlanders and their descendants who took over Taiwan when the Chiang Kai-shek Nationalists fled from the mainland and established the Republic of China in Taiwan, complete with a parliament representing constituents on the mainland who could not vote. The Taiwanese, who speak a different dialect than Guo-yu (Mandarin), are tired of this fiction and may want to become a Republic of Taiwan and give up the dreams of reconquest and reunification. Those were the goals of the mainlanders, anyway.

One sign of this movement is the renaming of the Taipeis large, intercontinental airport, which used to be named Chiang Kai-shek International Airport, with the IATA airport code CKS. Now, it is named for the district in which it is situated: "Taoyuan International Arport" with an airport code TPE.

This is absolutely anathema to the mainlanders. China is ultra-sensitive about breakaway territory, owing to a long history in which dynastic decline led to centrifugal forces breaking up its territorial unity, and the more recent history of Western and Japanese imperialism. Taiwan was seized from China by Japan in 1895, and redress for that history is a goal that will not go away, as Taiwan's move from Japanese colony, to occuppied territory to de facto independent nation ranles.

Hong Kong and Macau, much smaller territories lost to Portugal and Britain, are not nearly as sensitive because to all intents and purposes, China is able to get whatever it wants with them, and both already have reverted to Chinese control, with a special status that enables them to function under different legal frameworks. Taiwan, on the other hand, maintains a formidable military and expresses the intent of defending itself against an invasion and behaves as a separate nation.

It is all the more remarkable that just as the United States is using Chinas help in dealing with North Korea, and just as it is addressing the trade imbalance, that the Government has chosen to make an issue of linguistic bullying. Perhaps this is a bargaining chip? It is, of course the right thing to do, as we cannot let China control our free speech.

Stay tuned to this one, for it could get quite interesting.A Page 1 headline in the Detroit News and Free Press read, "Great Lakes get a little brother; now there are 6. Pond in Vermont wins status battle." Former Ohio U.S. Rep. Steve LaTourette mocked: "If Lake Champlain ends up as a Great Lake, I propose we rename it 'Lake Plain Sham.'"

The listing lasted slightly less than two months. While Lake Champlain is no longer considered one of the Great Lakes, the research designation that came with the listing remained. And Leahy takes the credit for that.

"He took the heat for that, but it allowed us to establish the Lake Champlain Sea Grant program here," said University of Vermont Professor Breck Bowden, who heads the Lake Champlain program.

While Lake Champlain is a fraction of the size of the Great Lakes, scientists who focus on the larger lakes can learn from the smaller lake, said Greg Boyer, director of the Great Lakes Research Consortium, which includes 18 colleges and universities in New York and nine in Canada.

In many ways Lake Champlain is more complex than some its larger relatives, said Boyer, who called Lake Erie, for example, "a very big mud puddle."Les lunettes de marque ne sont pas ce qui manque dans les commerces. Il y en a de toutes les sortes dont les lunettes de []COP26 may be a cop-out in the making COP26 is just about a month away. Delayed for a year by the Covid-19 pandemic, the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference has built up even more expectations and momentum during the intervening monthsPrimary season kicks off in earnest this week, with major congressional contests in Ohio and North Carolina on Tuesday and even more on the docket in Pennsylvania on May 15.

Why it matters: While Democrats remain the favorites to retake the House in November, the primary landscape is littered with land mines for both parties.

Dem newbies: Democrats have a bumper crop of self-recruited House candidates raising gobs of cash in 2018. Of the leading Democrats in the 56 GOP-held districts rated as vulnerable (Lean Republican or worse) by the Cook Political Report, 31 are women, 16 are military veterans and 14 are freshly out-of-work Obama administration vets.

But strikingly, there are only eight state legislators  the classic breeding ground for House hopefuls.

there are only eight state legislators  the classic breeding ground for House hopefuls. This has its advantages: These candidates are outsiders and dont have a voting record to defend.

These candidates are outsiders and dont have a voting record to defend. But, but, but: Given the volume of Democrats running, it also means many havent been fully vetted.

Given the volume of Democrats running, it also means many havent been fully vetted. And in many places, Democrats are at risk of nominating badly flawed candidates.

Pennsylvanias new map was a gift to Democrats, but it turns out good candidates are as critical as good districts. For example, if self-funding multi-millionaire attorney and recent Maryland/South Africa resident Scott Wallace wins Tuesdays primary, it could throw Bucks County GOP Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (PA-01) a life raft.

Am I tripping? The oddest frontrunner in Tuesdays Democratic primaries might be 27-year Lehigh Valley prosecutor John Morganelli, running for GOP Rep. Charlie Dents open seat, PA-07.

At Tea Party gatherings (you read that right), the Democrat has bragged about teaming with Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach  an immigration hardliner who was on Trump's transition team  to crack down on illegal immigration.

(you read that right), the Democrat has bragged about teaming with Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach  an immigration hardliner who was on Trump's transition team  to crack down on illegal immigration. In late 2016, Morganelli sent (since-deleted) tweets at Trump to lobby for an administration post: Waiting to hear from transition. Met you in Bedminster when I played Member Guest.

Morganelli sent (since-deleted) tweets at Trump to lobby for an administration post: Waiting to hear from transition. Met you in Bedminster when I played Member Guest. EMILYs List is furiously scrambling to stop Morganelli. If he prevails, he could prolong a Democratic civil war in a key seat.

Rescue squad goals: The GOPs House majority is so endangered that the party's narrow path may depend on party groups personalizing/localizing races by unleashing damning opposition research to disqualify Democratic nominees faster than Mike Allen is scaring away fish this weekend. #DrivingThe BoatRepublicans in D.C. are panicking over Tuesday's West Virginia Senate primary.

The problem: Don Blankenship, a coal baron who's spent time in prison, is running a demagogic campaign in which he's repeatedly invoked the Chinese heritage of Mitch McConnell's wife, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao.

He's also taken to calling McConnell "cocaine Mitch" in his ads  which, according to Politico, "is in reference to a 2014 report that drugs were once found aboard a shipping vessel owned by McConnell's in-laws."

Blankenship is outspending his opponents on TV and has a ton of his own money to play with. Hes aired one ad that refers to China people, which you can watch here (or not).

And yet ... he's gaining in the polls and may win on Tuesday.

Behind the scenes: Republican officials monitoring the race tell me it's hard to get reliable polling data, but some internal polls show Blankenship has surged over the past week and now leads his two Republican opponents  conservative Patrick Morrisey and establishment-favorite Evan Jenkins.

A Republican source familiar with the internal polling of one of Blankenship's opponents told me: "At the beginning of last week, the internals showed a 2-man race between Jenkins and Morrisey, with Morrisey having a slight edge and Blankenship down in the teens.

"However, following a week centered on media coverage of Blankenship's feud with 'cocaine Mitch' and a bombardment of attack ads against Jenkins over the airwaves, the same poll now shows Blankenship surging with a slight lead over Morrisey, and Jenkins now down in the teens."

Another national strategist who is engaged in the race told me: "There is rising concern that, without any refereeing from the national party, Morrisey and Jenkins have beaten each other to a pulp and that may be giving Blankenship an opening."

Several Republicans involved in the race told me primary candidates can usually boost their popularity by sparring with McConnell, given how much the partys base loathes Washington leadership.

The bottom line: Republican leaders at outside groups worry that if Blankenship wins Tuesday, he'll get crushed in November by the otherwise beatable Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin. It's the Roy Moore nightmare.

Go deeper: Politico's Alex Isenstadt, who's been covering this race minute-by-minute, has a closer look at Blankenship's late surge."From airplanes to oilfields, billions of dollars are on the line for international corporations as President Trump weighs whether to pull America out of Irans nuclear deal with world powers," AP's Jon Gambrell writes from Dubai:

Why it matters: "If ... Trump follows through on his threat to pull the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear deal on May 12, the rest of the world will be thrust into uncharted territory, forced to navigate a complex web of U.S. sanctions."Employees who disclose financial and administrative corruption in Saudi Arabia would be safeguarded under a new whistleblower protection measure King Salman announced Sunday, per Reuters, citing a report from Saudi-run broadcaster Al Arabiya TV.

The backdrop: The announcement comes during a secretive ongoing anti-corruption campaign in the kingdom, led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabias 32-year-old heir to the throne, under the guise of modernization. Last year, MBS ordered the arrest and detention of hundreds of influential Saudis, including other royals, and detained them in Riyadh's Ritz Carlton for weeks  until they paid to settle corruption charges with the government.Senator John McCain regrets having not choosing Sen. Joseph Lieberman as his 2008 running mate, and has made arrangements for Vice President Mike Pence to attend his funeral  but not President Trump, according to the New York Times' Jonathan Martin, citing their rocky relationship.

The backdrop: McCain was diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer last year, and Martin stopped in his Arizona ranch to see how he's faring, and who's been visiting as he undergoes treatment.

Highlights from Martin's visit:

"And some of his associates, though not his family, have started to quietly put out word that they want a 'McCain person' eventually appointed to fill his Senate seat, a roster that includes his wife, Cindy."

a roster that includes his wife, Cindy." "Mr. McCain is using a new book and documentary to reveal his regret about not selecting former Senator Joseph I. Lieberman as his running mate in 2008."

"Having spent over two years in solitary confinement while he was imprisoned in Vietnam, Mr. McCain has no use for being alone, whether it is in the intensive care unit or at his ranch. And his deck is where he receives a constant flow of friends  with visits that often end with Mr. McCain saying, 'I love you.'"

"Another McCain protegee, Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, a Democrat, said she treasured how Mr. McCain treated her when they went on the congressional delegation trips he loves and foreign leaders would attempt to recognize the male lawmakers before her."

"'Theyd always look to Lindsey next,' Ms. Klobuchar said of the heads of state, referring to Mr. Graham, a frequent travel companion of Mr. McCain. 'But hed always say, Senator Klobuchar is the Democratic lead and shell be going next.'"The Korean dynamics are changing at light speed because Kim Jong-un cares far more about economics than his father ever did, per people close to advisers of South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

Under the hood: A source who has spoken recently with top South Korean government advisers  and who spoke anonymously to preserve their confidences  told me Moon "freaked out" last year when Trump was threatening "fire and fury" against Kim.

Moon saw last summer that the White House and Pentagon were working on military options in the event that Kim threatened the U.S.

So he went into diplomatic overdrive, using the military crisis to present Kim with economic development plans he'd long wanted to deliver.

One story that was widely reported in the South Korean press but didn't get much attention in the U.S. is that, at their April summit, Moon gave a USB drive to Kim.

"The USB makes the case to Kim  there really is another path for you," John Delury, an expert in North Korean affairs at Seoul's Yonsei University, told me. He said the USB, which contained a plan for tens of billions worth of economic development in North Korea including railways and energy, sent the message to Kim: "Were serious about working with you for what we think is your real ambition  to be a wealthy East Asian country."

Delury thinks Trump's abnormalities  his disdain for bureaucratic processes and deliberative decision-making  have helped create abnormal momentum on the Korean Peninsula.

"I do give one-third of the credit to the Trump administration," Delury told me. "They ended Strategic Patience and ramped up sanctions. Then they ramped up the military threat, and because we all thought he was crazy enough to take us to war," that forced everyone to act differently.

"But he also ramped up diplomacy" by immediately agreeing to meet with Kim. "Maybe if [Trump] asked his advisers, they wouldve stopped him."

What to watch ... Here's what North Korea experts tell me they expect will happen next in the nuclear negotiations:If you were gobsmacked watching Rudy Giulianis media tour this week  which he launched on Fox News' Hannity by announcing that Trump reimbursed lawyer Michael Cohen for a hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels  you weren't alone.

What we're hearing: A White House official told me there were "a couple of Mooch references" in the West Wing last week, as Giulianis performance recalled Anthony Scaramucci's frenzied 11-day stint last summer as White House communications director.

If the Giuliani circus continues unabated  with him taking media calls day and night and freelancing on legal and policy matters  White House staff will likely quit, a well-placed source tells me.

When Giuliani began opining about U.S. hostages held in North Korea, senior staff were irritated and perplexed.

And West Wingers raised their eyebrows when he took a gratuitous shot at Jared Kushner, describing the president's son-in-law as "disposable."

Meanwhile: Trump has been growing increasingly frustrated that his legal team wasnt "fighting back" against Special Counsel Bob Mueller, according to sources familiar with the president's thinking.

Rudy's latest: Giuliani continued his media blitz over the weekend, proclaiming that the president supports regime change in Iran at a Saturday event, telling Fox News' Judge Jeanine Pirro on Saturday evening that Attorney General Jeff Sessions should end the Mueller probe, and telling ABC's George Stephanopoulos on Sunday's "This Week" that he can't be confident Trump will plead the Fifth if subpoenaed by Mueller.

The bottom line: Giuliani's been so sloppy that he's had to revise his statements multiple times. From a PR standpoint, it's been a mess."Officials linked to Trump's team" hired a private Israeli intelligence firm to collect "dirty ops" against the Obama administration officials who brokered the Iran nuclear deal, reports The Guardian.

The details: The campaign reportedly targeted Obama security aides Ben Rhodes and Colin Kahl, and a source familiar with the efforts told The Guardian, The idea was that people acting for Trump would discredit those who were pivotal in selling the deal, making it easier to pull out of it.

The Trump aides reportedly contacted the Israeli investigators days after President Trump's trip to Tel Aviv last year, which was his first trip abroad as president.

reportedly contacted the Israeli investigators days after President Trump's trip to Tel Aviv last year, which was his first trip abroad as president. "According to incendiary documents seen by the [Guardian's] Observer, investigators contracted by the private intelligence agency were told to dig into the personal lives and political careers of Rhodes, a former deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, and Kahl, a national security adviser to the former vice-president Joe Biden."

seen by the [Guardian's] Observer, investigators contracted by the private intelligence agency were told to dig into the personal lives and political careers of Rhodes, a former deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, and Kahl, a national security adviser to the former vice-president Joe Biden." "Among other things they were looking at personal relationships, any involvement with Iran-friendly lobbyists, and if they had benefited personally or politically from the peace deal."

they were looking at personal relationships, any involvement with Iran-friendly lobbyists, and if they had benefited personally or politically from the peace deal." "Investigators were also apparently told to contact prominent Iranian Americans as well as pro-deal journalists  from the New York Times, MSNBC television, the Atlantic, Vox website and Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper among others  who had frequent contact with Rhodes and Kahl in an attempt to establish whether they had violated any protocols by sharing sensitive intelligence."

Kahl responded to the Guardian's story with a Twitter thread recounting an experience last year in which his wife was suspiciously contacted by "someone claiming to represent a socially responsible private equity firm in the UK."Despite the U.S. spending nearly a billion dollars to better education in Afghanistan, girls are still falling behind.

The big picture: The newly released quarterly report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) reports that the USAID had "disbursed approximately $979 million for education programs in Afghanistan" as of April 18. But per SIGAR, the World Bank said "progress towards increasing equitable access to education, particularly for girls, was only 'moderately satisfactory.'"

How girls are faring

The Human Rights Watch reported in October that "the proportion of Afghan girls who are in school has never gone much above" 50%, despite the 2001 invasion being "partly framed" around helping Afghan women.

Per HRW : Only 37% of female youths are literate compared to 66% of their male counterparts, and 19% of adult women are literate compared to 49% of adult men.

: Only 37% of female youths are literate compared to 66% of their male counterparts, and 19% of adult women are literate compared to 49% of adult men. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) reported a significant gap in 2017 between girls and boys in primary and secondary education.

reported a significant gap in 2017 between girls and boys in primary and secondary education. Heather Barr, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch told Axios that when you look at the Afghan government, you see that the commitment to educating girls "has never been that deep."

U.S. Spending

There are 12 active education programs being paid for by the U.S. Agency for International Development, including some targeted specifically for girls, as well as workforce development programs and more. The cost of these programs total nearly $500 million.

being paid for by the U.S. Agency for International Development, including some targeted specifically for girls, as well as workforce development programs and more. The cost of these programs total nearly $500 million. A USAID official told Axios: "USAID's education budget in Afghanistan was roughly $100 million in FY16 and also roughly $100 million in FY17."

The bottom line:

"Make no mistake: Education in Afghanistan is much more equitable today than it was during the Taliban era, when girls were barred from going to school... Unfortunately, you still have a number of societal constraints, rooted more in the dominance of patriarchal views than in the decisions of the Taliban, that keep a number of girls from having access to education."

 Michael Kugelman, Deputy Director of the Wilson Center's Asia programNew Hampshire lawmakers have advanced a key voting rights measure along party lines this week tightening residency requirements to vote  a move critics say deliberately targets college students and others who are more likely to vote Democratic.

The state of play: Currently, out-of-state students and others who arent fully residents can declare the state their domicile for voting purposes. The measure seeks to require voters to prove they are a resident of the state by obtaining a state drivers license and registering their vehicle. Those who dont drive would have to show alternate documents to validate their permanent residency status.

What theyre saying: Republicans argue its an attempt to confirm that eligible voters are residents of the state, and they dismissed accusations that votes would be suppressed.

However, critics like the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire and Jason Kander, the former Democratic Missouri Secretary of State and president of Let America Vote, labeled the change as a poll tax. They argue it's an additional barrier to voting because people would be forced to pay fees for vehicle registration and obtaining a license.

Between the lines: The advancement of the measure by the state legislature shows theres unending interest in voter residency requirements after officials said more than 6,500 people registered to vote in 2016 using out-of-state drivers licenses. New Hampshire is central to President Trumps claim of widespread voter fraud despite little substantial evidence as he claimed thousands were bused to New Hampshire to vote illegally.

Elections in a battleground state like New Hampshire are often determined by a few thousand votes. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Maggie Hassan, who defeated GOP incumbent Kelly Ayotte, narrowly won the state in 2016.

The backdrop: Voting restriction measures have come under legal scrutiny. Last year, a New Hampshire judge blocked parts of a 2016 voting law that would fine or jail first-time voters if they failed to submit residency paperwork within 10 days of registering to vote.

What's next: The measure, passed Wednesday, mirrors a similar proposal lawmakers passed recently. Both are expected to merge by a conference committee, and would go into effect next year. However, both are hanging in the balance amid uncertainty of Governor Chris Sununu's support.By Trend:



Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zangeneh warned that the global energy market should not be politicized, noting that the market should be managed free from politics.



Politicizing the energy market through imposing financial, commercial and technological restrictions on major producers and clients could harm the market, Zangeneh said on Sunday addressing the 23rd International Oil, Gas, Refining and Petrochemical Exhibition (Iran Oil Show-2018) Tehran.



He added that Iran has practically proved in its trades that it has safeguarded a free trade system and the issue of energy security in the global market free from politics.



The International exhibition kicked off in the Iranian capital Tehran on Sunday.



Exhibitors from 38 countries represented over 4,000 Iranian and foreign international companies at the showcase, touted as the largest annual convention in Iran's petroleum industry, Shana reported.



The four-day exhibition is sponsored by the Iranian Ministry of Petroleum and its subsidiary the National Iranian Oil Company.



The exhibitors see the event as a great opportunity to directly get in touch with major foreign companies and domestic producers to undertake mutual cooperation and strike contracts in the upstream and downstream oil sectors.



Last year's exhibition was attended by 800 international companies from China, South Korea, Turkey, Italy, Spain, France, Austria, Germany and Finland.U.S. President Donald Trump spoke with Britains Prime Minister Theresa May on Saturday on issues including the Iran nuclear deal, a week before the president is to decide whether Washington will leave the pact, the White House said, Reuters reported.

Trump is set to decide by May 12 whether to withdraw from the 2015 Iran deal, in which the Islamic Republic agreed to curb its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. Trump has all but decided to withdraw White House officials said on May 2.

Still, Trump could figure out a way to stay in the deal between the Islamic Republic and six world powers including Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States.

Britain, France and Germany agreed that the deal is the best way of stopping Tehran from getting nuclear weapons, Mays office said in late April.

French President Emmanuel Macron, who met with Trump in Washington last month, urged the president to stay in the deal.

In the call with May, Trump underscored his commitment to ensure that Iran never acquires a nuclear weapon, the White House said.

The two also talked about nuclear issues in North Korea. As planning continues for his upcoming meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, President Trump emphasized his goal of a denuclearized North Korea, the White House said. Trump is slated visit the United Kingdom in July.Air France, facing deepening turmoil over a dispute with staff over pay, said on Sunday it expected to operate close to 85 percent of flights during strike disruptions on May 7, Reuters reported.

The carrier is in a stand-off with employees which on Friday prompted Air France-KLM CEO Jean-Marc Janaillac to step down, after staff rejected a pay rise proposal.

Unions said they would be sticking with plans to strike on May 7 and May 8.

Air France deplores the decision to go ahead with the strikes as we enter a period that will enable negotiations to continue in order to put an end to it, the airline said in a statement, referring to a looming period of interim management.Our cameras were at the Southeast Texas All-American Soap Box Derby - did we see you there?DUP leader Arlene Foster has said that Sinn Fein are insisting on imposing the Irish language on everyone in Northern Ireland

Mrs Foster was speaking on BBC One's Andrew Marr Show on Sunday morning.

Read More

In a wide-ranging interview Mrs Foster discussed Brexit, her party's confidence and supply deal with the Conservative government and attempts to restore power-sharing at Stormont.

Mrs Foster rejected Sinn Fein President Mary Lou McDonald's recent use of the term "Londonderry" as a gesture to the unionist community.

The Fermanagh and South Tyrone MLA said the party should make a real gesture to unionists.

"I don't accept that they've made any so-called gestures and I think it's more important to find and build a basis for a shared community in Northern Ireland which is what we want to see, real sharing, and not just gesture sharing," Mrs Foster said.

"Wouldn't it be good if Sinn Fein were to allow Northern Ireland's government to sign up in full to the military covenant and to respect veterans regardless of where they live in the United Kingdom?"

The Armed Forces Covenant is a government promise that those who serve or have served, and their families, are treated fairly.

Mr Marr asked what the DUP could give Sinn Fein in return.

"I have said frequently that the Irish language is no threat to the United Kingdom or indeed to the union, I respect people that speak it, but that's not enough for Sinn Fein, they want to impose the Irish language on everyone in Northern Ireland.

Expand Close Sinn Fein MEP Martina Anderson (Nick Ansell/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook

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"I think that would be not only a retrograde step, but for the Irish language as well because it politicises it."

Mr Marr asked Arlene Foster if she discussed issues surrounding Brexit like staying in the European Union (EU) customs union to prevent a hard border in Ireland with Prime Minister Theresa May.

"We have continuous conversations around this issue and I spoke to the Prime Minister yesterday afternoon," the DUP leader said.

"We want to see a sensible Brexit, by respecting the vote of the British people and leaving the customs union.

"We don't want what the EU have put on the table a red line down the Irish sea, what we seek to do is to protect the integrity of the United Kingdom from a constitutional and economic point of view."

Mr Marr asked if staying in the customs union would be a price worth paying for a soft border.

"The British people voted to leave the customs union, we don't believe we have to stay in it to have free flow between ourselves and the Republic of Ireland," Mrs Foster replied.

"Proposals have been put forward by the government and they have been dismissed out of hand by the EU.

"We would like to see less rhetoric and and more engagement.

"As Nigel Dodds said our fundamental red line is we have to move in step with the rest of the United Kingdom."

Mr Marr suggested the DUP would not bring down the government through their confidence and supply deal because they would not do anything to help Jeremy Corbyn become Prime Minister.

"We do think Jeremy Corbyn is beyond the pale due to his support for the IRA in the past, and as someone who's suffered as a result of IRA terrorism it is a very personal issue for me," Mrs Foster said.

"In terms of bringing down the government, we don't need to bring down the government because Theresa May was very clear about her unionist credentials long before she got involved with the DUP."

Sinn Fein MEP Martina Anderson said the DUP are continuing to ignore the views of the people of the North on Brexit.

"The fact is that the majority of people from the north, from all backgrounds, voted to remain in the EU," Mrs Anderson said.

"Arlene Foster may feel the need to repeat the Tory dogma on Brexit but in doing so she is going against the majority of people in the north.

"When I meet people from all sectors from across the north it is clear they want to remain in the EU and that is what we are about and it is also what Arlene Foster's boss, Theresa May, should be focused on.

"The British government need to come up with credible proposals in the current Brexit negotiations which would give effect to the views of the majority of people in the north."

What wed like to see from the EU says @DUPleader Arlene Foster is less rhetoric and actually more engagement. #marr pic.twitter.com/MxMwylvLVt  The Andrew Marr Show (@MarrShow) May 6, 2018The coastguard rescued six people and their dog after they became trapped on rocks off the coast of Co Antrim. Credit: Coleraine Coastguard.

Six people and their dog have been rescued by the Coastguard after getting trapped on rocks off the coast of Co Antrim.

The family had been out exploring the coast when they got trapped on rocks west of Portballintrae.

After waiting for three hours to see if the tide would go out the group decided to ring the Belfast Coastguard for assistance.

Coastguard teams from Coleraine and Ballycastle and the Coastguard Helicopter Rescue were sent to help the party.

A spokesperson for Coleraine Coastguard said that the family had been forced to build a fire in an attempt to stay warm.

"The trapped party was quickly located by the Coastguard teams and their position was passed to the helicopter," the spokesperson said.

"A CG winchman was lowered to assess the situation and extinguish the fire, before the helicopter carefully manoeuvred and landed on the outcrop.

"All six casualties plus dog were then airlifted to the cliff top and given into the care of Coastguard personnel.

"There were no injuries, though one of the party had got wet trying to wade unsuccessfully to safety at the start of the incident.

"All were very thankful for Coastguard assistance and were taken home to recover from their ordeal."

Expand Close A map showing the position of the trapped group. Credit: Coleraine Coastguard. / Facebook

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Whatsapp A map showing the position of the trapped group. Credit: Coleraine Coastguard.Arlene Foster said Sinn Fein should back the extension of the military covenant (Liam McBurney/PA)

Sinn Fein backing the introduction of the UKs military covenant in Northern Ireland would show the republican partys commitment to a shared future extends beyond just gestures, Arlene Foster has said.

The DUP leader called for tangible actions as she was asked for her response to recent moves from Sinn Fein that have been interpreted as efforts to reach out to unionists, such as party president Mary Lou McDonalds use of the word Londonderry.

Mrs Foster denied she had not reciprocated with conciliatory gestures to republicans.

She told The Andrew Marr Show on BBC One: Well, I dont accept that we havent made any so-called gestures and I think its more important actually to find and to build a basis for a shared community in Northern Ireland, which is what we want to see  a real sharing and not just a gesture sharing.

And wouldnt it be good, for example, if Sinn Fein were to allow Northern Irelands government to sign up in full to the military covenant and to respect veterans regardless of where they live in the UK?

I think that that is something that they could do to show respect for veterans that live in Northern Ireland.

Wed like to see real sharing and not a gesture sharing with Sinn Fein says @DUPleader Arlene Foster #marr pic.twitter.com/F7LQ9X92yc  The Andrew Marr Show (@MarrShow) May 6, 2018

A stand-off over the full implementation of the military covenant in Northern Ireland is one of the issues at the heart of the ongoing powersharing impasse at Stormont.

The covenant, which has been implemented elsewhere in the UK, encapsulates a series of policies that define the states obligations to its armed services.

Under its terms, members of the armed forces in Great Britain are entitled to some priority medical treatment and assistance with housing and school places for children.

Such policies have not been rolled out in Northern Ireland, with Sinn Fein resistant.

The policies would potentially require amendments to robust equality laws that formed a central part of the Good Friday peace agreement.

Another dispute preventing the return of devolved government involves the Irish language.

Sinn Fein has made clear it will not go back into government without a stand-alone piece of legislation to protect Irish language speakers.

I have said frequently that the Irish language is no threat to the United Kingdom, or indeed to the unionArlene Foster

The DUP has said it will not support an Irish Language Act, but would support measures for the Irish language as part of broader legislation that incorporates a multitude of cultures.

I have said frequently that the Irish language is no threat to the United Kingdom, or indeed to the union, Mrs Foster told the BBC.

I respect people that speak the Irish language. But thats not enough for Sinn Fein, they want to impose the Irish language on everyone in Northern Ireland and I think that that would be not only a retrograde step for Northern Ireland, but actually for the Irish language as well, because it actually politicises it.

Northern Ireland has been without a properly functioning powersharing government for almost 16 months, due to the bitter stand-off between the two largest parties, the DUP and Sinn Fein.

After negotiations collapsed in acrimonious circumstances in February, the parties traded claim and counter-claim about whether a proposed deal had been in the offing.

Sinn Fein claimed Mrs Foster had signed off on a deal before backing out in the face of an internal party revolt  claims the DUP leader vehemently denied.

Amid the fallout, documents exchanged by the parties during negotiations were leaked to sections of the media  incidents the DUP has firmly blamed on Sinn Fein.

Mrs Foster has said trust between the parties has broken down as a consequence of the February row.

We have to build up confidence between the parties again, because devolution is right for Northern Ireland and we want to see it return immediately, she said.Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is heading to the US (Victoria Jones/PA)

Boris Johnson is travelling to the United States as part of a last-ditch diplomatic effort to persuade Donald Trump not to scrap the Iran nuclear deal.

The US president has fiercely criticised the agreement, which eased sanctions on Tehran in exchange for commitments to abandon its nuclear weapons programme.

Mr Trump will decide on May 12 whether to reimpose sanctions and effectively torpedo the international alliance behind the deal.

The Foreign Secretary will travel to Washington on Sunday for two days of talks with senior administration officials including vice president Mike Pence.

Israeli PMs speech on Irans past nuclear weapons research shows why we need Iran Nuclear deal. Iran deal based not on trust but verification, allowing @iaeaorg unprecedented access. Need to keep deal & build on it to take account of US & allies concerns https://t.co/To50dEs3zM  Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) May 1, 2018

He will also meet national security adviser John Bolton and key foreign policy leaders in Congress.

As well as Iran, Mr Johnsons talks are expected to cover North Korea  ahead of President Trumps planned meeting with Kim Jong Un  and the situation in Syria.

Mr Trump has threatened to withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) deal signed by the US, China, Russia, Germany, France and Britain with Iran.

Under its terms Iran is committed to a peaceful nuclear energy programme.

But Mr Trump has been a vocal critic of the agreement and in January issued an ultimatum to either fix the deals disastrous flaws, or the United States will withdraw.

Earlier this month Mr Johnson stressed the importance of keeping the deal while building on it in order to take account of the legitimate concerns of the US.

The European Union has said the deal is working and it needs to be preserved.

Ahead of his trip to Washington, Mr Johnson said: On so many of the worlds foreign policy challenges the UK and US are in lockstep.

Weve seen this recently with the response to the poisonings in Salisbury, our strong response to Assads use of chemical weapons in Syria, and the effort to denuclearise North Korea.

The UK, US and European partners are also united in our effort to tackle the kind of Iranian behaviour that makes the Middle East region less secure  its cyber activities, its support for groups like Hezbollah, and its dangerous missile programme, which is arming Houthi militias in Yemen.Parts of the UK enjoyed their balmiest day of the year so far, as Britons prepare to sizzle on what is set to be the hottest Bank Holiday Monday since records began.

The mercury hit 22.3C in Edinburgh, while 20.8C was recorded in Katesbridge in County Down  resulting in Sunday recorded as the hottest day of 2018 in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Temperatures could soar to 28C in parts of England as people round off their three-day weekend  making it the hottest Bank Holiday Monday in 40 years.

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The May Bank Holiday was introduced in 1978 and the temperature has never topped the 28C mark since then.

The South East, East Anglia and the Midlands will feel the heat most.

The weather is set to become mixed as the month progresses, and the May 19 wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle draws near.

Met Office forecaster Charlie Powell said: It looks like we should be prepared for some pretty changeable weather throughout the second half of May.

Were still going to see some dry days, but theres still going to be some wet days mixed in as well.

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Referring to the day of the eagerly anticipated wedding, Mr Powell added: Weve got this idea that there could be some warmer spells, most likely across the south and east of England, so at least that bodes well for wedding locations and things like that.

He said temperatures will generally be above normal, but this will depend on whether it is a sunny day or a sunny wetter day.

So it doesnt look like its going to carry on in a similar kind of vein to high pressure in charge, sunshine, light winds, high temperatures, that we have now.

Neither does it look like its going to be a complete washout, horrible end to the month of May.

But I think we can expect things to be not as warm as they are now, but also not as dry as they are now, he said.

Mr Powell added: Fingers crossed it all kind of ties in with one of the drier days.

#GatwickAirport - The queue time at Gatwick Airport to board a bus is currently 2 hours and it is strongly advised to not travel towards Brighton today.  National Rail (@nationalrailenq) May 6, 2018

Looking at temperatures for Bank Holiday Monday, the forecaster said the highs of 28C were not going to be widespread.

Thats going to be the exception rather than the rule. I think for most places, if you take the bulk of England and Wales for example, were looking at somewhere around the low to mid 20s mark, he said.

Meanwhile, Southern Rail advised passengers for Brighton and the South Coast not to travel on Sunday due to overcrowding.

Replacement buses were also provided due to engineering works, and at one point National Rail said there was a two-hour wait to board a bus at Gatwick Airport.

 This May bank holiday, engineering works will be carried out to deliver rail upgrades across our network. Please remember to check before you travel. #MayBHWorks



More info - https://t.co/nTikYmDgIk

 Plan ahead - https://t.co/HKst5ZYijJ pic.twitter.com/3m6WOnSA4X  Southern (@SouthernRailUK) May 6, 2018

Anthony Smith, chief executive of the independent watchdog Transport Focus, said: Passengers will rightly be frustrated to find they cant travel on the bank holiday weekend.

These works and the weather were no surprise  so why has Southern failed to provide enough rail replacement buses?

Well be working with the operator to find out what went wrong and to ensure that passengers arent left high and dry next time they plan a trip to the seaside on a weekend.

Southern said disruption is expected until the end of the day.Rhyhiem Ainsworth Barton, the 17-year-old shot dead near his home in south London (Abigael Adeoye/PA)

The mother of a 17-year-old shot dead near his home in south London has paid tribute to her handsome boy who had so much potential.

Rhyhiem Ainsworth Barton was not in a gang and aspired to be an architect, his mother said.

He was discovered with critical injuries on Warham Street in Southwark on Saturday evening, after officers were called to reports of gunshots on nearby Cooks Road shortly after 6pm.

Paramedics from the London Ambulance Service and Londons Air Ambulance went to the scene, but the teenager was pronounced dead just before 7pm.

Rhyhiems mother, Pretana Morgan, told reporters near her home in the Brandon Estate: I couldnt have asked for a better son.

My son was a very handsome boy. Hes got so much potential.

She said he had gone to her home country of Jamaica last summer after a threat in London, and had just returned to the capital in February.

Tearfully, she said he had been trying to make a difference by learning to work with children.

This is not life. My sons a good boy, she added, as she stood by a wall where Rhyhiems provisional driving licence, a little bag of his baby teeth, and a photo of her feeding him when he was a baby were placed.

Expand Close Pretana Morgan after her son Rhyhiem Ainsworth Barton was shot in Warham Street, Southwark (PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook

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Rhyhiems godmother, Lacey Main, said she believed he had been shot at by someone in a car, adding that he was a rapper and became a target because he was young.

Police tape surrounded much of the area around Aberfeldy House and officers remained at the scene on Sunday morning.

Ms Morgan, who also has a six-year-old daughter, criticised police, saying: Were not being protected because of the police.

The police are the ones putting us in danger.

The scene in Warham Street in South London where a 17-year-old boy died after being found with a gunshot wound. pic.twitter.com/chHUEJYk0E  Catherine Wylie (@wyliecatherine) May 6, 2018

The Metropolitan Police have urged anyone who was in the area of Aberfeldy House at the time of the shooting to contact them.

Police have yet to formally identify the victim and a post-mortem examination will take place in due course.

No arrests have been made.

The death is the latest in a spate of violent crimes in the capital, as police investigate more than 60 alleged murders so far this year.Moncks Corner, SC (29461)

Today

Light rain...with scattered thunderstorms in the afternoon. High around 80F. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies early will become overcast later during the night. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low 68F. Winds light and variable.How did Friendly Manitoba end up with a mean premier? provincial NDP Leader Wab Kinew asked party delegates on Friday night in Brandon.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 5/5/2018 (1250 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

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"How did Friendly Manitoba end up with a mean premier?" provincial NDP Leader Wab Kinew asked party delegates on Friday night in Brandon.

Launching the NDPs weekend-long 2018 policy convention at the Keystone Centre, Kinew described the event as being "about standing up for the average person in Manitoba; the average family in Manitoba."

He said its also about rebuilding the party "so that we can make sure that Brian Pallister goes right there in the history books, alongside Sterling Lyon, as a one-term PC premier."

Providing the evenings partisan crowd with plenty of positives to latch onto as motivation, Kinew also took a moment to address the partys shortcomings of recent years.

The convention kicked off this theme with a reminder of the Manitoba NDP Anti-Harassment Anti-Bullying and Anti-Discrimination Policy.

Near the end of his address, Kinew brought the issue closer to home by bringing up the recent controversy regarding former Manitoba NDP MLA Stan Struthers, who has been nicknamed "Minister Tickles" as a result of allegations of inappropriate touching.

In response to these allegations, the Manitoba NDP set up a commission to investigate the situation to determine what happened, what went wrong and what recommendations there might be.

"Were going to have a very important conversation about that tomorrow," Kinew said, adding that "the ideals at the heart of the membership of the NDP" should help guide the discussion.

Providing a mirror image of Premier Brian Pallisters State of the Province Address, which was delivered at the Keystone Centre last month, Kinew described the Progressive Conservatives as being on the wrong track, with life getting less affordable for Manitobans.

Cuts to infrastructure spending will not only impact Manitobans by way of deteriorating roads, but also what he described as approximately $100 million in lost wages this year.

"Those are the working Manitobans that our brothers and sisters in labour represent," he said. "Those are the people that we as elected officials go to the legislature to stand up for."

Emergency rooms are closing and classroom sizes are growing, he said, adding that even PC stronghold communities like Boissevain are beginning to see cracks in the governments policies.

During a recent visit to Boissevain, Kinew recalled that there was concern about the governments proposed action to close the communitys EMS station as part of a retooling of the system across rural Manitoba.

Although their position as Manitobas official opposition necessitates some oppositional comments, Kinew also took time in his address to try to position the NDP as a government in waiting.

"Yeah, were upset about what this government is doing, but we didnt get involved in politics in the first place to complain about the other guys," Kinew said. "We got involved in politics because we want to make the world a better place."

Kinew said he wants to "renew the democratic tradition in this party," and for the NDPs 2020 election platform to be shaped at a grassroots level.

Already carrying a long list of resolutions brought forward by constituency associations across the province, Brandon East was successful in having an emergency resolution added to the agenda on Friday night.

The resolution would have the NDP push for immediate long-term action on the methamphetamine crisis in Manitoba. Delegates will vote on this, and other resolutions, at the convention.

 tclarke@brandonsun.com

 Twitter: @TylerClarkeMBUpdate: Dublin Fire Brigade has put out a number of gorse fires which broke out last night.

We've finished on scene at the #Glencullen & #Barnacullia gorse fires in the #Dublin mountains. Dry weather set to continue #fire #DublinMountains pic.twitter.com/Cs3DzAcwWF

Several fire engines had been deployed to the Barnacullia and Glencullen areas to battle the blazes which may have started as a result of the recent dry, warm weather.

We're dealing with a number of gorse fires at the moment. Help prevent them:

Don't throw cigarettes from your car. Make sure they are extinguished

BBQ in designated areas only

Take your litter home. Don't give arsonists the opportunity

Glass can cause fire in sunlight pic.twitter.com/3apzLoEKOj  Dublin Fire Brigade (@DubFireBrigade) May 6, 2018

The Department of Agricutlure have issued an Orange warning until Thursday which says there is a "a high fire risk is forecast in all areas where hazardous fuels exist" due to the warm weather.

Lat night: Dublin Fire Brigade battling gorse fire in Dublin Mountains

Dublin Fire Brigade are battling a gorse fire in the Dublin Mountains.

Extra units are being sent to the scene and a drone has been deployed to help direct operations.

A section of the Ballyedmonduff Road around Barnacullia has been closed to prioritise access for rescue teams.

Motorists are asked to use an alternative route until further notice.

We requested additional fire engines to the #Dublin mountain gorse fire. We have also deployed a #drone to direct ops #Dublin #fire. Barnacullia Road is closed towards the Blue Light @aaroadwatch pic.twitter.com/3Zmn94Hw2W  Dublin Fire Brigade (@DubFireBrigade) May 6, 2018

- Digital DeskBy Patrick Flynn

The RNLI successfully rescued four people this morning after their boat got into difficulty in the Shannon Estuary.

The Kilrush volunteer unit was alerted at around 9.30am after the Irish Coast Guard received a report of a boat adrift without power south of Scattery Island off Co Clare.

The RNLI lifeboat was launched and located the 17ft dory at 9.51am. Volunteers checked that those on board were safe and unharmed before towing their boat to Ballylongord in Kerry on the south shore of the estuary.

Once the casualty vessel was tied up and the four occupants were safely ashore, the lifeboat returned to base in Kilrush. Its understood the boat suffered engine trouble.

Meanwhile, early on Saturday, the Lough Derg RNLI lifeboat was tasked and sent to assist six people on board a boat that had broke down on the lake.

While responding to the incident at around 9.30am at Gortmore, the crew was stood down after a passing cruiser assisted those in difficulty.

The cruiser towed the motor boat to Kilgarvan Harbour where it was safely tied alongside.

Both operations were coordinated by watch officers at the Irish Coast Guard marine rescue sub centre on Valentia Island in Kerry.Gardai are appealing for witnesses after a man in his 30s was found seriously injured on a Dublin street.

The injured man was found on Firhouse Road in Dublin last night shortly after 8pm.Update:Missing 15-year-old AJ Ryan found safe

AJ Ryan, 15, who was reported missing from Ronanstown garda station on April 27th has been located safe and well.

May 3rd: Gardai in Ronanstown appeal for help in locating 15-year-old AJ Ryan

Gardai in Ronanstown, Dublin are appealing to the public for assistance in locating 15-year-old Alan Junior (AJ) Ryan.

AJ was last seen on Main Street in Swords on April 23rd at approximately 5.25pm and is known to frequent the Bray and Swords areas.

He is described as approximately 5 9 in height, of medium build with short brown hair. When last seen he was wearing a blue fleece top, grey shorts and black runners.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Ronanstown station at 01 6667700 or the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111.

- Digital DeskA man in his mid-30s had died after a single vehicle collision in Finglas.

The motorcyclist was fatally injured when he was in collision with a pole on Dunsink Park, Finglas at approximately 3pm this afternoon.

The deceased was seriously injured and taken to James Connolly Memorial Hospital in Blanchardstown where he later passed away.

Garda forensic collision investigators are currently at scene, the road is closed and local diversions are in place.

Gardai are appealing to any persons or motorists who may have witnessed the collision to contact them at Finglas Garda Station on 01 - 6667500, the Garda Confidential Line 1 800 666 111 or any garda station.

- Digital DeskBy Louise Roseingrave

Up to 100 babies are born in the Coombe Hospital to mothers on methadone every year, figures revealed at an inquest show.

The figure was revealed at the inquest of baby Cian Hall who was treated for withdrawal symptoms following his birth in February 2016. Drugs are used to treat the infants born experiencing withdrawal symptoms following exposure to opioids in the womb.

Baby Cian was treated successfully and released home where he died due to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome the day after his release.

Consultant Neonatologist at the Coombe Hospital Professor Martin White told the inquest that up to 100 babies are born in withdrawal having been exposed to drugs in the womb.

Half of the affected babies will remain on the ward for up to five weeks. Swaddling, wrapping and feeding helps settle the infants and around 25% of the babies require medication to help them through withdrawal.

We try to avoid giving medications to babies. Only around a quarter of the overall number will require medications. Some may stay on for up to five weeks while they are withdrawing from drugs they were exposed to in the womb, Professor White said.

Baby Cians mother Selina Hall, from Cherry Orchard, Dublin 10 was on a methadone programme along with prescribed medication, which prolonged his withdrawal symptoms. He was treated in the Coombe Hospital for six weeks before he was released home to live with his parents and four siblings.

Selina and Cian Hall.

We try to get them home to their families when they are well. Cian was well, Professor White said.

Families receive training to administer phenobarbital, a sedative drug that works on the central nervous system and the medication is used to settle the baby.

Families are trained by medical staff at the Coombe hospital before infants are discharged from hospital. In baby Cians case, his grandmother Marie Daly was trained to administer his medication in liquid form as part of his bottle feed.

Cian was discharged home to live with his parents aged six weeks on April 5th, 2016.

He grandmother arrived that evening to give him his medication. Around an hour and a half later the child was found unresponsive and rushed to hospital and died the following day.

Tragically, the night before her own death three days later, baby Cian's heartbroken mother Selina told relatives she wanted to enter rehabilitation to come off methadone and she was promised support to achieve this. She was found dead in bed on the morning of April 9th.

An autopsy found she died due to multi-drug toxicity with evidence of diazepam, methadone and alcohol in her system. The coroner returned a verdict of death by misadventure.

Selina, Cian and Chloe Hall.

Selinas eldest daughter Chloe Hall White said her mother was loving, dedicated and devoted despite her addiction to methadone.

She lived for her kids. She was a great mother. The methadone didnt stop her from being a brilliant mam to us. I never wanted for anything growing up, she said.

She was on methadone but she was clean. She wanted to stop taking it. I know that she wouldnt have wanted to leave us but she was heartbroken over baby Cian. She couldnt live without him.

Chloe has since given birth to her own baby and said the loss of her mother is more difficult.

Id love to have her around now because she adored all of us and she would be a huge support to me now with my little one. She was such a great mam, I could never fault her for anything. I miss her so much, Chloe said.Update 4.18pm: A decision by the under-pressure chief of the Health Service Executive (HSE) to leave his post a month early has not dampened calls for his immediate resignation.

The Government has confirmed that HSE director Tony OBrien is to retire at the start of July, four weeks earlier than scheduled, as a result of taking unused holiday entitlement.

The move appears to have done little to ease the pressure on Mr OBrien over a controversy about wrongly interpreted cervical cancer smear tests.

Fianna Fail TD John McGuinness has indicated his party will support an anticipated motion of no confidence in Mr OBrien in the Dail next week.

Sinn Fein is tabling a motion calling for the director general to quit, with party president Mary Lou McDonald insisting the writing is on the wall for the HSE chief.

The Government has resisted calls to sack Mr OBrien, saying it was better he stay in post to help find out what went wrong.

Last week it was revealed that an audit by CervicalCheck  the national screening programme  of 1,482 women diagnosed with cervical cancer since 2008 had found potential errors in 208 cases, as tests showed no abnormality when they should have been given a cancer warning.

The majority of the 208 women  162  were not initially told of the outcome of the audit. Of the 208, 17 have since died.

It then emerged that a further 1,518 women with the cancer in the same period have not been audited, though health chiefs stress the number affected by potential errors in this group is likely to be lower.

Mr OBrien told an Oireachtas committee last week that he would not resign but instead devote his remaining time until the end of his contract to addressing the failures.

He said he would accept some responsibility for the issue, but not full responsibility.

The director-general is taking temporary leave of absence from the board of a US company he joined earlier this year to focus on the fall-out from the smear test furore.

Mr McGuinness said he should resign from the HSE with immediate effect.

I do not believe he should have the opportunity to dictate the time of his departure, he told RTE Radio Ones This Week.

And I think that would send a very clear signal to the country, in this case to the women and their families, that the political system is bent on holding these individuals to account.

He added: I believe we have reached the point now where we either put down a motion or an amendment to the motion thats before the Dail and that we take immediate action, decisive action to restore some confidence in the political system that we can hold individuals to account.

Mrs McDonald told the same programme: I think Mr OBrien availing of his holiday leave is hardly an adequate or appropriate response to the debacle and the scandal and the disaster that has now visited women and their families across this land. This is about a calling to account.

The Sinn Fein TD added: If we are not willing, if the Government is not willing to hold the director general to account when something goes catastrophically wrong in the HSE, well, all of the talk about reform and change is only that, only talk  it wont amount to anything.

The controversy was triggered by the case of Vicky Phelan, the terminally ill mother whose legal battle cast light on the issue.

Last month Ms Phelan, a 43-year-old mother of two from Co Limerick, settled a High Court action for 2.5m after being incorrectly told in 2011 that her smear test had given a negative result for cancer.

In 2014 she was diagnosed with cancer but only told of the false negative last September.

An independent review of the screening programme has already been launched while the clinical director of CervicalCheck stepped down last weekend.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has pledged a redress scheme for women negatively impacted by the failings.

- Press Association

Earlier: HSE boss Tony O'Brien to leave his role in July

HSE Director General Tony O'Brien will leave his role in July, four weeks earlier than expected.

Fine Gael TD and Minister of State for Mental Health Jim Daly, appearing on RTE's The Week in Politics programme, confirmed Mr O'Brien's departure date and said that a new HSE board will be in place in the new year.

However, Mr O'Brien's early leave date is due to him taking up his remaining annual leave entitlements rather than a resignation from his role.

Minister of State @jimdalytd confirms that HSE Director General Tony O'Brien will retire at the start of July and that a new HSE board will be in place in the New Year #twip pic.twitter.com/Fioqm0nUk7  The Week in Politics (@rtetwip) May 6, 2018

Mr OBrien has been in charge for six years having been announced as the head of the HSE in 2012.

His contract was due to end in early August.

Last week, Mr O'Brien said he would not resign but would instead devote his remaining time until the end of his contract to addressing the "failures" revealed in cervical cancer screening controversy.

When giving evidence to the Oireachtas Joint Health Committee last week, he was asked by Fine Gael's Kate O'Connell if he should continue with the rest of his contract.

Mr O'Brien said: "Yes. I intend to use the remainder of my time to focus very specifically on this issue."

- Digital DeskFormer AMP chairman Catherine Brenner claims to have been unaware of changes made to a so-called independent report that limited the responsibility of the wealth managers executive ranks in the fees for no service scandal.

But a cache of emails and other documents released by the royal commission on Friday has revealed the former investment banker exerted considerable influence over the controversial report prepared by external lawyers from Clayton Utz.

Ms Brenner stood down from the AMP board late last month after the royal commission uncovered shocking examples of misconduct by some of the company's financial planners and found the Clayton Utz report has been altered at the request of the company. The scandal also cost AMP general counsel Brian Salter his job.

At the time of the Ms Brenner's resignation, AMP placed the blame squarely with Mr Salter. The Sydney-based company said its board, including Ms Brenner, "were unaware of and disappointed about the number of drafts and the extent of the group general counsel's interaction with Clayton Utz during the preparation of the report".AMP is staying mum on the fate of one of its top executives allegedly involved in the groups fee for no service scandal after a week of rolling heads at the wealth manager.

A report by Clayton Utz into AMP charging 16,000 clients fees for services they didnt receive made serious adverse findings against Michael Guggenheimer, the managing director of AMP Financial Planning.

AMP's interim chief executive Mike Wilkins has a fight on his hands to restore stability Credit:Jessica Hromas

The Clayton Utz report found that the conduct of Mr Guggenheimer was inconsistent with the expectations of all AMP staff in the AMP Code of Conduct (the Code) to "act professionally with honesty and integrity" and "to comply with our code, AMP's policies and the law and report any breach immediately".

This was in part because Mr Guggenheimer was allegedly aware of AMPs practice of charging some of its clients for services they did not receive and had been questioned about the practice by junior staff, according to Clayton Utz.My wife and I were partly depending on it (the income), Mr Lawrance said. For the first decade the unit in Punt Road performed as expected, but during the third, five-year lease period, things started to unravel. Sixteen months ago Mr Lawrance, 75, had a debilitating stroke. It was bad enough for him to ask his son Chris to take over and sort out his affairs. They are now siphoning off most of the rental that should have been paid to the landlord (my dad) into the 'emergency' repairs Chris Lawrance I look back through dads records and there is a string of demands from Quest for 'emergency' repairs through 2017. A new air-conditioning system, new cabinets in the bathroom, etc., etc., Chris Lawrance said.

They have promised to keep up the property, but they are now siphoning off most of the rental that should have been paid to the landlord (my dad) into the 'emergency' repairs. When asked about repairs to its properties, Quest said its franchisees try to spread out any refurbishment work over a number of years to balance out costs. Loading This is often dependent on the cooperation of landlords, it said. The Lawrances apartment, returning about $19,000 a year in rent, was subject to a rental review at the end of each five year period. The latest fell due this April.

Chris said the family was sent a notice requiring more than $40,000 in repairs to the property. At the same time, Quest's franchisee CEMG reset the rental rate to 20 per cent below the previous period after an independent valuation of the property reduced its value. Quest told Fairfax Media refurbishment works needed to be undertaken periodically and the obligations for landlords to fund the work were set out in each lease agreement. Court action At least 25 landlords at Quest's Punt Road apartments, stung with similar refurbishment bills, have employed a lawyer to arbitrate their dispute with Quests franchisee before the Victorian Small Business Commissioner, the first port of call for commercial lease disputes. Fairfax Media has been told landlords at another three Quest apartment buildings were taking similar action.

Commissioner Judy OConnell would not comment on individual cases. The number one issue that comes to my office is that either the landlord or the tenant hasnt read the contract before signing it. It is important that landlords seek advice if they are not sure about the type of lease they are signing, she said. Unhappy with the costs, Chris asked Quest to terminate the lease. My dad signed a commercial lease, not a residential lease. This means that only the tenant can terminate the lease at these 5-year junctions and the landlord is tied in for 20 years. These costs can wipe out years of rental payments. Quest takes all the profit and leaves the landlords with all the costs, he said.

My fathers generation of retirees were the first investors to get to this end of the leasing agreement cycle, Chris said. Now in their 70s and 80s and unwilling or unable to fight, they just ride out the deal, he said. Sixteen months ago I had a stroke. This pressure from Quest hasnt help. It really took advantage at a time when we didnt need it, David said. "At no stage was the Quest made aware of any hardship on the part of David Lawrance," Quest told Fairfax Media, despite Chris' assertion that he informed Quest of his father's health problems when asking to terminate the lease. The Lawrances recently sold their property for $280,000. Over a 15 year period, it gained $65,000 in value, well below Melbourne's average capital growth rate.

Unencumbered by a commercial lease to Quest, the property would have fetched around $400,000 on the open market, an estate agent said. Metropol Property chief executive Michael Yardney said there was a limited pool of investors willing to buy commercially leased apartments and banks were often unwilling to finance them. "Theyre a very poor investment because the strategy for residential real estate is to grow the capital of your asset. Youre sacrificing sound investment strategy for a perceived cashflow security," he said. My father is a good person. He worked hard through his life, he was and is a loving father, son, husband and true friend. He volunteered hundreds of hours to the Palliative Care Association and supported friends in starting their new businesses, Chris said. He felt he was making a sensible investment for his retirement. When I see a man like this, who has done no harm and great good through his life, treated this way, I find it hard to keep calm and sensible. My fathers greatest wish is that others do not fall foul of this, as he has, he said.Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size It is perfect Sydney beach weather and a public holiday but Akira Isogawa is working. The celebrated Japanese-born designer is in his creative headquarters, a former factory in the inner west suburb of Marrickville, and he has a lot going on. Downstairs, seamstresses are breathing life into his latest fashion range, a vivid collection which will premiere on the catwalk of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia on May 17. Upstairs, curators from the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences have been sifting through the hundreds of garments that make up Isogawas archives. The museum plans to host a December exhibition, and publish a book, to celebrate the designers retail milestone of 25 years. Amidst this and the roar of planes (we are under the Sydney Airport flight path), Isogawa is doing his best to concentrate on our interview  a discussion about his life, work and what its like being eternally surrounded by fragments of beauty. Suddenly, it sounds as though heavy rain is hitting the steel door of his warehouse. Someone is weeing, the 53-year-old says with an apologetic giggle. A nearby building hosts dance parties and when hes working late, which is not uncommon, this sort of activity happens all the time. Isogawas new fashion range is based on prints from 1980s vintage textiles, which seems to slightly surprise him: I never thought 80s was old enough to be vintage really because if you lived the 80s, does that make you vintage too? His concept revolves around a girl marooned on a tropical island who is a bit dishevelled  all the clothes that she is wearing are a little faded. Her garments are beautiful and she is stylish, accessorised in edgy adornments such as ear-cuffs, handcuffs and rings fashioned from silver and pearls  a new jewellery collection Isogawa created with Sydney designer Jan Logan. But fashion is not on the girls mind.

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She is thinking how is she going to survive? Isogawa says, pinpointing a sense of survival [in] the current mood, generally speaking. And being in business for so long  I feel, My God, I survived. Loading In fact, since Isogawa arrived in Sydney from his birth city of Kyoto in 1986, he has done much more than that. He studied design at East Sydney Tech and in 1993 opened his first boutique (which he quietly closed last year) in Woollahra. Three years later he showed at the inaugural Australian fashion week. By 1998 he had hit Paris and was presenting twice-yearly collections on the international scene. He branched into costume design (think Sydney Dance and the Australian Ballet) and homewares (such as designer rugs) and attracted accolades (one of which saw him in 2007 crowned Australias first Fashion Laureate) and attention from cultural institutions. Exhibitions took place everywhere from the National Gallery of Victoria to Sydneys Museum of Contemporary Art and, thanks to Australia Posts 2005 Australian Legends series, he even appeared on a stamp. Isogawa was one of six designers on a 2005 Australian Legends stamps series. How all this happened is intriguing given that high fashion is a landscape of peacock provocateurs. Yet Isogawa comes across as ego-free, only mildly engaged by social media and relatively uninterested in trends. His beautifully crafted designs are timeless and his approach unusual. As he puts it: A garment can transcend, giving it a soul. Stories swirl around him. Of the fashionista who has every Akira garment she buys copied, so she can wear the replicas and archive the originals. Of the early catwalk show when Isogawa realised he couldnt afford shoes so he dressed all his models in bright red socks. Of the later show, when he uncharacteristically lingered on the catwalk, apparently lapping up the applause. To some, it seemed Isogawa was finally accepting acclaim rather than hiding. In fact, he had almost broken his leg the night before and was in such pain he couldnt walk away.

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Isogawa: "There is no compromising." Credit:Louise Kennerley Isogawa doesnt do things the easy way. He has long-time creative collaborators (key among them stylist Kelvin Harries and artist Christiane Lehmann) but no business partner, and there is evidence of strain. When asked if he owns this warehouse, he responds by saying, Its mortgaged, laughingly putting both hands to his throat as though he is throttling himself, and adding, Yeah. So. Thats how it is right now. Nonetheless, in terms of the vision  there is no compromising or surrendering. Those words do not exist. It helps that Isogawa needs only five hours sleep a night and possesses a formidable work ethic, something he puts down to his upbringing. Although he draws the line at discussing his personal life, about which he will say no more than that he has a partner and lives in Sydneys Surry Hills, he is happy to rake over the past. As he does so, another theme emerges  that of being an outsider. Isogawa's mother, Tomiko, and items from her sewing kit. Credit:Louise Kennerley Isogawa was born on December 25, 1964 into a Kyoto family where tradition was everything, discipline was high, expectations were fierce and much remained unsaid. Isogawas mother, Tomiko, never talked about the fact that her own mother, the long-term mistress of a rich businessman who lost her home when her lover died, adopted out Tomiko at the age of four. Isogawas father, Hisao, belonged to a clan that was profoundly protective of its bloodline. Isogawas had lived in the same location for hundreds of years but male heirs were in short supply. The birth of Akiras brother, Takeshi, in 1960 was a big deal, marking the first child of its generation who could carry on the family line.

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I remember seeing pictures of my grandmother holding him at a Shinto shrine and blessing him, says the designer who recalls realising there was no such photograph of him. I dont think they bothered, he says. It would have cost them a lot of money to do that so they would have kept a record of it. But I couldnt find it, so they didnt do it. He shakes his head. They didnt do it. Isogawa with his family crest, worn on his mother's kimono. Credit:Louise Kennerley Neither Takeshi nor Akira were what their parents expected. The young Takeshi was violent and disruptive so by the time the introverted Akira was born their mother had quit her job in the Japanese bureaucracy to spend more time at home. She started a home-based drycleaning business, and Akira grew up surrounded by kimonos, refusing to do sport and spending his time drawing. Since I was little, I knew I didnt fit in, he says. I remember being told by my brother when I was in primary school, You are strange, really strange  He told me, Do you know you are not part of our family? You were found under the bridge. His father was quite absent  he always worked, Isogawa says. Hed often come home at midnight or 1am  often really drunk. One night I got up and I went to the bathroom, it could have been two in the morning and he was sleeping in the hallway. I thought he was dead. High school did nothing to alleviate the sense of entrapment. One of the cleverest boys committed suicide by jumping from a school window.

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He always had the best mark, we couldnt believe it, says the designer. But he would have [been under] an enormous amount of pressure. The teenage Isogawa became enamoured by designer clothes (walking into Kyotos Comme des Garcons store proved pivotal) and rebelling. By 20 he was working as a waiter in a karaoke bar, desperate to get away. He arrived in Sydney on a working holiday in February 1986 with little money and no English. He quickly discovered the Recreational Arts Team, an eclectic group now credited as pioneers of Sydneys dance party culture, and started designing costumes for their so-called RAT parties. Some of those he met then remain friends to this day. In 1987 he briefly returned to Kyoto and realised I wont survive there. "Unbelievable": Naomi Campbell in an Akira dress, Vogue Australia 1997. Fashion journalist Marion Hume discovered his work 10 years later, shortly after she arrived in Sydney from London to edit Vogue Australia. Hume put supermodel Naomi Campbell in a beautiful red Akira dress, had the image shot by top international photographer Peter Lindberg and ran it on her new magazines cover. It was a turning point in my career, it exposed me to the world stage, says Isogawa. I find that is more unbelievable than when I think about that than what is happening now.

AdvertisementThey didn't speak for almost two years after a messy and very public split, but Geoffrey Edelsten and Gabi Grecko are giving things another go after realising they never stopped loving each other.

The Melbourne-based medic, 75, and the Florida-born model-turned-rapper, 28, who first met on SugarDaddy.com in 2014, reunited at Christmas when she got back in touch and gave him an ultimatum: make peace or divorce.

Reunited: Gabi Grecko and Geoffrey Edelsten. The pair at the Brownlow Medal in Melbourne in 2014. Credit:AAP

"We spoke a lot about things that happened, the fights that were in the media, things that he said and I said. We both said horrible things," Grecko told Fairfax Media from her apartment in New York.

Speaking from Melbourne, Edelsten added: "It's a massive U-turn ... Gabi has matured a lot. She is a much nicer person  it makes me feel sad that we had that hiatus."Don Cummins was the lead official responsible for decommissioning Lake Mokoan when he was chair of Goulburn Murray Water - Australia's largest rural water corporation, controlling about 70 per cent of Victoria's stored water and operator of the giant Hume Dam on the Murray - from 2004 to 2007. "It was losing 55 gigalitres [billion litres] a year into the atmosphere" through evaporation, Cummins tells Fairfax Media. "It was only about 12-foot deep." Public debate was intense; even some farming families who had been evicted to make way for the dam in the 1970s were opposed to the decommissioning. "It was a rare victory - one for the environment," he says, adding that "the cost was enormous". On a recent visit, the wetlands were resplendently green amid a worsening drought that is spreading across northern Victoria and southern NSW amid record hot temperatures. For the January-April period, rainfall for the Murray-Darling Basin is running at 86 millimetres, or half the average level, according to Blair Trewin, senior climatologist with the Bureau of Meteorology. That's the driest start for the basin since 2005, but for Victoria overall, it's been 51 years since the first four months of any year have been this dry.

'A case of bastardry' That Tuesday's scheduled vote should coincide with a worsening dry spell only heightens anxiety about which way the result will go. Back in February, the Greens and crossbench senators managed to secure Labor's support to disallow 70 gigalitres of water savings earmarked for the northern section of the basin. This time around, the amount at stake nearly 10 times larger - at 605 gigalitres a year - and draws in the nation's key food bowl regions, such as the NSW Riverina and the Goulburn Valley. The Murray River winds through the Murray Valley National Park. Credit:Nick Moir

And unlike the northern basin, the stench of alleged water theft and widespread non-compliance in NSW - revealed last July by ABC's Four Corners - is largely absent. Jamie Pittock, a researcher at the Australian National University and a member of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, says the plan's issues for the southern basin are - if anything -worse, because the parties "are playing by the rules, more or less". "The southern basin is a case of bastardry by the state governments to deliberately undermine, or stop key elements of the basin plan," Pittock says. "In many respects, it's much more dangerous to the future of the basin than the cowboys in the north." 'A positive effect' Certainly, all agree the southern basin is highly regulated, with canals dotted at regular intervals with solar-powered meters, and a closely monitored water market.

Sam Birrell, chief executive of the Greater Shepparton Committee, is concerned such compliance might not be so assured in the future if the changes to the plan get blocked in the Senate next week. "Id be amazed if that got disallowed," Birrell tells Fairfax Media. The initial implementation of the plan in 2012 brought out "a lunatic fringe" that he hopes doesn't return. Loading "Right-wing groups [were] driving tractors up and down the street ... It was real militant," he says. The 36 projects linked to the plan amendments are "really positive projects, that use water better for the environment", he says. "Theyll have a positive effect on the river and the forest around - the Goulburn and the Murray [rivers] arent in a bad condition", compared with some parts.

Birrell, who grew up on a property beside the Goulburn at Murchison, says "everyone believes in the river". His region, though, has already given up too much in water buybacks and other changes, and can't afford further cuts in its access to water. Our fear with the MurrayDarling Basin Plan is that so much water has gone from permanent licences here," he says. "We feel were at a tipping point, if [another] significant amount of water left this region, next time we get to a dry period ... theres not enough in the pool for the farms that need to buy," he says. The losses could "get to a point where the dairy industry, in particular, just cant stand that. 'Process remains broken'

The politics ahead of the vote are clear at the state level but less so at the federal one. Lisa Neville, Victoria's water minister, has her sights set on nine environmental projects in her state. Some include the use of pumps and pipes to support water to wetlands - some of which are supposed to be protected under international conventions. "I have written to all Victorian senators asking them to support the 605-gigalitre [amendment] and its projects, and I am confident that it will be supported," Neville said. According to Birrell, Neville "has been a really strong advocate for this region on these matters ... with, I suspect, little political advantage to her". A November state election is one near-term factor. Support from Suzanna Sheed, an independent MP based in Shepparton, could be crucial if the results of the polls are close. Neville's NSW counterpart, Niall Blair, has been more low-key this time around. After February's senate vote to disallow the northern basin changes involving 70 gigalitres in annual savings, he vowed to extricate his state from the overall plan.

"NSW under my stewardship will now start the process of withdrawing ourselves from the plan," Blair said at the time. Blair said his government's position remains unchanged and that as long as the northern basin review remains disallowed - involving those 70 gigalitres in savings - "the process remains broken". "Should these amendments be disallowed by the Senate [on Tuesday], the basin plan is simply not implementable," he said. David Littleproud, the federal agriculture minister - perhaps unusually for a Nationals MP - is seen as something of a villain in Shepparton even though he has been pushing for the plan amendments. Their failure in the Senate next week would "restart the water wars and cause great uncertainty in country communities", he told Fairfax Media.

Federal Labor's vote will be key, and its water spokesman Tony Burke is expected to negotiate right up until the Senate division. Labor wants a firm commitment of 450 gigalitres of water promised for the environment, and "more certainty" that the 36 supply projects will deliver the results, among other demands. "Labor is not seeking to re-litigate the plan nor is Labor seeking to undermine the independence of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority," Burke says. 'No reason to rush' The role of the authority, in fact, is among the more contentious issues. The body has repeatedly stated its support for the amendments "which it recommended based on a rigorous, CSIRO-approved methodology, [that is] independently reviewed and verified". Changes to the Murray-Darling Basin will be put to a vote in the Senate. Credit:Nick Moir

However, as reported by Fairfax Media, the authority has itself raised many concerns about the risks some of the 36 projects could fail to deliver their promised environmental returns and may even counter gains made by previous investments. For instance, the structural changes to the Menindee Lakes - alone intended to account for about one-sixth of the 605-gigalitre savings - involve environmental risks that must be mitigated, according to the Wentworth Group which analysed the authority's own assessments. Lake Cawndilla, for example, is hailed by the authority as a key resource for the golden perch, but "there is potential for adverse ecological impacts" from the related project, the authority said. "It's a prime case of a key environmental asset, in the case of the golden perch, being stuffed up by a state government focused on these [Sustainable Diversion Limit] projects to reduce water recovery for [the use of] irrigation," Pittock says. Similarly, the $54 million already spent on the Great Darling Anabranch Project could be undermined by the new project, the authority found, according to documents released by an order for production sought by Rex Patrick, the SA Centre Alliance senator.

Senator Patrick said the reluctance of the authority - and the governments - to reveal the business cases of the projects should give the public reason to demand a postponement in any vote to alter the basin plan. "There is no reason to rush this," he says. 'Condemning all of their ... wetlands' The Goulburn, though, presents another issue that reveals how poorly the current plan is operating. So-called constraints prevent pulses of environmental water - often bought back from farmers at the taxpayers' expense - from overflowing the banks of rivers and getting to the remaining flood-dependent ecosystems such as the red gum forests. These include national parks along the Goulburn. Despite having a pool of $140 million to help shore up infrastructure or compensate landholders affected by short-term floods, it only takes a handful of landholders to object to prevent over-bank flooding. "By not allowing managed floods higher than the Goulburn bank, theyre essentially condemning all of their floodplain wetlands to being lost, to drying out and becoming terrestrial forests or farmland," Pittock says.The state's five coal-fired power stations are allowed "unnecessary variation" in their pollution and operate "well below" licensed limits, providing scope for more consistent and tighter controls, the Environment Protection Agency has found.

The review by the watchdog  prompted in part by reports of unexplained falls in pollution from some plants even as power output rose  made a string of recommendations for an industry that contributes NSW's largest share of pollutants such as sulphur dioxide.

Bayswater power station in the Hunter, one of the state's five coal-fired plants. Credit:Glen McCurtayne

The survey of 2011-16 air emissions found "extensive compliance" with limits, and uncovered no evidence plants had blended coal to deliberately lower emissions during testing periods.

A year ago, Fairfax Media cited documents showing staff were given precise instructions as far back as 1991 at the then government-owned Bayswater power plant on how to blend coal to avoid triggering pollution alerts.Rising numbers of suicidal and self-harming adolescents are washing up in NSW and Victorian emergency departments, new data shows.

These teenagers in crisis were the "canaries in the coal mine" that signalled community mental health services were failing, experts said, despite heavy government investment over the past decade in programs such as Headspace.

An analysis of data from 115 emergency departments across NSW found dramatic increases in presentations of self harm, suicide attempts, ideation or intentional poisoning in all age groups over 10 years old.

The greatest increase was among 10 to 19-year-olds (27 per cent per year), found the study published in the Medical Journal of Australia.

A second analysis of Victorian emergency department data found mental health presentations had tripled among 10-14 and 15-19 year-olds between 2008 and 2015. The steep rise far exceeded the rise in physical disorders (46 per cent to 13 per cent).Back in 2014 I embarked on a voyage for MARAD, MSC, TRANSCOM and many other acronyms. Operation S.W.O.R.D. was the reason. Purpose: to transport Syrias chemical weapon stockpile from the port of Latakia to the port of Gioia Tauro in Italy. There, weapons were transported to the M/V Cape Ray. Over the course of the next 90 days crews from ECBC and CBARR safely neutralized all chemicals at sea without incident.

At the time, I had spent three years on an ROS boat tied to the dock in Philadelphia. Wanting to go back to working on a moving vessel I transferred to the Cape Ray as the third assistant engineer. After a couple of months I was bumped up to second assistant engineer. Doing a humanitarian service was not a reason for my willingness to participate in this mission. It was for experience and money. And I did make a bit as I spent nine months on this ship without going home. It wasnt until I got home that I realized what I did was a good deed.

Looking back at it I wonder how many lives were saved.He was bashed for urinating in the corner, or for defecating into a tin. He was let out to do chores, and made to hold bricks in front of him for not completing them. The other children on the Elands cannabis farm - aged 10, three and 18 months - were sometimes let in to see him, as was his mother. For a while, the children had free access to the hydroponic setup, helping cultivate the commercial-scale crop. It was in the same room they watched TV. The man responsible, now 30, was on April 27 imprisoned for a maximum of 6 years, with a non-parole period of four years.

He pleaded guilty to the sophisticated cultivation, to which he exposed children, and to falsely imprisoning the boy, depriving him of necessities, and to repeatedly assaulting him. The man, the partner of the boys mother, was the last of a group of people to be sentenced after police raided the operation on December 18, 2015. No water, no ventilation: The boy was locked inside the container. The property looked as though it was under construction: a single-storey house surrounded by scattered shipping containers. On the western side of the home was a black wooden deck with an outdoor spa on it, a facade concealing a pair of trapdoors to an underground bunker.

Inside was an operational hydroponic system: chemicals, ducting, fans, fluorescent lights, power cords and water supply to 225 cannabis plants in pots. Police found a sawn-off rifle, batons and capsicum spray in the bunker, along with nunchaku, flick knives and swords in the house. Amid sickening circumstances, the man conjured a joke for his discoverers: Wish you could have come like two months later, at least I would have got some bud out of it. The hydroponic cannabis set-up at the property. When the boy was freed from his 2.4m by 2m enclosure he was thin and filthy. He had dirty dressings on his ankles, and weeping sores.

He had bruises, abrasions and scabs, calluses, a broken front tooth, and a small burn on his hand. His bones lacked density, his muscles had no bulk. As if to allay their disgust, the man told police, I havent not being feeding him. The first container he was caged in was yellow and smaller than the blue one he was found in. He was being separated for "inappropriately" touching another boy. In the smaller container was a blanket but no bed, food, and limited water. He was in there for close to a week.

The child developed sores on his feet from wearing shoes that were too big and being made to carry concrete blocks. Inside the trapdoor, police walked down a set of sturdy stairs and into the three shipping containers where the cannabis was allegedly grown. Instead of being taken to the doctor he was taken out of school so as not to arouse suspicion from authorities. Records show the boy hadnt attended school since October 30, 2015. On November 10, police went to the property over concerns for him. He showed officers the scratches on his arms and told them hed fallen over.

They grew suspicious about what was going on, and applied for a search warrant. Concerned there would be more visits, the man and his overseer, who ran the farm through a regime of fear, moved the boy to the larger container. Perversely, the man said he regularly kicked and slapped the boy out of mercy, so the overseer wouldnt belt the child harder. He kicked the boy for taking the rubbish out, he hit him with a cane, slammed his head into the container, and punched him in the leg, leaving him unable to walk. The other adults involved in the scheme claimed the overseer subjected them all to violence. That man was eventually sentenced to six years and four months in prison, with a non-parole period of four years and five months, for cultivating the commercial crop to which he exposed children, false imprisonment, assault occasioning actual bodily harm, and numerous weapons convictions. The childs mother, who told police she didnt agree with keeping him in the shed, received three years and eight months, with a non-parole period of two years and five months, for false imprisonment, failing to provide necessities for her son, and cultivating cannabis.

She will soon be eligible for parole. Her brother was sentenced to two years and seven months, with a minimum period of just under two years. The man jailed last month was the partner of the boy's mother. Credit:Facebook Another woman, who was not at the property when it was raided, was jailed for two years and one month, with a minimum term of a year and five months for weapons and cultivating convictions. Her term has since expired. When police swooped, the children were whisked into care.

The boy was medically examined a month later, his doctor noticing a remarkably different child. He looked nourished, and had put on 4 kilograms. But it was the brewing psychological damage that had clinicians worried. It was terrible being in the shipping container. I felt sad and lonely  I felt very scared. Now sometimes its like everything in my mind is dead, he wrote almost two years after his release, in a victim impact statement to District Court judge Leonie Flannery. She would use this statement in jailing the captor.One of the world's best-known ballet companies has decided to reject the nation's culture capitals, Sydney and Melbourne, in favour of performing exclusively in "a very important part of Australia with lots of culture": Brisbane.

Teatro alla Scala director Frederic Olivieri said "big numbers of costumes and equipment" will be brought for the shows at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre in November and the Italian ballet company hopes to return Down Under in the future.

A taste of what La Scala has in store for Brisbane later this year.

It was announced in March that La Scala will only perform in Queensland when it comes Down Under and Australia will be the 40th nation the company has visited in its 240-year history.

Despite touring outside of Italy for the past 155 years, this visit will be the first time La Scala has come to Australia, with Giselle and Don Quixote performances planned.An air and sea search for a Sunshine Coast man continues after he was reported missing from a chartered fishing vessel about 200 nautical miles off the central Queensland coast early Sunday.

The 35-year-old crew member was last seen on the 23-metre vessel, which was sailing from Gladstone to Swain Reef with 17 passengers aboard, about 2am.

The search area for the Sunshine Coast man was about 3750 nautical miles north-east of Yeppoon. Credit:Google Maps

When he could not be found two hours later the alarm was raised by the skipper and the search and rescue effort began at first light.

Search and rescue co-ordinator Sergeant Mark Dean said four fixed-wing aircraft and three commercial vessels were scouring a "massive" search area about 3750 nautical miles in size.Those two sections are from Eight Miles Plains to Daisy Hill and then a second section from Varsity Lakes to Tugun on the border. The Eight Mile Plains to Daisy Hill section includes widening some sections from six lanes to eight lanes and extending the busway to Springwood. Promise 2: May 3, 2018 - Sunshine Coast rail Improvements to the Sunshine Coast rail line were first promised two decades ago, but a detailed business case for the Beerburrum to Nambour stretch has been finished by the Queensland Government (December 2017) and been given to Infrastructure Australia. On May 3, Mr Turnbull promised $390 million to upgrade the 20 kilometre rail connection between Beerburrum and Landsborough and to improve passing locations on the 19-kilometre stretch from Landsborough to Nambour.

The projects total cost is $780 million. Promise 3: April 4, 2018 - Rookwood Weir Mr Turnbull and Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack have also promised $176 million for Rockhamptons Rookwood Weir  if the Queensland government matches the spend. On April 4, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk made it clear the Queensland government would commit funds to the major irrigation and water supply project as soon as federal funds were made clear. This year's federal budget is tipped to be the last before the next federal election due by May 18, 2019, according to the ABC.

Mr Turnbulls government needs to win seats in Queensland  not only retain its existing 76 seats  to win control of the 150-seat House of Representatives. The Labor opposition, led by Bill Shorten, holds 69 seats while other parties and independents hold five seats. Queenslands Deputy Premier and Treasurer Jackie Trad on Sunday called on the federal government to also fund a section of the $5.4 billion underground rail project, Cross River Rail, as it has in Victoria. Queensland is, at present, funding the project itself. Deputy Premier and Treasurer Jackie Trad pressing for infrastructure funding from the federal government. Credit:Darren England/AAP

We are not completely confident the federal government will come to the party on Cross River Rail, Ms Trad said. She questioned the decision to fund a similar metro rail project in Victoria. We just want to be treated equally, she said. Meanwhile, Queenslands small business lobby group, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry Queensland, believes the taxation system is outdated and acting as a brake on economic growth. While the economic environment has changed substantially, Australias tax mix has remained relatively unchanged since the 1950s, the CCIQ said in a statement on Sunday.

It also asks for more City Deals  where the federal government partners with local and state governments and businesses to revitalise regional cities in Queensland. Since 2016 Townsville has been part of one of three City Deals now operating. Townsville has since 2016 been part of a federal government City Deal the CCIQ would like to expand in regional Queensland. Credit:Fairfax Media The CCIQ has also called on the federal government not to lose control over plans to curtail spending, expressing concern the federal budget remains in deficit a decade after the global financial crisis of 2007-08. The CCIQ wants to see savings on expenditure measures in the areas of social security and welfare, paid parental leave, family tax benefits, child care assistance, as opposed to higher taxes, Kate Whittle CCIQs general manager of advocacy said.

In their wish list for the 2018-19 federal budget are: 1. A halt to bracket creep through personal income tax changes; 2. Outlining a 10-year plan to reduce net public debt back to less than 10 per cent; 3. Extending the company tax cuts announced in 2017-18 budget; 4. Fully funding a national partnership agreement on apprentices, and;A female driver and teenage pedestrian have been killed and two other motorists seriously injured in a string of long weekend crashes in Queensland's south-east and on the central coast.

In the most recent incident, an 18-year-old pedestrian died after being hit while trying to cross Bargara Road in the Bundaberg suburb of Bargara about 1.40am on Sunday.

Two motorists were rushed to hospital with serious injuries after crashes in Brisbane's north and Logan on Saturday. Credit:AAP - Dave Hunt

A woman also died on Friday night after a head-on crash in Fernvale, west of Brisbane in the Somerset region.

The 51-year-old was the driver of one vehicle and died at the scene, while the driver of the other vehicle suffered minor injuries after the Brisbane Valley Highway collision just before 5.30pm.Why march on Labour Day? What is the point? Why take to the streets with thousands of other Queenslanders and demand to change the rules?

Its about returning the fair go to Australia.

Taking to the Brisbane street for the 2017 Labour Day March. Credit:AAP/Dave Hunt

Profits for big business are going up and up but wages have flatlined for the workers whose increasing productivity has contributed to those profits. Profits are funnelled at every opportunity to CEOs, senior executives and the big end of town.

Big business has too much power and they are guided only by the objective of profit maximisation. The rules allow big companies to increase profits through cutting wages and conditions, avoid tax at every opportunity with offshore accounts and loopholes, and move every function they can overseas where workers can be paid $2 per day and exploitation and abuse of workers is commonplace.Parents of children with the muscle-wasting disease known as spinal muscular atrophy will get cheap access to a previously inaccessible life-saving drug in a measure to be included in Tuesdays budget.

Spinal muscular atrophy is a rare muscle-wasting genetic disorder that affects the motor neurons that control movement. It is the number one genetic cause of death in Australian babies aged under two.

Bethan McElwee and Jonathan McElwee with their 1-year-old daughter Aviana, who has spinal muscular atrophy. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

From June, the only effective medication for it, Spinraza, will be listed on the on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme for just $39.50 per script, and $6.40 for concessional patients.

Those families who currently have children that are dealing with this condition have to shell out almost $375,000 a year, Treasurer Scott Morrison said on Sunday.A massive breach of Commonweath Bank data exposed last week has raised security fears around a new national database of Australian bank customers, as Labor pushes for a delay to part of the scheme's scheduled introduction in less than two months.

The database - set to go live on July 1 - will include the details of every person who has taken out a loan or a credit card, along with their repayment history.

The Mandatory Comprehensive Credit Reporting scheme was a recommendation of the 2014 financial system inquiry and is designed to give lenders access to a deeper, richer set of data to ensure loans are only being approved for people who can afford to repay them.

The new requirements will first apply to the Commonwealth Bank, ANZ Bank, Westpac and National Australia Bank, given they account for up to 80 per cent of lending to households.Federal Labor MPs are likely to be insulated from voters' wrath in the fall-out from the corruption watchdog's investigation into the council in one of the party's Queensland heartlands, according to political analyst Paul Williams.

It is a view that has been echoed by former federal Oxley Labor MP Bernie Ripoll.

A string of people - including two Ipswich City Council mayors and two council chief executive officers - are now facing charges as part of the probe. The entire council faces the sack, with Local Government Minister Stirling Hinchliffe giving councillors 21 days to explain why they should keep their jobs.

Former Ipswich mayor Andrew Antoniolli (left) and his predecessor Paul Pisasale (right) have both been charged. Credit:AAP

With the prospect of a federal election as early as late this year, Dr Williams believed voters would see the situation as a symptom of a "broken election system'' rather than take out their anger on the federal members for Blair and Oxley.Kabul: An explosion at a mosque used as a voter centre in the eastern Afghan province of Khost on Sunday killed at least 17 people and wounded dozens of others, local officials said.

The blast was the latest in a series of attacks on preparations for long-delayed parliamentary elections.

Injured men receive treatment following a deadly bombing at a mosque in Khost on Sunday. Credit:AP

Basir Bina, spokesman for the provincial police, said people were gathered after afternoon prayers in the mosque, which was also being used as a voter registration centre for parliamentary elections due in October.Dubai: President Hassan Rouhani said on Sunday Iran had plans to respond to any move by US President Donald Trump on the 2015 nuclear agreement and the United States would regret a decision to exit the accord.

Trump has said that unless European allies rectified "flaws" in Tehran's deal with world powers by May 12 he would refuse to extend US sanctions relief for Iran.

Rouhani  in a speech carried live by state television  said Iran was ready for any eventuality.

"Orders have been issued to our atomic energy organisation ... and to the economic sector to confront America's plots against our country," Rouhani told a rally in north-east Iran.Jakarta: More than 130 Sri Lankans believed to be heading for Australia and New Zealand have been intercepted by Malaysian authorities, smashing a large people smuggling ring that has been operating for over a year.

National police chief Mohamad Fuzi Harun said authorities halted the tanker on Tuesday off the coast of southern Johor state.

This photo, released by the Royal Malaysian Police, shows illegal migrants on a rusty tanker near Kota Tinggi in Johor state, Malaysia. Credit:AP

"On May 1st, at approximately 2.02 am, Royal Malaysian Police in co-operation with Malaysian Maritime Enforcement and government legal officers have conducted 'Op Kenal Alpha 2/2018' and have successfully brought down a people smuggling operation involving Sri Lankan citizens using maritime passage in the area of Tanjung Gemuk waters, Sedili, Kota Tinggi, Johor," Harun said in a statement.The Enforcement Directorate has registered a case of money laundering in connection with an alleged Rs 621-crore loan fraud involving UCO Bank, officials said today.

The agency has filed a criminal complaint under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) after taking cognisance of a CBI FIR registered last month.

The CBI booked a former chairman and managing director (CMD) of UCO Bank, Arun Kaul, and others in the case. Besides the bank CMD, the CBI booked realty firm Era Infra Engineering India Ltd., its CMD Hem Singh Bharana, two chartered accountants, and Pawan Bansal of Altius Finserve Pvt. Ltd. among others.

The ED will probe if the alleged defrauded bank loans were used to create tainted assets by way of money laundering.

The CBI alleged that the accused persons in pursuance of a criminal conspiracy had defrauded UCO Bank to the tune of about Rs 621 crore by diversion and siphoning off the bank loans, they said.

According to the CBI, Arun Kaul, who was the CMD of a Kolkata-based bank between 2010 and 2015, allegedly facilitated the accused company in obtaining the loans.

The loan was not utilised for the sanctioned purpose, the CBI alleged.

The ED will also work to identify assets of the accused so that they can be attached, if required, during the course of investigation, they said.

In its complaint, the bank alleged that two loans were issued to the company in 2010 - Rs 200 crore in March and Rs 450 crore in October.

The Rs 200-crore loan was issued for repayment of high cost debt to Central Bank of India, Punjab National Bank and IFCI. It was found that the company did not utilise the amount for the purpose for which it was disbursed and diverted the funds.

No amount was used to repay the dues of Central Bank of India and Punjab National Bank, while only Rs 59 lakh was repaid towards dues of IFCI, according to the CBI FIR, now used by the ED.

The chartered accountant (CA) in this case -- Pankaj Jain -- dishonestly and fraudulently did not mention the details of utilisation of term loan in the end-use certificate, the CBI alleged.

In the case of the Rs 450-crore loan, too, the funds were utilised for purposes other than stipulated in the sanction and the end-use certificates given by the CA were intentionally ambiguous and against the fact, it alleged.

"The account was declared NPA as on July 7, 2013 by the bank and the present balance as on December 31, 2017 is Rs 737.88 crore," the CBI FIR alleged.

Both the CBI and the ED, the two central agencies, are investigating a number of such bank fraud cases under the respective laws they enforce.Fortis Healthcare Limited or FHL has received a revised offer from Manipal and TPG, the company informed in a filing to BSE. In the new offer, Manipal-TPG has valued Fortis at Rs 8,358 crores and shown interest to invest Rs 2,100 crore into Fortis at a share price of Rs 160. Earlier, Manipal-TPG had valued FHL at Rs 6,322 crore.

Manipal-TPG in its revised offer said that the FHL group has short term liquidity concerns and needs funding for repayment of existing loans and payments. "In view of the same, Manipal-TPG will -by way of preferential allotment- subscribe to equity shares of FHL for an amount of Rs 2100,00,00,000 for a price per equity share of Rs 160," the company said.

"It is clarified that the Preferential Allotment is being undertaken only to provide immediate liquidity to FHL by way of a minority investment in FHL. The Preferential Allotment and the ability to appoint directors as aforesaid, shall not vest control in the Subscriber(s) and accordingly, no open offer is required to be made," the revised offer said.

Manipal-TPG has also offered to merge the company into FHL. For the purposes of the merger, Manipal-TPG valued FHL at Rs 8,358 crores and Manipal Health Enterprises or MHEPL at Rs 6,070 crores. A value of Rs 8,358 crores for FHL shall translate into a per share value of Rs 160 per equity share, the letter said.

Upon the merger becoming effective, the shareholders of MHEPL as on the record date (to be fixed for purposes of the Merger) shall be issued equity shares in FHL in accordance with the swap ratio for the Merger, it added.

The new offer is binding and remains valid for acceptance by the FHL board till May 15, 2018.

Fortis has appointed a two-member expert advisory committee to review the proposals. FHL board will meet on May 10 to take a decision on the binding bids as recommended by the expert advisory committee.

Four entities -- KKR-backed Radiant Life Care, Malaysia-based IHH Healthcare, Manipal-TPG consortium and Munjal and Burman family offices -- have given their binding offers for the Healthcare chain.

Among the bidders who have submitted their revised offers are Munjal-Burman and Manipal-TPG. Earlier this month, Munjal-Burman presented the FHL board with a revised investment proposal to invest Rs 1,800 crore directly, without any due diligence.New Delhi, May 6 (PTI) GST officers have started sending scrutiny notices to companies whose tax payment did not match the final sales return, after revenue authorities detected underpayment of GST by about 34 per cent, a source said.

Besides, companies whose final sales return GSTR-1 did not match GSTR-2A, which is a purchase return auto-generated by system from his sellers return, have also received scrutiny notices.

As per an analysis done by the revenue department in March, 34 per cent of businesses paid Rs 34,400 crore less tax between July-December while filing initial summary return (GSTR-3B).

These 34 per cent of the businesses have paid Rs 8.16 lakh crore to the exchequer by filing GSTR-3B, whereas analysis of their GSTR-1 data show that their tax liability should have been Rs 8.50 lakh crore.

In one notice issued by Gujarat GST commissionerate on May 4, taxpayers have been asked to explain the reason for "discrepancies" in return GSTR-3B and GSTR-1 for October-December period by May 14.

"If no explanation is received by the aforesaid date, it will be presumed that you have nothing to say in the matter and proceedings in accordance with law may be initiated against you without making any further reference to you in this regard," the notice said.

Tax experts said that GST law provides for 30 days time to be given to taxpayers for replying to scrutiny notices, however, in the said case only 10 days time has been granted.

AMRG & Associates Partner Rajat Mohan said: "The government should issue strict guidelines for the officers to be reasonable and rational in disposing off the notice after giving the full opportunity of being heard to the tax payers. In one of such notice tax officer has given 10 days (out of which four days weekly off) against a maximum 30 day period allowed in rules".

EY Partner Abhishek Jain said that the activity of data analytics at the end of revenue authorities has commenced with various players receiving notices, seeking clarifications on differences between GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B as well as GSTR-2A and GSTR-3B.

While the reconciliation between GSTR-1 and 3B is to essentially verify payment of taxes for all outward supplies made, reconciliation between GSTR-2A and GSTR-3B is to ensure that credits claimed by businesses only pertain to taxes actually paid by the suppliers and there not being any loss to the government exchequer on this account, Jain said.

The government has collected over Rs 7.41 lakh crore as GST in last fiscal. However, there were concerns that due to absence of anti-evasion measures there might have been leakages in tax revenue.

The GST Council, headed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and comprising state counterparts, had in its meeting in March decided to further analyse data gaps between self declared liability in GSTR-1 and the taxes actually paid while filing GSTR-3B.

The revenue department has analysed the Goods and Services Tax (GST) returns data filed by over 51.96 lakh businesses during July-December, 2017. The indirect tax reform GST was rolled out from July 1, 2017.

The data analysis showed only 16 per cent of the summary sales returns under GST matched with the final returns till December 2017.

It also showed that there was excess tax payment of Rs 91,072 crore by 49.36 per cent of businesses registered under GST between July-December. While they have paid Rs 6.50 lakh crore as GST, the GSTR-1 filed by them shows that their liability should have been Rs 5.59 lakh crore. PTI JD MSS BAL BALBy Gurdip Singh

Singapore, May 5 (PTI) Foreign labour complements Singaporean workers and brings along relevant skills to create new industries and job opportunities, Singapores newly-appointed Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing has said.

In his first public address since assuming the post on May 1, Chan noted that the global economic centre of gravity is "shifting eastwards" and said the Association of South East Asian (ASEAN) region alone is projected to have a USD 3 trillion economy by 2020 and is expected to become the fourth-largest economy by 2030.

"Foreign labour complements Singaporean workers and brings along relevant skills to create new industries and job opportunities," he said.

"This is crucial to our longer term competitiveness, and ensures that we stay relevant to a dynamic region that is fast evolving," he added.

Singapore is the ASEAN chairman this year.

"In ASEAN, we have a large market of over 600 million people, a young and dynamic population, rising middle class and rapid urbanisation.

"These conditions make the ASEAN region an increasingly important market in the global economy. And with the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), ASEAN has been transformed into a competitive single market and production base. This would facilitate trade and investment across the region," he said.

Chan also stressed that talent will play an increasingly important part in directing Singapores next phase of growth to become an innovation-driven economy.

Speaking at an event organised by the European Chamber of Commerce in Singapore (EuroCham) yesterday, Chan highlighted the importance of improving the quality of the workforce, as trade associations, companies and the government implement the 23 Industry Transformation Maps -- strategic plans for industries to address specific issues.

"Beyond connectivity and a pro-business environment, another key criterion for our continued success is being open to talent," the Straits Times today quoted Chan as telling 150 government officials and business leaders at EuroCham lunch.

"This is our reality as a small country with no natural resources and a maturing workforce.

"We have always invested significantly in our people to ensure that our workforce is competitive and right-skilled," he said.

Chan said, "We must also put in place plans, systems and mechanisms to help Singaporeans go overseas and explore opportunities, network with the region and build up cross-cultural, international competencies.

"It is about growing the local talent pool and networking them with the external talent pool for us to have what we call a Singapore global talent network," said Chan. PTI GS KIS KISWork while studying

Your Canadian study permit doesn't just grant you the right to attend university or college, it also grants you the right to work off-campus for up to 20 hours per week during regular academic sessions, and full-time during scheduled academic breaks.

This opportunity is generally not afforded to your peers who decided to study in other countries, such as the United States. It allows you to make some money to fund your ongoing studies and living costs, all the while giving you connections in the local labour market. These professional networks could be the lead into landing a great job upon graduation.news, latest-news

While Harold Guida gets to look up at Capital Hill almost every day and gaze upon the national landmark he helped to create in person, he's still amazed at the different ways he gets to see Parliament House. "I just marvel at all of the ways various aspects of the building turns up on things over the years, like key ring tags and milk bottles and other kind of things, of everything from the curved walls to the flag masts," he said. Mr Guida was one of the architects behind the iconic design of Parliament House, which this week is celebrating 30 years since it opened its doors. Three decades on since its grand opening as part of Australia's bicentenary celebrations, Mr Guida said Canberra's most recognisable symbol was still just as impressive. "For everyone involved, it was one of our finest achievements," he said. Parliament House's iconic grassy hills and prominent flag mast weren't always a sure thing. The nation's federal politicians could just as well be sitting in a building shaped like a giant map of Australia. Deep within the bowels of the National Archives, there are more than 300 alternate designs for Parliament House, all submitted as part of an international design competition. With the existing parliament house bursting at the seams, and the dismissal of Gough Whitlam in 1975 sparking a revival in the Australian political process, archives curator Laura Cook says the late 1970s saw a renewed interest for a more permanent home for parliament. "During the five-year period [after Whitlam's dismissal] there was a revival in the interest of an Australian symbol of parliament," she said. From 1975 the National Capital Development Authority spent four years planning for a new, and more permanent, Parliament House, with a design competition announced in April 1979. Dr Cook says 961 architectural firms registered for the competition, each paying a $50 deposit and in return receiving a large blue book from the authority, outlining the process and the future significance of the building. "The brief was so exact and descriptive. It had to cover everything from the loading dock, to storage space for toilet paper, to then also creating a symbol of democracy for the Australian people," she said. While almost 1000 firms registered for the competition, just 329 submitted an entry for the first stage, which required a report as well as 10 drawings of the plans. Just five designs were selected to advance through to the next stage, meaning some of the world's best architects missed out, including a design by renowned Australian architect Harry Seidler. Among the designs that didn't make the cut were a spaceship-looking parliament, when if seen from above, looked like a giant map of Australia, complete with a bridge extending to a standalone Tasmania. Out of the five that went through to the next stage, two of the firms were Australian, one from the UK, one from Canada and one from the US, however, all the teams had to have at least one Australian citizen. If a design from a finalist firm from London, Bickerdike Allen Partners, had won, Parliament House could have looked reminiscent of a building out of Blade Runner, with a whole lot of concrete involved. "All the finalists had the greatest potential to be further developed and the architects had a sympathetic approach to the natural environment," Dr Cook said. In the end, it was this sympathetic approach that saw New York firm Mitchell/Giurgola & Thorpe take out the top honours. While many people think that Parliament House is underground, Harold Guida sees it in a different way. "It's a building with a grass roof in the middle. That form of making a landscape with the building is a very unusual one in architecture," he says. "We had a big respect and regard for [Walter Burley] Griffin's plan for Canberra, and we wanted to engage with the plan and the city." Designed by Romaldo Giurgola, the plan for Parliament House was announced as the winner on June 26, 1980. Originally asked to be a panellist to select the winning design, Giurgola declined the offer, wanting to submit his own design for the national capital. As a design co-ordinator, Guida was responsible for meeting with all the project's different teams to ensure a unified design. "The design process was difficult, the parliament had lots of different uses and lots of functioning groups," he says. "It required a fair bit of attention to keep consistency but to also allow symbolic differences to occur as you move throughout the building. "What we intended was the front entrance to be without steps, so it gave access to parliament to the public where they could engage in the process." It was the design's openness that curried a lot of favour with the assessors, who praised its accessibility in their final report for the selection process. "It properly reserves the top of the hill for the use and enjoyment of the people of Australia," the report reads. "So far from the new Parliament House glowering down, forbidding and inaccessible, people will walk and children will clamber and play all over its roof. "A further attractive feature of the winning scheme is its simple imagery. It is capable of naive graphic representation: children will not only be able to climb on the building, but draw it easily too." The report said the design kept with Griffin's original plan for Canberra, as well as being non-intrusive. "Visitors can penetrate the heart of the building without intruding on users' activities or compromising security," the report says. "Security should be able to be maintained with a minimum of overt "police presence"." Construction began on the project in 1981, with a deadline of Australia Day, 1988, with the initial pricetag expected to cost $220 million. It would eventually open on May 9, the anniversary of the opening of Old Parliament House, with the final costings at more than $1 billion. The original report estimated that up to 800 construction workers would be on site at any one time during the building phase. It's estimated that10,000 people were involved in the construction of Parliament House in some way. Contractor Dave Cavill was one of them, who worked on the project in steel fixing from May 1982 until 1987. "I worked all over the western side of the building, which was all of the Senate chamber and all of the Senate offices," he said. "Our job was fixing the reinforced steel before all the concrete was poured into the columns. We had an average of around 12 people working in the team, but on some days it would be in the thirties." Due to the size of the construction, both the design and the construction phases were undertaken at the same time, meaning the architects had to work quickly to keep ahead of the building efforts. For Cavill, it meant that plans for the nation's parliament were constantly changing. "You would get a drawing for a particular design in the morning, and then it would be superseded by plans in the afternoon, and this almost happened daily. Apart from that, it was a normal construction," he said. However, the build wasn't entirely without problems, Cavill said. Parts of the project were built using American standards instead of Australian standards, making some of the fire doors initially too narrow. The building also ended up being one metre higher than planned, with digging into Capital Hill stopped just short of the original target in order to meet the 1988 deadline "Some of the doors they initially contained, because when it went to tender, it didn't specifically say that it had to be asbestos free in the contract," Cavill said. "So for a while, all the fire doors in the building contained asbestos and they all had to be replaced." While Cavill said he's worked on many major building projects in Canberra, Parliament House remained one of the most significant. "We're all very proud of the work we did up there. It was a huge thing," he said. From the moment it opened on May 9, 1988, Parliament House was already an instantly recognisable icon in Canberra. The Canberra Times reported more than 25,000 Canberrans attended the opening, with the Queen officially unlocking the building. Among the guests of honour were then-Prime Minister Bob Hawke, then-Opposition Leader John Howard, with the national anthem sung by Yvonne Kenny, and John Farnham being among the official guests inside the building for the reception. The opening was also marked by a flyover of 12 RAAF jets, as well as a 21-gun salute. While he initially lived in the US during his early years as an architect, Harold Guida now calls Canberra home and still works closely with the building. "We helped to design the new fences and security modifications in the building over the past couple of years," he said. "Like many things that have changed in the world since 1988, security is one of the most important aspects of public buildings everywhere in the world now." Visitors may not be able to walk all the way up the hill and over the heads of their elected officials like they used to after the building first opened, but Guida was optimistic that it could happen again some day. "The design of Parliament House was to have that accessibility, and we hope that one day in the future, probably not in my lifetime, but some day we'll be able to remove the fences."

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There is more security built into every one of the showcases housing Cartier jewellery than the National Gallery has ever put in any exhibition before. Fairfax Media was provided with a rare glimpse into the logistics of the exhibition by NGA assistant director exhibitions and collections Adam Worrall. Mr Worrall said the security arrangements for the 300-piece Cartier exhibition were "20 times more" than Masterpieces From Paris - which featured Van Gogh - that came to the capital in 2009-10. The Queen of England herself loaned the gallery five pieces from her personal collection, to accompany more from the Royal Trust. Mr Worrall said once the Queen had agreed to lending her jewellery, the other British collectors quickly came on board. But just how did the jewellery get to Canberra? Each piece had a security escort from the minute it left the lender or the institution until it was safely locked in the glass cases at the National Gallery. Most pieces travelled to the capital on commercial flights. "There is a security person with them the entire time that piece is moving," Mr Worrall said. "When it arrives at the gallery and gets locked in the safe, then the security leave. Then when we move it from the safe up into the gallery space, while we're unpacking it, while we're pinning it, until it gets installed, there is security escorting every single movement of every single piece the entire time until we lock it in the showcase. Then that work is safe and it can be signed off and everybody breathes a sigh of relief. And then we go onto the next one." Mr Worrall said it was the expectation of what you have to provide in an exhibition of this value. "Jewellery and paintings are very different," he said. "If you steal a Van Gogh, you can't sell it anywhere because everyone knows that that's the Van Gogh that is missing. Whereas jewellery is very portable and easily changes hands, so there's perceived to be much greater risk around jewellery of the size of the works that has meant that security is so high." In a career spanning three decades, Mr Worrall said the security logistics around this exhibition were "like nothing that I've dealt with". The show has been three years in the making and does not fail to disappoint. But the security wasn't the only challenging aspect. "It's been a really tricky show to pull together," Mr Worrall said, as about one-third of the pieces have come from private collections. "Traditionally you just write to lenders and they write back, and you're generally dealing with institutions that know about loaning objects to a gallery. This is a totally different ball game to most of the exhibitions that we do. "That has been the challenging bit - how do you write to the Queen to ask for seven pieces of Cartier jewellery that are in her personal collection?" "We got a lot of advice from people we hadn't worked with before about how do you approach people to get things from their personal collections." Mr Worrall said the gallery wrote to the keeper of the Queen's collection who in turn spoke to the Queen. "We got a letter back, middle of last year, from the keeper of the Queen's collection. The most amazing letter I've ever received, on the royal letterhead, explaining that they'd met with Her Majesty and Her Majestys dresser to work out what jewellery she will be wearing between May and September 2018, and she's really happy to say that she's loaning five of the seven works you've asked for." Mr Worrall said the Queen was "incredibly generous" in what she loaned to the National Gallery of Australia, including pieces like the Halo tiara Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge wore on her wedding day. When the packing boxes arrived housing the Queen's personal jewellery, inside, Mr Worrall said he was amazed to find the pieces in their original Cartier packaging. "When you commission [jewellery like] a tiara, they actually make you the most beautiful Cartier box that perfectly supports the work inside. It articulates when you open it, so when you open the lid of the box a little flap actually lifts up the tiara a little bit, so it's facing you when you open the box and you can easily lift it out." "That was so exciting to see that these had been so beautifully cared for that the original packing they would have been given to the original owner in still existed and travelled around the world." The Queen's Cartier on show in Canberra also includes the Nizam of Hyderabad necklace she wore in the 1950s for the portrait that usually hangs in Parliament House, of Her Majesty pictured among touches of wattle. The portrait is on loan to the gallery, appearing beside the necklace. "It's the first time in 60 years that that portrait and that necklace she was wearing have actually been brought back together and displayed together since the painting was painted. Australians have seen that painting at Parliament House, it's the painting of the Queen that is on display, so to have it here in the National Gallery is great and to have it with the necklace is even more extraordinary." Mr Worrall points to some of his favourite pieces around the exhibition - which tend to be the ones with the largest gems. He admitted that three years ago, he was "a total non-jewellery fan". A special tour of the Cartier workshop in Paris changed that for him. "I had no understanding of what fine jewellery was, but going through the workshop really transforms your understanding of what great jewellery is. "I became a bit of a convert pretty quickly." While there has been public skepticism levelled at the exhibition, Mr Worrall said the gallery was confident that the works belonged there. "The artistic skill required to make what they make is equivalent of any great artist around the world. You can see it in the quality of the work they do." One thing was for sure, the security measures in place meant Mr Worrall, for once, gets a sound night's sleep. "Because of the level of security involved, I am quietly confident that this exhibition is absolutely safe when I go home at night," he said. "Everything in the exhibition is locked behind glass, this is rare for me. I have greater concern over a big painting show where it's easier for someone to trip over and put their hand out if they fall and put it through a great Italian masterpiece or something like that. This exhibition is totally secure, I have no concern about that at all." The Cartier exhibition is on until July 22.

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Canberra is becoming the next Hollywood - maybe! - with the director of the new sci fi film Blue World Order already planning his next movie to be made in the national capital. Blue World Order, a sci fi film starring Billy Zane and Jack Thompson - and with a cameo from our own Chief Minister Andrew Barr - is now showing at Dendy Cinemas in Canberra. It opened on Thursday for a week-long season. Director Che Baker made the film in and around the ACT with Telstra Tower and Lake George making some stunning appearances. Baker is already looking to produce a second film in the ACT, with the option to make a movie version of the Matthew Reilly thriller Contest. Reilly was also an executive producer of Blue World Order. If he proceeds, Baker plans to make the most of Canberra's networks with Wellington in New Zealand. "We're in discussions with Weta Workshop,'' he said, referring to the Wellington-based special effects company that has worked on projects from The Lord of the Rings to Mad Max Fury Road. His hope was for Contest to be filmed in Canberra. But first to enjoy the cinema release of Blue World Order. "We've had a lot of great feedback,'' he said.

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For the imam of Canberras newest mosque, Fridays inclement weather was an auspicious sign. As hundreds of people gathered for the day-long official opening of the Ahmad Al Sabah Masjid and Islamic Education Centre in Monash, Adama Konda said the day was the culmination of years of dreaming and hoping. To me, someone who is very thirsty and waiting for the rain - the rain came, he said. It's a good day today, when you see your hope has been fulfilled and your dreams have come true. When Canberras first mosque was built in Yarralumla in 1962, it catered to just 300 worshippers. But as the Muslim community has grown with the Canberra population, the need for a larger mosque for the citys southern suburbs became clear. The construction of what is now Canberras largest mosque has been a decades-long process, one that had many twists and turns along the way, said leading member of the Canberra Islamic Centre committee Azra Khan. The site originally held a small community centre, which served as a social hub and place for prayer, and was increasingly inadequate for the growing southside Muslim community. From planning issues, to funding setbacks, the project would have looked like many a building saga, but for the targeted attacks that saw the centre vandalised in 2014. But Mrs Khan said the incident had a galvanising effect on the project. It was due to negativity by a minority, not anyone other than that, she said. That was a psychological [setback], but out of adversity comes some benefit, and it meant we got such support, such a show of solidarity that it really gave us that momentum again to keep going and doing what we planned to do. By 2015, the project had significant community support and fundraising was gathering steam, but it was securing major funding - around $2 million - from the Kuwaiti government that meant the mosque could be finished. I guess the timing was right and we caught the interest of the new Kuwaiti ambassador, Mrs Khan said. When he came onboard, it was really then very focused within a time frame. She said Friday was emotional day for her. It's unbelievable, as a Muslim, as a Canberran, as a woman - I can't explain the feeling, she said. There's a lot of emotion and a sense that we're finally here and we've finally got something that we can be very, very proud of, and it's been such a community effort. Current centre president and founding member Zafar Ahmad said he remembered worshipping in Yarralumla 30 years ago because there was nothing else. And he emphasised that the centre and mosque would be open to all Canberrans, and would not be dominated by any one group. We are very open to accommodate everyone, he said. Kuwaiti Ambassador Najeed Al-Bader said he was proud to be able to help the Muslim community in Canberra. Carrying the name of Kuwait means it is double the responsibility at least to give the right image of Islam, and that's why we are very proud, he said.

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A cyclist has allegedly knocked over four students during a school cross-country event in Canberra, injuring two of them. Police said the man was yelling profanities at the students as they ran on a public shared path, near the ACT Healthy Waterways construction area on Athllon Drive in Mawson, about 9.30am on April 13. The cyclist allegedly swerved close to several of the students, knocking one to the ground and causing minor injuries, coming off his bike in the process. Police said he got back on his bike and knocked down another three students, injuring one by riding over his foot. The cyclist is described as Caucasian, about 25-30 years old, and of thin build with a light beard and a deep voice. He was riding a maroon-coloured mountain bike and wearing shorts, a grey singlet and cap. His clothing was described as tattered or torn. Anyone who witnessed or has video of the incident, or can identify the cyclist, is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000, or via the Crime Stoppers ACT website. Information can also be provided anonymously, quoting reference number 6256737.

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Drivers fear there will be traffic chaos in north Canberra from Monday morning, when part of a busy road closes for almost four months while safety upgrades are carried out. From 9.30am, Old Well Station Road will be shut in both directions from the Federal Highway to the Exhibition Park in Canberra car park entry, as works on the Federal Highway intersection begin. The road is not scheduled to reopen until August 31. Transport Canberra and City Services says the $3.2 million improvements will be coordinated with the light rail project to minimise traffic disruption. But Anne Lewis, who regularly uses Old Well Station Road, said doing both sets of work at the same time would have the opposite effect. "When I saw the sign saying it would be closed, I thought, 'Are you serious?'" she said. "It's a major arterial road, and the traffic can be bumper to bumper as it is with people trying to get out of Harrison." Ms Lewis said if the ACT government had any common sense, it would have waited until the light rail works on nearby Flemington Road were finished before starting on the Old Well Station Road intersection. "Flemington Road has been cut down to one lane and has a speed limit of 40km/h in many parts," she said. "They really need to wait until it's finished, or at least back up to two lanes. People going to work during peak hour are really going to suffer." The works will also affect people visiting Exhibition Park in Canberra and the Capital Region Farmers Market, with alternative entrances in place on Stirling Avenue and Morriset Road during the road closure. A Transport Canberra and City Services spokesperson said works at the intersection had been prioritised for safety reasons. "We have consulted with EPIC management to ensure these works are taking place during a low period in events at the park to minimise impacts, and we have and will continue to liaise with Canberra Metro and the light rail project to minimise traffic disruptions," the spokesperson said. The spokesperson said the project would significantly improve safety for drivers, cyclists and pedestrians, while also improving traffic flow at peak times. Four-way traffic lights would be installed at the intersection, the pavement on the Old Well Station Road approach widened and realigned to improve sight lines and increase right turn capacity. A new footpath would also be put in on the east side of Old Well Station Road. The left and right turn lanes on the Federal Highway approach would be extended.

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A second pill-testing trial at an Australian music festival is likely to take place following its success at Canberra's Groovin the Moo, a leading drug expert has said. The president of Harm Reduction Australia, Gino Vumbaca, said it's a matter of when, not if, that a second trial would take place after the first round of testing in the country happened last weekend. "I think that would be a natural conclusion to draw. I know there's been a lot of discussion with governments, but most governments outside the ACT have taken a position against it, but now they have an understanding of how it operates," he said. "What they should do is reopen political discussion on pill testing, now there's Australian-based evidence." There were 128 participants in last weekend's trial. Eighty-five samples were tested by the STA-Safe Consortium, two of which were deadly. Substances linked to a mass overdose overseas were also found in the tablets tested, while some samples also contained ingredients such as lactose, paint or condensed milk. Mr Vumbaca said he hoped other governments would be open to the idea of pill testing in their jurisdictions following the successful trial. "When you see new evidence, it comes back down to whether you reconsider your position," he said. "In Canberra, we had the full support of the government and police, and that's critical." However, the president said it's unlikely for pill testing to show up right away at other large scale music festivals such as Splendour in the Grass. "Festivals are a large business, and it takes a lot of risk and outlay of money," Mr Vumbaca said. "It would be hard to do one at Splendour in the Grass without government or police support. The organisers of Splendour in the Grass declined to comment when asked if pill testing was being considered for this year's festival being held in Byron Bay during July. The Sunday Canberra Times also approached the organisers of several major music festivals including Spilt Milk, Laneway, Falls, Big Pineapple and Defqon.1, but all declined to comment. NSW Police Minister Troy Grant said earlier this week he was "a thousand per cent against pill testing" and that the NSW government would not be implementing a trial. Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said the current stance on pill testing would not be reconsidered. Chief executive of Family Drug Support Tony Trimingham said further harm reduction measures were needed in Australia, throwing his support behind more pill testing. "As the father of someone that has lost a son to drugs, the last thing I would do would be to support a program that in any way would increase the risk of harm," he said. Mr Vumbaca said a report on the pill-testing trial at Groovin the Moo was being prepared for the ACT government, and was expected to be completed by the end of the month.

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Most Facebook users in the United States remain loyal, despite the recent data sharing scandal involving a political consultancy firm, a poll suggests.





Facebook admitted last month that the data of 87 million users had been improperly shared with the UK-based firm, Cambridge Analytica.





The Reuters/Ipsos survey found no clear loss or gain in use since then.





A quarter of Facebook users said they used it less or had left it but another quarter said they used it even more.





The remaining half said their use of the network had not changed.





However, the survey was limited to the US and analysts are waiting to see how the social media giant's sales perform in the second quarter, when the scandal was at its height.





Some 64 per cent said they used Facebook at least once a day, down slightly from the 68 per cent recorded in a similar poll in late March, soon after the Cambridge Analytica story broke.





Asked if they were aware of their current privacy settings, 74 per cent of Facebook users said they were, and 78 per cent said they knew how to change them. Among Twitter users, this was 55 per cent and 58 per cent, while for Instagram users, it was 60 per cent and 65 per cent.news, latest-news

Jakarta: What would you do if your mum disappeared without a trace? Steven Jenkins remembers the moment like it was yesterday. He was in an airport in Hawaii, heading home to Australia, when the WhatsApp message from his sister Jen landed. "I got a message saying mum had gone missing. I spoke to my Dad. That was on December 14 ... I wasnt really that concerned, at first. I had so many thoughts running through my head ... but I just thought she had to be somewhere, maybe she has just forgotten her phone? "My initial train of thought was 'well find her in an hour or so' and we will all get home for Christmas." That was 144 days ago. And Annapuranee "Anna" Jenkins, 66  a loving mum to Steven and Jen, grandma, wife of 40 years to former digger Frank, 78, devoted Catholic and Malaysian-born Australian citizen  is still missing. Welcome to the Jenkins' family nightmare. The few facts surrounding Anna's disappearance  which prompt more questions than they answer  are these: On December 5, 2017, Anna and Frank flew from their home in Adelaide to George Town, Malaysia's second largest city, on the island of Penang. It was a trek the pair made at least once a year. Anna's 102-year-old mother, in care, had taken a turn for the worse and the couple had headed over to see her. On December 13, Anna visited a local dentist. She didn't take her phone with her. After her appointment  no drugs were involved in her treatment  Anna asked staff to call her an Uber, so she could go and visit her mum. Frank, who is suffering the early effects of dementia, had stayed at the couple's hotel. About 4 kilometres away from her mother's care home, Anna asked the driver to stop on Jalan Scotland  a busy road, in a busy city, just before 5pm  and got out of the Uber. It was the last time anyone saw her. What happened next has been a catalogue of incompetence, frustration and missed opportunities. In the hours and days following Anna' disappearance, the Malaysian police  at least according to the Jenkins family  have bungled key aspects of the investigation, reducing the likelihood the Adelaide mum will ever be found again. As Steven tells it: "I was concerned immediately about how the Malaysian police were handling the case". CCTV footage was not checked. Witnesses, such as the Uber driver, the dentist and even Anna's husband were not interviewed. The Malaysian police didn't even turn up for meetings with the family about the case at first. No search was conducted of the area near where Anna disappeared. The family, increasingly concerned, called in Panoptic Solutions, an Australian-based security and risk management company. Panoptic Chief Executive Troy Claydon says at first the company took a softly-softly approach as "we didn't feel it was right to interfere" in the police investigation. "In hindsight, we should have gotten involved earlier ... they [the police] have spoken to 10 witnesses in five months," Claydon says. "Im not happy with Malaysian police. The fact is that we are now at a 140-odd days and we still dont have any information. We are in a position where we have no leads, and no idea, how a 66-year-old has disappeared in peak-hour traffic in a busy area. "It has gone past incompetence. I would say they have been negligent." In the months since Anna first went missing, Steven has made four trips to Malaysia to search for his mum. His sister, Jen Bowen  a single mum with two kids, who works full-time and has now become their father's primary carer  has made one trip, too. On his most recent trip to Penang alone, Steven and the staff at Panoptic working on the case visited 51 police stations on the island and on the Malaysian mainland, as well as hospitals, hotels and churches to search for Anna. Though diligently chasing down tip-offs from helpful locals, they found nothing. He also dropped off 350 fliers to the Malaysian police, and asked they be distributed in and around polling stations ahead of next Wednesday's national election. He is hopeful this might turn up new leads. Deputy Superintendent of Police Helmi bin Sulaiman  the head of the Penang police's criminal investigation team  was defensive when quizzed by Fairfax Media about the case. "We recently held a meeting with the family and we talked about three new efforts we can do to find her. We have interviewed 10 witnesses on the case, public witnesses. But we can't give out any information or updates related to the case to the press, I suggest you contact the Australian embassy or the family of the missing person," was all he would offer about the ongoing investigation. So what does Claydon think happened to Annapuranee Jenkins? "As it stands, we are unable to discount any theory due to the lack of evidence," he says. The possibilities, Claydon says, include suicide, kidnapping, voluntary disappearance, a mental breakdown followed by a tragic accident  "but where is the body?"  or even a religiously-motivated attack. Anna had no history of mental illness and was of sound mind, her son says. She did face challenges, Steven concedes  she was caring for her husband, Frank, and worried about the health of her mum  but there was no sign she was depressed or looking for a way out. "I will never give up hope," Steven says. "The only time you get a little heartbroken is when you finish the search effort and you have to fly home. Thats the hardest thing to deal with. But as soon as we get back we touch base with Panoptic and we get ready to go again. "We wont ever stop. No one would." The Jenkins have set up a "Find Annapuranee" fundraising page on My Cause. And they have a Facebook page here.

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Jakarta: The Australian chairman of the Phnom Penh Post, one of the last independent media voices in Cambodia, has announced the sale of the newspaper to a little-known Malaysian investor. The deputy director of Human Rights Watch in south-east Asia, Phil Robertson, warned it could be the "beginning of the end of the Phnom Penh Post as an independent daily" with a history of critical reporting on the repressive regime of Cambodia Prime Minster Hun Sen. Post Media chairman Bill Clough on Saturday announced the sale of the English-language daily, after months of speculation about the newspaper's future, to Malaysian investor Sivakumar G. In a statement, Clough said the sale would "inject new life" into the 26-year-old daily. The Post has been one of the few media outlets in Cambodia willing to stand up to Hun Sen's government and it had reportedly faced a tax bill of about $5 million. Last September, the Cambodia Daily - another critic of the regime - was shut down after it was hit with an $8.2 million tax bill. Also last year, the Cambodia National Rescue Party was dissolved and 118 of its members were banned from politics for five years. Opposition leader Kem Sokha was charged with treason and jailed. Cambodians are due to vote in national elections on July 29 and the United Nations has warned democracy is failing in the country. Announcing the sale, Clough said Sivakumar was an experienced newspaper man and that he hoped the sale would finally dispel "rumours flying in all directions" about the paper's survival. Coincidentally, Clough said the Post's now-former owners had also settled their tax dispute with Cambodia's tax department. "I have never felt that our Company was ever under threat, and the Minister [for Information, H.E. Khieu Kanharith] has always been the first to defend [sic]. He has always acknowledged that Phnom Penh Post is independent and has nothing to fear if it obeys the rules," Clough said. In a separate statement, Sivakumar also claimed to be fully committed to the newspaper's editorial independence. The sale price was not disclosed. But Robertson said the ownership group "doesnt appear to have any real interest in the media. And we have seen Malaysian investors used in the past to come into Cambodia to change ownership of various companies". "It's very interesting the tax issues the Post was facing are all of a sudden resolved and that the former owner of the Post was singing the praises of the Minister of Information, who has not been a friend of independent media in Cambodia." "This could be a move towards altering the Phnom Penh Post and making it much more of a daily that doesnt rock the boat." The Post's former editor-in-chief Chad Williams said the government may have coerced the sale. "From the outside looking in, the most troubling thing is the timing of the tax bill's settlement and the Post's subsequent sale. The odds of them not being connected seem incredibly remote," Williams said. "That's troubling because it suggests the Cambodian government may have used the threat of a shutdown to essentially coerce the sale. with Reuters

/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/e5119760-9704-45f9-b87e-7aba9a0eabdf/r0_272_5184_3201_w1200_h678_fmax.jpgOur Promise: Welcome to Care2, the world's largest community for good. Here, you'll find over 45 million like-minded people working towards progress, kindness, and lasting impact.

Care2 Stands Against: bigots, racists, bullies, science deniers, misogynists, gun lobbyists, xenophobes, the willfully ignorant, animal abusers, frackers, and other mean people. If you find yourself aligning with any of those folks, you can move along, nothing to see here.

Care2 Stands With: humanitarians, animal lovers, feminists, rabble-rousers, nature-buffs, creatives, the naturally curious, and people who really love to do the right thing.

You are our people. You Care. We Care2.Photo: DriveBC Mudslide causing delays outside Revelstoke on May 6, 2018.

A travel advisory has been issued by DriveBC for Highway 1 from Golden to Revelstoke on Sunday morning.

A mudslide on Heather Mountain in Glacier National Park is causing increased mud flow activity.

Travellers are advised to expect delays during daytime hours and possible closures during nighttime hours, says DriveBC in an email.

Additional traffic interruptions are expected in order to manage the mud flow activity.

Please allow additional time to reach your destination and watch for crews and equipment working on site, says DriveBC.

For updates visit this link.More than 96.5 million Brazilians have had a full course of vaccination against COVID-19. In all, 965,25104 people took the...Gait recognition technology, a method to identify people by characteristics shown unconsciously in the ways they walk, is being utilized in criminal investigations in Japan.

The technology enables the identification of individuals even from images taken from a distance and low-resolution footage. A video image of only two strides is sufficient to identify with high accuracy the person, based on his or her arm swings, the length of stride and other characteristics.

Researchers are also working to further improve the accuracy of the technology, with the use of artificial intelligence.

On a street in Tokyo's upscale Ginza district in April 2017, a man was robbed of some 40 million yen during the daytime soon after he converted gold into cash.

In the case, police collected footage from some 740 security cameras, mainly those installed in the Japanese capital, according to informed sources. The gait recognition technology helped identify three of the four men arrested in the case although they wore a face mask or helmet when they committed the crime.Opportunities, challenges and choices

ICR Research By

Published 23 April 2018

As chairman of the US Portland Cement Association (PCA), Allen Hamblen speaks with ICR about the upbeat expectations of the industry in view of recent domestic tax and regulatory reforms by the current US administration. In addition, the sector puts its faith in a fully-funded public infrastructure investment package.

ICR: The US economy has been picking up and there seems to be greater optimism for the construction sector and cement demand going forward, but what is needed to get the industry back to pre-crisis levels of cement production?

Allen Hamblen (AH): There is little doubt that tax reform measures enacted by Congress and signed into law by President Trump are a huge development for the nation, and they will help our industry and so many others. Tax reform will help consumers as well. More disposable income will hopefully help stimulate greater demand for goods and services that rely on cement, such as housing construction.

But another major stimulus for cement demand is looming. If Congress and the administration can agree on a far-reaching infrastructure package to rebuild the nations highways, we would see a jump in the demand for cement across the country.

In recent years, federal infrastructure programmes have faced unprecedented challenges. In its 2017 Report Card, the American Society of Civil Engineers graded Americas infrastructure as a D+. Now is the time to address our nations failing infrastructure and for cement to play an essential role in revitalising that infrastructure.



ICR: How has the change of political administration impacted overall policy direction with regards to the US cement sector?

AH: The cement industry for years has pushed for tax reform, regulatory reform and an infrastructure package. The Trump administration and this Congress have been an ally in all three. Going forward, at the Portland Cement Association (PCA) we are hopeful that the administration is sympathetic to other policies we are seeking.

There has been a refreshing change in attitude among the top managers of various regulatory agencies. We are seeing much more cooperation with our industry resulting in reforms and initiatives that are good for the country. The new collaborative attitude with MSHA [Mine Safety and Health Administration] will properly place emphasis where it belongs  making sure all our people are safe every day. The pullback of the new WOTUS [Waters of the US] regulations has avoided a potential calamitous overreach. There are many more examples. The removal of regulatory shackles, while still enforcing the intent of the law, has been responsible for much of the recent economic growth.

The tax reform package will stimulate the economy and we are hopeful that a fully-funded infrastructure package will also be coming.

Need for further US policy improvements

ICR: Is the Trump administration doing enough to help the US cement sector thrive? Are there any key initiatives that will stimulate cement demand?

AH: First is a requirement for greater competition at the local level among types of pavements for infrastructure projects. What we want is for state DoTs [Departments of Transport] to conduct life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) for individual projects. This process not only assesses the cost of initial construction but also the future cost of maintenance and rehabilitation required during the life of the project. It evaluates the true cost of highway projects, helping contractors and states identify the best value option  whether it is a rigid or flexible pavement  with the desired performance at the lowest cost. Right now, there is very little competition nationwide and we believe an LCCA requirement will go a long way to allowing concrete to compete. Plus, the LCCA requirement will ensure greater value for American taxpayers, whichever pavement type is selected for any given effort.

Second is our industrys push for more durable and resilient construction guidelines that will both save lives and taxpayer dollars. Resilient construction is an increasingly-pressing requirement as the country is buffeted by climate change and extreme conditions. All federal infrastructure spending measures should require resilient construction techniques. Resilient construction techniques are those that help infrastructure resist adversity and continue to serve their primary function following a disruptive event. The PCAs view is that all federal infrastructure spending measures should require resilient construction techniques.

Why? Because extreme weather and wild fires are destroying record amounts of property. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that extreme weather and fire events have cost the federal government, meaning US taxpayers, over US$350bn in just the last decade, with the price tag expected to rise as the climate changes. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared 2017 as the single-costliest year on record for weather and climate disasters.

Third, we are advocating for a long-term robust and sustainable funding mechanism that addresses the shortfalls in the highway trust fund. The nation needs durable solutions that both stabilise and increase critical highway investments to position Americas economy for future success. We think that the Trump administration is willing to entertain a range of possible solutions.

The US cement industry: challenges and choices

ICR: What do you feel are the main challenges for the US cement sector today?

AH: The architectural communitys emphasis over the last several years has promoted the construction of LEED [Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design]-certified buildings as the pinnacle of sustainability. However, considering extreme weather trends and their sweeping impact, this is the wrong point of view. It scarcely benefits the environment, and it hardly should be considered green, if a LEED building, damaged in a disaster, requires major reconstruction and, as a result, necessitates the release of additional carbon dioxide to produce more materials for reconstruction.

We in the industry believe that law- and policy makers need to overhaul and recalibrate the definition of green construction. The recalibrated view should be that the greenest building is the one left standing, the one reinforced by better materials, such as concrete, the one that does not require additional carbon release to produce extra materials necessary for repair. This ties back into our press for more resilient construction guidelines. The Build with Strength campaign emphasises the benefits of resilient construction. Incorporating fire safety, energy efficiency, comfort and ease of use into structures is good policy as well as good engineering.



ICR: Do you think the US cement industry should be building more capacity or leveraging imports? What are the current barriers to this kind of large capex investment?

AH: The US cement manufacturing industry has sufficient production capacity and can readily scale up to meet any uptick in demand. That includes adequate domestic supply potential to feed even the most-optimistic infrastructure spending programme. Any imported cement will help supplement individual markets where spikes in demand exceed local production capacity.

Focus on CalPortland

ICR: It is always interesting to hear what individual plants and companies have achieved in terms of small investment projects and improving plant performance. As president and CEO of CalPortland Co, can you briefly explain a project that has been carried out at CalPortland in the last few years to improve operations or modernise your plants?

AH: Our Rillito cement plant in Arizona had a 45-year old, original, first-generation reciprocating grate cooler that was due for total rebuild. The remainder of the kiln line had been updated over time and had achieved increased throughput, but the cooler had not been updated. The original equipment supplier, the corporate engineering team and the plant personnel founded a strong partnership and worked together from project conception through to completion. We updated the clinker cooler to the latest-generation technology and successfully installed it during a kiln reline. Operational performance has shown significant savings in fuel and electrical energy consumption. Further, an increase in product strength has allowed for a reduction in Blaine targets for finished cement, helping to position the company to meet current and future market challenges and opportunities.



ICR: Now that you are the PCA chairman, what do you hope to achieve in your time in this position?

AH: I want to help our industry stay healthy and grow, and I want to lead the charge for the policies and legislation described above that will work to achieve it. But beyond that, during my tenure as chairman I want to begin a robust dialogue with national and state leaders about the need for resilient construction guidelines, considering extreme weather projections.

The GAO cited one particularly troubling projection in scientific literature. For 2020-39, GAO said that the US could sustain between US$4bn and US$6bn in annual coastal property damages from sea level rise and more frequent and intense storms. The same projection identifies the southeastern United States as bearing the brunt of coastal property damages.

I want to help spearhead an effort to re-educate our leaders that investing on the front end with cement/concrete in construction pays off over time. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technologys Concrete Sustainability Hub have studied construction cost trends in areas prone to disasters. Theyve concluded that hazard-related maintenance costs can be significant over the lifetime of a building. In fact, the costs of hazard-related repairs can exceed the initial building cost.

Their case studies demonstrate that investing in greater hazard-resistant residential construction in certain locations is very cost-effective.

A personal look back

ICR: Can you tell me how you first got into the cement industry and what your expectations were then?

AH: I was in the booming oil production industry in Houston, Texas, in the early 1980s. Then in the mid-80s the oil production industry literally died. The city of Houston also became a ghost town as people left in droves. Lone Star Industries took advantage of the extremely-low office rental rates and decided to consolidate its functions across the US in Houston. The oil company I was working for went from 3000 employees to 100 in 12 months. I spoke with my wife and we decided that going to work for Lone Star Industries was the right choice for us. As a young married couple, we needed something concrete in our lives so we could start our family. I can assure you that this industry has exceeded all my expectations in many ways.



ICR: What would you say is your greatest achievement while working in the cement industry?

AH: I believe that my greatest achievement came as chairman of NRMCA [National Ready Mixed Concrete Association]. During my chairmanship, the NRMCA voted to double its annual dues to create the Build with Strength programme, which is working to take back and protect concretes market share in the midrise building market. This is a core market for concrete in the US and what is good for selling more concrete is great for the cement industry.

This years IEEE-PCA conference



ICR: The PCA was founded in 1916 but the IEEE-IAS/PCA meeting started in 1957 and is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year. What are the main achievements of these meetings and how do they support the industry?

AH: The IEEE-PCA conference is the premier conference in the cement industry and provides the latest technical information and networking opportunities to a wide range of industry participants. The conference is organised by industry volunteers and is jointly sponsored by the PCA and IEEE. It includes high-quality technical paper presentations, panel discussions, tutorials, professional development training sessions and a "State of the Industry" presentation.

As many as 180 exhibits provide attendees with product information, available services and other market offerings.

The conference addresses topics that are critical to the industry, including new regulations, state-of-the-art technology, process improvements, safety, sustainability, best maintenance practices and many others. For example, when the industry was facing new NESHAP environmental regulations, this conference allowed attendees to better understand the regulations and learn about available mitigation technologies that would help them meet the standards.

A big priority of the conference is to encourage young professionals to attend and get involved in the cement industry. A student programme includes grants to attend the conference, a Cement 101 training class and, in some cases, a tour of a cement plant.

The organising committee has also created a Young Professionals subcommittee that is responsible for attracting young professionals to the event. The PCA also recently established a grant programme that subsidises up to 15 first-time cement producer attendees.Donald Trump believes a lot of things. From his shocking comments about money to his surprising remarks on food, you may have gotten the impression at one point or another that the president has a very different view on reality than you do. Thats a common feeling for people around the world, who often hear Donald Trump speaking about their country in stereotypes.

Whether we like it or not, almost all of us buy into stereotypes, offensive or not. But how many of those stereotypes are true?

13. Belgium

The stereotype: Belgiums political system is a mess.

One major stereotype about Belgium is that this European nations political system is a mess. Donald Trump definitely believes that this stereotype is true. The president once called Brussels a hell hole and a mess. But on another occasion, confusingly enough, he referred to Belgium as a beautiful city.

Belgium does have a complicated political system. But Trump particularly dislikes what he views as a lack of assimilation of the Muslim population in Belgium. Nonetheless, thousands of citizens of the country disagree. And many even protested Trumps 2017 visit to Brussels.

Next: Donald Trump believes stereotypes about this countrys healthcare.

12. United Kingdom

The stereotype: The United Kingdom offers terrible healthcare.

Many Americans have bought into the stereotype that the United Kingdom offers terrible healthcare and dental care. (In fact, many think that the British have terrible teeth!) Donald Trump seems to believe this stereotype, too. The president characterized the British healthcare system as going broke and not working. His comments, however, annoyed people who prefer the U.K.s universal coverage to a U.S. system that leaves millions uninsured.

Trump has insulted Britain on other topics, too. He once tweeted, The United Kingdom is trying hard to disguise their massive Muslim problem, for instance. But The Independent speculates that every president since the War of 1812 would be astonished by Trumps anti-British insults.

Next: The president believes stereotypes about wealth in this country.

11. Saudi Arabia

The stereotype: Everyone in Saudi Arabia is incredibly wealthy.

Donald Trump seems to believe one of the biggest stereotypes about Saudi Arabia: that everyone in the country has massive amounts of wealth. However, Saudi Arabia has a higher unemployment rate than the United States. Low oil prices have hurt its economy. And the government remains secretive about the number of people living in poverty in Saudi Arabia.

But the president doesnt usually account for most of that information. He seems to think that the U.S. should take advantage of Saudi Arabias wealth. According to The New York Times, Trump once said, I love the Saudis. He explained, They make a billion dollars a day. Whenever they have problems, we send over the ships. As The Guardian reports, Trump also said of the country, Saudi Arabia should be paying the United States many billions of dollars for our defense of them. Without us, gone!

Next: Donald Trump believes stereotypes about safety in this nation.

10. The Philippines

The stereotype: The Philippines is a dangerous country.

Americans stereotype many countries as dangerous, as youll see in the coming pages. As Culture Trip reports of the Philippines, many travelers avoid this southeast Asian country due to the idea that its one big danger zone. The publication explains that you can find some areas in the country that even most Filipinos will avoid traveling to, like the far southern regions of Mindanao, due to recurring terrorist incidents. But otherwise, the country is not nearly as bad as portrayed by foreign media.

But The Independent reports that Donald Trump considers the Philippines a terrorist nation. Trump said at a rally, We are dealing with animals. The president also declined to talk about human rights issues. He didnt even comment on Philippine President Rodrigo Dutertes war on drugs, which has reportedly killed thousands.

Next: The president buys into stereotypes about the peace process in this region.

9. Palestinian territories

The stereotype: Palestine can only blame itself for its problems with Israel.

Donald Trump seems to number among the many Americans who consider Palestinian a synonym of violence. As the Atlanta Journal Constitution explains, many seem to believe that Palestinians have only themselves and their violent ways to blame for their miserable lot in life and the impasse in the peace process with Israel.

In fact, The Guardian reports that Donald Trump once said of the Palestinian territories, We pay the Palestinians HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year and get no appreciation or respect. Shortly before, the president had made the controversial decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital. That decision sparked anger among Palestinians and complicated the peace process.

Next: Donald Trump believes the worst stereotypes about this country.

8. Afghanistan

The stereotype: Afghanistan is full of terrorists.

Most Americans associate Afghanistan with Osama Bin Laden. Therefore, they assume that the landlocked country is full of terrorists. Donald Trump certainly believes that stereotype. Newsweek reports that Donald Trump once characterized Afghanistan as a terrorist haven. We probably dont have to tell you that no, not everybody in Afghanistan works for a terrorist group. But unfortunately, there could be some truth to Trumps statement.

The New York Times explained in March 2018, With the war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria in its twilight, American officials are tracking foreign fighters veering to provinces in Afghanistans north and east. Meanwhile, Al Qaeda remains a persistent and deadly threat across the country.

Next: The president believes common stereotypes about this country.

7. Iran

The stereotype: Iranians hate westerners and live in an unstable country.

Many Americans believe that Iranians hate westerners. Another common, but erroneous, stereotype indicates that Iranians are uneducated. (Even though the percentage of Iranians who go on to higher education reaches about 50%.) But the stereotype that Donald Trump believes? That Iran is an unstable and dangerous country.

Donald Trump characterized Iran as a corrupt and poorly run country, according to The Guardian. Buying into the common stereotype that Iran is dangerous, Trump accused the nation of playing with fire after an Iranian missile test. He also tweeted that the country is doing many bad things behind our backs, and complained about the nations corrupt government. And dont forget that the president targeted Iran in his travel ban.

Next: Donald Trump seems to believe a stereotype about the ethics in this country.

6. China

The stereotype: China encourages people to act unethically.

Americans stereotype people from China as ill-mannered or even unethical. And the president just promotes that idea. As The Independent reports, Donald Trump has repeatedly insulted China. He accused the nation of manipulating its currency, of stealing American jobs, of engaging in state-sponsored cyber hacking, and even of inventing climate change. Trump once tweeted, The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive.

However, Trump seems to have a range of opinions on China. The Times reported that Trump said, Hey, Im not saying theyre stupid. I like China. I just sold an apartment for $15 million to somebody from China. Am I supposed to dislike them? But The Guardian reports that on another occasion, Trump said that the United States could not continue to allow China to rape our country. He added, thats what theyre doing.

Next: The president believes a huge stereotype about this country.

5. Nigeria

The stereotype: Nigerians only know the poor quality of life in their villages.

Newsweek reports that Donald Trump once said that Nigerian immigrants wouldnt ever go back to their huts in Africa once they see life in the United States. The remark implied that Trump didnt realize that Nigeria is Africas biggest economy. (Its also the U.S.s largest trading partner on the continent, as The Los Angeles Times reports.)

Many Americans live and earn income in Nigeria. And, contrary to Trumps beliefs, the country has built a vibrant film industry. It has even become a destination for A-list musicians. Plus, plenty of Nigerians have moved from Nigeria to the United States. And a large proportion of those immigrants have bachelors degrees or higher. As The New Yorker explains, Nigerian-Americans have a median household income well above the American average.

Next: The president believes stereotypes about an entire continent.

4. African countries

The stereotype: Africa is full of shithole countries.

Sure, Africa isnt a single country. But we cant ignore one of the most notorious occasions on which Donald Trump expressed an offensive stereotype about another part of the world. When the president referred to Haiti and Africa nations as shithole countries, he insulted a continent that 1.2 billion people and more than 50 countries call home.

As Vox explained of the remarks, Trump is not just saying that Haiti and African countries are shitholes. Hes indicating that the (predominantly black) people from these countries are themselves bad  to the point that the US should not accept them as immigrants. The New Yorker noted that additionally, Trumps comments prove factually wrong. 43% of immigrants from shithole African countries have a bachelors degree or higher. (Compare that to 33% of the overall American population.)

Next: Trump also included this country in his comment.

3. Haiti

The stereotype: Haiti is poor and over-crowded.

In addition to claiming that everyone in Haiti has AIDS, according to Newsweek, Donald Trump also included Haiti in his comment about shithole countries. As The New Republic reports, Haiti condemned Trumps comment as based on stereotypes. But unfortunately, Americans think of Haiti as poor, over-populated, and aid-dependent.

Haitis ambassador to the United States said of Trumps comments, Either the president has been misinformed or he is miseducated. The publication notes that Trump seems to see the world through a racial lens, which fuels not just his desire to keep out non-white immigrants, but also his contempt for the nations they come from. Unlike, the Cold War presidents, Trump doesnt care about Americas international reputation, The New Republic posits.

Next: Donald Trump believes many stereotypes about this country.

2. North Korea

The stereotype: North Korea is belligerent and desperate.

The Guardian reports that many people around the world regard North Koreans as belligerent and desperate. The publication adds, What reductive rubbish. Life in the insular nation isnt easy, especially for citizens who dont belong to the upper class. In fact, the regime is quite repressive. But there are a lot of things we dont know about North Korea.

Nonetheless, Donald Trump has insulted North Korea (and its leader, Kim Jong Un,) on many occasions. Trump once referred to North Korea as the last place on Earth I want to go, according to CNN. He has also referred to Kim Jong Un as a maniac, a bad dude, and Rocket Man. And he once accused the nation of looking for trouble. Trump also referred to North Korea as depleted and food starved. That stereotype, unfortunately, does seem to reflect real life in North Korea.

Next: The president also perpetuates stereotypes about this country.

1. Mexico

The stereotype: Mexico sends rapists and murderers to the United States.

Thanks in part to Hollywood, most Americans are familiar with the stereotype that many people in Mexico are drug dealers or gang members. But many recognize that that stereotype  plus stereotypes about illegal immigration, poverty, or laziness  dont prove as factual as the movies would have you believe.

Yet Donald Trump almost certainly believes those stereotypes. As The New York Times reports, Trump said, When Mexico sends its people, theyre not sending their best. He added, Theyre sending people that have lots of problems and theyre bringing those problems with us. Theyre bringing drugs. Theyre bringing crime. Theyre rapists. He also said of Mexico, We get the killers, drugs & crime, they get the money! Trump also characterized Mexico as the second deadliest country in the world. And he says that it ranks as the number one most dangerous country in the world.

Read more:

Check out The Cheat Sheet on Facebook!Five American Rescue Plan projects under review by Pueblo City Council

A new grocery store on the East Side  long considered a Pueblo food desert  is among the local projects that could be funded by COVID relief funds.Sexual minorities and their supporters have paraded in central Tokyo to promote equality and greater awareness of LGBT issues.

The participants in Sunday's event in the Shibuya and Harajuku districts included lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. They carried banners and placards with rainbow colors, a symbol of sexual diversity. The messages stressed the importance of tolerance in society.

The organizer says a record 37 organizations, including companies and embassies, supported the 7th annual event.

A 26-year-old bisexual woman who joined the parade says people waved to them and gave everyone a warm welcome.

She says thoughtful consideration for others will help to create a better society.Email Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment

Throughout the centuries, the Christian church has been involved in health care. Jesus healed the sick, showed compassion to the needy, and told us to go and do likewise.

The church created the phenomenon of hospitals. Even today, all over the world, many hospitals and many medical clinics in out of the way places do what they do because they were ultimately inspired by the love of Christ.

But what about those who want to serve as a medical missionary yet they have an unpaid student loan that helped train them to become a doctor, a nurse, a physical therapist?

MedSend out of Charlotte was founded in the early 1990s to help meet this need. Recently, on my radio show, I interviewed Rick Allen, the president and CEO of MedSend.

Allen told me, "In the mid-1980s, there was a recognition that several mission hospitals and clinics around the world were in danger of closing because a new generation of health-care providers was not coming to replace those that were of the World War II generation, who were looking to come home. So a study was made at the Billy Graham Center of Wheaton College, and what was uncovered was that it was educational debt...individuals felt called to missions, but they would take ten years or so and pay it off. Of course, life happens. You get the practice. You get the family. All the responsibilities. And they weren't going. They were hunkering down here in the U.S., and it was the debt that was the core issue."

So, as a project within the Christian Medical & Dental Association (CMDA), MedSend was born in 1992. MedSend has since spun off as its own organization.

Rick Allen says they have been able to free up over 650 healthcare professionals to serve in the field. The former students are carefully screened to make sure they practiced good stewardship in their loans and expenses. The candidate makes a commitment to the mission field for at least two years, and during that time their loan payments are picked up by MedSend.

Allen says they are currently supporting about 200 healthcare professionals across the globe, including those working in urban settings in the U.S. Of those helped by MedSend, 50% are doctors, 25% are nurses, and 25% are other health-related personnel.

Because of MedSend, active Christians who could not have afforded to go otherwise are able to serve effectively. Among them:

A physical therapist in the Middle East comments, "I am so thankful that MedSend allows me to be sharing Jesus, working among the poor and refugees and seeing more Muslims come to Jesus than ever before!"

One nurse who is able to serve in Guatemala because of MedSend says, "I serve at a clinic in one of the communities surrounding one of the largest garbage dumps in Central America. Many patients carry heavy burdens when they enter our clinic. There is no medicine that will help them, except for the love of Jesus."

A MedSend doctor in Uganda writes: "Surgeries are challenging, as the hospital frequently runs out of supplies like sterile linens, scalpels, sutures and antibiotics....With limited lab tests and medications, there are few options for diagnosis and treatment. Despite these challenges, I love the ministry."

Dr. David Stevens is the current CEO of the CMDA, the organization that helped give birth to MedSend about 25 years ago.

I've interviewed Dr. Stevens on a few occasions. He told me, "We need to be on the front lines as Christians health care professionals, giving of our skills to the poor as we have done for centuries through the church....God can use us to be examples, to make a difference in these people's lives---'they will know we are Christians by our love.'"

Commenting on MedSend, Stevens observes, "Healthcare missions is the key to penetrating difficult-to-access countries and completing the Great Commission. The greatest barrier for those desiring to serve is educational debt. MedSend has eliminated it---enabling hundreds of missionaries to bring health and the Gospel around the world. They are fueling a renaissance in medical missions!"

Despite all the opposition in some quarters of this world to Christian missions, Allen notes, "Even where other forms of Christian witness are not welcome, a healthcare professional, frankly acting as a tentmaker, if you will, is still welcome. So at this point, they're welcomed to every country in the world except one." (That would be North Korea).

He adds, "As the world becomes more difficult and dangerous, as well as closed to Christian witness, healthcare still is a leading edge in global missions today." It's good to see that they have found a creative way to help get those on the mission field who want to serve, while addressing their debts that stood in the way.

Jerry Newcombe, D.Min., is an on-air host/senior producer for D. James Kennedy Ministries. He has written/co-written 28 books, e.g., The Unstoppable Jesus Christ, Doubting Thomas (w/ Mark Beliles, on Jefferson), and What If Jesus Had Never Been Born? (w/ D. James Kennedy) & the bestseller, George Washington's Sacred Fire (w/ Peter Lillback) djkm.org @newcombejerry www.jerrynewcombe.comFastest Bible-reading world record broken; 76 hours to read entire Bible beats former 113-hour record

The Danville faith community in Virginia set the fastest nonstop Bible-reading world record for the Guinness World Records last Thursday. The participants clocked in at around 76 hours, breaking a previous Bible-reading record set at 113 hours.

Some 75 students from the Westover Christian Academy, 35 staffers at the Roman Eagle facility and 60 members of the First Pentecostal Holiness Church joined in the record-breaking effort, which was held at the Roman Eagle Rehabilitation and Health Care Center. They read verses from the King James Bible and originally expected to do the reading over at least five days.

Students from Westover came to the center to read the Bible from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. when they started timing the clock on Monday, April 30. The group from the church took over in the next hours, while staffers and residents at the rehabilitation facility volunteered to fill in during the hours when there were no Bible readers.

Within a span of 76 hours, however, the group was done. Incidentally, they broke the record during the National Day of Prayer.

"It's has been a, spiritually, very rich experience," Doug Barber, the president of the Westover Christian Academy, told the Roanoke Times. "When I walked in this room, I sensed the presence of God in a very wonderful way," he added.

Residents came to watch and listen to the participants read the Bible, which had a 92 year old and a six year old. Videos and other documentation were recorded, which will be sent as proof to the Guinness Book of World Records.Iran jails 16 women for joining ISIS in Syria

Sixteen women who went to Syria to join Islamic State have been jailed in Iran, a Tehran prosecutor said on Sunday.

The women were also ordered to pay back any money they had received from the Sunni Muslim jihadist group, the judiciary's news website Mizanonline quoted prosecutor Abbas Jafari-Dolatabadi as saying. Islamic State considers Iran's majority Shi'ite Muslims to be heretics.

'These women had gone to Syria to support ... Daesh (Islamic State), had received terrorist training and carried out some operations there, and were arrested upon their return to Iran,' Jafari-Dolatabadi said. The report did not specify the length of the jail terms.

Separately, a Tehran court on Sunday held the fifth hearing in the trial of eight men suspected in the killing of 18 people at the parliament and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's mausoleum last year - the first deadly attack claimed by Islamic State in Tehran.

Iran has said that the five gunmen and suicide bombers who were killed in the attacks had fought in the militants' strongholds in Syria and Iraq.

A total of 26 people have been charged in the case.Two Harris County sheriff's deputies rescued a man Sunday morning who was trying to jump from an overpass onto Interstate 45.

The man was on the bridge across I-45 at Richey Road in north Houston, said Deputy Thomas Gilliland of the Harris County Sheriff's Office.

A little after 11 a.m., he said, a bystander made a 911 call to report that a man was trying to jump from a bridge onto the highway below. When Deputies J. Leal and R. Cruz arrived, Gilliland said, the man was lying across the bridge's concrete retaining wall.

A bystander captured on video what happened next: The man dangles from the side of the bridge, nearly falling as people gather below to try to help or catch him.

Just as it appears he'll let go and fall, the deputies' arms reach down to grab his, pulling him back over the wall to safety.

The deputies didn't want the man to jump when he saw them moving closer, Gilliland said. So one of them distracted the man by talking to him, while the other moved in and got a good grip on the man.

They managed to pull him back over the retaining wall and away from danger, but the man was determined, Gilliland said; he jumped up and moved toward the wall again, still trying to jump. This time, the deputies managed to pull him to the ground and handcuff him.

The man, who is 19 or 20 years old, was taken to Ben Taub hospital for a mental health evaluation, Gilliland said.

Leal injured his knee and back in the struggle; he was treated for his injuries Sunday afternoon.

"Heroic work here to save this man's life - good outcome," Sheriff Ed Gonzalez tweeted Sunday afternoon.Road rage led to a double shooting late Saturday in west Houston, police said.

Houston police are seeking the driver of a Dodge Charger who allegedly shot two men in their 20s in the 12600 block of Richmond Avenue around 9 p.m. Both men were transported to a hospital in stable condition.

The incident started as a road-rage situation a few blocks away, police said, near the intersection of Richmond and Kirkwood. The victims were driving a Ford Mustang and a Chevy Camaro.

The driver of the Dodge Charger pulled out a gun and shot both of the other drivers, then drove away, according to police.

Police are encouraging anyone with information about the shooting to call CrimeStoppers at 713-521-4600.An SUV slammed into an ambulance early Sunday in southwest Houston, injuring the medics and patients onboard. The driver of the SUV and a passenger fled the scene.

The crash happened about 3 a.m. at the intersection of Beechnut and U.S. 59, according to Houston police. A Houston Fire Department EMS ambulance was headed east on Beechnut, transporting two patients to a hospital with its siren on and lights flashing.Passersby might have thought there was a protest going on at the Liberty County Courthouse on Thursday, May 3, during the lunch hour with a throng of people gathered outside. It wasnt a protest. It was prayer.

For the 23rd consecutive year, pastors and believers from around the county gathered on the steps of the courthouse to offer prayers commemorating the Liberty County National Day of Prayer in conjunction with the national celebration.

The idea of prayer in a public setting is not new for the United States.

In 1775, the Continental Congress allocated a time for prayer in forming a new nation. The request to colonies to pray for wisdom from their leaders was an exercise of their religious right.

Over the years, there have been calls for a day of prayer, including from President Abraham Lincoln in 1863.

On April 17, 1952, a joint resolution from Congress was signed by President Harry Truman proclaiming the National Day of Prayer into law in the United States.

The right to pray in schools was originally ripped from public schools in a Supreme Court ruling, Engel v. Vitale, decided in 1962 by an 8-1 vote. One year later, a case of Abington School District v. Schempp was consolidated with another case, Murray v. Curlett, that prevented the state from deciding what sorts of Bible readings students would have in public schools. It was the case that made Madalyn Murray OHair famous, not removing prayer from schools, although she promoted both.

According to the nationaldayofprayer.org website, every president since 1952, has written a proclamation heralding the day of prayer, including Barack Obama. While he didnt host or attend any of the celebrations, like his counterparts, he signed the proclamation every year of his presidency.

Tony Hines, pastor of Hardin Baptist Church, has been leading the ceremony every year for the last six years.

I think its encouraging that people from every kind of church, every kind of denomination and faith, will come and pray together, lift up the name of Christ and thank Him for our wonderful nation, he said.

The ceremony is open to all.

We take America for granted. We are blessed beyond measure. So many times, we just take it and forget about it. Every police officer, soldier, county official, state official, you name it, were blessed with their ministry to oversee this great nation, he said.

The event some 23 years ago under the auspices of Rev. James Holt of Cornerstone Church in Cleveland.

He now does the prayer service in the northern part of the county at the Cleveland Civic Center while Hines leads the service at the county courthouse.

The Liberty High School choir has been with us now for the last several years and they add such a beautiful flavor to the program and they also attract their own following to come out and hear them perform every year for us, Hines said.

Hines has been coming to the event for the last 17 years.

We use ministers, anyone who shows up, it doesnt matter where they pastor, to read a scripture and pray, he said. The formula is simple: seek God and lead His people in prayer.

Pastor Ken Davis of Calvary Baptist Church, Dayton, was asked to pray for families.

My mom is a prayer warrior and a woman of God, he said. Even though Ive had a lot of great pastors and professors in my life, my mom has been my single most spiritual influence, he said.

Davis pointed out that the freedom of religion was so important to the founding fathers that it was included in the First Amendment, not the last.

We come and celebrate that heritage and that freedom on the courthouse lawn, and to do it without fear or trepidation is a wonderful thing, he said.

County Judge Jay Knight had a humorous take on the event and the attempt to get rid of prayer anywhere.

As long as theres STAAR tests and end-of-year exams at school, there will always be prayer. As long as we have halls of justice with trials, there will be prayer in the courthouse. There will be prayer in churches, synagogues and prayer at home, he said. No one can stop it.

Johnny Gimble, once called the King of the Swing Fiddle by National Public Radio, used to teach Knight.

He used to preach to me all the time. He had a strong Christian faith, Knight said.

The Tyler fiddler told him, He [Jesus] has a limited time offer for you, one of salvation through His gift of grace and your faith. It expires when you do.

Knight told him it sounded like a Super Bowl ad, and Gimble replied, It is  the Super Bowl of Eternity!

dtaylor@hcnonline.comWhether it was voter apathy or nothing interesting on the top of the ballot, voter turnout was low in elections across the southern part of the county in Saturdays local elections, but the results may not have been different anyway except in possibly one proposition.

Uniform Election Day, typically the first Saturday in the month of May, has always been a low voter turnout day compared to the November elections when state and federal candidates top the ticket. The May elections have typically been reserved for local political subdivisions such as schools, college districts, municipalities, and special districts like Municipal Utility Districts (MUDs), Emergency Service Districts (ESDs) and Water Control and Improvement Districts (WCIDs).

Theres not much to excite voters in most of those elections.

Coming off a bitter March Primary in Liberty County probably didnt help interest voters in participation either, but regardless, there were candidates who did step up to the plate to throw their hat in the ring and seek election.

Heres a quick rundown of the local election results at press time:

Emergency Services District No. 3

The vote for Proposition A failed by a vote of 67 to 51. They had requested the public give them the ability to raise their ad valorem tax from $.03 up to $.10 per $100 valuation. The key words being up to, but voters were confused by the first ballot which was incorrect and asked for a 10-cent sales tax. The debacle was caught late Tuesday, the second day of voting, and by Wednesday, corrected ballots were at the polls.

We will seek advice from our attorney, said Denny Loonam, president of the board for ESD No. 3. Were not sure at this point, but we will make a decision within the next few days if we want to contest the election or not, he said.

Loonam admitted that they probably should have just gone for a $.06 increase instead of basically asking for permission to raise it up to the limit of 10-cents over a period of time. The possibility exists that the Secretary of State could throw out the entire election and ask for a do-over, but no one really knows until the election is contested.

City of Dayton Municipal Elections

There was only one contested race in the city of Dayton for city councilman and that pitted Wendell Null against Russell Payne, two relative newcomers to area politics. Null, who is president of the Dayton Community Development Corporation, won handily 273-96. The Position 1 was formerly held by Josh Townsend who was recently censured by his colleagues on city council for unbecoming behavior. Townsend did not run for re-election. Sherial L. Lawson will be reseated as Position No. 2 councilwoman and Alvin Burress in Position No. 3. Neither drew an opponent in their races.

City of Dayton Tax Rollback Referendum

The city took a bruising loss in the tax rollback referendum with 78.73 percent of citizens voting for the rollback. The rollback occurred when the city went above the effective rate of $0.6557 cents to $0.67. City officials were disappointed with the result, but not surprised.

We knew we would have to defend the tax rate, knowing it wouldnt be a popular decision, said City Manager Theo Melancon.

The setback wont keep the city from moving forward.

Our budget was set and passed last year in such a way with a lower amount of revenue, he said. We needed more officers and more personnel in the planning department and we were going to meet the needs of the city regardless, he said.

It does, he says, put the city a year behind to have the staff grow with the needs of the city, but hes confident that they can continue to provide good services to the residents.

The amount of the rollback will cost the city approximately $150,000.

Taxpayers have the right to rollback the taxes. Were very grateful for the system of government we have that gives the people a voice, Melancon said. They understand what they want.

Melancon said they would take a step back, evaluate their staffing, reprioritize projects, and go on from there.

They wont have to wait long. The budget they set did not include some of the new development that is already attracting business to the city that will do more to fill the coffers.

The city will be refunding approximately $0.0143 cents of the taxes levied.

Taxpayers who already paid their taxes would benefit if the election overturns the city's tax rate.

In a previous interview, Melancon said taxpayers would have their tax rate recalculated and if they have overpaid at that point, they would be issued a refund.

If we were a stagnant city, we wouldnt be having these kinds of problems, but the city is on the move and well meet the demand of the growth thats coming, he said.

Melancon said the city wouldnt recoil and his message was that brighter days are ahead.

Dayton ISD Board elections

The Dayton Independent School District hosted their annual elections for Positions 5, 6, and 7. Linda Harris, who was unopposed, garnered 454 votes for Position 5. C. D. Williams picked up 452 votes and was also unopposed in his race for Position 6. The only contested race was between incumbent Kerri Bartee and Mark Richter. Bartee won handily drawing 374 votes to Richters 153.

City of Liberty Municipal Elections

City elections in Liberty produced two returning incumbents and one newcomer to council. Mayor Carl Pickett drew no opponent and collected 402 votes in Saturdays election. Council members run for At-Large positions and there were three candidates taken out of the four that ran. Top vote getters were J. L. Chipper Smith with 351 votes, Paul Glazener with 271, and David W. Arnold with 221. Courtney Daniel failed to earn enough votes to make the top three with 116.

City of Liberty Special Charter Amendment Election

All seven of the charter amendments recommended won handily. The only close one, which was still a large margin, 250-127, was Proposition B regarding a Public Health Authority asking the appointment of a Public Health Authority be removed from the Citys Charter.

Hardin ISD Board elections

Hardin school district voters elected a new school board member and returned an incumbent in their election Saturday night. Voters returned current school board president Cody Parrish to the board with 312 votes. He was unopposed. There was a three-way battle for Position No. 2 on the board between Milton Fregia, Angie Amyx, and Jamie J. Blume. Amyx was the top vote getter with 234 to Fregias 161, and Blume a distant third with only 12 votes.

All results are unofficial until they have been canvassed by their respective entities at their next meeting.

There were no elections for Cleveland ISD and the City of Cleveland. Having no contested races, the elections were canceled.

dtaylor@hcnonline.comCity councilman Mike Foreman, a retired astronaut, will be the new mayor in Friendwood after he defeated Omar Peck with 53.97 percent of the vote to Pecks 46.03 percent on Saturday.

Foreman touted smart economic development and a low tax rate during his time on council and said he wanted to continue those priorities as mayor. Peck, a retired vice president for an engineering and design company, said he would be a voice for all residents and would promote responsible spending.

City council Position 1 incumbent Steve Rockey defeated challenger Michael Wood with 51.83 percent of the vote to Woods 48.17 percent.

Rockey, a business consultant, said he supports sensible development in the city and furthering flood control measures.

Wood, a retired quality control specialist, called for improved drainage and said he would work to keep small-town, family-values culture in the city.

In the contest for the council Position 3, Trish Hanks took the seat over Phillip with 54.88 percent of the vote to Ratisseaus 45.12 percent.

Hanks, recently retired Friendswood school district superintendent, said her decades at the head of the large public institution gave her the know-how to manage taxpayer funds. Ratisseau said he wanted to bring a new, united perspective to Friendswood if elected. He said economic development should be focused across the city and not just in the downtown area.

In the race for council Position 4, Robert Griffon won with 54.81 percent of the vote to challenger, Brent Erenwerts 45.21 percent.

Griffon, a retired oil and gas landman, said his experience dealing with the legal aspects of land use would benefit the city as they fight for federal funds to rebuild Friendswood after hurricane Harvey.

Erenwert, innovation officer with Brother Produce Houston, said the city needs a younger voice on council to represent the growing population of young families and wanted to promote better communication between the city and residents if elected to council.

Also on Saturday, the Galveston County Consolidated Drainage District held a joint general election with the City of Friendswood to elect directors for Positions 3 and 4.

Marcus Rives took the Position 3 seat over opponent Carl Horecky with 54.79 percent of the vote to Horeckys 45.21 percent while Harold Whitaker won the Position 4 race with 51.44 percent over challengers Christine Mangle-Smith (33.37 percent) and Mike Barker (15.18 percent).

Friendswood residents that live in the area serviced by GCCDD were eligible to vote in the election.

Voter totals are not official until the city council passes a resolution to canvass election returns.Deer Park voters decided one contested race for Deer Park ISD school board with incumbent Jason Cable defeating challenger Monique R. Rodriguez with 74.79 percent to Rodriguezs 25.21 percent of the vote.

Cable, who is vice president of sales for enterprise application software company SAP and has lived in Deer Park for 30 years, wants to ensure that resources and plans are in place for student achievement.Houston Community College is shutting down its Holman Street campus Monday due to a shooting threat made on social media over the weekend, the school said Sunday evening.

The FBI and local law enforcement are helping investigate the threat, which was published on Facebook, HCC spokeswoman Linda Toyota said.

"HCC takes all matters with implications for the security of its students, faculty and staff seriously," the college said in an email. "HCC and its police department are actively working with other law enforcement agencies to identify the source of the threat in an effort to eliminate the risk of harm."

READ ALSO: High expectations surround Ruth Simmons' presidency at Prairie View A&M University

Officials did not offer details about what the threat said. Toyota said no individuals were named in the threat, which was anonymous and specific to Central Campus on Holman.

Other HCC campuses will still be open Monday, and the college promised to provide additional security at those locations.

Toyota said HCC was made aware of the threat on Saturday. The Facebook post was deleted that same day, she said.

READ ALSO: 1 arrested after argument in hair waxing salon leads to shooting at Pearland shopping center

About 150 course finals slated for Monday at the Central Campus will be rescheduled to Friday, Toyota said.

She said it is the first time the college has had to respond to a threat from an unknown person.

"Usually," she said, "we can resolve it pretty quickly."

Anyone with information related to the case can notify campus police at 713-718-8888.Sean Murphy and Crystal Carbonne were elected to the Pearland school board on Saturday.

Position 4 incumbent Murphy received 63 percent of the vote, ahead of challenger Daniel Hernandez. Murphy, a businessman, said his knowledge of high-dollar budgets gave him the experience guide the districts future planning.

Hernandez, an imam of a Pearland mosque, touted his years of counseling youths and that he would work to improve the lives of Pearland students and teachers through greater transparency and initiatives to curb teen suicide.

In the race for Position 3, licensed professional counselor Crystal Carbonne won 70 percent of the vote against Bellaire High School assistant principal Al Lloyd.

Carbonne emphasized her academic and clinical experience working with children.

Lloyd pointed out his years of experience working at campuses and developing vocational programs.After a contentious and unusual final few weeks of the municipal election Oak Ridge North, which saw two groups of candidates skip two different candidate forums, incumbent Mayor Jim Kuykendall and Council Member Alex Jones nabbed solid victories in their respective bids for another term in office.

After unofficial results were released by Montgomery County election officials, Kuykendall had defeated challenger Dan Broyles by a margin 341 votes to 148 votes, or a more than 69 percent to 30 percent victory.

Jones defeated his challenger, Martha Stedifor, by a margin of more than 170 votes. Jones totalled 322 votes to Stedifors 151 votes.

Incumbent Council Member Paul Bond ran unopposed, and nabbed 100 percent of the votes in unofficial results.

Early voting, which took place between April 23 and May 1, was down this year, according to the Montgomery County Elections office. Only 212 people voted early in the mayoral race this year, while 363 voters turned in early ballots in both city council member races with the majority of those votes coming in the Jones-Stedifor contest.

Montgomery County Elections Administrator Suzie Harvey said that the discrepancy between two election cycles is not uncommon.

This is especially true in even-numbered years because the election occurs between the Primary Election and the Primary Runoff Election and/or there is not a county race on the ballot, Harvey said.

The Montgomery County Joint Election takes place about two weeks before the Primary Runoff Election scheduled for May 22. In 2016, roughly 394 voters cast their ballots early in the mayoral race and 781 combined early votes were cast in both city council seat elections.

This year, Kuykendall and Jones considered themselves as one camp, often agreeing with one another on issues surrounding city spending, infrastructure and economic development. Challengers Broyles and Stedifor teamed up as the challenging camp, campaigning together and both making similar unverified claims about the small citys alleged mounting debt and declining property values.

Neither of those claims were ever backed up by the two challengers during the run-up to the election, and Kuykendall said he believed this years election was similar in tone to the 2016 election and blamed some of the differences on the issue of the Robinson Road project.

Before Saturdays election, Stedifor declined a request to be interviewed, stating that she and Broyles, had a full schedule for Saturday therefore, we must respectfully decline.

The election took an odd turn in the final weeks, as two diffeent candidate forums hosted by separate organizations created further contentiousness and division between the candidates.

Broyles and Stedifor were no shows at the Voter Awareness Council forum on April 18, choosing instead to organize their own forum with the Texas Patriots PAC, a local Tea Party organization. The second forum was held the following day, April 19, and neither Jones nor Kuykendall attended that event.

Kuykendall claimed the organizers of the second forum did not provide ample notice to the incumbents in explaining why neither he nor Jones attended it.

Council members and the mayor serve two year terms in Oak Ridge North.

Michelle IrachetaShanara Mobley never stopped thinking about her baby, who vanished from a Florida hospital nearly 20 years ago, eight hours after Mobley brought her into the world.

Each year since, Mobley celebrated the girl's birthday with a cake she kept frozen for 18 years. She thought about what it would be like to see her daughter, whom she had named Kamiyah, take her first steps or to send her off to prom.

So when she was asked in a courtroom Thursday what sort of sentence her daughter's kidnapper, Gloria Williams, should face, her answer came easily.

"Death," Mobley said, eliciting gasps from the courtroom, according to the Associated Press.

The kidnapped girl's biological father, Craig Aiken, gave a different response.

"This is the part that she makes it hard for me, because my daughter doesn't want to see [Williams] get time," he said.

Williams had raised the kidnapped baby as her own in South Carolina and renamed her Alexis Kelly Manigo. When Williams, 51, was arrested on charges of kidnapping and interference with custody in January 2017, Kamiyah sobbed and told Williams she loved her.

But Williams had to pay, Aiken said Thursday, addressing Williams directly, the AP reported.

Williams pleaded guilty to kidnapping and interference with child custody and could face a maximum prison sentence of 22 years, according to AP.

The ramifications of Kamiyah Mobley's abduction in July 1998 - and the unsuccessful search for her in the decades after - were spelled out in court Thursday. Kamiyah's biological parents testified that they themselves were viewed as suspects by police, neighbors and even each other. Aiken's grandmother testified that Shanara Mobley had "turned on me" at one point, wondering if she was behind the kidnapping, the AP reported.

At one point, Shanara Mobley shouted out to her daughter, now 19, who was sitting in the back of the courtroom. "I am your mother, Kamiyah!" she cried. "I am your mother."

During a second hearing on Friday, Williams detailed the circumstances of the kidnapping. About a month before the kidnapping, Williams testified, she'd had a miscarriage. She had also lost custody of two other children and was in an abusive relationship that led to her miscarriage, according to the Associated Press.

After the loss of her pregnancy, Williams said, she felt her life was out of her control. She drove from South Carolina to Jacksonville, Florida, her mind on autopilot, with no intention of abducting a child, she said.

Yet on the morning of July 10, 1998, Williams posed as a nurse in a blue floral smock and green scrub pants and walked into a Jacksonville hospital's newborn ward, carrying a bag. She put the baby in the bag and left.

"What I remember is I was running, I was walking and at any time someone could grab my arm and say, 'What do you have in the bag?' " Williams said, according to the AP.

The abduction at the time gripped the attention of Florida and much of the country. Authorities sealed the hospital, stopped every visitor, halted buses and put airport police on alert for a baby. Row by row, trains leaving Jacksonville were searched. Room by room, the hospital was combed.

Officials were optimistic.

"There's a high percentage in getting these babies back," a Jacksonville sheriff's spokesman told reporters the day of the kidnapping. "We want to put our hands on that baby."

As each day passed, Kamiyah's family never stopped wondering whether she was alive. Aiken was in jail during his daughter's birth and abduction, serving an eight-month sentence for impregnating Shanara Mobley when she was 15 and he was an adult, according to the Florida Times-Union.

"I wonder what she would look like," he told the paper from lockup in 1999. He had recurring dreams of holding his baby, playing with her, but could never attach a face to his child.

"The only thing I have to remember her by is her name," he told the paper at the time. "Kamiyah."

Posters of Kamiyah were plastered all over Jacksonville in the first year of her disappearance - and over many years to come. Authorities never managed to locate her - despite a $250,000 reward for her recovery, at least three appearances on "America's Most Wanted" and a search across multiple countries.

The child's family eventually sued the hospital, later settling in 2000 in a case that prompted hospitals across central Florida to tighten security for newborns, the Orlando Sentinel reported in 2000.

Williams told Kamiyah her true identity shortly before the arrest, after realizing Kamiyah couldn't get a driver's license without a valid birth certificate or Social Security card, according to AP. Kamiyah shared the secret with a friend but not police. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children eventually received an anonymous tips about Kamiyah's whereabouts, and authorities were notified.

A DNA test in early 2017 confirmed Kamiyah's identity, and authorities described her as "clearly a victim in this case," who was otherwise in good health and living as a "normal 18-year-old woman." It would be her decision to reunite with her biological family, they said.

She met her biological parents soon after through FaceTime, according to the New York Daily News. They were impressed by how intelligent and respectful she sounded, they told the paper.

In court on Friday, Williams apologized to Kamiyah's birth mother, according to the AP.

She then turned to Kamiyah.

"I will always love you, always," Williams told her. "But you're not mine. Your mother and father are sitting right here."

- - -

The Washington Post's Amy B Wang and Avi Selk contributed to this report.As the battle heats up for control of Congress, primary contests across the nation are drawing large pools of money from long distance donors who are shaping the outcome of key races.

Nearly 2,700 candidates are vying for one of the 435 U.S. House seats up for grabs in November. So far, they've raised more than $800 million for their campaigns, according to the latest data from the Federal Elections Commission. Though it's still early in this year's midterm cycle, roughly two-thirds of that money has come from outside those candidates' districts.

Of the 41 seats in the four states holding primaries Tuesday, candidates in more than half those districts have collectively raised more than $1 million.Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during a meeting with supporters at his campaign headquarters in Moscow, Russia March 18, 2018.

Beset by tough sanctions and worldwide political isolation, a casual observer might be surprised to learn that Russia's economy isn't doing all that badly  even if it still has a litany of problems.

In fact, some investors are fairly bullish on the country, where the outlook is bolstered by surging oil prices. However, there are red flags everywhere, including a new round of sanctions against Russian companies and oligarchs aimed at pressuring President Vladimir Putin.

For the moment, 2018 will mark another year of recovery for the Russian economy after a steep recession triggered by oil's swoon during 2014. Russia's growth is expected to reach 1.7 percent this year, according to a World Bank forecast, largely in line with growth last year but well above the near 3 percent contraction the country saw from 2015-2016.

Russia "maintained strong growth underpinned by solid productivity, with a sustainable growth trend estimated at 2-2.5 percent," noted Denise Simon, head of emerging market debt at Lazard Asset Management.

However, the rebound obscures what Simon explained is "one of the few countries in the world with negative population growth, which reduces their overall growth potential." The population shrinkage  by some measures at around 0.4 percent  dampens productivity, making growth above 2 percent difficult to sustain.

Historically, Russia's market is volatile, and the geopolitical risks have heightened that effect. Meanwhile, Moscow is notorious for presiding over an opaque, corrupt and oligarch-dominated economy that gets low marks from freedom watchers.

That said, Russia's ability to weather geopolitical pressure and fluctuating oil prices has been sufficient enough for some market observers to tout investment opportunities in the country.

Investing in Russia is definitely "risky" amid the macroeconomic and geopolitical challenges, said Bin Shi, senior vice president and portfolio manager at Acadian Asset Management, with more than $73 billion in assets under management.

Yet Shi noted that the MSCI Russia, an equity index linked to the performance of the country's market, returned 54 percent in 2016 while the S&P 500 Index returned 12 percent during the same time. That came despite a grueling recession in Russia that began in 2015.Some Republicans worry a Blankenship win would hurt their chances of beating Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, one of the most vulnerable senators in November.

Republican leaders are hoping Don Blankenship, a coal baron who has targeted Mitch McConnell, will not prevail in Tuesday's West Virginia Republican Senate primary.

Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Don Blankenship speaks at a town hall meeting at West Virginia University on March 1, 2018 in Morgantown, West Virginia. Getty Images

A Republican with personal baggage who attacks Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has a chance to win a Senate primary Tuesday and threaten the GOP's success in a winnable general election. That potential outcome in the West Virginia Senate primary election resembles a situation Republicans already endured once recently in Alabama. On Tuesday, GOP leaders hope to see a different outcome as they try to take down Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, one of the most vulnerable senators running in November. Running in Tuesday's race are two officials who sit largely within the Republican Party's mainstream, Rep. Evan Jenkins and state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey. The third contender for the nomination is 68-year-old coal baron Don Blankenship, who served jail time for his role in an explosion at a Massey Energy mine that left 29 people dead. On Thursday, Blankenship raised more eyebrows with a racially charged ad attacking McConnell and his wife, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao. In the video, he alleges "swamp captain" McConnell has "created millions of jobs for China people" and gotten rich from his "China family." It sparked rebukes from McConnell allies, at least one of whom compared Blankenship to GOP candidate Roy Moore, the ex-judge who lost a Senate special election in deep-red Alabama last year as he faced accusations of sexually abusing teenagers decades ago. Public polling in the West Virginia race has been limited, giving no clear picture of which candidate has an edge heading into Tuesday. A Fox News poll last month found 25 percent of likely voters preferred Jenkins, compared with 21 percent and 16 percent for Morrisey and Blankenship, respectively. The high proportion of undecided voters leaves the potential outcome murky as West Virginians head to the polls. A Weekly Standard report says internal polls found Blankenship winning more support and taking a narrow lead ahead of Tuesday's primary. The GOP's ability to defeat Manchin will help to determine whether the party can keep or expand its narrow 51-seat to 49-seat edge in the Senate. Republicans have a prime opportunity: Trump won the state by more than 40 percentage points in 2016, and it is consistently among the states in which he has the highest approval rating. On Monday, Trump took to Twitter to urge Republicans to vote for Jenkins or Morrisey, because Blankenship "can't win the General Election in your State." Donald Trump tweet Groups linked to McConnell have only just started to oppose Blankenship more openly, but national GOP figures have signaled more subtly they would prefer him not to represent the party in November. When Trump went to West Virginia last month for an event ostensibly about tax reform, he slammed Manchin and told an audience "you're going to have a chance to get a senator that's going to vote our program."

Rep. Evan Jenkins, R-W.Va., left, who is running for the Republican nomination for Senate in West Virginia, talks with Phillip Carl of Warwood Tool Company during a tour of the plant in Wheeling, W.Va., on May 2, 2018. Tom Williams | CQ Roll Call | Getty Images

He notably invited both Jenkins and Morrisey to the event, but not Blankenship. Trump told attendees to "go out and vote" in the GOP primary, but did not state a preference for either of the officials sitting on his right and left during the event. On Thursday, the president's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., more directly expressed the sentiment that many elected GOP leaders appear to hold. He tweeted that he would not endorse a specific candidate but argued Blankenship would be a "train wreck." "I think there are two qualified, conservative and ELECTABLE candidates running and one train wreck who would guarantee another term for Joe Manchin," the younger Trump tweeted. Trump Jr. tweet

Contenders try to distinguish themselves

Similar to certain GOP primary battles around the country, the West Virginia candidates have few distinguishing positions on major policies. They have broadly pledged to work with the president to reduce business regulations, support coal jobs, fight the opioid epidemic that has hit their state hard and support 2nd Amendment rights. The Republicans have partly tried to set themselves apart by criticizing their rivals' personal backgrounds or trying to show they most mirror Trump. Candidates have also employed those tactics in Indiana, another pro-Trump state holding primaries Tuesday. Republicans hope to take out another vulnerable Democrat, Sen. Joe Donnelly, in that state. Blankenship has spent more than twice as much as both of his GOP rivals in the race. He has loaned more than $3 million of his own money to his campaign. However, as of mid-April, his campaign had about $670,000 on hand, compared with more than $800,000 for both Morrisey and Jenkins' campaigns.

At a debate Monday night, the three West Virginia GOP contenders declined to support McConnell, according to ABC News. They also called for an end of the investigation into Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election and whether the Trump campaign colluded with Moscow. Jenkins, a 57-year-old who has represented West Virginia's 3rd District since 2015, has tried to show he supports Trump in Congress. He, along with several other House Republicans in competitive elections this year, signed on to a letter this week nominating Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize. The lawmakers say the president deserves the honor for his efforts to denuclearize North Korea. Jenkins voted with Trump on the Republican efforts to overhaul the U.S. tax and health-care systems. But he has faced attacks from his rivals because he switched parties from Democrat to Republican in 2013. At the debate, he defended his flip, saying Democratic President Barack Obama "devastated our state and our country paid," according to ABC.

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey Tom Williams | CQ Roll Call | Getty Images

Morrisey has served as West Virginia's attorney general since 2013 and touts his role in challenging Obama-era environmental regulations. He has cast himself as a conservative unafraid to stand up to establishment party leaders. Morrisey received endorsements from two GOP senators who have also tried to cultivate that brand: Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas. The attorney general has portrayed himself as a Washington outsider, in one ad showing a West Virginia mountain dropping on the nation's capital. But his past as a Washington lobbyist has diminished the imagery. Meanwhile, Blankenship has cast himself as the candidate who has created jobs in the private sector as CEO of Massey Energy. He has downplayed the time he served in prison, stressing that he was convicted of one misdemeanor for conspiring to violate mine safety rules. On Monday, he called the legal proceedings a "fake prosecution," according to ABC.

A threat to Manchin

Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-WV). Getty ImagesBefore he became President Donald Trump's "fixer" and personal lawyer, Michael Cohen's real estate and taxi cab businesses were marked by the same shadowy dealings that have made him a key player in numerous investigations, The New York Times reported Saturday.

Cohen's notoriety grew exponentially when he was identified as the lawyer who brokered a $130,000 nondisclosure agreement with Stormy Daniels, a porn star who alleges that she had a past sexual relationship with Trump. The hush deal bars Daniels, who is now suing Trump and Cohen to void the deal she argues is invalid, from publicly discussing the alleged affair.

But before he became Trump's all-purpose fixer, Cohen made his bones amassing a trove of pricey and scarce taxi cab medallions, according to the Times' report. The publication scoured a trove of public documents and interviewed people close to Cohen, all of which shed light on his years as a personal injury lawyer and businessman before he joined the Trump Organization.

The Times noted that Cohen and his father-in-law gave more than $25 million in loans to a Ukrainian businessman who has a checkered financial record and a history of defaulting on loans. The publication detailed his links to immigrants from Russia and Ukraine, which extended to his business dealings.

On April 9, federal agents raided Cohen's office, residence and electronic devices, seizing cellphones, hard-copy and digital materials from Cohen. The materials are now in the hands of a so-called special master who will determine which of the materials are not covered by attorney-client privilege, meaning they can be presented in court.

The April raids of Cohen's properties revealed that Cohen, who has been deeply involved in Trump's finances and deals for years, has been under criminal investigation for months.

Some of Cohen's business partners have had past legal troubles, as well. The Times reported that one former associate paid nearly $1 million in fines after Chicago authorities found more than 180 cars that were used in the associate's taxi businesses were unauthorized.

Another partner of Cohen's has been on authorities' radar for suspicion of transferring more than $60 million offshore to avoid paying debts and is awaiting trial on charges of failing to pay millions in taxes, the Times reported.

Read the full story on Michael Cohen from The New York Times.

CORRECTION: This story was updated to delete incorrect references that Cohen paid nearly $1 million in fines after Chicago authorities found that more than 180 cars used in his taxi businesses were unauthorized. The story also incorrectly said Cohen was barred from managing taxi medallions in New York City last April. The newspaper said those cases involved one of Cohen's former business partners.

In addition, an earlier version also incorrectly reported that the Times said Cohen has been on authorities' radar for transferring more than $60 million offshore to avoid paying debts and is awaiting trial on charges of failing to pay millions in taxes. The newspaper said those instances involve a partner of Cohen.Thank you for reading!

Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue.CORNWALL, Ontario  Marc Clement, 44, and Amanda Clement, 43, both of Cornwall, were arrested and charged with robbery, pointing a firearm and unauthorized possession of a firearm.

It is alleged on April 22nd, 2018 the man and woman robbed a food delivery driver, all the while brandishing a handgun. Police were contacted and an extensive investigation by the Criminal Investigations Division conducted. On April 26th, 2018 both were located by police, taken into custody, and charged accordingly. The man was held for a bail hearing and the woman was released to appear in court on May 31st, 2018.

UNLAWFULLY IN A DWELLING, ASSAULT WITH A WEAPON, MISCHIEF

Cornwall, ON  A 36-year-old Lunenburg woman and a 37-year-old Cornwall man were arrested on April 26th, 2018 and charged with mischief under $5000. The woman was also charged with unlawfully in a dwelling and assault with a weapon. It is alleged on April 26th, 2018 the woman attended the residence of the above-mentioned man and attempted to hit him with her car. During the altercation, the woman allegedly assaulted the man with a pair of goggles and damaged a lamp. Further, it is alleged the man caused damage to the womans vehicle and police were contacted to investigate. During the investigation, both were taken into custody, charged accordingly and released to appear in court on May 22nd, 2018. Their names were not released as it would identify the victims in the matter.

WARRANT, THEFT UNDER, BREACH

Cornwall, ON  Scottie Brownell-Lauzon, 26, of Cornwall was arrested on April 26th, 2018 on the strength of warrant. The man was also charged with theft under $5000 and breach of probation & undertaking for failing to keep the peace. It is alleged on March 27th, 2018 the man was in possession of a stolen electronic device and a warrant was issued for his arrest. It is further alleged on March 28th and 29th, 2018 the man attended a Water Street store and removed merchandise from the store, making no attempt to pay for the items as he left the store. On April 26th, 2018 the man attended the Cornwall Community Police Service for fingerprints for an unrelated matter. He was taken in to custody on the strength of the warrant, charged accordingly and held for a bail hearing.

FRAUD, UNLAWFUL USE OF A CREDIT CARD, THEFT UNDER

Cornwall, ON  A 16-year-old Cornwall youth was arrested and charged with unlawful use of a credit card, fraud under $5000, and theft under $5000. It is alleged on April 11th, 2018 the youth used a credit card that did not belong to him for various purchases. Further, it is alleged on April 21st, 2018 the youth attended a Second Street East store and removed merchandise, making no attempt to pay for the items as he left the store. Police were contacted and an investigation ensued. On April 26th, 2018, police located the youth. He was charged accordingly and held for a bail hearing. His name was not released as per provision of the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

THEFT OF MOTOR VEHICLE, POSSESSION OF PROPERTY OBTAINED BY CRIME, BREACH

Cornwall, ON  A 17-year-old Cornwall youth and a 16-year-old Green Valley youth were both arrested on April 27th, 2018 and charged with theft of a motor vehicle. The 17-year-old youth was also charged with possession of property obtained by crime and the 16-year-old youth was also charged with breach of undertaking for failing to keep the peace. It is alleged on April 26th, 2018 the youths took a vehicle, belonging to a person unknown to them without permission, and police were contacted. On April 27th, 2018 police located the youths, at which time the 16-year-old was found to be in possession of a stolen set of keys. The youths were taken into custody, charged accordingly and held for a bail hearing. Their names were not released as per provision of the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

POSSESSION OF METHAMPHETAMINE & MARIJUANA

Cornwall, ON  Jean Mitchell, 20, of Cornwall was arrested on April 27th, 2018 and charged with possession of methamphetamine (speed) and marijuana. It is alleged on April 28th, 2018 while investigating an unrelated matter, the man was found to be in possession of a quantity of speed and marijuana. He was taken into custody, charged accordingly and released to appear in court on May 29th, 2018.

There were 50 calls for service in the City of Cornwall in the last 24 hours (8am the previous day to 8am the day of the release). To see whats happening in your neighbourhood visit our Crime Plot Map. CCPS reserves the right not to post all calls for service in order to protect the identity of the victims.CORNWALL, Ontario  The Cornwall Hospice hosted their 14th annual Hike on Sunday, May 6, 2018, to raise funds to continue providing end of life care for residents in Cornwall.

The Hike aimed to gather $40,000 by the end of the day with all proceeds going to their operating costs.

Sandy Collette, the head fundraiser for the hospice worked with volunteers and organizations like the Kinsmen Club of Cornwall and Boom 101.9 to make the event possible.

Over 100 people joined in the Hike that went from the Hospice to Lock 19 and then down the bike path.

The government funding only pays for the front line staff; so food, laundry, furniture, lights, heat, that all comes out of our operational budget which has to fundraised for, explained Sandy.

All Hospices around Canada hold a Hike similar to the Cornwall Hospices so that they can continually provide excellent care for those who need it.Standing at the corners of Sydney and Second Street, it is hard for me to stare at the Cornwall Public Library and imagine a grand Victorian building in its place, but sixty-seven years ago, thats exactly what stood proudly at the North-West corner.

In 1897, Cornwalls Childrens Aid Society was formed. Their mandate was to house destitute children until they could be placed in permanent homes. In 1909, the Childrens Aid Society became overpopulated with homeless children. The Society looked towards the Religious Hospitallers of Saint Joseph Sisters to help care for the large number of destitute children.

The Sisters purchased two small framed homes on Mulberry Lane. These two homes became Nazareth Orphanage, which opened on January 16, 1909. Eight months after the orphanage opened, twenty-six children would call the two wooden buildings home. Although the homes were not of the greatest quality, they succeeded in providing food and shelter for the children.

In October 1909, the orphans would be relocated to a new home. The Greenwood House, located on York Street became the new orphanage. It operated as Nazareth Orphanage until November 28, 1919. On that same date, the orphans were moved to Highland Manor, located at the North-West corner of Sydney and Second Streets. This residence belonged to Mrs. Mary McMartin, and was donated to the orphans in memory of her late husband, John. Mrs. McMartin also provided the funds to heat the building.

Five Sisters were assigned as staff, and lived at the new orphanage with the children. The Sisters found it difficult to meet the expenses required to care for dozens of children. The government assistance at the time was not much: two cents per day for each child. Woman from the community formed the Nazareth Orphanage Society, and devoted much time, effort, and care to help with the orphans upbringing.

On Friday, May 4, 1950, tragedy would strike at Nazareth Orphanage. As soon as Sisters Cameron, St. Emily, St. Monica and Mary Theresa sat down to have lunch, the fire alarm began to ring. By the time the Fire Department arrived, all the staff and children were safely outside. Representatives of the Childrens Aid Society picked up children who were in school, and took them to the Salvation Army Citadel until relatives could come for them. Although the cause of the fire was never determined, it is believed that it was caused by faulty electrical wiring. It is rumored that even if there hadnt been a fire, the home would have been demolished to make room for Cornwalls new Post Office.The six-story apartment complex that opened last August at 900 Washington Blvd. has transformed downtown Stamford  undeniably for the better, say residents and neighboring businesses.

Comprising the first dedicated college dormitory in Stamford, the residence hall at the corner of Main Street created a major new residential community all on its own in the city center. Students who moved in have embraced the urban experience, while neighboring establishments have welcomed the infusion of patrons. The success of the residential project now raises the question of whether the university could further expand its residential footprint in the states third-largest city.

This first year of university housing in Stamford has been a smashing success, Terrence Cheng, UConn-Stamfords campus director, said in an interview. The community has been very welcoming and warm toward our students and has been very flexible and accommodating as we continue to evolve and grow as a presence in the city.

Reasons for growth

Developed and owned by Stamford-based RMS Cos. and leased by UConn under a 25-year agreement, the 116-unit residence hall responds to rising enrollment.

UConn-Stamfords undergraduate headcount for the past fall semester totaled about 1,800 students, up 32 percent from the fall 2013 semester.

In its first year, the building housed about 270 students  including about 200 freshmen and a balance of sophomores and upperclassmen. The apartments include full kitchens and come fully furnished.

You can do so much here in Stamford, and you can do so much in school, said freshman Lesly Nerette Jr., a Bridgeport native. Living here, I just wanted to get involved.

In the past school year, semester rents ranged between $4,975 and $6,475, with utilities including internet and cable TV factored into those costs. On a monthly basis, those rates would run between approximately $1,250 and $1,600.

In comparison, one-bedroom apartments commonly rent for about $2,000 per month and two-bedrooms often lease for around $3,000.

State officials hailed the dorms opening as proof the Stamford branch no longer operates in the shadow of UConns main campus in Storrs.

Its a gigantic breakthrough for the UConn-Stamford campus, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, who served as Stamfords mayor from 1995 to 2009, said in an interview last year. Theres an understanding that with more housing, a regional campus can draw a substantially larger number of students primarily based there.

Living downtown

With scores of restaurants and stores a few blocks from their dorms, students quickly became regulars at many establishments.

I like to go to Pappas Pizza right down the street  thats a good restaurant, with a lot of good food. ... Fifteen percent off with a UConn ID, Nerette said. Wetzels Pretzels in the (Stamford Town Center) mall are pretty good, $5.69 on their hot dog pretzels, Pieology  $8.79 with their pizza. Sometimes, I go to Starbucks, sometimes I go to GameStop. The mall is a yes.

Other first-year students interviewed for this article also said they were generally satisfied with the scope of services.

Theres a lot to do for people around the age of 21  its aimed at people around that age, said Annika Moberg, of Sherman.

But some said bringing in more fast-casual restaurants such as Chipotle or Moes Southwest Grill or another grocery store  perhaps in one of the empty storefronts on Broad Street, across the street from UConns academic building  would be useful additions.

Itd be nice to have another (grocery store) within walking distance, said freshman Jared Williamson, of Seymour. The only one you can go to within walking distance is Target, and theres not a lot of variety.

Downtown merchants, meanwhile, have generally cheered the new group of customers. Restaurants neighboring the dorms report few problems, aside from minor infractions such as students trying to pass off fake IDs.

There have been no flare-ups on the level of last months imbroglio at a South Norwalk bar, where dozens of Fairfield University students were caught drinking underage, according to police and liquor-control officials.

We love the UConn students, said Victor Mathieu, co-owner of Fiesta on Main, at 249 Main St. We consider our restaurant extremely approachable for a diverse group of people. We do our best to be priced accordingly. We love that it brings in a new generation of people who are willing and exciting to try our Peruvian food.

While they have adapted to living in the city center, students said costs quickly mount  even with student discounts.

On a normal college campus, youre kind of in that community and theres not too much to do where you have to purchase tickets or pay for what youre doing, said freshman Emma Grimsley, of Mystic. Since were in a normal area, if you go to a movie, you have to pay for it.

A growing presence

The mix of students living in the residence hall in 2018-19 will parallel the first-years demographics.

UConn officials have hinted that they are exploring expanding the universitys housing stock in the city.

With this first year behind us, and going into what looks like an equally strong second year with residential housing, we will continue to analyze the data and trends, said Terrence Cheng, UConn-Stamfords campus director. Hopefully, the university will make the appropriate investments to further our growth.

In the meantime, UConn will extend the residence halls usage. Starting in 2019, students will be able to live in the dorms during the summer, giving them a short commute if they were to intern during those months at a Stamford company.

As for the current contingent living at 900 Washington Blvd., many will eventually move on to Storrs to complete their studies.

Not all of them are looking forward to a more bucolic setting.

I dont want to go to cow country, Grimsley said. I like being in the city.

pschott@scni.com; 203-964-2236; Twitter: @paulschottBRIDGEPORT - G. Kenneth Bernhard has spent more than two decades representing the interests of lower Fairfield County residents and now he has taken on advocating for their pets.

The former state representative for Westport, who works as an attorney for the Bridgeport law firm Cohen & Wolf, was recently appointed one of 16 animal advocates in the state. Already he has represented the interests of a dead golden retriever and this week he was appointed to advocate for two dogs allegedly badly injured by their owners boyfriend in Fairfield.

I cant stand gratuitous cruelty, he explained. It is especially troubling when it involves the torturing of animals.

In October 2016, the states General Assembly passed Desmonds Law, named after a dog who was starved, beaten, and strangled to death by his owner, who later received accelerated rehabilitation, a pre-trial probation program that resulted in the charges being dismissed.

The law established the unpaid position of advocate to assist the court in animal cruelty cases by gathering information, conducting research, writing briefs, and making recommendations to the judge, thus easing the burden on often overworked prosecutors.

A judge has to make a finding that good justice requires that there be an advocate for the animals in the particular case, Bernhard said.

Bernhard had served as state representative for Westport from 1997 to 2005 and prior to that worked as town attorney in Westport and Wilton.

He has supported animal lobbying groups for many years. In 2010 he agreed to help the Kenyan Wildlife Service and Interpol in a sting operation to nab ivory poachers in the African country by posing as a tourist seeking to buy ivory.

Bernhard said he became an animal advocate to ensure that the perspective of the injured or killed animal goes into the resolution of the case.

But he acknowledges there has been some criticism of his new position.

Ive gotten some push back as in people asking me, Why dont you care more about what is done to women and children who are abused? he said. But I have two answers to that, he continues. First, gratuitous cruelty is gratuitous cruelty to any living creature. And second, there is a serious connection between animal cruelty and abuse to children, its a proven fact.

St. Bernhard to the rescue

Bernhards first assignment as an advocate was his appointment by a judge in Stamford in March to advocate for the interest of a golden retriever named Betsy who died while in the care of a Darien man who was operating a dog boarding business.

Police said Betsy had been kept in a cage in a hot garage without food and water.

In that case the man was exposing his 10-year-old son to the abuse of animals, Bernhard said. I argued against the man getting accelerated rehabilitation and the judge agreed with me.

In April, Raymond Neuberger, 34, a former Representative Town Meeting member in Fairfield, was charged with four counts of malicious wounding of an animal after police said he severely injured his girlfriends two dogs, Thor and Charlie, both 5-year-old King Charles Cavalier Spaniels.

In this case this fellows way to get back into his girlfriends life was to torture her dogs, said Bernhard, who appeared in court on the case last Monday. He is alleged to have poured scalding hot water onto one of the dogs causing its hair to come off and using some instrument to break the other dogs ribs. I dont know anything about this defendant but if he did the things that are alleged I bet there are some other things he has done that would set off alarm bells.

Bernhard said Supervisory Assistant States Attorney Margaret Kelley has been very cooperative, offering to share information with him on the case.

He said he hopes by the next court date, June 8, to sit down with the defense lawyer, John R. Gulash, and discuss a possible resolution.

Gulash declined comment on the case.

In the meantime, Bernhard said the two dogs have been placed with the girlfriends parents in Danbury.

Serving as an animal advocate is a public service to be an advocate for the accountability of gratuitous cruelty. I want to help the court to get a good perspective of the crime, he added.BRIDGEPORT  Severance is, according to the Colorado towns online ad seeking a new police chief, one of the fastest growing communities in that state, with a population of 5,200.

Bridgeport, Connecticuts largest municipality, has 28 times as many people as Severance does. And yet, at least on paper, that small town holds its candidates for top cop to a higher standard, requiring they have a college bachelors degree plus experience.

As Mayor Joe Ganims administration prepares to launch a national search for a chief for Bridgeports Finest, some in the community want the city to raise the bar when it comes to candidates education.

Currently, bachelors and masters degrees and other law enforcement schooling are preferred but not required if candidates have 10 years of policing under their belts, five of those in a command rank.

Ron Bailey, a retired Bridgeport police lieutenant who teaches criminal justice at Housatonic Community College and recently published a book about his career, has been pushing for tougher educational standards for the chief search.

Cities across America require (college degrees), Bailey claimed last month on Facebook. So why is it we have to settle for less?

The answer to that question, some suspect, has to do with the man currently running the force: Acting Police Chief Armando A.J. Perez, a close friend and political ally of Ganim whom the mayor promoted from captain to top cop in March 2016.

Varying requirements

Perez plans to apply to be the permanent chief. He has admitted he never graduated from college after initially taking some courses with plans to go into banking. But Perez has argued that he has the necessary experience  with over three decades on the force, including a stint running the detective bureau from June 2014 until he was made acting chief.

Chief Perez and I came on the job together, Bailey said in an interview. I dont want to speak inappropriately about A.J., because I consider him a friend. But, Bailey said, some in the community think the search has been fixed for Perez by emphasizing experience over school.

Bailey denied that he intends to be in the running for the chief position. Absolutely not, he said. I do not want to be chief of police.

In contrast to Bridgeport, Hartford and New Haven require their police chiefs to have college degrees. But two other large cities  Stamford and Waterbury  do not. Norwalk requires its police chiefs have a high school diploma supplemented by extensive training courses in police science and administration.

Complex job

Jack Rinchich is president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police. He spent his law enforcement career in Virginia as a police officer in Charleston, then retiring from the force and becoming police chief at the University of Charleston.

I dont think theres any one set standard when it comes to a chiefs education, Rinchich said. I prefer someone who has prior law enforcement experience within that department or another agency and the degrees that would make them capable in a number of areas (including) the ability to handle budgets.

More Information Public forums On Thursday, Bridgeport residents can attend a noon or a 6 p.m. public forum to explain the characteristics they are looking for in a police chief. The forums will be held at City Hall, 45 Lyon Terrace. See More Collapse

A brief review of a handful of recent police chief advertisements from out of state, besides the aforementioned Severance, Colo., Savannah, Ga.; Napa, Calif., and Newport News, Va., found that all required at least a bachelors degree, if not additional law enforcement training at the FBI Academy or other entities.

Freshman Bridgeport City Councilman Kyle Langan has been a critic of Perezs management of the police department.

I dont want to be the type of person that says a four-year college education is the end-all, be-all, Langan said. But I think when youre managing a massive organization that requires not only managerial skills, but some financial wherewithal, interpersonal wherewithal and policy knowledge in terms of best practices, a college degree is at the least an adequate bar.

Councilwoman Eneida Martinez, a strong supporter of Perez, said it is more important to have a chief who has involved with the community.

I find that is A.J., Martinez said. He has the compassion and is very passionate. Were talking about a chief that responds to shootings, stabbings, is always at the hospital (for victims), responds to families.

Callie Heilmann founded civic group Bridgeport Generation Now, which has been critical of Perez and his department. Her ideal candidate for chief would have both on-the-job experience and a higher education.

There is this desire to say, Hes (Perez) a nice guy. Hes got the experience. So just let him be a good guy and this will be great,  Heilmann said. But it cant just be that hes a good guy and has experience. That just doesnt make sense to me in the 21st century, with how complex the world is.3 1 of 3 Stamford police / Contributed Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Stamford police / Contributed Show More Show Less 3 of 3





STAMFORD  Police are offering a $5000 reward for information about the owner and those involved with the death of a dog.

More News Tortured, drowned dog found in Stamford marina

Officers responded to reports of a deceased dog around the Czescik marina area on Tuesday and found that the animal had its front and hind legs bound by a shoelace, according to a statement from police. The dog was placed by the water and drowned.BRIDGEPORT  Having sunk several million dollars into lobbying to build a casino in Connecticuts largest city, MGM Resorts International on Sunday gave some money to the neighborhood where it wants to break ground.

The neighborhood in question, the East End, is represented by state Sen. Edwin Gomes, whom MGM and its supporters hope will fight to pass a pro-casino bill before the legislative session ends at midnight Wednesday.

During a hastily-convened press conference on Sunday, MGM Senior Vice President Uri Clinton presented East End community leaders, Gomes included, with a $50,000 check to help with the construction costs of a temporary or pop-up grocery store, expected to open in the neighborhood later this year.

This is nothing more than a good faith down payment, Clinton told the small crowd gathered at 1851 Stratford Ave., the site of the pop up establishment.

But the timing and suddenness of Sundays event also made it seem like last-minute lobbying. Late last week, Bridgeport legislators in the state House of Representatives orchestrated the successful passage of a bill promoted by MGM and its allies that would launch a competitive bidding process for a new Connecticut casino.

Now all eyes are on the citys two state Senators, Gomes and Marilyn Moore, to get the proposal passed by their colleagues before the legislative session ends Wednesday.

Gomes and the two state representatives who were present for Sundays check ceremony  Christopher Rosario and Ezequiel Santiago  admitted they had only been invited that morning.

In a brief interview, Clinton said the $50,000 donation was the culmination of discussions that began in October over what MGM could do for the East End. It just took this long to work it out, he said, adding Of course I want him (Gomes) to have every indication well do what we say were gonna do.

Gomes praised Clinton. Hes been a class person, he said. And you know me  I dont believe in blowing smoke. ... He hasnt told a lie yet.

Champions needed

The East End is a so-called food desert because residents have no convenient access to fresh produce. A supermarket was previously announced for part of the Seaview Avenue lot where MGM wants its casino and hotel, and the company has continually reassured the neighborhood that a permanent grocery store remains a priority.

Deborah Caviness, whose Greater Bridgeport Opportunities Industrial Center will provide administrative oversight for the pop-up project, praised MGM as champions of social change ... making an impact in inner city neighborhoods.

Clinton during his comments at the check presentation mentioned the hoped-for Senate vote and that MGM and the East End need some champions this week to fight for the casino bill.

While Bridgeports House members have been generally united in bringing a casino to town, Gomes and Moore have been less reliable. The pair last year instead backed a proposal allowing the Indian tribes that operate the two casinos in the southeastern part of Connecticut  Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods  to partner on an East Windsor venture.

That East Windsor casino, which has stalled over a lack of federal approval, is intended to buffer competition from MGMs soon-to-open Springfield, Mass. casino. The tribes and their allies do not favor MGMs Bridgeport plan.

In a prior interview, Moore, who could not be reached Sunday for comment, worried about the potential negative impacts of a casino on Bridgeport  more problem gamblers and potential traffic congestion  and was unsure Connecticut needs another gaming destination.

Still, this session she and Gomes publicly supported and testified for the casino competition bill that Rosario, Santiago and the rest of Bridgeports House members managed to get voted on and passed, 77 to 73 votes, Friday.

Bridgeports House delegation did so by threatening to bring other pending legislation to a halt.

It was almost blackmail, Gomes joked with Rosario and Santiago Sunday. The (voting) margins between Republicans and Democrats have changed. They (Democratic leaders) need you.

The same can be said of Gomes and Moore, who are also Democrats, in the Senate, where the two parties are tied with 18 members apiece.

Rosario and Santiago said in interviews Sunday that they hoped Gomes and Moore would do all they could to get the casino bill approved in the Senate this week.

I would expect nothing less than a full force effort from both to push this legislation across the finish line, Rosario said.

I know Senator Gomes wants to get this done, Santiago said. Im hoping we see this same fire and passion from Senator Moore.

State Rep. Jack Hennessy, D-Bridgeport, who was not at the East End event, said he spoke with Moore Saturday: She said shes got a lot on her plate, but shes going to work to get it (the casino bill) out.

Its gonna be an uphill battle, Gomes said of convincing enough Senators to back the legislation. And even if it is passed, there is a question of whether Gov. Dannel Malloy would sign it or veto it.

Marilyn will support it, Gomes said, but added Shes not crazy about gambling.The video is disturbing, and if it is all there was to this story, it would have been bad enough.

Recorded by a tourist in a South African safari park last weekend, the footage shows a lion drag a man from a tour truck - his neck in its jaws.

The animal drags the man behind a bush while one onlooker sobs hysterically and another pleads for a rifle. The footage ends as the sound of gunshots and screaming cut across the 120-acre Marakele Predator Center.

Those images, however, do not explain the sad context of the Saturday attack.

The man dragged from the truck was the park's owner, Michael Hodge, who had moved to South Africa with his family because he loved lions so much, local news outlets reported. The 72-year-old had bottle-raised the lion who attacked him and cared for it all his life, a full decade.

Hodge now lies in a hospital bed, traumatized, and may never know why Shamba turned on him. The lion Hodge loved was shot dead to save his life.

South Africa has in recent years become somewhat notorious for its lion hunts, in which rich tourists can pay thousands of dollars to kill drugged animals that have no chance to flee.

The Marakele Predator Center was nothing like that. No hunting was allowed, News 24 reported. Instead, visitors could camp a few miles from the town of Thabazimbi, in scrubland backdropped by South Africa's northern mountain ranges, among lions, Bengal tigers, meerkats, mongooses and marmoset monkeys.

"Your bed will truly vibrate with the lions roar!" the center's website informed prospective volunteers.

Hodge had once been a trader in England, and his wife a hairdresser and shop owner, the Manila Bulletin wrote in a travel article. The couple and their two children moved to South Africa in late 1990s, the Bulletin wrote, to make a business of Hodge's dream of living among lions.

"His first lion, Nina, who now lives opposite the tigress sisters, was queen of his household until she grew too big," the Bulletin wrote. "Nina slept in Mike's bed, washing his face and giving him a spit-bath at 3 a.m."

He bottle-fed a baby Shamba in 2008, CBS News reported, two years before the Marakele center opened for business.

In a photo for the center, he and his wife, Chrissy, pose grinning - she snuggling a cub, Michael with a monkey wrapped around his neck.

When the Bulletin's travel reporter visited in 2013, she wrote, "I could see nothing but endless tall grass and dry scrub."

She heard Shamba and the other golden lions roar in the distance, and kissed a half-ton tiger through a gap in the electrified fence.

Visitors traveled inside the gates in what the Hodges called the "Lion Mobile," she wrote. "They tied dead chickens to a cage on wheels, where they locked in visitors, before driving inside the enclosure Nina shares with their two hand-raised males, Freddie and Shamba."

The tourists then gaped as lions climbed all over the truck, wild animals feeding just inches from their cameras.

It was at the end of a similar excursion inside the gates on Saturday, News 24 reported, that something went terribly wrong.

When the tourist began recording, Shamba was standing in the grass a few yards from the Lion Mobile. A man on the other side of a fence, outside the gates, appeared to be calling to the lion and throwing bait into the grass to lead him away from the truck.

A park employee told CBS News this was standard procedure: An employee would lure the lions away from the vehicle, and Hodge would then open the gate and drive the tourists out of the enclosure.

"Mike does this regularly," a family spokeswoman told News 24. "Shamba mysteriously turned around on Saturday."

In the video, the lion is seen sniffing at the grass, as if considering something, then continuing to walk away from the truck.

A friend of Hodge's told the Sun a strange smell seemed to be upsetting the lions that day.

"Shamba, come on," the man outside the fence called, before throwing another piece of bait onto the grass.

"Come on," he said, and the shutter of a camera clicked.

When Shamba walked many yards into the distance, Hodge got out of the truck and walked into the video frame.

He, too, considered an object in the grass, kicked it, then turned back toward the truck.

Then he started to run.

It took Shamba just three seconds to close the distance between them. Hodge nearly made it back inside the vehicle's cab, but the lion pulled him to the ground, clamped his jaws down near Hodge's neck and dragged him back into the enclosure, as if he weighed nothing.

Inside the cage on the back of the truck, people screamed and yelled.

"Help! Help! Help!"

"Shamba! Shamba! Shamba!"

"Get a gun."

The lion briefly dropped his prey in the grass and backed off a few feet as Hodge writhed there. Then Shamba grabbed him again and pulled Hodge behind a bush, out of the camera frame.

"Shoot!" a man shouted, followed by a gunshot, and soon a second and third, and more.

Nothing stirred behind the bush. A woman who had been pleading for someone to help Hodge began to sob.

"Get a rifle," a man said. "Somebody get a rifle, just in case."

The video went on for another minute or so, until a male lion - it is unclear whether it was Shamba or another animal - wandered into the frame and looked at the cage full of terrified people and then at the men who still called to Shamba from outside the fence.

The lion stood passively in the grass, as if unsure what to do.

"Please, somebody help him," a woman said.

"Is anybody getting a rifle?" a man said.

While the video does not show it, News 24 reported that one of the employees outside the fence shot and killed the lion to save Hodge's life.

His jaw had been broken and his neck gashed in several places, but Hodge was recovering in a hospital Wednesday and apparently doing well. In a photo published by the Sun, he is grinning, and bloody bandages cover his neck.

Despite the pose, his family told News 24, Hodge remained traumatized by the sudden aggression and subsequent death of the lion he had once fed from a bottle.

"I think he is trying to put up a brave face," family spokeswoman Bernadette Maguire told the media outlet, "but he is really battling to come to terms."

---

https://youtu.be/whz9bafVvFEDjibouti has expressed its full support for Moroccos territorial integrity, while Rumania said it is against any interference likely to harm the North African countrys stability, in reaction to Rabats decision to cut diplomatic ties with Iran over its support for an alliance between Hezbollah and the Polisario separatists.

I reaffirm in this context the support of the Republic of Djibouti for all measures taken by your brotherly country to safeguard its security and stability against any attempt aiming at undermining its territorial integrity and the security of its citizens, Spokesperson of Djiboutis government, Mahmoud Ali Youssouf said in a letter to Moroccos Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita.

The Djiboutian official stressed on the need to respect the principles governing relations between countries, on top of which respect for national sovereignty and non-interference in domestic affairs of other states.

In this connection, Romanian Foreign Minister, Teodor Melescanu, said Romania is against whatsoever interference that could harm Moroccos stability.

We are against any interference by States, organizations, political entities or other groups, that may affect and harm Moroccos stability, said Melescanu during a press briefing following talks with Nasser Bourita in Rabat on Friday.

The stability of Morocco is crucial in all the matters relating to security in the region and around the world, stressed the Romanian official, adding that Rabat can count on Bucharests support bilaterally, as well as in international fora.

Djibouti and Romania have thus joined a range of countries that expressed support for Morocco in its standoff with Iran and Algeria. These countries include member countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

Morocco last week severed ties with Iran due to its involvement in facilitating an alliance between its proxy Hezbollah and the Polisario separatists. With logistical help of Irans embassy in Algiers and Algerias consent, Hezbollah military officials trained Polisario militias on urban warfare against Morocco and supplied them with surface to air missiles.

Actually, explaining the reasons for severing ties with Iran, Nasser Bourita told reporters that Hezbollah sent [surface-to-air] SAM-9, SAM-11 and Strela missiles to the Polisario with the connivance of Irans embassy in Algiers. The charges leveled by Morocco are clearly serious.AG takes up simple assault case against Somerset DA's wife

It is the second case this month that Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro's office has taken up in relation to the couple.The book, Reimagining Pakistan, by Hussain Haqqani, makes for an interesting read about the circumstances, twists and turns that have led to Pakistan being widely described as the epicentre of global terrorism. It is an important read for those in India who simplistically believe that Pakistan and Pakistanis are no different from us, as we share a common history and heritage.

Haqqani dwells at length on the contradictions and confusion surrounding the birth of Pakistan led by Jinnah. Photo: Reuters

Haqqanis own career and life symbolise the travails of ambitious young Pakistanis, afflicted with disillusionment. Haqqani had just started his career in 1983, as a journalist of the Far Eastern Economic Review, when I met him in Islamabad. He was then an ardent supporter of military dictator General Zia-ul-Haq and his policies of promoting Wahhabi-oriented radical Islam.

He, thereafter, served rivals Nawaz Sharif and Asif Ali Zardari, as Pakistans envoy to Colombo and Washington. Targeted by Pakistans military, he now acknowledges the flaws in Pakistans body politic and the pernicious role of Pakistans all-powerful army. The book dwells on the fallacies and flaws behind the very creation of Pakistan, whose founding father, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, was an ostensibly liberal, cigar-smoking, whisky-drinking, pork-eating, British-educated lawyer.

Jinnah combined his liberalism with an insatiable appetite for territory well within India, like Hyderabad, Junagadh and even Jodhpur. There was no dearth of people then who considered themselves the true heirs of Muslim rulers who had ruled across India for centuries. There is no dearth of elitist Pakistanis even today who continue to believe that as they are fair-skinned, their forefathers were not from the subcontinent but from across the Muslim world.

It was primarily this sense of racial bigotry that led to their contempt and disregard for their darker-skinned Bengali-speaking brethren in the East and the eventual emergence of Bangladesh after a bloody armed struggle.

Haqqani dwells at length on the contradictions and confusion surrounding the birth of Pakistan led by Jinnah who, despite his professions of being modern-minded, gave Muslim clerics a free hand in political mobilisation.

Discontent in East Pakistan commenced with Jinnahs authoritarian rejection of a legitimate role for the Bengali language. Not only were Pakistans first rulers not sons of the soil, they were insistent on enforcing the use of Urdu, which was not the mother tongue of any of Pakistans people, apart from those who migrated from India. This was merely because Urdu was popular in the court of alien Muslim rulers.

Haqqani acknowledges the flaws in Pakistans body politic and the pernicious role of Pakistans all-powerful army. Photo: Reuters

While the ostensibly modern-minded Jinnah co-opted religious extremists, Islamic fundamentalism spread rapidly during the decade long rule of General Zia. Haqqani provides a detailed description of the pernicious role of the army and its preferred jihadi groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiba, following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Haqqani also describes how Pakistans army undermined the authority of successive civilian governments and led the country to disaster, by being drawn into Americas war on terror post-9/11.

There are also details of the army arranging the disappearances of inconvenient journalists and other civilians, who were seen as being inimical. Unlike his predecessors, President Donald Trump has bluntly exposed Pakistan armys activities in fomenting terrorism across India and its support for the Taliban in Afghanistan, while swearing loyalty to the American war on terror. Pakistan armys policy of hunting with the American hound while running with the Taliban hare lies internationally exposed.

The final chapters of the book are unquestionably the most interesting and relevant ones for contemporary reading. The chapter on Pakistans economic follies spells out how weak civilian governments, vying for popularity and military governments without political support seeking legitimacy, have led the country to economic disaster, making it a perpetual economic basket case.

Haqqani also alludes to the views of eminent economists like IMF president Christine Lagarde, on the reasons for Pakistans dismal economic performance. The last chapter makes sombre reading of the follies that have led Pakistan to religious extremism and near bankruptcy.

Haqqani advises, Instead of a narrow definition of patriotism that excludes all serious deliberation about alternative paths for the country, Pakistans military could begin reflecting on why alternative paths may actually lead to a better future. There is, however, no sign that such rethinking is underway.

This is a reality check for all Indians to ponder over, while looking at options available to deal with a dysfunctional and difficult neighbour. There are sadly no easy options on this score!

(Courtesy of Mail Today)

Also read: Judicial backlog: How India can end the long wait for justicePrime Minister Narendra Modi is taking BJP's Karnataka election campaign to Nepal. This isn't a new thing for him. Since 2014, he has turned every idea, platform and even his visits abroad into election campaigns.

His speech at the United Nations was an election campaign, his interactions with the NRIs abroad too is an election campaign and when he inaugurates a temple in Abu Dhabi he is eyeing on elections back home. So not surprisingly, on May 11 when he visits Nepal, he is taking his party's Karnataka election campaign along. It might be a slip but Nepali home minister Ram Bahadur Thapa has rightly described the visit as "religious and cultural and not political".

On the eve of Karnataka election, Modi will fly to Janakpur, a place said to be the birthplace of legendary goddess Sita, to offer prayers right at the beginning of his trip. People in Karnataka will cast their ballot on May 12. He is also scheduled to address a public gathering during a civil facilitation in the presence of Nepal Prime Minister KP Oli. Reports suggest that Oli is personally looking after the preparations.

Home minister Thapa has already visited Janakpur to take stock of the security measure. After Janakpur, Modi will visit other religious places, including the Muktinath Temple and the Pashupatinath Temple. The rumours in Kathmandu are rife that BJP general secretary Ram Madhav visited the capital secretly to make these arrangements.

Just imagine the way the BJP is going to use the visit to influence Karnataka voters. On May 12, the day of election, newspapers across India will carry on their front pages the news with the headlines such as: Modi accorded grand welcome in Nepal, People chant Modi Modi in Nepal, Modi offers prayers in Janaki Mandir, Modi visits Muktinath, offers prayers etc etc.

In 2014 too Modi had attempted to visit Janakpur but failed because the communists were in Opposition then. They threatened to disturb the programme and forced then Prime Minister Sushil Koirala to alter Modi's itinerary. This time neither is Koirala the PM - he passed away in 2016, nor are the communists in Opposition.

'Hindu' spring in Nepal

In today's communist-ruled Nepal, enlightenment is a commodity up for sale, negotiation and trade. Since the communists are in power, they don't need the idea of enlightenment, democracy and secularism to mobilise masses, as they did a few years ago. They now look more like the nineteenth century pharmacists, who offered opium for all sort illnesses. For Nepali communists, their opium is religion, coated as nationalism, and exported, as everything else, from India.

After years of struggle, peaceful as well as violent, and sacrifices of countless people, Nepal finally became a secular democracy in 2008. Now, the communists are pulling it back to its "original" Hindu fold. While the Nepali Congress is embroiled in an internal struggle, the former rebels are working overtime to transform Nepal into a "Hindu republic".

Not so long ago these comrades swore by Marx, Lenin and Mao as well as science, today they look eager to prove that they have much in common with the BJP and its parent the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

In January, the comrades celebrated the National Unity day to commemorate the first Gurkha king of Nepal, Prithvi Narayan Shah. President Bidhya Devi Bhandari, Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and other ministers and leaders laid wreath on the statue of the "unifier" king, who for majority of the people was a cruel conqueror.

Prior to this, the communists allowed the cow to be named as the country's national animal and also remained quiet when the Gurkha flag was retained as the national flag. There wasn't a single word of protest when daura sulwar and dhaka cap, the traditional dress, was proposed as the official dress of Nepal. And now, by according Modi a welcome of a religious conqueror, the KP Oli-led Nepali government is set to give a strong push to its agenda.

Cow terror in communist Nepal

For poor Nepalese of tribal region, the rule of current communist government is a reign of terror. There is news of people being arrested for cow slaughtering almost every day. The number of such cases is more than what is witnessed in India which is now ruled by the sect of people who believe in Hindi, Hindu and Hindustan. In secular Nepal, cow slaughtering is punishable crime of up to 12 years and the act is implemented very rigorously. During Monarchy too cow slaughtering was a crime nevertheless the rulers were cautious enough to not disturb the social fabric of the Nepalese society by enforcing the blanket ban on it. But, the current government is taking extra measure to destroy every traditional custom which is not in agreement with the values of the ruling elite.

Oli's anti-Europeanism

During the Maoist movement in Nepal, the European Union had ever advocated the negotiated solution for Nepal's conflict. Unlike other countries, the EU had a clear stand on secularism and democracy. While the Maoists favored EU's involvement in the conflict the anti Maoist forces, including the country's Army and the neighbor India, opposed its involvement in Nepal's 'internal matter'. Today in the name of 'national sovereignty' the government is targeting it. While it is ever comfortable with interference from the north and south, the EU slamming looks more like an indirect yet targeted attack on the principle of inclusion and secular democracy that the EU claims to represent.

Hope for secularism

It sounds ironic but for many in Nepal, hope for its secular future lies in delaying in the unification of the two communist parties, the UML led by KP Oli and Prachanda's Maoist Centre. There are leaders in the Maoist Centre who were involved in the violent struggle against monarchy and these leaders are strictly secular and democratic in their approach.

Tacitly, they agree to the danger of "Oli nationalism". Today they are silent due to the uncertainty surrounding their future in the united party. But once the talk of unification is put aside, they can be powerful allies in the country's fight against "Hindu" revivalism.

Also read: Why an 'angry Hanuman' is making Modi happy ahead of Karnataka electionsAligarh Muslim University (AMU) is going through tumultuous times. The students are agitating peacefully in search for justice. They are up against powers that are hell-bent on denying the same.

The whole episode of unrest started when a mob carrying pistols and knives in their hands, raising objectionable slogans and escorted by the persons in police uniform tried to enter the university to attack Hamid Ansari, former vice-president of India, who was on the campus for a function organised by the AMU Students' Union (AMUSU).

The university students jumped to Ansari's rescue and caught hold of a few troublemakers and handed them over to the police for further action. When the students came to know that the rabble-rousers have been released by the police without any action, they proceeded peacefully towards the police station to register their complaint against the miscreants.

Meanwhile, the police started a lathi-charge and fired tear gas shells at the students. The protesting students were beaten up badly. Many of the students were rushed to the university's medical college for treatment.

As news of the incident reached the public, the miscreants made fictitious claims and alleged that they barged into the campus to remove Mohammed Ali Jinnah's portrait which is hanging in AMUSU's hall since 1938 when Jinnah was conferred with lifelong membership of the union.

The hoodlums got emboldened after they received patronage from Satish Gautam, Lok Sabha MP from Aligarh, who is also a member of AMU court.

AMU has been an easy target for the right wing forces since long. Earlier too many right wingers led by the same Satish Gautam tried to disrupt AMU's peaceful atmosphere when he gratuitously introduced a controversy over the celebration of Mahendra Pratap Singh's birth anniversary on the campus in 2014.

Going back in history, it is pertinent to that AMU and Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) are among the rarest institutions in the world whose students have played a major role in the country's independence struggle. Mahatma Gandhi himself went to Aligarh in 1920 to invite AMU (then MAO College) students to seek their active participation in the freedom movement. The students didn't disappoint Gandhi and played a vital role in the liberation movement. Hasrat Mohani, spread the message of the movement far and wide through his writings. Mohani tabled the resolution for complete independence in the 1920All India Congress Committee session held in Ahmedabad.

Raja Mahendra Pratap, another celebrated alumnus not only visited many countries to launch relentless struggle to oust the British from India but also floated the idea of setting up a government-in-exile in Afghanistan in 1915. Pratap was nominated as the first president of this government-in-exile, while Maulvi Barkatullah was appointed the prime minister. Another alumnus captain Abbas Ali joined Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose's Indian National Army in Malaysia in 1941 and devoted his life to the freedom struggle.

Shoeb Qureshi also played an important role in the freedom struggle and was actively involved in the Khilafat Movement for a long period.

He also edited Harijan when Gandhi was incarcerated. There is a long list of AMU alumni who played a crucial role in the freedom struggle. The list includes the likes of Chaudhry Khaliquzzaman, AM Khwaja, Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Abdul Matin Chowdhury, and many many more.

Since the university's inception, AMU students have been taught to fight the evil forces and stand for truth and social justice across the world. In 1911, when Italy attacked Libyan city Tripoli, there was deep resentment in Aligarh. The students of MAO College donated funds for Tripoli.

Despite many challenges coming their way, the students are trying hard using every democratic means at their disposal to get those who tried to attack Ansari booked.

However, the way the state machinery has handled the situation has led to both anger and fear in the hearts of the students. Under the guise of attempts to establish peace, a concerted effort is seemingly being made to muzzle the voices crying for justice.

Freedom of speech is about resisting tyranny and oppression. The students are not only determined to stand up in peaceful resistance to this despotism, but also defy the underhand methods being used by those in power.

In joining the resistance of AMU students and crusade against injustice, I would cite a poem by a Tibetan poet, Bhuchung D Sonam:

I have principle and no power

You have power and no principle

You being you

And I being I

Compromise is out of the question

So let the battle begin

I have truth and no force

You have force and no truth

You being you

And I being I

Compromise is out of the question

So let the battle begin

You may club my skull

I will fight

You may crush my bones

I will fight

You may bury me alive

I will fight

With truth running through me

I will fight

With every ounce of my strength

I will fight

With my last dying breath

I will fight

I will fight till the

Castle that you built with your lies

Comes tumbling down

Till the devil you worshipped with your lies

Kneels down before my angel of truth

Also read: Why an 'angry Hanuman' is making Modi happy ahead of Karnataka electionsI am not a sheep, I have my own mind

I have had enough of being told what and how to think

Whilst we are still allowed the remnants of free speech,

I will speak out.



I also reserve the right to discuss less controversial matters should I feel the urge.RATIONAL Aktiengesellschaft develops, produces, and sells professional cooking appliances for industrial kitchens worldwide. It offers SelfCookingCenter and CombiMaster Plus combi-steamers, as well as care products for combi-steamers; VarioCooking Center, a multifunctional cooking appliance that cooks in liquids or direct contact with heat; and ConnectedCooking connectivity solution, an online portal for the professional kitchen. The company also provides accessories, service parts, and services for its products. It serves restaurants and hotels; catering operations, such as company canteens, hospitals, schools, universities, military facilities, prisons, and retirement homes; and quick service restaurants, caterers, supermarkets, bakeries, snack outlets, butchers' shops, and service stations. The company sells its products through independent distribution partners. RATIONAL Aktiengesellschaft was founded in 1973 and is headquartered in Landsberg am Lech, Germany.

Read MoreNot the worlds most Democratic democracy. Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

On Saturday, Connecticuts General Assembly approved a bill that would make the state the 11th to adopt the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, and the first since the 2016 election. Once enough other states have signed on, the bill would bind a states Electoral College votes  seven, in Connecticuts case  to the candidate who wins the most raw votes in a presidential election. Governor Dannel Malloy is expected to sign it into law.

Its another small step on the way to what advocates hope will turn into major election reform.

The Electoral College is one of the very worst features of American democracy, a vestigial mechanism that effectively reduces presidential contests to a few swing states. Like so much of our political system, it bestows disproportionate power to rural America. And, also like so much of our political system, it has taken on a deeply partisan cast. Democrats, increasingly clustered together in cities, have particular reason to loathe the Electoral College of late: it has helped crown two popular-vote losers, George W. Bush and Donald Trump, in the 21st century. Republicans, losers of six of the last seven popular votes, are more than happy to keep things as they are.

For years, Democratic efforts to reform this manifestly undemocratic set of rules amounted to little more than grumbles. Killing the Electoral College by conventional means would involve passing a nationwide constitutional amendment or convening a Constitutional convention, both close to impossible tasks. So clever reformists came up with an alternate route: passing state laws that would take effect only when it is guaranteed that enough other states have signed on to swing the outcome. The magic number is 270 electoral votes, out of the 538 available.

In 2007, Maryland became the first state to join the compact. The other states that have signed on over the last 11 years are all reliably blue: California, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington state. Washington, D.C., is also onboard.

Together, these states account for 172 electoral votes, just 98 short of hitting their goal. But most of the remaining states in the union are either deep-red, and thus unlikely to favor a solution that stands to benefit Democrats, or swing states, and thus unlikely to favor a solution that would divert the campaign spotlight from their neck of the woods every four years.

This is where the 2018 elections come in. If Democrats can make progress in winning back some of the governorships and state legislatures theyve forfeited over the years, theyll be in much better shape to push through the popular-vote legislation in a few more states, making what once seemed like a pipe dream tantalizingly close to reality. (One caveat: Even if cooperating states do hit their target, its unclear whether the federal government would need to give them its blessing.)

Opponents of the provision argue that nullifying the Electoral College wouldnt solve the problem of candidates focusing too much on one area of the country.

If you switch to national popular vote and Im a candidate for president and Im a Democrat, Im going to plant my team in California, the upper Midwest, New York City and Philadelphia, Connecticut State Senator Michael McLachlan said, in a representative argument.

But its unlikely that the new arrangement would be more unfair than the one we have now. As Voxs Andrew Prokop argued in 2016, a national popular vote system wouldnt devalue the votes of people who live in rural states and small towns. It would accurately value them by treating them equal to people who live in cities, rather than giving them an extra weighting.

In terms of pure fairness, this is certainly a change worth fighting for. Its going to be a heavy lift, but after 230 years, we may just be witnessing the last gasps of a dying, unfair tradition.Gina Haspel. Photo: The OSS Society via YouTube

President Trumps nominee to lead the CIA, Deputy Director Gina Haspel, almost withdrew herself from consideration for the job over concerns that she would face a difficult confirmation process thanks to her role in the George W. Bush administrations torture regime. The Washington Post reports Haspel told the White House she wanted to step aside if her Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday was going to damage her or the CIAs reputation, triggering a panicked effort by White House officials to get her to change her mind.

In 2002, al-Qaeda suspect Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri was subjected to torture by waterboarding at a CIA black site Haspel oversaw in Indonesia. She also had a hand in issuing an order to shred 92 videotapes of CIA interrogations, destroying evidence of war crimes committed by the U.S. government, though a special prosecutor who looked into the matter ultimately filed no charges against anyone involved.

Senior Trump administration officials, concerned that Haspels nomination would be blocked, suddenly summoned her to the White House to question her about her participation in the CIAs torture program. She then indicated that she wanted to withdraw, fearing unfair attacks on her reputation, and wanting to avoid doing any damage to the CIA. She also reportedly said that she didnt want to be the next Ronny Jackson, referring to Trumps recent pick to lead the VA who withdrew amid allegations of professional misconduct.

Concerned Haspel would follow through with her decision to step aside, senior Trump aides  including Legislative Affairs Director Marc Short and Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders  later rushed to meet with Haspel again at CIA headquarters on Friday to convince her to stick around. President Trump, who has repeatedly praised torture methods and falsely stated that it is an effective method of interrogation, also apparently pushed for Haspel to stay.

The subsequent deliberations apparently carried on for several hours on Friday afternoon, and on Saturday, Haspel decided she would not, in fact, withdraw. Her nomination thus appears to be back on track, though its not yet clear if she will be confirmed by the Senate, and will undoubtedly face tough questions about torture at the hearing on Wednesday. In anticipation of that scrutiny, Sarah Huckabee Sanders was out defending Haspel over the weekend and trying to reframe her nomination along feminist  rather than moral  grounds:The following companies are subsidiares of Valero Energy: AIR BP-PBF DEL PERU SAC, BELFAST STORAGE LTD, CANADIAN ULTRAMAR COMPANY, COLONNADE TEXAS INSURANCE COMPANY LLC, COLONNADE VERMONT INSURANCE COMPANY, DIAMOND ALTERNATIVE ENERGY LLC, DIAMOND ALTERNATIVE ENERGY OF CANADA INC., DIAMOND GREEN DIESEL HOLDINGS LLC, DIAMOND GREEN DIESEL LLC, DIAMOND K RANCH LLC, DIAMOND OMEGA COMPANY L.L.C., DIAMOND SHAMROCK REFINING COMPANY L.P., DIAMOND UNIT INVESTMENTS L.L.C., DSRM NATIONAL BANK, ENTERPRISE CLAIMS MANAGEMENT INC., GCP LOGISTICS COMPANY LLC, GOLDEN EAGLE ASSURANCE LIMITED, HAMMOND MAINLINE PIPELINE LLC, HUNTWAY REFINING COMPANY, MAINLINE PIPELINES LIMITED, MAPLE ETHANOL LTD., MICHIGAN REDEVELOPMENT GP LLC, MICHIGAN REDEVELOPMENT L.P., MRP PROPERTIES COMPANY LLC, NECHES RIVER HOLDING CORP., NORCO METHANOL LLC, OCEANIC TANKERS AGENCY LIMITED, PARKWAY PIPELINE LLC, PENTA TANKS TERMINALS S.A., PI DOCK FACILITIES LLC, PICKARD PLACE CONDOMINIUM ASSOCIATION, PORT ARTHUR COKER COMPANY L.P., PREMCOR USA INC., PROPERTY RESTORATION L.P., PURE BIOFUELS DEL PERU S.A.C., PURE BIOFUELS HOLDINGS L.P., Parkway Pipeline, Premcor, Pure Biofuels Del Peru, SABINE RIVER HOLDING CORP., SABINE RIVER LLC, SAINT BERNARD PROPERTIES COMPANY LLC, SUNBELT REFINING COMPANY L.P., THE PREMCOR PIPELINE CO., THE PREMCOR REFINING GROUP INC., THE SHAMROCK PIPE LINE CORPORATION, TRANSPORT MARITIME ST. 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Photo: Jeff Swensen/Getty Images

The Mueller investigation has reportedly reached Tom Barrack, one of President Trumps only close friends and confidants. The Associated Press reports that Barrack has been interviewed as part of Special Counsel Robert Muellers investigation into Russias meddling into the 2016 presidential election. Its not clear what investigators asked Barrack about, but he and Trump have been friends for decades, giving him rare access and insight into Trump, the AP explains. Barrack, a California real-estate investor, was also a top fundraiser for Trumps campaign, the founder of a pro-Trump super-PAC, and he chaired the presidents inaugural committee.

One source told the AP and CNN that Barrack was mainly asked about Rick Gates and Paul Manafort, who have both been indicted by Mueller. Manafort, Trumps former campaign chairman, has pleaded not guilty to charges of money laundering and other crimes, while Gates has pleaded guilty to charges of financial fraud and lying to federal investigators, and is now cooperating with Mueller. Barrack was the person who introduced Trump to Manafort, and Gates worked under Barrack on the inaugural committee. The one-time interview happened months ago, but has only come to light now. Barrack was also apparently told he was not a target of the investigation.

Another source said the interview was broader, and got into financial matters regarding the campaign and transition. Muellers team has been looking into the Trump campaigns finances and election-law compliance for months.

Barrack is also famous for incorrectly predicting that America would see Donald Trump become a kinder, softer, more compassionate, more conciliatory, professional executive once he became president, and may be the only person who has ever referred to Trump as judicious. American Consumer News, LLC dba MarketBeat 2010-2021. All rights reserved.

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A year ago, a private Israeli intelligence agency was hired to run dirty ops against two former Obama administration officials in an attempt to discredit the Iran nuclear deal, according to a wild report in The Observer. It appears the agency was Black Cube, the same firm that disgraced movie producer Harvey Weinstein hired to go after women who accused him of sexual assault.

Even more stunning: The Observer reported that the firm was hired by unknown persons associated with the Trump administration, which would mean people close to the current president were attempting to get dirt on former White House aides in an effort to sabotage an international agreement. The targets of the campaign find that plausible, but in a report published on Sunday night, The New Yorkers Ronan Farrow said one of his sources told him the campaign was actually part of Black Cubes work for a private sector client pursuing commercial interests related to sanctions on Iran.

On Saturday, The Observer reported that just after President Trumps trip to Israel last May, Trump aides hired the agency to dig up dirt on Ben Rhodes and Colin Kahl, two top advisers to President Obama who helped craft the landmark 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.

Kahl noted on Twitter that after reading The Observer story, his wife recalled receiving a suspicious email from a stranger looking to meet with her to discuss contributing money to their daughters school. Said Kahl about his wifes encounter: This was not a generic Nigerian prince scam. This person had all sorts of specific information on my wifes volunteer duties at an obscure D.C. elementary school. Reporter Laura Rozen later confirmed on Twitter that the emailer claimed they worked for Reuben Capital Partners, the same fake firm name that the Weinstein-hired intel agency, Black Cube, used in its attempts to target actress Rose McGowan and others:

Fake firm that approached @ColinKahl wife (left). same fake firm per @RonanFarrow that went after weinstein accusers https://t.co/timfwGadmK pic.twitter.com/jmR4DQ9x5X  Laura Rozen (@lrozen) May 6, 2018

Black Cube is a private intel company staffed by former agents of the Israeli spy agency Mossad. In a Pulitzer Prizewinning report about Weinstein, which was published in October, Farrow revealed that Black Cube investigators, using false identities, met with McGowan and a journalist in attempts to extract information that could be used to stop the publication of allegations of abuse against Weinstein.

On Sunday night, Farrow said the tactics used in the Iran and Weinstein operations were remarkably similar. Emails McGowan and Farrow received from someone claiming to be Diana Filip contained almost identical language to messages Norris and Kahl received from Adriana Gavrilo and Eva Novak. When Farrow dug into their backstories, their online identities started disappearing:

Adriana Gavrilo and Eva Novak appear to be aliases. LinkedIn pages for both Gavrilo and Novak at one point showed a slim blond woman advertised as fluent in Serbian. Shortly after The New Yorker contacted Black Cube about this story, Novaks LinkedIn page was deleted. The e-mail addresses listed by both women do not work. Calls to the phone number Novak listed went unanswered. The Web sites for Reuben Capital Partners and Shell Productions have been taken down, but both were bare-bones pages constructed through the free site-building tool Wix. The addresses for both companies led to shared office spaces; there is no evidence that Shell Productions or Reuben Capital Partners had ever operated there.

Farrow also shed more light on the campaign against Rhodes and Kahl:

Black Cube agents were instructed to try to find damaging information about them, including unsubstantiated claims that Rhodes and Kahl had worked closely with Iran lobbyists and were personally enriched through their policy work on Iran (they denied those claims); rumors that Rhodes was one of the Obama staffers responsible for unmasking Trump transition officials who were named in intelligence documents (Rhodes denied the claim); and an allegation that one of the individuals targeted by the campaign had an affair.

Black Cube has also been linked to Cambridge Analytica, the now-shuttered, super-shady data firm founded by the Trump megadonors Robert Mercer and Rebekah Mercer, which worked for the Trump Campaign in 2016.

On Sunday, the company denied having done the work described by The Observer, with a spokesperson telling Haaretz that Black Cube had nothing to do with this, and that any claims to the contrary were false. (The company has never denied working for Weinstein.)

Trump seems certain to walk out of the nuclear deal with Iran later this week, after his previous attempts to do so were stymied by more rational advisers who have since departed his administration. He, or his anti-Iran-deal allies, may have been looking for more ammunition to justify doing so, per The Observers report:

A source with details of the dirty tricks campaign said: The idea was that people acting for Trump would discredit those who were pivotal in selling the deal, making it easier to pull out of it.

According to incendiary documents seen by the Observer, investigators contracted by the private intelligence agency were told to dig into the personal lives and political careers of Rhodes, a former deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, and Kahl, a national security adviser to the former vice-president Joe Biden. Among other things they were looking at personal relationships, any involvement with Iran-friendly lobbyists, and if they had benefited personally or politically from the peace deal.

Investigators were also apparently told to contact prominent Iranian Americans as well as pro-deal journalists  from the New York Times, MSNBC television, the Atlantic, Vox website and Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper among others  who had frequent contact with Rhodes and Kahl in an attempt to establish whether they had violated any protocols by sharing sensitive intelligence.

The campaign reportedly began days after Trump visited Tel Aviv and discussed the deal with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last May. The Guardian acknowledges, however, that although sources have confirmed that contact and an initial plan of attack [on the Obama administration officials] was provided to private investigators by representatives of Trump, it is not clear how much work was actually undertaken, for how long or what became of any material unearthed.

There is also a lot of frustrating vagueness in the report over who worked to set up the campaign. Calling them aides to Donald Trump, people in the Trump camp, or representatives of Trump is a pretty broad way to refer to members or associates of a current U.S. presidential administration who may have paid a private intelligence agency in a foreign country to go after members of a previous administration.

That doesnt mean that the claim is not plausible, however, considering the ever-growing number of people in Trumps orbit who have been indicted or found to have behaved unethically. Kahl noted that around the same time Black Cube was allegedly targeting him, White House officials were attacking him and Rhodes in the conservative press:

Interestingly, around the same time the Israeli firm was hired, senior White House aides began complaining to Fox News about a Ben Rhodes-Colin Kahl Nexus that was supposedly organizing opposition to the administration. https://t.co/qqEriWAVYw 5/10  Colin Kahl (@ColinKahl) May 7, 2018

About a month after the Israeli firm was allegedly hired, anonymous White House officials reached out to the Washington Free Beacon, a right-wing tabloid, to smear Ben & me with baseless & false accusations. Notice the Israel angle to this piece. https://t.co/xVtpmMXnAi 6/10  Colin Kahl (@ColinKahl) May 7, 2018

As the summer wore on, senior White House aides pushed a narrative that Ben and I were solely responsible for turmoil across the Middle East. https://t.co/XZPZxpL5kG 7/10 pic.twitter.com/BEkrCxinJ5  Colin Kahl (@ColinKahl) May 7, 2018

In an earlier Twitter thread, Kahl said, at the very least, its disturbing that the Trump connection doesnt sound utterly ridiculous:

Perhaps it was just a coincidence that this obvious scam targeting my family had all the hallmarks of an intel op and coincided with Team Trumps reported efforts to dig up dirt on me. But the fact that I even have to think about the possibility that my family was targeted by people working for the President is yet another sign of the fundamental degradation of our country that Trump has produced.

Added Rhodes in a comment to The Observer: digging up dirt on someone for carrying out their professional responsibilities in their positions as White House officials is a chillingly authoritarian thing to do. Its not clear if the operation targeted any other Obama administration officials who worked on the Iran deal.

This post has been updated to include Black Cubes denial, and Farrows reporting.The Bank of New York Mellon pays an annual dividend of $1.36 per share and currently has a dividend yield of 2.50%. The Bank of New York Mellon does not yet have a strong track record of dividend growth. The dividend payout ratio of The Bank of New York Mellon is 33.92%. This payout ratio is at a healthy, sustainable level, below 75%. Based on earnings estimates, The Bank of New York Mellon will have a dividend payout ratio of 29.44% next year. This indicates that The Bank of New York Mellon will be able to sustain or increase its dividend.

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Bhd., Branstone (International) Limited, Branstone Company Limited, Brazil Crude Services, Brazil Shipping I Limited, Brazil Shipping II Limited, Brazos Wind Ventures, Brindisi LNG S.p.A., British Pipeline Agency Limited, Brunei Energy Services Company Ltd., Brunei LNG Sendirian Berhad, Brunei Shell Marketing Company Sendirian Berhad, Brunei Shell Petroleum Company Sendirian Berhad, Brunei Shell Tankers Sendirian Berhad, Bully 1 (Switzerland) GmbH, Bully 2 (Switzerland) GmbH, Burullus Gas Company S.A.E., C.I. Shell Comercializadora Colombia, CNOOC and Shell Petrochemicals Company Limited, CPC Shell Lubricants Co. Ltd, CRI Catalyst Company Belgium N.V., CRI Catalyst Company Europe Limited, CRI Catalyst Company LP, CRI Catalyst Leuna GmbH, CRI Deutschland GmbH, CRI Sales and Services Inc., CRI U.S. LP, CRI Zeolites Inc., CRI/Criterion, CRI/Criterion Catalyst Company Limited, CRI/Criterion Marketing Asia Pacific Pte Ltd, Caesar Oil Pipeline Company, Cansolv Technologies (Beijing) Company Limited, Cansolv Technologies Inc., Carissa Einzelhandel- und Tankstellenservice GmbH & Co. KG, Carissa Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH, Caspi Meruerty Operating Company B.V., Cekisan Depolama Hizmetleri Ltd. Sti., Central African Petroleum Refineries (Private) Limited, China, Chongqing Doyen Shell Petroleum and Chemical Co. Ltd., Chosun Shell B.V., Cicerone Holding B.V., Colbea Enterprises, Colonial Pipeline, Colorado Wind Ventures, Compana Qumica Nicaragense S.A., Concha Chemical Pipeline LLC, Condamine 1 Pty Ltd, Condamine 2 Pty Ltd, Condamine 3 Pty Ltd, Condamine 4 Pty Ltd, Condamine Power Station Pty Ltd, Coral Cibola Canada Inc., Cote d'Ivoire GNL, Crestwood Permian Basin LLC, Criterion Catalyst Company, Criterion Catalysts & Technologies Canada, Criterion Catalysts & Technologies L.P., Deer Park Refining Limited Partnership, Deheza S.A.I.C.F. e I., Delta Business Development Limited, Deutsche Infineum GmbH & Co. KG, Deutsche Shell GmbH, Deutsche Shell Holding GmbH, Deutsche Transalpine Oelleitung GmbH, Dinarel S.A., Dragon LNG Group Limited, ELLBA B.V., ELLBA C.V., EPP LLC, EXCO Appalachia Midstream, EXCO Resources (PA), East Resources, Eastham Refinery Limited, Egypt LNG Shipping Limited, El Behera Natural Gas Liquefaction Company S.A.E., Ellba Eastern (Pte) Ltd, Emdad Aviation Fuel Storage FZCO, Endymion Oil Pipeline Company, Energina Compana Argentina de Petroleo S.A., Energy Finance NZ Limited, Energy Holdings Offshore Limited, Energy Infrastructure Limited, Energy Petroleum Holdings Limited, Energy Petroleum Investments Limited, Energy Petroleum Taranaki Limited, Enterprise Oil Limited, Enterprise Oil Middle East Limited, Enterprise Oil Norge Limited, Enterprise Oil North America Inc., Enterprise Oil Operations Limited, Enterprise Oil U.K. Limited, Equilon Enterprises, Equilon Enterprises LLC, Erdoel-Raffinerie Deurag-Nerag GmbH, Estacion Lima S.A., Ethyleen Pijpleiding Maatschappij (Belgie) N.V., Euroshell Cards B.V., Explorer Pipeline Company, FBG Ferngasbeteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, FP Solutions Corporation, Fahari Gas Marketing Company Limited, Farepilot Limited, First Philippine Industrial Corporation, First Utility, Framecroft Limited, Fuelink Pty Ltd, Fuelng Pte. Ltd, Fulmart Limited, Fusus Comercio e Participacoes Ltda., GOGB Limited, Gainrace Limited, Gas Del Litoral, Gas Investments & Services Company Limited, Gas Resources Limited, GasTerra B.V., Gasnor AS, Gasoducto Cruz del Sur S.A., Gatwick Airport Storage and Hydrant Company Limited, Gaviota Terminal Company, Glossop Limited, Gothenburgh Fuelling Company AB, Greenlots, Groupement Petrolier Aviation SNC, Groupement d'Exploitation du Depot de Reception Chennevieres, Guara B.V., H2 Mobility Deutschland GmbH and Co. KG, HPRDS und SPNV Deutschland Oil GmbH & Co. KG, HPRDS und SPNV Deutschland Verwaltungsges. mbH, Hangzhou Natural Gas Company Limited, Hankook Shell Oil Company, Hazira LNG Private Limited, Hazira Port Private Limited, Heathrow Airport Fuel Company Limited, Heathrow Hydrant Operating Company Limited, Holaw (619) Limited, Hong Kong Response Limited, Hyundai and Shell Base Oil Co., IDKU Natural Gas Liquefaction Company S.A.E., IOT Management Sdn. Bhd., Icolub - Industria de Lubrificantes S.A., Infineum (China) Co. Ltd., Infineum Deutschland Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH, Infineum France, Infineum Holdings B.V., Infineum Italia S.R.L., Infineum Singapore Pte Ltd, Infineum USA Inc., Infineum USA L.P., Integral Investments B.V., International Inland Waterways, Interstate Pipelines Pty Limited, Irish Shell Trust Designated Activity Company, Japan Chemtech Ltd., Jiffy Lube International, Jordan Oil Shale Company B.V., Kamayan Realty Corporation, Karachaganak Petroleum Operating B.V., Karachaganak Project Development Limited, Kebabangan Petroleum Operating Company Sdn. Bhd., Khanty-Mansiysk Petroleum Alliance Closed Joint Stock Company, Khmer Shell Limited, Kite Power Systems Limited, Kuwait Shell Limited, LNG Canada Development Inc., LNG Shipping Operation Services Netherlands B.V., LOCAP LLC, LOOP LLC, Lake Charles Exports, Laurentide E&P, Lensbury Limited, Libra Oil & Gas B.V., Limejump, Limited Liability Company "Shell Neft", Limited Liability Company "Shell Neftegaz Development (IV)", Limited Liability Company "Shell Neftegaz Development (V)", Loyalty Management Netherlands B.V., MP2 Energy LLC, MP2 Energy NE LLC, MP2 Energy NY LLC, MP2 Energy Retail Holdings LLC, MP2 Energy Texas LLC, MP2 Generation LLC, MP2 Mesquite Creek Wind LLC, Maasvlakte Olie Terminal C.V., Mahanagar Gas Limited, Malmoe Fuelling Services AB, Manchester Airport Storage and Hydrant Company Limited, Maple Power Holdings LLC, Maritime Association for Risk Mitigation & Safety Limited, Marmara Depoculuk Hizmetleri A.S., Mars Oil Pipeline Company LLC, Mattox Pipeline Company LLC, Maui Development Limited, Mertvyi Kultuk LLC, Methane Services Limited, Mineraloelraffinerie Oberrhein Verwaltungs GmbH, Monash Energy Pty Ltd, Morzine Limited, Motiva Company, Mpower2 LLC, Multi Tank Card B.V., Murphy Schiehallion Limited, Mzalendo Gas Processing Company Limited, N.V. Rotterdam-Rijn Pijpleiding Maatschappij, NLNG Ship Manning Limited, Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij B.V., Nedpower Mount Storm LLC, Netherlands Alng Holding Company B.V., New Market Belgium, New South Oil Pty Ltd, NewMotion, Nigeria LNG Limited, Noble Assurance Company, Noordzeewind B.V., Noordzeewind C.V., Nord-West Oelleitung GmbH, North West Shelf LNG Pty Ltd, O & G Developments Ltd S.A., OME Resources Australia Pty Ltd, Obaiyed Petroleum Company, Oberrheinische Mineraloelwerke GmbH, Ocean Century Tf Limited, Octane Holdings Limited, Octane Properties Limited, Odyssey Pipeline L.L.C., Oman LNG LLC, Ormen Lange Eiendom DA, Oryx Caspian Pipeline, P S Pipeline Sendirian Berhad, P S Terminal Sendirian Berhad, PCK Raffinerie GmbH, PT. Gresik Distribution Terminal, PT. Shell Indonesia, PT. Shell Manufacturing Indonesia, PT. Shell Solar Indonesia, Pacwest Energy, Pak Arab Pipeline Company Limited, Pakistan Refinery Limited, Paqell B.V., Pattanadhorn Company Limited, Pecten Arabian Company, Pecten Brazil Exploration Company, Pecten Middle East Services Company Limited, Pecten Midstream LLC, Pecten Orient Company, Pecten Orient Company LLC, Pecten Producing Company, Pecten Somalia Company Limited Shell GTL Limited, Pecten Trading Company, Pecten Victoria Company, Pecten Yemen Masila Company, Pecten do Brasil Servicos de Petroleo Ltda, Pelican Transmission, Peninsular Aviation Services Company Limited, Pennzoil Products International Company, Pennzoil Quaker State India Limited, Pennzoil-Quaker State Company, Pennzoil-Quaker State International Corporation, Pennzoil-Quaker State Nominee Company, Pertini Vista Sdn. Bhd., Peru LNG Company LLC, Petroleum Development Oman LLC, Petroleum Exploration Australia Pty Limited, Petroleum Resources (Thailand) Pty. Limited, Petrolon Europe Limited, Petrolon International Limited, Petroregional del Lago, Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corporation, Point Fortin LNG Exports Limited, Poseidon Oil Pipeline Company, Power Limited Partnership, Private Oil Holdings Oman Limited, Proteus Oil Pipeline Company, Provident & Pensions Holdings Proprietary Limited, Provista Ventures Sdn. Bhd., Pure Energy Resources Pty Limited, QCLNG Operating Company Pty Ltd, QCLNG Pty Ltd, QGC (B7) Pty Ltd, QGC (Exploration) Pty Ltd, QGC (Infrastructure) Pty Ltd, QGC Common Facilities Company Pty Ltd, QGC Holdings 2 Pty Ltd, QGC Holdings 3 Pty Ltd, QGC Holdings 4 Pty Ltd, QGC Holdings 5 Pty Ltd, QGC Holdings 6 Pty Ltd, QGC Holdings 7 Pty Ltd, QGC Holdings 8 Pty Ltd, QGC Holdings 9 Pty Ltd, QGC Midstream Holdings Pty Ltd, QGC Midstream Investments Pty Ltd, QGC Midstream Land Pty Ltd, QGC Midstream Limited Partnership, QGC Midstream Services Pty Ltd, QGC Northern Forestry Pty Ltd, QGC Pty Limited, QGC Sales Qld Pty Ltd, QGC Train 1 Pty Ltd, QGC Train 1 Tolling Pty Ltd, QGC Train 1 UJV Manager Pty Ltd, QGC Train 2 Pty Ltd, QGC Train 2 Tolling No.2 Pty Ltd, QGC Train 2 Tolling Pty Ltd, QGC Train 2 UJV Manager Pty Ltd, QGC Upstream Finance Pty Ltd, QGC Upstream Holdings Pty Ltd, QGC Upstream Investments Pty Ltd, QGC Upstream Limited Partnership, QPI and Shell Petrochemicals (Singapore) Pte Ltd, Qatar Liquefied Gas Company Limited (4), Qatar Shell Research & Technology Centre QSTP-LLC, Qatar Shell Service Company W.L.L., Quaker State Investment Corporation, Queensland Gas Company Pty Ltd, RDK Ventures, RESCO B.V., RK Caspian Shipping Company, Raffinaderij Shell Mersin N.V., Raizen Combustveis S.A., Raizen Energia S.A., Rashid Petroleum Company S.A.E., Rhein-Main-Rohrleitungstransportgesellschaft mbH, Rheinland Kraftstoff GmbH, Rilette Springs, Roma Petroleum Pty Limited, Rosneft-Shell Caspian Ventures Limited, Rub' Al-Khali Gas Development B.V., Ruvuma Pipeline Company Limited, S T Exchange, SASF Pty Ltd, SCL Pipeline Inc., SCOGI GP, SELAP Limited, SF Investment Management Limited, SFJ Inc., SGA (Queensland) Pty Ltd, SHELL Slovakia s.r.o., SOGEP Societe Genevoise des Petroles SA, SOI Finance Inc., SOPC Holdings East LLC, SOPC Holdings West LLC, SPNV Deutschland Beteiligungsges. mbH, STISA (Pty) Limited, STT (Das Beneficiary) Limited, SWEPI LP, Sabah Shell Petroleum Company Limited, Sable Offshore Energy Inc., Sahapanichkijphun Company Limited, Sakhalin Energy Investment Company Ltd, Sakhalin LNG Services Company Ltd., Salamander Inc., Salym Petroleum Development N.V., Salzburg Fuelling GmbH, Samsun Akaryakit ve Depolama A.S., San Pablo Bay Pipeline Company LLC, Sand Dollar Pipeline LLC, Saraco SA, Sarawak Shell Berhad, Saudi Aramco Shell Refinery Company, Saxon Oil Limited, Saxon Oil Miller Limited, Schiehallion Oil & Gas Limited, Schooner Trustees Limited, Seapos Ltda., Sekelo Oil Trading (Pty) Limited, Select Carbon, Service Aviation Paris (G.I.E.), Sgai Pty Limited, Sharjah Fuelling Services Company Ltd., Shell & BP South African Petroleum Refineries (Pty) Limited, Shell & Disa Aviation Espana, Shell & MOH Aviation Fuels A.E., Shell & Turcas Petrol A.S., Shell (Beijing) Real Estate Consulting Ltd., Shell (China) Limited, Shell (China) Projects & Technology Limited, Shell (Petroleum Mining) Company Limited, Shell (Shanghai) Petroleum Company Limited, Shell (Shanghai) Technology Limited, Shell (Sudan) Petroleum Development Company Limited, Shell (Switzerland) AG, Shell (Tianjin) Lubricants Company Limited, Shell (Tianjin) Oil and Petrochemical Company Limited, Shell (US) Gas & Power M&T Holdings, Shell (Zhejiang) Petroleum Trading Limited, Shell (Zhuhai) Lubricants Company Limited, Shell Abu Dhabi B.V., Shell Additives Holdings (I) B.V., Shell Additives Holdings (II) B.V., Shell Adria d.o.o., Shell Aircraft Limited, Shell Algeria Zerafa GmbH, Shell Americas Funding (Canada) Limited, Shell Arabia Car Service Limited, Shell Asset Management Company B.V., Shell Australia FLNG Pty Ltd, Shell Australia Lubricants Production Pty Ltd, Shell Australia Natural Gas Shipping Limited, Shell Australia Pty Ltd, Shell Australia Services Company Pty Ltd, Shell Austria Gesellschaft mbH, Shell Aviation Finland Oy, Shell Aviation Limited, Shell Aviation Sweden AB, Shell Bab Gas Development B.V., Shell Benin Upstream Ltd, Shell Bermuda (Overseas) Limited, Shell Bolivia Corporation, Shell Borneo Sendirian Berhad, Shell Brands International AG, Shell Brasil Petroleo Ltda., Shell Brazil Holding B.V., Shell Brazil Holding GmbH, Shell Broadwater Holdings LLC, Shell Bulgaria Ead, Shell Business Development Central Asia B.V., Shell Business Development Middle East Limited, Shell Business Service Centre Sdn. Bhd., Shell California Pipeline Company LLC, Shell Canada Energy, Shell Canada Exploration, Shell Canada Limited, Shell Canada OP Inc., Shell Canada Products, Shell Canada Resources, Shell Canada Services Limited, Shell Caribbean & Central America Ltd, Shell Caribbean Investments Limited, Shell Caspian B.V., Shell Caspian Pipeline Holdings B.V., Shell Catalysts Ventures Inc., Shell Chemical Appalachia LLC, Shell Chemical Company of Eastern Africa Limited, Shell Chemical LP, Shell Chemicals (Hellas) Limited, Shell Chemicals Arabia LLC, Shell Chemicals Canada, Shell Chemicals Europe B.V., Shell Chemicals Japan Ltd., Shell Chemicals Limited, Shell Chemicals Philippines, Shell Chemicals Seraya Pte. Ltd., Shell Chemicals Support Services Asia Limited, Shell Chemicals U.K. Limited, Shell Chemicals Ventures B.V., Shell China B.V., Shell China Exploration and Production Company Limited, Shell China Holding GmbH, Shell China Holdings B.V., Shell Clair UK Limited, Shell Club Corringham Limited, Shell Colombia S.A., Shell Communications, Shell Company (Hellas) Limited, Shell Company (Pacific Islands) Limited, Shell Compana Argentina de Petroleo S.A., Shell Corporate Director Limited, Shell Corporate Secretary Limited, Shell Corporate Services Switzerland AG, Shell Custodian Pty Ltd, Shell Czech Republic A.S., Shell Deepwater Borneo Limited, Shell Deepwater Royalties Inc., Shell Deepwater Tanzania B.V., Shell Deutschland Additive GmbH, Shell Deutschland Oil GmbH, Shell Development (PSC19) Pty Ltd, Shell Development (PSC20) Pty Ltd, Shell Development Iran B.V., Shell Development Oman LLC, Shell Developments (HK) Limited, Shell Direct (U.K.) Limited, Shell Distributor (Holdings) Limited, Shell Downstream Inc., Shell Downstream Services International B.V., Shell Downstream South Africa (Pty) Ltd, Shell E & P Ireland Offshore Inc., Shell E and P Offshore Services B.V., Shell E&P Ireland Limited, Shell EP Holdings (EE&ME) B.V., Shell EP Holdings Inc., Shell EP Holdingselskab Danmark ApS, Shell EP International Limited, Shell EP Middle East Holdings B.V., Shell EP Offshore Ventures Limited, Shell EP Russia Investments (III) B.V., Shell EP Russia Investments (V) B.V., Shell EP Somalia B.V., Shell EP Wells Equipment Services B.V., Shell Eastern Petroleum (Pte) Ltd, Shell Eastern Trading (Pte) Ltd, Shell Egypt N.V., Shell Egypt Trading, Shell Employee Benefits Trustee Limited, Shell Energy (China) Limited, Shell Energy Asia Limited, Shell Energy Australia Pty Ltd, Shell Energy Company, Shell Energy Deutschland GmbH, Shell Energy Europe B.V., Shell Energy Europe Limited, Shell Energy Holding GP LLC, Shell Energy Holdings Australia Limited, Shell Energy Investments Australia Pty Ltd, Shell Energy Investments Limited, Shell Energy Italia S.R.L., Shell Energy Marketing and Trading India Private Limited, Shell Energy Merchants Canada Inc., Shell Energy North America (Canada) Inc., Shell Energy North America (US), Shell Energy Resources Company, Shell Energy Supply UK LTD., Shell Energy do Brasil Ltda, Shell Enerji A.S., Shell Erdgas Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, Shell Erdgas Marketing GmbH & Co. KG, Shell Erdoel und Erdgas Exploration GmbH, Shell Espana, Shell Expatriate Employment US Inc., Shell Exploracion y Extraccion de Mexico, Shell Exploration & Production Company, Shell Exploration B.V., Shell Exploration Company (RF) B.V., Shell Exploration Company (West) B.V., Shell Exploration Company B.V., Shell Exploration Company Inc., Shell Exploration NZ Ltd, Shell Exploration New Ventures One GmbH, Shell Exploration Venture Services B.V., Shell Exploration and Development Libya GmbH I, Shell Exploration and Production (78) B.V., Shell Exploration and Production (79) B.V., Shell Exploration and Production (82) B.V., Shell Exploration and Production (83) B.V., Shell Exploration and Production (84) B.V., Shell Exploration and Production (85) B.V., Shell Exploration and Production (86) B.V., Shell Exploration and Production (87) B.V., Shell Exploration and Production (88) B.V., Shell Exploration and Production (89) B.V., Shell Exploration and Production (90) B.V., Shell Exploration and Production (91) B.V., Shell Exploration and Production (LI) B.V., Shell Exploration and Production (LIX) B.V., Shell Exploration and Production (LVII) B.V., Shell Exploration and Production (LX) B.V., Shell Exploration and Production (LXI) B.V., Shell Exploration and Production (LXII) B.V., Shell Exploration and Production (LXIII) B.V., Shell Exploration and Production (LXIV) B.V., Shell Exploration and Production (LXV) B.V., Shell Exploration and Production (LXVI) B.V., Shell Exploration and Production (LXVII) B.V., Shell Exploration and Production (LXXI) B.V., Shell Exploration and Production (LXXIV) B.V., Shell Exploration and Production (LXXV) B.V., Shell Exploration and Production (XL) B.V., Shell Exploration and Production Africa Limited, Shell Exploration and Production Colombia GmbH, Shell Exploration and Production Guyana Limited, Shell Exploration and Production Holdings B.V., Shell Exploration and Production Investments B.V., Shell Exploration and Production Libya GmbH, Shell Exploration and Production Oman Limited, Shell Exploration and Production Services (RF) B.V., Shell Exploration and Production South Africa B.V., Shell Exploration and Production Tanzania Limited, Shell Exploration and Production Ukraine I B.V., Shell Exploration and Production Ukraine Investments (I) B.V., Shell Exploration and Production Ukraine Investments (II) B.V., Shell Exploration and Production Ukraine Investments (IV) B.V., Shell Exploration et Production du Maroc GmbH, Shell Exploration und Produktion Deutschland GmbH, Shell Finance (Netherlands) B.V., Shell Finance Luxembourg Sarl, Shell Finance Switzerland AG, Shell Frontier Oil & Gas Inc., Shell GNL Peru S.A.C., Shell GOM Pipeline Company LLC, Shell GSB Limited, Shell Gas & Power Developments B.V., Shell Gas (LPG) Holdings B.V., Shell Gas B.V., Shell Gas Gathering Corp. #2, Shell Gas Holdings (Malaysia) Limited, Shell Gas Iraq B.V., Shell Gas Marketing Pte. Ltd., Shell Gas Nigeria B.V., Shell Gas S.A., Shell Gas Supply Trinidad Limited, Shell Gas Trading (Asia Pacific), Shell Gas Venezuela B.V., Shell Gas and Energy Philippines Corporation, Shell Generating (Holding) B.V., Shell Global Customer Services Centre CA, Shell Global Solutions (Deutschland) GmbH, Shell Global Solutions (Eastern Europe) B.V., Shell Global Solutions (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Shell Global Solutions (Thailand) Limited, Shell Global Solutions (US) Inc., Shell Global Solutions Australia Pty Ltd, Shell Global Solutions Canada Inc., Shell Global Solutions Holdings (Thailand) Limited, Shell Global Solutions International B.V., Shell Global Solutions Saudi Arabia LLC, Shell Global Solutions Services B.V., Shell Greenland A/S, Shell Grundstcksgesellschaft Wesseling GmbH & Co. KG, Shell Guam Inc., Shell Gulf of Mexico Inc., Shell Hasdrubal Limited, Shell Holdings (Bermuda) Limited, Shell Holdings (U.K.) Limited, Shell Holdings Switzerland AG, Shell Hong Kong Limited, Shell Hungary Trading close Company Limited by shares, Shell Hydrogen Deutschland GmbH, Shell India Markets Private Limited, Shell India Ventures Pte. Ltd., Shell Information Technology International B.V., Shell Information Technology International Inc., Shell Information Technology International Limited, Shell Integrated Gas Thailand Pte.Limited, Shell International B.V., Shell International Exploration and Development Italia S.p.A., Shell International Exploration and Production B.V., Shell International Exploration and Production Inc., Shell International Finance B.V., Shell International Gas Limited, Shell International Limited, Shell International Petroleum Company Limited, Shell International Shipping Services (Pte) Ltd, Shell International Trading Middle East Limited, Shell International Trading and Shipping Company Limited, Shell Internationale Research Maatschappij B.V., Shell Internet Ventures B.V., Shell Investments NZ Limited, Shell Iraq B.V., Shell Iraq Petroleum Development B.V., Shell Iraq Services B.V., Shell Italia E&P S.p.A., Shell Italia Holding S.p.A., Shell Italia Oil Products S.R.L., Shell Japan Limited, Shell Japan Trading Ltd., Shell Kazakhstan B.V., Shell Kazakhstan Development B.V., Shell Korea Limited, Shell Kuwait Exploration and Production B.V., Shell LNG Gibraltar Limited, Shell LNG Port Spain B.V., Shell LNG T&T Ltd, Shell Leasing Company, Shell Lubricants Egypt, Shell Lubricants Supply Company B.V., Shell Lubricants Switzerland AG, Shell Luxembourgeoise Sarl, Shell MDS (Malaysia) Sendirian Berhad, Shell MRPL Aviation Fuels and Services Limited, Shell MSPO 2 Holding B.V., Shell Macau Limited, Shell Macau Petroleum Company Limited, Shell Madeira Praia Formosa, Shell Malaysia Limited, Shell Malaysia Trading Sendirian Berhad, Shell Manatee Limited, Shell Manufacturing Services B.V., Shell Marine Personnel (I.O.M.) Limited, Shell Marine Products (US) Company, Shell Marine Products AS, Shell Marine Products Limited, Shell Markets (Middle East) Limited, Shell Mexico, Shell Mexico Exploration and Production Investment Limited, Shell Mexico Gas Natural, Shell Midstream LP Holdings LLC, Shell Midstream Operating LLC, Shell Midstream Partners, Shell Midstream Partners GP LLC, Shell Mozambique B.V., Shell Myanmar Energy Pte. Ltd., Shell Myanmar Petroleum Pte. Ltd., Shell NA Gas & Power Holding Company, Shell NA LNG LLC, Shell Namibia Upstream B.V., Shell Nanhai B.V., Shell Nederland B.V., Shell Nederland Chemie B.V., Shell Nederland Raffinaderij B.V., Shell Nederland Verkoopmaatschappij B.V., Shell New Ventures Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., Shell New Zealand (2011) Limited, Shell New Zealand Pensions Limited, Shell Nigeria Closed Pension Fund Administrator Ltd, Shell Nigeria Exploration Properties Alpha Limited, Shell Nigeria Exploration Properties Beta Limited, Shell Nigeria Exploration Properties Charlie Limited, Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company Ltd, Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Delta Limited, Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Echo Limited, Shell Nigeria Gas Ltd (SNG), Shell Nigeria Infrastructure Development Limited, Shell Nigeria Offshore Prospecting Limited, Shell Nigeria Oil Products Limited (SNOP), Shell Nigeria Ultra Deep Limited, Shell Nigeria Upstream Ventures Limited, Shell North America Gas & Power Services Company, Shell North China Petroleum Group Co., Shell North Sea Holdings Limited, Shell Nusantara Trading B.V., Shell OKLNG Holdings B.V., Shell Offshore (Personnel) Services B.V., Shell Offshore Central Gabon Ltd, Shell Offshore Inc., Shell Offshore North Gabon B.V., Shell Offshore Response Company LLC, Shell Offshore Services B.V., Shell Offshore and Chemical Investments Inc., Shell Oil & Gas (Malaysia) LLC, Shell Oil Company, Shell Oil Company Investments Inc., Shell Oil Products Company LLC, Shell Olie - OG Gasudvinding Danmark B.V., Shell Olie OG Gas Holding B.V., Shell Olie-og Gasudvinding Danmark Pipelines ApS, Shell Oman Exploration and Production B.V., Shell Oman Marketing Company SAOG, Shell Oman Trading Limited, Shell Onshore Ventures Inc., Shell Operaciones Peru S.A.C., Shell Overseas Holdings (Oman) Limited, Shell Overseas Holdings Limited, Shell Overseas Investments B.V., Shell Overseas Services Limited, Shell Pakistan Limited, Shell Pensioenbureau Nederland B.V., Shell Pension Reserve Company (SIPF) Limited, Shell Pension Reserve Company (SOCPF) Limited, Shell Pension Reserve Company (UK) Limited, Shell Pensions Trust Limited, Shell People Services Asia Sdn. Bhd., Shell Petrol A.S., Shell Petroleum (Malaysia) Ltd, Shell Petroleum Inc., Shell Petroleum N.V., Shell Philippines Exploration B.V., Shell Pipeline Company LP, Shell Pipeline GP LLC, Shell Polska Sp. z o.o., Shell Project Development (VIII) B.V., Shell Property Company Limited, Shell Pulau Moa Pte Ltd, Shell QGC Holdings Limited, Shell QGC Midstream 1 Limited, Shell QGC Midstream 2 Limited, Shell QGC Upstream 1 Limited, Shell QGC Upstream 2 Limited, Shell Quebec Limitee, Shell RDS Holding B.V., Shell RSC Company, Shell Rail Operations Company, Shell Research Limited, Shell Response Limited, Shell Retraites SAS, Shell Road Solutions (Zhenjiang) Co. Ltd, Shell Road Solutions Xinyue (Foshan) Co. Ltd., Shell Sabah Selatan Sendirian Berhad, Shell Sakhalin Holdings B.V., Shell Sakhalin Services B.V., Shell Salym Development B.V., Shell Saudi Arabia (Refining) Limited, Shell Seraya Pioneer (Pte) Ltd, Shell Service Station Properties Limited, Shell Services Oman B.V., Shell Servicios Mexico, Shell Shared Services (Asia) B.V., Shell Ship Management Limited, Shell Singapore Trustees (Pte) Ltd, Shell Solar Philippines Corporation, Shell South Africa Energy (Pty) Ltd, Shell South Africa Exploration (Pty) Limited, Shell South Africa Holdings (Pty) Ltd, Shell South Africa Upstream B.V., Shell South Syria Exploration Limited, Shell Spain LNG, Shell Subsidiary Distributors Pension Trustee Limited, Shell Supplementary Pension Plan Trustees Limited, Shell Taiwan Limited, Shell Tankers (Singapore) Private Limited, Shell Tankers (U.K.) Limited, Shell Tankers Australia Pty Ltd, Shell Tanzania Limited, Shell TapUp B.V., Shell Taranaki Limited, Shell Technology Ventures B.V., Shell Technology Ventures Fund 1 B.V., Shell Technology Ventures Investments B.V., Shell Technology Ventures LLC, Shell Thailand E&P Inc., Shell Thrift & Loan Fund Trustees Nig Ltd, Shell Timur Sdn. Bhd., Shell Trademark Management B.V., Shell Trademark Management Inc., Shell Trading (M.E.) Private Limited, Shell Trading (US) Company, Shell Trading Canada, Shell Trading International Limited, Shell Trading Mexico, Shell Trading North America Company, Shell Trading Risk Management, Shell Trading Rotterdam B.V., Shell Trading Russia B.V., Shell Trading Services Company, Shell Trading Switzerland AG, Shell Transportation Holdings LLC, Shell Treasury Center (West) Inc., Shell Treasury Centre East (Pte) Ltd, Shell Treasury Centre Limited, Shell Treasury Company Switzerland AG, Shell Treasury Dollar Company Limited, Shell Treasury Euro Company Limited, Shell Treasury Luxembourg Sarl, Shell Treasury Malaysia (L) Limited, Shell Treasury UK Limited, Shell Trinidad 5(A) Limited, Shell Trinidad Block E Limited, Shell Trinidad Central Block Limited, Shell Trinidad Ltd, Shell Trinidad and Tobago Limited, Shell Trinidad and Tobago Resources SRL, Shell Trust (Bermuda) Limited, Shell Trust (U.K. Property) Limited, Shell Trustee Solutions Limited, Shell Tunisia El Jem GmbH, Shell Tunisia Kairouan GmbH, Shell Tunisia LPG S.A., Shell Tunisia Offshore GmbH, Shell Tunisia Upstream Limited, Shell U.K. Limited, Shell U.K. North Atlantic Limited, Shell U.K. Oil Products Limited, Shell US E&P Investments LLC, Shell US Gas & Power LLC, Shell US Hosting Company, Shell Ukraine Exploration and Production I LLC, Shell Upstream Albania B.V., Shell Upstream Development B.V., Shell Upstream Indonesia Services B.V., Shell Upstream Overseas Services (I) Limited, Shell Upstream Spain B.V., Shell Upstream Turkey B.V., Shell Venezuela, Shell Venezuela Productos, Shell Ventures New Zealand Limited, Shell Ventures U.K. Limited, Shell Verwaltungsgesellschaft fr Erdgasbeteiligungen mbH, Shell Vietnam Ltd, Shell Western LNG B.V., Shell Western Supply and Trading Limited, Shell WindEnergy Inc., Shell WindEnergy Services Inc., Shell Windenergy Limited, Shell Windenergy NZW I B.V., Shell Windenergy Netherlands B.V., Shell and Topaz Aviation Ireland Limited, Shell and Vivo Lubricants B.V., Shell-Mex and B.P. Limited, Ship Shoal Pipeline Company, Singapore Lube Park Pte. Ltd., Sinopec and Shell (Jiangsu) Petroleum Marketing Company Limited, Sirius Well Manufacturing Services Pte. Ltd., Sitra Petroleum Company, Snijders Olie B.V., Societa Italiana per l'Oleodotto Transalpino S.p.A., Societa' Oleodotti Meridionali S.p.A., Societe de Gestion Mobiliere et Immobiliere SAS, Societe des Petroles Shell SAS, Solen Insurance Limited, Solen Life Insurance Limited, Solen Versicherungen AG, Sonnen, Southern Petroleum No Liability, Stansted Fuelling Company Limited, Starzap Pty Ltd, Station Managers of Puerto Rico, Stazioni Autostradali Bellinzona SA, Ste du Pipeline Sud Europeen S.A., Stockholm Fuelling Services AB, Sucre Gas, Sun-Canadian Pipe Line Company Limited, Sunshine 685 Pty Limited, Sunshine Gas Pty Limited, Suzhou Liyuan Retail Site Management Co., Synthetic Chemicals (Northern) Limited, Syria Shell Petroleum Development B.V., Syriaga Neftegaz Development, TBG Tanklager Betriebsgesellschaft m.b.H., TMR Company, TRINLING Limited, Tabangao Realty, Tacoma Company Limited, Tamba B.V., Tanjung Manis Oil Terminal Management Sdn. Bhd., Tankstation Exploitatie Maatschappij Holding B.V., Tanzania LNG Limited, Taranaki Offshore Petroleum Company of New Zealand, Tejas Coral GP, Tejas Coral Holding, Tejas Power Generation, Telegraph Service Stations Limited, Texas Petroleum Group LLC, Texas-New Mexico Pipe Line Company, Thai Energy Company Limited, The Anglo-Saxon Petroleum Company Limited, The Asiatic Petroleum Company Limited, The Consolidated Petroleum Company Limited, The Consolidated Petroleum Supply Company Limited, The Egyptian LNG Company S.A.E., The Egyptian Operating Company for Natural Gas Liquefaction Projects S.A.E., The International School of Port of Spain Limited, The Mexican Eagle Oil Company Limited, The New Motion B.V., The New Motion Deutschland GmbH, The New Motion EVSE Limited, The New Motion France SAS, The Shell Company (W.I.) Limited, The Shell Company of Hong Kong Limited, The Shell Company of India Limited, The Shell Company of Nigeria Limited, The Shell Company of Thailand Limited, The Shell Company of The Philippines Limited, The Shell Company of Turkey Limited, The Shell Company of West Africa Limited, The Shell Marketing Company of Borneo Limited, The Shell Petroleum Company Limited, The Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited, The Shell Transport and Trading Company Limited, The Valley Camp Coal Company, Thermocomfort Limited Shell Pension Plan Trust Limited, Three Wind Holdings LLC, Tiba Petroleum Company, Trans-Northern Pipelines Inc., Transalpine lleitung in sterreich GmbH, Tri Star Energy LLC, Trident LNG Shipping Services Pty Ltd, Trident Shipping Services Pty Ltd, Triton Diagnostics Inc., Triton Terminaling LLC, Triton West LLC, True North Energy LLC, Tunisian Processing S.A., Tupi B.V., UBAG, URSA Oil Pipeline Company LLC, Union Temporal Bloque Sin Off 7, Unitas Company Limited, United Kingdom Oil Pipelines Limited, Vestprosess DA, Waalbrug Exploitatie Maatschappij B.V., Walloons Coal Seam Gas Company Pty Limited, Walton-Gatwick Pipeline Company Limited, West London Pipeline and Storage Limited, West Shore Pipe Line Company, West Sitra Petroleum Company, Wonderbill Limited, Woodlea Limited, Yanchang and Shell (Guangdong) Petroleum Co., Yanchang and Shell (Sichuan) Petroleum Company Limited, Yanchang and Shell Petroleum Company Limited, Yueyang Sinopec and Shell Coal Gasification Company Limited, Zeolyst C.V., Zhejiang Shell Fuels Company Limited, Zhejiang Shell Oil and Petrochemical Company Limited, Zydeco Pipeline Company LLC, euroShell Deutschland GmbH & Co. KG, and euroShell Deutschland Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH.GMS, Inc. is a holding company, which engages in the distribution of wallboard and suspended ceilings systems and complementary interior construction products. It operates through the following segments: Geographic Divisions, Other, and Corporate. The firm offers ceilings products, including suspended mineral fibers, soft fibers, and metal ceiling systems primarily used in offices, hotels, hospitals, retail facilities, schools, and various other commercial and institutional buildings. It also provides steel framing products, such as steel tracks, studs, and various other steel products used to frame the interior walls of a commercial or institutional building; and insulation, lumber and other wood products, ready-mix joint compound, and various other interior construction products, as well as ancillary products comprising tools, fasteners, and safety products. The company was founded by Richard K. Mueller and Richard A. Whitcomb in 1971 and is headquartered in Tucker, GA.

Read MoreFederated Investors, Inc. is a publicly owned asset management holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the firm provides its services to individuals, including high net worth individuals, banking or thrift institutions, investment companies, pension and profit sharing plans, pooled investment vehicles, charitable organizations, state or municipal government entities, and registered investment advisors. Through its subsidiaries, it manages separate client-focused equity, fixed income, balanced and money market mutual funds along with separate client-focused equity, fixed income, money market, and balanced portfolios. Through its subsidiaries, the firm invests in the public equity and fixed income markets across the globe. It invests in growth and value stocks of small-cap, mid-cap, and large-cap companies. The firm makes its fixed income investments in ultra-short, short-term, and intermediate-term mortgage-backed, U.S. Government, U.S. corporate, high yield, and municipal securities. It employs both fundamental and quantitative analysis to make its equity investments. Federated Investors, Inc. was founded in 1955 and is based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with additional offices in New York City and London, United Kingdom.

Read MoreThe ministry of Lands, housing and urban development has called upon both local and foreign investors to interest themselves in the countrys largely ignored housing sector, which has been underperforming every year.

Last year, the National Housing and Construction Company (NHCC), a government body mandated with developing the housing sector had a shortfall of 140,000 housing units after constructing only 60,000 units out of the expected 200,000 per year.

Ambassador Agnes Kalibbala, director of land and housing in Uganda

Authorities blame the housing shortfall on meagre government funding of the sector among other issues like land wrangles and compensation disputes in areas where development plans have been earmarked to take place like Kasokoso.

Very few investors come in currently but we want to encourage investors to come in and invest in the housing sector. Uganda has one of the highest urban growth rates standing at 5.1%. We therefore need to plan for housing because without housing, all these people wont be having where to stay, ambassador Agnes Kalibbala, the ministry's director of land and housing said.

Kalibbala who represented the vice president, Edward Kiwanuka Sekandi, was speaking in Naalya at the commissioning of 32 new housing units by Comfort Homes, a real estate company under their second ever project in Uganda named Casa Belvedere located in Naalya.

The projects three bed roomed apartments have about 23 units available and they go for Shs 230 million on 110 Square metres while the 1 bedroom apartments go for Shs 135 on 62 square metres.

The Ugandan law now recognizes the ownership of condominium and owners can acquire land titles just like in developed countries Quresh Shebabi, the director comfort homes owned by Kenyan Indians said that peace and government investment into the housing sector will help improve housing especially low cost, contribute to economic development and also create employment opportunities.

We have come to Uganda to live in peace and expand our dream of housing for everyone. We urge the government of Uganda through its agencies to add the sector the necessary support it deserves, he said.

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Limited, Westlock Controls Limited, Westlock Equipamentos de Controle Ltda., Woodstock Land Company LLC, epro GmbH, iSolera Inc., iSolutions Private Limited, and intelliSAW.Wall Street analysts have given iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys.

View MarketBeat's top stock picks here.Uganda and Tanzania have agreed to further fast track their plans for the construction of the $3.5 billion East Africa crude oil project.



The ministers of Energy from the two countries together with their respective attorney generals met for another round of negotiations over the project in Kampala as per the inter-governmental agreement signed between the two governments last year.

Uganda and Tanzania Energy ministers with their technocrats at a joint ministerial meeting in Kampala

The meeting hosted by Uganda's Energy and Mineral Development minister, Irene Muloni was also attended by her Tanzanian counterpart Dr Medard Kalemani.



There was concern raised between the two parties that they seemed to be moving behind the schedule regarding the remaining legal requirements to move the oil project to the next stage.

One of the legal requirements is the need to sign the host government agreement which has been pending since last year even when the two countries have gone ahead to lay the foundation stones for the project.



Tanzania's President Dr John Pombe Joseph Magufuli raised the same issue at the laying foundation stones in Hoima and Kyotera last November.



Sources privy to the meeting told URN that the ministers and their technocrats held a closed-door ministerial meeting at Protea hotel in Kampala.



The parties agreed to have the host government agreement between the two governments signed before the end of June. They reportedly also tasked the joint venture partners to make their financial investment decision (FID) before the close of 2018.



It is not yet clear whether the Uganda Petroleum Authority has studied the front end engineering designs to pave way for the detailed engineering designs. The pipeline will be heated at 50 degrees celsius to keep the waxy crude flowing.



Front end engineering studies for the pipeline were completed last December followed by optimization studies conducted by Total E&P. The optimization study by TOTAL focused on the economic viability of the project. It was also aimed at ensuring that right standards for the pipeline running from Hoima to Port of Tanga in Tanzania.



The optimization study was reportedly completed by a consultant hired by TOTAL but a source close to the meeting, said TOTAL has not released its findings to the other partner CNOOC. Both TOTAL and CNOOC officials were reluctant to comment on the matter when contacted on Friday.



Total E&P Uganda is the lead joint venture partner on the crude oil export pipeline. The pipeline is expected to charge $12.2 for every barrel of crude oil that will be transported in the pipeline, making Uganda's crude oil profitable even at today's rate of $50 per barrel.



The two governments have from the onset required the joint venture partners transport the crude oil at no less than $12.2 per barrel from Hoima to its final destination.



CNOOC has reportedly demanded that TOTAL releases the financial analysis from the optimization study it conducted before CNOOC determines whether or not to announce its final investment decision (FID). The pipeline, is expected to be completed by the year 2020 when the country is scheduled to start oil production.



The funding for the project is expected to be raised will be raised through debt and equity from joint venture partners and national oil companies of Uganda and Tanzania.



Total E&P Uganda, Tanzania and Uganda last year appointed three companies as financial advisors for the pipeline. They included consortium of South African based Standard Bank, Imperial Bank of China (IBC) and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation Europe Ltd.Wall Street analysts have given iShares S&P Small-Cap 600 Value ETF a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but iShares S&P Small-Cap 600 Value ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys.

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The suspect identified as Muzamiru, who is also the family lawyer, was arrested on Thursday night after reportedly being on the run for three weeks. Muzamiru disappeared and switched off his phone numbers after his brother identified as Yudaya was arrested by operatives from the Flying Squad.

Susan Magara was kidnapped and kidnapped in March

In a fresh investigation that began about three weeks ago led by the Director Criminal Investigations Grace Akullo, Muzamiru is alleged to have contracted people to kidnap Susan after a deal to buy land from Tooro kingdom failed and John Magara, father to Susan returned home with more than $1 million.



According to the investigators, Magara failed to buy land because Tooro kingdom was not willing to sell the land.



Preliminary findings indicate that Muzamiru, well aware that John Magara had money in his possession contacted his brother Yudaya so that they would find a way to get the money from him. A kidnap was thereafter reportedly planned with two other people contracted to trail Susan.



A reliable source who is privy to the ongoing investigations told URN on condition of anonymity that the suspects had planned to kidnap Susan on the 6th of February 2018 but the plan aborted because Magara returned to her Lungujja based apartment with her boyfriend.



"The next day, they trailed her from the gym. When they reached Kabaka Anjagala road, they pushed her off the road with their vehicle and when she stopped, they forcefully put her into their vehicle and drove away to Natete where they kept her for a day before moving her to Konge in Nakawuka, Wakiso district," the source says.



The arrest of Muzamiru qualifies the police's line of investigation that the person behind the kidnap was close to the family and was well aware of whatever was happening in the family at the time Susan was missing.



For example, the phone caller who asked for the ransom money talked about Magara having travelled abroad. The caller has since been identified as Yudaya, a brother to Muzamiru.



A witness close to the Magara family whose identity is withheld for personal security reasons, three weeks ago, listened to the audio more than 6 times at the Kibuli based CID headquarters and revealed that the voice was that of Yudaya.



The information that the voice is for Yudaya, has since been corroborated by more than six people including his own relatives and friends.



It is on this background that Yudaya was arrested and he reportedly opened up to the investigators leading to the arrest of Muzamiru and other suspects he allegedly worked with to kidnap and kill Magara. Susan was killed in March by her captors after about three weeks and her body dumped in an area between Kajjansi and Kigo, on the Southern bypass.



Apart from Yudaya, two other suspects have since confessed leading to the arrest of more than 8 suspects and recovery of property allegedly procured using the Shs 700 million ransom money.



The police spokesperson Emilian Kayima refused to comment on the investigation saying, "It is not the right time. We shall give you a report when we are ready."Keane Group Inc (NYSE:FRAC) issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, October, 31st. The company reported $0.28 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $0.19 by $0.09. The company earned $558.91 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $545.56 million. Keane Group had a net margin of 0.53% and a trailing twelve-month return on equity of 7.21%. Keane Group's revenue for the quarter was up 17.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $0.04 earnings per share.

View Keane Group's earnings history.The following companies are subsidiares of The Travelers Companies: 10762962 Canada Inc., 350 Market Street LLC, 8527512 Canada Inc., Aetna Life and Casualty Co, American Equity Insurance Company, American Equity Specialty Insurance Company, Aprilgrange Limited, Arch Street North LLC, Auto Hartford Investments LLC, Bayhill Restaurant II Associates, Camperdown Corporation, Constitution State Services LLC, Discover Property & Casualty Insurance Company, Discover Specialty Insurance Company, F&G UK Underwriters Limited, Farmington Casualty Company, Fidelity and Guaranty Insurance Company, Fidelity and Guaranty Insurance Underwriters Inc., First Floridian Auto and Home Insurance Company, Gulf Underwriters Insurance Company, IHP Capital Partners Fund VIII L.P., Northbrook Holdings Inc., Northfield Insurance Company, Northland Casualty Company, Northland Insurance Company, Phoenix UK Investments LLC, SPC Insurance Agency Inc., Select Insurance Company, Simply Business Holdings Inc., Simply Business Inc., St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Company, St. Paul Guardian Insurance Company, St. Paul Mercury Insurance Company, St. Paul Protective Insurance Company, St. Paul Surplus Lines Insurance Company, Standard Fire Properties LLC, Standard Fire UK Investments LLC, TCI Global Services Inc., TPC Investments Inc., TPC U.K. Investments LLC, The Automobile Insurance Company of Hartford Connecticut, The Charter Oak Fire Insurance Company, The Dominion of Canada General Insurance Company, The Family Business Institute LLC, The Phoenix Insurance Company, The St. Paul Companies Inc., The Standard Fire Insurance Company, The Travelers Casualty Company, The Travelers Home and Marine Insurance Company, The Travelers Indemnity Company, The Travelers Indemnity Company of America, The Travelers Indemnity Company of Connecticut, The Travelers Lloyds Insurance Company, TravCo Insurance Company, Travelers (Bermuda) Limited, Travelers Brazil Acquisition LLC, Travelers Brazil Holding LLC, Travelers Casualty Company of Connecticut, Travelers Casualty Insurance Company of America, Travelers Casualty UK Investments LLC, Travelers Casualty and Surety Company, Travelers Casualty and Surety Company of America, Travelers Casualty and Surety Company of Europe Limited, Travelers Commercial Casualty Company, Travelers Commercial Insurance Company, Travelers Constitution State Insurance Company, Travelers Distribution Alliance Inc., Travelers Excess and Surplus Lines Company, Travelers Global Inc., Travelers Indemnity U.K. Investments LLC, Travelers Insurance Company Limited, Travelers Insurance Company of Canada, Travelers Insurance Designated Activity Company, Travelers Insurance Group Holdings Inc., Travelers Lloyds of Texas Insurance Company, Travelers London Limited, Travelers MGA Inc., Travelers Management Limited, Travelers Marine LLC, Travelers Participacoes em Seguros Brasil S.A., Travelers Personal Insurance Company, Travelers Personal Security Insurance Company, Travelers Property Casualty Company of America, Travelers Property Casualty Corp., Travelers Property Casualty Insurance Company, Travelers Seguros Brasil S.A., Travelers Syndicate Management Limited, Travelers Texas MGA Inc., Travelers Underwriting Agency Limited, Ultramar Travel Management, United States Fidelity and Guaranty Company, Xbridge Limited, Zensurance Brokers Inc., and Zensurance Inc..From Greg Swank, 12-4-2 You are about to read a list of 45 goals that found their way down the halls of our great Capitol back in 1963. As...The following companies are subsidiares of The Procter & Gamble: "Procter & Gamble Services" LLC, "Procter & Gamble" LLC, Agile Pursuits, Agile Pursuits Franchising, Arbora, Arbora & Ausonia, Arborinvest, Billie, Braun (Shanghai) Co., Braun GmbH, Braun-Gillette Immobilien GmbH & Co. KG, Celtic Insurance Company, Compania Procter & Gamble Mexico, Compania Quimica S.A., Corporativo Procter & Gamble, Cosmetic Products Pty. Ltd., Detergent Products B.V., Detergent Products SARL, Detergenti S.A., Eurocos Cosmetic GmbH, FPG Oleochemicals Sdn. Bhd., Fameccanica Data S.p.A., Fameccanica Industria e Comercio Do Brasil LTDA., Fameccanica Machinery (Shanghai) Co., Fater S.p.A., Fountain Square Music Publishing Co., Gillette (China) Ltd., Gillette (Shanghai) Ltd., Gillette Aesop Ltd., Gillette Australia Pty. Ltd., Gillette Canada Holdings, Gillette Commercial Operations North America, Gillette Diversified Operations Pvt. Ltd., Gillette Egypt S.A.E., Gillette Group UK Ltd, Gillette Gruppe Deutschland GmbH & Co. oHG, Gillette Holding Company LLC, Gillette Holding GmbH, Gillette India Limited, Gillette Industries Ltd., Gillette International B.V., Gillette Latin America Holding B.V., Gillette Management LLC, Gillette Nova Scotia Company, Gillette Pakistan Limited, Gillette Poland International Sp. z.o.o., Gillette Poland S.A., Gillette U.K. Limited, Gillette del Uruguay, Giorgio Beverly Hills Inc., Hyginett KFT, Industries Marocaines Modernes SA, LLC "Procter & Gamble Novomoskovsk", LLL "Procter & Gamble Distributorskaya Compania", Laboratorios Vicks, Liberty Street Music Publishing Company, Limited Liability Company 'Procter & Gamble Trading Ukraine', Limited Liability Company with foreign investments Procter & and Gamble Ukraine, MDVIP, MERCK KGAA NPV, Marcvenca Inversiones, Modern Industries Company - Dammam, Modern Products Company - Jeddah, New Chapter, New Chapter Canada Inc., Olay LLC, Oral-B Laboratories, P&G Distribution Morocco SAS, P&G Hair Care Holding, P&G Industrial Peru S.R.L., P&G Innovation Godo Kaisha, P&G Israel M.D.O. Ltd., P&G K.K., P&G Northeast Asia Pte. Ltd., P&G Prestige Godo Kaisha, P&G Prestige Service GmbH, P&G South African Trading (Pty.) Ltd., PGT Health Care (Zhejiang) Limited, PGT Healthcare LLP, PPI ZAO, PT Procter & Gamble Home Products Indonesia, PT Procter & Gamble Operations Indonesia, Phase II Holdings Corporation, Procter & Gamble (Chengdu) Ltd., Procter & Gamble (China) Ltd., Procter & Gamble (China) Sales Co. Ltd., Procter & Gamble (East Africa) Limited, Procter & Gamble (Egypt) Manufacturing Company, Procter & Gamble (Enterprise Fund) Limited, Procter & Gamble (Guangzhou) Consumer Products Co. Ltd., Procter & Gamble (Guangzhou) Enterprise Management Service Company Limited, Procter & Gamble (Guangzhou) Ltd., Procter & Gamble (Health & Beauty Care) Limited, Procter & Gamble (Jiangsu) Ltd. China, Procter & Gamble (L&CP) Limited, Procter & Gamble (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Procter & Gamble (Manufacturing) Ireland Limited, Procter & Gamble (Shanghai) International Trade Company Ltd., Procter & Gamble (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Procter & Gamble Acquisition GmbH, Procter & Gamble Administration GmbH, Procter & Gamble Algeria EURL, Procter & Gamble Amazon Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Amiens S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Argentina SRL, Procter & Gamble Asia Pte. Ltd., Procter & Gamble Australia Proprietary Limited, Procter & Gamble Azerbaijan Services LLC, Procter & Gamble Bangladesh Private Ltd., Procter & Gamble Blois S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Brazil Holdings B.V., Procter & Gamble Bulgaria EOOD, Procter & Gamble Business Services Canada Company, Procter & Gamble Canada Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Chile , Procter & Gamble Chile Limitada, Procter & Gamble Colombia Ltda., Procter & Gamble Commercial LLC, Procter & Gamble Commercial de Cuba S.A., Procter & Gamble Czech Republic s.r.o., Procter & Gamble DS Polska Sp. z o.o., Procter & Gamble Danmark ApS, Procter & Gamble Detergent (Beijing) Ltd., Procter & Gamble Deuttschland GmbH, Procter & Gamble Distributing (Philippines) Inc., Procter & Gamble Distributing New Zealand Limited, Procter & Gamble Distribution Company (Europe) BVBA, Procter & Gamble Distribution S.R.L., Procter & Gamble Eastern Europe, Procter & Gamble Ecuador Cia. Ltda., Procter & Gamble Egypt, Procter & Gamble Egypt Distribution, Procter & Gamble Egypt Holding, Procter & Gamble Egypt Supplies, Procter & Gamble Energy Company LLC, Procter & Gamble Espana, Procter & Gamble Europe SA, Procter & Gamble Export Operations SARL, Procter & Gamble Exportadora e Importadora Ltda., Procter & Gamble Exports, Procter & Gamble Fabricacao e Comercio Ltda., Procter & Gamble Far East, Procter & Gamble Finance (U.K.) Ltd., Procter & Gamble Finance Holding Ltd., Procter & Gamble Finance Management S.a.r.l., Procter & Gamble Financial Investments LLP, Procter & Gamble Financial Services Ltd., Procter & Gamble Financial Services S.a.r.l., Procter & Gamble Finland OY, Procter & Gamble France S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Germany GmbH, Procter & Gamble Germany GmbH & Co. Operations oHG, Procter & Gamble GmbH, Procter & Gamble Grundstucks-und Vermogensverwaltungs GmbH & Co. KG, Procter & Gamble Gulf FZE, Procter & Gamble Hair Care, Procter & Gamble Hellas Ltd., Procter & Gamble Holding (Thailand) Limited, Procter & Gamble Holding France S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Holding GmbH, Procter & Gamble Holding S.r.l., Procter & Gamble Holdings (UK) Ltd., Procter & Gamble Home Products Private Limited, Procter & Gamble Hong Kong Limited, Procter & Gamble Hungary Wholesale Trading Partnership (KKT), Procter & Gamble Hygiene & Health Care Limited, Procter & Gamble Inc., Procter & Gamble India Holdings, Procter & Gamble Indochina Limited Company, Procter & Gamble Industrial - 2012 C.A., Procter & Gamble Industrial Colombia Ltda., Procter & Gamble Industrial S.C.A., Procter & Gamble Industrial e Comercial Ltda., Procter & Gamble Interamericas de Costa Rica, Procter & Gamble Interamericas de Guatemala, Procter & Gamble Interamericas de Panama, Procter & Gamble International Operations Pte. Ltd., Procter & Gamble International Operations SA, Procter & Gamble International Operations SA-ROHQ, Procter & Gamble International S.a.r.l., Procter & Gamble Investment Company (UK) Ltd., Procter & Gamble Investment GmbH, Procter & Gamble Italia, Procter & Gamble Japan K.K., Procter & Gamble Kazakhstan Distribution LLP, Procter & Gamble Kazakhstan LLP, Procter & Gamble Korea, Procter & Gamble Korea S&D Co., Procter & Gamble Lanka Private Ltd. Sri Lanka, Procter & Gamble Leasing LLC, Procter & Gamble Levant S.A.L., Procter & Gamble Limited, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing (Thailand) Limited, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing (Tianjin) Co. Ltd., Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Belgium N.V., Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Berlin GmbH, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing GmbH, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Procter & Gamble Manufacturing SA (Pty) Ltd, Procter & Gamble Marketing Romania SRL, Procter & Gamble Marketing and Services doo, Procter & Gamble Maroc SA, Procter & Gamble Mataro, Procter & Gamble Mexico Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Mexico Inc., Procter & Gamble Middle East FZE, Procter & Gamble Nederland B.V., Procter & Gamble Netherlands Investments B.V., Procter & Gamble Netherlands Services B.V., Procter & Gamble Nigeria Limited, Procter & Gamble Nordic, Procter & Gamble Norge AS, Procter & Gamble Operations Polska Sp. z o.o., Procter & Gamble Overseas India B.V., Procter & Gamble Overseas Ltd., Procter & Gamble Pakistan (Private) Limited, Procter & Gamble Partnership LLP, Procter & Gamble Peru S.R.L., Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals France SAS, Procter & Gamble Philippines, Procter & Gamble Polska Sp. z o.o, Procter & Gamble Portugal - Produtos De Consumo, Procter & Gamble Product Supply (U.K.) Limited U.K., Procter & Gamble Production GmbH, Procter & Gamble Productions, Procter & Gamble Productos de Consumo, Procter & Gamble RHD, Procter & Gamble RSC Regional Service Company Ltd., Procter & Gamble Retail Services BVBA, Procter & Gamble S.r.l., Procter & Gamble SA (Pty) Ltd, Procter & Gamble Satis ve Dagitim Ltd. Sti., Procter & Gamble Seine S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Service GmbH, Procter & Gamble Services (Switzerland) SA, Procter & Gamble Services Company N.V., Procter & Gamble Services Ltd., Procter & Gamble Share Incentive Plan Trustee Ltd., Procter & Gamble South America Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Spol. s.r.o. (Ltd.), Procter & Gamble Sports and Social Club Ltd., Procter & Gamble Sverige AB, Procter & Gamble Switzerland SARL, Procter & Gamble Taiwan Limited, Procter & Gamble Taiwan Sales Company Limited, Procter & Gamble Technical Centres Limited, Procter & Gamble Technology (Beijing) Co., Procter & Gamble Trading (Thailand) Limited, Procter & Gamble Tuketim Mallari Sanayii A.S., Procter & Gamble UK, Procter & Gamble UK Group Holdings Ltd, Procter & Gamble UK Parent Company Ltd., Procter & Gamble Universal Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Verwaltungs GmbH, Procter & Gamble Vietnam, Procter & Gamble d.o.o. za trgovinu, Procter & Gamble de Venezuela S.C.A., Procter & Gamble de Venezuela S.R.L., Procter & Gamble do Brasil S/A, Procter & Gamble do Brazil, Procter & Gamble do Nordeste S/A, Procter & Gamble-Rakona s.r.o., Progam Realty & Development Corporation, Redmond Products, Richardson-Vicks Real Estate Inc., Richardson-Vicks do Brasil Quimica e Farmaceutica Ltda, Riverfront Music Publishing Co., Rosemount LLC, SPD Development Company Limited, SPD Swiss Precision Diagnostics GmbH, Scannon S.A.S., Series Acquisition B.V., Shulton, Surfac S.R.L., Sycamore Productions, TAOS - FL, TAOS Retail, Tambrands Inc., Temple Trees Impex & Investment Private Limited, The Art of Shaving - FL, The Dover Wipes Company, The Gillette Company, The Gillette Company LLC, The Gillette co., The Procter & Gamble Distributing LLC, The Procter & Gamble GBS Company, The Procter & Gamble Global Finance Company, The Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Company, The Procter & Gamble Paper Products Company, The Procter & Gamble U.S. Business Services Company, This is L., US CD LLC, Vidal Sassoon (Shanghai) Academy, Vidal Sassoon Co., WEBA Betriebsrenten-Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH, Walker & Company Brands, and iMFLUX Inc..Reinsurance Group of America, Inc. is a holding company, which engages in the provision of traditional and non-traditional life and health reinsurance products. It operates through the following segments: U.S. and Latin America; Canada; Europe, Middle East, and Africa; Asia Pacific; and Corporate and Other. The U.S. and Latin America segment markets individual and group life and health reinsurance to domestic clients for a variety of products through yearly renewable term agreements, coinsurance, and modified coinsurance. The Canada segment offers individual life reinsurance, and to a lesser extent creditor, group life and health, critical illness and disability reinsurance, through yearly renewable term and coinsurance agreements. The Europe, Middle East, and Africa segment serves individual and group life and health products through yearly renewable term and coinsurance agreements, reinsurance of critical illness coverage that provides a benefit in the event of the diagnosis of a pre-defined critical illness and underwritten annuities. The Asia Pacific segment comprises individual and group life and health reinsurance, critical illness coverage, disability, and superannuation thr

Read MoreAbout Me Scott Because prophetic scriptures are found throughout the bible, it is obvious that a comprehensive, systematic approach would be useful, if not necessary, for the understanding of prophecy. Past prophecies have been fulfilled in a literal manner, as confirmed by the dating of these writings and historical records of confirmation. These past prophecies also serve as a model of how to interpret future prophecies. A literal view of prophecy clearly indicates a certain sequence of events will occur within a single generation, concluding with the Tribulation and Second Advent and these events will be obvious. The prophetic signs appear to be present in this generation and we believe these signs are revealed in the news from around the world. View my complete profileRoyal Dutch Shell plc operates as an energy and petrochemical company worldwide. The company operates through Integrated Gas, Upstream, Oil Products, Chemicals segments. It explores for and extracts crude oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids; markets and transports oil and gas; produces gas-to-liquids fuels and other products; and operates upstream and midstream infrastructure necessary to deliver gas to market. The company also markets and trades natural gas, liquefied natural gas (LNG), crude oil, electricity, carbon-emission rights; and markets and sells LNG as a fuel for heavy-duty vehicles and marine vessels. In addition, it trades in and refines crude oil and other feed stocks, such as gasoline, diesel, heating oil, aviation fuel, marine fuel, biofuel, lubricants, bitumen, and sulphur; produces and sells petrochemicals for industrial use; and manages oil sands activities. Further, the company produces base chemicals comprising ethylene, propylene, and aromatics, as well as intermediate chemicals, such as styrene monomer, propylene oxide, solvents, detergent alcohols, ethylene oxide, and ethylene glycol. Royal Dutch Shell plc was founded in 1907 and is headquartered in The Hague, the Netherlands.

Read MoreMedtronic Plc is a medical technology company, which engages in the development, manufacture, distribution, and sale of device-based medical therapies and services. It operates through the following segments: Cardiac and Vascular Group; Minimally Invasive Technologies Group; Restorative Therapies Group; and Diabetes Group. The Cardiac and Vascular Group segment consists of products for the diagnosis, treatment, and management of cardiac rhythm disorders and cardiovascular disease. The Minimally Invasive Technologies Group segment focuses on respiratory system, gastrointestinal tract, renal system, lungs, pelvic region, kidneys, and obesity diseases. The Restorative Therapies Group segment comprises of neurostimulation therapies and drug delivery systems for the treatment of chronic pain, as well as areas of the spine and brain, along with pelvic health and conditions of the ear, nose, and throat. The Diabetes Group segment offers insulin pumps, coninuous glucose monitoring systems, and insulin pump consumables. The company was founded in 1949 and is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland.

Read MoreThe following companies are subsidiares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise: 3Com International Inc., 3PAR Inc., Apogee, Aruba Networks Inc., Aruba Networks International Cayman, Aruba Networks International Limited, BlueData Software, Cloud Cruiser, Cloud Technology Partners, Cloud Technology Partners Inc., Compaq Computer (Mauritius), Compaq Trademark B.V., Cray, Cray Inc., EDS World Corporation (Far East) LLC, EYP Mission Critical Facilities Inc., H3C Holdings Limited, HP Enterprise Services Australia Pty Ltd, HP Financial Services (Australia) Pty Limited, HP Financial Services (Chile) Limitada, HP Financial Services (Japan) K.K., HP Financial Services Arrendamento Mercantil S.A., HP Financial Services Company (Korea), HP Financial Services International Holdings Company, HPE Government LLC, HPFS Global Holdings I LLC, HPFS Global Holdings II LLC, HPFS Rental S.R.L., Hangzhou H3C Technologies Co. Ltd, Hewlett Packard Caribe BV LLC, Hewlett Packard Colombia Ltda., Hewlett Packard Enterprise (China) Co. Ltd., Hewlett Packard Enterprise B.V., Hewlett Packard Enterprise B.V. Amstelveen Meyrin Branch, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Canada Co., Hewlett Packard Enterprise Canada Co. Hewlett Packard Enterprise Canada Cie, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Costa Rica Limitada, Hewlett Packard Enterprise GlobalSoft Private Limited, Hewlett Packard Enterprise India Private Limited, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Ireland Limited, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Luxembourg SCA, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Polska sp. z o.o., Hewlett Packard Pathfinder LLC, Hewlett Packard Taiwan Ltd., Hewlett-Packard (Israel) Ltd., Hewlett-Packard (M) Sdn. Bhd., Hewlett-Packard (Nigeria) Limited, Hewlett-Packard (Schweiz) GmbH, Hewlett-Packard (Tanzania) Limited, Hewlett-Packard (Thailand) Limited, Hewlett-Packard ApS, Hewlett-Packard Argentina S.R.L., Hewlett-Packard Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., Hewlett-Packard Australia Pty Ltd, Hewlett-Packard Belgium SPRL/BVBA, Hewlett-Packard Bermuda Enterprises LLC, Hewlett-Packard Brasil Ltda., Hewlett-Packard Bulgaria EOOD, Hewlett-Packard Caribe B.V., Hewlett-Packard Caribe Y Andina B.V. LLC, Hewlett-Packard Chile Comercial Limitada, Hewlett-Packard Cyprus Ltd, Hewlett-Packard Ecuador Cia. Ltda., Hewlett-Packard Egypt Ltd., Hewlett-Packard Financial Services (India) Private Limited, Hewlett-Packard Financial Services Canada Company, Hewlett-Packard Financial Services Company, Hewlett-Packard France SAS, Hewlett-Packard G1 SPV (Cayman) Company, Hewlett-Packard Gesellschaft mbH, Hewlett-Packard Ghana Limited, Hewlett-Packard GmbH, Hewlett-Packard Guatemala Limitada, Hewlett-Packard HK SAR Ltd., Hewlett-Packard Hellas EPE, Hewlett-Packard Holdings Ltd., Hewlett-Packard International Bank Designated Activity Company, Hewlett-Packard International Bank Public Limited Company, Hewlett-Packard International Sarl, Hewlett-Packard Italiana S.r.l., Hewlett-Packard Japan Ltd., Hewlett-Packard Korea Ltd., Hewlett-Packard Leasing Limited, Hewlett-Packard Limited, Hewlett-Packard Luxembourg Enterprises LLC, Hewlett-Packard Macau Limited, Hewlett-Packard Manufacturing Ltd, Hewlett-Packard Marigalante Ltd., Hewlett-Packard Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Hewlett-Packard Middle East FZ-LLC, Hewlett-Packard Mocambique Limitada - Sociedada em Liquidacao, Hewlett-Packard Nederland B.V., Hewlett-Packard New Zealand, Hewlett-Packard Norge AS, Hewlett-Packard OY, Hewlett-Packard Operations Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Hewlett-Packard Peru S.R.L., Hewlett-Packard Philippines Corporation, Hewlett-Packard Portugal Lda., Hewlett-Packard SARL, Hewlett-Packard SIA, Hewlett-Packard Servicios Espana S.L., Hewlett-Packard Singapore (Sales) Pte. Ltd., Hewlett-Packard South Africa (Proprietary) Limited, Hewlett-Packard Sverige AB, Hewlett-Packard Technology Center Inc., Hewlett-Packard Teknoloji Cozumleri Limited Sirketi, Hewlett-Packard The Hague B.V., Hewlett-Packard Venezuela S.R.L., Hewlett-Packard Vision Limited, Hewlett-Packard d.o.o., Hewlett-Packard s.r.o., Limited Liability Company Hewlett Packard Enterprise, MapR Technologies, New H3C Technologies Co. Ltd., Niara Inc., Nimble Storage, Nimble Storage Inc., Nimble Storage Israel Ltd, Nimble Storage Japan GK, Nimble Storage UK Limited, Plexxi, RedPixie, SGI (Silicon Graphics), Sapphire Holding Co, Scytale, Shanghai Hewlett-Packard Co. Ltd., Silver Peak, SimpliVity, Sinope Holding B.V., Trilead, UAB ES Hague Lietuva, and Unis Huashan Technologies Co. Limited.Welcome Guest! You Are Here:Small traders on Sunday said that Walmart should not be allowed to pick up majority stake in Flipkart as it will lead to predatory pricing hitting the mom and pop shops.

Traders body CAIT demanded scrutiny of the proposed $12-billion Flipkart-Walmart deal.

CAIT has asked the government to form a regulatory authority for e-commerce and till the authority is formed no such deal should be allowed.

CAIT demands government scrutiny of the Walmart-Flipkart deal. This deal should not be allowed since it will encourage more loss funding and predatory pricing on e-commerce which is already gripped with mal-practices, it said

CAIT said that it was really unfortunate that inspite of having a clear FDI policy, the foreign companies are finding escaping route whether it is in retail or e-commerce.

Same is the case of Walmart that after failing to enter India in retail sector through FDI, it has chosen e-commerce route which will be quite harmful for the trading community. Unfortunately, the government inspite of well knowing the intent and hidden agenda of companies like Walmart, is keeping its eyes and ears shut. Rather government is laying red carpet for them. Commerce minister has no time to talk about domestic trade but is always prompt in meeting multinational corporations, said CAIT.

The body also said it is taking a strong objection to it and will soon knock the doors of the government including CCI and if need be shall not hesitate to go to court as well.

All unholy nexus should be scanned and stopped, it added.

The bodys comments assume significance as the global retail giant Walmart is inching closer to sealing the deal to buy a majority stake in Flipkart for as much as $12 billion, even though rival Amazon is still jostling to turn the deal in its favour.

The Flipkart buy may be one of the largest deals in the retail sector and by far, the biggest in the countrys booming e-commerce market.Retail petroleum dealers have complained of receiving lower quantity of fuel from oil tankers which they say has risen sharply in step with surging fuel prices.

Kolkata: Retail petroleum dealers have complained of receiving lower quantity of fuel from oil tankers which they say has risen sharply in step with surging fuel prices.

Oil Marketing Companies (OMC), however, rubbished the claim saying there is no room for dispute as proper checks are already in place.

"The short supply of fuel was always there but the difference has now jumped sharply. The minimum shortage we are experiencing now is 50 litres which can go up to 100-120 litres," West Bengal Petroleum Dealers Association president Tushar Sen told PTI.

A standard fuel reservoir is of 12,000 litres capacity. Despite taking up the matter at the highest level, things have only worsened. More automation is needed to make the process foolproof, he said.

"There is need to fit some kind of flow meter in the fuel storage tank to measure the flow of fuel into the tank," he said.

OMCs say they have taken all steps to ensure that quantity dispute does not arise.

"From the terminal level, supply to the tankers is legal metrology stamped and calibrated flow meters are in oil carriers with special locks. The lock can only be opened by the dealer," Indian Oil spokesperson Alok Singh said.

Both petrol pump dealers and OMCs acknowledge off-the-record that the main problem of pilferage lies with the oil carriers during their travel to the dealer. A Bharat Petroleum official, who did not wish to be quoted, said it is not right to blame the oil companies.

"There is provision to write a note of actual quantity receipt and then the dealer will get credit and a debit will be initiated for the tanker," he said.

At least 30-50 per cent of the dealers already own their oil carriers, the OMCs said. An Oil Tankers Association office-bearer declined to comment on the issue.

Meanwhile, the BPCL official said a new automation system of geo-fencing is being tried out. The technology is supposed to track and prevent opening of the lock of an oil carrier until the vehicle reaches the exact coordinate of the dealer's location.

"It will match the latitude and longitude of a location before it allows to open the lock," the official said.State-run Coal India (CIL) revved up fuel supplies to power plants by 14.4 per cent to 40.30 million tonnes in April.

New Delhi: State-run Coal India (CIL) revved up fuel supplies to power plants by 14.4 per cent to 40.30 million tonnes in April compared to the same month last year ahead of the monsoon season, according to an official.

Coal supplies to the power sector from CIL in April 2017 were 35.20 million tonnes (MT). "The volume increase was 5.1 MTs," the official said. CIL has gradually improved coal stocks at power plants to around 16 MT as of April 30 from that of a little over 7 MT six months ago, the official added.

The government earlier had ruled out any possibility of coal shortage in the upcoming monsoon season and asserted that it had sufficient stocks to meet the demand of power plants.

"The constant synergistic efforts between CIL and railways to improve the transport logistics led to a situation where the average rake loading per day increased significantly by 23.1 rakes during April 2018," the official said.

Rake loading per day last month to the whole coal consuming sector grew by 10.4 per cent as CIL loaded 245.7 rakes on an average compared to 222.6 rakes per day during April 2017.

Coal Minister Piyush Goyal had earlier asked the Railways to increase coal loading to up to 500 rakes per day to meet increased power demand in summer.

The minister in March had reviewed the coal stock position at various power plants and coal loading by Indian Railways. During the meeting, it was decided that coal loading would be stepped up to 500 rakes per day to ensure power supplies are not impacted due to fuel shortage at the plants.

Power, coal and railway ministries had taken a series of measures to improve coal supplies to plants after electricity prices crossed Rs 11 per unit at energy exchanges in September last.

In January, the government decided on various steps, including the use of dedicated rail transportation and setting up of power projects only within 500 km from coal mines, to boost supplies to power plants.

According to the latest Central Electricity Authority data, 32 power plants out of 114 plants with total generation capacity of 140,065 MW were facing fuel shortage as of May 1. Primary reasons were less allocation of coal by companies.The labour ministry is likely to notify this week the 5-year low 8.55 per cent interest on PF for 2017-18.

New Delhi: The labour ministry is likely to notify this week the 5-year low 8.55 per cent interest on PF for 2017-18, paving the way for retirement fund body EPFO to credit returns into the accounts of around 5 crore subscribers.

The finance ministry has ratified 8.55 per cent rate of interest on EPF for last fiscal.

"The labour ministry has sought Election Commission's approval to notify rate of interest for crediting the same into members' accounts by the EPFO in view of model code of conduct for Karnataka elections," a source said.

"The nod is expected anytime this week to provide 8.55 per cent rate of interest to the EPFO subscribers," the source said.

The recommendation on the rate of interest by the Central Board of Trustees, the apex decision making body of Employees' Provident Fund Organisation(EPFO), is sent to the finance ministry for its concurrence. Once ratified, the labour ministry notifies the rate of interest and the EPFO credits the return for the particular year into its members account.

The CBT, headed by the labour minister, had decided to fix 8.55 per cent rate of interest for last fiscal in its meeting held on February 21, 2018. It could not be implemented for the want of finance ministry's concurrence and was further delayed due to the model code of conduct for Karnataka elections on May 12. EPFO had provided 8.65 per cent interest for 2016-17.

The members got 8.8 per cent in 2015-16 and 8.75 per cent each in 2013-14 and 2014-15. In 2012-13, EPFO had provided 8.5 per cent rate of interest on EPF. Thus, at 8.55 per cent for 2017-18, it is a five year low.As of March 2018, the total AuM of the mutual fund industry stood at Rs 21.36 lakh crore with equity schemes accounting for 35 per cent and debt schemes constituting 37 per cent.

Mumbai: The assets under management (AUM) of the mutual fund industry have seen a relatively higher growth from smaller towns and cities in FY18 primarily driven by equity products.

This according to fund managers suggests that a higher proportion of investors from smaller cities prefer equity to other asset classes.

According to the data available with the industry body AMFI, the assets from B15 locations (beyond top 15 cities) have increased from Rs 3.09 lakh crore in March 2017 to Rs 4.27 lakh crore in March 2018, posting a growth of 38 per cent when compared to 19 per cent growth in top 15 cities from Rs 15.48 lakh crore to Rs 18.44 lakh crore during the same period.

The data shows that individuals interest in equities have increased over the last one year as 62 per cent of the assets from B15 locations was in equity schemes as at the end of March 2018 as compared to 53 per cent in the same period last year.

Similarly, the percentage of assets held by individual investors from B15 locations has increased from 25.48 per cent to 28.23 per cent during the corresponding period.

One of the main factors that are driving individuals towards equities according to experts is the fact that the expected returns from others asset classes like gold and real estate is not that attractive as compared to equity markets.

Moreover, the awareness campaigns undertaken by fund houses over the last few years amidst a buoyant secondary market has also managed to attract a significant number of first time investors to the equity markets.

As of March 2018, the total AuM of the mutual fund industry stood at Rs 21.36 lakh crore with equity schemes accounting for 35 per cent and debt schemes constituting 37 per cent. Individual investors held Rs 11.66 lakh crore in mutual fund schemes out of which Rs 7.92 lakh crore went into equity funds.The news of Cannes 2018 began with Kangana Ranaut not only attending but also representing India at the festival.

Sonam was always in the news because her wedding was reportedly clashing with the film festival, but now the actress will get married in two days and then attend the Cannes Film Festival without her husband this year.

If all the excitement around the outfits for Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Sonam Kapoor, Deepika Padukone and Kangana Ranaut wasnt enough, Raees actress Mahira Khan took to Instagram to confirm that she will be joining Cannes this year, making her debut there with none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Mahira is more popular back in India because of her untitled relationship with Ranbir Kapoor and the controversies she is involved in (smoking cigarette with a backless dress time and again).A love story need not be an empty read; it can be used to highlight issues ailing society, and Ravinder Singh has done just that. By interweaving a love story with the tragedy of a road accident, he has tried to shine a light on the importance of road safety in his latest book  Will You Still Love Me?

If I said that I wanted to talk about road safety, not many people would have been interested. But because it is presented in the form of a love story, many people can relate to it. I believe people dont like being lectured about road safety, or any other issue for that matter! There are enough sign boards around and no one respects them. But everyone wants to read a love story, said Ravinder Singh, who did his MBA from Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, was in the city for a meet and greets session with his fans on Saturday.

Will You Still Love Me? takes readers on a journey in which they vicariously experience pain and suffering in the aftermath of a road accident through Lavanya Gogoi and Rajveer Saini, the books main characters. It is a book that is especially close to Singhs heart as he too lost his girlfriend in a road accident nearly a decade ago and his father too lost his right leg in a similar accident sometime back.

The author kicked-off the meet-and-greet session by explaining the book and his reasons for writing it and then proceeded to answer questions from readers.

Every morning, when I pick up a newspaper, I read about at least half a dozen people having lost their lives in road accidents. This is an issue that needs to be addressed, the author said.

A large portion of the book is based in Meghalaya, a state that Singh hasnt had the chance to visit yet. When asked by a reader about the setting of the book and how he managed to represent it authentically, Singh said, That was the most difficult part. Due to some constraints, I was unable to go to Meghalaya, and I had to make do with books and videos about the place. He added that many of those who had read the book had expressed a desire to visit the north-eastern state.

When asked why he had chosen to make his female protagonist, Lavanya Gogoi, an Assamese girl, Singh responded, Why not? Isnt the north-east a part of India? If I can write about female protagonists from other parts of the country, why not Assam? He went on to talk about racism, another prevalent issue. When we go outside India and are attacked based on our nationality, we make a big deal of it.

But within the country, we do the same thing by discriminating against the residents of the north-eastern states. In literature, people from the north-east are rarely represented as protagonists. I wanted to change that, he said. The event ended with the author signing books for his fans, followed by a selfie session.This may be related to the development of the prefrontal cortex which plays a role in inhibiting impulsive decisions. (Photo: Pixabay)

At-risk adolescents are less likely to exhibit depressive symptoms on social media as they age, finds a study.

The research suggests that adolescents with a diagnosis of depression may feel less stigmatized describing depressed mood on social media than previously hypothesized.

Social media use can provide important information on the mental health of adolescents, including their own descriptions of their experiences. The purpose of this study was to analyze the patterns of social media posting describing depressive symptoms among an at-risk cohort of adolescents at two time points.

The study measured Facebook posts by participants at two time periods, labeled Time 1 as adolescents and Time 2 as young adults. Content analysis applied the Diagnoses and Statistical Manual (DSM) criteria for depression to identify displayed depression symptoms on Facebook.

The study found that the average number of references to depression among displayers was 9.30 at Time 1 and 4.94 at Time 2, showing a dramatic decrease in posts between adolescents and young adults.

"Considering differences between posts in Time 1 and Time 2, it is suggested that as teens develop, the likelihood to express depressive symptoms is lowered," said Dr. Kathleen Miller, one of the authors of the study.

"This may be related to the development of the prefrontal cortex which plays a role in inhibiting impulsive decisions."

Examples of posts referencing depression included "Basically at the point of giving up" and "Feeling the worst right now, just wanting to cry." The average number of references to suicide or self-harm was .34 at Time 1 and .08 at Time 2.

The research was presented during the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) 2018 Meeting in Toronto.I visited Athens in Greece with my crew for the location scout of my next movie, Butterfly directed by Ramesh Aravind. We have a schedule there from May 27, and I have a few upcoming projects to be shot there. I was fascinated by the Parthenon in the Acropolis of Athens, which is the oldest structure in Greece.

There are many must-visits  Santorini, which is one of the Cyclades Islands on the Aegean Sea. Mykonos is another island, known for its party atmosphere. The Acropolis is beautiful. As a vegetarian, I have restrictions and dislike European but Greece is surprisingly a very good place for vegetarians.

In New York, I wanted to go for a helicopter ride and that had to be rescheduled because bookings were full and it taught me a lesson to pre-book. That's why my entire trip to Greece was well planned which helped me make the most out of my day at Acropolis, Santorini and Mykonos.

I generally do not buy clothes for family as I dont believe in buying for the sake of it. After Greece, I went to Paris, and shopped there and love the variety and the presence of all the big French brands for bags and other things.

I would love to take my family to Greece. In fact, for my next schedule, I am taking my mom along. Id taken her to Paris and she did not quite like it, for shopping it was alright but Athens is better for sightseeing. Id suggest getting Google translate which helps in communication and also have the local helpline numbers.

 as told to Aditi JayakumarScientists have developed an artificial intelligence system that can help predict which students are at higher risk of perpetrating school violence.

The researchers found that machine learningthe science of getting computers to learn over time without human interventionis as accurate as a team of child and adolescent psychiatrists, including a forensic psychiatrist, in determining risk for school violence.

"Previous violent behaviour, impulsivity, school problems and negative attitudes were correlated with risk to others," said Drew Barzman, a child forensic psychiatrist at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center in the US.

"Our risk assessments were focused on predicting any type of physical aggression at school. We did not gather outcome data to assess whether machine learning could actually help prevent school violence. That is our next goal," said Barzman, lead author of the study published in the journal Psychiatric Quarterly.

Researchers evaluated 103 teenage students in 74 traditional schools throughout the US who had a major or minor behavioural change or aggression toward themselves or others.

The students were recruited from psychiatry outpatient clinics, inpatient units and emergency departments.

The team performed school risk evaluations with participants. Audio recordings from the evaluations were transcribed and manually annotated. The students, as it turned out, were relatively equally divided between moderate- to high-risk, and low-risk, according to two scales that the team developed and validated in previous research.

There were significant differences in total scores between the high-risk and low-risk groups. The machine learning algorithm that the researchers developed achieved an accuracy rate of 91.02 per cent, considered excellent, when using interview content to predict risk of school violence.

The rate increased to 91.45 per cent when demographic and socioeconomic data were added.

"The machine learning algorithm, based only on the participant's interview, was almost as accurate in assessing risk levels as a full assessment by our research team, including gathering information from parents and the school, a review of records when available, and scoring on the two scales we developed," said Yizhao Ni, a computational scientist at Cincinnati.

"Our ultimate goal, should research support it, is to spread the use of the machine learning technology to schools in the future to augment structures, professional judgment to more efficiently and effectively prevent school violence," said Barzman.WASHINGTON: It may not be on the menu at the upcoming wedding of Britains Prince Harry and American actress Meghan Markle, but some Yanks will toast the happy couple with a Markle Sparkle.

Looking to give Americans a taste of something they rejected more than 240 years ago, a Washington bar is going with a British royal family theme in honor of the wedding. You know, were pretty excited as Americans, said Andy Raibins as he waited in line outside the bars photo opportunity room. You know, we have an American joining the royal family.

Harry, Queen Elizabeths grandson and sixth in line to the throne, will tie the knot with Markle on May 19 at St. Georges Chapel at Windsor Castle, the home of British kings and queens for almost 1,000 years. The couple has attracted large cheering crowds in public appearances since their engagement was announced in November. The Royal Wedding Pub, the latest persona of a bar with ever-shifting themes near Howard University, has been transformed to look like St. Georges Chapel, with vaulted ceiling and stained glass windows.

The makeover, which took weeks and weeks to complete, is the next best thing to actually being there, boasted Adriana Salame, designer and project manager of the bar, which is owned by The Drink Company. You get a little taste of space, she said.

The crowd of mostly young women sported fascinators, the elegant headwear favored by British royalty, and summer dresses, and posed for pictures with life-size cardboard cut-outs of the soon-to-be newlyweds, the queen, as well as William and Kate, whose 2011 wedding also drew world attention.

Several patrons said they looked up to Los Angeles-born Markle, whose movies include Horrible Bosses and who appears in the television series, Suits.

I think shes a great example of a modern day woman, kind of taking on this very traditional role and really making it her own, and so I really admire her, said Katlain Borows, who was dressed to resemble Markle.

The drink menu features cocktails with a British twist in Harry and Meghan commemorative memorabilia mugs. Four bar tenders shake their stuff to a soundtrack of the Beatles and other British bands, creating specialized cocktails such as When Harry met Meghan and American Princess.

And that Markle Sparkle? It actually has real glitter in it, Kelly Horn explained as she took a sip.According to the police, the woman in her complaint said that she went to the hospital to obtain a medico-legal certificate after her husband had beaten her up. (Representational Image)

Hyderabad: A 35-year-old woman, who was a victim of domestic violence, was raped by a ward attendant in the government-run Osmania hospital in Hyderabad around midnight on Wednesday, police said on Saturday.

According to the police, the woman in her complaint said that she went to the hospital to obtain a medico-legal certificate after her husband had beaten her up.

At about 9 pm when she sat in the waiting hall after treatment, a man approached her. He took her to the first floor inside the hospital and raped her, the complaint said.

The man threatened her not to reveal the incident to anyone and fled, police said.

Soon after the woman lodged the complaint, B Nagaraju, the 45-year-old ward attendant, was arrested after the woman identified him from photographs of staff members shown to her.

Nagaraju was nabbed along with a home guard Qmar E-Ilahi, who was arrested on the charge of not reporting the matter despite "observing" the act, police said.

(With PTI inputs)'Hundred iPhone X handsets worth a total of Rs 85.61 lakh were seized from his baggage after a thorough search, additional commissioner of customs said. (Photo: Twitter/ANI)

New Delhi: A man was arrested by the customs at the Delhi airport for allegedly trying to smuggle in 100 iPhone X handsets, an official said on Sunday.

The 53-year-old accused was intercepted by the customs after his arrival from Dubai on Friday.

"Hundred iPhone X handsets worth a total of Rs 85.61 lakh were seized from his baggage after a thorough search," Additional Commissioner of customs at the airport, Amandeep Singh, said.Over 5 women are raped every day in Delhi in first 3.5 months this year, according to Delhi Police.

Jaipur: Five young men from Delhi have been arrested by Bhiwadi police in Rajasthan for alleged gangrape of a 30-year-old event manager on Saturday night. All the accused and the survivor belong to Delhi.

The accused reportedly brought the girl on the pretext of an event management assignment. One of them had met her during a party at his relative's house in New Delhi where she was tasked with the event management work, the police said. They reportedly told her that they have a factory in Bhiwadi where they were planning a function and wanted her to inspect the site and plan the event.

They arrived in Bhiwadi in the afternoon and checked into a hotel where three rooms had been booked by the accused. They spiked her drink with some drugs and took turns to rape her, the police said on the basis of the survivor's statement.

When the impact of the drug weakened, the survivor informed her friend in Delhi about her ordeal who alerted the cops in Delhi and Alwar. The police rescued the girl from the hotel room in Bhiwadi's Phool Bagh area late on Saturday night.

The police detained the five accused. The suspects have been identified as Vikas Jindal (38), Rakesh (39), Sanjay Garg (32), Vishu (41) and Sandeep (31). Vikas and Vishu are factory owners while Sandeep is claimed to be sub-inspector with CISF.A BSF jawan allegedly shot dead 3 colleagues with his service weapon before committing suicide at a border outpost at Maguruli in Unakoti district of Tripura. (Representational Image/PTI)

Kailashahar (Tripura): A Border Security Force (BSF) jawan allegedly shot dead three colleagues with his service weapon before committing suicide early on Sunday at a border outpost at Maguruli in Unakoti district, police said.

Officer-in-charge of Irani police station, Swapan Debbarma said, a constable -- Sishu Pal -- came to deposit his service rifle to head constable Bijoy Kumar at around 1 am after his duty got over and suddenly opened fire at Kumar, killing him on the spot. The border outpost is located 185 kms away from state capital Agartala.

It was not known if an altercation preceded the shooting incident, Debbarma said. "After killing Kumar, Pal went berserk and fired indiscriminately to fatally injure two more constables -- Rinku Kumar and Rakesh Kumar Jadav. Rinku died at the Unakoti district hospital here and Jadav was shifted to ILS hospital at Agartala," Debbarma told reporters.

Jadav died at ILS Hospital in the state capital, SP (Police Control), Harkumar Debbarma told news agency PTI in Agartala. Sishu Pal, Bijoy Kumar and Rinku Kuamr, all hailed from Jammu & Kashmir while Jadav was from Uttar Pradesh.

The bodies have been sent for post-mortem.

In a press statement, BSF condoled the incident and said arrangements are being made to send the jawans' bodies to their respective states.Jaipur: Five young men from Delhi have been arrested by Bhiwadi police in Rajasthan for alleged gangrape of a 30-year-old event manager on Saturday night. All the accused and the victim belong to Delhi.

The accused reportedly brought the woman on the pretext of an event management assignment. One of them had met her during a party at his relative's house in New Delhi where she was tasked with the event management work, the police said. They reportedly told her that they have a factory in Bhiwadi where they were planning a function according she accompanied them for site inspection to plan the event.

They arrived in Bhiwadi in the afternoon and checked into a hotel where three rooms had been booked by the accused. "They spiked her drink with some drugs and took turns to rape her," the police said on the basis of the survivors statement.

When the impact of the drug weakened and consciousness returned, the survivor informed her friend in Delhi about her ordeal who alerted the cops in Delhi and Alwar.

The police rescued the woman from the hotel room in Bhiwadis Phool Bagh area late Saturday night.

The police detained the five accused.

The suspects have been identified as Vikas Jindal (38), Rakesh (39), Sanjay Garg (32), Vishu (41) and Sandeep (31).

Vikas and Vishu are factory owners. Vishu owns factory in Delhi while Vikas is owner of a chemical factory in Alwar.

Among rest of the three accused, Rakesh runs a mobile accessories shop, Sanjay Garg has a mobile accessories shop while Sandeep is claimed to be sub-inspector with CISF.Turning the ship before it hits the icebergChennai: After losing Sri Lanka to China through its inept handling of the Eelam conflict, India is unwilling to learn from its diplomatic goof-ups, it appears.

Reports from Maldives, another island neighbour in the Indian Ocean, say the Chinese are everywhere here too just like in Lanka, while the Indian presence, and influence, is quickly diminishing.

While some in India believe that the Maldivians have shifted loyalty towards China for material gains and dumped long-time guardian angel India, Mr Ahmed Mohamed, Ambassador of Maldives in India, firmly denies the charge and lays the blame squarely on the slow-paced Indian bureaucratic red tape thats insensitive towards the stepped up pace of development in his country, which needed lots of project funding from friendly nations.

There is more project funding that is coming from China into Maldives, when compared to whats coming from India. Yes, Indias share is declining but we have never said no to encouraging Indias share, he told a select media gathering at the Maldivian mission here on Saturday. Ambassador Ahmed Mohamed is on a two-day visit to Chennai.

Explaining that the dynamics of politics has changed since the new Constitution came into being in 2008 and brought in the multi-party systemit was earlier restrictive democratic system that did not allow political parties to functionMr Mohamed said a President now has to fulfill his promises made while contesting in the previous poll to seek his second term. He must accomplish promises before the term of five years, or else people will reject him even before the election. Thats how you would see lot of development has come up post-2008, and projects move much faster now.

And for that, we approach all our bilateral partners to provide project funding. We dont ask for grants; we ask for loans, concessional loans. India also has provided through Exim Bank funding for some housing projects and road constructions. But can I say provide more funding for more projects? Thats not our call. If you want to promote your interests in Maldives, it is your responsibility; not mine, the Ambassador argued, battling the suggestion that his country was cozying up to China and moving away from India.

Asked if he thought the Indian diplomacy has failed in ensuring matching Indian investments in his country, Mr Mohamed said, I am not saying that. I am only stating facts. The pace of development has gone up and the pace at which the countries are able to get through decisions through their bureaucratic systems needs to be paced up.

Elaborating on the Indian lapses, he said, Everybody talks of China having deep pockets. I am sure India is equally rich. India has rich resources, big population.

But the system is different. What the Ambassador meant, without saying it in so many words, was that while the Chinese took quick decisions, the Indian system was bogged down in bureaucratic red tape.

To a question if Maldives thought India was adopting a Big Brother attitude towards its smaller neighours, including his country, Ambassador Mohamed smiled and said, We want India to be big brother to us; a good big brother.

Every time Maldives was in crisis, India was the first to reach out to usthe 1988 physical attack (coup attempt by Abdullah Luthufi assisted by Sri Lankan Tamil group, PLOTE), 2004 tsunami and the water crisis in 2014. This has been our biggest strength as great neighbours. We cannot wish away our geographical and cultural proximity, he said.Rafi Bhat, a resident of Chundhama village in central district of Ganderbal, had completed his PhD programme on whole time basis at the Department of Sociology of Kashmir University, Srinagar in November 2017. (Photo: File)

Srinagar: Kashmir University assistant professor Mohammad Rafi Bhat who is among five Hizbul Mujahideen cadres killed in a fire fight with security forces in southern Shopian district on Sunday had gone missing suddenly on Friday, leaving his parents, friends, colleagues and students a worried lot.

The University Vice Chancellor Prof Khurshid Iqbal Andrabi reported the matter to the police immediately and then spoke to DGP, Shesh Paul Vaid, to seek his help in tracing the missing member of the faculty.

While the effort was underway, the police learnt about the presence of a group of militants in a private house in Badigam village of Shopian. The troops from Armys 44 Rashtriya Rifles and men of J&K polices counterinsurgency Special Operations Group (SOG) and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) quickly launched a cordon-and-search operation in the village.

Also Read: 5 civilians die in clashes after terrorists killed in Shopian encounter in J&K

Meanwhile, Bhat made a last call to his father Abdul Rahim Bhat to bid farewell. He sought his forgiveness if I have hurt you.

The militants, said Inspector General of Police (Kashmir range) SP Pani, were given a chance to surrender. Their families were brought to the encounter site and repeated appeals were made through public address system to them to give up arms and hand themselves over to law but in vain.

In the ensuing encounter all the five holed up gunmen including Bhat were killed.

Bhat, a resident of Chundhama village in central district of Ganderbal, had completed his PhD programme on whole time basis at the Department of Sociology of Kashmir University, Srinagar in November 2017. He completed his thesis titled Globalization and emerging trends in consumerism: A comparative study in urban and rural Kashmir under the supervision of assistant professor Dr Mohmad Saleem Jahangir.

Bhat was soon appointed as a lecturer in the same department of the University.

Former Chief Minister and opposition National Conference (NC) working president, Omar Abdullah, wrote on Twitter, Sadly this is also an answer to those who claim jobs & development are the solution to the violence & alienation in Kashmir. This is another tragic development in a steady stream of tragedies in Kashmir.

Syed Rizwan Geelani, education correspondent at a Srinagar newspaper, wrote on Facebook, He was not a misguided youth. He had no complaints of a Job. He was a Doctor, a professor. He was a scholar. He was a Teacher-Builder of Nation. He was regular and punctual as a teacher in Department of Sociology in KU. Dear Professor, may your soul rest in PEACE.... AAMEEN SUMA AAMEEN.

The University has been closed for two days from Monday and all examination scheduled during this period have been deferred as a precautionary measure.The parameters that are evaluated include the level of pluralism, media independence, environment and self-censorship, legal framework, transparency, and the quality of the infrastructure that supports the production of news and information. (Photo: Pixabay | Representational)

New Delhi: The Press Council of India has rubbished the recently released Press Freedom Index, in which India slipped two places to rank 138th among 180 countries, saying there was a "lack of clarity" on the inputs that weighed in the rankings which were based on "opinion or perception".

Published annually by Reporters Without Borders (RWB), the World Press Freedom Index measures the level of media freedom in 180 countries.

The parameters that are evaluated include the level of pluralism, media independence, environment and self-censorship, legal framework, transparency, and the quality of the infrastructure that supports the production of news and information.

According to the RWB's annual report released on April 25, India dropped down two places -- from 136 in 2017, to 138.

"We reject the rankings by the RWB. I am of the opinion that undue importance is given to the rankings. There is no clarity on the inputs that weighed in the ranking of a country," PCI Chairman Justice (retd) C K Prasad said.

The RWB report blamed physical violence against journalists like Gauri Lankesh, who was shot dead outside her house in Bengaluru in September 2017, as the key reason behind India's low ranking.

The report warned that hate crime was another issue plaguing India.

Prasad said the PCI had written to the RWB a number of times since 2015 to understand how the index was prepared, but hadn't received any reply.

He said the rankings were "reportedly" based partly on a questionnaire sent to the partner organisation of the RWF, its correspondents around the world, and journalists, researchers, jurists and human right activists.

Prasad said the PCI had earlier communicated to the RWB that the rankings were not based on statistical data, but "based on opinion or perception of an individual or group of individuals".

In a letter, dated September 22, 2015, to the RWB, the PCI had said that after going through the Word Press Index 2014, it was noticed that the rankings were prepared on the basis of various parameters, including media pluralism and independence, safety and freedom of journalists, legislative institutional and infrastructural environment in which media operates.

India ranked 140 in 2014.

"In order to understand the gravity of the matter, the chairman of the Council desires to know the inputs which weighed in ranking of the country in the index so that remedial steps, if needed, can be taken to smoothen the functioning of the media," the letter said.

"The chairman is further of the opinion that a structured discussion on the issue with your (RWF) representative and the members of the Council would be helpful in achieving the objective," it read.

Letters were also sent to the RWB in October and December in 2015, seeking their response to the PCI's queries.

The PCI again wrote a letter to the RWB in early 2016, saying the council was of the opinion that the World Freedom Index rankings "could either be on the basis of statistical data or perception of an individual or group of individuals".

"If the ranking is on the basis of statistical data, the council requests you to share it with us, so as to enable us to take remedial measures as it deems proper.

"The council is constrained to communicate that if no data is shared, it shall have to come to the conclusion that India's ranking in World Freedom Index is based on perception and is not supported by any verifiable data," the letter read.

In March 2016, the PCI also gave a detailed response to the articles published by the RWB in 2014 and 2015 regarding incidents which could reflect the status of freedom of press in India and could have bearing on the Index.Hyderabad: A Gulf expat who was stranded after being cheated by an agent was rescued from the war-torn Erbil state of Iraq. Nagender, a native of East Godavari district in AP, landed at RGI Airport on Saturday. Narenders parents had sold their house to pay the fine of $1,500 for his release. P. Basanth Reddy from Telangana Gulf Association said they had been trying to get him back to the country since December 2017 with the help of the Indian embassy officials and IT minister KT Ramarao. Mr Reddy demanded that the state government take strict action against agents who cheat people.Describing the arrest as 'political conspiracy', Mukul Roy, who was the Union railway minister in 2012 when the cases were lodged against his brother-in-law, said he himself was the actual target of the move. (Photo: PTI)

Kolkata: West Bengal Police has arrested BJP leader Mukul Roy's brother-in-law from New Delhi for allegedly duping railway job seekers, a senior official said on Saturday.

Roy's brother-in-law Srijan Roy was arrested from Delhi airport late on Saturday night by a team of police from Bizpur police station in North 24 Parganas district on the basis of complaints which were filed around six years ago, the police officer said.

"Srijan Roy has been arrested for taking money from several people on the pretext of providing them with jobs," a district police official said.

The accused was produced at a district court on Saturday and was remanded to 12 days of police custody, he added.

Describing the arrest as "political conspiracy", Mukul Roy, who was the Union railway minister in 2012 when the cases were lodged against his brother-in-law, said he himself was the actual target of the move.

"This is a conspiracy hatched by Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee against me and my family members. She is resorting to such things because she is afraid of the Bharatiya Janata Party. I am the real target of this conspiracy," Roy said.

Roy was a close confidante of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and was one of the founding members of Trinamool Congress. Over the last few years his relation with the Trinamool supremo soured and in November 2017, he joined the BJP.New Delhi: Wading into the Jinnah row, Union minister V.K. Singh on Sunday said those Muslims, who supported the presence of Pakistan founders portrait in the AMU, were insulting their forefathers, who had rejected his ideology.

Singh said, If you are not a Muslim but support the portraits presence because you think that protests against it curbs your freedom, then you should think if you would like on the walls of your house a picture of somebody whose hands are stained with the blood of your own people Without a doubt, freedom is everybodys right. But we tend to forget that how many great people shed their blood in achieving it. Will they be proud today of the manner in which you are using your freedom? the former Army chief asked.Family members remove earrings of a Neet aspirant before she enters the exam hall on Sunday. (Photo: DC)

Hyderabad: Sundays National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (Neet) exams recorded an attendance of 13.4 lakh, a sharp increase from 11.4 lakh recorded last year.

The exam, which is held for admission to medical college, was held at 2,255 centres across the country.

This dramatic increase is primarily due to the increase in the number of states opting for NEET scores over state-level Common Entrance Tests (CETs) for admissions in the health sciences.

This could also be attributed to an increase in the number of students clearing Class 12 exams, and various policies and scholarships provided by the government.

In 2016, NEET saw only 7.5 lakh registrations. The total number of seats in MBBS and BDS institutes across the country stands at 60,000. As many as 13,26,725 candidates appeared for NEET entrance exams in 136 cities across India conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education. Of the total students, 7,46,076 are female and 5,80,648 are males, in addition to one transgender candidate.

NEET 2018 was conducted in Hindi, English, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Marathi, Oriya, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu. The NEET 2018 exam consisted of one paper - containing 180 objective-type questions of Science subjects -Physics, Chemistry and Biology. NEET exam was held on morning 10 am to 1 pm afternoon.

The NEET results are expected on June 5. The CBSE will display the NEET answer key of the questions, so that candidates can clear any doubts with regards to the answer on the website.

Doors closed on latecomers without mercy

Despite strict instructions by the CBSE long before the exams, students in areas like Alwal, Golnaka and Kukatpally turned up late for the Neet exam and were not allowed to write the exam.

Students were asked to report by 9:30 am but some reached the centre around 10 am and were denied entry.

Reportedly, two students were not allowed inside the campus of St. Michael School as they reported to the campus after 9:30 am.

Gates at most centres closed sharp at 9.30 am and no excuses were entertained after that.

A student from Film Nagar area said, My brother and I had the exam on the same day. My father dropped my brother first. There was also some traffic jam.

The doors were closed when I reached at 9:30 am so I was not allowed to write the exam. I lost a year because of the strict rules of Neet.Hyderabad: The Telangana government has no intention of cutting entry tax on fuel to bring prices at par with neighbouring Karnataka, which abolished the six per cent entry tax on fuel last year to check rising fuel prices.

Though the Centre has exempted petrol and diesel from GST, which came into force from July 1, 2017, Karnataka voluntarily withdrew the entry tax to bring prices down.

With this, fuel prices in Karnataka came down by six per cent, and consumers from Telangana in the areas bordering Karnataka have been buying fuel from petrol pumps in Karnataka, with petrol costing Rs 5 less per litre than it does in Telangana.

Telangana petrol pump dealers in bordering areas, too, are getting fuel from Karnataka at cheaper rates, and making higher profits thanks to higher sale prices in Telangana.

Consumers are now demanding that Telangana abolish entry tax to bring down the price of petrol, which is close to Rs 80 per litre, while the price of diesel has crossed the Rs 71 mark.

The Centre, too, has appealed to states to cut VAT rates and entry taxes to lower fuel prices. However, Telangana has refused to cut tax rates, arguing that VAT on petroleum contributes major revenue to the exchequer and the government will suffer huge financial losses if it is cut, and the government has argued that if the Centre is serious about lowering fuel prices, it should first cut excise duty.

Finance minister Etela Rajender said, The state government cannot afford to lose revenue from taxes on fuel as it is implementing various welfare schemes that cost over Rs 50,000 crore per year. Besides, we are taking up several irrigation projects, Mission Bhagiratha, etc., for which huge funds are needed. After GST, almost all taxes being collected by the states have been abolished. Now, states can collect VAT only on fuel and alcohol. If this too is lost, we have to depend entirely on the Centre for funds. As it is, we have been asking the Centre for funds to complete Kaleshwaram project, Mission Bhagiratha, and Mission Kakatiya, and received nothing in three years.Chitradurga: Accusing the Congress of distorting history as part of a conspiracy to divide society, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday flayed the Siddaramaiah government in Karnataka for celebrating the "jayantis of Sultans" for the sake of "vote bank politics".

PM Modi was apparently referring to the Siddaramaiah government's controversial decision to celebrate "Tipu Jayanti" every year on November 10, commemorating Tipu Sultan, the legendary 18th century ruler of Mysore.

Addressing an election rally in Chitradurga, the Prime Minister said, "Look at the Congress character....whose jayanti needs to celebrated with respect, from whom we have to draw inspiration for generations to generations, they can't think about celebrating their jayantis". "Veera Madakari and Onake Obavva are forgotten, but for the sake of vote bank politics they are into celebrating jayantis of Sultans," he said.

A Dalit woman, Onake Obavva was the legendary wife of a soldier in the army of Madakari Nayaka, the last ruler of Chitrdurga. She is said to have fought single handedly and killed with a pestle several invading soldiers of the army of Hyder Ali, father of Tipu Sultan, in 1779. She was killed by Hyder Ali's soldiers in her valiant effort to protect the fort where her husband was the guard of a watch tower. Celebration of "Tipu Jayanti" is strongly opposed by the BJP. The celebration has also triggered a sharp division in society with some hailing Tipu Sultan as a hero who died fighting the British, while others calling him a "fanatic" ruler.

"By celebrating this jayanti, Congress has insulted people of Karnataka and Chitradurga. They have played with sentiments and feelings of people of Chitradurga, Prime Minister Modi said.

"Congress by celebrating jayanti of those who gave poison to Nayakas of Chitradurga by betrayal and those who killed the courageous lady Onake Obavva have insulted this land, you and the history," he said, as he sought to connect with local historical sentiments.

The way in which Congress had betrayed the legacy and courage of the sons and daughters of this land could not be forgiven, the Prime Minister said.

PM Modi also accused the Congress of sidelining several national stalwarts for the sake of one family. He also hit out at the Congress for "spreading lies and trying to mislead Dalits."Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiahs statement came on day when Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed a rally in Chitradurga district of the state, which has a substantial population of Dalits and tribals. (Photo: File/PTI)

Mumbai: Launching a scathing attack at the BJP over its Dalits outreach programme, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Sunday said that Dalits need affirmative actions for their empowerment and not packed dinners.

In a tweet Siddaramaiah said, What Dalits need are not empty outreach strategies like having meals with them. What they need is empowerment with dignity and justice. Will you take affirmative action or will you continue to send your leaders to Dalit homes with packed dinners?

What Dalits need are not empty outreach strategies like having meals with them.



What they need is empowerment with dignity and justice.



Will you take affirmative action or will you continue to send your leaders to Dalit homes with packed dinners? #AnswerMaadiModi https://t.co/430b5iBLto  Siddaramaiah (@siddaramaiah) May 6, 2018

Karnataka chief ministers statement came on day when his target, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, addressed a rally in Chitradurga district of the state, which has a substantial population of Dalits and tribals.

Siddaramaiah has retweeted Congress chief Rahul Gandhis post with this comment of his own.

Gandhi's post contained a video that attacked the BJP for "horrific untouchability and violence against the Dalits" from its opening caption.

The BJP, with its Dinner-with-Dalits programme, is trying hard to reach out to the community; however its ministers are embarrassing the party, one after another.

Last week, Suresh Rana, a minister in the Yogi Adityanath cabinet triggered a controversy after he reportedly brought with him his own food and water at a dinner hosted at a Dalit household at Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh.

Read: UP BJP MLA goes to Dalit home for dinner but carries own food, mineral water

Another minister, Rajendra Pratap Singh, reportedly compared BJP leaders to Lord Ram. He said the way Lord Ram blessed Shabari (a Dalit) by eating his berries, BJP leaders were also blessing Dalits by going to their homes.

On Friday, Uttar Pradesh education minister Anupma Jaiswal spoke about visiting Dalit homes and braving mosquito bites to ensure the people receive government benefits.

Also Read: Mosquitoes bite all night at Dalit homes: Another BJP minister sparks rowHyderabad: Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) supremo and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, who has set his eyes on national politics with his proposed federal front, is learnt to be making strategic moves to ensure that TRS wins 16 of a total of 17 Lok Sabha seats in the 2019 general elections in Telangana.

Party sources said KCR believes that unless TRS wins maximum Lok Sabha seats in 2019, he will be in no position to play a key role in national politics.

In 2014, the TRS won 11 seats, Congress two seats, and one seat each went to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Telugu Desam (TD), Majlis-e-Itte-hadul Muslimeen (MIM) and YSR Congress (YSRC). However, one MP each from the Congress, the TD and the YSRC has defected to the TRS in the past three years, taking the partys strength to 14.

In 2019, KCR is aiming for victory in all seats except Hyderabad, and wants to make five of his ministers contest the elections. Party sources said ministers T. Harish Rao, Etela Rajender, Tummala Nageshwar Rao, Kadiam Srihari, Talasani Srinivas Yadav and Patnam Mahender Reddy will be given Lok Sabha tickets in 2019 as KCR wants to field strong candidates.

The CM has already hinted that the ministers should be ready to face Lok Sabha elections in 2019. In return, he has promised to give a few of their relatives a chance to contest from the Asse-mbly segments that they will vacate, the sources said, adding that KCR wants to contest the Medak Lok Sabha seat and Siddipet Assembly seat in 2019 and decide whether to continue in national or state politics depending on the political scenario after the results.

In 2014, KCR had contested from Medak Lok Sabha and Gajwel Asse-mbly seats, and won both. With TRS coming to po-wer, he retained the Asse-mbly seat to become CM and resigned as Medak MP. Now, Siddipet MLA Harish Rao, who has be-en representing the segment since 2004, will be asked to contest for the Zaheerabad Lok Sabha seat.

Similarly, KCR wants Huzurnagar MLA Etela to contest for Karimna-gar Lok Sabha seat, on the understanding that the Huzurnagar seat will go to Etelas wife. Srihari will contest for the Wara-ngal Lok Sabha seat, which he won in 2014, th-ough he subsequently resigned to become deputy CM and was nominated as an MLA.

Tummala is likely to be fielded from the Khammam in place of defected YSRC MP Ponguleti Sri-nivas Reddy, who is likely to be offered Tummalas Palair Assembly seat.

Srinivas Yadav will fight for the Secunderabad seat, and the Sanathnagar Assembly seat that he will vacate will be offered to his son.

Mahender Reddy is likely to be fielded from Chevella and sitting MP Konda Vishweshwar Reddy will be offered the Malkajgiri Lok Sabha seat, currently held by C. Malla Reddy, who defected from the TD to the TRS.

According to party insiders, the CMs survey has found that Malla Reddy cannot win Malkajgiri in 2019 as he has failed to concentrate on public iss-ues and thus lost ground.

KCR to launch Rythu Bandhu at Huzurabad

Hyderabad: Chief Minister K. Chan-drasekhar Rao will launch the distribution of cheques for his cherished Rythu Bandhu scheme, and the new electronic pattadar passbooks, on May 10, at 11 am, at Huzurabad in Karimnagar district.

This programme will be officially launched in all the districts of the state on the same day at 11.15 am and it will go on till May 17.

From the next day, the distribution programme will be held from 7 am to 11 am and 5 pm to 7.30 pm, keeping in view the severe heat conditions prevailing in the state.

The CM ordered officials to put up tents and provide drinking water at distribution centres.

As on date, all the che-ques and passbooks have reached the districts and the Chief Minister told officials to examine and distribute them village-wise.

He instructed officials to inform the date of distribution to farmers in each village.

He told ministers and officials of revenue and agriculture departments concerned to visit the distribution centres and monitor the programme.

Under the scheme, aro-und 58 lakh farmers in Telangana will receive Rythu Bandhu cheques of `4,000 each for every acre they own.IT minister K.T Rama Rao addresses at a meeting of local body representatives and officials in Siricilla on Sunday, for the mobilisation of farmers for the inaugural cheque distribution by Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao at Huzurabad on May 10. (Photo: DC)

RAJANNA SIRCILLA: IT minister K.T. Rama Rao on Sunday said that farmers who have migrated to Gulf countries for employment would get cheques under Rythu Bandhu after May 17.

The cheque distribution under this scheme is scheduled between May 11 and 17. Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao would formally launch the distribution at Huzurabad on May 10.

Speaking to elected representatives and officials of the local body, Mr Rao said, Thousands of people have migrated to the Gulf countries leaving behind their families, who are looking after their agriculture lands.

He directed officials should inform the date of cheque distribution to the family members of Gulf-migrated farmers.

He asked the civic body representatives to mobilise 25,000 farmers from Rajanna Sircilla district for the launch event.

The minister said the entire country is looking at the Rythu Bandhu scheme and it will become a model scheme of first of its kind in the country.

Stating that the Rythu Bandhu scheme is one of the prestigious schemes of the TRS government, Mr Rao said the farmers should be mobilised from 13 mandals and two municipalities of Rajana Sircilla district.

He said 500 RTC buses are being arranged for the transportation of farmers from district.The 53-year-old accused was intercepted by the customs after his arrival from Dubai on Friday.

A man was arrested by the customs at the Delhi airport for allegedly trying to smuggle in 100 iPhone X handsets, an official said.

The 53-year-old accused was intercepted by the customs after his arrival from Dubai on Friday.

"Hundred iPhone X handsets worth a total of Rs 85.61 lakh were seized from his baggage after a thorough search," Additional Commissioner of customs at the airport, Amandeep Singh, said.

Besides, this week Apple has announced its quarterly earnings and contrary to analyst predictions, its most-expensive iPhone X came out to be its best-selling smartphone in the first quarter of 2018.

In comparison, iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, which were launched alongside the iPhone X, sold 12.5 million units and 8.3 million units respectively.

Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter.

Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter.Michelle Obama urged women to act for women's empowerment wherever they can. (Photo; AP)

Los Angeles: Michelle Obama urged women not to expect a miracle candidate to "save" America on Saturday, indicating again she has no plans to run for president as some have speculated.

The former first lady, 54, was greeted like a rock star at a conference called the United State of Women Summit, with an audience of some 5,000 people in Los Angeles, almost all women.

"It doesn't matter who runs," she said, urging women to act for women's empowerment wherever they can -- including at home and in the workplace.

"We don't wait for the one person to save us. We voted for Barack Obama and he didn't end racism," she said.

Obama also paid tribute to young Americans who have risen up against gun violence following the Valentine's Day shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida that left 17 students and staffers dead.

Other speakers at the conference included actress Jane Fonda and Tarana Burke, a key figure in the #MeToo movement that arose after the flood of sexual misconduct allegations against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein.Zabihullah Shuja, spokesman for Baghlan police, said the engineers were travelling to a government-run power station in a minibus when unknown gunmen abducted them and their Afghan driver. (Photo: Representational | AP)

Kabul: Seven Indian engineers and an Afghan national working for a power plant in northern Baghlan province of Afghanistan were kidnapped on Sunday, officials said.

Zabihullah Shuja, spokesman for Baghlan police, said the engineers were travelling to a government-run power station in a minibus when unknown gunmen abducted them and their Afghan driver.

Two officials at the Indian embassy in Kabul confirmed the kidnapping of the engineers, all working for the Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat (DABS) that operates power generating stations.

A senior Indian embassy official said over 150 Indian engineers and technical experts are currently working across Afghanistan on large infrastructure projects.

"We are working out ways to ensure the release of our engineers," an official said.

It is not known who is responsible for the kidnapping or whether a ransom has been sought for their release.

Kidnapping of locals for extortions are common in Afghanistan. Rampant poverty and rising unemployment has worsened the situation.

In 2016, an Indian aid worker was kidnapped in Kabul. She was released after 40 days.

The Indian government regularly issues a security alert for Indians residing in Afghanistan and travelling to the war-torn country.People watch a TV screen showing file footage of US President Donald Trump, right, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea.(Photo: AP)

Pyongyang: With just weeks to go before President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un are expected to hold their first-ever summit, Pyongyang on Sunday criticized what it called misleading claims that Trumps policy of maximum political pressure and sanctions are what drove the North to the negotiating table.

The Norths official news agency quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman warning the claims are a dangerous attempt to ruin a budding detente on the Korean Peninsula after Kims summit late last month with South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

At the summit, Kim agreed to a number of measures aimed at improving North-South ties and indicated he is willing to discuss the denuclearization of the peninsula, though exactly what that would entail and what conditions the North might require have not yet been explained.

Trump and senior US officials have suggested repeatedly that Washingtons tough policy toward North Korea, along with pressure on its main trading partner China, have played a decisive role in turning around what had been an extremely tense situation. Just last year, as Kim was launching long-range missiles at a record pace and trading vulgar insults with Trump, it would have seemed unthinkable for the topic of denuclearization to be on the table.

But the Norths statement on Sunday seemed to be aimed at strengthening Kims position going into his meeting with Trump. Pyongyang claims Kim himself is the driver of the current situation.

The US is deliberately provoking the DPRK at the time when the situation on the Korean Peninsula is moving toward peace and reconciliation, the spokesman was quoted as saying. DPRK is short for the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, the Norths formal name.

Kim and Trump are expected to meet later this month or in early June.

Trump has indicated the date and place have been chosen and said he believes the Demilitarized Zone that divides the Koreas might be a good venue. Singapore was also believed to be a potential site.

Experts are split over whether Kims statement made with Moon at the DMZ marks a unique opening for progress or a rehash of Pyongyangs longstanding demand for security guarantees.

Sundays comments were among the very few the North has made since Trump agreed in March to the meeting.

The spokesman warned the US not to interpret Pyongyangs willingness to talk as a sign of weakness. He also criticized Washington for its ongoing pressure and military threats and its position that such pressure wont be eased until North Korea gives up its nuclear weapons completely.

Before Trump meets Kim, Washington is hoping to gain the release of three Korean-Americans accused of anti-state activities. Trump hinted the release of Kim Dong Chul, Kim Hak Song and Tony Kim was in the offing.

There was no sign of an imminent release on Sunday, though the men had reportedly been moved to the capital.

The White House, meanwhile, has announced a separate meeting between Trump and Moon at the White House on May 22 to continue their close coordination on developments regarding the Korean Peninsula.'Trump must know that our people are united, the Zionist regime (Israel) must know that our people are united,' Rouhani added. (Photo: File)

Tehran: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Sunday that if the United States quits the nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers then Washington would regret it "like never before".

US President Donald Trump has threatened to abandon the agreement when it comes up for renewal on May 12, demanding his country's European allies "fix the terrible flaws" or he will re-impose sanctions.

"If the United States leaves the nuclear agreement, you will soon see that they will regret it like never before in history," Rouhani said in a televised speech in northwestern Iran.

"Trump must know that our people are united, the Zionist regime (Israel) must know that our people are united," Rouhani added.

The nuclear deal was struck in 2015 between Iran and Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States, then led by Barack Obama.

Under the pact, sanctions were lifted in return for a commitment not to pursue a nuclear bomb, but Iran says it is not reaping the rewards despite complying with the deal.

The Islamic republic has always denied it sought a nuclear weapon, insisting its atomic programme was for civilian purposes.

Rouhani did not specify how Iran would react if the US pulls out of the deal.

But he said he had given "the necessary orders", notably to Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, in anticipation of Trump's decision.

On Thursday Ali Akbar Velayati, the foreign policy adviser to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned Tehran would quit the nuclear deal if the United States withdraws.Silence is an eloquent argument, thus spoke Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra on Friday in a function organised to bid farewell to Justice R K Agrawal. Justice Misra, after assuming the charge as Chief Justice of India (CJI), saw a phase which would be described as tumultuous in the history of the judiciary. Not only did he face challenges internally, he has to deal with a government led by a party which came to power riding on a huge majority after 30 years at the Centre.

The Narendra Modi governments first brush with judiciary started when it made an abortive bid for a massive overhaul in judges appointment process by passing the National Judicial Accountability Commission Act and the 99th Constitutional Amendment Act in 2015. A five-judge Constitution bench, however, quashed the Act, which mooted a judicial appointment commission, in place of the Collegium of CJI and four seniormost judges, describing it as a threat to the independence of the judiciary. But the Memorandum of Procedure (MoP), that was to be formulated by the Union government, is pending since December 2015. Since then three chief justices have retired but there is no final word as yet on the subject.

Though the appointment of judges was never held back in the interregnum in the absence of MoP, there were several instances which gave a clear-cut message that the judiciary is reeling under pressure from the executive. Though at times, the judiciary tried to assert itself, resulting in a tussle between the two organs. This became all the more clear when the Union government last month decided to send back the file on the elevation of Justice K M Joseph, the chief justice of the Uttarakhand High Court, to the Collegium for reconsideration.

After senior advocate Gopal Subramanium episode, this is another brazen move, when the government apparently proclaimed its authority by asking the Collegium to reconsider Justice Josephs recommendation. The government, thus, segregated Justice Josephs name from another recommendation, Justice Indu Malhotra. It has affected the line of succession, order and seniority even if the Collegium decides in future to reiterate his name for elevation. The grounds taken by the government included seniority of other eligible judges and non-representation to all regions in the Supreme Court.

A belated decision by the government immediately spurred criticism from activist-lawyers, bar members and former judges, who saw an obvious challenge to the principle of judicial independence and authority of the Collegium. They saw it as a vindictive government trying to scuttle Justice Josephs fair chance just because he had in 2016 quashed the Presidents rule in Uttarakhand, leading to the revival of Harish Rawat-led Congress government in the hill state.

Earlier, the government did not act at all on the Collegiums recommendation to transfer him to the High Court of Judicature at Hyderabad for the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. This time, as the governments decision came more than three months after the Collegiums recommendation, is also another hint that it is ready to take on the judiciary even if it turns out to be a direct confrontation. The government, for its part, maintained that Justice Josephs judgement had got nothing to do with its stand. Was the Collegium swayed by Justice Josephs judgement in a political matter and thus ignored 11 chief justices senior to him? The government has also pointed out that he was at number 42 in the seniority list.

As the events unfolded thereafter, it was expected that the Collegium would reiterate the name of Justice Joseph. But for now, this was not to be. The Collegium led by CJI and comprising four seniormost judges, Justices J Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B Lokur and Kurian Joseph, met on May 2 but deferred their decision.

The two letters sent by the Law Ministry on April 26 and 30 raised the issue of considering other high court judges on the ground that they were senior to Justice Joseph. Since the strength of judges has been reduced to 24 against the sanctioned number of 31 after the retirement of Justice Agrawal on May 4, the Collegium in its agenda took up the names of judges from Calcutta, Rajasthan and Telangana and Andhra Pradesh High Courts. But no decision, for now, has been taken, giving rise to all sorts of speculations.

The CJI, in the meantime, suffered personal attacks from brother judges and activists lawyers. Four judges going public to ventilate their grievances  on the allocation of cases - reflected the very dismal state of affairs in the top judiciary. It also eroded to a great extent the credibility of the office of the CJI. Though Justice Misra, for his part, subsequently released roster giving a semblance of fairness, equitable distribution of cases of national importance still remained a far cry. The manner in which the cases on medical scam and death of Judge B H Loya was dealt with gave adequate ammunition to the Opposition leaders as well as former judges and activists lawyers to cry foul.

The Opposition parties brought in the impeachment motion against the CJI. But within days, Rajya Sabha Chairman Venkaiah Naidu rejected it, which was again questioned as an unfair decision since allegations could not be examined by a committee as per the mandate of the Judges (Inquiry) Act.

As the situation stands today, emergent steps are required to be taken on the part of the CJI, being the head of the judiciary, and the government to restore the faith of the people. The CJI must involve other judges in the decision-making process on the administrative side, particularly in allocating cases. The government, for its part, must shorten the time lag in processing the files pertaining to judges appointment. Further delay in appointment of judges to vacant posts in high courts and the Supreme Court would frustrate the constitutional ideals and belie the hope and trust of the people in general and litigants in particular who look towards the constitutional courts for justice and protection of their fundamental rights.

The Collegium as laid down in the SC Advocates-on-Record Association and others Vs Union of India (1993) that the process of appointment of judges must start at least one month before the anticipated vacancy. It should also make a recommendation on particular judges along with all supporting materials to obliterate any chance of the government putting a question mark and calling them as random selections. One cannot deny the fact that the history of our judiciary is replete with instances where many judges suffered in silence due to the arbitrary decisions taken by the Collegium.SPRINGVILLE  As Rita Wright, director of the Springville Museum of Art, looked at the 849 submissions for this years Spring Salon show, she had a realization.

We only have one Jesus, she told the jurors.

No, Wright wasnt proselytizing. As juror Beth Krensky recalled, of all this years submissions, there was only one overt depiction of Jesus Christ.

For a show dedicated to Utah artists and those with Utah ties, this was unexpected.

I think the religious reference was in a lot of the work that did get in, that I found a little more interesting than the very obvious, Krensky said.

Now in its 94th consecutive year, the museums Spring Salon has maintained a purposely loose curriculum for its entries: Basically, artists need only live in Utah or have some connection to the state. There arent restrictions on the type of visual media, and the museum has space to showcase about 200 different pieces. As such, the exhibit becomes an interesting cross section of whats happening among Utahs arts community in a given year.

I think its probably the hardest exhibition in Utah to get into, after jurying it, Krensky added. Ive juried other shows, and Ive never juried something that was as difficult as this.

Emily Larsen, an assistant curator and collections manager at the museum, is heavily involved with each years exhibit and said this years Spring Salon showcases an increasing boldness among Utahs artists: new approaches, new statements and new insights about themselves and the community.

Sometimes people say great art speaks to a certain time and place, Larsen said. And its really exciting to have a whole show that speaks to this time and place that were in very specifically.

Each year, museum organizers pick two jurors from different disciplines to select the pieces. In addition to being an accomplished contemporary artist, Krensky is a professor of art education and the area head of art teaching at the University of Utah. This years other juror, Elliott Wise, is an assistant professor of art history and curatorial studies at Brigham Young University, with a background in religious art.

As Krensky and Wise exist on different ends of the artistic spectrum, their selection process for the salon requires lots of dialogue. Wise described it as wrenching  not because he and Krensky didnt get along, but because so many deserving pieces dont make it into the show.

As much as it was a really overwhelming and difficult process, it was also a really invigorating, kind of inspiring process, Wise said.

The amount of work that goes into it was very eye-opening to me. But also  just the sheer volume of it. I dont think I had nearly as good of a sense as I do now of the wide range and spectrum of artists in this state. I have a greater sense of awe for what this show means to the artists, and what it signifies for our state.

As Wright described it, the jurying process becomes its own kind of artistic creation. The selected works inevitably make some kind of statement collectively.

Generally, I dont think weve had a more harmonious jurying experience, Wright recalled. It was one of those jackpot moments.

According to Wright, the museum doesnt bind jurors with an extensive rubric. Shes been part of juries like that before and prefers a looser approach. After all, there isnt a formula for good art. Beyond a pieces technical prowess and conceptual strength, theres another key element thats harder to describe, but is ultimately undeniable.

I feel that when these juries are so rubric-driven, you miss a lot of the skill level of those who are jurying, you miss this kind of ineffable thing  the presence, she said.

The kind of feelings a piece can evoke, she added, can only be fully felt in person  its an inherently emotional experience. For this reason, the museum requires all Salon entries be brought to the museum itself.

Of course, that means all the rejected pieces  which this year tallied 638  must be picked up in person, too. Emotions can run high.

Part of the reason I know (the Spring Salon is) well-respected is because Ive gotten a barrage of emails, many quite angry that their work didnt get in, Krensky admitted.

Of the 638 not selected, Krensky estimates there were 100 pieces she wanted to include. She hopes the museum figures out a way to accommodate the growing number of deserving entries.

If we really are interested in seeing the work of the artists across the state, she added, we have to have additional exhibitions or additional venues.

If you go 

What: 94th Annual Spring Salon

Where: Springville Museum of Art, 126 E. 400 South, Springville

When: Through July 8

How much: Free; donations accepted

Phone: 801-489-2727

Web: smofa.orgThe Utah economy continues to perform. The expansion celebrated its eighth birthday this year, and the federal tax cuts will extend the expansion, which is already the nation's and states second longest ever. These are prosperous times.

Every economic expansion party has a host of well-wishers  low unemployment, strong job growth, in-migration and rising incomes bring plastic hats, whistles and gifts to the party. But every party also has the party pooper, the rude uncle who cant leave well-enough alone.

Utahs economic party pooper may well be rapidly rising housing costs that are pricing moderate to low-income people out of the market. Utahs millennials, schoolteachers, first responders and many other people starting their careers find it near impossible to find housing that is affordable. If we are not careful, unaffordable housing will impair our economic competitiveness as a region and end the expansion.

Clark Ivory, the president and CEO of Utahs largest homebuilder, made this point at a recent seminar hosted by the David Eccles School of Business. He said, Housing affordability is the key to economic development. I couldnt agree more. We need to take purposeful steps to get ahead of Utahs affordability challenge.

Jim Wood, the Ivory-Boyer senior fellow at the University of Utah, possesses a wealth of knowledge about Utahs housing, construction and real estate industry. He is the lead author on a new report on Utahs housing affordability challenges. Here are some of the findings:

Utahs rate of housing price increases ranks fourth highest in the nation over the past 26 years. Only Colorado, Oregon and Montana have experienced greater price appreciation.

For the first time in more than four decades, new household formation exceeds housing unit construction in the Beehive State. Utah faces a housing shortage that will likely continue for several more years.

A labor shortage, rising land and material costs, increasing permit and impact fees, federal banking regulations and local zoning ordinances are pinching supply and preventing Utah builders from meeting demand.

A gap exists between growth in income and housing prices. In Salt Lake County, for instance, single-family housing prices are increasing by more than twice the growth in median household income.

The greatest challenge is for moderate- and low-income households. Households below the median income have a one-in-five chance of facing a severe housing cost burden (paying at least 50 percent of their income toward housing).

Impact fees charged by local governments are rising, making housing even more expensive. The median fee for the municipalities surveyed increased by 26 percent in 10 years.

The median sales price of a home in Utahs two largest metropolitan areas is now 20 percent higher than home prices in neighboring metros of Boise, Las Vegas and Phoenix.

Rising interest rates over the next few years will intensify the problem.

These are chilling findings, but there are ways to address the affordability challenge. As a first step, lets welcome a greater mix of housing types in our neighborhoods. Cities should explore the benefits of inclusionary zoning ordinances, welcome accessory dwelling units and think twice about large lot zoning. Cities should exercise restraint in impact and permit fee increases and work with builders to eliminate egregious policies.

Lets continue to invest in public transit. If a household can get along without a car or with one fewer cars it will help with housing affordability.

Lets put pressure on the Utah congressional delegation to do their part to reform Americas immigration system. The Utah economy needs more hourly and skilled workers, the perfect match for the immigrant workforce.

Most importantly, lets have a bias toward action. Dan Lofgren, president and CEO of Cowboy Partners, one of Utahs largest builders of affordable housing, said it this way: Nobody should get a pass. Find a way that you can be part of the solution now.

Lets avoid a California-sized housing cost problem and celebrate more economic expansion parties.SALT LAKE CITY  What do you do for an encore after you've raised a million dollars and built a hospital to serve poor kids in Nepal?

For a Salt Lake business owner, the answer is: Build another one.

Officials in Nepal recently broke ground for a second hospital to be built almost entirely with funds raised in Utah.

It all began on Salt Lake City's east side, where Jim Webber, owner of Foothill Oriental Rugs, has been selling rugs from Nepal for a quarter-century.

"These are rugs made in our factory in Kathmandu," he said, showing off a variety of colorful carpets. "We employ over 500 people and we provide them housing. I feel like we're giving them an opportunity. We're feeding a lot of people."

Over time he saw a pressing need for medical facilities in Nepal, especially to deal with the high incidence of cleft palates, cleft lips and burn injuries that disfigure large numbers of people  especially kids. Webber saw a chance to "return something" to the country that supports his business in Utah.

"On some level it became my spiritual home," Webber said. "It's just an amazing place."

After years of fundraising in Utah, Webber opened the Nepal Cleft and Burn Center in Kathmandu in 2015. It's a three-story, 16,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art surgical center. Thousands of kids have undergone surgery to improve their facial appearance, a relatively simple procedure that can often lead to dramatic improvement in a child's quality of life.

"This is Nepal's first teaching hospital for cleft lips and palates and other reconstructive surgical procedures," Webber said.

Treating burns turned out to be a much bigger need than expected. Most people in Nepal cook over open fires. Because parents work, children are often unattended, leaving them vulnerable to severe burn injuries.

"In three short years, we have become Nepal's No. 1 treatment center for acute burn injuries," Webber said.

A groundbreaking ceremony recently kicked off the next project, a second hospital in a highly populated district of Nepal near the border with India.

"Nepal, even though it's a tiny country, has more people than the entire country of Canada crowded into a tiny space," Webber said. "And that, combined with rampant poverty, I mean, there's a huge need for a second Nepal Cleft and Burn Center."

Webber's immediate goal is to raise about $100,000 for the second hospital. But the building is just the beginning. There's an ongoing need for money to pay for medical equipment and trained medical staff.

Construction will start this fall, he said, and it won't be long before Utah dollars are helping even more people in need, halfway around the world.

"We've raised about half the money we need to build the new hospital," Webber said. "But we're going to go ahead with it because we have confidence that we're going to complete the fundraising."

Webber said there is talk among Nepalese officials of building a new medical school that would use the Nepal Cleft and Burn Center as its core facility.

"Now, it's just talk at this point," Webber said, "but at least the government realizes the importance and the impact that our facility has for the poor people of Nepal. And the amazing thing is, we do it all from this little business in Salt Lake City."

The annual fundraising dinner for the Nepal Cleft and Burn Center is May 11 at The Falls Event Center in Trolley Square.A 21-year-old has been given 240 hours community service in lieu of eight months in prison after he had pleaded guilty to a variety of charges at Ballyshannon District Court.

Defence solicitor Gerry McGovern said the case had been put back for a Probation Report that was before the court on 21-year-old John Ward, Oak Grove, Kinlough.

Judge Kevin Kilrane took into account a charge of driving with no licence on December 7, 2016 at Main Street, Bundoran and he imposed a sentence of 240 hours community service in lieu of five months in prison on a charge of having no insurance.

The judge imposed identical penalties for similar offences at Portnason on the same date.

The defendant was banned from driving for two years.

Judge Kilrane gave the defendant a 240 hours community service order in lieu of eight months in jail for handling stolen property, a generator valued at 1,070 at Oak Grove, Kinlough on January 1 last year.

The defendant was given a 240 hours community service order in lieu of five months in jail for dangerous driving at Drumacrin, Bundoran and banned from driving on the same date .

He was given an identical community service order for handling stolen property, four kegs of alcohol belonging to Killian Gilroy, Melvin Bar Garrison on July 25 at Kinlough Pier.

The defendant was given an identical community service order for handling stolen property, a Bank Giro credit card belonging to Zoey McIntyre on the same date and at the same location.

A charge of handling stolen property, a jacket, at the same date and location was taken into consideration.

A charge of failing to turn up in court on a specified date was also taken into consideration.

All of the penalties were concurrent.By Megan Hill

Eddy Cartaya and Brent McGregor have unearthed what might as well be another planet. It exists in the backyard of 6 million people, in areas frequented by scores of national park tourists each year.

In 2011, the two men founded Glacier Cave Explorers, a Pacific Northwestbased group of scientists and adventurers, all of whom probe, map and study the extensive cave networks that lie beneath the glaciers on Mount Rainier and Mount St. Helens in Washington and Mount Hood in Oregon. These caves, formed by meltwater and volcanic steam, can answer questions about climate change, volcanology and alpine rescueand even about what life might look like on other planets. And expeditions to their ethereal, dangerous depths make for one hell of a thrill.

Before they learned of these glacier caves, Cartaya and McGregor had spent years exploring limestone caves and lava tubes. "There's something especially alluring about a cave," said Cartaya, who is a search-and-rescue volunteer, avid climber, law enforcement officer and cave manager for the U.S. Forest Service. "When you see a hole and you can't see the extent of what it harbors, there's a draw to go in, as opposed to a mountain, where you can see the top."

Eddy Cartaya. Katie Campbell

McGregor, a professional wood sculptor, was simply seeking a break from work when he started climbing mountains. "I was in my mid-40s, around the time most people are retiring from climbing," said McGregor, now 65. "I just started summiting peaksone after the other, more than once, different routes, different seasons, whatever. Once I had done that, I started looking underground." In 2011, he happened upon a YouTube video that showed hikers at the entrance of a cave on Mount Hood's Sandy Glacier and knew he (and his friend Cartaya) had to check it out. While McGregor is quick to note that he didn't discover the cave he named Snow Dragon, he and the Glacier Cave Explorers have since 2011 mapped its more than 7,000 feet of passages.

That first trip into Snow Dragon ignited a new chapter in the two men's caving careers. The multidisciplinary group they founded afterwardGlacier Cave Explorers is part of the National Speleological Societyhas since undertaken expeditions to the ice-encrusted upper reaches of Mount Rainier, Mount St. Helens and Mount Hood.

Brent McGregor

Every spring and summer, Glacier Cave Explorers dispatches teams of eight to 12 people up these mountains; some team members are researchers and others are mountaineers who help transport gear, mark routes and ensure safety. Each mountain's approach is different: On Mount St. Helens, equipment can be flown in via helicopter; Rainier requires a multiday climb with packs weighing 80 to 90 pounds. Mount Hood's cave entrances can be reached via a half-day hike. Expeditions last from a few days to two weeks.



Though the researchers have visited each cave many times, they're never sure what to expect.

"With limestone caves, you'll see them grow a little bit if you wait around a thousand years," Cartaya said. "But glacier caves change daily as the whole glacier moves down the mountain. Every time we go back it's like going to a new cave. Waterfalls change positions. Different rooms have formed while others have gone away."

The team approaches a cave's entrance carefully. "Rocks are coming down from the surface and landing in piles at the entrance of the cave," Cartaya said. "Sometimes getting in the cave is the most dangerous part, because you're playing Russian roulette with these things raining down."

Once inside, headlamps illuminate surreal surroundings: wind-scalloped walls glowing blue and green and sparkling like diamonds, meltwater lakes, waterfalls, ceiling holes called moulins, rooms hundreds of feet in diameter, ice stalagmites and other bizarre formations. "It's a magical place," McGregor said.

Tom Wood

It's also a noisy one. "You'll hear big rocks melting out of the walls or the ceilings and hitting the floor, or hundred-pound blocks of ice falling off the ceiling, hitting the floor and ricocheting down the tube with a thunderous roarkabaam!" McGregor said. "Almost every trip, I come out and have lost my voice because you have to yell so loudly."

The Glacier Cave Explorers can't spend too much time admiring the sights, thoughthey have to concentrate on the host of things trying to kill them: collapsing ceilings, unexpected floods, ice falls, crevasses, boulders the size of houses careening down passages, avalanches. That's to say nothing of the gasesthese are, after all, active volcanoes. The team carries rebreathers and gas monitors to track deadly levels of carbon dioxide, which can pool in invisible lakes below lighter, safer stores of oxygen. A simple fall can send someone into a lethal pool of carbon dioxide (the symptoms of this happenstance closely resemble those of altitude sickness). Meanwhile, volcanic fumaroles can exhale sulfurous gases unpredictably. "It's a constantly changing environment," Cartaya said. "Not just structurally but chemically."

Mount St. Helens, which erupted in 1980 and 2004, is its own beast. "It's not that high, but it's basically like a nuclear bomb went off up there," Cartaya said. "Everything is fractured, falling apart. There are boulders constantly falling down the crater and it's a very stressful environment to be in. The ground is literally moving beneath you." St. Helens is also home to the lower 48's only growing glacier, making it a particularly interesting destination for scientific study.

Brent McGregor

Safety management and planning play a significant role, and so far, Glacier Cave Explorers have experienced no serious incidents. Cartaya emphasizes that theirs are not endeavors for amateurs or thrill-seekerseach team brings it own rescue and medical supplies and installs a field hospital outside the caves.

The research collected on these expeditions serves multiple purposes. The mapswhich need to be updated annually as the caves changecan be used in rescue missions. Some scientists who join trips study rare microbial life, looking for so-called extremophiles that thrive in unlikely conditions. Their findings could provide context into what life might look like on Mars and Europa.

Expeditioning glaciologists look for changes beneath the ice that can lend new information about climate change (typical climate studies look at glaciers only from above). This data, especially from the dying glaciers on Mount Hood, can be helpful in predicting impacts on watersheds and other natural resources. "Glaciers are also paleoclimate archives," Cartaya notes. The layers in a glacierstripes that indicate seasonsare climatic snapshots dating to a glacier's birth. The caves make those layers visible.

Of immediate concern is the question of whether these volcanoes are going to erupt. While the volcanoes are studied extensively for seismic activity, Cartaya said there are other, more silent indicators of potential disasterand that they're not all thoroughly understood or tracked.

"The ice on these volcanoes can react to changes in geothermal or hydrothermal activity in the mountain," Cartaya said. "It can register changes that are not noticed by surface observations, changes that could signal a destructive event that's not going to be advertised seismically." These changes can point to structural instabilities in the volcano and may portend cataclysmic mudflows, called lahars, which can threaten nearby communities. "Like a wet sand castle, the mountain can blob over under its own weight and collapse," Cartaya said.



Following each expedition, the teamsmade up entirely of volunteersdonate their data to the federal agencies that protect and monitor these places, passing along vital information that could help save lives or assist scientific breakthroughs.

"A glacier cave isn't just a hole in the ice," Cartaya said. "It's a whole ecosystemjust an extreme one."

Reposted with permission from our media associate SIERRA Magazine.The Pound New Zealand Dollar (GBP/NZD) exchange rate is a little stronger on Monday 7th May, quoted 0.19pct up on the daily open at 1.9315.

The big NZD event of the week is the upcoming RBNZ meeting this Thursday. Analysts at Maybank are forecasting no change from the central bank:

"We expect RBNZ to keep OCR on hold at 1.75% at its upcoming meeting on 10 May amid softer inflation outlook and signs of moderation in activity. This MPC will see Adrian Orr chairing for the first time since appointment in late -Mar. Focus will be on his tone and bias in the press conference. Week ahead brings 2Y inflation outlook on Tue; Card spending (Apr) on Wed; RBNZ Meeting; RBNZ Gov speaks; Finance Minister Pre -Budget speech on Thu; Food prices, BusinessNZ Mfg PMI (Apr)."

GBP/NZD tumbled during last weeks session as markets reacted to the UKs latest round of PMI figures.

Pound (GBP) Plummets as UK PMI Figures Disappoint

The downturn in the Pound (GBP) accelerated last week as the currency was weakened by another bout of soft UK economic data.

This kicked off with the release of the UKs latest manufacturing PMI on Tuesday, with data published by IHS Markit revealing that activity in the UKs factories slowed to a 17-month low in April.

It wasnt all doom and gloomy for Sterling however, with the GBP/NZD exchange rate able to find some temporary respite in the middle of the week, following on from a rebound in the UKs construction PMI.

However with the construction sector accounting for a very small part of the UKs economic growth, this rebound in activity was unable to sustain any real gains in the Pound, especially in the face of the UKs latest Services PMI.

According to IHS Markit the UKs service sector remained in the slow lane in April, with the Services index only rising from 51.7 to 52.8, despite the improved weather.

This saw the GBP/NZD exchange rate tumble to a three-week low as economists warned that this slow start to the second quarter could see the UK economy only expand by 0.2% in the three months to June.

Chris Williamson, Chief Business Economist at IHS Markit, said: The overall expansion signalled by the three surveys in April was the second-weakest since the Brexit vote, pointing to a quarterly rate of GDP growth of around 0.2% at the start of the second quarter.

On top of this the poor PMI figures were also seen as the final nail in the coffin for the possiblity of a rate hike from the Bank of England (BoE) this month.

New Zealand Dollar (NZD) Exchange Rate Buoyed by Upbeat Labour Report

Meanwhile the New Zealand Dollar (NZD) was bolstered last week by the release of New Zealands latest labour figures.

Statistics New Zealand (StatsNZ) reported on Tuesday that the domestic unemployment rate fell from 4.5% to 4.4% in the first quarter of 2018.

This is the lowest rate of joblessness in nearly a decade and was driven by an unexpectedly strong rise in employment.

However slightly denting the Kiwis gains were the accompanying earnings figures as despite a diminishing pool of talent for employers to draw from, wage growth continues to languish.

Analysts hinted this would likely limit any chances of the the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) discussing a rate hike anytime in the foreseeable future.

Nick Tuffley, chief economist at ASB Bank in Auckland said: The figures depicted a mild wage backdrop, with few signs of widespread wage pressure. This keeps notions of official cash rate hikes on the back-burner.

GBP/NZD Exchange Rate Forecast: BoE Rate Decision in Focus

Looking ahead to this weeks session the GBP/NZD exchange rate is likely to start on poor footing with the closure of the UK market for the long bank holiday weekend possibly leading to thin trading volumes on Monday.

However do expect this to last for long as the Bank of Englands latest rate decision is likely to cause some notable volatility in the Pound (GBP) as the week goes on.

With a rate hike from the BoE this month now looking like a bit of a long shot, the focus will now be on whether markets can still expect the bank to continuing tightening monetary policy at some point this year.

This may led to heavy losses in Sterling if it BoE appears reluctant to committee to a rate hike this year or adopts a wait and see attitude.

Meanwhile the Reserve Bank of New Zealand will also deliver its latest rate decision this week, with the New Zealand Dollar likely to stumble if the bank retains its neutral outlook.Swiss journalist Maurine Mercier started to take an interest in the Arab-Islamic culture and its societies after completing her studies in international relationships at the Geneva Institute for International and Development Studies. The former war reporter wants to give Muslims a voice.

Mercier did not have the slightest hesitation when the French-speaking arm of Switzerlands public television station Radio Television Suisse (RTS) offered her a job as a correspondent in Tunisia. Now the journalist from canton Vaud whizzes back and forth between Tunisia and Libya to report about the region.

She usually reports between 6am and 9am. She provides listeners with background information about the events on the ground or interviews high-level people in both countries. Sometimes, she is on the radio between 6pm and 7pm and even as late as 10:30pm, depending on the events of the day.

In 2014, the daughter of a Swiss and a Canadian from Quebec received the Swiss Media Award for the best local radio reports. The judges selected her report about the train collision in Granges-pres-Marnand in Canton Vaud in July 2013, in which she conveyed both conductors points of view of what happened that day.

Mercier then moved on to report from Eastern Ukraine about the separatists and the war in Donezk as well as from other trouble spots in the world. When asked why she decided to leave her successful career in Switzerland to go to such a small country like Tunisia, she answered: After I had worked for RTS foreign desk, I went to Tunisia in May 2016. This move enabled me to continue to report on international events, such as the Charlie Hebdo affair. Events that would trigger nightmares, she added.

This was not her only motivation for the move, however. When she was working for the foreign desk of RTS, Europe was hit by several terrorist attacks. In her view, the reporting gave a distorted picture of Muslims as they generally did not have the chance to comment on these events. In difficult times like these, I think its the journalists obligation to give Muslims a voice, Mercier says. By letting them speak through our media, we have the opportunity to build bridges between the West and the Islamic world.

But instead, she says, reports about attacks often lumped Muslims and terrorists together. This undifferentiated reporting is wrong and dangerous. For this reason, I always make sure that I draw clear lines in my reports and dont mix up the terms, says Mercier, emphasising that her best friend was from Algeria.

A forgotten country

Giving the unheard a voice is important for the correspondent. Libya is a war-ridden country that has been forgotten by Europe. Even though travel between the two countries is sometimes tiring, she wouldnt want to miss it. Its important to report about this isolated country.

The same applies to Tunisia. Merciers interest in global conflicts, such as those in Ukraine or Libya, is rooted in her curiosity. She wants to understand the reasons behind the incidents. When she was a child, her father, who was born in 1939, already told her about the teachings of the humanist Jean Monnet, who was also known as the Father of Europe[added by translator].

Mercier explains how she was able to adapt to her new conditions. When I told my friends and family that I would go to Tunisia, they were all worried about me  and these are educated and well-informed people, she says. Her work in Tunisia differs from her work in Libya. In Libya, its not a problem for me to visit a family at home as a woman. When I talk to people in the streets, my producer (who is a man) is always with me.

Mercier can sense the confidence of her interviewees when they talk about issues she wants to find out more about. She was taken by surprise when the young men she interviewed in Tripoli after the revolution burst out in tears. They told me that they could not cry in front of their wives.

Mercier thinks that being a woman is actually an advantage for reporting in Libya. In exceptional circumstances, there is more discretion towards women than men. Its also important to her to always respect social habits as well as laws. When reporting from Misrata, Libya, she covers her hair and wears baggy clothes. In Tunisia, on the contrary, she moves around freely and does not have to worry about covering up.

Link between cultures

For Mercier, it is important to understand the culture of the country she is living in. This is the only way for a journalist to act as a link between two cultures. For this reason, she applied for a sabbatical to dedicate her time to learning the language and understanding the culture shortly after she arrived in Tunis. The young Libyan man who usually accompanies her when on reportage also acts as her translator.

When asked whether she had not lost hope yet, Mercier responded without hesitation: Quite the contrary  otherwise I would have left a long time ago. She adds that she has never ceased to learn from people  men as well as women. I want to stay here and immerse myself even more in the culture and the country, she said. I can still learn a lot about peace and womens movements. I wish I could cover the whole region  from Morocco all the way to Libya.

A kind of electricity

Mercier describes her passion for North Africa as a kind of electricity, which became charged up with more voltage after the Arab Spring. Her affinity for the region is not only down to cultural, social and professional aspects, its also the pleasant climate as well as the geographic and strategic location.

Even though Mercier mainly reports on affairs in Tunisia and Libya, she needs to be informed about changes and developments in the whole of North Africa. The news organisations she works for are mainly interested in migration across the Mediterranean, from north Africa to southern Europe.

Mercier lives in La Goulette, a district in northern Tunis. The Mediterranean city with its old Spanish fortress, white walls and vibrant colours is reminiscent of Nicosia, Cyprus, Malta, Sicily or Corsica. It might be the citys unique flair that led the young woman from Lausanne to settle here.

About Maurine Mercier Maurine Mercier was born in Lausanne. Shortly after starting her career as a journalist, she made a name for herself reporting for Swiss Radio and Television. She grew up with her paternal grandfather in Lausanne and went to school in Pully. Before she started school, she would speak French with a Canadian accent and only adopted the Vaud way of speaking French whilst at school. She began her journalism career as camerawoman for television, moved on to production and later took over other TV jobs before she switched to radio. This medium allowed her to do international reports, which was exactly what she wanted to do right from the start of her career as a journalist.

Are you a Swiss citizen living abroad? Label your Instagram photos with#WeAreSwissAbroadexternal link.

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of swissinfo.ch.



Translated from Arabic by Nicola Mohler,











swissinfo.ch





Perrine Elise Huber of swissnex San Francisco explains the importance of the Insight mission to Mars that launched on Saturday, and Switzerlands role.

You can feel the excitement in Domenico Giardini, Professor of Seismology and Geodynamics at ETH Zurichs Institute for Geophysics, who is a Co-Investigator on the mission.

When I came to Switzerland as a Professor 21 years ago, I told the President of ETH Zurich that I want to go to Mars. Its been a lifetime commitment of mine to get there, says Giardini.

NASA latest mission to Mars, known as Insight, launched on Saturday from California. While previous missions to the Red Planet investigated its surface and atmosphere, Insight is the first mission to study the deep interior of Mars with the aim to help scientists understand how all Earth-like planets formed. Alongside an international team, scientists from ETH Zurich have developed a key instrument that will be used to study the interior of Mars, a seismometer.

Taking the six-month voyage into deep space onboard Insight, the seismometer will detect seismic waves  vibrations generated by Marsquakes that travel through Mars interior. Giardini has been developing this seismometer since the late 90s, but its been a life-long mission of his to reach Mars.

Second time lucky

In 2012, Giardini and his team applied for funding from NASAs Discovery Program that supports space missions that explore our solar system. Their project was among three missions shortlisted out of 29, and was later selected as the winning mission the following year. This gave Giardini and his team a short three years to prepare for the original launch date in 2016.

But the 2016 mission failed before it even left Earth due to instrument malfunction. And as the planets only align every 26 months to allow for us to reach Mars, the next window to launch wasnt until now.

Examining Mars vital signs for the first time

Launched with the support of an Atlas V rocket from the Vandenberg Air Force Space Launch Complex in California, Insight carries a suite of additional instruments that will study the planets vital signs.

Perrine Elise Huber, Head of Communication at swissnex San Francisco. swissnex San Francisco is part of the Swiss global network that collaborates with a broad spectrum of partners related to international research and innovation (such as higher education and research institutions), and supports them in their outreach and active engagement in the global exchange of knowledge, ideas and talent. swissnexs San Franciscos mission is to connect Switzerland and the West Coast of America in education, research, and innovation. The swissnex Network is an initiative of the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation and is part of Switzerlands network abroad managed by the foreign ministry. The activities of the swissnex Network are based on a collaborative approach, relying on public and private partnerships and funding.

Its temperature will be detected using a heat flow and physical properties probe that will penetrate five metres (16 feet) below the surface. Mars exact shape and position in space will also be studied using a radio to measure small variations in the wobble of Mars pole. This will allow scientists to understand more about the structure and composition of the core of the planet.

By exploring the interior of Mars, scientists will learn how other rocky planets form, and can compare it to Earth. Until now, scientists have only ever studied Earths interior, so by examining beneath Mars surface and comparing it to our own planet, they hope to better understand our solar system and to learn more about the conditions required to support life.

When the spacecraft reaches the outer layer of Mars, it will begin a six-minute descent to the Martian surface aiming for an area of 2,500 km2, which has less than 1% of rocks.

It took about three years to isolate a number of areas to land on, and on the basis of geology, this area was chosen. There is a camera that helps the lander avoid any large shadows, like holes or rocks If you land on a rock, the instruments wont work, says Giardini.

Insight lands on Mars in late November and will stay in this position for the two Earth year mission (one Mars year). As soon as they land, data will start being sent back to Earth, taking only 20 minutes to make its way back.

Mars is a time machine

A planets deep interior captures the history of its formation that determines what happens on the surface. It also influences a planets atmosphere, the structures on the surface, landscape elevation, and water and iceall the conditions that determine the existence of life. Although Mars and Earth formed more than 4.5 billion years ago from the same material, they evolved very differently. By studying below the surface of Mars, well be able to look back in time and answer questions about why Earth evolved to support life and not Mars.

In some ways, InSight is like a scientific time machine that will bring back information about the earliest stages of Mars formation 4.5 billion years ago, said Insights Principal Investigator Bruce Banerdt, at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory who has been working on this mission for 25 years. It will help us learn how rocky bodies form, including Earth, its moon, and even planets in other solar systems.

There have been 53 missions to Mars since the 1960s, from flybys to rovers, landers and orbiters, with just less than half of them successful. Well watch in anticipation as Insight makes its way through deep space to our neighboring Red Planet.

When asked what he expects to learn from this mission, Giardini says Everything. Mars is a planet that is very similar to Earth, but it is also very different. It shows how the Earth could be, and we want to understand why the Earth went in one direction and Mars in another. Mars used to have oceans, a large atmosphere and a magnetic field like we do, but none of these exist anymore. It appears that there are only very small details that can really move things in different directions, and we like to understand what those small details are.

Science has no borders

The scientists and engineers behind this mission come from five countries: Britain, France, Germany, Switzerland and the United States  reminding us that science, knowledge and the quest to explore deep space to find answers about life, our solar system and the universe, has no borders.

Its an extremely international mission. The actual spacecraft is built almost completely by NASA, but the payload, with the science, is from all over the world: Science has no borders, knowledge has no borders, and I think this is a very good example of that, said Banerdt.













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Almost every article published by swissinfo.ch containsa percentage, an age, an amount of money or some other figure.Heres a round-up of the most interesting statistics to appear in the past weeks stories.

Monday

18,000

The maximum amount in Swiss francs the national authorities are willing to spend annually per refugee to boost their integration into the work force and society. Justice Minister Simonetta Sommaruga announced on Monday the decision to triple government spendingallocating an additional CHF 162 million per yearon refugees and asylum seekers with temporary status.

Tuesday

813

The number of sexual crimes committed in Swiss asylum centers last year. The Federal Statistical Office reported on Tuesday that the number of sexual offense rose by 60% compared to 2016.

Wednesday

13,000

The total number of tracing requests that the Swiss-run International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has received since the start of the Syrian conflict. The ICRC said Wednesday inquiries came from all over the world and that its staff had very limited success reuniting Syrian family members.

Thursday

26

The number of people who died in 19 separate avalanche incidents last winter. In a report published Thursday, The Davos-based Swiss Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research also noted there have been some 250 destructive avalanches due to extraordinary snowfall in the winter of 2017-2018.The Turkish embassy to Switzerland faces accusations of supporting war games involving pupils attending special classes in a public Swiss school.

The tabloid SonntagsBlick reported that children staged war games during a performance in the village of Uttwil attended by hundreds of Turks in Switzerland and diplomatic guest of honour from Turkey.

The play was apparently staged with the backing of the Turkish embassy trying to promote nationalist propaganda among the expat community in Switzerland, according to SonntagsBlick.

Neither the St Gallen authorities nor the Turkish embassy were reportedly willing to comment.

However, a coordinator for the special classes is quoted as saying the organisers of the play  re-enacting the 1915 Battle of Gallipoli  had probably gone too far.

SonntagsBlick also said similar re-enactments organised by a mosque, recently took place in a town outside the Swiss capital, Bern.

A Swiss expert on integration, Thomas Kessler, has called on the cantonal education authorities to put an end to such re-enactments, according to SonntagsBlick.

The battle, which left more than 100,000 people dead, is often regarded as a defining moment in the history of modern-day Turkey, as the Ottoman Empire crumbled and the western allies were defeated by Turkeys armed forces.

SonntagsBlick says the regime of Recep Tayyip Erdogan uses the military history to foment the idea of Turkey as a major world power.













swissinfo.ch





German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier voiced concern Sunday over a "substantial change" in trans-Atlantic ties, amid European tensions with US President Donald Trump over trade, defence and the Iran nuclear deal.

Steinmeier, Germanys largely ceremonial head of state, conceded that the EUs biggest economy  which has long enjoyed US protection under the NATO umbrella  needs to grow up and realise our international responsibility.

But, honestly speaking, Im really concerned about the development of the trans-Atlantic relationship, said the former foreign minister in an interview with public broadcaster ARD.

Not because Im looking at a president with some irritating Twitter messages, but because a substantial change is now going on and (there is) a new American administration that no longer sees us as parts of a global community where we act together but sees the world basically as an arena where everyone has to somehow find their own way.

Steinmeier said that German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron had on their recent Washington visits both done the right thing by pointing to common European interests on trade and preserving the Iran nuclear agreement.

Trump has threatened punitive tariffs on metals imports while so far exempting the EU and other allies, and to tear up the 2015 Iran nuclear deal under which sanctions were eased in return for Tehrans commitment not to pursue a nuclear bomb.

Steinmeier recalled that former US secretary of state John Kerry, when he signed the pact, had stated that it may have prevented a war.

That was an important sentence because one has to remember what could happen if this agreement collapses again and new rearmament takes place in the Middle East, said Steinmeier, stressing that the turbulent region could not endure another conflict.

He also warned against growing Western alienation from President Vladimir Putin, saying that even though Russia was defining itself through a differentiation from Europe rather than cooperation, diplomacy must seek ever new initiatives and opportunities for dialogue.When Iranian director Asghar Farhadi told Javier Bardem that he wanted to make a film in Spanish set in Spain, the Oscar-winning actor says he "was like really? OK, that's brave".

But the Spanish star says the result  Everybody Knows, which will open Cannes film festival on Tuesday  is more Spanish than many Spanish movies made in Spain!

Farhadis A Separation and The Salesman both won foreign language Oscars, but it was his 2014 French feature The Past that changed Bardems mind.

When I saw The Past and I understood he can do it, the 49-year-old actor said in an interview in Paris.

Up for the Cannes top Palme dOr prize, Everybody Knows is a psychological thriller about a wedding in a small town that is turned upside down by a family tragedy.

Bardem stars alongside his wife and fellow Oscar-winner Penelope Cruz, their ninth film together and second in a row after last years Escobar.

He says their latest film together was different from another set in Spain, Woody Allens Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

Woody Allens movie is about cliches, about what the foreign tourists are looking for, they go to Barcelona for that, Bardem says.

But Asghar is a different game hes very realistic.

I smell Spain, in Farhadis film, he adds.

I believe in that country, that city, those people. They speak like that.

He says he and Cruz had some input about the Spanish: Mostly we brought things about the language, about the complexity of the sentences.

But he adds that the Iranian director knew a lot and the film was 99 percent his.

And it had all the ingredients of a Farhadi movie.

Usually his stories are very nice, simple, open-hearted people under very strong circumstances, conflicts, Bardem says.

But in this case there is a thriller aspect that makes you want to know more what is going on and keeps you at the edge of the seat.

 Juggling acting and marriage 

Bardem says it was a coincidence that he and Cruz starred in two movies together in a row.

We did Escobar and then we did this movie, one after the other. We were like OK, stop. Lets stop for a second. But they are also different, and the roles are different.

But he says acting together did make family life simpler for the couple, who married in 2010 and have two children.

That part is great. Thats way easier than the opposite, because the opposite  like me in China and her in Australia  were like, what do we do with the kids?

But he adds that you have to make a divided line between what is fiction and what is reality.

We rehearse with the directors and we talk about it, but once we get home, none of that is discussed.

Bardem won the best actor award at Cannes in 2010 for Biutiful, but says hes had ups and downs at the festival.

He says that No Country for Old Men, for which he later received an Oscar, was well received at the festival  but adds that it didnt get any award by the way.

And also Ive been booed, for 2016s The Last Face, he says, a movie that is considered one of the worst movies in the festivals history, which I have to say that I dont disagree.

Its a great honour to open such an amazing festival with a movie with Asghar Farhadi. But also its a risk, its scary, its a responsibility.Privacy Settings

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NOTE: These settings will only apply to the browser and device you are currently using.Vladimir Putin, who on Monday will be inaugurated for the fourth time as Russian president, has kept the possible reshuffle of his inner circle a closely-guarded secret.

From prime minister Dmitry Medvedev, long rumoured to be in the firing line, to veteran foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, here are the members of Putins inner circle to follow as the Russian leader begins his new term.

 Medvedev the loyal PM 

Chosen by Putin to lead Russia in 2008 when he was largely unknown, Dmitry Medvedev never succeeded in stepping out of the shadow of his colleague and old friend, as he called his superior.

After four years in office, he let Putin return to the Kremlin in a role swap that made him prime minister  a scenario prepared in advance.

Medvedev has played a relatively marginal role in the post in recent years.

In 2017, opposition politician and anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny exposed Medvedevs wealth, unexpectedly leading to large scale opposition protests against the man who was once wanted to put Russia on a liberal track.

Medvedev is regularly reported to be on his way out by the Russian press.

He was absent during Putins low-key presidential campaign but has never been publicly disowned by his mentor, to whom he remains resolutely loyal.

 Shoigu, the defence minister 

Sergei Shoigu has been behind the modernisation of the Russian army  most recently associated with the success of the Russian military campaign in Syria.

Defence minister since 2012, Shoigu is one of the rare members of Putins inner circle not to belong to the clan that surrounded him when he was working in the Saint Petersburg city administration.

The 62-year-old hails from Siberias Tuva region and proved himself a successful manager while heading the emergencies ministry for almost 20 years, which he radically reformed.

Shoigu regularly appears next to Putin during state ceremonies, fishing trips or while tracking tigers in the Russian Far East.

 Lavrov, Moscows voice abroad 

Internationally respected since his appointment as foreign minister in 2004, Sergei Lavrov has appeared tired in recent years, a particularly turbulent time for Russias ties with the West.

An inflexible negotiator, the 68-year-old continues to defend Moscows position around the world, expressing himself almost daily on the Ukrainian and Syrian crises.

 Sechin, the face of state capitalism 

An old friend of Vladimir Putin, Igor Sechin heads the state-owned oil company Rosneft which he has transformed into a global giant in the face of mounting personal criticism.

Often called Russias second most powerful man, Sechin seems untouchable. He even has the power to remove ministers, such as the former economy minister Alexei Ulyukayev who opposed Rosnefts resale of oil company Bashneft.

Ulyukayev was arrested last year at Rosnefts headquarters, caught accepting a bribe that he said was a setup. He was sentenced to eight years in a high-security prison for corruption in December last year.

 Nabiullina, the orthodox economist 

Well-known economist Elvira Nabiullina was unexpectedly appointed head of Russias central bank in 2013. Her appointment initially raised fears over the institutions independence due to her proximity to the Kremlin, but these have not been realised.

Financial circles welcomed Nabiullinas management of the economic crisis that hit Russia in 2014.

Under Nabiullina, the central bank applied sometimes unpopular methods to help avoid economic collapse during the crisis.

 Kudrin the reformer 

Finance minister from 2000 until Medvedev sacked him in 2011, Kudrin never strayed far from politics. A liberal respected by the Russian business community and foreign investors, Kudrin uses his independence to give regular interviews on economic issues.

Kudrin returned to the political fray as an advisor for Putin during the election campaign and this year gave an interview to Russian liberal daily Vedomosti explaining what he would do as prime minister.

Some suggested he could get a top economic post in the Kremlin in a reshuffle after Putins inauguration in what would be a gift to those who hope for better ties with the West.Presidential lawyer Rudy Giuliani said Sunday that Donald Trump would not be required to comply with a potential subpoena from the special counsel investigating possible collusion with Russia.

But Giuliani, whose statements since he recently joined Trumps legal team have created some confusion, also said that the president wants to testify and that we may actually work things out with Bob Mueller, the special counsel.

The former New York mayor and onetime prosecutor was asked on ABCs This Week whether Trump would comply with a subpoena if Mueller were to issue one.

We dont have to, Giuliani replied. Hes the president of the United States. We can assert the same privileges other presidents have.

President Bill Clinton had resisted a subpoena during the investigation of his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, then a White House intern. But he ultimately testified for more than two hours before a grand jury.

When Giuliani was asked if he was confident that Trump, should he appear before Mueller, would not invoke his constitutional right under the Fifth Amendment to remain silent, Giuliani responded, How could I ever be confident of that?  Every lawyer in America thinks he would be a fool to testify.

Yet he listed a series of points suggesting the Trump team has given considerable thought to the framework of a potential interview.

Giuliani said he would want such testimony to be only for two and a half hours. Only with an arranged format (not) under oath. Only a Q&A. We get the questions in advance.

So, he added, we may actually work things out with Bob Mueller. Because working with him directly is good.

But any such plan, he suggested, could be derailed depending on how the Mueller investigation proceeds.British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson will on Sunday begin a two-day visit to Washington, with the Iran nuclear deal, Syria and North Korea on top of the agenda, the Foreign Office said.

Johnson will meet US Vice President Mike Pence, National Security Advisor John Bolton and Congressional foreign policy leaders.

On so many of the worlds foreign policy challenges the UK and US are in lockstep, said Johnson, highlighting the joint responses to Russian provocations, North Korea and Syria.

The UK, US, and European partners are also united in our effort to tackle the kind of Iranian behaviour that makes the Middle East region less secure  its cyber activities, its support for groups like Hezbollah, and its dangerous missile programme, he added.

Britain remains committed the nuclear deal Iran signed with world powers in 2015, but US President Donald Trump has threatened to abandon the agreement when it comes up for renewal on May 12, calling it insane.

Britain, France and Germany  the three European countries that signed the deal  have repeatedly tried to persuade Trump not to abandon it.A 17-year-old was charged on Sunday over a gruesome power-drill attack in Northern Ireland that left a woman with "grave injuries", police said.

The 38-year-old victim is in a critical condition, suffering from a severe head injury following the attack in Strabane, County Tyrone, at around 2.00 am (0100GMT) on Saturday.

A 17-year-old male has been charged with grievous bodily harm with intent, possession of an offensive weapon in a public place and theft of a drill, said the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

This was a brutal attack and the injuries sustained by the victim are extremely grave, said the PSNIs Brian Reid.

The suspect is expected to appear at Omagh magistrates court on Monday.A British couple's baby boy died Sunday after he fell from their apartment in a southern Portuguese resort town, hospital sources said.

The unnamed infant, whose parents have lived in Portugal for several years, succumbed to injuries sustained early Saturday in falling from a second floor window of the building at Lagos on the Algarve in southwest Portugal.

The child, aged one-and-a-half and Portuguese-born, sadly did not recover from his injuries, Algarve university hospital told the Lusa news agency.

The babys mother, who was asleep when the child fell, was alerted by a neighbour.

Portuguese authorities opened an enquiry into the circumstances surrounding the incident.Sunday, May 6, 2018

World Military and Social Expenditures (1981-1996) Ruth Leger Sivard

Sivard maintained for many years a worldwide catalogue of military education and healthcare expenditures for each of the 191 countries. One year she catalogued the deaths from each war in the twentieth century, mainly the 77 million in the two world wars, but also the many third world proxy wars costing tens of millions of lives during the Cold War. From my point of view, her multi-decade bar charts of the G7 and leading economies of world showing how as military spending increases capital investment and manufacturing productivity decrease.

Climate and Life (1983) Steven Schneider

This is a fascinating account of the rise of life on planet Earth over 4.5 billion years. How volcanoes gave the early Earth water for the oceans and carbon dioxide for the atmosphere, the two key ingredients for plant life. How for the first 2.2 billion years of 3.8 billion years of life, life existed without the benefit of even a cell wall in the primordial sea. Here I learned in a paragraph the importance of evaporation as the main first use of solar energy (85%) and the main difference in heating rates of land and ocean. This leads to all that follows in my discovery of the natural global warming cycle origins of the Kondratieff Wave. The book is an impressive tour de force by a leading climate scientist and journal editor.

Spirit Level (UK 2010 US 2011) Richard Wilkinson and Kate Puckett

These authors document the extensive relationship between social disfunction and rising income inequality. Human beings, as social animals, do not relate well to a sharp rich poor divide. Indeed, this may well have been the central message of Jesus of Nazareth. Society operates better as equals than as lords and serfs. The lack of social mobility, crime, and poor health are all functions of the Genie coefficient. Also, anxiety levels continue to escalate over recent decades in America.

Guns, Germs, and Steel: the Fate of Human Societies (1997) Jared Diamond

Diamond documents the emergence of Western civilization in a scientific non-racist way. He notes the importance of large mammals to domesticate as a key. No region of the world has more than one or two such animals except for the fertile crescent. The cow goat sheep pig combination of four allowed mankind to inoculate from disease becoming hardier. Later the separation into many nations allowed Europe to learn from others nation's mistakes and successes, speeding development.

Long Cycles (1987) Joshua S. Goldstein

This political scientist at MIT was no doubt influenced by J. W. Forrester's long cycle work in the business school. Forrester founded system dynamics. Goldstein tracks European war deaths as a percentage of the European population for each war since year 1500. This five hundred year study clearly shows a robust 50 some year cycle in major wars. I find a clear 54 year cycle in the start date of these major wars by my own analysis.

Statistical Abstract of the United States (1899-2012)

My favorite here is the Bicentennial Edition showing a continuous record of economic data from 1889 to 1975, free from the obvious political bias of the individual year publications under various presidencies. The rich variety and inherent accuracy of these records are confirmed by their use in my stunningly accurate economic model from 1920 to 1996 of the United States. Crime records and state by state military spending records are invaluable. That this has been discontinued is a terrible shame.

Trends 90 (1990) Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center

This compendium of temperature records for various sections of the planet allows for the necessary data to document my natural cycle theory on several levels. The key for me was graphing the difference between the annual warming records over the last century and a half of the Northern versus Southern Hemispheres. This is a good proxy for the land versus the ocean. The dominant Southern Hemisphere for the sixty years 1860 to 1920 and the subsequent Northern Hemisphere dominance of 48 years from 1921 to 1968 show the 108 year cycle that colors the successive 54 year cycles. Now we are in a new Southern Hemisphere dominant cycle from 1969 to 2028.

1984 (1948) George Orwell

Orwell correctly anticipated the war is peace double speak of the Ronald Reagan re-election bid in 1984. He saw how the Cold War was beginning to color our dialogue after World War Two. He anticipated the tortured language and justifications of empire as power transferred from the British Empire to the American Century (a euphemism for American Empire). Wars in this period of time are repeatedly justified with language later shown to be false and misleading, just aa in this great work by a great author. Having read this book in the sixties, I later re-read it in 1984 and noted how well it described that year's dominant politics.

The Gospels of the Bible (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John)

The Sermon on the mount in Matthew's chapter four states that the peacemakers shall inherit the earth. Indeed, this is the fundamental truth of Peace Economics. Low military spending nations grow their economies faster than high military spending nations, eventually becoming dominant. Those nations who live by the sword die by the sword just as the gospels say. As you sow, so shall you reap, and pride cometh before a fall also ring true in my Peace Economics research.

For a basic seven pages read on my ideas and background:

https://www.academia.edu/33884446/Main_Ideas_Summary_July_2017_7_pages

Please cite this work as follows:

Reuschlein, Robert. (2018, May 6), "Great Reads Make Theories", Madison, WI: Real Economy Institute. Retrieved from: https://www.expertclick.com/NewsRelease/Great-Reads-Make-Theories,2018157177.aspx

Dr. Peace, Professor Robert Reuschlein, Real Economy Institute

Nominated Vetted 2016, Given Odds 2017 Nobel Peace Prize

Possible Favorite in 2018 Nobel Peace Prize October 5th.



Contact: bobreuschlein@gmail.com, Info: www.realeconomy.comTwo Alamo Colleges District board incumbents won re-election Saturday by comfortable margins, but a third won a new term by only a handful of votes and another was forced into a runoff, trailing his nearest challenger.

In District 5, James Hernandez, one of two challengers to incumbent Roberto Zarate, led the results with 1,067 votes to Zarates 855. Another challenger, Ramiro Nava, had 485 votes.

Hernandez said he worked to turn out more voters in his Edgewood Independent School District neighborhood.

FULL ELECTION RESULTS: $850M Northside ISD bond issue cruises to passage

Im going to win, either tonight or in a couple of weeks, Hernandez said. I know my neighborhood best and Im going to work it. Im going to be on the ground getting those new voters out there.

Zarate said Hernandez was doing a good job and the campaign had been positive, but he felt great about his chances.

Just got to work a little bit harder, Zarate said.

Zarate said Fiesta, the citys Tricentennial Celebration, Cinco de Mayo and the Northside Independent School District bond election had taken some attention away from his race and he welcomed the increased focus a runoff would bring.

District 6 incumbent Gene Sprague defeated challenger Jacob Andrew Wong, 3,981 votes to 3,259.

Board Chairwoman Yvonne Katz, the District 7 incumbent, led by the largest margin, 3,318 votes against challenger David W. Fischers 1,852.

In District 9, incumbent Joe Jesse Sanchez won by just 72 votes, 2,132 to 2,060, against challenger Felix M. Grieder.

Sanchez said he expected the race to be close because of the diversity of District 9, which includes neighborhoods just north of downtown San Antonio as well as suburban cities in Northeast Bexar County.

FULL ELECTION RESULTS: Final tally for all Bexar County races and issues

Im very grateful for the support that I have received from the community, Sanchez said. I think its a win for the community. Its a win for the students.

Sanchez and Grieder congratulated each other and called the campaign clean and respectful.

Its vital that our citizens have the opportunity to have low-cost, quality education, and I wish him the best, Grieder said.

Katz, Sprague and Zarate are longtime incumbents who have occasionally drawn criticism for their support of Bruce Leslie, the polarizing chancellor of the community college district who is set to retire in September. They have also been praised for the Alamo Colleges increased student success metrics and for choosing Mike Flores, the president of Palo Alto College, to replace Leslie.

Some of the challengers accused the board of undermining faculty and employees, harming morale. Trustees recently ramped up advising to help students pick courses that transfer to their programs of study at four-year universities, and last year voters approved a $450 million bond.

The seats in play this year represent the northern and western parts of San Antonio and Bexar County. The District 9 race was a special election to fill the unexpired term of James Rindfuss, who died in August. Sanchez was appointed in November to fill the vacancy. That seat will be on the ballot again in two years.

Alia Malik is a San Antonio Express-News staff writer. Read more of her stories here. | amalik@express-news.net | @AliaAtSAENVoters in Northside Independent School District approved by a 2-1 ratio the districts largest-ever proposed bond issue.

With all precincts reporting, 11,718 voters, or 68 percent, favored the bond, with 5,502 against the proposal.

The $848.9 million bond package was designed to contend with aging facilities and fast-growing enrollment in Bexar Countys largest school district. The debt would be used to fund renovations and upgrades at all but five of Northsides 119 schools. It also would pay for the construction of four new schools outside Loop 1604 to keep up with suburban development in the far western portions of the county.

READ MORE: How Northside's $850M bond is preparing the district for continuing growth

Northside ISD leaders at an election watch party thanked members of the community for standing behind the school district and investing in its future.

Today is another milestone for Northside. It is the premier school district, said John Folks, a co-chair on a bond committee that shaped the proposal and a former superintendent of the district. This community has always chosen to support their school district.

Superintendent Brian Woods said the results represented a vote of confidence from the community. In addition to building new schools, he said, the bond issue was notable for putting a significant percentage of dollars in our oldest campuses.

In Northside, we believe in equity. We believe that equity is important, Woods said.

FULL ELECTION RESULTS: Challengers run strong in two of four Alamo Colleges board races

Northside enrolls more than 106,000 students. An estimated property tax rate increase to pay off the bond would bring the total rate to $1.4218 per $100 at its highest anticipated point, in 2025. That rate would be 5 cents more than taxpayers in the district currently pay and would add $265.20 to the tax bill of the average valued house in the district of $218,540, assuming annual appraisal increases of 2.5 to 3.5 percent, officials have said.

Northside board president MLissa Chumbley said the strong support for the bond reflects voters belief in the districts staff, teachers and trustees.

Youre asking people to increase their taxes, Chumbley said. Youre asking people to have faith and trust in us.

The bond was Northsides sixth to win voter approval since 2000. The districts previous two bonds did not result in tax increases. Most recently, voters approved a $648.3 million bond issue in 2014.

FULL ELECTION RESULTS: Final tally for all Bexar County races and issues

Lauren Caruba is a San Antonio Express-News staff writer. Read more of her stories here. | lcaruba@express-news.net | @LaurenCarubaSan Antonio returned to its historic roots Saturday with a tribute to the waters of San Pedro Creek, once the lifeblood of a frontier village, now being expanded for flood control and beautified with a linear park that complements the citys renowned River Walk.

An evening illumination ceremony rounded out a daylong grand opening of the first half-mile stretch of the transformed creek.

Where before it was a dreary looking concrete drainage channel, the waterway is now lined with walkways, 38 benches, limestone walls, murals and lush landscaping of trees, aquatic plants and grasses. Called the San Pedro Culture Park, both sides of the creek have been remade into a place where people can gather, stroll, relax and view 26 pieces of art or historical texts and poetry.

Once completed in years to come, the entire park will run about 2.2 miles north to south on the west side of downtown.

Its another destination in downtown San Antonio thats something new and unique, said Suzanne Scott, general manager of the San Antonio River Authority, which is managing the project.

It was in the same approximate area, exactly 300 years earlier, where a presidio was founded on May 5, 1718, to guard the original Mission San Antonio de Valero, established four days earlier. Saturdays grand opening was one of the major events of Commemorative Week, which began Tuesday and concludes Sunday, during San Antonios yearlong Tricentennial Celebration.

Through the revitalization of San Pedro Creek, we are inviting people to connect with our communitys vibrant history and culture, said Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff.

Mike Fisher

The parks first segment stretches from the creeks flood-control tunnel inlet along North Santa Rosa Street, near Fox Tech High School, to Houston Street. It cost $57.3 million and was funded by Bexar County. The city is a project partner and property owner.

The park is open daily from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m.

Many of the people seeing the park for the first time Saturday commented that the walkways, 6 to 10 feet wide, can comfortably accommodate bicycles and pedestrians, more so than the River Walk or the northern stretch of the San Antono River, known as the Museum Reach.

Jim Kersey, a local professional tour guide, said the park has assets that the River Walk lacks.

Its not designed as a commercial area, and it provides more walking space for conventioneers, he said.

Kersey especially liked the parks walkways, boardwalk overlook and historic stone walls of the creek that remain intact for all to see.

Its really a great park. Its user-friendly. Its going to be a wonderful addition to stimulate San Antonio. It gives us a green space that we didnt have but really needed, Kersey said.

Some who strolled through the park got to meet San Antonio artist Adriana Garcia, who created a giant tile mural, 117 feet wide and 11 feet tall, south of Santa Rosa Street. The work was initially painted on canvas, then photographed and printed on tile.

At the center of the mural, with dozens of scenes of historic San Antonio, is Garcias depiction of San Pedro Springs.

Thats where people found sustenance and life, she said.

The mural also shows the two groups who came together in the early 1700s  Spanish soldiers and friars to the right, indigenous people to the left.

Theyre facing each other and looking at each other eye-to-eye. They have their hands on their weapons, Garcia said.

The sun is setting behind the Native Americans to symbolize the end of life as they knew it with the arrival of Europeans.

The mural also includes skulls, to signify the circle of life, she said, and the Chili Queens, Military Plaza and other iconic locales of the city. Using images of her own grandparents, Garcia depicted a family of the early 20th century, as if posing for a photo album.

At each end of the mural is a face  a mother to the left and father to the right  to symbolize the spirit of the mothers and the fathers.

Theyre the storytellers. Theyre our connection to the divine. Theyre telling the story of whats happened, Garcia said.

The one modern-day depiction, bringing the mural full circle near the image of the springs, is a mother playing with her children in the swimming pool at todays San Pedro Springs Park.

Plans for a 45-foot-tall, 20-foot-wide aluminum sculpture by artist Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada, titled Plethora, have been put on hold. The county committed $735,000 to it, but the artist later incurred higher cost projections to fabricate the metal. SARA and its nonprofit partner, the San Antonio River Foundation, are developing a private fundraising plan to fund that work and others.

The next segment of the project, from Houston to Nueva Street, is expected to be completed in 2020. With $158.7 million in city and county funds committed to the project, there is enough to complete that segment and begin Phase 2. But more money will be needed to complete all four phases to extend southwest to the confluence with Alazan-Apache Creek near Interstate 35.

The project is designed to carry more floodwaters as needed. Increasing the depth and width of the creek channel through the entire 2.2-mile length is expected to remove 30 acres from a 100-year flood plain. The first segment includes five bioswales, a waterfall, an acequia and six trash collector systems to help oxygenate the water and filter out debris and pollutants.

To keep water flowing in the creek through the culture park, SARA is using water recirculated from the flood-control tunnel. In drought conditions, it has a pump station along Arsenal Street that it can use to direct recycled wastewater, normally used to augment river flows, to pump to the creek instead.

Scott Huddleston is a San Antonio Express-News staff writer. Read more of his stories here. | shuddleston@express-news.net | @shuddlestonSADALLAS  The National Rifle Association came to Texas on a mission, determined to fight the perception that Second Amendment political forces are on the defensive going into this years crucial midterm elections.

They found their new rallying point here.

Upward of 80,000 NRA members  President Donald Trump and association officials call it a record turnout  left the four-day convention to fight for Second Amendment-friendly candidates nationwide, using a Texas tragedy as a grisly counterpoint to gun-control activists who have built momentum after a deadly Florida high school shooting.

The terror at a church in Sutherland Springs that left 27 dead last November was an inescapable presence at the NRAs annual meetings. In heavily produced promotional videos aired during the meetings, in speeches by NRA officials and politicians, and in conversations between rank-and-file members, it was clear that the worst mass shooting in Texas history has taken on a different feel from other rampages across the nation.

While the deaths of 17 students and teachers at the Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., mobilized gun-control activists, the NRA and its advocates have cast Sutherland Springs as a counterweight of sorts. Vice President Mike Pence used the Texas drama in his Friday address to thousands of gun owners.

Pence did not talk about the attacker, Devin Kelley, whose history included domestic violence and an Air Force court martial. Despite that, Kelley was able to get an AR-15 rifle to open fire on the church where his mother-in-law usually worshiped. Instead, Pence and other speakers focused on what happened next  when a soft-spoken neighbor to the church and plumber named Stephen Willeford grabbed his AR-15 and confronted Kelley.

That Willeford is also a longtime NRA member and an NRA pistol instructor made him a hero for those who argue the best way to stop would-be mass shooters is to ensure more regular citizens have guns to confront them when police cannot.

None of that was lost on Chris Cox, executive director of the NRAs Institute for Legislative Action lobbying arm.

If a deranged monster comes into your church and starts murdering innocent people, your best bet is an NRA member, Cox said to a standing ovation.

But for the thousands of gun control activists who assembled a few blocks from the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center, the story of Sutherland Springs as a success has a major flaw.

A lot of people were already dead before he could get there, said Gyl Switzer, executive director of Texas Gun Sense, a nonprofit gun-control advocacy group based in Austin.

Switzer said Kelleys ability to get an AR-15 and kill so many people before the good guy who lived across the street could get to the scene proves the need for reform.

Nonetheless at the convention hall, Willeford was brought on stage to be toasted and given a lifetime membership to the nations oldest gun organization. He was featured in a promotional video aired prior to Trumps speech on Friday, telling the story of what happened inside the church. Later, interviews with NRA public relations people were broadcast via closed-circuit televisions throughout the sprawling 15-acre gun show and on NRA-TV.

In short, the 55-year-old Willeford is fast becoming an icon of the gun-rights movement in the mold of Charlton Heston, Ted Nugent and Wayne LaPierre.

Hes right out of central casting, said Mark McKinnon, a longtime political adviser in Texas who was among those at Fridays sessions. Hes becoming their poster child. I think youre going to see a lot more of him.

Hes been making his voice heard in politics, too, lending his name to U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz during the Texas Republicans re-election campaign kickoff events last month. Cruz frequently cites Willefords actions as an emblem of a Tough as Texas slogan hes building his campaign around.

I think it illustrates powerfully how we can stop these mass murders before they happen, Cruz told reporters at the NRA convention on Friday.

Cruz said that, in the days after the church killings, families of the dead and wounded pleaded with him personally to not let what happened result in them losing their guns.

The heros role has been a major adjustment from Willefords former, quieter life in a rural community about an hour outside San Antonio.

Im nothing special, he said, peering out at the crowd from beneath the bill of his black cowboy hat. Every one of you would do what I did.

Around the convention center, Willeford was mobbed by well-wishers.

I guess this is my 15 minutes of fame, he said afterward, with a laugh. Eventually it will end and Ill go back to my normal life  and I have a good one.

Gov. Greg Abbott told NRA members bluntly why he thinks Willeford is important to the NRA and to Texas: Because he had a gun, he saved lives.

While the Florida high school killings have spurred legions of young adults and teens to take up the cause for gun control, NRA leaders and members were aggressive in ensuring younger people were on display throughout the conference.

On Friday, Will Robertson was a self-described kid in a candy store as he walked through exhibitor displays and their array of pistols, rifles, hunting apparel and military-grade weapons.

Trailing behind were his three sons, ages 6, 8 and 11, each dressed in camo shirts.

For folks like me, this is a dream, the 41-year-old Army veteran said while perusing Remington rifles. I live on a ranch west of Fort Worth. Ive been around firearms all my life. My daddy gave me my first gun at 8. His daddy did the same thing. I take my boys hunting. My wife shoots for a hobby.

I know a lot of people think having guns makes me weird or crazy. But its part of the culture in Texas. Theres nothing wrong with it here.

Dick Gentry, 68, agreed that guns are part of the culture, especially in rural areas and small towns where law enforcement may be too far away to respond quickly to a crisis. Gentry, who grew up in Marlin, said that he usually had a rifle nearby while working cattle. He used it occasionally to shoot a coyote or a snake.

The problem with gun rights is this, he said. Most people in the United States dont have a firearm, dont have any clue how to use one safely.

In Willeford and Sutherland Springs, the NRA and its supporters see a bulwark against a perceived exploitation of the Parkland tragedy. U.S. Sen. John Cornyn tried to make that point to reporters while carefully not criticizing the teenagers who survived the Florida killings.

They are right to express their concerns, Cornyn said. No parent wants their child going to school to be worried about the possibility that an active shooter could break into the school and injure and kill them. But I also think we need to have our eyes wide open, too, because I think some political opportunists are going to see this as an opportunity to exploit this issue.

Mike Ward contributed to this report.

jeremy.wallace@chron.com

twitter.com/JeremySWallaceIn an April 12 campaign fundraising letter, Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott claimed billionaire George Soros unloaded a whopping $1 million to install his liberal puppets in positions of power in Texas this fall.

In 2017, we found no evidence of Soros, the internationally prominent pro-Democratic financier, investing in races for state office in Texas.

More recently, Abbott warned afresh about Soros in a fundraising letter, opening: Every weapon in the national Democrat machines arsenal is aimed straight at Texas today.

Abbotts letter states next: Left-wing BILLIONAIRE George Soros has already unloaded a whopping $1 million to install his liberal puppets in positions of power this fall."

The letter warns that Democrats are preparing an all-out assault and could seize control of the state at the ballot box. I know, the letter further says, that "left-wing special interests and BILLIONAIRE liberals like George Soros are pouring outrageous sums of money into driving up Democrat turnout."

After we didnt hear back from Abbott about his basis for the "puppets" claim, we decided to check state, local and federal records for indications of Soros unpacking lucre to help Texas Democrats win election in 2018.

From the top, we knew that Soros invested significantly in a group that backed a successful challenger to the Bexar County district attorney. Attorney Joe Gonzales bested first-term incumbent Nicholas "Nico" LaHood in Bexar Countys Democratic primary after Soros contributions propelled a pro-Gonzales political committee.

Of note: Soros boosted the pro-Gonzales committee a couple of years after Soros put more than $1.4 million into electing Democrat Kim Ogg as the district attorney of Harris County. An October 2016 Houston Chronicle news story pointed out that Soros had similarly put his money into district attorney races in Florida, Illinois, Mississippi and New Mexico, each time through state-specific PACs with variations on the name "Safety and Justice." The story also said Soros had supported criminal justice reforms including reduced racial disparities in sentencing and relaxed marijuana restrictions.

In San Antonio, LaHood chalked up his loss to Soros spending, the San Antonio Express-News reported. In my opinion, the voters were unfairly influenced by $1 million worth of lies, LaHood said. There's no other way to say it.

Gonzales has yet to win the DA post; hes set to face Republican Tylden Shaeffer on this November's ballot.

For his part, Gonzales said after his primary win that Soros contributions came without strings attached. "There was a clear understanding from the beginning that we would accept their contributions, but we were not going to be told how to run this office," Gonzales said.

An Express-News spreadsheet tallies contributions by Soros to Texas Justice & Public Safety, the political committee supportive of Gonzales. According to the sheet, which was based on Gonzales campaign finance reports filed with the county elections department on Jan. 17, Feb. 5 and Feb. 26, 2018, the committee made $964,377 worth of in-kind contributions to Gonzales campaign from Dec. 18, 2017, through Feb. 23, 2018, mostly in TV ads and voter mailings but also in polling, research and palm cards.

Gonzales campaign directly fielded no Soros contributions, the filings indicate.

Abbotts fundraising letter warns of Soros spending money to install puppets.

To gauge whether Soros chose multiple Texas Democrats to help, we conducted online searches of candidate and political committee finance reports filed with the Texas Ethics Commission and Federal Election Commission.

Previously, our 2017 search of campaign finance reports filed with the ethics commission from 2000 into 2017 indicated Soros hadnt personally donated to candidates for state office--not once. Similarly, our fresh search of state records yielded no indication of Soros spending on races besides the Bexar County battle for the Democratic nomination for district attorney. In pre-primary reports, we found, the pro-Gonzales Texas Justice & Public Safety committee reported fielding $1.04 million in Soros contributions.

According to our separate search of campaign reports filed with the FEC, Soros made 49 contributions nationally from February 2017 into March 2018, totaling $4,587,000.

But, our search suggests, very little went to Texas Democrats. We identified a single Soros contribution to a Texas candidate. Soros gave $2,700 on Dec. 1, 2017 to Democratic U.S. Senate hopeful Beto ORourke, the El Paso congressman.

Our ruling

Abbott warned in his letter that Soros has spent $1 million to "install his liberal puppets in positions of power" in Texas this fall.

We confirmed Soros spending in Texas, but he's yet to put a penny toward Democrats seeking state office. The New Yorker gave a little more than $1 million to a committee that helped a challenger win the Democratic nod for Bexar County district attorney. He gave $2,700 to ORourke, who went on to win the Democratic Senate nomination.

All told, we rate this claim Half True: The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context.SUTHERLAND SPRINGS  Sherri Pomeroys hair hung around her face. She took a deep, shaking breath and began to speak.

Lu White. Robert Marshall. Karen Marshall. Annabelle. Bob Corrigan. Shani Corrigan. Peggy Warden. Dennis Johnson. Sara Johnson. Keith Braden. Joann Ward, with Emily and Brooke. Haley Krueger. Therese and Richard Rodriguez. Karla and Bryan Holcombe. Tara McNulty. Danny Holcombe, and Noah. Crystal Holcombe, with Greg and Emily and Megan. And Carlin Brite Billy Bob Holcombe.

Then 26 soft bell chimes.

And then silence.

Six months ago, or 181 days, First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs was the scene of the deadliest mass shooting in modern Texas history. A tent, a fence. Ambulances. Police. Media. In corners and on the street, people wept. Others said nothing, their faces blank.

RELATED: Sutherland Springs residents attend National Day of Prayer in Washington D.C.

A new church is being built and more than 200 Sutherland Springs community members attended its groundbreaking Saturday morning.

It will rise from newly acquired land adjacent to the old church. It will have 250 seats, about 150 more than the old one. And it will have two turrets: one with the bell that always signified the end of Sunday school and the beginning of services, and another, with a light.

Now Playing: Twenty-six people died in the Sunday massacre at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs on November 5, 2017. Video: San Antonio Express-News

We purposefully planned this groundbreaking on todays date, to help us remember to celebrate the lives that our friends and family lived, not to dwell on the manner in which they died, Pomeroy said.

Sherri and Frank Pomeroy, the pastor of the church, lost their 14-year-old daughter, Annabelle, and their best friends. The Holcombe family lost nine of their own, including an 18-month-old and an unborn child. The small town southeast of San Antonio with one stoplight, two gas stations and a church was brutally shattered by the loss.

Its been piecing itself back together ever since.

Were counting the blessings, were counting the good, that has come from it. But it doesnt make it easier, said Deborah Braden, who was shot four times and lost her husband in the massacre.

Devin Kelley, the gunman, shot 26 close friends and family in the church after sending a threatening text to his mother-in-law, Michelle Shields, who wasnt at church that Sunday. His life ended in a road chase with Stephen Willeford, who had run from his home a block away after hearing gunshots and then shot the gunman. Kelley eventually shot and killed himself after crashing his car along the highway.

RELATED: Sutherland Springs tragedy energizes NRA, gun-rights supporter

Were making a groundbreaking for a new beginning, said Shields, whose best friends were killed in the massacre. It brings back more memories, but its a positive feeling, to move forward.

Thousands of letters, cards and donations have poured in from across the world to the small church. Ryland Ward, a 6-year-old survivor, gripped the nation with his miraculous recovery and special bond with the firefighter who saved him. The number of congregants has surged, and last Sunday it was standing room only for the services.

But additional pain has gripped the community in the massacres aftermath, too. Conspiracy theorists harassed victims families for months before they confronted the pastor at the church in March and were subsequently jailed and released. A controversy over distribution of donations from within the community came to a head a few weeks ago, as questions swirled over whether the church was equally distributing the funds.

The mudslinging has mostly dissipated, though leaders of the North American Mission Board and the church community reiterated throughout the ceremony that no victims funds were being used for the event or construction of the new $3 million church.

The sunny day started with a consecration of the grounds, at each of the four corners of the church.

Many wore circular pins with photos of Lula White, who was killed at 71, and the words Forever in our hearts. Others wore the old blouses of Karla Holcombe, who used to walk the new grounds praying to God that it could one day belong to the church.

Her prayers, said her friends and children with bittersweet smiles Saturday, have finally come true.

New tiles were laid in the flowerbed outside the sanctuary of the original church, which is now a serene, white memorial to those who were lost. Each one has the name of a victim who died, along with a cross.

FROM MYSA.COM: Sutherland Springs hero says he's 'proof' mainstream media, anti-gun activists are wrong

As Ted Elmore, who handles church relations for the Southern Baptist Texas Convention, said a prayer to the crowd of victims families and survivors, Sherri Pomeroy walked behind him, pausing at each tile.

Her tears dripped to the ground beside them.

Feel free to weep if you want to weep. Theres nothing wrong with shedding tears, Elmore told the crowd. We ask God that you would heal our damaged emotions and let us not look back, but look forward.

Shortly before they took the stage, the Pomeroys, who had just returned Friday from National Day of Prayer events in Washington, shook hands and hugged guests as they poured in. There were family and friends, as well as members of the Alabama firm designing and building the new church, Myrick, Gurosky & Associates, and members of the North American Mission Board, which is funding it.

When people began to take their seats, Frank leaned into Sherri and asked if she was OK. Clutching her tear-soaked tissue, she nodded. He kissed her cheek.

This community, what they endured six months ago today, it was unspeakable evil. Unimaginable ugliness, said U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who spoke at the event and had visited the survivors just days after the massacre.

And yet, from that horror, emerged beauty. And love.

Still grieving

Last Monday morning, the Pomeroys cut the grass at Annabelles grave and cleared away some of the items at her headstone.

Love knows no difference between life and death, it reads.

In a finite world where lives always end and sometimes in the worst and unexpected of ways, the survivors of Sutherland Springs cling to all that is eternal: To love. To faith. And to their community.

As leaders in their community, the Pomeroys have had to continue preparing services in addition to managing donations, organizing counseling, helping survivors and handling events such as Saturdays groundbreaking. Thats their new life: They lead and grieve and lead again.

Family makes each and every moment a memory that lasts forever, reads a picture frame hanging on the wall in their home. Near the entrance, small wooden discs marking the birthdays of each of their children hang from a rack. Annabelles is still there.

Her room is still purple, too, but thats about all thats stayed the same. Theres a new bed and new toys for the grandchildren. The Pomeroys saved some of her precious things in a box in the closet.

We dont call it Annabelles room anymore, we call it the purple room, Frank Pomeroy said.

Sherri still sees shadows of her. Shell turn a corner and expect to see Annabelle running toward her, smiling, arms outstretched for another hug. Annabelle gave lots of hugs.

I dont stay home very much, even after I quit my job, she said. Its just too sad.

She also spent a lot of time in their wide backyard, laying down a blanket and playing with their two dogs. The dogs remind the Pomeroys of Annabelle a lot. It adds more pain to their day. But for that same reason, that she was so close to them, they cant give them away either.

Sherri wanted to move out days after the massacre, but Frank encouraged her to stay and wait awhile, to make sure that was the right decision. They still havent made up their minds.

If I was independently wealthy, I told her, I think wed get in a motor home and go for a year. Just go, Frank said.

Sherri used to do Zumba every week, and they always played a Bruno Mars cool-down song that was Annabelles favorite.

I always ended up crying in my car on the way home, she said.

When they think of Annabelle, they say, it doesnt feel like its been six months.

A fresh start

In a bin near the tent where the ceremony was held Saturday, Braden picked up a black polka-dot shirt and clutched it to her chest.

I gave this one to your mother, she said to Sarah Slavin, Karla Holcombes daughter, who was already wearing one of her mothers shirts.

The ceremony wasnt easy for Braden. She said her emotions are up and down. Being with the community gives her hope of a brighter future. But being on that ground and intentionally remembering the dead opens up a well of grief.

She and her husband were married for 33 years when he was killed.

Everything is so different. I mean my life was shattered and torn apart, she said, her eyes pooling with tears. We would be celebrating our 34th anniversary at the end of the month. Its just so unfair.

Mark Collins, a former associate pastor at First Baptist Church, spoke at the groundbreaking underneath the gigantic tent. He handed the Pomeroys a framed poster of Proverbs 3:5-6 that he had rescued from the old sanctuary and restored. He also gave John Holcombe, who lost his parents, wife and three children, a tie that was his mothers favorite.

We dont want to focus on that its been six months since the tragedy. Its been six months of moving forward, Sherri Pomeroy said.

Toward the end of the ceremony, all family members of victims and survivors were called forward. Dozens approached the stage, a few wounded survivors using canes or wheelchairs to get there, and 10 took shovels and helmets.

They initiated the start of a new First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs.

This will really be a lighthouse to the community. Even after Im dead and gone, youre going to see the church from a long ways away, Frank Pomeroy said. And thats the testament of those 26 lives that were lost, and survivors. Their blood was spilt, but that lights going to shine.

The family of victims and survivors held hands, gripped shoulders, touched heads. They prayed. And then they poised their spades above the earth.

We are the survivors of Sutherland Springs, Sherri Pomeroy proclaimed from the stage. And evil will not overcome good.

And fresh earth was turned from the ground.

sfosterfrau@express-news.net | @SilviaElenaFFRon Kaufman loves San Antonio.

Kaufman, the chairman of the Republican Partys Site Selection Committee, came away from his two March visits to this city so impressed that during a Friday phone interview he put a twist on an old Tony Bennett classic by saying, with a slight self-mocking tone, I left my heart in San Antonio.

I spoke to Kaufman the day after San Antonios city council decided  in a two-and-a-half-hour, closed-door meeting  not to bid on the 2020 Republican National Convention.

That decision put an end to a tempestuous eight-day citywide debate that began when Brad Parscale, the founder of a San Antonio web-design business and the campaign manager for President Donald Trump, blasted Mayor Ron Nirenberg on Twitter for failing to move on the RNC opportunity.

While much attention has focused on the fact that only Charlotte, North Carolina, has publicly announced a bid for the RNC, Kaufman said San Antonio was one of seven cities with whom the GOP has discussed the convention in recent months. He declined to name the other cities (other than Charlotte) on that list, but said they are all in the process of doing the bid.

He added that the Republican National Committee hopes to pick a convention site in July.

Kaufman, a longtime Washington lobbyist, said he came away from his two trips to San Antonio optimistic that the city would follow through with a bid. Its been widely reported that former Mayor Phil Hardberger, who attended the March 23 lunch meeting, expressed concerns about the convention in light of this citys majority Latino population and Trumps history of harsh denunciations of undocumented immigrants from Mexico.

Nonetheless, Kaufman said he got the overwhelming sense of the people there, including three or four chambers of commerce, and people like El Jefe, as they call (County) Judge (Nelson) Wolff, that the obstacles could be overcome. I thought they were leaning that way (toward a bid).

Recent economic-impact studies suggest that the 2020 RNC could generate approximately $200 million in business stimulus for its host city.

Nirenberg said Thursday that he and the majority of his council colleagues did not believe that moving forward with the bid was worth it.

A common misconception surrounding the convention issue was that the entire bid amount  which Kaufman placed at around $65 million  would need to be raised locally and in a hurry.

In the case of Cleveland, which hosted the 2016 RNC, the city put up $2 million, Cuyahoga County added $3 million, the state of Ohio chipped in $10 million and the remainder came from private fundraising.

While San Antonio would have needed to submit a bid very soon, it would have had two years to raise the necessary funds. Kaufman estimated that up to $25 million of the $65 million bid figure could have come from this states Event Trust Funds program, which helps local communities cover the costs for big events (based on a formula that factors in hotel occupancy).

Sources in the local business community contend that corporate entities from around the state would have stepped up to provide the great majority of the remaining amount.

Kaufman also debunked fears that the host city for the 2020 RNC will encounter a bloodbath similar to that seen outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. He pointed to the fact that after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, the Secret Service and the FBI stepped up security for national political conventions. In Cleveland, protests were largely peaceful and only 24 convention-related arrests were reported for the week.

In making his pitch to local shakers back in March, Kaufman also noted that S.A. would stand to receive about $50 million in federal funding for security at the convention.

In Cleveland, when it was over, he said, they had all this special (police) equipment and electronics that they could never afford, that was left behind for them.

San Antonio has never hosted a national political convention, and there were no guarantees that a convention bid this year would have been successful. But its obvious that Kaufman saw San Antonio as a city that could fit the bill.

You have a great city with great people, he said, singling out Casandra Matej, the president/CEO of Visit San Antonio, for special praise.

When asked if San Antonios very public rejection of the GOPs request for a bid would hurt the city going forward, Kaufman said, It doesnt help them any.

After a short pause, he added, I hope not.

@gilgamesh470

Gilbert Garcia is a San Antonio Express-News columnist. Read more of his stories here. | ggarcia@express-news.net | @gilgamesh470AUSTIN  As Lupe Valdez and Andrew White head toward a debate in their battle for the Democratic nomination for governor, the stakes are high and each has something to prove.

White, a Houston businessman who came in a distant second in the primary election, has to convince voters that he is a better choice than a Latina barrier-breaker for a party that sees its strength in its diversity.

Thats especially true since White initially emphasized his mainstream views by saying he didnt care whether people called him a moderate Republican or conservative Democrat.

RELATED: Lupe Valdez, Andrew White brag on their records but get jabs on them, too

Valdez, the former Dallas County sheriff, came in first in the March primary but has lost endorsements to White because of her uninformed or vague answers to pressing questions.

She has to show she is strong enough on the issues to face Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in November.

White has to prove that he identifies with the Democratic base  that they are playing on the same team, said Ed Espinoza, executive director of Progress Texas.

Valdez needs to prove that she can articulate the progressive values of the Democratic base, said Espinoza, whose group didnt made an endorsement in the nine-way Democratic primary for governor.

The debate is scheduled for Friday, just ahead of the May 14 start of early voting for the May 22 runoff election.

For those who attend, watch it on livestream or  if television coverage is arranged  tune in on TV, it may be the first real glimpse of candidates who havent had much money to spend to get their names out.

The value of the debate for Democratic voters, of course, is that they get to see the candidates perform side-by-side before they make their final choice, said Cal Jillson, Southern Methodist University political scientist.

RELATED: Latino voting group snubs Lupe Valdez, backs Andrew White for governor

Valdez has more to lose in the face-off, since she got 43 percent of the vote in the primary to 27 percent for White.

In a runoff in which some voters may not know as much as theyd like about either candidate, Valdezs surname may be a plus for those who value a diverse ticket. That would be enhanced for those who know she was the first woman and first Hispanic elected Dallas County sheriff.

But Valdez has lost newspaper endorsements, including that of the Dallas Morning News, to White after she stumbled on policy questions.

More recently, the Latino group Jolt snubbed Valdez when she didnt give a specific answer to a pointed question from a Dallas student leader who said she had an anti-immigrant record as sheriff. Valdez later followed up with a long answer defending her record and apologizing for not giving a more complete response initially, but the endorsement already had gone to White.

A debate could be challenging for Valdez since she still has room to grow in giving quick answers to policy questions, but that may be precisely the reason she finally agreed to do one. White has been pushing for the matchup since soon after the March primary election.

Her constant gaffes and missteps on policy have raised serious concerns among many people that shes not up to the job. Ducking a debate reinforced that impression of her, said Mark P. Jones, Rice University political scientist.

Avoiding a debate also would have set a bad precedent for Democrats heading into the general election, Jones said. Democrats havent won a statewide election in Texas in nearly a quarter of a century, and theyll presumably be looking for face time with Republican incumbents.

The optics were bad for Texas Democrats, especially if one of their goals moving into the fall is to call on Republicans to debate, Jones said.

But the risk is still high for Valdez.

The danger for her is that she may appear halting or uninformed on issues outside her law enforcement wheelhouse and that could give White a chance to pounce, Jillson said.

For White, its an opportunity.

Its pivotal for both of them, but especially for White, Jones said. If White is going to essentially transform the current dynamics of the race  his only realistic chance to do that is in this debate.

Valdez, by contrast, just has to be competent, Jones said. She doesnt need to defeat White, but she cant get blown out by White.

Espinoza said both candidates have something to prove.

They both need to make the case that they are strong standard bearers, that they can effectively deliver the Democratic message, Espinoza said, which is to say can they go up against a well-funded but extremely damaged Republican machine and make the case for a progressive victory in Texas.

Peggy Fikac is a San Antonio Express-News staff writer. Read more of her stories here. | pfikac@express-news.net | @pfikacContributed / Griffin Hospital

DERBY  The Childbirth Center at Griffin Hospital in Derby will be able to give parents who have a stillbirth or later term miscarriage extra time with their child thanks to a CuddleCot donation.

Annabellas Angels, a non-profit that raises funds to donate a CuddleCots throughout the state, presented the Childbirth Center staff with the $3,000 device and a specially-designed bassinet on April 24.Ten cows, eleven black lambs and ten goats have been stolen from a farm in Dumfries and Galloway.

Police Scotland are now investigating the report of the theft from a farm near to Newton Stewart.

The animals; ten cows, eleven black lambs and ten goats have been stolen in a break-in to the Carty Port Equestrian Centre near Newton Stewart.

The theft happened sometime on the evening of Sunday 29 April.

Inspector Stewart McColm at Stranraer said: "Officers are dealing at this stage with what appears to be the theft of animals from the Carty Port Equestrian Centre near to Newton Stewart.

"We are also aware however about reports of a dead horse being found in the nearby area which has generated a great deal of social media activity around this matter."

The police are appealing for the public to contact police direct on 101. Callers should use the 101 number and quote the reference number PDG 0089120418 when calling in.Two influential parliamentary committees have written a joint letter to the Competition and Markets Authority highlighting their concerns over Asda and Sainsbury's proposed merger.

The Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and Environment Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) have raised concerns over the impact the merger will have on the grocery supply chain.

In particular, the letter highlights the market dominance that the merger would create for the new Asda/Sainsburys business and Tesco.

Of interest to the committees is the timing, length and scope of the CMA investigation, as well as the criteria that will be used to determine whether the merger will create local monopolies or require the stores to divest premises.

Rachel Reeves, Chair of the BEIS Committee said the merger threatens consumer choice. She said it hands yet more power to mighty supermarket players and heaps more pressure on small and medium suppliers.

The CMA needs to be a champion of consumers and it must look closely at the impact of this merger on the supply chain as well as the effect on competition in the supermarket sector, Ms Reeves explained.

Neil Parish, Chair of the EFRA Committee highlighted the fact that grocery retailers dont have a "gleaming record" of treating suppliers well.

He said the Grocery Code Adjudicators (GCA) 2017 survey found that Asda was the worst grocery retailer in the eyes of its suppliers.

The cost savings being promised through this merger must not come through squeezing those further down the supply chain. I am also concerned that with two supermarkets taking up around 60% of the market, suppliers would be more reluctant to raise complaints about unfair practices, Mr Parish said.

Grocery giant

The deal between Asda and Sainsbury's will create a grocery giant overtaking Tesco as number one in the sector, with combined revenues of 51bn.

The two retailers have promised to slash prices on products by up to 10%, if their merger goes through.

The farming industry has viewed news of price cuts as a huge worry, with many in the industry already battling through poor financial returns.

The news has led a Green MEP to call on the European Union to block the merger, saying it would work against the interest of food producers.

MEP Molly Scott Cato said the UKs food retail market is on a "conveyor belt towards increased concentration and reduced competition".

The Tenant Farmers Association (TFA) has also called for the government to rethink its refusal to extend the remit of the Groceries Code Adjudicator.

The organisation said there is a growing recognition that the food supply chain in the UK is "dysfunctional", and it is farmers who bear the brunt of the problems that this produces.

Another concern among farmers are the two retailers' differing sourcing policies. Latest shelf watch figures have highlighted the "vast difference" in Sainsbury's and Asda's approach to sourcing British pork.Dairy farm profits averaged 185 per cow in 2020/21, report says

This is despite production costs outstripping incomeSite Blocked

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AcceptOMAHA (dpa-AFX) - Billionaire Warren Buffett tried to reassure shareholders at the Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK.A, BRK.B) annual meeting Saturday that the company's success would continue once he is no longer at the company. Berkshire promoted Buffett's two potential successors, Greg Abel and Ajit Jain, to vice chairmen in January and gave them bigger responsibilities overseeing the company's business units. The managers of Berkshire's 60-plus business units now report to either Abel or Jain, rather than to Mr. Buffett. Buffett said repeatedly at the meeting that Berkshire's success in acquiring companies and finding attractive investments is because of the company's balance sheet and track record, not his personal fame. While Mr. Buffett's lieutenants are well-known to followers of the company, Messrs. Jain and Abel rarely speak publicly. Warren Buffett said that the world depends on the United States and China for progress, dismissing concerns that the two countries' trade tensions could potentially escalate into a trade war. Buffett made the remarks in response to a Chinese investor's question about U.S.-China trade relations at the Berkshire Hathaway's annual shareholders meeting. 'The United States and China are going to be the two superpowers of the world, economically and in other ways, for a long, long, long time,' Buffett said. The benefits of free trade are huge, and the world is dependent on it in a major way for its progress, Buffett said. While the primary focus of his company remains on U.S. businesses, investment opportunities in other parts of the world, including emerging markets, will also be taken into account, according to Buffett. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.

WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - US President Donald Trump took aim at two of America's closest allies in a speech at the NRA convention, saying strict gun laws failed to prevent the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris and highlighting a purported increase in knife violence in London.



The comments provoked anger in both France and Britain



France was especially incensed after Trump, while speaking at the gun rights convention in Dallas on Friday, pointed his hand as if it were a gun while describing how each of the victims in Paris was fatally shot.



'They took their time and gunned them down one by one -- boom, come over here, boom, come over here, boom,' he said.



The French foreign ministry said, 'France expresses its firm disapproval of President Trump's remarks ... and calls for the respect of the memory of the victims.'



'If one employee or just one patron had a gun, or if one person in this room had been there with a gun, aimed at the opposite direction, the terrorists would have fled or been shot. And it would have been a whole different story,' Trump said.



The Elysee palace responded to that comment by saying, 'The free flow of arms within society does not constitute a shield against terrorist attacks. It can instead facilitate the planning of this type of attack.'



A group of about 10 men staged a series of coordinated attacks in Paris on November 13, 2015, killing at least 130 people and wounding hundreds.



The attackers, armed with assault rifles and explosives, targeted six locations across the city. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.



Trump also compared an unnamed London hospital to a 'war zone' in the NRA speech, saying that despite tough gun laws in the United Kingdom, it has blood all over the floors from victims of knife attacks.



'They don't have guns. They have knives and instead there's blood all over the floors of this hospital,' Trump said. 'They say it's as bad as a military war zone hospital ... knives, knives, knives. London hasn't been used to that. They're getting used to that. It's pretty tough.'



The former UK Cabinet minister Charlie Falconer tweeted Saturday: 'US murder rate over 5 times higher than the UK's. There isn't a person in the whole world (with the possible exception of the President of the US, and he's probably lying) who believes the way to reduce our murder rate is to make it easier to get guns.'



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.deZURICH (Reuters) - Discussions between Swiss Re and SoftBank about the Japanese group potentially taking a stake in the reinsurer are faltering, the Financial Times reported on Sunday, quoting people close to the situation. 'Talks between Swiss Re and SoftBank over an investment in the reinsurance company are close to collapsing after three months of discussions,' the FT said.

ZURICH (Reuters) - Discussions between Swiss Re and SoftBank about the Japanese group potentially taking a stake in the reinsurer are faltering, the Financial Times reported on Sunday, quoting people close to the situation.

"Talks between Swiss Re and SoftBank over an investment in the reinsurance company are close to collapsing after three months of discussions," the FT said.

"People close to the situation say the Japanese company's enthusiasm has waned in recent weeks," the newspaper said without giving further details.

Swiss Re declined to comment on the report.

The reinsurer's chief financial officer, John Dacey, told reporters on a call on Friday that the company was still in discussions with SoftBank, but that it was not sure they would result in a completed transaction and that it was also talking to other potential partners.

Under pressure from falling prices amid intense competition, Swiss Re is looking for partnerships that could open new streams of revenue. It had said last month that SoftBank wanted to buy a stake of under 10 percent and that the pair were also exploring strategic cooperation.

(Reporting by Silke Koltrowitz; Editing by Keith Weir)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.A Delhi government clerk, suspected to be the mastermind of a crime syndicate helping candidates cheat the online examination conducted by the Staff Selection Commission, has been arrested in New Delhi

New Delhi: A Delhi government clerk, suspected to be the mastermind of a crime syndicate helping candidates cheat the online examination conducted by the Staff Selection Commission, has been arrested in New Delhi, police said on Sunday.

With the arrest of Harpal Singh, 33, on Friday, the total number of gang members arrested in the case has reached 10.

An upper division clerk in trade and tax department, he had been on the run since the syndicate was busted in March.

Singh was the main driver behind the gang, who had planned the process to cheat the computer-based examination, police said. The gang members used to assist candidates via a remote-access application, Team Viewer.

Last month, Delhi Police arrested five persons in connection with the matter. Another four were arrested in March, when the case was transferred to the crime branch from the north district police.

During interrogation, the police found that the syndicate worked as an organised grouping. The members would hack into the online system and assist candidates taking the examination.

The candidates were charged between Rs 5 and Rs 10 lakh.

The gang allegedly had developed a network with examination centres and computer labs in various cities. The SSC outsources the conduct of the examination to labs such as these.

Singh and other gang members also used to run such labs in parts of Delhi, the police previously said.A local court directed the Goa Police to begin a preliminary inquiry into a complaint against Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal for allegedly encouraging bribery.

Panaji: A local court on Saturday directed the Goa Police to begin a preliminary inquiry into a complaint against Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal for allegedly encouraging bribery during the Goa Legislative Assembly elections in 2017.

During a series of election rallies in Goa between 7-8 January, Kejriwal had reportedly appealed to voters to "accept money from the Congress and BJP candidates, but vote for the AAP".

Judicial Magistrate of First Class at Mapusa Shantishri Sinai Kudchadkar directed the police to start preliminary inquiry into a case filed by Returning Officer Gurudas Desai, who alleged that Kejriwal had promoted bribery during his election speeches.

In January, 2017, the Election Commission had ordered the police to file an FIR against Kejriwal following which local poll officials lodged a complaint with Mapusa police.

The returning officer had then approached the judicial magistrate first class in Mapusa in December, 2017 with a plea that an offence under section 171 (B) (inducement to voters) and 171 E (bribery) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) be registered against the AAP supremo.

The AAP had contested 39 out of 40 seats in 2017's Goa Assembly polls.A 45-year-old ward attendant was on Sunday arrested on charges of raping a married woman at the premises of a state-run hospital here where she had gone for treatment, police said.

Hyderabad: A 45-year-old ward attendant was on Sunday arrested on charges of raping a married woman at the premises of a state-run hospital here where she had gone for treatment, police said.

B Nagaraju, who allegedly raped the woman, was nabbed along with a home guard Qmar E-Ilahi, who was arrested on the charge of not reporting the matter despite "observing" the act, police said.

According to a police official, the woman in a complaint on Saturday said on 2 May, she had gone to the Osmania General Hospital for treatment after her husband had beat her up.

At about 2100 hours when she sat in the waiting hall after treatment a man approached her. He threatened her with dire consequences and took her to the first floor of the hospital and raped her, the complaint said.

The man threatened her not to reveal the incident to anyone and fled, police said.

Qmar E-Ilahi observed the entire scene but did not inform his higher-ups, they said.The National Security Act sounds like a serious piece of legislation intended to save India from a security threat, but the government is not holding Dalit leader Chandrashekhar Azad Ravan for fear of terrorism

Ninety-nine years ago, in April 1919, the massacre of Jallianwala Bagh happened. All Indians are taught of the details of the incident in school. An officer named Colonel Reginald Dyer (later Brigadier General) ordered 90 soldiers, 65 Gorkhas and 25 Punjabis from the Baloch regiment to open fire on a crowd in Amritsar. The soldiers fired with their Lee Enfield .303 rifles, stopping to reload every few seconds. In about 10 minutes, the Indian soldiers fired over 1,600 bullets into the unarmed crowd.

The government said that the crowd had gathered there in violation of orders, and the official number said that 379 people were killed and over 1,100 wounded. The Congress said that more than 1,000 people were killed, and we will never know the exact number. I find it hard to believe that the official number was wrong, for several reasons. Anyway, the story shocked the world and Rabindranath Tagore gave up his knighthood.

Many Indians will know that the crowd was protesting against the Rowlatt Act. What was so problematic about it? The Rowlatt Act said that any Indian could be detained without trial. This was preventive detention, meaning that the government would hold any citizen in jail without any crime having been committed. Essentially, it means that if someone inside the government suspects that a citizen might commit a crime later, that citizen can be put in jail. Indians were outraged by such a law and one Lahore newspaper described the Rowlatt Act with the headline: 'No dalil, no vakil, no appeal'. That is a good description of what preventive detention is.

This then is the background to the Jallianwala Bagh event and this is the nature of the law for which so many of our fellow citizens were protesting and were killed. They felt the colonial government was wrong to jail Indians without charge or trial and it is difficult to see why they were wrong in protesting. Because of Jallianwala Bagh, the Rowlatt Acts provisions were not fully implemented. That was 99 years ago, under a colonial government. Let us turn to the present.

In November 2017, the Uttar Pradesh government jailed Dalit leader Chandrashekhar Azad 'Ravan' without a case. He was booked under the National Security Act. Under the NSA, Chandrashekhar does not have any of the human rights protections that are part of the ordinary criminal procedure and fair trial standards. He can be jailed for 12 months without charge or trial. On his release, if he is released, he can be put back again under some other detention law.

Chandrashekhars term of administrative detention expired on 2 May. On that day, a non-judicial advisory board' established under the NSA, put him in jail for another six months. Instead of promising to have lunch with Dalits, it would be better if our leaders promised to treat them fairly and not use laws against them that are the basic violation of constitutional rights.

The High Court has also refused to release Chandrashekhar. Remember that he has not been charged with any crime. This is preventive detention and in the past, the Supreme Court has itself called the preventive detention laws lawless laws". There are many laws like the NSA under which the government of India and our various state governments detain Indians that they may not personally like or agree with. India is doing to its citizens what even the colonial government hesitated to do.

There is no problem getting Indian judges and bureaucrats to do this to their fellow Indians. The reason I mentioned the 1919 Jallianwalla Bagh shooting, in detail, was to reiterate that it was fellow Indians, Gorkhas, and Punjabis, who actually took aim and pulled the triggers that killed so many of Indians in that peaceful protest.

The National Security Act sounds like a serious piece of legislation intended to save India from a security threat, but the government is not holding Chandrashekhar for fear of terrorism. Indeed, most of our preventive detention laws have nothing to do with terrorism.

Gujarat can jail its citizens under the Gujarat Prevention of Anti-Social Activities Act. Karnataka has the Prevention of Dangerous Activities Act (popularly known as the Goondas Act). Periods of possible detention under state laws range from six months to two years. Authorities can impose preventive detention for a range of activities in different states, including boot-legging, land-grabbing, and even video piracy.

Tamil Nadu had 1,268 such people in jail in 2016, of whom 62 were either graduates or post-graduates and 21 were women, according to a report in The Hindu. The National Crime Records Bureau for 2015 showed that Telangana had detailed 339 Indians, Karnataka 232, and Gujarat 219. Tamil Nadus law is called the Tamil Nadu Prevention of Dangerous Activities of Boot-leggers, Drug Offenders, Forest Offenders, Goondas, Immoral Traffic Offenders, Sand Offenders, Slum-grabbers and Video Pirates Act, 1982.

The vague and open nature of the wording is absolutely deliberate. The democratic government of India, just like the colonial government, sees citizens as a nuisance. It does not trust the legal system and demands to have open-ended and draconian laws that can jail citizens without a crime being committed. Till Indians are able to understand and appreciate this reality of what is happening to their fellow citizens today in 2018, it would be hypocrisy to continue to teach in Indian textbooks about the great atrocity of 1919.In an interview with Firstpost, Javaid Rahi discussed the Kathua rape case, Kashmiri Muslims and the cultural heritage of the Bakarwal community.

Jammu: In the aftermath of the Kathua rape and murder case, many organisations have visited Jammu. The latest was a five-member fact finding team which included advocate Monika Arora. The team, which is examining the circumstances of the murder of the minor from the Bakarwal community, interviewed multiple persons, including Dr Javaid Rahi, a leading Bakarwal intellectual who heads the Tribal Research and Cultural Foundation in Jammu.

In an interview with Firstpost, Rahi discussed the Kathua rape case, Kashmiri Muslims and the cultural heritage of the Bakarwal community.

What were some of the questions Arora asked you during your meeting?

Rahi: She asked if the Kathua case should go to the Central Bureau of Investigation. I said there was no need for that. But her video made no mention of my comments. I must point out that following the incident, a number of groups have visited Kashmir. On 7 May, a human rights commission is visiting Jammu, and another group will soon follow.

One of the allegations being levied against the Crime Branch is that two of the five members of the team investigating the Kathua rape case are tainted and that one of them spent time in jail...

Rahi: I cannot comment on the veracity of these claims or on the credentials of the police officers. All I have read in the newspapers is that the Crime Branch was led by DSP Shwetambri Sharma. I am a member of the Bakarwal-Gujjar community and a tribal. An FIR has been lodged. I have complete faith in the Indian judiciary. I am certain that justice will be done.

The root cause of the incident seems to be a land dispute. Some right-wing groups don't want the Forest Rights Act 2006 to be implemented in the state...

Rahi: Precisely. What is basically an issue of livelihood has metamorphosed into an issue of demographics. The Bakarwals are a tribal community. Ethnically, they are Gujjars. The Bakarwal-Gujjar community is recognised under the Scheduled Tribe category in the states of Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. Their counterparts in Himachal Pradesh are entitled to forest land under the Forest Rights Act 2006.

This has been a long pending demand of the Jammu and Kashmir's Bakarwal community and Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti promised to enact this law. The Gujjar community enjoys an Other Backward Class status in ten states including Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Maharashtra.

Right-wing elements have been warning of a demographic invasion...

Rahi: We are less than ten percent of Jammu and Kashmir's population. How can we change the demography? According to the census, Hindus comprise 90 percent of state's population.

What about the presence of the Rohingya?

Rahi: They came here seven to eight years ago. We've often said they should be allowed to cross over to Pakistan. The borders should be opened up for a short time to facilitate this crossover. I have no idea how they came to Jammu and Kashmir.

What's the situation the Bakarwal community is facing?

Rahi: We are treated as tribals. In Jammu, we are seen as Muslim. Since we live on the border, Pakistanis see us as Hindu agents. Kashmiri Muslims are powerful. Hindus are powerful. We do not want to be a B team because we have our own unique identity. During the 30 years of militancy, you will find that not even one member of our community took up arms. And yet right-wing elements want 250 families living in Vijaypur to be evicted so that an AIIMS can be constructed. The entire Samba district is lying vacant, yet that's the place they want to target.

Our narrative is different from the Dogras or the Kashmiris. Our language is Gojri and this has been placed in the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution though we have a long standing demand that it be placed in the Eight Schedule. We do not marry into the Kashmiri Muslim population and as much gap exists for us culturally with Hindu population as Kashmiri Muslims.

The Bakarwal community is known to have close contact with Indian Army...

Rahi: Since the Bakarwal community moves to the upper reaches of the Himalayas during the summer months, we are like the eyes and ears of the Indian Army. We provided the Indian Army with information about invaders prior to the Kargil war. There is no Indian Army in the upper reaches where the Bakarwals are with their animals.

During Amarnath Yatra, it the Barkerwal-Gujjar community which provides people with 90 percent of support. Again, it is our people who provide 70 percent of the support to pilgrims going up to Mata Vaishnu Devi temple. No Gujjar has supported Syed Ali Shah Geelani or the Hurriyat in the 30 years of militancy. Nor are we given to agitate like the Gujjar community in Rajasthan. We led one delegation following the Kathua rape because we want matters to be settled amicably. The problem is that in the past few years, when the Bakarwals come down from the higher mountains, the people do not want them to live in the forests around Jammu. That is why we are unhappy at the reaction of Jammu's Dogra community to the Kathua incident.

What is Mehbooba Muftis stand over the implementation of the rights act?

Rahi: The chief minister ordered that no member of our community be displaced till the State puts a tribal policy in place. That has not been liked by some people, especially when the order further states that if eviction is absolutely necessary, it should be done after consulting the states tribal affairs department.

You've done a lot of work on the Bakarwal-Gujjar community's cultural heritage...

Rahi: I compiled the first-ever Gojri dictionary, which contains 70,000 words spoken by members of our community. We are working on our fourth dictionary project under my supervision. I am a historian and writer in Gojri and Urdu and head the Gojri wing of the State Academy of Art, Culture and Languages.Authorities of a town in Madhya Pradesh's Ujjain district withdrew an order that had asked functionaries of village panchayats to intimate the police about any weddings in Dalit families three days in advance.

Ujjain: Authorities of a town in Madhya Pradesh's Ujjain district withdrew an order on Saturday that had asked functionaries of village panchayats to intimate the police about any weddings in Dalit families three days in advance.

The order, issued on 16 April in Mahidpur town, 244 kilometre from Bhopal, came two days after a wedding procession of a Dalit groom was allegedly stopped by upper-caste men. The man belonged to the Scheduled Caste Balai community, said an official.

In the order, the sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) of Mahidpur, Jagdish Gome, had directed the secretaries of all village panchayats within his jurisdiction to inform the police three days in advance about any weddings being organised by families belonging to the Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Other Backward Castes (OBCs).

The order stated that these village panchayat secretaries were to immediately inform the local police station in-charge, in writing, by post or on the official WhatsApp group.

"The order issued by the SDM has been revoked with immediate effect," District Collector Manish Singh said on Saturday.

The Mahidpur SDM said the order was issued as a "precautionary measure", following the incident on the night of 14 April, which incidentally happens to be Ambedkar Jayanti.

Leader of Opposition in the state Assembly, Ajay Singh, however, termed the order a "blot" on social harmony.

"Dalits are being disrespected in a planned way across the state. The order issued by the district administration in Ujjain is a blot on the social harmony of the state," Singh said.

The senior Congress leader also pointed to a recent incident, which occurred in Madhya Pradesh's Dhar district, in which police aspirants have had their caste categories marked on their chests during a medical examination.Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Chitradurga, Raichur, Jamakhandi, and Hubli on Sunday to take part in election rallies.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to address his first rally in Karnataka ahead of the state Assembly election at 11 am on Tuesday in Santhemarahalli village in Chamarajanagar. He will address a gathering in Udupi district at 3 pm and then address a rally in Belagavi district at 6 pm.

This will be Modi's first visit to the southern state since the Assembly election dates were announced. The prime minister will kickstart his election campaign from Chamarajanagar district, where he will address a public rally in Santhemaranahalli at 11 am.

Modi will seek the blessings of the Pejawar pontiff Vishwesha Teertha Swamiji, said to be close to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), and will address a public meeting in town. Reports say top police officials have asked the mutt to restrict visitors after noon on Tuesday.

Where Rahul Gandhi refuses to tread, Narendra Modi rushes in. The BJP will kick off the final leg of its Karnataka campaign on Tuesday, with three rallies planned for the prime minister, one of them in Udupi, well-known not just for the ubiquitous Udupi restaurants all across the country but also for its famous Krishna temple and ashta mutts (eight mutts).

On 5 May, he is scheduled to visit Tumkur, Shivamogga and Hubbali, while he is expected to address rallies in Raichur, Chitradurga and Kolar on 7 May. On 8 May, Modi is scheduled to be in Vijayapura, Mangaluru and Bengaluru.

After Tuesday, Modi is next expected to address rallies on 3 May in Gulbarga, Ballari and Bengaluru, The Indian Express reported, citing a tentative schedule by the Prime Minister's Office.

BJP chief Amit Shah is scheduled to be present in Chikkamagalore district to attend two public meetings on Tuesday. He will also attend a gathering in Hassan district at 4.30 pm.

In a series of tweets on Tuesday, Siddaramaiah demanded that Modi "end the hypocrisy" on his stand on corruption. "Would G Janardhan Reddy be joining your rallies here? You have given his family and friends eight tickets, hoping it will help BJP in (winning) 10-15 seats. And then you lecture us on corruption," the Congress leader said.

With Prime Minister Narendra Modi beginning his Karnataka campaign trail with a series of rallies on Tuesday, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has urged him to address concerns surrounding the Reddy brothers, BJP chief ministerial candidate BS Yeddyurappa, and farmers' woes.

"In Delhi, we keep getting news of Assembly polls in Karnataka. The news say that there is a BJP wave in Karnataka. The reality is, it's not a wave, it's a storm in Karnataka," Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in Chamarajanagar.

"Gujarat and Maharashtra are celebrating their statehood day today. Today is also Labours' Day and I want to dedicate this day to our hard working and diligent labourers." Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at a public rally in Chamarajanagar

"You don't listen to former prime minister Manmohan Singh (on electrifying villages), at least listen to your mother Sonia. Why are you fooling the nation," Modi said in a dig to Rahul.

"Perhaps due to over excitement, the newly-elected Congress president Rahul Gandhi forgets decency. He did not even bother to congratulate the hardworking labourers due to whom India's villages are getting electricity," Narendra Modi said in Chamarajanagar.

"Those who keep abusing us day and night do not tell why there are still 4 crore households without electricity. We have vowed to electrify these 4 crore households through Saubhagya Yojana," he said.

"There were 39 villages in Karnataka which did not have electricity in 2014. But because of our governance at the Centre, these villages were electrified. What did Congress government do for these villages before we came to power at the Centre," asked Narendra Modi.

"Even if he speaks for 15 minutes, it would be a big deal," Modi said.

"The Congress president (Rahul Gandhi) recently challenged me. He said that if he spoke in the Parliament for 15 minutes, then Modiji won't be able to sit at all," Narendra Modi said.

"We are kaamdaars. Our level is not such that we can sit with people like the Congress president, who look down upon us," Modi said.

Calling Rahul Gandhi naamdaar, Narendra Modi asked the gathering how the Congress president would know about the efforts of kaamdaars.

"Congress has a habit of doing politics even in progress. For five years, the rail project in Chamarajanagar has been stalled under Congress rule," said Modi

"Why are the people of Chamarajanagar not getting access to proper drinking water, jobs and why is the tourism potential here not being harnessed. What is the state government doing," Modi asked at a public meeting.

"If chief minister has a 2+1 formula, then his ministers have 1+1 formula. The relatives of those ministers are fighting polls. This is hurting the workers of the Congress," Modi said at the gathering.

"There is 2+1 formula which being practiced in Karnataka. It is a version of the Congress's family politics in Karnataka. Kabhi kabhi jaagnewale aur zyadatar soonewale yahan ke chief minister ka yeh political innovation hai(This is the political innovation of the chief minister who's asleep more than he's awake)."

"What moral right does BJP have to talk about corruption? For the last four years, the Central government has not appointed a Lokpal. When he was the Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi never appointed a Lokayukta," Siddaramaiah was quoted as saying by ANI . He said that he had no objection to Modi coming to Karnataka, but asserted it won't "have any impact".

BJP chief ministerial candidate attacked Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah on Twitter for contesting for two constituencies and allowing his son to contest from Varuna.

Congress tweeted out a news report which claimed that a ground report proves that the government's claim of having electrified all villages is not true.

Minutes after Prime Minister Narendra Modi targetted Congress over Rajiv Gandhi Gramin Vidyutikaran Yojna, their rural electrification scheme, Congress has slammed the BJP for falsely claiming to have electrified all villages under Saubhagya Yojna.

However, the Congress party has compiled images of the prime minister dressed in expensive suits, including the one where his own name was embroidered on the fabric in miniscule lettering.

Narendra Modi, responding to Rahul Gandhi's challenge for a 15 minute debate in Lok Sabha, said this: "Congress President has challenged me, if he speaks for 15 minutes in Parliament Modi will not be able to sit. He is correct, there is no way ordinary people like me, who do not even dress well, can sit with such high and mighty people like the Congress President"

Modi says he doesn't dress well enough to match Rahul Gandhi's status; Congress responds with 10 crore suit jibe

Starting his Udupi rally with a greeting in the regional language, Modi said that the people seemed to have decided to punish Congress. He said that he shares a special relationship with the region.

"We will leave no stone unturned to fulfill aspirations of people of Karnataka and ensure all round development of the state," Modi said.

Modi said that the people of the Udupi region have given him so much love that language is no bar between us. He thanked the people for waiting for his rally in scorching heat and added that he will repay the people's love with development.

Love between me and people of Udupi is such that language no barrier between us: Modi

He said that the Congress party, which has a habit of running the country from the perspective of select few, has kept the poor people out of banks.

Modi said that the Udupi is popularly known as the land of temples but few people know that it is also the land of banking for India as the sons of this land has given important contribution to the banking sector.

He claimed that the Congress allowed the banks to be looted and misused the sector. He said that under his predecessors, the poor were intentionally not made a part of the system; they were asked for loan guarantees when they sought small loans for self-employment.

"We opened bank accounts for the poor. Over 31 crores accounts have been opened under Jan Dhan Yojana. If the Congress had ensured their bank accounts, the poor would have contributed so much to the economy," Modi said.

Narendra Modi said that Congress has halted work on crucial projects in the state. He said that the region was naturally blessed with coastal plains and yet it had failed to develop under the Congress.

"There might be political differences between parties but civility & respect should be maintained. Whenever former PM Deve Gowda Ji visits me in Delhi I always welcome him with respect and always give him time. I meet him at my door and open his car door for him. The way Rahul Gandhi talked about him recently is shameful," Modi said.

Calling the Congress leaders rrogant, Modi said "Congress' disrespect towards Shri Deve Gowda ji is not acceptable. If such is their mindset, how can they think good for people of Karnataka."

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah was prompt to react on the allegations levelled by Modi during his Udupi speech. Siddaramaiah claimed that the prime minister was only spreading lies. He challenged him to debate the law and order situation in Karnataka vis-a-vis other BJP-ruled states.

"I was reading in newspapers about 2+1 & 1+1 formula in Karnataka. This is nothing but a version of family politics of the Congress. Karnataka election is a battle between 'Naamdaars' and Kaamdaars, between family politics and peoples politics," Modi said.

"Congratulations to Prime Minister Narendra Modi who has declared himself a Kannadiga. Becoming Kannadiga means accepting Kannada language, naada geete (state anthem), naadadwaja (state flag)," he said. "Will you become true Kannadiga by giving approval to Karnataka's nada dwaja? #AnswerMadiModi," Siddaramaiah tweeted in Kannada.

The Centre today said the Karnataka government's proposal to approve an official flag for the state was put on hold as the election code of conduct came into force due to the upcoming Assembly polls.

Siddaramaiah took to Twitter to debunk some of the claims made by Modi in his speech, while he also dared him for an open debate. Now the chief minister has indulged in a Twitter squabble with Yeddyurappa over Twitter.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has started his rally in Belagavi district. He continued his speech in Hindi, without the Kannada translations, as he observed that the region is an exemplar of a diverse society. He said that people here speak several language.

It is a well-known fact that the Congress party has mistreated Baba Saheb Ambedkar. The party never accepted Baba Saheb's view and today they are spreading lies before every election.

"Congress is jealous because it was our government that got the majority and a person for humble background became the prime minister," Modi said. And that is why "they are spreading lies, dividing people on the grounds of caste," he added.

Prime Minister Modi assailed Congress party in his Belagavi speech. He said that the Congress party, when out of power, is like a fish without water. Recalling the period of Emergency, Modi said that Congress was the first to assault the Constitution, just to ensure that they remain in power.

"Siddaramaiah government did nothing for the farmers in Karnataka. Why did they not ensure proper irrigation facilities to the farmers?" the prime minister asked.

He said, "Farmer welfare is a priority for us. We brought the soil health cards, ensured MSP at 1.5 times of input cost, implemented the Fasal Bima Yojana."

Congress left behind a chronic ailment of 60 years, and we are working hard to rid the country of it. "We want our farmers to become prosperous. That is why we ensured neem coating of urea. This significantly helped the farmers and stopped black marketing of urea to chemical industries," Modi said.

Speaking in Belagavi, Modi said that many take pride in calling themselves political pundits and they attempt to analyze elections every time. "Earlier too attempts were made to analyse elections and these people said that it will be a hung House in 2014 Lok Sabha polls. Again, similar lies were repeated. But mark my words, every time you hear the poll pundits rambling about a hung house it means that the Congress is up for a massive defeat. This is just a way to defend Congress," Modi said.

"I urge people of Karnataka to fulfill Mahatama Gandhi ji's wish of disbanding the Congress party. Now, its Karnataka's turn and you should grab this opportunity," Modi said in his speech.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will also address the Kisan Morcha workers in Karnataka through the Narendea Modi app. The step is latest in a series of moves to reach out to farmers, including those in poll-bound Karnataka.

In an outreach to farmers, the Modi government is organising 'Kisan Kalyan Karyashala' on Wednesday at the block level across the country, with the BJP asking its MPs to attend the programme.

Meanwhile Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah had the following questions for the prime minister as he alleged that Modi dwelt on the trivial rather an issues of importance.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi assailed the Congress government in Karnataka for initiating the culture of "ease of doing murder", dared Rahul Gandhi to first learn to pronounce Viswesvaraya properly before calling him for a debate, and bashed Siddaramaiah for the alleged increase in crime rate in state, as he launched the second leg of his campaign blitz.

Narendra Modi assails Congress on first day of campaigning; Siddaramaiah has 5 questions to ask

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be addressing three rallies across poll-bound Karnataka on Thursday. The prime minister will be attending rallies in Kalaburagi, Ballari, and Bengaluru.

Amid loud cheers, Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived at the venue in Kalaburagi to address a rally ahead of the Karnataka polls. Modi waved to the crowds before taking his place on the dais.

The prime minister began his speech with 'Bharat Mata ki Jai' amid loud cheers. He also spoke in Kannada, invoking Basavanna, leading to crowds going berserk over his speech. "To this pure land, I salute," he said in Kannada, welcoming the crowds in Kalaburagi.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi begins addressing his rally at Ballari. "Looking at the number of people who have arrived at this rally in Ballari I can already see that Congress is going to lose its last bastion soon," says Modi.

Congress is going to lose its last bastion very soon: Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi says that Congress leader Sonia Gandhi had promised Rs 3,000 crore packages for development of Ballari when she fought from here but once the Congress came to power, she forgot about it.

Sonia Gandhi had promised Rs 3,000 crore package for Ballari but forgot about it later, says Modi

Despite the Tungabhadra dam, farmers are not getting water for their farms and people are not able to get water in their homes. The people have been complaining about this for long but the Congress government refuses to hear about it, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "Now that the elections are near, they are waking up to the various concerns but what were they doing for so long?"said Modi. The prime minister said that desilting for a year can bring relief to the people of the region.

Modi talks of illegal mining in Karnataka, says corruption is everywhere in state

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, "Look at the rising illegal mining in the state. The Congress government here couldn't even frame a strong mining policy. Karnataka has a 'Sidda-Rupaiah Sarkar'. It has created a debt-burden for the state."

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the Congress party is busy doing politics on Dalits and Muslims. "The PM Fasal Beema Yojana has given strength to the farmers across the nation. Congress has the habit of doing vote bank politics. They are not the party for backward class. We wanted OBC Commission to get constitutional status but the Congress did not let it happen," said Modi.

We wanted OBC Commission but Congress did not let it happen, says Modi

Narendra Modi said that the Congress government in Karnataka is in 'sleep mode.' and they did not spend the funds allocated by Central government for the development of the state. "Congress used to term us as 'Mahila Virodhi'. But see, now we have a Defence Minister who is a woman and she is a member in the Parliament from Karnataka itself, " said Modi.

Modi mentions that Congress will lose their last bastion soon with the political pundits forecasting that JD(S) is going to trail at number 3. "A sensible voter would never vote for them". He added that Congress has changed garden city into garbage city.

Mentioning that the Congress government has no concern for the city's issues like potholes, rising corruption and crime.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi did a wordplay on the steel bridge project in Bengaluru and says, "There was a concept of a 'Steel bridge' in Bengaluru. Congress government turned it into 'Steal bridge'. They did nothing to check and put an end to corruption in the state." The money went to all state ministers' homes, added Modi. He also said the ease of doing business is becoming ease of doing murder in this city.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi brings up issue of Bellandur Lake, says,"Bengaluru is known for its lake but now it has changed into the city of burning lakes. The photos of Bellandur Lake (spilling toxic foam) speak for the govt's inefficiency."

The youth of Karnataka has power to change things, but the corrupt Congress govt should be defeated first: Modi

A master craftsman, Modi showed how to build narratives, switch narratives, shape-shift between the roles of a raconteur, public speaker, leader, propagandist and end speeches with a flourish. His political rallies are a complete performance  an oratorical tour de force. They give us an inkling into the factors behind his popularity that stem overwhelmingly from his ability to connect with the masses, even at places where the audience needs a translator. At the end of his speech on Thursday in Ballari, for example, Modis broken Kannada was enough to drive the crowd to a frenzy as he raised both his hands and punched into the air and received a thunderous applause in return.

A translation of Modi's speech is being played as well to reach out to the non-Hindi speaking masses.

"Congress played the poverty card and cheated the poor. In 70 years, if Congress had paid attention to the farmers, today, my farmers wouldn't be committing suicide today. People are tired of Congress. The present condition of farmers is because of the Congress, and we're stuck washing away their sins and blunders," Modi said.

The prime minister is set to address two more rallies in Shivamogga and Mangaluru at 4 pm and 6.30 pm on Saturday. He had earlier spoken at a public meeting in Tumakuru before his speech in Gadag at 2 pm.

Modi said that Congress only knows how to spread lies and put false allegations. Lying has become a habit for the Congress party, the prime minister added while addressing a rally in Shivamogga.

Modi said that there is no difference between the 'C' of corruption and the 'C' of Congress now. He said that the party only knows how to spread lies.

No difference between the 'C' of corruption and 'C' of Congress: Modi

Modi said that the people of Karnataka will see a new government being formed under the leadership of BS Yeddyurappa on 15 May.

Karnataka will see a new govt on 15 May under the leadership of Yeddyurappa: Modi

Yeddyurappa visited homes of the poor and Congress even mocked that, he said.

Modi said that Congress leaders' personal attacks on Yeddyurappa are unacceptable. The people should teach the Congress a lesson, he added.

The prime minister will address another rally on Saturday in Mangaluru at 6.30 pm He had earlier spoken at a public meeting in Tumakuru before his speech in Gadag at 2 pm and then at Shivamogga at 4 pm.

"Congress' excuses will not work. The people who were sitting in the Parliament with support of 400 people, who did not face any opponents, got arrogant. The chief minister was not even ready to care for the people. That's why all of Congress' forts have now been demolished," he said.

"But the Congress can say whatever it wants. They are going to get punished for the five years of corruption," added the prime minister.

"They have also started their propaganda. They keep saying that Modi tampered with EVMs. So, the EVMs work fine in the places in which they win and when they lose, they start singing about EVM tampering," said Narendra Modi.

Congress can complain about EVM tampering but they will get punished for five years of corruption: Modi

Chitradurga is soon going to become a hot spot of science and technology: Modi

Proud that preparation for mission Chandrayan 2 is going on in Chitradurga: Modi

"Look at the Congress leaders, they do not know whom they should remember and celebrate. Congress insulted the people of Chitradurga by celebrating Tipu Sultan Jayanti. They did it for votes," Modi said at a public gathering in Chitradurga.

Addressing a rally in Chitradurga, Modi reminded people of the Chitradurga's valiant history and accused Congress of ignoring its leaders. "Instead of observing the jayanti of Chitradurga's last ruler Madakari Nayaka, Congress is celebrating jayanti of sultans. They have insulted the people of Chitradurga," says Modi.

Modi also accused Congress of distorting history and facts for political benefits while naming historical figures from Chitradurga and how they gave away their lives against foreign aggression. He said, "Congress is a party which indulges in vote bank politics and has a habit of distorting history for political gains."

"Congress keeps chanting about the poor to win elections but since a poor mans son become prime minister their time to cheat people has ended," he said.

"It feels like Bharat Ratna was only reserved for only one family under Congress' rule. They never gave Ambedkar the credit he deserved. But then Atal Bihar Vajpayee government was formed, which is when Ambedkar got his due," Prime Minister Narendra Modi said .

"I am from the deprived class. I am one of you, and that is why I am committed to your welfare, Modi further said.

"When Modi became the prime minister, we had sufficient power to decide who would become the president. But we made Ram Nath Kovind  a Dalit  the President of India," Prime Minister Narendra Modi said.

"Congress is obviously uncomfortable today because the highest offices of the land are occupied by people from poor and humble backgrounds. That is why now Congress prefers to mislead in the name of the Dalit community," he said.

Speaking at Chitradurga, Narendra Modi said, "It is our government that has strengthened the SC/ST Act. We will always work for justice for the SC and ST communities,"

"I was curious why the Congress leaders were so interested in beds. That's when someone told me that they have the habit of hiding money under their beds," he said.

Alleging that the Congress indulged in corruption in borewell schemes, Narendra Modi said, "They consumed the money for the water, they even took away the money granted for the constructed of beds in adivasis hotels. If they are in power for more days, they might even take away pillows from your house.

He urged the voters to ensure a "clean sweep" against the Congress in the upcoming Assembly polls.

"Congress does not care about 'dil' (people's hearts and feelings) or Dalits. They only care about deals. The party which is not ready to think about your welfare, it's time you give them a farewell," he said.

"The Congress ministers are such that they have character certificate ready in their suitcases. Whenever someone points a finger at them, they produce the certificate to convince the public that they are honest," Narendra Modi said in Chitradurga.

Raichur inspires me and BJP, our bond is unbreakable. When people were protesting for a separate statehood here, only Bharatiya Jan Sangh supported you while Congress opposed it," said Modi.

"Friends of Raichur, your region is steeped in history and cultural heritage. It is the land of Haridas. Here, lot of traditions have traditions, but it is unfortunate that Congress has learnt nothing from here. If they had learnt something, they would never have committed the sin of diving Karnataka.

"Congress only makes false promises and never fulfilled any when they were in power. Have they ever given you a account of what they have done for the state? Apart from levelling charges against me, do they have done any other work here? It is time to bid them farewell," said Modi.

"Who will change people's future here? The election is here to decide that. The polls are a way to express people's aspirations. BJP is committed to development while Congress is opposed to it at every step. The Congress protects the corrupt," Modi said.

"Congress doesn't let the Parliament function. They are afraid Modi is actually doing some work and so they disrupt the functioning. But BJP is committed to people's development and nobody can stop us as much as others try to," said the prime minister.

"Congress newest mantra is: speak lies, lie as many times as possible, lie loudly, lie again, the Congress has launched a campaign to spread lies. The ecosystem is such people around them spread all these rumours. So till the polls, be careful and understand what Congress is trying to do," said Modi in Raichur.

"Our Raichur is Karnataka's main switch in terms of electricity. In Bengaluru, the chief minister gets 24 hours of electricity, but in Raichur, where electricity is generated, people sit in the dark," said Modi.

"Raichur is known as the rice bowl. It cries for water. But this Congress govt knows how to milk cream from water too. Will such people do anything for the state?" said Modi.

"A Dalit was chosen as president. Even after a year, Sonia Gandhi has not given a courtesy call," he added at the rally.

"In a democracy, to win or to lose is a part of elections. One must accept their defeat. But the Congress are 'naamdaars'. They did not congratulate us, the 'kaamdaars'. Such is their arrogance that they even did not pay a courtesy call to the president upon his win," Narendra Modi said at a rally in Jamakhandi.

PM says 'arrogant' Congress did not have the 'courtesy' to call the president after his election

Modi also accused the grand old party of supporting antinational elements. "Congress leaders are standing on the stage with the antinational people who chant slogans like 'Bharat tere tukde honge,' they give such people their ashiravaad," Modi said at the public meeting.

"Shamelessly, the Congress questions the valour of the army when they conducted the surgical strikes," Narendra Modi said in Jamakhandi.

Modi also accused the grand old party of supporting antinational elements. "Congress leaders are standing on the stage with the antinational people who chant slogans like 'Bharat tere tukde honge,' they give such people their ashiravaad," Modi said at the public meeting.

"Shamelessly, the Congress questions the valour of the army when they conducted the surgical strikes," Narendra Modi said in Jamakhandi.

"I urge people of Karnataka to remain vigilant of the divisive politics of the Congress. We will not accept any division of Karnataka on the basis of caste," Narendra Modi said during a public meeting in Jamakhandi.

Bhatkal is no ordinary constituency. Call Bhatkal a "terror town" in front of a Bhatkali and you are more than likely to see a frown, a serious look of disapproval on his face. Unfortunately, for this coastal town in Karnataka, the involvement of terror masterminds Yasin and Riyaz Bhatkal, whose family name of Siddibappa got replaced with the town's name, meant Bhatkal and terror became synonymous with each other. Just about every Bhatkali resents it and having to put up with an extra layer of security check at the airport the moment the officer sees the name 'Bhatkal' on the passport.

BJP's concoctions continue unabated. Be it Gujarat or Karnataka, Pakistan is sadly invoked to try to get electoral gains within India. People see through these desperate games. Contest elections on your own issues and on your own strength; don't drag Pakistan into it.

"BJP's concoctions continue unabated. Be it Gujarat or Karnataka, Pakistan is sadly invoked to try to get electoral gains within India. People see through these desperate games. Contest elections on your own issues and on your own strength; don't drag Pakistan into it," he tweeted.

Pakistani foreign affairs spokesperson Dr Mohammad Faisal took to his personal Twitter account to say that the saffron party is invoking Pakistan for electoral gains.

"We expected a dignified language from him (Modi). But what he spoke was the BJP's language and not the one of a civilised person. He spoke at a very low level...this is not the language of the prime minister," he told reporters in Bengaluru. PTI

Siddaramaiah also mocked the Karnataka BJP, saying it solely depended on the prime minister as regards the 12 May state Assembly polls as it had no leader with a "face value".

The prime minister was using a language that did not befit the office he held, the Congress leader said, taking exception to Modi calling his dispensation a "10 percent government" and "seedha rupaiah sarkar" while attacking him over alleged corruption.

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi continues to hurl barbs such as "seedha rupaiah sarkar" to target him, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Sunday lashed out at him for making "personal attacks" and speaking at a "low level".

Siddaramaiah slams Narendra Modi for speaking at 'low level', says PM's language does not befit the office he holds

During the campaigns across Chitradurga, Raichur and Bagalkot districts, spoke about @BJP4Karnataka 's priority areas such as rural development, more houses for the poor, better irrigation networks for famers, enhanced connectivity and invigorating Karnataka's agriculture sector. pic.twitter.com/Z0EtXMESY6

Narendra Modi posted a tweet about his rallies in Chitradurga, Raichur and Bagalkot distrcits, saying he spoke of issues such as rural development, better irrigation networks for farmers, housing, enhanced connectivity and invigorating Karnataka's agriculture sector.

Inspired by Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, NDA Government has undertaken many efforts to positively transform the lives of the SC and ST communities. On the contrary, Congress has always disliked and humiliated Dr. Ambedkar. pic.twitter.com/sAAn945rLx

"The Congress has insulted Ambedkar. They have never accepted him. The Congress never had any time for him," Modi said at a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rally in Chitradurga, about 200 km northwest of Bengaluru.

The tweet also had a video which displayed Modi slamming the Congress for ignoring the interests of Dalits. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had earlier said that the party had also insulted the architect of India's Constitution BR Ambedkar.

"Inspired by Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, NDA government has undertaken many efforts to positively transform the lives of the SC and ST communities. On the contrary, Congress has always disliked and humiliated Dr Ambedkar," Modi said in a tweet.

Modi also slammed the Opposition for criticising welfare measures for women. I do not understand why the Congress mocks noble initiatives like Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao, building toilets and other welfare measures being undertaken for women, Modi said in Jamakhandi according to Hindustan Times.

Modi also questioned the state government for failing to deliver on the promise of building textile parks. I urge the people of Bagalkot to ask a question to the Karnataka chief minister. Ask him about his promise of textile parks. Ask him what happened to that promise. Is there a single textile park here? He did not fulfil his promises, he said. He also spoke of the Centre's SAATHI scheme for the weaver community.

"The Congress government and the present chief minister (Siddaramaiah) is insensitive towards the plight of sugarcane farmers in the Karnataka. They did nothing for their welfare," Modi said at a public meeting in Jamakhandi.

"In September 2013, Siddaramaiah went to attend World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in China and there he met Vijay Eswaran, who is an absconder. There was another absconder and Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) has called both a national threat," BJP spokeperson Sambit Patra said at a press conference in Bengaluru.

Narendra Modi in Karnataka LIVE updates: "In a democracy, to win or to lose is a part of elections. One must accept their defeat. But the Congress are 'naamdaars'. They did not congratulate us, the 'kaamdaars'. Such is their arrogance that they even did not pay a courtesy call to the president upon his win," Narendra Modi said at a rally in Jamakhandi. "A Dalit was chosen as president. Even after a year, Sonia Gandhi has not given a courtesy call," he added at the rally.

Accusing the Congress of distorting history as part of a conspiracy to divide society, Prime Minister Narendra Modi flayed the Siddaramaiah government in Karnataka for celebrating the "jayantis of Sultans" for the sake of "vote bank politics".

In retaliation, the Karnataka chief minister tweeted that the state celebrates over 30 such birth anniversaries, "We celebrate birth anniversaries of about 30 leader, saints and builders of Karnataka. PM, with eyes on the votes, is trying to polarise our society by highlighting one of them: Tipu Sultan. Now who is doing 'vote bank politics?' Siddaramaiah asked.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi slammed the Congress on Sunday in Raichur and said that they have "an excellent system of looting" people while assuring that the BJP is committed to the upliftment of the poor.

Addressing a rally in Raichur, Narendra Modi launched another scathing attack against the Congress and said they always opposed development and sought to protect the corrupt.

Lashing out at the Congress in Chitradurga, Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged the voters to ensure a "clean sweep" for BJP and give the Siddaramaiah government a farewell. Apart from Chitradurga, Modi is scheduled to visit Raichur, Jamakhandi, and Hubli on Sunday to take part in election rallies.

Launching an all-out attack on the Congress, Modi had on Saturday claimed that the party was desperate to win the 12 May Karnataka assembly elections, as it was worried about what would happen to its leaders in Delhi if it lost at the hustings.

"Having lost elections in several states where it was in power earlier, the Congress is desperate to win in Karnataka. It is worried about losing the state, as it is worried about what would happen to its leaders in Delhi," he said at a huge BJP rally in the state's Gadag.

Saying the Congress would be reduced to Punjab and Puducherry if it loses in Karnataka, he said at another rally that opposing him had become the only agenda of the Congress.

"For the Congress, only one family is everything. For me, 125 crore Indians are my family. Opposing me has become the only agenda of the Congress. Be it any subject, the Congress objects to everything," he said at a rally in Mangaluru.

Accusing the Congress of spreading lies, he said the party was unable to digest if anyone spoke truth.

Blaming the state government for the alleged murders of about 30 BJP workers and Hindu activists in the coastal region over the last four years, Modi wondered if killing people over political difference was the democracy the Congress practiced.

Taking head-on the two rival parties, he charged the Congress and the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) with being in tacit alliance for the Assembly polls while pretending to fight.

"The people of Karnataka have right to know about the alliance between Congress and JD-S because they pretend to fight in some parts of the state while being together," said Modi at a party rally at Tumakuru, referring to both's tie-up in the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP).

Modi's surprise attack on the JD(S) came four days he praised its supremo and former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda and lashed at Congress president Rahul Gandhi for insulting the latter by terming the JD(S) as the "B team" of the BJP.

He also said that his BJP was the only party "that is capable of bringing change in the government and to the state of Karnataka and its people" under the leadership of its Chief Ministerial face B.S. Yeddyurappa.

Charging the Congress of politicising the Mahadayi river water sharing with Goa, Modi told the gathering at Gadag that the state's ruling party was misleading the people on the issue, which was before the Supreme Court and the Inter-State Water Dispute Tribunal.

He however, did not refer to the Cauvery river water dispute Karnataka has with its other neighbouring state (Tamil Nadu) even after the Supreme Court on Thursday directed it to release 4 TMC (thousand million cubic) feet of water by this month-end.

Karnataka has been asking Goa since 2001 to release 7.6 tmcft of the river water to meet the drinking and irrigation needs of its people in the four drought-prone districts of Gadag, Bagalkote, Belagavi and Dharwad.

Addressing a mammoth rally at Shivamogga in Malnad region earlier, Modi said the BJP's mantra was to be with all the people and work for the development of all.

"While 'sabka saath, sabka vikaas' is our mantra, the Congress believes in divide and rule philosophy. It divides people on the grounds of caste. What's more, it even classifies criminals on caste basis," he said.

Noting that spreading lies had become a business for the Congress, Modi alleged that wherever its leaders go, they spread only lies among people, and attacked for still criticising demonetisation.

Campaigning for the BJP across the state for the third time since 1 May, Modi addressed the four rallies in the state's northwest, central and coastal regions.Prime Minister Narendra Modi praised artist Karan Acharya for his Angry Hanuman poster and slammed the 'Congress ecosystem' criticising it

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday praised artist Karan Acharya for his 'angry Hanuman' poster.

"This is a laudable achievement and is the power of his achievement, talent and imagination. This is the pride of Mangaluru. All TV channels are queued up for his interview", Modi said about the young graphic designer at a rally in Mangaluru.

Modi also slammed the 'Congress ecosystem' for criticising Acharya's art. "The Congress ecosystem doesnt even tolerate the magnificent art of Karan Acharya whose Hanuman captured the imagination of the entire country. Unable to digest its success, the Congress tried miring it in a controversy. There is no iota of democracy in the minds of Congress members", Modi said according to a report in DNA.

According to a report in the News Minute, Acharya, who hails from Kumble village in Kasargod district of Kerala, created the vector image in 2015 after requests from a youth club in his village to put something on the flags for Ganesh Chaturti. The vector is now seen on everything from t-shirts to even windshields.

According to a report in News18, many see the piece as visual feeding into the rise of "hypermasculine Hindutva in India."

"I completely understand that symbols can be interpreted in various ways but it is so hard to not relate this to politics and political ideology. The fact that it is black and saffron and already the new face of outfits like Bajrang Dal is very scary", journalist Shivangi Sinha Roy said according to the report.

Acharya for his part, told News18, "My Hanuman has attitude, not aggression. He is powerful, not oppressive. But thats the problem with art. There is no limit to interpretation".

Modi has held at least a dozen rallies in Karnataka on the campaign trail ahead of the Assembly elections. Karnataka goes to polls on 12 May. The counting of votes will take place on 15 May.

With inputs from agenciesThe Pakistani military leadership led by Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa is reaching out to India because it has realised that the way to peace and prosperity is through military cooperation with New Delhi, a Pakistani analyst has said in a British think-tank commentary.

London: The Pakistani military leadership led by Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa is reaching out to India because it has realised that the way to peace and prosperity is through military cooperation with New Delhi, a Pakistani analyst has said in a British think-tank commentary. The powerful army, which enjoys considerable influence over policy decisions in Pakistan, has ruled the country for much of its life since it gained independence 70 years ago.

"In a historic first last month, Pakistan's Army Chief of Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa invited Sanjay Vishwasrao, the Indian military attache, and his team to the Pakistan Day military parade in Islamabad," wrote Kamal Alam, a visiting fellow at the UK-based Royal Unites Services Institute (RUSI).

In a sign that strain ties between the two neighbour are warming up Gen Bajwa followed this two weeks later by saying that the Pakistan military wanted peace and dialogue with India, Alam said in his report released last week.

The two countries will also take part in joint military drills in Russia in September, with Chinese participation. "These initiatives come against a background of almost weekly exchanges of fire along the Line of Control... However, they mark a change in attitudes that started when Bajwa became COAS in November 2016," the report said.

During a visit to the UK last year, Gen Bajwa addressed a gathering at RUSI and announced that the "Pakistan army is now no more insecure and feels confident of its future and that he welcomes Indian participation in Pakistan's flagship infrastructure project, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)".

The report notes that both India and Pakistan have tried to forge relationships before as well. In the 1980s, Gen Zia-ul Haq, and then Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi became close. Then, Pakistani military leader General Pervez Musharraf and prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee also came close at a 2002 summit in Agra to resolving the Kashmir conflict despite a year-long tense situation on the border.

"Approaches by Pakistani generals have been welcomed by some in India, because they are seen to be able to deliver on peace," the report said. Another senior Pakistani officer, Lieutenant Aamir Riaz, headed the first-ever high level contact group with India as Director-General Military Operation. Lieutenant General Riaz has made public his stance of welcoming Indian participation in the CPEC project.

According to the report, the military operations in Fata have brought security and stability on the western border, encouraging the Pakistan Army to approach India with the understanding that it will help Pakistan's upward economic trajectory and allow regional trade flourish.

"However, India has so far rejected Pakistan's offer of a transit trade dialogue on AfghanIndian commerce. But with a sustained approach by Pakistani officers to India, it could only be a matter of time before Delhi agrees to at least talk to Islamabad," it added.Editor-in-chief and managing director of Republic TV, Arnab Goswami, was booked along with two others following the death of an interior designer

Alibaug Police booked Arnab Goswami and two others for abetment of suicide following the death of an interior designer on Saturday, according to several media reports.

Goswami, editor-in-chief and managing director of Republic TV and two others, were booked under Section 306 (abetting suicide) of the Indian Penal Code after police lodged a case on the basis of a complaint filed by Akshata Naik, the wife of interior decorator Anvay Naik, who allegedly killed himself over non-payment of dues by Republic TV, Times Now reported.

Anvay reportedly left behind a suicide note naming three people: Goswami, Feroz Shaikh of IcastX and Nitesh Sarda of Smartworks. His 48-year-old wife told the police her husband was under financial stress after his dues were not paid by Republic TV, the report added.

The suicide note claimed that Republic TV owes Rs 83 lakh to the designer, while IcastX owed dues over Rs 400 lakh and Nitesh Sarda of Smartworks owes Rs 55 lakh.

A statement issued by Republic TV late Saturday said certain vested interest groups are running a false and malicious campaign and making false statements and innuendos against Republic TV by exploiting a tragic event, The Indian Express reported.

"Republic TV will take strict legal action against anyone indulging in such false propaganda. Republic TV would like to clarify that it had engaged the services of one Concorde Designs Private Limited sometime in December 2016. All amounts due and payable under the contract were paid by Republic TV to Concorde Designs. The details of payment, including cheque numbers, amounts, dates of payment, related correspondence and documentation are available with Republic TV. All such details and evidence will be given to the appropriate authorities as and when required. Our thoughts and prayers are with Naiks family", the statement read.

On Saturday, locals found the body of Anvay's mother on the ground, while his body was found on the first floor, the report quoted the police as saying. The residents then rushed the two to a nearby hospital, where they were declared dead on arrival.The peace talks between the Centre and the pro-talks faction of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) have been completed with all the issues discussed and a consensus hammered out more than seven years after they were initiated

The peace talks between the Centre and the pro-talks faction of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) have been completed with all the issues discussed and a consensus hammered out more than seven years after they were initiated.

While participating in a discussion on Pratidin Times, ULFA chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa said, "Discussions with the government are over on the charter of demands submitted by us although the date for the signing of the agreement has not yet been decided."

Rajkhowas revelation on television came after allegations that he had a role in the "abduction" of peace negotiator Rebati Phukan who disappeared from his residence in Guwahati on 22 April. Phukan is a close aide of ULFA chief of staff Paresh Baruah who heads the anti-talks faction and had played a key role in the earlier peace process with the banned outfit in 2005-06.

According to informed sources, the entire focus of the current dialogue had been upon "ensuring the security of the indigenous communities in the state, accelerating the pace of economic development and plugging the loopholes of the 1985 Assam Accord."

Interlocutor AB Mathur, a former chief of Research & Analysis Wing (RAW), was in Guwahati on 10 March for another round of talks that mainly reviewed the agreement arrived at between the two sides.

For the government, an agreement with the pro-talks faction of ULFA is a strategy to further isolate the hardline group that has camps in Myanmar and hideouts in Bangladesh. Baruah, who lives in Ruili in the southwestern Chinese province of Yunnan, has been putting in efforts to unify all the separatist groups from the North East that have camps in Myanmar and has been carrying out occasional strikes against the security forces.

Accord after NRC and Supreme Court judgment

A senior government official, however, said that "fine tuning" would be necessary for the final accord to take shape which would be possible only after the Supreme Court delivers its judgment on the contentious issue of citizenship in Assam. The apex court will decide on the cut-off date for citizenship in the state  whether it should be 1951 as argued by Assam Sanmilita Mahasangha which comprises indigenous organisations, or 1971 as laid down in the Assam Accord, and the status of the children born to illegal migrants.

The official added that the agreement would also have to wait until the completion of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) which is currently being updated in the state for drawing the list of genuine citizens. The Supreme Court has fixed 31 May as the deadline and the next 30 days for cross-checking data in the list.

The peace process was initiated in 2010 after several top functionaries from different rebel outfits including ULFA were apprehended in Bangladesh and handed over to India. Finance secretary Chitraban Hazarika, foreign secretary Shashadhar Choudhury and military spokesperson Raju Baruah were among the other leaders who were interned besides chairman Rajkhowa.

The peace talks began in the middle of 2011 after the pro-talks group submitted a 38-page charter of demands that touched almost all spheres of life in the state, from the economic to the environmental. According to informed sources, while a majority of the demands in the charter have been accepted, some have been rejected while the government has been unable to decide on granting Scheduled Tribe (ST) status to six indigenous communities in Assam. The demand for ST status is perceived by the group as a safeguard against illegal migration since it would also entail reservation of seats in the Assembly and Parliamentary constituencies.

Scheduled Tribe status to six indigenous communities

The demand for ST status had been a sticking point in the discussions that eluded an answer for several years. The process to grant the ST status to these ethnic groups in Assam got stuck after a large number of organisations, who are already in that category, raised objections that the entire exercise was a conspiracy to deprive them of their rights. They are of the opinion that these six communities who are in the OBC category do not possess traits to be included in the ST category.

This development was a further reason for a section of officials in the home ministry to scuttle the inclusion of the six communities since they felt that it would only result into more chaos and turmoil in the state. Subsequently, the pro-talks group and the government decided to move on with and reach a consensus on the rest of the issues in the charter.

On 15 March, Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal told a delegation of these six communities that the matter would be taken up with the Centre and a new committee would be formed to expedite the grant of ST status.

A participant in the talks who did not wish to be named claimed that the BJP would not prefer to give the credit to the pro-talks ULFA of granting ST status to the six communities since the general elections are approaching. He said that unlike the previous agreements with rebel groups in the North East, this accord would be placed before the Parliament for ratification to ensure its smooth and timely implementation.

(The author is a senior journalist in Guwahati and author of Rendezvous With Rebels: Journey to Meet Indias Most Wanted Men)Two women were arrested on Sunday for allegedly killing a minor girl in Antop Hill area of the city last week, police said.

Mumbai: Two women were arrested on Sunday for allegedly killing a minor girl in Antop Hill area of the city last week, police said.

Another suspect, a 17-year-old girl, was detained in connection with the incident, police said, adding that the accused are relatives of the victim.

They allegedly strangulated the minor girl in a fit of rage following an argument over some issue on 4 May, a police official said.

The family members of the victim had alleged that she was raped before being killed, he said.

However, another police official said the injury marks were found only on the neck of the girl in the postmortem report and there was no sign of sexual attack.

The accused are identified as Sabira Yusuf (40), Sauliya Sayyed (35), and a teenage girl.

The trio has been booked under section 302 (punishment for murder) of the IPC, the official said, adding that further investigation is underway.Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Saturday visited the storm-affected villages, met the injured and survivors, and also presented cheques to the bereaved families, officials said.

Agra: Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Saturday visited the storm-affected villages, met the injured and survivors, and also presented cheques to the bereaved families, officials said.

The chief minister cut short his Karnataka visit on Friday night and reached Agra to review arrangements being made to restore normalcy in the lives of people affected by the freak storm on Wednesday night.

Talking to media persons, he reacted sharply to the Twitter comment of former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, saying "they were insensitive people who had no shame".

On 3 May (Wednesday), Akhilesh took to Twitter to slam Adityanath for campaigning in Karnataka for the 12 May Assembly elections in the southern state, even as Uttar Pradesh was hit by a storm.

Adityanath made an aerial survey of affected villages in a helicopter on Saturday. Local MPs and MLAs accompanied the chief minister during his visit to distant villages.

The district administration has been instructed to defer collection of revenues and loans, till the conditions returned to normalcy. The state electricity board officials have been told to fix power lines and change poles immediately to avoid accidents.

He also asked the district administration to involve local NGOs to provide facilities for the injured and the family members.

At the SN Medical College in Agra, Adityanath met the injured children, consoled them and asked them to go to school after recovery.

The principal of the medical college was asked to ensure there were no lapses and all got fair treatment. The chief minister then visited the district hospital to meet the injured.

He said 800 electric poles had been damaged which resulted in disruption of power supply.Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik on Sunday said the BJD is seriously considering early selection of party candidates for the general elections due next year.

Bhubaneswar: Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik on Sunday said the BJD is seriously considering early selection of party candidates for the general elections due next year.

The chief minister, also the president of the ruling BJD, said this while responding to queries about the party's strategy following moves of the Congress and the BJP to select their candidates, for the polls due next year, well in advance.

Elections for Lok Sabha as well as state Assembly are due in 2019.

"We are looking seriously into the matter. A decision will be taken within the party forum," Patnaik told reporters soon after his return here from a five-day visit to Delhi.

Patnaik's statement assumes significance as the Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) and top leaders of BJP have made it clear that they are working towards early finalisation of their candidates for the polls due next year.

The chief minister also voiced confidence that his suggestion for inclusion of Mahatma Gandhi's doctrine of non-violence in the preamble of Indian Constitution would be accepted.

"I am certainly very hopeful (about his suggestion being accepted)," Patnaik said responding to a query.

During his Delhi visit, Patnaik attended the first meeting of the National Committee for Commemoration of 150th Birth Anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi on 2 May and called for inclusion of non-violence in the preamble of the Constitution as a tribute to the father of the nation.

"I had suggested that non-violence should be included in the preamble of the Constitution as a mark of respect to Mahatma Gandhi," the chief minister said.

Quoting Mahatma Gandhi's doctrine of non-violence, Patnaik during the meeting held on 2 May had said that progress cannot be achieved without peace and "progress requires the defeat of those who divide society on basis of class, caste and religion".The Congress leaders would be seeking divine blessings at various temples in Madhya Pradesh in a bid to wrest power from the BJP in the state.

Bhopal: The Congress leaders would be seeking divine blessings at various temples in Madhya Pradesh in a bid to wrest power from the BJP in the state where the Assembly polls are due later this year.

The Congress state election campaign committee chairman, Jyotiraditya Scindia, will kick off the party's campaign for the polls from Ujjain district after offering prayers at the famous Mahakal temple on 11 May, state party spokesman Pankaj Chaturvedi said.

"Scindia is a deeply religious person, he is going to visit many temples to seek blessings of the Almighty to overthrow the BJP government, which has been in power for over 14 years in MP," he said.

The newly appointed Madhya Pradesh Congress president, Kamal Nath, who formally took charge of the party in the state on 1 May, visited the Gufa Mandir in Bhopal on 2 May.

The same day, he also went to the Mahakal temple in Ujjain and offered prayers at the Pitambara Peeth in Datia district.

A Congress leader said their party chief Rahul Gandhi was likely to start his election campaign in Madhya Pradesh after visiting either the Mahakal temple or the Pitambara Peeth.

Gandhi would visit some prominent Hindu temples in MP, replicating his Gujarat electioneering model, the leader said on condition of anonymity.

Notably, senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh last month completed his 3,300-km 'Narmada Parikarma' (circumambulation) along the river banks on foot. A BJP leader dubbed such tactics of the Congress leaders as "hypocrisy" to woo the voters, saying that the strategy won't work in the polls.

"The Congress leaders' visits to temples, especially Digvijayji's Narmada yatra, is just a hypocrisy. Everyone knows that Digvijayji believes in minority appeasement," state BJP general secretary V D Sharma said.

"The people know that the Congress leaders in MP have turned religious only to get votes. Their temple-going tactics to woo voters won't work in the forthcoming elections. They are anti-Hindu and believe in minority appeasement for votes," Sharma said.The Congress is expected to launch its 'Save the Constitution' programme in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh shortly and reach out to Dalits in the two states which go to polls later this year

New Delhi: The Congress is expected to launch its 'Save the Constitution' programme in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh shortly and reach out to Dalits in the two states which go to polls later this year, sources said on Sunday.

The programme will be launched in the two states after the Karnataka Assembly polls. The Congress will highlight the attacks on the Constitution and Dalits, a source said.

Karnataka goes to polls on 12 May.

The outreach campaign, launched on 23 April in the national capital, aims at highlighting the alleged attacks on the Constitution and Dalits, OBCs and minorities under the BJP government.

The BJP has been in power in Madhya Pradesh for 15 years. It had won 165 seats in the 230-member house in 2013. The Congress could bag 58 seats.

The NDA major had swept the Rajasthan polls in 2013, winning 163 of the 200 Assembly constituencies. The Congress could bag only 21 seats.

In Madhya Pradesh, more than two-thirds of the 35 seats reserved for scheduled castes (SCs) had gone the BJP's way. The Congress could win only four such seats.

The BJP had triumphed in 31 of the total 33 segments reserved for Scheduled Castes in Rajasthan in 2013.

The situation is not going to be the same when elections will be held in the two states later this year. The Congress will put up an impressive show. The reserved seats will be in focus, the source said.The election of Narendra Modi as prime minister and Arvind Kejriwal as Delhi chief minister, both voted in by masses, shows that true democracy is taking root in our society.

Editor's Note: As the Indian Republic turns 70, Tufail Ahmad begins a journey through the country to examine the working of democracy at the grassroots level. Inspired by the French author Alexis de Tocqueville, who toured America and wrote Democracy in America, the author  a former BBC journalist and now senior fellow at the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute  will examine how sociological realities of India and the promise of democracy interact with each other in shaping the lives of the Indian citizen. This report is the ninth in a series called "Democracy in India".

Vadodara: On this journey to examine the workings of democracy, I have so far travelled through Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat. I have frequently asked simple questions such as: Amid mass poverty and pervasive corruption in government departments, how is it that voters turn up at polling stations in large numbers, even under adverse weather conditions, to cast ballots? What impact does democracy have on society and vice versa?

In Alwar, Rajasthan, Ismita Bhati told me the ills of Indian politics are percolating into our society. Bhati, a teacher at the St. Anselms Senior Secondary School, said that her school organised mock elections as part of social studies. Students were part of the entire election process and stood as candidates. "We were surprised that good students did not win the election", she said. "Class ka badmash bachcha jeet gaya (the naughty ones won). The students of Class 9 learnt from our politics how to win", she said, claiming that politics in India has led to overall decline in moral values in different spheres of society.

In Ajmer, I met Umesh Kumar Chaurasiya, an actor and playwright who has directed educational plays for school students under the auspices of the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT). He lamented that awareness of democracy is limited to a cognisance of the system: When polls will be held, how many members of Parliament and legislative Assembly are to be elected, what is the process of contesting elections, how to register parties, and similar systemic questions. "But there is no awareness about where I stand (as a citizen)", he remarked.

"There is a race for power, but what is democracy? The youth does not understand. They think of winning student union election, joining party, getting power", Chaurasiya said. He staged an educational play as part of NCERT workshop in Ajmer. Chaurasiya's conclusion is this: Students understand people vote, but do not grasp that "equality" exists due to which everyone is in the same queue. The thought emerges that we are sleepwalking through the democratic process. "Today, most people vote because somebody has told them that the vote has to be given", he added.

In some American states, driving a car is part of the high school curriculum. Chaurasiya advises that values and tenets of democracy be taught to students by the age of 14 so they grasp democratic values and attitudes. "The focus of education should be on principles and values of democracy, not just about party politics and legislative and political system", he added.

Chaurasiya also noted that even in panchayat elections, someone comes from a different region, resides in a specific panchayat constituency, contests the election and wins. His point is: There is awareness of procedures under which democracy operates in India.

Manmohan Singh, who won elections from Assam to Rajya Sabha, though he never actually lived there, is a case in point. Singh is a good example of the procedural democracy: Or functional democracy, as political scientists call it. One can say that in seven decades of democracy, there is awareness of the system.

In Vadodara, I went to the Centre for Contemporary Theory and posed these questions to professor Prafulla Kar, the institute's director. "In India, we have functional democracy. Political process emerges from the government, from the top. People are coerced by the government to be part of the democratic process. There is no consensus among people about democratic attitudes", he said, adding that America has real democracy: The political process emerges from democratic attitudes from below.

"Democracies are a way of thinking from below. In the United States, people are proud of democracy. In America, people come from outside and feel proud of democracy", Kar said. He added: "Unlike in India, there is a tradition of critiquing the government from within American society. In India, if you critique the government, you are seen as anti-national". India has a functional democracy, elections take place and people are elected, there is an instrumentality to it, he said, adding: "Indian democracy functions with the role of the government while American democracy gets public support without government and is less controlled by the government".

Asked why people do not have democratic attitudes, Kar said that in England, democracy emerged from royalty and the government process but became part of the people's psyche over hundreds of years. The argument is that democracy in India is relatively young and democratic attitudes will permeate into society over coming decades. He pointed out that Indian democracy is supported by a majoritarian consensus with its attendant consequences of religious and caste diversities, while diversity has become largely irrelevant in American democracy.

Abraham Lincoln described democracy as the "government of the people, by the people, for the people". Kar is of the view that democracy in India is as of now "by the people" and to some extent "for the people". However, he added: "The psyche and thinking of people are changing in India. Democracy is becoming of the people". He noted that the election of Singh as prime minister was a symptom of the functional democracy because he was imposed from the top. But the election of Narendra Modi as prime minister and Arvind Kejriwal as Delhi chief minister, both voted in by masses, shows that true democracy is taking root in our society.

He tends to reject the idea that voters are sleepwalking through democracy. Kar said: "People can vote a party in a certain election and vote out that party in the very next election. It means that there is a process of thinking and rethinking among people". It can be said that during seven decades, democracy has made India's people aware about instrumentalities of the new political system introduced by the Constitution in 1950, but it is also correct that the victories of Narendra Modi, Arvind Kejriwal and Jignesh Mevani reflect a qualitative change in the democratic attitudes of people of India.

Read Part 1: BJP, Congress prioritise community over individual, use caste and religion to enslave citizens

Read Part 2: Use of religion by ruling parties overwhelms secular character of Indian State

Read Part 3: Caste and politics continue to collide, sometimes violently, in a cyclical struggle for power

Read Part 4: Rule of law routinely trampled upon by politicians in power, who act like 'new kings'

Read Part 5: Cities are drivers of democratic change, secure rights and liberties of individuals

Read Part 6: Despite caste and religious divisions, our democratic journey reflects silent revolution

Read Part 7: Country's polity vastly unaccountable to citizens despite relative success of democratic process

Read Part 8: Strong democratic process engendering surplus of free speech, empowering communities

The author is touring India to write a series on the workings of democracy. He is a senior fellow at the Middle East Media Research Institute, Washington DC. He tweets @tufailelifA mistake was made in including the name of a living person in the list of 'Hindu martyrs' sent to the union home minister, BJP's Shobha Karandlaje said

Bengaluru: A mistake was made in including the name of a living person in the list of "Hindu martyrs" sent to the union home minister, BJP's Lok Sabha member Shobha Karandlaje said on Sunday, blaming Congress for trying to revive an "old issue" over which she had expressed regret.

"I had expressed my regret at this lapse last year. I had mistakenly included Ashok Pujari's name in the list of BJP and RSS workers who were killed after Siddaramaiah assumed charge as chief minister."

"I had brought this mistake to the notice of the central government," she told PTI over phone.

Karandlaje, an MP from Chikkamagaluru-Udupi, was locked in a controversy after reports emerged about her having included Pujari's name in the list of '23 Hindu martyrs', which she sent to Home Minister Rajnath Singh on 8 July, 2017, demanding an NIA probe into the killings of RSS/BJP workers in Karnataka.

A controversy had broken in July 2017 itself over her faux pas, for which she had expressed regret.

Pujari, who lives in a remote village in Udupi district, was attacked by masked people on 20 September, 2015 and hospitalised.

He had recovered after about a month.

Targeting the Siddaramaiah government over being "soft" on "Jehadi forces", the BJP has made the killings of Hindu activists a major issue in its political discourse.

Karandlaje said even former deputy chief minister R Ashoka had admitted that there was mistake in the list which was brought to the notice of the central government in 2017.

Asked who were behind raking up the old issue, Karandlaje said it is the "malafide intentions" of Congress to raise this old issue to divert the people's attention from the'unholy electoral understanding' between Congress and SDPI-PFI.

"The Congress wants to divert the issue of their unholy electoral understanding with SDPI and PFI. Therefore, they areraking up this old issue," she said.

Social Democratic Party of India is the political wing of Popular Front of India, an Islamic outfit.

Karandlaje said that instead of politicising the issue, Congress leaders should visit Pujari, who was "nearly killed" and try to help him.With the row over the portrait of Mohammed Ali Jinnah in AMU intensifying, comments by Mani Shankar Aiyar have sparked new political outrage

With the row over the portrait of Mohammed Ali Jinnah in Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) intensifying and protests even reaching the national capital, comments by suspended Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar have sparked new political outrage on Saturday. In the context of the violence that unfolded in AMU, Aiyar referred to Jinnah as Quaid-e-Azam (the great leader)  as the founder of Pakistan is often referred to in the nation  immediately triggering a controversy over Jinnah's legacy.

Aiyar was speaking at a public event in Pakistan.

Suspended Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar hails Mohammad Ali Jinnah as 'the great leader' on Pak soil #AiyarAdmiresJinnah pic.twitter.com/s4zRQ8Yrvo  TIMES NOW (@TimesNow) May 6, 2018

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah took to Twitter to hit out at Aiyar, alleging "amazing telepathy" between the Congress party and Pakistan.

"Yesterday, Pakistan government remembered Tipu Sultan, whose Jayanti Congress marks with fanfare and today, Aiyar admires Jinnah. Be it Gujarat or Karnataka polls, I fail to understand why Congress involves Pakistan," Amit Shah tweeted on Saturday.

In February, Aiyar had sparked another controversy when he had said that he received "much more hatred in India" than the love he receives in Pakistan. Aiyar added that while there has been a change in mindset across the border, India is still caught in a "partially 1947 situation".

Senior Congress leaders reacted strongly to these remarks, while some wrote to party president Rahul Gandhi to urge him to expel Aiyar. "Being such an educated person, he is making such frivolous statements. Because of him, this generation is suffering. Better he should stop talking such weird things because it can distract majority workers of Congress party," Congress leader Hanumantha Rao had said.

Aiyar was suspended from the Congress' primary membership after he triggered a storm by calling Prime Minister Narendra Modi a neech aadmi (vile man), a comment which was being seen fraught with adverse consequences for the party in poll-bound Gujarat.The Congress would emerge as the 'number one party' in the Karnataka Assembly elections, Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut said on Sunday

Mumbai: The Congress would emerge as the "number one party" in the Karnataka Assembly elections, Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut said on Sunday, taking a swipe at the BJP for mobilising the "entire central machinery" for state campaigns.

He also said the understanding between the BJP and his party for the upcoming Legislative Council polls in Maharashtra didn't mean the Sena would forge an alliance with it in the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections in 2019.

"Whenever there are Assembly polls, the entire central machinery and chief ministers of all BJP-ruled states go there (to campaign), leaving the administration of the country and of their own states in the lurch. The country is watching all this," Raut told PTI in an interview.

Slamming Yogi Adityanath, the Sena's Rajya Sabha MP said the seriousness with which the Uttar Pradesh chief minister took his duties became evident when he was seen campaigning in Karnataka while his own state reeled under a dust storm.

"Does the central leadership (of the BJP) not trust its own men in states? Why does Prime Minister Narendra Modi need to address dozens of campaign rallies when he is needed in Delhi to govern the country?" asked Raut, whose party is in alliance with the BJP in Maharashtra and at the Centre.

Though an ally, the Sena has been continuously criticising the BJP and its governments in states and at the Centre.

"There is a `dust storm' in Karnataka today. Once it clears, the Congress will emerge as the number one party. People have started listening to Rahul Gandhi now," Raut added.

Asked if the understanding between the Sena and the BJP for 21 May Maharashtra Legislative Council elections was an indication that the bickering allies may join hands in the Assembly and Lok Sabha polls, Raut replied in the negative.

The BJP and the Sena have agreed to contest three seats each in the elections to six local authorities constituencies in the upper house of the Maharashtra legislature.

"This arrangement is due to the sentiments of the local leadership of both the parties. Also, we are fielding candidates in three seats where the Sena has a strong presence," Raut said.

"This doesn't, in any way, mean we will have an alliance in 2019. The party is firm on the decision taken by Sena president Uddhav Thackeray that we will fight (future) elections on our own," Raut asserted.

"The Sena will win a majority in 2019 and the next chief minister will be of our party," he added.

Raut, who is the executive editor of Shiv Sena mouthpiece Saamana, also claimed the BJP had not won a single election in the North East on its own.

It formed governments in the region through the politics of "jod-tod", he said.

"Take the case of Meghalaya or Arunachal Pradesh. The BJP would not have formed governments there had it not allied with local parties. So, it was on the strength of other parties that it came to power. The BJP would not have won in Tripura had there been an alliance between the Congress and the TMC," the Sena MP said.Former Karnataka chief minister and JD(S) leader HD Kumaraswamy is seen as a potential kingmaker in case of a hung verdict  provided he retains his influence among voters, but his strategy may leave JD(S) with potentially zero seats

While driving down from Bengaluru to Mysuru, you come across a patch of hillocks near Ram Nagar, a place that provided the backdrop for the all-time hit Bollywood movie, Sholay. This was where villain Gabbar Singh, played by inimitable Amjad Khan, delivered those immortalised dialogues, Kitne aadmi the? (How many people were they?)." The dialogue is more known for its style of delivery than content.

As the Karnataka Assembly election scenario hots up, this dialogue is getting resonance in the region, which is poised for a three-way contest. The Congress, the BJP and Janata Dal (Secular) are desperately trying to keep their flock together and motivating their cadre to outdo the others in the poll campaign.

In the core Mysuru region, there are 29 Assembly segments which are known to be strongholds of either the Congress or the JD(S). Former prime minister HD Deve Gowda belongs to the region and is known to have considerable clout among Vokkaligas of the area. His son and former chief minister HD Kumaraswamy is seen as a potential kingmaker in case of a hung verdict  provided he retains his influence among voters. But will he manage to retain his base?

If one travels across the region, it is quite evident that the Congress and the JD(S) are the dominant political forces. For historical reasons, the Congress is still a party that can claim to have a significant following across caste groups. For older generations, Indira Gandhi is still an unforgettable icon whose debt is weighing heavily in their mind. And Siddaramaiah despite his failing as chief minister is not proving to be a pushover.

Unlike his predecessor like SM Krishna (who ultimately joined the BJP), Siddaramaiah is a full-time politician deeply engrossed into his vocation in his every action round the clock. And since the ascendancy of the BJP, he understood the necessities of cementing his social base by playing inherent contradictions in the society. That is the precise reason why he decided to declare the Lingayat social group as distinct religion other than Hindu.

Since Karnatakas social economy revolves around thousands of maths (religious seats) that command overweening influence on different castes, Siddaramaiah desperately tried to win over maths and caste groups in order to consolidate his political support base and subsume Hindutva. In sociological terms, he attempted to subsume larger traditions by little traditions in the state. His move to forge a coalition of AHINDA (minorities, OBCs, and Dalits) is a sound political strategy that is reminiscent of KHAM in Gujarat or MAJGAR in Uttar Pradesh.

In essence, Siddaramaiah borrowed this strategy of social coalition from his socialist background. But at times such a strategy, if pushed too hard, recoils on its originator. As of now, Siddaramaiah has emerged as the most polarising figure in the state, probably comparable to Mulayam Singh Yadav in Uttar Pradesh after the Ayodhya agitation. One can hear across the state the refrain that says, If Siddaramaiah has his way, he would finish off Hindus as a coherent social entity." No doubt the whisper campaign by the RSS-BJP machinery gives additional fuel to the fire.

However, compared to the Siddaramaiah-led Congress, the BJP in the region was a much less significant force given its internal factional feuds. In 2014 and even before, BS Yeddyurappa, the partys tallest leader, was marginalised thanks to internal bickering led by factions owing allegiance to LK Advani, Sushma Swaraj, and Ananth Kumar. Yeddyurappa floated his own party and reduced the BJP to a completely marginal force.

Of course, the BJPs strategists were sharp enough to understand the potential of Yeddyurappa and roped him in as the chief ministerial candidate for the upcoming election. In posters all across the state, he is given more than adequate prominence along with Narendra Modi and Amit Shah to emphasise his numero uno position within the partys state unit. Given his background as a formidable leader of farmers and his influence on the powerful Lingayats, the BJP is able to put up a stiff resistance to the Congress in nearly a third of the 29 constituencies in the region.

But the party that seems to be gripped by the "kitne aadmi the" syndrome is essentially the Kumaraswamy-led JD(S). This region has been regarded as the pocket borough of Gowdas family. Kumaraswamy claims that legacy, and has been heavily banking on the support of this region to enable him to assume the role of a kingmaker. Significantly, Kumaraswamy is reconciled to the idea of playing the role of a leader who will hold the key to power. And to realise this political aspiration, he would be only keen to retain 30-40 seats that can enable him to see through his plan.

But there is a sting in the tail which is again borrowed from Sholay in which the jailer played by Asrani asks his men, Aadhe idhar jaao, aadhe udhar jaao, baki mere saath aao (half of you go on this side and half on the other side and the rest come with me), without realising that he is left with no one. That is the potential risk Kumaraswamys strategy may entail.Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president Dr G Parameshwara says he wants to be the chief minister but will respect the high command's decision.

Bengaluru, Karnataka: Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president Dr G Parameshwara has had the privilege of working as a minister under three chief ministers  M Veerappa Moily, SM Krishna and Siddaramaiah. He is the longest serving president of the KPCC and a strong contender for the chief ministers post, if the Congress romps home in the state Assembly elections. The staunch Congressman and four-time MLA makes it clear that his objective is to see the Congress retain power in Karnataka, and exudes confidence that his party will get an absolute majority. In an interview with Y Maheswara Reddy of 101Reporters, the KPCC president, who is seeking election from Koratagere, Tumakuru district, explains how Congress is in the forefront and Opposition parties are in bad shape in the state.

There was confusion and chaos while selecting candidates for the state Assembly elections. There were murmurs that children of prominent Congress leaders were being encouraged to contest. What is your opinion?

There may have been a delay or some confusion in selecting candidates. Our objective is to get a majority. We gave preference to candidates who have the potential to win elections, since we need to cross the 113-mark to retain power in the state. We gave only five tickets to children of senior Congress leaders. The number is not huge, and not unusual when it comes to other political parties.

Congress leaders are attacking BJP for selecting candidates known for corruption. BJP leaders are also accusing Congress for selecting 'corrupt' candidates. What is your take on this?

BJP leaders have no programme or action plan other than making baseless allegations against Congress leaders. Let us compare the corruption and loss to the state exchequer during BJP and Congress regimes. The loss is huge during the BJP regime. BJP leaders have no moral right to criticise or make allegations against Congress leaders.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while addressing an election rally at Kengeri near Bengaluru, described Bengaluru as 'sin city'. Do you agree with him?

No. I will not accept such irresponsible comments on Bengaluru. Modi has insulted the people of Bengaluru by describing the city as 'sin city'. What crime have we done? Before talking about the law and order situation in Bengaluru, Modi should know what is happening in BJP-ruled states. A rape victims father dies in police custody in Uttar Pradesh. What do you call it? I want Modi to treat Bengaluru as his own city. I don't know why he wants to show Bengaluru in bad light while the whole world is praising it for its potential in creating jobs and other business opportunities.

Former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda alleged that the Congress has been trying to take away Muslim voters from the JD(S). Is it true?

How will the Congress take away Muslims from the JD(S)? They are not commodities in a shop. As a political party, we assured them of welfare and security in 2013. Now, we are approaching them with whatever good work we have done for their welfare. It is up to them whether or not to support us. If they like our programmes, they will certainly support Congress candidates. If they are not impressed with our programmes, they will prefer other political parties. I don't know how Deve Gowda made such a statement.

The Congress government had formed a House Committee to probe the scam involving Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprises (NICE) owned by Ashok Kheny, but you gave him a ticket to contest from Bidar. How do you justify it?

It is the responsibility of the people of Bidar either to reject or elect Ashok Kheny. In a democracy, all have the right to contest elections. Let the Election Commission ban Kheny from contesting elections, then no political party selects him as its candidate. I have already made it clear to Kheny that Congress has nothing to do with his business interests. I told him the Congress will not come to his rescue if the judiciary takes action against him. Yes, I agree there are complaints against Congress leaders, but those are negligible compared with the allegations against BJP leaders.

There were rumours that you were defeated because people belonging to a particular community voted your opponent to ensure Siddaramaiah became chief minister. How did you reach out to that community in this election?

It is not true. I got more votes in areas where Kurubas are in a majority. They did not oppose me. The actual hassle was the straight contest between Congress and JD(S). BJP did not field a strong candidate. He got only around 3,000 votes. Had the BJP candidate got more than 10,000 votes, I would have been elected from Koratagere in 2013. Now, I am visiting all segments and meeting all communities. People sympathised with me for not making it to the Assembly in the last elections. They promised to vote for me this time.

You were home minister when the unfortunate New Year's Eve incidents took place in Bengaluru. You attributed them to the city's cosmopolitan culture. Do you still consider this as the cause for crimes against women in Bengaluru?

No, I never said cosmopolitan culture was the cause for the alleged molestation incidents during New Year celebrations in Bengaluru. The police had installed a number of CCTV cameras on MG Road and Brigade Road. No CCTV recorded such incidents. I am of the opinion that no molestation took place that night. The media had misquoted my statement.

What if you are not selected for chief ministers post?

As of now, our focus is to retain power in Karnataka. No Congress leader, including Siddaramaiah, Mallikarjun Kharge or I will claim to become chief minister if Congress returns to power. The Congress high command has directed all of us to work under Siddaramaiahs leadership for the Assembly elections. There is a process to select the candidate for the chief ministers post. The Congress Legislature Party (CLP) will select the candidate and he/she becomes chief minister if the high command agrees with the CLPs selection. I will respect the CLPs selection and obey the Congress high commands decision. Yes, I too want to become chief minister of Karnataka. I too have such ambitions but I am not born only to become the chief minister.

(Maheswara Reddy is a Bengaluru-based freelance writer and a member of 101Reporters.com, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters)With 12 May inching closer, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a scathing attack against the Congress government in Karnataka, Rahul Gandhi and Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Saturday

With 12 May inching closer, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a scathing attack against the Congress government in Karnataka on Saturday, alleging JD(S) and Congress have a "secret pact" and predicting that the Congress will be reduced to a regional party "Punjab, Puducherry. Parivar Congress" in the upcoming Assembly election.

Modi, who addressed four back-to-back rallies at Gadag, Tumakuru, Shivamogga, and Mangaluru, upped the ante against the Siddaramaiah government, alleging it has become a "corruption tank" for the Congress with a pipeline connected to Delhi, "where the money reaches directly".

The prime minister claimed that Congress was desperate to win the 12 May Karnataka Assembly elections, as it was worried about what would happen to its leaders in Delhi if it lost at the hustings. Modi also hit out at the Congress over the Mahadayi river dispute and blamed the party for politicising the water sharing row with neighbouring state Goa.

'Punjab, Puducherry, Parivar Congress'

Escalating his attack on the Congress over "corruption and arrogance", Modi said the party whose flag once fluttered "from Panchayat to Parliament" will become "Punjab, Puducherry, Parivar" Congress after its impending defeat in Karnataka.

"The party whose flag fluttered across the country... from Panchayat to Parliament... which had 400 MPs... its fortresses are falling, one after the other. Without power, it is like a fish without water. Congress's arrogance did it in. Democracy does not brook arrogance," he told a rally in Mangaluru.

"After 15 May (when the poll results will be declared), the Indian National Congress will be reduced to 'PPP Congress'  P for Punjab, P for Puducherry, and P for Parivar (family)," Modi told an election rally in Gadag, where he predicted the state's ruling party would be decimated in the upcoming polls. He also said it was because of Congress's arrogance that the party, which ruled almost the entire country, was losing ground.

Congress, JD(S) have 'secret pact', pretending to 'fight' polls

Addressing an election rally in Tumakuru, Modi alleged that the Congress and JD(S) have entered into a "secret" pact for the Karnataka polls. "If anyone is protecting the Congress, it is the JD(S).... Congress and JD(S) have a secret understanding... an understanding behind the curtains," he said.

"The people of Karnataka have right to know about the alliance between Congress and JD(S) because they pretend to fight in some parts of the state while being together in the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) as evident from the latter's support to the ruling party's corporator (Sampath Raj) in becoming the city mayor last year," asserted Modi at the public rally, organised by the BJP to campaign for its candidates in the northwest district.

The Congress and JD(S) had tied up for the Bengaluru civic body BBMP after the 2017 elections, for the state capital's 198 wards, denying BJP the mayoral post. The JD(S) also supported the Congress candidate Sampath Raj in becoming the city mayor in 2017.

Incidentally, Raj is a Congress contestant in the CV Raman Nagar Assembly segment in the city's southeast suburb against P Ramesh of JD(S) and the two-time legislator S Raghu of BJP.

Modi also alleged that the JD(S) was working towards saving the Congress in the Assembly elections. "The Congress doesn't speak the truth. Its members lie every day and if anyone is trying to save the image of the Congress, it is the JD(S)," he alleged.

'JD(S) will remain number three party'

Reiterating his argument from earlier rallies, Modi told voters that there was no way the JD(S) could defeat the Congress to form a government. "Take a look at all the pre-poll surveys, they show the JD(S) will remain at a third spot in the state."

Modi's surprise attack on the JD(S) came four days after he praised its supremo and former prime minister HD Deve Gowda and lashed at Congress president Rahul Gandhi for insulting the latter by terming the JD(S) as the "B team" of the BJP.

He had earlier extolled Gowda, calling the former prime minister "one of the greatest leaders of our country". The prime minister said he respected the JD(S) chief even as his staunch opponent.

"During the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, there was a battle going on between us (the BJP) and the JD(S), and Deve Gowda had announced that if I win and the BJP comes to power he would commit suicide. He is our staunch opposition, yet I have always extended my respect towards him," Modi said.

"If there's a party that is capable of bringing change in the government and to the state of Karnataka and its people, it is the BJP, under the leadership of (its chief ministerial face) BS Yeddyurappa," thundered Modi.

Congress politicising Mahadayi water dispute

Modi blamed the Congress party for politicising the issue of Mahadayi river water sharing with Goa.

"Congress is misleading people in the name of Mahadayi and is only politicising the issue. During a 2007 Goa Assembly poll campaign speech, then-Congress president Sonia Gandhi had assured Goa that Mahadayi river water will not be shared," recalled Modi in Gadag, about 380 kilometres from Bengaluru.

Speaking at Goa's Margao city, Gandhi had in 2007 told people that the Congress was committed to not allow the sharing of Mahadayi water with Karnataka.

The Congress was only showing its "true colours" by politicising the issue ahead of the upcoming 12 May Karnataka Assembly polls, alleged Modi in his 45-minute speech in Hindi, translated into Kannada by BJP's Lok Sabha lawmaker from the state, Pralhad Joshi.

The 77-kilometre-long Mahadayi originates at Bhimgad in the Western Ghats in Belagavi district and flows into Goa and joins the Arabian Sea off the West Coast. Although the river flows 29 kilometres in Karnataka and 52 kilometres in Goa, its catchment area is spread over 2,032 kilometres in Karantaka as against 1,580 kilometres in Goa.

Karnataka has been asking Goa since 2001 to release 7.6 tmcft (thousand million cubic feet) of the river water to meet drinking and irrigation needs of its people in the four drought-prone districts namely  Gadag, Bagalkote, Belagavi, and Dharwad  in the state's northwest region.

Modi, however, did not refer to the Cauvery river water dispute that Karnataka has with its other neighbouring state (Tamil Nadu) even after the Supreme Court on Thursday directed it to release 4 tmcft of water by this month-end.

Congress neglected the poor and farmers

Modi said that the Congress, which ruled the country for decades with "one family" in power, for the most part, neglected the poor and farmers.

"Garibi, garibi, garibi (poverty, poverty, poverty) was their constant refrain. But once the son of a poor mother became the prime minister, they clammed up... now they don't talk about poverty," he said and asked voters to "punish" the Congress for Karnataka's better future.

Alleging that the Congress was doing only "lip-service" to the farmers' issues while indulging in corruption themselves, Modi also said that BJP has taken on a full-fledged battle against corruption. "There is no way this kind of corruption can be tolerated," he reiterated.

Opposing Modi is Congress' sole agenda

In Mangaluru, the prime minister said that opposing him was the Congress's only agenda.

"They even opposed my Clean India campaign. They mock all institutions... the RBI, Indian Army, Parliament.... It is yet to recover from the shock of demonetisation as bundles of ill-gotten currency notes of its leaders were seized... their anger does not go away," he said.

"When the World Bank praises my government, Congress says I bought it off. I am not into buying and selling, I work for the nation. For the Congress, one family is everything. For me, 1.25 crore people of India are my family," he said.

"While 'sabka saath, sabka vikaas' is our mantra, the Congress believes in divide and rule philosophy. It divides people on the grounds of caste. What's more, it even classifies criminals on caste basis," he said.

Noting that spreading lies had become a business for the Congress, Modi also alleged that wherever its leaders go, they spread only lies among people.

With inputs from agenciesAccusing the Congress of distorting history as part of a conspiracy to divide society, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday flayed the Siddaramaiah government.

Chitradurga: Accusing the Congress of distorting history as part of a conspiracy to divide society, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday flayed the Siddaramaiah government in Karnataka for celebrating the "jayantis of Sultans" for the sake of "vote bank politics".

Modi was apparently referring to the Siddaramaiah government's controversial decision to celebrate "Tipu Jayanti" every year on 10 November to commemorate the memory of Tipu Sultan, the legendary 18th century ruler of Mysore.

Addressing an election rally, the prime minister said, "Look at the Congress character... whose jayanti needs to celebrated with respect, from whom we have to draw inspiration for generations to generations, they can't think about celebrating their jayantis ".

"Veera Madakari and Onake Obavva are forgotten, but for the sake of vote bank politics they are into celebrating jayantis of Sultans," he said.

A Dalit woman, Onake Obavva was the legendary wife of a soldier in the army of Madakari Nayaka, the last ruler of Chitradurga.

She is said to have fought single-handedly and killed with a pestle several invading soldiers of the army of Hyder Ali, father of Tipu Sultan, in 1779. She was killed by Hyder Ali's soldiers in her valiant effort to protect the fort where her husband was the guard of a watchtower.

Celebration of "Tipu Jayanti" is strongly opposed by the BJP.

The celebration has also triggered a sharp division in society with some hailing Tipu Sultan as a hero who died fighting the British, while others calling him a "fanatic" ruler.

"By celebrating this jayanti, Congress has insulted people of Karnataka and Chitradurga. They have played with sentiments and feelings of people of Chitradurga," Modi said.

"Congress, by celebrating jayanti of those who gave poison to Nayaka's of Chitradurga by betrayal and those who killed the courageous lady Onake Obavva, has insulted this land, you and the history," he said, as he sought to connect with local historical sentiments.

The way in which Congress had betrayed the legacy and courage of the sons and daughters of this land could not be forgiven, the prime minister said.

Modi also accused the Congress of sidelining several national stalwarts for the sake of one family.

He also hit out at the Congress for "spreading lies and trying to mislead Dalits."

Follow our LIVE blog on Narendra Modi in KarnatakaAs Prime Minister Narendra Modi continues to hurl barbs such as 'seedha rupaiah sarkar' to target him, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Sunday lashed out at him for making 'personal attacks' and speaking at a 'low level'

Bengaluru: As Prime Minister Narendra Modi continues to hurl barbs such as "seedha rupaiah sarkar" to target him, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Sunday lashed out at him for making "personal attacks" and speaking at a "low level".

The prime minister was using a language that did not befit the office he held, the Congress leader said, taking exception to Modi calling his dispensation a "10 percent government" and "seedha rupaiah sarkar" while attacking him over alleged corruption.

Siddaramaiah also mocked the Karnataka BJP, saying it solely depended on the prime minister as regards the 12 May state Assembly polls as it had no leader with a "face value".

"We expected a dignified language from him (Modi). But what he spoke was the BJP's language and not the one of a civilised person. He spoke at a very low level...this is not the language of the prime minister," he told reporters in Bengaluru.

The chief minister said it was expected that Modi would speak about the BJP-led central government's achievements and criticise the Congress government in Karnataka.

Maintaining that he neither made personal comments nor used unparliamentary words, Siddaramiah said, "When he (Modi) spoke in an uncivilised manner, initially I thought I would not react. But I was forced to attack him because otherwise, the people would have perceived it as the truth."

At all his election rallies in poll-bound Karnataka, Modi has made a scathing attack on the Siddaramaiah regime, saying it was a "gold medallist" in corruption and calling it a "seedha rupaiah government" (corrupt), a punning allusion to the chief minister's name.

Referring to Modi calling his dispensation a "10 percent government," Siddaramaiah wanted to know if the prime minister had any evidence to back his charge.

"He has all the central agencies. If he has any evidence, he should make it public...Modi is demonstrating his triviality by making personal attacks," he said.

Accusing Modi of not honouring any of his promises in the last four years, Siddaramaiah said, "He has totally failed. He is lying to hide his failure."

Hitting out at the Karnataka BJP, he said it was entirely dependent on Modi for the upcoming state Assembly polls.

"The BJP is entirely dependent on Modi in this election. They don't have people with a face value, be it Yeddyurappa, Eshwarappa, Ananth Kumar, Ananthkumar Hegde or Jagadish Shettar. A BJP MLA has told me that they are dependent on Modi," the chief minister claimed.

Referring to Modi's charge that then Congress chief Sonia Gandhi had objected to a solution to the Mahadayi inter-state river water issue involving Goa and Karnataka, Siddaramaiah said she was not the prime minister then.

Modi was deliberately misleading the people and lying to hide his failures in the last four years, he said, adding that the people would not buy it.

Attacking the prime minister over his "sabka sath, sabka vikas" slogan, Siddaramaiah pointed out that the BJP had not fielded a single Christian or Muslim candidate in the Karnataka polls.

Stating that the Karnataka election would be a three-cornered contest between the Congress, BJP and JD(S), he accused the saffron party of "experimenting communalism" in the coastal region of the southern state.The West Bengal BJP leadership on Sunday accused the state ruling party Trinamool Congress of threatening the state election commissioner.

Kolkata: The West Bengal BJP leadership on Sunday accused the state ruling party Trinamool Congress of threatening the state election commissioner and reiterated their demand that central forces be brought in during the coming state panchayat polls.

"The Trinamool Congress is threatening the state election commissioner AK Singh and forcing him to work in their party's favour. The commissioner is also crumbling under pressure," BJP National Secretary Rahul Sinha told the media.

"Trinamool is planning to deploy party cadres dressed as civic volunteers on the polling day to rig the elections. Deployment of central forces and their proper utilisation is the only way to ensure free and fair election. It should not be like previous years when the forces were sent to roam around 'Hazarduari' (a historical monument in Murshidabad district)," he said.

Sinha also demanded that the election commission start accepting the nomination papers online and said the rural polls should be conducted under the Calcutta High Court's supervision.

"The commission should cancel the disputed polling date on 14 May. They should accept fresh nomination papers online. That would make the election process much more peaceful. The panchayat polls should take place under the High Court's supervision," he said.

Accusing Trinamool-backed miscreants of unleashing large scale pre-poll violence on their activists, the BJP leader said more than 60 of their workers have gone missing since the polls were announced in April.

"A large number of our activists have been attacked since the panchayat election was announced. More than 60 are missing. Also a lot of women activists of the party were heckled and beaten up by the ruling party cadres during this time," he added.IANS

A day after multinational conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway acquired another 75 million shares of Apple, its CEO Warren Buffett said the iPhone maker should spend more cash buying its own shares.

"They are not going to find $50 billion or $100 billion acquisitions that they can make at remotely a sensible price," ReCode quoted Buffett as saying at the company's annual meeting held at Omaha city in the US state of Nebraska.

It is a better idea than spending that money on other companies which have the disadvantage of not being Apple, he added.

Apple posted a healthy revenue of $61.1 billion and net quarterly profit of $13.8 billion globally for its second quarter for fiscal 2018, defying global reports of a weakened demand for its iPhones.

Following this, Berkshire Hathaway acquired more shares and now owns a large slug of Apple stock and has 5 percent stake in the company.

At the end of the first quarter of 2018, Berkshire owned $40.7 billion of Apple's shares  up from $28.2 billion at the end of 2017, The New York Times reported.

He also said he likes Apple's plan to spend $100 billion buying its own shares.

"I'm delighted to see them repurchasing shares. We own 5 percent of it. With the passage of time, we may own 6 or 7 percent because they repurchase shares," he was quoted as saying.

On having never invested in Microsoft, Buffett said that "in the earlier years, the answer is stupidity". He stayed away from investing "because of the inference" that could be drawn.

On e-commerce firm Amazon, he said: "The truth is that I've watched Amazon from the start and I think what (Amazon CEO) Jeff Bezos has done is something close to a miracle. The problem is if I think something will be a miracle, I tend not to bet on it."

Buffett said he had "made a mistake" on conglomerate Alphabet. He said he was unable to conclude that at Alphabet's present prices, its "prospects were far better than the prices indicated".IANS

With the Cambridge Analytica scandal revealing massive misuse of Facebook users data, Germany's justice minster has said that the social network must bring changes and become more transparent with users.

In a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Katarina Barley also said that the social network needs to give its users "real control" over their data and set up new internal supervisory mechanisms to ensure that formal guidelines are upheld in Facebook's dealings with third party advertising clients.

Several publications in Germany participating in the "Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland" (RND) editorial network cited the letter on 4 May, Xinhua news agency reported.

While the minister welcomed certain changes Facebook had brought about to protect user privacy, Barley wrote that Facebook had so far failed to assume responsibility for its inappropriate corporate behaviour and criticised plans to transfer the storage of some user data from the European Union (EU) to the US.

European users of the service currently benefited from enhanced online privacy protection enshrined in EU law.

The minister argued that the commercial sale of user data by Facebook directly affected key rights enjoyed by the citizens.

She described the use of such sensitive data to politically influence or manipulate voters as unacceptable.

Facebook admitted that the data of up to 87 million users was passed on illegally to Cambridge Analytica.

The information was used in an attempt to support the election campaign of US President Donald Trump. Up to 310,000 Germans were affected by the scandal as well.

In its F8 developers' conference in San Jose on 1 May, Zuckerberg said the company was taking a broader view of its responsibility by not only giving people powerful tools, but also making sure those tools are used for good.

Among the biggest announcements made in the conference was Facebook's plans to build a "Clear History" privacy tool which will enable users to see the websites and apps that send information to Facebook when they use them.

The tool, Facebook said, will also enable the users to delete this information from their account, and turn off Facebook's ability to store it.

In her letter, Barley, however, warned that she will keep a close eye on the further measures taken by Facebook.Reuters

Qualcomm Inc can depose Apple Incs services chief Eddy Cue in addition to Chief Executive Tim Cook, a magistrate judge in the US District Court for the Southern District of California ruled on 4 May, part of the chipmakers effort to determine whether Apple worked with Samsung to focus regulatory scrutiny on Qualcomm.

The access to Cue is important because Qualcomm alleges talks between executives at Apple and its rival Samsung Electronics Co Ltd were central to its decision to cut off Apple from a stream of nearly $1 billion in licensing rebate payments.

Apple sued Qualcomm early last year, contesting the San Diego-based chipmakers licensing practices and asking for those rebate payments back. Qualcomm then sued Apple for patent infringement in several countries. As part of the disputes, Qualcomm is also seeking to ban the import of some iPhones it believes are violating its patents.

In the lawsuit in Southern California filed by Apple, Qualcomm has alleged that at a conference in Idaho in 2015, a top Apple executive encouraged Samsung to get aggressive in asking South Korean antitrust regulators to pursue action against the chipmaker.

Cook and Cue are regular attendees of a media mogul conference held each year in Sun Valley, Idaho. The Apple executive in question, Qualcomm alleged, explained that a regulatory ruling on Samsungs home turf would be Samsungs best chance to force Qualcomm to change its licensing practices.

Qualcomm did not name the Apple executive cited in its filings. However, the conversation between Apple and Samsung is important because Qualcomm alleges it amounted to Apple wrongfully inducing a regulatory action against Qualcomm.

Qualcomm said such a move violated a cooperation agreement it had with Apple and that it stopped sending rebate payments to Apple because of that and other violations of the agreement.

Apple has argued in court filings that it cooperated with requests from regulators and that Qualcomm improperly retaliated against it for doing so.

Though Qualcomm is known as a chipmaker, its profit has been driven by a patent licensing business. Some of Qualcomms practices caused conflicts with customers such as Apple and Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, as well as with regulators in China, Korea and the United States. Qualcomm has begun changing some of those practices to become more regulator friendly, its executives have said.

Apple declined to comment, and Samsung and Qualcomm did not immediately respond to requests for comment.tech2 News Staff

Two new handsets from Chinese smartphone brand Vivo have surfaced online, thanks to Chinese certification website TENAA and in part, also the Vivo China website. While the Vivo Y75s is a refreshed version of the Y75, the Y83 is a brand new device that features a notch at the top of its FullView display.

The Vivo Y75s was announced back in December 2017 and it seems that the Vivo has prepared another model with better specifications as a v2.0 of the same.

The handset looks similar to the older Vivo V7 but comes with better hardware in the camera department.

As per the devices TENAA listing, the Vivo Y75s packs in a 18:9 aspect ratio FullView HD+ (1440x720 pixels) display that measures 5.99-inches diagonally and comes with a 2.5D curved edge glass screen for protection. Inside, sits a Qualcomm Snapdragon 450 that is coupled with 4 GB RAM and 64 GB of internal storage that is expandable up to 256 GB via a microSD card slot.

On the rear, exists a 13 MP primary camera with LED flash, while the front facing camera gets a 16 MP sensor which is also accompanied by an LED flash.

The Y75s is powered by a 3,225 mAh battery and runs Android 7.1.2 Nougat with the Vivo Funtouch OS to keep things refreshed.

Next up is the Vivo Y83, with a 6.22-inch FullView 19:9 display sporting a resolution of 1520x720 pixels, which also means it comes with a notch at the top. The display like the Y75s is also covered with a 2.5D curved edge glass.

The TENAA listing claims that Vivo has added a SoC clocked at 2.0 GHz paired with 2 GB RAM and 64 GB of internal storage that is expandable.

Theres a 13 MP camera with LED flash on the back and an 8 MP camera with a front-facing flash on the front.

The device is powered by 3,180 mAh battery and the smartphone runs Android 8.1 Oreo out of the box.

The Vivo Y75s looks very similar, both in terms of design and specifications, to the Vivo V7 launched in India last year. However, the model launched in India packed in a better 24 MP selfie camera and Vivo pitched the device as a mid-range smartphone, priced in the sub Rs 20,000 segment.Benjamin Netanyahu will meet Russian president Vladimir Putin in Moscow next week, the premier's office said, ahead of a possible US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal.

Jerusalem: Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet Russian president Vladimir Putin in Moscow next week, the premier's office said, ahead of a possible US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal.

The Wednesday meeting will discuss "regional developments", Netanyahu's office said, and follows the Israeli leader's unveiling of "proof" of Iran's alleged past military nuclear ambitions.

A televised presentation by Netanyahu on Monday was followed by phone calls to world leaders, including to Putin, in which the two discussed the Iran nuclear deal, as well as the situation in Syria.

Israel has been accused by Syria of carrying out deadly strikes in its territory, most recently on 9 April and 30 April, which killed Iranians as well as Syrian soldiers.

Putin  whose troops are backing the Syrian regime  has called on Netanyahu not to destabilise the situation further, as Israel looks to prevent Iran and its Hezbollah proxy cementing their military presence.

Russia meanwhile has reiterated its support for the Iran nuclear deal, with Putin telling Netanyahu it was "of primary importance for ensuring international stability and security" in their Monday phone call.

US president Donald Trump and his West Asian allies argue that the agreement, approved by Barack Obama, was too weak and needs to be replaced with a more permanent arrangement and supplemented by controls on Iran's missile programme.

Trump has threatened to abandon the agreement when it comes up for renewal on 12 May, demanding his country's European allies "fix the terrible flaws" or he will re-impose sanctions.

Netanyahu has repeatedly called for the accord  which Iran signed with Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States  to either be altered or scrapped.

He says the agreement does not prevent Tehran from eventually obtaining nuclear weapons and says the lifting of sanctions has increased Tehran's ability to finance proxy militants in West Asia.

In his elaborate televised presentation, Netanyahu accused Iran of lying about its nuclear ambitions, while not providing evidence that Israel's main enemy had actively worked to obtain an atomic weapon since the 2015 agreement between Tehran and six world powers.

Iran has always denied it sought a nuclear weapon, insisting its atomic programme was for civilian purposes.

Besides Putin, Netanyahu discussed the Israeli findings and the Iran nuclear deal with his Australian, British and Indian counterparts, as well as with French president Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.GAZA (Reuters) - An explosion in the Gaza Strip killed five Hamas gunmen on Saturday, Palestinian officials and residents said, adding the cause of the blast was unclear. An Israeli military spokeswoman said she had no information about the incident. Reuters television captured a pillar of smoke rising above the village of Zawayda near the coast of Gaza, far from the border with Israel where tensions have escalated in recent weeks

GAZA (Reuters) - An explosion in the Gaza Strip killed five Hamas gunmen on Saturday, Palestinian officials and residents said, adding the cause of the blast was unclear.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said she had no information about the incident.

Reuters television captured a pillar of smoke rising above the village of Zawayda near the coast of Gaza, far from the border with Israel where tensions have escalated in recent weeks.

Deadly explosions in Gaza have also been caused by internal Palestinian fighting or by unintentional mishaps among militant groups.

The Gaza Strip is controlled by the Islamist group Hamas.

(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi and Maayan Lubell; Editing by Stephen Powell)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.Iranian president Hassan Rouhani said on Sunday that if the United States quits the nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers then Washington would regret it 'like never before'.

Tehran: Iranian president Hassan Rouhani said on Sunday that if the United States quits the nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers then Washington would regret it "like never before".

US president Donald Trump has threatened to abandon the agreement when it comes up for renewal on 12 May, demanding his country's European allies "fix the terrible flaws" or he will re-impose sanctions.

"If the United States leaves the nuclear agreement, you will soon see that they will regret it like never before in history," Rouhani said in a televised speech in northwestern Iran.

"Trump must know that our people are united, the Zionist regime (Israel) must know that our people are united," Rouhani added.

The nuclear deal was struck in 2015 between Iran and Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States, then led by Barack Obama.

Under the pact, sanctions were lifted in return for a commitment not to pursue a nuclear bomb, but Iran says it is not reaping the rewards despite complying with the deal.

The Islamic Republic has always denied it sought a nuclear weapon, insisting its atomic programme was for civilian purposes.

Rouhani did not specify how Iran would react if the US pulls out of the deal.

But he said he had given "the necessary orders", notably to Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, in anticipation of Trump's decision.

On Thursday Ali Akbar Velayati, the foreign policy adviser to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned Tehran would quit the nuclear deal if the United States withdraws.Police seized Navalny by the arms and legs and carried the thrashing activist from Moscow's Pushkin Square, where thousands were gathered for an unauthorised protest.

Moscow: Russians angered by the impending inauguration of Vladimir Putin to a new term as president protested on Saturday in scores of cities across the country  and police responded by reportedly arresting nearly 1,600 of them.

Among those arrested was protest organiser Alexei Navalny, the anti-corruption campaigner who is Putin's most prominent foe. Police seized Navalny by the arms and legs and carried the thrashing activist from Moscow's Pushkin Square, where thousands were gathered for an unauthorised protest.

Police also used batons against protesters who chanted "Putin is a thief!" and "Russia will be free!"

Demonstrations under the slogan "He is not our czar" took place throughout the country, from Yakutsk in the far northeast to St Petersburg and Kaliningrad on the fringes of Europe.

The protests demonstrated that Navalny's opposition, although considered beleaguered by Russian officials and largely ignored by state-controlled television, has sizeable support in much of the country.

"I think that Putin isn't worthy of leading this country. He has been doing it for 18 years and has done nothing good for it," said Moscow demonstrator Dmitry Nikitenko. "He should leave for good."

OVD-Info, an organization that monitors political repression, said late on Saturday that 1,599 people had been detained at demonstrations in 26 Russian cities. It said 702 were arrested in Moscow alone, and another 232 in St Petersburg.

Moscow police said about 300 people were detained in the capital, state news agencies said, and there was no official countrywide tally.

"Let my son go!" Iraida Nikolaeva screamed, running after police in Moscow when they detained her son. "He did not do anything! Are you a human or not? Do you live in Russia or not?"

Navalny was to be charged with disobeying police, an offense that carries a sentence of up to 15 days, news reports said, though when he would face a judge was not immediately clear. Navalny has served several multi-week stretches in jail on similar charges.

In St Petersburg, police blocked off a stretch of Nevsky Prospekt as a crowd of about 1,000 marched along the renowned avenue. Video showed some demonstrators being detained.

Putin is to be inaugurated for a new six-year term on Monday after winning re-election in March with 77 percent of the vote. Navalny had hoped to challenge him on the ballot but was blocked because of a felony conviction in a case that supporters regard as falsified in order to marginalise him.

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert criticised the actions of the Russian police.

"The United States condemns #Russia's detention of hundreds of peaceful protesters and calls for their immediate release. Leaders who are secure in their own legitimacy don't arrest their peaceful opponents for protesting," she tweeted.

The United States condemns #Russias detention of hundreds of peaceful protestors and calls for their immediate release. Leaders who are secure in their own legitimacy don't arrest their peaceful opponents for protesting.  Heather Nauert (@statedeptspox) May 5, 2018

Navalny has called nationwide demonstrations several times in the past year, and their turnout has rattled the Kremlin.

Saturday's protests attracted crowds of hundreds in cities that are far remote from Moscow, challenging authorities' contention that Navalny and other opposition figures appeal only to a small, largely urban elite.North Korea said on Sunday its intention to denuclearise, unveiled at a historic inter-Korean summit, was not the result of US-led sanctions and pressure

Seoul: North Korea said on Sunday its intention to denuclearise, unveiled at a historic inter-Korean summit, was not the result of US-led sanctions and pressure, warning the United States not to mislead public opinion.

Impoverished North Korea has been hit by a series of UN and US sanctions in recent years in a bid to rein in its nuclear and missile programmes.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and South Korean president Moon Jae-in vowed "complete denuclearisation" of the Korean peninsula in the first inter-Korean summit in more than a decade on 27 April, but the declaration did not include concrete steps to reach that goal.

The Norths official KCNA news agency said Washington was "misleading public opinion" by claiming the denuclearisation pledge was the result of sanctions and other pressure.

The United States should not "deliberately provoke" the North by moving to deploy strategic assets in South Korea and raising human rights issues, KCNA said, citing a foreign ministry spokesman.

"This act cannot be construed otherwise than a dangerous attempt to ruin the hardly-won atmosphere of dialogue and bring the situation back to square one," the spokesman was quoted as saying.

It would not be conducive to resolving the issue of denuclearisation if Washington miscalculated North Koreas peace-loving intention as a sign of weakness and continued to pursue its pressure and military threats, KCNA said.

US president Donald Trump, who plans to meet Kim over the next few weeks, has said he will maintain sanctions and pressure on the North and not repeat the mistakes of past administrations and has said his tough stance had led to the breakthrough.

Trump told the National Rifle Associations annual convention in Dallas on Friday that he had toned down his rhetoric in anticipation of the talks after labelling Kim Little Rocket Man in 2017 and threatening him with fire and fury.

Moon said Trump deserved a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end the standoff with the North.

The White House said that Trumps national security adviser, John Bolton, met his South Korean counterpart, Chung Eui-yong, on Friday and both said there were no plans to change the US-South Korea bilateral defence posture.

North and South Korea are technically still at war because their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty. South Korea said U.S. troops need to stay in the area even after a peace treaty is concluded to replace the armistice.

The United States stations 28,500 troops in South Korea, a legacy of the war.Islamic foreign ministers launched a campaign to mobilise international support for action against Myanmar over the Rohingya refugee crisis, officials said

Dhaka: Islamic foreign ministers on Sunday launched a campaign to mobilise international support for action against Myanmar over the Rohingya refugee crisis, officials said.

Foreign ministers and diplomats of the 53-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) set up a campaign committee during two days of talks in the Bangladesh capital Dhaka.

OIC secretary-general Yousef bin Ahmed Al-Othaimeen called the move a key step toward ending a crisis caused by the exodus of about 7,00,000 Muslim Rohingya from Buddhist-majority Myanmar into camps in Bangladesh.

He said the new committee would "mobilise and coordinate international political support for accountability for human rights violations against the Rohingya community."

"This is very important. This is one of the concrete steps that has been taken to alleviate the problem for our (Rohingya) brothers and sisters," he said.

A military campaign launched in Myanmar's Rakhine state in August last year set off the massive influx of the Muslim minority into Bangladesh where they joined 3,00,000 refugees already living in squalid camps following previous violence.

The United Nations and the United States have said the crackdown amounted to ethnic cleansing. The Myanmar army has said it only targeted militants.

Rohingya civilians have told of murders and rapes as they fled. They say the army burned hundreds of Rohingya villages to the ground.

Al-Othaimeen said Muslim nations had to "pressure the international community".

"This is not religious, this is human basic rights of our brothers and sisters in the last 50 years," he said.

The International Criminal Court prosecutor has already called for the tribunal to rule on whether it can investigate the allegations of mass rape and killings.

Bangladesh has put huge diplomatic effort into pressuring Myanmar to take back the refugees in safety.

The two nations signed a repatriation deal in November, but nobody has since returned.

The Rohingya have been persecuted for decades in Myanmar, where they are regarded as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and denied citizenship.

Last month a UN Security Council delegation visiting the camps called for the safe return of the Rohingya and an end to discrimination against them.

Canada's Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland also called for "accountability" when she toured the Rohingya camps this week.

Bangladesh Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali said the OIC meeting had urged "strong action against the Myanmar government" on the Rohingya crisis.Pakistan's Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal was injured on Sunday in an assassination attempt when an unidentified man opened fire at him.

Lahore: Pakistan's Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal was injured on Sunday in an assassination attempt when an unidentified man opened fire at him in Punjab province after he addressed a political rally, police said.

Iqbal, 59, was hit by a bullet on his right shoulder in the attack in his native Narowal's Kanjrur Tehsil after he addressed a rally, the police said.

The incident took place when the US-educated Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader was leaving the rally.

Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi condemned the attack and called for an immediate report into the incident from top police officials of Punjab province. Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif described the incident as an "assassination attempt".

Iqbal's son said that his father was out of danger.

The attacker fired with a 30-bore pistol from a distance of around 18 metres.

The attacker was about to fire a second shot when he was apprehended, police said.

However, the reason behind the attack was not immediately known.

Sharif said: "Just spoke to him and he is in high spirits...Those who indulged in this heinous act will be brought to justice. PML-N will not be browbeaten into submission. I am personally overseeing the investigation".

Punjab government spokesman Malik Ahmad Khan confirmed the attack and arrest of the attackers. He said the minister is stable but being shifted to Lahore.

"Police are investigating the attack and we will know how he (attacker) was able to reach so close to the minister," he said.

He said that the attacker was initially identified as Abid Hussian and his age was said to be between 20-22 years. He is said to be a resident of Narowal.

The Punjab government said that the suspect "is being interrogated by the police".

Rana Manan, a lawmaker of Punjab assembly, said that Iqbal was about to sit in his vehicle when the attacker fired at him.

The attack on the interior minister highlights the issue of security of high-profile politicians ahead of the elections scheduled to be held after June.

Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa also condemned the incident and sent his best wishes for Iqbal's early recovery.

Asif Ali Zardari, Bilawal Bhutto and other Pakistan Peoples Party leaders also condemned the attack.Pakistan's interior minister was injured in an apparent assassination attempt, according to several media reports.

Pakistan's interior minister was injured in an apparent assassination attempt, according to several media reports.

According to a report in Pakistan Today, Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal was injured after unknown assailants opened fire on him after a political gathering in Punjab's Narowal.

Iqbal took a bullet in the arm after stepping out of his motorcade, and the Elite Force has arrested an assailant named Abid, according to the Pakistan Today report.

Dawn reported that Iqbal was shifted to District Headquarters Hospital. Confirming the incident, PML-N leader Tallal Chaudhry said Iqbal was out of danger and that the suspect  between 20 to 22 years old  is being interrogated, he added, according to the report.

Punjab chief minister Shehbaz Sharif has sent his official helicopter to Narowal to airlift the minister to Lahore, according to a report in TheNews.By Sarah N. Lynch ALEXANDRIA, Va. (Reuters) - A federal judge said Special Counsel Robert Mueller should not have 'unfettered power' in probing ties between President Donald Trump's campaign and Russia, and accused Mueller of using criminal cases to pressure Trump's allies to turn against him

By Sarah N. Lynch

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (Reuters) - A federal judge said Special Counsel Robert Mueller should not have "unfettered power" in probing ties between President Donald Trump's campaign and Russia, and accused Mueller of using criminal cases to pressure Trump's allies to turn against him.

At a tense hearing in a federal court in Virginia on Friday, U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III sharply questioned whether Mueller exceeded his authority in filing tax and bank fraud charges against Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort.

Ellis said the indictment appeared to be a way for Mueller to leverage Manafort into providing information about Trump.

"The vernacular is to sing," he said.

"You dont really care about Mr. Manafort," the judge said. "You really care about what information Mr. Manafort can give you to lead to Mr. Trump" and his eventual prosecution or impeachment.

"It's unlikely you're going to persuade me the special counsel has unfettered power to do whatever he wants," Ellis, who was appointed by Republican President Ronald Reagan, said at a hearing on Manafort's motion to dismiss the Virginia charges.

Manafort, who served as Trump's campaign manager for five months, also faces federal charges in Washington, where he is accused of conspiring to launder money and failing to register as a foreign agent when he lobbied for the pro-Russia Ukrainian government.

Michael Dreeben, a deputy solicitor general working with Mueller, argued the special counsel's investigative scope covered the activity in the indictment.

In an Aug. 2, 2017, memo, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein authorized Mueller to investigate whether Manafort "committed a crime or crimes arising out of payments he received from the Ukrainian government before and during the tenure of President Viktor Yanukovych."

The former Ukrainian leader was removed from power and fled to Russia in February 2014, more than two years before Trump declared his candidacy for president.

"A WITCH HUNT"

Trump enthusiastically read the judge's comments out loud to his audience during a speech to the National Rifle Association in Dallas, saying they echoed his longstanding views. He called Ellis "a very respected person."

"I've been saying that for a long time. It's a witch hunt," he said of Mueller's probe into his campaign's ties to Russia and whether it colluded with Russians to interfere in the 2016 election.

He also distanced himself from Manafort, calling him a nice guy but saying "he worked for me for a very short period of time."

The sharp tone of the judge's comments could spell trouble for Mueller's case against Manafort and put even greater pressure on Rosenstein to rein in the Russia investigation.

But several legal experts cautioned against reading too much into the comments.

"I think there are some judges that believe that in being evenhanded, they should give the winner a hard time, too," said James Trusty, a former federal prosecutor now with the law firm Ifrah Law. "At the end of the day, it's very dangerous to read the tea leaves from comments from the bench."

Lisa Kern Griffin, a professor at Duke University School of Law and a former federal prosecutor, said it is unlikely Ellis will dismiss the charges against Manafort because bringing them was "almost certainly" within Muellers broad authority.

If Ellis dismissed the charges, they would likely be reinstated by an appeals court, Griffin said. "I think Judge Ellis may just be putting to the government through its paces," she said. "That is not uncommon."

The hearing on Friday was the third time Manafort has tried to get charges against him dismissed. A civil case alleging the Justice Department's order appointing Mueller was overly broad was tossed last month.

He also asked for dismissal of the Washington-based criminal charges on similar legal grounds, but there has not been a ruling.

Ellis did not rule on the motion to dismiss on Friday.

Ellis asked why a run-of-the-mill bank fraud case with no "reference to any Russian individual or Russian bank" could not be handed over to the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Eastern District of Virginia.

As an example, he pointed to the FBI probe into Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, and said the special counsel had turned that matter over to federal prosecutors in Manhattan.

Dreeben declined to discuss the Cohen case.

Ellis also complained that the bulk of that August memo he received was highly redacted. He told Mueller's office to take two weeks to consult with U.S. intelligence agencies to see whether they would sign off so that he can personally review a sealed, unredacted version of the memo.

Dreeben told him the redacted portions did not pertain to the Manafort case.

"I'll be the judge," Ellis said.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch and Susan Heavey, and Jan Wolfe; writing by John Whitesides; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Cynthia Osterman)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.A KGB officer turned world leader, Vladimir Putin has stamped his total authority on Russia, silencing opposition and reasserting Moscow's lost might abroad while building a strongman image through macho stunts

Moscow: A KGB officer turned world leader, Vladimir Putin has stamped his total authority on Russia, silencing opposition and reasserting Moscow's lost might abroad while building a strongman image through macho stunts.

Putin, 65, who will be inaugurated as president for the fourth time on Monday, has reimposed the Kremlin's grip on society since taking power 18 years ago after a lawless but relatively free decade following the demise of the USSR.

On the international stage, he has dealt with three US presidents, thrust Moscow into a new rivalry with the West by snatching Crimea from Ukraine and launched a pivotal intervention in Syria.

Named the world's most powerful person by Forbes for the past four years running, the judo black belt has carefully nurtured his image as a powerful leader with photo opportunities showing him riding topless on horseback in the Siberian wilderness and darting an endangered tiger.

Supporters laud him as a saviour who restored pride and traditional values to a humiliated nation.

To foes, however, Putin has dragged his homeland further from democracy, presided over a seizure of the state by a new elite of former secret police cronies and stoked nationalism in a bid to restore Moscow's lost empire.

'Hit first'

Putin was born into a working-class family in Leningrad  now Saint Petersburg  on 7 October, 1952 and cut his teeth in the city's rough-and-tumble neighbourhoods.

"The Leningrad streets taught me one thing: if a fight is unavoidable, you have to hit first," Putin said in 2015.

He fulfilled a childhood dream by joining the KGB intelligence service, with a posting in 1985-1990 in Dresden  then East Germany  just as Soviet power was crumbling.

His political rise began after he returned to work at Saint Petersburg city hall under his mentor, liberal mayor Anatoly Sobchak.

By 1996, he was called to Moscow to work in the Kremlin under Russia's first democratically elected president Boris Yeltsin, who in 1998 made little-known Putin head of the KGB's successor, the FSB.

Battling health and drinking problems, frail Yeltsin in August 1999 named Putin prime minister and his popularity shot up as he oversaw the launch of a second war to crush rebels in the Chechnya region.

When Yeltsin sensationally resigned on New Year's Eve 1999, Putin took over as president of the biggest country on Earth.

A tsar is born

Buoyed by an influx of petrodollars that saw living standards soar, the Kremlin under Putin forged its own "sovereign democracy" in which the trappings of pluralism  such as political opposition and civil society  were subverted.

He has guarded his private life jealously and once famously told journalists to keep their "snotty noses" out of his business.

After three decades of marriage, he divorced his wife Lyudmila in 2013 but rumours of new romance  including with a former Olympic gymnast  have not been confirmed.

In line with the Constitution, when Putin ended his second term in 2008, he handed power to protege Dmitry Medvedev and moved to become prime minister  but few doubted who was really in charge.

In 2012, he returned as president in the face of huge street protests.

While the demonstrations petered out after a police crackdown, the spectre of unrest spurred tough new measures to eradicate dissent.

Crimea, Ukraine, Syria

Putin, who once decried the collapse of the USSR as the "greatest geopolitical catastrophe" of the 20th century, has ferociously defended Moscow's sphere of influence and also challenged perceived US hegemony.

When crowds in Ukraine ousted Russia-backed leader Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014, the Kremlin faced losing its dominance over a key neighbour.

Within days, Putin ordered special forces to seize the strategic Crimea peninsula and  after a hasty referendum rejected internationally  in March 2014 signed off on the region's annexation.

The redrawing of Russia's border sparked the worst standoff with the West since the Cold War and unleashed a wave of nationalism at home that saw Putin's popularity soar.

Soon the Kremlin was accused of masterminding a rebellion in east Ukraine that turned into a festering conflict that has cost more than 10,000 lives.

Despite sanctions pushing the economy into recession, Putin also launched a bombing campaign in Syria to support leader Bashar al-Assad in 2015. It is widely seen as the key factor that tipped the war in Assad's favour.

Putin was then accused of spreading his tentacles much further and Moscow's old foe  the United States  found itself in the crosshairs.

After Donald Trump's shock election win, US intelligence accused Putin of ordering a hacking and influence campaign to get Trump to the White House.

"Those that lose always look to blame someone else," Putin retorted.Bakflip F1 problem - Anyone else?

I just installed a Bakflip F1 on my 17 F350 Dually (8' bed). I'm just curious... has anyone else??? And are you having any problems with general fit? Mine only covers about 1/4 inch of the tailgate (not enough for the water seals to even touch the gate) and a 1/2 inch of the front bed rail (at best). The biggest problem I have, though is that as I fold the cover, after the third fold (the one just before the final fold that stands the cover against the back window), there is a significant amount of bind on the cover from the latches against the top of the final panel, so much so that it holds the front of the folded cover an inch or so above the panel it should be resting on. I took a photo of it, and sent in a rough drawing of the problem to Bak Industries and their support people told me this was absolutely normal. I believe the weight from the folded top not resting against the rest of the top is going to damage the latches and/or the cover where this levered pressure is. Anyone else seeing this problem? Oh, and yes, it's dirty. Farming has started and so has the dirt rolling off of the fields.How to stop google ads from following you Tips Tricks lekhaka-Vishnu Sasidharan

To opt out of being targeted by Google Ads and having a clutter-free browsing experience is something quite a lot among us have craved at one time or another. Around 2+ million websites and apps are currently partnered with Google to show ads.

The ads which pop when you are surfing might quite often be content you might not be of relevance to you. If you wish to opt out of being the target of personalized ads based on your browsing history, you are provided with the option of opting out of these personalized ads under the Ads Settings.

There are three conditions which all call for different approaches to opt out of Google Ads.

1) Signed into your Google Account (Ads Personalization)

2) Signed out of your Google Account and browsing the websites and apps that partner with Google to show ads (Ads Personalization Across the Web)

3) Signed out of your Google Account and using Google Search (Ads Personalization on Google Search)

The steps to follow in order to sign out of Google Ads for the three above-mentioned criteria are as follows:

1) When you are signed into your Google Account:

1. Access Ads Settings.

2. Go to Ads Personalization. Tap the slider next to it.

3. Click on TURN OFF.

You will be free from ads across all of the devices you are signed into by following these steps.

2) When you signed out of your Google Account:

a. Ads Personalization Across the Web.

1. Access Ads Settings.

2. Go to Ads Personalization Across the Web. Tap the slider next to it.

3. Click on TURN OFF.

b. Ads Personalization on Google Search.

1. Access Ads Settings.

2. Go to Ads Personalization on Google Search. Tap the slider next to it.

3. Click on TURN OFF.

There are a handful of scenarios you need to be aware of when you have opted out of Google Ads, the steps required to address these situations have also been listed below.

1) Stop Ads Altogether:

Several websites depend on ads for their funding. Thus, visiting these websites will result in you seeing ads based on your location or the content of the page you are viewing instead of it being based on topics of your interest or demographics.

You can view lesser ads by supporting the websites you visit by utilizing Google Contributor.

2) Disable personalized ads by companies other than Google:

If a particular website that you visit have ads that are being curated by a different company, opting out of Google Ads will not stop you from viewing these ads.

Google Home Unboxing and Setup process - GIZBOT

Using a cross-industry opt-out tool or control that works on your device or browser will be the best way to block ads in this scenario.

Best Mobiles in India

Facebook, To stay updated with latest technology news & gadget reviews, follow GizBot on Twitter YouTube and also subscribe to our notification. Allow NotificationsOops! There was a problem! Sorry, but we can't find what you were looking for right now. The content may have been removed, or is temporarily unavailable.

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Maxine Pascal of Old Greenwich was awarded the Futter Prize for Achievements in and Contributions to German Studies at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa. Pascal, a member of the Class of 2018, received the prize April 29 at Muhlenbergs annual Honors Convocation, which honors and celebrates leadership and scholarly excellence and achievement. The awards recognize select members of the faculty and student body for their contributions to the college, to their peers and to their disciplines.



Catherine E. Vanech of Old Greenwich, daughter of Terri S. and Basil N. Vanech, will graduate from Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., on May 20 with a bachelor's degree in criminology and double minor in sociology and history. The 2014 Greenwich High School graduate will attend Southern Connecticut State University in the fall to pursue a masters degree in social work.



The Boys & Girls Club of Greenwichs Torch Club Junior Cardinals Club is hosting the Northeast Regional Summit at the Clubhouse this week for the first time in five years.

A total of 25 Boys & Girls Clubs from the Northeast region, including 250 middle school members and 30 advisers, will be staying at the Clubhouse for the weekend and participating in 20 different workshops, playing games and swimming.

The summit is guaranteed to be fun and educational, with workshops and community service opportunities with the Greenwich Land Trust and the Audubon Program. Torch Club members will attend workshops conducted by the Boys & Girls Clubs Youth Development Professionals. Special community facilitators include the Greenwich Fire Department as they host a "Put It Out & Safety" workshop and Greenwich Hospital, which will conduct a "Be Smart, Don't Start" drug prevention workshop.

The summit is running from Friday to Sunday.



Rebecca Decarlo of Greenwich, a student at Fairleigh Dickinson University's Florham Campus in Madison, N.J., has been named to the Deans List for the Spring 2017 semester. To qualify, a student must carry a 3.2 or better grade point average.



Lulu Ploog and Ansley Bieger, fourth-graders at Greenwich Academy, set up a hot cocoa and coffee stand last month in Belle Haven to raise money for a good cause.

They were inspired by their classmate Ireland OBrien, whose sister, Alina, been diagnosed with a pervasive developmental disorder  not otherwise specified. Thats a medical term for when some, but not all, features of autism and other developmental disabilities are found.

Lulu and Ansley donated the money they raised to the Fearless Angel Foundation, a nonprofit formed by Alina and Irelands mother, Izabela OBrien. The money will support the foundations mission of providing aquatic therapeutic scholarships for families in need with a child on the autism spectrum.

OBrien credited parents Andzela and David Ploog and Courtney and Laird Bieger for setting a good example. More information can be found online at www.thefearlessangelproject.com.



James Kitt, Class of 2019 from Cos Cob, has been named to the Deans List for the fall 2017 semester at Bryant University in Smithfield, R.I. Students who have a GPA of 3.4 or better to qualify.



Citadel cadet Steven Adams of Greenwich was recognized for his commitment to service learning and civic engagement by South Carolina Campus Compact. He was honored with the South Carolina Student Organization Achievement Award for his volunteer work as part of Tango Company, which is on track to break the record at the Citadel for documented service hours in one academic year with thousands of hours of work. The volunteer work includes mentoring younger students and assisting disaster victims.

SCCC is a coalition of 17 South Carolina colleges and universities that collaborate to promote and develop the civic purposes of higher education. As a SCCC member, The Citadel annually nominates candidates for the South Carolina Civic Engagement Leadership Awards.

The Citadel, located in Charleston, S.C., offers a classic military college education focused on leadership excellence and academic distinction.GREENWICH  Kathy Jarombek really knows how to tell a story.

With expressive eyes, excellent diction and fluid hand gestures, Jarombek can make a story come to life. She also knows how to work the room: Whether its youngsters just starting on a literary journey at the Perrot Memorial Library in Old Greenwich, where she is a childrens librarian, or a more sophisticated crowd of adults, she makes an art form out of the spoken word.

Jarombek was recently honored with the Kate McClelland Librarians Award, which was presented to her at the 37th Annual Connecticut Storytelling Festival & Conference in New London on April 28.

What does it take to tell a tale that will captivate a crowd?

Its actually hard work, said Jarombek, a Riverside resident, one that looks easy with extensive rehearsal. She typically tells old folk tales from Ireland or the Appalachian region of the United States, but not before she has run through them dozens of times, sometimes while shes driving. She tells the story from memory, without any books to guide her through the prose, based on imagery in her head that has been molded with extensive repetition. No one will see it, the hard work, she said, But the longer you do it, the easier it is.

Jarombek is not a natural performer, but she said she manages to summon up the willpower needed to create an imaginary world with her voice and body alone. Its challenging to get up there and put yourself out there, she said, but it is rewarding to forge a bond with her listeners. Its being in love with a story, and wanting to share it, and feeding off the audience.

Sure, some stagecraft never hurts, the librarian said. Im a handsy talker, I use my hands a lot. Theres timing, too. And different voices for different characters. Eye contact is important too  with everyone in the audience, Jarombek said.

She has been a storyteller for a long time, as a librarian reading picture books for kids, but also at regional festivals like the Tellebration talk-fests that grew around the country, following its creation in southern Connecticut. She has been attending the annual storytelling show in New London since it was founded.

The prize she was given was named after her old friend and colleague, Kate McClelland, who died in a car accident caused by a drunken driver in 2009. The award was presented to Jarombek by McClellands daughter, Lauren McClelland Mendoza, who is also a local librarian. It was very meaningful, Jarombek said.

The burgeoning storytelling movement is gaining ground on radio airwaves, as well as story-slams around the country where hipsters, regular people and senior citizens alike talk about deeply personal moments or whimsical coincidences. Storytelling events have been held regularly in Greenwich in recent years.

Jarombek said shes happy to see the storytelling tradition  deeply authentic, quirky and even handmade in her case  gain ground in the culture at large.

Kids love stories, for a reason, and she loves to plant those seeds in a young persons mind. When you tell a child a story, they will never forget you. And they feel like they know you when youve told them a story, she notes.

Adults, too, crave that experience, now more than ever.

People are hungry for these connections, now that were all glued to our cell phones, said the master raconteur. When people can sit, and listen to a good story, its a magical moment. I hope it grows more and more.

rmarchant@greenwichtime.comThe Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+, which launched in March running Android 8.0 out of the box, may be about to get the 8.1 update in the near future. The Galaxy S9 has been spotted in a Geekbench listing running Android 8.1.

Samsung hasn't provided any guideline on when the update will arrive, and benchmark listings can't be seen as anything certain, but at least we know the update is in development.

We can hope that the testing goes smoothly and the official rollout isn't that far away now.

ViaPublished on 2018/05/06 | Source

Cheong Wa Dae on Wednesday tried to quell controversy over suggestions that the presence of U.S. troops in South Korea will no longer be necessary once a peace treaty with North Korea has been signed.

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But what are the issues at stake, and why are particularly conservatives so alarmed at the prospect of the withdrawal of the U.S. Forces Korea?

From a legal standpoint, the U.S. troop presence in South Korea is based on a mutual defense treaty signed in July 1953, three months after the armistice that halted the Korean War.

The treaty stipulates that South Korea granted the U.S. permission to station soldiers, ships and airplanes on its territory. There is no mention in the treaty that the aim is to contain the North Korean threat. Instead, it stipulates that the aim is to deal with "an armed attack in the Pacific region".

That means the USFK can legally stay even when the North Korean threat diminishes. This is why President Moon Jae-in said Wednesday, "U.S. troops stationed in South Korea are an issue regarding the alliance between South Korea and the United States. It has nothing to do with signing peace treaties".

That also means there are no grounds for North Korea to demand the withdrawal of U.S. troops. The signing of a mutual defense treaty is permitted under international law and constitutes the exercise of sovereign rights of states, so this is an issue between them.

The two Koreas and the U.S. can start discussing a peace framework, but what Seoul and Washington decide is a matter for them.

Those in favor of the USFK staying indefinitely point to the balance of power in Northeast Asia. China Russia and Japan are all trying to increase their military might in the region, and the U.S. troop presence on the Korean Peninsula is an effective way to counterbalance them.

"Don't be anxious about moving American military forces", former U.S. secretary of state Condoleezza Rice advised U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday. "American military forces are a stabilizing force -- not just on the Korean Peninsula, but in the region as a whole".

Read this article in KoreanPublished on 2018/05/06 | Source

New cars await shipment in the port in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province on Wednesday.

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The Korean car industry is suffering from slumping domestic and foreign sales, intensifying competition from Chinese rivals, rising wages and a strengthening Korean won.

The market shares of Korean automakers keep dropping in the U.S. and China, while imported cars are grabbing a bigger slice of the Korean market each year.

Hyundai's operating profit in the first quarter of this year nearly halved on-year to W681.3 billion (US$1=W1,076). GM Korea's domestic sales plunged 50 percent for three months running, while Ssangyong's sales fell 3.9 percent last month compared to March.

In the U.S., Hyundai and affiliate Kia's combined first-quarter sales fell seven percent and 14 percent compared to the same period of 2017 and 2016. The reason was their failure to shift their model lineup to respond to the growing craze for SUVs and other recreational vehicles.

The situation is even worse in China, where their sales plunged 34 percent from the first three months of 2016.

Meanwhile imports are grabbing a bigger slice of the domestic market, which used to be completely dominated by Korean cars.

In 2010, imported cars accounted for just 6.9 percent of the domestic market, but that had risen to 18.4 percent in the first quarter of this year. Imported car dealers have been offering a wider range of discounts, resulting in more cars that cost under W50 million. Industry watchers expect imported cars to account for more than 20 percent of the market in two or three years.

Analysts say Hyundai's biggest mistake was its failure to invest in new models. Hyundai and Kia spend W4-W5 trillion a year on research and development, a whopping 60 percent of Korean automakers' total investments in R&D.

But it pales in comparison what their foreign rivals like Daimler, GM and Toyota spend each year, which is about the double the amount. Lee Hang-koo at the Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade said, "German auto parts maker Bosch spends some W7 trillion a year on R&D. You can develop a new vehicle for W500 billion, and Hyundai needs to bolster its R&D spending".

High wages and falling productivity are also to blame. It takes an average of 26.8 hours for a Korean factory to roll out a car, compared to 21.3 hours at GM in the U.S. and 24.1 hours at Toyota. Yet salaries here have already surpassed those of rivals abroad and are expected to continue rising in line with the minimum wage hike.

Even in acute crises, militant unions regularly down tools demanding higher pay and better benefits.

Kim Soo-wook at Seoul National University said, "The issues of militant unions and low productivity have been highlighted because of the crisis at GM Korea, but those problems are rampant across the industry here".

The strengthening won is also hurting Korean automakers, who export 80 percent of the cars they make, because it makes them more expensive. A Hyundai staffer said, "Due to the exchange rate and other factors, it will be difficult for us to achieve 10-percent-range operating margins from now on".

And Kim Yong-geun, the president of the Korea Automobile Manufacturers Association, said, "The labor market and government regulations are diminishing the appeal of Korea as an automotive production base. Without a major overhaul, car production in Korea will continue to drop, and the nation's manufacturing industry as a whole will shrink".

The auto industry is a microcosm of Korea's entire manufacturing sector. Now the engines that have propelled Korea's economy -- steel, shipbuilding and display industries -- are slowing down, and China, which was once the biggest market for Korean exports, has become a main rival across the board.

And in every sector the problems are the same -- high wages, low productivity and too much red tape.Provo Temple may  again  reflect sister temple in Ogden after renovations

It was no surprise to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that President Russell M. Nelson announced on Sunday that several new temples would be built. What was a surprise was the announcement of the reconstruction of the Provo Utah Temple, which will begin when the Orem Utah Temple is completed. The Orem Utah Temple is expected to be finished in the fall of 2023. We recognize the interest this generates for people and communities in locations that will receive such a temple. At this point, limited information is available beyond the intent to build a temple ...For Subscribers $2B cannabis deal may mean more business for Hancock operation

"The combined company will have greater financial resources and an opportunity to expand the Hancock cultivation and processing operations."A Paris museum opened its doors for the first time to nudist visitors on Saturday, granting them special visiting hours to tour an exhibit in a one-off naturist event. The Palais de Tokyo contemporary art museum, in Paris plush 16th district, is the citys first gallery to grant such access, though naturists have recently launched other initiatives in the French capital.

A park in the east of Paris, the Bois de Vincennes, last year trialled the citys first dedicated nudist zone, and the space recently re-opened ahead of the summer months. Naturist campaigners said the museum event, with around 160 attendees, was a breakthrough in one of the culture capitals of the world.

The naturists way of life of is to be naked. Culture is part of our daily life, and this is a special opportunity, said Julien Claude-Penegry, communications director of the Paris Naturists Association, in the Palais de Tokyos vast concrete and steel hallways. Today, the mentality is changing. Naturists ... are pushing past barriers, taboos or mentalities that were obstructive.

According to the association, which has 88,000 followers in Paris alone, there are 2.6 million naturist practitioners in France. Next in store is a nudist clubbing night planned for later this year. Nudist events at museums are not unheard of. A gallery in Vienna invited visitors to take their clothes off for a special viewing in 2013 of an exhibit dedicated to paintings of male nudity, while a museum in Australia has also opened its doors to naked viewers.

Follow @htlifeandstyle for moreBollywoods go-to formula for success has always been comedy. Even the most serious film will have a light-hearted moment to relax the viewers. Whats more, a clean comedy film, minus any vulgar, double meaning dialogues or action, always finds takers. Over the years, many Bollywood films such as Welcome, 3 Idiots, Golmaal franchise and many more, found a way into our hearts, even if for that one comedy scene.

But did you know what went on behind the scenes? Read here:

OMI VAIDYAS CHAMATKAR SPEECH IN 3 IDIOTS (2009)

This speech was deemed as the highlight of the Aamir Khan-starrer. Los Angeles-based actor Omi Vaidya didnt have a good understanding of Hindi, (in both reel and real life), and the overall impact that the speech had was amazing. He had said about this particular scene in an interview to Bollywood Hungama, We shot for the scene at least ten times. Then, we got the students of the college we were shooting in to see their reaction. We wanted a real response, and they were roaring with laughter.

Actor Sharman Joshi, who played one of the leads in the film, recalls an interesting behind-the-scenes trivia. It was an exceptionally well-written scene, performed by Omi. His accent was his lethal weapon! Whats interesting to note is that our reactions to his speech were shot after Omi had already shot for it. We were given cues to react by Rajkumar Hirani, the director.

THE FUNERAL SCENE IN WELCOME (2007)

This Akshay Kumar-starrer was a laugh riot, and this scene, in particular, gave 15 minutes of non-stop laughter, where RDX (played by late actor Feroz Khan) is informed that his son Lucky is dead, and he breaks down. Anees Bazmee, the director, recalls, Paresh Rawal was supposed to lie down on the pyre and pretend to be RDXs son under the sheet. Feroz saab was a Pathan, and he had to shake his sons body and ask why he is dead? Being a well-built, strong man, he started punching the body trying to bring it to life. Paresh afterwards said Feroz ji itne bade aadmi hain, main unhe kuchh bol bhi nahi sakta. Yeh mujhe maar rahe hain. The problem was even we couldnt tell this to Feroz ji, and we respected him. I told Paresh that I will do whatever else he tells me to, but not this. It became even funnier when Feroz ji asked us Aur zor se karoon? (Should I hit harder?). Then I had to finally say Sir thoda zor se ho raha hai. He said I am a don, my son is dead, I will have to cry harder! Then I said Paresh ko thoda lag bhi raha hai na. He immediately said you should have told me earlier! and apologised to Paresh.

SLAP SCENE FEATURING MANOJ JOSHI IN GOLMAAL (2006)

Veteran actor Manoj Joshi played the role of a college principal in the film, who has come to invite the visually-challenged professor (originally played by Paresh Rawal) to a college function. He has, however, never met him before, so Ajay Devgn grabs the opportunity to fool him. He dons Pareshs clothes and meets Manoj. Manoj recalls, This scene was improvised a lot, and originally, there werent these many slaps in it  it was during the shoot that we went with the flow! Everybody was in character, and the director, Rohit Shetty gave us complete freedom. I added Hindi and Sanskrit words to my dialogues, and even added the stammer that wasnt there originally. We started at nine in the morning, and it took us almost half of the day to complete the scene. But no, none of the slaps were real! One more such scene was when Manojs character is expelling Ajay Devgn, Tushhar, Sharman Joshi and Arshad Warsi from the college. During that scene, my wig comes off while screaming, but it wasnt supposed to! I had simultaneously been shooting for Guru, and my character in that film was bald. I was wearing a wig for Golmaal. That added to the comedy of the scene, so it was retained.

EK CHUTKI SINDOORS DRUNK VERSION IN OM SHANTI OM (2007)

SRK in a still from Om Shanti Om

This dialogue has over the years, attained iconic status. Performed by actor Deepika Padukones character originally in the film, Shah Rukh Khan, after getting drunk, re-enacts the scene, and of course, leaves the viewers in splits. Actor Shreyas Talpade, who played SRKs friend in the film, says, While shooting for the particular scene, Shah Rukh would keep fooling around. He would make faces, and what not. Farah (Khan, the director) thought it was me and others who were spoiling the scene with our antics. This kept going on for some time, till she eventually figured that it was him. And then she scolded us!

KARTIK AARYANS MONOLOGUE IN PYAAR KA PUNCHNAMA 1 AND 2 (2011; 2015)

This monologue, in which Kartik Aaryans character vents out his anger, became so popular in the first part, that a new version was written for Pyaar Ka Punchnama 2 as well. Kartik had earlier said in an India TV in an interview, The monologue (in PKP 2) went viral and got a standing ovation, hooting and clapping. It was a 12-minute and 12-page long shot. It took me almost six days, five sleepless nights and seven to eight takes. I used to shoot other scenes of the film during the day and listen to the monologue, which I had recorded while driving back home in my car. It was tough initially, but it became easy as I had everything on my mind. Luv Ranjan, the director tells us, The biggest challenge was that we shot on film, and each magazine in a reel is 4 minutes long. We had to time Kartiks speech in a way that it took just one reel. It did happen once that he went on saying it, but the reel got over! We did a total of 10 takes, out of which three were complete ones.

Interact with the author on Twitter/ @RishabhSuri02Claiming she loves what we call chick flicks, actor Soha Ali Khan has said that she is looking forward for the release of sister-in-law Kareena Kapoor-starrer Veerey Di Wedding. The film also stars Sonam Kapoor and Swara Bhaskar in lead roles.

Soha Ali Khan made the remarks while interacting with the media during the launch of the Marie Claire Salon here on Saturday.

Kareena is making a comeback in Shashanka Ghoshs Veerey Di Wedding after her pregnancy break. Talking about the movie, Soha said: I have seen the trailer and the songs. I had fun watching it. I like these kind of films which we call chick flicks. Apart from Kareena, I also know other people in the film. I know Sonam (Kapoor), Shikha (Talsania) is very good friend of mine. I thought she really stood out in the trailer as well. I really like the song Tareefan. I am really looking forward for the films release.

Sohas first short film Sound Proof is in the official selection for the New York Indian Film Festival 2018. I am very excited. My films director has gone to New York and he didnt take me along with him. Actually, they gave me an option to come to New York but now Inaaya is too small so, I couldnt go there. I am very excited for the film and I hope it will have good release in India as well and the audience would get the opportunity to watch it.

Veere Di Wedding trailer features Kareena, Sonam Kapoors unfiltered conversation

Soha called motherhood difficult but also so much fun. I always say that Inaaya is my number one project right now. She wakes up at 7a.m. and sleeps around 7.30p.m. Whenever she is awake, I make sure that I spend most of my time with her, said the actor.

She (Inaaya) changes three outfits in a day at morning, at lunch and in the evenings so, we experiment with her. We also experiment with her hairstyles. One day she wears a bow and another day, she wears hair band.

Soha was last seen onscreen in Ghayal Once Again with Sunny Deol in 2016.

(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.)

Follow @htshowbiz for moreHaving a big brother, who is always there to help and guide, is a blessing. And when that brother is Bollywoods bhaijaan, actor Salman Khan, one has only good things to say. Actor Shweta Rohira, the rakhi sister of the actor since she was in class six, has a similar bond that has grown stronger over the years.

Read| Shweta Rohira reacts to ex-husbands positive comments about her: The Pulkit Samrat I knew had died long back

Shweta says Salman is happy the way her career is shaping her. He always supports me and appreciates my efforts [whether its painting, acting or writing]. Ive learnt so much from him. The way he walks, talks, performs in front of the camera. He is a guide in himself with the way he deals with life, she says.

When asked whether the Dabangg (2010) actor has watched her debut play, Thats My Girl, Shweta says, He could not make it to the premiere because at that time, he was shooting for his film in Abu Dhabi. In a way, I was relieved that he was not there because I would have been nervous performing in front of him, she laughs.

Shweta adds that Salman knew about the play, which also stars Ananya Dutta and Ananth Mahadevan, He was quite excited about it. It was not just him; a lot of other family members could not watch the play on the first day. I completely understand that they had commitments. For me what is important is the support of my family, friends and well wishers, it kind of drives me, she says.

Interact with Shreya Mukherjee on Twitter/ @Shreya_MJBollywood actor Sonam Kapoor, who is all set to tie the knot with her long-time boyfriend Anand Ahuja on May 8, has revealed that they have one unwritten rule that they will both follow. Talking to reporters recently, Sonam revealed she has mutually agreed upon certain rules with her husband-to-be.

Its a rule basically Anand has put on both of us. Right before I sleep I have to put my phone on charging in the bathroom or I charge it in the hall of other room, Sonam said in an interaction with Firstpost. So, Sonam, who is quite a frequent social media user, will have refrain from using her phone when going to bed. Now, thats a healthy practice! She also suggested every couple should follow the rule.

Sonam Kapoor gives us a tour of wedding gifts she has received. See pics

After almost a month of speculation and gossip, Sonam and Anand confirmed their wedding date last week. The wedding will be preceded by a mehendi function on May 7 and a reception will be held on May 8 evening in Mumbai. The functions will be held at Bandra Kurla Complex, Bandra Bandstand and The Leela hotel.

Sonam will be heading to Cannes after her wedding. Sonam and Anand, reportedly, wont have time for honeymoon before October. A Mumbai Mirror report quoted a source as saying, Anand wont be at Cannes with her but the couple is planning an October-November honeymoon which will be delayed because of the bride-to-bes choc-a-block schedule.

Sonams stylist and fashion designer Pernia Qureshi was the one who got Anand and Sonam together for the first time. Anand reportedly proposed to Sonam within a month of their first meeting. While they dated, neither spoke publicly about being in a relationship. Their Instagram posts, however, spoke volumes about their admiration for each other and pretty much convinced everyone that they are in love.

Follow @htshowbiz for moreAs Sonam Kapoor and Anand Ahuja gear up for their wedding on May 8, Bollywood stars Janhvi Kapoor, Arjun Kapoor, Karan Johar, among several others gathered for the mehendi ceremony Sunday evening in Mumbai.

In one of the pictures doing the rounds online, Sonam is seen with mehendi adorning her hands as she happily poses with Kunal Rawal and friends. The Veere Di Wedding star wore a pink-coloured traditional attire for the occasion.

Photographer Manav Manglani shared videos and pictures from the venue.

More pictures and videos from the venue also began trickling online:

Sonam and Anand confirmed their wedding date last week, putting all rumours and speculations to rest. Sangeet is expected to be held on May 7 and the wedding will be followed by a reception on May 8 in Mumbai. The functions will be held at Bandra Kurla Complex, Bandra Bandstand and The Leela hotel.

Sonams stylist and fashion designer Pernia Qureshi was the one who got Anand and Sonam together for the first time. Anand reportedly proposed to Sonam within a month of their first meeting. While they dated, neither spoke publicly about being in a relationship. Their Instagram posts, however, spoke volumes about their admiration for each other and pretty much convinced everyone that they are in love.

Sonam plans to head to Cannes soon after her wedding.

Follow @htshowbiz for moreAs Rajkummar Rao-starrer Omerta opened to a slow start on Friday, filmmaker Hansal Mehta said his film got poor show timings due to the ongoing success of Hollywood blockbuster Avengers Infinity War.

Thanks to the ongoing success of Avengers we were given very poor show timings. There was not a show that suited the conventional audience. Plus there is the Adults censor certification. That automatically puts off a major chunk of the audience, Mehta said.

After making an opening collection of Rs 54 lakh on Friday, Omerta earned Rs 1.09 crore, making a total of Rs 1.64 crore in two days of the release.

102 Not Out, Omerta start slow at box office

Omerta is based on the life of British terrorist Omar Shaikh Saeed and the major terror incidents he was involved in - killing of American journalist Daniel Pearl and the kidnapping of foreign tourists in India.

There is a harrowing sequence in Hansal Mehtas Omerta where the leading man Rajkummar Raos car was stopped at a check-post and he was called to step out by a burly policeman who wanted to know if he was a Muslim or married to a Muslim. Mehta said he too had faced such cultural discrimination once.

Omerta movie review: Rajkummar Raos film focuses on the terrorists modus operandi, not his ideology

It is the beard. There was a time when I used to keep a beard. My music guru Ghulam Mustafa Khan asked me not to keep a beard because it made me look like a Muslim. None of his sons were allowed by him to keep a beard as he didnt want his children to be identified by their beard as Muslims. That experience stayed with me. I used it in Omerta, Mehta said.

Its a frightening situation where the young Muslim men would not want to keep a beard for the fear of religious identification whereas Hindus would also shun the beard for the same reason. The beard may eventually become a thing of the past, he said.

(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.)

Follow @htshowbiz for moreShe has been a journalist in Dubai for 33 years, so it doesnt come as a surprise that Asha Bhatia should choose to write her first book on the changed status of women in the desert nation, even as she goes on to describe her life and work there. Titled, Life in the Twinkle of an Eye  Dubai: A Hundred Years in Ten, the book is an incisive and unbiased commentary of the development in the Middle Eastern state, and breaks century-old stereotypes that continue to plague the image of Dubai.

Freedom and freedom of expression of women in Dubai developed slowly in the initial years, but eventually spread quite rapidly. Initially, they were veiled and did not mix with the expat population but slowly it started to change. The freedom came from driving, from writing in the newspapers and being able to express their views. Ultimately it was the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq that brought CNN into our drawing rooms and the whole atmosphere changed for everyone, says Bhatia who has interviewed legends like Mohammad Ali to Indira Gandhi, Bjorn Borg and Tina Turner, among several others.

Asha Bhatias book is a neutral commentary on how life has changed over the years for women in Dubai

Trying to raise the cloud over the misconceptions that surround a typical Middle Eastern society, Bhatia, says, An average local woman in Dubai isnt illiterate. She is educated and has business acumen and in most instances runs and manages her own business unconnected to her husband or family.

Interestingly, she points out that the local women there are now more free, than outsiders can imagine.Another misconception is that women have to wear the burkha and cannot go out unless accompanied by a male family member. The reality is that today local women have total freedom. They go to restaurants, cinema and shopping malls with other women or on their own. This took a long time coming but over the period of 35 years, while I was in Dubai, it happened slowly but surely.

Being a member of the Indian community, which is the largest expat community there, Bhatia also touches upon the behaviour meted out to Indians, in her narrative. The UAE has had ties with India going back several centuries. Indian nationals fit into every strata of society in Dubai. The lower echelons of society were not treated fairly initially but today a lot has changed  there are proper work contracts and the Indian Consulate is part of the whole permission exercise. A deposit is also given to cover the airfare back to India in case the individual has to be repatriated.

As someone who dressed in a sari through all the three decades, she says, she was always received with courteousness where ever she went. Dubai is tolerant as long as you follow the law and live with its confines. There are temples, churches, gurudwaras. There is no restriction on people following their faith. The essence of Dubai is progress, modernisation and a knack of taking every opportunity and as far as possible, making it work, Bhatia signs off.The board of ICICI Bank, which will meet on Monday for approving the annual earnings of 2017-18, may see some discussion on the allegations of conflict of interest against the lenders CEO Chanda Kochhar, sources said.

There are series of allegations of impropriety in ICICI Bank extending loans to some companies and enjoying reciprocal benefits.

It is alleged that family members Kochhar, including her husband Deepak Kochhar, got financial favours from the borrowers against the loans sanctioned by the bank.

The issue is being investigated by multiple agencies including CBI, Income Tax Department.

Amid controversy of alleged conflict of interest involving ICICI Bank and its CEO, former Sebi chief M Damodaran has said one option is for her to step down for a period of three or four months till the investigation is completed.

Although the board meeting agenda is limited to financial results, some board members may raise the issue of corporate governance, sources said, adding that it is up to the chairman MK Sharma to allow deviation from the scheduled agenda.

The board has seven independent directors including chairman and government nominee director. The issue of compromise of corporate governance came to the fore when investor and whistleblower Arvind Gupta racked up the issue in the March.

He alleged quid pro quo between Videocon Group and ICICI Banks chief executive officer (CEO) as well as her family members with respect to extending a loan worth Rs 3,250 crore.

It was alleged that Videocon Group pumped money into NuPower Renewables, a firm owned by Deepak Kochhar, husband of Chanda Kochhar.

There are also allegations that NuPower got investments of Rs 325 crore from Mauritius-based Firstland Holdings, a company owned by Nishant Kanodia, son-in-law of Essar Group co-founder Ravi Ruia.

The investments from Ruias son-in-laws firm into NuPower started in December 2010. Incidentally, the same month ICICI Bank was lead banker in a consortium of Indian banks that extended a USD 530 million loan to Essar Steel Minnesota LLC on December 29, 2010. This loan was later classified as NPA.

The Reserve Bank in its 2016 investigation in the matter had raised questions over the ownership of the Mauritius-based entity, First Land Holding, which had invested Rs 325 crore in NuPower.

Also, there was no clarity over the alleged Rs 64-crore loan (unsecured fully convertible debentures) given to NuPower by Supreme Energy, which was 99.99 per cent owned by Videocon chief Venugopal Dhoot at that time.

While Chanda Kochhar sat on the credit committee that approved the loan to Videocon, there are allegations of conflict of interest in her husbands brother, Singapore-based Rajiv Kochhar, performing debt-restructuring work on errant corporate borrowers from ICICI, including Videocon.

The restructuring wasnt commissioned by the bank but by the borrowers.

Interestingly, the board of ICICI Bank expressed full faith in Chanda Kochhar, whose current tenure as CEO is set to end on March 31, 2019. It had reviewed credit approval processes and found them to be robust, according to a March 28 filing by the bank.After the pictures of an allegedly defaced chapel door of St Stephens college and a Cross inside the premises surfaced on social media on Saturday, allegations and counter-allegations flew thick and fast across the campus. The Delhi Police late on Saturday dismissed it as rumours.

While the college campus was abuzz with students and teachers allegedly sharing photos of the defaced chapel door and Cross, most said they have only seen the photos.

The chapel door was allegedly defaced with the slogan Mandir Yahin Banega (Temple will be built here) and the Cross placed before the graveyard written over with I am going to hell, Congress-backed National Students Union of India (NSUI) alleged.

However, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad said it looks like a deliberate attempt to polarise the so-called minority communities and create tensions.

Nandita Narain, who teaches Mathematics at the college, said, many of the students and colleagues have seen that graffiti. I havent seen it though. But the timing of what has happened is crucial as minority institutions are under attack.

The college principal John Varghese is on leave and hence was not available for a comment.

Renish Abraham, the college bursar, who is the in-charge in the absence of the principal, did not respond to call and text message seeking his comment on the issue. Delhi police said they have not received any complaint from the college on the issue.

NSUI has demanded an inquiry into incident and punishment of the culprits to ensure a peaceful and safe environment inside the university.A 20-year-old visually impaired woman was allegedly raped in a shanty next to her home in central Delhi, near Karol Bagh on Friday morning, when the womans mother had stepped out to fetch water.

Police said that the survivor had told them that the rape was committed by one man, adding that two others stood guard outside. But the survivor told HT on Sunday that all three men had assaulted her. She said that they had covered her mouth to stop her from screaming.

A 21-year-old e-rickshaw driver, Chotu Pal, was arrested after the survivor identified him from his voice, said Mandeep Singh Randhawa, deputy commissioner of police (central). Pal lives in the neighbourhood and knew the woman, police said.

A native of Uttar Pradesh, the survivor is the youngest of five siblings. She lives with her uncle and mother in a slum without a front door near Karol Bagh. Her mother collects scrap for a living.

According to the survivor, her mother left home around 10 am on Friday to fetch water from a nearby restaurant, as was her daily routine.

She said she was sitting on an abandoned cart outside her house when the assailants approached her.

Chotu Pal tried to lure me to a neighbouring shanty by offering me chocolates and biscuits. But since my mother had told me not to move from the place until she returned, I refused. He then caught me by my arm and forced me into the jhuggi, she said. There were one or two men already inside.

The woman said that she only heard Chotu Pals voice. The others did not say a word, she said.

When the attackers left, the woman said she crawled back to her hut. Her mother, who returned with the water, found her daughter crying in the house. When I returned home around 30 minutes later, I found my daughter crying. When I got to know that Pal had raped her, I called him on his phone to confront him but he wouldnt receive my calls. I then called the police, she said.

The woman was sent for a medical examination, after which a rape case was registered at Desh Bandhu Gupta Road police station. Pal was nabbed the same day. He led the police his two associates, who have been detained.

The DCP said the woman mentioned only one rapist in her statement before a counsellor. She will record her statement before a magistrate on Monday. We will then take a call on arresting the other two suspects who allegedly guarded the crime scene, said the DCP.

As per the Delhi Police data, more than five women were raped every day in the city till April 15 this year.The National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) 2018 took place on May 6, Sunday, from 10am to 1pm. More than 13.3 lakh students had registered for the exams to compete for the 66,000 seats in medical and dental colleges across the country.

The exam consisted of one paper containing 180 objective type questions from Physics, Chemistry and Biology.

Direct questions from NCERT books in Biology and Chemistry sections helped save time, but lengthy, numerical and conceptual questions in Physics section took up almost 50% of the time.

A student celebrates with her father after taking her the NEET 2018 in Bhopal. (Mujeeb Faruqui/HT Photo)

Shristhi Sharma, student of ST Montfort School in Bhopal, said, I found some questions directly from guides which I preferred for the preparation. Barring physics, the paper was too easy.

Maharishi Vidhya Mandir School student, Prabhat Singh Baghel said, The pattern of the paper was same as that of last year. I am expecting a good score as I did well in Physics, which was tricky.

Manasvi Chaturvedi from a Sagar district said, I didnt prepare much for NEET, but I found many questions from NCERT books. I felt like some direct lines were taken from the book to frame questions.

Most candidates found Physics tougher than Biology, but a few found the Physics segment to be fine. Physics for me was very easy. In fact, the paper was not lengthy. So I was able to revise the difficult options too, said Ishita Tripathi, another candidate from the same centre.

Read more | NEET 2018 exam ends: Check paper analysis, answer key, expert view live updates

Priyanka Singh, who took the entrance test at Kendriya Vidyalaya, Aliganj, said she did not attempt about 20 question fearing minus marking that could spoil her results. For me, biology questions were easy, she said.

Ravi Kumar Gupta, who also took the test at the same school, said he left about 30 questions unanswered. The tough ones could not be answered, but the overall paper was good and we had appropriate time to read and answer all.

In Jammu too, the students felt the Physics paper had been tough. I am hopeful of getting through. Moreover, my interest is only getting medical education, Aftab Ahmed said.

Pragati Kumari Jhan from Patna said, The paper was tougher than last year. However, some questions from previous years papers were also asked this time.

Maharashtra witnessed the highest number of candidates for NEET this year with over 1.83 lakh students registering for the exam.

Students leave an exam centre in Bhopal after appearing for NEET 2018. (Mujeeb Faruqui/HT Photo)

Here too, most students felt that biology was easy and chemistry and physics difficult.

The Physics section was based on calculation and thus it was time-consuming, said Bhaumik Patel, a student. He added that a few questions were directly from the NCERT textbook.

Students at some centres in Mumbai complained that exam officials had not been well prepared.

The process of checking biometric finger prints of students should be done before the exam begins, because students reach almost two hours before exam. However, at some centres, the staff began taking biometric finger prints once the exam began, wasting a good 10 to 15 minutes of the students time, said a parent at a centre in Malad.

All exam centres in Maharashtra strictly followed the reporting time deadline. No student was allowed into the exam centre after 9.30am.

We saw two students reach the school gate at 9:32am, but the security did not allow them inside. Both students were coming from distant places and had gotten stuck in traffic, which caused the delay, said Aarti Mhatre, parent of a NEET candidate, at the exam centre in Colaba. In Chandigarh, too, late-comers were not allowed to sit for the exam.

Anirban Bose of Howrah Zilla School in Kolkata said, I cannot say that I am 100% satisfied. Some of the questions in the biology paper was were quite difficult. But I tried my best. Though I am hopeful of cracking the examination, I am keeping my fingers crossed. But I will relax today and spend time with my friends.

Tannishtha Das, of South Point High School, Kolkata, said though some questions were tricky, she managed to answer them. Though I am confident of cracking the examination, what I am worried of is the ranking, she said, adding that she planned to spend the rest of the day with her family .

 With inputs from Sumanta Ray Chaudhuri in Kolkata, Shruti Tomar in Bhopal, Shreya Bhandary in Mumbai, Gaurav Saigal in Lucknow, Nandini in Patna.

Read more | NEET 2018 in pictures: Students do last-minute revision, go through security checkWhen she was 15, Justine Guiblain designed a watch for Corum, one of several Swiss makers of luxury timepieces desperate to secure captive customers years from now.

Her drawing featured a dial that moves counterclockwise with the words le monde tourne a lenvers (the world is upside down) etched along the watch face and strap. Oddly appropriate for the moment: after decades of having clients come to them for elegant craftsmanship, Swiss watchmakers are now pursuing notoriously fickle teens to survive an uncertain future.

Ill buy Swiss watches in the future, if I have the means, said Guiblain, now 16, who owns one or two watches but doesnt wear them as often as she used to. Corum is making her an exclusive watch with her design for free as part of its Bubble line, where pieces retail for 3,000 euros to 5,000 euros ($3,600 to $6,000).

Guiblain admits she didnt know a lot about watches before winning a competition of 10th- and 11th- graders at College Numa-Droz, a school in La Chaux-de-Fonds, near Switzerlands western border with France.Thats exactly the change of heart manufacturers of the worlds most coveted handcrafted analog watches are aiming for after two years of declining exports, the longest slump since records began. With the proliferation of smartphones, smartwatches and fitness bands that tell the time, its hard to predict whether todays teens will dole out thousands of dollars for Swiss timepieces when they can afford them.

Aside from Corum, Hublot is sponsoring four private schools to reach teens whose parents cough up the roughly 30,000-Swiss-franc ($30,000) annual fees for nonresident students.

Clocks designed by Hublotwhose average wristwatch costs more than half a years tuitionhang in the reception area and gymnasium at College du Leman near Geneva. This years valedictorians will receive the companys new smartwatch; Hublot even designs watches with the institutions logo for the school community to purchase.

The idea is to do storytelling around Hublot so that the brand becomes aspirational, said Chief Executive Officer Ricardo Guadalupe, whos considering trying out the same strategy in the U.S., where only one in five young people wears watches every day, according to a Deloitte LLP survey. Since theyre at private schools, theyre already potential future consumers.

Starting early is key given teens today are some of the most recalcitrant shoppers in modern history. Part of a group called post-millennials, they like shopping online to the bane of brick-and-mortar retailers and spend loads of time on social media.

They may be a tough group to crack, but the artisans of Swiss timekeeping dont have a lot of choice after failing for many years to connect with millennials, a demographic generally spanning 22- to 37-year olds, less than a third of whom wear a watch every day.

For a long time, that didnt matter to the watch wizards who benefited from booming Chinese demand. But after China cracked down on corruption, sales of their expensive wristwatchesoften given as gifts to curry favor with businessmen and politiciansslid. Terrorist attacks in Europe kept Chinese tourists at bay, exacerbating the drop.

The watch industry was a bit complacent about recruiting a new consumer generation as they had an army of eager new consumers from China in front of them, said Luca Solca, an analyst covering luxury goods for Exane BNP Paribas. They learned from their mistake being late with millennials.

Brands have inundated social media to make up for lost time: Patek Philippe opened an account on Instagram in March, while IWC Schaffhausen and Audemars Piguet have joined Chinese messaging and social-media app WeChat.

Watchmakers have also introduced less-expensive mechanical pieces and enhanced their online sales platforms. Some, like TAG Heuer, are crafting smartwatches to compete with Apple. Even their newest brand ambassadors are appealing to the younger set: TAG Heuer signed on Australian actor Chris Hemsworth, Tudor hired Lady Gaga and Montblanc chose Chinese acting heartthrob Yang Yang.

They need to be careful not to push their products on an immature consumer and dilute the brand

Schools dont seem to mind the growing corporate sponsorship.

Some private schools in Switzerland are very proud of this inheritance and proud of bringing forward the Swiss tradition of time and precision, said Cedric Antonio, head of marketing at College du Leman.

Students there have a chance to secure internships at Hublots French parent, LVMH, which makes luxury goods like Louis Vuitton handbags. College du Leman has had similar collaborations with Audemars Piguet and Cartier in the past, Antonio said.

While trying to strike a balance of changing with the times and retaining a measure of exclusivity, watchmakers should be wary of marketing too aggressively, according to John Guy, head of luxury and sporting goods at MainFirst Bank AG in London. They need to be careful not to push their products on an immature consumer and dilute the brand for existing customers, he said.

They are trying to be subtle. Zenith, which has been fashioning watches since 1865, recently started opening its factory in Le Locle in the French-speaking part of Switzerland for tours once a week so the public could see the craftsmanship behind classic mechanical watches that cost an average of about 9,000 francs.

According to CEO Julien Tornare, the watchmaker will add childrens visits.

The kids now, even though theyre far away from being the target today, there are some famous brands they already know represent success, he said. You can recruit clients, but you can also recruit watchmakers. Youre basically preparing for the future.With actor Sonam Kapoor and boyfriend Anand Ahujas wedding mere days away, rumours on who will design the brides wedding dress has hit fever pitch. Since their wedding date (May 8) was announced, predictions on who will create the coveted ensemble have been hitting social media left, right and centre.

A post shared by Brides Today (@bridestodayin) on Feb 9, 2018 at 4:24am PST

Although we are already struggling to keep up to date with the many predictions (including one that Sonams friend, ace designer Anamika Khanna, has been given the task to create the National Film Award winners big day look), rumours continue to circulate around the bride-to-bes chosen couturier for her wedding reception outfit.

Word is that famous British brand Ralph and Russo, who are also rumoured to be designing actor Meghan Markles royal wedding dress, have created Sonams outfit for her upcoming reception.

A post shared by Brides Today (@bridestodayin) on Feb 9, 2018 at 3:59am PST

If the rumours are true, we could expect a spectacular gown or lehenga on Sonams reception night, as the design duo are famous for their show-stopping, intricate, often heavily embellished and head-turning looks. Of course, the fashion house famously created Sonams stunning bridal look with breathtaking details in a recent magazine cover shoot, so they certainly cater to her personal style.

A post shared by Ralph & Russo (@ralphandrusso) on Jul 11, 2017 at 6:21am PDT

Who can forget the modern-day princess bridal gown Sonam modelled for Ralph and Russo from their haute couture collection at Paris Fashion Week in July 2017? Just look at her. The diamond-embellished ivory fitted, full-sleeved gown was a sight to behold, featuring a dramatic train, sparkly headgear and a matching heavy choker. Keep staring at her guys. That dress simply keeps on giving.

Exactly one year ago, the Neerja star wore four of Ralph and Russos glamourous custom designs on the Cannes 2016 red carpet.

A post shared by sonamkapoor (@sonamkapoor) on May 19, 2016 at 1:17pm PDT

And at the 68th Cannes festival in 2015, Sonam went with an off-the-shoulder cobalt blue evening gown with draped waist detail from the designers spring 2014 collection.

So, come special occasions, Sonam turns to Ralph and Russo for their dazzling red carpet-worthy style. Time to give up the guessing game about her reception dress, then?

Follow @htlifenadstyle for moreThe Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) on Saturday withdrew a letter in which it had proposed to take over the Lord Venkateshwara temple in Tirumala immediately after it caused a stir.

In a letter to Anil Kumar Singhal, executive officer of Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), that manages the countrys richest temple, R Srilakshmi, ASI superintendent of Amaravati circle, said she had received a communication from the ASI headquarters directing it to examine the feasibility of declaring Tirumala shrine and its group of temples located in Tirumala as protected monuments keeping in view of their antiquity and historicity.

Hence you are requested to provide information on the surrounding temples under TTD and also cooperate with the ASI officials approaching you to collect information and taking photographs, she said. However, within hours she sent another letter stating that the earlier letter was written inadvertently and was being withdrawn.

Soon after receiving the letter, the state government lodged a strong protest, expressing apprehensions that the Centre was trying to directly control the temple. State deputy chief minister K E Krishnamurthy said any decision on Tirumala temple should be taken keeping in view the sentiments of the devotees.

BJP national leadership also took the issue very seriously. BJP MP and spokesperson GVL Narasimha Rao tweeted, Minister of Culture, Govt of India (GoI) told me there is no question of GoI taking over Tirumala/ TTD or any temples or mosques. Only when a state govt requests intervention, Centre considers such a request.Stepping up the attack against Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, BJP today accused him of aiding, abetting, protecting and promoting the cheating of private investors in an alleged Ponzi scheme run by a company.

The BJP intends to file a complaint with the Governor to sanction the prosecution of Siddaramaiah for dealing with company, which is declared as a threat to national security by the Serious Frauds Investigation Office (SFIO), party spokesman Sambit Patra told reporters in Bengaluru.

The BJP sought to know whether Siddaramaiah received the costly Hublot watch for facilitating the company, QI Group of Companies, headed by Vijay Eswaran, to operate in Karnataka.

Embroiled in a controversy over the diamond-studded Hublot watch in March 2016, Siddaramaiah had handed it over to the assembly speaker, asking him to make it a state asset.

The Chief Minister had also said he would furnish relevant documents of the watch to Lokayukta and Income Tax.

He had said that the watch was gifted to him by his NRI friend Dr Girish Chandra Varma in July 2015. I know him since 1983 and whenever he visits India, he meets me, he had said.

Siddaramiah also said Varma has no official dealings with Government of Karnataka or its organisations.

Patra said the SFIO has mentioned the names of Gold Quest and Quest Net, and read out its findings.

In 2009, the CB-CID Chennai had declared Vijay Eswaran an absconder and in 2010, SFIO said that such companies were a national threat, said Patra.

Between 2013 and 2016, Mumbai and Delhi Economic Offence Wing placed voluminous chargesheets saying that these are fraudulent companies, he said.

Releasing pictures of Siddaramaiah with Vijay Eswaran, Patra said he met him in September 2013.

The issue of MS Gold Quest International Pvt Ltd and Gold Quest Enterprises India Pvt Ltd was discussed in March and April in 2013, when the UPA government told the parliament that they were fraudulent companies, he said.

In September 2013, Siddaramaiah met the absconder Eswaran in China, which was published in Government of Karnatakas Information and Public Relation Departments website in September 11, 2013, he said.

The government report said the Chief Minister met Eswaran, welcomed him to invest in Karnataka and asked him to participate in the Global Investors Meet of government of Karnataka.

Responding to the charges, Siddaramaiah told reporters that he was not aware of any such person. I dont know who that is

The company expressed interest in investment in E-Retail and IT Education sector, the government report said.

The companys business lines include lifestyles, leisure, luxury and luxury collectable and luxury watches.

Patra said, They deal in luxury watches, costly watches, exquisite watches These are one of the dealings they do.These are one of the items they deal with.

Patra said after a promise by Siddaramaiah, certain companies and QNet started operating in Karnataka and thousands and lakhs of people were duped by them.

Ironically, Patra said, no FIR was lodged against these companies.

Even if the complaint was lodged, there was no FIR. The companies names were not mentioned.When these people saw that the state government was not ready to work for them, the victims approached the SEBI.

Patra said SEBI shot off a letter to the government of Karnataka on December 23, 2016 to act against them.

The BJP spokesperson said the FIR was registered only recently when the Siddaramaiah government was reduced to a caretaker government due to the assembly polls.

In a statement, QNET said it operates in India through Vihaan Direct Selling (India) Private Limited, its sub-franchisee, which is into direct selling on an e-commerce platform.

The company neither solicits investments nor seeks any deposits or registration fees for joining the business, it said.

We are of the belief that the matter represented to the BJP spokesperson is incomplete and does not reflect the current status, a company spokesperson said.

It said Karnataka state investigated the company and filed a detailed chargesheet, which was quashed by the High Court by ruling that the company is not a Ponzi scheme.

The Government of India has issued Guidelines (to be adopted by states) and the company is fully compliant with the same, it said.

(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.)



Agartala (Tripura), May 6 : A Border Security Force (BSF) trooper killed three of his colleagues with his service rifle before committing suicide at a border outpost in Tripura, officials said.





The incident took place at the Maguruli border outpost in Unakoti district along with Indo-Bangladesh border at around 1am on Sunday.





According to the reports, a BSF jawan Sishupal of 55 battalion had opened fire on his colleagues including a head constable after some dispute among them and killing himself with his service rifle.





A top BSF official said that, Constable Sishupal fired upon Head Constable Vijay Kumar, Kote NCO apparently in a tiff. He reportedly also fired at sentry, but missed him. Subsequently, he also fired upon at Constable and Driver Rakesh Kumar Yadav and Constable Rinku Kumar and later shot himself dead.





Constable Rakesh Kumar Yadav and Constable Rinku Kumar were taken to Civil hospital, Kailashahar, where Constable Rinku Kumar succumbed to his

injuries. Constable Rakesh Kumar was evacuated in Civil ambulance to ILS hospital, Agartala where he breath his last today morning," the top BSF official said.





Inspector General Frontier Tripura and other Senior BSF Officers have rushed to the spot for detailed enquiry.





The formation Tripura frontier has expressed deep shock, at the incident and has offered their condolences to the Next of Kins.





Arrangements are being made to send mortal remains, by Air to their respective home towns at Jammu and 24 Parganas.



This nondescript township about 40-km off Mysuru has a claim to political fame. It has been the janmabhoomi and karmabhoomi place of birth and work of the late D Devaraj Urs who rose to become Karnatakas second ever chief minister to complete his term in office.

Before him, only S Nijalingappa was CM for full five years. But his record was lesser, belong as he did to the elite Lingayat community. Urss 1972 victory was nothing short of a revolution; a stunning reversal of the socio-political order of the time.

The aristocratic kshatriya identified with Mysores royal family was re-elected for a second consecutive term he couldnt complete. Yet, its a milestone unmatched in the state dominated by the entrepreneurial Lingayats and the landed Vokkaligas.

Siddaramaiah, an OBC from the Kurba community, turned up triumphant by recreating Urss social alliance of Dalits, OBCs and Minorities (referred to as the AHINDA movement in Kannada). Hes only the third among Karnatakas 22 CMs to have had a full term. If he retains power, hed match Urss hitherto unbroken record of two successive wins.

But will he? Can he? The Congresss challenge under Siddaramaiah is strong. But not strong enough, many believe, to replicate his 2013 win against a split-enfeebled BJP. The Lingayat strongman who then broke the party, BS Yeddyurappa has since returned home. The question remains as to which of the two national parties will romp home on May 15. A hung House could bring into play myriad factors militating the spirit of the mandate. Meghalaya was one recent example. Karnataka could be another. But that, as of now, is conjecture.

In the outgoing 224-strong Assembly, the Congress has 122 seats. In the face of a united BJP, Siddaramaiah has improvised the AHINDA lineup by endorsing minority status outside the Hindu fold for Lingayats who follow the teachings of Basavanna, a 12th century social reformer.

The bid actually is to create fissures in the largely pro-BJP community. The saffron party has termed it as an attempt to divide the Hindus. For the CM, it is value addition to his AHINDA social base. Its now AHINDA-Linga, said KB Ganapathy, founder editor of the popular eveninger, Star of Mysore.

The veteran journalist had seen Urs and Siddaramaiah in their formative years. The Chamundeshwari seat, from where the CM first entered the Assembly in 1983 as an Independent, is also in Mysuru. Hes recontesting the constituency besides Badami, in Hyderabad-Karnatakas Bagalkot.

The comparison between Urs and the CM seems to revolt Ganapathy. How can you compare the two, he protested, listing out Urss erudition, taste in fine arts and path breaking political achievements-- land reforms and eradication of bonded labour. Fortune favours some. The incumbent CM is one such person with no special talent or skill, he argued.

Comparisons can indeed be odious. Urs was a democrat with deep knowledge of Marxist theory. That was the intellectual basis of the land redistribution he led in Karnataka on the lines of Kerala and West Bengal.

Siddaramaiah lacks Urss cerebral heft, his tastes and finesse. Yet their political journeys have been strikingly similar. Astute caste engineers, both broke free of former prime ministers: Urs rebelled against Indira Gandhi to walk out of the Congress; Siddaramaiah walked into the Congress when Deve Gowda turned JD-S into a family party.

The mismatch was in their moral parameters. Urs stood up to Indira after helping her enter Parliament from Chikkamangaluru a year after her 1977 electoral washout. Siddaramaiah ditched a mentor who thrice made him deputy CM.

Siddaramaiah knows how to deal with Gowda the way Urs knew how to deal with Vokkaligas, remarked KP Unnikrishnan, a former Union Minister who quit the Congress before the 1980 parliamentary polls under Urss leadership. Other biggies in the exodus to the newly-minted Congress-Urs included AK Antony, Sharad Pawar and PR Dasmunshi.

In their own way, Urs and Siddharamaiah stoked chauvinistic Kannada pride to meet political ends. The latters emphasis on Kannada language and a separate state flag is a counter to the BJPs religio-cultural nationalism. Its distantly comparable with Urs, a Mysorian, renaming the state from Mysore to Karnataka. That was a move in consonance with the Kannada sentiment.

Siddharamaiah became a language activist when appointed chairman of the Kannada Watchdog Committee in RK Hegdes regime, recalled Srikanta Murthy, a Congress leader who worked with Hegde. Like Urs under Nijilingappa in the sixties, the current CM held identical tranport and animal husbandry portfolios under Hegde in the 1980s.

Does all that qualify Siddaramaiah as Urs-2? Arguably yes. But not yet, insisted Unnikrishnan.

He may get there electorally if he wins Karnataka again for the Congress. The jury is out till May 15. The X-factor in the developing social matting is the Lingayat vote.The Bharatiya Janata Partys chief ministerial candidate BS Yeddyurappa said on Sunday that chief minister Siddaramaiah had gone silent on the Lingayat religion issue after facing a backlash from the community.

Siddaramaiah divided Lingayats to stop me from becoming chief minister. But hes been silent about it for three months because he has seen the backlash, Yeddyurappa said at an interaction with the press here.

Yeddyurappa said it was clear that the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah was helping sway opinion in favour of the party ahead of the May 12 elections. They said I should travel separately because that way we can cover more constituencies, he said.

Expressing confidence over the BJPs chances in the elections, Yeddyurappa said the party would comfortably get around 150 seats. On Thursday, May17, I will be sworn in as the next chief minister, he said.

Hinting at discord in the Congress, the former chief minister said it was clear that Siddaramaiah, state Congress president G Parameshwara and leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge could not get along. This is the reason they have not been seen together in a while, he said.

On the campaigning by mining baron G Janardhana Reddy, Yeddyurappa said he had not expressed any wish to contest and was campaigning of his own accord. There are no cases against Somashekhara and Karunakara Reddy, he said, about the two brothers of Janaradhana who have been given BJP tickets.

Yeddyurappa had shared a stage with Janardhana Reddy in Molkalmuru on April 22, when B Sriramulu filed his nomination for the constituency. Yeddyurappa said he had forgotten the animosity he had with Reddy in the interests of the state. It is true that I shared a stage with him at a public function, but that was before Shah said he wasnt part of the party. But Ill keep that in mind henceforth, he said. Shah had said in Mysuru on March 31 that the BJP had no relationship with Reddy.

When asked why the party had failed to field a single Muslim candidate in the 224 seats in the state, Yeddyurappa said candidates were chosen on the basis of the ability to win. Even in 2008, we had not fielded any Muslims. But when we come to power I will announce programmes for them, he said.The allotment of field postings for 10 new IAS officers of the West Bengal cadre has been delayed indefinitely because of the change in schedule of the panchayat polls in the state.

The 10 Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers of 2015 batch joined the Bengal cadre in March this year after passing out from Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA) at Mussoorie in Uttarkhand.

However, instead of being allotted field postings as sub- divisional officers (SDOs) in districts, they were deputed as either under-secretaries or officers on special duty (OSDs) in different departments of the state government in March.

Originally, the polls were to be held in three phases on May 1, 3 and 5. Later, the schedule was delayed to a single phase on May 14.

The polls were supposed to be over by May 5 and new rural bodies formed by May-end. However, the entire process got delayed and no one knows how much longer it will be delayed further.

Naturally, the field postings of these 10 IAS freshers as SDOs will get delayed, said an official of the personnel and administrative reforms (P&AR) department on condition of anonymity.

A petition in Calcutta high court to be heard on May 7 seeking quashing of polls due to alleged inadequate security has further put a question on whether the election will be held as per schedule.

During the allotment in March, the P&AR department, under chief minister, Mamata Banerjee, had said that since the new IAS officers lack prior administrative experience, they would be allotted field postings only after rural polls were completed and new rural bodies were formed, so as to ease their beginnings as administrators.

However, the IAS circle argued that the same logic of lack of administrative experience was not applied for 45 probationary West Bengal Civil Service (WBCS) officers of 2015 batch, 90% of who have been allotted postings as block development officers (BDOs) in different districts of the state.

In the administrative ladder, the BDOs post is lower by a rung to that of the SDO.

Meanwhile, poll related violence continued in Bengal. Late on Saturday, a Trinamool Congress activist, Nayan Mondal (32) was killed at Pakuria in Malda district allegedly by a group of CPI(M) and Congress activists. Nine persons have been arrested in this connection.

With this, the number of poll related deaths in Bengal rose to 13.

In Malda, Congress and Left Front have an electoral understanding for the rural polls.The Supreme Court (SC) will on Monday give its verdict on a public interest litigation (PIL) challenging amendments to the Uttar Pradesh (UP) legislation allowing former heads of the state to occupy government accommodation. A bench headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi will pronounce the ruling.

Although the PIL spoke against the UP law, the court had called upon all the states to give their response to the petition because it felt that a decision might impact similar rules and legislations existing in other regions.

The top court will also hear on Monday transfer petition filed by the father of the eight-year-old girl, who was sexually assaulted and murdered in Kathua, to shift the trial out of Jammu. The fathers plea has been opposed by the accused who have been demanding a CBI inquiry into the case.

A PIL to stop media and parliamentarians from discussing the removal motion against any judge of a constitutional court will also be taken up on Monday.

Attorney General KK Venugopal is likely to give his views on the demand made by the petitioner, a Pune-based NGO, saying a conduct of the judge can be discussed in the House only after a committee appointed by the House returns a finding against him. The PIL was filed at a time when the draft removal motion against Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra was circulated widely by the Congress, which publicly spoke of garnering more support for its move.

The bench led by CJI will also hear the Centres submission on what steps has it taken to constitute a draft mechanism to implement its judgement on the distribution of Cauvery water between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

The Centre and UP government will also have to respond to the SC on the latters suggestion to hire experts to preserve the Taj Mahal.

According to the SCs directions, the government is also expected to place its stand, in writing, on its proposal to offer permanent commission to women officers in the Army. During the last hearing, the Centre had said that it was open to the idea but needed six months to work out the modalities.

Hearing on petitions challenging the Aadhaar law is likely to conclude this week with the petitioners now rebutting the government defence in the case. Senior advocate Shyam Diwan had last week started with the rebuttal after Attorney General wrapped up the rejoinder to the petitioners argument on behalf of the Centre.Senior Congress leader, Rajya Sabha MP, former Union minister, and senior advocate Kapil Sibal has emerged in recent weeks as an important voice on the political controversy around the Supreme Court. He spoke to Prashant Jha on the fault lines between the executive and the judiciary, the crisis in the top court, and the fissures between the Opposition and the Chief Justice of India. Edited excerpts:

Q: What is at the root of the executive-judiciary standoff on judicial appointments?

A: When governments dont have a full majority, judicial space expands. Coalitions make it di- fficult to take decisions. That gives the judiciary space to fill the vacuum. The executive cal- ls it judicial overreach; the jud- iciary says that since you dont perform, what are we to do?

When you have absolute majorities, the majority wants its way and is intolerant of any judicial assertion. We are in the era of a majority government, which unfortunately also has an agenda and seeks to fill all institutional offices with RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) pracharaks. There is an attempt to have like-minded people within the judicial system. That is the case of Justice KM Joseph - he gave a landmark judgment and the government has made up its mind to ensure that he is not elevated despite the collegiums recommendation. That is the assertion of the majoritarian government telling the judiciary we will have our way.

Q: Do you think the collegium should have sent his name back to the government?

A: I am sorry they did not. I hope all of them will reassert the recommendation and send the file back. Any attempt not to do so will have a telling effect since you send a signal to other justices that if you render judgments against the government, your expectations of elevation will be jeopardised.

Q: But the collegium may be trying to take into account the governments concerns on regional representation and send a consolidated list, including Justice Joseph?

A: What if they accept all others and reject Justice Joseph?

Q: But they cant if it is sent back, right?

They (government) can say it is a fresh recommendation. They can keep the file pending. Regional representation was an issue on January 18, 2018. Why did they take over three months to send the file back? They could have given the reason then. But you hold on to the file, you hope that some member of the collegium will retire, then someone else will come; you can play politics. I dont think the executive should be given the space to play politics. The judiciary should speak in one voice.

Q: Even if one was to accept your premise that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) wants to push its own people in the judiciary, is it unique? Many point to the Congress track record of the 1970s.

A: That era is over. You have the 1993 judgment. Why talk about a time when there was no collegium? The appointment was then in the hands of the executive. In the present era, where the collegium has supremacy, the executive is asserting and that is where the conflict lies.

Q: Do you think the NJAC (National Judicial Appointment Commission) would have been a better model?

A: Given the mindset of this government, that would have been a much worse model.

Q: But maybe we would not have this scale of vacancies and standoff?

A: You would have transformed the judiciary into another arm of the government.

Q: The second fault line is internal to the judiciary. How do you look back at the press conference of the four judges?

A: The internal contradiction is the result of a lack of leadership. Any leader of any organisation must take his organisation with him. There will be dissent, differences of opinion. You bring it together, evolve a consensus. If the leader fails to do that, is in confrontational mode, does not listen to the four senior-most judges, you have this situation.

Q: But what has going public achieved?

A: That is even worse. Even after a public controversy, the judiciary becoming openly criticised; there is no resolution. You must give credence to those who came out publicly. No member of the judiciary at this level takes this extreme step unless there is an absolute roadblock. The bottom line is that judges within the system feel the system is not being run in a manner which upholds the integrity and independence of the judiciary.

Q: Let us frame the bottom line differently: Is the Chief Justice the master of the roster or not?

A: Yes he is. Let me concede that. Now, supposing the master of the roster does something inconsistent with the independence of the institution, where can that order be challenged - nowhere? So that will be the only order in the Constitution which cannot be challenged. Orders of the PMO (prime ministers office), Cabinet, any other institution, can be challenged, but not an administrative order of the CJI. So that would be an exception. Where is this exception in the Constitution? It is inconsistent with the rule of law. How can an administrative order not find an avenue of challenge? There must be recourse.

Q: So there are two imputations here. As master of the roster, the CJI is allocating some cases with outcomes in mind; and the judges he is allocating the cases to would play along with the outcomes. Arent these allegations too drastic, too serious to be made?

A: Very serious allegations.

Q: But is there enough evidence for them?

A: I dont want to comment on the merits. It would not be fair. If these allegations are correct, this requires a resolution. And the resolution should evolve from a full-court meeting through a corrective mechanism on the master of the roster issue. That is the structural reform which is required. We are not living at a time when the kings word was absolute.

Q: Let me move to the third fault line, between the Opposition and the CJI.

A: There is no fault line. It is not an Opposition versus CJI issue.

Q: But you gave a notice to move a motion for his removal.

A: It is not a political issue. Not a single allegation in that is politically motivated. It relates to matters pending in court, decisions in court, cases allocated in court. Only the process is political.

Q: You are seen as the driving force behind the notice.

That is totally incorrect.

Q: You dont want to take credit for it?

A: It is not a matter of credit or discredit. Was I the one who instigated the judges to air their angst? Was I the one who instigated proceedings in court which resulted in the orders being passed? There are certain things that happened in court; within the system, people expressed extreme frustration. It has nothing to do with me or any party.

Q: But once it happened, you were among those who felt the need for such a notice.

A: Yes, I was among the 71 who signed. I may have articulated it but was not the driving force.

Q: But even critics of the government, and judges who aired those grievances, said they do not see the CJI removal as a solution.

Give me another solution. Under the Constitution, there is no other solution. You can say lump it or let sleeping dogs lie. But when the problem impacts the independence of the judiciary, you have to find a solution.

But your move did not yield a solution and enhanced the risk of undermining judicial independence.

So, you are saying, unless you have the numbers, you should not file a motion for removal. Does that make sense? See, it would have been good for the system if a committee was formed, and the judges name was cleared. We dont want any doubts to remain.

Q: The risk is this: will judges start feeling that if they give a certain verdict, it lends itself to blackmail by a set of 50 politicians?

A: If it were to do with verdicts, you are right. But who has challenged the verdicts?

Q: The perception is that this is to do with two verdicts - Loya and Ayodhya.

Lets answer Loya. The motion was signed a month in advance  did we know the Loya verdict would come on the 19th (of April)? No. We sought time from the RS (Rajya Sabha) chairmans office a week in advance. We were told he has no time till the 20th. As far as Ram Janmabhoomi is concerned, has anyone asked for adjournment? No. The matter is on. The Chief Justice is giving date after date. There is no verdict in the case.

Q: On Ayodhya, you appeared on December 6. It became a political issue in Gujarat, and you havent appeared since. Has the party asked you to pull back?

A: No. The party has nothing to do with it. The matter has not gone on merits. In any case, till October, I cannot appear in Court Number 1.

Q: Can the judiciary recover from these multiple crises or there is irreparable damage?

All institutions must evolve. No institution is perfect; no men are perfect. We are in the midst of a serious fault line, and it must be seriously corrected. The most significant thing that has happened is that this serious fault line is before the public.

Q: Is that a good thing?

Yes. It will be corrected. The judiciary will rise to the occasion.

Q: Will Congress, if it is elected, have a road map to correct structural issues in judiciary?

The judiciarys independence must be preserved and protected zealously. The Congress will ensure it is done. The judiciary, too, must preserve and protect its own independence.

Q: But on issues such as appointment, where there is an executive role, what will the Congress do?

A: The way the collegium has functioned has much to be desired. It needs a revamp; but the judiciary should do it on its own. They must come up with answers. The present system has not functioned as it ought to, just like executive appointments were not beyond criticism.As if engaging Gujarat government teachers in census data gathering, election duties and promoting health awareness campaigns was not enough, now they have been asked them to help deepen water bodies in the state by offering Shramdaan (voluntary manual service).

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled government of Chief Minister Vijay Rupani has ordered such teachers to join the month-long campaign to conserve water resources as part of state governments water conservation drive.

The drive is focussed on deepening lakes and ponds, renovating river banks, de-silting reservoirs and other water bodies, and strengthening check dams.

The state government on Gujarat Foundation Day (May 1) launched a water conservation drive -- Sujalam Sufalam Yojana -- spearheaded by the Narmada, Water Resources, Water Supply and Kalpasar Department.

This move was aimed primarily to ensure that the state reeling under potable water crises currently does not face this problem going forward.

While the project is estimated to cost over Rs 450 crore, the government hopes a chip-in of Rs 100 crore from various private, religious and educational institutions.

The government school teachers of Khedbrahma block in Sabarkantha district of north Gujarat were in for a shock when they received an order from the Taluka Primary Education Officer asking them to contribute towards the drive by carrying out Shramdaan for deepening of lakes.

Moreover, an order from the Sabarkantha Collector insisted that teachers needed to be present at the site of lake digging between 9.00 a.m and 10.00 a.m and participate in the work.

The Cluster Resource Coordinators or CRCs have been instructed to reach the spot half-an-hour ahead of the schedule and also take photographs of teachers participating in the work and mail the pictures to the Block Resource Coordinators.

Any type of voluntary service cant be forced upon someone, it has to come by choice. Gujarat has been constantly falling in education among the ranking of states over the last two-and-a-half decades.

A recent report of the Government of India shows that the state has slipped to 19th or 20th rank. All due to such initiatives of the BJP-ruled government in the state, Manish Doshi, a state Congress spokesperson, said.

The party alleged that forcing teachers to offer Shramdaan would only further dent the quality of education in the state as teachers would be out and not in their classrooms.Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has met a number of opposition leaders in the past two months to put together what he calls a peoples front for the 2019 general elections. Its the latest effort to forge an alternative to the two big national parties, the BJP and the Congress.

In an interview with Srinivasa Rao Apparasu, Raos daughter and Nizamabad MP Kalvakuntla Kavitha said this alternative will be different and reflect the Constitutions federal spirit. Edited excerpts:

Why did KCR suddenly come up with the idea of floating a federal front after keeping silent for four years of coming to power?

No, this is not a sudden idea. It has been bothering him since the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) came out of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) in 2006. He was upset by the Congress not delivering the promise of granting statehood to Telangana. After the formation of Telangana and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) coming to power in 2014, there was no change and the Centres domination over the states continued. We were the direct victims of this Centres hegemony and had to be at its mercy on issues like division of IAS and IPS officers, and distribution of assets between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. All these factors forced my father to initiate the move to form a federal front.

India has witnessed two such experiments of regional parties forming a third front, but they failed to sustain themselves. How different will this federal front be?

The National Front or the United Front were a coalition of parties formed purely with a political agenda  of coming to power at the Centre. This will not be the case with the federal front. Its agenda would be to address the basic needs of people in a true federal spirit, wherein the states would not have to look up to the Centre for everything. That is why KCR prefers to call it Peoples Front.

Can Telangana, which has just 17 MPs, take the lead in federal front? Will the bigger regional parties of the north allow a southern leader like KCR to set the agenda?

First of all, we dont believe in this talk of domination of north over south. Telangana has attracted the countrys attention with its progress under KCR. It is the agenda that is more important for the federal front and not who is leading it.

Almost all parties KCR has consulted are pro-Congress, leading to talks the front is trying to isolate it, which will benefit the BJP.

No, we have just made a beginning. My father is going to hold talks with all regional parties, including those from NDA. He said it is going to be an anti-Congress, anti-BJP front. If the objective is to benefit Congress or BJP, why all this effort? We could as well join NDA or UPA.

Will KCR go to Delhi in next polls? If so, who will succeed him? You or your brother KT Rama Rao?

My father has not given any thought yet to whether or not he would go to Delhi in 2019. TRS is a structured and disciplined party. We all, including me and my brother, are its true soldiers.Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah spearhead the partys assembly election campaign with several rallies across Karnataka on Sunday. The campaign heats up between the Congress and BJP with allegations and counter-allegations flying thick and fast ahead of the May 12 elections.

Here are the live updates:

7.19pm: On one hand, we are promising development while, on the other hand, the present Karnataka CM believes in superstition. Everyone knows what happened when a crow sat on his car, PM Modi says.

7.15pm: We opened up Pradhan Mantri Jan Aushadhi Kendras to provide affordable medicines, reduced the prices of stents, brought the Ayushman Bharat Yojana so that the vulnerable families get health assurance, PM says.

7.11pm: Youth in villages should benefit from long-distance education, farmers should get information digitally. That is why we are giving impetus to the Digital India drive and connecting Indias villages through optical fiber network, PM Modi says.

7.08pm: There were around 18,000 villages which did not have electricity since independence. We ensured power to all such villages in a time frame of just 1000 days. Now through the Saubhagya Yojana, we want to ensure power supply in every household, Modi says.

7.07pm: We are connecting distant places with airways, we are expanding the aviation sector. We want the common man to travel in airways, says PM Modi.

7.01pm: Congress President Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi Ji must answer people why they are out on bail, says PM.



6.59pm: Congress leaders are caught with large stashes of cash and when our government takes action, they keep saying that Modi is vindictive, says PM Modi.

6.56pm: We want to build a New India where children get good education, youth get jobs, elderly get proper healthcare and where there is no discrimination on the lines of caste, says PM.

6.52pm: Congress neither cares about the present nor the future of Karnataka. What it cares most is about remaining in power, says PM Modi.

6.49pm: PM Modi addresses a public meeting in Hubli.

4.55pm: I do not understand why the Congress mocks noble initiatives like Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao, building toilets and other welfare measures being undertaken for women, PM Modi says.

4.51pm: We are committed to give impetus to the textile sector in Karnataka. We have also come up with a SAATHI scheme for the weaver community, says PM.

4.48pm: I urge people of Bagalkot to ask a question to the present Karnataka CM. Ask him about his promise of textile parks. Ask him what happened to that promise. Is there a single textile park here? He did not fulfill his promises, PM says.

4.35pm: To ensure farmer welfare, we have brought the most comprehensive Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, PM modi says.

4.29pm: Look at the plight of sugarcane farmers in Karnataka. Congress government and the present chief minister are insensitive towards them. They did nothing for their welfare, PM Modi says.

4.28pm: People of Karnataka are well aware of Congress thinking towards Bhagwaan Basaveshwara. They only recall his name as elections are nearing. It was during Atal jis leadership, that a statue of Bhagwaan Basaveshwara was put up in the Parliament, PM says.

4.22pm: I urge people of Karnataka to remain vigilant and beware of the divisive politics of the Congress. We will not accept any division of Karnataka on the grounds of caste, PM Modi says.

4.18pm: Modi says, In a democracy, to win or to lose is a part of elections. One must accept their defeat. But the Congress are Naamdaars. They did not congratulate us, the Kaamdaars. Such is their arrogance that they even did not pay a courtesy call to the President upon his win.

4.13pm: Shamelessly the Congress questioned the valour of our armed forces when they conducted the surgical strikes, says PM Modi.

4.09pm: Bagalkot is the land of the brave. People from this land fought for independence. We are proud of all those who sacrificed their lives for our country but sadly, a few people feel uncomfortable when they hear the National Song, PM Modi says.

4.00pm: PM Narendra Modi begins address at a public meeting in Jamakhandi of Bagalkot district.

2.21pm: When world leaders shake hands with Modi, they see 125 crore people of the country. Its become possible because of a majority government, says the PM, urging the voters to vote for the BJP to help form a majority government in the state as well.

2.19pm: The central government has brought in an ordinance to give death sentence to child rapists, says Modi.

2.18pm: What has the Congress done in Karnataka for water conservation? What efforts have they made towards desilting? Congress is patronising the mining mafia in the state and we need to free Karnataka from this mafia, says the PM.

2.15pm: Union home minister Rajnath Singh holds a roadshow in Bengaluru.

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh conducts roadshow in Bengaluru. #KarnatakaElections2018 pic.twitter.com/TawLcO7bKM  ANI (@ANI) May 6, 2018

2.12pm: When Sonia Gandhis government was in power, LED bulb used to be sold at Rs 350. Now in our government, the bulbs are being sold at Rs 50 each. Where were the extra Rs 300 spent? asks Modi at Raichur rally.

2.11pm: The Central government has done a lot of work on solar energy. We want to harness the potential of solar energy in Karnataka as well, says Narendra Modi at Raichur rally.

2.07pm: Farmers are struggling to get water for farming, but the Congress government in the state is extracting cream from water, says the prime minister.

1.59pm: The Congress mindset is against the OBC and Dalits. They are not allowing the government to create the OBC commission. It owes an explanation to the nation on why it is not letting the Parliament function, says the PM.

1.55pm: Modi says the Karnataka government must give an account of the work they have done for the people of the state instead of chanting Modi, Modi, Modi. They just keep abusing me, he says.

1.53pm: Its time to say goodbye to the Congress in state, says Modi.

1.51pm: Two types of parties are contesting in these elections  one that works for all and another that work for one family. On one side, there is the BJPs development agenda and on the other side is the anti-development Congress, says the PM.

1.46pm: Modi says this election is not about whos winning or not but about future of the state, about the farmers.

1.45pm: Raichur is known for its culture and civility. The Congress has picked up none of these virtues. If they had learnt from the land of Raichur, they would not be dividing Karnataka, says Modi.

1.43pm: The mood of people at the Raichur rally is a reply to those who predicted a hung assembly in Karnataka sitting in AC rooms.

1.41pm: PM Modi addresses a public meeting in Raichur.

1.30pm: Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah responds in tweet to BJP chief Amit Shahs remark over Tipu Sultan.

His tweet reads: Poor @AmitShah you are so desperate. Nothing is working. Tippu, Pakistan etc. do not help you. Tell us about how you betrayed people of North Karnataka after promising to resolve Mahadayi. Basavanna has said dont tell lies. But the #shahoflies cant help himself!

11.50am: Congress does not care about peoples feelings or Dalits, but only about deals, says PM. If they cannot do welfare, then they should be bid farewell, Modi tells the voters at Chitradurga rally.

11.48am: Modi accuses the ruling Congress leaders in Karnataka of looting the state, including from providing proper facilities in hostels. The longer they stay, the longer they will loot, he says.

11.47am: The time of income-tax raids during elections is questionable. Amit Shah and Modi are behind it, ANI quoted Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah saying.

11.45am: Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah takes potshot at opposition leaders, says the Congress will come back to power in the state with full majority, ANI tweets.

Yeddyurappa and Kumaraswamy are both claiming that they'll come to power. If you look at BJP's track records they haven't won a seat in many crucial constituencies. Congress will come back to power in Karnataka with full majority: Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah pic.twitter.com/WqpWkVC8cl  ANI (@ANI) May 6, 2018

11.42am: The Prime Minister thanks Karnataka BJP for its manifesto focusing on housing for the tribal communities.

11.40am: The PM says his government has increased the number of camps held for the differently-abled to 5,000, from 57 that were organised from 1992 to 2014.

11.34am: The central government has strengthened the SC/ST Act and will always work for justice for the SC and ST communities, says Modi.

11.32am: Congress is uncomfortable and is misleading the name of Dalit community because today the highest offices of the land are occupied by people from poor and humble backgrounds.

11.30am: When we had the numbers to play a key role in the election of a President, we did not play party politics. We preferred that Dr APJ Abdul Kalam become the President of India. This time, we had the numbers but we preferred that a person from the Dalit community become the President, says Modi.

11.28am: Go to any part of India, things are named after one family. What did this one family do for Dr Ambedkar? They have no time for him, says the PM.

11.25am: Congress humiliated Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar. Never did they accept Dr Ambedkar, says the PM.

11.26am: Nijalingappa Ji committed one big crime - he questioned some of the policies from the time of Pandit Nehru, says Modi.

"How can we forget that Congress party put an end the politics of the proud son & architect of modern Karnataka, Nijalingappa Ji because he questioned the wrong policies of Nehru", PM Modi gives yet another example of dynasty politics practiced by Congress. #KarnatakaTrustsModi pic.twitter.com/FRXYvgbrSe  BJP (@BJP4India) May 6, 2018

11.24am: How can we forget the proud son of this land, Nijalingappa Ji? Why did one family insult him? Because one family cannot tolerate independent leaders emerging in the party, says PM.

11.21am: It is in the nature of Congress to insult very senior leaders, says PM.

11.20am: Sadly, Congress forgets these brave women and men of history. Just because of vote bank politics. Look at the Congress, leaders whom they should remember and celebrate, they do not. But, they are at the forefront of celebrating Jayantis of Sultans: PM

Tipu Sultan, the erstwhile ruler of the kingdom of Mysore, is revered and despised in Karnataka, noted this Hindustan Times editorial in October 2017. The debate over the king became louder when the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government began celebrating his birth anniversary.

11.19am: Modi says Congress has played with the emotion of the people of Chitradurga. The party celebrates the birth anniversary of those who should be remembered.

11.13am: Modi says Chitradurga is synonymous with the mantra of Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan and Jai Vigyaan. This land is prone to drought but the farmers here have been innovating and turning adversities into opportunities, he says.

11.10am: PM Modi addresses a public meeting in southern Karnatakas Chitradurga.

10.15am: Congress president Rahul Gandhi targets the RSS and BJP in a video tweet, says the ruling party believes in fascist ideology that the Dalits and Adivasis continue to exist at the bottom rung of society.

Central to the RSS/ BJP fascist ideology, is that Dalits & Adivasis must continue to exist at the bottom rung of society.



In this disturbing video, the dangers of this mindset and how its openly propagated by senior RSS/ BJP leaders is revealed. #AnswerMaadiModi pic.twitter.com/gX2NwL0q27  Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) May 6, 2018

10.12am: The Election Commission-appointed surveillance teams have seized suspect cash, jewellery and other inducements worth over Rs 120 crore in Karnataka on Saturday, ANI reports.

10.11am: Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his Punjab, Puducherry, Parivar- Congress jibe against the Congress and called the BJP a prison, price rise and pakoda party. The chief minister also criticised Modis attack regarding increase in assets belonging to some Congress legislator or minister.Dressed in a crisp white cotton saree, Mate Mahadevi walks with a halting gait and her hair is tied in a big bun atop her head with a garland of jasmine around it. A string of thick rudraksha beads adorns her neck and she sits on a Gadduge, a ritual wooden throne used by religious figures in Karnataka.

But the demure exterior hides a fiery orator and religious leader who is the driving force behind the demand for a separate religion for her community, the Lingayats. The 73-year-old monk has crisscrossed the state to address countless rallies, woo influential mutts and other leaders, and lobby politicians for a separation from Hinduism. In her recent success, she has driven a wedge between communities and transformed the politics of the poll-bound state.

But first, some context: In Karnataka the Veerashaiva  Lingayats (till recently both terms were used interchangeably) are around 14 to 17% of the 650 million population of the state, making them the largest individual block.

Their votes are believed to be decisive in at least 90 of the states 224 constituencies, especially those located in the less-developed northern Karnataka. The Siddaramaiah-led Congress government in March recommended to the Centre that Lingayats be given separate religion status and all benefits conferred on minorities. This controversial decision was immediately criticised as a move to divide the vote-bank of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which the Lingayats are considered more sympathetic towards. The BJPs chief ministerial candidate BS Yeddyurappa is also a Lingayat.

Before the conversation begins, Mahadevi calls for a glass of buttermilk as the sun bears down on the third floor of her Basava Mantapa, the functional Bengaluru headquarters of her organisation. She runs a clutch of orphanages and educational institutions, mainly in north Karnataka. Lingayats are separate from Hindus. In fact, in the 12th century, Basavanna, founder of Lingayat religion, rebelled against practices of Hinduism. We have nothing in common. Why is BJP upset we are seeking a separate religion status? Arent Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs and other Indic religions by their own definition, patriotic? Why damn all those who seek a separate religious status for Lingayats?

But havent Veerashaivas and Lingayats meant the same for the last 800 odd years?

Mahadevi disagrees.

Veerashaivas, as the name itself says, is one of the seven Shaivaite cults in Hinduism. They worship the Hindu god Shiva who is described as Umapati (husband of Uma), Lingayats worship their Ishta Linga who is formless. They have a system of Panchacharyas (five recognised heads) and they proudly claim that Jangamas  Brahmin converts  can only become a Jagadguru (world teacher) or a peetadipathi (one who leads a Matha). We reject Hindu Varnashrama (separation into Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Sudras) and the Vedas. We worship Basavanna, his vachanas (religious sayings) and the jangamas (one endowed with true knowledge).

Basavanna brought into the Lingayat fold 99 different sects following various occupations like the washerman, potter, barber, footwear maker and the poorest of poor, which Hindu society had rejected. Anybody in Lingayats can become a Dharmaguru. The irony is Basavanna fought for a casteless society and the Veerashaivas made it into another caste in Hindu society, where only Brahmin converts could become religious heads.

Almost breathlessly, Mahadevi animatedly adds, Lingayats dont believe in horoscopes, idol worship and other Hindu practices. For us, Kayakave Kailasa (work is worship). We want Basavannas ideal of casteless, classless, gender-equal religion that treats everybody with dignity.

But is she the minority voice in the broader Veerashaiva-Lingayat community? Do you think the 250 swamis and sharanas (one who has surrendered to God) who participated in our fight, with lakhs taking to street, are a minority? I might be the face of the protest but there are nearly five crore community members spread across Karnataka, Maharashtra, TN as well as nationally and internationally.

Has she become a pawn in the political game? Didnt the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government reject a similar demand in 2013? Didnt Yeddyurappa himself sign the petition for a separate category of Lingayats last time? It was some procedural mistakes that made UPA reject it. While benefits reserved for minorities being extended to Lingayats is welcome, the core fight is to get status as a separate religion from Veerashaivas and Hinduism. Siddaramaiah is a good man and recognised truth in our fight. So all Lingayat peetadipathis have asked voters to support Congress.

But whats next if the ruling National Democratic Alliance rejects the demand? PM Modi is a pragmatic man. He will realise that one cannot stop a demand whose time has come. I think the results of Karnataka election will also serve as a remainder. I am sure of victory for our fight.As the mini open-air truck made its way into the Dalit colony of Talya village in Holalkere around noon, residents urged social welfare minister H Anjaneya to speak to them and address their concerns.

Citing a paucity of time, as he had around 20 more villages to visit, Anjaneya begged to be allowed to move to the next village. An angry Gowramma flew into a rage, Why did you come here if you did not want to speak to us? she thundered.

Anjaneyas supporters quickly defused the situation, and as it was noon already, the minister had to rush through.

Anger against Anjaneya has been brewing over the past five years for his failure to fulfil a promise to implement internal reservations for the Scheduled Caste (SC) Left communities.

In Karnataka, the Scheduled Castes are divided into the Left, the Right and the Touchable groups. The report of the AJ Sadashiva Commission, which looked into disparities in distribution of benefits among the various groups, had highlighted that the Left communities (comprising the Madiga, Adijambava, Arundhati, Aadikarntaka and Samagara sub-castes) had historically been disadvantaged and called for changes in the 18% reservation for SCs, who constitute about 17% of the population according to the 2011 Census.

This move has been opposed by the other sub-castes among Dalits, but for Anjaneya, who belongs to the Madiga sub-caste, the trouble lies in the fact that the majority of the SCs in his constituency belong to the Left category. According to Election Commission (EC) data, SCs account for 25% of the voters in the constituency, which is reserved for candidates from the community. Anjaneya braved the anger and insisted that the Sadashiva report had no bearing on the polls. We have formed three corporations for the Left groups so there is no anger against me or the government. It is true that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is trying to rake up the issue, but it has not amounted to anything, he said.

Chowdappa, a resident of Talya, insisted that the Congress government had done more for Dalits than any previous government. The government has ensured that we dont need to beg the upper castes for water thanks to the borewells it has built for us, he said, referring to the Ganga Kalyana Scheme, an old scheme that locals say was given more impetus by the current government.

But, the failure on the Sadashiva Commission report front is an undercurrent in all conversations in the Dalit colony. Five years ago they said they would implement it, but now it is already time for the next polls and the promise to implement the recommendations of the report remain, said Rangaswamy, another resident of the village. The failure on this count had also resulted in Anjaneya making an influential enemy in the Dalit seer Basavamuthy Madara Channaiah Swamy, who also hails from the district. However, the Congress has made efforts to placate the seer, who is considered influential among the Madigas.

Sitting on a slightly elevated throne in his mutt, Channaiah said he was not interested in politics. Anjaneya visited me recently, along with other Congress leaders, he said. The former Union minister and current member of Parliament from Kolar KH Muniyappa is a trustee of the mutt, the Chitradurga MP and Congress leader BN Chandrappa is also close to the seer. Channaiah is known for his close association with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and said he is in constant touch with RSS sarsangchalak Mohan Bhagwat.

The BJPs candidate, M Chandrappa, belongs to the Bhovi community, and this might work against him. But in Talya, the other numerically significant group in the area, the Lingayats, claimed the BJP had their support, because the Congress was only interested in the welfare of the Dalits.

We all voted for him in 2013, but he did nothing for us. All the work he has taken up is for the Dalits, said GN Basavaraj. Every work that has been taken up in this village has been for the Dalits, he said.

Speaking about the state governments move to recognise Lingayats as a religious minority, Basavaraj said, It was definitely necessary to recognise us as a separate religion. But religion and politics shouldnt be mixed, so this doesnt ensure that we will vote for the Congress.Guwahati: City based Excelcare Hospital today (5 May) conducted the weekly media OPD clinic at Guwahati Press Club for the benefit of the member-journalists along with their dependants. The Saturday camp was participated by over 20 scribes, where Dr Arun Neog (medicine) was available for free consultations.





The participants also got their weight, height, blood pressure & sugar checked in the camp. Staff nurses Siwilin Malangmai & Budhar Ranjan along with health workers namely Pranab Baishya, Bhaskar Jyoti Das and Biju Gogoi assisted the physician during the clinic.





Organized under the series of weekly Evening with a Doctor programs, the next camp on 12 May will be graced by Dr Soumar Dutta (medicine) from Narayana Super-Specialty Hospitals.



Assistant town planner Shail Bala Sharma who was allegedly shot dead by a guest house owner during a demolition drive in Kasauli last week, entered the premises without informing the team leader, says a status report by the Himachal Pradesh police.

But the report, which HT accessed on Thursday, two days after the murder, mentioned only the number of police personnel assisting the drive, skipping any mention of whether or not they were armed.

Senior police officers refused to take calls for queries on whether armed policemen were deployed for the escorting the team of town planners when they started the demolition drive.

Shail Bala Sharma was the coordinator of one of the four teams constituted by the Kasauli district chief to carry out the demolition on the Supreme Courts orders

Vijay Singh, owner of Narayani Guest House who fled after shooting Sharma was finally arrested on Thursday in Mathura in Uttar Pradesh.

In the three-page status report, police said that for demolition of unauthorised hotels following orders of the Supreme Court, sub-divisional officer of Solan was deployed as in-charge for law and order, while sub-divisional police officer (SDPO), Parwanoo, was the nodal officer.

The demolition process was being carried out peacefully but in the meantime, after lunch break, Shail Bala, assistant town planner, also co-ordinator of team 1 headed by Jagpal Singh, naib tehsildar, entered the premises of Narayani Guest house along with Shavinder Pal Singh, range officer, forest department, and labourer(s) without intimating the head of the team constituted for the purpose, the report, submitted to the government, read.

Soon after, the firing took place and members of a team in the adjoining Hotel Shivalik rushed to the spot and noticed Shail Bala lying on the floor and a labourer, Gulab Singh, had also sustained a bullet injury, it added. SDPO Ramesh Sharma directed team members to follow hotel owner Vijay Singh who fired with his pistol, the report said.

It also mentioned that before the murder, Vijay Singh had threatened to kill himself if the demolition was carried out. The adjoining Hotel Shivaliks owner too had created nuisance and threatened cops with dire consequences.

SDPO Ramesh Sharma rushed to that hotel to take stock of the situation, said the report. Detention of the owner was ordered but his relatives present on the spot gave assurance to calm him down, the report said, adding that the owner later calmed down and the demolition was started.

After that, during the interaction of this team with the owner of Narayani Guest House, the owner contested the demolition process with arguments that only one floor of his guest house was illegal. He also requested the team not to demolish the additional floor of his guest house but to allow him to do the same himself within a period of two days... He threatened the team that he would commit suicide if his appeal was not admitted, said the report. It added that the SDPO gave directions to station house officer, Dharampur police, to round him up to avoid any untoward incident.

A total of four teams were constituted for demolition of illegal structures in hotels in Kasauli, and 31 police personnel were deployed at different sites close to each other, the report said. Besides the police, six Home Guards volunteers were present too.All except one militant who appeared with Burhan Wani, an iconic militant commander, in a famous photo that viral on internet a few years back and gave traction to militancy in Kashmir, are dead.

Saddam Paddar was the last of the 11 militants to be killed in an encounter on Sunday in Shopian while the lone survivor of the Burhans boys group, Tariq Pandit surrendered in 2016.

The photograph that became viral in June 2015 marked a new age for militancy in the region as young militants posed boldly without masks in front of the camera and posted pictures online, in contrast to earlier times when they remained hidden and did not reveal much.

Here is the list of the militants who appeared in the famous photograph.

Burhan Wani (22): The poster boy of new age militancy in Kashmir, Burhan Wani, a Hizbul Mujahideen commander, was killed along with two other associates on July 8, 2016 in south Kashmirs Kokernag in Anantnag district. His death plunged the whole valley into crisis for months as thousands of locals took to the streets and clashed with security forces, leading to the death of more than 100 persons.

Saddam Hussain Paddar (in his 20s) He hailed from Shopian district and had been active since September 2014. A school dropout, he was a category A plus militant and district commander of Hizbul, with more than Rs 10 lakh bounty on his head.

Adil Khanday (20): Hizb militant, Khanday and another associate were killed in a gunfight with security forces in south Kashmirs Shopian district on October 22, 2015. His death triggered massive clashes and protests near the encounter site and in their native villages in Shopian.

Naseer Pandit (29) and Waseem Malla (27): Both were top Hizbul militants and were killed in an encounter with forces in Shopian on April 7, 2016. Pandit was in the security detail of a PDP minister and had fled with two AK 47 rifles. Malla was an A++ category militant.

Afaq Bhat (25): Son of a policeman, Afaq, along with an associate, was killed in an encounter at Drabgam, Pulwama on October 26, 2015.

Sabzar Bhat (26): Bhat was the successor of Burhan Wani and was killed in an encounter on May 27, 2017 in south Kashmirs Tral area of Pulwama. He was an A category militant. Bhat was among a group of young, tech-savvy militants who used social media to woo the youth to their cause.

Anees (26): Not much is known but police sources say he has also been killed.

Ishfaq (23): Ishfaq was killed along with two other associates in an encounter in Pulwama on May 7, 2016. A category A militant, he was involved in social media campaign to attract youth.

Wasim Shah (24): Shah was the only HM militant in the group photo who joined LeT later and became a commander of the outfit. Shah, along with an associate, was killed in a gun battle with security forces in Pulwama on October 14, 2017.

Tariq Pandit (25): A top Hizbul Mujahideen militants and close associate of Burhan Wani, Tariq Pandit was arrested after he surrendered to police in Pulwama on May 28, 2016. He was a category A militant.The death of Kashmir University teacher Mohammad Rafi Bhat in a gunfight with security forces on Sunday has left his family, friends and students shocked and at a loss to explain his decision to join militant ranks.

The 32-year-olds stint with militancy was perhaps the shortest in the Valley  he is believed to have joined the Hizbul Mujahideen Friday afternoon and was dead early Sunday.

The assistant professor of sociology was among the five militants killed in a fierce gun battle fire in Badigam in south Kashmirs Shopian. It was a shock. He never discussed militancy with us nor did he show any inclination towards it, said Mudasir Rasool Mir, who is pursuing a PhD in social work at Kashmir University in Srinagar.

A resident of Chundina area in central Kashmirs Ganderbal district, Bhat, who was married, went missing around 3.30pm on Friday. He had spoken to his mother but betrayed no signs of taking the path to violence.

His family informed the university authorities about his disappearance on Saturday morning, which sparked off protests on the campus. The vice -chancellor informed police about Bhat and assured students that all efforts would be made to trace him.

Police got to know that the teacher was among the five men holed up in Badigam when he called his father on Sunday morning. I am sorry if I have hurt you and this is my last call as I am going to meet Allah, Bhat told his father, who recounted the conversation to the police.

People look on the damaged house where top militant commanders, including Sadaam Padar and assistant professor of Kashmir University turned militant Mohamaad Raafi, and three other militants were hiding before they were killed during an encounter, at Badigam in Shopian district of south Kashmir on Sunday. (PTI)

The officers, who were monitoring all calls, sent a team to Bhats father, asking him to convince his son to surrender. They made repeated attempts to persuade Bhat to surrender, but to no avail, Kashmir IGP SP Pani said. After receiving the input about his presence, we brought his family from Ganderbal to persuade him to surrender, Pani said.

The family is at a loss to explain his decision. So are his friends who described him as a wonderful human being, a good student and best teacher.

Bhat was active on social media and recently shared on Facebook a poem penned for him by his outgoing students, saying, Gift from my students. I will remember your love and respect.

Bhats death had proved that providing jobs and ensuring development were not the solution to end violence and alienation in Kashmir, former chief minister Omar Abdullah said.

This is another tragic development in steady stream of tragedies in Kashmir, he tweeted.

In April, 28-year-old Aitmad Hussain Dar, who was doing an MPhil, was killed with four other militants in Shopian, almost six months after he joined militancy.

There are concerns about Kupwara resident Mannan Bashir Wani as well. A researcher at Aligarh Muslim University, Wani went missing in January and is believed to have joined Hizbul Mujahideen, a militant outfit that draws local youth and has suffered big losses in recent months.

(With PTI inputs)From challenges in the Indian Ocean and modernisation hurdles to realignment of forces and status of pending military pacts with the US, navy chief Admiral Sunil Lanba spoke to Rahul Singh in an interview on a range of issues in the navy. Excerpts:

How does the navy propose to counter Chinas growing presence in Indian Ocean Region?

Let me dispel the notion that presence of extra-regional maritime forces in international waters is an existential threat in itself. There are warships of various nations that transit through the ocean. We constantly evaluate security environment in our areas of interest to manage deployments. Enhanced domain awareness through mission-based deployments and information-sharing with our maritime partners has emerged as one of the cornerstones of our security strategy.

Is the Chinese military footprint in IOR denting Indias influence?

With critical trade routes flowing through this region, the significance of IOR for global economic development needs no emphasis. We have always shown respect for the principles of international law and would never question legitimate use of the seas. However, concerns are being raised from several quarters about the intent of Chinese military movements.

Any concerns about the rapid expansion of the Chinese fleet?

Every country pursues its modernisation plans based on its own threat assessment. I would like to believe that the expansion of Chinese navy is also based on such an assessment. We, too, undertake periodic assessments of our maritime security environment and, accordingly, recalibrate our plans and operational philosophy. While we keep a close eye on all regional maritime developments, we have no reason to be overly concerned.

How has the mission-based deployment of combat-ready warships changed things in IOR?

We have realigned our deployments based on our assessment of the maritime security environment, and this is an ongoing process. The new operational philosophy allows us to deploy mission-ready ships along critical maritime routes, enhancing our strategic domain awareness.

How does the navy plan to strike a balance between a limited budget and meeting its modernisation goals?

Our modernisation plans are well on track. There are concerns regarding capital allocation, particularly for modernisation, which are being addressed (in consultation) with all stakeholders. The navy is focused on achieving an ideal balance between the available budget and our modernisation plans through indigenisation and prioritisation.

Can you give an update on projects such as the indigenous aircraft carrier (IAC), carrier-borne fighters and new helicopters?

The navy has been pioneering indigenisation since the 1960s. Since most of the platforms you mentioned are being pursued through the indigenous route, certain unique challenges are bound to be encountered. I am confident these are surmountable. We are planning to commence sea trials of the IAC in 2020. We are also examining the design of IAC-2. We are confident that the induction of aviation assets would be in sync with the induction of the carrier.

What is the status of pending agreements proposed by the US  Communications, Compatibility and Security Agreement and Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement? How is Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement being implemented?

India and the US are in regular dialogue on these agreements. The navy is examining various provisions and the specific utility of various services they would facilitate. Since the issue is under deliberation, we will take a call once all the modalities have been examined. Standard operating procedures for the implementation of LEMOA are being formulated. The agreement will allow the navy to extend and consolidate its operational reach in our areas of interest.Chief minister Siddaramaiah on Sunday said the people of Karnataka would reject the messages of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, calling his election speeches hollow and baseless.

Interacting with the press here, Siddaramaiah said, Modis magic will not work because his speeches are hollow and baseless. The chief minister said while he respected the post of the prime minister it was also the responsibility of the person occupying the post to ensure civility.

Modi says Sabka saath sabka vikas, without giving even a single ticket to Muslims or Christians. They should say openly that except for Muslims and Christians, it is sabka saath sabka vikas, Siddaramaiah said, mocking the prime ministers election slogan from the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

Responding to Modis criticism of the Congress over the handling of the Mahadayi water sharing dispute, Siddaramaiah said it was irresponsible of the prime minister to blame former Congress president Sonia Gandhi for the impasse. He has shown his pettiness by shifting responsibility to othersIts his responsibility to intervene because he is the prime minister. Sonia Gandhi was the party president and not the prime minister, Siddaramaiah said.

The chief minister said the Bharatiya Janata Party was completely dependent on Modi because it didnt have any big leaders. He had been visiting for six months, now. I thought he would speak like a prime minister, talk about their achievements in four years and the previous state governments work. Some thought they would be civil, but they use unparliamentary words. Along with Modi others have also spoken in filthy language and everybody has seen this, Siddaramaiah said.

The chief minister dismissed this as a triangular contest. While on the surface it appears to be so, in every region it is either a contest between Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) or Congress and BJP, he said. Except in Kodagu, Congress has got a presence in every other district. Even in coastal Karnataka BJP only managed to win four out of 19 seats in 2013.

Responding to the BJP criticism that there was a breakdown of law and order in the state, Siddaramaiah said the state would not have received record amount of investment intentions if this was so. In 2013, Gujarat had received the highest amount of investments, and we were in placed 13th. But in both 2015-16 and 2016-17 we received the highest amount of investments, with Gujarat finishing second. Do they investors will come if there is no law and order?

Taking a pot shot at BJP president Amit Shah, the chief minister said his claims that the current central government had increased devolution of taxes following the fourteenth finance commissions recommendations, was misleading because it had to increase. Nobody with economic common sense will say that. He keeps asking me for accounts without bothering to look at the budgetary documents we have released every year, he said.Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar has said namaz should ideally be offered in mosques or at ones home, reacting after right wing protesters allegedly disrupted prayers by Muslims in 10 public places in Gurgaon on Friday.

There has been an increase in occurrence of namaz being offered at public places. It is fine till no one objects. But ideally namaz should be offered in the precincts of a religious place or at ones home, said Khattar in Chandigarh on Sunday before leaving for a ten-day visit to Israel and the United Kingdom.

Khattar said his government would maintain law and order, remarks in the wake of demands by Hindu groups who have said they will continue their protest if unauthorised prayers in public places isnt stopped.

Security forces fanned out in Gurgaon on Friday after members of a group called Hindu Sanyukt Sangarsh Samiti staged protests and claimed that Muslim worshippers did not have permission to offer prayers at roadsides, parks, and vacant government land in the city.

The Samiti comprises 12 Hindu groups, which include Bajrang Dal, Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Shiv Sena, Hindu Jagran Manch and Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Kranti Dal.The governments decision to send back the Supreme Court collegiums recommendation for the elevation of Uttarakhand Chief Justice KM Joseph as a judge of the top court was unprecedented and needed more detailed discussions, Justice Kurian Joseph, a member of the collegium, said on Sunday.

Things that should not have happened had happened -- that is the general feeling, the apex court judge told reporters on the sidelines of a function Kochi.

He was replying to a question on the Centre returning the recommendation of the collegium and asking it to reconsider Justice K M Josephs elevation to the apex court.

There is no precedent of the names recommended by the collegium being returned (by the Centre). So, more detailed discussions should take place (on the matter), the Supreme Court judge said, without elaborating further.

The collegium had, on May 2, deferred a decision on the issue of reconsidering its recommendation to elevate Justice KM Joseph, after it was sent back by the government last month.

The five-member collegium, comprising Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and justices J Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B Lokur and Kurian Joseph, met after the apex courts working hours, but no decision was taken as certain differences between the members could not be resolved.

The Centre, while returning the file of Justice Joseph to the collegium, had also mentioned that judges from various high courts had not found a place in the apex court.

Justice K M Josephs name was recommended, along with that of then senior advocate, Indu Malhotra, on January 10 for their elevation as apex court judges.

The government had, on April 26, declined to accept the recommendation of the collegium and asked it to reconsider Justice Josephs name.

Malhotra was sworn in as a Supreme Court judge on April 27.

In an unprecedented move, justices Chelameswar, Gogoi, Lokur and Joseph had called a press meet in January and highlighted certain issues in the judiciary.

(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.)The Congress celebrates sultan jayanti to get votes in Karnataka but doesnt honour other leaders, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday in remarks seen as referring to Tipu Sultan, the erstwhile ruler of the kingdom of Mysore who died fighting the British.

Modi was speaking at an election rally in Chitradurga when he accused the Congress of not honouring local heroine Onake Obavva, a woman who fought the forces of Hyder Ali, the father of Tipu Sultan.

People of Chitradurga know about the bravery of great woman Onake Obavva who resisted the reign of the Sultans. I salute the valour of Onake Obavva. Look at the Congress, leaders whom they should remember and celebrate, they do not. But, they are at the forefront of celebrating jayantis of sultans for vote bank politics. The Congress has insulted the people of Chitradurga, he said.

Tipu Sultan, the former ruler of Mysore, evokes intense admiration and hate in equal measure. He is hailed as a freedom fighter for fighting the British, but his critics  the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Sangh Parivar -- say he killed Hindus and Christians during his expansion into the region in the late 1700s.

Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah, a Congress leader, ran into controversy when his government celebrated Tipus birth anniversary last year.

Read | Tipu Jayanti: Its wrong to judge historical figures using current standardsCongress president Rahul Gandhi on Sunday questioned Prime Ministers alleged silence on attacks against Dalits and tribal people ahead of the Karnataka assembly elections.

Gandhi shared a video on Twitter and said that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) wanted Dalits and Adivasis to exist at the bottom rung of the society. The more than two-minute clip cites examples of alleged atrocities, including the flogging of Dalit men in Gujarats Una in 2016 and the recent SC/ST markings on the chests of Madyha Pradesh constables during a recruitment exam.

Why are Dalits constantly prosecuted in Modis new India... His silence reflects the mindset of RSS and BJP... Speak-up Mr Modi, the video said.

Central to the RSS/ BJP fascist ideology, is that Dalits & Adivasis must continue to exist at the bottom rung of society.



In this disturbing video, the dangers of this mindset and how its openly propagated by senior RSS/ BJP leaders is revealed. #AnswerMaadiModi pic.twitter.com/gX2NwL0q27  Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) May 6, 2018

Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah retweeted Gandhis video on Twitter, saying: What Dalits need are not empty outreach strategies like having meals with them. What they need is empowerment with dignity and justice. The incumbent CM was referring to BJP asking its leaders to reach out to Dalits in the aftermath of nationwide protests in April against the alleged dilution of SC/ST act.

Hours after Gandhis tweet, PM Modi hit out at the Congress for humiliating BR Ambedkar, a Dalit icon, at a rally in Karnataka. Go to any part of India, things are named after one family. What did this one family do for Dr Ambedkar? They have no time for him, he said.

Karnataka goes to polls on May 12 and results will be declared on May 15. The state has 23.5% Dalit population.At an election rally in Karnataka last week, PM Narendra Modi said the Congress government of Jawaharlal Nehru had insulted two military icons and army chiefs who hailed from the southern state: Field Marshal Kodandera Madappa Cariappa and General Kodandera Subayya Thimayya.

But how did the Congress government treat Field Marshal Cariappa and General Thimayya General Thimayya was insulted by Prime Minister Nehru and defence minister Krishna Menon, Modi said at Kalaburagi on Thursday. It isnt clear whether his reference to this happening after the generals win over Pakistan in 1948 was meant to describe Thimayyas achievement and provide context (in which case, it is right), or the timing (in which case, it is incorrect because the Menon-Thimayya spat happened almost a decade later). Cariappa, Indias first Field Marshal, was army chief from 1949-53, and Thimayya held the position for four years (1957-61) before India and China went to war in 1962.

Context

Thimayya had an outstanding military career.

He commanded a brigade in World War II during the Burma Campaign and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO), served as the commander of Indian forces in Jammu and Kashmir in 1948 and was acclaimed globally as chairman of the Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission in Korea in 1953. Thimayyas military acumen and leadership were recognised worldwide. US president Dwight Eisenhower wrote a letter to PM Nehru highlighting the role of Thimayya and Indian troops in Korea. He was the only Indian officer to command an infantry brigade in World War II, a very big deal in those days. Serving in the Korean armistice was also a very complex task that he handled ... said Commodore (retd) C Uday Bhaskar, director of the Society for Policy Studies. He added that Thimayya headed a United Nations-led peace mission in Cyprus post-retirement (1962-65), which was unprecedented. The government awarded him Padma Bhushan in 1953.

What happened?

It is no secret that the defence minister of the day, Menon, had deep suspicion of Thimayya, fondly known as Timmy, and their differences led to the general submitting his resignation in 1959, which was withdrawn only after Nehru intervened. He (Thimayya) was humiliated by Menon about the threat posed by China. Thimayya put in his resignation and was prevailed upon by Nehru to withdraw it, said Bhaskar. And Nehru then misled Thimayya and made him look petulant and ridiculed him in Parliament. This was a low point for the general ... However, Bhaskar added that Nehru also superseded two top officers to appoint Thimayya the army chief in May 1957. So its a mixed bag (whether or not Thimayya got his due). Menon and Thimayya had run-ins over a raft of issues from top appointments to induction of weaponry and the China policy. Nehru was open to the idea of appointing Timmy as the chief of defence staff. But Menon stood in the way. That was the level of Menons bitterness towards the general, said a senior officer.

Significance

Menon always underplayed the Chinese threat. Menon would chuckle and say: Where are the threats; if it is Pakistan then, you tell me you can handle it, and I say, China will not attack India, reads a passage from the book Thimayya: An Amazing Life, authored by military historian CB Khanduri. One of the chapters details the uneasy relationship between Thimayya and Menon and how China was getting increasingly belligerent. A desperate inter-personal situation once again began to build up and tension heightened, as Menon set to poison Nehru against Thimayya, repeatedly telling him that Thimayya was a stumbling block to Nehrus Forward Policy,... reads a passage. As part of the forward policy, Nehru ordered the army to build military outposts in disputed areas. As the Chinese began to talk vituperatively of Nehru, he was still maintaining his dignity. Thimayya, however, knew that the Chinese were not merely thundering... Khanduri wrote. In March 2014, Australian journalist Neville Maxwell made public portions of the Henderson Brooks-Bhagat committee report on the India-China war, triggering a debate on Indias worst military defeat. It blamed the civilian and military leadership for driving the country to a war it wasnt prepared for.Kathmandu, Nepal: The Budget Session which is also the second session of the Federal Parliament comprising the House of Representatives and National Assembly is going to be commenced from today, Sunday.





According to the Federal Parliament Secretariat the session will start at 4:00 pm at the parliamentary house, International Convention Centre in New Baneshwar.



For people who have been sexually abused as children, the Union women and child development (WCD) ministry is seeking a seven-year time limit, after they turn 18, to report such offences, senior ministry officials familiar with the development said.

If the move gets a nod from the Centre, it will mean survivors will have to file a complaint before they turn 25, after which the statute of limitations will expire.

The issue was discussed at a review meeting chaired by women and child development minister Maneka Gandhi last week. It was decided that having a specific time limit will help ensure that evidences or samples in sexual offence cases such as rape and molestation are good enough to stand scrutiny, said a ministry official who asked not to be named.

A second ministry official said: We are examining if the clause to have a seven-year time limit can be incorporated in the POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offence) Act  the special law to protect children from sexual abuse  besides seeking an amendment to the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), which is the procedural law and specifies the statute of limitations for filing complaint.

The official added, We will write to ministry of home affairs (MHA) again seeking an amendment to CrPC. We had written to MHA in February but at that time we had not specified the time limit.

Currently, under section 468 of CrPC, the time limit for reporting an offence that is punishable with a fine is six months. For offences punishable with imprisonment of up to one year, the statutory time limit for reporting the incident is one year. For offences punishable with imprisonment of up to three years, the time limit for filing a complaint is three years. There is no specification of the time limit for offences in which the punishment is beyond three years in prison.

Another section of the CrPC, 473, says a court may take cognisance of an older case if it is in the interest of justice or the delay has been properly explained.

WCD ministry officials, however, said that despite Section 473 there have been many instances where law enforcement agencies have failed to lodge a complaint when child survivors of sexual abuse tried to lodge complaint after they turned adult.

It is to ensure that no survivor is turned away from lodging a complaint till he/she is 25-year-old that we are proposing the time limit, the second official said. The ministry decided to take up the issue of allowing survivors of child sexual abuse to report the crime later in life after an Indian-origin woman living in Canada complained to the WCD minister in January that law enforcement agencies in India had refused to lodge her complaint.

The woman who was sexually abused by a relative 51 years ago, when she was a young girl had come to Chennai to report her complaint.

The change that the WCD ministry wants now, however, would not have helped the woman because of the proposed age limit.

Legal experts said they were against the time limit for filing complaint in such offences.

Putting a time limit that bars a survivor from lodging complaint after he/she is 25 years old will prove counter-productive. Sometimes, it takes ages for a victim who was abused as a child to come out of the trauma, said advocate Alakh Alok Srivastava who had filed a PIL in Supreme Court in January demanding death penalty for child rapists.Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday accused Congress leaders of falling sick at the very mention of nationalism, saying it was unbelievable that the partys leaders had extended support to those who had said they would break the country, asking them to learn nationalism from the Mudhol hounds that are native to the district.

Addressing a rally in Jamkhandi in Bagalkot district ahead of the May 12 polls in the state, Modi said, Could anybody have imagined that Congress leaders would have joined hands with those who said Bharat ke tukde karenge? These Congress politicians also do not fear from committing the sin of asking the army for proof of surgical strikes.

I want to tell those who fall sick at the mention of nationalism, dont learn from anybody else, not even from Mahatma Gandhi, but at least learn from the Mudhol hounds. These dogs are going out to protect the nation with a new battalion. This is the first time such a big move has been made and we have started a Mudhol battalion, Modi said.

The prime minister said he was saddened that Congress leaders had completely forgotten Parliamentary etiquette because of the arrogance of having been in power for 60 years. It has been the tradition that those who lose in elections accept the defeat and the peaceful transfer of power. But after 2014 Lok Sabha election results, Congress politicians, the mother and son, did not even have the courtesy to congratulate the party that won, he said, referring to then Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi.

Modi said it was then that he learnt that they were Naamdar, as they had been prime ministers for generations, they will not accept a kaamdar like me. But I want to tell you this arrogance of Congress has reached such a level that even when a Dalit became a president Sonia Gandhi couldnt find the time to give him a courtesy call for over a year, and the son met the president seven months later that too, when he had to submit a memorandum.

Accusing the Congress of stooping to new lows, Modi said they had decided to divide people on the basis of castes just to win an election. The Congress wants to divide Karnataka, but we will not let this happen. Wake up Congress leaders, at least if you dont want to listen to listen to the poet Kuvempu, who said Karnataka is the daughter of India.

The prime minister also took a pot shot at Congress president Rahul Gandhi, accusing him of trying to appropriate the teachings of the 12th century philosopher Basaveshwara, considered the founder of the Lingayat religion. How much Congress politicians know about Basavanna is shown by the two words they repeat, Nudidante Nade, he said. But it was when Atal Bihari Vajpayee became prime minister that a statue of Basavanna was placed in Parliament for the first time. And to promote Basavannas teachings across the world, in 2015 I inaugurated a statue of Basavanna in London next to the Thames river.

They even mock Beti Bachao, beti padhao, Modi said. If there is female foeticide and a skewed sex ratio in parts of the country, it is because of Congress policies, and we have tried to address this.

Earlier, speaking at a rally in Chitradurga, Modi said social welfare minister H Anjaneya had played politics over the issue of drinking water. The minister did corruption even in the Ganga Kalyana scheme, which aims to provide drinking water. Reject the Congress that plays such politics even over drinking water, he said. The prime minister also addressed a rally in Raichur.

Responding to Modis statements, KC Venugopal, Congress vice-president in charge of the state, said the prime minister was resorting to polarisation as his development agenda stood exposed. This is a prime minister who has distorted history, especially with regard to the allegations he leveled against the Congress of having sidelined Field Marshal KM Cariappa and General Thimayya, he said.

Modi has nothing to offer the people of Karnataka in terms of a development agenda, and, hence, he has resorted to polarization, Venugopal said. Besides, we dont need any lessons on nationalism from either Modi or the BJP.Madhya Pradesh police registered a case of rape against two Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers of Sehore district and arrested one of them on Sunday. A 28-year-old woman accused them of rape in her complaint lodged with the police on Saturday.

The woman, who works with a real estate firm, alleged that she was first raped by Rajaram Malviya and then by his friend Mukesh Thakur, said police.

Police arrested Malviya, who runs a skill development centre in Sehore. He claimed to be a member of the BJP state units Scheduled Caste wing, said police. A hunt has been launched for Thakur, police added.

According to the complainant, Thakur introduced himself to her as Dewas MP Manohar Untwals representative.

Untwal denied that Thakur was his representative.

A case has been registered against the accused under sections related to rape and criminal intimidation, said inspector BD Beera of Astha police station.

Sehore district BJP president Sitaram Yadav said, We came to know about the FIR, reportedly against BJP workers. We are gathering information and will act accordingly.

In her complaint, the woman said she joined Malviyas skill development centre as an employee two years ago. She alleged that this was when he raped her and later Thakur too sexually abused her.

Inspector Beera said, She alleged that they raped her several times, threatening her with dire consequences if she told anyone about the abuse.

She also alleged that the duo forced her to leave Sehore. The woman informed her family members about her ordeal a few days ago, Beera added.It all started with two slaps in 2002, and now, 16 years later, 19 people have been murdered in the blood feud between two families of Karor village in Rohtak.

This is the native village of Commonwealth gold medallist wrestler Sumit Malik, but he didnt live here because his parents sent him away to his maternal uncles house in Sonepat. At least 30 other families from the village have moved out in fear of coming in the crosshairs of this deadly feud that refuses to get over.

The recent blow was the murder of 35-year-old Anand Malik, allegedly by 30 men of the rival gang last Friday.

One of the sides

The gang war involves families of former sarpanch Jai Bhagwan, a Jat, and Rame Kumar, a Chhipi  both of whom have been murdered. As per villagers, both were notorious elements and had many criminal cases registered against them.

Jai Bhagwans gang comprised him and his six brothers, out of which, only one is alive. Of the six dead, only one died a natural death while the rest were murdered, with latest casualty being Anand.

Dharampal Malik, 45, Jai Bhagwans alive brother, is now after Chippi blood. Whenever we end the gang war, they resume it. Things were peaceful since 2013, but they attacked us out-of-the-blue in December last year. We escaped the attack and complained to the police. But they did nothing. Now, they killed my younger brother, said Dharampal, who has now been given police protection.

Flashback: The trigger

As per Dharampal, in 2002, his brother Jai Bhagwan placed two slaps at a youth belonging to Chippi family over his misbehavior. Keeping a grudge, Chippi gang shot dead their brother Shirak Ram at Kharawar Railway Station in Rohtak when he was boarding a train to go to his shop in Delhi. This, as per him, started one of most deadly gang wars in Haryana.

To retaliate my brothers killing, we shot dead three of Chippi gangs members in 2002. My brother and I were jailed for it, said Dharampal. This was not enough revenge for Bhagwan brothers, who in next two years shot dead Rame Kumar and his elder brother Ramesh Kumar as well.

While almost all Bhagwan brothers were now in jail for murders, they came out after Rame Kumars wife Roshni Devi promised to turn hostile in court as she feared they might attack her two young sons as well. She left the village with her two sons and turned hostile in court. In return, we gave her 3 lakh and called it a truce, said Dharampal.

But the pain of losing her husband ran deep in Roshni Devis veins. As per police sources, she trained her two sons  Anil and Sombir  to turn gangsters and take revenge of their fathers killing. They got a chance in 2008, when Phool Malik, one of Bhagwan brothers, shot dead two ladies in the village on the night of Diwali in an inebriated state.

Knowing the enmities between Bhagwan brothers and Chippi families, the families of two killed ladies allegedly paid the Chippi brothers money to take revenge of their loss. So in 2009, the Chippi gang shot dead 20-year-old Bantu Malik, the son of eldest Bhagwan brother Rohtash. Same year, Bhagwan brothers shot dead village resident Jhajja Ram, whose grandson in Chippi gang was allegedly involved in Bantus killing.

Neverending bloodshed

In 2010, the Chippi gang shot dead Phool Malik and his driver Surender Kala. Phools son, who was with them at that time, managed to escape. In 2011, Bhagwan brothers shot dead a Dhaba owner in Rohtak whom they alleged was giving monetary help to Chippi gang.

In 2012, the Chippi gang shot dead Jai Bhagwan, his brother Dilbagh and another member of their gang in an attack on police van in Gurgaon. In 2013, the Chippi gang allegedly shot dead Dharampals brother-in-laws son Praveen, who was doing the paper work to bring Dharampal out of jail. Now, five years later, they allegedly shot dead Anand.

Whether the Bhagwan brothers also attempted an attack on Chippi gang in the last five years is not certain, as the members of Chippi gang are all inaccessible, but Dharampal claimed they did nothing.

For Anands murder, the police booked 20 members of Chippi gang. But none has been arrested so far.

The houses of all those booked are locked. A hunt is going on, said Parveen Kumar, the SHO of Sampla police station. The blood feud has been going on from a long time. But except for this case, we have made arrests each and every time, he said. The SHO, however, said he did not wish to comment on witnesses turning hostile in courts and almost all those arrested coming out of jail without convictions.

Being out or in jail did not really affect the two gangs, as Dharampal said even when all of his brothers were in jail, they continued to execute killings from inside by ordering their members. In Anands murder too, the prime suspect Anil is already in jail.

Till the time they all get arrested, I fear for my life. The police have left some three-four cops outside my house with a 19th century vehicle that doesnt even start most of the time. If the police do not do anything, I will have to do it myself for my brother Anand, said Dharampal.

Karor village has a population of over 2,500. But during a recent visit in the evening, it came across as a secluded village where not many live. A few who were out for important errands refused to speak about the blood feud as fear of both the gangs runs deep inside those not associated with either.No Indian flyer has yet been put on the governments national no-fly list, eight months after the concept of such a list, for unruly passengers who pose a potential threat to other flyers too, was created and guidelines for it spelt out.

According to the aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), airlines have to follow due process to put a person on the no-fly list, which will be maintained by it. That will ensure that the person doesnt fly, not just on the airline that put him on the list, but on any airline.

So far we have received no names. It shall be fruitful to go through regulation to appreciate the due process airlines need to follow, DGCA chief BS Bhullar said on Sunday.

Interestingly, Jet Airways says Salla Birju, who posted a fake hijacking note in an aircrafts toilet on October 30, has been put on the list, and that this has been communicated to the regulator. It is likely that Birju is on the airlines own no-fly list, and not on the national one.

In an April 16 reply to a Right to Information (RTI) request filed by Hindustan Times, the DGCA said: The airlines shall maintain a database of all unruly passengers (after decision by the internal committee) and inform the same to DGCA/other airlines, which shall form a no-fly list. However, as per the records available, there are no people recommended for no-fly list by airlines as on date. Bhullars comment shows that there has been no update since.

The new rules came into effect on September 8, grading offences into three levels, with the ban period increasing with the severity of the infraction. Unruly physical gestures and verbal harassment, classified as a level one offence, can earn a passenger a flight ban of up to three months. Physically abusive behaviour (pushing, kicking, hitting, inappropriate touching) will be punishable by a ban of up to six months. Life-threatening behaviour  assaults, damage to aircraft systems  can lead to a ban for a minimum two years and can stretch indefinitely.

The rules were enforced within months of a Shiv Sena Member of Parliament, Ravindra Gaikwad, beating up an elderly Air India employee over the seat allotted to him. A video of the assault went viral on social media, triggering nationwide outrage. Shortly afterwards, the government said it would bring rules to tackle such behaviour and create a national no-fly list.

Since then there have been several instances of unruly behaviour by passengers, including Birjus case and another where a 62-year old man harassed an air-hostess on a Vistara flight.

Concerns of a potential backlash from passengers may have made airlines reluctant, said a DGCA official.

The official, who asked not to be identified, added that most airlines tend to settle with passengers in cases involving unruly behaviour.

Vistara declined to comment on the matter, saying it is sub judice.

In Birjus case, according to a Jet Airways spokesperson, the airline had set up an enquiry committee to investigate the said incident. As per the findings of the committee, and as per the provisions laid down in the DGCA, the said person has been put under the no-fly list. Furthermore, placing the traveller on the no-fly list was promptly communicated to the authorities.

Under the rules, a special internal committee will be set up to tackle complaints. The committee will be chaired by a retired district judge, and its members will include representatives of both airlines and flyers. Representatives for the passengers can be someone from flyers associations, a consumer rights groups, or a retired officer of the Consumer Forum. Once it receives a complaint against a flyer, which will need to be issued by the pilot in command, the committee will have 30 days to decide. During this period, the passenger will not be able to fly with the airline. In case the committee fails to take a decision in 30 days, passenger will be free to fly.

Airlines need to start getting more mature. In the US and Europe, they have a website for a no-fly list and airline and other airport staff can access that, and passenger wont even be able to book a ticket. The same should be followed here, said Mark Martin, founder and CEO of Martin Consulting.We have no home to go back to.

This was the most common complaint voiced before chief minister Yogi Adityanath when he visited the surgery ward of the SN Medical College Hospital on Saturday morning, two days after a sudden thunderstorm ravaged many parts of the state.

Adityanath had reached Agra just the previous night, after curtailing his election campaign in poll-bound Karnataka in view of the destruction wreaked by the weather phenomenon. He stayed the night at the Circuit House.

The chief minister interacted with patients admitted to the surgery ward, many of whom had been brought in from the rural belt of Agra, for about half an hour. He even expressed displeasure over a dirty bedsheet on one of the beds, and sought an explanation from medical college principal Dr Saroj Singh.

Around 34 people from various parts of Agra district were admitted to the hospital in the wake of the thunderstorm. As many as 73 people died in Uttar Pradesh alone over the last two days.

Six-month-old Divyanshi and her five-year-old cousin, Ashu, were among those visited by Adityanath at the hospital. He then interacted with Chandrabhan, a labourer from Baad village in Malpura area, who had come to attend on five injured members of his family. We told the chief minister how a wall of a nearby house fell on the tin roof our residence on Wednesday night, demolishing it completely and injuring almost everybody. He has promised to help us, said Chandrabhan.

Tight security arrangements were made at the surgery ward in view of Adityanaths visit. Many wanted to interact with him, but were prevented from doing so for security reasons.

The chief minister later undertook an aerial survey of the affected villages. He then held a meeting with district officials before flying off to Kanpur, which was also ravaged by the thunderstorm.In March, Maharashtra announced a ban on a variety of plastic products including grocery bags, one-use food containers made of plastic foam, locally called thermocol, and disposable cutlery. The government has not started punishing offenders and has given plastic product manufacturers and traders a window period of a few months to adjust to the ban.

As Maharashtra moves towards enforcing the ban, it can look at parallels in a similar experiment in Kenya, a rapidly urbanising country with development levels similar to India. In August 2017, in a notice that is considered one of the most stringent in the world on plastic use  visitors flying from abroad had to leave plastic bags at the airport and fines are several times the average national wage  the East African country banned a wide range of products.

This is Kenyas third attempt in 10 years at a plastic ban. This is not the first time that Maharashtra banned plastics. In July 2005, when record rains and floods killed over a 1,000 people in Mumbai, environmentalists and urban planners said the floods were aggravated by plastic bags that clogged drains. Maharashtra decided to ban the sale and use of plastic bags below 40 microns in thickness. In 2015, the state extended the ban to bags below 50 microns thick. The restrictions were not enforced.

When Maharashtra announced the ban, the Maharashtra Plastic Manufacturers Association said that 200,000 jobs in plastic products units will be lost. Other estimates of job losses range between 50,000 and 300,000. In Kenya, plastic manufacturers argued against the ban, saying that 80,000 jobs will go.

Plastic manufacturers in Maharashtra have filed petitions in the high court against the ban. In Kenya, the courts dismissed a challenge by plastic product makers against the ban.

Kenyas government gave citizens a six-month window to adjust to the ban, to shift to other products and to dispose of plastic in their possession. During this period, the country did not enforce the fines and prison sentence on violators. The Maharashtra government has given plastic consumers and manufacturers time till June 23 to dispose of all banned plastic items, after which the municipal corporation will start taking punitive action against violators.

Kenyas anti-plastic law was considered draconian, with imprisonment terms up to four years and fines up to several times the national per capita income (Kenyas average annual income was around 1,500 US$ in 2016, according to the World Bank  Indias income is a little higher), but the government ignored the criticism.

It is nearly a year after Kenyas ban and the reports from there should encourage Maharasthra. Kenyas main environmental agency, the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) has declared the ban a success, so much so that the countrys neighbours like Rwanda, Uganda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Burundi are considering similar bans.

The countrys streets have less trash and the waterways are cleaner. In April, the Bombay high court, while hearing petitions filed by plastic manufacturers challenging the ban, said chocking of rivers and other water bodies can be stopped only by imposing a blanket plastic ban.

A senior NEMA official told a British newspaper that animals are ingesting less plastic. Abattoirs used to find plastic bags in the bowels of three out of every 10 animals; the number is now one in 10, the official said. Stray cattle and wild animals accidentally ingesting plastic is a concern in India too. Fishermen on Kenyas Indian Ocean coast and Lake Victoria are finding less plastic bags entangled in their nets. A senior NEMA official was quoted by a British media agency as saying that the opposition from plastic manufacturers has reduced. The companies are now coming by themselves to offer solutions, the official said. The Kenyan government is planning a detailed study to find out the impact of the ban.

The head of the United Nations Environment Programme has said that Kenyas success should y encourage other countries to ban plastic bags and other single-use plastics.A 37-year-old man has been arrested by local police in Andheri (East) for allegedly repeatedly raping a woman since 2016. The accused even assaulted her, blackmailed her with an objectionable video that he shot of her, and threatened to kill her husband, throw acid on her face, abduct her daughter and inject her with HIV virus.

According to the police, the woman was looking for a job in 2015, when, through a common friend, she got the number of the accused. The accused asked her to meet him and at the pretext of giving her a job, befriended her.

In 2016, the accused invited her to a hotel and lodge for lunch to discuss the job. However, he took her to the lodge and forced himself upon her.

After raping her, the accused did not give her a job but kept asking her to meet him. When she refused, he threatened that he would send objectionable photographs of her to her husband. He raped her again at a lodge in Andheri. The accused kept blackmailing her and threatened to kill her husband and even abduct her small daughter who studies in a primary school. He also threatened to throw acid on her face and inject her with HIV virus. In 2017, the man again raped her.

When the woman did not give in to his demands, he told her that he had shot a video of them in a compromising position. He sent the video to her woman friend on WhatsApp, which she forwarded to the victim.

The woman approached the local police in Andheri (East) earlier this year. The police registered an FIR for rape, extortion, blackmail and voyeurism and circulating obscene video under relevant sections of the IPC and IT Act.

The accused was arrested on May 2 and has been remanded to police custody.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ONForeign countries, especially Canada, are an escape route for the Punjabis, who are currently facing a job crisis in the state and these countries are serving as a breather for many families to live a quality life, said senior journalist and author P Sainath here on Saturday.

The founding editor of the Peoples Archive of Rural India, who is currently visiting farmers in various areas of Punjab, said that in the absence of migration, the suicide rate in the state due to unemployment might have been more as compared to the existing numbers.

Sainath was here to address a function to mark the 200th birth anniversary of German philosopher Karl Marx at the Desh Bhagat Yaadgar Hall here.

A few days ago, I was travelling from Chandigarh to Patiala and the number of IELTS centres I saw on the way was more than I ever saw in Delhi. At a time when there are fewer job opportunities in the state, moving abroad serves as a good alternative for the people in distress and there is nothing wrong in that other than the fact that the skilled people are moving out of the state, said Sainath.

Punjabi farmers are normally misrepresented by the media and films. A farmer is stereotyped as a carefree smiling man on a tractor saying Balle Balle. I agree that people here are cheerful, but this description does not apply to more than 10% of farmers. The number of studies done by universities in Punjab on the current status of farmers shows an extremely high level of indebtedness and I was actually surprised to see that margin per acre is higher than I estimated primarily because you have such high rents and there is also a severe water crisis, said Sainath on the state farmers.

Sainath called upon the countrys farmers to demand and force a 20-day-long special Parliament session to discuss the agrarian crisis. At least 10 lakh farmers from the state should move to Delhi and gherao Parliament so that people come to know about the real agrarian crisis that the country is facing today, said the Ramon Magsaysay award winner.A woman in her mid thirties and her infant son were killed while three other family members were injured critically after their neighbour set their house on fire at Ishar Singh Colony of Hoshiarpurs Tanda town on Sunday.

The deceased were identified as Rajwant Kaur and 11-month-old Harmanpreet Singh.

Police said the accused, Joginder Singh (42), fled from the spot after the incident. Later, he consumed celphos tablets and was admitted to the Hoshiarpur civil hospital.

As per information, Joginder had an altercation with his neighbour and Rajwants father-in-law Lachhman Singh (65) early in the morning after which he injured the latter by pelting him with bricks. He then barged into Lachhmans house and set on fire a bedroom in which the family members were sleeping.

While Harmanpreet Singh died on the spot, Rajwant, her mother-in-law Gurdev Kaur, aged around 60, and her children Jaskaran Singh (8) and Parminder Kaur (11) were injured. Rajwant died receiving treatment late in evening.

Their neighbours rushed the injured to hospital with the help of the police. All the injured were later referred to the Christian Medical College and Hospital (CMCH) and the Dayanand Medical College and Hospital (DMCH) in Ludhiana. Doctors in the civil hospital said all patients were in a critical condition.

Lachhmans son Kuldip Singh, who had gone to another city to attend a wedding when the incident took place, told the police that his family objected to Joginders immoral activities which had led to animosity between them.

Senior superintendent of police (SSP) J Elanchazhian said a case was registered against Joginder under Sections 302 (murder), 436 (mischief by fire) and 427 (causing damage to property) of the Indian Penal Code.

We have learnt that the accused has consumed poison and is also suffering from burn injuries. We will arrest him after assessing his medical condition, the SSP said. He said the police had found kerosene spill over from the spot.

Sources revealed that Joginders wife had committed suicide about six months ago. After her death, he had left his two children with his mother in Ludhiana. He did lottery business at Bhogpur, it has been learnt.

(The story has been updated)Let's start with your name and your site. Let's have it.





Hail and howre you? Gideon here and my online magazine is Cosmic-Rock.com. As you were hippie.





Start at the beginning, how did you get started with this crazy idea of spreading the music?





I started the website to support all kinds of cool and interesting artists, musicians, authors, photographers and more. Its fun and its a gift to help out with the good fight and also to know youre helping people get some recognition. Its fun and we try to keep it interesting.





We're all the product of our musical past. What's your musical history? First album you ever bought? First musical epiphany moment? First album that terrified the hell out of you?





The first records I ever bought were a Jethro Tull 45 and later the David Bowie Ziggy Stardust album. So magical. First musical epiphany, maybe hearing my family members playing the records they loved before I ever bought any. Carole King, Allman Brothers, Bowie, Doors, 60s and 70s music. My brother liked KISS, Queen, BOC. He had 8 tracks in his car of cool 70s rock. My sister liked 80s music turned me into a fan of 70s and 80s stuff. First concert was KISS and Nantucket. I didnt go to shows for years and finally I went again and saw Cult/Billy Idol on the Electric Tour and they were both totally awesome. First epiphany I guess was hearing the musical power crack off the turntable from those greats. People like Bowie and the greats from those eras were just supernatural. First album that was creepy was the day I walked into a very small record store and it was the chance day in 1983 Shout At The Devil was released by Motley Crue. There were records and promo posters all over the store and I wondered what the hell was all this crazy? Look at me now. Help me Nikki Sixx youre my only hope! Later my friend from Honduras, who was my best pal bought the Cult album Love upon release and he was like this is the best. We were quietly listening to it in his room in this old house and it was totally this secret we uncovered, this mysterious thing, laying on the floor listening to that album it was pure magic swirling around the house in 1985. The first time I saw the Cult and they played Phoenix I heard Billy Duffy playing those riffs and Ian was holding his hands up in the air and it was the epiphany. Me and my friends Mike and Beese went to see Motorhead/Alice Cooper a few years later and oddly by chance we met Wurzel in a guitar store called Reliable Music. He had dropped his guitar at soundcheck and cracked the neck, so he came to the store looking for a new one. Wurzel asked us if we were going to see the show and we said we didnt have any tickets and he put us all on the guest list. So awesome of him. I remember he was so dirty, like Pigpen wrapped in leather jacket and leather pants and wearing red sunglasses. His accent was so thick it was difficult to understand and I am no stranger to having a weird accent. That was so gracious and kind of him, the total way to treat your fans. Weird poor metal fans in a guitar store who run into Motorheads guitar player. So we busted down to the show at the old Coliseum in Charlotte and it was 80s metal super power, Alice and Motorhead. Lemmy was a metal pirate king with Wurzel his right hand man, it was awesome.





What's the last album to grab you by the throat and insist you listen?





In recent days I have been really into old jazz. I chill and listen to Miles Davis Kind of Blue album from 1959. Its a complete masterpiece. John Coltrane, Chic Corea, stuff like that. Baby Hueys album is a true classic, 1971. War Why Cant We Be Friends from 1975. Bob Marley, Peter Tosh classic reggae. I really enjoy these styles and find them relaxing. Its amazing how music will open up to you as a musician playing or as a listener at different times in your journey. I really encourage anybody to not limit what music you can enjoy. Keep it wide open with no apologies. Here we have already talked about Miles Davis, Motley Crue, Motorhead and Chic Corea, so there ya go.





What do you see happening in the music scene today, good and bad?





I think the business can be a very arduous and treacherous undertaking in a million ways people do not see from the outside unless they choose to jump into the river. The business was always a potentially dark and rough way of life but I think since the internet has so greatly changed the music business I would say now its way harder for artists of all types. Because its so much harder, artists and some of the people entailed are desperate and frustrated during the process from the smallest things to the big stuff. The frustration, desperation, eager desire, egos, all cause a stain on the music community because very few are able to have a carefree journey which is the way music should be: magical, healthy and awesome. The times and the environment make it harder for the artist and the people who strive to support and help the artists. Fans need to respect the bands and the bands need to hold the fans high and respect them at the same time. Social media stirs up so much tension, misunderstanding and drama in our lives between people, let alone the lives of creative people which are crazy anyway. People are so wired to lash out at things which dont need to hold any meaning but they fixate on nonsense. Theyve been trained like Pavlovs dog to react and say something bad on a computer, for a fleeting reward emotionally and sense of odd affirmation. Its unhealthy for the world at large for it to be trendy to spout weak hate like that. News pieces on anything, peoples personal lives and really anything out there. But yeah what I mean is artists are creating and then gibbering goblins savagely attack people online 24/7. They dont have any power but its still a shameful cacophony of lowly behavior. Thank the Gods for the good people who stand above it all who use it in a positive manner. Its a great tool but as far as influencing the times, the net and social media constantly shake up the climate and can create an urgency about the lack of stability, security and loving support network for any kind of artist can make them anxiety ridden and angry. New bands struggle to get people out to see them, support their records or get any recognition in the sea of it all. The key is to do it because you love music and have the right heart about it. Be determined and bad ass, make people recognize it. As far as good there are great people like yourself and the guys at your label and website, genuine fans of music, who showcase great talented artists all over demonstrating what it should all be about. But yeah above it all is the real like the ones we mentioned, Miles Davis, old artists who are revered, their work is timeless. Cool musicians, there are always new ones coming out of the gates so for the music as a living entity it is vast, exciting and welcome friend thats always there.





What's the hardest thing you encounter in spreading the music?





For me the journey has had some uphill difficulties, unhappy events and bizarre foolery at times but its dissipated since I learned so much about doing it and why I love it and want to continue over the years. Im able to smooth out the hard times and proceed with not much upheaval. Its also how you define them. The hard times are just temporary distractions that only have the power you give them from you own energy supply. The great people with awesome attitudes and love for music, what I do, bands we all love, overshadow the negative aspects with their love for it all which is rewarding back to you for giving so much. Music is about everything awesome, so the weakness and trappings of the flaws of mortals dont hold sway on the power of rock.





Give us three bands that we need to keep our eyes out for.





I think the new JIRM album is great. I dig Green Desert Water, Freedom Hawk. A few more are Sonic Wolves, Red Beard Wall and Disenchanter.





Tell us about your personal music collection. Vinyl? CD? What's your prized possession?





Cds, vinyl and cassettes. Hard to pick most prized but I would say a vinyl copy of the Cult Dreamtime album signed by the Holy rock union of Duffy and Astbury, a gift from my good friend Robert years ago hangs on my wall.





What makes it all worthwhile for you?





Many things. Hearing from people that all of it somehow makes a difference and enriches their life. I am really fortunate and thankful to receive so much love and respect my way for my music, my efforts and daily life as a person. I feel truly wealthy and Im thankful. Many of the examples like hearing people love your music and feeling great, hearing from fans that care about you as a person, playing shows, meeting people who know you and want to meet you and hearing from artists that they appreciate what you do or them. I see people sometimes cover my songs, or have tattoos from my music, or etc. Im really honored. Knowing that I mean something like that to people is such a gift to my life. I hope I never let them down.





How would your life be different if you weren't spreading the word about music?





on, Down from the door where it began, how far ahead the road must go?. Once you put your foot on the path and follow with the next one the only thing you can do for the rest of the journey is keep walking ahead. Rock and roll is such a mighty pagan tribal thing, like those people who were down on the Beatles were right after all. We all got swayed by those ancient Druid drum beats. Ringo Starr herded the world like a jolly pied piper to Page and Plants hippie fields of flowers with Plant urging people to remember laughter. Come find me cause Im there brother. I think about this often in the last year or so. I believe I would have focused more heavily on other parts of my life that are important because I definitely put years of time, heart, effort and blood sweat and tears into my music at the expense perhaps of other things that are really important to me. But we make choices and do the best we can with the knowledge and abilities we have at the time, you have to apply it somewhere whatever you do. I would have spent more time and energy on so many things but I would still have played music, but with more wisdom about it all that took time and experience to develop. But yeah perhaps I would have followed other dreams more and yeah it would shape eras of my life in ways but I know I give people music, which as a life element is sacred. Im honored that my music means anything to anybody. If I hadnt played music my life would have been mad different in all kinds of places. Like that butterfly effect theory of small moves on one side affecting others in great ways. I wouldnt have met key individuals who mean the world to me, had the sacred priceless experiences. At times I have had some dark haunting regrets and you wonder if the bad outweighs the good. But the magic of the good is so powerful in the big picture the difficult parts are fading shadows when you stare at the bigger light. Decades ago I wanted to start a psychedelic, bluesy, biker rock band and I did. Im psyched the music lives and echoes across the years. I have a lot more to give. Like the Allmans said The Road goes on forever.. and JRR Tolkien The Road goes ever on andon, Down from the door where it began, how far ahead the road must go?. Once you put your foot on the path and follow with the next one the only thing you can do for the rest of the journey is keep walking ahead. Rock and roll is such a mighty pagan tribal thing, like those people who were down on the Beatles were right after all. We all got swayed by those ancient Druid drum beats. Ringo Starr herded the world like a jolly pied piper to Page and Plants hippie fields of flowers with Plant urging people to remember laughter. Come find me cause Im there brother.





Ever been threatened by a band or a ravenous fan?





Haha no threats. Have had the occasional ravenous stalker but nobody troubles me really. Im the lone wolf walking a path around the music scene in the middle, so everybody focused on the yapping crowd in the middle area pretty much leaves me alone. People that come to me tend to be authentic and genuine cause they know what time it is.





In the end, what would you like to have accomplished, or be remembered for?





I think about this sometimes lately too. Dont all men carry this question inside their heart? Like that quote that is attributed to Odysseus before the Trojan War Men are haunted by the vastness of eternity. And so we ask ourselves: will our actions echo across the centuries? Will strangers hear our names long after we are gone, and wonder who we were, how bravely we fought, how fiercely we loved? That kind of sums up the soul of all true men who struggle ever onward and carry fire in their blood. They realize the world is made through struggle but blessed by beauty. What people may say about me when I leave this world is up to them. For haters to re-write and cater to their agenda of how they wish to attempt to paint me as a man or musician? Or for people who see and know the real with their own eyes? For those who get you, know what youre all about to lay down the hammer of truth? But yeah I ask myself: what is my life about but beauty and music, the thrill of the battle and the power of the sacred Goddess love? To the strongest, let the stones fall where they may, what is carved in time is not easily washed away. If people remember me at all use what I tried to be an example of, apply it to your own journey and walk like a tiger.





What's next? Any new projects?





People ask for the follow up to 3o Weight or new music and for sure I will get back to my music as well in time. These days I have been digging helping other artists by running my website. Its rewarding to encourage other peoples creativity, give them props they may not often get and put them out there for people to recognize. With the Cosmic-Rock.com, its a determined statement to lift people up and shine a light on them. I have a doom metal side band called Cemetery Crows which had a four-song ep called Wolves of Desire a few years ago. The C.Crows stuff is doom metal with ambient death metal vocals, kind of like early death metal vocals over traditional doom sludge metal. The vocals are buried in the mix and effects heavy for atmosphere. I started a second ep but it faltered with the lineup and remains unfinished probably for good. It was sounding excellent but it was not meant to be at the time. I made the mistake of waiting around and trying to involve too many people even if all had good intentions you could never wrangle them from their conflicting schedules to even get in the same room at the same time for a solid year. Every time anything was set up at all, at least one person or more could not make the same day. It just wasnt the time to record it. I have a few pals I will call again to recruit when I start it back up. I have other side bands, a few recorded already and more to come down the line. I look at it like the more music the better, side projects are fun.People ask for the follow up to 3o Weight or new music and for sure I will get back to my music as well in time. These days I have been digging helping other artists by running my website. Its rewarding to encourage other peoples creativity, give them props they may not often get and put them out there for people to recognize. With the Cosmic-Rock.com, its a determined statement to lift people up and shine a light on them.





Finally, other than the music, what's your other burning passion?





Im definitely an eccentric individual and Im all into all kinds of things outside of music scenes so really these days its a less busy part of my social life. I love world religions, anthropology, archaeology, parapsychology, stuff like that. I spend a lot of time dedicated to my spirituality. I love archery, martial arts, yoga, cooking. Im a big reader always surrounded by books. I dig spending time with animals and going to the ocean and forest. I focus my time on people who enrich my life and enjoy my family and friends. Music is a method to the magic and a beautiful element to the universe so like all forms of passion it is pure and righteous. Thank you Ripple for the interview, much love and respect to you guys.The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has registered a first information report (FIR) against Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Khalistani militant, for allegedly planning to carry out terrorist attacks in Punjab.

The NIA registered a case on May 2 in Delhi against Nijjar under Sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 124A (sedition) and 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on ground of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc) of the IPC and Sections 10, 16 and 18 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, and Section 25 of Arms Act following on the recommendation of the Union home ministry. The details of the FIR are available on the NIA website.

The FIR states that Nijjar, a permanent resident of Surrey in Canada, along with the members of proscribed terrorist organisation Babbar Khalsa International (BKI), was planning to promote disharmony between different groups on grounds of religion and revive terrorism in Punjab. The report also states that Nijjars associates in India have been carrying out reconnaissance of gatherings of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh with an intention to target them and strike terror, states the report.

The NIA has registered the case on the basis of an FIR registered against Nijjar at the Dakha police station in Ludhiana in 2016.

Nijjars name was on the list of wanted persons handed over to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau by Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh when the two met in Amritsar in February.

In 2010, Punjab Police had registered an FIR against Nijjar for his role in the bomb explosion near Satya Narayan temple in Patiala on April 21, 2010. UK-based Khalistani terrorist Paramjit Singh Pamma was one of the main accused in the case. In 2015, another FIR was filed against Nijjar for his alleged role in targeting Hindu leaders in Punjab.

A lookout circular and Interpols Red Corner Notice were also issued against Nijjar in 2015 and 2016.

On April 13 this year, the Surrey unit of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police took Nijjar into custody but released him within 24 hours without any charges being filed.

Nijjar is being represented by Sikhs for Justice legal adviser Gurpatwant Pannun in his personal capacity, and also by Vancouver-based law firm Peck and Company. The founder of the legal firm, Richard Peck, had also represented one of the accused in the bombing of Air India flight 182, Ajaib Singh Bagri.

A Canadian media report quoted Pannun saying: We will defend Nijjar and thwart Indian governments attempt of terrorise Sikh separatists who are raising voices against atrocities committed against the Sikh community while being part of Sikhs rights to self determination campaign Referendum 2020. I am prepared to fight any attempt to extradite Nijjar to India.

Indian authorities believe Nijjar to be linked to Khalistan Tiger Force and had communicated their concerns to Ottawa that he was allegedly conducting weapons training at a range in the locality of Mission City.Keerthy Suresh is all set to bring alive the golden era of south Indian cinema once again as she steps into the shoes of Savitri -- the radiant beauty who ruled the hearts decades back. Perhaps the first biopic which has an Indian actress as its subject, Mahanati has been directed by Nag Ashwin. As the film -- Mahanati in Telugu and Nadigaiyar Thilagam in Tamil -- readies for release, fans are still amazed by how similar she looks to the veteran actor in the stills. The adulation is sweet for it comes after months of hard work. In an exclusive interview with Hindustan Times, Keerthy Suresh revealed what it took to play the role of the veteran actor and the road ahead.

In fact, the actor says she refused the offer to play Savitri initially. It sounded funny then. I wondered if something like this would even happen. Thats when I said no and it took a few meeting with Nag Ashwin to convince me. The narration did the trick, but it made me more nervous. After I said yes, I started to wonder if I could really do it. I wanted to, but how would I?

A still from Mahanati featuring Keerthy Suresh.

However, Nag Ashwin was convinced that Keerthy was the best fit for the part. This gave her the confidence. So then, from wondering if she could, she began to do it. On the first day of Mahanati shoot, she shot a few songs of Savitri that were recreated for the film. Usually, the first day is relaxed for actors as you do not have much to do. But here, I had to work on songs that originally featured Savitri. The first song that I shot for was Gangam Bomma, titled Vaaraiyo Thozhi in Tamil. Before the shoot, I even had rehearsal to do it convincingly. As we moved forwards, things got tougher and tougher.

To play Savitris role, Keerthy took help from multiple sources. She watched songs starring Savitri, she watched the iconic film Maya Bazaar again and spoke to the actors daughter to understand her personal characteristic and style. However, she didnt watch too many of her films because that scared her. Watching her perform a role from start to end would make me doubt if I could do the role well so I depended mostly on the clips, her daughters ideas about how I could play her and personal experiences that were recounted by people who had met her or worked with her. All of it was important, Keerthy confessed.

Nag Ashwin had said earlier that Keerthy grew with the film and by the end, there was a spark and power to her performance. Does she agree? The movie itself grows every day. Even as we dub for our roles, it grows and becomes more. For me it has come to mean more than opportunity. This has turned out to be an emotional journey. Throughout the film, I was in a zone where I had to be Savitri and live her life. I changed as a person. Even after I finished shooting for the film, it was not easy for me to come out of the character, she explained.

Savitris life was led in a different era. When asked how she got used to thinking that it was not 2018 but the 50s, Keerthy replied that the minute things fall into place, everything works out. Once everything is put together, you feel like you are already there. The sets that were erected, the costumes that I wore, the make-up that was done for me and the stories that I heard made it easy for me to think of everything in vintage terms.

Keerthy worked on five other projects while doing Mahanati. Initially, she thought this was a mistake as she couldnt live and breathe her character at a stretch and she had to keep switching characters as she moved from one set to another. However, after a point, she realised this was a blessing. The advantage was that I got to take a break from being in the shoes of this character. We shot the film in an order and so the lighthearted, fun scenes were shot initially and the emotionally draining part of the film was shot together. So I could take a break from this by playing different parts. While I was depressed at times, this break allowed me some breathing room, she admitted.

While Keerthy plays Savitri, Dulquer Salmaan plays the role of Gemini Ganesan who is Savitris husband and also an accomplished Tamil actor. Speaking about working with Dulquer and how they developed their equation to build chemistry for the film, Keerthy said that it was done organically. Nagy (Nag Ashwin) would come and explain the scene to us and we would perform. We didnt do much in terms of preparation. In fact, I did not realise how beautifully the scene or mood of each scene had come out until I saw it while dubbing. Especially, the songs have come out so beautifully and I realised this only after watching the teaser, she confessed.

As the film nears its release date and the expectations built around it are sky high, Keerthy accepts that there is a lot of pressure and that she is worried about how people would accept her as Savitri. Its a huge responsibility and initially, my mind was a clean slate. After going through 120 changes, seeing small elements play big parts, I did not think too much. I also did not know what would go in the teaser. In fact, I also wondered if the shots in teaser would be good. However, after I watched the teaser, I have butterflies in my stomach, she said.

Now that she has completed work on Mahanati, the actor wants to balance both commercial films and performance-oriented films and feels that she has time to explore different kinds of roles in the future. She also said that she hasnt signed a new project post Mahanati. The actor will be seen in Tamil films Thalapathy 62 opposite Vijay, and in Saamy 2 opposite Vikram after the biopic.

Author tweets @Priyanka_S_MCC

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ott:10:ht-entertainment_listing-desktopAn explosion at a mosque used as a voter centre in the eastern Afghan province of Khost on Sunday killed at least 17 people and wounded 34, local officials said, in the latest attack on preparations for long-delayed parliamentary elections.

Basir Bina, spokesman for the provincial police, said people were gathered after afternoon prayers in the mosque, which was also being used as a voter registration centre for parliamentary elections due in October.

He said the blast appeared to have been caused by explosives left in the mosque rather than by a suicide bomber.

Habib Shah Ansari, head of the health department in Khost, a mountainous region on the border with Pakistan, said 17 were confirmed dead from the blast with 34 injured.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the explosion, which adds to a series of attacks on voter centres since the registration process began in April. The Taliban, which has warned people against taking part in the election process, issued a statement denying any involvement.

Medical aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres said it had donated emergency supplies to the Khost provincial hospital where many of the wounded were taken.

Last month, around 60 people were killed in a suicide attack on a voter centre in the capital Kabul, which was claimed by Islamic State and there have been a string of smaller incidents that have deterred many from going to the voter centres.

Sundays blast came as fighting has spread across Afghanistan, with government officials saying that a district in the northern province of Badakhshan which was seized by Taliban fighters last week had been retaken.

However Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid denied the reports that Kohistan district had been retaken, saying in a statement that security forces had been driven back.

In a separate incident in the northern province of Faryab, seven people were killed when the car they were travelling in hit a roadside bomb early on Sunday morning, Mohammad Karim Yuresh, spokesman for Faryab police, said.Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Sunday that if the United States quits the nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers then Washington would regret it like never before.

US President Donald Trump has threatened to abandon the agreement when it comes up for renewal on May 12, demanding his countrys European allies fix the terrible flaws or he will re-impose sanctions.

If the United States leaves the nuclear agreement, you will soon see that they will regret it like never before in history, Rouhani said in a televised speech in northwestern Iran.

Trump must know that our people are united, the Zionist regime (Israel) must know that our people are united, Rouhani added.

The nuclear deal was struck in 2015 between Iran and Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States, then led by Barack Obama.

Under the pact, sanctions were lifted in return for a commitment not to pursue a nuclear bomb, but Iran says it is not reaping the rewards despite complying with the deal.

The Islamic republic has always denied it sought a nuclear weapon, insisting its atomic programme was for civilian purposes.

Rouhani did not specify how Iran would react if the US pulls out of the deal.

But he said he had given the necessary orders, notably to Irans Atomic Energy Organisation, in anticipation of Trumps decision.

On Thursday Ali Akbar Velayati, the foreign policy adviser to Irans supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned Tehran would quit the nuclear deal if the United States withdraws.Pakistans interior minister Ahsan Iqbal was shot and wounded in an apparent assassination attempt on Sunday as he left a rally in the central province of Punjab.

The 59-year-old Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader was attacked during the partys corner meeting in Qasba Kanjrod area of his constituency of Narowal. A staunch ally of ousted premier Nawaz Sharif, Iqbal is one of the most senior figures in the government as well as in PML-N.

Police arrested the attacker, identified as Abid Hussain, a man in his twenties. Local media reported that the attacker belonged to a religious party but his motivation was not immediately known.

District Police Officer Imran Kishwar said the attacker used a 30-bore pistol to fire at Iqbal from a close range of around 18 metres.

One of the shooters has been arrested and (is) being interrogated by the police, Punjab government said in a Twitter message.

The incident took place when Iqbal was leaving the meeting held at the residence of a state assembly member.

Police said the minister received two bullets to his arm.

Junior interior Tallal Chaudry as well as doctors told local media that Iqbal was out of danger.

Iqbal was taken to the district headquarters hospital in Narowal and operated upon. He is to be airlifted later to Lahore for further treatment, family sources said.

Pakistans Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi strongly condemned the attack and called for an immediate report into the incident by the chief of police in Punjab province.

The assassination attempt is likely to heighten political tensions ahead of general elections expected in late July.



(With inputs from agencies)Twenty-three miners were killed and nine others were wounded Saturday when a coal mine collapsed due to a gas explosion in southwestern Pakistan, officials said.

The accident occurred in Marwaarh, 45 kilometres (28 miles) east of Quetta, which is the capital of oil and gas-rich Balochistan province bordering Iran and Afghanistan.

The roof caved in following an explosion triggered by the accumulation of methane gas, killing 23 miners and wounding nine others, two of them seriously, Jawaid Shahwani, the top government official in Quetta, told AFP.

Shahwani said 25 workers were inside the mine when the explosion occurred, adding that all the injured miners had been rescued and taken to hospital.

We are trying our best to recover bodies but it will take time as most of the bodies are buried very deep, he said.

Pakistani mines are notorious for poor safety standards and bad ventilation.

At least 43 workers were killed in March 2011 when explosions triggered a collapse in a coal mine in Balochistan, which has battled separatist insurgents and Islamist militants for more than a decade.

Balochistan is the largest of Pakistans four provinces but its roughly seven million people have long argued they do not get a fair share of its vast gas and mineral wealth.Adam Purinton murdered her husband in a premeditative and racially-motivated attack that changed Sunayana Dumalas life as she had never imagined. But she never desired for him to be made to pay for his crime with his own life.

Neither me or my family never wanted a death penalty, because we did not believe in taking a life for life, Dumala said in an email to Hindustan Times on Saturday to a question on whether she would have wanted the death penalty for Srinivas Kuchibhotlas killer.

Srinu would have also wanted the same, she went on to say, using the name she used for her husband.

At the same time, Dumala added, we would have respected the decision of (the) judiciary system if they decided on a death penalty.

Full statement by Srinivas Kuchibhotlas wife in US court: Our dreams turned short because of one person

Kuchibhotla was an Indian IT engineer working with GPS manufacturer Garmin.Purinton shot him fatally on February 22 last year, striking him thrice as he sat at a bar with colleague and friend Alok Madasani in Olathe, Kansas. Before the shooting, he had asked the Indians their legal status and yelled at them, telling them to get out of my country.

Kansas has the death penalty but its rarely used. No executions have been carried out in the state since 1965.

In the guilty plea deal entered by Purinton, the life sentence was the maximum he could get. And he was given the maximum sentence for each of the three charges against him  one count of first degree murder for killing Kuchibhotla, and two counts of attempted first-degree murder for shooting Madasani and Ian Grillot, a local man who had suffered grievous bullet wounds when he tried to intervene.

All three punishments will run concurrently, the court ordered, which will keep him in prison for all his life and more.

The 52-year-old will not be eligible for parole and thus will spend 930 months, or 77.5 years, in jail.

Purinton also faces federal hate-crime charges which carry the death penalty as the maximum sentence. But it was not clear if federal prosecutors will seek the capital punishment.

The US Navy veteran had earlier pleaded not guilty, and is scheduled to enter a fresh plea in a court appearance on May 21.

Dumala and the Kuchibhotla family may not want Purinton to pay with his life for what he did, but she wants him to spend his days in prison to reflect upon his actions, as she said in a victim-impact statement that was read out in the court by a member of the state prosecutors team.

What harm did he do to you that you grew so much animosity towards him? He was only enjoying a glass of beer with his friend, the prepared remarks said, addressing Purinton. I wish you had the ability to see beyond my husbands skin colour and the beautiful and kind-hearted person underneath it. And how do you expect me to measure the impact of your ignorance on our lives and dreams?

I hope in the years that you must spend in the jail, you will one day realise the magnitude of your mistake and work towards your penance, Dumala said in the statement.As Pakistan prepares for its general elections in the summer of 2018, a transgender is all set to contest for the National Assembly from Okara.

Nayyab Ali, a member of the provincial voter committee of the Election Commission of Pakistan, who is also an activist of the All Pakistan Transgender Election Network in Punjab, has announced her intention to run as an independent candidate. Ali believes that even though life knocked her down several times, she has remained motivated and passionate about serving the nation and the people of her area. I have taken it as a challenge and have already started my campaign on social media and soon will get in touch with my gurus and community for their assistance, Ali, who is also an acid attack survivor, told a local daily.

Ali, born Mohammad Arsalan, is famous in Okara for her social work. Unlike my opponents from political parties, I am not financially strong and cant buy votes, but I am confident that the social work I have been doing will help me win the seat, she said.

Ali expressed concern over security threats she could face during the polls from rival candidates.

Ali said when she was in class eight, she was disowned by her family for being transgender. I left my family and started living with a guru, who was kind to me and let me continue my studies, said the Punjab University graduate with a degree in Botany.

She is also writing a book which she plans to publish after the elections.

If I win the seat, I will make all-out efforts to establish a medical university in Okara and resolve water, sanitation, education, health, and unemployment issues, she said.US President Donald Trump has floated a new idea about border security, saying that people might have to think about closing up the country, the media reported.

They dont want the wall but were going to get the wall, even if we have to think about closing up the country for a while, CNN quoted Trump as saying during a tax reform roundtable in Ohio on Saturday.

Were going to get the wall. We have no choice. We have absolutely no choice. And were going to get tremendous security in our country.

And we may have to close up our country to get this straight, because we either have a country or we dont. And you cant allow people to pour into our country the way theyre doing, he added.

It was not immediately clear what Trump meant by the remarks. The White House has not commented.

Indian origin Democratic Representative Pramila Jayapal told CNN on Saturday that Trump is absolutely out of his mind to think that is any kind of a reasonable solution for our economy or compassionate or in line with our values.

This President has done everything he can every time hes in trouble to turn around and try to turn it against immigrants, and it really deeply saddens me, Jayapal said.

During the roundtable, the President sharply criticised Democrats, including Ohios Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown, for their opposition to a border wall.

Trump has escalated his rhetoric against illegal immigration, especially in the wake of an annual migrant caravan that is seeking asylum in the US.

He has also ordered the National Guard to deploy troops to the border to address what the administration calls a crisis there.

Trump also told supporters at a speech in Michigan last weekend that if Congress did not meet his funding demands for border security, he may support a government shutdown this winter.Blog Archive June (1) May (16) April (23) March (20) February (17) January (13) December (22) November (40) October (57) September (45) August (55) July (52) June (165) May (121) April (141) March (32) February (76) January (141) December (85) November (130) October (146) September (96) August (89) July (82) June (64) May (99) April (41) March (98) February (61) January (64) December (67) November (51) October (70) September (75) August (52) July (66) June (76) May (104) April (93) March (151) February (168) January (107) December (42) November (56) October (69) September (103) August (75) July (191) June (171) May (207) April (302) March (490) February (155) January (138) December (135) November (226) October (146) September (107) August (160) July (292) June (316) May (361) April (460) March (327) February (49) January (2) November (13) October (3) September (37) August (43) July (6) June (12) May (1) April (29) March (30) February (58) January (27) December (11) November (16) October (34) September (81) August (81) July (93) June (12) May (1) February (1) November (3) October (2) September (6) August (1) July (2) June (14) May (10) April (8) March (13) February (1) January (5)While the election campaign is in full swing elsewhere in Iraq, the countrys displaced camps holding hundreds of thousands of people barely register on the radars of those running for office.

In Camp Seven in the western Anbar province not a single campaign poster can be seen appealing to those who have the right to cast their ballot at the parliamentary vote on May 12.

The rows of UN tents are part of nine sprawling encampments in the region housing thousands of people who fled the devastating fight against the Islamic State group.

Some five months after the Iraqi government declared victory over the jihadists they remain stuck in the desert camp -- and apparently ignored by the countrys politicians.

For many of the residents the disinterest shown by the election candidates is mirrored by their own antipathy to those running.

I have no confidence in them, says Umm Maher, who fled her home in Qaim, a former IS-stronghold.

Heightening her anger -- and that of others here -- is the destruction of their homes and the disappearance of male relatives they say were either killed or seized by security services during the battle against IS.

If they want our votes, they can give us back our children and our homes, adds the 50-year old, who doesnt know the fate of her husband and son.

Going into the polls, Iraq is only just starting to recover from the years of IS dominance over swathes of the country and the punishing fight to end it.

A displaced Iraqi woman sits outside a tent where she is taking shelter in a camp for internally displaced people near al-Khalidiyeh in Iraq's western Anbar province on April 24, 2018. (AFP)

Out of a total displaced population of around two million people, some 285,000 are registered to vote, according to the electoral commission.

166 polling stations are being installed in 70 displaced camps, spread across eight of the countrys 18 provinces.

- Nobody has come -

In a bid to encourage the displaced to vote, election officials say identification requirements have been eased for those in the camps.

But despite that, Umm Maher is not the only female resident of Camp Seven who wont be voting, due to the scar left behind by the violence.

I will not vote until my eldest son returns, says 47-year-old Umm Ahmed, who hasnt seen her 20-year-old child since he was seized three years ago.

Besides, nobody has come to ask after us, adds the former resident of Saqlawiya, another ex-IS stronghold, a black veil partially covering her face.

Politicians admit that despite the potential votes that could be won in the camps, few have ventured there.

The campaign is absent in the camps and no candidate goes there, even though the votes of the displaced are important, confirms Hikmat Zeydan, from the Rally for the Unity of Iraq, fielding five candidates in Anbar.

Many are afraid of finding themselves in a difficult situation, because they have done nothing to help the return of the displaced.

One candidate, running on a list for Prime Minister Haider al-Abadis Shiite-dominated Victory Alliance in Samarra, north of Baghdad is blunt in explaining why he has stayed away from two nearby camps.

We have not put up any posters and did not move (around there) because most families are Daesh, alleges Jassem al-Joubouri, using an Arabic term for IS.

Elsewhere in the country some have made an effort at trying to represent the interests of the displaced.

Abdel Bari Abbas, fled his home west of the former IS bastion of Mosul, and is now standing as a candidate.

Displaced Iraqis are seen in a tent where they are taking shelter in "Camp Seven" near al-Khalidiyeh in Iraq's western Anbar province on April 24, 2018. (AFP)

As he runs his campaign from Baharka camp, in Arbil province in Kurdistan, he insists his experiences give him a unique insight into how to help.

My family and the majority of Mosul residents have had many struggles. It is necessary to have a candidate who will make their voices heard, says the 48-year-old Arabic teacher.

The problems will not be solved without us and I promised myself that even if I am elected, my family and I will stay in the camp.According to Blac Chynas mother, Tokyo Toni, she hasnt been in physical contact with her grandchildren for a bit of time and shes finally speaking out about it.

It was in a lengthy Instagram caption that Tokyo detailed that she hasnt seen King or Dream in an entire year, noting that Rob Kardashian is the only reason shes been able to see Dream as he connected them by way of FaceTime.

"I haven't seen [Dream] in a year, she wrote. I don't know her from a can of paint. It's sad I only see her on FT!" She went on to add, "SHE NEEDS ME!! THEY ALL DO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They need my wisdom real love and trust!!!!!! Hollywood is tainted and it's her line now (Chyna) Just don't forget about me!!!!"

Tokyo Toni, born Shalana Hunter, also noted that she has asked to be her grandkids nanny instead of having someone else look after them, but has been denied the request to spend more time with them.

"Nobody needs to be watching My grand kids! I need to be their nanny ( As requested) but to no avail! Gosh she is getting huge now. Keep in mind they are my grandkids ok!!!!!!!!!!!

She revealed that she also doesnt have any money to travel to California to visit Chyna or the children, further padding onto her previous allegations that while Blac Chyna can afford to, she has not helped her financially. She also requested that followers send her videos of both King and Dream whenever they spot them.I get my videos from social media. I see them [on] social media. I dont know why and I ask no questions!! God has a plan for to see them soon I prayed hard on it! God heard me, she wrote. Catch the full post below.Former Senator and Republican Nominee John McCain is not responding well to treatment for Brain Cancer. He has been staying at a Hospital near his Arizona ranch where his condition can be monitored around the clock. The situation has become so grave that he and his family have begun planning funeral arrangements. His closest associates have informed the White House directly that they want Donald Trump barred from the service.



John McCain and his family have chosen the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. as the location for the event. In his place, McCain has requested that Mike Pence assume the honor of representing the Oval Office. State funerals are often subject to tradition and etiquette, but the family of the deceased generally retain the right to make changes where they see fit. "Family" is after all, a value proposition we've tried our best to preserve.



Donald Trump feud with John McCain can be traced back to the early stages of the 2016 presidential race. John McCain criticized Trump's Mexican border strategy, not the himself. Three weeks later, Donald retorted by calling him "incompetent" and discredited his years of service in the military by insinuating he was never really a Prisoner of War in Vietnam.



[via]Sylvester Stallone switches between iconic roles because he's kept in shape and the public loves his toothy smile. After years of speculation, Deadline reports that the 71 year old actor is set to return to the Rambo franchise for its fifth instalment. Avi Lerner's Millennium Films looks to be the production house poised to see this project through. Apparently, he has been making his pitches heard at Cannes, with a September shooting schedule in mind. Stallone has left the business planning to Lerner while he works on the script. Bare in mind, a director has not been chosen out of a long list of candidates. If scheduling permits, I would assume this project would a be point of interest for many auteurs familiar with the genre.



Rambo 5 is expected to place on the U.S./Mexico border. When a friend of John Rambo's daughter goes missing, the vigilante is thus thrust into action. The search brings him face to face with a powerful Mexican Drug Cartel. The Rambo franchise tends to borrow from actual Global conflicts, normally taking the sympathetic side of the victim. First Blood came out in 1982, and has since become part of our Collective consciousness as movie-goers. Keep it peeled for further announcements.Published May 3, 2018

PRAIRIE VIEW  Emotion pulled at Ruth Simmons when she visited Prairie View A&M Universitys campus last year.

As she considered taking charge of the historically black university, she remembered where shed begun her academic path that would lead to the top rungs of higher education as president of Brown University, an Ivy League school.

She had been a poor student. She knew firsthand that historically black colleges could change lives. She saw Prairie View A&Ms students striving to move ahead, just as she once had.

How meaningful it is, she thought, to have this place.

At Prairie View A&M  hundreds of miles and worlds away from the elite private institutions she once led  Simmons thought she might be able to do something significant.

There would be challenges. Unlike at Ivy League schools, very poor students make up the majority of those who enroll. Many struggle to graduate in six years, let alone four. The last time a national spotlight focused on the university was in 2015, when alumna Sandra Blands death in a Waller County jail after a traffic stop brought national outrage.

But Simmons took her fears  of disappointing students, of failing to realize how difficult the job might be  as a sign to take charge. Now 72, she came out of retirement to accept the post.

I believe in a way that my path to Prairie View was written in the heavens, Simmons said in April at her inauguration as the universitys eighth president. For how else can I explain the improbable way I came to this task? How can I turn away from doing for other young people what was done for me?







Clockwise from top: Ruth Simmons, president of Prairie View A&M University, pauses and laughs during an interview at Prairie View A&M University. She is photographed outside with students Phyllisa Reams, who is studying biology and chemistry, and Jazmine Salsman, who is studying business, as well as Jennifer Jackson, who is studying biology. (Jon Shapley | Houston Chronicle)

Simmons has eye-popping goals for the 142-year-old institution that would be difficult for any president to achieve, even one with the nationwide reverence she inspires. She believes Prairie View can be among the best smaller universities in the country, and the best historically black college.

She wants to improve graduation rates by increasing scholarship aid and academic advising, to recruit and retain demanding faculty, to refocus efforts on humanities and social sciences and raise funds to keep students in school.

Its a big vision  and one that will be watched closely on campus and across the nation.

Its kind of like Christmas, said James Wilson, an associate provost. Youve been a good kid. You know youre going to get something good. You just dont know what it is.

Simmons makes her mark

Best known today for a barrier-breaking academic rise that made her the first black president of any Ivy League university, Simmons early education in Houston proved formative to her eventual success.

She was born in 1945, the youngest of 12 children in Grapeland, a small town in East Texas. Her family moved south to Houston as agriculture technology began replacing sharecroppers work, she wrote in a 1998 essay published in the Texas Journal of Ideas, History and Culture.

Two universities The needs and goals of students at Brown University and Prairie View A&M are much the same, says Ruth Simmons, who has led them both. But they differ in some key areas. Exclusivity: For Fall 2017, Brown accepted less than 9 percent of undergraduate applicants. Prairie View A&M accepted 81.8 percent. Diversity: Less than 6 percent of Browns students that semester were black. At Prairie View A&M, that figure was nearly 82 percent. Costs: Brown charged students $71,050 in tuition and fees in the 2017-18 academic year. Tuition and fees at Prairie View A&M were $23,751 for in-state, residential students.

KHATOR'S CLIMB: An ambitious president. A Houston university set on change. And the 10 years that elevated them both.

A poor student from a rural area, Simmons felt isolated from city students, she said recently at Wheatley High School, her alma mater. She worked in school relentlessly. When she enrolled at the historically black Dillard University in the 1960s, she wrote, high school teachers gave her money and clothes to attend the New Orleans college.

She spent her junior year at Wellesley College, the elite all-womens private school in Massachusetts. She thought she would fail one course taught entirely in French, and told the professor she would have to drop the class. He wouldnt allow it and told her to work harder.

Simmons said she was incensed, mortified and wanted to fly home. But she didnt have the money, so she got to work. The experience, she said, showed her she could work through problems that seemed insurmountable.

Many students dont get that message, she said. From that moment on, I never looked at a gradeIt was all about the effort. It was all about what I could do.

Simmons went on to earn a doctorate in romance languages and literatures from Harvard University. She held several academic appointments in New Orleans and California before moving to Princeton University in New Jersey, where she eventually became the universitys associate dean of faculty.

She left to work as the provost of historically black, all-female Spelman College in Atlanta, and then after three more years at Princeton, she became president of all-female Smith College in Massachusetts.

LATEST: Rice University's Baker Institute to bring in former President Obama

Her appointment drew national attention.

FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT CHOSEN FOR A SEVEN SISTERS SCHOOL, the Washington Post reported.

Smith College Makes History In Naming Its Next President, wrote The New York Times.

She said she tried to tune out the noise and focus on the job. She knew that if she messed up, she wouldnt be forgiven because she was the institutions first black president.

You have to do what every other president has to do, she said.

When Brown Universitys president abruptly resigned in 2000, Brown Chancellor Stephen Robert already had Simmons on his radar. He recruited her away, prompting a flood of angry phone calls from Smith trustees. He knew that Smith felt it needed Simmons, but so did we.

Her 11-year presidency at Brown was far-reaching. Simmons retired after raising $1.6 billion, launching a re-examination of the universitys history with the slave trade, and investing in faculty.

She retired from Brown in 2012 but agreed in 2017 to serve as Prairie View A&Ms interim president, saying she was too old to be considered for the permanent role. In October, she texted A&M Chancellor John Sharp and asked to stay permanently. She was named the sole finalist the same month.

And shes ready to dig in.

I want to focus on our core mission, which is fundamentally academic, she said. We have to demand the most of our students. I love them. Theyre so wonderful, but I dont at the same time hold back in insisting to them on what they have to do in order to get the most out of their education.

Focus ahead

Prairie View A&Ms residential campus sits on a former slave plantation in Waller County, where pristine grassy areas separate new and aging facilities.

Here, at the second oldest public higher education institution in Texas, most students are poor, with about two-thirds of the campus receiving a federal grant reserved for low- income students. About half of the students are the first generation in their family to go to college  just like Simmons was.

Prairie View  like many universities that admit most students who apply  has struggled to graduate its students, in part because of such factors. Students take far more credit hours than needed to graduate, a sign that better advising could reduce time to graduation and therefore student debt.

Without a financial safety net, any minor setback can derail the path to graduation, and a lack of familiarity with the college environment can mean students will take longer to graduate.

But serving these students is inherent to the mission of historically black colleges and universities, created to educate those excluded from other campuses. Some research has found that black students at HBCUs perform better than black students at predominantly white universities when controlling for variables including income.

MORE: UT System's McRaven: College leadership 'toughest job in the nation'

These institutions, by virtue of their historical mantle and their contemporary mandate, see it as an institutional responsibility to not have choosiness exclude students who demonstrate potential, said Crystal deGregory, a historian and director of the Atwood Institute at Kentucky State University.

For Simmons to succeed, she must improve student outcomes and funnel money and talent to student retention.

Marybeth Gasman, who directs the Center for Minority-Serving Institutions at the University of Pennsylvania, said successful college leaders find ways to keep students in school, including offering emergency funds or creating programming to help high school students transition to college life.

You have to focus on it. I dont know exactly day-to-day where that focus was, but more than likely shes going to have a pretty keen eye on those issues, Gasman said of Simmons.

Despite the challenges, Prairie View A&M doesnt face the financial constraints of many other historically black universities because of its position in the Texas A&M University System and its multibillion-dollar Permanent University Fund.

And students are energized on campus. Historically black universities including Prairie View have seen growing freshman enrollment. The universitys band performed at the Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade in November, and a new football stadium brought a greater emphasis on athletics.

The university spends more money than most public schools in Texas on research, and its honors program and STEM degrees send graduates to top companies and graduate schools across the country. Simmons has indicated to faculty and staff that she wants to expand that honors program and make faculty leading authorities in their fields.

Students know she is a celebrity in higher education who made history in the Ivy League, said senior Carrington Johnson, 22, from Dallas.

But she has quickly earned their trust, and many call her by her first name. They discuss their aspirations for graduate school with her during weekly office hours, and students wore shirts at homecoming that read Ruth the Truth.

Its one thing being told what to do  its another thing (having someone) showing you how to do it, Johnson said. She inspires us to execute.

Faculty and staff, meanwhile, know change is coming under Simmons. They call her leadership thoughtful, analytical and in pursuit of perfection.

If you are going to remain competitive and remain vital in your service area, you have to ensure that you are constantly working on elevating your presence (and) increasing your services, said Michelle Hill, who started in the fall as the universitys associate vice president for enrollment services. Within the higher education arena, Prairie View has had a place, but there is an opportunity to elevate.

Building phase

Walking back to her office after greeting students on a hot Thursday in April, Simmons characterized staff and faculty sentiment as in the complaint phase  she hears about what needs change.

Im looking forward to getting to the building phase, she said. Here are the ideas we have. Heres where we can make our university better.

In prior appointments, she said, the building phase has started with an energizing idea to show change is attainable. She hinted at her inauguration about potentially creating an African-American studies major, but she said in an interview that the process could take time.

She meets regularly with faculty and professors who feel they have a voice in the universitys governance, said Victoria Godwin, the faculty senates speaker.

Godwin, a communications professor, has also seen more name recognition for the college when she meets academics from around the country. She said she attended a conference earlier this year when a stranger saw her name tag and asked her about Simmons.

Im from Prairie View  that meant Ruth Simmons, she said. That meant very cool.

Already, Simmons has hired new staff overseeing enrollment and development. Carme Williams, the new vice president of development, was a former Rice University fundraiser and filled a position vacant since 2011.

Williams said the university must begin recruiting for planned, major and principal funds, which are not now solicited. Prairie View also needs to build up annual fund participation, though Simmons declined to identify specific goals.

Just 2 percent of alumni give directly to the university, she said, and her office intends to increase that figure. More money comes to the universitys alumni associations and to its foundation.

Simmons network in higher education and in Houston has opened the university to new sources for donations, crucial for an institution that receives only a sliver of what the A&M flagship gets from Texas.

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Simmons and Robert, Browns former chancellor, had dinner in New York after Hurricane Harvey. She told him Prairie View A&M students affected by the storm werent wealthy.

By the end of the conversation, he pledged to match a recent donors gift. H-E-B Chairman and CEO Charles Butt, who met Simmons at the companys Excellence in Education Awards in Houston years ago, had donated $100,000 to Prairie View students affected by the storm.

At her inauguration, she pledged to donate $100,000 more in honor of her parents  matched by $100,000 from Sharp, A&Ms chancellor.

It was a coup for Brown to get her, but its not as big in relation to Prairie View getting her, Robert said recently. She will probably have even more impact.

Simmons former colleagues say she succeeds by cutting through red tape and, when necessary, addressing controversy head-on. At Brown, for example, she launched a committee examining ties to the slave trade after the student newspaper published an advertisement criticizing the idea of reparations to black Americans. She addressed the divisions on campus in her inaugural convocation address.

I think she would just drive a truck through any bureaucratic hurdles, Robert said. When she approaches, the Red Sea parts.

Simmons said her work ethic comes from her mother, who worked as a maid and died when Simmons was 15.

I hate dust bunnies, she said. If I see dust accumulating, it drives me crazyI cant bear to have things like that. Its the same proclivity. When you leave things unattended, they accumulate like dust bunnies. They get bigger and bigger and bigger. They dont disappear.

Looking ahead

Simmons takes charge of Prairie View A&M in an era of wavering state and federal support for higher education.

In the last legislative session, university presidents across the state forecast sharp cuts that they said could jeopardize teaching and research. Though the states flagships were relatively unscathed, regional public institutions were harder hit, but Prairie Views funding was largely flat.

Meanwhile, Texas has set high expectations for what they want universities to achieve by 2030. The Higher Education Coordinating Board has pressured public university systems to improve retention and graduation outcomes, particularly among black male students.

Simmons says shes optimistic to tell Texas lawmakers what visionary work they could do and plans to talk about the innards of what makes great institutions work.

Those are the kinds of policy discussions Im anxious to have, she said. I dont have all the answers, but I have all the opinions in the world about how to do it and Im not hesitant to advance them.

E. Gordon Gee, a seven-time college president who held Browns presidency before Simmons, said leaders need to learn a new universitys culture, strengths and weaknesses when they move between jobs.

Public institutions are far more challenging to lead, he said.

You have 25 million Texans, and you have the Legislature, said Gee, who now leads West Virginia University.

MORE: High school kids learn finance with Prairie View A&M students

Simmons goal to build Prairie View A&M into one of the best small or historically black universities in the country is a major venture. U.S. News & World Report ranked Prairie View at No. 25 in historically black universities, tied with Floridas Bethune-Cookman University.

Prairie View A&M has a 38.6-percent six-year graduation rate, far below the statewide average of 60.9 percent for other public universities in Texas. Howard University, a top historically black university in Washington, D.C., has a six-year graduation rate of about 60 percent.

At her inauguration, Simmons pledged to recruit inspiring, dedicated and demanding faculty and give them support to excel at high levels. They in turn, she said, must demand the most of their students.

On that day, a chilly April afternoon, in fine academic regalia, she affirmed the universitys mission: Proudly and vigorously serving those whose ancestors were excluded from education.

By the time she departs, she said, she would like to have built structures to enable the institution to energize research, strengthen the faculty and raise money.

Once you have the structure in place, she said, its easier for someone to take it to the next level.

Lindsay Ellis writes about higher education for the Chronicle. Her stories have covered international student enrollment, executive leadership and campus safety. You can follow her on Twitter and send her tips at lindsay.ellis@chron.com.

Multimedia by Jon Shapley and Marie D. De Jesus

Timeline by Lindsay Ellis

Design by Jordan Rubio

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The Houston Chronicle is dedicated to serving the public interest with fact-based journalism. That mission has never been more important. Show your support for our journalism at HoustonChronicle.com/subscribe.No, the national debate over gun laws cant be summed up as a cultural divide between folks who hunt and grew up around guns, and folks who feel like they can just call 911 and the police will come, as U.S. Sen. John Cornyn claimed in Dallas the other day.

The real obstacle is elected officials who perpetuate such myths, and fall back on us-and-them caricatures to score political points.

Thats what Cornyn seemed be doing when he made the comment Friday to reporters at the National Rifle Association annual meeting in Dallas.

Trying to find consensus is not easy to do, Cornyn said at the event, where more than 80,000 gun enthusiasts gathered for a four-day convention. The solution is not to restrict the rights of law-abiding citizens.

Read more: Cornyn says cultural divide makes it tough to find consensus on gun rights

Let me tell you what the solution is not: black and white.

Its not pitting country folk against city slickers. Its not pitting gun owners against non-gun owners. Its not portraying families who choose not to keep guns in their home as cowards sitting around waiting for police to save them. Perhaps they have assessed the risk of gun ownership versus the likelihood of actually needing the gun and come to a different conclusion.

Cornyn, it seems, doesnt know his own Texan constituents who grew up around guns, may own them now, but still want common-sense gun laws that would limit a mass shooters ability to kill.

Alexandra Chasses husband is an avid hunter. She knows about guns. That doesnt keep the West Houston mother from advocating for better gun laws as a volunteer with Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.

Its so easy to bring up these mythical personifications of the other side, she said. It just doesnt hold water for me.

The reality, she says, is that people who own guns and those who dont coexist every day. Its common, she said, to have frank conversations with her neighbors about gun ownership and storage before the kids have playdates. People, for the most part, she said, understand and respect each others rights.

Youd never know it to hear the politicians speak.

Youd never know that the options are more nuanced than all guns or no guns. Youd never know that small steps, such as uniform gun laws across states, and banning high-capacity magazines, can make a difference.

Read more: Students may be our best hope for gun reform

Take the hero of the Waffle House shooting, James Shaw Jr., whose intervention saved countless lives. President Trump isnt tweeting about Shaw. He isnt inviting him to the White House. The NRA isnt honoring Shaw at its convention.

Why? Because he didnt use a gun to save the day.

I was just trying to get myself out, he was quoted saying in The Tennessean. I saw the opportunity and pretty much took it.

And what was that opportunity? The shooter had to stop and reload, giving Shaw precious seconds to wrestle the gun away. If the shooter had a high-capacity magazine, that opportunity may not have existed.

Now, Cornyn does have an A rating from the NRA, but he isnt saying this stuff because the gun lobby is paying him to. The Washington Post reports that the NRA has given the veteran Republican senator about $28,000 over the past decade, which, as the Texas Tribune recently pointed out, didnt even make the NRA among his top 15 biggest contributors in 2014, when Cornyn raised $14 million.

Hes saying it because the culture war sells in politics. Like abortion, and the dreaded Texas social studies textbook selection, any cynic will tell you that gun regulation is the gift that keeps on giving in political campaigns and other partisan struggles for power.

Perpetuating fear, the idea that some big, bad liberals are going to come take everybodys guns - that narrative keeps people interested, keeps them donating to campaigns, and keeps them voting.

And, it keeps them ill-informed.

Read more: Tragedy in Vegas gets even worse if we let it become routine

You see, the real divide isnt culture. It isnt between rural hunters and non-gun-owning 911 callers.

The real divide is partisan. Thats the thing that blinds us to common-sense solutions and compromise. Thats the thing, as Sen. Cornyn is no doubt aware, that keeps us from finding consensus.

Last year, a survey published by the Pew Research Center showed that gun owners themselves have diverse views on gun policy, with differences driven in large part by party identification. Large majorities of gun owners and non-owners favor restricting access to guns for individuals with mental illness and those who are on federal no-fly or watch lists.

But among gun owners, those who identify as Republican or Republican-leaning are twice as likely as those who identify more with the Democratic Party to say they belong to the NRA. Among Republicans, a similar number of gun owners and non-owners said the NRA has the right amount of influence on the nations gun laws. Most Democrats, including those who owned guns, said the NRA had too much influence.

Interestingly, some divisions can be explained by gender more than culture. About six in 10 Republican and Republican-leaning women who own guns say they would favor banning assault-style weapons, and creating a federal government database to track all gun sales, according to another Pew poll. About a third or fewer male GOP gun owners express support for those proposals.

Yes, this nation is divided on many issues. But much of that division is by design.

In the debate over common-sense gun laws, lets not forget that another deadly weapon is partisanship.

lisa.falkenberg@chron.com

twitter.com/chronfalkenbergHarris County commissioners voted 5-0 Tuesday to ask Gov. Greg Abbott for permission to hold a special election on Aug. 25.

If the governor allows it, voters will be asked to approve borrowing up to $2.5 billion to tackle critical flood-control projects.

The specific projects have yet to be determined, and the bond referendum itself could be placed on the ballot in November. Some Harris County voters would argue that it should be, perhaps. Its been a hectic election year already in Texas, and its not intuitively obvious why this question should be asked in isolation from all the other questions Harris County voters will be asked to weigh in on during this years general election.

Emmett: Act now on flood prevention - with or without a comprehensive plan

Still, I hope that Abbott will give Harris County permission to proceed with the special election. Theres actually no good reason to deny the countys request, all things considered.

But there was also no good reason for the governor to ask the Texas State Guard to monitor the military training exercise known as Jade Helm, in 2015  and his decision to do so looks even sillier three years down the road.

According to former CIA director Michael Hayden, the controversy itself was amplified by Russian bots after being ginned up by fringe media figures like Alex Jones of InfoWars.

The Russians and the alt-right created a crisis, said Hayden this week in an interview with the San Antonio Express-News.

Beyond that, the governor has some misgivings about local control, as we know.

Read more: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott was wrong to suspend state election laws for Farenthold district

He may also see some political risk in this situation. If Harris County voters support a $2.5 billion bond referendum, property taxes will go up a bit, to cover the cost of the issue.

If that happens as a result of a special election, the governor could, in theory, be accused of having helped bring about such a grim scenario.

However, the hit would work out to a whopping $5 for the average single-family homeowner, in the first year after the issue. Thats a marginal increase in property taxes, and one that might well be offset by a reduction in flood insurance premiums, since the purpose of the bond issue is to fund some of the projects that are considered critical to flood control.

More to the point, a modest increase in property taxes is not the worst thing that most Harris County homeowners have endured since Aug 25, 2017, the day Hurricane Harvey made landfall as a Category IV storm. Realistically, in fact, Harris County homeowners should be prepared to pay higher property taxes in exchange for the various investments in infrastructure that are critical to the long-term security and sustainability of the region they call home.

Read more: FEMAs new policy on churches makes sense

Some of those investments should be made sooner rather than later  and could be, if statewide leaders had prioritized the issue.

The construction of a third reservoir, for example, would cost the county about $500 million. Thats a lot of money, but its not even 5 percent of the funds currently languishing in the Texas Economic Stabilization Fund  the rainy day fund, as its commonly called.

Other critical flood-control projects could be tackled as soon as the county can come up with the matching funds required to release federal funds that have already been authorized for disaster relief and recovery.

And the question at hand, of whether to approve the bond issue, is one that Harris County voters are qualified to decide for themselves.

In fact, theyre authorized to do so. If Abbott declines Harris Countys request for permission to hold a special election, the commissioners will probably decide to put the issue to the people in November.

But I can understand why Harris County Judge Ed Emmett concluded that a special election in August would be preferable.

Read more: Texas voters arent used to having so many options

Harris County has a notoriously long ballot, and this year it will include competitive statewide general elections.

A special election in August, by contrast, would be dedicated to a standalone question about the bond issue. Turnout would be relatively low, presumably. But the voters who weigh in, for or against the proposition, would be a particular subset of voters  those who have made a considered and deliberate decision about an issue that affects them directly, and is ultimately not ideological.

So Abbott may be thinking about this through a political lens, as he has been known to do. But in retrospect, we know that Harvey was a greater threat to public safety than Jade Helm. And, in any case, the Texans who live in Harris County arent worried about a federal government takeover. Theyre worried about the storms to come, some of which may hit the Gulf Coast soon.

erica.grieder@chron.com

twitter.com/ericagriederA three-alarm warehouse fire in Houston's East End scorched at least one nearby home and led to the hospitalization of a firefighter.

Firefighters were called out to a warehouse fire on North Drennan Street near Navigation Boulevard shortly after 7 p.m. Friday, according to Houston Fire Chief Samuel Pena. Firefighters met heavy smoke and flames coming from a mattress warehouse.

Within minutes, firefighters pulled a second alarm  and then a third as flamed continued to shoot through the corrugated metal building's roof, ultimately knocking down the structure's walls.

Now Playing: Texas News & Crime Video: Houston Chronicle

Winds forced smoke and flames south onto several homes, damaging at least one, Pena said. The extent of the damage is unclear.

Nearby residents were asked to evacuate their homes.

Elizabeth Compaen, whose mother's home backs up to the warehouse, helped usher her mom to safety as police kept people away from the scene.

"Her house is right in line with the flames right there," Compaen said. "We were just getting home and saw these flames and everything just going."

At least one firefighter was transported to the hospital as a precaution, Pena said.

Water-pressure issues forced firefighters to use pumper trucks to relay water from hydrants that were further away. During that operation, a fire engine sustained a mechanical issue, Pena said, causing it to catch fire itself.

Firefighters were still battling the blaze as of 10 p.m..

See photos of first responders at the scene above.

Jay R. Jordan is a breaking news reporter at Chron.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JayRJordan.Martha Castex-Tatum, the constituent liaison for late councilman Larry Green, will fill the District K City Council seat vacated when Green died of a drug overdose in March, according to unofficial election results Saturday.

A runoff was largely expected in the nine-candidate race, but Castex-Tatum won well over the 50 percent threshold.

"We wanted to win it tonight because the people of District K deserve to have someone to represent them on Monday," Castex-Tatum, 48, told reporters Saturday night on a video posted to Twitter.

Castex-Tatum will serve the remainder of Green's term, which ends in late 2019. She will be only the second person to hold the seat added after the 2010 Census for the district that covers a slice of southwest Houston between Almeda Road in the east and Beltway 8 in the west, Brays Bayou in the North and Beltway 8 in the south, with a portion in Fort Bend County.

MORE: Houston remembers Councilman Larry Green

The Houston native grew up in the Keswick/Ramblewood neighborhood, attending Grissom Elementary, Parker Elementary and Welch Middle School in what is now District K.

As a San Marcos resident who earned a master's of public administration from then-Southwest Texas State University, she unseated a 12-year City Council incumbent to become the first African-American woman elected there.

She returned to Houston in 2004 as a residential Realtor with Keller Williams Realty, where she worked for 10 years. She currently works at Berkshire Hathaway Home Services.

"The voters have spoken," Mayor Sylvester Turner said in a statement. "Martha brings a unique perspective to the job after working as Green's director of constituent services. I know he is smiling at the election results."

The other candidates were Larry Blackmon, a retired teacher; Patricia Frazier, a community activist who lost to Green in 2011; Gerry Vander-Lyn, an administrative assistant; Lawrence McGaffie, a minister who formed a nonprofit youth organization; Carl Evans, a businessman and president of Fort Bend Houston Super Neighborhood; Elisabeth Johnson, a community activist; Anthony Freddie, who served as assistant to former Mayor Lee Brown's chief of staff; and Aisha Savoy, who works in the city's flood plain management office.

MORE: Nine candidates vie to replace Councilman Larry Green

The special election was among more than 70 in the region, where voters cast ballots for school trustees and city council members, as well as a handful of bond issues and at least one property tax increase.

Voting results from other elections in the Houston area at the time of publication:

Humble ISD

Voters supported the Humble Independent School District's $575 million bond referendum that includes a new elementary and middle school, among other major construction and renovation projects.

Galveston

David Collins narrowly defeated incumbent Frank Maceo for the City Council District 3 position, and Jackie Cole beat incumbent Carolyn Sunseri for the District 6 seat, according to unofficial returns. But the outcome of the District 3 race will hinge on the tally of provisional ballots, while the District 5 contest will head to a runoff election on June 16 as none of the candidates received more than 50 percent of the votes. Running for the District 5 seat were Jeff Antonelli, Chris Petrowski, Carol Hollaway and John Paul Listowski.

Mayor James D Yarbrough, District 1 representative Amy Carmen Bly, District 2 representative Craig Brown, and District 4 representative Jason Hardcastle all ran unopposed.

Jersey Village

Harris County criminal investigator James Singleton led by three votes over lawyer Simon Hughes for the Place 4 City Council position in Jersey Village, according to preliminary results. Incumbent City Councilmen Andrew Mitcham and Gary Wubbenhorst ran unopposed.

Katy ISD

Engineer Susan Gesoff won the Position 6 seat on the Katy ISD board, and Katy ISD test proctor Dawn Champagne won Position 7. They bested Scott Martin and Don Massey, respectively.

Pearland ISD

Incumbent Sean Murphy was leading local imam Daniel Hernandez for the Position 4 seat on the Pearland ISD board. Licensed school psychology specialist Crystal Carbone had a healthy lead over Bellaire High School Assistant Principal Al Lloyd for the Position 3 seat.

Pearland City Council

Adrian Hernandez and Dalia Kasseb are headed for a runoff in the race for Pearland City Council Position 4. Hernandez, with 47 percent of the votes, and Kasseb, with 37 percent, were the top two vote-getters in a three-person race. Brookside Village Police Chief Sonny Atkins was third. Because no one received 50 percent of the votes, a runoff is necessary.

Position 1 City Councilman Derrick Reed ran unopposed.

Sugar Land

Incumbent Mayor Joe R. Zimmerman bested opponent Diana Miller to maintain his title as mayor. Jennifer Lane led Farha Ahmed, a write-in candidate, for the council member at-large Position 2. Himesh Gandhi ran unopposed for the council member at-large Position 1.On Monday morning Houstonians at major energy companies will arrive at work with Safety First signage proudly announcing the number of days without a workplace injury. Meetings will begin with an explanation of emergency exits and muster areas. Huddle-ups at construction sites will kick off with a five-minute safety discussion. Promotions will be won or lost on group safety records. Lockout-tagout procedures will be reviewed. Suppliers will open their customer pitches extolling their safety records.

Contrast that with the public realm between home and work. Drivers text or talk distractedly on the phone and run red lights. People play frogger across high speed roads with no safe crossings for thousands of feet in either direction. The few folks riding bicycles look warily about in fear. Meanwhile, Texas racks up dozens of road fatalities, and, on Houston roads, too many cyclists are run over and killed.

RELATED: Houston doesn't have to be deadly for cyclists

Meanwhile Houstons Department of Public Works continues to crank out patently unsafe road designs like Emancipation Avenue, where the city recently spent millions rebuilding a road designed for high speeds in front of the recently revamped Emancipation Park. Yet crossing the road over to the park is highly unsafe. Metro and Public Works squabble endlessly about mismatched signals, encouraging jaywalking as an alternative to waiting up to five minutes for the pedestrian stars to align. TxDOTs drafts for the I-45 expansion include hundreds of millions of dollars for notoriously deadly, over-wide high-speed feeder roads, and demonstrably unsafe highway/urban intersections. And despite passage of a bike plan a year ago, no dollars have been spent and it took a year to name a commission to guide the effort. There is no notion of safety first for Houstons roads. Safetys not even in the top 10.

RELATED: Why is Texas ignoring cyclists and pedestrians?

Nowhere does the contrast between how our major industries manage safety and our public approach to safety come into brighter focus than the deadly stretch between Mecom Fountain and the Texas Medical Center. Three members of the Rice University family have been killed in as many years. If three people were killed on Exxon Mobils new campus, bosses would lose their jobs, root cause analyses would be exactingly performed and corrective measures taken. If the deaths happened just outside Exxon Mobils hedges, a similar all hands on deck reaction would swiftly ensue.

The public sector lets itself off the hook by blaming the dead victims. Witness Asst. Chief Wendy Baimbridge comments on Tuesdays death of a wife riding home from lunch with her husband, run over by a dump truck, Cyclists have to abide by all laws of a motorist when they are on a street.

LETTER: Cycling itself is not dangerous; drivers are dangerous

The veteran officer of the Houston Police Department publicly blamed the victim despite zero evidence she was doing anything but fully complying with the law. In the private sector, Baimbridge would be summarily dismissed for such victim blaming.

This attitude is prevalent throughout police reports: its the victims fault, not the dangerous design. Two years ago, a four-year old child was killed in a crosswalk in Gulfton on the first day of school  and the police said the poor child had failed to yield.

In industry, such abdication of responsibility for safety went out the window years ago. We expect our workplaces to protect us from the certainty of human error, both self-induced and caused by our co-workers. In our work lives, we expect designs that dont lead to deadly outcomes. We hold companies responsible when their systems fail. Accidents are documented and evaluated, as are near misses. We demand that every accident is investigated in exhaustive detail. We demand corrective actions. Leaders at the very top lose their jobs if safety lags.

We should demand nothing less of the public sector.

Public Works, HPD and political leaders should be evaluated on how dangerous our streets are. TxDOT commissioners should be fired if they cant come up with a strategy to reduce the appalling carnage on our highways.

We know the path forward. Measure the problem and hold the appropriate persons responsible for the outcomes. Measure results. Identify systemic causes. Start immediately with a few simple steps. Safety first for all road designs, starting with a complete overhaul of Houstons road design manual. No more public money for dangerous infrastructure. Investigate crashes and identify design fixes. Require the police and Public Works to jointly investigate crashes. Implement the bike plan  its the cheapest transportation option available. Tell TxDOT that if they want to build highways in Houston, they must meet the safety needs of the city. TxDOT must be put on notice that their absurd non-goal goal of reducing road fatalities by a mere two percent over the next four year is a bad joke. And stop blaming the victims for unsafe road designs.

Houston is a city where big organizations manage astonishing risks. We send humans into space. We scour the planet for natural resources in incredibly risky environments. Our companies build some of the most complex projects on earth, and we do so with a keen eye to safety. Lets build the same culture of safety in the public realm that we demand from industry.

Skelly is an energy infrastructure entrepreneur and CEO of Clean Line Energy.If you are currently a print subscriber but don't have an online account, select this option. You will need to use your 7 digit subscriber account number (with leading zeros) and your last name (in UPPERCASE).United States Trade Delegations Visit to Beijing

Washington, DC - At the invitation of Vice Premier Liu He and at the direction of President Donald J. Trump, the United States trade delegation, led by Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin and including Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Assistant to the President for Economic Policy Larry Kudlow, and Assistant to the President for Trade and Manufacturing Policy Peter Navarro, traveled to Beijing, and was joined there by Ambassador Terry Branstad.

The delegation held frank discussions with Chinese officials on rebalancing the United StatesChina bilateral economic relationship, improving Chinas protection of intellectual property, and identifying policies that unfairly enforce technology transfers. The United States delegation affirmed that fair trade will lead to faster growth for the Chinese, United States, and world economies.

The size and high level of this delegation illustrates the importance that the Trump Administration places on securing fair trade and investment terms for American businesses and workers. There is consensus within the Administration that immediate attention is needed to bring changes to United StatesChina trade and investment relationship.

The delegation now returns to Washington, D.C., to brief the President and seek his decision on next steps.State Senator and Consultant Convicted for Bribery Scheme

Fort Smith, Arkansas - A former Arkansas State Senator and an Arkansas consultant have been convicted for a bribery scheme in which state funds were directed to non-profit entities in exchange for kickbacks funneled through the consultants business, announced Acting Assistant Attorney General John P. Cronan of the Justice Departments Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Duane DAK Kees for the Western District of Arkansas.

Jonathan E. Woods, 40, of Springdale, Arkansas, was convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit honest services mail and wire fraud, 12 counts of honest services wire fraud, one count of honest services mail fraud and one count of money laundering. Randell G. Shelton Jr., 38, of Alma, Arkansas, was convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit honest services mail and wire fraud, 10 counts of honest services wire fraud and one count of honest services mail fraud.

Jonathan Woods abused his position as an Arkansas State Senator by soliciting and accepting kickbacks and Randall Shelton helped him cover it up by funneling the kickbacks through his consulting company, said Acting Assistant Attorney General Cronan. The Criminal Division is committed to preserving the publics confidence in our government by investigating and prosecuting corrupt public officials and those that help them conceal their crimes.

Abuse of the public trust cannot be tolerated and must be met with severe consequences, said U.S. Attorney Kees. I hope this verdict serves as a warning to all those that have been entrusted with serving the people.

According to the evidence presented at trial, Woods served as an Arkansas State Senator from 2013 to 2017. Between approximately 2013 and approximately 2015, Woods used his official position as a senator to appropriate and direct government money, known as General Improvement Funds (GIF), to two non-profit entities by, among other things, directly authorizing GIF disbursements and advising other Arkansas legislators  including former State Representative Micah Neal, 43, of Springdale, Arkansas  to contribute GIF to the non-profits. Specifically, Woods and Neal authorized and directed the Northwest Arkansas Economic Development District, which was responsible for disbursing the GIF, to award a total of approximately $600,000 in GIF money to the two non-profit entities. The evidence further showed that Woods and Neal received bribes from officials at both non-profits, including Oren Paris III, 49, of Springdale, Arkansas, who was the president of a college. Woods initially facilitated $200,000 of GIF money to the college and later, together with Neal, directed another $200,000 to the college, all in exchange for kickbacks. To pay and conceal the kickbacks to Woods and Neal, Paris paid a portion of the GIF to Sheltons consulting company. Shelton then kept a portion of the money and paid the other portion to Woods and Neal. Paris also bribed Woods by hiring Woodss friend to an administrative position at the college.

For his part in the scheme, Neal pleaded guilty on Jan. 4, 2017, before U.S. District Judge Timothy L. Brooks of the Western District of Arkansas to one count of conspiracy to commit honest services fraud. Paris pleaded guilty on April 5, before Judge Brooks to one count of honest services wire fraud. Sentencings will be scheduled at a later date.

The FBI and IRS investigated the case. Trial Attorney Sean F. Mulryne of the Criminal Divisions Public Integrity Section and First Assistant U.S. Attorney Kenneth Elser and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kyra Jenner and Aaron Jennen of the Western District of Arkansas are prosecuting the case.An Ohio Familys Letter to President Trump

Washington, DC - Today, President Donald J. Trump will be in Cleveland, Ohio, to talk with local residents about the impact of his December tax cuts legislation on jobs and wages. As of March, Cleveland alone has gained 3,300 new manufacturing jobs since the Trump Administration took office.

It wont be the first time President Trump has heard from Ohioans about tax cuts. Joining an event in Blue Ash, Ohio, this February, the President heard from Deana Spoleti, who works in customer service at Sheffer Corporation. Well have money in the bank, more money to make ends meet because of tax cuts, she told the President.

Working families across Ohio have shared similar stories. In fact, President Trump recently received a letter from one local resident, Mrs. Sharlene Thornton, who will be joining him in Cleveland on Saturday.

Below is the letter she wrote to the President.

From: Mrs. Sharlene Thornton

President Trump,

I would like to thank you for taking on the tremendous task of the presidency firstly. I would also like to thank you for the tax cuts. It has made a huge difference in my husbands biweekly paycheck. Because of the cuts, we are now receiving an additional $300 biweekly, thats $600 monthly with a few months being $900. You see, my husband was a Stationary Engineer in a steel mill in the Youngstown-Warren area and lost his job to the Chinese steel. The company he worked for went bankrupt. He was out of work for 1 1/2 years. In that time I had to stop working because Im legally blind and there is no public transportation where we live. We almost lost our home. We did have to surrender a vehicle. It was a devastating couple of years. He finally found a job and traveled 1 1/2 hours each way. He has done this for three years and has transferred a little closer now. We are very grateful and thankful for this extra money monthly. We appreciate all you are doing and want you to know that we are firm supporters of you. God Bless you and God Bless America.President Donald J. Trump Proclaims May 6 through May 12, 2018, as National Charter Schools Week

Washington, DC - National Charter Schools Week, 2018 by the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

The first public charter school opened its doors in Saint Paul, Minnesota, 26 years ago. Wanting to offer families more high-quality education options, it was founded to promote accountability and innovation, and to advance academic achievement. Now, 44 States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico have passed laws authorizing the creation of charter schools, which are responsible for educating millions of students nationwide. During National Charter Schools Week, we celebrate the more than 7,000 charter schools across our country, their teachers and administrators, and the students they serve.

My Administration has prioritized support for charter schools so that more students have access to this valuable academic option. In my fiscal year 2019 budget request, I called on the Congress to increase funding for the Federal Charter Schools Program to $500 million. This program strengthens State and local efforts to create and expand charter schools to help meet the growing demand for this educational option and increase charter schools access to high-quality facilities.

Each child is blessed with unique talents and learns in different ways. Charter schools enhance educational options for families and empower teachers to explore innovative programs, alternative curricula, and creative approaches to education to ensure that they meet their students individual needs. Charter schools provide educators the flexibility to equip students with knowledge and skills that give them the opportunity to achieve their academic goals and pursue successful careers.

This week, we acknowledge the critical role charter schools play in providing students with rigorous education that holds them to high standards. A great education is the foundation for a better future for students facing the demands and challenges of the 21st century. As a Nation, we should continue to support and address their dreams in their innovative efforts to help students reach their full potential.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim May 6 through May 12, 2018, as National Charter Schools Week. I commend our Nations successful public charter schools, teachers, and administrators, and I call on States and communities to help students and empower parents and families by supporting high-quality charter schools as an important school choice option.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this fourth day of May, in the year of our Lord two thousand eighteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-second.

DONALD J. TRUMPBoston CBP Officers Arrest Fugitives Attempting to Flee the U.S.

Boston, Massachusetts - U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Officers assigned to Boston Logan International Airport arrested two passengers with active warrants for Financial Card Forgery and Conspiracy to Commit Obtaining Property by False Pretense, attempting to board an outbound flight.

CBP Officers arrest two passengers at

Boston Logan Airport with active warrants

for their arrest.

On Friday, April 27 two Citizens of Romania, Mr. Lucian Giurgiuveanu, 37-years-old, and Mr. Catalin Puscasu, 35-years-old, were scheuled to depart from Boston Logan Airport to Portugal.

CBP Officers confirmed Giurgiuveanu and Puscasu were exact matches to active National Crime Information Center (NCIC) arrest warrants, with full extradition out of Ashville, North Carolina, for financial and property crimes. In addition to the warrants, Giurgiuveanu and Puscasu also failed to declare currency on a previous outbound departure attempt which resulted in a seizure of nearly $32,000.

CBP Officers intercepted and arrested the subjects as they attempted to board their flight.

Working in conjunction with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the Ashville Police Department, and the Massachusetts State Police (MSP), the subjects were taken into custody and will be extradited to North Carolina to face charges.

Our vigilant and highly trained CBP Officers are adept at stopping fugitives entering and attempting to depart the United States, said CBP Boston Area Port Director Clint Lamm. CBP works closely with our law enforcement partners to intercept these wanted individuals, and ensure they face their criminal charges.

Criminal charges are merely allegations. Defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty in a court of law.

CBP routinely conducts inspection operations on arriving and departing international flights, arrests an average of 21 wanted persons a day at U.S. ports f entry nationwide and intercepts narcotics, weapons, currency, prohibited agriculture products, and other illicit items. Every year, CBP Officers across the Boston Field Office conduct hundreds of arrests of individuals wanted for crimes ranging from homicide and assault and battery to sexual assault of a minor and possession of illegal weapons. View the CBP Snapshot to learn more of what CBP achieves On a Typical Day.Maine Men Sentenced for Illegally Trafficking American Eels

Portland, Maine - Thursday, William Sheldon was sentenced in federal district court in Portland, Maine, to six months in prison followed by three years supervised release for trafficking juvenile American eels, also called elvers or glass eels, in violation of the Lacey Act, announced Acting Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey H. Wood for the Justice Departments Environment and Natural Resources Division.

Sheldon was also ordered to pay a fine of $10,000, forfeit $33,200 in lieu of a truck he used during the crime, and may not possess a license to purchase or export elvers as a special condition of his supervised release. Also sentenced today for elver trafficking offenses was Timothy Lewis, who received a sentence of six months in prison followed by three years supervised release, with the special condition that he too may not possess a license to purchase or export elvers. Lewis was also ordered to pay a $2500 fine. Thomas Reno was also sentenced today to one year probation.

In the factual statement accompanying his guilty plea in October 2017, Sheldon, a licensed Maine elver dealer, admitted to trafficking nearly $550,000 worth of illegal elvers, and to taking specific steps to evade law enforcement detection. Lewis admitted to trafficking nearly $500,000 worth of illegal elvers, and Reno admitted to trafficking over $100,000 worth of illegal elvers.

Todays sentences establish that the United States will not tolerate interstate and international transactions involving illegally taken wildlife, said Acting Assistant Attorney General Wood. Despite their best efforts to evade law enforcement, these defendants were ultimately brought to justice, and we are very proud to have worked with our partners at the federal, state and local level to achieve this result.

With todays sentencings, the success of Operation Broken Glass continues, said Acting Assistant Director Edward Grace for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Office of Law Enforcement. By working with our partners, we are actively working to dismantle an international wildlife trafficking scheme that not only harms American eels, but U.S. business owners and others who rely on healthy ecosystems for both ecological and economical purposes. Together, we will continue to protect native wildlife and our national resources for the continuing benefit of the American people."

These sentences were the result of Operation Broken Glass, a multi-jurisdiction United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) investigation into the illegal trafficking of American eels. To date, the investigation has resulted in guilty pleas for twenty-one individuals whose combined conduct resulted in the illegal trafficking of more than $5 million worth of elvers.

Eels are highly valued in east Asia for human consumption. Historically, Japanese and European eels were harvested to meet this demand; however, overfishing has led to a decline in the population of these eels. As a result, harvesters have turned to the American eel to fill the void resulting from the decreased number of Japanese and European eels.

American eels spawn in the Sargasso Sea, an area of the North Atlantic Ocean bounded on all sides by ocean currents. They then travel as larvae from the Sargasso to the coastal waters of the eastern United States, where they enter a juvenile or elver stage, swim upriver, and grow to adulthood in fresh water. Elvers are exported for aquaculture in east Asia, where they are raised to adult size and sold for food. Harvesters and exporters of American eels in the United States can sell elvers to east Asia for more than $2000 per pound.

Because of the threat of overfishing, elver harvesting is prohibited in the United States in all but two states: Maine and South Carolina. Maine and South Carolina heavily regulate elver fisheries, requiring that individuals be licensed and report all quantities of harvested eels to state authorities. Operation Broken Glass targeted illegal elver poaching in states without open fisheries, and the subsequent illegal transport and export of those elvers.

Operation Broken Glass was conducted by the USFWS and the Justice Departments Environmental Crimes Section in collaboration with the Maine Marine Patrol, South Carolina Department of Natural Resources Law Enforcement Division, New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife Bureau of Law Enforcement, Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Conservation Police, Virginia Marine Resources Commission Police, USFWS Refuge Law Enforcement, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Office of Law Enforcement, Massachusetts Environmental Police, Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management Division of Law Enforcement, New York State Environmental Conservation Police, New Hampshire Fish and Game Division of Law Enforcement, Maryland Natural Resources Police, North Carolina Wildlife Resource Commission Division of Law Enforcement, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Yarmouth, Massachusetts Division of Natural Resources, North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina Police Department, and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.

The government is represented by Environmental Crimes Section Trial Attorneys Cassandra Barnum and Shane Waller.A museum in Paris has become the citys first to welcome nudist visitors.

The Palais de Tokyo contemporary art museum, situated in the 16th district near the Trocadero, granted naturists special one-off visiting hours for a tour of Discorde, Fille de la Nuit (Discord, Daughter of the Night) on Saturday night (5 May).

Its reported that around 160 visitors attended the tour which sold out in less than two days.

The museum became Pariss first gallery to open its doors to nudists, a step that campaigners are lauding as a breakthrough. It follows in the footsteps of Bois de Vincennes park which launched a dedicated naturist zone last year.

Julien Claude-Penegry, communications director of the Paris Naturists Association, said: The naturists way of life is to be naked. Culture is part of our daily life, and this is a special opportunity.

Today, the mentality is changing. Naturists ... are pushing past barriers, taboos or mentalities that were obstructive.

There are said to be over 2.6 million nudists living in France, with 88,000 comprising the Parisian association.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

A gallery in Vienna invited visitors to take their clothes off for a special viewing in 2013 of an exhibit dedicated to paintings of male nudity, while a museum in Australia has also opened its doors to naked viewers.An administrative error has left hundreds of junior doctors unsure about their futures as their hospital job offers are rescinded.

The British Medical Association (BMA) said it was appalled to discover the error in the recruitment process, adding that it had caused extreme anxiety for trainees.

As a result of the blunder, junior doctors entering their third year of specialist training could now lose positions they have been offered.

Many have already made plans to start their new jobs in only a few months time.

The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) described the situation as dreadful, but said it would have to rerun the whole offers process.

Those affected had been offered jobs in 24 different fields through ST3 Recruitment, a nationally coordinated system for recruiting doctors.

But last week the RCP discovered some candidates had been given the wrong interview marks following an error in transferring data from one computer program to another, leading to a significant number of incorrect rankings.

In a letter to all those with offers, the RCP said: We are deeply sorry that it has been necessary to rerun the ST3 offer process due to a mistake in this round of processing.

We have taken this approach to be fair to all candidates which can only be achieved with the real scores used.

In a joint statement, the chairman of the BMA council, Chaand Nagpaul, and the chairman of the BMA junior doctors committee, Jeeves Wijesuriya, said they had spoken to RCP president Professor Jane Dacre to articulate the strength of feeling and extent of the impact that this has had.

They said: We have heard from trainees who have, after receiving these job offers, put down deposits on homes, arranged moves or whose families had adjusted their plans.

The statement added: We cannot express how unacceptable we find this situation and the impact  both emotionally and financially  it is having on junior doctors across the UK.

The RCP said it would do its utmost to resolve the cases of those who had accepted offers and made unretractable commitments based on those offers.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 29 September 2021 The family of Betty Campbell unveil the bronze sculpture of her during the unveiling of the statue in Central Square, Cardiff, of Betty Campbell, Wales' first black headteacher PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2021 A sign referring to the lack of fuel is placed at the entrance to a petrol station in London AP UK news in pictures 27 September 2021 Police officers detain a protester from Insulate Britain occupying a roundabout leading from the M25 motorway to Heathrow Airport in London PA UK news in pictures 26 September 2021 Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer watches the Arsenal v Tottenham Hotspur match at The Font pub in Brighton PA UK news in pictures 25 September 2021 Scottish pro-independence supporters hold a march and rally outside the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, Scotland Getty Images UK news in pictures 24 September 2021 Police officers remove two protesters from the top of a tanker, as Insulate Britain block the A20 in Kent, which provides access to the Port of Dover in Kent. The environmental activists have moved location after been banned from campaigning on the M25 motorway in London PA UK news in pictures 23 September 2021 Gabriella, the seven year old daughter of imprisoned British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, joins in a game on a giant snakes and ladders board in Parliament Square, to show the ups and downs of her mothers case to mark the 2,000 days she has been detained in Iran AP UK news in pictures 22 September 2021 A new sign hangs on the Millicent Fawcett statue after it was altered by CrackTheCrises coalition activists to highlight the climate crisis as a feminist struggle in Parliament Square in London EPA UK news in pictures 21 September 2021 Gabriella Diment prepares a monumental bronze patinated fibreglass wall sculpture depicting household cavalry soldiers on horseback which is expected to be sold for 12,000-18,000 when it goes up for auction at Summers Place Auctions in Billinghurst, Kent PA UK news in pictures 20 September 2021 Florist Judith Blacklock puts the finishing touches to a floral carousel installation in Halkin Arcade, which she has designed with Neill Strain for the Belgravia in Bloom festival, running from September 20-26, in London PA UK news in pictures 19 September 2021 Bubbles surround Manchester Uniteds Cristiano Ronaldo before the match against West Ham at London Stadium Action Images/Reuters UK news in pictures 18 September 2021 Children take part in the Settrington Cup Pedal Car Race as motoring enthusiasts attend the Goodwood Revival, a three-day historic car racing festival in Goodwood, Chichester, Reuters UK news in pictures 17 September 2021 Hugo, 7, from London rides past a 4x7 metre rainbow arch, made entirely of recycled aluminium cans, which has been installed by recycling initiative 'Every Can Counts', in partnership with The City of London Corporation in front of St Paul's Cathedral in London, to encourage members of the public to recycle their drinks cans ahead of recycling week, which starts on 20 September PA UK news in pictures 16 September 2021 Sheikeh MOhammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, leader of Abu Dhabi, leaves Downing Street after meeting with Boris Johnson PA UK news in pictures 15 September 2021 Children pose by ice sculptures depicting people collecting water by charity Water Aid to show the fragility of water and the threat posed by climate change in London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 14 September 2021 Heavy rain covers the A149 near Kings Lynn in Norfolk PA UK news in pictures 13 September 2021 Luke Jerram's 'Museum of the Moon' at Durham Cathedral PA UK news in pictures 12 September 2021 Inspirational young fundraiser Tobias Weller crosses the finish line, near his home in Sheffield, as he completes his latest epic feat where he swam and triked his way to the end of his awesome year-long Ironman Challenge. This is the third challenge Tobias, who has cerebral palsy and autism, has completed, raising more than 150,000 for his school and Sheffield Children Hospitals charity PA UK news in pictures 11 September 2021 British player Emma Raducanu, holds up the US Open championship trophy winning the women's singles final of the US Open in New York AP UK news in pictures 10 September 2021 People paddle board during a misty morning in Ullswater, the second largest lake in the Lake District, Cumbria PA UK news in pictures 9 September 2021 Troops from Wiltshire based 4 Armoured Close Support Battalion Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers during final inspection at Wellington Barracks in London, ahead of providing troops for the Queens Guard PA UK news in pictures 8 September 2021 Workers cross London Bridge during the morning rush hour in London Reuters UK news in pictures Mixing it up: Painting it up press view in London A gallery employee poses for photographers next to a painting entitled Prairie by British artist, Louise Giovanelli during the exhibition 'Mixing it up: Painting it up' at the Hayward Gallery in London EPA UK news in pictures 6 September 2021 Traders in the Ring at the London Metal Exchange, in the City of London, after open-outcry trading returned for the first time since March 2020, when the Ring was temporarily closed due to the pandemic PA UK news in pictures 5 September 2021 People enjoy the warm weather on Sandbanks beach, Poole PA UK news in pictures 4 September 2021 Demonstrators from Animal Rebellion and Nature Rebellion protest in Trafalgar Square in London. PA UK news in pictures 3 September 2021 South Africa's Ntando Mahlangu (centre) wins the Men's 200 metres T61 Final ahead of second placed Great Britain's Richard Whitehead at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games PA UK news in pictures 2 September 2021 A young common seal on the beach at Horsey Gap in Norfolk, as hundreds of pregnant grey seals come ashore ready for the start of the pupping season. PA UK news in pictures 1 September 2021 Goldfinches fighting over food in a garden in Strensham, Worcestershire PA UK news in pictures 31 August 2021 Gold Medallist Sarah Storey of Britain celebrates on the podium Reuters UK news in pictures 30 August 2021 Extinction Rebellion protesters hold a a tea party on Tower Bridge in London EPA UK news in pictures 29 August 2021 A police office tussles with a demonstrator on Cromwell Road outside the Natural History Museum during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion in London PA UK news in pictures 28 August 2021 Members of the British armed forces 16 Air Assault Brigade walk to the air terminal after disembarking a Royal Airforce Voyager aircraft at Brize Norton, Oxfordshire POOL/AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 27 August 2021 Fabio Quartararo crashes during a MotoGP practice session at the British Grand Prix, Silverstone Circuit Action Images via Reuters UK news in pictures 26 August 2021 An Extinction Rebellion activist holds a placard in a fountain surrounded by police officers, during a protest next to Buckingham Palace in London Reuters UK news in pictures 25 August 2021 Gold Medallist Great Britains cyclist, Sarah Storey, celebrates after winning the Womens C5 3000m Individual Pursuit Final at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games. It was her 15th Paralympic gold Reuters UK news in pictures 24 August 2021 A demonstrator dressed as bee during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion on Whitehall, in central London PA UK news in pictures 23 August 2021 Former interpreters for the British forces in Afghanistan demonstrate outside the Home Office in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 22 August 2021 Police officers form a line in front of the entrance to the Guildhall, London, where protesters have climbed onto a ledge above the entrance during an Extinction Rebellion stage a protest PA UK news in pictures 21 August 2021 People take part in a demonstration in solidarity with people of Afghanistan, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 20 August 2021 People zip wire across the sea from Bournemouth pier towards the beach. PA UK news in pictures 19 August 2021 Supporters of Geronimo the alpaca gather outside Shepherds Close Farm in Wooton Under Edge, Gloucestershire PA UK news in pictures 18 August 2021 Former Afghan interpreters and veterans hold a demonstration outside Downing Street, calling for support and protection for Afghan interpreters and their families PA UK news in pictures 17 August 2021 Military personnel board the RAF Airbus A400M at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, where evacuation flights from Afghanistan have been landing Reuters UK news in pictures 16 August 2021 Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer takes part in a minute's silence at Wolverhampton police station for the victims of the Plymouth mass shooting last week PA UK news in pictures 15 August 2021 2Storm, a ten-metre tall puppet of a mythical goddess of the sea created by Edinburgh-based visual theatre company Vision Mechanics, makes its way alongside the seafront at North Berwick, East Lothian, during a performance at the Fringe By The Sea festival PA UK news in pictures 14 August 2021 A woman and two young girls look at floral tributes in Plymouth where six people, including the offender, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident PA UK news in pictures 13 August 2021 Forensic officers in the Keyham area of Plymouth where six people, including the shooter, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident on Thursday evening PA UK news in pictures 12 August 2021 Children ride horses in the River Eden in Appleby, Cumbria, during the annual gathering of travellers for the Appleby Horse Fair PA UK news in pictures 11 August 2021 Stella Moris (left) reacts after talking to the media outside the High Court in London, following the first hearing in the Julian Assange extradition appeal, n London, following the first hearing in the Julian Assange extradition appeal. The US government has won the latest round in its High Court bid to appeal against the decision not to extradite Julian Assange on espionage charges PA

We set the highest standards for our work and expect to be held to them, it said.

We have not met them here and are truly sorry. We will learn from our mistake and make any changes necessary to fix it.

The offers process will begin again on 14 May.

The RCP was accused by doctors of playing with peoples futures as more strain was piled on already overstretched junior doctors.

When he received a job offer in the West Midlands, James Savage, 28, ended talks with other potential employers.

Its not well understood how much we move around as junior doctors, he told the BBC.

You move jobs every four months, hospitals and even locations every year. So these contracts were an offer of stability for the first time.

Our morale is already extremely low. This isnt going to help things.

Additional reporting by PAFor the past year, small jars of cannabis flowers have been flying off the shelves of Italian specialty shops: a phenomenon thats described as a green gold rush.

The hemp flowers  with names like K8, Chill Haus, Cannabismile White Pablo and Marley CBD  are sold under the tag cannabis light because their level of the psychoactive compound that makes people high is a tiny fraction of that typically found in cultivated marijuana.

But theres a catch. The aromatic hemp flowers must not be smoked or eaten. Seeds, should there be any, must not be cultivated. As the jars labels sternly specify, the products are for technical use only and not for human consumption. Instead, they are sold  as countless salesclerks will explain with a nudge-nudge, wink-wink smile  as collectors items.

Such is the current, perplexing status of legal cannabis in Italy.

Italys cannabis mania, as it has been called, exploded after a December 2016 law regulating hemp production went into effect, a series of norms meant to help revive a crop that was once widely cultivated in the country. In the 1940s, Italy was said to be the worlds second-biggest producer of industrial cannabis, after the Soviet Union. (Statistics for China, also a major producer, do not exist.)

The law was created for farmers growing industrial hemp, which has commercial uses like food, fabrics, clothing, biofuel, construction material and animal feed, but has minute levels of a psychoactive compound. But it did not regulate the use of cannabis flowers, also known as buds, and an entire economy emerged from the legislative void.

Cannabis chocolate displayed during the Canapa Mundi cannabis fair in Rome (Getty)

In the past year, companies packaging cannabis light have blossomed, dozens of shops selling cannabis products have opened, franchising brands have taken off, and many farmers have rotated fields to produce one of the 64 varieties of industrial hemp certified by the European Union.

Farmers associations see widescale hemp production as one solution to Italys agricultural slump.

We created an awesome phenomenon, said Luca Marola, who is widely credited with kickstarting the boom in cannabis light, thanks in part to extensive media coverage of his company, Easyjoint Project. As of February, he said, he had sold 17,000kg (over 37,000lb) of flowers  a project that Marola, a longtime activist for marijuana legalisation, calls a form of civil disobedience.

In the past century, marijuana and cannabis became associated with the word drug, effectively wiping out generations of tradition, said Gennaro Maulucci, the main organiser of a hemp-based trade fair in Rome. We want to dismantle that defamatory reputation, he said.

Its a new economy, it feels like Silicon Valley, he added during the fair, Canapa Mundi, which drew more than 30,000 visitors over three days in February. And in this process, he said, even cannabis light can contribute to the normalisation of cannabis.

The level of tetrahydrocannabinol  or THC, the compound that makes people high  is less than 0.2 per cent in cannabis light, a small fraction of the 15-25 per cent or more that is typically found in cultivated strains of marijuana, whose street-level quality can be significantly lower in Italy. It has varying levels of cannabidiol, or CBD, which proponents say has analgesic and anti-inflammatory properties, without the psychoactive effects.

Spin the Wheel of Fortune and win cannabis seeds at Canapa Mundi (Getty)

Some aficionados working for marijuana-promoting magazines have described the effects of cannabis light as a taking-the-edge-off kind of buzz, without actually getting stoned.

Easyjoints website specifies that its products must not be burned or eaten, and that they are not medicinal. But in an interview, Marola said cannabis light had properties that could be effective in various instances.

Fortunately, more people suffer from insomnia and panic attacks than Lou Gehrigs disease, for which medical marijuana is often prescribed, he said, adding that medical marijuana should be reserved for those who really need a product with high THC content.

The scientific community is still out about the medical properties of cannabis light. Medical marijuana, on the other hand, has been increasingly popular in Italy since it was approved in 2006, and demand now greatly dwarfs supply.

Thousands of Italians use medical cannabis to assuage the symptoms of issues like post-chemotherapy nausea, muscle spasms caused by multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, anorexia and anxiety, even if many doctors hesitate to propose the treatment out of concern for potential legal liabilities.

Annual consumption of legal medical cannabis grew from 40kg in 2013 to nearly 10 times that in 2017, and we still havent reached a plateau, said Colonel Antonio Medica, the officer in charge of the Military Chemical Pharmaceutical Plant in Florence. That army-run plant is the only Italian agency to produce medical cannabis, and its first crop was distributed in 2017.

But as it cannot keep up with demand, the government also imports from Holland and, as of January, from Canada.

Medica said he thought demand could further quadruple. Doctors have begun to see the importance of medical cannabis, he said.

In September, pharmacies throughout Italy ran out of medical marijuana, prompting many patients with prescriptions to turn to the black market.

Ona odour neutraliser is a popular purchase at the cannabis fair (Getty)

The state isnt respecting its own laws, said Carlo Monaco, an owner of Romes Canapa Caffe, the only Italian locale for patients being treated with medical marijuana. The people who are paying the consequences are disabled people, people with problems, who are unlikely to react because they are in difficult conditions, he said.

While anyone can drink hemp tea or eat hemp-based food (when its available) at the cafe  whose legal status is also unclear  patients with a prescription can consume their own cannabis in a comfortable therapy room.

The cafe was created so that people didnt have to medicate alone at home. The problem is that the mentality is closed in Italy, and if you speak of cannabis as a cure, youre seen as a druggie, said Luigi Mantuano, the other owner of the cafe, which sells its own version of cannabis light. We didnt want people to close themselves off.

Though medical and light cannabis are legal, several cannabis users shared stories of being detained when found with the flowers.

If youre stopped by the police after buying medical cannabis, you have to be lucky enough that the officers have read the law and dont confuse it as a drug  otherwise its probable that youll spend the night in prison, said Andreana Sirhan, a Rome pharmacist who sells medical marijuana.

The popularity of cannabis light has given fresh energy to marijuana legalisation campaigns that have been simmering since the 1970s. A group of lawmakers from several political parties proposed a bill during the legislative session that ended last month, though it did not make its way through parliament.

Its legal to possess cannabis seeds, but not to cultivate them (Getty)

There is no guarantee that the nebulous legal status of cannabis light will survive the legislative appetite of incoming lawmakers. The two parties most likely to govern Italy for the next five years, perhaps together, have differing views on marijuana use: the Five Star Movement is open to legalisation, the far-right League party is against it.

A spokesman for the association that represents licensed tobacco vendors noted that a ministerial decision was pending on whether cannabis light would be recognised as a tobacco substitute and be subject to taxes. That would mean cannabis light could be sold only through licensed tobacco vendors.

In December, Paolo Molinari transformed his downtown Rome bar into a wannabe Dutch coffee shop (though no smoking was allowed), and began marketing his brand of cannabis light: Erba di Roma (Rome weed), which he said was popular with tourists.

He said he was concerned that the Italian cannabis light bubble could burst, but he was heartened by the growing number of states that have legalised marijuana in the United States.

Legalisation there has created jobs, reduced criminality and the contraband of poor-quality marijuana, and its a big tax boon for governments, Molinari said. Why remove a substance that creates income for the state?

Besides, he added, people will use it anyway.

 New York TimesIn November 1978, Ian Haworth  along with the rest of the world  watched in horror as footage emerged from Guyana where more than 900 people died in a move of revolutionary suicide orchestrated by cult leader Reverend Jim Jones.

Unlike many appalled at the mass deaths that saw bodies piled up around the remote settlement dubbed Jonestown, Haworth was thinking: That could have been me.

Just a month previously, he had emerged from the clutches of a cult in Canada, and his experiences, his escape and the pictures of Jonestown prompted him to devote the next four decades to investigating, campaigning against and plucking people from the hold of cults.

Recommended How 918 followed a cult leader to Guyana and died in a single day

Cults are very much back in the public eye at the moment, due in no small part to the documentary series Wild Wild Country, which debuted on Netflix in March. The series follows Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, also known as Osho, and the free-love community which built up around him in Oregon in the 1980s.

Its perhaps the archetypal image of the cult weve come to recognise: the followers of Rajneesh, who died in 1990, dressed in orange; their leader was a charismatic Indian guru (who relocated to the US after the Indian government frowned upon his activities); the disciples gave huge amounts of cash to their figurehead, lost contact with their families.

But cults dont have to follow the pattern of Rajneeshpuram, as the Oregon ranch was renamed, or the bloodbaths at Jonestown or Waco, where David Koreshs sect the Branch Davidians was raided by the FBI in 1993. More often than not, they are more mundane than that but no less damaging.

Rajneesh, also known as Osho, with his Orange People followers (Netflix)

Katy Morgan-Davies last month published a book about her experiences living in Brixton with the cult leader  and her father  Aravindan Balakrishnan, who was jailed on charges of rape and imprisonment in 2015. Morgan-Davies managed to flee the cult in 2013 after 30 years  her entire life.

Cults are back in the news again, but for Ian Haworth they never went away. As the head of the UK-based Cult Information Centre, he spends his life collating information on cults, offering advice and help to those who have escaped  or wish to  and campaigns for stricter legislation to control the reach and influence of these malign groups.

Ive dealt with more than 1,000 different cults, says Haworth. That includes the Rajneesh group. The Netflix documentary series has generated a lot of interest internationally, which cant be a bad thing.

Katy Morgan-Davies, 33, formerly known as Rosie Davies, who was kept as a prisoner by her father Aravindan Balakrishnan (PA) (PA/words by Hardeep Matharu)

That interest comes in peaks and troughs, naturally, with particular focus at the moment thanks to Wild Wild Country and Morgan-Davies memoir. Haworth says: I suppose the biggest peak weve had began on 1 January 1999, when there was a huge amount of cult activity related to the millennium, when all kinds of things were promised or predicted. Of course, mathematically, the millennium ended at the end of the year 2000, not the end of 1999, but cult leaders dont really care about such things. They care about money, and controlling people, and power.

Born in Lancashire, the son of a farmer, Haworth emigrated to Canada in 1972 while in his twenties. By 1978 he was working as a communications consultant for a large company, and had never given a thought to cults. Aged 31, he happened to be stopped by a woman with a clipboard in a Toronto street.

After fleeing a cult in 1978, Ian Haworth has dedicated his life to helping others in the same situation (Cult Information Centre)

She was very attractive and I was very single, remembers Haworth. When she asked me if I had time to answer a few questions for what I thought was market research, I said yes.

But after only half a dozen questions, the tone of the exchange altered. The woman told Haworth that his answers indicated hed fit in very well with a group she was involved with, and that it would enable him to give something back to society rather than just taking. A meeting was taking place the following week and Haworth was invited along.

I turned up and there were about a hundred people there, he says. A woman was talking about her addiction to alcohol and drugs, and how this group had helped her. I was planning to sneak away at the end, because Id been brought up to be polite and didnt want to just walk out. Then they brought out drinks and cakes, and as Id paid $2 (1.50) to attend I decided I might as well get my moneys worth before leaving.

The world of Cults: in pictures Show all 10 1 /10 The world of Cults: in pictures The world of Cults: in pictures The Collective - London, UK Aravindan Balakrishnan, known as Comrade Bala within the women-only collective he founded 40 years ago, carried out a brutal campaign of sexual degradation against the women over several decades. In this picture, he stands with some of his cult followers including his daughter. Rex/words by Hardeep Matharu The world of Cults: in pictures The Collective - London, UK Balakrishnan brainwashed the cult into thinking he had God-like powers and that he could read their minds, as a means of subjecting them to years of abuse. Metropolitan Police/words by Hardeep Matharu The world of Cults: in pictures The Collective - London, UK Katy Morgan-Davies, 33, formerly known as Rosie Davies, who was kept as a prisoner by her father Aravindan Balakrishnan. Revealing her real identity, Miss Morgan-Davies said that waiving her anonymity was an important step  to retrieve the identity the cult tried to steal from me. During his trial the judge said he had treated his daughter like an experiment. She said: Your treatment of her from her birth to the age of 26 was a catalogue of mental and physical abuse. She was slapped with slippers or a stick from a McDonald's balloon you kept for the purpose. PA/words by Hardeep Matharu The world of Cults: in pictures The Collective - London, UK Evidence picture showing the bedroom of the imprisoned daughter of Aravindan Balakrishnan. She was banned from leaving the house unaccompanied and routinely psychologically and physically abused. As a child, she became so lonely she would talk to the taps in the bathroom, and tried to make friends with the rats and mice that scuttled into the kitchen. After 30 years of being kept as a slave, she managed to escape in 2013 after memorising the number for an anti-slavery charity she saw on the news. Rex/words by Hardeep Matharu The world of Cults: in pictures The Collective - London, UK Boarded up windows in Peckford Place, Brixton, south London. Aravindan Balakrishnan was jailed for 23 years in 2016. To keep his devotees in check, Balakrishnan invented 'Jackie', which he said could kill or trigger earthquakes if anyone went against his will. He claimed that a challenge to his leadership resulted in the 1986 space shuttle disaster and Jackie, an invisible war machine, was responsible for the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour party leader. PA/words by Hardeep Matharu The world of Cults: in pictures The Peoples Temple - Guyana, South America Jim Jones, founder of the Peoples Temple sect in Jonestown, north Guyana, in 1978. Believers of the Peoples Temple of the Disciples of Christ followed Reverend Jones to Guyana in the Seventies, hoping to create a utopia in the jungle. Jonestown was envisaged as a rainbow family of all ages and races, the preacher had promised them: Divine principles. Total equality. A society where people own all things in common, where there is no rich or poor, where there are no races. AP/words by Adam Lusher The world of Cults: in pictures The Peoples Temple - Guyana, South America Reverend Jones wanted to create a glorious sacrifice, a defiant act of revolutionary suicide that would echo through history. Some disciples willingly colluded, cheering as he exhorted them to kill themselves and their children. But the bodies found with bent needles in their arms testified to the fact that some refused and were forcibly injected. Rex/words by Adam Lusher The world of Cults: in pictures The Peoples Temple - Guyana, South America When they finally counted the bodies after what would become known as the Jonestown massacre of 18 November 1978, the total came to 918, of whom 304 were children. They had been persuaded to drink the Kool-Aid, Flavor Aid, used to mask the bitter taste of cyanide, mixed with a dash of Valium. AP/words by Adam Lusher The world of Cults: in pictures Freemasonry cult - France Maude Julien, now 60, was forced to hold onto an electric fence for without showing feeling as a child. The ritual was considered to be a test of her willpower by her father, who wanted to make her superhuman. She says she was subjected to 18 years of controlling and manipulative behaviour by her father Louis Didier, an alcoholic who belonged to an esoteric lodge of Freemasonry which believed in the occult. He reportedly believed his daughter had been chosen as his protector, so sought to indoctrinate her and make her withstand torment by making her participate in cruel experiments. She says she was locked overnight in a rat-infested cellar to meditate about death. He forced her to drink whiskey before making her walk in a straight line, which she says led to the liver damage she lives with to this day. Didier adopted a 6-year-old girl, who he groomed to become his wife. The three lived in a remote mansion in northern France, which Ms Julien was forbidden to leave for a decade. YouTube/librairie mollat The world of Cults: in pictures Rajneesh movement Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, also known as Osho, and the free-love community which was built up around him in Oregon in the 1980s. Rajneesh, who died in 1990, was a charismatic Indian guru (who relocated to the US after the Indian government frowned upon his activities). His disciples gave huge amounts of cash to their figurehead and lost contact with their families. Netflix

During a break he went into the corridor for a cigarette, and thats when the cult members pounced. Haworth had seen his doctor not long before and been told if he carried on smoking like he did hed be lucky to see 40. The group told him that they would absolutely guarantee he would stop smoking if he attended a further course for $220. Hed already looked into smoking-cessation courses that were of comparable cost, so decided hed give this one a go.

The course took place in September, 1978, says Haworth. By the end of the course Id given notice at my job, promised to dedicate my life to the cult, and handed over all my savings, which amounted to about $1,500.

Jonestown commune mass suicide in 1978 (AP) (AP/words by Adam Lusher)

Even now, Haworth cannot identify the tipping point that turned him from someone whod turned up for a meeting at the behest of an attractive woman to someone who gave himself, body and soul, to a cult, other than mid-way through the course when he stopped smoking. I suppose that was the moment I went over to them  they had done what they said they would do.

Cults often thrive on feeding into peoples desires. Sometimes they will promise success, artistic or creative talent, fulfil a desire in their targets to effect social change or, as with Haworth, to give something back to the world. They will promise freedom from addictions or improved physical or mental health. Theyre what Haworth calls therapy cults, as opposed to the religious cults that offer more spiritual promises.

If youre born into a cult you dont have that Real Ian vs Cult Ian internal battle that I had. You emerge from that and the first question is who am I? Its an incredibly difficult and delicate situation Ian Haworth

Over the next month, Haworth tried to recruit his friends and even neighbours to the group. They were appalled at the change in him, but, he says, I thought they were wrong, I knew they werent part of the elite, like I was.

It was an almost textbook recruitment, and Haworth firmly believes he would have been lost to everyone who knew him but for one error on the part of the cult. Most cults programme their members against the media very early on. These people didnt do that, he says. And that was what saved him.

A neighbour gave him a copy of the Toronto Star which had featured a front-page expose of the group Haworth was involved in, written by the investigative reporter Sidney Katz. Haworth read the piece and contacted Katz immediately to verify his facts. He then, as he describes it, fell apart at the seams. Having seen Katzs research and evidence first hand, at the invitation of the journalist, Haworth angrily confronted the cults leaders, and they effectively banished him. He was finally free of them.

That was in October, he says. Then, in the November, everything came out about the Jonestown cult. And I knew that could have been me. It took me 11 months to fully recover and get back to myself.

NXIVM (which calls itself a multi-level marketing organisation) member Allison Mack leaving US District Court after her bail hearing in Brooklyn (Getty) (Getty Images)

It took that long for the nagging whispers of Cult Ian, as Haworth describes the person he was when he was with the group, to be finally silenced, and for Real Ian to reassert himself. And good sense would dictate that was the point he turned his back on cults forever and got on with his life.

I come from a farming background in Lancashire, says Haworth. People used to say, If theres summat up, then tha does summat about it. So I did summat about it.

Sidney Katz put Haworth in touch with a TV producer called Peter Scott and together they set up what was first called the Council for Mind Abuse, and which later metamorphosed into the Cult Information Centre in 1987, now run as a charity.

Ive dealt with more than 1,000 different cults. That includes the Rajneesh group. The Netflix documentary series has generated a lot of interest internationally, which cant be a bad thing Ian Haworth

Haworth and Scott concentrated on the group he had been involved with, even handing out flyers to a party of new recruits flown into Canada, exhorting them to go back to the airport. Faced with Haworths evidence, many of them did. Eventually, the resistance proved too much for the group. Toronto wasnt big enough for the both of us, he smiles. They got out.

Haworth doesnt know where they are now, or if they still exist. Cults change their names often, to keep one step ahead of the media or inquisitive minds, and to muddy the paper trail they leave behind. Besides, he soon had more than enough on his plate as more and more people began to get in touch, especially after he had relocated back to the UK.

One of the Cult Information Centres primary roles is working with ex-cult members. He likens the trauma that recovering cult followers go through to PTSD, and says systems to deal with and help them are variable, if present at all.

He would also like to see stronger laws to deal with cults; theres no specific legislation surrounding them, and its only when cult leaders are discovered to have committed actual crimes, such as Aravindan Balakrishnan in 2015, that the law can act.

Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh surrounded by devotees (Netflix)

The Aravindan Balakrishnan case, and the revelations of Katy Morgan-Davies in her new book, add an extra dimension to Haworths work. Its one thing to try to help cult members who have managed to break free return to their old, pre-cult lives, but what of those born into cults?

If youre born into a cult you dont have that Real Ian vs Cult Ian internal battle that I had, says Haworth. You emerge from that and the first question is who am I? Its an incredibly difficult and delicate situation.

And dont think it is only stupid people who would fall for a cult. Experts say that cults are most likely to be attractive to intelligent, well-educated people they have flexible minds; can consider and be seduced by the alternative lifestyles offered by cults.

From Jonestown in the Seventies to Rajneeshpuram in the 1980s to Brixton in the 2000s: cults endure, and spring up all across the world. Nothing about modern life and its complexities has inured us against the attractions of a charismatic guru or cult leader.

They start off wanting the usual things, says Haworth. Money, sex, power over people. Then, after perhaps about 10 years, they start to believe the things they say, they maybe start to believe they are gods.

And as long as the false gods continue to prey on the innocent, Ian Haworth will continue his 40-years-and-counting battle against the scourge of the cults.

For more information on Haworths work at the Cult Information Centre go to cultinformation.org.ukBirthday wishes

Call 281-422-8302 or email david.bloom@baytownsun.com to wish someone a happy birthday. We will print your birthday wish on Page 2 of The Sun.

Happy Birthday WishesTwo boys have been shot minutes apart from each other in Harrow, northwest London.

Police were called at 1.17pm to a shooting on High Street, Wealdstone. A 15-year-old boy was found with a gunshot wound.

Two minutes later at a different but nearby location, a 13-year-old boy was also treated for gunshot wounds.

Police are investigating to determine whether the two incidents are linked.

No arrests have been made and no firearm has been recovered, police said.

A grey Adidas sweatshirt with blood stains on the hood lay crumpled on the ground outside a Specsavers store along with a police exhibit number.

A shopkeeper said the youngster was "lucky to be alive" and they believe a bullet grazed the back of his head.

The manager of a betting shop, who did not give his name, said he was passing by on his lunch break and saw people gathered outside Specsavers around a black man on the ground.

He said: "He was holding his head down. I could not see his face but could see his white t-shirt was proper covered in blood.

"He was sitting calmly as the paramedics were looking after him."

He described Wealdstone as a "kind of rough area and it can be a bit aggressive".

He added that "seeing police around here is just another day" and he was used to seeing boys "just hanging around" in the street.

A green first aid bag could be seen behind the cordon as forensics officers took photographs and passers-by were diverted from the scene.

Both the boys are in hospital and neither is believed to have suffered life-threatening injuries.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 30 September 2021 The centrepiece One Thousand Springs by Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota is seen ahead of the beginning of the Japan Festival, a celebration of the countrys plants, art and culture running from 2-31 October, at Kew Gardens in London PA UK news in pictures 29 September 2021 The family of Betty Campbell unveil the bronze sculpture of her during the unveiling of the statue in Central Square, Cardiff, of Betty Campbell, Wales' first black headteacher PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2021 A sign referring to the lack of fuel is placed at the entrance to a petrol station in London AP UK news in pictures 27 September 2021 Police officers detain a protester from Insulate Britain occupying a roundabout leading from the M25 motorway to Heathrow Airport in London PA UK news in pictures 26 September 2021 Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer watches the Arsenal v Tottenham Hotspur match at The Font pub in Brighton PA UK news in pictures 25 September 2021 Scottish pro-independence supporters hold a march and rally outside the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, Scotland Getty Images UK news in pictures 24 September 2021 Police officers remove two protesters from the top of a tanker, as Insulate Britain block the A20 in Kent, which provides access to the Port of Dover in Kent. The environmental activists have moved location after been banned from campaigning on the M25 motorway in London PA UK news in pictures 23 September 2021 Gabriella, the seven year old daughter of imprisoned British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, joins in a game on a giant snakes and ladders board in Parliament Square, to show the ups and downs of her mothers case to mark the 2,000 days she has been detained in Iran AP UK news in pictures 22 September 2021 A new sign hangs on the Millicent Fawcett statue after it was altered by CrackTheCrises coalition activists to highlight the climate crisis as a feminist struggle in Parliament Square in London EPA UK news in pictures 21 September 2021 Gabriella Diment prepares a monumental bronze patinated fibreglass wall sculpture depicting household cavalry soldiers on horseback which is expected to be sold for 12,000-18,000 when it goes up for auction at Summers Place Auctions in Billinghurst, Kent PA UK news in pictures 20 September 2021 Florist Judith Blacklock puts the finishing touches to a floral carousel installation in Halkin Arcade, which she has designed with Neill Strain for the Belgravia in Bloom festival, running from September 20-26, in London PA UK news in pictures 19 September 2021 Bubbles surround Manchester Uniteds Cristiano Ronaldo before the match against West Ham at London Stadium Action Images/Reuters UK news in pictures 18 September 2021 Children take part in the Settrington Cup Pedal Car Race as motoring enthusiasts attend the Goodwood Revival, a three-day historic car racing festival in Goodwood, Chichester, Reuters UK news in pictures 17 September 2021 Hugo, 7, from London rides past a 4x7 metre rainbow arch, made entirely of recycled aluminium cans, which has been installed by recycling initiative 'Every Can Counts', in partnership with The City of London Corporation in front of St Paul's Cathedral in London, to encourage members of the public to recycle their drinks cans ahead of recycling week, which starts on 20 September PA UK news in pictures 16 September 2021 Sheikeh MOhammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, leader of Abu Dhabi, leaves Downing Street after meeting with Boris Johnson PA UK news in pictures 15 September 2021 Children pose by ice sculptures depicting people collecting water by charity Water Aid to show the fragility of water and the threat posed by climate change in London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 14 September 2021 Heavy rain covers the A149 near Kings Lynn in Norfolk PA UK news in pictures 13 September 2021 Luke Jerram's 'Museum of the Moon' at Durham Cathedral PA UK news in pictures 12 September 2021 Inspirational young fundraiser Tobias Weller crosses the finish line, near his home in Sheffield, as he completes his latest epic feat where he swam and triked his way to the end of his awesome year-long Ironman Challenge. This is the third challenge Tobias, who has cerebral palsy and autism, has completed, raising more than 150,000 for his school and Sheffield Children Hospitals charity PA UK news in pictures 11 September 2021 British player Emma Raducanu, holds up the US Open championship trophy winning the women's singles final of the US Open in New York AP UK news in pictures 10 September 2021 People paddle board during a misty morning in Ullswater, the second largest lake in the Lake District, Cumbria PA UK news in pictures 9 September 2021 Troops from Wiltshire based 4 Armoured Close Support Battalion Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers during final inspection at Wellington Barracks in London, ahead of providing troops for the Queens Guard PA UK news in pictures 8 September 2021 Workers cross London Bridge during the morning rush hour in London Reuters UK news in pictures Mixing it up: Painting it up press view in London A gallery employee poses for photographers next to a painting entitled Prairie by British artist, Louise Giovanelli during the exhibition 'Mixing it up: Painting it up' at the Hayward Gallery in London EPA UK news in pictures 6 September 2021 Traders in the Ring at the London Metal Exchange, in the City of London, after open-outcry trading returned for the first time since March 2020, when the Ring was temporarily closed due to the pandemic PA UK news in pictures 5 September 2021 People enjoy the warm weather on Sandbanks beach, Poole PA UK news in pictures 4 September 2021 Demonstrators from Animal Rebellion and Nature Rebellion protest in Trafalgar Square in London. PA UK news in pictures 3 September 2021 South Africa's Ntando Mahlangu (centre) wins the Men's 200 metres T61 Final ahead of second placed Great Britain's Richard Whitehead at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games PA UK news in pictures 2 September 2021 A young common seal on the beach at Horsey Gap in Norfolk, as hundreds of pregnant grey seals come ashore ready for the start of the pupping season. PA UK news in pictures 1 September 2021 Goldfinches fighting over food in a garden in Strensham, Worcestershire PA UK news in pictures 31 August 2021 Gold Medallist Sarah Storey of Britain celebrates on the podium Reuters UK news in pictures 30 August 2021 Extinction Rebellion protesters hold a a tea party on Tower Bridge in London EPA UK news in pictures 29 August 2021 A police office tussles with a demonstrator on Cromwell Road outside the Natural History Museum during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion in London PA UK news in pictures 28 August 2021 Members of the British armed forces 16 Air Assault Brigade walk to the air terminal after disembarking a Royal Airforce Voyager aircraft at Brize Norton, Oxfordshire POOL/AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 27 August 2021 Fabio Quartararo crashes during a MotoGP practice session at the British Grand Prix, Silverstone Circuit Action Images via Reuters UK news in pictures 26 August 2021 An Extinction Rebellion activist holds a placard in a fountain surrounded by police officers, during a protest next to Buckingham Palace in London Reuters UK news in pictures 25 August 2021 Gold Medallist Great Britains cyclist, Sarah Storey, celebrates after winning the Womens C5 3000m Individual Pursuit Final at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games. It was her 15th Paralympic gold Reuters UK news in pictures 24 August 2021 A demonstrator dressed as bee during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion on Whitehall, in central London PA UK news in pictures 23 August 2021 Former interpreters for the British forces in Afghanistan demonstrate outside the Home Office in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 22 August 2021 Police officers form a line in front of the entrance to the Guildhall, London, where protesters have climbed onto a ledge above the entrance during an Extinction Rebellion stage a protest PA UK news in pictures 21 August 2021 People take part in a demonstration in solidarity with people of Afghanistan, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 20 August 2021 People zip wire across the sea from Bournemouth pier towards the beach. PA UK news in pictures 19 August 2021 Supporters of Geronimo the alpaca gather outside Shepherds Close Farm in Wooton Under Edge, Gloucestershire PA UK news in pictures 18 August 2021 Former Afghan interpreters and veterans hold a demonstration outside Downing Street, calling for support and protection for Afghan interpreters and their families PA UK news in pictures 17 August 2021 Military personnel board the RAF Airbus A400M at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, where evacuation flights from Afghanistan have been landing Reuters UK news in pictures 16 August 2021 Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer takes part in a minute's silence at Wolverhampton police station for the victims of the Plymouth mass shooting last week PA UK news in pictures 15 August 2021 2Storm, a ten-metre tall puppet of a mythical goddess of the sea created by Edinburgh-based visual theatre company Vision Mechanics, makes its way alongside the seafront at North Berwick, East Lothian, during a performance at the Fringe By The Sea festival PA UK news in pictures 14 August 2021 A woman and two young girls look at floral tributes in Plymouth where six people, including the offender, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident PA UK news in pictures 13 August 2021 Forensic officers in the Keyham area of Plymouth where six people, including the shooter, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident on Thursday evening PA UK news in pictures 12 August 2021 Children ride horses in the River Eden in Appleby, Cumbria, during the annual gathering of travellers for the Appleby Horse Fair PA

The shootings come amid growing concerns about knife and gun crime and youth violence in the capital.

There have been 64 suspected murders in the capital this year, prompting fears that violent crime could rise to the highest levels for a decade.

In the whole of last year, there were 130 murders in London.

Agencies contributed to this reportKensington Palace has released the first photographs of Prince Louis, the newest member of the royal family born on 23 April.

The images were taken by the Duchess of Cambridge at Kensington Palace when he was just three days old.

Louis is pictured in a white outfit propped up on top of a cushion on a seat at the family residence in London.

Recommended The historical reason behind the royal baby name

A second photograph shows Louis receiving a kiss from his sister Princess Charlotte, taken by their mother on 2 May, Charlotte's third birthday.

George does not appear in the two photographs released by Kensington Palace.

The palace said William and Kate were "very pleased" to share the photographs, adding: "Their Royal Highnesses would like to thank members of the public for all of the kind messages they have received following the birth of Prince Louis, and for Princess Charlotte's third birthday."

Princess Charlotte cuddles her brother Prince Louis (AP)

This is not the first time Kate, one of the world's most photographed people, has gone behind the lens and released her own pictures.

The 36-year-old Duchess is a keen amateur photographer who last year accepted a lifetime honorary membership of the Royal Photographic Society.

Kate bucked tradition when she took the official photographs of her newborn daughter in 2015.

 Everything you need to know about Prince Louis

The photos of Charlotte showed the young princess being cradled by her older brother George at William and Kate's Norfolk home, Anmer Hall.

Kate, a history of art graduate, has released pictures to mark other milestones in her children's lives, including George and Charlotte's first days at nursery school and Charlotte's first birthday.

PABritain is set to be to be hotter than Rio on Monday as forecasters predict the warmest May Day Bank Holiday on record.

Temperatures could soar as high as 28C in some parts of the UK, according to the Met Office.

That would break the previous high of 23.6C reached in 1999 in Worcester, Malvern and the Hampshire village of Martyr Worthy.

It means the UK could enjoy better weather on Monday than dozens of popular tourist destinations including Barcelona (20C), Athens (23C), Mexico City (23C), Los Angeles and Rio de Janeiro (26C).

Most of the country will see plenty of sunshine although the hottest temperatures will be in the Southeast.

It is likely that temperatures could be record breaking, said Andy Page, chief meteorologist at the Met Office. The best of the sunshine and the highest temperatures are expected across England and Wales away from the coast.

Parts of northern Scotland and Northern Ireland will however miss out on the best of the weather, with forecasters predicting clouds and rain.

The heatwave follows a week during which parts of the UK endured freezing winds and torrential downpours.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 1 October 2021 A driver talks to members of the media after passing his HGV (Heavy Goods Vehicle) driving test at National Driving Centre in Croydon, south London AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 30 September 2021 The centrepiece One Thousand Springs by Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota is seen ahead of the beginning of the Japan Festival, a celebration of the countrys plants, art and culture running from 2-31 October, at Kew Gardens in London PA UK news in pictures 29 September 2021 The family of Betty Campbell unveil the bronze sculpture of her during the unveiling of the statue in Central Square, Cardiff, of Betty Campbell, Wales' first black headteacher PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2021 A sign referring to the lack of fuel is placed at the entrance to a petrol station in London AP UK news in pictures 27 September 2021 Police officers detain a protester from Insulate Britain occupying a roundabout leading from the M25 motorway to Heathrow Airport in London PA UK news in pictures 26 September 2021 Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer watches the Arsenal v Tottenham Hotspur match at The Font pub in Brighton PA UK news in pictures 25 September 2021 Scottish pro-independence supporters hold a march and rally outside the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, Scotland Getty Images UK news in pictures 24 September 2021 Police officers remove two protesters from the top of a tanker, as Insulate Britain block the A20 in Kent, which provides access to the Port of Dover in Kent. The environmental activists have moved location after been banned from campaigning on the M25 motorway in London PA UK news in pictures 23 September 2021 Gabriella, the seven year old daughter of imprisoned British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, joins in a game on a giant snakes and ladders board in Parliament Square, to show the ups and downs of her mothers case to mark the 2,000 days she has been detained in Iran AP UK news in pictures 22 September 2021 A new sign hangs on the Millicent Fawcett statue after it was altered by CrackTheCrises coalition activists to highlight the climate crisis as a feminist struggle in Parliament Square in London EPA UK news in pictures 21 September 2021 Gabriella Diment prepares a monumental bronze patinated fibreglass wall sculpture depicting household cavalry soldiers on horseback which is expected to be sold for 12,000-18,000 when it goes up for auction at Summers Place Auctions in Billinghurst, Kent PA UK news in pictures 20 September 2021 Florist Judith Blacklock puts the finishing touches to a floral carousel installation in Halkin Arcade, which she has designed with Neill Strain for the Belgravia in Bloom festival, running from September 20-26, in London PA UK news in pictures 19 September 2021 Bubbles surround Manchester Uniteds Cristiano Ronaldo before the match against West Ham at London Stadium Action Images/Reuters UK news in pictures 18 September 2021 Children take part in the Settrington Cup Pedal Car Race as motoring enthusiasts attend the Goodwood Revival, a three-day historic car racing festival in Goodwood, Chichester, Reuters UK news in pictures 17 September 2021 Hugo, 7, from London rides past a 4x7 metre rainbow arch, made entirely of recycled aluminium cans, which has been installed by recycling initiative 'Every Can Counts', in partnership with The City of London Corporation in front of St Paul's Cathedral in London, to encourage members of the public to recycle their drinks cans ahead of recycling week, which starts on 20 September PA UK news in pictures 16 September 2021 Sheikeh MOhammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, leader of Abu Dhabi, leaves Downing Street after meeting with Boris Johnson PA UK news in pictures 15 September 2021 Children pose by ice sculptures depicting people collecting water by charity Water Aid to show the fragility of water and the threat posed by climate change in London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 14 September 2021 Heavy rain covers the A149 near Kings Lynn in Norfolk PA UK news in pictures 13 September 2021 Luke Jerram's 'Museum of the Moon' at Durham Cathedral PA UK news in pictures 12 September 2021 Inspirational young fundraiser Tobias Weller crosses the finish line, near his home in Sheffield, as he completes his latest epic feat where he swam and triked his way to the end of his awesome year-long Ironman Challenge. This is the third challenge Tobias, who has cerebral palsy and autism, has completed, raising more than 150,000 for his school and Sheffield Children Hospitals charity PA UK news in pictures 11 September 2021 British player Emma Raducanu, holds up the US Open championship trophy winning the women's singles final of the US Open in New York AP UK news in pictures 10 September 2021 People paddle board during a misty morning in Ullswater, the second largest lake in the Lake District, Cumbria PA UK news in pictures 9 September 2021 Troops from Wiltshire based 4 Armoured Close Support Battalion Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers during final inspection at Wellington Barracks in London, ahead of providing troops for the Queens Guard PA UK news in pictures 8 September 2021 Workers cross London Bridge during the morning rush hour in London Reuters UK news in pictures Mixing it up: Painting it up press view in London A gallery employee poses for photographers next to a painting entitled Prairie by British artist, Louise Giovanelli during the exhibition 'Mixing it up: Painting it up' at the Hayward Gallery in London EPA UK news in pictures 6 September 2021 Traders in the Ring at the London Metal Exchange, in the City of London, after open-outcry trading returned for the first time since March 2020, when the Ring was temporarily closed due to the pandemic PA UK news in pictures 5 September 2021 People enjoy the warm weather on Sandbanks beach, Poole PA UK news in pictures 4 September 2021 Demonstrators from Animal Rebellion and Nature Rebellion protest in Trafalgar Square in London. PA UK news in pictures 3 September 2021 South Africa's Ntando Mahlangu (centre) wins the Men's 200 metres T61 Final ahead of second placed Great Britain's Richard Whitehead at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games PA UK news in pictures 2 September 2021 A young common seal on the beach at Horsey Gap in Norfolk, as hundreds of pregnant grey seals come ashore ready for the start of the pupping season. PA UK news in pictures 1 September 2021 Goldfinches fighting over food in a garden in Strensham, Worcestershire PA UK news in pictures 31 August 2021 Gold Medallist Sarah Storey of Britain celebrates on the podium Reuters UK news in pictures 30 August 2021 Extinction Rebellion protesters hold a a tea party on Tower Bridge in London EPA UK news in pictures 29 August 2021 A police office tussles with a demonstrator on Cromwell Road outside the Natural History Museum during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion in London PA UK news in pictures 28 August 2021 Members of the British armed forces 16 Air Assault Brigade walk to the air terminal after disembarking a Royal Airforce Voyager aircraft at Brize Norton, Oxfordshire POOL/AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 27 August 2021 Fabio Quartararo crashes during a MotoGP practice session at the British Grand Prix, Silverstone Circuit Action Images via Reuters UK news in pictures 26 August 2021 An Extinction Rebellion activist holds a placard in a fountain surrounded by police officers, during a protest next to Buckingham Palace in London Reuters UK news in pictures 25 August 2021 Gold Medallist Great Britains cyclist, Sarah Storey, celebrates after winning the Womens C5 3000m Individual Pursuit Final at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games. It was her 15th Paralympic gold Reuters UK news in pictures 24 August 2021 A demonstrator dressed as bee during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion on Whitehall, in central London PA UK news in pictures 23 August 2021 Former interpreters for the British forces in Afghanistan demonstrate outside the Home Office in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 22 August 2021 Police officers form a line in front of the entrance to the Guildhall, London, where protesters have climbed onto a ledge above the entrance during an Extinction Rebellion stage a protest PA UK news in pictures 21 August 2021 People take part in a demonstration in solidarity with people of Afghanistan, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 20 August 2021 People zip wire across the sea from Bournemouth pier towards the beach. PA UK news in pictures 19 August 2021 Supporters of Geronimo the alpaca gather outside Shepherds Close Farm in Wooton Under Edge, Gloucestershire PA UK news in pictures 18 August 2021 Former Afghan interpreters and veterans hold a demonstration outside Downing Street, calling for support and protection for Afghan interpreters and their families PA UK news in pictures 17 August 2021 Military personnel board the RAF Airbus A400M at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, where evacuation flights from Afghanistan have been landing Reuters UK news in pictures 16 August 2021 Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer takes part in a minute's silence at Wolverhampton police station for the victims of the Plymouth mass shooting last week PA UK news in pictures 15 August 2021 2Storm, a ten-metre tall puppet of a mythical goddess of the sea created by Edinburgh-based visual theatre company Vision Mechanics, makes its way alongside the seafront at North Berwick, East Lothian, during a performance at the Fringe By The Sea festival PA UK news in pictures 14 August 2021 A woman and two young girls look at floral tributes in Plymouth where six people, including the offender, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident PA UK news in pictures 13 August 2021 Forensic officers in the Keyham area of Plymouth where six people, including the shooter, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident on Thursday evening PA

After the bank holiday there is a small risk of thunderstorms in the south.

The warm weather is expected to last into Wednesday when bands of showers will push eastwards across the country.

Forecasters are also predicting temperatures of 31C from June onwards.Thousands of jobs could be put at risk if Theresa Mays plans for a customs partnership with the EU are scrapped, business secretary Greg Clark has suggested.

Mr Clark, one of the most pro-Remain members of the cabinet, laid bare the partys deep divisions on the issue as he made the case for the prime ministers preferred post-Brexit customs plan.

The proposals  under which the UK would collect import tariffs on behalf of the EU  have enraged Brexiteers, who see the move as a betrayal of Ms Mays promise to take Britain out of the customs union and the single market.

 Jacob Rees-Mogg dismisses concerns over job losses due to Brexit as 'Project Fear'

Prominent Tory Eurosceptic Jacob Rees-Mogg dismissed the warnings as Project Fear and said that the customs partnership plan would amount to keeping the UK in the EU.

It comes as Ms May has sought to quell a revolt among MPs by insisting she would take Britain out of the customs union, while both wings of her Brexit war cabinet remain deadlocked over the right approach.

Recommended May goes back to drawing board to find customs compromise

Mr Clark said the plan was still on the table and outlined the impact of new customs checks on the car giant Toyota  casting doubt over the future of its 3,500 UK employees.

He told the BBCs Andrew Marr Show: I was talking this week to the global president of Toyota motors. They are making a big decision as to where the next motor plant should be in Europe.

We have a very successful one in Deeside, in North Wales, but there are choices as to whether that should be located on the continent.

Between that plant and the plant in Derbyshire there are 3,500 people employed. The nature of that business is that over 50 per cent of the parts come from out of the country. They come through every hour of the day and night ... Its just in time manufacturing. It is highly efficient.

What we have always said is we will have a customs agreement that has the minimum of frictions. Now that is crucial.

Ms Mays customs plans will help firms as it would mean you can import parts without border checks or paperwork, he said.

Mr Clark added: But its not perfect, because what it means is that if we have imports from other countries where weve abolished the tariff, there has to be an arrangement where you pay back.

He also opened the door to extending a transition period on customs with the EU, saying it could be a case of implementing a new customs arrangement as soon as you can do rather than 2020 when the transition would expire.

It could take until 2023 to put new infrastructure in place, he added.

Former home secretary Amber Rudd, who resigned last week over the Windrush scandal, immediately tweeted her support of Mr Clarks plans.

Business leaders also welcomed Mr Clarks comments, saying it was important to maintain the status quo on frictionless trade until a new arrangement is in place.

However Mr Rees-Mogg, chairman of the powerful European Research Group (ERG) of Tory Brexiteers, said it would be odd for Ms May to back a policy that effectively breached her commitment on leaving both the customs union and single market.

He told ITVs Peston on Sunday: This Project Fear has been so thoroughly discredited that you would have thought it would have come to an end by now.

We trade successfully all over the world. The delays on goods coming into Southampton are tiny.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 5 October 2021 Members of Insulate Britain outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, before a hearing over the injunction banning the environmental activists from blocking the M25 PA UK news in pictures 4 October 2021 A delegate passes a street cleaner on the second day of the annual Conservative Party Conference being held at the Manchester Central convention centre AFP via Getty UK news in pictures 3 October 2021 Margaret Thatcher-themed mugs for sale at the annual Conservative Party conference in Manchester EPA UK news in pictures 2 October 2021 A couple make their way through a flooded underpass in Bristol as a yellow weather warning for rain and wind is issued for parts of the UK Tom Wren/SWNS UK news in pictures 1 October 2021 A driver talks to members of the media after passing his HGV (Heavy Goods Vehicle) driving test at National Driving Centre in Croydon, south London AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 30 September 2021 The centrepiece One Thousand Springs by Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota is seen ahead of the beginning of the Japan Festival, a celebration of the countrys plants, art and culture running from 2-31 October, at Kew Gardens in London PA UK news in pictures 29 September 2021 The family of Betty Campbell unveil the bronze sculpture of her during the unveiling of the statue in Central Square, Cardiff, of Betty Campbell, Wales' first black headteacher PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2021 A sign referring to the lack of fuel is placed at the entrance to a petrol station in London AP UK news in pictures 27 September 2021 Police officers detain a protester from Insulate Britain occupying a roundabout leading from the M25 motorway to Heathrow Airport in London PA UK news in pictures 26 September 2021 Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer watches the Arsenal v Tottenham Hotspur match at The Font pub in Brighton PA UK news in pictures 25 September 2021 Scottish pro-independence supporters hold a march and rally outside the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, Scotland Getty Images UK news in pictures 24 September 2021 Police officers remove two protesters from the top of a tanker, as Insulate Britain block the A20 in Kent, which provides access to the Port of Dover in Kent. The environmental activists have moved location after been banned from campaigning on the M25 motorway in London PA UK news in pictures 23 September 2021 Gabriella, the seven year old daughter of imprisoned British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, joins in a game on a giant snakes and ladders board in Parliament Square, to show the ups and downs of her mothers case to mark the 2,000 days she has been detained in Iran AP UK news in pictures 22 September 2021 A new sign hangs on the Millicent Fawcett statue after it was altered by CrackTheCrises coalition activists to highlight the climate crisis as a feminist struggle in Parliament Square in London EPA UK news in pictures 21 September 2021 Gabriella Diment prepares a monumental bronze patinated fibreglass wall sculpture depicting household cavalry soldiers on horseback which is expected to be sold for 12,000-18,000 when it goes up for auction at Summers Place Auctions in Billinghurst, Kent PA UK news in pictures 20 September 2021 Florist Judith Blacklock puts the finishing touches to a floral carousel installation in Halkin Arcade, which she has designed with Neill Strain for the Belgravia in Bloom festival, running from September 20-26, in London PA UK news in pictures 19 September 2021 Bubbles surround Manchester Uniteds Cristiano Ronaldo before the match against West Ham at London Stadium Action Images/Reuters UK news in pictures 18 September 2021 Children take part in the Settrington Cup Pedal Car Race as motoring enthusiasts attend the Goodwood Revival, a three-day historic car racing festival in Goodwood, Chichester, Reuters UK news in pictures 17 September 2021 Hugo, 7, from London rides past a 4x7 metre rainbow arch, made entirely of recycled aluminium cans, which has been installed by recycling initiative 'Every Can Counts', in partnership with The City of London Corporation in front of St Paul's Cathedral in London, to encourage members of the public to recycle their drinks cans ahead of recycling week, which starts on 20 September PA UK news in pictures 16 September 2021 Sheikeh MOhammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, leader of Abu Dhabi, leaves Downing Street after meeting with Boris Johnson PA UK news in pictures 15 September 2021 Children pose by ice sculptures depicting people collecting water by charity Water Aid to show the fragility of water and the threat posed by climate change in London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 14 September 2021 Heavy rain covers the A149 near Kings Lynn in Norfolk PA UK news in pictures 13 September 2021 Luke Jerram's 'Museum of the Moon' at Durham Cathedral PA UK news in pictures 12 September 2021 Inspirational young fundraiser Tobias Weller crosses the finish line, near his home in Sheffield, as he completes his latest epic feat where he swam and triked his way to the end of his awesome year-long Ironman Challenge. This is the third challenge Tobias, who has cerebral palsy and autism, has completed, raising more than 150,000 for his school and Sheffield Children Hospitals charity PA UK news in pictures 11 September 2021 British player Emma Raducanu, holds up the US Open championship trophy winning the women's singles final of the US Open in New York AP UK news in pictures 10 September 2021 People paddle board during a misty morning in Ullswater, the second largest lake in the Lake District, Cumbria PA UK news in pictures 9 September 2021 Troops from Wiltshire based 4 Armoured Close Support Battalion Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers during final inspection at Wellington Barracks in London, ahead of providing troops for the Queens Guard PA UK news in pictures 8 September 2021 Workers cross London Bridge during the morning rush hour in London Reuters UK news in pictures Mixing it up: Painting it up press view in London A gallery employee poses for photographers next to a painting entitled Prairie by British artist, Louise Giovanelli during the exhibition 'Mixing it up: Painting it up' at the Hayward Gallery in London EPA UK news in pictures 6 September 2021 Traders in the Ring at the London Metal Exchange, in the City of London, after open-outcry trading returned for the first time since March 2020, when the Ring was temporarily closed due to the pandemic PA UK news in pictures 5 September 2021 People enjoy the warm weather on Sandbanks beach, Poole PA UK news in pictures 4 September 2021 Demonstrators from Animal Rebellion and Nature Rebellion protest in Trafalgar Square in London. PA UK news in pictures 3 September 2021 South Africa's Ntando Mahlangu (centre) wins the Men's 200 metres T61 Final ahead of second placed Great Britain's Richard Whitehead at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games PA UK news in pictures 2 September 2021 A young common seal on the beach at Horsey Gap in Norfolk, as hundreds of pregnant grey seals come ashore ready for the start of the pupping season. PA UK news in pictures 1 September 2021 Goldfinches fighting over food in a garden in Strensham, Worcestershire PA UK news in pictures 31 August 2021 Gold Medallist Sarah Storey of Britain celebrates on the podium Reuters UK news in pictures 30 August 2021 Extinction Rebellion protesters hold a a tea party on Tower Bridge in London EPA UK news in pictures 29 August 2021 A police office tussles with a demonstrator on Cromwell Road outside the Natural History Museum during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion in London PA UK news in pictures 28 August 2021 Members of the British armed forces 16 Air Assault Brigade walk to the air terminal after disembarking a Royal Airforce Voyager aircraft at Brize Norton, Oxfordshire POOL/AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 27 August 2021 Fabio Quartararo crashes during a MotoGP practice session at the British Grand Prix, Silverstone Circuit Action Images via Reuters UK news in pictures 26 August 2021 An Extinction Rebellion activist holds a placard in a fountain surrounded by police officers, during a protest next to Buckingham Palace in London Reuters UK news in pictures 25 August 2021 Gold Medallist Great Britains cyclist, Sarah Storey, celebrates after winning the Womens C5 3000m Individual Pursuit Final at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games. It was her 15th Paralympic gold Reuters UK news in pictures 24 August 2021 A demonstrator dressed as bee during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion on Whitehall, in central London PA UK news in pictures 23 August 2021 Former interpreters for the British forces in Afghanistan demonstrate outside the Home Office in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 22 August 2021 Police officers form a line in front of the entrance to the Guildhall, London, where protesters have climbed onto a ledge above the entrance during an Extinction Rebellion stage a protest PA UK news in pictures 21 August 2021 People take part in a demonstration in solidarity with people of Afghanistan, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 20 August 2021 People zip wire across the sea from Bournemouth pier towards the beach. PA UK news in pictures 19 August 2021 Supporters of Geronimo the alpaca gather outside Shepherds Close Farm in Wooton Under Edge, Gloucestershire PA UK news in pictures 18 August 2021 Former Afghan interpreters and veterans hold a demonstration outside Downing Street, calling for support and protection for Afghan interpreters and their families PA UK news in pictures 17 August 2021 Military personnel board the RAF Airbus A400M at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, where evacuation flights from Afghanistan have been landing Reuters

We will have control of goods coming into this country  we will set our own laws, our own policies, our own regulations, and therefore we will determine how efficient the border is coming into us.

A decision on the governments preferred customs option has been postponed after the Brexit war cabinet failed to reach agreement last week.

Pro-EU MP Anna Soubry, one of the Tory Brexit rebels, urged Ms May to resist the ideologues within her party.

She told the BBC: I dont think they represent the best interests of British business, and therefore our economy, and therefore the people of our country, and Theresa needs to sort them out and see them off.

Fellow rebel Nicky Morgan, a former cabinet minister, said: Just because people shout loudest or have the loud voices in cabinet doesnt mean that they represent the majority of Conservatives.

Writing in The Sun on Sunday, the prime minister said she had an absolute determination to make a success of Brexit, by leaving the single market and customs union and building a new relationship with EU partners that takes back control of our borders, our laws and our money.

She said the UK was making good progress towards that goal and we will carry on doing so with resolution in the months ahead.Boris Johnson will travel to the United States as part of last-minute diplomatic efforts to deter Donald Trump from scrapping the Iran nuclear deal.

The president has signalled that he plans to pull the US out of what he has described as the worst deal ever, which has eased sanctions on Tehran in exchange for curbs on its nuclear programme.

Mr Trump will decide on 12 May whether to reimpose sanctions, effectively tearing up the 2015 agreement between Britain, the US, France, Germany, Russia and China, and Iran.

The foreign secretary will meet senior figures during the two-day trip, including vice president Mike Pence and Mr Trumps hawkish new national security adviser John Bolton  both of whom have been critical of Iran and the deal.

He was also expected to discuss North Korea, ahead of President Trumps planned meeting with Kim Jong-un, as well as the situation in Syria following the recent airstrikes.

Speaking ahead of the visit, Mr Johnson said: On so many of the worlds foreign policy challenges the UK and US are in lockstep.

Weve seen this recently with the response to the poisonings in Salisbury, our strong response to Assads use of chemical weapons in Syria, and the effort to denuclearise North Korea.

The UK, US, and European partners are also united in our effort to tackle the kind of Iranian behaviour that makes the Middle East region less secure  its cyber-activities, its support for groups like Hezbollah, and its dangerous missile programme, which is arming Houthi militias in Yemen.

The president gave international allies an ultimatum to fix his concerns with the deal, which include the failure to address Irans ballistic missile programme and the terms of how inspectors visit suspected sites.

Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Show all 29 1 /29 Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Inauguration - 20 January 2017 US President Donald Trump acknowledges the audience after taking the oath of office as his wife Melania (L) and daughter Tiffany watch during inauguration ceremonies swearing in Trump as the 45th president of the United States on the West Front of the US capital in Washington on 20 January, 2017. Photographer Jim Bourg: "This photo was shot with one of two remote cameras. The cameras were monitored and triggered remotely and the pictures were transmitted to clients worldwide within minutes of being taken." Reuters/Jim Bourg Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Obama farewell address - 10 January 2017 US President Barack Obama wipes away tears as he delivers his farewell address in Chicago on 10 January, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "In his final days in office, Obama made a visit home to Chicago. As he spoke from the stage to his wife and daughter in the audience, he became emotional when he talked about what they had sacrificed during his time in office. I turned from photographing the Obama women embracing to find him onstage wiping away tears." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Inauguration - 20 January 2017 A combination of photos shows the crowds attending the inauguration ceremonies to swear in U.S. President Donald Trump at 12:01pm (left) on January 20, 2017 and President Barack Obama sometime between 12:07pm and 12:26pm on January 20, 2009. Reuters/ Lucas Jackson/Stelios Varias Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Liberty Ball - 20 January 2017 US President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump attend the Liberty Ball in honour of his inauguration in Washington on 20 January, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "What I see when I look at this picture is the end of a very long day, not to mention weeks and months of preparation by many photographers, editors and network experts and the beginning of everything since." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Inaugural Law Enforcement Officers and First Responders Reception - 22 January 2017 US President Donald Trump greets Director of the FBI James Comey as Director of the Secret Service Joseph Clancy (L), watches during the Inaugural Law Enforcement Officers and First Responders Reception in the Blue Room of the White House on 22 January, 2017. Photographer Joshua Roberts: "I have covered the White House for 16 years and normally either the President or the pool is in position when an event starts. In this case the President was not where anyone expected him to be. In fact, he was almost blocking the door when the pool came in. We had to scramble to find a position without bumping him or the furniture as he greeted and thanked members of law enforcement for their security efforts during the inauguration. Luckily, he greeted FBI Director James Comey a few seconds after the pool had made its way into the room." Reuters/Joshua Roberts Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Private phone calls to world leaders - 28 January 2017 US President Donald Trump, is joined by his staff, as he speaks by phone with Russia's President Vladimir Putin in the Oval Office on 28 January, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "Very early in the Trump administration, weekends were as busy as weekdays. On Trump's second Saturday the official schedule said he would be making private phone calls to a number of world leaders including Russia's Vladimir Putin. I arrived early and, before sitting down at my desk walked up to Press Secretary Sean Spicer's office. He, too, was just taking his coat off. I gingerly made the suggestion that previous administrations had sometimes allowed photos of such phone calls through the Oval Office windows on the colonnade. To my mild shock, he didn't even think about it twice. "We'll do it!" he said. In truth, I really only expected the Putin call, but we were outside the windows multiple times throughout the day as the calls went on." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Senior advisor Kellyanne Conway - 27 February 2017 Senior advisor Kellyanne Conway (L) attends as US President Donald Trump welcomes the leaders of dozens of historically black colleges and universities (HBCU) in the Oval Office on 27 February, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "We're often asked how much access we have to the Trump administration, and the answer is we have an awful lot. President Trump himself is very comfortable in the spotlight, and his aides are similarly unfazed by cameras. In this instance, senior advisor Kellyanne Conway was so comfortable in our presence she seemed not to consider the optics of kneeling on a Oval Office sofa to take pictures with her phone." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Angela Merkel heads to Washington - 17 March 2017 Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel and US President Donald Trump hold a joint news conference in the East Room of the White House on 17 March, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "Chancellor Merkel made one of the earliest important visits of any US allies to meet Trump in his first months in office. When world leaders give joint news conferences they don't always tend to give each other their full attention - but Merkel watched Trump intently at several key moments, and here seemed particularly rapt." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Trump welcomes truckers to the White House - 23 March 2017 President Trump reacts as he sits on a truck while he welcomes truckers and CEOs to attend a meeting regarding healthcare at the White House on 23 March, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "The White House organised a listening session with truckers and CEO's of major American companies, regarding healthcare reform. An 18-wheeler tow truck was parked on the South Lawn of the White House and as Trump welcomed the truckers someone invited the him to come and sit in the driver's seat. Trump jumped into the cab and started yelling and pretending to drive - creating one of the most memorable pictures of the year. A lesson learned, always be prepared for the unexpected." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Air Force One - 6 April 2017 US President Donald Trump talks to journalists members of the travel pool on board the Air Force One during his trip to Palm Beach, Florida on 6 April, 2017. Carlos Barria: "During the many trips to President Trump's residence in Florida it is usual to see the president coming to the back of the plane to chat with journalists. During one of the trips to the so called 'Winter White House', Trump had a long talk with reporters while the Air Force One entertainment system was playing one of the latest Star Wars movies. As I was listening to Trump talk I was also looking at the movie waiting for a part of the movie to frame the mood of the day. Of the many scenes, I choose the one with Darth Vader." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures 100 Days - 27 April 2017 US President Donald Trump speaks during an interview with Reuters in the Oval Office of the White House on 27 April, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "A day before President Trump's hundred days in office I was part of the team that interviewed the commander-in-chief in the Oval Office. I was only allowed to photograph Trump during the last five minutes of the interview. The time was very tight so I had to move fast as I had pictures in mind that I wanted to shoot. I walked into the Oval Office and saw that the President had printed maps of the country showing areas in red where he won. I raised my hands holding my camera as high as possible to get the best view of the scene using a 16mm wide angle lens." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures 100 Days - 27 April 2017 US President Donald Trump reacts as he arrives at Harrisburg international airport, before attending a rally marking his first 100 days in office in Pennsylvania on 29 April, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "President Trump travelled to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to celebrate his hundred days in office with a victory rally. He was in friendly territory as he won with a big difference over his opponent Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania, during the November elections. As usual when the commander-in-chief arrives local residents gather to greet him. This time a small group of military personnel attended the arrival. Surrounded by secret service agents Trump walked from the Air Force One and raised his hand in a sign of victory as the crowd cheered him on." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures White House staffers - 2 May 2017 White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer (L) and White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus watch as US President Donald Trump presents the U.S. Air Force Academy football team with the Commander-in-Chief trophy in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington on 2 May, 2017. Photographer Joshua Roberts: "Covering the White House does not just mean covering the President. White House staffers are an important part of the story and their relationship with the President and each other is an indicator of how things are going in the West Wing. The tendency is to focus exclusively on the President once an event starts but I always try to look around to see how people are reacting as things unfold." Reuters/Joshua Roberts Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Secret Service - 4 May 2017 Secret Service agents use a presidential limousine as cover from spraying water as US President Donald Trump lands via Marine One helicopter in New York on 4 May, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "The best part of any trip to New York City with the sitting US President is the helicopter ride into Manhattan. The ride out at night can be stunning. Here, Secret Service agents protect themselves from the spray from the East River as Trump lands on the helipad." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures NATO Summit - 25 May 2017 US President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump wait the arrival of French President Emmanuel Macron (unseen) before a lunch ahead of a NATO Summit in Brussels on 25 May, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "One of the best parts of travelling overseas for White House coverage is the chance to see the U.S. president in different environments and (literally) a different light. Here, Trump and his wife came out of the shadows to greet France's President Macron." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Trump meets Putin at G20 summit - 7 July 2017 US President Donald Trump meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin during their bilateral meeting at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany on 7 July, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "On July 7, I witnessed one of the most important meetings of President Trump's first year in office. Trump met Russian President Vladimir Putin during a bilateral meeting at the G20 summit in Germany. The world's eyes were on these two leaders after speculation about Russian interference during the 2016 US elections. We entered the room for less than two minutes, where I took dozens of pictures. But there was this very interesting moment when Trump extended his hand to Putin for a handshake. Putin paused for a second and looked at Trump's hand. That was the picture that I was looking for, a little moment that seemed to say a lot." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures First lady - 8 July 2017 First lady Melania Trump chats with US President Donald Trump during their return from Germany at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland on 8 July, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "After President Trump's trip to Germany he arrived back at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. First Lady Melania Trump said goodbye to Trump as she was heading off in a different direction that day. While chatting a breeze blew Melania's hair up in the air." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Made in America product showcase - 17 July 2017 Vice President Mike Pence laughs as President Donald Trump holds a baseball bat as they attend a Made in America product showcase event at the White House on 17 July, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "This summer the White House organized an event to showcase 'Made in America' products. All kinds of exhibitors brought their products as the President and Vice President toured the event. One of the companies was Marucci Sport, a manufacturer of baseball bats based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. As Trump approached a table full of baseball bats, photographers at the event, including me, rushed to get a good angle hoping that he would pick up a bat. As we predicted, he did. He took one and joked around as though he was hitting something hard. The only thing closer to him right there, was the media." Reuters Donald Trump's first year: in pictures White House staffers - 25 July 2017 Former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski says hello to reporters as he and White House advisors including Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci accompany President Trump for an event celebrating veterans at AMVETS Post 44 in Ohio, July 25, 2017. Jonathan Ernst: "The most visible person in any White House is naturally the President, followed by the press secretary. But there are also the staff who support them. For those of us covering the Trump administration, there seem to be more compelling figures in the West Wing than ever before. It's crucial to know who's who and why they're important. When I raised my camera and back-pedalled ahead of the group to take this image Lewandowski gave me a hello. I liked the photo, but had no idea it would go a little bit viral, especially since Scaramucci, who was the biggest mover and shaker that week, was hidden back in the pack. But I guess the image catches a glimpse of what it's like to be a West Wing staffer on the road." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Campaign rally - 3 August 2017 US President Donald Trump arrives at a rally in West Virginia on 3 August, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "President Trump travelled to Huntington for one of his usual campaign rallies. While members of his family spoke to the crowd he was waiting under a black curtain to be introduced. Suddenly he walked onto the stage, one of the first frames that I took was of his hand. I set my exposure for the light on the stage hoping to create this dark background and it worked." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Staring into the solar eclipse - 21 August 2017 Without his protective glasses on, US President Donald Trump looks up towards the solar eclipse while viewing with his wife Melania and son Barron at the White House on 21 August, 2017. Photographer Kevin Lamarque: "On a day when everyone, and I mean everyone, was told not to look at the eclipse without protective glasses, Trump, President of the United States, couldn't help himself." Reuters/Kevin Lamarque Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Hurricane Harvey - 2 September 2017 US President Donald Trump poses for a photo as he and first lady Melania Trump help volunteers hand out meals during a visit with flood survivors of Hurricane Harvey at a relief centre in Houston, Texas on 2 September, 2017. Photohrapher Kevin Lamarque: "Trump, eager to deliver the image of a hands-on response to Hurricane Harvey, made this visit to a relief centre and obliged this woman with a selfie as Melania continued to work." Reuters/Kevin Lamarque Donald Trump's first year: in pictures White House - 15 September 2017 Donald Trump welcomes 11-year-old Frank Giaccio as he cuts the Rose Garden grass at the White House on 15 September. Frank, who wrote a letter to Trump offering to mow the lawn, was invited to work for a day at the White House along the National Park Service staff. Frank was so focused on his task that he did not notice the President arrive to surprise him. He took his father jumping in to grab his attention and point Trump out. Photographer Carlos Barria said: The image of Trump shouting at a kid who is mowing his lawn might have many interpretations in today's politically polarized United States. But for me it was just a kid who loved what he was doing, to the point he almost appeared to ignore the President." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Take a knee - 27 September 2017 A man kneels with a folded U.S. flag as the motorcade of U.S. President Donald Trump passes him after an event at the state fairgrounds in Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S., September 27, 2017. In September, soon after Trump had made comments condemning NFL players who kneel during the national anthem, he made a day trip to a rally in Indianapolis. Jonathan Ernst managed to capture a man on one knee with a tri-folded flag and was able to use a portion of the sign on the building he was kneeling in front of to track the man down and tell his story in full. US Army veteran Marvin Boatright wanted to send a message against social injustice. Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Hurricane Maria - 3 October 2017 President Donald Trump throws rolls of paper towels into a crowd of local residents affected by Hurricane Maria as he visits Calgary Chapel in San Juan, Puerto Rico on 3 October, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "During an afternoon visit to Puerto Rico for President Trump to survey damage from Hurricane Maria and greet some of its victims, Trump made a stop at a church where food and supplies were being distributed. Among the items were paper towels and Trump, apparently caught up in the moment, decided to distribute some of the rolls." Reuters Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Jared Kushner - 1 November 2017 White House Senior adviser Jared Kushner sits behind President Trump during a cabinet meeting in Washington on 1 November, 2017. Photographer Kevin Lamarque: "The role of Jared Kushner has gone through a series of changes. He began front and centre as a high profile adviser, but as time has passed and issues surrounding him have surfaced, he has become more of a background figure." Reuters/Kevin Lamarque Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Trump in China - 9 November 2017 Donald Trump and China's President Xi Jinping shake hands after making joint statements at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on 9 November, 2017. Photographer Damir Sagolj: "It's one of those "how to make a better or at least different shot when two presidents shake hands several times a day, several days in row". If I'm not mistaken in calculation, presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump shook their hands at least six times in events I covered during Trump's recent visit to China. I would imagine there were some more handshakes I haven't seen but other photographers did. And they all look similar - two big men, smiling and heartily greeting each other until everyone gets their shot. But then there is always something that can make it special - in this case the background made of US and Chinese flags. The first time it didn't work for me. The second time I positioned myself lower and centrally, and used the longest lens I have to capture only hands reaching for a handshake." Reuters/Damir Sagolj Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Air Force One - 10 November 2017 US President Donald Trump boards Air Force One to depart for Vietnam from Beijing Airport in Beijing, China, November 10, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "There is a Reuters photographer in the tight pool covering the US president for every appearance he makes 365 days a year. This was just one of 32 images of mine that were transmitted on the Reuters wire of President Trump visiting China and Vietnam that day. You never know when a sudden interaction, a gust of wind or a unique facial expression will lead to a striking image that grabs peoples' attention." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures ASEAN handshake - 13 November 2017 Donald Trump registers his surprise as he realises other leaders, including Russia's Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Vietnam's Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, President of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte and Australia's Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, are crossing their arms for the traditional "ASEAN handshake" as he participates in the opening ceremony of the summit in Manila on 13 November, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "Having covered a few ASEAN summits, I knew to expect the ASEAN handshake. Not everyone in the room knew to expect the ASEAN handshake. A lot was written about this unscripted moment, and what deeper meaning it might have. The simple truth is that sometimes in life there are unscripted moments." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst

Earlier this month, Mr Johnson stressed the importance of keeping the deal while building on it in order to take account of the legitimate concerns of the US.

The EU has said the deal is working and it needs to be preserved.Pressure is mounting on the Conservatives to sack a suspended councillor accused of racism, who was hastily reinstated to secure a local election victory.

Theresa May has been urged to personally intervene in the row over ex-mayor Rosemary Carroll, who was forced to stand down for three months for posting comments on Facebook comparing Asian people to dogs.

Labour said it was unacceptable for her to return to the party, after it emerged that Ms Carroll had rejoined a day after the local elections - handing the Conservatives narrow control over Pendle Council, in Lancashire.

Cabinet minister Greg Clark said such views had no place in the party and suggested she could face a fresh investigation for the comments.

The business secretary told the BBCs Andrew Marr Show: I havent seen that, but Ive read reports of it and it seems to me that if they are the views of this person, she has no place in the Conservative Party.

He added: If they are her views, then theyre incompatible with the Conservative Party. But it is for the authorities, my party authorities, to investigate that.

Conservative party chairman Brandon Lewis, who congratulated Pendle councillors on social media on Friday, said he would look at the matter again but Ms Carroll had been punished already by the local party.

He told Sky Newss Ridge on Sunday said: Her position is it was an accident. She was suspended, shes been through diversity training.

The punishment she had was endorsed by the Labour Party and the BNP, who supported them on that council at the time.

So we need to be very clear about what the facts are. But it is something that I am going to be having a look at, because weve been very clear from the beginning.

Local elections 2018  in pictures Show all 8 1 /8 Local elections 2018  in pictures Local elections 2018  in pictures Jeremy Corbyn outside a polling station in Islington Rex Local elections 2018  in pictures Theresa May and her husband Philip arrive at a polling station to vote in local elections in central London AFP/Getty Local elections 2018  in pictures Boris Johnson leaves after voting in London Reuters Local elections 2018  in pictures Liberal Democrats leader Vince Cable with his wife Rachel at Twickenham polling station Rex Local elections 2018  in pictures A man enters a polling station as voting begins in local government elections in London Reuters Local elections 2018  in pictures A man fixes a sign to the door of a polling station as voting begins in local government elections in London Reuters Local elections 2018  in pictures A poll clerk hangs a polling station sign outside the Victoria and Jubilee Halls in Hartley Wintney, Hampshire, some 45 miles west of London AFP/Getty Local elections 2018  in pictures Voters at The Vyne polling station in Knaphill, part of the Woking borough, which is one of five councils working with the Cabinet Office to trial the use of ID in polling stations PA

In our party, if we have an issue come up, as we have done over the last few months, when it comes up, we wont do what the Labour Party does and pretend it doesnt exist. We will deal with it.

The row has sparked fury from Labour, prompting shadow chancellor John McDonnell to urge Ms May to personally intervene.

To have the Conservative Party take control of the council by reinstating a councillor who used the foulest racist joke is unacceptable, he said.

I want Theresa May to say now to Brandon Lewis, who congratulated those councillors, first of all to apologise and suspend that councillor again. Its unacceptable.

Ms Carroll has previously apologised for posting the joke, claiming she intended to delete the post rather than share it.

Her return to the Tory ranks, after sitting as an independent councillor, tipped the political balance of Pendle Council so the Tories hold 25 seats, Labour 15 seats and the Liberal Democrats nine.Senior Labour figures have admitted that the row over antisemitism in the partys ranks damaged their performance in the local elections.

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell said the party had paid the price in Barnet  one of its key target seats  where it failed to win over the council after the areas substantial Jewish population reacted with outrage to a wave of antisemitism allegations in the national party.

Labour had set its sights on the northwest London council as one of the Tory crown jewels, but the councils Labour group leader Barry Rawlings has directly blamed the antisemitism scandal for the Conservative victory at the polls.

Voters failed to give Jeremy Corbyn the victory he was hoping for in London, as the party fell short on its pledge to seize key Tory councils such as Wandsworth and Westminster.

Mr McDonnell promised to meet Barnet councillors this week and said Labour would be able to show the work it is doing to tackle antisemitism during a meeting with Jewish leaders in July.

He told the BBCs Andrew Marr Show: Antisemitism certainly had its effect, theres no doubt about it, in Barnet itself.

Im hoping that the measures we have put in place now, the Chakrabarti Report implemented in full, Jennie Formby, the new general secretary  Jeremy Corbyn said to Jennie, your first priority is tackling this issue.

Labour party chairman Ian Lavery also said the scandal over anti-Jewish sentiment had cost them constituencies.

Mr Lavery told Sky Newss Sophy Ridge on Sunday: My heart goes out to [those] in the Jewish communities who have put a lot into the Labour Party, and yes, many of them, councillors that is, may not have been returned in their constituencies.

We have lost constituencies because of what happened in the row on antisemitism.

He added: Antisemitism has no role, no place at all in the Labour Party, we will root it out from top to bottom.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 5 October 2021 Members of Insulate Britain outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, before a hearing over the injunction banning the environmental activists from blocking the M25 PA UK news in pictures 4 October 2021 A delegate passes a street cleaner on the second day of the annual Conservative Party Conference being held at the Manchester Central convention centre AFP via Getty UK news in pictures 3 October 2021 Margaret Thatcher-themed mugs for sale at the annual Conservative Party conference in Manchester EPA UK news in pictures 2 October 2021 A couple make their way through a flooded underpass in Bristol as a yellow weather warning for rain and wind is issued for parts of the UK Tom Wren/SWNS UK news in pictures 1 October 2021 A driver talks to members of the media after passing his HGV (Heavy Goods Vehicle) driving test at National Driving Centre in Croydon, south London AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 30 September 2021 The centrepiece One Thousand Springs by Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota is seen ahead of the beginning of the Japan Festival, a celebration of the countrys plants, art and culture running from 2-31 October, at Kew Gardens in London PA UK news in pictures 29 September 2021 The family of Betty Campbell unveil the bronze sculpture of her during the unveiling of the statue in Central Square, Cardiff, of Betty Campbell, Wales' first black headteacher PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2021 A sign referring to the lack of fuel is placed at the entrance to a petrol station in London AP UK news in pictures 27 September 2021 Police officers detain a protester from Insulate Britain occupying a roundabout leading from the M25 motorway to Heathrow Airport in London PA UK news in pictures 26 September 2021 Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer watches the Arsenal v Tottenham Hotspur match at The Font pub in Brighton PA UK news in pictures 25 September 2021 Scottish pro-independence supporters hold a march and rally outside the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, Scotland Getty Images UK news in pictures 24 September 2021 Police officers remove two protesters from the top of a tanker, as Insulate Britain block the A20 in Kent, which provides access to the Port of Dover in Kent. The environmental activists have moved location after been banned from campaigning on the M25 motorway in London PA UK news in pictures 23 September 2021 Gabriella, the seven year old daughter of imprisoned British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, joins in a game on a giant snakes and ladders board in Parliament Square, to show the ups and downs of her mothers case to mark the 2,000 days she has been detained in Iran AP UK news in pictures 22 September 2021 A new sign hangs on the Millicent Fawcett statue after it was altered by CrackTheCrises coalition activists to highlight the climate crisis as a feminist struggle in Parliament Square in London EPA UK news in pictures 21 September 2021 Gabriella Diment prepares a monumental bronze patinated fibreglass wall sculpture depicting household cavalry soldiers on horseback which is expected to be sold for 12,000-18,000 when it goes up for auction at Summers Place Auctions in Billinghurst, Kent PA UK news in pictures 20 September 2021 Florist Judith Blacklock puts the finishing touches to a floral carousel installation in Halkin Arcade, which she has designed with Neill Strain for the Belgravia in Bloom festival, running from September 20-26, in London PA UK news in pictures 19 September 2021 Bubbles surround Manchester Uniteds Cristiano Ronaldo before the match against West Ham at London Stadium Action Images/Reuters UK news in pictures 18 September 2021 Children take part in the Settrington Cup Pedal Car Race as motoring enthusiasts attend the Goodwood Revival, a three-day historic car racing festival in Goodwood, Chichester, Reuters UK news in pictures 17 September 2021 Hugo, 7, from London rides past a 4x7 metre rainbow arch, made entirely of recycled aluminium cans, which has been installed by recycling initiative 'Every Can Counts', in partnership with The City of London Corporation in front of St Paul's Cathedral in London, to encourage members of the public to recycle their drinks cans ahead of recycling week, which starts on 20 September PA UK news in pictures 16 September 2021 Sheikeh MOhammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, leader of Abu Dhabi, leaves Downing Street after meeting with Boris Johnson PA UK news in pictures 15 September 2021 Children pose by ice sculptures depicting people collecting water by charity Water Aid to show the fragility of water and the threat posed by climate change in London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 14 September 2021 Heavy rain covers the A149 near Kings Lynn in Norfolk PA UK news in pictures 13 September 2021 Luke Jerram's 'Museum of the Moon' at Durham Cathedral PA UK news in pictures 12 September 2021 Inspirational young fundraiser Tobias Weller crosses the finish line, near his home in Sheffield, as he completes his latest epic feat where he swam and triked his way to the end of his awesome year-long Ironman Challenge. 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PA UK news in pictures 3 September 2021 South Africa's Ntando Mahlangu (centre) wins the Men's 200 metres T61 Final ahead of second placed Great Britain's Richard Whitehead at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games PA UK news in pictures 2 September 2021 A young common seal on the beach at Horsey Gap in Norfolk, as hundreds of pregnant grey seals come ashore ready for the start of the pupping season. PA UK news in pictures 1 September 2021 Goldfinches fighting over food in a garden in Strensham, Worcestershire PA UK news in pictures 31 August 2021 Gold Medallist Sarah Storey of Britain celebrates on the podium Reuters UK news in pictures 30 August 2021 Extinction Rebellion protesters hold a a tea party on Tower Bridge in London EPA UK news in pictures 29 August 2021 A police office tussles with a demonstrator on Cromwell Road outside the Natural History Museum during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion in London PA UK news in pictures 28 August 2021 Members of the British armed forces 16 Air Assault Brigade walk to the air terminal after disembarking a Royal Airforce Voyager aircraft at Brize Norton, Oxfordshire POOL/AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 27 August 2021 Fabio Quartararo crashes during a MotoGP practice session at the British Grand Prix, Silverstone Circuit Action Images via Reuters UK news in pictures 26 August 2021 An Extinction Rebellion activist holds a placard in a fountain surrounded by police officers, during a protest next to Buckingham Palace in London Reuters UK news in pictures 25 August 2021 Gold Medallist Great Britains cyclist, Sarah Storey, celebrates after winning the Womens C5 3000m Individual Pursuit Final at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games. It was her 15th Paralympic gold Reuters UK news in pictures 24 August 2021 A demonstrator dressed as bee during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion on Whitehall, in central London PA UK news in pictures 23 August 2021 Former interpreters for the British forces in Afghanistan demonstrate outside the Home Office in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 22 August 2021 Police officers form a line in front of the entrance to the Guildhall, London, where protesters have climbed onto a ledge above the entrance during an Extinction Rebellion stage a protest PA UK news in pictures 21 August 2021 People take part in a demonstration in solidarity with people of Afghanistan, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 20 August 2021 People zip wire across the sea from Bournemouth pier towards the beach. 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Both main parties had a mixed night during the local council elections in England, in which Labour gained 82 seats and controlled the same number of authorities as before the vote.

The Tories endured a net loss of two councils and returned 96 fewer councillors.The government failed to consider the climate or the economic costs of a policy change that contributed to the collapse of onshore wind in the UK.

Planning applications for new onshore wind developments have plummeted by 94 per cent since the introduction of new policies governing their construction in 2015.

Documents obtained under Freedom of Information rules for The Independent by Christine Ottery at DeSmog UK and environmental group 10:10 Climate Action have revealed the government did not conduct relevant impact assessments before implementing these changes.

They found no assessments had been made of how the new policies would affect carbon emissions, despite the key role onshore wind is thought to have in transitioning to a greener energy system and meeting climate targets.

There was also no detailed assessment of how policies would affect the future of the nations wind industry, or consumers fuel bills.

Instead, the only impact assessments that were carried out were into the effect of such policies on equality and the strength of family relationships in local communities.

Onshore wind is one of the cheapest and most efficient sources of renewable electricity, and surveys show most British people support it.

This is a shocking revelation, said Caroline Lucas, MP and co-leader of the Green Party.

For no assessment to be made in relation to the impact on the industry really does expose the governments contempt for onshore wind, and their utter unwillingness to see reason.

We know that ministers are more motivated by a small cabal of their own backbenchers than the evidence on this issue  and their failure here underlines this.

Lisa Murray's climate change photography Show all 12 1 / 12 Lisa Murray's climate change photography Lisa Murray's climate change photography Dinka cattle herders starting their migration in South Sudan Lisa Murray Lisa Murray's climate change photography A Dinka woman fetches water in South Sudan Lisa Murray Lisa Murray's climate change photography Veronica in South Sudan preparing tea outside her home, recently ravaged by heavy flooding Lisa Murray Lisa Murray's climate change photography Children playing in Vietnam. When it floods, transport to and from school is a major challenge Lisa Murray Lisa Murray's climate change photography Sugeng, a fish and crab farmer from Indonesia who suffers financially every time the area floods Lisa Murray Lisa Murray's climate change photography Tan, a vegetable farmer, learning new methods through Oxfam in Vietnam Lisa Murray Lisa Murray's climate change photography Maluk, a 19-year-old from Tonj South, South Sudan Lisa Murray Lisa Murray's climate change photography Normally this farmer in South Sudan would be harvesting sorghum, but rains are late so the hunger season continues Lisa Murray Lisa Murray's climate change photography Herders bringing home their cattle in Afar, Ethiopia Lisa Murray Lisa Murray's climate change photography Farmers harvesting chilli in Ethiopia Lisa Murray Lisa Murray's climate change photography A woman in Tigray, Ethiopia, scares birds away from her crops with a slingshot Lisa Murray Lisa Murray's climate change photography Irula tribe woman in Tamil Nadu Lisa Murray

Alan Whitehead, Labours shadow minister for energy and climate change, said the lack of impact assessments showed a shocking display of poor governance.

This ill-considered action has thrown away a strong British industry of the future and potentially increased energy prices by effectively outlawing the cheapest form of clean energy in the country today, he said.

The government action in 2015 was part of a wider strategy aimed at giving communities more say in where wind turbines can be built.

The policy change came after a group of more than 100 MPs wrote an open letter to David Cameron calling for him to remove support for inefficient and intermittent onshore wind.

Under the new rules, onshore wind developments were only allowed to proceed in areas designated suitable by local authorities.

There was also a transfer of power from the governments energy and climate change department to what is now the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

While onshore wind has not been banned outright, these policy changes, combined with the withdrawal of subsidies, have been described by experts as an effective ban due to the block they put on new projects.

Historically, new wind projects were reliant on government subsidies. Following the 2015 general election the Conservatives made a manifesto promise of no subsidies for new operations, effectively stifling the industry.

However, wind farm technology has now progressed to the extent that many onshore wind farms being built across Europe are set to be subsidy-free.

Industry experts see onshore wind as playing a key role in the UK transitioning to a greener future.

Its the cheapest option for new power in the UK, and in the 2020s we have to procure very large amounts of new power to replace very large amounts of power that is going offline and to meet our carbon budget, said Luke Clark, director of external affairs at trade association RenewableUK.

Given its low-cost nature, onshore wind should certainly have a role to play in meeting those needs.

In response to the governments lack of preparation, Dr Jonathan Marshall, energy analyst at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), said: This looks like another snap policy decision made in the rush to nix onshore wind that wasnt really fully considered.

 Eight young Floridians file lawsuit against the state of Florida over climate change

In rushing through as many roadblocks to onshore wind as possible, the government knackered the industry, as we have seen in the years since.

Analysis by ECIU has revealed that policies blocking the development of onshore wind could add 1bn to the UKs energy bills over five years.

Families facing high energy bills are being let down by the governments ongoing ban on the cheapest new energy source  onshore wind, said Ellie Roberts, a campaigner at 10:10 Climate Action.

So the fact that the government only performed a minimal, barely relevant assessment on wind planning barriers will come as a real slap in the face.

Despite the restrictions on onshore wind resulting from laws put in place to satisfy local communities, wind power also has considerable popularity among the British public.

The latest government figures showed record public support for renewables, with more than 75 per cent of people supporting onshore wind specifically.

The same survey revealed that two-thirds of people would even be happy to see a large-scale renewable energy development built in their area.

A UN report released in April found that, despite global investment in renewable energy shooting up in 2017, the UK had seen a decline of around two-thirds.

Report author Angus McCrone of New Energy Finance noted the role played by weakening support for onshore wind in this funding drop.

After the announcement of the new policy, the Department of Energy and Climate Change  now the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS)  released an assessment in which it considered the impact of changes on the cost and duration of onshore wind applications.

It concluded there would be no change in the level of onshore wind generating capacity.

BEIS has stated the government could still back onshore wind where there is local support, such as on the Scottish islands.

However, though last year saw the highest number of onshore wind turbines ever built, only two new projects have received planning permission since the changes came into place.

A Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesman said: We do not believe that more large-scale onshore wind power is right for England, but it can be developed where there is public support.

People can have their say on wind power during our planning policy consultation, which is open until May, and there was also the chance to offer views during the Housing White Paper consultation.

A government spokesperson said: With government putting clean growth at the heart of our modern industrial strategy, and up to 557m of funding for new clean energy projects, the renewable energy sector is thriving and powering our nation with a record 15 per cent of all electricity coming from wind power last year  the highest ever for the UK. Government has been very clear, however, that the need for renewable energy does not automatically override environmental protections and the planning concerns of affected local communities.When health officials in Minnesota were confronted by the biggest outbreak of measles in decades, they knew that earning the communitys trust would be crucial.

The section of the community most affected by the outbreak that eventually infected 79 people, the same as for the whole of the US in any average year, were Somali Americans. The vast majority were children under 10 who had not been vaccinated.

The states Somali Americans used to vaccinate their children more than other Minnesotans, but the rate fell, between 2004 and 2014, from 92 per cent to 40 per cent. Officials have linked this to visits paid to the community by anti-vaccine activist Andrew Wakefield and other campaigners, whose influence still reverberates.

The biggest impact is connecting a condition that is one that challenges any parent who has a child with autism, and connecting that to immunisations, and specifically MMR, Lynn Bahta, the immunisation clinical consultant with the Minnesota Department of Health (MDOH), told The Independent last summer as it fought to tackle the outbreak.

Among our Somali American community we have their rates go from 92 per cent, which was higher than non-Somali rates, down to 42 per cent. And that puts them in a very, very vulnerable position.

To help the state get its message delivered most effectively, officials asked for help from community leaders, in particular imams, who lead prayers at neighbourhood mosques.

 Lynn Bahta describes how immunisation rates in the Minnesota Somali commnuity has fallen

Bahta said they told them that the MDOH does not believe that the information being given to them by Wakefield and others was true. She said the community was particularly vulnerable as it already believed there was a higher rate of autism among Somali American boys, something officials in the state say is not supported by data. In the end, more than 30 agreed to help.

The imams are very concerned about their community and they are very willing to work with us in whatever way they can. They have appreciated the information that we have been able to give them about the outbreak and what they can do as spiritual leaders of the community, Bahta said.

She said the imams provided officials with direct access to the community. In addition, she said the imams could bring disease and prevention of disease within the context of their faith. That is something that we dont have the words for, but they do.

The outbreak of measles in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis-Saint Paul) was the worst the Midwest conurbation had witnessed for years. But it was not alone in having to confront the problem.

In 2015, around 150 people were infected, the vast majority of them residents of California, after they visited one of two Disney theme parks located in Orange County. The vast majority of those infected were believed to have not received the MMR vaccine, or to have only had one injection (the recommendation is two).

Earlier this year, at least six people in Ellis County, Texas, were infected with the disease, all of them people who had not been vaccinated. Texas is one of the 19 states in the US that does not have a law that requires people to get vaccinations, and since 2003, parents have been able to opt out of public school vaccine requirements if it goes against their conscientious beliefs.

In addition to being the home of Wakefield, the state is the base of Texans for Vaccine Choice, a political action committee that supports political candidates who promote doubts about vaccine safety.

After moving to Texas in the early 2000s, Wakefield headed up the Thoughtful House Centre for Children, in Austin, between 2005 and 2010, when he resigned ahead of losing his UK medical license. The group subsequently changed its name to the Johnson Centre for Child Health and Development.

Reports say he then established the Strategic Autism Initiative, which he ran with Polly Tommey, a British mother whose son has autism. Tommey helped produce Wakefields film, Vaxxed, which seeks to claim there is a link between autism and vaccinations. Dr Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, told the Huffington Post that since 2003, the number of parents conscientiously objecting to having their children vaccinated rose from 2,314 to 52,756 for the 2016-2017 school year. That did not include data about children who are schooled at home.

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. 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Texas has seen a 20-fold increase in non-medical vaccine exemptions since 2003, said Dr Hotez. That means we have some schools with 20 to 40 per cent of the children not being vaccinated.

Underscoring the danger that unvaccinated children pose to the wider community, a study published last October in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) concluded that people who did not get vaccinated were the most likely reason for the steady increase in the rate of measles and major outbreaks in the US.

In Minneapolis, among those who ignored the experts was Suaado Salah, a young mother whose three-year-old son and 18-month-old girl were not vaccinated and who subsequently contracted measles. She said her daughter, who had a rash, high fever and cough, had to spend four nights in hospital where she was treated with oxygen and intravenous drips.

I thought, Im in America. I thought, Im in a safe place and my kids will never get sick in that disease, the 26-year-old told the Washington Post. She said growing up in Somalia, she had measles as a child, and her sister died of it.

But since her children fell ill, she and her husband have become advocates for vaccines.

When the kids get sick, its going to affect everybody. Its not going to affect only the family who have the sick kid, she said. They make everybody sick. Thats when you wake up and say, Okay, what happened. 

 Health officials urge vaccines as US faces measles outbreak

One of the imams who was central to the states response to the outbreak was Sharif Abdirahman, the Muslim leader at the Dar al Hijrah mosque in the Cedar-Riverside neighbourhood of Minneapolis. He said he was able to appeal to people using both religion and science. He could also appeal as a parent.

Islam is a religion of expertise, he said, sat in the second-floor office of the community centre that also contains a mosque.

Verses in the Quran say ... if you dont a know subject ask the advice of people who know the subject very well.

 Imam Sharif Abdirahman says Andrew Wakefield's visit had a 'severe' impact

He said that several years ago, Wakefield had come and spoken to members of the community.

I think the impact was very, very, very severe because he linked MMR and autism and because of that the Somali community feared the MMR, he said.

I think that before Andrew visited the Two Cities, Somali parents vaccinated their kids at around 90 per cent. But right now its 40, and that shows the fears impact and because of that you see a measles outbreak in the state of Minnesota.

Abdirahman said the public response had varied mosque to mosque. But in his, people had reacted mostly positively to the message he was trying to spread.

Andrew Wakefield was struck off the UK medical register in 2010 (Andrew Buncombe)

They are receptive and they ask more questions, he said. They have the right to ask these questions because there is a lot of fear, even though they know me.

Officials said Wakefields film, Vaxxed, was screened by anti-vaccine campaigners on a number of occasions.

Wakefield, 61, was in 2010 found guilty by the UKs General Medical Council of three-dozen charges including dishonesty and abuse of children, shortly after The Lancet medical journal retracted the 1998 study on which his claims about the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine were based. The magazines editor said at the time that statements in the article were utterly false.

Ten years earlier, he had moved to the US where he has become a leading figure within the anti-vaccine movement, and had a 45-minute meeting with in the summer of 2016 with Donald Trump, who has claimed there is a link between vaccines and autism, despite such a link being denied by the USs top national health body and more than a dozen research papers.

Speaking to The Independent in Kansas City, Wakefield, who is believed to have visited Minneapolis at least three times between 2010 and 2011, said he had gone there to speak to parents who were worried about their exquisite risk at contracting autism from vaccines  something health officials in the state say is not borne out by data. He said: They had a problem and they asked me to help.

We have been showing the film to anyone who wants to watch it. Weve not been specifically showing it to people of colour. So the implication that youve put forward is wholly unjustified. The film was shown to any who chose to show up. We did not target any particular audience. Let me make that clear, he said.

Secondly. I didnt go to Minnesota to show it to any Somali population. As far as Im aware, it was not shown to the Somali population at all, unless they chose to go and see it. So they were not targeted either.

Ive been to Minnesota to talk to the Somali population twice. I was asked go there to help set up a study to try and answer the question of why it appears that Somali children are at an exquisitely high risk of an adverse reaction, developing severe autism from vaccines ... That was the question I was asked to go and help solve by the Somalis  The data shows these children are at high risk.

A year on from the outbreak, health officials in Minnesota said they were still conducting a formal evaluation of the incident and its response. They said they remained convinced Wakefields visit to the state and his interaction with the Somali community was a factor in the failure of many to get their children vaccinated.

Perceptions about the prevalence of autism, coupled with misinformation by Andrew Wakefield about a purported link between the MMR vaccine and autism, compounded by continuous efforts by vaccine opponents, contributed to a steep drop in vaccination rates in the Somali community, from more than 90 per cent in 2005 to nearly 40 per cent in 2017, said Doug Schultz, a spokesperson for the Minnesota Department of Health.

We know that Wakefield had interactions with the community on at least two occasions.

He added: We were aware of Somali community concerns about the MMR vaccine and autism as early as 2008, and had been increasing efforts to engage with the community to address those concerns and improve vaccination rates for several years prior to the outbreak. We are continuing to amplify previous activities by improving and strengthening our relationships with the community and seeking the communitys counsel on ways we can improve the health of everyone.Earlier this week a colourful weapon of war and oppression called the Casspir was unloaded off a cargo ship in a port outside New York City.

The massive vehicle from Apartheid-era South Africa has been brought into the US by artist Ralph Ziman, who said his efforts to reclaim the vehicle and turn it into art were spurred by memories of the vehicles dark past in his home country  and that the vehicle used to terrorise tribes decades ago has a particular resonance with a dark present in modern Americas increasingly militarized police community.

On Thursday, Ziman stood dwarfed by the vehicle in a gravel courtyard, motioning to the intricate bead and needlework that makes the vehicle appropriate for the real estate it currently inhabits at the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, at Brooklyns Pioneer Works.

The towering, 9-foot-tall, 22-foot-long, 11-ton monster of a vehicle has been covered almost entirely by vibrant reds, yellows and greens. From the machine gun that sits above the two crew members to the 12 seats in the back where soldiers sit protected from explosions and small arms fire, the beast has been Africanized.

To me, and to a lot of people in South Africa, the Casspir was the ultimate symbol of Apartheid. It was this visible symbol, a ruling fortress that could be rolled into a township and assert dominance, Ziman, who left South Africa at the age of 19 in 1981 to dodge being conscripted into the brutal military, said.

Youd see them roadblock townships everywhere, he said. They were absolutely ubiquitous.

The Casspir was developed in South Africa at a time when the international community refused to sell military equipment to the oppressive Apartheid government that institutionalised racial segregation and discrimination. The vehicles are built to withstand ambushes and mine explosions, can drive at speeds of up to 60mph, and have been designed to stay upright and mobile in virtually any circumstance or terrain.

In South Africa, especially in the 1980s leading up to the end of the Apartheid system in the early 1990s, the Casspir  referred to as spoeks by some then, the Afrikaans word for ghost, and an apparent nod to Casper the friendly ghost  was deployed by the South African government as a massive showing of force, as a tool of fear, to push back on protesters looking to end the oppressive system and institutionalised racial divides.

It can do anything. [It can drive] on top of cars, on top of sheds, houses, demolish everything. All those kinds of things. Those were terrible situations that we have gone through, one former South African who recalls seeing the vehicle during student led protests of the government in the 1980s, says in video Ziman captured while he brought his reclaimed Casspir to villages in recent years.

Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower Show all 15 1 /15 Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower Kandy Freeman participates in a Black Lives Matter protest in front of Trump Tower in New York City, U.S. January 14, 2017. Stephanie Keith/Reuters Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower People participate in a Black Lives Matter protest in front of Trump Tower in New York City, U.S. January 14, 2017. Stephanie Keith/Reuters Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower Hawk Newsome, a Black Lives Matter activist, leads a protest outside Trump Tower in New York City on January 14, 2017. Dominick Reuter/AFP/Getty Images Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower Hawk Newsome (C) leads a chant during a Black Lives Matter protest in front of Trump Tower in New York City, US. January 14, 2017. Dominick Reuter/AFP/Getty Images Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower People participate in a Black Lives Matter protest in front of Trump Tower in New York City, U.S. January 14, 2017. Stephanie Keith/Reuters Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower An NYPD officer speaks with a Black Lives Matter leaders during a protest in the snow outside Trump Tower in New York City on January 14, 2017. Dominick Reuter/AFP/Getty Images Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower Kandy Freeman participates in a Black Lives Matter protest in front of Trump Tower in New York City, U.S. January 14, 2017. Stephanie Keith/Reuters Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower An NYPD officer speaks with a Black Lives Matter leaders during a protest in the snow outside Trump Tower in New York City on January 14, 2017. Dominick Reuter/AFP/Getty Images Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower Carol Garza, a Black Lives Matter supporter, protests outside Trump Tower in New York City on January 14, 2017. Dominick Reuter/AFP/Getty Images Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower People participate in a Black Lives Matter protest in front of Trump Tower in New York City, U.S. January 14, 2017. Stephanie Keith/Reuters Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower A Black Lives Matter supporter protests in the snow outside Trump Tower in New York City on January 14, 2017. Dominick Reuter/AFP/Getty Images Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower Black Lives Matter activists march in front of Trump Tower on January 14, 2017 in New York City. Kevin Hagen/Getty Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower Black Lives Matter activists march in front of Trump Tower on January 14, 2017 in New York City. Kevin Hagen/Getty Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower Black Lives Matter supporters protest in the snow outside Trump Tower in New York City on January 14, 2017. Dominick Reuter/AFP/Getty Images Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower Black Lives Matter Kandy Freeman marches in front of Trump Tower on January 14, 2017 in New York City. Kevin Hagen/Getty

After the United Nations arms embargo on South Africa was lifted in 1994, the new South African government found themselves able to sell their massive Casspirs to an international community that, it turned out, were in need of the types of nearly impenetrable vehicles that the Apartheid government had used to instil fear in the black people it ruled over.

The South African government eventually found customers all over the world, including several other African countries, Middle Eastern countries like Iraq, and also the United States. The US purchased as many as 68 of the vehicles as it embarked on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and found itself in need of vehicles that could withstand the insurgent threat of IEDs left by terrorists the US military was there to try and eliminate.

As those wars wound down, the US Department of Defence transferred the Casspirs back to the United States, alongside similar vehicles known as Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, or MRAPs.

Once in the United States, the vehicles fit perfectly into a relatively unknown program from the 1990s, the 1033 program, that was originally intended to help local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies by supplying them with unused military equipment to help in drug enforcement operations. In 1997, the program was expanded to include counter-terrorism as a goal.

Since its inception in 1990, more than $5bn worth of military vehicles and equipment has been transferred to state and local law enforcement agencies across the country at little cost to those agencies. That includes the transfer of armored vehicles, riot gear, rifles, ammunition, and computers from the Department of Defense to local law enforcement, at nearly no cost to those agencies.

Ziman says that he saw something startling nearly four years ago.

As residents of Ferguson, Missouri took to the streets to protest and riot after a white police officer shot an unarmed black teenager named Michael Brown, a familiar sight showed up in the coverage for him: At least one massive Casspir  or an MRAP cousin of the Casspir  was in use by the predominantly white police to push back on the predominantly black protesters.

So, all of a sudden you see them, Ziman said, recalling the coverage of the events. You see these protests where on one side you see mostly black and brown people, and on the other side you see paramilitary cops  mostly white  on top of these Casspirs.

Ferguson was not unique  Black Lives Matter demonstrators say they saw them at protests in New York and Baltimore, for instance  but it did bring the attention of the Obama administration, which took measures to limit the 1033 program. In 2015, the administration created a working group to analyze the issue, and created new classifications for the military equipment that the Department of Defence gives out to local police forces, including prohibited equipment and controlled equipment classifications, which included armoured vehicles.

The Department of Justice had already been analysing the issue, though, before those 2015 designations, with the intention of determining what exactly the 1033 program meant for American police forces.

In 2012, we began asking the question, Why are we training police officers like soldiers? Although police officers wear uniforms and carry weapons, the similarity ends there, a report from that task force, which has been removed from government websites by the Trump administration, read.

The missions and rules of engagement are completely different. The soldiers mission is that of a warrior: to conquer. The rules of engagement are decided before the battle, the report continued. The police officers mission is that of a guardian: to protect. The rules of engagement evolve as the incident unfolds. Soldiers must follow orders. Police officers must make independent decisions. Soldiers come into communities as an outside, occupying force. Guardians are members of the community, protecting from within.

On Friday, President Donald Trump bragged to a crowd at the National Rifle Associations annual gathering that his administration had lifted the restrictions placed upon he 1033 program. He cast the issue as one of protecting American police forces  a similar argument made by police forces that are beneficiaries of these military handouts, and who note that armoured vehicles were deployed following the 2015 shooting in San Bernardino.

In my administration, we have a simple policy: We will protect those who protect us. You saw what I did with the military equipment, the excess equipment all over the country in warehouses never to be used again. And other administrations, they just didnt want to give it to the police. They said, its too much protection, It looks too strong. It looks like military, Mr Trump told the NRA crowd in Dallas.

Guess what, its now being distributed all over to our police forces, he concluded, to thunderous applause.

Ziman says that the Casspir is an example of why that distribution is dangerous. Hes seen these vehicles instil fear in populations in South Africa, and he draws parallels to modern America  and Europe as well.

Militarization has happened. I think when you dress a policeman a certain way, and arm him a certain way, he starts believing a certain way, Ziman said. When youre a cop and you have a night stick and a whistle you walk down the street, you talk to people because those are the tools you have. When youre dressed in a flack jacket and an M-16, you tend to look at the other person as an enemy.Katie Holley was jolted awake by a cold thing  what she had initially thought was a small piece of ice that somehow slid down her left ear. Still disoriented, she rushed to the bathroom, grabbed a cotton swab and slowly stuck it inside her ear. And then Ms Holley felt something move. It was like a rhythmic movement, she recalled, as whatever it was tried to burrow deeper into her ear canal.

She pulled out the cotton swab and saw small, dark brown pieces that looked like legs.

Cockroaches have been a nuisance in the Holley household since she and her husband, Jordan Holley, bought their first home last year, she wrote in Self magazine this week. They thrive in warm and damp places and that includes Florida, where the young couple live and where flying cockroaches called palmetto bugs are most common. Households in warm cities, such as New Orleans, Houston and Atlanta, report more problems with cockroaches than much of the country.

A few weeks earlier, an exterminator sprayed every room inside the couples house in Melbourne, Florida and Ms Holley felt what turned out to be a very temporary sense of relief.

That morning, around 1.45am on 14 April, Mr Holley rushed to the bathroom to help his panicking wife, grabbed a flashlight and looked inside her ear. And there it was, a small part still visible from the outside as it stayed there, lodged in the middle of the ear canal. Mr Holley managed to pull out a couple of legs using a pair of tweezers, but the intrepid bug had crawled too deep.

The young couple drove to the emergency room just a few miles away. A man sitting behind a desk near the hospitals entrance saw the look of panic in Ms Holleys face and asked whether she was in pain.

A roach crawled into my ear while I was sleeping and it was stuck, Ms Holley said she told him.

She was given a wristband and taken to a room, where she lay on her side on a gurney, whimpering. A nurse injected the bug with the anaesthetic lidocaine to try to kill it. Ms Holley said she felt the roach move, twitching and wriggling further into her ear as it tried to avoid death. Two minutes later, it stopped moving.

It took the doctor about 20 seconds to pull out chunks of the dead roach and Ms Holley saw what she thought was the remains of a small insect. She left the hospital nearly two hours later with a prescription for antibiotics and ear drops, relieved that it was all over. She and her husband vowed to never let the experience happen again, stopping by a Walmart to buy earplugs.

Nine days passed, but Ms Holleys ear still did not feel normal. It was still numb, she said and she felt some discomfort every time she yawned. Her medicine drops also had stopped passing through her ear, leading her to think that perhaps earwax had built up inside.

She went to her physician for her regularly scheduled appointment and asked the doctor whether she could check her ear. Her doctor and a physician assistant flushed her ear four times. Using an otoscope, they peeked inside and there it was  another leg.

Lord of the butterflies: Clive Farrell has turned his Dorset estate into an insect-filled fantasia Show all 5 1 /5 Lord of the butterflies: Clive Farrell has turned his Dorset estate into an insect-filled fantasia Lord of the butterflies: Clive Farrell has turned his Dorset estate into an insect-filled fantasia 39046.bin Pal Hansen Lord of the butterflies: Clive Farrell has turned his Dorset estate into an insect-filled fantasia 39048.bin Lord of the butterflies: Clive Farrell has turned his Dorset estate into an insect-filled fantasia 39050.bin Pal Hansen Lord of the butterflies: Clive Farrell has turned his Dorset estate into an insect-filled fantasia 39051.bin Lord of the butterflies: Clive Farrell has turned his Dorset estate into an insect-filled fantasia 39052.bin

Ms Holleys doctor pulled out six pieces of the roachs remains  but feared there was still more left.

Ms Holley said her physician arranged for her to see a doctor who specialises in treating the ears, nose and throat (ENT) later that day.

As she went home and waited, Ms Holley tried to remember how much of the roach was taken out at the emergency room more than a week ago.

Did they find the head? Antennae? she wrote. I couldnt recall. But I could only hope that the ENT would only need to remove another teensy leg or two.

The specialist placed what looked like a microscope next to Ms Holleys face. A few minutes later, she felt something bigger was getting extracted out of her ear canal. And then she saw it. Not a teensy leg or two. Not the remains of a baby roach. But a head, a torso, limbs and long antennae of what looked like a fully grown palmetto bug.

For nine days, much of the dead roach sat in Ms Holleys ear.

I was furious. I was really disappointed with the ER for not having seen that, for letting me believe it was all out, Ms Holley, a 29-year-old sales and marketing manager, said on Saturday.

They said this is something that happens often. I was told theres no need to see anyone or a specialist.

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Holley declined to name the hospital she first went to in April.

Holley said she did not have any permanent damage or infection. Palmetto bugs generally do not bite and if they do, their bites are not harmful.

Cockroaches have been known to burrow into peoples ears. A South African hospital, for example, pulled two dozen critters out of peoples ears over a period of two years, according to a National Geographic article published last year.

Roaches are searching for food everywhere, entomologist Coby Schal of North Carolina State University told National Geographic. And earwax might be appealing to them.

But, still, as Ms Holley said: It was still a roach. In my ear.

The Washington PostDonald Trump has reportedly threatened to close down the US government in a new drive to secure a wall along the border with Mexico to keep out immigrants.

Attacking Democrats for refusing to back his promise of a wall, the US president said: They dont want the wall but were going to get the wall, even if we have to think about closing up the country for a while.

Were going to get the wall. We have no choice.

Recommended Immigrant caravan at US border faces tough asylum fight

According to ABC News, which originally reported the story, he added: We have absolutely no choice. And were going to get tremendous security in our country.

The president did not specify what he meant by closing up the country, but last month he told supporters that unless Congress met his funding demands on border security, there could be a government shutdown in the autumn.

Current government funding is due to run out in September.

The plan to build a wall with Mexico was one of the most prominent pledges in the presidents election campaign.

More than 200 central-American migrants travelled through Mexico as part of a caravan last month, intending to seek asylum in the US.

Although Mr Trump had warned that they had better be stopped before reaching the US border, 228 people were eventually allowed to enter the US and apply for asylum late last week.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. 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We may have to close up our country to get this straight, because we either have a country or we dont, Mr Trump said yesterday. And you cant allow people to pour into our country the way theyre doing.

Illegal migrants were exploiting a catch and release policy, he said. Under the policy, migrants are freed while awaiting a court hearing.

On Twitter he described the border as under siege, adding: Congress must act now to change our weak and ineffective immigration laws. Must build a Wall. Mexico, which has a massive crime problem, is doing little to help!

The president also said America would have to revise its trade partnership with China. It cant go on that way, he said.North Korea has accused the US of ruining the mood of peace and reconciliation ahead of Donald Trumps historic summit with Kim Jong-un.

The regime said the public was being misled by claims the negotiations were being driven forward by increased political pressure and sanctions.

North Korea also warned the US not to interpret their peace-loving intention as a sign of weakness.

The US president and his officials have repeatedly suggested that their tough policy towards North Korea has been a decisive factor in getting Kim Jong-un to the table.

They said there were two alternatives: let them have what they have, or go to war, Mr Trump said last month. And now we have a much better alternative than anybody thought even possible.

In a statement, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK) said the US was trying to aggravate the situation on the Korean peninsula.

The US is deliberately provoking the DPRK at the time when the Korean peninsula is moving towards peace and reconciliation thanks to the historic north-south summit and the Panmunjom Declaration, said a spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

This act cannot be construed other than as a dangerous attempt to ruin the hard-won atmosphere and bring the situation back to square one.

At last months summit Kim Jong-un and South Korean president Moon Jae-in signed an agreement seeking a formal end to the Korean War and the complete denuclearisation of the peninsula.

Mr Trump hailed the declaration by tweeting KOREAN WAR TO END! The United States, and all of its GREAT people, should be very proud of what is now taking place in Korea!

More recently, the president indicated a date and location had been agreed for his meeting with Kim Jong-un but did not give details.

Korea Summit: Kim Jong-un crosses border for historic meeting Show all 25 1 /25 Korea Summit: Kim Jong-un crosses border for historic meeting Korea Summit: Kim Jong-un crosses border for historic meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in raise their hands after signing on a joint statement Korea Summit Press Pool via AP Korea Summit: Kim Jong-un crosses border for historic meeting Kim Jong-un heads towards Moon Jae-in to shake his hand between the military demarcation line, at the Joint Security Area on the Demilitarized Zone in the border village of Panmunjom in Paju EPA Korea Summit: Kim Jong-un crosses border for historic meeting South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un hold hands as they cross the military demarcation line EPA Korea Summit: Kim Jong-un crosses border for historic meeting South Koreans react while watching a screen reporting the Inter Korean Summit Getty Korea Summit: Kim Jong-un crosses border for historic meeting South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un chat as they arrive at the Peace House Reuters Korea Summit: Kim Jong-un crosses border for historic meeting North Koreas leader Kim Jong-un was escorted by bodyguards from the North to the Military Demarcation Line that divides the two Koreas to meet with his South Korean counterpart at the truce village AFP/Getty Korea Summit: Kim Jong-un crosses border for historic meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong-un crosses the military demarcation line to meet with South Korean President Moon Jae-in AP Korea Summit: Kim Jong-un crosses border for historic meeting Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in shake hands Getty Korea Summit: Kim Jong-un crosses border for historic meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in shake hands after Kim crossing the military demarcation line Getty Korea Summit: Kim Jong-un crosses border for historic meeting South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at the Joint Security Area EPA Korea Summit: Kim Jong-un crosses border for historic meeting South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un speak with two South Korean children who presented Kim Jong-un with a bouquet of flowers EPA Korea Summit: Kim Jong-un crosses border for historic meeting Moon Jae-in Kim Jong-un pose for photographers at the Joint Security Area (JSA) EPA Korea Summit: Kim Jong-un crosses border for historic meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong-un signs the guest book as South Korean President Moon Jae-in looks on Getty Images Korea Summit: Kim Jong-un crosses border for historic meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong-uns entry in the guestbook. The writing reads A new history starts now. An age of peace, from the starting point of history Korea Summit Press Pool/Pool via Reuters Korea Summit: Kim Jong-un crosses border for historic meeting South Korean President Moon Jae-In and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un talk during their summit meeting at the Peace House EPA Korea Summit: Kim Jong-un crosses border for historic meeting North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un smiles AFP/Getty Korea Summit: Kim Jong-un crosses border for historic meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong-un poses with South Korean President Moon Jae-in for a photo inside the Peace House AP Korea Summit: Kim Jong-un crosses border for historic meeting North Koreas leader Kim Jong-un talks with South Koreas President Moon Jae-in AFP/Getty Korea Summit: Kim Jong-un crosses border for historic meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in prepare to plant a pine tree near the military demarcation line AP Korea Summit: Kim Jong-un crosses border for historic meeting South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un applaud after planting a tree at the truce village Korea Summit Press Pool/Pool via Reuters Korea Summit: Kim Jong-un crosses border for historic meeting North Koreas leader Kim Jong-un and South Koreas President Moon Jae-in take a walk after they planted a tree AFP/Getty Korea Summit: Kim Jong-un crosses border for historic meeting North Koreas leader Kim Jong-un talks with South Koreas President Moon Jae-in at a bench on a bridge next to the military demarcation line at the truce village of Panmunjom AFP/Getty Korea Summit: Kim Jong-un crosses border for historic meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in sign on a joint statement Korea Broadcasting System via AP Korea Summit: Kim Jong-un crosses border for historic meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in embrace each other after signing on a joint statement Korea Summit Press Pool via AP Korea Summit: Kim Jong-un crosses border for historic meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, left, and South Korean President Moon Jae-in shake hands after their joint announcement AP

The summit is expected to take place later this month or in early June, and Mr Trump has previously proposed the demilitarised zone as a venue.

North Korea is also considering the release of three Korean-Americans accused of anti-state activities.

Mr Trump will meet the South Korean leader at the White House on 22 May to continue their close coordination on developments regarding the Korean peninsula.

The two leaders will also discuss president Trumps upcoming meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, the White House said in a statement.Donald Trumps personal attorney would have paid other women to maintain their silence "if it was necessary", according to the latest addition to the White House legal team, Rudy Giuliani.

The former New York City mayor and one time presidential candidate insisted he did not know Michael Cohen, the presidents long-time attorney and personal "fixer" had done that, nor did he rule it out.

Asked whether Mr Cohen had paid multiple women for their silence before the election, Mr Giuliani told ABC News' This Week: I have no knowledge of that, but I would think if it was necessary, yes."

Mr Cohen has already admitted to paying $130,000 (96,000) to Stormy Daniels, an adult film star who claims to have had an affair with the president, out of his own pocket. Mr Trump says he had no knowledge of the payment.

Playboy model Karen McDougal, have claimed Mr Cohen made similar arrangements with them.

Last month FBI agents raided Mr Cohens offices and hotel room last month, reportedly looking for  in part  evidence of payments to Ms Daniels, Ms McDougal, and others.

Mr Giuliani, the latest addition to Mr Trump's legal team, appeared to contradict the president's past denials about knowledge of the payment in an interview last week.

He said Mr Trump had reimbursed Mr Cohen for the payment to Ms Daniels.

 Donald Trump: new legal advisor Rudy Giuliani will 'get his facts straight'

Defending Mr Giuliani, Mr Trump said the lawyer would "get his facts straight".

Mr Giuliani has since tried to clarify his remarks, saying in a statement that he made mistakes regarding the payment timeline.

I dont know when the president learned about it, Mr Giuliani said of the payment on Sunday. He could have learned about it after [the election].

Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Show all 30 1 /30 Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Threatening to shut down Twitter after being fact-checked After the president tweeted that voting by post would be "substantially fraudulent", Twitter attached a warning label to his tweet and referred readers to a site which explained how the claim was "unsubstantiated". Trump then said Twitter was "stifling free speech" and that he may have to shut it down, something which he would not have the power to do AFP/Getty Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Flippantly dismissing a serious allegation of sexual assault When author E Jean Carroll accused Trump of raping her, the president responded: Number one, shes not my type. Number two, it never happened. It never happened, OK?" AFP/Getty Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Insulting the Mayor of London as he landed in London Just before touching down at Stansted Airport for his state visit, Trump took time out to @ the London mayor Sadiq Khan on twitter. He said that Khan has done a "terrible job"as mayor and that he is a "stone cold loser" Reuters Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Taking plenty of "Executive Time" The president's official schedule sets aside the hours from 8 to 11am daily for "Executive Time". Further intermittent periods of "Executive Time" are scheduled throughout any given day, ranging from 15 minutes to 3 hours. His duties in these hours have not been officially disclosed, though Axios reports that he spends them watching TV, reading the newspapers and tweeting Getty Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Shutdown the government for over a month in an effort to secure funding for his wall With Mexico declining to pay for the wall, the president has faced difficulty in raising the required $5bn at home. Due to his demand that the money for the wall be included in the budget, and Congress's refusal, the government partially shut down on 22 December 2018. It remained shut for over a month, the longest period in history Getty Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Joking about the Nazi occupation of France to President Macron In this tweet from 13 November 2018, the president mocks Emmanuel Macron's suggestion of a "true, European army" by invoking the conflict between France and Germany in the world wars Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Railing against the Mueller investigation The president has repeatedly claimed that the Mueller investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, is a "rigged witch hunt" Reuters Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Contradicting a US intelligence report on Russian meddling in the presence of Vladimir Putin In the press conference that followed his landmark meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin, Trump stated that he saw no reason why Russia would have meddled in the 2016 US election. This contradicted a 2017 report by the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence that found evidence of Russian interference in favour of Trump Getty Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Contradicting his contradiction of a US intelligence report on Russian meddling Following furious backlash in the US, the president claimed that he meant to say that he saw no reason why it would not have been Russia who meddled in the 2016 US election. As to why he would have intended to use such bizarre phrasing, he did not comment Reuters Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Colouring in the US flag wrong The president coloured in the US flag wrongly during a visit to a children's hospital in Columbus, Ohio. He added a blue stripe where in tradition, and statute, there have been only white and red stripes AFP/Getty Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Firing a Secretary of State over Twitter The president announced on Twitter that he was appointing Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State, much to the surprise of then Secretary of State Rex Tillerson Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Quoting a catchphrase from a reality TV show when discussing police brutality While addressing the issue of black athletes not standing for the national anthem in protest of police brutality, the president made reference to his catchphrase from reality TV show "The Apprentice": you're fired! Reuters Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Calling African nations "S***hole Countries" Ever one for diplomacy, the president reportedly referred to African nations as "s***hole countries". Asked to confirm this when meeting with Nigeria's President Buhari, Trump stated that there are "some countries that are in very bad shape". Reuters Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Defending Russian President Vladimir Putin Trump appeared to equate US foreign actions to those of Russian president Vladimir Putin, saying: There are a lot of killers. You think our countrys so innocent? Reuters Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Asking for people to 'pray' for Arnold Schwarzenegger At the National Prayer Breakfast, Trump couldnt help but to ask for prayers for the ratings on Arnold Schwarzeneggers show to be good. Schwarzenegger took over as host of The Apprentice  which buoyed Trumps celebrity status years ago Getty Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Hanging up on Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull Early in his presidency, Trump reportedly hung up the phone on Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull after the foreign leader angered him over refugee plans. Mr Trump later said that it was the worst call he had had so far Getty Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... The 'Muslim ban' Perhaps one of his most controversial policies while acting as president, Trumps travel ban targeting predominantly Muslim countries has bought him a lot of criticism. The bans were immediately protested, and judges initially blocked their implementation. The Supreme Court later sided with the administrations argument that the ban was developed out of concern for US security Getty Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Praising crowd size while touring Hurricane Harvey damage After Hurricane Harvey ravaged southeastern Texas, Trump paid the area a visit. While his response to the disaster in Houston was generally applauded, the president picked up some flack when he gave a speech outside Houston (he reportedly did not visit disaster zones), and praised the size of the crowds there AP Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... 'Little Rocket Man' During his first-ever speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Trump tried out a new nickname for North Korea leader Kim Jong-un: Rocket Man. He later tweaked it to be little Rocket Man as the two feuded, and threatened each other with nuclear war. During that speech, he also threatened to totally annihilate North Korea Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Attacking Sadiq Khan following London Bridge terror attack After the attack on the London Bridge, Trump lashed out at London Mayor Sadiq Khan, criticising Khan for saying there was no reason to be alarmed after the attack. Trump was taking the comments out of context, as Khan was simply saying that the police had everything under control Getty Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Claiming presenter Mika Brezinkski was 'bleeding from the face' Never one not to mock his enemies, Trump mocked MSNBCs Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski, saying that she and co-host Joe Scarborough had approached him before his inauguration asking to join him. He noted that she was bleeding badly from a face-lift at the time, and that he said no MSNBC Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Claiming the blame for Charlottesville was on 'both sides' Trump refused to condemn far-right extremists involved in violence at 'the march for the right' protests in Charlottesville, even after the murder of counter protester Heather Heyer AP Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Retweeting cartoon of CNN being hit by a 'Trump train' Trump retweeted a cartoon showing a Trump-branded train running over a person whose body and head were replaced by a CNN avatar. He later deleted the retweet Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Tweeting about 'slamming' CNN Trump caught some flack when he tweeted a video showing him wrestling down an individual whose head had been replaced by a CNN avatar. Trump has singled CNN out in particular with his chants of fake news Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Firing head of the FBI, James Comey Trumps firing of former FBI Director James Comey landed him with a federal investigation into Russias meddling in the 2016 election that has caused many a headache for the White House. The White House initially said that the decision was made after consultation from the Justice Department. Then Mr Trump himself said that he had decided to fire him in part because he wanted the Russia investigation Mr Comey was conducting to stop Getty Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Not realising being president would be 'hard' Just three months into his presidency, Trump admitted that being president is harder than he thought it would be. Though Trump insisted on the 2016 campaign trail that doing the job would be easy for him, he admitted in an interview that living in the White House is harder than running a business empire Reuters Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Accusing Obama of wiretapping him Trump accused former president Barack Obama of wire tapping him on twitter. The Justice Department later clarified: Obama had not, in fact, done so Reuters Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Claiming there had been 3 million 'illegal votes' Trump was never very happy about losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by 2.8 million ballots. So, he and White House voter-fraud commissioner Kris Kobach have claimed that anywhere between three and five million people voted illegally during the 2016 election. Conveniently, he says that all of those illegal votes went to Clinton. (There is no evidence to support that level of widespread voter fraud.) Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Leaving Jews out of the Holocaust memorial statement Just days after taking office, Trumps White House issued a statement on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, but didnt mention jews or even the word jewish in the written statement Getty Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Anger over Inauguration crowd size Trumps inauguration crowd was visibly, and noticeably, smaller than that of his predecessor, Barack Obama. But, he really wanted to have had the largest crowd on record. So, he praised it as the biggest crowd ever. Relatedly, Trump also claimed that it stopped raining in Washington at the moment he was inaugurated. It didnt, the day was very dreary Reuters

Mr Giuliani said the president paid Mr Cohen a retainer fee that the attorney then used, in part, for the payment to Ms Daniels.

He suggested the president was unaware of what the money was being used for.

I dont think anyone believes that he knew about it at the time, Mr Giuliani said.

Later, Mr Giuliani said he considered the $130,000 a nuisance payment, adding: People dont go away from $130,000.

Ms Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, has sued Mr Trump and Mr Cohen in an attempt to invalidate a non disclosure agreement she says was intended to keep her silent about their alleged affair.

Ms Daniels attorney, Michael Avenatti, urged the public to watch Mr Giulianis interview on Sunday, calling it an unmitigated disaster.

He tweeted: This is what happens when you cant keep your lies straight."Ailing US Senator John McCain doesnt want President Donald Trump at his funeral, according to multiple reports.

Sources close to the senator from Arizona said this week that his family had asked the White House to send Vice President Mike Pence to the service instead.

Mr McCain has been battling an aggressive form of brain cancer for nearly a year, after being diagnosed with glioblastoma in July. His family has started making funeral plans, despite his son-in-law saying the 81-year-old was chatty and walking around at the Arizona ranch where he is recovering.

Former Presidents Barack Obama and George W Bush are slated to be eulogists at the funeral, a source close to Mr McCain told NBC News. The ceremony will likely be held at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC.

Both NBC and the New York Times reported that the McCain family was not planning to have Mr Trump at the event. The two men have sparred frequently since Mr Trump emerged as a candidate in the 2016 race, on everything from Obamacare to Mr McCains military service.

 Joe Biden comforts Meghan McCain over her father's cancer diagnosis

Mr McCain helped kill GOP efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare with his pivotal Senate vote last summer, shortly after he was diagnosed with cancer. The senator has also spoken out against Mr Trumps comments in the infamous Access Hollywood tape, and the president's travel ban.

Mr Trump, meanwhile, has mocked the years Mr McCain spent as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, and called his Obamacare vote a horrible, horrible thing.

Mr McCain reportedly plans to critique the president in his forthcoming book, saying the president is uninterested in the moral character of world leaders and their regimes.

The appearance of toughness or a reality show facsimile of toughness seems to matter more than any of our values, he writes, according to a copy obtained by the New York Times. Flattery secures his friendship, criticism his enmity.

Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Show all 29 1 /29 Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Inauguration - 20 January 2017 US President Donald Trump acknowledges the audience after taking the oath of office as his wife Melania (L) and daughter Tiffany watch during inauguration ceremonies swearing in Trump as the 45th president of the United States on the West Front of the US capital in Washington on 20 January, 2017. Photographer Jim Bourg: "This photo was shot with one of two remote cameras. The cameras were monitored and triggered remotely and the pictures were transmitted to clients worldwide within minutes of being taken." Reuters/Jim Bourg Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Obama farewell address - 10 January 2017 US President Barack Obama wipes away tears as he delivers his farewell address in Chicago on 10 January, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "In his final days in office, Obama made a visit home to Chicago. As he spoke from the stage to his wife and daughter in the audience, he became emotional when he talked about what they had sacrificed during his time in office. I turned from photographing the Obama women embracing to find him onstage wiping away tears." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Inauguration - 20 January 2017 A combination of photos shows the crowds attending the inauguration ceremonies to swear in U.S. President Donald Trump at 12:01pm (left) on January 20, 2017 and President Barack Obama sometime between 12:07pm and 12:26pm on January 20, 2009. Reuters/ Lucas Jackson/Stelios Varias Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Liberty Ball - 20 January 2017 US President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump attend the Liberty Ball in honour of his inauguration in Washington on 20 January, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "What I see when I look at this picture is the end of a very long day, not to mention weeks and months of preparation by many photographers, editors and network experts and the beginning of everything since." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Inaugural Law Enforcement Officers and First Responders Reception - 22 January 2017 US President Donald Trump greets Director of the FBI James Comey as Director of the Secret Service Joseph Clancy (L), watches during the Inaugural Law Enforcement Officers and First Responders Reception in the Blue Room of the White House on 22 January, 2017. Photographer Joshua Roberts: "I have covered the White House for 16 years and normally either the President or the pool is in position when an event starts. In this case the President was not where anyone expected him to be. In fact, he was almost blocking the door when the pool came in. We had to scramble to find a position without bumping him or the furniture as he greeted and thanked members of law enforcement for their security efforts during the inauguration. Luckily, he greeted FBI Director James Comey a few seconds after the pool had made its way into the room." Reuters/Joshua Roberts Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Private phone calls to world leaders - 28 January 2017 US President Donald Trump, is joined by his staff, as he speaks by phone with Russia's President Vladimir Putin in the Oval Office on 28 January, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "Very early in the Trump administration, weekends were as busy as weekdays. On Trump's second Saturday the official schedule said he would be making private phone calls to a number of world leaders including Russia's Vladimir Putin. I arrived early and, before sitting down at my desk walked up to Press Secretary Sean Spicer's office. He, too, was just taking his coat off. I gingerly made the suggestion that previous administrations had sometimes allowed photos of such phone calls through the Oval Office windows on the colonnade. To my mild shock, he didn't even think about it twice. "We'll do it!" he said. In truth, I really only expected the Putin call, but we were outside the windows multiple times throughout the day as the calls went on." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Senior advisor Kellyanne Conway - 27 February 2017 Senior advisor Kellyanne Conway (L) attends as US President Donald Trump welcomes the leaders of dozens of historically black colleges and universities (HBCU) in the Oval Office on 27 February, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "We're often asked how much access we have to the Trump administration, and the answer is we have an awful lot. President Trump himself is very comfortable in the spotlight, and his aides are similarly unfazed by cameras. In this instance, senior advisor Kellyanne Conway was so comfortable in our presence she seemed not to consider the optics of kneeling on a Oval Office sofa to take pictures with her phone." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Angela Merkel heads to Washington - 17 March 2017 Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel and US President Donald Trump hold a joint news conference in the East Room of the White House on 17 March, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "Chancellor Merkel made one of the earliest important visits of any US allies to meet Trump in his first months in office. When world leaders give joint news conferences they don't always tend to give each other their full attention - but Merkel watched Trump intently at several key moments, and here seemed particularly rapt." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Trump welcomes truckers to the White House - 23 March 2017 President Trump reacts as he sits on a truck while he welcomes truckers and CEOs to attend a meeting regarding healthcare at the White House on 23 March, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "The White House organised a listening session with truckers and CEO's of major American companies, regarding healthcare reform. An 18-wheeler tow truck was parked on the South Lawn of the White House and as Trump welcomed the truckers someone invited the him to come and sit in the driver's seat. Trump jumped into the cab and started yelling and pretending to drive - creating one of the most memorable pictures of the year. A lesson learned, always be prepared for the unexpected." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Air Force One - 6 April 2017 US President Donald Trump talks to journalists members of the travel pool on board the Air Force One during his trip to Palm Beach, Florida on 6 April, 2017. Carlos Barria: "During the many trips to President Trump's residence in Florida it is usual to see the president coming to the back of the plane to chat with journalists. During one of the trips to the so called 'Winter White House', Trump had a long talk with reporters while the Air Force One entertainment system was playing one of the latest Star Wars movies. As I was listening to Trump talk I was also looking at the movie waiting for a part of the movie to frame the mood of the day. Of the many scenes, I choose the one with Darth Vader." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures 100 Days - 27 April 2017 US President Donald Trump speaks during an interview with Reuters in the Oval Office of the White House on 27 April, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "A day before President Trump's hundred days in office I was part of the team that interviewed the commander-in-chief in the Oval Office. I was only allowed to photograph Trump during the last five minutes of the interview. The time was very tight so I had to move fast as I had pictures in mind that I wanted to shoot. I walked into the Oval Office and saw that the President had printed maps of the country showing areas in red where he won. I raised my hands holding my camera as high as possible to get the best view of the scene using a 16mm wide angle lens." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures 100 Days - 27 April 2017 US President Donald Trump reacts as he arrives at Harrisburg international airport, before attending a rally marking his first 100 days in office in Pennsylvania on 29 April, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "President Trump travelled to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to celebrate his hundred days in office with a victory rally. He was in friendly territory as he won with a big difference over his opponent Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania, during the November elections. As usual when the commander-in-chief arrives local residents gather to greet him. This time a small group of military personnel attended the arrival. Surrounded by secret service agents Trump walked from the Air Force One and raised his hand in a sign of victory as the crowd cheered him on." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures White House staffers - 2 May 2017 White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer (L) and White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus watch as US President Donald Trump presents the U.S. Air Force Academy football team with the Commander-in-Chief trophy in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington on 2 May, 2017. Photographer Joshua Roberts: "Covering the White House does not just mean covering the President. White House staffers are an important part of the story and their relationship with the President and each other is an indicator of how things are going in the West Wing. The tendency is to focus exclusively on the President once an event starts but I always try to look around to see how people are reacting as things unfold." Reuters/Joshua Roberts Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Secret Service - 4 May 2017 Secret Service agents use a presidential limousine as cover from spraying water as US President Donald Trump lands via Marine One helicopter in New York on 4 May, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "The best part of any trip to New York City with the sitting US President is the helicopter ride into Manhattan. The ride out at night can be stunning. Here, Secret Service agents protect themselves from the spray from the East River as Trump lands on the helipad." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures NATO Summit - 25 May 2017 US President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump wait the arrival of French President Emmanuel Macron (unseen) before a lunch ahead of a NATO Summit in Brussels on 25 May, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "One of the best parts of travelling overseas for White House coverage is the chance to see the U.S. president in different environments and (literally) a different light. Here, Trump and his wife came out of the shadows to greet France's President Macron." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Trump meets Putin at G20 summit - 7 July 2017 US President Donald Trump meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin during their bilateral meeting at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany on 7 July, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "On July 7, I witnessed one of the most important meetings of President Trump's first year in office. Trump met Russian President Vladimir Putin during a bilateral meeting at the G20 summit in Germany. The world's eyes were on these two leaders after speculation about Russian interference during the 2016 US elections. We entered the room for less than two minutes, where I took dozens of pictures. But there was this very interesting moment when Trump extended his hand to Putin for a handshake. Putin paused for a second and looked at Trump's hand. That was the picture that I was looking for, a little moment that seemed to say a lot." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures First lady - 8 July 2017 First lady Melania Trump chats with US President Donald Trump during their return from Germany at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland on 8 July, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "After President Trump's trip to Germany he arrived back at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. First Lady Melania Trump said goodbye to Trump as she was heading off in a different direction that day. While chatting a breeze blew Melania's hair up in the air." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Made in America product showcase - 17 July 2017 Vice President Mike Pence laughs as President Donald Trump holds a baseball bat as they attend a Made in America product showcase event at the White House on 17 July, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "This summer the White House organized an event to showcase 'Made in America' products. All kinds of exhibitors brought their products as the President and Vice President toured the event. One of the companies was Marucci Sport, a manufacturer of baseball bats based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. As Trump approached a table full of baseball bats, photographers at the event, including me, rushed to get a good angle hoping that he would pick up a bat. As we predicted, he did. He took one and joked around as though he was hitting something hard. The only thing closer to him right there, was the media." Reuters Donald Trump's first year: in pictures White House staffers - 25 July 2017 Former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski says hello to reporters as he and White House advisors including Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci accompany President Trump for an event celebrating veterans at AMVETS Post 44 in Ohio, July 25, 2017. Jonathan Ernst: "The most visible person in any White House is naturally the President, followed by the press secretary. But there are also the staff who support them. For those of us covering the Trump administration, there seem to be more compelling figures in the West Wing than ever before. It's crucial to know who's who and why they're important. When I raised my camera and back-pedalled ahead of the group to take this image Lewandowski gave me a hello. I liked the photo, but had no idea it would go a little bit viral, especially since Scaramucci, who was the biggest mover and shaker that week, was hidden back in the pack. But I guess the image catches a glimpse of what it's like to be a West Wing staffer on the road." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Campaign rally - 3 August 2017 US President Donald Trump arrives at a rally in West Virginia on 3 August, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "President Trump travelled to Huntington for one of his usual campaign rallies. While members of his family spoke to the crowd he was waiting under a black curtain to be introduced. Suddenly he walked onto the stage, one of the first frames that I took was of his hand. I set my exposure for the light on the stage hoping to create this dark background and it worked." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Staring into the solar eclipse - 21 August 2017 Without his protective glasses on, US President Donald Trump looks up towards the solar eclipse while viewing with his wife Melania and son Barron at the White House on 21 August, 2017. Photographer Kevin Lamarque: "On a day when everyone, and I mean everyone, was told not to look at the eclipse without protective glasses, Trump, President of the United States, couldn't help himself." Reuters/Kevin Lamarque Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Hurricane Harvey - 2 September 2017 US President Donald Trump poses for a photo as he and first lady Melania Trump help volunteers hand out meals during a visit with flood survivors of Hurricane Harvey at a relief centre in Houston, Texas on 2 September, 2017. Photohrapher Kevin Lamarque: "Trump, eager to deliver the image of a hands-on response to Hurricane Harvey, made this visit to a relief centre and obliged this woman with a selfie as Melania continued to work." Reuters/Kevin Lamarque Donald Trump's first year: in pictures White House - 15 September 2017 Donald Trump welcomes 11-year-old Frank Giaccio as he cuts the Rose Garden grass at the White House on 15 September. Frank, who wrote a letter to Trump offering to mow the lawn, was invited to work for a day at the White House along the National Park Service staff. Frank was so focused on his task that he did not notice the President arrive to surprise him. He took his father jumping in to grab his attention and point Trump out. Photographer Carlos Barria said: The image of Trump shouting at a kid who is mowing his lawn might have many interpretations in today's politically polarized United States. But for me it was just a kid who loved what he was doing, to the point he almost appeared to ignore the President." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Take a knee - 27 September 2017 A man kneels with a folded U.S. flag as the motorcade of U.S. President Donald Trump passes him after an event at the state fairgrounds in Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S., September 27, 2017. In September, soon after Trump had made comments condemning NFL players who kneel during the national anthem, he made a day trip to a rally in Indianapolis. Jonathan Ernst managed to capture a man on one knee with a tri-folded flag and was able to use a portion of the sign on the building he was kneeling in front of to track the man down and tell his story in full. US Army veteran Marvin Boatright wanted to send a message against social injustice. Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Hurricane Maria - 3 October 2017 President Donald Trump throws rolls of paper towels into a crowd of local residents affected by Hurricane Maria as he visits Calgary Chapel in San Juan, Puerto Rico on 3 October, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "During an afternoon visit to Puerto Rico for President Trump to survey damage from Hurricane Maria and greet some of its victims, Trump made a stop at a church where food and supplies were being distributed. Among the items were paper towels and Trump, apparently caught up in the moment, decided to distribute some of the rolls." Reuters Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Jared Kushner - 1 November 2017 White House Senior adviser Jared Kushner sits behind President Trump during a cabinet meeting in Washington on 1 November, 2017. Photographer Kevin Lamarque: "The role of Jared Kushner has gone through a series of changes. He began front and centre as a high profile adviser, but as time has passed and issues surrounding him have surfaced, he has become more of a background figure." Reuters/Kevin Lamarque Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Trump in China - 9 November 2017 Donald Trump and China's President Xi Jinping shake hands after making joint statements at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on 9 November, 2017. Photographer Damir Sagolj: "It's one of those "how to make a better or at least different shot when two presidents shake hands several times a day, several days in row". If I'm not mistaken in calculation, presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump shook their hands at least six times in events I covered during Trump's recent visit to China. I would imagine there were some more handshakes I haven't seen but other photographers did. And they all look similar - two big men, smiling and heartily greeting each other until everyone gets their shot. But then there is always something that can make it special - in this case the background made of US and Chinese flags. The first time it didn't work for me. The second time I positioned myself lower and centrally, and used the longest lens I have to capture only hands reaching for a handshake." Reuters/Damir Sagolj Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Air Force One - 10 November 2017 US President Donald Trump boards Air Force One to depart for Vietnam from Beijing Airport in Beijing, China, November 10, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "There is a Reuters photographer in the tight pool covering the US president for every appearance he makes 365 days a year. This was just one of 32 images of mine that were transmitted on the Reuters wire of President Trump visiting China and Vietnam that day. You never know when a sudden interaction, a gust of wind or a unique facial expression will lead to a striking image that grabs peoples' attention." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures ASEAN handshake - 13 November 2017 Donald Trump registers his surprise as he realises other leaders, including Russia's Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Vietnam's Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, President of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte and Australia's Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, are crossing their arms for the traditional "ASEAN handshake" as he participates in the opening ceremony of the summit in Manila on 13 November, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "Having covered a few ASEAN summits, I knew to expect the ASEAN handshake. Not everyone in the room knew to expect the ASEAN handshake. A lot was written about this unscripted moment, and what deeper meaning it might have. The simple truth is that sometimes in life there are unscripted moments." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst

Mr Trump did not attend former first lady Barbara Bushs funeral in Houston, Texas last month. The White House said the decision was made in order to avoid disruptions due to added security, and out of respect for the Bush Family and friends attending the service.

Melania Trump went to the funeral instead, along with Presidents George HW Bush, George W Bush, Bill Clinton, and former first lady Hillary Clinton.

Mr McCain has not returned to the Senate since December. He is recovering at home, taking visits from friends such as former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona.

Ben Domenech, the senator's son-in-law, said Sunday on CBS Face the Nation that Mr McCain is very grateful for the chances and fortune that hes experienced in life. Hes reflecting at the end on a lot of different things.

We appreciate all of the support that weve been given by a lot of different folks who have come out and met with him over the past couple of weeks, he added.The White House has dismissed China's attempts to change how American airlines refer to Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau in their public materials as Orwellian nonsense.

The Chinese Civil Aviation Administration has asked 36 foreign air carriers  including a number of American airlines  to refrain from referring to the three destinations as separate countries. China considers Taiwan a province, and Hong Kong and Macau as largely self-governing parts of the country.

This is Orwellian nonsense and part of a growing trend by the Chinese Communist Party to impose its political views on American citizens and private companies, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement.

China sent letters to American Airlines and United Airlines last month, telling them to remove all separatist rhetoric from their public-facing documents or face punishment from relevant cyber-security authorities, according to Foreign Policy.

Ms Sanders slammed the letters as a form of mandated political correctness  something she said Mr Trump had run against during his campaign for president.

[Mr Trump] will stand up for Americans resisting efforts by the Chinese Communist Party to impose Chinese political correctness on American companies and citizens, she 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

As of Sunday, American Airlines still did not mention China in its listings for the three destinations. Representatives from American and United did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Several international companies  including at least one US airline  have already changed how they refer to the regions, under pressure from Beijing. Zara, Qantas, and Delta Air Lines all pulled references to Taiwan as a separate country from their websites in January, after being publicly reprimanded by Chinese authorities.

That same month, Beijing took down the website for Marriott Hotels & Resorts in China for a week after the company listed Taiwan and Tibet as separate countries in a survey. Marriott apologised and cut ties with the contractor responsible for the survey.

 Donald Trump unveils $60bn in tariffs on China for intellectual property theft

Saturday's statement from the White House came as US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin returned from a trip to negotiate trade with China. Mr Trump has threatened the country with $100bn in tariffs if they do not acquiesce to his demands, sparking fear of a trade war between the two nations.

In his negotiations this week, Mr Mnuchin demanded a $200bn cut in the Chinese trade surplus with the US, along with lower tariffs and advanced technology subsidies, according to Reuters. Mr Mnuchin said on Friday that the two countries were "having very good conversations".

The news also comes amid increased tensions between the US and China over the militarisation of the South China Sea.

China has reportedly deployed its first missile to the Spratly Islands  fortified outposts west of the Phillipines, over which several countries claim sovereignty. Ms Sanders said last week that the White House was well aware of the move, and that China would face near-term and long-term consequences.Irans president has warned Donald Trump that pulling the US out of the nuclear deal with other world powers would be a historic regret.

Hassan Rouhani said his country had plans to respond to any move by the US president.

Mr Trump has said unless his European allies rectify flaws in the landmark deal  signed by the US, China, Russia, Germany, France, the UK and Iran  he would refuse to extend US sanctions relief for Iran, which has in return has agreed to limit its nuclear activities.

Recommended Boris Johnson heads to Washington as Trump considers Iran nuclear deal

He will decide on 12 May whether to reimpose sanctions, effectively tearing up the 2015 agreement.

In a speech to a rally in northern Iran that was broadcast live by state television, Mr Rouhani said: We have plans to resist any decision by Trump on the nuclear accord.

Orders have been issued to our atomic energy organisation ... and to the economic sector to confront Americas plots against our country.

He added that if the US opted to pull out of the deal, it will soon realise that this decision will become a historic regret for them.

Hassan Rouhani refuses to negotiate about Irans missile programme (AFP/Getty)

Britain, France and Germany remain committed to the nuclear accord.

Boris Johnson has travelled to the United States as part of last-minute diplomatic efforts to deter the US leader from scrapping the deal.

The foreign secretary will meet senior figures during the two-day trip, including vice president Mike Pence and Mr Trumps hawkish new national security adviser John Bolton  both of whom have been critical of Iran and the deal.

Earlier this month, French president Emmanuel Macron made similar overtures to Mr Trump during his three-day trip across the Atlantic.

But he subsequently admitted: My view  I dont know what your president will decide  is that he will get rid of this deal on his own, for domestic reasons.

Reiterating a rejection by Iranian leaders of talks on Irans missile programme, which Tehran says is defensive, Mr Rouhani said: We will not negotiate with anyone about our weapons and defences, and we will make and store as many weapons, facilities and missiles as we need.

He also assured Iranians no change will occur in our lives next week regardless of Mr Trumps decision.

Iran has faced economic trouble in recent weeks, with some analysts blaming the uncertainty surrounding the accord.Lebanons first national election in nine years has been marked by low voter turnout.

It is estimated between just 30 and 40 per cent voted in some areas of Beirut, the countrys National News Agency reported, with voters reportedly frustrated with the countrys stagnating economy and apathetic about the main political parties.

The elections are the first since war broke out in neighbouring Syria in 2011, sending over one million refugees to Lebanon, a country with an estimated total population of just 4.5 million.

The war has divided the country, pitting parties supporting the Iran-sponsored Hezbollahs intervention in Syria to aide President Bashar Assad against Saudi-aligned parties opposed to it.

Hezbollah is expected to emerge stronger after the elections, a result that would affirm Tehrans regional ascendancy from its own borders to the Mediterranean.

Sunni Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri is the frontrunner to keep his job and form a new coalition government.

For the younger generations it was the first opportunity to vote in a national election after parliament twice extended a term that expired in 2013.

Early on voting day, reports suggested turnout would be low and President Michel Aoun appeared on television late in the afternoon to urge people to vote.

Although the election used a new proportional system, many voters said they expected the countrys entrenched, sectarian elite to remain on top, but others were optimistic.

We hope we will open a new era, said Mahmoud Daouk, voting in Beirut in one of the areas where new faces were taking on the old sectarian elite.

The vote was held under a new proportional system that has confused some voters and made the contest more unpredictable.

But it still preserves a sectarian power-sharing system and another coalition government including most of the major parties, like the one Mr Hariri has led since 2016, looks likely, analysts say.

While foreign monitors gave a generally positive assessment, tensions flared in several locations. Missiles were thrown during street clashes in Beirut, a candidate claimed her car was attacked in the Bekaa Valley town of Zahle, and rival groups clashed in the northern city of Tripoli.

Recommended Lebanon holds first elections in almost a decade

Investors are keen to see a government in place quickly as a guarantee of economic stability. Lebanon has one of the worlds highest debt-to-GDP ratios and the International Monetary Fund has said its fiscal trajectory is unsustainable.

The situation is actually worse now, not better ... We lost the chance to hold them accountable nine years ago, said Fatima Kibbi, 33, a pharmacist.

Informal results are expected to start coming in overnight and official tallies in the coming days.

Analysts are closely watching the performance of Mr Hariris Future Movement party and that of the Shia Hezbollah group and its allies.

Iran and Saudi Arabia have often battled for influence in Lebanon as part of their wider regional rivalry. An anti-Hezbollah alliance led by Mr Hariri and backed by Saudi Arabia won the majority in 2009.

But the anti-Hezbollah alliance known as March 14 has disintegrated since then and Riyadh has turned its focus and resources to confronting Iran in other parts of the region.

Alhough Hezbollahs opponents still want it to disarm, the demand has slipped down the political agenda. Lebanese leaders are mostly concerned with a dire economic situation and the strain of hosting 1 million Syrian refugees.

Donors pledged $11bn (8bn) in soft loans for a capital investment programme last month, in return for fiscal and other reforms, and they hope to hold the first follow-up meeting with the new government in the coming weeks.

Debt ratings agencies had stressed the importance of Lebanon going ahead with the election after parliament had extended its term several times.

After the last election in 2009, the onset of Syrias civil war, the arrival of over a million refugees and a series of militant attacks aggravated internal political rifts.

Rival blocs in parliament could not agree on a new president between 2014-16 and repeatedly decided to delay elections, partly because of a disagreement over moving from a winner-takes-all system to a proportional one.

The new rules are seen as unlikely to undermine the long-entrenched political elite, a group that includes local dynasties and former warlords.

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

Mustapha Muzawwaq, 65, was sitting with neighbours in a side street drinking coffee. We want the situation to stay as it is ... At least we know the current MPs, he said.

In municipal elections two years ago, independent candidates did well against established parties by drawing on public anger at poor government services.

Jonathan Dagher, 27, a campaigner for an independent candidate in the Chouf-Aley district of Mount Lebanon, said he was optimistic.

Parliament seats are divided evenly between Muslims and Christians, and further subdivided among their various sects. Lebanons president must always be a Maronite Christian, the prime minister Sunni Muslim and the parliament speaker Shia.

Voters are registered not where they live but in the district their ancestors came from, meaning that many Beirut residents have to travel to villages across Lebanon to vote.

Some acts of violence and intimidation connected to the election were reported in recent weeks. A candidate in Zahle accused her rivals of intimidation. They accused her party of bribery.

Security around polling stations was heavy from early in the day and a Reuters reporter saw a column of armoured vehicles and other troop carriers driving slowly into the capital.

Agencies contributed to this reportThe boss of the worlds busiest airport for international passengers has urged night-time restrictions at Heathrow to be abandoned.

Paul Griffiths, chief executive of Dubai Airports, has said new, quieter aircraft mean that the current rules on noise at Britains busiest airport are unnecessary.

He told The Independent: Unlike Dubai, where were 24/7, the airports in the UK are closed for about a third of the day. So you imagine: all that investment, all that amazing infrastructure sitting idle for a third of the day.

Aircraft technology and the environmental impact of them has been so drastically reduced over the past few decades by investment in new technologies.

Why is the UK persisting with all these restrictions on operating hours?

While Heathrow is technically open 24 hours, it has has some of the strictest limits of any hub airport in Europe, to reduce the noise nuisance for local residents.

Takeoffs and landings between 11.30pm and 6am are capped at 5,800 annually, an average of 16 per night. Noisier aircraft are banned entirely.

Around a dozen flights are scheduled to arrive each day between 4.30am and 6am, mainly from Africa, Asia and Australia.

The first departures of each day are scheduled for 6am: Austrian Airlines to Vienna, TAP Portugal to Lisbon and Swiss to Zurich. The last of the day is the 10.45pm Aeroflot flight to Moscow from Terminal 4  although if delays build up there are sometimes later departures.

In April, the Transport Select Committee urged the government to consider a night-time ban of seven hours, longer than at present.

Mr Griffiths has been running Dubai Airports for 10 years. Prior to that he was chief executive at Gatwick, which is the UKs second-busiest airport and has the most heavily used runway in the world.

He also urged mixed mode working to extract more capacity at Heathrow. At present the standard pattern is for one runway to be used only for departures, the other only for arrivals, until 3pm when the arrangement switches. The idea is to give some respite to local residents.

But using both for takeoffs and landings would enable more capacity to be unlocked.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 1 October 2021 A driver talks to members of the media after passing his HGV (Heavy Goods Vehicle) driving test at National Driving Centre in Croydon, south London AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 30 September 2021 The centrepiece One Thousand Springs by Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota is seen ahead of the beginning of the Japan Festival, a celebration of the countrys plants, art and culture running from 2-31 October, at Kew Gardens in London PA UK news in pictures 29 September 2021 The family of Betty Campbell unveil the bronze sculpture of her during the unveiling of the statue in Central Square, Cardiff, of Betty Campbell, Wales' first black headteacher PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2021 A sign referring to the lack of fuel is placed at the entrance to a petrol station in London AP UK news in pictures 27 September 2021 Police officers detain a protester from Insulate Britain occupying a roundabout leading from the M25 motorway to Heathrow Airport in London PA UK news in pictures 26 September 2021 Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer watches the Arsenal v Tottenham Hotspur match at The Font pub in Brighton PA UK news in pictures 25 September 2021 Scottish pro-independence supporters hold a march and rally outside the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, Scotland Getty Images UK news in pictures 24 September 2021 Police officers remove two protesters from the top of a tanker, as Insulate Britain block the A20 in Kent, which provides access to the Port of Dover in Kent. The environmental activists have moved location after been banned from campaigning on the M25 motorway in London PA UK news in pictures 23 September 2021 Gabriella, the seven year old daughter of imprisoned British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, joins in a game on a giant snakes and ladders board in Parliament Square, to show the ups and downs of her mothers case to mark the 2,000 days she has been detained in Iran AP UK news in pictures 22 September 2021 A new sign hangs on the Millicent Fawcett statue after it was altered by CrackTheCrises coalition activists to highlight the climate crisis as a feminist struggle in Parliament Square in London EPA UK news in pictures 21 September 2021 Gabriella Diment prepares a monumental bronze patinated fibreglass wall sculpture depicting household cavalry soldiers on horseback which is expected to be sold for 12,000-18,000 when it goes up for auction at Summers Place Auctions in Billinghurst, Kent PA UK news in pictures 20 September 2021 Florist Judith Blacklock puts the finishing touches to a floral carousel installation in Halkin Arcade, which she has designed with Neill Strain for the Belgravia in Bloom festival, running from September 20-26, in London PA UK news in pictures 19 September 2021 Bubbles surround Manchester Uniteds Cristiano Ronaldo before the match against West Ham at London Stadium Action Images/Reuters UK news in pictures 18 September 2021 Children take part in the Settrington Cup Pedal Car Race as motoring enthusiasts attend the Goodwood Revival, a three-day historic car racing festival in Goodwood, Chichester, Reuters UK news in pictures 17 September 2021 Hugo, 7, from London rides past a 4x7 metre rainbow arch, made entirely of recycled aluminium cans, which has been installed by recycling initiative 'Every Can Counts', in partnership with The City of London Corporation in front of St Paul's Cathedral in London, to encourage members of the public to recycle their drinks cans ahead of recycling week, which starts on 20 September PA UK news in pictures 16 September 2021 Sheikeh MOhammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, leader of Abu Dhabi, leaves Downing Street after meeting with Boris Johnson PA UK news in pictures 15 September 2021 Children pose by ice sculptures depicting people collecting water by charity Water Aid to show the fragility of water and the threat posed by climate change in London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 14 September 2021 Heavy rain covers the A149 near Kings Lynn in Norfolk PA UK news in pictures 13 September 2021 Luke Jerram's 'Museum of the Moon' at Durham Cathedral PA UK news in pictures 12 September 2021 Inspirational young fundraiser Tobias Weller crosses the finish line, near his home in Sheffield, as he completes his latest epic feat where he swam and triked his way to the end of his awesome year-long Ironman Challenge. This is the third challenge Tobias, who has cerebral palsy and autism, has completed, raising more than 150,000 for his school and Sheffield Children Hospitals charity PA UK news in pictures 11 September 2021 British player Emma Raducanu, holds up the US Open championship trophy winning the women's singles final of the US Open in New York AP UK news in pictures 10 September 2021 People paddle board during a misty morning in Ullswater, the second largest lake in the Lake District, Cumbria PA UK news in pictures 9 September 2021 Troops from Wiltshire based 4 Armoured Close Support Battalion Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers during final inspection at Wellington Barracks in London, ahead of providing troops for the Queens Guard PA UK news in pictures 8 September 2021 Workers cross London Bridge during the morning rush hour in London Reuters UK news in pictures Mixing it up: Painting it up press view in London A gallery employee poses for photographers next to a painting entitled Prairie by British artist, Louise Giovanelli during the exhibition 'Mixing it up: Painting it up' at the Hayward Gallery in London EPA UK news in pictures 6 September 2021 Traders in the Ring at the London Metal Exchange, in the City of London, after open-outcry trading returned for the first time since March 2020, when the Ring was temporarily closed due to the pandemic PA UK news in pictures 5 September 2021 People enjoy the warm weather on Sandbanks beach, Poole PA UK news in pictures 4 September 2021 Demonstrators from Animal Rebellion and Nature Rebellion protest in Trafalgar Square in London. PA UK news in pictures 3 September 2021 South Africa's Ntando Mahlangu (centre) wins the Men's 200 metres T61 Final ahead of second placed Great Britain's Richard Whitehead at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games PA UK news in pictures 2 September 2021 A young common seal on the beach at Horsey Gap in Norfolk, as hundreds of pregnant grey seals come ashore ready for the start of the pupping season. PA UK news in pictures 1 September 2021 Goldfinches fighting over food in a garden in Strensham, Worcestershire PA UK news in pictures 31 August 2021 Gold Medallist Sarah Storey of Britain celebrates on the podium Reuters UK news in pictures 30 August 2021 Extinction Rebellion protesters hold a a tea party on Tower Bridge in London EPA UK news in pictures 29 August 2021 A police office tussles with a demonstrator on Cromwell Road outside the Natural History Museum during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion in London PA UK news in pictures 28 August 2021 Members of the British armed forces 16 Air Assault Brigade walk to the air terminal after disembarking a Royal Airforce Voyager aircraft at Brize Norton, Oxfordshire POOL/AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 27 August 2021 Fabio Quartararo crashes during a MotoGP practice session at the British Grand Prix, Silverstone Circuit Action Images via Reuters UK news in pictures 26 August 2021 An Extinction Rebellion activist holds a placard in a fountain surrounded by police officers, during a protest next to Buckingham Palace in London Reuters UK news in pictures 25 August 2021 Gold Medallist Great Britains cyclist, Sarah Storey, celebrates after winning the Womens C5 3000m Individual Pursuit Final at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games. It was her 15th Paralympic gold Reuters UK news in pictures 24 August 2021 A demonstrator dressed as bee during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion on Whitehall, in central London PA UK news in pictures 23 August 2021 Former interpreters for the British forces in Afghanistan demonstrate outside the Home Office in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 22 August 2021 Police officers form a line in front of the entrance to the Guildhall, London, where protesters have climbed onto a ledge above the entrance during an Extinction Rebellion stage a protest PA UK news in pictures 21 August 2021 People take part in a demonstration in solidarity with people of Afghanistan, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 20 August 2021 People zip wire across the sea from Bournemouth pier towards the beach. PA UK news in pictures 19 August 2021 Supporters of Geronimo the alpaca gather outside Shepherds Close Farm in Wooton Under Edge, Gloucestershire PA UK news in pictures 18 August 2021 Former Afghan interpreters and veterans hold a demonstration outside Downing Street, calling for support and protection for Afghan interpreters and their families PA UK news in pictures 17 August 2021 Military personnel board the RAF Airbus A400M at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, where evacuation flights from Afghanistan have been landing Reuters UK news in pictures 16 August 2021 Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer takes part in a minute's silence at Wolverhampton police station for the victims of the Plymouth mass shooting last week PA UK news in pictures 15 August 2021 2Storm, a ten-metre tall puppet of a mythical goddess of the sea created by Edinburgh-based visual theatre company Vision Mechanics, makes its way alongside the seafront at North Berwick, East Lothian, during a performance at the Fringe By The Sea festival PA UK news in pictures 14 August 2021 A woman and two young girls look at floral tributes in Plymouth where six people, including the offender, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident PA UK news in pictures 13 August 2021 Forensic officers in the Keyham area of Plymouth where six people, including the shooter, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident on Thursday evening PA

The Dubai CEO said the impact would be minimal is if quiet, modern jets were used.

But John Stewart, chair of the Heathrow Association for the Control of Aircraft Noise (Hacan), the pressure group representing residents around the airport, said: Night flights remain a huge concern local residents. In the foreseeable future new technology will not change that.

The International Air Transport Association, representing airlines, has long opposed airport curfews, saying: Night-time operating restrictions have a negative impact on airlines, passengers and local economies.

Early doors: departures screen at Heathrow Terminal 2, showing the first flights at 6am (Simon Calder)

Meanwhile a former project manager, John Busby, has told The Independent that the need for an additional runway could be negated by increasing the number of passengers on each aircraft.

An increase in the average passenger numbers per flight from 150 in 2007 to 170 in 2016 and then to 255 will add the 50 per cent to its capacity anticipated with the runway, he said.Southern Rail is under attack again for failing to cope with long-planned Network Rail engineering work which closed the London-Brighton main line just south of Gatwick.

Thousands of passengers heading from the capital to the south coast to enjoy the sunny weather faced waits of up to two hours for replacement buses.

As crowds built up at Britains second-busiest airport, Southern Rail, which runs trains on the main line from London Victoria to Brighton, told passengers: It is strongly advised to not travel towards Brighton today.

Travellers who wanted to go no further than London to Gatwick in order to catch flights were aghast to be told: Some trains running from London to Gatwick Airport will be cancelled to prevent further overcrowding.

Fast trains between Victoria and Brighton normally take 54 minutes. The journey on Sunday, with a bus covering the three-mile journey south from Gatwick Airport to Three Bridges, was scheduled to take twice as long. But many travellers found it was much slower.

Laura Paterson, director of a language school in Brighton, made a protracted day-trip to London.

Its been a bit of a palaver, she told The Independent at Gatwick Airport on her way home.

We didnt know it was going to be such amazing weather, but really, it is a May bank holiday. People want to go to London, people want to go to Brighton. Its not rocket science. A little bit of organisation wouldnt have hurt.

A spokesperson for GTR, which operates the Southern franchise, said: We anticipated that the service would be busy today and given the engineering works and need for rail replacement bus services from Gatwick Airport to Three Bridges we put a queuing system in place at the station.

At around 11.30am12.30pm, the number of passengers at the station reached a peak of between 1,500-2,000, the equivalent of two or three trains, with queuing times up to one hour.

A further 30 buses were brought in to supplement the 60 originally planned.

The spokesperson said: We are very sorry that passengers travelling to the south coast had to queue for longer than normal for rail replacement buses. Our passenger information team helped to manage this by referring to longer queuing times and asking passengers to consider not travelling via Gatwick Airport over that time.

Similar chaos ensued in February when the line north of Gatwick was closed. With insufficient buses to the airport from Redhill, local residents offered lifts to distraught passengers.

At the time, a Southern spokesperson said: Demand for the rail replacement service has been greater than expected. We will ensure that plans for upcoming weekend engineering works take a higher capacity requirement into consideration.

The planned engineering works between Gatwick Airport and Three Bridges continue today. The additional contingency buses deployed on Sunday will be available on Monday.

One Brighton resident, Richard Alderton, responded to the request for travellers not to go to the city by tweeting: Can you advise this every time its hot please? More beach and pub space for us locals.

Travellers on the Southern network, which mainly covers south London, Surrey and Sussex, have endured two years of strikes over the role of guards.

Scotlands busiest station, Glasgow Central, was virtually at a standstill for most of Sunday due to a power failure triggered by overhead wire damage sustained on Saturday evening.

Recommended Three of the best commuter areas to swap a London flat for house

Late on Sunday, Scotrail tweeted: We are hopeful that well be able to run a full service from tomorrow morning.

Airline passengers travelling to, from or over southern France faced delays and cancellations due to a strike at the Marseille air-traffic control centre, which covers a large swathe of French territory and the Mediterranean.

The strike ends early on Monday morning, at which point the latest two-day strike by Air France staff will be under way. Pilots, cabin crew and ground staff are continuing their industrial action in support of a pay claim.

The French airline hopes to operate almost all of its long-haul services, but four out of seven departures between Heathrow and Paris have been cancelled.

The Air France chief executive, Jean-Marc Janaillac, resigned on Friday after staff rejected the airlines pay offer.

Italian air-traffic controllers are also planning a nationwide strike between 10am and 6pm, local time, on Tuesday 8 May.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 1 October 2021 A driver talks to members of the media after passing his HGV (Heavy Goods Vehicle) driving test at National Driving Centre in Croydon, south London AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 30 September 2021 The centrepiece One Thousand Springs by Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota is seen ahead of the beginning of the Japan Festival, a celebration of the countrys plants, art and culture running from 2-31 October, at Kew Gardens in London PA UK news in pictures 29 September 2021 The family of Betty Campbell unveil the bronze sculpture of her during the unveiling of the statue in Central Square, Cardiff, of Betty Campbell, Wales' first black headteacher PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2021 A sign referring to the lack of fuel is placed at the entrance to a petrol station in London AP UK news in pictures 27 September 2021 Police officers detain a protester from Insulate Britain occupying a roundabout leading from the M25 motorway to Heathrow Airport in London PA UK news in pictures 26 September 2021 Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer watches the Arsenal v Tottenham Hotspur match at The Font pub in Brighton PA UK news in pictures 25 September 2021 Scottish pro-independence supporters hold a march and rally outside the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, Scotland Getty Images UK news in pictures 24 September 2021 Police officers remove two protesters from the top of a tanker, as Insulate Britain block the A20 in Kent, which provides access to the Port of Dover in Kent. The environmental activists have moved location after been banned from campaigning on the M25 motorway in London PA UK news in pictures 23 September 2021 Gabriella, the seven year old daughter of imprisoned British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, joins in a game on a giant snakes and ladders board in Parliament Square, to show the ups and downs of her mothers case to mark the 2,000 days she has been detained in Iran AP UK news in pictures 22 September 2021 A new sign hangs on the Millicent Fawcett statue after it was altered by CrackTheCrises coalition activists to highlight the climate crisis as a feminist struggle in Parliament Square in London EPA UK news in pictures 21 September 2021 Gabriella Diment prepares a monumental bronze patinated fibreglass wall sculpture depicting household cavalry soldiers on horseback which is expected to be sold for 12,000-18,000 when it goes up for auction at Summers Place Auctions in Billinghurst, Kent PA UK news in pictures 20 September 2021 Florist Judith Blacklock puts the finishing touches to a floral carousel installation in Halkin Arcade, which she has designed with Neill Strain for the Belgravia in Bloom festival, running from September 20-26, in London PA UK news in pictures 19 September 2021 Bubbles surround Manchester Uniteds Cristiano Ronaldo before the match against West Ham at London Stadium Action Images/Reuters UK news in pictures 18 September 2021 Children take part in the Settrington Cup Pedal Car Race as motoring enthusiasts attend the Goodwood Revival, a three-day historic car racing festival in Goodwood, Chichester, Reuters UK news in pictures 17 September 2021 Hugo, 7, from London rides past a 4x7 metre rainbow arch, made entirely of recycled aluminium cans, which has been installed by recycling initiative 'Every Can Counts', in partnership with The City of London Corporation in front of St Paul's Cathedral in London, to encourage members of the public to recycle their drinks cans ahead of recycling week, which starts on 20 September PA UK news in pictures 16 September 2021 Sheikeh MOhammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, leader of Abu Dhabi, leaves Downing Street after meeting with Boris Johnson PA UK news in pictures 15 September 2021 Children pose by ice sculptures depicting people collecting water by charity Water Aid to show the fragility of water and the threat posed by climate change in London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 14 September 2021 Heavy rain covers the A149 near Kings Lynn in Norfolk PA UK news in pictures 13 September 2021 Luke Jerram's 'Museum of the Moon' at Durham Cathedral PA UK news in pictures 12 September 2021 Inspirational young fundraiser Tobias Weller crosses the finish line, near his home in Sheffield, as he completes his latest epic feat where he swam and triked his way to the end of his awesome year-long Ironman Challenge. This is the third challenge Tobias, who has cerebral palsy and autism, has completed, raising more than 150,000 for his school and Sheffield Children Hospitals charity PA UK news in pictures 11 September 2021 British player Emma Raducanu, holds up the US Open championship trophy winning the women's singles final of the US Open in New York AP UK news in pictures 10 September 2021 People paddle board during a misty morning in Ullswater, the second largest lake in the Lake District, Cumbria PA UK news in pictures 9 September 2021 Troops from Wiltshire based 4 Armoured Close Support Battalion Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers during final inspection at Wellington Barracks in London, ahead of providing troops for the Queens Guard PA UK news in pictures 8 September 2021 Workers cross London Bridge during the morning rush hour in London Reuters UK news in pictures Mixing it up: Painting it up press view in London A gallery employee poses for photographers next to a painting entitled Prairie by British artist, Louise Giovanelli during the exhibition 'Mixing it up: Painting it up' at the Hayward Gallery in London EPA UK news in pictures 6 September 2021 Traders in the Ring at the London Metal Exchange, in the City of London, after open-outcry trading returned for the first time since March 2020, when the Ring was temporarily closed due to the pandemic PA UK news in pictures 5 September 2021 People enjoy the warm weather on Sandbanks beach, Poole PA UK news in pictures 4 September 2021 Demonstrators from Animal Rebellion and Nature Rebellion protest in Trafalgar Square in London. PA UK news in pictures 3 September 2021 South Africa's Ntando Mahlangu (centre) wins the Men's 200 metres T61 Final ahead of second placed Great Britain's Richard Whitehead at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games PA UK news in pictures 2 September 2021 A young common seal on the beach at Horsey Gap in Norfolk, as hundreds of pregnant grey seals come ashore ready for the start of the pupping season. PA UK news in pictures 1 September 2021 Goldfinches fighting over food in a garden in Strensham, Worcestershire PA UK news in pictures 31 August 2021 Gold Medallist Sarah Storey of Britain celebrates on the podium Reuters UK news in pictures 30 August 2021 Extinction Rebellion protesters hold a a tea party on Tower Bridge in London EPA UK news in pictures 29 August 2021 A police office tussles with a demonstrator on Cromwell Road outside the Natural History Museum during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion in London PA UK news in pictures 28 August 2021 Members of the British armed forces 16 Air Assault Brigade walk to the air terminal after disembarking a Royal Airforce Voyager aircraft at Brize Norton, Oxfordshire POOL/AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 27 August 2021 Fabio Quartararo crashes during a MotoGP practice session at the British Grand Prix, Silverstone Circuit Action Images via Reuters UK news in pictures 26 August 2021 An Extinction Rebellion activist holds a placard in a fountain surrounded by police officers, during a protest next to Buckingham Palace in London Reuters UK news in pictures 25 August 2021 Gold Medallist Great Britains cyclist, Sarah Storey, celebrates after winning the Womens C5 3000m Individual Pursuit Final at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games. It was her 15th Paralympic gold Reuters UK news in pictures 24 August 2021 A demonstrator dressed as bee during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion on Whitehall, in central London PA UK news in pictures 23 August 2021 Former interpreters for the British forces in Afghanistan demonstrate outside the Home Office in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 22 August 2021 Police officers form a line in front of the entrance to the Guildhall, London, where protesters have climbed onto a ledge above the entrance during an Extinction Rebellion stage a protest PA UK news in pictures 21 August 2021 People take part in a demonstration in solidarity with people of Afghanistan, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 20 August 2021 People zip wire across the sea from Bournemouth pier towards the beach. PA UK news in pictures 19 August 2021 Supporters of Geronimo the alpaca gather outside Shepherds Close Farm in Wooton Under Edge, Gloucestershire PA UK news in pictures 18 August 2021 Former Afghan interpreters and veterans hold a demonstration outside Downing Street, calling for support and protection for Afghan interpreters and their families PA UK news in pictures 17 August 2021 Military personnel board the RAF Airbus A400M at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, where evacuation flights from Afghanistan have been landing Reuters UK news in pictures 16 August 2021 Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer takes part in a minute's silence at Wolverhampton police station for the victims of the Plymouth mass shooting last week PA UK news in pictures 15 August 2021 2Storm, a ten-metre tall puppet of a mythical goddess of the sea created by Edinburgh-based visual theatre company Vision Mechanics, makes its way alongside the seafront at North Berwick, East Lothian, during a performance at the Fringe By The Sea festival PA UK news in pictures 14 August 2021 A woman and two young girls look at floral tributes in Plymouth where six people, including the offender, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident PA UK news in pictures 13 August 2021 Forensic officers in the Keyham area of Plymouth where six people, including the shooter, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident on Thursday evening PA

While intercontinental flights and some services to and from the Italian islands are unaffected, many short-haul departures will be delayed or cancelled. Passengers on Ryanair, easyJet and British Airways face disruption.

BA is allowing passengers booked to or from Italy on Tuesday to travel on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday.

The airline said: Unfortunately, if the threatened strikes go ahead, we will be forced to cancel some flights. We will be using larger aircraft, where possible, to help affected customers and are doing all we can to reduce the levels of disruption.

Public transport to and from airports could also be affected by the national strike, so please allow extra time for your travel plans before and after your flights.Hello, my name is Nikita  you dont know me and Im not sure that I even know myself anymore. Im a fighter, and I always have been  Ive spent the last three years fighting the government to get my husband the care and support he needs after serving in Afghanistan. Frankly, Im exhausted.

My husband, Luke, and I celebrated our wedding just a few years ago, when he was serving as an Royal Air Force (RAF) corporal in Camp Bastion in Afghanistan.

While everybodys future is unknown, ours looked set to be a long and happy one, with my first born son on the way. But everyone in our family has been affected by the events that have since played out.

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Afghan insurgents attacked Camp Bastion, and my husband was physically and mentally injured. After returning from a seven month tour, Luke was told to man up, and my family became isolated and forgotten about by the RAF and the government.

There are many days when my husband cannot move because of the relentless chronic pain. There are days when his post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) causes him to lose all control, to disappear into a world where I cannot join him. There are days when its all just too much for him, and those days have led to several suicide attempts.

For the past three years I have tirelessly campaigned for my husband to get the medical treatment he needs, which the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and NHS have continuously refused to give. As well as battling with PTSD, Luke is desperately seeking treatment to alleviate the constant pain he suffers, which is caused by severe lower disc degeneration.

While our country has let my husband down, in the US he could receive help for free. Luke has been accepted onto a stem cell clinical trial in the States. It offers my husband the chance to experience a relatively pain-free life where he will be able to run around, pick up and play with his three little boys. He deserves this chance.

Nikita, Luke and their three young boys (Nikita Dallison)

But while the trial is fully funded by orthopaedic pain specialists in the US, we do not have funding for flights or accommodation. We, as a family, are determined to raise the funds. I have even resorted to begging complete strangers.

It is not a case of no one helping or no one caring. There are, as I have found out, many good people who send their best wishes, moral support and, often, their own painful stories. These people, like me, have nothing else that they can afford to send, so they send what they can. It helps more than I can express to know that people are supporting my efforts and that I am a voice for many others who are unable to speak out themselves.

Nikita and Luke have sought help from the government and charities (Nikita Dallison)

As a family we have tried all avenues, desperate for assistance. This includes the NHS, the MoD, the Royal British Legion, Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund and Help for Heroes. We have been to each of them, more than once. They all have means to help but have chosen not to help. Each organisation gave a reason for our rejection and there are more than I can list in this article. The bottom line is that we feel very alone in this fight to save my husbands life.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 29 September 2021 The family of Betty Campbell unveil the bronze sculpture of her during the unveiling of the statue in Central Square, Cardiff, of Betty Campbell, Wales' first black headteacher PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2021 A sign referring to the lack of fuel is placed at the entrance to a petrol station in London AP UK news in pictures 27 September 2021 Police officers detain a protester from Insulate Britain occupying a roundabout leading from the M25 motorway to Heathrow Airport in London PA UK news in pictures 26 September 2021 Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer watches the Arsenal v Tottenham Hotspur match at The Font pub in Brighton PA UK news in pictures 25 September 2021 Scottish pro-independence supporters hold a march and rally outside the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, Scotland Getty Images UK news in pictures 24 September 2021 Police officers remove two protesters from the top of a tanker, as Insulate Britain block the A20 in Kent, which provides access to the Port of Dover in Kent. The environmental activists have moved location after been banned from campaigning on the M25 motorway in London PA UK news in pictures 23 September 2021 Gabriella, the seven year old daughter of imprisoned British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, joins in a game on a giant snakes and ladders board in Parliament Square, to show the ups and downs of her mothers case to mark the 2,000 days she has been detained in Iran AP UK news in pictures 22 September 2021 A new sign hangs on the Millicent Fawcett statue after it was altered by CrackTheCrises coalition activists to highlight the climate crisis as a feminist struggle in Parliament Square in London EPA UK news in pictures 21 September 2021 Gabriella Diment prepares a monumental bronze patinated fibreglass wall sculpture depicting household cavalry soldiers on horseback which is expected to be sold for 12,000-18,000 when it goes up for auction at Summers Place Auctions in Billinghurst, Kent PA UK news in pictures 20 September 2021 Florist Judith Blacklock puts the finishing touches to a floral carousel installation in Halkin Arcade, which she has designed with Neill Strain for the Belgravia in Bloom festival, running from September 20-26, in London PA UK news in pictures 19 September 2021 Bubbles surround Manchester Uniteds Cristiano Ronaldo before the match against West Ham at London Stadium Action Images/Reuters UK news in pictures 18 September 2021 Children take part in the Settrington Cup Pedal Car Race as motoring enthusiasts attend the Goodwood Revival, a three-day historic car racing festival in Goodwood, Chichester, Reuters UK news in pictures 17 September 2021 Hugo, 7, from London rides past a 4x7 metre rainbow arch, made entirely of recycled aluminium cans, which has been installed by recycling initiative 'Every Can Counts', in partnership with The City of London Corporation in front of St Paul's Cathedral in London, to encourage members of the public to recycle their drinks cans ahead of recycling week, which starts on 20 September PA UK news in pictures 16 September 2021 Sheikeh MOhammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, leader of Abu Dhabi, leaves Downing Street after meeting with Boris Johnson PA UK news in pictures 15 September 2021 Children pose by ice sculptures depicting people collecting water by charity Water Aid to show the fragility of water and the threat posed by climate change in London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 14 September 2021 Heavy rain covers the A149 near Kings Lynn in Norfolk PA UK news in pictures 13 September 2021 Luke Jerram's 'Museum of the Moon' at Durham Cathedral PA UK news in pictures 12 September 2021 Inspirational young fundraiser Tobias Weller crosses the finish line, near his home in Sheffield, as he completes his latest epic feat where he swam and triked his way to the end of his awesome year-long Ironman Challenge. This is the third challenge Tobias, who has cerebral palsy and autism, has completed, raising more than 150,000 for his school and Sheffield Children Hospitals charity PA UK news in pictures 11 September 2021 British player Emma Raducanu, holds up the US Open championship trophy winning the women's singles final of the US Open in New York AP UK news in pictures 10 September 2021 People paddle board during a misty morning in Ullswater, the second largest lake in the Lake District, Cumbria PA UK news in pictures 9 September 2021 Troops from Wiltshire based 4 Armoured Close Support Battalion Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers during final inspection at Wellington Barracks in London, ahead of providing troops for the Queens Guard PA UK news in pictures 8 September 2021 Workers cross London Bridge during the morning rush hour in London Reuters UK news in pictures Mixing it up: Painting it up press view in London A gallery employee poses for photographers next to a painting entitled Prairie by British artist, Louise Giovanelli during the exhibition 'Mixing it up: Painting it up' at the Hayward Gallery in London EPA UK news in pictures 6 September 2021 Traders in the Ring at the London Metal Exchange, in the City of London, after open-outcry trading returned for the first time since March 2020, when the Ring was temporarily closed due to the pandemic PA UK news in pictures 5 September 2021 People enjoy the warm weather on Sandbanks beach, Poole PA UK news in pictures 4 September 2021 Demonstrators from Animal Rebellion and Nature Rebellion protest in Trafalgar Square in London. PA UK news in pictures 3 September 2021 South Africa's Ntando Mahlangu (centre) wins the Men's 200 metres T61 Final ahead of second placed Great Britain's Richard Whitehead at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games PA UK news in pictures 2 September 2021 A young common seal on the beach at Horsey Gap in Norfolk, as hundreds of pregnant grey seals come ashore ready for the start of the pupping season. PA UK news in pictures 1 September 2021 Goldfinches fighting over food in a garden in Strensham, Worcestershire PA UK news in pictures 31 August 2021 Gold Medallist Sarah Storey of Britain celebrates on the podium Reuters UK news in pictures 30 August 2021 Extinction Rebellion protesters hold a a tea party on Tower Bridge in London EPA UK news in pictures 29 August 2021 A police office tussles with a demonstrator on Cromwell Road outside the Natural History Museum during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion in London PA UK news in pictures 28 August 2021 Members of the British armed forces 16 Air Assault Brigade walk to the air terminal after disembarking a Royal Airforce Voyager aircraft at Brize Norton, Oxfordshire POOL/AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 27 August 2021 Fabio Quartararo crashes during a MotoGP practice session at the British Grand Prix, Silverstone Circuit Action Images via Reuters UK news in pictures 26 August 2021 An Extinction Rebellion activist holds a placard in a fountain surrounded by police officers, during a protest next to Buckingham Palace in London Reuters UK news in pictures 25 August 2021 Gold Medallist Great Britains cyclist, Sarah Storey, celebrates after winning the Womens C5 3000m Individual Pursuit Final at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games. It was her 15th Paralympic gold Reuters UK news in pictures 24 August 2021 A demonstrator dressed as bee during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion on Whitehall, in central London PA UK news in pictures 23 August 2021 Former interpreters for the British forces in Afghanistan demonstrate outside the Home Office in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 22 August 2021 Police officers form a line in front of the entrance to the Guildhall, London, where protesters have climbed onto a ledge above the entrance during an Extinction Rebellion stage a protest PA UK news in pictures 21 August 2021 People take part in a demonstration in solidarity with people of Afghanistan, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 20 August 2021 People zip wire across the sea from Bournemouth pier towards the beach. 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Because our government, the MoD and these military charities are not willing to put money into effectively treating our veterans ailments, it is the military families who are losing our loved ones far too often.

I dont want to be one of those people. I do not want our three young sons to grow up without their dad. And so I continue to fight hard for what I believe the MoD and country owe my husband: the covenant, which is still nowhere to be found, that is supposed to protect our injured servicemen and women.

I am just like you, or at least I was: I never knew what I was capable of or how strong I could be until I was tested. But by giving up on love and what you believe to be right, you give up on yourself and you give up on life.

Nikita Dallison is raising funds for her family on GoFundMeLeaked reports yesterday appeared to suggest that the government is considering including some hybrid cars in a sale ban to be enforced by 2040, much to the misguided anger of Prius owners and the auto industry.

In fact this suggestion doesnt go far enough, and to clear our air, meet our international responsibilities and seize the economic benefits of clean vehicles, we need to end petrol and diesel vehicle sales, including hybrids, way before 2040.

This is not just a business or industry issue. Climate change, driven by our carbon emissions, is one of the biggest threats to nature. If were going to meet our Paris climate commitments, the UK will need to be a zero carbon economy by no later than 2050, as Conservative MP Claire Perry said in Parliament last week. That means maxing out the cheapest low-carbon technologies (like fully electric vehicles), with no space left for half measures like hybrids.

The narrative of the transition technology here is pervasive, but often just slows down much needed transformation. The calls for a dash for gas as coal plants close is a classic example, because a mix of renewables and flexible technologies is far cheaper than building new gas plants to run inefficiently. Were seeing the same thing in transport: a dash for hybrids that is actually costly for consumers and slows down efforts to protect people and nature from pollution.

Going full electric is often presented as a leap too far, and making baby steps into hybrids seems the sensible way forward. But ending petrol and diesel vehicle sales in 2030, including hybrids, makes more sense for motorists and the environment for two reasons.

 EasyJet announce new trial electric hybrid plane

Firstly, 100 per cent electric vehicles are more convenient than conventional cars. You cannot fill up conventional cars while youre tucked up in bed, but you can charge an electric one.

Electricity is also cheaper than fuel, making 100 per cent electric vehicles competitive with conventional cars for many drivers already. This will be the norm by the mid-2020s, and most fully electric vehicles will even be cheaper to buy than normal cars well before 2030.

Conventional hybrids run on fuel and use it to charge a battery that enables a limited amount of electric driving. But because you cant plug in, you dont get the benefit of filling up at your leisure with cheap mains electricity. You still have to drive to a petrol station and pay more for the privilege.

Plug-in hybrids, on the other hand, run on both fuel and mains electricity. In electric mode, the carbon and cost savings add up. But non-electric mode can obliterate these savings. Plug-in hybrids are big, heavy cars, so running the engine burns more fuel per mile than a lighter option. They only make sense if you minimise engine use, like extended-range electric vehicles, which only use the engine as back-up when the battery runs out.

So the question of whether hybrids should or should not still be in showrooms in 2040 is a total red herring. The real debate is how fast we get to zero emission transport. Automakers that embrace the transition will survive and thrive, hoovering up market share from those who dont adapt, and wont survive.

Save money and the environment by taking up cycling Show all 2 1 /2 Save money and the environment by taking up cycling Save money and the environment by taking up cycling 9362.bin Save money and the environment by taking up cycling 561.bin

Ending petrol and diesel vehicle sales in 2030, including hybrids, makes sense for motorists and the environment. Accounting for almost half of European demand, the UK could better attract investment in electric vehicle production. By 2030 we could have 100,000 jobs in manufacturing, making up to 1m electric cars per year. Exhaust pollution will be cut 30 per cent, while the gap to our 2030 carbon targets will be more than halved.

The prime minister wants to cement the UKs position as a world leader in the low emission and electric vehicle industry at her Zero Emission Vehicle Summit in the autumn. A more ambitious trajectory to full electrification of new vehicles by 2030 is the best way to do that, supported by an accelerated roll-out of charging infrastructure and strong incentives to kickstart the market.

James Beard is a climate and transport specialist at WWFAs the dramatic deadline slowly approaches and heads spin attempting to work out exactly what Donald Trump will do on 12 May, our framework for understanding the nuanced complexity of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)  or the Iran nuclear deal  and the consequences of its existence has gradually simplified.

The prevailing narrative frames the JCPOA in terms of the interests of Iran, the US and the EU, leaving those most directly affected by it almost forgotten. The Gulf States, Irans neighbours and our allies in the fight against terrorism seem to have their interests largely neglected in public discourse on the JCPOA.

In the minds of many, the US administration hates the Iran deal because it was created and signed under Obama. Trump and the White House cant stand the idea of sticking by a deal that is the pride of their most derided enemy. The equation is somewhat different, however, if you take the perspective of a country that actually neighbours Iran. In Saudi Arabia, the Iran deal is not a matter of internal politics but existential security.

The UK and EU would never accept, and havent done in the past, a country on its own shores behaving the way Iran does. Irans expansionist goals might seem distant when sat a few thousand miles away, but they have a somewhat different character from the perspective of a neighbour.

 Iran president Rouhani: US ending nuclear deal will be "historic regret"

In losing our nuance on this issue, we risk something far greater  the trust of the Wests most important allies in the fight against terrorism. Taking a position at odds with the Gulf States, one that fails to incorporate their concerns in the decision-making process, will risk severing a relationship that we cannot afford to lose.

That may seem like an overreaction  many people here believe that our alliance with the Gulf is based on oil and weapons alone. But that is a grave oversimplification which is precisely what will lead to the unintended consequences I describe. It is also one that no British diplomat in the region will agree with, and shows a shameful ignorance of the deep historical and cultural ties between our countries.

Recommended The Iran crisis presents a bigger danger to peace than North Korea

But most importantly, it ignores the central role that Saudi, and the UAE, play in protecting British people from our number one security concern.Their intelligence, counter-extremism and military contributions are essential to our security services. And they serve against a threat much more imminent than a nuclear Iran.

I am not saying Saudi Arabia is perfect, but no one can doubt its importance in the fight against terrorism. It is the worlds leading Islamic agent in this tireless fight, and an agent we must place front and centre of our counterterrorism efforts, ideological differences notwithstanding.

This begins with the IMCTC, the Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition, a Saudi initiative to form a united front against terrorism via a coalition of 41 countries. Its role is in essence a military one, coordinating the involvement of member countries in counterterrorism operations, such as against al-Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula.

However, its effectiveness lies in its capacity to deal with terrorism at its source. Islamist terrorism originates in an utterly perverted interpretation of Islam. A fundamentally religious crisis requires a fundamentally religious response. The IMCTC and its member countries are working to reaffirm the moderate values of Islam, with its principles of peace and tolerance. If we are unwilling to work with them we reduce our efforts to an attempt to bandage an ever growing wound.

Iran protests  in pictures Show all 11 1 /11 Iran protests  in pictures Iran protests  in pictures University students at an anti-government protest inside Tehran University, 30 December 2017 AP Iran protests  in pictures A university student at a protest inside Tehran University while a smoke grenade is thrown by anti-riot Iranian police, 30 December 2017 AP Iran protests  in pictures University students at a protest inside Tehran University, 30 December 2017 AP Iran protests  in pictures University students run away from the police during an anti-government protest inside Tehran University, 30 December 2017 AP Iran protests  in pictures An image grab taken from a handout video released by Iran's Mehr News agency reportedly shows a group of men pulling at a fence in a street in Tehran, 30 December 2017 AFP/Getty Iran protests  in pictures Demonstrators gather to protest in Tehran, 30 December 2017 AP Iran protests  in pictures Iranians chant slogans as they march in support of the government near the Imam Khomeini grand mosque in Tehran, 30 December 2017 AFP/Getty Iran protests  in pictures Iranians chant slogans as they march in support of the government near the Imam Khomeini grand mosque in Tehran, December 30 2017 Iran protests  in pictures Iranian clerics take part during a state-organized rally against anti-government protests in the country, in the holy city of Qom, south west Iran, 3 January 2018 EPA Iran protests  in pictures In this photo provided by the Iranian Students' News Agency, a clergyman takes a picture of a pro-government demonstration in the southwestern city of Ahvaz, Iran, 3 January 2018 ISNA via AP Iran protests  in pictures Pro-government demonstrators gather at the Massoumeh shrine in Iran's holy city of Qom, some 130 kilometres south of Tehran, 3 January 2018 AFP/Getty

Terrorism is a global threat, and every country that has been victim of its evil consequences has a role to play in bringing about its end. However, those closest to its source are best placed to lead this operation, and whether you like it or not that points us to Saudi Arabia. Forgetting their role would pose a major security threat to this nation.

Trumps decision on 12 May is unlikely to take my, or any other, perspective into account. If, however, he and our leaders in this country, together with the EU, are going to reach a consensus on Iran, I implore them to see the bigger picture. We cannot risk alienating our closest allies in the fight against terrorism. Western powers have been looking for ways to extricate themselves from the region harmlessly. The Saudis are proposing to step up and lead the fight against terror, and they appear to have created the capability to do it successfully  we cannot take this offer for granted.

Sir Richard Ottaway is a former Conservative MP for Croydon South and was previously MP for Nottingham NorthA decision by the under-pressure chief of Irelands health service to leave his post a month early has not dampened calls for his immediate resignation.

The Government has confirmed that Health Service Executive (HSE) director Tony OBrien is to retire at the start of July, four weeks earlier than scheduled, as a result of taking unused holiday entitlement.

The move appears to have done little to ease the pressure on Mr OBrien over a controversy about wrongly interpreted cervical cancer smear tests.

Fianna Fail TD John McGuinness has indicated his party will support an anticipated motion of no confidence in Mr OBrien in the Dail next week.

Sinn Fein is tabling a motion calling for the director general to quit, with party president Mary Lou McDonald insisting the writing is on the wall for the HSE chief.

I do not believe he should have the opportunity to dictate the time of his departureJohn McGuinnes, Fianna Fail TD

The Government has resisted calls to sack Mr OBrien, saying it was better he stay in post to help find out what went wrong.

Last week it was revealed that an audit by CervicalCheck  the national screening programme  of 1,482 women diagnosed with cervical cancer since 2008 had found potential errors in 208 cases, as tests showed no abnormality when they should have been given a cancer warning.

The majority of the 208 women  162  were not initially told of the outcome of the audit. Of the 208, 17 have since died.

It then emerged that a further 1,518 women with the cancer in the same period have not been audited, though health chiefs stress the number affected by potential errors in this group is likely to be lower.

Mr OBrien told an Oireachtas committee last week that he would not resign but instead devote his remaining time until the end of his contract to addressing the failures.

He said he would accept some responsibility for the issue, but not full responsibility.

The director-general is taking temporary leave of absence from the board of a US company he joined earlier this year to focus on the fall-out from the smear test furore.

Mr McGuinness said he should resign from the HSE with immediate effect.

I do not believe he should have the opportunity to dictate the time of his departure, he told RTE Radio Ones This Week.

And I think that would send a very clear signal to the country, in this case to the women and their families, that the political system is bent on holding these individuals to account.

He added: I believe we have reached the point now where we either put down a motion or an amendment to the motion thats before the Dail and that we take immediate action, decisive action to restore some confidence in the political system that we can hold individuals to account.

Mr OBrien availing of his holiday leave is hardly an adequate or appropriate response to the debacleMary Lou McDonald, Sinn Fein president

Mrs McDonald told the same programme: I think Mr OBrien availing of his holiday leave is hardly an adequate or appropriate response to the debacle and the scandal and the disaster that has now visited women and their families across this land. This is about a calling to account.

The Sinn Fein TD added: If we are not willing, if the Government is not willing to hold the director general to account when something goes catastrophically wrong in the HSE, well, all of the talk about reform and change is only that, only talk  it wont amount to anything.

The controversy was triggered by the case of Vicky Phelan, the terminally ill mother whose legal battle cast light on the issue.

Last month Ms Phelan, a 43-year-old mother of two from Co Limerick, settled a High Court action for 2.5 million euro after being incorrectly told in 2011 that her smear test had given a negative result for cancer.

In 2014 she was diagnosed with cancer but only told of the false negative last September.

An independent review of the screening programme has already been launched while the clinical director of CervicalCheck stepped down last weekend.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has pledged a redress scheme for women negatively impacted by the failings.Three men were arrested after gardai raided a suspected illicit pill making factory in Co Kildare.

The men, all from eastern Europe, were detained during Sundays operation at a house in Celbridge.

Suspected controlled drugs, in powder and pill form, with an estimated street value of 500,000 have been seized.

The Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau has today dealt another blow to those involved in organised crimeJohn O'Driscoll

An industrial pill making machine was also recovered from the property, as was other equipment such as blenders.

Gardai said the process of making tablets was under way when they forced entry into the premises.

Officers from the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau supported by the Special Crime Task Force were involved.

The arrested men, aged from mid 30s to early 40s, have been taken to Leixlip and Lucan Garda stations.

Assistant Commissioner John ODriscoll, who is in charge of special crime operations in the Garda, said:

This operation provides further evidence of the extent of links between Irish based organised crime groups and the international drug trade.

The Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau has today dealt another blow to those involved in organised crime.

Our effort in tackling organised crime is unrelenting and will continue as long as is necessary.For Irish designer Emma Manley success has not been easily won, but hard work and getting the best from internships has paid off for the recently crowned VIP Irish Designer of the Year.

The child of an entrepreneur and a designer, Emma said that she got into the industry because she knew no different.

"I was in the lucky position that I got to do my first internship with my mum when I was six and I got my first sewing machine!"

Growing up, she says that she had originally wanted to go to art college, however, "I got rejected two, three years in a row."

And so she followed in the footsteps of her mum and went to the Grafton Academy.

After doing a course at the Academy, Emma said she got straight on a plane and did her first (official) internship in the fashion mecca of New York with luxury fashion wear brand VPL.

"It was amazing, I look back on it now and I wish I could go do it all again."

From there she went to London where she interned at the legendary Alexander McQueen.

Expand Close A model wears clothes from the Manley collection / Facebook

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In order to pay the bills, Emma double jobbed managing a bar and restaurant in the evenings.

"Eventually that gets all too much, so the internship had to give."

But this did not deter Emma, (who today designs clothing, handbags, and jewellery), and while continuing her restaurant job she began creating what was to become the first ever Manley collection.

Looking back on the internships, Emma says they were invaluable.

Expand Close The 'Aubree' dress for Manley / Facebook

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"You are drafting a pattern in college, and then you are actually working in a business, and you learn that it is a whole brand."

"It was all the facets coming together to make this business, it wasn't just the design, it was the production, it was the photo shots, it was the everything."

"For the first time you are understanding what the ins and outs of a fashion business are and I loved every second of it."

We discuss career high points and Emma highlights her recent VIP Style Awards 'Irish Designer of the Year' accolade, which she says left her "just in shock."

"You are seven years trying and I had never won anything, and when you are working in the fashion industry, which is so unsupported, particularly in Ireland, just to know that there are people out there that said 'you are our choice', that's pride, that was amazing."

On the subject of whether more could be done to promote Irish fashion designers, Emma says that at the moment there is very little support.

"Speak to any Irish designer and they will tell you that it's so under supported, it's insane."

"What I can't understand is that fashion is so much a part of our culture and our history...we are crying out to get supports so that we can positively produce in Ireland, but there is nothing out there."

In a move to increase cash flow Emma organises the IDSS, which is the Irish designer sample sales.

The samples, which are items used for look books and so forth, are ever so slightly altered for real production and so can't be sold online as they are not exactly matching the collection.

Designers have started doing sample sales, which she says enables them to generate cash flow used to help with the next season's collection.

"I realised after my first one, why am I doing this just for Manley, why don't I do it for a group of us? We are very much spreading the work of Irish design."

"Now I organise them in Dublin, Cork, Galway, and we have our first trip to London at the end of the year."

"It's 15 designers under one roof and it's a big celebration."

"But it would have been cool if there had have been some support system in place like that, or some kind of funding to help us put the sales on but there is nothing."

Overall, she says that any Irish designers biggest challenge is cash flow, "because we are producing so far in advance."

"We are essentially competing with the high street and conglomerates, to even use the word "compete" because we can't, we are just being crushed by them."

Despite the challenges however, Emma is unable to imagine what it would be like to work for someone else now.

"I love the mix of what I do."

And Emma is very much hands on in all aspects of the business, not only looking after design and production, but also the marketing, the photo shoots, the selling, and the customer care.

"I think a lot of people who go to art college think that they are going to come out owning their own brand, and that's not the reality of it."

In this respect, Emma says that interning has been key in giving her a good grounding and business understanding.

"You get to see all the different processes going on and you realise okay if I want to do this then I need to be all of those people, and it starts to sink in, learn from all of those people."

"I know people have negative things to say about interning but for me it was an extension of my education."

"While it is incredibly hard for people to support themselves, I felt it was the only time in my life when I could have done two jobs and give it my all."

"It also, in a little way, weeds out the people who are maybe not so dedicated about it [designing] because there was no way I was giving up either of those internships, I wanted to get everything out of them."

In terms of where she gets the inspiration for her designs, Emma says that it comes from everyday life.

"It's what's going on in my world, I would be very inspired by Ireland and the trekking around that I do."

The next sample sale will take place in Galway's G-Hotel on the May 12 and 13.It has been a frightening time for British retail. Last Thursday, Poundland became the latest in a slew of major players to announce materially bad news, with around 100 stores set to close.

A fortnight ago, Debenhams issued its second profit warning in four months, saying it had got its Christmas strategy wrong. Electronics retailer Maplin has gone into administration, while Carpetright is closing 90 stores and cutting around 300 jobs. Clothes retailer New Look is closing 60 stores and cutting around 1,000 jobs.

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It's tempting to blame it all on Brexit and, indeed, it may be partly responsible. Figures out last week showed that though the UK economy is growing, it posted its worst performance since 2012 in the first quarter of this year, with a 0.1pc expansion.

But if growth is present at all there must be something else happening on the high street. Unsurprisingly, it's the shift to digital that's the prime suspect.

An auction of a Birmingham shopping centre last month is a case in point.

Abbeygate Shopping Centre near the Midlands city was sold off for 4.3m (4.89m), a fraction of the 17m it fetched 13 years ago.

"These kind of shopping centres have shown a dramatic drop in value over the last 10 to 15 years," Acuitus auctioneer Richard Auterac said in an interview before the sale.

"It has taken some owners a long time, but we're now seeing more acknowledgment that it's a difficult market to be in", which prompts them to accept lower prices.

The auctioneer sold another centre, Callendar Square in Falkirk, Scotland, for 1m in October, according to its website. That property had an estimated value of almost 26m in 2006.

Retail groups here acknowledge that the acceleration of online shopping has had a negative impact on the sector.

Retail Excellence Ireland (REI) released figures for the first quarter last Monday which put like for like sales 0.2pc behind the prior year. Minor year-on-year growth in January and February was offset by a decline in March - perhaps due in part to the snow.

REI deputy chief executive Lorraine Higgins said a number of REI members had reported losses in the first quarter as a consequence of the shift to digital.

"Those retailers with an omnichannel offering managed to offset the losses in their bricks and mortar stores because they were able to enhance their digital strategy to reach out to consumers. But that's not something that's possible for all retailers," she added.

Patchy broadband is one reason for that of course. There's also a case for lifting the amount available to businesses under the State trading online voucher scheme.

The scheme allows SMEs to get a 2,500 grant to develop digital capability. But Higgins estimates it takes at least 10,000 to have a fully functioning ecommerce website.

Despite the sense of gloom, suppliers still see value in traditional retail channels.

Smartbox chief executive John Perkins, an Apple veteran of the Steve Jobs era, told the Sunday Independent that "online hasn't killed all the retailers, but it will kill some of them".

His company provides gift experience vouchers, both online and in retail.

"What we see overall on the high street is that the number of retailers has shrunk, but there's still a lot of retail consumers out there."

In the US, usually at the forefront of consumer trends, the idea of the "retail apocalypse" has become so pervasive that it has its own Wikipedia entry.

But it's not simply that Amazon has been eating everybody's lunch. Many chains have been loaded up with lots of debt - often from leveraged buy-outs.

The debt coming due, along with excess floor space and the continued growth of online, has led to a perfect storm, with the prospect of continuing job losses for workers at the lower end of the income scale.

Bloomberg reported earlier this month that at the last count, US store closures announced this year reached a staggering 77 million sq ft. That's according to data on national and regional chains compiled by CoStar Group.

Retailers are well on their way to surpassing the record 105 million sq ft announced for closure in all of 2017. And even though retailers have been retreating for years, the US still has about 24 sq ft of shopping space per person, many times more than any other developed nation, according to research firm Green Street Advisors.

But where there is chaos there is opportunity and, in an Irish context, businesses are starting to move away from a negative view of online towards embracing the possibilities, according to Thomas Burke who leads Ibec's retail arm Retail Ireland.

The shift to digital means that Irish retailers are no longer dependent on their local catchment area - instead they can start selling products further afield and reach far more customers.

REI characterises Irish retail as being in a state of flux and its hard to disagree.

Anecdotally, many Irish retailers are seeing first hand how shopping patterns are shifting to online. Online sales are growing strongly for those which have developed good websites, while shop owners are having to go the extra mile to get people through the door.

Dublin retailer Arnotts, owned by the Selfridges Group, is spending 11m on upgrading its business and a chunk of that will go on technology to integrate its bricks and mortar systems with its website.

And internationally, retail giants are scrambling to meet the fast changing demands on consumers.

Zara, owned by Spanish group Inditex, is moving on to the next level of digital retailing with the launch of an augmented reality app.

Rival retailer H&M recently reported a 60pc fall in first-quarter profit. Its chief executive, Karl-Johan Persson, said there had been "mistakes" in not adapting quickly enough to the internet.

Unfortunately for Irish companies, the prospects for those who fail to pay attention to the woes of international retailers are unlikely to be good. (Additional reporting by Bloomberg)High-profile Northern Irish developer Gerry O'Hare has sold the Fairgreen complex in Carlow, it is understood. The sale - for an undisclosed amount - was part of a deal that also included the sale of what was long seen as the developer's prize asset, the Quays shopping centre in Newry.

O'Hare, often cited in rich lists as one of the North's richest men, developed the two shopping centres through his Newry-based development company Parker Green International. However, he agreed a deal with his financial backers three years ago to sell the company's two key assets to repay its debts.

In 2016 it was reported that the 23,000 square metre Fairgreen Centre, which is the main shopping centre in Carlow, was for sale for 36m.

O'Hare borrowed money to develop both shopping centres from Anglo Irish Bank. Those loans were transferred to Nama and later sold to investment fund Cerberus under the Project Eagle sale of loans. In 2015 the loans were refinanced by investment firm Earlsfort Capital Partners.

The most recent set of accounts - filed last September for the year to the end of 2016 - stated that at that point the loans were due to be repaid by January of this year but that would depend on the sale of the properties.

Recent filings to the Companies Office in Ireland showed that O'Hare had terminated his position as a director of Parker Green International (Waterford), while UK filings showed that the mortgage of Parker Green Holdings has been satisfied in full.

Last month a major multi-million pound extension anchored by Marks & Spencer was announced for the Quays, while this week Carlow County Council announced a 15m plan to tie in Fairgreen to the town centre.Since March 2016 it has been run as Bar Rua and the Dunnes are seeking to expand into a neighbouring building which previously housed the Mao restaurant. Photo: Stock Image

The owners of Dublin city centre craft beer pub Bar Rua are seeking to extend the premises.

It is owned by brothers James and Edward Dunne, who are behind the Carrig Brewing Company in Drumshanbo, Co Leitrim.

In 2015, they outbid over a dozen other parties to buy a bar then known as Clarendon Inn.

The pub's previous owners include Christian and Simon Stokes, who demolished and rebuilt the Clarendon Street pub in the mid-1990s.

It was then sold to developer Bernard McNamara for 7m and the Stokes brothers leased it back. Both McNamara and the Stokes brothers later had some financial troubles and the pub was sold in 2016, on the instructions of a receiver, for 2.4m - well over the 1.6m asking price.

Since March 2016 it has been run as Bar Rua and the Dunnes are seeking to expand into a neighbouring building which previously housed the Mao restaurant.

Bar Rua, which has a strong food business, has already taken a lease, operating fish restaurant Catch 22 there and hopes to formalise the arrangement by joining the buildings together.

The expanded business would include a private dining room.Like the buds of May, which we are finally seeing signs of, there was good news on the economic front last week. At face value, at least, the outlook is looking rosy, although we need to keep a firm eye on our taxation heads, particularly our growing reliance on multinationals and corporation tax.

Following on from strong Exchequer return figures, the European Commission upgraded its GDP growth estimate for Ireland to 5.7pc this year in its spring forecast, up from 4.4pc in the winter one. Its growth prediction for 2019 has also been increased to 4.1pc to 3.1pc in a February forecast.

Other forecasts have also been upgraded, with Ireland ranked the second-fastest growing economy in Europe for 2018 - just behind Malta.

However, there are growing signs that our small, flexible economy on the edge of Europe is now largely dependent on multinationals and their contribution. The EU made a point of warning about this dependence in its recent report on Ireland.

While the domestic economy is expected to remain robust, it said, supported by a strong labour market and investments in construction, "volatility in the headline national accounts figures is likely to continue in the near term because of the role of multinational companies".

Of course, the biggest uncertainty in the Irish economic outlook centres on Brexit and the outcome of negotiations between the EU and the UK, but there are other external influences - including double-whammy knock-on effects on us of taxation reform in both the US and the EU.

Over the past three years, takings from corporation tax have doubled from 4bn to 8bn and this money is being used by the Government for its day-to-day spending. This is reminiscent of our reliance on property-dependent takes like stamp duty in the run-up to 2007 and the crash.

In addition, not withstanding strong growth figures, the most recent Exchequer return figures showed a record cumulative 1bn Irish payment into the EU budget was a significant factor in a deterioration in the State's financial position. This is a timely reminder that Ireland is now also a net contributor - a long way away from the heady days of billions in cohesion and regional funding. We are now not only a mature member of the club but one of the richest economies in it - and that comes at a cost.

This is just the beginning of the process and as we continue to negotiate the choppy waters of Brexit we are also involved in a different level of talks with Europe about its budget and our contribution to it. This is against the backdrop of the future loss of income following the UK's exit and the potential of a smaller Common Agricultural Policy, one of the cornerstones of the EU. The estimated total cost of our membership for 2018 is 2.6bn and this sum is still being negotiated and could grow.

So with external pressures on our economic growth growing and an increasing reliance on corporation tax, is it time for a fresh look at how we fund the economy and time to revisit such unsavoury topics as property tax and water charges given that the Government has more or less ruled out any hikes in income tax? A back of the envelope calculation shows when you look at the estimated 250m a year that water charges would have generated from 2015 to 2018, and subtract the 300m in deductions, that's a healthy estimated 700m in revenues for Government coffers.

The property tax is slightly more difficult to get a handle on, given that it is difficult to get a figure for the exact number of new-builds a year.

We do know that there were 12,000 new-builds in 2013 that were exempt from the property tax.

So, if we take an average property tax charge of 350 a house, although arguably this is a crude figure, we're talking another big chunk of lost change that could be used to help fix the housing crisis, for example. Given that new homeowners are not due to start paying property tax until 2019, this gives this, or any new government, plenty of time to relook at the property tax model and, indeed, our overall system.

Business group Ibec has proposed a Commission on Taxation that would measure the taxation system's fitness for purpose, assess tax heads and risks in the system. We haven't had a Commission since 2009, when we were in the pits of economic despair, and it certainly seems far more sensible to have the conversation now when the economy is in a healthier place.

When it comes to the property market, Ibec is also proposing a site valuation tax. The tax would cover both commercial and residential and would be a more equitable system than currently exists, with the burden of tax currently on the former.

In addition, site valuation taxes would be ringfenced and channelled through local government which would go towards funding the likes of housing, roads and schools.

The tax would also help eliminate volatility in the market as it discourages the wasteful use of and hoarding of land.

One thing is certain, any dependence on one form of tax revenues has proven foolish and we have seen the results of this in the past when we became overdependent on stamp duty.

But our reliance now on corporation tax should be a concern ahead of Budget 2019. Now that we have a bit of wiggle room, let's use the time sensibly to discuss a more balanced taxation system so we can avoid the sins of the past.

Whatever the appetite at Government level for a reform of the property tax regime, a reintroduction of water charges will be a bridge too far anytime soon, even if it is an issue that still needs airing and one that Europe, quite rightly, also wants addressed.A leading adviser to some of the world's largest investors has said it is monitoring an application by the State's corporate watchdog for the appointment of inspectors to investigate affairs at Independent News and Media (INM).

Glass Lewis, which is known as a proxy adviser, draws up reports on stock market-listed companies and flags issues that might be of concern for shareholders. It has said that investors in INM, which publishes this newspaper and others, should be concerned about developments involving the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement (ODCE) as it could impact on the share price.

It is currently recommending that shareholders should vote for all of the directors of INM. But it may revisit this.

"In our view, although legal and regulatory issues are common to many companies, shareholders should be concerned with any type of lawsuit or regulatory investigation involving the company, as such matters could potentially expand in scope and prove to dampen shareholder value.

"As such, in the event that members of management or the board are implicated in any such proceedings, we may consider recommending that shareholders vote against certain directors on that basis. We will continue to monitor these issues going forward."

The other issue raised by Glass Lewis is the scale of the payment made to former CEO Robert Pitt.

He raised a number of concerns with the ODCE about matters at INM, leading to the current investigation. Mr Pitt received a severance payment of 1.5m which included a payment of 239,950 in lieu of notice, according INM's annual report.

"Shareholders should note that we are especially troubled by the large severance payments awarded to the former chief executive, particularly in light of the lack of disclosure surrounding the payment," said the Glass Lewis report.

The High Court will this Wednesday hear a bid by INM to judicially review the ODCE's decision to seek the appointment of inspectors.

The president of the High Court, Mr Justice Peter Kelly, has observed that, if successful in the judicial review, INM would deal "a knockout blow" to the corporate watchdog's application.

In the judicial review proceedings, INM is set to argue it should have been given notice of the ODCE's intention to seek inspectors, as well as an opportunity to make submissions before the application was brought.

INM will also argue its rights to fair procedures and natural and constitutional justice were breached.

In an affidavit filed with the High Court, INM non-executive director Dr Len O'Hagan said the company was not afforded an opportunity to address specific matters which ODCE director Ian Drennan says are a cause of concern.Green finance expert Sean Kidney says that Ireland should follow Singapores example and become an innovative hub despite its small size. Photo: SON Photographic

Ireland can become "a global laboratory" for green finance and renewable technologies and help drive an economic transition plan to transform sectors such as transport and energy, according to a leading expert in climate finance.

"We are heading into a world of big volatility and we have to make sure we carve out a future that has the maximum opportunity for prosperity," said London-based Australian green finance expert Sean Kidney.

He believes that Ireland is perfectly positioned to become a hub for the type of industries that will be needed to create a carbon-free global economy in the coming decade.

"There are ways to solve the problems we face in a way that gives people clean energy and better cities to live in by using measures that brings in private capital to help solve problems," said Kidney, who is the chief executive of Climate Bonds Initiative, an NGO focused on raising money for climate-change solutions, particularly in the debt markets.

Kidney was in Ireland for the launch of a new report by consultants Deloitte that outlines the challenges ahead for Ireland as it transitions to a low-carbon sustainable economy. Commissioned by Sustainable Nation Ireland, the report by Michael Flynn, Deloitte's Infrastructure & Capital Projects Leader, states that meeting Ireland's 2030 decarbonisation targets will require at least 50bn in investment, which includes government's 21.8bn investment programme in the National Development Plan.

That plan includes upgrading 45,000 homes a year from 2021, providing up to 4.5GW of additional renewable energy and transitioning to low-emission public transport. The Government has also recommended that all new vehicles should be zero emissions beyond 2030.

But speaking to the Sunday Independent, Kidney said that Ireland could still do more to build on the opportunities being presented by the huge deployment of public and private capital that is needed globally to tackle the issue of climate change.

"I'm going to call it a failure of vision," said Kidney. "Ireland should be looking to develop its offshore wind energy resource, for example. In reality, the country should ultimately not need any fossil fuel generation at all. And in transport there are huge possibilities and the vehicle range in Ireland is perfect for transitioning to electric.

"It is very hard for individuals to do anything about climate change. Most of what needs to be done is around what you might describe as engineering solutions. Yes, you can buy an electric car and that is great. But the way the world is going to change is when the government legislates that you can't buy a fossil fuel car anymore. Or you need the large-scale contracting of renewable energy as Germany did, which has since driven down the price of solar panels to such an extent that they are now affordable to use in a country like Ireland. So an individual can do what they believe is right themselves but you have got to understand that the solutions are systemic."

The Deloitte report found that, at a global scale, estimates of the financing requirements for sustainable infrastructure are in the range of up to 90 trillion. In Europe, it has been estimated by the European Commission that an additional investment of 177bn a year is required to achieve Europe's 2030 climate and energy targets.

Kidney believes that Ireland can be a major beneficiary of what will amount to "an extraordinary investment boom."

"Ireland is a highly-developed, highly-educated environment with high-tech skills and a global financial centre," he said. "It has the opportunity now of being both a green finance centre and a green technology centre. Ireland has the chance of becoming a lab for the planet on these issues.

"The challenge is for Ireland to change its own economy and then the prize is for it to export the solutions. For example, you have a strong and sophisticated agricultural industry - shift it to green fast and then export the solutions that are developed around the world."

Ireland's key advantage is that it is small and "the economy, in theory at least, is nimble", said Kidney. "Now is the time to use that nimbleness. Look at Singapore. It gets so much attention that you would think it is the size of China, but it's tiny and has become a hub for the whole of Asia on many of these issues. That's the model you need to follow."

Kidney pointed to the aviation-leasing industry as an example of how, with 60pc of leased aircraft listed here, Ireland has taken a leadership role in an industry. He believes that the country can use similar tactics to become a leader in green finance.

In February, Belgium become the third European country to issue a green bond to finance projects to lessen its dependence on carbon, with the issuance of $4.5bn, 15-year debt. That followed similar issues of green debt by France and Poland on top of an already booming market for environmentally-friendly corporate finance.

Green bonds now account for 1.5pc of global bond issuance from zero four years ago and is growing at well over 50pc a year, said Kidney - but Ireland is yet to issue one.

"The NTMA should issue a green bond on the back of the success of similar French, Belgian and Polish bonds," said Kidney.

"The challenge for the NTMA is that it has to have real projects and assets to put into such a bond. So for example it could look at buildings in the national register that are energy inefficient, any kind of mass transit project such as the Luas, the proposal to shift the gas system to biogas would qualify. The French have used this type of finance to introduce tax credits to boost renewable energy. They can also use it to refinance rollover debt if the assets that were originally financed are green too."

The issuance of green bonds makes good macro economic sense because it helps to stimulate markets in renewable and helps to create export opportunities, said Kidney.

"Every treasury that has done this has resisted it until they have done it and then become a fan afterwards," he said.

"There is a tidal wave of mainstream investor interest in this. It's not niche. Pension funds, insurance funds, Central Banks are all the customers for these types of bonds," he said.

The real solutions around climate change are largely based around urban development issues, said Kidney.

"To address climate change we have to green our cities. We are about to build a string of new cities of 20 million people, mostly in the developing world. The investment volume is like nothing the planet has ever seen before. It dwarfs the industrial revolution. If that investment is not green then the world is lost. We will lock in long-term high-carbon infrastructure, climate change feedback loops will kick in and we will have four to six degrees average warming by the end of the century and sea level rise of 4-6 metres. That is no good for anyone on the planet."Malin chief executive Adrian Howd has sold almost 300,000 of shares in the State-backed company, which continues to trade well below its IPO price.

Howd, who was chief executive at the time of the company's flotation in 2015, before standing down and then returning, sold more than 36,000 shares at 8 each on Thursday.

The sale is worth more than half of Howd's 550,000 remuneration package for 2017, which did not include share-based compensation.

That price is below the 8.88 per share at which Malin raised almost 30m from investors at the beginning of the year.

In the company's recently published annual report Howd admitted that the share price performance at Malin had been disappointing.

"Our share price performance in the second half of 2017 was particularly poor. A key focus of mine is to work with the management team to close the gap between intrinsic value and share price," he said.

"Since my appointment as CEO we have initiated a more active level of communication with shareholders and the market more generally and this will accelerate over the months ahead."

The company, set up to invest in innovative life sciences businesses, went public in 2015, raising 330m from investors including the State-owned Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF), and Neil Woodford's Woodford Capital Management. ISIF did not follow its money in at least one of the company's subsequent fundraisings.

Howd, who returned as chief executive at the beginning of October, having previously moved to the chief investment officer role, took the decision to close Malin's US office, and said he expects operating spend to be around a third lower this year. His predecessor, Kelly Martin, received a cash severance of 3.2m on the way out.

One of Malin's major problems has been the performance of Novan, one of its flagship initial investments. Novan's share price collapsed after poor results in clinical trials of its lead product - designed for the treatment of severe acne.Panda is battling London-listed Craven House Capital, which claims it signed binding heads of agreement to buy Panda a couple of years ago. Photo: Laura Larkin

A legal battle over the ownership of waste company Panda has escalated significantly after Panda launched an attack on a rival businessman's character.

Panda is battling London-listed Craven House Capital, which claims it signed binding heads of agreement to buy Panda a couple of years ago.

The waste business claims the arrangement was not binding.

On Friday Panda introduced a witness statement to the High Court, which contains details on a previous judgment for fraud against businessman, Mike Battles.

Martin Hayden SC, counsel for Sretaw (the company behind Panda), told the court that Battles, a senior figure at Craven House during the relevant period, had a final judgment for fraud against him in the USA. The judgment related to levying excessive charges for work done in Iraq.

Gary McCarthy SC, counsel for Craven House, consented to the witness statement being admitted but expressed concern that it would lead to the matter taking longer than had been anticipated.

The issue is scheduled to appear again in court on June 5.

Panda is owned by Eamon Waters, who has grown the company into Ireland's largest waste business.

In 2016 it bought rival Greenstar from investment fund Cerberus. The disputed Craven House arrangement, for which the heads of agreement were put in place in early 2015, valued Panda at just under 80m. Waters is also active in the hotel and pub sectors.

Craven House is chaired by former Bank of Ireland governor Richard Burrows, who is also the chair of British American Tobacco.

Burrows is a former chief executive of Irish Distillers and was Governor of Bank of Ireland when the financial crash happened in 2008.

The investment company's day-to-day operations are managed by Hong Kong-based Desmond Capital.The Sainsbury's/Asda merger announcement last week creates a retailing giant that will squeeze Irish suppliers hard.

The merger will combine Sainsbury's, currently number two in the UK grocery market with a 15.9pc share, with Asda, the number three with 15.5pc. The combined entity will leapfrog the current market leader Tesco, which has a 27.6pc share.

The deal will sweep aside the 'Big Four' that has dominated British food retailing for the past decade-and-a-half. It will give way not so much to a 'Big Three' but a 'Big Two' with number four Morrison, which has a 10.5pc share, receding ever further in the rear-view mirror as Tesco and Sainsbury's/Asda battle it out for market supremacy.

"This is a pivotal moment for the British grocery market. A merger between Sainsbury's and Asda would transform the traditional landscape, placing nearly a third of market share in the hands of the joint supermarket giant, though the march of the discounters - and any enforced store closures - could impact this figure", said Fraser McKevitt, head UK retail and consumer insight at market research firm Kantar Worldpanel.

The merged company will have annual sales of 51bn (57bn), 2,800 stores in the UK and 330,000 employees. It is targeting annual cost savings of "at least" 500m.

So where are the 500m (566m) of annual cost savings going to come from?

One of the first things that will happen if the deal gets the go-ahead from the UK's Competition and Markets Authority - which seems likely given that in 2017 the CMA waved through both Tesco's acquisition of wholesaler Booker and the Co-op's takeover of symbol group Nisa - is that the Sainsbury's and Asda buying teams will get together to go through every supplier contract with a fine tooth-comb.

Where they find that a supplier is being paid a higher price by either Sainsbury's or Asda, that supplier will very quickly come under extreme pressure to agree to the lower price for their entire business with the merged company instead. With only two retailers controlling over 60pc of the total market, most suppliers will have little choice but to take it on the chin.

"A merger between Sainsbury's and Asda would result in substantially increased buying power for the combined entity. Downward pricing pressure on suppliers is therefore one of the likely outcomes if the merger is approved," says Paul Kelly, director of Ibec's Food and Drink Ireland that represents most Irish suppliers.

"This adds another layer of uncertainty to the business environment faced by Irish food and drink exporters to the UK and comes on top of a massive weakening in sterling over the last 24 months, Brexit and growing moves by some retailers (as in other European markets) towards domestic sourcing policies (particularly for meat and dairy)".

To see what this might mean one has only to look at what has already happened to Greencore, the former Irish Sugar Company. Its share price fell sharply last week following the announcement of the proposed merger as investors worried about the impact of the merger on its sandwich business, which supplies both Sainsbury's and Asda.

"It [the merger] has come as quite a shock. It was not expected that the number two and three retailers would merge in this way. The large companies are most exposed," says Michelle Butler, Bord Bia's UK market manager.

In addition to Greencore, the Irish-quoted companies most vulnerable to a merged Sainsbury's/Asda are Kerry, Glanbia and Total Produce. Major non-quoted Irish food companies that could find themselves in the firing line include Ornua (the former Irish Dairy Board) and Larry Goodman's ABP, which is the principal beef supplier to both Sainsbury's and Asda.

Kerry published its first-quarter interim management statement last Thursday, in which it revealed a 3.7pc increase in business volumes during the first three months of the year and reaffirmed its full-year earnings guidance.

"Kerry is guiding little or no impact [from the merger]. While there will be some pressure on pricing in consumer foods, Kerry is also helping other suppliers to reformulate their products on the nutrition side. This means that there will be little, if any, net impact," says Investec food analyst Ian Hunter.

He also predicts that Total Produce will be relatively unscathed by the merger.

"Fruit and veg is very resilient. It is the first thing on the way in to every store. The distributors work on such low margins [Total Produce had a 2017 operating margin of just 1.6pc in 2017] that the multiples allow pricing to go through".

The merger announcement comes less than two years after the UK voted to leave the EU. Ironically, the shock of the Brexit referendum result may have left Irish suppliers better prepared for the Sainsbury's/Asda merger.

"Irish suppliers are very resilient. They have already endured Brexit and have invested in innovation, cost reduction and other markets. They are now in a much better position than they were two or three years ago," says Bord Bia's Butler.

The proportion of Irish food and drink exports being sold in the UK has fallen from 41pc in 2015 to 35pc in 2017. However, the strong growth in Irish food and drink exports over this period means that the value of Irish food and drink exports to the UK increased marginally, from 4.4bn in 2015 to 4.5bn in 2017.

The merger is being driven primarily by the rise of German discounters Aldi and Lidl, who between them now have 12.7pc of the UK grocery market (still only just over half the discounters' 22.8pc share of the Irish market). All of the other UK supermarkets are under unrelenting pressure to match the discounters' prices.

Their response has been to develop a core range of a couple of thousand items on which they seek to match the discounters on price. Suppliers, including those from this country, of these core products have already seen their margins squeezed.

This price pressure will become even more intense when the merger is consummated, probably in late 2019.

The challenge for Irish suppliers will be to develop new, higher-margin lines to offset this margin erosion. "Irish companies may have to take a hit on their margins in key lines and try to make it back on new lines", says Butler.

"With two players having over 60pc of the market they will be the ones who dictate pricing. All of the others will have to follow their lead. Supermarkets are now competing virtually exclusively on price and special offers," says Hunter.Welltel provides telecoms solutions to over 3,000 customers both in Ireland and internationally.

Irish-owned business telecoms provider Welltel has bought Eyrco Communications, a specialist business call recording company for around 4m.

Welltel provides telecoms solutions to over 3,000 customers both in Ireland and internationally.

The company has featured for four consecutive years in the Deloitte Fast 50 awards.

Eyrco was established in 2015 when managing director Mark Evans led an MBO of the voice and call recording business of Unity Technology Solutions.

Eyrco will now become the enterprise division of the company and be rebranded as Welltel Enterprise, with Evans staying in the role managing director.

"This acquisition is another step towards our long-term goal of becoming the 'go to' player in the business communications market," said Welltel chief executive Ross Murray.

"We are on track towards our target through a compelling combination of strong organic platform growth and strategic M&A.

"Today being a 'well-connected' business means more than just voice, data and cloud technology. It means your business has access to thousands of service combinations with dedicated expertise to advise and guide," he added.The festival is part of an ongoing attempt to move the image of Temple Bar away from being seen as a destination for stag and hen parties back to its original remit as a cultural quarter. Picture: Fergal Phillips

Temple Bar is in negotiations with both former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon and former intern Monica Lewinsky for an upcoming political festival to be hosted in the cultural quarter.

The two high-profile US personalities are set to appear at the annual Festival of Politics, which this year will run in November.

The festival is part of an ongoing attempt to move the image of Temple Bar away from being seen as a destination for stag and hen parties back to its original remit as a cultural quarter.

It is being organised by the Temple Bar Company, a non-profit collective of businesses and cultural centres.

CEO Martin Harte confirmed that he is in negotiation with both Bannon and Lewinsky.

"We want to provide a festival that looks at the broadest range of issues," he said.

It is scheduled for the week after the eagerly awaited US mid-term elections that are likely to deliver a seismic result - one way or another - for Bannon's former boss, President Donald Trump.

Zoltan Istvan, a so-called transhumanist who is currently running for Governor of California, has been confirmed for the event.The companys software is designed to help customers, including Lidl, monitor their refrigeration in real-time. Photo: Getty Images

Smart refrigeration business Zeto is looking to raise 20m via an initial coin offering (ICO).

The company's software is designed to help customers, including Lidl, monitor their refrigeration in real-time. It raised 500,000 via a pre-sale last week. It's one of the first ICOs by an Irish firm.

Zeto, which is backed by Kernel Capital, has been working with solicitors Ronan Daly Jermyn and one of the 'Big Four' accountancy firms "to ensure a robust legal and financial framework" for issuing the cryptocurrency.

CEO Stephen Slattery said the company was very confident of reaching the 20m target, but said the ICO was a high-risk investment.

He said the company is introducing blockchain technology - the system that underpins Bitcoin - to its product. Blockchain creates a tamper-proof database of records, which is publicly available to users.

The process does not involve Zeto issuing debt or shareholders selling down equity. Instead coin buyers will look to generate a return from the coins increasing in value. Zeto plans to make its products available at a discount to those who use the coins, one of the ways in which demand might rise. It is also examining other uses for the coins.Recently, some customers of Ulster Bank found when they attempted to access their accounts online that their funds had disappeared. Salaries went missing, and many customers found they were unable to use their debit cards. Photo: PA

What are the chances that the latest loss of day-to-day banking for some at Ulster Bank will prompt more people to switch bank accounts? Don't hold your breath that the latest episode of a bank being unable to carry out basic functions will spur more people to move their accounts to a different provider, would be my answer.

Recently, some customers of Ulster Bank found when they attempted to access their accounts online that their funds had disappeared. Salaries went missing, and many customers found they were unable to use their debit cards.

The bank said the problems arose as a result of a mistake by a staff member, but it is just the latest in a long line of outages that have plagued the bank. It was fined 5m by the Central Bank for an IT failure that left customers unable to access their bank accounts for weeks on end in the summer of 2012. Its parent group, Royal Bank of Scotland, was fined 64m by UK regulators.

A spokesman insisted Ulster Bank is among the banks benefiting from 1.14bn spent every year by its parent, Royal Bank of Scotland, on technology and innovation.

Many people took to Twitter over the latest blunder and threatened to move bank.

But history teaches us that most will not follow through on this. The latest figures from the Central Bank show that there are close to 5.3 million current accounts provided by six banks in this country.

But the numbers switching are pitiful. Just 2,715 people switched current account in first half of last year, the latest date for which figures are available. That means just 0.05pc of accounts are switched.

The Department of Finance has an excellent website, SwitchYourBank.ie, which takes you through the switching process.

The website is funded by AIB and Permanent TSB as conditions of their bailout.

But people do not want to go to the effort of moving bank due to inertia, but also due to a justifiable fear something will go wrong and a mortgage payment will be missed.

They excuse their inertia by telling themselves that all the banks are as bad as each other.

This lack of customer switching action lets banks off the hook.

They can get away with poor services and repeated technical mess-ups secure in the knowledge that they will not lose customers.

This is unforgivable, and requires the Central Bank to insist on higher standards from banks.

Customers, for their part, must learn to stop threatening to switch and instead vote with their feet.In a rising economy, when consumer demand increases, prices go up. In contrast, regrettably, we often see levels of customer service going down as businesses focus on quick profits. How many times have you heard stories of service providers not calling the customer back after an initial enquiry?

A close friend is in the market to buy a property and is frustrated at the lack of follow-up to phone calls. On the other hand, in the last few years I have personally worked with estate agents and have met some very professional operators. But excellence in customer service is very inconsistent across the board.

It really bothered me during the Celtic Tiger years to see so many businesses develop a level of arrogance and complacency to customer service. Are we in danger of returning to this as our economy returns to growth?

Saint-Gobain

Expand Close Kieran Holohan, Marketing Director for Gyproc and Isover at Saint Gobain Ireland. Alan O'Neill says: "I have worked with two of their building material brands, Gyproc and Isover, which have a long history of providing innovative, cost-effective and reliable products that meet the demands of the local construction industry." / Facebook

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Whatsapp Kieran Holohan, Marketing Director for Gyproc and Isover at Saint Gobain Ireland. Alan O'Neill says: "I have worked with two of their building material brands, Gyproc and Isover, which have a long history of providing innovative, cost-effective and reliable products that meet the demands of the local construction industry."

The construction industry had a calamitous recession. Today, however, despite the shortage of housing, it's encouraging to see some strong numbers coming through. Construction output for 2018 is forecast to grow by 12.7pc and in 2019 by 7.9pc.

This is good news for all companies in the construction industry. Among them is the Saint-Gobain Group, a Fortune 500 multinational with global revenues of 40bn. It designs, manufactures and distributes materials and solutions which can be found everywhere in our living places and our daily life.

In Ireland, some of the best-known brands in the construction sector are part of the group, including Gyproc, Isover, Weber, JP Corry, Bassetts, and PDM. Together they offer a range of energy-saving products and solutions to help create a more sustainable built environment.

I have worked with two of their building material brands, Gyproc and Isover, which have a long history of providing innovative, cost-effective and reliable products that meet the demands of the local construction industry.

They have been involved in many of Ireland's biggest building projects including Google Docks, the Convention Centre Dublin, the Aviva Stadium, Bord Gais Energy Theatre, The Titanic Signature Building and T2 at Dublin Airport.

Saint-Gobain provides solutions that make buildings more efficient in terms of their energy consumption, which help contribute to reducing harmful CO2 emissions.

Most of its solutions (especially those using glass, mineral wool insulation, plasterboard, and facade and floor covering mortars) are already helping and will help even more in the future to improve the energy efficiency of buildings.

Recent challenges

"Our vision is to be the most trusted, respected and valued building materials partner on the island of Ireland," said Brian Dolan, managing director. "We are really serious about that. As a market leader in the construction industry, we believe we have a responsibility to lead change and bring our customer more to the fore."

This is a strong, brave but very achievable ambition for any organisation. Gyproc and Isover are B2B suppliers whose customers include contractors, merchants and architects.

How do they introduce a new business model that convinces both customers and their own employees that this is the future?

Change tips

1 Get consensus from the leadership team

The leadership team of Saint-Gobain started the conversation a number of years ago. They brought in external speakers (me included) to provoke the organisation into thinking differently. I was briefed to share case studies of other organisations and other industries to show how the world was changing.

2 Benchmark your current service level against others in the industry

Saint-Gobain did this and discovered that customers already rated the company very highly. Nevertheless, to really challenge themselves, the team also benchmarked themselves against other industries. That exposed new opportunities for continuous improvement.

Pat O'Connor, the operations director, said: "We discovered that we were very transactional in our approach and we needed to move on from giving great customer service to excellence in customer experience".

3 Engage your own people

The team mapped the customer journey at all interactions, from order taking to deliveries and every touch-point in-between. They identified obstacles and opportunities for improvement.

"We listened to our own people as they are the ones at the front line," said Pat. An example of this is where the logistics team examined how trucks were being loaded and off-loaded.

By listening to customers and engaging with their own people from different departments, they improved the process.

4 Keep customer experience as a priority by providing customer experience training for all

This is not just a one-off for Saint-Gobain, as they also provide regular, continuous training.

Summary

Over the years in my capacity as a change agent, I have supported organisations with strategy development, culture change and people productivity. Regardless of the brief, I always ensure that internal and external customer experience gets special attention. What impressed me when working with Saint-Gobain was that, despite having targets to achieve, they have embraced the reality of our new world and prioritised customer experience as a key business driver.

I passionately believe that as the world continues to change, excellence in customer experience is the new battleground. This applies to all industries, B2C, B2B and the public sector.

Alan O'Neill is a change consultant and non-executive director. For 30-plus years he has been supporting global and iconic brands through change. Alan-oneill.com. Business advice questions for Alan can be sent to sundaybusiness@independent.ieA corporate online presence has for some time been a cornerstone of the image and brand equities a company wants to communicate.

The past five years has seen enormous growth in social media platforms - and there is great potential to use them for building a presence, particularly in the US.

The effectiveness of social media for companies was explored at the recent E3: 'Entrepreneurship Export Exchange' conference in Dublin, co-hosted by Enterprise Ireland and the Washington DC consultancy Global Situation Room.

Business confidence is high, presenting opportunities for Irish companies across the US. The US unemployment rate is at 4.1pc, its lowest since 2001. GDP growth for Q4 2017 was also faster than predicted.

A third of E3's conference speakers hailed from a media background and advised that 'getting your story right' is critical for Irish companies in the US, when using social media and presenting pitches to customers and investors. Business leaders should practice telling their story succinctly in a way that makes it easy to grasp.

Declan Fearon, managing director at Tipperary Crystal and CEO at Freezadome, comments: "Freezadome attended to explore strategies for growing exports to the USA and Mexico. E3 was the most informative conference I've attended in years.

"The knowledgeable mix of speakers in the packed room travelled from the US and UK to share expertise on how to sell and grow your business, and how valuable the Irish connection can be in the market."

North America is home to the world's highest penetration of social media users. According to Statista, the global statistics portal, 81pc of US Americans had a social media profile in 2017. That range of penetration enables Irish companies to access a huge potential customer base at potentially low cost.

Smart use of social media at industry events provides one of the best opportunities to engage a highly-targeted audience. Event hashtags are closely followed by attendees.

Include the event's handle and hashtag to share insights that can help build the right following and engagement. Using the #EntIrl hashtag at Enterprise Ireland events can help to get your brand exposed to attendees, who may be potential customers or partners.

Philip Martin, CEO of Cora Systems, says: "The #IrishAdvantage is allowing Cora to power transformation in enterprise organisations such as Teleflex, Allergan, Boston Scientific, Analog, Elanco and Nabriva. Introductions made at Enterprise Ireland events helped Cora to develop strong partnerships in the US. The multinational nature of our client base enables seamless implementations of our enterprise portfolio and project management solution for US customers."

How Irish companies should negotiate contracts with US clients was another important topic explored at E3. Irish businesses can be daunted when approaching American firms, viewing themselves at a disadvantage, with odds stacked in favour of the larger company.

But remember that domain expertise can help you to occupy a strong negotiating position. Being the main sectoral expert in the room and owning the subject matter can add value to the potentially broader capabilities of large US companies.

The well-known flexibility of Irish companies should also apply to contract negotiations. Irish firms should remember to sell US clients what they need, and not simply what you offer at present.

To learn more about what US locations offer, Irish companies should contact local economic development offices (EDOs), which operate at state level from coast to coast, north to south, and at city and county level.

EDOs aren't just interested in big firms but are open to conversations with SMEs interested in opening a sub-office with even two or three employees. The EDOs' umbrella organisation SelectUSA has personnel in the US embassy in Dublin and is organising a summit in Washington DC from June 20-22.

Sean Davis is Enterprise Ireland's regional manager for North AmericaTesco and Lidl have both sought permission to add more retail space in the city, although neither development is a certainty.

Grocery retailers have moved to advance multimillion developments at sites on Dublin's northside in recent days, despite an uncertain retail environment.

Tesco and Lidl have both sought permission to add more retail space in the city, although neither development is a certainty.

Tesco is looking to add a major extension to its store in Artane, while Lidl is hoping to build a brand new store in Drumcondra that has previously fallen foul of the planning authorities.

The Lidl plan is for a 3,200 sq m store between the new DCU campus and the Skylon Hotel on the site of an existing car repairs garage and creche that both would be demolished.

In January An Bord Pleanala overturned a decision by the local authority to grant planning permission for the new Drumcondra Lidl store, after a number of local businesses and residents challenged the decision on the basis of its size and location.

But the City Council has now extended the duration of the original planning permission out to April 2023.

Expand Close Tesco and Lidl have both sought permission to add more retail space in the city, although neither development is a certainty. / Facebook

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Whatsapp Tesco and Lidl have both sought permission to add more retail space in the city, although neither development is a certainty.

The store, if built, would be three storeys and include a restaurant and off-licence. Objectors previously argued the area contains an abundance of such outlets, including a nearby Tesco store.

Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for Tesco confirmed that its application for an extension of duration of the permission it had previously received for a 1,000 sq m expansion at Artane Shopping Centre has been granted.

"We are now assessing our plans and as such a development start date has yet to be confirmed," she said. "Our new 30m retail centre at Liffey Valley - Tesco's 151st store in Ireland - is scheduled to open on Monday May 28. 2018."

Tesco has previously indicated that proposed new developments halted by the economic downturn could now restart because of the improved economy.

It is already seeking to reheat abandoned plans for a major new store in Wicklow because of the upturn in the retail market. The British multiple has said previously that it planned to invest 70m in stores across the country during 2018.

Figures last month from industry lobby group Retail Excellence Ireland (REI) show that although the overall economy continues to improve, like-for-like sales were down 1.2pc in March. Bad weather was seen as a factor.As Storm Emma raged across Ireland in March, Fergus Elebert sat in his kitchen with an array of laptops spread out across his table.

The Irish regional director of French environmental services giant Veolia had recently helped prepare a report about global trends - not least climate change - that will impact Ireland's water, waste and energy infrastructure between now and 2050.

Elebert, like many others, now found himself stuck at home because of a very stark example of the type of highly-disruptive weather event that scientists fear could be the ultimate result if the types of ideas contained in the Veolia report are not implemented.

But for Elebert he had more than just himself to worry about as the storm raged outside: with some of his key staff stuck in foreign airports he had to coordinate efforts to ensure that the water services provided by Veolia to 2.3 million people around the country continued to work.

"For the whole weekend my kitchen was like Nasa," he says. "The phone never stopped. I was feeding in regular reports from all of our plants to Irish Water for the National Emergency Coordination Group. A lot of the water treatment plants can be operated remotely. But in the bad weather access was still a problem for staff. For example, at wastewater treatment plants you need to get the sludge out. So I had to make requests for snow ploughs to be prioritised to let staff in four-wheel drives access plants in badly-hit areas."

None of the plants operated by Veolia had to close during the bad weather, he says proudly. But climate change, he says, is a very real threat for a company like Veolia.

"One of the things that we have learned is that you have to put robustness in at the design stage. And the guys who run our sites locally are always asking the question 'what if?' and we encourage them to do that. They come up with innovations to guard against the things that could happen."

The Veolia approach is built on decades of experience. Its roots stretch back 160 years to a water company in Napoleonic France. It has been in Ireland since 1990. Globally, it employs 168,000 and has a turnover of 25bn. It has 600 employees on the island of Ireland and turnover in excess of 120m, with growth over the next three years expected to be between 4pc and 5pc year-on-year.

"We are on track with that. We could probably grow faster but that is a sustainable growth rate and that is what is important."

"Sustainable" is a key word in the Veolia message, one that Elebert uses repeatedly in conversation and 58pc of the company's revenues in Ireland are from what Elebert describes as the "circular economy", which he says is no less than a brand new industrial revolution. Veolia sees it as an emerging business model that enables the economy to grow while minimising the amount of virgin resources extracted. The World Economic Forum has forecast that the circular economy will contribute $1 trillion a year globally by 2025 and that the adoption of what Veolia describes as a closed-loop system could add 1.65bn to Ireland's GDP as well as 5,000 jobs.

With its expertise in waste, water and energy, Veolia is on the front line for the changes to come. For example, the company operates a waste treatment plant in Fermoy, Co Cork, that has already developed just such a lucrative closed-loop system. It takes in difficult and hazardous waste streams, for example from the pharmaceutical sector, and uses a process called fractional distillation to separate out solvents and other waste products into individual compounds. These compounds can then be used to create fuel and other products to generate a revenue stream. The Fermoy plant can recover up to 45pc of the compounds it takes in and the company is undertaking research and development at other sites in France and the UK that could push this much closer to a 100pc "total recovery" model. It's a perfect example of the circular economy in action, says Elebert.

"Everyone wants to reuse and recycle now. Landfill is a no-no. Our technology can mine a waste stream and take the value out and that can be substantial. For example, we were able to look at the waste stream of one of our pharma clients here in Ireland and isolated a very rare and expensive chemical from it. Extracting it created a revenue stream for the pharma plant. Other pharma plants could use their own waste streams to create the fuel they need to power themselves entirely."

The principle can be applied to all forms of waste, says Elebert. In the UK, Veolia has major long-term domestic waste contracts and uses the food waste it collects as a raw material for fertiliser, while other waste is converted to energy. The whole operation is Veolia's biggest business in the UK. But, for now, at least, domestic waste is not a revenue-generator in Ireland.

"We got out of that business here years ago because of the way the business is structured here," says Elebert. "You need to have a stable supply of waste but the industry is deregulated and not conducive to that. We would not get a long-term contract and there is competition. If it changed would we be interested? Yes. But you need to have that constant supply if you are going to invest."

But there are plenty of other opportunities in Ireland for Veolia to be getting on with. It will likely bid for a range of projects in Irish Water's multi-billion euro capital plan in the coming years and last year won the contract for the extension to the huge Ringsend waste treatment plant.

The company also has a large number of utility maintenance contracts with industrial clients across Ireland, particularly in the pharmaceutical sector where it counts eight out of the 10 biggest players in the sector amongst its client base.

"When it comes to waste, energy and water, we can do everything and anything for them. For example, we run combined heat and power plants for some of the manufacturers to produce steam and electricity to ensure robustness of operations that run 24 hours a day, seven days a week."

The challenge for anyone supplying into the pharma sector, says Elebert, is to achieve absolute consistency and to be fully compliant with the tight regulations the sector operates under.

"These companies are also under pressure from a cost point of view because their drugs are coming off patent. They have to drive efficiency so that they can bring costs down so as to make it less attractive for the generic manufacturers to come into a particular market."

Food is another growth sector for Veolia in Ireland. It has just won a major maintenance contract with agri and dairy co-op Aurivo, that will include a complete analysis of the co-op's systems to identify potential energy efficiencies.

"That allows us develop a plan for the company around energy over the next three to five years and we can bring in waste and water expertise if necessary. Aurivo wants to concentrate on what it does well - making butter and other dairy products - and our expertise can allow them to do that more efficiently."

The analysis will ultimately break down for every product produced at the company's plants exactly how much steam, electricity, transport went into making that product.

"We can then compare this to data from similar plants around the world in which we are involved to show how sustainable it is and where they can achieve improvements. Once again, it is about the circular economy."

Veolia itself has not been immune to change in recent times and the shape of its Irish operation today is the product of French corporate machinations. "The only constant thing around here is change," says Elebert.

Elebert began his career as an apprentice electrician in the 1970s and progressed to engineering. He worked for various electrical contractors and other firms, including a major manufacturer of dairy equipment - an experience that is serving him well in his current role. He eventually took a role with the Irish operation of French company Dalkia, which itself was 70pc owned by Veolia and 30pc by giant French power company EDF.

"At the time Veolia was looking to expand Dalkia and EDF was not as keen on expansion. In July 2013 they came to a mutual agreement whereby Veolia bought Dalkia International and EDF bought Dalkia France."

Dalkia in Ireland was rebranded Veolia. Since 2015, Veolia itself has gone through its own internal restructuring to more closely align its three main business divisions: waste, energy and water.

"Our Dublin office was - and is - primarily energy-focused but we have water and waste people here now too. A lot of our water business is based in an office in Kilkenny and we have the waste transfer station in Fermoy."

As part of the internal restructuring, Veolia Transport - a fourth division of the company which held the contract to run and operate Dublin's Luas system - was divested along with the main Luas contract to transport firm Transdev.

"Veolia's goal in its restructuring was to focus on becoming an environmental company. Water, waste and energy all made sense but transport did not really fit in as neatly.

"As it happens though, if you are on the Luas, you will still see guys with Veolia high-vis vests because we still have a depot and infrastructure maintenance contract on the Luas."

For Elebert all the change has been very positive: "It has been an exciting time. There has been a lot of learning. I was from the energy business and I have had plenty to learn about waste and water."

And if Veolia's Imagine 2050 report about the challenges and opportunities facing this country and the rest of the globe is to be believed, the excitement - for better or worse - is only getting started.

Name

Fergus Elebert

Age

56

Position

Regional director of Veolia Ireland

Lives

Raheny, Dublin 5

Education

DIT Kevin Street and IMI

Family

Wife Yvonne, children Jacqueline, Daniel and Andrea

Pastimes

Member of St Vincent's GAA, walking, fishing

Favourite book

Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy

Favourite movie

The Shawshank Redemption

Favourite holiday

Orlando, FloridaThe Air France-KLM Group was thrown into disarray on Friday after CEO Jean-Marc Janaillac said he would resign following the rejection by workers of a wage offer aimed at ending a series of crippling strikes.

The airline boss "will convene meetings with the Air France-KLM and Air France boards of directors on 9 May and will submit his resignation," the company said in a statement.

About 55pc of staff who voted rejected the proposal in an online poll. The airline has faced 13 days of labour action by pilots, cabin crew and ground staff since February 22.

A "no" vote amounts to pressing "the self-destruction button", RBC analysts wrote in a note before the results were known.

While the outcome isn't legally binding, it will boost the negotiating position of unions at the French arm of Air France-KLM Group.

A majority of labour representatives have to approve any wage deal for it to take effect. Management offered a 7pc increase over four years, while unions were pushing for a 5.1pc rise this year.

Rotating two-day walkouts at Europe's biggest airline have taken their toll, with the carrier warning last week that full-year results are expected to be "notably below" 2017.

The strikes will wipe out at least 300m ($358m) in operating profit while the carrier's fuel bill will be 350m higher and the stronger euros will also have a negative impact. Shares dropped the most in six months.

"A bad proposal remains a bad proposal," Beltran Ybarra, a representative of the main pilots' union, said by phone before the end of voting.

Air France has a history of labour strife, with previous chief Alexandre de Juniac toppled amid strikes and violent clashes as workers sought to repel plans for a new low-cost operation based outside France.

Janaillac had avoided conflict by focusing efforts on the new Joon unit staffed by lower-paid cabin crew, before eventually having to confront pay issues at the main airline.

BloombergThe move came after Xerox said its board and management team would stay as an agreement it had reached with dissenting shareholders Darwin Deason and Carl Icahn to oust them expired last Thursday. Photo: Stock Image

Xerox has appealed a New York court's ruling to block its deal with Fujifilm, saying the decision to approve the deal rests with the companies' shareholders and not the court.

The move came after Xerox said its board and management team would stay as an agreement it had reached with dissenting shareholders Darwin Deason and Carl Icahn to oust them expired last Thursday.

In its appeal, Xerox disputed the court's findings that the board breached their fiduciary duties in approving the deal.

The New York Court temporarily blocked the transaction, finding Xerox CEO Jeff Jacobson "hopelessly conflicted" and that he sought to conclude the deal even though he was advised to end negotiations.

The printer and copier maker said in a statement on Friday that its board unanimously authorised the deal after "months-long discussions and deliberations".

"With the caveat that I have not been privy to these negotiations, I find the rejection of the settlement by the Xerox board to be extraordinary and highly unusual," said Guhan Subramanian, professor at Harvard's law and business schools.

Deason and Icahn said the agreement had expired over last-minute issues that arose in negotiations between the activists, Xerox and the judge before the court could act on the settlement to put it into effect ahead of the self-imposed deadline on Thursday evening.

Xerox said the agreement expired because of the "absence of stipulations" related to activist shareholders ending their litigations.

Deason, who owns about 15pc of the company, sued to block the merger, claiming Xerox's board failed shareholders by approving a deal that undervalues the company.

Charles Elson, professor of corporate governance at University of Delaware, said Xerox's move has created a lot of confusion in the market.

"I haven't seen this before. It may have happened somewhere but not at a company the size of Xerox. Ultimately the shareholders will decide, but this gives the activists more ammunition," Elson added.

Reuters previously reported that buyout firm Apollo Global Management has approached Xerox to express interest in a possible acquisition, casting uncertainty over the Fujifilm deal.

Fujifilm, which has objected to the settlement between Xerox and the activists, said it was satisfied the settlement had expired. Fujifilm has also said it is planning to appeal last week's court order.

Xerox and Fujifilm agreed in late January to a $6.1bn deal that would merge the US printer and copier maker into Fuji Xerox, an existing joint venture between Xerox and Fujifilm.

ReutersA body image comedy with some strong ideas, Abby John and Marc Silverman's I Feel Pretty thinks big but ultimately falls flat because it lacks the courage of its convictions. It also manages to squander the formidable comic talent of Amy Schumer, who proved conclusively that she can carry this sort of film in Trainwreck. She does her best here and bares all in a role that leaves no room for vanity.

Renee Bennett feels oppressed by the world and is crippled by a lack of physical confidence. She's on the chubby side, and takes every throwaway remark as a personal slight. She has good friends and a tolerable job, but her dearest wish is to wake up beautiful. She's granted it, after a fashion, when she bumps her head at the gym and becomes convinced she's gorgeous. Suddenly brimming with confidence, she patronises her 'plain' friends, gets a boyfriend and lands a job as a receptionist at a top Manhattan cosmetics company.

There, her cheerful swagger wins over her glamorous boss, Avery LeClaire (Michelle Williams), who quickly promotes her. But Renee's new life is built on an illusion which will sooner or later fade.

Clearly inspired by the 80s classic Big (which it references), and films like Shallow Hal, I Feel Pretty tries to have it both ways. Early on we are clearly invited to mock Renee's appearance and most of the film's comedy stems from the fact she thinks she's stunning, but isn't. All of this makes a last minute rallying cry for females of all shapes and sizes ring hollow. Worse than that, though, I Am Pretty isn't very funny.

I Feel Pretty (12A, 112mins) **

Lean On Pete (15A, 127mins) ****

Charlie Plummer is a fine young actor and delivers his most complete performance to date in Lean On Pete, Andrew Haigh's low-key drama based on a novel by Willy Vlautin. Neglected by his hard-drinking single father, Charley Thompson (Plummer) is at a loose end till he meets a weather-beaten horse trainer called Del (Steve Buscemi) and offers to work for him. Charley proves a natural with the animals and forms a particular attachment to an aging racehorse, Lean On Pete.

But Pete has seen better days and when Del decides it's time to get rid of him, Charley makes a bold and desperate decision. Chloe Sevigny co-stars as a kindly female jockey, and Haigh's spare screenplay and unfussy direction lend the production a bleak poetry. Expect to see a lot more of Charlie Plummer.

The Young Karl Marx (No Cert, IFI, 118mins) ****

Thinking of Karl Marx as a real, passionate, earthy, funny man is a bit like imagining Jesus having sex. But sex he had (Marx I mean, not Christ) and lots of children, and in Raoul Peck's warm and engaging biopic, we're given an intriguing insight into the great man's formative years. He was not the first communist, but would eventually become the most influential, especially after he joined forces with Frederick Engels, the smart and wealthy son of a German industrialist.

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Young Karl Marx explores the early course of a friendship that would change the world. August Diehl is well cast as a ragged, bellicose Marx, Stefan Konarske is Engels, Vicky Krieps is Marx's sainted wife, and Olivier Gourmet is terrific as the avuncular French communist Proudhon. Their impassioned debates make communism seem such an attractive idea: good job Marx and Engels didn't live to see the horrors committed in their names.

A Cambodian Spring (15A, 126mins) ****

And finally, a word about A Cambodian Spring, Chris Kelly's fine documentary filmed over six years in the Boeung Kak region of Cambodia. In 2009, the Cambodian government leased a large part of the area to the Shukaku corporation, which proceeded to fill the beautiful Boeung Kak lake with sand and begin razing the homes of nearby villagers. Two working class mothers and a Buddhist monk joined forces to mount a heroic protest, which is charted by this moving, evocative film.Cannes kicks off on Tuesday, but without any input from Netflix, who withdrew their films from the festival last month after an angry spat with the organisers. The festival, and the French film industry, insist only movies that have been given a theatrical release in their territory are eligible for Cannes, while Netflix do not seem to believe in the concept of theatrical release at all. All of which is no doubt to be continued, but the saddest victim of this row is a new film from Orson Welles.

Welles began shooting The Other Side of the Wind almost 50 years ago: a tricky and experimental satire about a bullish film director who rages against the dying of the light, it was intended to mark Orson's triumphant return to Hollywood after decades of peripatetic exile. But it didn't work out that way.

Midway through shooting, the film got bogged down in a dispute over funding. Production was halted in 1975, and Welles was still fitfully editing it when he died of a heart attack a decade later. As legal wrangles dragged on, the original negative lay mouldering in a Parisian vault for decades before Orson's old friend Peter Bogdanovich gained access to the print and reported that it was in great condition.

After several attempts to edit and restore the film, Netflix stepped in to fund completion of The Other Side of the Wind, for a premiere on the streaming site.

Not at Cannes though, which would surely have been the most appropriate venue. Instead it will appear with a blip but without fanfare on Netflix, accompanied by a Morgan Neville documentary on its making.

Another documentary, The Eyes of Orson Welles, by British documentarian Mark Cousins will feature though, appearing in this year's Cannes Classics sidebar.

Orson, however, would surely have been amused by the fact that, even 30-odd years after his death, his unlucky film continues to inspire bitter disputes.

He started it with such high hopes. By 1969, Welles had been wandering through Spain, France, Italy and the Balkans for 20-odd years, living in hotels and taking on dodgy parts in bad films to finance his own projects. Some of them, like Othello, Macbeth and Touch of Evil (completed during a brief and unhappy return to the US in the 1950s) had been very good, and some critics go so far as to suggest that his 1965 mash-up of Shakespeare's history plays, Chimes at Midnight, is his real masterpiece. But the strain of making them in fits and starts while mired in constant debt had taken a heavy toll on Orson: he was tired, and wanted to return to the place where film making had, in some senses, been easiest.

Late 1960s Hollywood seemed ripe for a Welles revival. It was in the midst of being taken over by a new breed of young and daring auteurs who would radically reshape mainstream film-making. Arthouse experimentation was in, and Orson had practically invented it.

The idea for The Other Side of the Wind had come to him years before, shortly after the suicide of his sometime friend Ernest Hemingway. He wrote a draft called 'Sacred Beasts' about an ageing bullfighter who forms an ambiguous bond with a young protege. When he returned to California in 1969, the bullfighter became a film director, allowing Orson to expand his film into a playful critique of the industry that had invented and half-destroyed him.

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Filming began in 1970, after Welles had cast his old friend John Huston as Jake Hannaford, the bullying monomaniac at the centre of the movie.

Hannaford, desperate to be taken seriously by his peers, has made a slow-moving, pompous art movie which appears in long excerpts in Welles' film and was intended as a pastiche of Antonioni. But at a party for his 70th birthday, Hannaford's guests mock him behind his back, while he himself pursues an actor he's obsessed with and is pursued by a shrewish film journalist who was surely modelled on Pauline Kael, not a critic dear to Orson's heart.

Welles shot those party scenes boldly and brilliantly, arming his guests with 8mm cameras to allow for multiple perspectives. By 1972, he claimed that "96pc" of the film was in the can, but as usual he was spoofing, and principal photography didn't conclude until January, 1976.

By that point, unfortunately, other problems had arisen. Though his experiences as a guerilla auteur in Europe had taught him to shoot fast and make do, Orson had always been terrible with money. And while initially he'd used his and his partner Oja Kodar's money to fund the shoot, he was eventually forced to find other backers.

The film's co-producer, Dominique Antoine, began negotiations with an Iranian businessman, who turned out to be the Shah's brother-in-law. A Spanish associate would be the go-between, and the Iranians agreed to front up $250,000. But as the months passed and the Spaniard kept coming back empty handed, even the financially gullible Welles began to smell a rat.

That greedy go-between is alleged to have been the producer Andres Vicente Gomez, who has always denied making off with the Iranian dough. Whatever happened to it, Welles was left without the money to edit his film in the complex and expensive way he'd wanted. And in 1979, when the Shah of Iran was deposed, the Ayatollah's revolutionary government claimed ownership of the only complete and pristine print. So did the French government, which would have been more inclined to return it to Orson, but instead a messy stalemate left the film - and its maker - in limbo.

I remember as a child seeing a fat man dressed in black wander across the screen of our Telefunken muttering amiably about sherry. "Who is he?" I asked my dad. "Orson Welles," he said. I sought no clarification.

In the last decade of his life, Orson became a show pony, doing TV ads and turning up on chat shows to tell tall tales about his film-making adventures. He chewed cigars and wore a Mephisto beard and seemed like a parody of the genius artist. And all the while, he tinkered away at an incomplete print of the film he hoped would eventually see the light of day.

Peter Bogdanovich, who put him up in his Beverly Hills mansion for two years and would become a kind of Saint Peter to Orson's Jesus, later said that Welles once made him promise that, if he died, the young director would do all in his power to ensure that The Other Side of the Wind was completed and released.

Bogdanovich cannot have known how very long that would take, but must now be immensely satisfied with the large part he played in saving the film. But Welles never got to see it play, and must have worried that it would join the long list of projects he'd started and left unfinished.

Incredibly, for a man who started his directing career at 25, Orson Welles only completed 13 features. He was an arrogant, grandiose character, not always easy to deal with, but Hollywood did a terrible job of it. The brilliance with which he'd shot to fame by co-writing, directing, producing and starring in the instant masterpiece Citizen Kane was never forgotten, also never forgiven, and from the very start, Tinseltown was brimming with enemies keen to see him fail.

In 1970, when Orson was given a lifetime achievement Oscar by the Academy, John Huston took to the stage at the Oscars to accept it in his colleague's stead. "I'll drop this off to Orson in Spain on my way back to Ireland," Huston said. But Welles was a couple of miles away, in Beverly Hills, hiding out but probably watching, complexed as ever about what Hollywood thought of him. It would ignore Welles pointedly until the bitter end.Motherhood's a joy, right? It is in Hollywood, where kids sparkle winningly and parents click their heels as they skip around the kitchen rustling up elaborate pre-school breakfasts and sharing urbane dialectics with their five-year-olds. In Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody's Tully, however, parenthood is a relentless slog, an endlessly demanding task for which no glib platitudes can prepare you. Charlize Theron's Marlo is the miner at this particular coalface, a mother of two who's heavily pregnant with her third and doesn't seem entirely thrilled about it.

She's tired, beaten down, worried about her sensitive daughter, Emmy, and more worried still about her son, Jonah, who has behavioural problems and may soon be ejected from his school. Marlo quietly dreads her impending labour, but her distracted, affable husband Drew (Ron Livingston) seems to be taking it all in his stride. Easy for him, you might say: Drew won't have to squeeze out the bowling ball. He's away on business a lot and doesn't seem to be doing his share of the parenting.

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On the eve of the baby's arrival, Marlo's smug and annoyingly wealthy brother Craig (Mark Duplass) offers a helping hand: he's bought her the gift of a night nanny, someone to come in and feed and tend to the infant in the wee small hours so she can recover and sleep. Initially, Marlo resents the hell out of this gesture, which she views as a slur on her motherhood, so she shuns the gift and tries to go it alone. But in a cleverly orchestrated sequence, we watch her slowly wilt as a gruelling regime of school runs, night feeds, milk-expressing and general sleeplessness reduces her to a quivering wreck.

Though Drew seems oblivious to this and pats his kids on the head after he comes in from work before disappearing upstairs to play computer games, Marlo is becoming dangerously depressed. Eventually, she relents, accepts her limits and calls the night nanny. Tully (Mackenzie Davis) breezes in like a waft of lavender: she's young, carefree, hippyish, annoyingly wise. She's also brilliant with the baby and as Marlo starts to catch up on her sleep and, as she puts it, "see colours" again, she and the night nanny begin to bond.

They share a love of bourbon and 90s rock music, and though Marlo finds Tully's wide-eyed stare a bit intrusive at first, the younger woman soon teaches her how to relax. And when Marlo confesses that she and Drew haven't had sex in many months, Tully comes up with a novel and shocking remedy. All is going swimmingly until Tully suggests a night on the tiles in Brooklyn, during which things swing wildly out of hand.

Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody have worked together before, most memorably on Juno, their brilliant 2007 comedy charting the travails of a teenage mother, but also on Young Adult (2011), which starred Charlize Theron as a chronically immature writer who returns to her home town in search of her long lost youth. That clever film was spoilt by a messy ending, but Tully is a more even and ambitious production, which attempts a daring storytelling trick which I won't go into here, and pretty much gets away with it.

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The slog of motherhood is memorably laid bare by clever writing and the fearless honesty of Theron's performance. She gained 50lbs, we are told, in the service of veracity, and looks suitably physically devastated as she staggers around in the aftermath of her third birth. This is a wise film, not an angry one, and the uselessness of Marlo's husband is not overdone: he's a thoughtless man, not a bad one, who assumes his wife can handle everything and simply doesn't notice that she's struggling.

Theron and Davis make a winning double act, and the older woman is touchingly awestruck by the younger one's confidence, fearlessness and especially her slimness. They seem simultaneously close and distant, separated by experiences mutually incommunicable. What Marlo knows, and Tully doesn't, is that parenthood changes you, destroys the person you used to be, picks apart your personality and reassembles it. Mostly you feel fine about that, but not always.

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Entebbe (Rosamund Pike, Daniel Bruhl); Life Of The Party (Melissa McCarthy, Maya Rudolph, Jaqui Weaver); Breaking In (Gabrielle Union, Christa Miller); Redoubtable (Louis Garrel, Stacy Martin, Berenice Bejo); Sherlock Gnomes (James McAvoy, Emily Blunt).It was meant to be a compliment, but Review's opening gambit to Chrissie Hynde gets her riled up. A few days before our interview, she appeared on stage in London with Canadian band Arcade Fire and the performance has been posted by many fans on YouTube. It makes for compelling viewing and I tell her that. But the Pretenders founder is none too pleased.

"Well, that gives me an anxiety attack because it means people on their phones filming," she says, crossly. "It not only irks me but it's the greatest thing that's made me think I'm just going to walk away from this and not do it any more."

There's no chance, yet, to change the subject.

"It's a constant battle," she adds. "If you go to see a theatre performance, you don't pull your phone out - and if you go to the cinema, people don't get their phones out, but during a show. And, yet, when I'm on stage and I look out into the audience, I see people on their phones. They're either texting or talking to someone or their showing their phones to the person standing next to them. And all of that creates a barrier between you and the audience.

"But what you do notice is that when people stay away from their phones and stop recording everything, the gigs are so much better. There's much more engagement."

She chuckles, and apologies for the rant. "I feel like I'm a dying breed."

Since she first emerged at the end of the 1970s as the no-nonsense frontwoman of the Pretenders, the Ohio native hasn't softened one bit, and nobody would want her too. Unlike so many of her peers, she speaks her mind - and she doesn't care who she offends.

She finds big-name bands like U2 - although she doesn't name Bono and friends - to be particularly dull. "When bands started going into stadiums, I think it was the beginning of the end for bands," she says. "And the bands that wanted to go into stadiums and to be that big, well their egos sort of f***ed it up for everybody else.

"Frankly, rock 'n' roll is not for everyone, but these days it feels as though it's not for anyone. For me, there are a few things that rock 'n' roll has to be. First of all, it has to be subversive or it's not rock 'n' roll. It has to be irreverent or it's not rock 'n' roll. It has to be funny or its not rock 'n' roll. It has to make you dance or it's not rock 'n' roll. And it's not for everyone. It shouldn't be mainstream. It's for outsiders. It's not easy listening."

The Pretenders will tour America this summer and she notes that, like many bands of more than four decades standing, their audience is multigenerational. "You know what? I'm not trying to attract a new audience. I don't give a f***. I'm just doing what I like to do. And I know that when we do a show - because we still have it - that half of the audience are going to walk out and go, 'Well that's the best f***ing band I've ever seen'."

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She likes to keep things simple when it comes to the Pretenders in 2018. "We don't rely on any spectacle outside of the band (no pyrotechnics). We don't even have a wardrobe person. It's very bare boned. We go out and do what we do and then we leave."

Hynde will be in Dublin this weekend for the inaugural Vinyl festival. It's a three-day event that celebrates the album as a work of art as well as vinyl itself as the perfect format.

"The so-called industry never really encouraged vinyl to come back," she says. "It was individuals who encouraged it because it sounds better and because CDs aren't all that special. I mean, they were supposed to be indestructible, but we've all been there when they skipped, right?

"It's that old cliche - if it ain't broke, don't fix it. The vinyl thing was working. There was the artwork, which was such a big part of its appeal. Anyone who was a fan during the 60s, when I grew up, remembered every inch of the artwork, you studied it and read the notes there was a side one and side two and that was really cool.

"You only had about 11 tracks on vinyl before the sound got compromised, but 11 tracks is a good amount to listen to. If you name any Beatles track, I can tell you what song came before and after it."

And yet, despite admitting that "technology really left me in the dust", she says she doesn't like to wallow in nostalgia. "Yeah, I don't know if it's good to go back. I like change and I like moving forward, but I don't like to destroy good things just for the sake of change."

Hynde says she's passionate about animal welfare. A vegan of long-standing, she has had a relationship with the sometimes contentious animal rights body, PETA, for the past 30 years and has just played an intimate Pretenders show at the newly reopened Subterranean Club in London. "I see that show as a party for the people who work with PETA," she says. "They do such good work."

Hynde believes intensive dairy farming should be stopped.

"I hate the idea of calves being removed from the mother," she says. "Over the years, farming has become more and more industrialised and people don't seem to care. Well, not enough seem to know what's going on and they might think differently if they knew the reality. I like the idea of small-time farming, like it was done years ago."

Chrissie Hynde is 66 now and she says she wanted to "do something creative" from the age of 12. She was good at painting in school and thought she might become a full-time artist, until music took over.

Later this year she releases a book of her paintings. She's been painting furiously for the past couple of years and has completed 200 works. "It's a coffee table book," she says, "the kind of thing that people buy their husbands for their 50th birthdays. I like cheap stuff - magazines, that comic book mentality, you know? Give me paperbacks, things you can roll up and put in your pocket. I'm reading [Edith Wharton's] The House of Mirth at the moment. But the people that are putting the art book together I like them. They're photographing the paintings and doing all the work and I don't have to think about it."

She grew up listening to music but hearing David Bowie in the early 70s changed everything. "It was the Hunky Dory album [1971] and it made me realise that music was something I absolutely had to do. And then I saw Bowie the following year I was expecting Veronica Lake [as Bowie had sported long hair and dresses around the time of Hunky Dory] but here he was as Ziggy Stardust and it was incredible." She pauses for a moment. "It's a mind-f*** to talk about stuff in the past. I like to keep going forward."

I ask her how she felt about holding the first Pretenders album in her hand when it came back from the pressing plant. "I don't remember it," she says, quickly, "and I don't really care. But what I do remember is where I was when I bought the first Jimi Hendrix album. I do remember where I was when I saw the first Janis Joplin album. I remember the first time I was in a discount house and I saw the first Beatles single. Those were the turning points of my life.

"But when I had my own band well I was just glad that I was in a band and I wasn't a waitress. But I never got that joy of 'Wow! We've made it'." Not even when 'Brass in Pocket' topped the singles chart in 1980? "No, it was always about moving forward and not thinking about the past."

Chrissie Hynde is at the Vinyl festival which is held at Dublin's Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, today, tomorrow and Bank Holiday MondayPaula Meehan at the launch of the 'Dublin: One City One Book' in 2014 with fellow poets at the statue of Patrick Kavanagh on Grand Canal Bank. Photo: Jason Clarke

I first met Paula Meehan almost 20 years ago. It was in a hotel ballroom at an evening to celebrate the poet Michael Hartnett who had recently died and I was meant to be doing a quick interview with her for RTE's long defunct books programme, Imprint. Young and struggling with camera shyness, I asked her a question but the shake in my voice was beyond my control. Paula Meehan took my hand, looked at me, and began to recite one of Hartnett's poems. Her gesture, so simple, perceptive and kind, dissolved my nerves; I forgot about the camera, the background din faded, and for those few minutes I was alone with her and Hartnett's words.

Fast forward two decades: it's Poetry Day, my voice is no longer shaking and Paula Meehan has just come from the Saol project, an empowerment and recovery programme for women in Dublin's North Inner City. Unsurprisingly, her diary for the day is full. Later, she'll go to a lecture in UCD in honour of Gus Martin who edited the poetry anthology Soundings, part of the old Leaving Cert curriculum for over three decades.

It's fitting that on Poetry Day Meehan is spending time in the community and the academy. Like her poems, she inhabits several different worlds. A former Ireland Professor of Poetry, she has taught in universities but she has also worked extensively in prisons and second chance education and regularly lends her voice to movements for social justice.

In 2015, she was instrumental in establishing the Artists' Campaign to Repeal the Eighth Amendment. On Sunday, May 13 - along with Imelda May, the High Hopes Choir and others - she's taking part in Rock Against Homelessness, in the Olympia Theatre. The annual gig run by INM, publishers of the Irish Independent, raises funds for Focus Ireland.

Expand Close Paula Meehan at the launch of the 'Dublin: One City One Book' in 2014 with fellow poets at the statue of Patrick Kavanagh on Grand Canal Bank. Photo: Jason Clarke / Facebook

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Whatsapp Paula Meehan at the launch of the 'Dublin: One City One Book' in 2014 with fellow poets at the statue of Patrick Kavanagh on Grand Canal Bank. Photo: Jason Clarke

"I think the great human adventure is for some kind of integration," Meehan says, as we settle into pots of tea in a Dublin hotel. Her hair, not dark anymore, is still long, her voice is still calming and she is still extremely present. From the outside, she seems to have mastered the integration adventure, though she thinks the process is a lifelong journey.

At any one point, she has a whole series of "free range" activities on the go; she's always trying to find a balance between her art and the activist's path. She has been called a "citizen poet" and a "poet of solidarity". While she sees it as a gift and enrichment to be able to associate poetry with the causes she cares about, "In an ironic and strange way," she says, "the artist can sometimes be more powerful as an activist by following the muse."

Again from the outside, it would seem that her muse is never too far away. She has published seven collections of poetry, for which she has won numerous awards and been inducted into Aosdana and the Hennessy Literary Hall of Fame. Some of her poems are now part of the Irish public consciousness. In 2015, The Statue of the Virgin at Granard Speaks - written in response to the death of Ann Lovett - was one of 10 poems on the shortlist for RTE's A Poem for Ireland. Her poem Seed appeared on the Leaving Cert in 2010 - a sure sign that she's entered the literary canon.

Her work is visionary. Timely and timeless, local and universal, it encompasses themes such as ecopolitics, disenfranchisement, loss, love, ritual, community and the lives of women. She studied etymology with the poet Eilean Ni Chuilleanain in Trinity and her poems reflect her vital connection to the history and origins of words. But they also reflect her vital connection to her own history and origins.

She won't be "cruising in a strange world" when she does the Rock Against Homelessness gig on May 13, rather she'll be reading a poem about being evicted as a child and what that looked like from a child's perspective.

Born in 1955, she spent her early years in the "old tenements" on the corner of Sean McDermott Street and Gardiner Street; it's what gave her language. "I can't imagine jettisoning my background and the riches it has given me," she says. "I only discovered I was underprivileged when I went into school. I had a very loving and intense inner city upbringing, largely reared by my grandparents."

Expand Close Esteemed: President Michael D. Higgins announced Paula Meehan as The Ireland Professor of Poetry 2013. Photo: Mark Stedman/Photocall Ireland / Facebook

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Whatsapp Esteemed: President Michael D. Higgins announced Paula Meehan as The Ireland Professor of Poetry 2013. Photo: Mark Stedman/Photocall Ireland

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Before they eventually got a home in Finglas, her family spent many years in and out of "unsettled and uncertain" housing. The eviction was traumatic; it shaped her and her values. "I think of children who are being raised in single rooms in a homeless situation and how that forms their whole imagination and how it'll form how they'll be in their society when they grow older, how it impacts on their education," she says. "One of the things I remember from my own childhood is constantly shifting schools... homelessness is not just about shelter, it's about having a strong place from which to grow as a child."

When she was very young, her grandfather taught her how to read. Having that power at an early age meant that to some degree she could "decode" the culture she was living in. Her relationship with poetry also goes way back. Her grandfather kept a book of Emily Dickinson's poems - given to Meehan's aunt by an American boyfriend - in his writing cabinet. She was drawn to the book and still has it today.

"There was just something about the space around the poem and how it looked on the page, I felt there was power and I still find that's the charge... I think the little quatrains look like jewels on the page."

When she was in fifth class she was castigated for writing a poem about her dead dog instead of writing a composition about milk. "So I had a sense very early that poetry could get you into trouble big time, and that's borne out just by looking at what happens to poets in cultures that become very oppressive. I mean, why would someone like Stalin be quaking in his shoes because of a lyric poet like Mandelstam or Akhmatova? Why were the McCarthy trials in the States so down on people who, not even wildly radical, they had mildly radical social consciences?"

Every generation has a zeitgeist, she says, and hers was "ferociously libertarian". She embraced the counterculture coming from the States and the music of Bob Dylan, Sandy Denny and Joni Mitchell. She was expelled from the Holy Faith in Finglas for leading a protest but did her Leaving Cert in a vocational school, re-encountering Emily Dickinson, who was the only woman included in Soundings but who has, in Meehan's mind, "a specific gravity that would balance nearly all the other guys".

She got into Trinity, lived through the grief of her mother's early death at 42, and later did an MFA at Eastern Washington University in the US. She came back in 1983 to a strange country.

"I arrived home into the referendum to insert the Eighth Amendment into the Constitution," she says, "and the other thing that had happened in those two years was that heroin had hit the poorer communities of Dublin... the kids, beautiful, intelligent kids, who would've been the class activists, were strung out and they were dying."

The Statue of the Virgin at Granard Speaks was written in the context of those shocks as well as the shock of Ann Lovett's horrific death in 1984. Meehan wrote the poem "very much in a private mode" and sat on it for many years before it was published in 1991.

"There was an ethical as well as an aesthetical issue. How right is it for a poet or any artist to use private grief - and that was the private grief of a family and a community - to make their own statements?"

In 2012, she read the poem at a vigil to commemorate the death of Savita Halappanavar. When different communities take ownership of her poems, she feels humbled that the work can be useful.

If poetry wasn't useful it "would've died off like our tails," she says. "There must be an evolutionary purpose in ritualising language to some end, which remains a mystery to me."

Alive to the mystery of her art, she is also always working. She writes on the DART or as she's walking her dog on the beach in Howth, taking her notebooks back to her workroom in her house in Baldoyle, where she lives with her partner, the poet and writer (and one-time presenter of Imprint) Theo Dorgan. She believes that "if the muse is looking for you, she's more likely to find you at your desk than in the pub".

Her poetry reflects her passions; her references are vast. As well as the city she knows so well, she draws on geology, astronomy and nature, on different religious, mystical and mythical traditions and, crucially, on dreams. "I think the whole river of poetry is a history of the dream life and the dreaming of the human species," she says. "I think we can solve things through dreaming, I think we can embed important memories, survival strategies, through dreaming. It's the place where everybody is a poet, in the dream."

Her latest book, Geomantic - an extraordinary collection of 81 nine-line poems - reflects a preoccupation with very long cycles: fossil cycles, climate change cycles, cycles of oblivion and reconstruction. "They do make the human life seem puny but that wouldn't make me give up on anything. It certainly wouldn't make me give up on believing we can change the way we do things and we can make a better place, because if you give up on that, where do you go? You go to bed and you don't get up the next day."

Some of the poems in Geomantic were written while she was Ireland Professor of Poetry. Her term (2013-2016) coincided with many State commemorations and she was characteristically mindful of those not being commemorated. In a poem called The Commemorations Take Our Minds Off The Now, she writes: "I commemorate / the poor going round and round the bend."

Geomantic also includes two poems written to commemorate the boys who died in the Letterfrack Industrial School. One of these, The Cardboard Suitcase, is a window into Ireland's shameful past but, in nine lines, Meehan gives the young subject of her poem a whole life: a place, a family and, at the end, dignity in his imagination, in his dreams: "He slept / beyond reach of the fists, the lies / He dreamt beyond reach of our pity."

Though her poems can be heartbreaking, they can also be funny and few of them are given to despair. She has learned ways of negotiating with what oppresses her; poetry is a place where you can do this, and she has no problem with poetry - the reading or making of it - as therapy.

Just as a poem can contain a complete mystery of the universe, she says, it can also be a kind of salvation. "There are poems that tell stories but there are also poems that just give you a moment of vision or transcendence or colour even, or just an image that you can carry around with you. Two lines. Two lines can save a life, I believe it."

Rock Against Homelessness takes place in the Olympia Theatre on Sunday, May 13. Tickets are from 35 at ticketmaster.ieTHE abortion referendum looks like it will be passed by a narrow majority but success is by no means certain at this stage, according to the latest Sunday Independent/Kantar Millward Brown opinion poll.

Excluding undecided voters, the poll finds 57pc to 43pc support repealing the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution, which recognises the equal right to life of the mother and unborn.

However, when undecided voters are included, the poll shows 45pc in favour, 34pc against, with a considerable 18pc undecided and 4pc who did not express an opinion.

The survey also reveals that more Yes (18pc) than No (15pc) supporters have reservations about the proposed amendment.

Furthermore, more men (21pc) that women (15pc) have doubts about the proposal.

However, the poll overall finds some movement in favour of repeal, with strong support among young people in urban areas, and particularly among women in the lower-middle and skilled working social classes' cohort.

A notable feature in the poll is an urban-rural divide, which shows Dublin (51pc) in favour of repeal, falling to 37pc in Connacht/Ulster.

But the fact that a significant number are still undecided, and that somewhat more Yes than No voters have doubts, will see the campaign go down to the wire.

With almost three weeks to referendum day, both Yes and No supporters will now intensify the campaign with the outcome still uncertain.

However, today's poll indicates that the referendum will be carried, albeit with a slim majority.

In other findings, Fine Gael maintains a comfortable lead over Fianna Fail, with Sinn Fein gaining support under Mary Lou McDonald.

The state of the parties is: Fine Gael (34pc) down two points; Fianna Fail (27pc) down one; Sinn Fein (22pc) up two; Labour (5pc) up one; Greens (3pc) up one; Independents/others (8pc) down three.

Satisfaction with party leaders sees Ms McDonald (46pc) overtake Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin (44pc) for the first time, with a seven-point increase in popularity for the Sinn Fein leader and a four-point decrease for Mr Martin.

Fine Gael leader Leo Varadkar (56pc), down two points, still commands the highest satisfaction rating, although his dissatisfaction level (34pc) has increased by five points, indicating that his honeymoon period may be at an end. Satisfaction with the Government (48pc), which had increased in recent polls, has also stabilised.

The survey also finds that 40pc believe there should be a general election after the scheduled end of the confidence and supply agreement, while 32pc feel the deal should be renewed, 17pc said 'it depends', and 10pc did not know.

Support for renewal of the deal, which is to be reviewed after the Budget in October, increases to 46pc among Fine Gael supporters but decreases significantly to 34pc among Fianna Fail supporters.

The 1,003 nationwide interviews in the poll were carried out from April 18-30, and had concluded before full details of the cervical cancer scandal emerged. The margin of error is 3.1pc.

On the abortion referendum, in another finding which shows momentum for repeal, 42pc (up two points) say abortion without restriction up to 12 weeks is 'about right' and 11pc (up three points) say it does not go far enough, while 32pc (down one point) say it goes 'too far'. However, again there is a sizeable minority (15pc), down four points, who do not know or have refused to give their view.

A further breakdown shows that slightly more Fianna Fail supporters intend to vote No (41pc) than Yes (39pc), while more Fine Gael supporters say Yes (44pc) than no (33pc) and more Sinn Fein supporters are also saying Yes (52pc) than No (35pc).

Although this poll sample was smaller, and therefore comes with a warning, significantly more of the farming community support No (62pc) over Yes (18pc). Should the referendum be passed, the poll indicates that the strong support of young women in the lower-middle and skilled working classes, C1 (51pc) and C2 (47pc), will be significant.

In the Sunday Independent today, Paul Moran, executive director of Kantar Millward Brown, writes that the poll "will serve as a clarion call to all, as it illustrates that with three more weeks to go, there is still plenty of hard graft to be done, and nothing can be taken for granted".A Catholic priest has allegedly emerged as a prime suspect in a garda probe into images showing two men engaging in sex acts on a church altar.

The images appear to show the men engaging in sexual acts on the altar of a church in Munster.

Yesterday, independent bishop Pat Buckley revealed to The Sunday World that he has reported the images to church bosses.

In the photograph, the men can be seen participating in a variety of different acts, both on top of, and adjacent to, the church altar.

Bishop Buckley told The Sunday World that the images originated from a priest, not believed to be attached to the church in question, on a well known website who sent them to another web-user in a bid to solicit him for a sexual rendezvous.

Bishop Buckley, who is publicly gay, says the issue surrounding the images does not relate to the sexuality of the men but rather to the desecration of a religious site in this manner.

Both gardai and the diocese yesterday confirmed investigations are underway and the images themselves are now being subjected to forensic examination.

A spokesperson for the diocese told the Sunday World yesterday the diocese reported the alleged incident to gardai as soon as they received the images from bishop Pat Buckley.

We received a report of an alleged incident at the church which if true was possibly criminal in nature, the spokesperson said.

We must now wait until the gardai finish with their investigations as that takes primacy.

Under the Criminal Law Sexual Offences Act 2017 a person who, in a public place, engages in sexual intercourse is guilty of an offence liable on conviction to a sentence of up to two years in prison.

Speaking yesterday Bishop Buckley told the Sunday World he was shocked at the idea a priest would have involved himself in acts which clearly constitute a desecration of the altar.

I have reported the images to the Catholic Church hierarchy and I am told they have now gone to the gardai, he said.

Bishop Buckley also questioned whether the church should not be closed pending the outcome of the investigations when it may have to be reconsecrated.

Speaking yesterday, he confirmed the gardai have yet to contact him regarding the origin of the images, but he said he would be willing to do everything he can to help identify the perpetrators.

I promised the person who passed the images to me anonymity, but I think he might be willing to be interviewed, Bishop Buckley said.

In that event I would be willing to travel to Dublin to take part in any meeting between this man and the gardai.

Bishop Buckley continued: I believe at present, even if there is a fear an altar has been desecrated in this manner, then they should close the church where it happened so Mass will not be celebrated there until it has been reconsecrated.Nerve centre: Head of forecasting Evelyn Cusack with Eoin Sherlock, who helped devise a new weather app for Met Eireann, at the meteorological services HQ in Glasnevin, Dublin. Photo: Frank Mc Grath

It is hard to fathom now, but almost two decades ago RTE tried to get rid of professional weather forecasters from our TV screens.

Evelyn Cusack, now the head of forecasting in Met Eireann, actually remembers saying farewell to RTE viewers live on air.

Professional meteorologists were axed in favour of "weather presenters" - and critics felt they were chosen more for their looks than any knowledge of isobars and cold fronts coming in from the east.

The abolition of the meteorologist caused a storm of protest that everyone, apart from senior management in RTE, could have seen coming for days ahead.

Expand Close Climatologist Mary Curley (left) with some old weather diaries. Photo: Frank Mc Grath / Facebook

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Fishermen warned that lives could be lost, farmers fretted over whether they would learn the right time to make their silage.

And most of all, the general public demanded that the details of the weather, grim as they may be, be delivered by experts with an air of authority.

They wanted to see in front of them individuals who were even more obsessed with the quirks of Irish weather than themselves.

So, RTE surrendered - and the meteorologists quickly returned to the main bulletins.

In the age of Netflix, YouTube and social media, they are now among the few stars left on RTE, and are in more demand than ever.

When the storms blow and rain falls in torrents or blizzards cover the country, prompting orange or red warnings, we binge-watch the weather.

And the meteorologists not only pop up on the forecasts, but on news bulletins and chat shows.

In the depths of Met Eireann's headquarters among the computer models showing spring drizzle, Evelyn Cusack tells me: "In the 1980s and 90s, television producers wanted to jazz up the weather, and make it all very flashy, but now the citizen wants more serious weather."

Yes, we like serious weather. And Cusack is keen to point out that there is a lot more to forecasting and the work of Met Eireann than the well-known presenters who appear on the screen, prompting Gogglebox-type remarks about their appearance and dress sense.

Behind the scenes and away from the cameras, they play a role in keeping planes in the sky; they safeguard boats from storms through sea-area forecasts; they give emergency services detailed briefings as they embark on search-and rescue operations.

They give advice to farmers on issues such as soil moisture and the spread of potato blight, and they are developing a more elaborate system for forecasting floods.

Brains of the operation

Evelyn introduces me to the research scientist Dr Emily Gleeson, who works with the evermore elaborate computer models that form a picture of the atmosphere using mathematical equations.

"The modellers are the real brains of the operation," says Cusack. Dr Gleeson shows me the Harmonie forecast model that has been developed specifically for Ireland's weather and climate. It is seen as the most accurate short-term weather soothsayer available.

As well as gazing into the future, Met Eireann is a trove of information about how the rain fell and winds howled in the past. Cusack and climatologist Mary Curley usher me into a library with a locked archive of weather records dating back almost 200 years.

These records, which are gradually being digitised, are enabling climatologists to gauge how our climate has changed, and how it is affected by global warming.

"Based on studies to date, seven of the warmest years between 1900 and 2016 have occurred since 1990," Mary Curley tells me. She shows me bound volumes of early records that were taken down in meticulously handwritten notes with fountain pen by whiskery Victorian gentlemen, enthusiastic amateurs who had their own mini weather stations.

In a typical entry in his records in 1870, the Dublin physician JW Moore notes: "The wind is flying round to the west with heavy rain." It may be seen as an inconsequential conversational ice breaker, but predicting the elements has always been a matter of life and death.

Showing me through this library, Cusack tells me that the whole idea of "forecasting the weather" came after 1859 when 459 lives were lost in the Irish Sea in a storm on the passenger steam clipper Royal Charter.

Vice Admiral Robert FitzRoy, who had captained Charles Darwin's ship the Beagle on his famous trip to the Galapagos Island, established 40 weather stations in Britain and Ireland so that there could be gale warning charts.

In the summer of 1944, the fate of an entire continent lay on the accuracy of a forecast based on information coming from an Irish weather station.

Under General Dwight Eisenhower, Allied Forces planned to land in Normandy on June 5 in their push to defeat the German army.

But soon after 2am on June 3, Irish coast guardsman and lighthouse keeper Ted Sweeney sent a weather observation report from Blacksod Bay, Co Mayo. It contained an ominous warning of "a Force 6 wind and a rapidly falling barometer".

There were regular phone calls between Blacksod and meteorologists in England in the hours that followed as weather charts were drawn up. As a result of Sweeney's report, the D-Day landing was put off for a day until there was a break in the weather.

Nowadays on the forecast floor in Met Eireann, the meteorologists sit next to banks of computer screens looking at models of how the atmosphere is shaping up.

Now, using the European computer models, Met Eireann forecasters can form a picture of the weather up to 10 days ahead, and the new Met Eireann app predicts seven days ahead.

When I arrive on the forecasting floor, Joan Blackburn is preparing a lunchtime broadcast for RTE Radio.

While the computer models produce reams of information, a forecaster still has to interpret the data and tell a story in plain person's language of what is about to happen. And Joan is also getting a picture of what is really happening around the country from weather stations, radar and satellite pictures.

"While the models are very good, they were not picking up the extent of rain this morning. So, I have to adjust the forecast," Joan says.

From early morning until the dead of night, the radio forecasters broadcast from a tiny studio at the top of the building.

In the week when I visit, there is familiar spring weather - sunny spells followed by scattered showers.

They are the sort of conditions that prompt the hoary saying: "If you don't like the Irish weather, wait five minutes."

Naturally, it is the extreme weather events that cause the most excitement in Met Eireann.

Meteorologist Liz Walsh studied science at Trinity College, but it took her some time before she discovered what she really wanted to do.

"One day, I was in Sydney, and I saw a thunderstorm unfolding across a river. I thought it was so dramatic that I wondered - how the hell does that work?"

Blizzards may have blanketed the country during Storm Emma, but the freak event that they talk about in Met Eireann was Storm Ophelia, the near hurricane of last October that strayed across the Atlantic into our waters, razed roofs uprooted trees and led to the loss of three lives.

Liz Walsh worked during the week before the storm hit Ireland, and found it a nerve-racking but exhilarating experience.

The forecaster was on duty in Glasnevin seven days before the storm hit, when almost by chance she spotted an unusual phenomenon developing out in the Atlantic.

Walsh was just back from a training course on extreme weather at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting in Reading, England.

"I was looking at a few new tools which I had learned to use on the course, and I noticed something strange. It was a tropical depression, but it was in a very unusual place south west of the Azores," said Walsh, who had some experience of extreme weather events as a meteorologist in New Zealand.

Liz Walsh tracked the strengthening storm on the following day as it headed in our direction, and it soon became a topic of discussion in Met Eireann.

"At times like that you like to talk to some of the more experienced forecasters. It is very much a team effort."

Status Red

By Wednesday, Met Eireann was talking to colleagues in Britain about the approaching storm, and the US National Hurricane Centre was also in touch. Walsh came in to work an extra shift, and the country was eventually put on high alert with a Status Red warning.

When the storm eventually hit on October 16, gusts reached up to 191km per hour off the south coast. There was extensive damage and thousands of homes lost power, and although three lives were lost, Met Eireann's precise warnings probably prevented many casualties as the country shut down.

Forecasters can have decidedly mixed feelings in anticipation of a storm hitting the country, and sometimes there are sleepless nights. "You want your forecast to be perfect, so in that way you want the storm to arrive," says Evelyn Cusack. "But you don't want any citizen to die or have houses flooded."

In an era of fake news and fake weather, Cusack says Met Eireann has a more crucial role than ever as a source of reliable information.

The national weather service has always faced an element of competition from the farmer who could predict a rain shower from the pain in his knee or the old geysers predicting a long, hot summer based on the arrival of the dolphins in Dingle Bay.

"If the dolphins could really forecast the weather, we would use them," says Cusack.

As well as the folklore and old wives' tales, Met Eireann faces competition from a torrent of websites, social media posts and multinational apps.

"There are so many forecasts available now and so many apps, it is important to get to the meteorological truth," says the head forecaster. "Our forecasts aren't perfect, but we believe they are the best available."

Eoin Sherlock, who led the project to devise Met Eireann's new app, says: "Our app works better for Ireland, because we use the Harmonie model, which gives much more detail of what is happening in each area."

As I come to the end of my visit, Evelyn Cusack says that when she signed up to study physics more than 30 years ago, she never expected to be a household name.

"When people watch the forecasts on TV, they may have their favourites - people they like and dislike - but really the weather is the star."

The elements will continue to be our obsession. But as a wise observer remarked many moons ago, everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.Cervical screening tests women for changes in the cells of the cervix using a smear test. It is described as uncomfortable rather than painful by Dr Shirley McQuade, medical director at the Dublin Well Woman Centre.

Among the thousands of women worried about the cervical cancer crisis are two cohorts, those who have been tested and those who have not. Their concerns vary but are valid.

While they might ask about the accuracy of previous test results or question if they should even consider getting a test, all the authoritative voices are united with one clear message: Get checked.

"It's life saving," says Irish Cancer Society cancer support manager Joan Kelly. "It spots changes before they develop into cancer. "It means women can be treated earlier to stop the cancer occurring."

The HSE concedes a small number of tests can lead to a missed reading but, at a rate of 0.8pc, an abnormality can be missed in fewer than one of every 100 cases.

Cervical screening tests women for changes in the cells of the cervix using a smear test. It is described as uncomfortable rather than painful by Dr Shirley McQuade, medical director at the Dublin Well Woman Centre.

Test results can take four to six weeks to come back from a lab and Dr McQuade has warned that these waiting times may increase in the coming weeks and months as more women seek to get checked amid ongoing concern.

She insists women can be confident of tests being carried out properly. "The quality of samples is monitored and anyone who is below the normal standard is notified and required to have extra training if they wish to continue to take smear tests," she said.

She adds women who have previously undergone the test and got normal results are unlikely to encounter a problem.

However, these women can get tested again. Last week, Health Minister Simon Harris made a move to reassure the public by guaranteeing that any woman aged between 25 and 60 who wants to have a cervical smear test will be entitled to one free of charge at a GP surgery or family planning clinic. More than 4,500 doctors and nurses are registered with CervicalCheck to provide free tests under the scheme, so finding a local practice with the service should not be too difficult.

Private gynaecologists and clinics also offer the service but can cost in the region of 85 to 100. These are generally not covered by a private health insurer.

"Anyone who has had a test in the screening programme is entitled to have a repeat test if they are worried about the accuracy of their result," says Dr McQuade.

"However, if your last test was less than three months ago you need to wait until those three months have passed before you can go again because it takes that length of time for the cells to regenerate on the cervix."

The Irish Cancer Society is urging anyone with concerns to take another test.

It insists women who have received letters from CervicalCheck in recent days should not be concerned. It met with the minister last week and asked him to contact women of screening age to highlight the value of the service.

Ms Kelly said: "We also stressed to the minister that everything possible must be done to help all the women affected by testing errors and their families on a one-to-one basis."

If you've already undergone the test

Ms Kelly said it is understandable that women who have previously had a test will be concerned.

"There have been a lot of mixed messages for women over the last week," she says. "Cervical screening is not perfect and, due to human or technical errors, mistakes may occur but that should be in a tiny fraction of cases."

She says the best way to ease concerns of those women who have previously had a test is to undergo another exam.

The HSE said a letter sent from CervicalCheck following your last smear test will indicate when the next test is due. Anyone who is unsure is asked to consult their GP.

"The best course of action is to have another smear test," said Ms Kelly.

"This can be done by going to your GP or family planning clinic and requesting a free smear test. Talk to your doctor or nurse. They should be able to make the request on your behalf."

If you have never undergone the test

International best practice recommends a cervical screen programme should target women aged between 25 and 30 years old to 60 and 65 years old. The HSE says this is why CervicalCheck is available for free to women between 25 and 60 years. A smear test is not a test for cancer but screening is seen as the best preventative measure because it can facilitate early detection.

"The aim is to find and treat mild cell changes before they progress to cancer," says Dr McQuade. "We know that cell change happens slowly so having regular tests every three years should pick up any changes."

Doctors are sent the result of the smear by a laboratory. CervicalCheck writes to the woman advising her when the result is available and of any steps that need to be taken within the programme.

women Aged 60 and over

Women aged 60 and over are not routinely invited for a smear test by CervicalCheck. The Irish Cancer Society advises anyone in this demographic who has never had a test to consult their doctor about the possible need for a free test. Dr McQuade says circumstances are somewhat different for over-60s who have previously had the tests.

"If you have had a number of smear tests in the past that were all normal then you do not need to have any further tests. If you have symptoms such as pain, bleeding or discharge then you should see your doctor, who will investigate and possibly send you for a gynaecology opinion."Tragedy came on the double for three young boys who lost their beautiful mother in the Spanish Flu epidemic.

The Heatley brothers - Charlie (8), Fred (6) and Christy (5) - had already suffered the loss of their father Charles on the Somme in 1916.

Two years later their mother Catherine died of flu at her mother's house in The Liberties in Dublin. Her death was one of hundreds of flu deaths that November week.

"My father Fred didn't remember her because he was so young. It was like she had disappeared," said Fred Heatley (75), who lives in Coolock in Dublin. "All they had was a photo of a beautiful young woman. And a photo of their father," he said. She was buried in an unmarked grave in Glasnevin Cemetery. When Catherine's sister Cissy died in 1949, the three brothers went to her funeral in Glasnevin. They never realised they were standing a few yards from their mother's grave.

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Fred Heatley searched for his grandmother's grave in 1997 when he retired from Telecom Eireann. His search finally led him to "a patch of bare earth" in Glasnevin, where he placed a cross and brass plaque on the grave.

"She died five days before the end of the war. If Charles had survived the war and had arrived back in Dublin on the day the war finished, he would have walked up Wine Tavern Street from the ship not knowing that she had died," he said.

Charles, a Royal Dublin Fusilier, had survived the carnage of Gallipoli to be killed in France. His body was never found.

"Finding Catherine's grave in 1998 was wonderful. She had been lost to the family but I found her and brought her back into the family," he said.IN the coming weeks, a number of women who are gravely ill with cervical cancer are expected to begin legal proceedings. They are among the 209 women at the heart of one of the biggest public health scandals in recent years. For most, all they knew was that they had cancer.

What they did not know was that they were wrongly given the all-clear by CervicalCheck. Had their abnormalities not been missed, they could have been treated earlier and their cancers may have been caught earlier.

According to solicitor Cian O'Carroll, they are women who are "in a very urgent situation, just as Vicky Phelan was".

Were it not for Vicky Phelan, most of these women would be none the wiser.

Since she settled her High Court action against a US lab for 2.5m, refusing to sign a confidentiality clause in order to expose a scandal at the heart of the CervicalCheck, she has been hailed a national hero.

A review of cases by the Health Service Executive has revealed that Vicky was one of 209 women with cervical cancer who could have benefited from earlier treatment but who were wrongly given the all-clear when they were screened. The HSE said 162 of those women were never told of the audit outcome and that 17 women had died.

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Vicky has exposed a crisis that goes to the heart of the medical establishment, exposing its paternalistic core of "doctor knows best" and an overwhelming lack of accountability.

"If people told me this was going to happen, I would never have believed them.

"People are calling me a national hero and I'm not really comfortable with it but at the same time, it is a nice feeling to know I am doing some good, beyond what I had ever imagined," Vicky Phelan told the Sunday Independent this weekend.

She is on the phone from the car, travelling from Galway, where she has had hyperbaric oxygen therapy, to Portlaoise for high doses of vitamin C infusions. She says her health is good and she is full of fight.

Another source of strength for her has been in helping other women with cervical cancer, and in some cases, the families of women who have died.

"I am trying to keep on top of my messages at the moment. I'm getting actually thousands of messages from well-wishers, which is lovely. I will read every one of them when I get the time. I'm trying to actually go through them at the moment to make sure I am replying to women and the husbands of women who have died, because they are the ones that I need to prioritise at the moment."

Among those who have contacted her are three women who have cervical cancer and one man, whose wife passed away last year. According to Vicky, this woman was one of the 17 women referred to by the Health Service Executive as having "sadly died".

"He is extremely angry and very upset obviously. He has two young boys," she says. She is encouraging others to speak out: "Other women and partners of women who've died need to come forward to push this further, because only until people see the faces of the children and the families who are left behind in all of this, that's what needs to happen if we are to get accountability."

Vicky is keen to form a pressure group, drawn from the women and the men who have been affected so horrifically by the scandal, to harness their anger to effect change in the health service.

But there are obvious difficulties, given the fact that those affected are not in the best of health.

"There are husbands who have lost their wives but most of us are women and in most cases, most of us are in treatment at the moment. So that is the difficulty," she says. "Gynaecologists and clinicians are organising these meetings with their patients this week to give them some clarification. But it seems to me that they are lining up these meetings in the evenings, when their clinics are finished, to meet with these patients to obviously give them time to [take in] with what they are going to tell them, that they have had cancer for far longer than what they originally thought. Some of the women are not in remission, they are actually having treatment at the moment for advanced cancer."

She has followed the unfolding crisis at CervicalCheck closely, mostly in between her treatments and therapies, from her reclining chair, with mobile phone in hand. She has just joined Twitter, and used to it share her dismay at the performance of a panel of HSE executives, led by director general, Tony O'Brien (inset), at the Oireachtas Committee hearing last week. She was particularly annoyed at Mr O'Brien's refusal to accept full blame for the crisis.

"I've said this all week. He needs to stand down. He is not going to do it voluntarily because that was quite clear at the Oireachtas committee, that he feels he hasn't done any wrong. But speaking personally, from my own case, I think he should stand down. Absolutely. He has said he didn't hear about my case until he heard it on the news. That's not good enough. For two reasons. He is the head of the HSE. That just shows incompetence and if that's the case, he shouldn't be in the position he's in on 192,000 a year," she says.

It was Vicky's mother who called her with the news that Leo Varadkar, the Taoiseach, is to seek her input into the scoping inquiry that is to report back by June.

"That scoping inquiry will find out as much information as we possibly can in a matter of weeks and then we will have a statutory inquiry," he told the Dail.

She is not short of ideas and wants to be involved. But she also needs to focus on her own health. The HSE has offered to pay the substantial cost of Pembrolizumab, a drug which she takes every three weeks, and costs more than 8,000 for every dose.

At one point, after talking through the reams of drugs and treatments, she sighs: "Look, I don't think I'm going anywhere," she says. "I think half the battle with cancer is your attitude and my attitude is I want to live. I am very much alive and that is how it is going to stay."

"It is absolutely great for me to have that support from everybody. It really is just such a lovely warm feeling to know that I have the country behind me. I am at the point where I can't go anywhere without people stopping me in the street, which is lovely. It is a bit embarrassing because I never sought out this but I really appreciate it."A vanity case belonging to the fiancee of slain Irish revolutionary, soldier and politician Michael Collins was withdrawn from auction after the vendor changed their mind about selling it.

Lot 117 owned by Kitty Kiernan was due to be sold by Whyte's auctioneers at the Free Mason's Hall on Molesworth Street, Dublin, yesterday.

Her black leather vanity case, with fitted interior lined dark green watered silk was on sale at Whyte's auction house in their Eclectic Collector auction. Valued at up to 6,000, the case contains silver mounted glass jars and accessories hallmarked in 1897. A headscarf, a pair of gloves and eight various photographs of Kitty, including a photograph of her at Beal na mBlath in 1923 where Collins had been shot dead.

Kitty Kiernan first met Collins in 1918 when he stayed at her family's hotel in Granard, Co Longford, with his friend Irish republican politician Harry Boland.

She had also been the love interest of Boland with both vying for her attention and love.

Collins proposed to Kitty on October 8, 1921 in the Grand Hotel in Greystones, Wicklow.

When Collins announced his engagement in the Dail, Boland magnanimously sent a letter to Kitty congratulating her on the news.

In 1925 she married Felix Cronin, who was Quartermaster General in the Irish Army.

They had two sons, the second of whom they called Michael Collins Cronin.

She died of Bright's Disease (kidney disease) on July 24, 1945.

She requested that she be buried as close as possible to her great love, Michael Collins.

She is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, not far from where Collins lies, and was joined there 16 years later by her husband Felix.Last month, members of the Reid family gathered to wish their beloved sister, Mary, a very happy birthday. But there would be no cake, no cards, just a sense of longing... what if, who, what, where, when, how. Where Mary Reid is concerned, there has always been more questions than answers.

As the family sat in the Augustinian Church on Shop Street, their minds wandered at times, memories of a smiling face, of a determined young woman who would "go hungry to help a stranger" - a woman with the biggest heart in the world.

It was a cold, January evening, the 29th of the month, 2003. A local man out walking on the beach came across a body of a partially clothed woman. It was near Doagh, in Co Donegal, a lonely spot on a winter's night.

That woman was Mary Reid (49), sister of proud Donegal man but Drogheda-based Joe Reid, who runs Floorstyle on Patrick Street.

Fifteen years later and Joe is still transfixed by what happened to his sister. The authorities say it was suicide, maybe an accidental drowning as she tried to rescue her dog from a stormy sea. Joe feels something more sinister is at play.

But in the years since Mary's death, no new leads have been uncovered - even today, Joe feels it could be the likes of a Garda 'whistleblower' that might shed new light on a case, growing dimmer with the sands of time.

"I wait for the day that I get a call from someone who tells me the real story, the truth about Mary. I know she was the type of girl who'd have done exactly what her family are doing for her now, fighting for justice, justice for Mary.

"Mary was the type of woman who did nothing for herself. That's why it hurts so much. I feel I haven't achieved anything for her and that upsets me. But I won't give up, I won't give up on Mary."

The last reported sighting of Mary was in Derry city at 9.30am on that January morning in 2003. Eight hours later, her lifeless body was found on a beach in Donegal.

Mary's unlocked car was located in a car park. Her car was first noticed parked there at 12.30pm, five hours before her body was discovered a short distance away.

It was reported that her body was still warm when it was found. There was water in her lungs, but did she die there and what was the cause?

But more importantly, where was Mary for five hours between her car being spotted and her body being found?

Her bag was never recovered and the scene was not preserved. The initial feeling was this was a suicide - pure and simple?

"There exists no medical evidence, no written evidence, no verbal evidence and no visual evidence of suicide in relation to Mary' s death," Joe states, highly critical of how the gardai handled the situation from the very start.

"Mary's car had been meticulously cleaned, her bag with personal belongings was never found. The PSNI in Derry were never contacted despite Mary living and working in the city for the previous decade," Joe reveals.

Gardai re-opened their files into the case in 2005 but it proved inconclusive.

It was claimed that Mary drowned while trying to rescue her dog that had dashed into the sea. That dog was never found and no-one saw her with a dog.

Mary Reid was one of three people caught up in the 'Irish of Vincennes' case in France in August 1982. She was arrested there with two men, Stephen King and Michael Plunkett and all three had links to the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) and it was alleged they were part of an Irish-Palestinian terror cell.

The incident was heralded as a great success for the French - but it was found the police had planted guns and explosives in the apartment and the three were cleared of the charges on October 5, 1983, after spending nine months in prison.

She wrote home to the family from her cell, stating the three had "nothing to hide and eventually someone is going to have to pay for the monumental mess up they've made... I am what I am and I'm happy to defend myself on that ground here. I regard France as a second home."

She took a case against the police and those that set her up. It rumbled on for years. The whole episode embarrassed the French government and a few political careers were ruined. Her case was about finding justice, not lining her pockets with compensation.

In 1991, Mary told a French court that the affair "destroyed her life" and her son who was with her in France had to be placed in a French foster home for a period before being cared for by his family back in Ireland.

Mary was editor of the Starry Plough, the IRSP newspaper, for some years and having returned to Ireland, went to study in Galway and would end up teaching English to students in Rosemount in Derry.

After her death, her French solicitor said it was a great pity that she did not see justice after a 20 year wait.

Despite the passing of time, Joe Reid, who has lived by the Boyneside for 40 years, still remains determined to find the truth.

He has files upon files, detail after detail and today would still love to see a 'Cold Case' team take on the task about finding the truth behind Mary's death.

"We are not the only family in Ireland looking for an investigation like this, but we have so many questions, so few answers.

"We look at all the factors, why the gardai presumed suicide and didn't take any forensics from the scene or why it wasn't preserved for a technical examination. There are so many things we still can't understand. What went wrong?"

Joe still goes back to Pettigo from time to time and when he meets old neighbours, their first words always ring in his mind "Joe, did they ever find out who murdered Mary?"

The gardai say there is "no recorded crime" when it comes to the death of Mary Reid and that's where it ends.

"We know there were lacerations on her face and bruises on her body and her face was pressed into the sand when she was found."

Joe feels there is too much mystery about his sister's death.

"We wait for the day a call is made from someone brave enough to pick up the phone to me and tell us the full story," he states.

There have been reports that Mary suffered from mental health problems. Joe says she was a very caring individual who believed in justice and could be driven by a desire to always help those who needed it. It was noted writer Eamon McCann writing her obituary who said she'd go hungry to feed others.

"There have been so many theories about Mary," Joe adds. Her high profile in France could have made her highly unpopular in some circles. At one stage, her keen interest in history and ancient sites even had her death associated to alleged findings in respect of the 'Holy Grail' and a link between the Knights Templar, a French chateaux and Lough Derg.

But Joe is sceptical about all that, feeling the answers lie in Ireland, rather than on foreign soil.

"Mary is never out of my mind and never will be. Each year we mark her birthday - she would have been 65 on April 25 - and her death. Mary's death hurts as much as it did 15 years ago. Hopefully, some day, someone will help ease that pain and we'll get the full story."The war of words over homeless figures is expected to dramatically escalate as the Government moves to remove non-EU nationals and people in long-term healthcare facilities from official statistics.

Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy has been told by his senior officials that hundreds of non-EU nationals, who may not be legally entitled to housing, are currently recorded as homeless.

The minister has also been informed that up to 2,000 people in long-term healthcare facilities could be incorrectly registered as homeless, too.

Mr Murphy is understood to be considering removing both groups from his monthly homelessness updates once he receives confirmation of the details from his officials.

The move would infuriate opposition politicians who last week accused Mr Murphy of "manipulating" figures when he removed 600 people from homeless statistics.

A senior Government source said there had been an increase in the number of non-EU nationals presenting themselves at Garda stations as homeless.

Gardai accommodate the families or individuals for a night before passing them on to the Dublin Region Homeless Executive (DRHE) which houses them in hotels and B&Bs.

The source said these families were not always legally entitled to long-term housing because they are not from within the EU and have not been processed by immigration services.

However, because they are housed by the DRHE they are categorised as homeless in the official monthly statistics.

Another Department of Housing source said some foreign nationals were coming to Ireland because the country is viewed as a "soft touch".

"We have people coming off planes and at train stations who we then have to provide emergency accommodation for without them going through immigration. It's been going on for a while but it's been increasing recently," the source said.

Mr Murphy is due to meet Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan in the coming weeks to discuss the number of non-EU nationals in emergency accommodation.

Department of Housing officials believe their counterparts in the Department of Justice should be doing more to process people through immigration services.

"We won't tiptoe around this. If there are problems in the system and people are categorised as homeless when really they are illegal we will call it out or find a way to solve the problem," a source said.

Mr Murphy also plans to remove people in long-term health facilities who are being treated for addictions or mental health issues.

There are currently 9,681 people registered as homeless, including 3,646 children.

However, Mr Murphy said 600 people living in local authority-owned or leased housing stock had been wrongly categorised as homeless.

Sinn Fein housing spokesman Eoin O Broin accused the minister of "dishonestly" massaging and manipulating homeless figures.

Fianna Fail housing spokesman Darragh O'Brien also wrote to Mr Murphy last week objecting to a change in the publication of homeless figures from monthly to every three months.The grave in Granard of schoolgirl Ann Lovett, who died in childbirth at a church grotto

The former boyfriend of Ann Lovett, the schoolgirl who died in childbirth at a church grotto in Granard in January 1984, has spoken publicly for the first time.

Ricky McDonnell (51) said he believed she decided to give birth at the grotto on a wet winter's day in County Longford as "a protest" as she could have gotten help if she had asked for it.

He said he was 15 and Ann was 13 when they met. They began a sexual relationship after her 14th birthday.

They were no longer in a regular relationship when the schoolgirl died, aged 15, and she had repeatedly denied to McDonnell that she was pregnant, he said.

The death of Ann Lovett caused shockwaves in Irish society and the media 34 years ago. The teenager gave birth to a stillborn boy.

An inquest heard she died from irreversible shock, due to a combination of exposure and blood loss in childbirth.

Less than 12 weeks later, Ann's sister Patricia (14) died by suicide from an overdose at her home. Patricia and Ricky McDonnell had been given a lift home together from a dance by local curate Fr John Quinn just hours before she died.

In an interview, published yesterday in the Irish Times, he spoke of his deep distress after the death of Ann. As a 15-year-old, he said he was living alone in a council house in Granard. His father was dead and his mother and brother had recently moved to England.

McDonnell first met Ann when he was just 15 when he was having a drink in The Copper Pot pub in Granard. Ann was just 13 years old and helping her father behind the bar. The Lovett family lived over the pub.

He said Ann began to stay with him in his home four or five nights a week, sometimes going home at 4am or 7am, and they were in love, he said.

"She was very sharp, very witty. She could hold her own, she could stand up for herself She was also loving and caring and kind."

He said she once arrived at his home deeply upset and crying and she had bruises on her thighs. When he asked her if she had been raped, she did not reply but begged him not to tell anybody.

He said they did not see each other much after that and they last had sex in summer 1983. Later, he heard she was pregnant but she denied it repeatedly. He said he told her he would stand by her if she was pregnant.

McDonnell was devastated after she died. He said a letter was found among her possessions addressed to him.

"The gist of the letter was, how much that Ann had loved me, and how sorry she was for doing what she was going to do," he said.

Speaking of her death, he said: "She could have walked into any place, anywhere in Granard, and said 'I'm having a baby' and they would have called her an ambulance. Anybody that's logical would have done that. But she didn't. She went to the grotto. And she done that for a reason. That isn't an accident.

"This is not about her going off somewhere quiet on her own. That is not Ann Lovett...So to me, this was a protest, on her behalf," he said.

Later McDonnell said Fr Quinn took him to meet Minister for Defence Patrick Cooney to ask for help in getting him enlisted in the Army.

Mr Cooney (87) told The Irish Times he had no recollection of meeting him. Speaking to the Sunday Independent, Mr Cooney said he did not remember meeting him. When told that Fr Quinn stated the meeting took place, he said: "It was a long time ago. I've no recollection of it. If Fr Quinn remembers it happened, I have no difficulty with that."

McDonnell said he joined the Army and later moved to England. He drank to excess for many years "to forget everything" but gave up alcohol more than a decade ago.Three men have been arrested after discovery of pill-making factory.

GARDAI have seized around half a million euro worth of drugs after raiding an ecstasy making factory in Kildare.

Detectives from the Garda Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau raided the property in Celbridge this morning where they discovered around 9kg of MDMA powder and other drug making paraphernalia.

Three men - who are all Polish nationals and in their 30s and mid 40s - have been arrested and are being quizzed at Leixlip and Lucan garda stations.

Gardai believe that the sophisticated "pill factory", being run from the property, is linked to the Kinahan cartel.

It is understood that the MDMA seized had only recently been transported to the house where the raid took place.

Chemical components used to make ecstasy were also seized during the raid.

Speaking after the operation, Assistant Commissioner John O Driscoll who has charge of Special Crime Operations said: "This operation provides further evidence of the extent of links between Irish based organised crime groups and the international drug trade.

"The Garda National Drugs & Organised Crime Bureau (GNDOCB) has today dealt another blow to those involved in organised crime. Our effort in tackling organised crime is unrelenting and will continue as long as is necessary."Premium

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Ian ODoherty Opinion As England fans bring shame on their nation, should we scorn or pity them?

Well, what do we do now? After a fractured and chaotic build-up to this years delayed Euros, we ultimately were treated to a tournament that was far more engrossing than many of us had expected. Now, as football fans bemoan the absence of live matches every night, we must turn our attention to other matters  most notably the events that happened of the pitch.Not for nothing was Barbara Bush known as 'The Enforcer'

Barbara Bush, tougher than her husband and known to her family as 'The Enforcer', is probably the most popular of all ex-US first ladies of recent times. Jackie Kennedy is remembered across the globe for elegance and tragedy, but she was not loved. Rosalynn Carter worked hard and was a noted campaigner on issues of mental health, but she has suffered in retrospect because of her bitterness at his defeat by Ronald Reagan, who is widely perceived to have been as great a success as Carter was a failure. The brittle Nancy Reagan was an essential support to her husband, but was thought to care little for anyone else. Hillary Clinton was loathed by those who thought her a careerist. The likeable Laura Bush did a lot of useful work but lacked her mother-in-law's commanding personality. And although Michelle Obama had rock-star status, that has diminished as she and her husband embrace luxury and celebrity. Betty Ford is probably the closest rival, having been far more effective and formidable than her husband Gerald, the 38th president, and still having a posthumous reputation for her prowess as a campaigner on addiction, not least because so many of the famous troop to the Betty Ford Clinic.It's been a difficult few weeks for women. And that's an understatement. Vicky Phelan's court case over her treatment by CervicalCheck, our national cervical cancer screening programme, has caused a great deal of distress for many of us. And hearing words such as 'scandal', 'crisis' and 'cover up' when it is in relation to cancer treatment in a 42-year-old mother is something that was always going to make people feel rightly angry and afraid.

What was clear to me looking at this unfold last week was that, certainly initially, neither the Minister for Health nor the Opposition spokespeople understood exactly what was going on. And it was also clear that - despite no one understanding it - that wasn't going to stop political point-scoring or, indeed, media scaremongering, even if women were being terrified in the process.

So I'd like to attempt to allay some of that fear and reassure woman that despite everything they've heard, there's still reason for them to feel reasonably secure that CervicalCheck is working and they don't have to feel the level of anxiety and fear that I believe they've been experiencing.

CervicalCheck is a screening programme that screens asymptomatic, healthy women for pre-cancerous abnormalities by doing cervical smear tests on them every three to five years. Any abnormalities that are picked up are monitored, with either repeat smear tests or by referral to a colposcopy clinic, which is a specialised gynaecology clinic that takes a closer look at the cervix and can also treat some pre-malignant conditions.

Within our screening system there are false negatives - tests that are reported as normal but are actually abnormal. And false positives - tests that are reported as abnormal but are actually normal. And that's true of every screening system in the world. False negatives and positives are one of the reasons we do repeated smear tests - to double check results. And the rate of false negatives in cervical checks runs at up to 30pc which is in line with international standards.

But despite these limitations, CervicalCheck has, through the three million smear tests it's carried out in the past decade, managed to reduce the incidence of cervical cancer in this country by 7pc a year. That's considered a significant success story in public health terms. It has, in fact, saved many women's lives.

Vicky Phelan had a smear test in 2011 which was reported as normal and a repeat smear test in 2014 that diagnosed her with cervical cancer, and she started to undergo the harrowing treatment that that entails. An audit in 2014 showed that her 2011 test had been a 'false negative'. In other words, it had been reported as normal but there had been abnormalities on it. And that's a personal tragedy for Vicky Phelan and her family. It's incredibly sad to think that, had those abnormalities been picked up in 2011, she might have begun her treatment sooner and she might not be a mum of young children living with a diagnosis of terminal cancer today.

However - and this is a really difficult thing to accept, I know - false negatives are part of every screening system and cannot be eliminated. There will always be false negatives - that's the nature of screening as opposed to diagnostic tests. And all you can aim for is that they're held at acceptable levels by international standards. Which is why audits on screening programmes are carried out to see if the level of false negatives falls within the acceptable range.

The real issue is that Vicky Phelan wasn't told any of this. It may not be possible to prevent false negatives from occurring but it was known that Vicky's 2011 smear was one such test and she was never informed. Indeed it was actively kept from her for several years after her cancer had been diagnosed, despite the lab, and subsequently her doctors, being aware that that was the case.

I believe she had a right to that information. I believe all women, and men, have a right to full disclosure and mandatory candour around their medical records. No one should be going through our health care system as a patient, with institutions knowing more about their medical condition than they know about it themselves.

This all came into the public domain through Vicky Phelan courageously refusing to sign a gagging order as part of her court case and we all owe her a debt of gratitude for that. But it was all so poorly explained that it struck fear into the heart of every woman in the country. The helpline that was set up for people with concerns crashed almost instantly - and when it finally worked, all it did was take names and addresses, rather than give any kind of advice or reassurance. So there was nowhere for women to look to for guidance. And politicians had no qualms about exploiting the fears of women in order to score political points.

But it is important for women who are afraid of what this means for them to understand a few things. Firstly, the truth is that most women's smear test results are accurately reported. And of those who have received a normal result, the chance of going on to have cervical cancer by their next smear test three years later is less than 1pc. The other truth is - especially when routine HPV screening becomes part of all CervicalCheck smear tests - it's probably impossible to make the screening system much better than it already is.

Yes, Hiqa needs to go in and make sure that we don't have rates of false negatives that are out of line with international standards. Yes, women deserve far more respect and wholly better levels of communication and information about their results than Vicky Phelan was given.

But it will not be the case that there will be a new cervical screening system that eradicates false negatives, however much we wish that were the case. Nor will every woman who has a false negative smear test be entitled to compensation - with a false negative rate of 30pc, simply put, the screening programme would collapse in financial ruin. Which ultimately will result in far more women's lives being lost.

If you actually want to maximise your protection against cervical cancer - and it is an awful cancer that kills one third of women diagnosed with it, within five years - consider the following: Practice safe sex, use condoms, the majority of cases are caused by the sexually transmitted HPV virus. Stop smoking - it increases the risk. Get regular smear tests - the nature of repeat testing and the generally long time-period over which cervical cancer develops, means that the screening programme picks up most cases.

If you are still worried after reading this, go get a repeat smear. Simon Harris has said that any woman who is worried can get one for free. If you've any symptoms such as pelvic pain, bleeding after sex or in between your periods, go to your GP even if you're not due a smear test.

And for God's sake, vaccinate your daughters against HPV. We now have a safe vaccine that reduces the next generation's risk of ever developing this horrible cancer that 300 Irish women will be diagnosed with and 90 women will die from this year - most of them in their 30s and 40s.

Prevention remains, in this instance, far better than cure.

@ciarakellydoc Ciara Kelly presents Lunchtime Live on 'Newstalk' weekdays 12-2pmWith a little over three weeks to go until the referendum on removing the Eighth Amendment from the Constitution, every poll takes on that much more significance. If this latest snapshot of opinion doesn't set nerves jangling among pro-repeal campaigners, it certainly ought to.

On the surface of it, that might seem a curious conclusion to take from the figures.

There is a clear lead for the Yes side, with 57pc planning to vote in favour of repeal, thereby giving the Dail the right to legislate for abortion on demand up to the 12th week of pregnancy, and with doctors' consent after that, and 43pc preparing to vote against; but the devil, as always, is in the detail.

That is the figure when undecideds and don't knows are excluded. Put them back in to the total, and the figure for Yes drops down below the winning margin to 45pc. Suddenly it doesn't look quite so comfortable for repealers.

There also remains a large number of voters who are still undecided about which way to go, and it's notable that this is much more prevalent among men (21pc) than women (15pc). Perhaps that reflects a reluctance in men to get involved in the debate, after decades of being told that it's none of their business.

Pro-repealers have started to reach out to men and appeal directly to them to row in supportively behind a Yes vote, but they've definitely left it a bit late. What might save them is that the number of men planning to vote No in this referendum is, according to this poll, slightly lower than for women, confirming that the most solid support on both sides of the ideological divide is among female voters. That should be expected. Women are most directly affected by these issues. They're the ones whose bodies are being fought over on the lamp posts.

Of those who have made up their minds, it's worth noting that there's a wide range of conviction, too. More than half are "absolutely certain" that they will vote in a particular way, and 30pc are "pretty certain", but those who have "some" reservations or doubts, or who are "not at all certain", stands at 17pc - and the doubts are higher among those currently intending to vote for repeal. The No side will be seeking to amplify those reservations. Many votes will change between now and three weeks on Thursday, when the referendum is held.

This poll further confirms that the Yes side remains heavily skewed towards younger voters, who historically vote in fewer numbers than older voters. That may not be the case this time, there is much more determination among younger people to vote on this issue, since it's the only chance they've ever had, or might ever have, to change the law on the matter. But even here there are interesting nuances.

Yes, 58pc of 18 to 24 year olds intend to vote for repeal, but 21pc are planning to vote against and 18pc have yet to make up their minds. Young people do not constitute a progressive, pro-choice monolith. Their consent to liberalising abortion law in Ireland cannot be taken for granted.

The figures planning to vote against this amendment to the Constitution rise steadily in this latest poll as voters get older. Among 25 to 44 year olds, it goes up to 27pc against; then to 31pc against for 45 to 54 year olds; there's a further sharp increase to 43pc among 55 to 64 year olds, before it peaks at 51pc against repeal among the over 65s.

Again, it's important not to lump all voters in together according to age. Even among the over 65 year olds, 32pc intend to vote in favour of repeal. Insofar as this is a demographic which traditionally gets out to the polling station on the day, that represents a solid cache of votes for the Yes side, many from people who've campaigned for women's rights for decades. If Yes does win, it won't be with the support of young people alone. It needs older voters, too.

The same goes for that traditional urban-rural divide. Of course these latest figures show that support for repeal is highest in Dublin at 51pc, but the capital also has the biggest concentration of population, so the 29pc currently intending to vote No in the city makes a considerable phalanx of opposition to change, and it needs those Yes voters outside the Pale, even if they are a minority locally, as a counterweight.

That means the 41pc in Munster who plan to vote in favour of opening the door to the legalisation of abortion, and the 37pc who plan to do so in Connacht/Ulster, will prove crucial on the day.

Pro-repeal campaigners will need to get out on the ground in rural areas between now and referendum day, because every vote genuinely does count. That's a cliche in every election, but cliches are generally true. That's how they become cliches in the first place, through experience.

The best way to illustrate the truth of this one is by comparing where polls stood at the same stage of the same sex marriage referendum.

With three weeks to go back in 2015, the majority in favour of changing the Constitution to allow gay people the right to marry was more than 70pc. That gave the Yes side back then a cushion against any diminution in support as the date neared, and, in the event, supporters of same-sex marriage needed it.

With one week to go, a poll in the Sunday Independent showed that support for Yes, excluding Don't Knows and those who refused to say, had fallen by 13 points, despite cross-party support for the measure and widespread backing from various organisations and celebrities and huge international goodwill.

By the time the polls closed, 62pc of people had voted on May 22, 2015, to allow same-sex marriage. Support had dropped from the high water mark, but the Yes side had enough wriggle room to survive the slippage. That same luxury does not exist this time round.

A similar fall back in support for repealing the Eighth Amendment could conceivably see the referendum fail to cross the line. Only 24pc of people in that 2015 Sunday Independent poll said they were certain to vote No.

On the day, the actual figure for No was just short of 38pc. Quite the increase. And that was to oppose a measure which was simply allowing gay people to get married. No one was going to die if same-sex couples won marriage equality. That referendum certainly did not encompass the complex moral questions which are raised by abortion and which cannot be wished away with trite slogans about trusting women.

Arguments against same-sex marriage tended to be quite abstract, even whimsical. The No side in this debate has far more powerful, visceral arguments on its side, as the posters attest.

They're emotive, loaded, some have even condemned them as unfair, but they do the job. Being hectored in the pages of The Irish Times by the perpetually affronted Father Ted writer Graham Linehan, or U2 posting Repeal The Eighth slogans on their Instagram account, doesn't really have the same impact.

The reliance on celebrity endorsements didn't work in the US presidential election or the Brexit vote in the UK, and it certainly does nothing to reassure the 32pc of voters in this poll who think the proposal to allow women to have abortions on demand up to 12 weeks goes too far.

That figure is clearly outnumbered by the 42pc who think 12 weeks is "about right", and the 11pc who think it doesn't go far enough; but the warning against complacency still stands.

The Yes side has nowhere near the wriggle room in this referendum that its counterparts did in the gay marriage vote. There will inevitably be some tightening.

Nothing is certain.Maura Derrane says she believes that women must support each other as well as being supported by men.

The RTE presenter, who fronts Today with Maura and Daithi with Daithi O Se, was recently subjected to a tirade of abuse from trolls online regarding her appearance and choice of outfit.

Some trolls said the outfit wasn't "age appropriate" and didn't look like it had been ironed. Others complained that Derrane's makeup was too heavily applied. The criticism was drawn to Derrane's attention after a listener to Ryan Tubridy's radio show emailed producers expressing their anger regarding the comments.

While she accepts that some degree of criticism comes with the territory of being a personality on TV, Maura (47) says women need to be more supportive of each other.

Expand Close Maura Derrane wearing Marc Cain top and skirt and LK Bennett. The outfit drew criticism from trolls on social media / Facebook

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Whatsapp Maura Derrane wearing Marc Cain top and skirt and LK Bennett. The outfit drew criticism from trolls on social media

Speaking to TV Week with the Irish Mail on Sunday Maura said, "Another thing I find is all of this women empowerment and all of that, I'm really not sure that we need all of that stuff because the contrary is the case. The reality is it's women who are online bitching about other women, not men. Women are the biggest bitches, men just couldn't be bothered."

She added, "The whole #metoo campaign and the empowerment of women, that's all very well but perhaps women should start by the very basic stuff and stop bitching about each other and then we probably wouldn't need a 'hashtag' anything."

Maura has been presenting Today for the past six years and prior to that she worked at TV3 and the flagship morning on Ireland AM. However, social media was not so prevalent when she started out in her career.

These days, she said, "people think they have free reign to say whatever they want about you in a bitchy manner". She said she reads everything that is written about her online and adds, "Everything affects you if it's too much. Normally, nothing much affects me but if it's personal it can be hard not to let it get to you."

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However, the mum of one said that she is less affected now that she is in her forties and is "confident" in what she does, "I will wear what I want to wear, and I will have my hair how I want it, and a few comments is not going to change that," she added.

Video of the DayBRITAIN'S Duchess of Cambridge has long been lauded for her "thrifty" approach to style, often re-wearing outfits she has worn before. Now it seems she is applying that same sensible - if utterly normal to most of us - sartorial logic to dressing her three children.

In two photographs released by Kensington Palace to thank the public for their messages following the birth of Prince Louis and Princess Charlotte's third birthday, the two youngest Cambridges are dressed in outfits which have previously been seen on their younger siblings.

Of course, there's none of the wear-and-tear which younger children often complain they must endure when wearing their older siblings' cast-offs; Charlotte and Louis's outfits are as immaculate as you would expect from the perfectly-presented young royals.

The first image shows Prince Louis at just three days old, lying cosily on a white pillow with his eyes open and wearing a pristine cream ribbed knit with matching socks. It is the same outfit which Princess Charlotte was dressed in when the first photos of her were released when she was just a few weeks old, in May 2015.

Expand Close Handout photo dated the 02/05/18 released by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge of Princess Charlotte with her brother Prince Louis taken by the Duchess of Cambridge on Princess Charlotte's third birthday at Kensington Palace, London. Duchess of Cambridge/PA Wire. Embargoed to 00:01 May 6 / Facebook

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Whatsapp Handout photo dated the 02/05/18 released by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge of Princess Charlotte with her brother Prince Louis taken by the Duchess of Cambridge on Princess Charlotte's third birthday at Kensington Palace, London. Duchess of Cambridge/PA Wire. Embargoed to 00:01 May 6

The jumper is by Spanish label Irulea, a family-run business based in San Sebastian, Northern Spain. Shortly after Princess Charlotte was photographed wearing the jumper - and a matching hat which was used to keep her head toasty as she was brought home from hospital - it emerged that the set had been a gift to the young Princess from the mother of Maria Teresa Turrion Burrallo, the Cambridges' nanny. The traditional, hand-knitted set is still available to buy for 233 euros.

The second picture (top) shows Princess Charlotte as a doting older sister planting a kiss on her new brother's forehead while he sleeps and was taken on her third birthday on Wednesday. The young Princess wears the same navy Fair Isle cardigan in which Prince George was photographed for the Queen's 90th birthday portrait by Annie Leibovitz in April 2016. The cardigan hails from another Spanish label, Fina Ejerique and sold out within hours of the photo's release.

Spain's classic approach to childrenswear chimes with the young royals' timeless look, with the toddlers of the 2010s wearing identical outfits to those seen on their parents, grandparents and even great-grandparents before them; nothing semaphores stoic continuity quite so sweetly as Princess Charlotte wearing a frilled dress which is near identical to those worn by the Queen as a child.

Hand-me-down dressing is not a new strategy from Kate and William. Prince George has already worn a selection of his father's old outfits for public appearances. At Trooping the Colour in 2016, he was dressed in the white shirt and blue shorts which William wore for Harry's christening in 1984 while at the previous year's ceremony, he wore the same pale blue frilled shirt and matching shorts in which William was dressed at the same event in 1984. Princess Charlotte even wore her Uncle Harry's red bar-strapped shoes during the royal tour to Poland last summer.

Even though he's less than two weeks old, Prince Louis is already estimated to be worth 50 million to the fashion industry, with many of the brands in which his parents have chosen to dress his two older siblings seeing an unprecedented increase of sales and publicity. The Nottingham-based lace manufacturers G.H.Hurt & Sons, who made the blankets in which all three baby Cambridges were wrapped for their public debut on the steps of the Lindo Wing, experienced a rise of 100,000 online hits in the hours following Princess Charlotte's first appearance.

When she went to visit her little brother just hours after his birth on April 23, Charlotte skipped along the pavement wearing a 45 traditional hand-smocked dress by Little Alice London, a childrenswear label founded by the Duchess of Cambridge's old friend from Marlborough, Alice Avenel. Formerly Alice St John Webster, she married Gerald Avenel, a French banker, in 2012.

Expand Expand Previous Next Close 30. Until he facepalmed when Prince William was scolded by the Queen during the Trooping the Colour this year. Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and Princess Charlotte of Cambridge stand on the balcony of Buckingham Palace during Trooping the Colour, this year marking the Queen's 90th birthday on June 11, 2016 in London, England. The ceremony is Queen Elizabeth II's annual birthday parade and dates back to the time of Charles II in the 17th Century when the Colours of a regiment were used as a rallying point in battle. (Photo by Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images) / Facebook

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Whatsapp 30. Until he facepalmed when Prince William was scolded by the Queen during the Trooping the Colour this year.

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While dressing their children in clothes which could be from a bygone era feels appropriate for William and Kate in their capacity as royals, it also taps into a very modern trend for retro childrenswear. The thriftiness of hand-me-downs? An extra relatability box ticked. It's never just a cardigan.

Expand Close Britain's Kate Middleton and Prince William and their newborn son outside the Lindo Wing at St Mary's Hospital in Paddington, London. Photo: Kirsty O'Connor/PA Wire / Facebook

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Whatsapp Britain's Kate Middleton and Prince William and their newborn son outside the Lindo Wing at St Mary's Hospital in Paddington, London. Photo: Kirsty O'Connor/PA Wire Expand Close Princess Charlotte of Cambridge arrives with Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Prince George of Cambridge at the Lindo Wing after Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge gave birth to a son at St Mary's Hospital on April 23, 2018 / Facebook

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Whatsapp Princess Charlotte of Cambridge arrives with Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Prince George of Cambridge at the Lindo Wing after Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge gave birth to a son at St Mary's Hospital on April 23, 2018

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2021]Iran has jailed 16 female members of Islamic State, it is reported (PA)

Irans judiciary has reportedly sentenced 16 female members of Islamic State to jail after returning to the country.

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Whatsapp Iran arrested several women with links to IS last November (Dominic Lipinski/PA)

Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi said the women had previous records of terrorist activity, according to a judiciary news website.

In November 2017, Iran arrested several women with links to IS, many of them wives of IS fighters.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused Iran of supplying advanced weapons to Syria that pose a danger to Israel, saying it would be better to confront Tehran sooner rather than later.

Israel has repeatedly warned it will not tolerate a lasting Iranian military presence in neighbouring Syria, and is believed to have been behind recent air strikes on Syrian military bases that killed Iranian soldiers, prompting Tehran to vow revenge.

Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement.

We are determined to block Iran's aggression against us even if this means a struggle. Better now than laterBenjamin Netanyahu

Mr Netanyahu told the Israeli Cabinet on Sunday that Iran has delivered advanced weapons to Syria in order to attack us both on the battlefield and on the home front.

We are determined to block Irans aggression against us even if this means a struggle. Better now than later, he said. We do not want escalation, but we are prepared for any scenario.

Israel has long viewed Iran as its biggest threat because of Tehrans nuclear activities, its support for armed groups across the region and its leaders frequent calls for the destruction of the Jewish state. In recent years, Iran has provided crucial military support to Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Mr Netanyahus remarks came as President Donald Trump considers whether to withdraw the US from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.

Mr Netanyahu was an outspoken opponent of the deal, which required Iran to limit its nuclear enrichment in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions. Mr Netanyahu says the deal will not prevent Iran, Israels most bitter enemy, from reaching nuclear weapons capability.

Last week, Mr Netanyahu said a half ton of Iranian nuclear documents seized by Israeli intelligence revealed that Iran had lied about its past efforts to produce nuclear weapons. He did not provide any evidence that Iran has violated the 2015 nuclear deal, but said the documents prove Tehran cannot be trusted.

Israel is widely believed to be the only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East, but has never publicly disclosed its arsenal.

European countries, which have been pressing Mr Trump to stick with the deal, said Mr Netanyahus presentation only reinforced the importance of the agreement, which provides for inspections.Irans president has warned US counterpart Donald Trump that pulling America out of the nuclear deal with world powers would be a historic regret.

Hassan Rouhani made the comments in the city of Sabzevar while on a tour of Irans Razavi Khorasan province.

Mr Rouhani said: If (the US) opts to pull out of the nuclear deal, it will soon realise that this decision will become a historic regret for them.

Expand Close Donald Trump has opposed the Iran nuclear deal (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Donald Trump has opposed the Iran nuclear deal (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)

Mr Rouhani also assured Iranians that no change will occur in our lives next week regardless of Mr Trumps decision.

Mr Trump faces a self-imposed May 12 deadline over the 2015 nuclear deal, which he has criticised.

Iran has faced economic trouble in recent weeks, with some analysts blaming the uncertainty surrounding the accord.Masked Hamas gunmen attend a funeral for six fighters who were killed in an explosion in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza Strip (Khalil Hamra/AP)

Hamas has vowed revenge after blaming Israel for an explosion that killed six of its fighters.

The Islamic militant group, which rules Gaza, said Israel will pay a heavy price for the explosion on Saturday night.

Gaza media initially reported the blast as a work accident, implying the militants were killed while producing or handling explosives.

Expand Close The funeral of Hamas fighters in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza Strip (Khalil Hamra/AP) / Facebook

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Whatsapp The funeral of Hamas fighters in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza Strip (Khalil Hamra/AP)

But Hamas now says the militants, including two commanders, were killed dismantling booby-trapped spying equipment planted by Israel during the past decade in Gaza. It did not elaborate or provide any evidence.

Israels military declined to comment.

Hamas supreme leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was among thousands of Palestinians who attended the militants funerals.North Korea has criticised misleading US claims that President Donald Trumps policy of maximum political pressure and sanctions are what drove the North to the negotiating table.

Mr Trump is due to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in the coming weeks in a historical summit.

The Norths official news agency quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman warning the claims are a dangerous attempt to ruin a budding detente on the Korean Peninsula after Mr Kims summit late last month with South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

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Whatsapp North Korean leader Kim Jong Un with South Korean President Moon Jae-in (Korea Summit Press Pool via AP)

At the summit, Mr Kim agreed to a number of measures aimed at improving North-South ties and indicated he is willing to discuss the denuclearisation of the peninsula, though exactly what that would entail and what conditions the North might require have not yet been explained.

Mr Trump and senior US officials have suggested repeatedly that Washingtons tough policy towards North Korea, along with pressure on its main trading partner China, have played a decisive role in turning around what had been an extremely tense situation.

Just last year, as Mr Kim was launching long-range missiles at a record pace and trading vulgar insults with Mr Trump, it would have seemed unthinkable for the topic of denuclearisation to be on the table.

But the Norths statement on Sunday seemed to be aimed at strengthening Mr Kims position going into his meeting with Mr Trump. Pyongyang claims Mr Kim himself is the driver of the current situation.

The US is deliberately provoking the DPRK at the time when the situation on the Korean Peninsula is moving toward peace and reconciliation, the spokesman was quoted as saying. DPRK is short for the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, the Norths formal name.

Mr Kim and Mr Trump are expected to meet later this month or in early June.

Mr Trump has indicated the date and place have been chosen and said he believes the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) that divides the Koreas might be a good venue. Singapore was also believed to be a potential site.

Experts are split over whether Mr Kims statement made with Mr Moon at the DMZ marks a unique opening for progress or a rehash of Pyongyangs longstanding demand for security guarantees.

Sundays comments were among the very few the North has made since Mr Trump agreed in March to the meeting.

The spokesman warned the US not to interpret Pyongyangs willingness to talk as a sign of weakness. He also criticised Washington for its ongoing pressure and military threats and its position that such pressure will not be eased until North Korea gives up its nuclear weapons completely.

Before Mr Trump meets Mr Kim, Washington is hoping to gain the release of three Korean-Americans accused of anti-state activities. Mr Trump hinted the release of Kim Dong Chul, Kim Hak Song and Tony Kim was in the offing.

There was no sign of an imminent release on Sunday, though the men had reportedly been moved to the capital.

The White House, meanwhile, has announced a separate meeting between Mr Trump and Mr Moon at the White House on May 22 to continue their close coordination on developments regarding the Korean Peninsula.FILE  In this Oct. 2, 2017 file photo, Pakistani Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal talks to journalists outside the accountability court, in Islamabad, Pakistan. Pakistani officials said a gunman opened fire on the interior minister after a public meeting, wounding him in the shoulder (Anjum Naveed/AP)

Pakistans interior minister has been shot and wounded in the shoulder by a gunman following a public meeting.

Ahsan Iqbal was returning to his car when he was attacked by a 22-year-old man who fired at close range.

The attacker was immediately arrested after the incident in Narowal district.

Expand Close Imran Khan and his party demanded an inquiry into the shooting of the minister (K.M. Chaudary/AP) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Imran Khan and his party demanded an inquiry into the shooting of the minister (K.M. Chaudary/AP)

Mr Iqbal was in Narowal to mobilise support for his re-election.

Popular opposition leader Imran Khan and his PTI party demanded an inquiry into the attack.

Opposition leader Khurshid Shah said the attack was an attempt to portray the security apparatus as weak and create an environment of fear ahead of the parliamentary elections scheduled for mid-July.The leader of mass protests against Russian President Vladimir Putin, that resulted in the arrests of more than 1,500 demonstrators across the country, has been released from detention but faces two charges.

Alexei Navalny said on Twitter he had been released after he was arrested in Moscows Pushkin Square on Saturday.

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Whatsapp Russian police push back protesters in Moscow (Pavel Golovkin/AP)

He said he faces charges of organising an unauthorised meeting and of resisting police. Each of those charges can carry a jail sentence of 15 days.

OND-Info, an organisation that monitors Russian political arrests, said at least 1,575 people were arrested in demonstrations in 26 cities across Russia protesting against Mr Putins upcoming inauguration for a new term. It was not clear on Sunday how many remained in custody.

Amnesty International called the arrests and beatings of some Russian protesters outrageous.Anti-India protests have raged in Indian-controlled Kashmir for a second day, leaving scores of people injured, police and residents said.

In the latest clash, hundreds of villagers threw rocks at Indian troops in a bid to help rebels who were trapped in a civilian home in the southern Shopian area, police said.

Counter-insurgency officers and soldiers cordoned off the village following intelligence that at least three militants were hiding there.

As the rebels and soldiers fought, government forces also fired bullets, shotgun pellets and tear gas at the protesters who tried to reach the gunbattle site. At least 14 civilians were injured, one of them critically.

According to police, among the trapped rebels were a top commander and a university assistant professor who formally joined the militant ranks just two days ago.

Kashmir University suspends class work for two days Five Hizb militants, including a professor working in the sociology... Posted by University of Kashmir on Sunday, May 6, 2018

A statement by the University of Kashmir on Saturday said the sociology teacher, Mohammed Rafi Bhat, has been missing since Friday.

Most Kashmiris support the rebel cause while also participating in civilian street protests against Indian control. In recent years, mainly young Kashmiris have displayed open solidarity with rebels and sought to protect them by engaging troops in street clashes during military operations. Last year, at least 29 civilians were killed and hundreds wounded during such clashes.

Shops and businesses were shuttered in most parts of Kashmir following a strike call by separatists against Saturdays killings of a civilian and three rebels in the disputed regions main city of Srinagar.

Expand Close The funeral of Fayaz Ahmad Hamal, a local rebel, in Srinagar (Dar Yasin/AP) / Facebook

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Whatsapp The funeral of Fayaz Ahmad Hamal, a local rebel, in Srinagar (Dar Yasin/AP)

Internet on mobile phones also remained suspended for a second day, a common practice by Indian authorities to make organising protests more difficult.

Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan each administer part of Kashmir, but both claim it in its entirety.

Rebels have been fighting Indian rule since 1989, demanding Indian-controlled Kashmir be made part of Pakistan or become an independent country.

In recent years, Kashmir has seen renewed rebel attacks and repeated public protests against Indian rule as a new generation of Kashmiri rebels, especially in the southern parts of the region, have revived the militancy and challenged New Delhis rule with guns and effective use of social media.

India accuses Pakistan of arming and training the rebels, a charge Pakistan denies.

Nearly 70,000 people have been killed in the uprising and the ensuing Indian military crackdown.Srinagar, May 6 (IBNS): An encounter broke out between security forces and terrorists in Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir on Sunday morning leaving a policeman and an army jawan injured.

According to reports, two to three terrorists are believed to be trapped at the encounter site.

This comes a day after altogether seven people, including three militants, were killed in separate incidents in a deadly string of violence in Kashmir on Saturday.

According to reports, three militants, suspected to be members of the Pakistani terror outfit Lashker-e-Taiba, were gunned down on Saturday during an hours-long encounter, while a civilian died reportedly in a road accident during a clash that erupted after a mob of local people pelterd the forces with stones to prevent them from carrying on with the operation.

Counterinsurgency police and paramilitary soldiers had raided a cluster of homes in Chattabal, a neighbourhood area of Srinagar after getting a tip that militants were hiding there.

Troops had asked the trapped militants to surrender but they had started firing leading to a gunbattle.

Officials said there were three militants, holed up in a house, who kept fighting the forces. The firefight continued for nearly five hours and ended with the killing of three militants.

A CRPF jawan was also injured in the shootout.Srinagar, May 6 (IBNS): Security forces eliminated five militants of Hizb outfit including its top Hizb Commander and missing Kashmir university Assistant Professor in a fierce gun battle at Badigam area of south Kashmir's Shopian district on Sunday.

According to sources, after receiving inputs about the presence of some militants hiding in Badigam village of Shopian, 44RR of army, Special Operation Group of Jammu and Kashmir Police and CRPF laid siege around the area and sealed all entry and exit points leading to the area .

"When search party approached towards the suspected houses, suddenly a quantum of fire came from militants which led to fierce gunfight," said police officer .

In the initial firefight, one SOG personnel of Jammu and Kashmir Police, Anil Kumar, and army soldier of 44 RR were injured.

Both were shifted to Srinagar army hospital for treatment and reports said both are critical.

Soon intense clashes rocked the area and one civilian suffered injuries and was hospitalized.

(Reporting by Saleem Iqbal Qadri)New Delhi, May 6 (IBNS): Celebrating the spirit of New India, Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) and Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD), together joined hands to amplify the Gram Swaraj Abhiyaan of the current incumbent government which is promoting social harmony and awareness around the pro-poor initiatives of the government.

Addressing the gathering Union Minister for Petroleum & Natural Gas, Skill Development & Entrepreneurship, Dharmendra Pradhan, said: "Today, our government has been able to complete 4 successful years of governance, with all the due support from the people of this country. Our vision of 'SabkaSaath, Sabka Vikas' is now gradually seeing its impact, and we have started this campaign to bring back the focus on our 'Graam,' our villages. This New India of our dreams can only be a reality if we strengthen our villages and our panchayats, the roots of our democracy. And as the Minister of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, it is our endeavor to provide access to quality skill training at the local levels, thorugh both short term courses and long term training as well."

"I urge all our youth, their parents and individuals of our society, to take advantage of the immense resources and schemes extended by our government. I urge them to explore opportunities in traditional skills and new age technologies, both relevant to todays market, and both equally capable of generating sustainable livelihoods," added Pradhan.

In this regards MSDE organized a Kaushal and Rojgar Mela at New Womens College in Khordha, Bhubaneswar where more than 5000 people from different walks of life participated.

Nearly 3000 candidates registered for the Rojgar Mela (Placement Drive), which saw 1000+ candidates shortlisted by 41 leading corporates such as Eureka Forbes, Flipkart, Ola, Reliance Digital, VLCC, V Mart, Shahi Exports, Talwalkars, Lakme among others.

More than 29 state of art multi-skill Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Kendras were also launched digitally across the country by the Minister.

The Minister also handed over Mudra loan acceptance letters to the youth participating at the event. He further gave certificates to 10 successful candidates trained under Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) at the event.

The Kaushal Mela organized on the sidelines of the event, saw an exhibition being put multiple stakeholders including Sector Skill Councils, Bankers, Training Partners, Industries, ITIs etc., which provided counselling for the candidates and their parents, and helped them understand various opportunities available in the skill development ecosystem.New Delhi, May 6 (IBNS): Border Roads Organisation (BRO) will celebrate its Raising Day on Monday.

BRO, a leader in the arena of infrastructural development in the border areas of the country, is celebrating its 58 years of glorious service to the nation.

Since its inception in 1960, so far the Organisation has grown from 02 to 19 projects.

The works executed have ensured the territorial integrity and the socio-economic upliftment of the most inaccessible regions of the country as well as Indias neighbourhood.

On this occasion, Director General Border Roads Lt Gen Harpal Singh, conveyed his greetings to all veterans and BRO personnel and called upon all ranks of the Organisation to continue on the path of excellence with renewed vigour and dedication.New Delhi, May 6 (IBNS): Subhash Chandra Garg Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) , made the intervention on behalf of India in the Plenary Session of the 51st Annual Meeting of Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Manila on Saturday and welcomed the ADBs Strategy 2030 .

Garg is currently leading an Indian delegation to the 51st Annual Meeting of ADB. All the Governors present made their interventions.

In his intervention, Garg highlighted the need for taking into account the likely impacts of the technical advancements that are taking place owing to Artificial Intelligence, robotics, etc. so that ADB can equip the member countries to reap maximum benefits out of these technical advancements.

He further stated that the Strategy should focus more on West Asia and South Asia as interventions in East Asia are already done fairly well.

Garg also emphasized that the private sector operations of ADB as envisaged in the strategy should be enhanced and there should be more focus on equity participation. He also stated that there is absolutely no case for increase of cost of of various loan instruments as there is no capital deficiency in ADB.

Garg also attended the Opening Session of the Board of Governors, which was followed by the Business Session.

During the Business Session, Garg applauded ADB for focusing on poverty eradication, quality jobs and increased support for social sectors while reiterating its commitment to building the infrastructure.

He reiterated that ADB should continue to focus on its key areas of strength like urban infrastructure, energy, transport, disaster management, etc.

While appreciating the role of ADB in helping developing member countries in building infrastructure, he sought Banks increased assistance for the capacity building efforts. He stressed that ADB should continue to focus on programs of poverty alleviation.

He called for a targeted approach towards poverty eradication taking into account the regional imbalances and absolute number of poor people in Asia and the Pacific.

He also welcomed the collaboration between ADB and the ISA and urged upon ADB to move forward in this direction as expeditiously as possible.

He also argued that there is a strong case for ADB to adopt Country Systems for procurements and environmental safeguards. He also called for greater decentralization in decision-making, and strengthening of resident missions of ADB.

He also called for concerted efforts towards increasing lending for the private sector in developing member countries.

While welcoming ADBs pledge to support an inclusive growth, Garg highlighted the need to develop innovative financing instruments to cater to the specific needs and priorities of the member countries.

The Indian delegation also held bilateral meetings with the Japan Bank for International Cooperation and discussed a wide range of bilateral issues.

BJP Karnataka Twitter Handle

New Delhi, May 6 (IBNS): Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday accused the Congress of ignoring the Dalits and said the party insulted the chief architect of Indian Constitution B.R. Ambedkar.

Addressing a rally in in Chitradurga, which is located about 200 km northwest of Bengaluru, the PM said: "The Congress has insulted Ambedkar. They have never accepted him."

"They did not give anything to Baba Sahab. Bharat Ratna was reserved for one family in Congress rule. It was Atal ji who gave Bharat Ratna to him," PM Modi said.



Hitting back at the PM, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah tweeted,

BJP is good at promising but very poor in keeping them. They may speak about Kannada Swabhimana because we have been upholding it.



But, nobody should doubt their commitment to Hindi once in power.



KS Eshwarappa even spoke in Hindi on the subject of Kannada pride. https://t.co/FexQrjnpd1  Siddaramaiah (@siddaramaiah) May 6, 2018



In another Raichur rally in Karnataka, Modi alleged that the Congress Party had an ecosystem of looting.

"My government has come down heavily on them. We have stopped leakages. Don't you think that would make the Congress angry with me? Don't you think they will abuse me," said Modi.

"In the UPA government, LED bulbs used to be sold for Rs. 300. Now, you can get them for Rs. 40-50," the PM said.

Modi claimed that his government has done a lot of work on solar energy.

"We want to harness the potential of solar energy in Karnataka as well," said he.New Delhi, May 6 (IBNS): Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Sunday said Muslims' offering of prayers, known as Namaz' should be restricted to mosques or Idgahs rather than public areas.

"According to my point of view, namaz should be offered at their designated places. Namaz should be offered inside mosque and Eidgah. If there is shortage of place for namaz, then it should be offered at personal place," he told mediapersons in Chandigarh.

This comes amid the rise in incidents of right-wing groups preventing Muslims from offering namaz in open spaces in Gurugram.

He said it is the government's duty to look after the law and order situation in the state.

"Its okay till no objections are raised on (offering namaz at public places). But if objections are raised from any department, then we have to be carefull. So, we are keeping watch on it," said he.

Kabul, May 6 (IBNS): At least six Indian nationals were abducted by unknown armed men in Baghlan province of Afghanistan on Sunday, media reports said.

As per Afghanistan based Tolo News, the six abducted Indians were employees of a company named KEC.

Apart from the Indian nationals, one Afghan employee of the company was also abducted by the armed men from Bagh-e-Shamal village.

According to local officials the incident happened while they were traveling to the area, where the company owns an electricity sub-station contract, reported Tolo News.

Baghlan provincial council have linked the incident to the Taliban, who have not yet commented, reported the Afghanistan based news channel.

Image: UN websiteBagalkot, May 6 (IBNS); Addressing a campaign rally in poll-bound Karnataka's Bagalkot city, Prime Minister Narendra Modi slammed the Congress and asked the people of the state to remain 'vigilant and beware' of the' divisive politics' of the ruling party.

Attacking the Congress, Modi said: "In a democracy, to win or to lose is a part of elections. One must accept their defeat. But the Congress are 'Naamdaars'. They did not congratulate us, the 'Kaamdaars'. Such is their arrogance that they even did not pay a courtesy call to the President upon his win."

"I urge people of Karnataka to remain vigilant and beware of the divisive politics of the Congress. We will not accept any division of Karnataka on the grounds of caste," he said.

He alleged that the Congress is not paying any importance to the plight of the sugarcane farmers in the state.

"Look at the plight of sugarcane farmers in the Karnataka. The Congress government and the present Chief Minister is insensitive towards them. They did nothing for their welfare," Modi said.

He said the Congress mocks positive initiatives taken by the Centre like 'Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao'.

The Karnataka poll has virtually turned out to be a battle between present and former Chief Ministers, Siddaramaiah and Yeddyurappa.

The BJP is eyeing on to return to power in the state.

Karnataka is one of the last few strong holds of the Congress.

The poll will be held in a single phase on May 12. The counting of the votes will take place on Apr 15.

Image: BJP Twitter pageKabul, May 6 (IBNS): Indian officials on Sunday said they are aware of the abduction of Indian nationals in Afghanistan.

"We are aware of the abduction of Indian nationals from Baghlan province in Afghanistan.We are in contact with the Afghan authorities and further details are being ascertained," read a statement issued by the MEA.

At least six Indian nationals were abducted by unknown armed men in Baghlan province of Afghanistan on Sunday, media reports said.

As per Afghanistan based Tolo News, the six abducted Indians were employees of a company named KEC.

Apart from the Indian nationals, one Afghan employee of the company was also abducted by the armed men from Bagh-e-Shamal village.

According to local officials the incident happened while they were traveling to the area, where the company owns an electricity sub-station contract, reported Tolo News.

Baghlan provincial council have linked the incident to the Taliban, who have not yet commented, reported the Afghanistan based news channel.

Image: UN websiteNew Delhi, May 6 (IBNS): Ahead of the state polls in Karnataka, Prime Minister Narendra Modi took a swipe at the Congress party, accusing it of doing little for the state all the while abusing the former.

The Prime Minister took to social media on Sunday to post, "Instead of giving a proper account of the work done by the Karnataka government in the last five years, Congress is busy hurling abuses at me. Congress must also explain to the nation why they did not let Parliament function and why they prevented the formation of OBC commission."

Instead of giving a proper account of the work done by the Karnataka government in the last five years, Congress is busy hurling abuses at me. Congress must also explain to the nation why they did not let Parliament function and why they prevented the formation of OBC commission.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) May 6, 2018

He added that the opposition has not done enough for weavers in Karnataka, while he praised his own government for working towards the betterment of the community in India.

"The Central Government has taken unprecedented steps for the Textiles and handloom sectors. The Mudra Yojana is doing wonders for our hardworking weavers," the Prime Minister's tweet read.

He added, "In contrast, the Congress Government in Karnataka has not shown any effort to change the lives of our weavers."

The Prime Minister was addressing a rally in Hubbali in Karnataka, where he made the aforementioned comments.

Our aim is to build a 'New India' where the aspirations of our youth get wings. pic.twitter.com/5OiLXxMLLV  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) May 6, 2018

Sharing his future dream for India, he said, "Our aim is to build a 'New India' where the aspirations of our youth get wings."

Karnataka will go into polls on May 12.

The results will be announced on May 15.

The polls will see bigwigs BS Yeddyurappa of the Bharatiya Janata Party and Congress' Siddaramaiah take on one another.

Karnataka is one of the few bastions left ruled by the Congress party.

Image: twitter.com/narendramodiSrinagar, May 6 (IBNS): Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti has expressed deep anguish and grief over the death of five civilians on Sunday at Shopian during a security operation.

In a statement, the Chief Minister said it sounds very depressing to note that the state is losing young lives to the unending cycle of violence who could otherwise be utilized for a positive contribution to the State.

The loss of 5 innocent civilians in Shopian serves as a grim reminder that violence is no solution to the issues that plague us. We all must unite & pull J&K out of this endless nightmare by engaging in sustained & meaningful dialogue.  Mehbooba Mufti (@MehboobaMufti) May 6, 2018

She said Sundays deaths have brought a stark fact to fore, that gun, either way of a militant or that of security forces, is no solution for resolving issues.

I have reiterated it time and again that political issues need political interventions, she said while appealing to youth that their energies, youthfulness, dreams and aspirations are far more important and sacred to the society than their corpses or graves.

Mehbooba appealed to all sections of civil society, media, students, parents and other stakeholders to rise to this critical occasion, play their role and help in putting an end to this cycle of bloodshed in the state.

The Chief Minister reiterated her stand that issues in Jammu and Kashmir can be resolved only through a sustained dialogue between all stakeholders.

She said the three decades long violence in the State is a testimony to the fact that guns from either side cannot ensure peace but a compassion driven reconciliation process based on mutual respect surely can.

In this regard, the Chief Minister appealed to the national leadership of the country to show the element of compassion and empathy as required by the present day situation here and display the statesmanship to get Jammu and Kashmir out of the quagmire of killings by engaging in a meaningful dialogue in the state.

The sooner it happens, the more we can get our State out of the vicious cycle of killings and destruction, she added.



(Reporting by Saleem Iqbal Qadri)

Image: twitter.com/MehboobaMuftiIslamabad, May 6 (IBNS): At least 23 people were killed as two coal mines collapsed near Quetta city in Pakistan on Saturday, media reports said on Sunday.

Twenty-three miners were killed Saturday when two coal mine collapsed near Quetta, chief mines inspector told Pakistan-based Geo News.

The first collapse incident occurred in Marwaarh, 45 kilometres east of Quetta city of Pakistan.

The collapse reportedly occurred due to gas explosion.

"The roof caved in following an explosion triggered by the accumulation of methane gas, killing 16 miners and wounding nine others, two of them seriously", Jawaid Shahwani, commissioner of Quetta Division told Geo News.

At least 30 labours were present inside the mine when the blast occurred.

The injured people were rushed to hospital for treatment.

In another collapse incident in Sooranj area seven miners were killed.

Bodies of five miners were rescued on Sunday morning when the search operation commenced.

Image: Geo New website video grabKabul, May 6 (IBNS): At least seven people were killed as the vehicle they were travelling in struck a roadside bomb in northwestern Faryab province of Afghanistan on Sunday, media reports said.

The incident reportedly left eight others injured.

Police spokesman Abdul Karim Yurish told Pajhwok Afghan News the bomb planted by the Taliban ripped through the vehicle carrying shopkeepers in Almar district.

Seven individuals were killed and one wounded, he told the Afghanistan-based news agency, adding an investigation had been launched into the explosion, which occurred in Khwaja Gohar area.

Mohammad Saleh Saleh, the districts administrative chief, also confirmed about the attack to the news agency.

The Taliban has not commented on the issue so far.Khost, May 6 (IBNS): At least 17 people were killed in a suspected IED blast inside an election-related facility in Khost province of Afghanistan on Sunday, media reports said.

The IED reportedly was placed inside a mosque which was a facility center for registering voters, reported Tolo News.

The blast left 33 others injured, reports said.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack so far.

Security forces have reached the spot of the blast.

Terrorism-hit Afghanistan in 2018:

Afghanistan has witnessed several terrorism-related attacks this year.

Armed conflict in Afghanistan killed 763 civilians and injured 1,495 in the first three months of this year, the United Nations mission in the country said recently.

All parties to the conflict in Afghanistan must do everything in their power to protect civilians from harm, said Ingrid Hayden, the Secretary-Generals Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan. Afghan civilians continue to suffer, caught in the conflict, in ways that are preventable; this must stop now.

The 2,258 civilian casualties, documented from 1 January to 31 March by the UN Assistance Mission in the country, known as UNAMA, are at the similar levels recorded in the first three months of 2017 and 2016. Anti-Government elements caused 1,500 civilian casualties, up six per cent from the same period last year.

Suicide improvised explosive devices (IED) and complex attacks were the leading cause of civilian casualties  a new trend. The Mission found that combats on the ground were the second leading cause, followed by targeted and deliberate killings, explosive remnants of war, and aerial operations.

Image: Wikimedia CommonsAlong with raising two daughters and working full time, Lhakpa Sherpa also manages to climb the coveted Mt Everest - a feat not many will achieve in their lifetime.

Lhakpa Sherpa doesn't have time for training, yet, she has done it over 8 times to bring a Guinness World Record home. Now, she is aiming to do it again. In a bid to outdo herself, the 44-year-old Sherpa who is a native of Nepal is planning to return to the Everest, this month.

My body knows that I have already been this high, Lhakpa said. Its like a computer. It figures it out very quickly. My body knows the high altitude. It remembers. reports sfgate.

Lhakpa Sherpa, a single mother, is preparing to climb Mount Everest for the 9th time, beating her own world record #tictocnews pic.twitter.com/FP9WXGo3i6  TicToc by Bloomberg (@tictoc) May 4, 2018

Lhakpa lives an ordinary life in Connecticut where she washes dishes at Whole Foods. She went there with her now ex-husband, who is another well-known climber. Every morning Lhakpa starts her day at 6 a.m. to walk her daughters to school. She then walks another 2 miles to her job, where she washes dishes and takes out the garbage.

You would never know she hiked Everest unless you knew her and talked to her about it, said Dan Furtado, the manager who hired Lhakpa at Whole Foods. Shes the most humble person I know, and her work ethic is astounding.

From where we see and from what we know, Lhakpa is one of the many distressed women who come from an oppressed background. According to her, she wanted to be a doctor or an aeroplane pilot but growing up in the Sherpa ethnic community that's all that she learnt.

She is now overcoming adversities through her hard work and by taking up odd jobs to fulfil the needs of her family. Her first ever expedition was with five women in 2000 who convinced the government to give them the permit. That's how she became the first Nepali woman to reach the summit and come back alive.

If you ever thought that the quote 'Where there is a will, there is a way' rang hollow, Lhakpa Sherpa is here to tell you, you're wrong.We all have had our own share of predicaments and resentment towards Indian railways. Although, as an Indian who has travelled in trains throughout my childhood, I must say the that I adore the journey. However, I am not much of a fan of their services.

Unslash

Back in 2016, a woman who was travelling aboard a Kalka-New Delhi Shatabdi had a shocking experience with the train and now the court has ruled in her favour. Shalini Jain was travelling with her two sons on the said train when her Shatabdi breakfast arrived.

When she opened the packet, she found a live insect in her food. She immediately raised the matter with the service provider and returned all her packages but nothing was done. It is only now, nearly a year and a half later that the Chandigarh Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum ordered railway to pay her Rs 10,000 as compensation.

They also asked to refund Rs 270 catering charges for the breakfast.

But the ensued decision didn't come easily to Shalini. When Shalini complained about the food quality to the training staff and the TTE, everything fell on deaf ears. They even ganged up and did not facilitate a register to lodge a complaint.

Following this, she even sent a written complaint to the Railway Minister on October 12, 2016, but she did not get any reply from there as well. Later now, it was the consumer court that finally helped her out.

In her plea, she said that Railway is blatantly charging/forcing passengers to pay for the breakfast, without keeping a check on the quality of food that is served. She said that this amounted to unfair trade practice and deficiency in service.

The forum also said, This is a serious lapse on the part of the Catering Officials especially Supervisor, who miserably failed to supervise the preparation and service of food to the passengers on the train. The complainant has paid Rs 270 as catering charges, but could not eat the meal and suffered a lot and even her little kids were deprived of meals during the journey.'

It was just last week when Railway employees were seen filling their tea kettles from the railway toilets. Can someone tell me what is really happening?Priyanka Chopra is one person who knows how to do chat shows right. While most of the celebrities struggle to make an appearance worth remembering, Priyanka Chopra is someone who can own these chat shows like a BAWSE!

There are more than 10 international chat shows that PC has already made her appearance on and yes, Indian show Koffee With Karan too remains one of our most favorite PC outings. From replying like a true-blue Desi to teaching the world how to do a perfect 'Namaste', PC is exceptionally good on chat shows.

Pinterest

We have listed 13 times when PC bowled us over by just BEING HERSELF on these chat shows.

1. Koffee With Karan: When she reminded everyone that she's still a desi girl at heart

Starworld

Guys, there are very direct. They are like, "Are you free tonight? Let's go out."

Arey na jaan na pehchaan. Akele? Itni forward bhi nahi hoon main.

2. When PC beat Jimmy Fallon's hot wings-eating contest like a TOTAL Boss!

YouTube

3. Come on. She has the most epic expressions. No kidding here!

YouTube Screengrab

4. And even during the blast from the past photos, she gives a flying f** about being graceful. She giggles as much as she wants!

Twitter

5. When she took over the Ellen Show and taught everyone to wave like a TOTAL BOSS!

YouTube

6. I am going to say this on national television. I was supposed to be Mrs. Tupac Shakur

7. And when she didn't mind getting drunk on a chat show.

Twitter

8. When PC warned an American Talk Show Host, saying Good Luck With Not Offending Indians.





YouTube

I don't wanna go to India and do anything offensive" to which PC replied, "Good luck with that."









9. When she played Holi with Jimmy Fallon

10. Speaking to the host Seth Meyers, she spoke about working with mother Madhu Chopra, who is her co-producer

YouTUbe

We are business partners that is a lot of fun. You can never yell at your mom. When its a problem or you are having a disagreement, she always gives you the eye.

11. Priyanka Chopra went to The Late Show with Stephen Colbert Stephen couldnt contain his surprise that shes done over 50 movies. He said even Robert De Niro hadnt done so many. To that Pee Cee was like, "Well yeah. He probably hasn't. I do a lot of work."

Late Show

12. The Late Show with Stephen Colbert she came back from America to India, she had a really heavy NY accent, which she thinks is embarrassing now.: I (laughs) had a really American accent. I studied in New York as well, Flushing Queens. So, I had a New York accent. But I would be like, Can I have some kwuaffee? My sistah, I am staying with my sistah. (laughs)'

YouTube

13. PC was on the sets of The View, the talk show hosted by Joy Behar, Sunny Hostin, Sara Haines and Jedediah Bila. The show is one of the most popular shows and guess what? She had the most epic response to her body Shamers, who hounded her with 'nose job' questionsEven after being warned by Jammu Bar Association to drop the case and having received death threats, Deepika Singh Rajawat emerged as a hero that the nation longed for in the contemporary times.

The lawyer cried empathetically and stood up for the eight-year-old who was abducted, sedated and repeatedly raped before being murdered in January 2018. Deepika's bravery, confidence and determination won us all over.

The rape case was so brutal that, it not only sent shockwaves across the nation but also made headlines across the world. So much so, that while people grieved at the details of the brutal rape case, they also applauded the fearless lawyer Deepika Singh Rajawat.

And recently, Hollywood actress Emma Watson also extended her support to the firebrand lawyer.

All power to Deepika Singh Rajawat https://t.co/sZzDVcIFNo  Emma Watson (@EmmaWatson) May 3, 2018

Emma garnered praises from people on social media.

This lawyer got many threats from culprits side but still stand with victim such a great brave lawyer. And Emma you are doing great job good luck  zaid ali (@AliZaidali) May 4, 2018

thanks for your support  I hope one day you will be here in India to encourage the woman and the youths because most of the politicians and their companions have failed to do their committed works  Biplab Karmakar (@BiplabOfficial) May 4, 2018

Thank you for supporting the cause at a time when divide and rule politics is weakening India we are in dire need of such strong women.#JusticeForAsifa  naumanqureshi (@9manqureshi) May 4, 2018

At first I didn't believe that It was u speaking on this shame,,,since many in India r keeping mum and also rallying behind the rapist.

Thanks for raising it.

Respect just got doubled 4 u.

Love from India..  NazarBattu (@786Srkshahrukh) May 4, 2018

Oho. Now bhakts will boycott @EmmaWatson movies too??   Hajra Bi (@hajra_bi) May 4, 2018

At the same time, there were some people who dissed her too.

Emma,

Before u support this case, u should understand the politics and conspiracy behind...

Blindly supporting means reducing your fan following... All the best...    (@Chandra24323044) May 4, 2018

Will someone tell her that panel set up by Bar Council of India gave J&K Bar Association members clean-chit. After probing their actions ,the panel concluded accusations of Deepika were false, they were protesting to give the case to CBI.  Manoj Bharadwaj (@Maddy_Mulpie) May 4, 2018

How much were u paid to tweet this pic and by whom ??? @Shehla_Rashid  the speaking tree (@Itsme90149153) May 4, 2018

You're gonna lose the respect you command, if you don't read up on that issue before tweeting nonsense.

Unless of course, you too have given up on the pretense of being unbiased and are now agenda driven more than ideal driven as was made out by popular media.   S.  (@JyotiSNK) May 5, 2018

This fake lady is shame in d name of lawyer. She and her friend shehla rashid grabed millions of rupees in d name of victim donation.  Subhrajit Guha (@subhraguha1) May 5, 2018

Also Read: Kathua Rape Victim's Lawyer Deepika Rajawat Fears That She May Get Raped Or MurderedSunny Leone  the woman needs no introduction. From an adult-film actress, she has quite successfully established herself as an actress in Bollywood. But what else do you know about her?

Why did she pick her name as Sunny from Karenjit Kaur? Why did she movie from Canada? What is her life story? The diva will is revealing it all in her biopic web-series titled Karenjit Kaur -- The Untold Story of Sunny Leone.

And she recently introduced Rysa Saujani, the girl who will play her younger version in the biographical web-series. Take a look:

Sunny has struggled with a lot of things in life. Many people have the misconception that people started criticising me when I decided to come to India, but that is not true. I started getting hate mails and criticism when I was around 21 years old. So it has nothing to do with the country, but society in general. That was the first time I faced real hatred, she was quoted as saying by IANS.

But at the age of 21, when you see people are saying really nasty things about you, it affects you so badly I was vulnerable and broken from within emotionally, added the Baby Doll actress.

 A post shared by Sunny Leone (@sunnyleone) on Apr 11, 2018 at 9:18pm PDT

Sunny Leone started her journey in India with reality show Bigg Boss, where she was noticed by filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt and that's how she made her debut in Bollywood with Jism 2.

GUILTY!!! Of doing it my way! A post shared by Sunny Leone (@sunnyleone) on May 3, 2018 at 8:31am PDT

Since then, she has acted in a lot of films including Ragini MMS 2, Ek Paheli Leela, Mastizaade, One Night Stand and Tera Intezaar, among others. She has also added glamour to chart-buster songs like Baby Doll, Laila main Laila and Pink Lips, and has also hosted shows like MTV Splitsvilla.

She is all set to bare her heart out on her life story, are you ready for her biopic web-series Karenjit Kaur  The Untold Story of Sunny Leone?SS Rajamouli's magnum opus Baahubali: The Conclusion created many film records when it released in India. Earning Rs 14.169 billion in India and Rs 2.896 billion overseas, The Conclusion surpassed PK (2014) to briefly become the highest grossing Indian film of all time.

screengrab

It became the first ever Indian film to gross over Rs 10 billion, doing so in just ten days. Within India, it set many films records, becoming the highest-grossing film in Hindi, as well as in its original Telugu and Tamil languages.

screengrab

And now the mega blockbuster got a theatrical release in China. And as expected, the film has minted over Rs 2 million on its day 1.

#Baahubali2InChina makes a commanding debut.. $2.85 Million [ 19 Crs] for Day 1.. pic.twitter.com/OCiUknaj9g  Ramesh Bala (@rameshlaus) May 4, 2018

Trade analyst Taran Adarsh took to Twitter to reveal the big numbers. He wrote, #Baahubali2 opens VERY WELL in CHINA Debuts at No 3 position Opening day numbers are lower than #SecretSuperstar and #HindiMedium, but higher than #BajrangiBhaijaan [all 2018 releases in China] Fri $ 2.43 mn [ 16.24 cr]. Shows: 51,494. Footfalls: 484,276.

#Baahubali2 opens VERY WELL in CHINA... Debuts at No 3 position... Opening day numbers are lower than #SecretSuperstar and #HindiMedium, but higher than #BajrangiBhaijaan [all 2018 releases in China]...

Fri $ 2.43 mn [ 16.24 cr]

Shows: 51,494

Footfalls: 484,276  taran adarsh (@taran_adarsh) May 5, 2018

Directed by S S Rajamouli and starring Prabhas, Rana Daggubati, Anushka Shetty and Tamannaah Bhatia, "Baahubali 2" was released in India in April last year.

Twitter

"Baahubali: The Beginning" had earned USD 123 million total in China.1. Emma Watson Extends Support To Kathua Rape Victims Lawyer Deepika Singh Rajawat & Fans Are Divided!

The lawyer cried empathetically and stood up for the eight-year-old who was abducted, sedated and repeatedly raped before being murdered in January 2018. Deepika's bravery, confidence and determination won us all over. And recently, Hollywood actress Emma Watson also extended her support to the firebrand lawyer.

2. From Their Bedroom Rule To Shaadi Preparations, Heres All About Sonam Kapoor-Anand Ahujas Big Fat Wedding!

They are quite excited to be living rest of their lives together! Anand Ahuja already has made a rule for Sonam Kapoor. It's a rule basically Anand has put on both of us. Right before I sleep I have to put my phone on charging in the bathroom or I charge it in the hall of other room.

3. Ranveer Singh Wants A Chameleon-Like Quality, Feels Audience Should Expect The Unexpected From Him

You watch one film of an actor and then the other one and you can't believe it is the same person... I used to find that very fascinating. Actors who have that chameleon-like quality, they are able to be anything. I have always aspired to be like that.

4. Meet Rysa Saujani, The Girl Wholl Play The Younger Version Of Sunny Leone In Her Biopic

she recently introduced Rysa Saujani, the girl who will play her younger version in the biographical web-series.

5. After Akash Ambani's Engagement, Sister Isha All Set To Tie The Knot With Anand Piramal In December

#akashambani A post shared by Akash Ambani (@ambani_akash) on Mar 24, 2018 at 10:59am PDT

Nita and Mukeshs daughter, and Akashs twin, Isha Ambani is all set to walk down the aisle with her long time friend and beau Anand Piramal, son of Swati and Ajay Piramal in December in India this year.Everyone seems to be doing politics on the issue of Aligarh Muslim Universitys Jinnah portrait. While the Hindu-Right wing has made is an issue of patriotism, there are others who think that by being present in the scene they can garner political gains. Read more

Here's more top news of the day:





1) Delhi Structure That Was Turned Into A Temple Is A Tughlaq-Era Monument, Says Govt

A structure that has allegedly been turned into a temple in South Delhi's Humayunpur village is a medieval era monument and the state government had issued the notice in 2009 to preserve it, the Delhi government's report said. Read more

2) Hizbul Leader & A Professor Among Five Gunned Down By Security Forces In Shopian Encounter

AFP

In the fresh round of violence between miliatants and security forces, five ultra's including a university professor -who went missing - were killed in SHopian today.According to reports, the professor has been identified as Mohammad Rafi Bhat who had reportedly gone missing on Friday. Read more

3) MP Govt Is So Embarrassed By The Corruption Complaints, That It Refused To Make Them Public

BCCL

In a reply to an RTI query, the Madhya Pradesh government said that the details of complaints of alleged corruption received through 'complaint boxes', installed on the premises of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's office, cannot be shared as it may not serve larger public interest. Read more

4) BJP MLA Thinks That Child Marriage Will End Elopement, Late Marriages Lead To 'Love Jihad'

A BJP legislator from Madhya Pradesh has held late marriages responsible for elopement and love jihad. He said that he supports early marriages because child marriages, including those involving grooms and brides, who never saw each other before, used to last forever, unlike divorces that are ordinary today. Read more

5) Indians Cross Over To Bhutan Through Assam For Buying Fuel & Alcohol Rs 20 Cheaper Per Litre

BCCL

For Indians living near the Bhutan border in Assam, a trip across the border is all it takes to get fuel and liquor at bargain prices. Hundreds of people heading to the Bhutanese town of Samdrup Jongkhar are a daily sight. Read moreIf you've lied in your resume, be prepared to face a lie detector test! Corporates and even mid-size companies are turning to the polygraph during recruitment in case of any suspicion that an applicant has made false claims in the CV. Lie detector tests are also being used to test the integrity of an employee in case of allegations of funds misappropriation or leak of sensitive information.

Representational Image

Truth Labs, a private forensic lab in the city, says it receives at least 20-30 cases every year from companies. The test, however, is done only with the consent of the subject.

"Polygraph tests are only an investigating tool which has corroborative evidence value. Several companies in the city send their employees while some send candidates for background checks during recruitment process. In some European countries, polygraph is a key part of the recruitment process," Truth Labs director GVHV Prasad told STOI.

"We have lie detector equipment and experts who come from different parts of the country. Sweating, heart rate, pulse and blood pressure are measured while three types of questions are asked. Controlled, Relevant and Irrelevant questions are posed to the person, for which he/she has to give yes or no answers. While they answer, the graph is measured," Prasad added.

Representational Image

The lab, for now, is sticking to only employee matters and is not entertaining requests for tests to check family matters such as extramarital affairs unless there is a court order. Each polygraph test costs around 5,000 to 10,000 depending on the case. The service is also offered by another company, JK Consultancy, in the city.

"People who want to prove their innocence in civil matters also approach us with the help of the party that makes an accusation," Prasad said.

Till recently, Truth Labs was outsourcing DNA fingerprinting tests to the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology. "Now we have tied up with a Delhi-based private lab for DNA fingerprinting. Paternity tests are done only with the consent of both wife and husband," he added.A couple of Turkmenistan nationals arrived at Delhis Indira Gandhi International Airport on Friday morning with a small quantity of gold  one woman concealed it in her purse, while the other carried it in the form of a gold chain. It seemed like any other undeclared gold seizure for the customs department until a similar group arrived at the green channel 10 minutes later with each group member bearing gold weighing between 600 grams and 1 kg.

Representational Image

Within two hours, the customs intercepted 29 passengers, all from Turkmenistan, carrying contraband gold totalling almost 17.5 kg with a value of nearly Rs 6 crore. Not only was it a biggish seizure of the yellow metal, but it was the highest number of arrests made in a single case.

A customs officer told TOI that the passengers had arrived on two flights, with 23 of them coming on Turkish Airlines flight TK 716. Five came on the second flight, a Turkmenistan Airlines service. The first 23 came in small groups in a span of a few minutes and after the first couple of passengers were caught, we intensified our checking and kept detecting gold with all the passengers, said Dr Amandeep Singh, additional commissioner, Customs.

BCCL/Representational Image

By the time the second flight landed, customs personnel were prepared for more passengers to walk in with gold. A team led by joint commissioner Anubha Sinha tightened vigilance and within two hours had intercepted all the gold smugglers. Officials confirmed that the gold was in the form of chains, bangles and gold foil.

Of the arrested, 22 were women and six, men. The modus operandi was very clever. A lot of women passengers travelled in the expectation that they were less likely to be troubled, explained Dr Anees Cherkunnath, deputy commissioner, Customs. They were banking on only a couple of them being detained, by which time the others would have evaded the scrutiny of customs people whose concentration would be on the first few members detected.

Twitter

Some group members, customs officers revealed, were repeat offenders.

We have launched an investigation and are trying to find out where the gold was headed, said an officer. It is our biggest intervention in terms of passengers arrested in a single case.For Indians living near the Bhutan border in Assam, a trip across the border is all it takes to get fuel and liquor at bargain prices. Hundreds of people heading to the Bhutanese town of Samdrup Jongkhar are a daily sight.

BCCL

A litre of petrol costs around Rs 52 in Bhutan as opposed to Rs 76 in Assam, while diesel costs nearly Rs 20 less. Bhutan-made beer comes for Rs 60 a can, Rs 20 cheaper than the Indian equivalent and premium scotch for less than Rs 2000. The Indian Rupee is equivalent to Bhutanese Ngultrum. Border areas on both sides accept both currencies. There is no immigration barrier either.

Indian Oil Corporation Limited and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited supply petrol and diesel to Bhutan. After GST was implemented from July 1, all exports to Bhutan from India have become zero rated. But the excise duty on petrol and diesel was still levied and refunded to Bhutan. The exemption of excise duty on fuel imports at source in India resulted in 17% reduction in petrol and 14% cut in diesel prices.

BCCL

Bhutans revenue collection, too, came down but it chose to pass on the benefits to consumers instead of imposing fresh taxes to compensate for the loss. The volume may be small but nevertheless it is a trade diversion. We will take up the matter with IOCL, said state additional commissioner of taxes Rakesh Agarwala.

Reuters

The state governments decision to dismantle all tax check gates after BJP took over in 2016 has made the tax department ignorant of any kind of evasion. We cannot haul up any biker or motorist because we neither have a check post nor are we supposed to check anybody after GST, an official said on condition of anonymity. A fuel dealer in Samdrup Jongkhar said, Till February, Indians could get unlimited fuel but we came to know that they were selling it illegally in India... We have limited fuel to Rs 500 per person.Everyone seems to be doing politics on the issue of Aligarh Muslim Universitys Jinnah portrait. While the Hindu-Right wing has made is an issue of patriotism, there are others who think that by being present in the scene they can garner political gains. Now, chief of an organisation named Muslim Mahasangh, Farhat Ali Khan, has announced cash prize for burning Jinnah portrait present in the university.

"I appeal everyone to tear and burn down posters of Jinnah and people like him. I announce a reward of Rs 1 Lakh cash for the one who burns down the poster," Khan said.

The Muslim Mahasangh chief further stated that Muslims in India hate both Jinnah and Pakistan.

Congress said that Muhammad Ali Jinnah was never and would never be an icon of this country as it condemned the politics allegedly being played out by the BJP to create polarisation and communication.

Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said if a photograph is hanging for decades and a group of people suddenly enter and deliberately make provocative statements and try and do identity politics and provoke people before the elections, "this is equally condemnable".

"This is the dirty politics of sensationalism, divisiveness, polarisation, which only one party for the last 70 years and before that for another 50 years has been precisely practising," he said, reported PTI.

In Gorakhpur, newly elected Samajwadi Party MP Praveen Nishad sparked a controversy by comparing the contribution of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru to that of Jinnah during the freedom struggle.

Nishad accused the BJP of playing dirty politics' in Jinnah's name. "Nehru and Gandhi contributed for the freedom of the country but it cannot be denied that Jinnah equally contributed for it," he said, according to news agency ANI.

PTI

On Friday, agitating students held protests outside Uttar Pradesh Bhawan in Delhi.

Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh Director General of Police (DGP), Om Prakash Singh, told ANI, "The situation in Aligarh is under control. We are watchful and will not let any untoward incident take place."Privacy is an integral part of the Internet. Its only natural, even when you have absolutely nothing in your browsing history to hide, to want it to remain private. After all, its nobody elses business. Thats why the recent data breach in the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal was a major turning point in the history of the Internet. Advertisers have been using our metadata for years in order to better serve us free content. However, its the first case (on such a gigantic scale) where peoples data was also misused.

Its not just our browsing, conspiracy theorists have long since suggested were being spied on in our homes, by devices we use every day. Google is obviously the most-suggested perpetrator here, with people claiming everything from 'Google is tracking your movements 24 X 7', to 'Google is listening to you through your phones'. Then again, that last bit isnt necessarily just a crazy conspiracy theory.

Take for instance a little program called Alphonso. Its a piece of software from a startup of the same name. The weird part though, is that Alphonso is found in a lot of innocuous games on both Google Play and App Store. Games like Pool 3D, Beer Pong: Trickshot, and Real Bowling Strike 10 Pin, all aimed at small kids. The thing is, Alphonso has nothing to do with the actual functioning of the apps.

Instead, it listens for audio on television shows playing nearby. It captures this audio and breaks it down into data that advertisers can use to reach TV audiences. Say, for instance, your kid is using your smartphone today to play one of these games, even as their favourite cartoon plays on TV. Tomorrow, if Alphonso has gathered that most kids in that age group watch that show, toy manufacturers will be using that data to advertise directly to your children. That is what the software is for.

The problem is, in a report published in December last year, The New York Times found over 250 apps on both Android and iOS that contain the Alphonso code. The apps dont need to be running either, they can record even when in the background or in your pocket. All it needed was the microphone permission you gave it (or your kid did) when you downloaded the app. Even worse, this data is tied into the IP address of your home WiFi, which can be matched with other details for an advertiser to learn about how many people are in your family, or how financially well-off you are, what email services you use, your buying habits, and so much more.

So the question a lot of people are forced to ask now is, if its so easy to spy in on the audio of a smartphone users daily life, whos to say more tech companies arent doing it already? After all, its rarely the sort of thing you hear about until its already a scandal because its revealed the company was doing it all along. After all, if you really want to download a particular app, can you honestly say you think twice before granting it strange permissions it shouldnt need?What Is Common Law Property?

Common law property is a system that most states use to determine ownership of property acquired during marriage. In contrast to the community property system, which treats assets acquired during a marriage as belonging to both partners, the common law property system states that property that one member of a married couple acquires belongs solely to that person unless the property is specifically put in the names of both spouses. This theme becomes important in wealth management and estate management following a divorce or death of a spouse.

Key Takeaways Common law property is a system that most states use to determine the ownership of property, particularly in cases of divorce.

Under a common law property system, assets acquired by one member of a married couple are deemed to belong to that person, unless they were put in the names of both.

Common law property contrasts with a community property system, which treats assets acquired during a marriage as belonging to both partners.

1:17 What is Common Law?

Understanding Common Law Property

As an example of how a common law property system works, if one partner purchases a boat, car, or other vehicle and puts only their name on the title, then that vehicle belongs exclusively to that person. If this partner lived in a state that recognized community property, however, then the vehicle would automatically become the property of both partners in the marriage.

Only nine states recognize community property. They are:

Arizona

California

Idaho

Louisiana

Nevada

New Mexico

Texas

Washington

Wisconsin

Whether a state has a common law or community property system, the division of assets in a divorce also may be determined by a prenuptial agreement or a postnuptial agreement if the divorcing couple has one.

The distinction between common law and community property law is important not only in cases of divorce but also in ongoing wealth management. For high-net-worth individuals in particular, a wealth manager might go to great lengths to determine the rightful ownership of certain assets, in either common or community property situations. Wealth managers also may be involved in the creation of wills and trusts and overseeing the passing of wealth from one generation to the next, all of which may be affected by whether the assets in question are governed by common or community property law.

Common law property rules can apply not only to tangible assets, such as cars, real estate, and fine art, but also to intangible assets, such as patents and trademarks.

In addition to the example of vehicles, other physical assets that could be divided based on common law property rules include real estate (such as first and second homes, rental properties, land, and construction not used for day-to-day living, such as docks and boathouses). Also on the list are valuables such as art, antiques, and collectibles.

Physical assets are only one type of wealth, of course. There are also intangible assets, which include such things as brand names, patents, trademarks, leases, computer programs, customer lists, franchise agreements, and so forth. Intangible assets also are subject to common law or community property rules, although they tend to be associated more with companies and less with individuals.Why not consider making a herbal tea border ora collection of container teas? Fiann O Nuallain offers suggestions on what to plant to start your collection.

Legend has it that the Chinese emperor, known as Shan Nong (circa 2737 BC) favoured drinking water hot.

One day while having his midday beverage beside his prized camellia bushes, a wind rose up and blew a leaf into his cup.

So alluring was the aroma that the emperor decided not to discard the infusion, but to taste. The pleasantness of the sip enticed another and on completion, he felt refreshed and enlivened and decided to replicate the event for his next drink.

This was just as delightful and so a daily routine began and soon this leaf drink was adopted by his courtiers and a trend began.

In some versions of the legend, the Emperor, inspired by the energy-gifting leaf of the camellia, went on to explore other leaves and plant parts and developed a medicinal knowledge through his experiments.

And yes, in the canon of early Chinese medical texts, there is a book known as Shen Nong Benco Jing aka the Materia Medica of Shen Nong, or sometimes referred to as The Divine Farmers Classic of Materia Medica, and full of many herbal remedies.

That book is really a collection of three treatises, not just a herbal handbook, but a study of sustainable agriculture and exploration of natural science  and a contemplation on spiritual life.

It is an expression of the Chinese art of yang sheng, nurturing life, and would in time inspire some aspects of Taoist philosophy and be embraced by Confucian and Buddhist teaching.

Also, it is nice to think of the three teachings bonded and harmonised over a cup of tea.

Now I am not saying sip your tea like its HolyCommunion, but then again maybe one sip could be offered up to communion with your sacred self.

In this over busy and demanding and anxious world where hot chocolate adds appropriate mindfulness to get you to crave more sweet things, why cant an everyday cuppa be a moment of relaxed self-acceptance.

Or even gift you a couple of centring minutes to opt out of the noise and wifi  t slurp or ahhhh can be the om or amen.

Tea was more than just serendipity, it was the fortuitous wind of inspiration that led to scientific exploration and understanding of plants and their healingattributes.

It was more than a beverage invented on a breezy day  it was a new mechanism for the delivery of medicine.

May is a great month to get some serious planting done and why not consider making an herbal tea border or a collection of container teas.

If you have them  you will use them and with many herbs, the fresh leaf contains more of the volatile oils and phenolic components that make herbal teas such a healthy option.

If you have read any of my books or caught me on Ireland AM, I praise the advantages of taking your medicine in a tea,

Its easy to get and make, its a standard dosage (pretty much 1tsp chopped herbage per cup every time ), and its tried and tested.

So what can you plant now to start your collection?

Anise Tea

Pimpinella anisum has expectorant and anti-spasmodic actions that sees it utilised for respiratory and bronchial complaints  from coughs to asthma. Its anti-microbial action is often employed in gargles against infections of the mouth and combined with its diuretic nature, addresses UTIs.

Drinking anise tea can increase iron absorption and can be useful in remedying acute anaemia. Its also a great one for culinary experiments.

Chamomile Tea

Chamaemelum nobile & Matricaria recutita is well known as a night time sedative and daytime antidepressant.

It has shown great results with general anxiety, insomnia and mild depression  in part due to the concentrations of apigenin, which binds to the benzodiazepine receptors in the brain in the same way Xanax and Valium do, but without the long-term side effects.

Smelling the aroma alone reduces levels of adrenocorticotropic hormones released by biological and physical stresses. Chamomile tea is highly regarded to treat all kinds of gastrointestinal disturbances  from digestive sluggishness to IBS and colitis.

Chrysanthemum Tea

Chrysanthemum morifolium & Chrysanthemumindicum is a refreshing and reviving tea,(provided you are not allergic to daisies or asters), and is utilised around the world as a body coolant in fever or prickly heat, and as a convalescence beverage for flu, viruses, colds and chest infections.

In traditional Chinese medicine it is recommended for longevity, to treat and clear the liver, to improve vision and to remedy hypertension and angina.

In Japan its used to regulate blood pressure, clear and strengthen lungs and to relieve sinusitis congestion. In Korea, its a pick-me-up, skin treatment, detox and headache relief.

Lemonbalm Tea

Melissa officinalis)is a great antiviral but also traditionally used to remedy indigestion, bloating and flatulence. The principles that give it its lemon citrus flavour  citral, citronellal and citronellol  are antispasmodic agents that work to calm the digestive and nervous system.

Those same agents make it useful to address menstrual cramps and also tension headaches and anxeity.

The nervine element also makes it suitable to remedy IBS and other stress-related illnesses or a stress-related flare up of an underlying illness.

Peppermint Tea

Mentha piperita has long standing as a respiratory support  beneficial to relieve allergic rhinitis, sinusitis, cold-related stuffiness and seasonal allergies.

Its menthol molecules help calm inflamed mucous membrane in the sinuses and actively thin mucus and decongest phlegm and contribute an anti-tussive effect. It contains several flavonoid glycosides  including eriocitrin, hesperidin and luteolin-7-O-rutinoside  that exert an inhibitory effect on histamine release from mast cells. Peppermint tea is also suitable to relieve tension and migraine headaches by opening up constricted blood vessels in the brain.

Yarrow Tea

Achillea millefolium is used topically as a skin tonic, the salicylic acids content is analgesic and its tannins make it strongly astringent, other constituents are antimicrobial and speed healing.

Internally, Yarrow is most often used as a bitter tonic that helps digestion but with its carminative, anti-inflammatory and antispasmodic effects, it is suitable for a range of stomach upsets.

There is a tradition of use to ease menstrual cramps and attenuate symptoms of PMS and menopause.

I hate throwing in disclaimers but there is always the possibility of an allergic reaction to a phyto-constituent of any herb and also, some interaction with prescription medications and OTC (over the counter drugs), intensifying absorption, increasing the activity or cancelling out the effects, and then there is the issue of pregnancy.

So before you imbibe, use common sense.Questacon and Samsung have renewed their technology partnership for two more years to continue inspiring and engaging teachers and young Australians in science, technology, engineering and maths through Questacon Smart Skills workshops across the country.

Over the past three years of this partnership, the Smart Skills program has engaged more than 23,000 students and more than 2000 teachers from 290 schools across the country. Todays announcement build on that success and allows the Smart Skills program to inspire thousands more students, teachers and communities in STEM with a practical context.

This partnership between Questacon and Samsung has been a significant part of the success of the Questacon Smart Skills workshops and we are delighted to continue our work together to engage and inspire young Australians, Questacon director, Professor Graham Durant, said.

By working in partnership with industry leaders, Questacon ensures our programs involve industry insight and real world experiences to excite and engage students in STEM and innovation. These partnerships enhance the work of Questacon and mean our programs have the best possible impact across the country."

The Ian Potter Foundation Technology Learning Centre, Questacon and Samsung celebrated on Friday their "continuing partnership by hosting a roundtable discussion on the role of creativity in STEM and the importance of STEM education for all young Australians.

"The panel discussed the need to engage and excite students in STEM, the way students can overcome their fear of failure and use it in the innovation process, and how the Questacon Smart Skills program works by integrating creative thinking with STEM concepts."

The panel included Professor Durant and Tess Ariotti, head of Corporate Social Responsibility at Samsung, who said: We cannot predict what the jobs of the future will be, but what we do know for certain is that educators, government, business and the wider Australian community all have a role to play in preparing the thinkers, innovators and community leaders of tomorrow with a range of adaptable skills that can be applied to a variety of future career paths.

We are thrilled to be continuing our partnership with Questacon to help future generations from all corners of Australia access the opportunities and resources they need to reach their full potential.

Speaking from their own first-hand experience as part of the panel discussion were students who have previously participated in Smart Skills workshops: Thomas Italiano from Perth and Carla Sanfrancesco from Canberra.

Both reflected on the impact the program made on them and their choices about future STEM studies and careers.

The final panellist was Tanya Riach from Condobolin, a teacher who has "experience with the Smart Skills program. Tanya gave a unique insight from an educators perspective about the ongoing pathways into STEM that this program provides".

The Questacon Smart Skills workshops are delivered by Questacon across the country throughout the year. They "invite students to challenge perceptions they have about their own abilities, foster an ongoing interest in STEM and develop the confidence to explore, create and try new ideas".

"Questacon and Samsung have been working together since 2014 to engage young people in design thinking. This continued technology partnership will enable Questacon to continue to deliver STEM programs to students and teachers in remote and regional areas across Australia.

"Together, Questacon and Samsung will continue to deliver the Smart Skills program and equip thousands of young Australians and their teachers with the technology, engineering and design skills necessary for the 21st century."We're getting close to finding out who will be the ultimate winner of CeBIT Australia's PitchFest competition for 2018, with 10 top-notch finalists to battle it out, and they're all listed below.

CeBIT Australia describes PitchFest as a "Shark Tank"-style competition, giving 10 of the nation's most promising start-ups the opportunity to pitch their entrepreneurial ideas to an esteemed panel of judges, before an audience of fellow start-ups, investors and potential customers.

The ultimate winner of CeBIT PitchFest 2018 will "not only get extraordinary exposure, but will receive a prize package valued at over $20,000."

a fully-paid exhibition stand at CeBIT Australia 2019,

three Square Contactless and Chip Readers from Vodafone,

a Norton Small Business  10, which protects 10 devices for 12 months,

a US$10,000 Alibaba Cloud credit valid for one year,

three months free co-working space at Tank Stream Labs in Sydney,

a one-year membership to TIE Sydney,

and ongoing support and mentorship.

This prize package comprises of:

So, who are the 10 finalists battling it out to win PitchFest?

AdvancedCateringSolutions  provide specialist cloud and Blockchain technology software that liberates chefs, giving them unrivalled food traceability, cost-savings and operational efficiencies. BenchOn  focused on solving the problem of employee under-utilisation, providing an online B2B platform solution for companies to manage the peaks and troughs of their business cycle by matching staff with current short-term contracts. Diffuse Energy  offers a small wind turbine that's twice as efficient while being quieter and safer than other products currently on the market. HeadsafeIP  offers the Concussionometer, a portable headset using clinically validated, patented technology to measure the brains electrical activity when concussed and send results to a smartphone. Inspace XR  builds augmented and VR software for the real estate sector, allowing designers to visualise their VR CAD files within seconds, communicate with stakeholders easily with scale-accurate, on-demand walkthroughs, reviews and sync automatically allowing users to virtually step inside a design. KnowHowHere  is an IoT app platform that improves safety and performance for workers who perform complex tasks in the real world of mining, construction, infrastructure, transport, and defence. Littlescribe  is helping combat illiteracy, enabling children to create original books from their hand drawn and written pages  encouraging kids to read and providing positive curriculum outcomes and tools for schools. Oppizi  is technology powering offline marketing acquisition initiatives that allow clients to seamlessly track and optimise their campaign performance. Sourcr  a recruitment platform allowing businesses to find and compare recruiters and manage their existing relationships more effectively. Ping Data  technology that brings paper receipts into the modern age by digitally capturing payment data to create PINGreceipts, which are then matched to the transactions in a user's banking app.

CeBIT Australia says "each finalist will have four minutes to pitch their tech-related start-up idea, followed by a 4 minute Q&A session with this year's four revered judges; Adam Cook, investment associate, AirTree Ventures, Bradley Delamare, chief executive, Tank Stream Labs, Kara Frederick, general partner, Reinventure, and Noga Edelstein, co-founder, UrbanYou."

Previous winners of CeBIT PitchFest have gone on to become multi-million-dollar, multinational companies.

The 2017 winner Look Who's Charging, "helps Australians easily identify merchant charges to our credit cards. Since showcasing at CeBIT Australia last year, the business has had enormous success and were recently crowned the winner of Money Magazines 2018  Most Innovative Banking Feature Award".

Harvey Stockbridge, managing director of Hannover Fairs  organiser of CeBIT Australia  said the annual PitchFest competition is a hugely popular segment on the CeBIT Australia program.

CeBIT PitchFest has a proud history of unearthing and supporting Australias leading technology start-ups and this year is sure to be no exception. It is an absolute privilege to be in a position to help launch the next generation of tech-industry game-changers."

According to a report released by KPMG in mid-2017, investment in Australian start-ups is growing significantly, with a noticeable maturation of our start-up ecosystem.

NSW Deputy Premier and Minister for Small Business, John Barilaro said nine of the 10 finalists were NSW based start-ups, including six companies that have been supported by the NSW Government-backed Jobs for NSW:

Start-ups and small businesses are the big job generators of our economy and events like PitchFest help unearth and launch the best new companies of the future.

Congratulations and best of luck to all the finalists, your breakthrough technologies demonstrate the breadth and excellence of the start-up community in this country.

The NSW Government's support for CeBIT Australia and for our start-up industry will continue to grow our state's global reputation as a technology industry leader.

For those who need a refresher, PitchFest is "one of Australias premier start-up launch platforms, showcasing innovative talent and pitch presentations held on the FutureTech Stage from 2.00pm  4.15pm on 17 May, wrapping up the three-day CeBIT Australia 2018 event at ICC Sydney".The federal government will conduct an inquiry into the outage suffered by Telstra last week that led to problems with triple zero calls.

A spokesman for Communications Minister Mitch Fifield told the ABC that questions had begun to be asked about the outage.

The outage took place on Friday morning and was put down to a lightning strike by the telco.

By evening the same day, Telstra claimed that the situation was slowly returning to normal.

The spokesman said in a statement: "The Department of Communications is conducting the investigation into the network outage which impacted the delivery of calls to triple zero on the 4th of May.

"The Department will seek information from Telstra and assistance from the [Australian Communications and Media Authority] in the conduct of the investigation."

The cable damage also affected Telstra's mobile voice services in NSW, Queensland, Victoria and South Australia between 2.05am and 4.50am AEST on Friday.It has been a while since I submitted a write-up on this important topic having been engaged fully in equally important cultural issues and substantive advocacy work in the last year or so.

But I wanted to shift my focus this week to the global talk fest currently happening in Bonn Germany 30 April to 10 May 2018. Undoubtedly, our government is represented by a number of officials attending.

I wonder if there has been any attempt by them to consult our peoples who they are representing about what they see important from their perspectives in respect of the issues and agenda discussed in these climate meetings. After all, that is the legitimacy of their being there! Representing the views of the Samoan peoples! One wonders!

Observing however from the comfort of home in Samoa, let us utilize information avenues available to us to assess the expected outcomes of the two weeks of climate talks under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the 48th session of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA 48), the 48th session of the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI 48), and the fifth part of the first session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Paris Agreement (APA 1.5). A key focus is to progress the implementation of the Paris Agreement (PA), known as the Paris Agreement Work Programme (PAWP).

Various decisions regarding the modalities, procedures and guidelines for the implementation of the PA are expected to be adopted later this year in December, in Katowice, Poland by the Conference of Parties which convenes the 24th session of the UNFCCC Conference of Parties, known as COP 24.

As Samoa officials and participants from the world converge to Bonn, my mind and sense as a Samoan citizen cannot help but focus on the essence of these ongoing meetings! Supposedly to address the urgency of the climate crisis! And I look to those representing us present our demise and reality as climate affected peoples in such global meetings.

I ask, what are they saying? Are they making a difference? Sadly, after 23 years of global negotiations since the commitments made by developed countries in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992 the promises continues to be nurtured into rhetoric far different from reality.

The rich continue defending their positions of climate injustice and as long as there is lingering lure for accountability on failed promised financial obligation they will take every opt-out escape route, engage in delaying tactic to renege, to stall and stop progress.

The reports on the Bonn meetings have already pointed to the rich countries pre-occupation on this same strategy of running away from liability and responsibility! Saying No to the principle of equity, No to providing new additional predictable and sustainable financial resources, No to support developing countries undertake climate adaptation, No to taking actions based on their historical responsibility on greenhouse gases emissions!

So what do we hope and expect our officials to focus on in Bonn over the next weeks?

First on NDCs and Other Agenda Items

I hope the Samoa delegation will join many developing countries to hold developed countries to account! Refrain from their pursuit to have the Paris Agreement (PA) reinterpreted in relation to the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and other Bonn agenda items.

It has to include rich countries commitment to address mitigation, adaptation and means of implementations (finance, capacity building, technology development and transfer), and ensuring the equity principle of common but differentiated responsibility and respective capabilities apply.

The 266 pages of informal notes that cover the six agenda items - nationally determined contributions (NDCs); adaptation communications; transparency of action and support; global stock take; committee to facilitate compliance; and matters related to the implementation of the PA  all contain the positions of Parties on the various issues.

The co-chairs from Saudi Arabia and New Zealand must insist these and their reflection notes form the basis of further work at the current Bonn session.

We understand that developed countries are especially interested in work related to the mitigation component of NDCs, the transparency framework dealing primarily with the mitigation aspects of the framework and matters under Article 6 of the PA relating to cooperative approaches including what some countries see as market-mechanisms.

But we hope Samoa and other developing countries continue to advocate and insist on more progress on issues relating to means of implementation (viz. finance and technology transfer) necessary for mitigation and adaptation actions and the full scope of NDCs not only on mitigation but also adaptation and means of implementation.

Second on the issue of finance

We know this is always a problem with rich country commitment as was very evident in all the past COP meetings. At COP 23 last year, this issue proved most contentious between developed and developing countries especially over what should be in the PAWP (Paris Agreement Work Program). The United States in particular, was opposed to the finance issues in the PAWP even though it notified Parties that it did not intend to remain in the PA.

Despite its opt-out intention however, the US remains a Party until it legally withdraws from the Agreement in November 2020. Knowing how President Trump changes his mind daily, we hope by 2020 the erratic US government will have had enough time to make up its mind and change its views to accept the truth that climate change was not a hoax and recommit to its much needed support and leadership on climate change where the US is a major global contributor.

Last year, at COP 23 in Bonn which Fiji, our neighboring Pacific country, was at the seat of COP President, the US was opposed to part of the PAWP which included modalities for biennially communicating information on the provision of public financial resources to developing countries under Article 9.5 of the PA.

US was also opposed to the launch of a process for setting a new collective quantified goal on finance from a floor of USD 100 billion per year to be agreed to by 2025. Yet the US was the lead advocate for this in the Copenhagen COP 15!

As expected, the US view is shared by other developed countries including the European Union that there was no need to include these matters in the PAWP knowing full well that developing countries wanted these issues to be included as they are key and integral to the implementation of the PA. Samoa should watch carefully further deliberations on this agenda item especially the Footnote added to the final decision adopted at COP 23 last year which reflected that there was no consensus on the matters to be addressed under the PAWP.

Third on the Adaptation Fund serving the Paris Agreement (PA)

Developed and developing countries are divided over the future and nature of the Adaptation Fund (AF) under the Kyoto Protocol when AF serves the PA. The developing countries want the AF to continue in its operational policies and guidelines enabling developing countries access AF when it serves the PA.

Developed countries however want to change the nature of AF from what it is at present if AF is to serve the PA. The EU said the current composition of the Board has worked well but potential revision of the Board composition depends on outcome of preparatory work on sources and levels of funding. EU also proposes that Parties have to decide as to what extent the previous guidance to AF, including those agreed before adoption of the PA, shall apply mutatis mutandis to the AF when it serves the PA.

Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, and the US, on governance and institutional arrangements, support the EU in that the AF enjoys appropriate legal personality to enable a new or revised relationship with the interim trustee, the Fund's secretariat, and any other contractual arrangements. On the operating modalities, eligibility is restricted to Parties to the PA from the date the Fund begins to serve the PA., Fortunately, prioritization is given to Parties such as small island states such as Samoa and LDCs that are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

Given these proposals of developed countries, developing countries were justifiably concerned that the nature of the AF could change when it serves the PA. The final decision adopted last year by COP23 notes the progress in undertaking the necessary preparatory work to address governance and institutional arrangements, safeguards and operating modalities for the AF to serve the PA, include sources of funding to be defined by Parties. Samoa should therefore pay attention to the recommendations this year on it as it is bound to be difficult and contentious as Parties attempt to bridge the current divergence of positions on the AF serving the PA.

Fourthly on the 2018 facilitative Talanoa dialogue

Parties had agreed in Paris in 2015 to convene a facilitative dialogue in 2018 to take stock of the collective efforts of Parties in relation to progress towards the long-term goal in PA and to inform the preparation of NDCs. At COP 23 last year, the Fijian Presidency stressed the importance of the facilitative dialogue and called it the Talanoa Dialogue, to reflect the Pacific spirit of sharing stories touted by the Fiji Presidency and small island state countries such as Samoa as very important to ratchet up the NDCs of Parties under the PA.

Whilst there was discomfort among some Parties on the strong focus of the Fiji Presidency on the design of the 2018 Talanoa Dialogue alleging the design was not negotiated nor was there any discussion on how it was to be reflected in the COP 23 decision, other Parties especially the small island states endorsed the COP23 Fiji Presidencys informal note on the Talanoa Dialogue structured around the topics of where are we; where do we want to go; and how do we get there.

The Talanoa Dialogue consists of a preparatory and a political phase, with last year Fiji COP 23 President and this years Poland COP 24 President, providing a summary of key messages from roundtables scheduled for this year 2018 to send clear forward looking signals of the Talanoa Dialogue outcome on greater confidence, courage and enhanced ambition for the Paris Agreement.

Interesting but not surprising are the US and especially our Pacific neighbor New Zealand siding with the US deliberately not endorsing the informal note on the Talanoa Dialogue claiming it was not negotiated by Parties but only a proposal of the two Presidencies.

The EU said it could accept the design in the spirit of compromise whilst Like-minded Developing Countries (LMDC) were of the view the dialogue should be a Party-driven process and reports of the Talanoa Dialogue should not be left to the two Presidencies. They also had concerns about the involvement of expert institutions.

However, as a result of further consultations, rich countries had their way and Parties agreed to only welcome with appreciation the design of the Talanoa Dialogue to start in January 2018. In the next two weeks, the first part of the Talonoa Dialogue will take place in Bonn. Samoa will be well advised to continue its support of the Talanoa Dialogue Pacific spirit of sharing and its stated stock take value on Parties efforts towards the goals of PA.

Fifth on The Suva Expert Dialogue related to the International Mechanism on Loss and Damage

Last year at COP 23, developing countries that include Samoa as part of the Alliance for Small Island States (AOSIS), pushed hard for a permanent agenda item under the Subsidiary Bodies to ensure discussions on the Warsaw International Mechanism on Loss and Damage (WIM) take place inter-sessionally to ensure the WIM can be effective in helping developing countries impacted by climate change.

As expected, developed countries strongly resisted this call. According to the decision in COP23 - the UNFCCC Secretariat under the guidance of the Executive Committee of the WIM and Chair of the SBI were requested to organize, in conjunction with the SBI session in April-May 2018, the Suva Expert Dialogue!

This was to be an expert dialogue to explore a wide range of information, inputs and views on ways for facilitating the mobilization and securing of expertise, enhancement of support that include finance technology and capacity-building, for averting, minimizing and addressing loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change, including extreme weather events and slow onset events - and the secretariat is to report on the Expert Dialogue.

Given that the outcomes and report of the Suva Expert Dialogue are critical steps towards the review of the WIM in 2019, it is expected to draw much attention from developing countries. I hope Samoa will already have this agenda item fixed in its radar.

Sixth on Reality on Reduced Climate Financing Trends, GEF Reduced Allocation to to Climate Change

The loud call by developing countries in Bonn lamenting the Global Environment Facility (GEF) reduction in finance for climate change is quiet deafening. The GEFs recent 7th replenishment meeting concluded with a total of US$ 4.1 billion pledged, yet only $3.3 billion is actually new funding. The analysis points to climate change see a 47% decrease in developing country allocations and an aggregate 37% decrease compared to GEF 6. This is serious!

This indeed and other equally concerning trends in regards the Adaptation Fund and the Green Climate Fund (GCF) do not reflect the progression of ambition articulated in COP decisions and the PA. For many, PA is a landmark agreement that if effectively implemented will have far reaching implications, foremost among them according to the statement by developing countries through G77 and China, point to the abandoning of a development model which prevailed for more than a century and a half, with devastating consequences, and replacing it with a more sustainable one.

Developing countries attach themselves to the utmost importance of the key Rio principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in light of national circumstances, and continue to seek to ensure these principles are preserved and reflected in the outcome of the PAWP.

We need to navigate this process as much as we can possibly can. Make sure that Parties do not overlook, postpone or otherwise sideline any of the PA agenda items. Rather we should adopt a holistic, coherent, comprehensive and balanced approach which addresses the full gamut of topics including mitigation, adaptation, finance, technology development and transfer, capacity-building and loss and damage.

Developing country Parties expressed concerns over the lack of progress on all finance issues and the reluctance of developed countries to advance on these issues. At COP23 developing countries advocated for a standalone SBI item on information to be provided by developed country Parties in accordance with Article 9.5 as they consider this information essential for enhancing predictability and effectiveness of climate finance.

The G77 expressed concerns over the application of unilateral coercive economic measures that affect the capacities of developing countries to finance their efforts in mitigation and adaption to climate change. In this context it is of utmost importance for all necessary measures to be undertaken to depoliticize the flow of international financial resources such as through the GEF mechanism.

Finally, Samoa needs to support the call for assurance that new, additional, scaled up, sustainable, and predictable financial incentives are made available to developing county parties to support the implementation of PA agenda. Forest mitigation and adaptation activities are such important components. Climate finance, particularly as it relates to defining and ensuring certainty, predictability and sustainability, this remains seriously lacking and requires an even more concerted effort by developing countries to unite under this call for developed countries to deliver on their related promises and financial commitments on this..

As an initial optic on the Bonn process now in progress for the next two weeks, I like the sentiment of the European Union (EU) when intimated that it has already underscored the importance of the 2018 deadline for the work of the PA and keen on making progress.

One of its objectives for the Bonn session is to move towards draft decision texts on all the elements of the PAWP. It further said the modalities, procedures and guidelines should be fit for purpose and build on the collective experiences of Parties, and should be non-punitive. It looked forward to the Talanoa Dialogue to ensure the delivery of the first set of NDCs was on track.

I also welcome the first part of what Australia said for the Umbrella Group that 2018 was an important political moment since Paris and that we must now bring the PA to life with the PAWP providing the foundation and mechanism. All that is needed is political will to translate these into reality! Otherwise they are once again missed and costly opportunities.A former Cabinet Minister and leader of the Opposition, Vaai Papu Vaai, has added his voice to the ongoing debate about customary lands.

Speaking to the Sunday Samoan as the Sao of his family, Vaai reminded that Constitution is clear.

And that is a referendum is needed to determine the usage of customary lands  especially when it involves the risk of alienation.

He said the most dangerous outcome of the law as it stands is its ability for a single person to be given a freehold title, while the extended family is excluded in the decision-making.

This is why there should be a referendum. The Sao doing something with the land without consulting all the sulis is the most dangerous part of what this Act allows, he said, referring to the Land Titles Registration Act 2008.

What will happen is there is a big difference within our culture, when we talk about lands it is owned by the Sao."

And the selecting of the Sao, you have to choose the suli (heirs) before any further actions, all the sulis should agree. Ill give you an example of what happened at Tiavea Village."

I am not sure how many acres there are, 50 or 40 acres and the Government wants to build an airport there. There are also some people of this village that want to sell these land but what they should do is put it on lease to the Government."

Its safer to put it on lease than sell it off because what will happen is they will have sell their land to the Government and the Government has the right to do whatever they want with the land."

The Government should never encourage the selling of land.

Vaai said there are a lot of lessons to be learnt.

Looking at this case here, I think they are getting $6 million tala to Tiavea Village and the Government does not have the money."

So the Government is now searching for someone to get this money from and we have got to pay that money back. Its like a mortgage but with customary land you cant lease it because it belongs to the Government. That is whats scaring everyone. It can happen.

Vaai laments that the current Government lacks fair representation and does not reflect the diversity of voters that exist in this country.

That is the thing nowadays with the H.R.P.P., he said. All the laws and regulations is tied to them so that there will be only one person that rules.

All these M.Ps within Parliament they are all under H.R.P.P., there should be another party.

With the changing of the M.Ps in Parliament, every time there is a renewal of Faipule, there will always be a change."

There is no consistency and nothing meaningful is ever completed. That is the other thing with most M.Ps they rarely come to their district, if they do, they just wave farewell on their way past. They are meant to be the voice of the whole district.

Asked about the decision by the former Head of State, His Highness Tui Atua Tupua Tamasese Efi, to raise his concerns about the issue, Vaai said he hasnt read the full paper yet.

But with my own understanding, I agree with what he means when he puts forward the question o fea alofa because love is what grounds us all and we must always return to that.Reddit Email 210 Shares

The Syrian regime and its Russian backers have managed to expel opposition guerrilla groups from the areas just north of the central cities of Homs and Hama. The groups agreed to hand over their heavy and medium weapons and to board buses for either Idlib province or Jarabulus in Aleppo province in the north. The latter areas are still in rebel hands and Jarabulus is under Turkish influence after Ankaras invasion to remove Syrian Kurds from the territory bordering Turkey. Turkey has been bringing in Arab fundamentalists with whom the government of president Tayyip Erdogan feels comfortable.

Some 5,000 conservative Sunni fighters along with family members and civilians in the opposition have left these areas. Although not identified by name, most of these groups in central Syria, which is heavily Sunni Arab, originated in the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood.

The tactic of the regime and the Russians has been to threaten remaining enclaves of the opposition with massive, indiscriminate aerial and artillery bombardment unless the fighters agree to leave the area. In essence, the guerrillas are being blackmailed with the threat that their presence will cause enormous numbers of deaths in the areas where they are positionedblackmailed, that is to say, with the threat that crimes against humanity will be perpetrated on their supporters and loved ones unless they decamp.

It is possible that the reports of regime use of gas at Douma (which I provisionally believe to be likely as we wait for the results of the OCPW investigation) helped the rebels decide not to risk trying to stick it out. The Saudi-backed Army of Islam in Douma, East Ghouta, had shown more stubbornness than the Brigades of the All-Merciful, the Freemen of Syria, and the Committee for Syrian Liberation (the al-Qaeda-linked former Nusra Front). That attempt to remain in control of Douma is likely what brought down on it the chlorine barrel bomb, or perhaps use of sarin gas, since the regime was damned if it was going to use up the limited number of experienced Panther Brigade special operations troops it had committed in East Ghouta, in hand to hand fighting with the fundamentalist guerrillas. As soon as reports and video emerged of the gas attack, the Army of Islam immediately surrendered and agreed to be evacuated.

Moreover, those group (unidentified in the Arabic press) north of Homs and Hama respectively have little hope they can survive. Money from the Gulf and the US CIA has dried up, as it has seemed increasingly certain that Russia and the regime will prevail. Trump canceled a CIA program to support 40 vetted groups (i.e. fighters certified not to have links to al-Qaeda.) We know nevertheless that some CIA aid made its way to the extremists and that some groups supported by the CIA established battlefield alliances of convenience with al-Qaeda-linked groups. I dont think it can be ruled out that, as in Afghanistan in the 1980s, the US intel agencies actively cooperated with or asked allies to support the extremists, who were the best fighters against the al-Assad regime. In any case, US support for the rebels, some of them fundamentalists and others more centrist or Muslim-Brotherhood-oriented, has dried up under Trump. The main US involvement in Syria is an alliance of special operations forces with leftist Kurds in the northeast, against ISIL/ Daesh.

Well-known oppositionists afraid they will be targeted by the Baath Party secret police if they come back under regime control have also been allowed to leave these areas.

The 105th Brigade of the Republican Guard of the Syrian Arab Army supported by the Russian Aerospace Forces also have just taken the southern area of Hajar al-Aswad near to the Yarmouk former Palestinian refugee camp near Damascus from ISIL/ Daesh. They pushed ISIL fighters north toward the Hajar al-Aswad cemetery in what seems like a slow death knell for the terrorist group anywhere near the capital.

As the regime gradually reestablishes control of most of the urban, populated areas of central and western Syria, we have to begin asking whether this war is the most successful counter-insurgency operation in a large country since the British defeated communism in Malaya in the 1950s. The US military, and especially the wing led by David Petraeus, had hoped to develop new counter-insurgency theories and techniques that would ensure US victory in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both remain fragile, though Daesh is largely defeated in Iraq. But the Syrian uprising was multifaceted and the regime is making steady progress toward reincorporating the most populous districts of the country.



Bonus video:

AP: Syrian government forces pushing to capture south Damascus suburbsReddit Email 93 Shares

Theres a claim circulated endlessly on the internet that the conflict in Syria is a regime change war orchestrated by western powers. As far as many of the Assad regimes defenders are concerned, this is established fact. To quote one of them  Piers Robinson, writing for the Open Democracy website  the existence of long-standing western intentions and actions aimed at achieving regime change in Syria is not in doubt.

Its true, of course, that there have been calls from western leaders, among them Barack Obama, for Assad to step down  but those were in response to atrocities after the conflict had begun. What the regimes defenders claim is different: that the west had been plotting for years to topple the regime. According to Robinson its a strategy that has been in play since 9/11.

Constant repetition of this idea on Twitter along with various anti-imperialist and conspiracy websites has helped to give it popular credence even though the historical record does not bear it out.

If you werent following Syria and its international relations before the war its easy to be fooled by the regime-change meme. Assads defenders make it sound plausible by drawing analogies with Iraq, where the goal of overthrowing Saddam Hussein had been official American policy for more than four years before the 2003 invasion. The Iraq Liberation Act, approved by Congress in 1998 (under the Clinton administration) vowed support for efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime.

Mentioning Iraq also brings reminders of the debacle over Saddams non-existent weapons of mass destruction. We all know that western governments lied about them and used them as a pretext for invading. Its the same with Syria, Assads defenders say. Western powers, allegedly, are raring to topple the regime and the chemical attacks have been cooked up to provide the excuse.

So far, it sounds fairly persuasive  until you remember there have already been plenty of chemical attacks in Syria and that western powers havent responded to any of them in the way that the Assad defenders argument predicts.

When sarin attacks in Ghouta killed hundreds of people in 2013, the British parliament rejected military action. Obama considered it too but pulled back after Syria agreed to join the Chemical Weapons Convention.

Obamas more belligerent successor, Donald Trump, ordered missile strikes in response to the sarin attack in Khan Sheikhoun last year and the more recent chemical attack reported in Douma. On both occasions the strikes were limited in scope and posed no serious threat to the regime. Regardless of his rhetoric, Trump has shown no real inclination to become directly engaged in the broader conflict.

A long goodbye?

But what of the claim that the west had been pursuing a regime change strategy for Syria ever since 9/11  in other words, for the best part of a decade before the conflict began?

Apart from a short period around 2005-2006, Syria was not a major concern or preoccupation among western governments or foreign policy analysts. In that respect it was very different from Iraq which between the invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and the war in 2003 had been a constant and much discussed issue.

This is not to say that relations between western powers and Syria were good. They were often difficult but had ups as well as downs. The general approach by western powers was to use a combination of pressure and inducements in the hope that Syria would change its ways. In some areas Syria cooperated; in others it did not and the broad picture, on both sides, was one of wary coexistence.

Internally, under the brutal rule of Hafez al-Assad and the Baath Party, Syria had given rise to one of the regions most repressive regimes and, internationally, it considered itself part of the resistance to Israel and western political influence in the Middle East.

Syrias grievances against Israel were not without justification, because Israel continued to occupy part of the Golan Heights  Syrian territory it had captured in the 1967 war. Syria, in turn, hosted political bureaux of various Palestinian groups, including Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PLFP) and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC). A report by the US State Department in 2005 commented that Syrias public support for the groups varied, depending on its national interests and international pressure.

Syrias development of chemical weapons was also, at least initially, linked to its disputes with Israel  as a response to the Israeli nuclear arsenal. Chemical weapons were cheaper to produce and were sometimes described as the poor mans nukes.

Making friends with Bashar

When Bashar al-Assad inherited the presidency from his father in 2000, it was widely seen as a hopeful development. At 34, he was still relatively young and seemed to be a moderniser. Among other things, he was head of the Syrian Computer Society; he made some gestures towards tackling corruption and, for the first time in almost 40 years, allowed publication of an independent newspaper (though it did not survive for long).

Bashar also had connections with Britain. A graduate in medicine, he had spent some time in London doing postgraduate studies in ophthalmology and, shortly after becoming president, he married Asma al-Akhras, an investment banker from a Syrian family who had been born and raised in Britain. Asma was a glamorous figure who attracted media attention and, with the aid of western PR firms, helped to give the regime a more acceptable image.

With a new president in Damascus, and one with significant British connections, the government of Tony Blair sensed an opportunity to develop better relations. During a Middle East tour in 2001, Blair made a hastily-arranged stop-off in Damascus where he was photographed chatting with Bashar in the courtyard of the historic Umayyad mosque. It was the first such encounter in more than 30 years and the discussions did not go particularly well. Regardless of that, Bashar and his wife were received in London the following year on an official visit which included lunch at 10 Downing Street an audience with the Queen.

In October 2003 the king and queen of Spain paid a state visit to Syria  the first since Juan Carlos had come to the throne in 1975. Agreements aimed at boosting tourism and investment were signed and the royal couple were treated to a tour of Damascuss old city.

Also in 2003, Syria and the EU began negotiating an Association Agreement. Similar agreements granting trade privileges and providing for cooperation in other areas had previously been struck with several countries in the region  Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia  the Palestinian Authority. Negotiations with Syria were eventually completed though the agreement was never signed. Nevertheless, by 2011, the EU was Syrias fourth largest trading partner after Iraq, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates.

The Syria Accountability Act

While the European approach was to nudge Assad towards greater political cooperation through dialogue and inducements, the United States tended to prefer the stick to the carrot. Since 1979 Syria had been designated by the US as a state sponsor of terrorism and in 2003  a few months after the invasion of Iraq  Congress passed the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act. Instigated mainly by supporters of Israel, this sought penalise Syria for keeping its forces in Lebanon and backing militant groups opposed to Israeli occupation. It also called on Syria to stop developing weapons of mass destruction and end illicit trade with Iraq.

Thierry Meyssan: declaration of war

Thierry Meyssan, a French conspiracy theorist who had written a book blaming a faction of the US military-industrial complex for the 9/11 attacks, later described Congresss action as a declaration of war on Syria by the United States. In reality, though, it contained no threat of military action and made no mention of regime change in Syria but listed six possible sanctions:

Reducing US diplomatic contacts with Syria;

Banning US exports to Syria;

Prohibiting US businesses from investing or operating in Syria;

Restricting travel by Syrian diplomats in Washington and the United Nations;

Banning Syrian aircraft from taking off, landing in or flying over the United States;

Freezing Syrian assets in the United States.

The act required President Bush to impose at least two of these but allowed him to waive them (for six-months at a time) if he decided it was in the vital national security interest of the United States to do so. Bush, who had initially opposed this measure, eventually signed it into law but issued a disclaimer:

My approval of the Act does not constitute my adoption of the various statements of policy in the Act as US foreign policy. Given the constitutions commitment to the presidency of the authority to conduct the nations foreign affairs, the executive branch shall construe such policy statements as advisory 

Bushs concern was partly about safeguarding presidential prerogative but also about the constraints the act sought to impose on American dealings with Syria. In a letter to Congress, Paul Kelly, Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs, explained:

If our efforts on both comprehensive peace and the war against terrorism are to succeed, the president and the secretary [of state] will need flexibility to determine what combination of incentives and disincentives will maximise cooperation and advance our goals For this reason, we do not believe this is the right time for legislative initiatives that could complicate our efforts. The imposition of new sanctions on Syria would place at risk our ability to address a range of important issues directly with the Syrian government and render more difficult our efforts to change Syrian behaviour and avoid a dangerous escalation.

John Bolton, the undersecretary of state for arms control  regarded as one of the most hawkish members of the Bush administration  was also critical of the moves in Congress and urged lawmakers to let the US try to change Syrias behaviour through diplomatic means before passing trade restrictions and other measures.

Confluence of interests

The complicating factor here was that Syrian-American relations were not always diametrically opposed: there were also occasional confluences of interest. Following Iraqs invasion of Kuwait in 1990, for example, Syria had provided about 20,000 troops for the US-led coalition in Operation Desert Storm (it said they would be used to help defend Saudi Arabia but not to attack Iraq). In 2002, as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, Syria had also voted in favour of Resolution 1441  instigated by the US and Britain  which declared Iraq to be in material breach of several earlier resolutions and threatened serious consequences if its violations continued.

On the counter-terrorism front, a State Department report in 2005 noted that while Syrian officials publicly condemned international terrorism they made an exception for what they considered to be legitimate armed resistance  by Palestinian groups and the Lebanese Hizbullah, for instance.

Thus, although there were major areas of disagreement there were also areas where the US and Syria could, potentially, cooperate. According to the report, Syria had cooperated with the US and other foreign governments against al-Qaeda and other terrorist organisations and individuals.

Syria also claimed to have repatriated more than 1,200 foreign extremists and to have arrested more than 4,000 Syrians trying to go to fight in Iraq. The State Department report added: During the past seven years there have been no acts of terrorism against American citizens in Syria. Damascus has repeatedly assured the United States that it will take every possible measure to protect US citizens and facilities in Syria.

2005: Protests in Lebanon led to Syria withdrawing its troops

Withdrawal from Lebanon

After the end of civil war in Lebanon in 1990, Syrias troops had remained in the country and its intelligence apparatus kept a watchful eye on the situation there. Meanwhile, Israel controlled a smaller portion of Lebanon in the southern border area where Hizbullah  another of Syrias non-state allies  waged a guerrilla struggle against the Israeli occupation. The positive side of the Syrian presence in Lebanon was that it brought a degree of stability in the immediate aftermath of the civil war but Lebanese opposition to it grew after Israels withdrawal from the south in 2000 and especially after the assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri in 2005, when suspicion fell on Syria.

Hariris killing triggered the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, with protests demanding the withdrawal of Syrian forces. This was a dangerous moment for Syria but Assad defused the situation by pulling out his troops. The following year, after a cross-border raid by Hizbullah, Israel waged a month-long bombing campaign in Lebanon but Syria, despite its close ties with Hizbullah and its official rhetoric about resisting Israel, judiciously remained on the sidelines.

To summarise, then, there is no sign that western governments, during the 10 years or so leading up to the current conflict, sought to overthrow the Assad regime or had serious plans to do so. The relationship  though fraught at times  was seen as one that could still be managed by diplomatic means and without a full-on confrontation. Its also worth noting that in March 2011, during the initial stages of the Syrian uprising, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton was still calling Assad a reformer and an article in Haaretz newspaper described him as Israels favourite Arab dictator.

The hawks gather

This diplomatic approach to dealing with Syria did not go unchallenged, of course. There were always some voices, especially in the US and Israel, calling for a tougher line and it is mainly by cherry-picking these that believers in the regime change strategy construct their narrative of a pre-planned war.

One early example is the notorious Clean Break document from 1996. Produced by Richard Perle and several others who later became influential in the Bush administration, it advocated the removal of Saddam Hussein and the installation of a Hashemite monarchy in Iraq as a first step towards reshaping Israels strategic environment. Intended as a foreign policy blueprint for the incoming right-wing government of Binyamin Netanyahu, it urged a complete break with the past and suggested that once Saddam was out of the way Jordan and Turkey could form an axis along with Israel to weaken and roll back Syria.

Although often cited as part of the Syria regime-change meme, the Clean Break document  which was alarming in many ways  stopped well short of advocating the Assad regimes overthrow. Instead, it said Israel should move to contain Syria and offered three specific proposals in that direction:

Striking Syrias drug-money and counterfeiting infrastructure in Lebanon;

Paralleling Syrias behaviour by establishing the precedent that Syrian territory is not immune to attacks emanating from Lebanon by Israeli proxy forces;

Striking Syrian military targets in Lebanon, and should that prove insufficient, striking at select targets in Syria proper.

Aftermath of 9/11

In the article for Open Democracy quoted above, Piers Robinson  who is prominent among a group of academics pushing a pro-Assad and pro-Russia line  cites discussions between Britain and the US in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 as evidence that Syria was being earmarked for regime change.

In that context he cites a paragraph from the Chilcot report on Britains role in the Iraq war which says (page 324):

On 15 September the British Embassy Washington reported to London that the US now looked at the world through a new prism: US policy towards Iraq would harden, especially if any evidence emerged which linked Saddam Hussein to the terrorists. The regime-change hawks in Washington were arguing that a coalition put together for one purpose [against international terrorism] could be used to clear up other problems in the region.

From the tenor of the British-American discussions theres no doubt that Syrias support for terrorism was seen as one of the other problems needing to be cleared up. The question, though, is whether regime change in Syria was envisaged as part of that process.

Robinson discusses this in more detail in a separate academic article and quotes a declassified memo written by British prime minister Tony Blair in December 2001, headed: The war against terrorism: the second phase. The memo, which Britain shared with the Americans, discussed what to do about seven countries: Iraq, the Philippines, Syria, Iran, Yemen, Somalia and Indonesia.

On Iraq, Blair proposed a gradual build-up of pressure on Iraq until we get to the point where military action could be taken if necessary. On Syria and Iran, Robinson quotes another part of the memo where Blair wrote: If toppling Saddam is a prime objective, it is far easier to do it with Syria and Iran in favour or acquiescing rather than hitting all three at once.

Robinson acknowledges that its not clear from the memo how many of the seven countries were being targeted for regime change but says talk of hitting Iran and Syria, countries not associated with the Islamic fundamentalist terrorism understood to have been behind Al-Qaeda and 9/11, is clearly suggestive of some kind of military action.

Rather disingenuously, however, he omits quoting the remainder of Blairs paragraph on Syria and Iran which said:

I favour giving these two a chance at a different relationship: help and support in building a new partnership with the West in return for closing down support for Hizbollah and Hamas and helping us over Iraq. I dont underestimate the problems of this but I think it is possible.

Piers Robinson: leaked documents

In his Open Democracy article Robinson also says leaked documents indicate the existence of US plans from 2006 to destabilise Syria. This refers to a diplomatic cable written by William Roebuck, the US ambassador in Damascus, assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the Assad regime.

The cable identified a number of the regimes vulnerabilities and suggested ways they could be exploited to Americas advantage. Although this shows the US was trying to cause difficulties for the regime, theres no indication that the aim was to topple the regime, or that the Americans believed it was likely to be toppled. The cable ended by saying 

The bottom line is that Bashar is entering the new year in a stronger position than he has been in several years, but those strengths also carry with them  or sometimes mask  vulnerabilities. If we are ready to capitalise, they will offer us opportunities to disrupt his decision-making, keep him off-balance, and make him pay a premium for his mistakes.

Wesley Clarks tale

Robinsons final piece of regime-change evidence  in his Open Democracy article and in his academic paper too  is an anecdote much loved by conspiracy theorists.

The story, recounted several times by retired US general Wesley Clark, is that he visited a former colleague in the Defense Department a couple of weeks after 9/11 and was told a decision had been made to go to war with Iraq. On a second visit several weeks later the ex-colleague told him of a single-page memo which went much further, proposing to take out seven countries in five years. Iraq, as expected, was on the list but Syria and Iran were there too. The other four countries were Lebanon, Libya, Somalia and Sudan according to some versions of the story..

Clark says he didnt read the memo himself but was told it had originated in the office of the Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld. It seems to have been one example of the extreme militaristic talk circulating in Washington at the time and Clark said later it wasnt necessarily a plan  Maybe it was a think piece  a sort of notional concept.

In any case, it didnt happen. The five-year time span expired years ago and Rumsfeld is long gone too but that hasnt stopped the story from popping up time after time on the internet as evidence of American intentions towards Syria.

If the Arab Spring protests hadnt spread to Syria in 2011 and been met with a vicious response its very likely that relations between Syria and western governments would have been plodding along on the same bumpy road that we saw during the decade before the conflict broke out.

Claiming there was a long-standing plan to oust the regime serves a political purpose but the evidence simply does not support it. Its a case of trying to shape the facts to fit a desired narrative  a narrative that blames the conflict on western machinations rather than decades of dictatorship. And that is an insult to the countless Syrians who, before the conflict turned violent, took to the streets demanding an end to repression.

Via al-Bab.com

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Licence.Serbian police prevented ultranationalist Vojislav Seselj from demonstrating Sunday in Hrtkovci, a village in the Vojvodina province home to a Croatian minority where his firebrand speeches during the Balkan War earned him a jail term.

Police blocked off access to the village some 70 kilometres (45 miles) west of Belgrade, an AFP photographer said.

We came as opposition to provoke the regime which has forbidden us from demonstrating  and not the Croatians, said Seselj, 63, in the nearby village of Jarak as he found himself barred by a police cordon.

Last month UN judges overturned the controversial acquittal of the radical Serb politician, sentencing him to 10 years for crimes against humanity in the 1990s Balkans conflict.

In May 1992 he had urged the expulsion of local Croats at the height of the Balkan conflict.

Seselj rejected the verdict by the Hague-based panel of UN judges and vowed to return to Hrtkovci to demonstrate along with supporters from his Serbian Radical Party.

He remains at liberty having already spent almost 12 years  from February 2003 to November 2014  in detention in The Hague.

He had initially and controversially been acquitted in March 2016 of six war crimes and three crimes against humanity charges after a trial lasting more than eight years at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

Seselj told AFP after last months appeal ruling in The Hague that he was proud of the crimes he was convicted of  including inciting persecution  and was willing to do the same again.

The 1992-1995 war left 100,000 people dead and 2.2 million others homeless, as an ethnic conflict tore the former Yugoslavia apart.A Serb man wanted by Interpol on genocide charges has been arrested in a Romanian town just across the border, Romanian police said Sunday.

The 50-year-old suspect, named only as Stevan B., is being investigated for genocide committed from September to December 1991, the border police said in a statement.

He was a crew member on a Serbian-flagged vessel and was arrested during an identity check on Saturday.

According to Romanian media, the suspect was born in Croatia and is a former member of a paramilitary group who allegedly committed crimes against ethnic Croat and Hungarian civilians.

The 1991-95 Croatian war of independence, supported by Belgrade, left around 20,000 people dead and marked the start of break-up of Yugoslavia.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.Concern about the mainly commercial pollution of the River Barrow and the knock-on effect on fishing stocks on the river was expressed in the Dail by Sinn Fein Deputy Kathleen Funchion.

She said she was raising the issue on behalf of the Barrow River Piscatorial Society which is very active in the community.

It has continuously raised the issue with Inland Fisheries Ireland, IFI, which seems to be passing the buck or not taking the matter seriously, she said.

When the society came to me, I endeavoured to organise a meeting for it with Inland Fisheries Ireland and there was correspondence back and forth. Unfortunately, Inland Fisheries Ireland has not committed to a meeting.

"The society has the right to request a meeting and I do not see the problem with granting such request. We raise the issue to ask the Minister to ensure that the chief executive of Inland Fisheries Ireland, Ciaran Byrne, meets with the Barrow River Piscatorial Society so that it can raise its concerns.

It believes it is being treated as a second-class citizen because groups with an interest in other rivers have been granted meetings with Inland Fisheries Ireland, she added.

In response, the Minister for Communications, Climate Acton and Environment, Denis Naughten said the problem is that there is a multifaceted approach to issues such as this and responsibility does not lie with any one agency, which is hugely frustrating.

As the Deputies are aware, the provisions of the water pollution Acts come under the remit of the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, he said. I will commit to taking the points raised by the Deputies back to the Minister of State, Deputy Kyne. I will discuss this issue with him and we can try to see if we can progress it.

Government has role in remedying defective houses

The distressing and stressful circumstances the owners and residents of buildings must face where building defects emerge was acknowledged in the Seanad by Minister of State John Paul Phelan.

However, he said in general, building defects are matters for resolution between the contracting parties involved, the homeowner, the builder, the developer and-or their respective insurers, structural guarantee or warranty scheme.

It is important to note that while the Department has overall responsibility for establishing and maintaining an effective regulatory framework for building standards and building control, it has no general statutory role in resolving defects in privately owned buildings, including dwellings, nor does it have a budget for such matters, he told senators.

In this regard, it is incumbent on the parties responsible for poor workmanship and-or the supply of defective materials to face up to their responsibilities and take appropriate action to provide remedies for the affected homeowners.

The issue of legal redress for homeowners in respect of property transactions is a complex matter, with potential implications for the entire legal system as well as for the insurance industry, he said.

In this context, in February 2018, the Department wrote to the Law Reform Commission and also corresponded with those involved in the review of the administration of civil justice in Ireland requesting that they consider the issue of effective and accessible legal remedies for homeowners who discover defects in their homes.

Aylward calls for resolution to CE pension issue

The deep sense of frustration felt by community employment supervisors and assistant supervisors in trying to secure an occupational pension was expressed in the Dail by Fianna Fail Deputy Bobby Aylward.

Speaking during a debate on a Fianna Fail motion, he said the Community Employment schemes were introduced in this country at a time when unemployment levels were very high, particularly in rural Ireland.

By all accounts, the initiative has been very successful and has served its participants very well in securing employment when jobs were scarce and in helping the long-term unemployed to find a pathway back to work, he said.

We cannot underestimate the effect secure employment can have on a person, from both a financial and mental health point of view. I have spoken to people who were long-term unemployed for years and could see no light at the end of the tunnel, and it was the CE scheme that got them going again, giving them a jump start and leading them back to full-time and long-term employment.

CE schemes would never have succeeded without the work of the supervisors and assistant supervisors, he said. They have a strong personal vocation for the work they do and they are passionate about helping the people of their communities.

Our motion calls for a satisfactory pathway to be found, based on the 2008 Labour Court recommendations, to address the pension issue for the 1,250 CE supervisors and assistant supervisors, he said.

"These supervisors are honest, hard-working people and they need the Government to do the right thing and set out a pathway to provide them with the pensions they are owed.

Aylward seeks increased use of CCTV to tackle criminal gangs

An update on the Programme for Government that CCTV cameras would be erected at all motorway junctions, was sought in the Dail by Fianna Fail Deputy Bobby Aylward.

Speaking during Question Time, he said gangs are travelling from the main cities to rural Ireland via motorways in order to rob people and are on the motorway again within ten, 20 or 30 minutes.

The only way to stop them is via the use of CCTV cameras, he said. When will they be erected? What will the cost be and will it be done before the next general election. Community policing is also important. I keep emphasising that every Garda station should have a community liaison officer. As people trust community liaison officers, the more we have, the better.

In response, Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan said he was anxious to ensure all interested groups in urban and rural areas will take advantage of the grants scheme available in his Department.

Last year I announced an annual sum of 1 million for three years which would be ring-fenced for community CCTV system grants, he said.

The number of applications to date is lower than I wished for.

He said he was asking all Deputies, including Deputy Aylward, to spread the word that these grants are available. Support and guidance is also available to help interested groups apply for the funding.

I strongly encourage interested groups to contact my Department for assistance, he said. We have set up a dedicated email address for this purpose, which is communitycctv@justice.ie.

"Bearing in mind that all applications approved to date have been from local authorities, any local authorities that have not yet applied may also find it useful to consider consulting their counterparts in other areas. I am not sure if I have an application from Kilkenny but I have an application approved for the adjoining county of Wexford.

"I am anxious to ensure - I see three rural Deputies in the House - that we provide the appropriate level of information to community groups to allow them to make the application. Grant aid and assistance in my Department will be up to 40,000 per application.

Deputy Aylward said he was talking about is not the community CCTV in villages. I am talking about CCTV coming off motorways which should be sponsored by TII and the Government, he added.

US paper with links to Kilkenny wins Pulitzer Prize

The winning of the Pulitzer Prize by a US company with ancestral links to Kilkenny was noted in the Seanad.

Kerry Senator Mark Daly asked his fellow senators to support a Fianna Fail motion in respect of the Pulitzer Prize which was won by a small newspaper, The Storm Lake Times in rural Iowa.

That newspaper has only a circulation of 3,000 and a catchment population of 10,000, he said.

Its editor won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in 2017. The family running this business are the Cullens, originally from Kilkenny, five generations back.

This issue is the acknowledgement of their great achievement of winning the Pulitzer Prize, he said. The Iowa state Senate refused to acknowledge them winning the prize because they had been critical of President Trump, he said.

The most important thing in any democracy is a free press. When it achieves greatly as this small newspaper has done, winning the most prestigious prize in journalism, I think it would be fitting and appropriate that its own state Senate would acknowledge that.

"In light of the fact that the Senate has not done so, it would be appropriate for the land of the ancestors of the Cullen family to acknowledge their great achievement. I ask the Leader to support that motion.An update on the Programme for Government that CCTV cameras would be erected at all motorway junctions, was sought in the Dail by Fianna Fail Deputy Bobby Aylward.

Speaking during Question Time, he said gangs are travelling from the main cities to rural Ireland via motorways in order to rob people and are on the motorway again within ten, 20 or 30 minutes.

The only way to stop them is via the use of CCTV cameras, he said. When will they be erected? What will the cost be and will it be done before the next general election. Community policing is also important. I keep emphasising that every Garda station should have a community liaison officer. As people trust community liaison officers, the more we have, the better.

In response, Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan said he was anxious to ensure all interested groups in urban and rural areas will take advantage of the grants scheme available in his Department. Last year I announced an annual sum of 1 million for three years which would be ring-fenced for community CCTV system grants, he said. The number of applications to date is lower than I wished for.

He said he was asking all Deputies, including Deputy Aylward, to spread the word that these grants are available. Support and guidance is also available to help interested groups apply for the funding. I strongly encourage interested groups to contact my Department for assistance, he said. We have set up a dedicated email address for this purpose, which is communitycctv@justice.ie. Bearing in mind that all applications approved to date have been from local authorities, any local authorities that have not yet applied may also find it useful to consider consulting their counterparts in other areas. I am not sure if I have an application from Kilkenny but I have an application approved for the adjoining county of Wexford. I am anxious to ensure - I see three rural Deputies in the House - that we provide the appropriate level of information to community groups to allow them to make the application. Grant aid and assistance in my Department will be up to 40,000 per application.

Deputy Aylward said he was talking about is not the community CCTV in villages. I am talking about CCTV coming off motorways which should be sponsored by TII and the Government, he added.By Kim Jae-kyoung



The historic inter-Korean summit carries huge significance as it has allowed South Korea to act as a go-between for the U.S. and North Korea, according to Balbina Hwang, a former senior adviser to the U.S. State Department, Sunday.



She described the summit between Moon and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, the first of its kinds in over a decade, as a "clear victory" for Moon and South Korea.



Balbina Hwang



"What is of absolute historical significance is that for the first time since the outbreak of the Korean War, the North has legitimized the South as an equal dialogue partner," Hwang, a visiting professor at Georgetown University's Center for Security Studies, said in an interview.



She said that at the April 27 summit, Pyongyang first acknowledged Seoul as the lead or co-partner in not only negotiating permanent peace on the peninsula, but also denuclearization.



She pointed out Pyongyang is using Seoul as its "agent" or negotiating representative with Washington, particularly on the nuclear issue, which is "unprecedented."



"What this signifies, in terms of the North's intentions, is yet unclear, but for President Moon and the South, this is a clear victory, regardless of whether South Koreans support or oppose the detente with North Korea, as it is preferable to being left out of the process entirely," she said.



She believes one of main purposes of the inter-Korean summit was precisely to establish the parameters of a U.S.-North Korea summit.



In other words, the Moon-Kim summit was aimed not only at encouraging the atmosphere for the possibility of holding the U.S.-North Korea summit, but also narrowing the possibilities towards a positive outcome.



"In this regard, the inter-Korea summit was successful in that it produced a very positive atmosphere," she said.



However, Hwang, a senior State Department adviser on East Asian Affairs during the Obama Administration, thinks the summit should not be taken as an indicator the Kim regime is changing.



"Of course, the summit indicates Kim and his regime are flexible; certainly more flexible than most give him credit for," she said.





An empty Family Mart inside the Gaesong Industrial Complex in North Korea in September 2017. / Korea Times file



By Ko Dong-hwan



In February 2016, South Korean convenience store chain CU was evicted from an inter-Korean industrial park in the border city of Gaesong in North Korea as bilateral tension increased and Pyongyang shut down the joint economic venture indefinitely.



But as the inter-Korean summit on April 27 at Panmunjeom took a dramatic positive turn and tension eased, the Gaesong Industrial Complex may reopen. If this happens, the 124 South Korean companies that operated in the complex could, if they choose, get their businesses back  including CU, the only convenience store chain there.



"We feel like we are on thin ice as we are closely monitoring how the joint economic venture will turn out following the summit," a CU official said Sunday. "Our decision depends on the bigger geopolitical issue."



The official hopes CU can return to the industrial park. He believes all the companies involved are "not simply there to make big bucks" but a result of the two countries' efforts to contribute to inter-Korean economic growth.



"As soon as the industrial park reopens, we will resume normal operations that provide a service of convenience to other employees from neighboring companies," he said.





CU in central Jongno district in Jung-gu, Seoul. / Korea Times fileLe Collectif Cheikh Yassine a organise un certain nombre dactivites et de festivites pour les enfants de Gaza sous le theme  La joie des enfants de Gaza pour lAid . Ces activites ont commence le premier jour de lAid et continue jusquau 4eme jour de lAid dans la bande de Gaza.



Plusieurs activites, ont ete organisees parmi lesquelles : des competitions recompensees par des prix, des jeux, des animations et des chants presentes par un groupe ainsi que des distributions de cadeaux et daides financieres.



NASA has received radio signals indicating that the first-ever CubeSats headed to deep space are alive and well.

The first signal was received at 12:15 p.m. PST (3:15 p.m. EST) today; the second at 1:58 p.m. PST (4:58 p.m. EST). Engineers will now be performing a series of checks before both CubeSats enter their cruise to deep space.



Mars Cube One, or MarCO, is a pair of briefcase-sized spacecraft that launched along with NASA's InSight Mars lander at 4:05 a.m. PDT (7:05 a.m. EDT) today from Vandenberg Air Force Base in Central California. InSight is a scientific mission that will probe the Red Planet's deep interior for the first time; the name stands for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport.



The twin MarCO CubeSats are on their own separate mission: rather than collecting science, they will follow the InSight lander on its cruise to Mars, testing out miniature spacecraft technology along the way.



Both were programmed to unfold their solar panels soon after launch, followed by several opportunities to radio back their health.



"Both MarCO-A and B say 'Polo!' It's a sign that the little sats are alive and well," said Andy Klesh, chief engineer for the MarCO mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, which built the twin spacecraft.



The computers inside each MarCO CubeSat haven't been turned on since being tested at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, in mid-March, where they were prepared for launch by Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems of Irvine, California. Each spacecraft had to do a lot of things right by itself for the team to hear a signal: batteries had to retain enough charge for the spacecraft to deploy their solar arrays, stabilize their attitude, turn toward the Sun and turn on their radios.



A couple of weeks will be spent assessing how the MarCO CubeSats are performing. If they survive the radiation of space and function as planned, they'll fly over the Red Planet during InSight's entry, descent and landing in November. They each have a special antenna to relay InSight's vital signs during the infamous "Seven Minutes of Terror," the crucial phase which has claimed the majority of humanity's probes sent to land on the Red Planet.



CubeSats are a kind of boxy satellite invented to teach engineering students how to build spacecraft. Today, they offer access to space for private companies and research institutions. They're just one kind of "SmallSat," which includes a broad range organized by weight class. CubeSats are generally under 33 pounds (15 kilograms), and can weigh as little as about five pounds (2.5 kilograms). They're distinctively modular, which makes it easier to buy "plug-in" parts rather than custom-design every part of the spacecraft.



NASA is taking the opportunity to test several experimental systems with MarCO. Their radios, folding high-gain antennas, attitude control and propulsion systems are all included to prove new technologies in deep space.



"We're nervous but excited," said Joel Krajewski of JPL, MarCO's project manager. "A lot of work went into designing and testing these components so that they could survive the trip to Mars and relay data during InSight's landing. But our broader goal is to learn more about how to adapt CubeSat technologies for future deep-space missions."



When InSight arrives on Mars in November, it won't rely on MarCO for sending landing data back to Earth. That job will go to NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, as well as several Earth-based astronomy telescopes. But the MarCO mission could help prove the potential for CubeSats as a kind of bring-your-own "black box" for future NASA missions.



MarCO was built by JPL, which manages InSight and MarCO for NASA. It was funded by both JPL and NASA's Science Mission Directorate. A number of commercial suppliers provided unique technologies for MarCO.

Please follow SpaceRef on Twitter and Like us on Facebook.Motihari, May 6 (PTI) The Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) today recovered about 8.5 kg of charas worth Rs 1.70 crore from Korihar chowk in Bihar's East Champaran district, and arrested a Nepalese man in this connection.

Acting on a tip-off, the SSB arrested Maya Lal Hazara, a resident of Parsa district of Nepal and recovered the contraband from his possession, 47th battalion Commandant Sonam Cherring said.

The man has been handed over to the Narcotics Control Bureau, Patna for further action, he said.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)Madrid [Spain], May 5 (ANI): Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu on Saturday evening stopped over in Spain's capital city Madrid on his way to America's Guatemala, Peru and Panama for a five-day visit.

Earlier in the day, the Vice President emplaned for his five-day America visit.

Bilateral trade and investments are expected to be mainly discussed during the visit.

During the visit, the Vice President is scheduled to hold meetings at the highest levels in the three countries.

Further, he will interact with a score of respective parliamentarians of Guatemala, Peru, and Panama.

This will be the Vice President's first overseas visit after assuming office. He will be accompanied by a high-level delegation, including Minister of State (MoS) for Tribal Affairs Jasvantsinh Sumanbahi Bhabhor, four Members of Parliament and senior officers of the Government of India, as said in a press release issued by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on May 3.

A range of bilateral issues including the strengthening of institutional mechanisms for political interactions, multilateral matters, trade and commerce, investments, information technology, capacity building, traditional medicines, space, defence, and culture are expected to be discussed during the visit.

Vice President Naidu will also visit various eminent universities of the three countries and further meet members of the Indian diaspora residing in the three countries. (ANI)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)Thousands of people from the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) supporters in Tokyo took part in the annual Rainbow Pride parade 2018 on Sunday. Japan which is of the most liberal countries in Asia witnessed the event from April 28 ended on May 6. While Japan's laws don't support the LGBT community, thousands holding placards, posters and the rainbow flag marched the streets observing the annual parade. The theme for the 2018 event was "Love & Equality".

Wearing colourful hair, painting themselves in different shades, holding balloons the attendees walked through the Shibuya and Harajuku areas of downtown Tokyo.

According to a 2015 poll carried out in Japan, the majority of people supported in changing the countrys laws to allow same-sex marriage. According to the research conducted by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, fifty-one percent of people polled backed marriage equality.

Most support for LGBT was found among the younger age groups. Around 70 percent of people between 20 and 40 years of age supported gay marriages. According to a Japan Times report, Tokyo Rainbow Pride 2018 was sponsored by 190 companies and organizations which was a new record. Some of the big names included NTT Corp., Sony Corp. and Google Inc., BuzzFeed and music streamer Spotify.

The event's official website saw support received congratulatory messages from local government leaders like Shibuya Ward Mayor Ken Hasebe and Sapporo Mayor Katsuhiro Akimoto. In 2015, the wards assembly passed an ordinance and agreed to issue legally nonbinding certificates that declared same-sex partnerships equivalent to marriage.

On April 1, 2017, gay couples in Shibuya had been issued the certificates which let them treated like married couples in terms of hospital visits and apartment rentals. Cities like Sapporo, Naha in Okinawa Prefecture and Iga in Mie Prefecture have also established similar programs.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on May 07, 2018 12:18 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).Eat your heart out, Lotus: Aston Martin submarine debuts

May 5, 2018, 2:01pm ET

The luxury automaker is offering a real underwater craft for sale.

Aston Martin's latest project seats three, boasts a streamlined design, and has no wheels. That's because it's a submarine.

Perhaps Aston Martin was jealous that when he needed a submersible craft, noted Aston Martin driver James Bond employed the services of a Lotus Esprit. Called Project Neptune, the vessel was developed in conjunction with Triton Submarines, a company that specializes in underwater machines, for debut at the LYBRA Superyacht Show in Barcelona, Spain.

The sub will be able to dive 500 meters below the surface and can travel at five knots (5.75 mph). According to Aston Martin, its acceleration is "approximately four times the acceleration of Triton's flagship 3300/3 model" thanks to improved hydrodynamics such as a reduced frontal area.

The interior is described by Triton's chief technical officer John Ramsay as "quintessentially Aston Martin - a luxurious mix of hand-stitched leather and high-performance carbon fibre, assembled without obstructing the panoramic sight-lines that Triton submersibles are famous for." Three different color and trim combinations are available.

The build quantity was not revealed, but interested parties will be able to order them through either Aston Martin or Triton dealers.May 5, 2018, 5:08pm ET

Subaru PHEV to be called Evoltis?

A patent office trademark filing points to a new plug-in hybrid electric vehicle name.

If a new patent trademark registration is any indication, Subaru's first plug-in hybrid electric car will be named Evoltis.

Seemingly an amalgam of "evolution"  sorry Mitsubishi, you missed your shot  and "volt," the trademark filing was uncovered by Car and Driver. While the filing doesn't necessarily mean that the PHEV will bear the Evoltis name, the scheduling seems relevant. The car is expected to debut towards the end of 2018, and as Car and Driver notes, the filing by Subaru Corporation, rather than Subaru of America, wears an "intent to use" status.

The PHEV is an important part of Subaru's desire to meet California's Zero Emissions Vehicle rules, which require 4.5 percent of all vehicle sales to come with battery or hydrogen fuel cell powertrains. By 2025, that number will increase to 8 percent. Keep in mind, if an automaker does not meet these percentages, they will have to buy credits from a competitor. Seen as a transitional technology, PHEVs count for about 55 percent of the credit as an all-electric or fuel cell vehicle.

Car and Driver believes that the Subaru Evoltis will use technology from Toyota's Prius Prime PHEV, but package it in an all-wheel-drive crossover body style. The Prius Prime is available with AWD in Japan, and Toyota owns a 16.5 percent stake in Subaru.Please allow ads as they help fund our trusted local news content.

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Support our mission and join our community now.Some morning during the week of the good weather, when the sun was shining gloriously, as I left home I happened to glance towards the heavens and see what appeared to be a very large airliner leaving a trail across the sky.

I zoomed in with the camera on my phone, took a picture and posted the grainy image up on Facebook saying that I wondered if it was an A380.

To the uninitiated, the A380 is the world's largest passenger airliner, so big, in fact, that some airports need to extend their runways to handle it.

Its made by Airbus , each one costs 365 million to buy and it can carry 525 people in a double decker configuration.

Somebody commented: You should have checked it on Flight Radar.

On what? says I.

It turns out that Flight Radar is actually an app for your phone that will show you all the planes in the sky at any given time (there are thousands).

The app obviously connects into air traffic control systems, and so if you tap the icon for any of the planes it will tell you what make of plane it is, who the airline is, its registration, where it is going to and from, how far into its journey it is, what speed its doing and how high it is.

The following Saturday, April 21, was a lovely day of warm sunshine and I was outdoors when I saw a number of planes in the air, all at once.

I took out my phone and had a look. It turns out that as well as having three of Irelands motorways passing through it and two railways, Kildare is for some reason, a superhighway of the skies as well.

All that morning I watched planes flying from Istanbul to Montreal, from Warsaw to Washington, from Riyadh to Newark, from Paris to San Francisco, London to Denver, Frankfurt to Las Vegas, Amsterdam to Toronto, Los Angeles to London and many many more.

And, invariably, every third or fourth plane was a Ryanair from Dublin to Fuerteventura, Newcastle or Copenhagen.

Also very interesting were the private jets overhead.

There are plenty of them up there, at least one flying over Ireland at any given time.

For some reason, the usual information on where they were coming or going was not supplied.

Over the course of the weekend, I saw one travelling from Malaga to Dublin and back.

Damned if I know why all of these planes seem to pass over Kildare.

Are there not shorter ways from Ankara to Vancouver than to take a detour over Rathangan?

And what must the passengers think as they look down on our lovely county?

On a clear day like that one was, can they make out the green of the Curragh, or do they wonder at the large brown patches, or have they ever heard of Bord na Mona?

Do they see the campus of Maynooth University or the Leinster Aqueduct or Whites Castle in Athy?

I wonder does the Captain announce in their captain-y voice that were now passing over the Hills of Wicklow and the bogs of Kildare, and dont blink or youll miss the Hill of Allen (or whats left of it).

And those straight lines you see are the canals, the Royal to the north and the Grand, a little south of that.

Im pretty sure they must have also been able to see some of the potholes on the Blacktrench road and the derelict Naas Shopping Centre.

It might be nice to think they thought, from that far up, that it looked pretty, and inviting.

But sure they probably didnt even look out the window at all!

SEE ALSO: Naas student wins national technology awardCllr Seadhna Logan has said he is seriously concerned and annoyed about the huge variation between Leitrim and Roscommon County Councils ability to deliver value for money regarding their LIS allocations.



There is a very significant difference in the number of roads that can be delivered in Leitrim versus Roscommon, Cllr Logan told the Leitrim Observer this week.



Roscommon with an allocation of 370,000 are going to deliver 56 roads, while Leitrim with an allocation of 250,000 have a target of only 11 roads for delivery.



Cllr Logan said he cannot see how it can be, that Roscommon can deliver 45 more target roads than Leitrim for 120,000 more.



The way roads are selected and allocated by councils for these funds, and the costing methodolgy used for these decisions needs an urgent review, he said.



Leitrim has one of the largest lists of LIS schemes in the north west, with huge demand for this scheme. Eleven roads barely makes a dent on the existing Leitrim list, while Roscommon appear to be able to make substantial inroads on their list from their allocation.



The government need to increase their allocation to Leitrim, and Leitrim County Council need to assess how much more can be delivered in a more cost effective way going forward, he said.



Cllr Logan added that the Sinn Fein members of Leitrim County Council will be ensuring this issue is discussed in detail at the May meeting, as there is much anger about how the LIS scheme has been managed in the county to date.SUNDAY Mass should be like a Croke Park final or a concert but, alas, it's boring.

That is according to Fr Patrick Seaver, from Farranshone, who has been on a mission to transform the solemn Irish Mass into a jubilant celebration as experienced in other countries.

Which is why he has teamed up with local artist Hugh McMahon in publishing a comic book for kids and adults (including priests!) on the structure of Mass and how it is a joyful celebration.

The comic, Why We Go To Mass, started when Fr Seaver started attending lively sermons in Ghana and how difficult it was to return to the Irish Mass.

If youre ever in Croke Park at a final and you were on Hill 16, you know that sort of energy, that spirit that envelopes everybody, and I dont see that here in Ireland. Whereas in Ghana, its a wonderful experience, you know? I find it tough coming back.

When I come back and I hear the young people talking about Mass as boring, I say: I am with you on that one, he laughed. Asked why priests dont just make it that more energetic, he explained:

First of all, we are getting a bit older. Theres also this sense that it is very solemn. That sense is still there where I had my mother telling me: Pat, dont be turning around. I wasnt even smiling, I was just looking around. Youre on Calvary now, dont forget  Jesus is dying. It is very serious.

But the way I see it is that its like a wedding. The union of heavenly Father and ourselves, he has adopted us as children. But the terms of the Covenant is that marriage is love, and to love each other and be happy. Its wonderful. We should be out dancing and singing. Instead of that, watch people come out of Mass, you can see their faces. Theyre looking at their watches and thinking how soon they can get out of here. Whereas out in Ghana, I remember I was out there one Christmas, it went on. And after the final dismissal, which is after two and a bit hours, they still wanted to sing.

The comic is a dialogue between a girl and her grandfather, who explains the purpose of Mass as they walk to the church.

The grandfather explains how Mass is originally based on the way Hittites and Egyptians ended a 13th century war in the Covenant of Kadesh with a celebratory feast, song and dance.

Why We Go To Mass comic will be launched at St Lelias Church this Friday at 7pm.A MYRIAD of colourful stands were put on display to celebrate the 30 nationalities that make up the community of a school in the heart of Limerick city.

Colaiste Nano Nagle celebrated its seventh Intercultural Day with an array of ethnic foods, fashion from around the world and a show full of music and dance.

For the first time ever, the students of Colaiste Nano Nagle also painted a large canvas to mark the day.

Twenty-two non-national students were introduced to fluid art by their teacher Livia Healy.

Together they contributed to this painting, a large canvas stretching 100 by 120 cm entitled Integration, which will be proudly displayed in their school.

Im so proud of them, Ms Healy said.

They took part in this project with such enthusiasm and the painting is a credit to them.

Fluid art is similar to the process of integration in many ways.

Intercultural Day 2018 opened with a festival of stands and displays created by students representing the 30 nationalities within the school community.

An array of foods from all over the world, prepared by students and their parents, was also on offer allowing students to sample different dishes from their classmates cultures.

Students also modeled traditional ethnic dresses, portraying fashion from almost every continent.

In the afternoon, the schools diverse cultures were put on show with a mix of dance, drama, song and music performed by a mix of students, their parents, teachers and specially invited guests.

Teachers Neil Carmody, Gillian Galligan, Livia Healy and Eileen McMahon were responsible for organising the day, teacher Catherine Cantillon acting as the Master of Ceremonies.

The message was clear, Mr Carmody said.

Every person in this school community is important and united by virtue of their shared humanity.THE PEOPLE of Limerick who have yearned for another papal visit have been politely told by the Vatican: Sorry, not this time.

This was confirmed by the Papal Nuncio to Ireland Archbishop Jude Thaddeus Okolo, who unveiled a 10,000 memorial plaque dedicated to Pope St John Paul II at Bishops Quay this Monday.

The late pope visited Limerick on October 1, 1979 and was subsequently made a Freeman of Limerick City by Mayor Bobby Byrne.

The plaque, designed by Limerick artist and sculptor Cliodhna Cussen, was approved of in 2014 and it is understood that the cost of the memorial was split between Limerick City and County Council and the Limerick Diocese.

Mayor of Limerick City and County, Cllr Stephen Keary said it was an honour to unveil the plaque.

Speaking on the four-year wait for the launch, he told reporters: Sure, everything has to come to fruition. It just happens to be now and we are delighted to be able to do that.

Archbishop Okolo said he was delighted that a great man is being remembered in Limerick.

He added that Pope Francis is aware that he was invited to Limerick.

I think there was some letters that went from Limerick to the Vatican. That I can tell you. I will not tell you who wrote, you know? But I know there were some letters from Limerick to the Vatican, asking him to come. And, of course, the answers were: We are sorry, not this time. So it means, maybe in the future, who knows?

He knows that he was invited or that hes invited. But unfortunately, he cannot come. Because we know that he wants to concentrate on the World Meeting of Families. He wants to meet everyone there at that meeting. We leave the future open. If he cannot come, maybe another pope will come.

But what I will say is this: one pope has come and he represents all the other popes, he told reporters.

Bishop Leahy said he thinks Pope St John Paul II would be pleased that we are launching this memorial ahead of Pope Francis visit to Dublin.A MAN who reversed into another car while exiting the driveway of his Limerick home was fined 250 after he was convicted of careless driving.

Martins Birks, aged 35, who has an address at Old Cork Road, Limerick was before Limerick District Court in relation to an incident on July 25, last.

Judge Marie Keane was told the defendant was reversing a Black BMW out of his driveway when he collided with a silver Toyota Corolla which was travelling on the main road.

While none of the occupants of the Corolla, which included two young children, were seriously injured, separate civil proceedings are ongoing.

Mr Birks, who was initially charged with dangerous driving, was disqualified at the time and was not insured.

Solicitor Tom Kiely said his client had pulled out exceptionally slowly and that he presumed the driver of the Toyota Corolla had seen him.

He said Mr Birks  a self-employed father-of-two  accepts he had no good reason to drive on the day.

Hes not offering any excuse, said adding that the penny has now dropped for his client that he cannot drive.

Judge Keane said the defendants actions were not acceptable and she noted the general public will be out of pocket as any damages which are awarded to the occupants of the Corolla will be paid by the Motor Insurers Bureau of Ireland.

We are all paying too much for insurance because of this type of conduct, she commented.

Fines totalling 500 were imposed while Mr Birks was disqualified from driving for four years for driving without insurance.

He was also ordered to pay 150 to the driver of the Toyota Corolla to cover the loss of the no claims bonus.HUGE CROWDS turned up at Tipperary Racecourse on Sunday but there wasnt one bet placed.

Men, women and children from all over Limerick and Tipp attended a family fun day organised by the Archdiocese of Cashel and Emly. In accord with the theme We are family  festival of fun, the event was in preparation for the World Meeting of Families in Dublin next August.

One of the attendees was Eileen ORiordan, from Ballybricken. She said today was a difficult day as she recalled the recent sad loss of her beautiful and iconic daughter, Dolores.

Shane Hogan, from nearby Knockainey, shared why he, his wife and family had come along.

It was an invitation we just couldnt refuse. Faith is upfront and central, said Mr Hogan.

Just before 1pm a youth walk, led by Archbishop Kieran OReilly for the 16-year-olds and over to Tipperary Famine Graveyard headed off. Fr Enda, who prepared the walk, encouraged the young people to give thanks for their own families as well as the many and varied opportunities which they enjoy.

The exhibition hall gave a wonderful insight into the many and varied activities which provide an opportunity for parishioners of all ages to get involved and make a difference throughout the diocese. A highlight was the family art project. Children from every primary school in the archdiocese were invited to participate in this project and all of their work was on display.

Also, a selection of the artwork will be on display in the Cashel and Emly stand at the World Meeting of Families (WMOF) pastoral congress exhibition in the RDS, Dublin from August 22 to 24. Childrens activities included tag archery, face painting, bouncy castles, an obstacle course, a pet farm and the especially popular water zorbing

A central aspect of the day was the liturgy. It brought together all the themes of the day and in his address Archbishop OReilly spoke of the importance of coming together as an archdiocese to celebrate as we look forward to the visit of Pope Francis in August. Archbishop OReilly thanked all who had gathered and paid tribute to the great work being done throughout the archdiocese. In particular, he thanked the diocesan WMOF committee, who co-ordinated the entire event with the generous co-operation of Tipperary Racecourse.A MAN who was caught driving in Limerick without insurance for the fifth time has been jailed for five months.

Limerick District Court was told Wesley OSullivan, aged 21, who has an address at Drominbeg, Rhebogue was also disqualified when he was stopped while driving at St Munchins Street, St Marys Park on January 13, last.

The defendant supplied a breath sample after he was stopped which confirmed he was over the legal alcohol limit.

Inspector Padraig Byrnes said the defendant has a total of nine previous convictions of which four relate to driving without insurance.

Prior to Januarys offence, the defendant was disqualified from driving for eight years on May, 17, 2017.

Solicitor Con Barry said his client, who is not currently working, had put his hands up, accepts he did an awfully stupid thing and wishes to apologise for his actions.

Noting Mr OSullivans previous record Judge Marie Keane said his behaviour was simply outrageous and cannot be tolerated.

You have no regard for your own safety or that of the public, she said adding that she had no alternative but to impose a prison sentence.

The defendant was disqualified for ten years and sentenced to five months imprisonment for driving without insurance.

A separate one year driving ban (to be served concurrently) was imposed in relation to the drink-driving charge along with a 250 fine.

A charge relating to Mr OSullivans late arrival in court on a previous date was taken into consideration.Bert Bowers had never seen anything like the EPA van. It pulled into the old Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in 2002, a white vehicle about the size of a U-Haul truck, with what looked like a small, air-conditioned laboratory inside, hooked up to a radiation-scanning device.

He was intrigued. Bowers, a lanky 43-year-old with a South Carolina drawl, had worked as a radiation technician and safety trainer for 25 years, mostly at nuclear power plants. Recently he had taken a job at the San Francisco Shipyard project along the citys southeast coast  a 500-acre redevelopment site that promised homes, playgrounds and businesses for a space-constrained city with a huge housing shortage.

Much of the site was still laced with dangerous, long-lasting, radioactive isotopes from the 1940s, when the Navy used the shipyard to perform animal experiments with radiation and to decontaminate ships exposed to atomic-bomb tests in the Pacific Ocean. Before houses and storefronts could be built there, radioactive material had to be identified and removed.

The main company in charge of the cleanup has long been Tetra Tech, a $2.8 billion federal contracting giant. At the time, Bowers worked for New World Environmental, a company that specialized in cleaning up radiological contaminants and later became an important Tetra Tech subcontractor. Hed been told the radiation scanner van from the Environmental Protection Agency was cutting-edge, full of supersensitive gizmos, and was excited to see it in action. Youre hoping youre really going to peel the scab back and find where some of the problems are, he recently recalled.

Bowers chatted with the EPA technician who was preparing to operate it. How effective was the van? Was it going to work?

His answer, Bowers said: Dont get your hopes up.

The plan that day was for Bowers to follow in his own vehicle as the scanner van drove through Parcel A, a 75-acre swath of land in the shipyard where the city hoped to build thousands of new homes. If the van identified any hot spots, Bowers would then investigate those areas on foot, with more sensitive, handheld instruments.

The entire, 935-acre shipyard site is divided into parcels labeled A through G  a jigsaw puzzle of lands and waters variously contaminated by heavy metals, asbestos, PCBs and radioactive waste. The parcel boundaries, meant to help organize the cleanup, are just lines on a map, not physical partitions. Parcel A is the farthest inland, uphill from the bay and long considered by the Navy and the EPA to be free of concerning amounts of radioactivity.

The atomic bomb attacks and tests of the 20th century spread fallout around the Earth, establishing a trace background level of radioactive isotopes like plutonium-239, cesium-137 and strontium-90. Then the Navy released more of these materials at Hunters Point in the 1940s and 1950s, along with radium-226, which was used to illuminate tool displays and deck markers at night.

Even extremely tiny amounts of certain isotopes can harm humans, and the EPA determines the acceptable level of risk for various environmental contaminants on Superfund sites like the shipyard. The EPAs default cleanup goal for radium is two-thousandths of a picocurie, the amount of radioactivity emitted by the merest speck of radium  two-thousandths of a millionth of a millionth of a gram of material.

On that day in 2002, the EPA van didnt find any hot spots on Parcel A  no radiation above natural background levels, according to one EPA document. Based partly on the results from the scanner van, Parcel A was given a clean bill of health by federal, state and local officials.

No further searches for radioactivity were ordered there.

The Navy transferred the parcel to the city in 2004. The following year the city turned it over to a commercial developer, Lennar / FivePoint, which broke ground on new homes in 2013.

Since then, Parcel A has lurched back to life, with 300 housing units already completed and another 150 under construction. But as Parcel A became a place where people live, work, and play, other parts of the shipyard have been engulfed by a growing scandal.

At the center of it is Tetra Tech, the Navys favored cleanup contractor. In the last decade, several former shipyard workers, including Bowers, have complained about safety violations and outright fraud at the heart of the cleanup effort. At first they took their concerns to Tetra Tech, and in several cases, they said Tetra Tech fired or sidelined them. Then they went to regulators and journalists, accusing Tetra Tech of falsifying data and cutting corners to please the Navy, which wanted the parcels cleaned up as fast as possible.

Now, years later, the government seems to be paying attention.

On Thursday, the U.S. Justice Department announced that two former Tetra Tech supervisors, Justin Hubbard and Stephen Rolfe, had each pleaded guilty to falsifying records in connection with the cleanup, swapping suspect soil with clean dirt to make it appear that areas were free of harmful radiation. Both were sentenced to eight months in prison. Reports released last year by the Navy and the EPA said that up to 97 percent of the soil samples taken in two areas of the shipyard site could not be trusted.

Tetra Tech has maintained that the Navy and regulators call the shots and set the cleanup criteria, not the company. We stand by our work, according to a spokeswoman. Still, Tetra Tech has agreed to pay for retesting. Tetra Tech is no longer working at Hunters Point, having been demobilized upon completion of the on-site work, said the spokeswoman, who did not respond to follow-up questions.

So far, Parcel A has escaped this new wave of scrutiny. Many of the government offices long responsible for watching over the Navys shoulder as the cleanup project unfolds  including the EPA, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, CalEPA and the citys Office of Community Development and Infrastructure  have repeatedly assured the public that Parcel A has been extensively checked and poses no danger.

For those already living on the Shipyard, Rep. Nancy Pelosi said in a statement on April 25, it is important to remember that the Navy and EPA have confirmed that people who live on, work at and visit the Hunters Point area are safe.

But according to Bowers and other former radiation workers at the shipyard, Parcel A has never been adequately checked for radioactive contaminants. The EPA scanner van looked at only a fraction of Parcel A, and was incapable of identifying certain types of radiation known to be present at the shipyard, according to one of the whistle-blowers and an independent expert familiar with the van and its capabilities.

Thats not all. Bowers and another whistle-blower, Anthony Smith, said they later found hot samples of radioactive material at locations that were either inside Parcel A or adjacent to it, within a stones throw of condos and businesses. Bowers and Smith say that Tetra Tech ignored or covered up those readings.

In response to questions about Parcel A, Lennar Corp., the former parent of San Francisco Shipyard developer FivePoint, said: We have relied on environmental regulators who have repeatedly assured us that Parcel A is clean and safe. We take this matter very seriously and are looking into it further with the relevant government agencies.

FivePoint executive Kofi Bonner added that the companys partnership with the city begins with the understanding that the Shipyard parcels are thoroughly tested and properly cleaned.

The city directed inquiries about Parcel A to officials with the Navy and the EPA. The Navy did not respond to specific questions and instead sent links to web pages with histories and documents about Parcel A. Its safety has been verified repeatedly and consistently over decades by state and federal regulators, one of the Navy pages reads in part. A sub-headline says, No Health Concerns for Parcel A Residents.

An EPA spokeswoman echoed the Navy, sending an answer that included verbatim quotes from a 2-year-old EPA fact sheet: Historically, the majority of Parcel A was used for residences and administrative offices, not industrial activities. The only radiological materials found at Parcel A were sandblast grit and firebricks; these have since been removed. The spokesperson said that Tetra Tech performed only limited cleanup on Parcel A, and the EPA had no reason to question that work based on the information we have at this time.

In fact, everyone agrees that Tetra Tech did minimal radiological work on Parcel A. The EPA and Navy had determined the land was clean, so never ordered a full soil sampling.

And thats the problem, according to whistle-blowers and experts who say there is no way to know exactly what is in the ground at Parcel A. The land was never rigorously inspected for radiation. Navy and EPA analyses of Parcel A are based on incomplete historical records and decades-old surveys. And for several overlapping reasons  fraud by Tetra Tech, government oversight failings, disruptions caused by recent construction, and the sheer passage of time  theres cause to question whether contaminated materials have been churned up on Parcel A or have migrated there from other parts of the shipyard.

The upshot: Parcel A may be free of radioactivity above harmful levels. Or it may not.

We simply dont know, says Don Wadsworth, president of New World Environmental, the former radiation-control subcontractor for Tetra Tech. Around 2007, Wadsworth voiced concerns to Tetra Tech about the integrity of the cleanup, and said Tetra Tech began to phase him out; New Worlds last year on the project was 2009. Wadsworth and Bowers have agreed to appear at a Board of Supervisors hearing on May 14, where they plan to argue that the entire site needs to be retested for radiation  including Parcel A.

The people who certified that the other parcels were clean were caught falsifying their data, Wadsworth said. If you found out that all the studs in the house that the contractor made for you were made out of bread sticks, youd have to question the whole foundation up. And thats what you have to do here. You have to question everything they did.

In recent months, residents of Parcel A have started to wonder about the ground beneath their feet. Linda Parker Pennington, who moved into a three-bedroom town house with her family in June 2015, said she had felt reassured by the promises of the developer and the Navy. But now, she said, she worries about her teenage son and the other neighborhood children who play in the grass and dirt on the parcel and may wander beyond its borders.

Noah Berger / Special to The Chronicle

If the Navy never really went looking for radioactivity on Parcel A, and if two Tetra Tech supervisors lied about what they were doing on other parts, how can officials be certain that residents in Parcel A havent been exposed to harmful radiation?

Most children like to venture, Pennington said. The parcels are an artificial construct that make it sound like there are barriers between them, but really there are not.

If I was living there, Bowers said, yes, I would be worried.

Radioactive materials have to be strictly controlled. If not, they travel, imperceptible to humans. The minuscule particles get picked up by shoes and boots and rivulets of rainwater. Stirred into a cloud of dust, the breeze carries them. Nature has its way  wind, storm, earthquake, soil erosion, fireand moves radioactive material from one place to another.

Humans can easily ingest radioactive particles, spread from dirty hands to lips with the bite of a sandwich or a drag from a cigarette.

Radiation is essentially subatomic bullets, said Daniel Hirsch, retired director of the Environmental and Nuclear Policy Program at UC Santa Cruz. If the bullets damage genetic material in a cell, a cancerous tumor can grow.

There were multiple sources of radiation at Hunters Point in its heyday, the 1940s and 1950s. Ships that returned from atomic bomb tests in the South Pacific, dosed with fallout, were decontaminated in the Hunters Point dry docks, a process that included sandblasting the radioactive exteriors of the ship. (The largest dry dock, No. 4., long defunct, almost nips the eastern edge of what is now Parcel A.) Another source was the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory, a cluster of buildings where government scientists blasted animals with radiation and fed them isotopes to learn about the possible effects on humans. At night, the shipyard glowed with radioactive paint.

Much of what the public knows about this contamination is documented in a 665-page report called a Historical Radiological Assessment, produced by New World and the Navy and finalized in 2004. They researched old Navy records, spoke with former workers at the site, and conducted soil surveys and new searches for radiation.

The assessment depicts the old shipyard as a chaotic, messy, dangerous workplace with lax safety standards. According to one former worker who was interviewed for the assessment, the radioactive carcasses of large mammals were sometimes cut up with axes, the parts stuffed into 55-gallon drums for burial at sea or in the landfill. One lab building next to Parcel A contained a room full of caged dogs given lethal doses of radiation, the report says. The dogs bled and defecated in their cages, clogging the drains with radioactive excrement until the floor was covered in 6 inches of water.

As workers decontaminated the ships, the assessment says, they sandblasted the surfaces with coal grit to remove the toxic paint.

The grit would blow toward the bay, one worker reported, but, occasionally, the wind would blow it back over the base. Blasting would not stop because the wind changed direction.

In that direction lay Parcel A and the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood  a community of predominantly African American residents. Many residents worked at the shipyard or are the children of those workers. For decades, they have blamed the site for elevated rates of cancer and other health problems.

Last week, a lawyer representing Bayview-Hunters Point residents filed a class-action lawsuit against Tetra Tech for harm suffered as a result of the botched cleanup. Tetra Tech has called the suit factually incorrect and meritless, saying that the company stands by its work at Hunters Point.

It is a source of fear and chronic terror, said Dr. Ahimsa Porter Sumchai, a longtime environmental activist who grew up in the Southeast section of the city. What is so unrelenting about it is the way this project just keeps going forward like a bulldozer, no matter what.

When cleanup contractors went hunting through Navy archives in the early 2000s, they found evidence of past radioactive contamination in 90 buildings. Of these, a few were on the area designated Parcel A.

One was Building 816, a concrete lab containing a high-voltage accelerator; tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen, was stuck to the walls. Navy records said that the building was subsequently decontaminated and three additional checks for tritium contamination found none. Another problem spot was Building 322, a former guard office that had been moved to Parcel A from another part of the shipyard in 1959. A New World investigation of the building in 2002 turned up readings of cesium-137 and europium-152 at slightly elevated levels.

New World sent Bowers in. He saw that the floor of Building 322 was covered with four or five layers of tiles  which indicated to him that chemical spills had probably been covered up. With no way to peel off the tiles or test them, the Navy decided to have Bowers remove the entire floor and foundation. He bagged up the pieces for disposal in a special landfill that handles radioactive and asbestos waste. The rest of the building was demolished in 2004 by Tetra Tech.

Aside from surveying and these buildings, New World and Tetra Tech performed no other official radiological investigations on Parcel A, according to Wadsworth and Bowers. The most toxic stuff was thought to be on the other parcels, and thats where technicians went looking.

They focused on Parcel F, the water off the shoreline, where Wadsworth went diving to take samples of underwater sediment and discovered pockets of elevated radium-226. They scoured Parcel E, home of a 22-acre landfill that caught fire in 2000, and found cesium-137 in the drain lines. Bowers remembers seeing radium-painted deck markers just scattered all over the grassy slopes on the way to the bay. Bits of disintegrated radium dials  highly radioactive metal specks  lay in piles of seashells.

After a while, getting all these hits in the areas surrounding Parcel A, Don Wadsworth started feeling funny about ignoring that portion of the site. He thought the Navy should approve a thorough radiological probe of Parcel A, with handheld radiation detectors, and said he asked the Navy for permission around 2003.

It made sense, Wadsworth recalled. Were finding all this stuff at the foot of the hill. We should go up the hill. The Navy, he said, disagreed and said no. Their position was it had already been scanned and said good to go by the EPA. The Navy did not comment when asked for a response.

The scan the Navy referred to was the one done by the scanner van the EPA had brought to Hunters Point the year before, and the EPAs 40-page report on the vans findings  a crucial piece of the narrative about Parcel A that would be presented to the public in years to come.

The EPA made mixed claims about the vans capabilities and performance, sometimes admitting its limitations, other times emphasizing that the vans negative readings should give people great confidence. It offers an otherwise unobtainable sense of security that nothing has been overlooked, the agency wrote in 2002. Later, the EPA would claim in an official document, EPA scanned the entire surface of the parcel.

The EPAs conclusion would influence the process around Parcel A, giving comfort to stakeholders and helping to justify its transfer to the city. For instance, in a 2004 white paper, an environmental expert hired by the city would emphasize the vans negative readings: Based on the scanner van surveys, he would write, I conclude that no residual contamination from HPS (Hunters Point Shipyard) operations is indicated within the surveyed areas of Parcel A.

But Bowers had seen first-hand that the vehicles abilities were limited. More ice-cream truck than off-road vehicle, the van was able to reach only locations that had decent roads, which amounted to a small percentage of Parcel A. As he followed the van in his own vehicle, he saw it struggle to navigate constant obstacles  fences, locked gates, rocky, unpaved terrain and roads disrupted by potholes and weeds.

The instruments in the van never sensed any problem areas. Not one place was pointed out, Bowers recalled. Not one flag was hit.

On other days, when Bowers wasnt following the van, it drove across other areas of the site, including locations where technicians later discovered very high levels of radioactivity. But the EPA van didnt spy any trouble spots on the other parcels, either, EPA records say.

Wadsworth, Bowers and other experts think they know why: The van was at least half-blind. Originally built in 1980 to scan for radioactive waste in uranium mines and since adapted for soil screening, it was tuned to detect gamma rays, which made it a crude tool for Hunters Point, according to Wadsworth. Plutonium-239, one of the deadliest isotopes at the shipyard site, which has a half-life of 24,000 years, mostly emits alpha particles; strontium-90, which mimics calcium and builds up in bones when ingested, emits beta radiation. The van wasnt designed to notice those isotopes.

The scanning of Parcel A with that van would be ineffective, Wadsworth said.

After reviewing the EPAs scanner van report, Hirsch, the nuclear expert, agreed. He said such scanner vans are supposed to be used only as a gross screening tool to help focus subsequent soil sampling, which is done by taking thousands of samples in the field and then sending the dirt to be tested in a laboratory.

The scanner van was incapable of seeing most radioactivity at levels of health concern, Hirsch said. The van simply cant be used to declare the site safe.

In response to questions about the scanner van, an EPA spokeswoman said the van offers only a first look at possible contamination and is often used to prioritize more soil sampling for further radioanalyses.

The results of the scanner van are one line of evidence that EPA relied on in investigating questions brought up regarding Parcel A, she said. But it is not the only source of information.

After the EPA van visited Parcel A and pronounced it clear of worrisome radiation, the Navy never scanned the parcel again. However, two former Tetra Tech employees say they later discovered elevated radiation levels in Parcel A by accident.

Bowers said that around February 2004 he took a hot sample on Parcel A. He was starting to investigate some of the manholes at Hunters Point, where radioactive materials might have been flushed. He wanted to get a clean background, an uncontaminated sample he could compare others against. So he went down manholes on Parcel A where he assumed there was no dangerous radiation, and took scrapings of soil that he sent to the lab.

We werent expecting to see anything, Bowers said.

But when the reports came back from Tetra Techs on-site lab operated by New World, according to Bowers, they showed that the soil samples from the Parcel A manholes contained seriously elevated levels of radium. The reports, he said, also listed high uncertainty levels for the radium numbers, signaling doubt about the results.

Bowers said Tetra Tech then sent the reports to the Navy. After that, he never heard anything back. They obviously dismissed it, he says. No additional tests for radium on Parcel A were ordered. Neither Tetra Tech nor the Navy responded when asked for comment.

Last year, a former radiation technician named Anthony Smith gave a sworn declaration about his experiences at Hunters Point. The declaration is part of a petition asking the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to pull Tetra Techs license to handle radioactive materials.

In his testimony, Smith described a soil sample he took in 2009 from Parcel A. His supervisor, Justin Hubbard  one of the two Tetra Tech managers who has pleaded guilty to falsifying soil samples  told Smith that in preparation for some remediation work on sewer lines, a clean background sample was needed. Smith walked to a waist-high fence near the intersection of Fisher Avenue and Spear Street, along the eastern edge of Parcel A, where it borders a thin strip of land designated as UC-2, or Utility Corridor 2.

With a hand trowel, Smith said, he dug a hole in the ground about 6 inches deep. The hole was either inside Parcel A or a few feet beyond it, in UC-2. Smith says variously in his declaration that he was near Parcel A, in Parcel A, and along the border; from the spot he had chosen, he could look up the hill to the spot where condos would be built on Parcel A.

Smith scooped some dirt from the bottom of the hole into a plastic sample jar. He then gave the jar of dirt to Hubbard, and Hubbard took it to the lab, he testified. The next morning, Hubbard told Smith and others that the soil sample had come back hot, showing radioactive cesium-137 at a level of 2 to 3 picocuries  an amount of radiation about 18 to 26 times higher than what the Navy deemed acceptable.

It was an important find, Wadsworth said in discussing Smiths declaration: Youre 20 times above background with that one sample. Thats significant enough to cause more surveys. Because you want to find out where that came from.

Instead of doing surveys, though, Hubbard told Smith and other workers to get rid of it and not say a word, according to Smiths declaration. (Reached on the phone recently, Hubbard told a Chronicle reporter, Go f youself, and hung up.)

A Tetra Tech representative challenged Smiths credibility, saying that he has given contradictory accounts: Mr. Smith claimed in one news report that the background sample he allegedly took was from an area adjacent to Parcel A. He now claims he took the sample directly from Parcel A.

David Anton, an attorney who represents Smith and six other Hunters Point whistle-blowers, responded that Smith pointed the exact spot out to a group of about 15 federal officials on a tour of the site in June 2016, when Smith told his story to representatives of the U.S. attorneys office, the EPA, the NRC and the Navy.

Tetra Tech also argues that Smith worked for New World and other subcontractors, not for Tetra Tech directly. According to Anton, Smith reported to Tetra Tech supervisors who had the power to fire him. The Chronicle was unable to reach Smith.

EPA officials said they took Smiths claim seriously. They said they removed soil in the corridor next to Parcel A down to a depth of 2 feet. They then replaced the dirt with new, clean soil from outside the shipyard. But a one-page description of this work that the EPA provided to The Chronicle makes no mention of Smiths cesium discovery, potential radioactive contaminants on Parcel A, or radiation testing.

An EPA spokeswoman did not immediately respond to questions about whether the agency tested that soil for radiation before removing it, or performed other tests of soil in the vicinity.

Parcel A is now changing by the day. Humans are transforming it in ways large and small. People have moved into condos and walk their dogs on grassy expanses that overlook the bay. The location where Smith took the sample is now an active construction area, according to Anton. The attorney said he watched during a recent visit as workers dug in the dirt, standing in holes they had carved in the earth.

Mere yards away, a commercial kitchen pumps out food for people beyond the Shipyard, a fact that Wadsworth finds alarming if Parcel A remains radioactive.

Building a kitchen in an area where youve got contamination  how much explanation do I have to put into that? Wadsworth said. It just goes against the principles of radiation protection. It just does. And common sense.

The solution, Wadsworth and Bowers agree, is to finally perform a proper radiological investigation of not just Parcel A, but the entire site.

Go back and make it right, Bowers said. Do it the correct way this time.

And do it now, Wadsworth says, because the construction workers on Parcel A have no special clothing or gear to protect against potential radiation. If contaminants are there, workers are likely to be exposed. Anything that gets on your hands will get around your mouth. Guys, construction workers, they will smoke, they will eat, they will also take their dirty clothes home, by their spouse, themselves, their children.

One day in February, Anton and Bowers said, they were walking near Hunters Point with Smith, looking down at the shoreline, when they noticed a dump truck.

They couldnt tell which company the truck belonged to. It seemed to be near the border of Parcel E and Parcel F, two pieces of the site that havent yet been cleared and where large amounts of radioactive waste have been discovered in the past.

Bowers and Anton said they watched as the truck scooped wet slush from the area, then carried the mud inland toward the hillside near the newly developed condos on Parcel A.

The truck stopped just above Navy Building 815, formerly a radiological laboratory that contained animal quarters and may have been the same kennel where dogs once lay dying. There the truck dumped its load, slush and concrete tumbling to the ground. The hill was now a little taller.

Jason Fagone and Cynthia Dizikes are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: jason.fagone@sfchronicle.com, cdizikes@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jfagone, @cdizikesHouston attorney Laura Gibson was chosen to be chair-elect of the State Bar of Texas Board of Directors during the April 27 boards meeting in Fort Worth.

Gibson will take office during the State Bar of Texas Annual Meeting to be held June 21-22 in Houston. She will serve as chair until June 2019.

Gibson is a partner in Dentons Litigation and Dispute Resolution practice. She has been board certified in labor and employment law since 2001.

Gibson has served on the State Bar Board of Directors since 2016 where she has been named to numerous committees. She also has served on the Texas Bar Journal Board of Editors (2012-2015) and the Texas Supreme Courts Unauthorized Practice of Law Committee.

Gibson was 2015-16 president of the Houston Bar Association after spending years in the positions of treasurer, secretary, first vice president, second vice president, and board member. She served in various positions of the HBA Board of Directors from 2006 to 2016. Gibson is a Sustaining Life Fellow of the Texas Bar Foundation and the Houston Bar Foundation.

In 2013, Gibson received the Trailblazer Outside Counsel Award from the Texas Minority Counsel Program. The award is given annually to the lawyer who has done the most to promote diversity within the legal profession. She also received Houston Bar Association Presidents Awards in 2010 and 2012 for her work on the Law Week and Lawyers Against Waste committees, respectively.

In her nomination letter to the State Bar Board, Gibson wrote: As board members it is important that we remember that we are ambassadors in our mission to serve the public and our members.

In her remarks to the board in connection with the campaign for the chair-elect position in January, Gibson emphasized to the board the importance of making it clear that the State Bar of Texas is open to any lawyer who wants to roll up their sleeves and get to work. She stated that as chair, it would be her goal to find ways to engage and include more Texas bar members in State Bar governance.

Gibson received her J.D. in 1984 from the University of Houston.Tucked into the federal budget law Congress passed in February was a provision that significantly expands the use of telemedicine - long a hyped health-care reform and now poised to go mainstream within five to 10 years.

"There's much broader recognition of the benefits," said Mei Wa Kwong, executive director of the Center for Connected Health Policy, a research group that promotes telemedicine in Sacramento. "The law is the latest to make telemedicine more accessible. But we still have a ways to go before most consumers are aware of the option."

The new law allows Medicare to cover telemedicine services for people who have had a stroke and those who get kidney dialysis. It also permits Medicare Advantage plans - private plans that enroll a third of Medicare beneficiaries - to offer telemedicine as a covered benefit.

Separately, as of Jan. 1, Medicare began allowing doctors to bill the government for monitoring certain patients remotely using telemedicine tools - for example, tracking heartbeat and rhythm, blood pressure and blood glucose levels.

Telemedicine, also referred to as telehealth, uses computers to deliver virtual services. In the easiest-to-understand example, a patient in one location has an e-visit with a doctor in another location. They are connected via a secure video link. Proponents say that more sophisticated monitoring is on the horizon and that virtual encounters will become more commonplace.

As acceptance and adoption of telemedicine expands, so does coverage. All private health plans, Medicare, state Medicaid programs and the Department of Veterans Affairs now cover some e-visits. More health centers and hospitals are launching virtual health centers. And websites that offer virtual "doctor-on-demand" services are proliferating.

Concerns exist, however. Doctors worry that they may get paid less if insurance reimbursement is lower for e-visits than for in-person appointments, or that e-visits could undermine the doctor-patient relationship by reducing face time. They point out that for some ailments, such as strep throat, it's best if the patient sees a doctor or other provider.

Health economists, meanwhile, are concerned that e-visits could add to costs rather than constrain them - if, for example, doctors and patients schedule e-visits unnecessarily because they are quick and easy. Also, insurers may be motivated to push doctors to do more e-visits instead of in-person visits to save money. And for some people, access to proper equipment or internet access can be difficult.

"The potential for abuse is there," says Robert Berenson, a Medicare expert at the Urban Institute. "We will need to prevent gaming and misuse of the system. But, generally, helping people avoid unnecessary doctor's office and hospital visits is a good thing, if we do it right."

Here's a briefing on telemedicine basics:

A: Not yet. But access is increasing. Ask your doctor, clinic or hospital.

In some cities, medical centers are setting up telehealth "hubs" to handle patients. For example, Penn Medicine in Philadelphia launched its Connected Care center in February with 50 full-time employees, 24/7 access to care and a program to treat chronically ill patients at home. Some of the center's e-visit services are open only to Penn Medicine employees, but other services are available to anyone, with a focus on residents of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland, said Bill Hanson, vice president and chief medical information officer at Penn Medicine.

Similarly, Mercy Virtual in Chesterfield, Missouri, a St. Louis suburb, serves patients throughout the Midwest and those treated at Mercy Health's 44 hospitals in five states. Launched in 2015, Mercy Virtual provided care to 750,000 people in 2017 with a team of 700 doctors, nurses and support staff.

Other medical centers with virtual health programs include Avera Health, based in South Dakota; Cleveland Clinic in Ohio; Dignity Health in San Francisco; Intermountain Healthcare in Utah; and Kaiser Permanente, a managed-care health system in California and elsewhere.

Kaiser Permanente reported last year that 21 percent of its 110 million patient interactions in 2015 were e-visits. Officials there predict that by 2020, e-visits will exceed in-person visits.

A: Health-plan coverage varies, but most private insurers cover e-visits, and 34 states and the District of Columbia require that they do. A few states still require that a patient relationship be established with an in-person visit before a provider can bill for an e-visit. Check with your insurer about its policies.

Medicare's coverage of e-visits is more restrictive. First, e-visits must take the place of an in-person visit. Second, Medicare largely restricts e-visits to those that occur in rural areas that have a shortage of doctors and/or hospitals. And third, most e-visits can't occur when the patient is at home. They can be done from a variety of other locations, such as a rural health clinic, a dialysis center or skilled nursing facility.

In contrast, almost all state Medicaid programs cover e-visits in the home. But restrictions still apply. For example, only 22 states cover remote patient monitoring for Medicaid enrollees.

The federally funded Telehealth Resource Centers has detailed explanations of e-visit restrictions and limitations.

A: No. E-visits and other forms of telemedicine are done over commonly available computers, laptops, tablets and smartphones, and are typically encrypted to protect privacy. Specialized equipment is usually needed for remote monitoring of blood pressure or heart rate, for example. One vexing barrier: broadband availability in rural areas. Also, millions of low-income and older Americans still lack WiFi in their homes.

A: Most e-visits are for primary care or follow-up services, such as assessing symptoms or checking on people who have had a medical procedure. But a growing number are for people with chronic conditions who are being monitored at home, said Kwong.

Dermatology e-visits are becoming especially common. You can send a close-up photo of a skin rash, mole or other problem for an immediate assessment. Psychotherapy by e-visit is also expanding.

Nurses will be in D.C.'s 911 center in latest attempt to cut emergency call volume

Sometimes an e-visit may provide an initial medical assessment for an injury, wound or illness that is clearly not life-threatening. Some cities are testing ambulance services that use telemedicine to triage whether people need a trip to the hospital.

A: E-visits are generally less expensive than a trip to the doctor, but you may not see the difference if your insurance covers both with only a small co-pay or no co-pay. If you have a large deductible, however, an e-visit may mean you pay less out-of-pocket for that encounter.

Some states require insurers to make equal reimbursements for in-office and telemedicine consultations on simple matters.

A: There's no evidence so far that your risk of being diagnosed wrongly or treated inappropriately is any greater with an e-visit compared with an in-person visit.

---

Findlay is a reporter for Kaiser Health News, a nonprofit news service and an editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation. It is not affiliated with the health insurance company Kaiser Permanente.The U.S. Navy has reactivated a fleet responsible for overseeing the East Coast and North Atlantic - an escalation of the Pentagon's focus on a resurgent Russia and its expanding military presence.

2nd Fleet, deactivated in 2011 to preserve funds for new ships, will resume operations in Norfolk, Virginia, on July 1, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson told reporters Friday.

"This is a dynamic response to the dynamic security environment," Richardson said onboard the carrier George H.W. Bush. "So as we've seen this great power competition emerge, the Atlantic Ocean is as dynamic a theater as any and particular the North Atlantic, so as we consider high-end naval warfare, fighting in the Atlantic, that will be the 2nd Fleet's responsibility."

Navy officials had previously recommended reactivating the fleet as part of broader force structure reviews following last year's deadly row of collisions among ships at the Japan-based 7th Fleet.

In a separate statement, Richardson invoked Defense Secretary Jim Mattis' national defense strategy as key guidance to reestablish the fleet, which will extend halfway across the Atlantic until it meets the area of responsibility for Italy-based 7th Fleet.

Mattis' framework, released in January, said "long-term strategic competitions" with Russia and China are the top Defense Department priorities as the Pentagon seeks to pivot away from brushfire counterinsurgencies that have consumed funding and exhausted resources since Sept. 11, 2001.

Defense officials and analysts have said those operations took attention away from modernizing the military, allowing Russia and China to close the technological gap with newer and deadlier weaponry.

In that time, Russia has occupied Crimea and Ukraine and provoked a host of hostilities against the West, including cyber attacks and interference in elections in Europe and the United States. That also includes an uptick of Russian submarines prowling for undersea telecommunications cables used by NATO.

The reactivation of 2nd Fleet signals the Navy's desire to "operate more powerfully and credibly in the North Atlantic," Bryan McGrath, a former destroyer commander and deputy director of the Center of American Seapower at the Hudson Institute, said Saturday.

One concern 2nd Fleet will immediately address: the threat from a now-modest number of Russian nuclear attack submarines capable of cruising in the depths off the East Coast, McGrath told The Washington Post.

Submarines like the nuclear-powered K-329 Severodvinsk are equipped with hypersonic anti-ship missiles and nuclear-capable missiles that can reach any city on the Eastern Seaboard within range, he said.

Russian submarines can also create a hazard of mines and anti-submarine missiles that would complicate a deployment in support of NATO allies, risking an escalation of tension with U.S. cities in range, he said.

Patrols will likely start soon after and involve manned and unmanned surface ships, attack submarines and air surveillance by P-8 Poseidon aircraft, a sub-hunting warplane.

McGrath also said having a likely three-star vice admiral at the fleet will improve coordination with NATO allies, particularly with Northern Europe and the United Kingdom.

2nd Fleet's reactivation will free up the Navy's Fleet Forces for its original mission to train and provide forces to commanders worldwide. It had previously assumed responsibility for the North Atlantic after the 2011 disestablishment.

The move also arrives alongside broader NATO strategies to counter Russia. In a separate announcement Friday, the Pentagon said it proposed a NATO Joint Force Command for the Atlantic in Norfolk.

"To quote Ned Stark: 'Winter is coming,' " McGrath said, referring to a "Game of Thrones" character who warns of approaching conflict. "There is a general sense a revisionist power in Russia is dedicated to opposing the U.S. in many arenas, and military opposition is increasingly one of them."Hispanic Heritage Month celebrated by students IMLAY CITY  Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month is a tradition in Heather LaMarras class at Weston Elementary School in Imlay City. Hispanic Heritage Month is...

Dog park opens in Lapeer A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held Saturday morning to officially open the new Lapeer Dog Park at Rotary Park on East Nepessing Street. Conducting the program...

Lapeer commissioners, mayor comment on Nov. 2 ballot proposal LAPEER  Monday evening the Lapeer City Commission was in rare agreement  that the Nov. 2 ballot proposal to prohibit recreational marijuana businesses in...Flying aircraft carriers that launch and recover fleets of small, inexpensive drones could soon be part of the U.S. military arsenal, as the Pentagon works with private technology partners to engineer that vision into reality.

In late April the Pentagon's advanced research-and-development arm, known as DARPA, awarded a 21-month, $38.6 million contract to Dynetics, a Huntsville, Alabama-based company, to work on the software and technology. San Diego-based Kratos, a venture-funded tech company that specializes in cheap drones used for target practice, joined as a subcontractor and will build a new class of drones whose wings can be folded up for easier storage in the belly of a plane.

For the U.S. military, gaining the ability to have multiple drones quickly and reliably take off from a plane and return to it would be a big step forward, aviation experts say. The goal is to build the technology and know-how needed to apply hordes of small drones on the battlefield.

"You can send volleys of swarms over and over again and really just overwhelm an adversary with that complexity," said Tim Keeter, a deputy program manager and chief engineer at Dynetics. The lower cost could also allow the company's military customers to take greater risks and be more aggressive on the battlefield, Keeter said.

Commercial tech companies have already shown that they can coordinate flocks of drones to carry out tremendously complex aerial acrobatics; an aerial display organized by Silicon Valley chip manufacturer Intel was a highlight of the 2018 Winter Olympics in Seoul.

The program, code-named "Gremlins," calls for the two companies to demonstrate the safe and reliable aerial launch and recovery of multiple unmanned aircraft. Having completed the technical designs for the small drones and the complex sensor systems that will enable them to fly in tandem, the companies are now working on the software that will allow for safe takeoff and landing.

Next, they will have to show that they can launch a pack of four drones from the body of a C-130 cargo plane, sending them out to fly on their own for 30 minutes and then fly back into the plane.

Dynetics has already demonstrated the recovery system on the C-130, company officials said Friday, using a mock-up drone that successfully separated from the wing of a plane (the mock-up later crashed to the ground). The company demonstrated the aerial recovery system by lowering a similar mock-up drone down from the plane and then pulling it back into the belly of the aircraft.

"Early flight tests have given us confidence we can meet our objective to recover four gremlins in 30 minutes," DARPA program manager Scott Wierzbanowski said in an email. Dynetics is preparing to publish a video detailing the test.

The U.S. military has explored the concept of airborne aircraft carriers before. In the 1930s, the Navy successfully launched a pair of biplanes from a helium-filled airship (the idea was abandoned after a series of catastrophic airship crashes).

Now, almost a century later, officials think that smaller, more reliable drones offer a new opportunity.

David Deptula, a retired Air Force general who serves as the dean of the Mitchell Institute of Aerospace Power Studies, said that proving safe and reliable aerial recovery would mean new opportunities for the military.

"We haven't done this before," Deptula said. "This is greatly expanding the envelope in increasing a mission area that is in extraordinary demand."

For now, there's relatively little funding behind the effort; the entire program will cost $64 million over 43 months, about two-thirds the cost of a single F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. But government officials say these sorts of efforts are a critical component of the Pentagon's plan to outmatch potential "nation-state" enemies, most notably Russia and China.

The Gremlins program started under the Obama administration as part of a pool of investments referred to as the "Third Offset." The program includes using advancements in robotics, unmanned vehicles and artificial intelligence to ensure that the United States would remain dominant in a war against another government.

The Gremlins program is part of a broader school of thought among military theorists, which holds that the pilots of the future will fly into enemy airspace flanked by unmanned or robotic companions.

DIUx, the Pentagon's Silicon Valley technology investment arm, has invested in robotic, jet-powered drones designed to fly alongside fighter planes to absorb enemy fire in lieu of expensive, manned fighter jets. The Navy is working on autonomous submarines that can clear mines, scout dangerous areas or carry a payload.

Now, with defense spending poised to increase over the next two years, such investments stand to benefit from more financial firepower.

"I definitely think collaborative systems are the future," Assistant Secretary of the Air Force Will Roper said during a recent panel discussion.As another academic year winds down on campuses nationwide, the news about the financial underpinning of colleges and universities keeps getting worse. Two studies out in the past week show that key revenue sources at public and private universities continue to shrink without any immediate signs of slowing.

The first comes from a study that shows states have increased spending on public welfare programs since 1987 at the expense of public higher education, the only major budget category to see a decline since then. Medicaid is the single biggest cause of the decline in higher education spending at the state and local levels, said the study's author, Doug Webber, an associate professor of economics at Temple University.

Webber found that since 1987, average state and local spending on public welfare has increased from about $645 per resident to $1,930 per resident in 2015, about what states spend on K-12 education. Meanwhile, spending on higher education remained flat in the same period, at about $250 per resident.

As a result, the rising cost of operating public colleges has been passed on to students through higher tuition. College students and their families, who a little more than a decade ago paid for about one-third of the cost of their education at a public university, now pay for most of it in about half of the states.

The financial news is not much better at private colleges, where fewer students are paying anything close to the full sticker price. A second study released in the past week shows that the average discount for first-year students - what families actually pay after colleges dole out "financial aid" from their own coffers - has reached a record 49.9 percent on private campuses. That's half off the published sticker price of tuition, and up from about 40 percent just eight years ago.

These two trends show that the revenue picture for public and private colleges is deteriorating, even in a good economy. So what happens when the economy slows, as it inevitably will? How do colleges look for ways to lower costs? What does higher education look like a decade from now?

Those were among the questions I asked two panels I led about the future of higher education at national conferences in recent weeks. The experts painted a slightly more optimistic picture for colleges and universities than the one anticipated by the two studies. They argued that the future economy demands more education, and few institutions are better positioned to provide that than existing colleges and universities. But that will require more than incremental changes to the status quo.

The most common response to my question about the future was that the decade ahead is likely to be a period of mergers and acquisitions in higher education. There are some 4,700 degree-granting colleges and universities in the United States. About 40 percent enroll 1,000 or fewer students. Another 40 percent enroll fewer than 5,000 students. Since 2010, the smallest institutions, below 1,000 students, have been shedding the most enrollment, a decline of 5 percent compared to institutions with more than 10,000 students, which have grown slightly, on average, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

In the next 10 years, "we might see 200,000 students in a distributed network of universities under one brand," said Kevin Guthrie, president of Ithaka, a nonprofit organization focused on technology and academic transformation. He spoke at the ASU/GSV Summit, an annual gathering of those in education technology.

John Katzman, founder of an education-search company called Noodle, said he could imagine colleges following the lead of the software industry. Over the past decade or so, it has moved away from intricate and self-contained programs, and instead offers "software as a service" through Web-based programs with information stored in the cloud. There's no reason for hundreds of colleges to essentially offer the same Economics 101 class, Katzman said at ASU/GSV. If universities partner, they could more easily share courses - just one instance of potential cost savings.

As colleges consolidate, those that remain will survive by better differentiating their offerings, said Mitch Daniels, the president of Purdue University and former governor of Indiana. That would be good for students, he added, because it would offer more variety. That would include the traditional - but expensive - residential experience, and a blending of online and face-to-face learning, online-only courses and a bigger assortment of degree options beyond conventional associate and bachelor's degrees.

"We have 80 million people who graduated from high school but don't have a college degree," Daniels said at the Milken Global Conference. "Yet we have thousands of colleges going after 18-year-olds."

Indeed, one of the biggest growth opportunities for colleges is the adult student. Of the adults without a college diploma, about half attended college but left before graduation. Last year, Purdue acquired the online Kaplan University, partly as a strategy to better reach adult students. Earlier this year, the name was changed to Purdue University Global.

Despite the negative financial trends, there is a path forward for many campuses to survive in the decade ahead. It will require many schools to think differently about their mission, student body and academic programs. The question is how many will decide to take a different path before it's too late.A woman in Aurora, Colorado was cited by police officers Thursday after allegedly damaging a microwave at a 7-Eleven by placing a urine sample in the microwave, causing the urine to "explode."

According to a report from the Aurora Police Department obtained by 9 News, officers cited Angelique Sanchez, 26, who was found waiting for a physical and urinalysis at a health clinic a half-mile north of the 7-Eleven.

The report states that Sanchez entered the 7-Eleven and placed something in the microwave, but after a few seconds, the clerk heard a "loud bang."

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The clerk told police that she saw Sanchez exit the store immediately after the explosion, and that there was "yellow liquid dripping from the microwave and the smell was unquestionably urine."

The clerk demanded that Sanchez clean up the mess, but Sanchez simply "wiped out the microwave onto the floor" and left the store.

This prompted the clerk to call the police, who were able to locate Sanchez at the health clinic waiting for the tests for a future job. According to the report, Sanchez told an officer that "she had cleaned up the mess and did not understand the problem."

"When I reminded her that urine blew up where people prepare their food, she told me it was not real urine," the officer wrote in the report.

MORE: The mysterious true story of the baffling man whose farm became Stanford

This is not the first time that urine has exploded in a 7-Eleven microwave after someone tried to heat up a urine sample.

Last year, police in Oregon responded to similar incident at a 7-Eleven when a "suspicious object" exploded in the store's microwave. Police evacuated the area and even brought in an explosives unit, only to learn that the "suspicious object" was really a urine sample wrapped in a hand warmer.

"It appears that whoever was on his/her way to do a drug test did not feel that it was warm enough, so they decided to microwave it at 7-Eleven," Beaverton Police Spokesperson Mike Rowe said at the time.Alamo Heights and Fair Oaks Ranch voters re-elected incumbents in six key municipal races, while Castle Hills voters chose two challengers and one incumbent.

Also in Castle Hills, about 85 percent of voters approved a local sales tax proposition at the rate of one-fourth of 1 percent for maintenance and repair of city streets.

After all votes were counted late Saturday in Alamo Heights, there was one race that remained close: Alamo Heights Councilman Fred F. Prassel had 596 votes in his bid for re-election. His challenger, Mallory Geis, had 592 votes.

FULL ELECTION RESULTS: Final tally for all Bexar County races and issues

Lynda Billa Burke and John Savage, also incumbents in Alamo Heights, won with 62 percent and 52 percent of the vote, respectively, over challengers Joe Gardner and Sallye Jane Allgood.

In Fair Oaks Ranch, Mayor Garry Manitzas won 83 percent of the vote in his bid for re-election, defeating challenger Wes Peeps Pieper.

Manitzas, a real estate agent and retired public accountant, has been mayor since May 2016. He got into politics after co-founding a group that halted a proposed high-density home development on the north side of town, according to his website.

Three City Council members ran unopposed in Fair Oaks Ranch to keep their seats: MaryAnne Havard, Roy E. Elizondo and Gregory C. Maxton.

FULL ELECTION RESULTS: Final tally for Atascosa, Kerr, Medina and Wilson County races

In Castle Hills, though, voters chose challengers in two of three races.

Clyde Skip McCormick won with 55 percent of the vote over incumbent JR Trevino in the race for a City Council position. And Lesley Wenger, also a challenger, won with 54 percent of the vote over current Councilman Frank Paul.

Incumbent Douglas A. Gregory managed to keep his City Council seat: He had 57 percent of the vote over challenger Todd Patrick Herman.

Emilie Eaton is a San Antonio Express-News staff writer. Read more of her stories here. | eeaton@express-news.net | @emilieeatonA pair of peregrine falcons who wintered atop downtown San Antonio high rises have winged their way safely to their respective homes and are nesting once again with their lifelong mates.

Radisson, from the Canadian province of Alberta, and Triumph, a U.S. bird from Minnesota, have been spotted by representatives of their respective falcon recovery projects, who report both birds are doing well.

In early January, bird enthusiast Lance Aldridge reported seeing the duo diving for prey from the 24-story Drury Plaza Hotel in downtown San Antonio. For a few weeks, the names and homes of the falcons was a mystery for Aldridge, fellow bird watchers and downtown dwellers, who scanned the hotels circular spiral tower for a glimpse of the high-flying raptors.

In February, a network of birders, falcon release programs and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service solved the identities of the birds of prey by means of the codes on colored metal bands around their legs.

Jacqueline Fallon of the Midwest Peregrine Society said that Triumph reached his home in Minneapolis in mid-March. She was glad the 4-year-old male falcon had reached San Antonio after worrying if hed survive his annual migratory trip. Birds making their way home often encounter hailstorms, predatory attacks and not-always-positive encounters with humans.

I always worry about the birds during migration, she said. They can get killed by other birds, hit by cars.

Migration is essential to a falcons health, Fallon said, and it helps when the birds are welcome at their winter site as they were in San Antonio.

The wintering locations are important, Fallon said. Thats as crucial as having a nest box in Minneapolis.

Now, with Triumph back at the Multifoods Tower with his mate Geanie, there are reports that the pair have four eggs that are expected to start hatching some time after Monday. She said after banding Triumph, his parents, and soon Triumphs offspring, being a part of the monitoring process is the closest thing to being a grandparent.

Fallon said Triumph and Geanie have been together for three years.

Tracy Maconachie, with the Manitoba Peregrine Falcon Recovery Project , said Radisson arrived at her home in Edmonton around April 14 in time for the breeding season.

She got back a bit later, Maconachie wrote in an email, as it seems most of our peregrines across the Canadian prairies.

Maconachie said Radisson is now settled in her nest box, with her mate, Chase, at the campus of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta. In 2006, the 12-year-old female falcon hatched at the Radisson Hotel in downtown Winnipeg, earning her name.

While Radisson and Triumph stayed together in San Antonio, theyre not mates. But there is a connection.

Radisson's paternal great-grandmother was Maud, the lone survivor of the first wild nest in the US Midwest at the Multifoods Tower back in 1987, Maconachie said. So while we haven't yet found out if Triumph is related to Radisson (and the rest of Manitoba's peregrines) they share some interesting geography  San Antonio and Minneapolis!

For more information about the project, go to www.species-at-risk.mb.ca/pefa/index.html

vtdavis@express-news.netRe: Yes, San Antonians do have a stake in Gaza events, Moureen Kaki, Harry Gunkel and Judith Norman, Another View, April 27:

There are many strong negative adjectives that could be used to describe this commentary, but, out of civility, I will only use the word terrible. It is very easy to disseminate such false statements because one does not have to do any research to proclaim them, but it takes many more sentences to refute them with the truth.

I will only mention a few truths:

1. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, displacing many Israelis who had created a booming economy there, and left the Gazans to rule themselves with no Israeli authority over them. Flourishing greenhouses and other facilities in working order were left behind for the benefit of the Palestinians, only to be destroyed by them out of spite.

2. Hamas took over the rule of Gaza, concentrating only on building weapons and underground tunnels with which to attack Israel instead of spending resources on their own people, most of whom live in misery and fear, since the institutions that are supposed to be there for the population, such as schools and hospitals, serve as storage depots for weapons for war after war that Hamas provoked against Israel.

3. The attacks by the Gazans on the Israeli security fence was instigated by Hamas, and they sent the civilians along with their own armed fighters to force the Israel Defense Forces to protect their border and their citizens. Israel dropped leaflets into Gaza begging its citizens not to approach the fence, but to no avail. The injuries incurred have not been in the thousands, since the IDF scrupulously tries to avoid casualties, but there is a limit to letting hordes of people breach the fence and enter Israel to hurt innocent Israelis.

4. As far as the support of the U.S. for Israel, both economically and morally, much is received in return from Israel, such as buying military equipment from U.S. factories, providing invaluable intelligence to the U.S. and the EU, training our experts in cybersecurity measures and sharing myriad medical innovations developed in Israel. Texas has benefited in many ways through economic exchanges, but one outstanding contribution to Texas agriculture has been the drip irrigation systems that Israel introduced to the world.

There is so much more that can be written in rebuttal to this commentary, but again truth takes more words to convey than falsehoods.

It is a shame that our respected Express News has been duped into publishing such a travesty.

Eleanor Siegal is a concerned member of the Jewish community in San Antonio.Three men were arrested and an illegal pill-making operation discovered, along with drugs worth 500,000 at a house in Kildare earlier today.

The three, resident in Ireland but formerly from Eastern Europe, were arrested at a residence in Celbridge following an operation conducted by officers from the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau, supported by the Special Crime Task Force.

Equipment including blenders and an industrial pill making machine, along with suspected controlled drugs in powder and pill form with a provisional estimated street value of 500,000 has been seized.

Gardai stated that the process of making tablets had commenced when they forced entry into the premises.

The arrested males, who are in their mid-30s and early 40s, are currently detained under Section 2 of the Criminal Justice (Drug Trafficking) Act, 1996 at Leixlip and Lucan Garda Stations.

Speaking after the operation, Assistant Commissioner John O Driscoll who has charge of Special Crime Operations stated that "This operation provides further evidence of the extent of links between Irish based organised crime groups and the international drug trade. The Garda National Drugs & Organised Crime Bureau has today dealt another blow to those involved in organised crime. Our effort in tackling organised crime is unrelenting and will continue as long as is necessary.

Also read: Gardai renew appeal for witnesses to Edgeworthstown hit and run incidentEditors note: 21 years ago today, Apple officially released the iMac. To commemorate the anniversary, we are reposting this article that originally appeared on the iMacs tenth anniversary on August 15, 2008.

The iMac made an instant impression when Apple first unveiled it in May 1998. But it didnt start to really shake things up unitl it began to shipwhich happened on August 15, 1998. Arguably the most influential desktop computer of the last decade, the original iMacs specifications seem quaint by todays standards. For $1,299, you came home with a 233MHz PowerPC G3 processor, 32MB of RAM, a 4GB hard drive, a 15-inch built-in monitor, and stereo speakersall in an amazingly stylish case.

The Bondi Blue wonder heralded the return of Steve Jobs as a visionary leader for Apple, and it halted Apples mid-1990s financial freefall. Initially marketed as an easy-to-use gateway to the internet, the iMac transcended that simple role and redefined the desktop PC marketnot to mention consumer industrial designforever.

But have you ever wondered how? Here are eight ways the original iMac shook the world.

The iMac killed beige

Before the iMac, personal computer enclosures were stuck in a design rut. Most manufacturers produced beige or gray metal boxes, each designed as a merely functional piece of equipment instead of an aesthetically pleasing creative tool. The iMacs design shattered the status quo with its preference for gentle curves over harsh corners, and for vibrant color over dull neutrality. Apple even coined a new term, Bondi Bluea blue-green hue named after Australias Bondi Beach shorelineto describe the color of its new machine. Combined with an ice-white pinstripe pattern, the color scheme create a stunning enclosure theretofore unseen in the PC world. It made quite an impact on the public, but that was only the beginning.

It hit us in the i

iThis, iThatiPod, iPhone, iChat, iLife, iSight. Where did all those lowercase iPrefixes come from. You can thank the iMac for starting this ubiquitous Apple branding trend.

The i in iMac originally stood for internet (or alternately: individual, instruct, inform, or inspire, according to Steve Jobs introductory 1998 iMac slide show). The i prefix even trickled out to non-Apple product namesmostly in the form of iPod accessories. After the internet became ho-hum everyday news, Apples iPrefix shifted meaning to serve puns like iSight, or to ambiguously imply the empowering first-person pronoun I, as in iChat.

Catching the internet wave

Apples first marketing angle with the iMac relied heavily on the expanding popularity of the internet in the mid-1990s. With the i in iMac being short for internet, Apple billed the iMac as an easy way to get connected to the global network (in just two steps, according to one Apple advertisement). By focusing on the iMacs internet aptitude, Apple chose a unique way to differentiate its product from other computers and to leapfrog to the top of the consumer PC heap. It worked.

Introduced USB to the masses

The iMacs sole reliance on the USB interface meant that Mac users had to throw out all their old mice, keyboards, scanners, printers, and external drives. The computers lack of SCSI ports particularly scared Mac pundits, who long relied on SCSI for external storage. But at the same time, the iMac provided the first kick start USB needed to really get off the ground. Thanks to the iMac, many peripheral manufacturers launched their first-ever round of USB computer accessoriesit was no coincidence that most of them shipped in transparent blue-green housing.

Killed the floppy drive

Apple launched the Sony 3.5-inch disk drive with the Macintosh in 1984and 14 years later, the company killed it with the iMac, which had no floppy drive whatsoever. The press greeted the decision to omit removable storage with considerable skepticism. But the absence of a floppy drive was a bold statementApple was declaring that from now on you will use the internet and local networks to transfer your files. And Apple was right, even if the company was slightly ahead of the curve. These days, computers lack a floppy drive, and users barely miss it.

Set standards for industrial design

The next time you see a consumer thingmabob with a translucent plastic caseespecially those available in multiple candy colorsyou can thank (or curse) iMac chief designer Jonathan Ive. After the release of iMac, multi-colored translucent plastic housing became such a common staple in the consumer products industry that the iMacs 1999 to 2000 Technicolor parade of models almost became a parody of itself. Apple had to move on, dropping the bright array of colors from the product line with the release of the flat-panel iMac in 2002. Even then, other companies came along for the ride: most consumer electronics devices now ship in brushed aluminum, frosty white, or glossy blackthe colors used in other iMac iterations.

Redeemed Steve Jobs

During a power struggle in 1985, Apple executives forced Steve Jobs to resign from the company he co-founded. After Apple purchased NeXT in 1997, Jobs returned to Apple and soon became Interim CEO. The world looked to him to turn Apple around, and he delivered: after dumping unprofitable product lines and streamlining the business in general, Apple was back in the black. But no amount of fiddling with the budget could compare symbolically with the success of the iMacclearly Jobs babywhich served as a concrete reminder of his uncanny ability to inspire those under him to create incredible products. The iMacs success meant Jobs success, and it inspired the Apple faithful to follow him once more.

It saved Apple, too

In 1996 to 1997, the media pronounced Apple all but dead. The company lost $878 million in 1997, but under the renewed guidance of Steve Jobs, it earned $414 million in 1998, its first profit in three years. Those results stemmed from both reducing operating costs and from iMac sales. And yet the iMac meant more than just financial returns: the symbolic impact of Apple once again having an exciting, innovative product marked a victory in the hearts and the minds of the public, and it proved that Apple still had the chops to stay in business.

Thanks to continued innovation in the iMac line and beyond, Apple is now more profitable than ever, and will likely continue to be so. But even with the iPhones, iPods, and iTunes dominating todays news, we shouldnt forget that Apples 21st century success can be traced directly back to iMacs launch a decades ago.

This article was originally published on August 15, 2008.Most of us know that without sleep, we are unable to create new memories. But is simply resting  without falling into the dreamy state  for only 10 minutes after learning something enough for us to memorize it in fine detail? Recent research suggests so.

Share on Pinterest Struggling to remember the details? Try resting quietly after learning, a new study suggests.

Sleep and memory are loving bedfellows. Sleep blocks our brains mechanisms of forgetting, lowering the neurotransmitter dopamine, and therefore facilitating memory formation.

Furthermore, recent studies have revealed that sleep is key for consolidating memories that we made while awake, as well as for preserving the brains ability to learn new things in the future.

For instance, a study revealed that during sleep, our synapses relax, staying supple and flexible, which maintains our brains neuroplasticity and ability to learn.

On the other hand, poor sleep leads to rigid synapses and an impaired ability to learn new things in the long run.

Perhaps even more surprisingly, researchers have recently been able to interfere with the memory consolidation process that takes place during sleep by scanning peoples brains, selectively choosing certain memories, and reinforcing them.

But could a state of simple, restful wakefulness be just as beneficial for new memory formation? A new study  jointly conducted by Michael Craig, a research fellow at the Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, United Kingdom, and Michaela Dewar, a research leader and assistant professor at the same university  suggests that it can.

Recent research, says Craig, suggests that the memory system strengthens weak new memories by reactivating them, where brain activity first observed during learning automatically reappears in the minutes that follow.

Based on the findings of their own research, the scientists say, This appears especially true during sleep and quiet resting, when were not busy taking in any new sensory information.

Whats more, the new research suggests not only that a period of quiet restfulness helps us to remember new things, but that such a rest is crucial for retaining the fine details.If you managed to cure your 'Avengers: Infinity War' hangover in the past few days, then you will have noticed the entry of this warrior; who isn't exactly a superhero but definitely not any less than the ones who have superpowers.

We're talking about the upcoming action movie 'Robin Hood', the trailer of which quite effortlessly made its way into our YouTube feeds over the weekend. Honestly, this trailer has left us with all kinds of feels and I am going to break it down one by one, right now.

Safehouse Pictures

To begin with, for me this movie seemed to be looming heavily on 'Game of Thrones' kind of theme. Be it death scenes, romance or an intense action sequence, I could sense a lot of similarity between the two. But, the CGI needs to be given its due credit as the action scenes are awesome.

Safehouse Pictures

Honestly, in this 2 minute video I was actually hoping (not really) for Jon Snow or a White Walker to make a cameo, this would have turned the trailer into a bigger crossover thanyou already know what we mean. Maybe we won't miss 'Game of Thrones' after this movie's release? Nah! We'll still miss it.

Safehouse Pictures

Another thing that this trailer taught me is that Medieval England was quite advanced and way ahead of their time. People back then were so fancy, their fashion sense was so on point that Robin Hood didn't wear anything less than a leather jacket with machine-stitched hoodie. If someone told me that this was not really a movie, but an advertisement for a leather jacket, showcasing the agility and flexibility one gets after wearing it, I would have totally believed them.

Safehouse Pictures

In all fairness, maybe they were experimental with their outfits back then, but were stitching machines even invented by that time? Or was it just the costume designer who forgot that it was supposed to be a period fictional drama? As expected, Twitter unapologetically trolled the movie and the costume like it's no one's damn business.

nothing says Robin Hood like a machine-stitched hoodie pic.twitter.com/8ksuOsmJ7X  Gavia Baker-Whitelaw (@Hello_Tailor) May 3, 2018

What in the world? I can't believe they did this. Fully machine stitched. Looking at production stills, all costumes obviously machine stitched. They didn't even try to fake hand sewn. The New Robin Hood line, coming to a GAP near you.  Dolores (@DoloresOfCourse) May 3, 2018

The trailer also made me feel that director Otto Bathurst (known for 'Peaky Blinders') was confused while making the movie. Questions like these were probably going on in his mind  Should we turn him into a superhero or leave him like that? Can we make him look like a superhero without any powers but just a fancy bow and arrow? Well, the ridiculous rate at which he is shooting arrows can give anyone a headache, so we guess that kind of makes him a 'superhero' in his own right.

This revamped fancier version of 'Robin Hood' looks real badass and deserves a shot. The movie features Taron Egerton as Robin Hood, Jamie Foxx as Little John, Ben Mendelsohn as Hood's enemy Sheriff of Nottingham, Jamie Dornan as Little Scarlet and Eve Hewson as Maid Marian.

I am so into this movie, particularly because I want to know what the outcome is going to be like, given how the turn of events is. You won't have to wait for long. 'Robin Hood' which is produced by Leonardo DiCaprio is hitting the theatres on November 21.We have all loved the movies based on the real-life geniuses of the human brain like 'The Man Who Knew Infinity', 'The Imitation Game', and 'A Beautiful Mind' but here is a list of movies that are less known but truly wonderful to watch.

1. 'Awakenings'

IMDb rating: 7.8

 Amazon

'Awakenings' is a 1990 American drama film based on Oliver Sacks's nonfiction book with the same title. The movie centers on Dr. Malcolm Sayer (Robin Williams) and his patient Leonard Lowe (Robert De Niro). In the movie, Sayer uses a drug designed to treat Parkinson's Disease to awaken catatonic patients in a Bronx hospital. Catatonia is a state where there is a lack of critical mental function. Even though Leonard completely awakens, the results are temporary, and he reverts to his catatonic state.

The film was nominated for three Academy Awards.

2. 'The Secret of Nikola Tesla'

IMDb rating: 7.5

 YouTube

'The Secret of Nikola Tesla' is a 1980 Yugoslav biographical movie which details events in the life of the famous Serbian-American engineer and inventor Nikola Tesla who introduced the concept of alternating current. The movie very beautifully portrays the life of the famous scientist whose inventions were stolen, and whose greatest contribution to mankind still remains as a mystery to this day.

3. 'Gorillas in the Mist'

IMDb rating: 7

 Amazon

Gorillas in the Mist(1988) tells the story of Dian Fossey, an anthropologist who comes to Africa to study the vanishing mountain gorillas and later fights to protect them. The movie is as gripping, haunting, and tragic it could be, but ends on a hopeful note.

4. 'Temple Grandin'

IMDb rating: 8.3

 The Peabody Awards

This 2010 TV movie is a biopic on Temple Grandin, an autistic woman who becomes one of the top scientists in the humane livestock handling industry. She is the woman who revolutionized practices for the humane handling of livestock on cattle ranches and slaughterhouses. Its audience has even gone as far as to say that if this were not a TV movie, they would expect it to be listed as an Oscar nominee.

5. 'Kinsey'

IMDb rating: 7.1

 IMdb

'Kinsey' (2004) is a look at the life of Alfred Kinsey who was a pioneer in the research of human sexuality. His 1948 publication "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male" was one of the first recorded works that saw science address sexual behavior. What did people have to say about the subject? That finally someone did talk about it.

6. 'Agora'

IMDb rating: 7.2

 Frock Flicks

Agora (2009) is a historical drama set in Roman Egypt. The movie concerns a slave who turns to the rising tide of Christianity in the hope of pursuing freedom while falling in love with his mistress, the philosophy and mathematics professor Hypatia of Alexandria.

7. 'Copenhagen'

IMDb rating: 7.5

 BBC

The 2002 movie concerns a meeting between physicists Niels Bohr (Stephen Rea) and Werner Heisenberg (Daniel Craig) to discuss atomic energy and the Nazis and to discuss their work and past friendship. The whole movie revolves around Heisenberg's role in the German atomic bomb program during World War II.Thank you for subscribing!

By signing up to this free newsletter you agree to receive occasional emails from us informing you about our products and services. You can opt out of these emails at any time.Minister of Foreign Affairs Nikos Kotzias will be in Nicosia on Monday, 7 May, to meet with his Cypriot counterpart, Nikos Christodoulides.

The talks will focus on the Cyprus problem, regional issues  with emphasis on the Western Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean  and the trilateral cooperation schemes the two countries have developed. Topics of European and bilateral interest will also be discussed.

On Tuesday, 8 May, Mr. Kotzias will participate in the Greek delegation, under the Prime Minister, to the Greece-Cyprus-Israel trilateral Summit Meeting in Nicosia.EAST HAVEN  The fifth and final East Haven police officer was released from the hospital early Saturday after being injured in an explosion Wednesday in North Haven, according to a press release.

Lt. Joseph M. Murgo, a spokesman for the East Haven Police Department, said the unidentified officer is resting comfortably at home with family.

The officer was among nine cops  five from East Haven, three from North Haven and one from Branford  who were injured in an explosion at 385 Quinnipiac Ave. Their injuries were non-life-threatening but consistent with being in close proximity to the blast and range from concussions to leg injuries, Murgo previously said.

Police were called to a residence at 385 Quinnipiac Ave. Wednesday around 2 p.m. to respond to a domestic violence report.

Officers developed information that determined a tactical team response was needed due to a man barricading himself inside the home, where he had held his wife for the last few days, according to North Haven First Selectman Michael Freda.

A regional tactical team, consisting of North Haven police officers and police officers from surrounding towns, responded to the scene and attempted to enter the residence and make contact with the suspect. As tactical team members were attempting to enter the residence, a significant explosion in the barn behind the home occurred, injuring the nine police officers.

The remains of a body were found Thursday morning. The identity of the deceased is pending identification and next of kin notification.

Connecticut State Trooper First Class Kelly Grant, a spokeswoman for state police, said the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner will conduct an autopsy to determine the cause and manner of death.While tearing the ceiling of a garage Wednesday in Vidor, 22-year-old Dustyn Myatt ducked to miss a yellow bag which nearly missed his head.

Examining it, the Kirbyville man discovered it contained a stack of Beaumont Enterprise newspapers from the late 1960s and early '70s.

"There's all kinds of headlines in here," Myatt said. "There's some that mention Kennedy, a probe of Swiss bank accounts  there's one from Nov. 15, 1969 that reads, "Astronauts still battle troubles."

One newspaper, he discovered, looked less handled and in better condition than the rest. Dated July 21, 1969, the headline reads: "Amstrong and Aldrin walk 'desolation' of moon's face."

There's even a copy of the prior day's paper, advancing the coming activity. Dated July 20, 1969, the headline reads: "Life on moon? There will be today."

Another one of the newspaper, which Myatt found funny, included a large front page headline which reads, "Tax on dirty movies, liquor voted," regarding the Enterprise's reporting on a hike of levies voted in by the Texas Senate.

The historical significance of the moonlanding papers was not lost on him. Among things he's come across doing demolition work, he's used to finding older  less historically significant  artifacts.

"I've found things like old movie projectors, lava lamps, older kids toys," Myatt said. "It's weird what you find in these houses."This Sikh Marine Is Ready to Sue the Service to Wear a Beard and Turban at All Times

First Lt. Sukhbir Toor applied in March for a religious accommodation to wear a beard and turban and to not cut his hair.The remains of two Marines killed nearly 75 years ago at the Battle of Tarawa were recently identified and returned to their hometowns in Wisconsin and New Hampshire.

U.S. Marine Corps Cpl. Raymond A. Barker was buried with full military honors Saturday at Spring Grove Cemetery in Delavan, FOX 6 Milwaukee reported.

"Seventy-five years later after he was gone, here we are celebrating this event," Barker's nephew, John Gibbus, told the station.

Barker was killed on the first day of the Battle of Tarawa on Nov. 20, 1943, at age 22. About 1,700 Marines and Navy sailors were killed and more than 2,000 wounded during the three-day fight against Japanese troops on the island of Betio in the Tarawa Atoll of the Gilbert Islands, located in the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and Papua New Guinea.

Barker's body had been deemed non-recoverable, but last year scientists with the Department of Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) used "advanced investigative techniques" to discover areas on Tarawa believed to be burial sites for the battle's fallen troops. The government agency works to provide the fullest possible accounting of missing personnel to their families and the country.

"They discovered some bones and matched them up with dental records, and with DNA samples provided by family members," Gibbus told FOX 6. "That allowed them to identify the body."

The DPAA identified a second Marine from Tarawa who was also buried Saturday. Marine Corps Sgt. David Quinn, 24, was returned to his hometown of Temple, N.H., and also received full military honors.

A contingent of Marines awaited the arrival Barker's remains in the U.S., saluting his casket and placing it into a hearse, the station reported. Onlookers gathered to pay tribute, waving U.S. flags and saluting the fallen hero as his remains were transported through the streets of Delavan.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker ordered flags to be flown at half-staff on Saturday, in honor of Barker's service.

"These guys are giving the ultimate sacrifice to defend our right to be free," Don Lawrence told the station. "It's sad that somebody is coming home this way. I think it makes everyone here proud."

Barker, assigned to the 2nd Tank Battalion of the 2nd Marine Division, was buried next to his parents, the station said. A gold star had marked his place at the cemetery while he was considered missing in action.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.Key

Select Mineral List Type Standard Detailed Gallery Strunz Dana Chemical Elements

List of minerals for each chemical element H Hydrogen H  Malachite Cu 2 (CO 3 )(OH) 2 H  Chrysocolla Cu 2-x Al x (H 2-x Si 2 O 5 )(OH) 4  nH 2 O, x < 1 H  Biotite K(Fe2+/Mg) 2 (Al/Fe3+/Mg/Ti)([Si/Al/Fe] 2 Si 2 O 10 )(OH/F) 2 or Simplified: K(Mg,Fe) 3 AlSi 3 O 10 (OH) 2 H  Muscovite KAl 2 (AlSi 3 O 10 )(OH) 2 H  Opal var. Opal-AN SiO 2  nH 2 O H  Epidote {Ca 2 }{Al 2 Fe3+}(Si 2 O 7 )(SiO 4 )O(OH) H  Opal SiO 2  nH 2 O Be Beryllium Be  Beryl Be 3 Al 2 (Si 6 O 18 ) C Carbon C  Malachite Cu 2 (CO 3 )(OH) 2 C  Dolomite CaMg(CO 3 ) 2 C  Calcite CaCO 3 O Oxygen O  Malachite Cu 2 (CO 3 )(OH) 2 O  Magnetite Fe2+Fe 2 3+O 4 O  Quartz SiO 2 O  Chrysocolla Cu 2-x Al x (H 2-x Si 2 O 5 )(OH) 4  nH 2 O, x < 1 O  Biotite K(Fe2+/Mg) 2 (Al/Fe3+/Mg/Ti)([Si/Al/Fe] 2 Si 2 O 10 )(OH/F) 2 or Simplified: K(Mg,Fe) 3 AlSi 3 O 10 (OH) 2 O  Microcline K(AlSi 3 O 8 ) O  Rutile TiO 2 O  Muscovite KAl 2 (AlSi 3 O 10 )(OH) 2 O  Opal var. Opal-AN SiO 2  nH 2 O O  Garnet Group X 3 Z 2 (SiO 4 ) 3 O  Ilmenite Fe2+TiO 3 O  Beryl Be 3 Al 2 (Si 6 O 18 ) O  Uraninite UO 2 O  Scheelite Ca(WO 4 ) O  Titanite CaTi(SiO 4 )O O  Scheelite var. Molybdoscheelite Ca(WO 4 ) O  Dolomite CaMg(CO 3 ) 2 O  Calcite CaCO 3 O  Epidote {Ca 2 }{Al 2 Fe3+}(Si 2 O 7 )(SiO 4 )O(OH) O  Opal SiO 2  nH 2 O F Fluorine F  Biotite K(Fe2+/Mg) 2 (Al/Fe3+/Mg/Ti)([Si/Al/Fe] 2 Si 2 O 10 )(OH/F) 2 or Simplified: K(Mg,Fe) 3 AlSi 3 O 10 (OH) 2 Mg Magnesium Mg  Biotite K(Fe2+/Mg) 2 (Al/Fe3+/Mg/Ti)([Si/Al/Fe] 2 Si 2 O 10 )(OH/F) 2 or Simplified: K(Mg,Fe) 3 AlSi 3 O 10 (OH) 2 Mg  Dolomite CaMg(CO 3 ) 2 Al Aluminium Al  Chrysocolla Cu 2-x Al x (H 2-x Si 2 O 5 )(OH) 4  nH 2 O, x < 1 Al  Biotite K(Fe2+/Mg) 2 (Al/Fe3+/Mg/Ti)([Si/Al/Fe] 2 Si 2 O 10 )(OH/F) 2 or Simplified: K(Mg,Fe) 3 AlSi 3 O 10 (OH) 2 Al  Microcline K(AlSi 3 O 8 ) Al  Muscovite KAl 2 (AlSi 3 O 10 )(OH) 2 Al  Beryl Be 3 Al 2 (Si 6 O 18 ) Al  Epidote {Ca 2 }{Al 2 Fe3+}(Si 2 O 7 )(SiO 4 )O(OH) Si Silicon Si  Quartz SiO 2 Si  Chrysocolla Cu 2-x Al x (H 2-x Si 2 O 5 )(OH) 4  nH 2 O, x < 1 Si  Biotite K(Fe2+/Mg) 2 (Al/Fe3+/Mg/Ti)([Si/Al/Fe] 2 Si 2 O 10 )(OH/F) 2 or Simplified: K(Mg,Fe) 3 AlSi 3 O 10 (OH) 2 Si  Microcline K(AlSi 3 O 8 ) Si  Muscovite KAl 2 (AlSi 3 O 10 )(OH) 2 Si  Opal var. Opal-AN SiO 2  nH 2 O Si  Garnet Group X 3 Z 2 (SiO 4 ) 3 Si  Beryl Be 3 Al 2 (Si 6 O 18 ) Si  Titanite CaTi(SiO 4 )O Si  Epidote {Ca 2 }{Al 2 Fe3+}(Si 2 O 7 )(SiO 4 )O(OH) Si  Opal SiO 2  nH 2 O S Sulfur S  Bornite Cu 5 FeS 4 S  Chalcopyrite CuFeS 2 K Potassium K  Biotite K(Fe2+/Mg) 2 (Al/Fe3+/Mg/Ti)([Si/Al/Fe] 2 Si 2 O 10 )(OH/F) 2 or Simplified: K(Mg,Fe) 3 AlSi 3 O 10 (OH) 2 K  Microcline K(AlSi 3 O 8 ) K  Muscovite KAl 2 (AlSi 3 O 10 )(OH) 2 Ca Calcium Ca  Scheelite Ca(WO 4 ) Ca  Titanite CaTi(SiO 4 )O Ca  Scheelite var. Molybdoscheelite Ca(WO 4 ) Ca  Dolomite CaMg(CO 3 ) 2 Ca  Calcite CaCO 3 Ca  Epidote {Ca 2 }{Al 2 Fe3+}(Si 2 O 7 )(SiO 4 )O(OH) Ti Titanium Ti  Biotite K(Fe2+/Mg) 2 (Al/Fe3+/Mg/Ti)([Si/Al/Fe] 2 Si 2 O 10 )(OH/F) 2 or Simplified: K(Mg,Fe) 3 AlSi 3 O 10 (OH) 2 Ti  Rutile TiO 2 Ti  Ilmenite Fe2+TiO 3 Ti  Titanite CaTi(SiO 4 )O Fe Iron Fe  Bornite Cu 5 FeS 4 Fe  Magnetite Fe2+Fe 2 3+O 4 Fe  Chalcopyrite CuFeS 2 Fe  Biotite K(Fe2+/Mg) 2 (Al/Fe3+/Mg/Ti)([Si/Al/Fe] 2 Si 2 O 10 )(OH/F) 2 or Simplified: K(Mg,Fe) 3 AlSi 3 O 10 (OH) 2 Fe  Ilmenite Fe2+TiO 3 Fe  Epidote {Ca 2 }{Al 2 Fe3+}(Si 2 O 7 )(SiO 4 )O(OH) Cu Copper Cu  Malachite Cu 2 (CO 3 )(OH) 2 Cu  Bornite Cu 5 FeS 4 Cu  Chrysocolla Cu 2-x Al x (H 2-x Si 2 O 5 )(OH) 4  nH 2 O, x < 1 Cu  Chalcopyrite CuFeS 2 W Tungsten W  Scheelite Ca(WO 4 ) W  Scheelite var. Molybdoscheelite Ca(WO 4 ) U Uranium U  Uraninite UO 2

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

North America Plate Tectonic Plate

This page contains all mineral locality references listed on mindat.org. This does not claim to be a complete list. If you know of more minerals from this site, please register so you can add to our database. This locality information is for reference purposes only. You should never attempt to visit any sites listed in mindat.org without first ensuring that you have the permission of the land and/or mineral rights holders for access and that you are aware of all safety precautions necessary.

A large area consisting of road cuts on State Route 62 and bedrock exposed during construction of the Highland Plaza shopping area on Potash Hill (labeled as such on the USGS topographic map of the Hudson quadrangle).One unique feature of the plaza development is that it is located on the Hudson-Berlin town line. A sign in one parking lot marks the boundary. There are also many large free standing boulders placed around the site, large slopes of crushed rock, and smaller boulders used for walls and landscaping.Mineral List

Rock Types Recorded

Note: this is a very new system on mindat.org and data is currently VERY limited. Please bear with us while we work towards adding this information!

Select Rock List Type Alphabetical List Tree Diagram

Regional Geology

Historic gold mine.Active from 1897 until around 1908. The Energetic is first mentioned in 1897, by prospectors Laurie and Stevenson (surnames). By 1899, the lease is under the name of Sheet Anchor, with J. Newdick, and John Thomas James Tilsley, brother D. Tilsley, sinking winzes onto the reef and driving a tunnel which ran under the reef and missed it due to its flat lying nature. The Capstan lease is also owned by this group. The Sheet Anchor lease achieves from 1899 to 1903 38 tonnes of ore for 465 ounces of gold. Meanwhile the We Three lease achieves 2 tonnes of ore for 92 ounces of gold by 1903.Around 1903 an English syndicate called the Sheet Anchor Gold Mining Company takes over the Sheet Anchor lease, driving a tunnel 1400 feet which also misses the reef. A two stamp battery had been erected, described as steam powered and equivalent to a ten stamp normal battery. An aerial tramway is also erected. They abandon the property when their capital was exhausted.In 1905, the Omahu Mines Limited is formed to take over several leases including We Three, Capstan, and Sheet Anchor at 250 acres in total. A five stamp battery is mentioned at this stage. The Omahu Company had 200 tonnes of ore at grass, and in 1906 the first crushing was still to take place. They abandon the property in 1907. In 1908, the Last Shot syndicate extracts 150 tonnes of ore from the We Three lease. When inspected in 1912, the mine had been abandoned, the battery removed, and the workings collasped. Between 1905 to 1908 the Omahu company mine had produced 836 tonnes of ore yielding 845 ounces of gold.The country rock is andesite, with rhyolite tuff capping. At We Three there is with one vein trending north-east, 8-12 inches wide. Payable ore was found in the upper oxidised zone, which was much crushed and disjointed, partly recemented, and mixed with limonite infused clays. At the Sheet Anchor, the reef was historically described as flat, rubbly, 3-5 feet wide, with clay containing hard blocks of quartz with visible gold associated with un-named silver sulphides, and siliceous matter. The quartz was finely granular with rust stained cavities and joint planes, with patchy silver sulphides, and very fine gold. The vein is in ryholite tuff near its contact with andesite.Historically the mines were said to be on the northern ridge above the two branches of the Omahu Creek, and two miles east of the Omahu Station (main highway). The Mindat co-ordinates are very approximate. The area is now thickly forested and difficult to access.2 valid minerals.

This geological map and associated information on rock units at or nearby to the coordinates given for this locality is based on relatively small scale geological maps provided by various national Geological Surveys. This does not necessarily represent the complete geology at this locality but it gives a background for the region in which it is found.

Click on geological units on the map for more information. Click here to view full-screen map on Macrostrat.org

Cenozoic volcanic rocks Age: Pleistocene (0 - 2.588 Ma) Lithology: Ignimbrite(s); felsic volcanic rocks; rhyolite Reference: Chorlton, L.B. Generalized geology of the world: bedrock domains and major faults in GIS format: a small-scale world geology map with an extended geological attribute database. doi: 10.4095/223767. Geological Survey of Canada, Open File 5529. [154] Whitianga Group rhyolite lava and related deposits Age: Neogene (2.588 - 11.62 Ma) Stratigraphic Name: Whitianga Group Description: Rhyolite lavas and dome complexes with associated breccia and tuff; minor obsidian and intense hydrothermal alteration locally. Comments: Zealandia Megasequence Extrusive and Intrusive Rocks (Neogene) Lithology: Rhyolite, breccia, tuffite Reference: Edbrooke, S.W., Heron, D.W., Forsyth, P.J., Jongens, R. (compilers). Geology Map of New Zealand 1:1 000 000. GNS Science Geological Map 2. [12] Coroglen Subgroup ignimbrite (Whitianga Group) of Coromandel Volcanic Zone Age: Miocene (5.333 - 11.62 Ma) Stratigraphic Name: Coroglen Subgroup Description: Ignimbrite flow sheets and local rhyolitic and obsidian-rich pumice breccia deposits and tuff. Comments: Neogene igneous rocks. Age based on K-Ar and FT Lithology: Major:: {ignimbrite},Minor:: {rhyolite, tuff, breccia} Reference: Heron, D.W. . Geology Map of New Zealand 1:250 000. GNS Science Geological Map 1. [13]

Data and map coding provided by Macrostrat.org, used under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License

This page contains all mineral locality references listed on mindat.org. This does not claim to be a complete list. If you know of more minerals from this site, please register so you can add to our database. This locality information is for reference purposes only. You should never attempt to visit any sites listed in mindat.org without first ensuring that you have the permission of the land and/or mineral rights holders for access and that you are aware of all safety precautions necessary.

ReferencesCanada wants early solution to Rohingya crisis



Appreciating Bangladesh for hosting around 11 lakh Rohingyas, Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland today said her country also wants an early solution to the crisis.

"Canada will remain beside Bangladesh over the Rohingya issue...Canada wants an early solution to the problem and quick repatriation of the Rohingyas to their homeland," she said.

The Canadian Foreign Minister, now in Dhaka to attend the OIC-CFM, said this when she met Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre (BICC) after the inaugural programme of the 45th OIC-CFM.

PM's press secretary Ihsanul Karim briefed reporters after the meeting.

Chrystia Freeland also mentioned that Canada is ready to help Bangladesh on Rohingya issue.

Sheikh Hasina said, the government is worried about the Rohingyas in the coming monsoon when cyclone and flood are very common.

"We want peace, we want the resolution of the crisis in a peaceful manner through dialogue."

She said Bangladesh has already talked to the neighbouring countries of Myanmar, including China, India, Thailand and Laos, over the issue and they also want that the refugees living in Bangladesh to go back to their own country.

The Prime Minister said Bangladesh is in talks with Myanmar, and an agreement has been inked over the issue.77.77 pc pass SSC, equivalent exams

1,10,629 achieve GPA-5

The results of this year's Secondary School Certificate (SSC) and its equivalent examinations were published across the country on Sunday showing 77.77 pass percentage under the 10 educational boards.

Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid handed over the copies of overall results of SSC and its equivalent examination to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Sunday morning at her official residence Gonobhaban in the city.

The Prime Minister unveiled the result digitally, which will be available online after 2pm.

The students can get the results from their respective school or it will also be available on www.educationboardresults.gov.bd.

While handing over the result to the Prime Minister, Nahid said the overall pass rate in the SSC and its equivalent examinations is 77.77 percent this year, which was 80.35 percent in 2017.

He said a total of 110,629 students achieved the highest GPA-5 this year. But last year the number of GPA-5 achievers was 104,761 under the 10 education boards including eight general ones.

This year girls performed better compared to boys in the SSC and its equivalent examinations as the pass rate among boys is 76.71 percent, while among girls it is 78.85 percent.

The pass rate is 79.40 percent under eight general education boards, while that is 70.89 percent under Madrasha Board and 71.96 percent under the Technical Education Board.

Some 16.25 lakh students appeared the examination under the eight general boards, while 2.87 lakh under Madrsha Board and 1.15 lakh under the technical education board.

A total of 55,701 boys got GPA-5, while 54,928 girls obtained the highest grade point average under the 10 boards.

The number of GPA-5 achievers under the eight boards is 102,845, while 4,413 under the technical education board and 3,371 under the Madrasha board.

The SSC and its equivalent examinations began across the country on February 1 and ended on February 26 while the practical exams continued until March 4.

Chairmen of the 10 education boards handed the copies of results of their respective boards to the Prime Minister.

Later, Sheikh Hasina exchanged views with students and teachers of two districts - Barishal and Bandarban-through videoconferencing.

State Minister for Technical and Madrasha Education Division Kazi Keramat Ali also spoke on the occasion, while Principal Secretary of PMO Md Nojibur Rahman conducted it. --- UNB, Dhaka.

live bse live

nse live Volume Todays L/H More 

While the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code is a vital addition to Indias regulatory landscape, Clause 29A of the code may be creating opportunities for others to delay the process, said Lakshmi Mittal, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, ArcelorMittal.

Clause 29A of the IBC prevents promoters of defaulting companies from bidding for stressed assets. It also bars connected persons from taking part in the auction.

The worlds largest steelmaker is in race with Numetal to acquire Essar Steel, which was referred to the National Company Law Tribunal last year after accumulating debt of over Rs 45,000 crore.

It should, over time, provide real value to the banking sector and the economy. Ultimately I am sure it will serve its purpose, Mittal told Moneycontrol in an email interview.

The IBC, which was passed in 2016, was aimed at providing an insolvency framework that promised to cut short the time and cost in the liquidation process.

Having said that, most of the proceedings under the IBC have been stretched, with Essar Steels resolution process already missing its initial deadline. The auction continues to be tangled in protracted legal tussles between Numetal and ArcelorMittal.

I understand why 29A was introduced but it does seem to be creating opportunities for others to delay the process and cause confusion in ways that are perhaps ultimately not helpful in securing strong new owners for the assets in question in a timely manner, Mittal said.

ArcelorMittal has been blaming Numetal for intentionally delaying the process. The VTB Capital-led consortium first approached the NCLT, challenging the decision to term its bid for Essar Steel ineligible. ArcelorMittal soon followed suit with its own petition.

Both bids were termed ineligible in the first round of the auction.

While ArcelorMittals investment in Uttam Galva Steels - a defaulter - was seen against the Clause 29A provision, Numetals hurdle arose in the form of its minority shareholder Rewant Ruia, who is the son of Essar co-founder Ravi Ruia.

After the NCLT ruled that Essar Steels lenders should reconsider bids from Numetal and ArcelorMittal, the auction got stalled again. This time, Numetal approached the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal against ArcelorMittal being given time to rework its proposal for Essar Steel. Again, ArcelorMittal retaliated with its own petition.

At present, both ArcelorMittal and Numetal are in talks with Essar Steels lenders. Both companies will get back to the banks later this week on their reworked proposals.

For the first time, ArcelorMittal has revealed that it may pay off dues of Uttam Galva as a goodwill gesture to clear the eligibility test.

Despite the delays, Mittal is optimistic about the IBCs execution.

Ultimately I am sure it will serve its purpose but these are the first few cases so we are seeing a new law play out in real time and there may well need to be some amendments or evolution: indeed I believe these are already being discussedFundamentally though I remain optimistic that ultimately the code will achieve its aim, said the billionaire entrepreneur.

India plans

Mittal has been trying to enter the manufacturing space in India, his home country, for more than a decade. But his proposed greenfield projects in Jharkhand, Odisha and Karnataka have been non-starters, because of delays in getting permissions and the global economic slowdown.

Last year, ArcelorMittal reported its first annual profit in five years as it recovered from a severe downturn in the steel industry. In 2015, the company had suffered a loss of nearly $8 billion.

While steel demand and prices have recovered this year, Mittal continues to explore ways to expand his global footprint, including in India. His home country is among the fastest growing steel markets in the world. Steel production in India is expected to increase to 300 million tons by 2030, from the present 90 million tons a year.

In Essar Steel, Mittal has an opportunity to finally make an entry into this expanding market. He is not even thinking of a plan B.

At this stage our sole focus is on Essar Steel. We cannot comment on any longer-term plans we may have for the Indian market, other than to say it is an important and strategic market for ArcelorMittal and one where we would like to have a meaningful production presence, he told Moneycontrol.

Earlier this week, the steel magnates senior colleague Brian Aranha - Executive Vice-President (Strategy, Technology, R&D), ArcelorMittal - had said that the companys plan for Essar Steel includes increasing the latters capacity to 20 million tonnes a year. We will also develop a research and development unit in Hazira if our bid is successful, Aranha had stated. Essar Steels facility is located at Hazira.

ArcelorMittal has stressed on its global footprint, and research and development resources as qualities that set it apart. The company operates 56 blast furnaces around the world, and spends nearly $300 million every year on research and development, the highest for any steelmaker.

We believe that we can add a lot of value to the Indian steel-making landscape by bringing our technology and processes and management expertise and knowhow, said Mittal.A not so long, long time ago, in a country all around us, Airtel and Vodafone were almost undisputed leaders of the telecom market.

Enter a juggernaut called Reliance Jio, and with it, tremors in the apple cart. Vodafone and Idea are about to form an alliance; Jio continues to roll on grabbing with it Saavn and as many ears and eyeballs as it can along the way in its aggressive bid to close the gap with its rivals; and Airtel remains the market leader  for now  and according to an Economic Times survey, still the most admired company in India in the telecom space.

Airtel is now also training its eyes on a territory that has suddenly become profitable  Africa. With the players placed the way they are and the race for telecom supremacy ever intensifying, we start a new series a day after Star Wars Day, May the 4th. This is Telecom Wars  Episode One, A New Hope for Airtel in Africa.

Reports emerged today that Bharti Airtel plans to raise as much as $1.5 billion by diluting about 25% of its stake when it lists the holding company for Africa operations, Bharti Airtel International (Netherlands) BV, or BAIN BV, in early 2019 on the London Stock Exchange.

At its upper end, it would also mean that the holding company will be valued at about $6 billion. The money obtained through dilution will help bolster Airtels efforts to stay competitive in the Indian market, where Bharti has just declared its first-ever quarterly loss.

Net loss, before exceptional items, for the India business in the three months ended March 31, 2018, stood at Rs 652.30 crore, compared with a net profit of Rs 770.80 crore a year earlier, the Sunil Mittal-led telco said in a statement on Tuesday. This is in contrast with the profits it is seeing in Africa now  just this quarter alone, the Africa operations posted a profit of 698.7 crores, sparing the company some blushes. Ironically enough, when Airtel started its Africa operations, it was widely considered a poor move. In response to a question on the one business decision that he regrets the most, Sunil Mittal himself said Africa may have been a poor decision. We all must have made lots of mistakes. Lots of decision when I look back, I wish they were better thought through. If you pin me down to one, I would say in 2010 our decision to go to Africa was a bit rushed and that has taken 6-7-8 years and lot of resources and my personal time to fix that. Look how things have changed in 2018. Like the saying goes, there is always money in the banana stand. And well, as it turns out, in Africa.

WHAT AFRICA BRINGS TO THE BHARTI TABLE NOW

Bharti Airtels consolidated revenue dropped 10.5% on year to Rs 19,634 crore primarily as data and voice tariffs in India fell further. Revenue from India operations  which make up almost 77% of the total  declined 13% year on year to Rs 14,795.50 crore, dragged by lower revenue from mobile services which fell 20% on year. For the full financial year, 2017-18, Airtels consolidated net profit declined 71% on year to Rs 1,099 crore and consolidated revenue fell over 12% to Rs 83,688 crore. Africa revenues account for 25.13% of Airtels consolidated revenues and the company attributed this to strong data growth and Airtel Money transactions.

That was all number-heavy stats, but the subtext is that Airtel is reading the writing on the wall here in India, and it reads J, I, O. The tariff wars are showing no signs of a ceasefire with reports of Jio planning to further slash prices. Africa operations, projected to be healthy in the near future, have therefore assumed an unexpectedly important role in Airtels coffers now. The listing on the LSE could also help Bharti Airtel deleverage its balance sheet, analysts have observed. Useful considering overall debt was Rs 95,000 crore at the end of March!

A November 2017 report from investment banking company CLSA says that for the next three years, Africa revenues will grow by 3% CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) led by lower access charges  which is a fee paid by a subscriber to a carrier to get on their network  and tight cost controls. Africas balance sheet was helped by Airtel selling assets worth $3.25 billion over the past three years. Airtel sold 10,540 towers and sold its Burkina Faso and Sierra Leone operations.

AIRTELS STRATEGY IN AFRICA

Airtels strategy in Africa has been one of establishing a presence (paved by its acquisition of Zain) and also making local friends. Over the past few years, it has been trying to capture the African market through local deals. It has made three small-ticket acquisitions in Uganda, Congo Brazzaville and Kenya. Livement reported that, in October, Airtel signed a deal with Millicom, which operates the brand Tigo, to combine their operations in Ghana. After this deal, in December, Airtels subsidiary in Rwanda announced the acquisition of Tigo Rwanda Ltd, making Airtel the second largest telecom firm in that country.

Airtel has taken proactive steps in Africa to consolidate and realign the market structure in the last few remaining countries where its operations are lagging on account of lower market share and presence of too many operators, Bharti Airtel chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said in a statement on 19 December. We are also committed to the long-term viability of our operations in Kenya and Tanzania, to ensure that in 2018, all our 15 operations in Africa start contributing positive margins and cash flows towards a healthy and profitable Airtel Africa, Mittal had said back then.

WHY IS AIRTEL STRUGGLING AT THE TELECOM WARS?

With our focus now Out of Africa, lets return to the main premise itself  telecom wars. According to data from Trai, as of 31 December 2017, Airtel had 24.85% of subscriber market share, Vodafone had 18.2%, Idea Cellular 16.83% and Reliance Jio 13.71%. As far as revenue market share is concerned, as of 31 December, Airtel had 27.96% of revenue market share, followed by Vodafone India (20.65%), Reliance Jio (19.74%), and Idea Cellular (17.33%), data compiled by BloombergQuint showed.



Continued pricing aggression from Jio

Regulatory hurdles including cut in international termination rates

Subscriber preference for lower-priced bundle packs than higher ones



With the rise of Jio, most older telcos are struggling. Today, the focus is on Airtel, and why Airtel is struggling. Simply put, three reasons:

Reliance Jio launched free services in September 2016 and commercial services in April 2017. When it launched free services, everyones subscriber base was rising. Between March 2016 and September 2017, Airtel, Vodafone, and Idea added 31, 9, and 15 million subscribers each. In that period, which is since the time of its launch to September 2017, Jio had accrued 190 million subscribers.

They had to once Reliance Jio started charging for services, and subscriber growth of other operators started tapering since. According to TRAIs telecom subscription data published in February 2018, Bharti Airtel led the telecom market with 24.85% share as of December-end. According to the data, Reliance Jios market share stood at 13.71%, few points lower than Vodafones and Idea Cellulars market shares of 18.20% and 16.83% respectively. But, Jio recorded the highest growth rate of wireless subscribers which is 5.27%, among all telcos in the month of December.

Bloomberg reported last April that both Airtel and Jio may raise as much as Rs 36,500 crores selling bonds as the telecom titans build a war chest in what investors hope will be the home stretch in Indias bruising tariff war. The vast amount of 36500 crore rupees, which is about 78 percent of the total outstanding bonds of Indias top four telecom firms, signals that Airtel and Jio are getting prepared to roll out next-generation services and manage about Rs 32,000 crore of debt due in the next five years.

Raj Kothari, head of trading at Jay Capital Ltd. in London believes an end to tariff wars may be in sight after all. After four years of intense price pain, the India telecom battle could be in its last stretch. Its down to the big boys and they are piling up funds for that, he was quoted as saying by Bloomberg.

Bharti Airtel has said that the money would be used for treasury activities, including refinancing, and for paying off spectrum dues. Jio meanwhile hasnt specified details of end use although data compiled by Bloomberg show that it has significant repayments due in the next few years.

The perceived advantage of Jio

What are the perceived advantages that Jio has? Have TRAI regulations benefitted Jio? What are the changes that other telcos have had to make in order to stay competitive? What has happened to those companies that have not managed to stay afloat? What has happened to their subscribers? What about data share and how does Jio fare there? In its mode to aggressively expand and acquire subscribers, does Jio have a plan for the long game? In the coming weeks, this will be our focus  what is the disruption in the galaxy? And how is each side faring? We have not even touched upon broadband and other services that these telecom operators provide. These are all questions we have to take time to answer, which is why Telecom Wars is a series, and this merely its first Episode.

There we have it  the Telecom Wars, and we have barely scratched the surface. Todays focus, on Episode One, was on Airtel and the challenges it is facing in the wake of Jio. In my view, Airtels best scenario is if Jio can be stopped and if pricing can come back to normal, says Rohit Prasad, a professor at the Management Development Institute (MDI) and an observer of the telecom industry. The second best scenario is the government bails out the telecom industry by making various kinds of concessions, and that second best scenario might come to pass.

In the middle of all this emerges a glimmer of hope for Airtel in Africa. If back in 2010, you as a shareholder had criticised Airtel for venturing into Africa, perhaps now is as good a time as any to eat crow. How Airtels future in India evolves is anyones guess, but one thing is for certain  it is going to be a hard-fought war.Catalan separatists to try again to elect Puigdemont

Catalonia\'s separatist parties will support Carles Puigdemont\'s re-election as regional head. Virginia Mayo.

AFP, Berlin :

Catalan separatists, meeting in Berlin, vowed Saturday to attempt once again to get their leader-in-exile Carles Puigdemont reinstalled as president of the Spanish region while adding that they don't want to hold fresh elections.

"We don't want new elections," said Eduard Pujol, spokesman for Puigdemont's Together for Catalonia grouping.

However an attempt will be made to install the former Catalan president by May 14 at the latest, he added after talks with Puigdemont after talks in Berlin.

Puigdemont was sacked by Madrid after Catalonia made a declaration of independence last year following a regional referendum not sanctioned by the Spanish government.

The Catalan independence leader then left for Belgium where he lives in self-imposed exile. An earlier attempt to get him reinstated was blocked by a Spanish court.

Puigdemont was detained in Germany in March after Spain issued a European arrest warrant against him. He was later released on bail.

On Friday the pro-independence Catalan parliament backed a law allowing him his investiture while abroad, something the Spanish government has ruled out.

Ines Arrimadas, leader in Catalonia of the anti-independence Ciudadanos party, has rejected this "Puigdemont law", describing it as "tailor-made for a fugitive".

Since he fled Spain Puigdemont has been a divisive figure among the separatists.

On Saturday the influential grassroots independence group ANC announced the results of an opinion poll, saying that most of its members support the return of the "legitimate president".

However, if this proves impossible, ANC supporters want a new government formed without a return to the ballot boxes.

The regional parliament must elect a new president by May 22 or organise fresh elections.

If Puigdemont is not reinstalled, his supporters will propose that ANC leader Jordi Sanchez, currently imprisoned im Madrid over the failed independence bid, be given the job. But last month Spain's Supreme Court rejected a request by Sanchez to be let out of jail and sworn in as regional head.

If that option proves impossible "we will open the door to another alternative," Pujol told reporters in Berlin, adding only that "none of the names you have speculated about are on the table".Trading and investing provides one of the last few frontiers of opportunities in India. The trend started picking up in the late 80s in the US and gathered speed with the technology boom and low cost of operations and internet trading. Algorithm trading brought the wiz kids to the market adding more speed and liquidity to an already volatile market space.

In India, as is the case with all the markets, traders come and go as market rises and fall. Yet there are few who stay back. These are the ones who are able to decipher the code, who can see the method in the madness.

Traders and investors come from various background. Some have an impressive educational background, who would have done well in any field they would have chosen, while others come from humble background with mediocre education.

Yet all of them have certain traits that make them successful traders and investors. The one thing that is not necessary is a high IQ level. Legendary investor Peter Lynch is often quoted as saying Everyone has the brainpower to follow the stock market. If you made it through fifth-grade math, you can do it.

It is not the education but the inquisitiveness that helps in becoming a successful trader. Add to that discipline, perseverance and self-confidence and you have all the ingredients of a star trader.

Our trader for the week has all the above qualities. Zafar Shaikh, a Pune-based mechanical engineer was able to quench his inquisitive thirst when he worked in the research and design wing of Tata Motors. A chance visit to a bank resulted in opening of a demat account which became the next source of curiosity for Zafar who probed his way to technical and fundamental analysis.

Even in his early days of studying the market and wetting his feet, Zafar was confident of his ability. He quit his job to devout more time to understanding the markets. Son of a high school principal, Zafar managed to make the move thanks to the backing of his family who encouraged him to chase his dream.

Zafar now trades in equity derivatives, commodities and invests in equities from the winnings of his trading portfolio. He loves reading and exploring secluded places. Zafar invests 1-2 hours a day on meditation and affirmative self-talk.

In an interview with Moneycontrols Shishir Asthana, Zafar Shaikh speaks of his journey from the small town in drought-prone Vidharbha region of Maharashtra to running his own trading book and employing traders and analysts under him.

Can you tell us how a design engineer came to the markets

I came to Pune post my tenth standard from a small town named Buldhana in Vidharbha region for further studies and has ever since been in Pune. I completed my Mechanical Engineering and took up a job in Tata Technologies which was a subsidiary of Tata Motors. Our company was entrusted with the job of designing upcoming products for Tata Motors. I was one of the first member to work on the 207 pickup of the company.

The job suited my inquisitive nature as the design engineer profile meant that my team was looking at designing the chassis and integrating all the components. This enabled me to learn about the entire vehicle.

My introduction to the markets was a matter of chance. I wanted to open a bank account with ICICI Bank as they were one of the first to offer an ATM facility. A person from the bank offered to open a demat account. I had no idea what it was, but the bank official explained it to me. Though I did not get the concept I agreed to open a demat account.

By nature, I am a curious person and like to know how things work. So, I went about gathering as much information about demat which lead me to the markets and then to the exciting world of technical and fundamental analysis.

Did you trade while you were trying to learn

While I was still learning about the markets I decided to dabble in shares. My first trade was in Tata Motors and was taken when the vehicle my team designed was launched. My understanding was that since launching of a new product is good news, stock price of Tata Motors should go up.

However, the price fell and I had to exit with a Rs 6,000 loss. This loss was big given that it was almost a third of my monthly salary. Later, I came across the market adage which described my trade  buy the rumour and sell the news.

Though, devastated with the loss I dove deep in the subject and increased my reading.

What were your learnings?

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that price behavior could be charted and used to make money through technical analysis. In those days there was very little on internet on technical analysis. I searched for books but only a few were available in India. I asked my friends in the US to send me books on technical analysis.

I learnt about chart patterns and what got my hooked was the continuation patterns. I checked them on Indian stocks and found that on the daily chart most stocks take around 2-3 months to consolidate before continuing in its original trend. The move out of the continuation pattern takes only 2-3 weeks till the price consolidates again.

I focused my attention on consolidation breakout patterns like flag, pennant, triangles among others and started to identify them on the charts.

Did you use this learning to trade

My initial technique was a trendline breakout of the consolidation zone. I used to draw a trendline touching the tops of the consolidation zone and buy it the moment there was a breakout. I bought the options of the stocks that were breaking out which resulted in a higher return. In some cases the option value used to double or triple in a short span.

While I looked at the daily chart for consolidation, one criteria for selecting the stock was that it should trade above the 50 day simple moving average (SMA). As the price approached the 50 SMA on the daily chart, I moved to a lower timeframe of hourly chart. This offered me a good entry point with lower risk.

In those days the success rate of the strategy was around 50-60 percent. I was trading both the long and short side of the market through options.

But these were early days and I did not have a proper exit strategy in place. The strategy was to buy on the breakout and keep the stop loss at the support zone. Exits were more an ad-hoc decision. During these initial days it was more of anxiety that resulted in exits, which in most cases were too early.

Thankfully my conservative nature resulted in me keeping a stop loss for every trade because of which I did not ever have any major erosion in my portfolio, but at the same time did not catch the entire move.

This was the main reason I could not make too much money in the 2008 fall though I got the direction right. In those days stocks used to open higher but were consolidating in a range or falling after the first hour. Most of my long trades were getting stopped out while the short ones were giving decent profits. But because I did not have an exit plan I would not trail the shorts.

Though it was still early days I was confident that I would be successful as a trader. Though I would not recommend it to anyone now, I took a personal loan of Rs 1 lakh and traded the account up to Rs 20 lakh in around 3 years.

How has your strategy changed over the years

The core concept remains the same. We trade the trend continuation pattern but our decision making now is more structured.

What I discovered while trading the trendline breakout of the consolidation zone was that the trendline was subjective. Each analyst has a different way of drawing the trendline which added to the subjectivity and thus market reaction was not uniform out of trendlines. I was searching for a more objective method to search for stocks moving out of the consolidation zone.

My experience in trading and further reading taught me that more than entry and stop losses, trade management was an important part. A stocks move from Point A to Point B can take place either slowly or it can be a fast move either towards the target or the stop loss. Managing the trade in these circumstances is very important.

We now have a 5 step decision making process. First is the entry which is now based on a combination of a moving average channel breakout and RSI. Second is the stock selection. Here is prefer trading only the strongest chart for going long and weakest chart for going short.

Third is the stop loss which goes along with every trade we enter, fourth is the trailing stop loss that gives more room for the trade to perform during the initial period and is tightened as the stock moves in our favour. Finally is the profit booking levels.

We use more or less the same strategy for commodities, but our time frame changes. Plus we break the exits in commodities as we trade bigger positions there.

We have done reasonably well with a 50-60 percent strike rate on a 1:2.5 win loss ratio.

How do you trade/invest in equities

We generally use fundamentals to pick up equities but this is done after running it through a technical scanner. Though I need to point out that I am not an expert on fundamentals, I take position on basic parameters. In equities we run the query on a higher time frame of either monthly or quarterly.

This is found out by reverse-engineering the stock movement of multi-bagger stocks in the past. I found out that the stock behaves in a particular way just ahead of a strong move in the quarterly chart. They consolidate for a few years and then move higher.

After we get a stock in this scanner we then look at the strength of the stock. Then we run the fundamental tests which are basic and simple to understand. First filter is market cap to sales. We prefer company closer to a MCap to Sales of 1. Then we look for price to earnings (PE) which should ideally be in the range of 5 to 14.

Third is we look at profitability. Here we look at the operating profits where the operating margin has to be over 10-15 percent. We then look for stability of sales and profits. We do not like companies which posts spikes in sales and profits. We then look at debt to equity, lower the better, maximum is not above 2. Finally we look at companies with positive cash flows.

We have found that fundamentals follows price and by the time good numbers start reflecting the share is already up substantially.

We divide our portfolio in three parts. Nearly 50 percent is for equity and the remaining is divided in stock derivatives and commodities.

How do you manage trading in multiple stocks and multiple markets

We have a team that manages most of the part. My job is restricted now to selecting the stock, everything else is system driven. Trade management, entry and exits are all predefined and is managed by my team. That gives me time to do other stuffs like training. We now intend to scale up to managing money. We have taken the required registrations and are rolling out the business.

Any message you would like to give to a retail trader

First thing is to try to find what suits you in the market with respect to risk and reward. I would recommend that one becomes and investor rather than a trader because as time frame reduces the risk of losing money increases. Unfortunately a retail person wants to trade on a daily basis.

It is in our nature to bargain for prices whenever we shop or buy something. It is the same mentality we bring to the market while trading. However, this does not works in markets. One needs to buy the strongest and short the weakest.The recent rally was on the back of falling volumes and breadth, indicating that it is a weak rally akin to a dead cat bounce, and now the bounce back appears to be complete as we closed the week down and the fall should have resumed, Rohit Srivastava, Fund Manager  PMS, Sharekhan said in an exclusive interview with Moneycontrols Kshitij Anand.

Q) The Nifty50 slipped nearly 1 percent for the week ended May 4, 2018 in a truncated week. The Nifty climbed above 10,700 but corrected towards 10,600 towards the closing of the week. What is the technical setup suggesting?

A) The Nifty50 rallied to a high of 10,787 near the Upper Bollinger Band on the daily charts and saw a retracement of almost 70 percent of the fall seen in the last two months.

The rally was on the back of falling volumes and breadth indicating that it is a weak rally akin to a dead cat bounce. The bounceback appears complete as we closed the week down and the fall should have resumed.

The level of 10,720 was the 61.8 percent retracement mark that we could not reclaim in the previous week. The level of 10,500 is the crucial support for the Nifty which if broken could take the index towards 10,200 levels.

Q) It looks like 11,000 strikes is attracting a considerable amount of open interest. Do you think Nifty could reclaim mount 11K in May or June series?

A) The strike price 11,000 is seeing a lot of Call buying and that makes it a strong long-term resistance but only one week into the May series it is too early to say that we can go back to those highs as of now.

Given current data, we do not anticipate a move that high unless something changes in the market internals. The weakness in mid cap indices will cap any upside and if we look at the bank nifty, it only retraced 50 percent of the fall.

We need to watch option writing positions after another week to get a fairer idea of which levels are important in between.

Q) What technical parameters investors should one consider before initiating a trade?

A) We follow a two-step process while assessing the market. The first is to take a view  here Elliott Wave Analysis plays a larger role as it is the only means of forecasting in the investment science.

Once we have an opinion on where markets can head and can put a probability on it we watch classic technical indicators like moving averages, momentum, RSI etc. to decide on our action plan or strategy.

In short, execution is where trend following techniques are useful. For the exit which is also important, we use a trailing stop loss.

Lastly, always trade in the direction of the trend and not counter-trend moves as they prove to be less profitable and are often stopped out.

Q) What is your call on small-cap and mid-cap stocks? Should investors stay away or just book profits on rallies?

A) My view on mid cap and small cap stocks is very clear. Yes, we should be booking out and building cash from these segments actively.

From the year 2013-2018, this has been one of the longest periods of mid-cap outperformance in recent history. Just because it has been so long doing not mean it is perpetual.

These trends never are. So overstaying is not a good thing. The earlier the better. I believe that in any downturn in the market these stocks will be the worst affected and should be avoided on dips. There is no hurry to building a portfolio of mid-cap at this moment.

Q) Top 3-5 positional call which could give handsome returns to investors in next 1 month?

A) As of now we are eyeing the short side of the market and are looking for stocks that can give returns on the way down.

Accordingly, we have been building short positions in the weakest segment of the market namely PSU banks namely stocks like Allahabad Bank, Canara Bank, and Union Bank. We believe that these trends will continue to accelerate downward in the month ahead.The government's plan to attract USD 100 billion (about Rs 6.5 lakh crore) investment in the telecom sector by 2022 is conservative, industry body COAI has said.

Just two telecom operators, Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio, have committed to invest Rs 74,000 crore this year alone, which is more than 10 percent of the total government estimate, COAI Director General Rajan S Mathews said.

"Telecom operators are investing USD 10 billion. Half of investment is expected to come from just these two players," he told PTI in an interview.

The government draft of the new telecom policy (NTP) -- 'National Digital Communications Policy 2018' -- aims to create 40 lakh new jobs by 2022, attract USD 100 billion investment in the sector and ensure broadband coverage at 50 mbps for every citizen.

It also proposes to address the woes of debt-ridden telecom sector by reviewing licence fees, spectrum usage charges, universal service obligation fund levy -- all of which add to cost of telecom services.

Appreciating the reforms proposed in the policy, Mathews said that rationalisation of spectrum price and related charges will further fuel the investments in the sector.

"If the policy gets implemented as proposed in the draft, the sector will be able to attract huge amount of foreign direct investments," Mathews said.

The policy draft proposes adopting "Optimal Pricing of Spectrum" to ensure sustainable and affordable access to digital communications.

It also proposes use of mid-band spectrum, particularly the 3 GHz to 24 GHz range, for next-generation networks.

Besides, it has outlined a roadmap for transmitting signals between mobile towers in E-band (71-76/81-86 GHz) and V-band (57-64 MHz) spectrum, in line with international best practices.

Mathews said the government should start allocating spectrum in E and V bands without auction to expedite the rollout of telecom infrastructure to meet the proposed objectives such as broadband for all and increasing the share of the telecom sector in GDP to 8 percent from 6 percent at present.

"The policy proposes to allocate E and V band spectrum in line with global best practices. Nowhere in the world, these spectrum are allocated on the basis of auction. Telecom operators already pay for spectrum in auctions which come bundled with backhaul spectrum. "The E and V bands are for backhaul services so there should be no extra charge for them," he said.Berkshire Hathaway's annual shareholder meeting is akin to a pilgrimage to financial advisors and investors. From colourful mascots and kiosks showcasing the product line to Warren Buffett's wisdom-packed speech, this is an event that is marked on investors', corporates' and media's calendars alike. (Image: Reuters)

Scores of investors gather in Omaha, Nebraska, to take part in the meet. The company is known for investing in products that are household names in America. Pictured here is a shareholder hugging a Mr. Kool-Aid character in the exhibit hall this year. (REUTERS)

Even the heads of Berkshire Hathaway are turned into light-hearted animations backing up the products they have carefully invested in over the decades. Pictured here is a shareholder standing in front of a commemorative Heinz ketchup and mustard exhibit. The Berkshire AGM is called the largest company event in corporate America. (Image: Reuters)

Aside from Warren Buffet, his partner Charlie Munger is equally revered for his role in Berkshire's journey. He is the vice-chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. Commenting on the semi-retired role of Buffet, he said ,He sits around reading most of the time and thinking, and every once in a while he talks on the phone. I cant see any differenceWarren is very good at doing nothing. (image: Reuters)

This annual event is no impersonal suit and tie, affair. Berkshire Hathaway AGMs are famous for taking care of their shareholders. Guests are allowed to bring along their children. The company makes arrangements such as bringing in cartoon characters and shopping stalls. Food requirements for investors who arrive from around the world are taken care of. This time, there was even a massive bar to serve shareholders. Pictured here is the opening cocktail party for the event. (Image: Reuters)

The high point of the event is marked by the attendance of scores of Warren Buffet admirers and Berkshire investors who line up for hours before finally gathering at the exhibition space to hear the CEO speech. (Image: Reuters)Indian migrants have a more positive image in the UK as compared to other South Asian communities, according to a recent opinion poll.

In comparison, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis were in the negative territory.

The YouGov poll, conducted last month among 1,668 British citizens, asked a series of questions about the kind of contribution immigrants from various parts of the world make to British life.

Immigrants from India received a strong figure of +25 on the question about making a positive contribution to British life.

In comparison, other South Asian counterparts were in negative territory.

Pakistanis scored a negative figure of -4 and Bangladeshis -3.

Net figures are calculated by taking away the figure for "negative contribution" from the figure for "positive contribution".

The figures come against the backdrop of a growing debate around the atmosphere for migrants in the UK.

A recent Windrush scandal, largely affecting Caribbean migrants who came to the UK before 1973, has thrown up the prospect of many Indians being caught up in similar issues of citizenship rights.

In a House of Commons debate earlier this week, the Opposition Labour party had warned that the scandal engulfs immigrants from many Commonwealth countries, including "those who came from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh".

"This is an issue that has resonated around the Commonwealth. At a time when we are trying to build our relationship with the Commonwealth post-Brexit for trade and other reasons, it is extremely damaging what has been revealed about the way Commonwealth citizens have been treated," said Labour MP Diane Abbott, the UK's shadow home secretary.

The scandal relates to thousands of Commonwealth citizens who came to Britain many decades ago when there was little need for formal paperwork and are now legally resident in Britain but may not have all the documents to prove it.

Meanwhile, hundreds of Indian professionals gathered outside Parliament earlier this week to protest against what they claim are unjust refusals of their right to live and work in the country.

Many have now taken to the courts to challenge the UK Home Office's use of a discretionary "good character" clause to deny them indefinite leave to remain (ILR) over legally permitted tax corrections.

"Given the Windrush scandal involving innocent migrants being denied their citizenship rights and the new Home Secretary (Sajid Javid) assuring the public that the Home Office will be fair in its immigration decisions, these cases take on an added significance," said Aditi Bhardwaj, one of the convenors of the Highly Skilled Migrants group.

Besides, there have been cases involving hundreds of doctors from India being denied visas after being recruited by the state-funded National Health Service (NHS) to fill staff shortages in the country's health service.

Ministers have reportedly been pressuring British Prime Minister Theresa May to ease the limited quota of such visas to allow doctors from outside the European Union (EU) to come to the rescue of the NHS.

"NHS organisations have been unable to obtain the required permits for months for essential medical colleagues, and we have called on the government to urgently address this serious problem," said Danny Mortimer, chief executive of NHS Employers  which works with NHS Trusts on recruiting staff.

He said the "prolonged inability" to recruit talented professionals from outside the EU has hit the NHS and its patients hard.

Another category of Indian migrants hit by the UK Home Office rules include thousands of Indian students who were forced to abandon their courses in UK colleges and return to India as a result of a scam unearthed in an English language test programme called Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) in 2014.

According to unconfirmed estimates, many were wrongly accused of cheating by the US-based Education Testing Service (ETS) in an investigation carried out for the Home Office.

"In February 2014, investigations into the abuse of English language testing revealed systemic cheating, which was indicative of large scale organised fraud.

"The government took immediate robust action on this... and so far 21 people have received criminal convictions for their role in this deception," a Home Office spokesperson said.

The YouGov survey concluded that overall public opinion in the UK towards immigration remains negative.

Around 63 percent of people believe that immigration into Britain in the last 10 years has been too high and around 32 percent thinking it has been mostly bad for Britain.

Immigration remains one of the most emotive issues in the country's political landscape, with the vote in favour of Brexit in the 2016 EU referendum largely attributed to a belief that it would help shut down the country's borders to uncontrolled migrants.West Bengal Police has arrested BJP leader Mukul Roy's brother-in-law from New Delhi for allegedly duping railway job seekers, a senior official said today.

Mukul Roy is a former Trinamool Congress MP.

Roy's brother-in-law Srijan Roy was arrested from New Delhi airport late last night by a team of police from Bizpur police station in North 24 Parganas district on the basis of complaints which were filed around six years ago, the police officer said.

"Srijan Roy has been arrested for taking money from several people on the pre-text of providing them jobs," a district police official said.

Various charges under different sections of the IPC including 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 406 (punishment for criminal breach of trust), 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating), 471 (using a forged document as genuine), including others have been slapped against the arrested accused.

The accused was produced at a district court today and was remanded to 12 days of police custody, he added.

Describing the arrest as "political conspiracy", Mukul Roy, who was the Union railway minister in 2012 when the cases were lodged against his brother-in-law, said he himself was the actual target of the move.

"This is a conspiracy hatched by Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee against me and my family members. She is resorting to such things because she is afraid of the Bharatiya Janata Party. I am the real target of this conspiracy," Roy said.

The BJP leader said he would fight such conspiracies "politically".Venkaiah Naidu

Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu today left for his first official foreign visit to Guatemala, Panama and Peru, to strengthen relations with these countries. During his six-day visit, he would hold meetings at the highest levels in all three countries. He would also interact with parliamentarians, university students and meet members of the Indian diaspora.

India attaches significant importance to friendly relationship with the countries in this region," Naidu said in an official statement.

"Strengthening institutional mechanisms for political interaction, multilateral matters, trade and commerce, investments, information technology, traditional medicine, space, defence and culture will be some of the key issues for deliberations. I look forward to a fruitful visit, he said.

Ambassadors of Guatemala, Panama and Peru were present at the airport to see off the vice president on his maiden visit abroad.Two brothers arrested with 1.3m yaba tablets

A Correspondent :

The detective branch of police has arrested two brothers with 1.3 million yaba pills in a contraband crackdown in Chattogram.

Being tipped off, police raided a house in the residential area of Shyamoli in Halishahar and seized around 300,000 yaba pills from the house, Metropolitan Detective Police Inspector Md Kamruzzaman told.

On a tip-off, a team of the DB police conducted a raid in the area around 4 am and nabbed the duo with 300,000 pieces of contraband yaba tablets from a house, said Mainul Islam, assistant commissioner of the DB of CMP.

Later, they seized another consignment of one million pills from a car in the garage of the house. The arrested Md Ashraf, 48, and his brother Md Hasan, 24.StreamLoan CEO Stephen Bufler sat down with Power Originator to discuss the digital mortgage revolution.

Power Originator: How did you get into the digital mortgage space?

Stephen Bufler: As a real estate investor for the past 20 years, buying a home was always such a pain. It was this smoldering thing inside me that said, I have to solve this problem. Its fun to participate in helping redefine how homes can be purchased. We came to market Q4 2015 before the launch of Quicken Loans Rocket Mortgage, which was right around the corner in 2016. You rewind the clock a few years, and digital mortgage was this very nascent concept. Our first product was mobile, so we were really pushing the envelope and really putting the borrower in the drivers seat. The idea is to get everything done on an iPhone, as opposed to being directed to wet signatures and paper copies and downloading things.

PO: Your goal is to collapse the process from 50 days to 15 days  a dramatic reduction.

SB: Yes, some of that we have control over, and there are other poles in the tent where we dont. But when we think about redefining the process, there is a significant amount of waste and back and forth. There is a recursive nature to the work  the borrower comes in and works with the loan officer to collect some stuff, and then the processor come in and then it is pushed back to underwriting. Each one of those steps in the chain has scheduling and waste.

PO: Tell me more about how you are able to get that kind of increased speed.

SB: Were not claiming we can solve everything, but we can make things an order of magnitude faster. A piece of work that takes seven to 12 minutes can be collapsed to something that is 15 to 30 seconds. When you do that enough times across a hundred tasks, you see dramatic economies of scale.

PO: There is big buzz around millennial buyers and their love of apps and technology. You were really at the forefront in the digital space.

SB: I knew we were pushing the envelope in 2015 launching a mobile digital mortgage product, but today, those who havent figured it out are behind. This avalanche of millennials is active in home purchasing, and if you dont have something for them, you are not going to be part of their world. Fortunately, we placed a big bet early that mobile would play an important role, and its what were seeing now.

PO: With mobile, there are always security concerns. How are you addressing that?

SB: My last mobile company was a mobile security company, which was acquired by NetApp, the second largest data storage company in the world. We built a lot of great security technology. This industry needs the same software that we sold to banks and the government and utilities. Its about looking end to end at the chain. The other piece is data privacy. Weve built a system that ensures each user only has access to the information she should have access to.

PO: Data is another issue. You have to be able to process huge quantities of data.

SB: We are hit on both sides. The borrower has to collect all these categories of data. The back end is also messy. These loan origination systems have been around for a while. All the data from the front end has to land in the right buckets. In the U.S., there also arent ubiquitous standards. Some banks are not as friendly (on data). We are having to piecemeal together across partnerships, and there is not a standard format. I hope there will be services available that make the data processing and management a lot easier.

PO: As you look to the future, do you think we will get a completely digital process soon?

SB: I wish I could say it will be quick. There are a bunch of people tackling it, and it will take all of us some years of work. Most of the attention has been at the front end, application process. Were optimistic that we are making a dent.

Related stories:Oil and gas activity in the Permian Basin continues to surge, strengthened by higher commodity prices.

The Texas Permian Basin Petroleum Index for February climbed 28.9 percent from February 2017 levels amid double-digit increases in crude prices and the rig count and a rise in the number of drilling permits issued by the Railroad Commission.

Still, the index remains nowhere near its record high reached in November 2014 as crude prices were beginning to fall. Karr Ingham, the Amarillo economist who prepares the index, said it wont return to that level any time soon.

Just as the (Midland-Odessa) economy continues to surprise, so does the oil and gas business, he said. The nature of the oil and gas business has changed so dramatically, and for the better that the levels of activity recorded in 2014 may no longer be needed.

Productivity is at record highs and climbing rapidly, Ingham said.

He reported that crude production volumes  which never actually declined during the downturn -- were up 19.5 percent higher in February than February 2017 and are 18.6 percent higher year-to-date than the first two months of 2017.

Ingham said those record production volumes are being achieved with fewer drilling permits and well completions and with a rig count that remains well below the 2014 peak.

That jump in output is astounding, and clearly producers are capable of producing more with less, he said. Its what every industry aims for, yet this is a stunning outcome: Lower aggregate rig count, drilling permits and completions, yet theyre still sufficient to produce record oil volumes.

The February rig count averaged 348, up 38.1 percent from 252 last February and is averaging 339 rigs so far this year, up 39 percent from a year ago. Ingham said increasing production with fewer rigs has been a trend dating back about 15 years.

Its a testament to the changing nature of production in the Permian  more efficiency, more productivity, more automation, he said,

It is the function of any industry to supply consumers with what they want, when they want it and at a price point they can afford, Ingham said. Rising oil production from the Permian Basin, from Texas and from the United States suggests there is an abundance of supply for the foreseeable future, he said.

Crude prices averaged $58.72 per barrel in February, up 17.4 percent from $50.03 last February. Prices so far this year are averaging $59.41 per barrel, a gain of 19.7 percent.

Ingham said prices have been stimulated by the removal of 1.8 million barrels of crude from the market by members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and several non-OPEC nations, and prices would be lower today if that amount had not been removed.

Yet rising production from the Permian, Texas and the nation remains a concern for the markets, even if the global demand picture is improving, Ingham said.

We might be our own enemy, he said. Whats different today is the demand picture. Of that 1.8 million barrels removed from the market, I promise you at least 1.5 million barrels have been added back by the U.S. Were going to close that gap, and then it will be critical to see what OPEC and its allies do.

The Railroad Commission issued 573 drilling permits in February, up 1.6 percent from 564 last February and has issued 1,229 permits in the first two months of 2018, up 16.9 percent from 1.051 a year earlier.

Permian Basin producers reported 486 oil well completions in February, up 98.4 percent from 245 a year ago and have completed 1,036 oil wells so far in 2018, up 111.9 percent from 489 in 2017.

Ingham said he is mystified that the number of drilling permits and well completions is not higher given the surge in production volumes.

I wonder if those numbers will begin to reflect that in the coming months, he said. Even if fewer drilling rigs can produce more crude, you still need drilling permits and completions reports.

Despite the efficiency gains, the regions energy industry needs more workers. Ingham said direct oil and gas employment in Midland-Odessa is rapidly increasing and should surpass pre-downturn highs in the next month or two. Oil and gas employment in February jumped 26.3 percent to 35,840 from 28,375 last February. For the year, employment is averaging 32,130, an increase of 14.7 percent from the 28,020 averaged in 2017.

Rising payrolls are an illustration of how the value of that crude production -- $3.5 billion in February  is flowing through the economy, Ingham said. He said wages will be rising rapidly as suggested by the demand for labor and the apparent difficulty companies are having finding a sufficient number of workers.

Natural gas prices slumped 16.5 percent to average $2.18 per Mcf in February, down from $261 last February. Natural gas prices are averaging $2.68 to date this year, down 7.3 percent from $2.89 last year.

Operators reported 49 natural gas well completions in February, up 444.4 percent from nine last February. Operators have completed 84 gas wells in the first two months of the year, up 500 percent from 14 a year ago. Natural gas production volumes were 16.6 percent higher than the previous February and are up 15.5 percent so far in 2018 compared to 2017.

The general feeling is theres a sense of oil and gas activity being back where it was and the phenomena that was experienced in 2014 is back, Ingham said.Odessa and Midland ranked second and third, respectively, in SmartAssets list of the best cities across the nation for living the American Dream.

It was Midlands second-straight appearance at No. 3 in the annual study, according to a press release. The study looked at measures of housing and opportunity to uncover the best cities for living the American Dream. The other Texas communities to crack the top 10 were Round Rock, Fort Worth, Amarillo and Abilene.

Midland, Texas is another upwardly mobile city with a low unemployment rate, SmartAsset said. In both our mobility and unemployment rankings, Midland comes in third. While those economic indicators are good for the American Dream in Midland, the city could improve on its homeownership rate, which is currently only 59 percent.

The study reports the median home value in Midland is $196,000. The Permian Basin Board of Realtors showed last month that the average price for a home sold was more than $269,000. One has to go back to March 2013 to find a month when the median home price was below $200,000.

SmartAsset reported that home value data comes from the Census Bureaus one-year American Community Survey.

As far as Odessa, SmartAsset said, Last year, Odessa ranked 24th but jumped an impressive 22 spots to secure the second spot this year. One reason for the improvement is the large drop in the unemployment rate. Last year, Odessa had a 5.8% unemployment rate but this year, the unemployment rate is only 3.3 percent. Odessa also continues to be the most upwardly mobile city in the study.

The top 10 cities this year for living the American Dream were: 1. West Valley City, Utah; 2. Odessa, 3. Midland, 4. Aurora, Illinois; 5. Round Rock; 6. Fort Worth; 7. Aurora, Colorado; 8. San Jose, California; 9. Amarillo; 10. (tie) Rochester, Minnesota; Abilene.

Other Texas cities in the top 25 were Plano (13th), Arlington (14th), Grand Prairie (15th), Garland (17th), McKinney (18th) and Pearland (22nd).

Last years top 10 were 1. (tie) Aurora, Illinois; and West Valley City , Utah; 3. Midland; 4. Aurora, Colorado; 5. Rochester, Minnesota; 6. Sioux Falls, South Dakota; 7. Kent, Washington; 8. Cedar Rapids, Iowa; 9. Round Rock; 10. Palmdale, California.

SmartAsset on its website describes itself as a financial technology company aiming to provide the best personal finance advice on the web.

https://smartasset.com/mortgage/the-best-cities-for-living-the-american-dream-in-2018.



As a mother of four, Tiffany Menefee said it was heartbreaking to constantly spend time at work and away from her children. As her apartment rent continued to climb, she had trouble making ends meet and needed to work more than one job.

I felt bad because you pay so much rent, Menefee said. And just to even try to keep up with it, you have to have two or three jobs. It takes so much time from your kids.

Menefee last year turned to the Buckner Family Pathways program, which provides housing and other services for single parents. She can now work one job while taking classes and learning skills to become self-sufficient.

Figures indicate Menefee may not be alone in experiencing rent increases. Data shows local apartment rents have increased 28.4 percent or more compared to this time last year.

Rental market

Median rents in Midland are $1,160 for one-bedroom units and $1,460 for two-bedroom units, according to the May report from Apartment List. The prices are up 1.8 percent over the past month and represent a 28.4 percent change year-over-year.

So much of it is driven by cyclical booms and busts in the oil market, said Chris Salviati, a housing economist with Apartment List.

Salviati previously told the Reporter-Telegram that areas with jobs create demand for new housing and that prices rise when housing stock doesnt increase to meet that demand.

April marks the third straight month of increases since a decline in January, according to Apartment List data. Salviati said people tend to move in the spring and summer, and properties sometimes lower winter prices in response to that market change.

Another source, ALN Apartment Data, reports a 34.1 percent rise in effective rent in the Midland-Odessa market compared to last year. It lists average effective rent for conventional properties at $1,379.

Also, ALN figures show occupancy for the Midland-Odessa market stands at 95.6 percent  a 6.2 percent annual change  while properties are offering 84.7 percent fewer leasing specials.

Occupancies are going up, and concessions are going down, said Jordan Brooks, analytics specialist for ALN. That tells us the concessions that are being offered are not whats driving demand.

Brooks said having an occupancy jump of about 6 percent year-over-year is somewhat unusual when new properties enter a market.

The two most recent permits that resulted in completed apartment complexes were issued in 2015, according to information provided by the city of Midland. Those projects added 470 apartment units combined.

Permits have also been issued for three complexes that will bring 505 combined units upon completion. Another business was issued a permit in 2015 but didnt follow through, according to the information.

Local impact

For now, some people who are navigating the local rental market have trouble finding places to live. Kat Hernandez, director of social services at Salvation Army of Midland, said clients find that many low-income apartments are booked.

She also said the organizations shelter recently has been housing people who come to Midland for work. Its a trend she noticed during the last economic boom.

We saw a lot of people moving to Midland, Hernandez said. We were constantly full.

One person who recently settled in the area was Victoria Tuua. She returned to West Texas one year ago and stayed in motels with her three children.

Tuua spent time looking for apartments and seeking public housing assistance. She said there are misconceptions surrounding homelessness and that anyone can face similar circumstances.

You have to think about other people that are out here, that as the prices go higher, they could be in our same situation, she said.

Tuua in July connected with Family Promise of Midland, which helps low-income families gain independence. Now, shes studying to become a social worker in hopes of making an impact in the lives of others.

I think of all the things that weve been through, and Ive always wanted to be the one to be able to help out, Tuua said.

Life experiences have also influenced the career path of Angela Villalobos, who hopes to go into real estate. After struggling to afford an apartment for her family, she wanted to improve her situation and guide others through housing regulations.

Theres a lot of oil, so they think everybodys supposed to make this much money to be able to live, said Villalobos, a mother of five. But not everybody can actually make that much money. Usually its a combined income of you and your spouse, and a lot of us dont have that.

Villalobos lived for about one month with her family in a travel trailer behind a friends house. She was later accepted into Family Promises transitional housing program.

Tom Miller, executive director of the nonprofit, said the springtime is usually slow because people are using money from tax returns. But this year, he said inquiries are up because families are realizing the extra money still wont allow them to afford rent. The nonprofits program helps participating parents through the budgeting process.

Miller said that during the last economic boom, there was a shortage of all housing options  not only affordable ones  and that some families who found places to live couldnt afford rent.

Its a double-edged sword in Midland because we are a petroleum industry community, Miller said. But then we also need the service industry  the doctors offices, the restaurants.

For Midlanders who have trouble paying rent, some local groups offer services. Renters seeking assistance from the Deacons Fund at First Presbyterian Midland are asked to be responsible for at least 10 percent of the amount due.

Carl Moore, benevolence counselor, has noticed an increase in calls from people whose landlords increased rent, and he said there is also demand from those facing other situations.

Were getting some people whove lost their jobs, Moore said. But a lot of people are moving into town and are looking to get their first months rent and deposit taken care of.

Moore thinks its a problem when some longtime renters can no longer afford to live in Midland. During the last economic boom, he said some were compelled to move away.

At times, I wish there were people who would remember the [purpose] of an apartment complex is to provide places for people to live, Moore said. And its difficult to find that when the rents have gotten so high that you practically have to work in the oil business.Make healthcare affordable for all

Sania Nishtar :

Half of the planet cannot access essential health services. For many people, paying to see a doctor, obtaining medications, seeking family-planning advice, or even getting immunized against common illnesses is a choice between staying healthy and slipping into poverty. And, more than ever, the health-care options that poor people do have are being degraded by a familiar foe.

In many low- and middle-income countries, corruption, inadequate spending, and wasted resources pose enduring challenges for health-care systems. Growing up in Pakistan, I saw people forced to go to extremes to secure health care. For example, families might be forced to sell off cattle and other valuables to pay exorbitant medical bills.

What is shocking is that the scourge of health-related poverty continues to claim victims today. Indeed, in some countries, people falling into poverty due to the high cost of health care is an everyday reality.

On a recent trip to Africa, I heard a harrowing story of a hospital where women and their newborns are routinely held hostage - often for months - until families can find the money to settle their bills. According to researchers at the University of California, San Diego, corruption, waste, and unethical billing cost patients and health systems billions of dollars annually. In the United States, as much as 10% of public-sector spending on health care is lost to fraudulent billing, and tens of millions face significant economic barriers to health care.

Clearly, improving health outcomes requires both increased government spending and an end to shady practices that siphon crucial resources from the health system.

But how? Around the world, corruption and collusion are institutionalized in many health-care systems. Of the $6.5 trillion spent annually on healthcare, an estimated $455 billion is lost, misused, or stolen. Simply put, health costs are bankrupting some of the poorest people in the world, because many of the richest are lining their pockets.

There is growing consensus that affordable, quality health care is a basic human right. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals include universal health coverage as a target. And it is not only rich countries that have embraced this goal: from Thailand to Costa Rica to Rwanda, countries with mixed health systems and limited resources have dedicated funds and political capital to making universal health care a reality.

Steps are being taken to help these countries succeed. Last year, Japan pledged $2.9 billion to help developing countries achieve universal health coverage. And the World Bank has indicated that a country's ability to borrow from it could eventually be tied to investments in human capital, including health spending.

But such gestures, however laudable - and overdue - will not be enough to remove the barriers to quality health services. Until corruption, theft, and wasteful and inefficient spending are addressed more vigorously, universal health coverage will remain aspirational.

Fortunately, governments are increasingly committed to solving the corruption crisis. Tax evasion and fraud - both common crimes - are drawing closer scrutiny from law enforcement agencies. Tax evasion doesn't just enable money laundering; it also robs the public sector of important resources. This is one reason why the UN has made reducing illicit financial flows a key component of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

With broad agreement on the need to combat corruption in the health sector, the harder challenge will be developing workable remedies. National treasuries, finance ministries, and anti-corruption agencies need to strengthen their efforts to cooperate on prevention, detection, and enforcement. Improving transparency in financial systems could also help curb corruption, while civil-society groups, journalists, and patients should push for greater accountability from governments and medical providers.

In the future, new technologies like data mining, artificial intelligence, and blockchain could offer new ways to detect wrongdoing in the health sector; these and other tools should be investigated fully. Expanding health-care access and protecting the sector's finances are dual challenges that the international community must address together. There is an urgent need to act without delay. Rates of noncommunicable diseases like cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease are increasing almost exponentially, and lack of access to quality care will add to many countries' governance challenges. Development strategists understand that poor health is a harbinger of poverty and a barrier to eliminating it. Today, some 800 million people spend at least 10% of their household budgets on health, often going into debt to fund the treatment they need. The fact that so many people cannot afford to visit a doctor is truly shameful. The world needs universal health coverage; but to achieve it, the world's health sector must undergo treatment of its own. -Project Syndicate

(Sania Nishtar is a co-chair of the WHO's independent High-level Commission on Noncommunicable Diseases).

Morgan County

Sheriff

Arrests, Citations

 Gerald D. Jackson, 25, of 448 S. Mauvaisterre St. was booked into the Morgan County jail at 3:02 p.m. Friday on a parole violation.

 Kharma M. Piropersibelli, 54, of 5 Maple Creek, Woodson, was booked into the Morgan County jail at 6:51 p.m. Friday on a charge of criminal trespass to land.

Jacksonville Police

Arrests, Citations

 A 16-year-old boy and a 17-year-old boy were arrested about 4:30 p.m. Friday on retail theft charges.

 Moana S. Lou, 29, of 1611 Illinois Route 78 was arrested about 8:40 p.m. Friday on charges of obstructing identification and driving while license is revoked or suspended.

 Robert A. Ewbank, 28, of 1 Harmony Drive was arrested about 2:20 a.m. Saturday on charges of driving under the influence and resisting a peace officer.

Woodson Police

Arrests, Citations

 Susan A. Mayhall, 34, of rural Rockbridge was booked into the Morgan County jail at 12:49 a.m. Saturday on a charge of driving while license is revoked or suspended.



Compiled by Greg OlsonSchool officials are expressing some concerns about an Illinois bill that would require that new teachers be paid a minimum of $40,000 annually.

The push, some superintendents say, will have a detrimental impact on the schools funds and likely would cause schools to make cuts.

We have to ask, where are the resources to pay that coming from in a tax-capped district, said Dustin Day, superintendent for Waverly Community Unit School District No. 6.

An increase teachers starting salary is deserved but not feasible, especially among smaller districts, Day said.

 I believe teachers deserve a salary increase, he said. They work hard and they more than earn it, but it is not something we can afford.

In Waverly, the starting salary is $35,437. The district has 11 teachers who each makes less than $40,000 and it would cost at least $50,000 to cover the increase for them each year, Day said.

Other districts would see similar numbers.

North Greene schools Superintendent Mark Scott said about 80 percent of his districts staff is under that $40,000 mark and it could cost the district more than $100,000 a year to increase their salaries that high.

Under the districts current salary schedule, teachers would have to work in the district for 18 years to earn an annual salary of $40,000.

I dont think this is feasible to institute a law on districts, Scott said. Are they going to let me levy to cover the cost of the salaries? Itd be the only way to cover our current staff. There is no way wed be able to operate.

Sen. Andy Manar, D-Bunker Hill, said the bill will make a career in education more appealing to potential teachers.

Today, Illinois is investing record amounts of money in schools that tend to have the least competitive salary schedules, Manar said. There are hundreds of empty classrooms all over the state in communities with enormous challenges and the highest rates of poverty because they cant recruit teachers. Updating Illinois minimum mandated teacher salary is a good place to begin addressing the problem.

While supporters of the bill say it will increase fairness and address the teacher shortage, some superintendents believe it instead will increase the shortage and create larger class sizes.

Wed have to look at a larger (reduction in teaching staff) and wed have to increase class sizes, Scott said. Thats not the way to maintain a quality education.

Virginia Superintendent Gary DePatis said the increase there could mean about $40,000 more a year  or up to $180,000 with (Teachers Retirement Fund) payments.

We have a young staff and we just hired eight new teachers this year alone, DePatis said. If this were to be passed, wed have to cut teachers or programs. The state would have to come forward with more support for the schools.

House Bill 5175 passed the Illinois Houseon April 28 by a 61-38 vote. The bill will require districts to increase their starting salary to $40,000 if below that mark starting July 2019 if it is passed by the Senate.

This is taking away the local districts right to negotiate with local teacher unions, Bluffs schools Superintendent Kevin Blankenship said. We have people in Springfield taking local control away from districts. Until they know how to run their own business, they need to stay out of other business.

While unsure of what the mandate would cost the Bluffs district, Blankenship said jobs or programs likely would have to be cut to keep a balanced budget.

Its not only the wage increase that has district officials worried.

With a salary increase, TRF payments also increase, Day said. Even if we could cover the salary, we would still have to fund the retirement portions. Without more resources, we wouldnt be able to afford it.

The bill still has to pass the Senate.

Samantha McDaniel-Ogletree can be reached at 217-245-6121, ext. 1233, or on Twitter @JCNews_samantha.TODAY (SUNDAY)

 Seckman, Darius L. Jerry. 2 p.m. today at Wood Funeral Home in Rushville. Military rites at Ripley Cemetery. Visitation from 1 p.m. today until the service time at the funeral home.

 Slocum, Shirley. 2 p.m. today at Williamson Funeral Home in Jacksonville. The family will meet friends noon-2 p.m. today, prior to the service, at the funeral home.



TUESDAY

 Thorp, George Church. 11 a.m. Tuesday at the United Methodist Church, Clinton, with military honors at Oak Park Cemetery, Clinton. Visitation 6-8 p.m. Monday at the Calvert Funeral Home in Clinton.



WEDNESDAY

 Dodds, Glenn Arthur. Memorial service 6 p.m. Wednesday, May 9, at Worthington Funeral Home. Military rites will be conducted. Visitation will be from 5 p.m. Wednesday, May 9, until the time of services at the funeral home.

 Fair, Michael Ray. Noon Wednesday at Airsman-Hires Funeral Home in Carrollton. Visitation 10 a.m. Wednesday until the time of services at the funeral home.

 Schnelten, Jan E. (Proffer). A Funeral Mass 11 a.m. Wednesday at St. Johns Catholic Church in Carrollton. The family will meet friends 9-11 a.m. at the church.



THURSDAY

 Groat, Doris Mae. Memorial service for Doris and her late husband, Lee Groat, 11 a.m. Thursday at Green Pastures Christian Retreat Center near Meredosia. The family will meet friends from 10 to 11 a.m. Thursday at Green Pastures. Buchanan & Cody Funeral Home in Jacksonville is in charge.



SATURDAY, MAY 12

 Wright, Alice Lucile. Memorial service 2 p.m. Saturday, May 12, at Buchanan & Cody Funeral Home in Jacksonville. Visitation 1-2 p.m. Saturday, May 12, at the funeral home.

Access to quality healthcare

Dr. Samir Kumar Saha :

(From previous issue)

The gap between what the government has assessed (sanctioned) as requirement for providing healthcare services and the positions vacant clearly shows that Bangladesh has to make much greater efforts in ensuring accessibility to essential health care services. Moreover, the human health resources are heavily concentrated in urban centers, depriving rural areas of much needed human resources for health.

According to Bangladesh Health Watch report (BNHA 2011), 62% of medical doctors in Bangladesh are working in the private sector.

Communicable diseases are a major cause of death and disability in Bangladesh. While the prevalence of tuberculosis (TB) has declined substantially, Bangladesh still ranks among the top ten countries in the world with the highest TB burden. The disease is found primarily among the poor and least educated populations. Pneumonia and water-borne diseases also are widely prevalent. Pneumonia and other infections are major causes of death among young children.

The toll of non-communicable diseases - chronic diseases, cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and chronic respiratory diseases - is increasing in Bangladesh as the population becomes more urbanized. Cancer is the sixth leading cause of death in Bangladesh, accounting for more than 150,000 deaths annually.

Good governance is important in ensuring effective health care delivery, and that returns to investments in health are low, where governance issues are not addressed. Strengthening the health system through better management and organization and effective use of resources can improve health conditions and enhance the quality of health care delivery in Bangladesh. Furthermore, more research is needed on health system reforms.

Necessary steps should be taken to ensure the UHC by overcoming the challenges in the country's health sector.

To overcome the challenges in the health sector, a multi-sectoral holistic approach can be one of the important strategies. We have to take steps for utilizing traditional medicines such as Ayurveda and Unani for ensuring the UHC. Because, traditional medicines are cost-effective and easily available in our country.

Even western scientists are giving increasing attention to the traditional medicines. The ancient system has gained new dimension with standardized forms of formulations and adoption of modern manufacturing methods.

As we have scarcity of manpower in the sector, we can use personnel from the traditional sector. It is time to recognize the natural system of medicine and utilize its workforce.

If necessary steps are taken for recognition and improvement of the traditional system of medicine, there would be development in our health sector. Sri Lanka, India and Child derived benefits by utilizing this system.

The WHD is a moment to think about the country's health issue. It is hoped that the day's spirit would motivate us to take necessary steps for ensuring the UHC by giving focus on the traditional system.

(The author is Executive Director of Public Health Foundation of Bangladesh)No School for Menstruating Girls: Old ...ASEAN research agency forecasts strong two-year economic performance for Brunei

Xinhua, Bandar Seri Begawan :

Brunei is considered as one of the improving economies in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region in the next two years, according to local daily the Borneo Bulletin on Saturday, quoting the latest ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office (AMRO) report.

ASEAN+3 includes 10 ASEAN economies and three other large economies, namely China, Japan and South Korea. AMRO's "ASEAN+3 Regional Economic Outlook 2018" report said that Brunei is projected to post the strongest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth, which almost tripled from 0.6 percent in 2017 to 1.6 percent in 2018 and is expected to double to 3.4 percent in 2019.

The Brunei government said recently that the country's economy grew by 1.3 percent in 2017 after a 2.5 percent decline in 2016.

AMRO said after four years of contraction, Brunei's economy showed signs of improvement, driven by a recovery in the oil and gas sector and an expansion in investment. Between 2013 and 2016, the economy contracted as oil prices plummeted to their lowest level in a decade and oil production suffered from unexpected disruptions.Alleged student-on-student sexual molestation, beatings, harassment, demands for a person to kill themselves and suicide attempts -- these acts are taking place in Midland's public schools.

Midland Moms on a Mission believes the safety of our children should always be a top priority. We also believe there are people inside Midland ISD enabling crime and minimizing victims suffering.

What used to be called "bullying" is now criminal acts -- plain and simple. The lives of our children are being threatened every day. In almost all of these incidents, we believe there are district officials who have manipulated, intimidated, ignored or simply pretended nothing ever happened.

These crimes are taking place in kindergarten through 12th grade, and district officials are downplaying or going through ineffective investigations that dont appear in search of the truth. Parents have been repeatedly told that the investigations did not find enough evidence -- case closed. No punishment is given; no justice is served. Parents of these victims are completely lost about what to do. The process is not fair to the families impacted by bullying, and parents deserve more than thinking they can only throw up their hands and walk away.

It is time our community hears the victims. Midland Moms on a Mission demands to know why the district fails our children and has put their safety at risk. We spoke at an April board meeting about the suffering taking place, and this week, we will be heard again.

Midland Moms on a Mission will hold a protest at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday in front of MISD Central Office, 615 W. Missouri Ave. We will communicate with officials about the victims coming forward. We will say enough.

In holding this protest we hope to accomplish the following:

--complete change in procedure for parents to report "bullying;"

--punishment for administrators involved in ignoring the facts; and

--better communication with families impacted by bullying and other heinous acts.

Midland Moms on a Mission also is calling for an investigation into the districts actions when it comes to dealing with incidents taking place on campuses.

What we allow is what will continue. We beg this community to come stand with us. It is not enough to be compassionate. Midland residents must act; we must hold accountable those who have let this go on for far too long.

Our organization  Midland Moms on a Mission -- has stated from the beginning that there are far more good than bad. We have some of the most amazing teachers, counselors and principals. Our conversations with teachers lead us to believe some fear Midland can be the next Columbine." We can do everything right as parents, yet we fail them every day by trusting MISD to protect them. A safe school with a decent education is not a privilege; it's their right. In order to get this crisis recognized by authorities, we've reached out to many but have not made the progress we need. There is power in numbers, and we need everyone, so the media will take notice, thus bringing the severity of this crisis to the right people's attention.

You may choose to look the other way but you can never say again that you did not know.

We would appreciate your support.A man was shot early Sunday after an argument in an Alief parking lot, police said.

The shooting happened about 1:45 a.m. in the 12100 block of Sharpview, near the intersection of Kirkwood and Bellaire Boulevard.After days of media appearances intended to explain President Donald Trump's legal settlement with an adult-film star that only raised fresh questions about the payment, his new attorney Rudy Giuliani on Sunday said Trump still has confidence in him and believes the media blitz "all worked out."

"I'll give you the conclusion: We all feel pretty good that we've got everything kind of straightened out and we're setting the agenda," Giuliani, the former New York mayor who recently joined Trump's legal team, said in an interview with The Washington Post. Giuliani said he met with the president at Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia, to discuss developments and legal strategy.

"Everybody's reacting to us now and I feel good about that because that's what I came in to do," he said.

"We've made a deal this weekend: He stays focused on North Korea, Iran and China, and we stay focused on the case and we'll bother him when we have to," Giuliani said of his meeting with Trump.

Since last week, Giuliani has made various assertions about the $130,000 that Trump's lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid to Stormy Daniels, an adult-film star who said she had a relationship with Trump a decade before he won the presidency. On Friday, after Trump said that Giuliani needs to "get his facts straight" about the payment, Giuliani appeared to walk back some of his comments, saying he was still learning the facts of the case.

Trump and White House officials have also weighed in on the payment.

And after all of these media appearances and statements, the only thing that is clear is how little has been cleared up.

Giuliani began his media blitz last week on Fox News by saying that Trump had reimbursed Cohen for the payment to Daniels in 2016 in exchange for her silence. More interviews - and more claims - soon followed. Giuliani told The Washington Post that Trump repaid Cohen in 2017, which would predate Trump's assertion last month that he did not know about the Daniels payment or where Cohen got the money. During one of his follow-up appearances on Fox, Giuliani also seemed to link the payment to the looming 2016 election.

"My issue is getting up to speed on the facts here," Giuliani told George Stephanopoulos during an interview Sunday on ABC News' "This Week." "I'm about halfway there."

Giuliani's freewheeling remarks included commenting that it was possible Cohen paid off other women, assailing the special counsel probe investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, comparing former FBI Director James Comey to Judas and calling Daniels "opportunistic."

In a statement Friday, Giuliani said that Cohen's payment was made to resolve a "personal and false allegation" rather than protect Trump's campaign on the eve of the election.

Giuliani's comments on Sunday were notable for how much he said he still did not know on his fifth consecutive day of media interviews. During his ABC interview, Giuliani said that he did not know when Trump learned about the payment, when Trump discovered Daniels would take money to remain quiet about her allegations, and why Trump publicly denied knowing about a payment for which he had already reimbursed Cohen.

When asked by The Post if he was confident that Trump had no knowledge of the payments to Daniels during the campaign, Giuliani declined to directly answer, instead repeating his argument that no campaign finance laws were broken.

"The critical thing is, it wasn't a campaign finance violation," he said. "It was a personal thing, not something that should be looked at by a prosecutor."

Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis and an expert in legal ethics, said Giuliani's interview Sunday reminded her of a garden hose that was whipping around wildly because nobody had a handle on it yet: "Just erratic, unpredictable, aimless."

Still, she said, the appearances also made her wonder what Giuliani's goals were on television and whether he understood campaign finance law.

"When he starts on a matter and the matter's ongoing and he needs to get up to speed, yes, there's risk involved in making any statement," she said. "But what's even more striking to me is, I couldn't tell what he thought he was going to accomplish."

Experts have said the timing of the Daniels payment raises possible campaign finance issues, as does the fact that it was never revealed in financial disclosure forms. A watchdog group has filed complaints about the transaction with the Federal Election Commission and Justice Department.

Michael Avenatti, an attorney for Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, appeared on "This Week" after Giuliani and sharply dismissed the former mayor's claim that the payment had nothing to do with the campaign.

"This guy's all over the map over the last 72 hours on some very simple facts that should be very straightforward," Avenatti said. "I think it is obvious . . . to the American people that this is a coverup, that they are making it up as they go along. They don't know what to say because they've lost track of the truth."

Giuliani also said Sunday that Cohen is no longer Trump's attorney. Cohen did not respond to a message on Sunday regarding that claim or whether he had made payments to other women.

Trump, who has denied the affair, told reporters aboard Air Force One last month that he did not know about the payment to Daniels or where Cohen got the money to make the payment. After Giuliani's said Trump reimbursed Cohen, the president's Twitter account posted a statement saying Cohen was repaid through a monthly retainer.

Trump was asked Friday about his contrasting statements, and he denied changing his story, telling reporters to "take a look at what I said" in his remarks aboard Air Force One. He did not elaborate.

On Sunday, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said Trump's comments on Air Force One were actually him saying he did not know about the payment when it was made.

"I'm going to relay to you what the president has told me, which is the best I can do," Conway said in an interview on CNN's "State of the Union." "I asked the president what he meant. And he said, 'I didn't know about it when the payment occurred.' "

Conway denied that the White House has a problem with credibility, saying of Trump's remarks: "He spoke honestly. He said no, which refers to when the payment occurred."

The Post's Fact Checker has analyzed Trump's public statements since he took office and has found that, so far, he has made more than 3,000 false or misleading claims, an average of nearly 6.5 such claims per day.

In his interviews Sunday with The Post and ABC News, Giuliani made multiple unprompted criticisms of Daniels for her appearance the night before on NBC's "Saturday Night Live."

He also repeatedly sought to highlight on Sunday the comments made by T.S. Ellis, a federal judge who last week sharply questioned the special counsel's fraud case against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. Ellis said that the special counsel's team is only interested in getting information on Trump that could "lead to his prosecution or impeachment."

Giuliani called the judge's comments a "pretty serious blow," and he added in reference to Special Counsel Robert Mueller: "I feel bad for Bobby."

During his ABC interview, Giuliani insisted that Trump would not have to comply if Mueller subpoenas the president. He also suggested that it was possible Trump could invoke the Fifth Amendment if he sat down with Mueller's team, which is seeking to interview the president.

"We don't have to" comply with a subpoena, Giuliani said, a situation that could make its way to the Supreme Court if it is not resolved. "He's the president of the United States. We can assert the same privileges other presidents have."

Giuliani told The Post that Ellis' remarks "probably makes it much more defensible for [the president] not to be interviewed."Ireen Tany in Kolkata`s movie

Sheikh Arif Bulbon :

Popular face of the small screen Ireen Tany earlier acted for several times in the big screen. With the interest from the director for the first time she is going to work in a movie titled Maya in Kolkata. Shankar Ghosh will give direction of the film. He has confirmed that matter on Sunday.

Ireen Tany informed that shooting of Maya will start from May 9 in Digha, Kolkata. She will play in the title role of the movie. While sharing her feelings to work in Kolkatas movie for first time Tany told this correspondent, With the interest of its director I am going to act in film Maya. Director had interest to cast a Bangladeshi actress. So I sent him some photographs of mine. Then he decided to cast me finally. Now I am taking necessary preparation to work in the film. I am very much excited in this regard. I believe it will become a nice work.

Tany also informed that she has already finished shooting of Golam Mostafa Shimuls movie Lobon. Under same dirctors direction she has also acted in an Eid play titled Bhalo Korey Bashbo Bhalo Tomai. Fazlur Rahman Babu and Shyamol Mawla are her co-actors in this play.

Therefore, recently Ireen Tany has returned from Kushtia after finishing shooting of Salauddin Lavlus six-episode serial Chirokumar Mone Mone, which will be aired on Banglavision in Eid. Arfan Ahmed, Tahmina Sultana Mou, Anny Khan, Shyamol Mawla, among others, also acted with Tany in this play.

It is mentioned that Ireen Tany acted first movie was Badol Khondokers Bidrohi Padma. Recently she has finished shooting of Sabbir Mahmuds movie The Lonnie. Now she is regularly acting in Kochi Khondoker and Joy-Rubel directed serials Cinema Hall and Khandani Poribar respectively.

Israel will do what's needed to block Iranian aggression, sooner rather than later, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday.

"Nations that didn't act in time against murderous aggression against them paid a much higher price later on," said Netanyahu, who often invokes European powers' 1938 agreement to let Nazi Germany annex portions of Czechoslovakia. "We don't seek escalation, but are prepared for any scenario."

Frictions between Israel and Iran have escalated in the runup to President Donald Trump's decision this month whether to quit the Iran nuclear deal, and Netanyahu's comments reinforced concerns that the two Middle East powers might clash directly in Syria, Iran's client. Other Israeli officials have suggested that a withdrawal from the accord and renewed U.S. sanctions could either bring Iran back to the negotiating table with a weaker hand, or even lead to regime change.

Housing Minister Yoav Gallant, a security cabinet member and retired general, said that if the U.S. ratchets up pressure, Iran will eventually relent.

"The U.S. is still the largest economy in the world, and when the Americans decide that those who do business with Iran can't do business with America, countries will have to give up on doing business with Iran," Gallant said in an interview. "There need to be economic sanctions and eventually there will be new negotiations, sooner or later."

Israel considers Iran to be its most dangerous foe, and has repeatedly vowed to block it from building a nuclear bomb or establishing a permanent presence in Syria, where it is helping to prop up government forces. Last month, the Israeli military was accused of attacking Iranian targets in Syria twice, raising the prospect of fighting between their forces there.

As European signatories scramble to try to salvage the nuclear agreement, Israel has been urging Trump to jettison it unless it can be amended. At a widely publicized news conference last week, Netanyahu said Israel spirited half a ton of documents out of Iran proving it lied about the nature of its nuclear program, which Tehran claims is peaceful.

Israel is coordinating with intelligence agencies to review the material it took from the Iranian nuclear archive. So far only the U.S. has seen the material in its entirety, a senior Israeli official told reporters in Jerusalem, speaking anonymously due to the sensitivity of the matter.

The threat of sanctions gives Trump a strong hand to play, and he should keep up the pressure on Tehran until it caves, the senior Israeli official said. Israeli Intelligence Minister Israel Katz recently said that additional pressure on Iran could bring down the regime.

Trump has expressed contempt for the 2015 nuclear accord that offers Iran sanctions relief in return for halting its nuclear weapons program, and has threatened to walk away if a more stringent deal isn't agreed upon. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said his country has been preparing for months for the possibility that Trump will pull out, warning that the U.S. would ultimately regret such a decision.

"It's clear that friction between Iran and the U.S. can lead to a situation in which Iran decides to deploy Hezbollah against Israel," Housing Minister Gallant said. "That's their tool."

Netanyahu, speaking Sunday, characterized the agreement as fatally flawed because it fails to address potential weaponization of Iran's nuclear knowledge, imposing only temporary limits on uranium enrichment.

"I say that a deal that enables Iran to keep and hide all its nuclear weapons know-how is a terrible deal," Netanyahu told reporters. "It has to be either fully fixed or fully nixed."

Otherwise, he said, "you will end up with Iran with a nuclear arsenal in a very short time."

---

--With assistance from Alisa Odenheimer.On Sunday's "Face the Nation," Kim Darroch offered fans of the Iran deal reason to hope.

The British ambassador to the United States told host Margaret Brennan that he believes the 2015 accord will be saved.

President Donald Trump is famously opposed to the agreement, which offered Iran relief from major economic sanctions in exchange for a curb on nuclear programs. Trump has called it the worst deal in U.S. history, once suggesting it was so bad that "there has to be something else going on."

"Who would make that deal?" he asked in 2016.

Candidate Trump told voters he'd pull out of the agreement. As president, he has been slightly more measured. Last October, he officially disavowed the deal, though he stopped short of terminating it. Instead, he passed the buck to Congress, giving them the power to reimpose sanctions -- or not.

Now, though, he is considering whether to restore U.S. sanctions against the country. If that happens, it will put all of the treaty's signatories in a tricky position. It will also make it much harder to keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

By all accounts, Iran has complied with the deal. But Trump says the deal is far too weak to really constrain the country's nuclear ambitions. Among his concerns: The regulations on Iran expire at a certain point. These "sunset clauses" lift restrictions on some Iranian nuclear activities after a decade. The treaty does not prohibit the testing of ballistic missiles, which Iran has continued to do. The Trump administration has also criticized Iran for its support of militant groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas, arguing that the country is destabilizing the region.

On Sunday, Darroch said that Britain has some ideas for addressing Trump's concerns. "We think that we can find some language, produce some action that meets the president's concerns," he said, noting that his team was working closely with France and Germany, other advocates of the deal.

Darroch also told Brennan that Trump and British Prime Minister Theresa May spoke Saturday, and that Trump told May that "a final decision hasn't yet been taken." Darroch said he'd personally lobbied national security adviser John Bolton as well. (Bolton is no great fan of Iran, but has said he thinks the United States should stay in the accord for now.)

It's not clear exactly what those fixes will look like. In the past, European negotiators have said that there are opportunities to tweak the deal so that missile tests are limited and banned. They're also open to pushing Iran to agree to give inspectors unfettered access to Iranian military bases. It's unclear whether Iran would agree to those terms.

"We think it's a good deal," Darroch said. "We have been talking at senior official level to the administration with our French and German colleagues for several weeks now. We think we're making progress. We haven't got there yet. We have a few days left to see if we can find a way through."

Darroch's interview came just days before British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson flies to Washington for two days of talks with officials. His aim is to salvage the accord ahead of Trump's deadline Saturday. Last month, French President Emmanuel Macron made an impassioned case to Trump and in a talk to a joint session of Congress against scrapping the deal.

But on the last day of his visit, Macron told reporters that he didn't think he'd succeeded.

"My view is ... that he will get rid of this deal on his own, for domestic reasons," Macron said at the end of a three-day visit, according to the BBC.Two Alamo Colleges District board incumbents won re-election Saturday by comfortable margins, but a third won a new term by only a handful of votes and another was forced into a runoff, trailing his nearest challenger.

In District 5, James Hernandez, one of two challengers to incumbent Roberto Zarate, led the results with 1,067 votes to Zarates 855. Another challenger, Ramiro Nava, had 485 votes.

Hernandez said he worked to turn out more voters in his Edgewood Independent School District neighborhood.

FULL ELECTION RESULTS: Voters loud and clear on $850M Northside ISD bond decision

Im going to win, either tonight or in a couple of weeks, Hernandez said. I know my neighborhood best and Im going to work it. Im going to be on the ground getting those new voters out there.

Zarate said Hernandez was doing a good job and the campaign had been positive, but he felt great about his chances.

Just got to work a little bit harder, Zarate said.

Zarate said Fiesta, the citys Tricentennial Celebration, Cinco de Mayo and the Northside Independent School District bond election had taken some attention away from his race and he welcomed the increased focus a runoff would bring.

District 6 incumbent Gene Sprague defeated challenger Jacob Andrew Wong, 3,981 votes to 3,259.

Board Chairwoman Yvonne Katz, the District 7 incumbent, led by the largest margin, 3,318 votes against challenger David W. Fischers 1,852.

In District 9, incumbent Joe Jesse Sanchez won by just 72 votes, 2,132 to 2,060, against challenger Felix M. Grieder.

FULL ELECTION RESULTS: Final tally for all Bexar County races and issues

Sanchez said he expected the race to be close because of the diversity of District 9, which includes neighborhoods just north of downtown San Antonio as well as suburban cities in Northeast Bexar County.

Im very grateful for the support that I have received from the community, Sanchez said. I think its a win for the community. Its a win for the students.

Sanchez and Grieder congratulated each other and called the campaign clean and respectful.

Its vital that our citizens have the opportunity to have low-cost, quality education, and I wish him the best, Grieder said.

Katz, Sprague and Zarate are longtime incumbents who have occasionally drawn criticism for their support of Bruce Leslie, the polarizing chancellor of the community college district who is set to retire in September. They have also been praised for the Alamo Colleges increased student success metrics and for choosing Mike Flores, the president of Palo Alto College, to replace Leslie.

Some of the challengers accused the board of undermining faculty and employees, harming morale. Trustees recently ramped up advising to help students pick courses that transfer to their programs of study at four-year universities, and last year voters approved a $450 million bond.

The seats in play this year represent the northern and western parts of San Antonio and Bexar County. The District 9 race was a special election to fill the unexpired term of James Rindfuss, who died in August. Sanchez was appointed in November to fill the vacancy. That seat will be on the ballot again in two years.

Alia Malik is a San Antonio Express-News staff writer. Read more of her stories here. | amalik@express-news.net | @AliaAtSAENThe Mitchell Lake Audubon Center will celebrate the Year of the Bird with the Migratory Bird Fest, one of SA 300s partner events, on Saturday.

From 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., people who visit the center at 10750 Pleasanton Road will be able to participate in bird-themed games, nature walks and bird photo opportunities, and learn about birds from SeaWorld San Antonio experts. At 1 p.m., Last Chance Forever will have a bird of prey show.

There also will be food trucks and a sale of native bird-friendly plants and seeds.

The event honors World Migratory Bird Day, which occurs every second Saturday of May around the world. This year is also the centennial anniversary of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

Many people arent even aware of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, said Sara Beesley, center director. So this is an opportunity to bring attention to it and the importance of it, especially when its threatened by the current administration.

Beesley said the festival allows San Antonians to have a global impact by advocating locally and having fun at the same time. The activities on Saturday will engage, educate and entertain guests while promoting sustainable and bird-friendly communities. All exhibits and activities are free and the first 500 people will receive a free reusable water bottle from SAWS Conservation.

To commemorate 2018 as Year of the Bird, the National Audubon Society, National Geographic, BirdLife International and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology have partnered with more than 100 agencies and millions of people across the world.

Just 20 minutes from downtown San Antonio, the Mitchell Lake Audubon Center was founded in 2004. Its mission is connecting people to nature through conservation and community education focused on birds and their habitats.

The event is sponsored by Brooks, Bexar Audubon Society, H-E-B, the San Antonio Audubon Society, San Antonio Water System, Texas Public Radio and Texas A&M University-San Antonio.

For more information about the fest, call 210-628-1639 or go online at mitchelllake.audubon.org/migratory-bird-fest.

vtdavis@express-news.netLooking forward to Veerey Di Wedding: Soha Ali Khan

Actress and writer Soha Ali Khan said that she was looking forward for the release of sister-in-law Kareena Kapoor starrer Veerey Di Wedding. Soha Ali Khan made the remarks while interacting with the media during the launch of the Marie Claire Salon on Saturday.

Kareena is making a comeback in Shashanka Ghoshs Veerey Di Wedding after her pregnancy break. Talking about the movie, Soha said: I have seen the trailer and the songs. I had fun watching it. I like these kinds of films which we call chick flicks. Apart from Kareena, I also know other people in the film. I know Sonam (Kapoor), Shikha (Talsania) is very good friend of mine. I thought she really stood out in the trailer as well. I really like the song Tareefan. I am really looking forward to the films release.

Sohas first short film Sound Proof is in the official selection for the New York Indian Film Festival 2018. I am very excited. My film's director has gone to New York and he didn't take me along with him, she said.

Actually, they gave me an option to come to New York but now Inaaya is too small so, I couldnt go there. I am very excited for the film and I hope it will have good release in India as well and the audience would get the opportunity to watch it. Soha called motherhood difficult but also so much fun.

I always say that Inaaya is my number one project right now. She wakes up at 7:00am and sleeps around 7:30pm. Whenever she is awake, I make sure that I spend most of my time with her, said the actor.

She (Inaaya) changes three outfits in a day at morning, at lunch and in the evenings so, we experiment with her. We also experiment with her hairstyles. One day she wears a bow and another day, she wears hair band.A man was shot early Sunday morning on the East Side when he refused to hand over his money to a man who was attempting to rob him.

The victim was walking home from the store when a man approached him around 5:15 a.m. on the 1500 block of Hays Street and demanded all of his money, according to San Antonio police.Dozens of Texas city names defy conventional English phonics and trip the tongue of tourists and native Texans alike. A previous exercise of mispronunciations around the state elicited readers' chagrin and disbelief over such verbal idiosyncrasies.

The gallery above is a follow-up with contributions from readers who've heard their towns garbled from Jiba to Salinero, Bedias to Quiteque, as well as ones that should be simple and aren't, like Humble and Cross Plains.The majority of ex-security officials who participated in the just-ended Zanu PF primary elections were rejected by voters, an indication that the former soldiers are finding it tough to ease into civilian life.

Since the takeover of government last November, engineered by the military, and the subsequent elevation of President Emmerson Mnangagwa to his current post, former army bosses stepped into the political ring en-masse, disenchanted with how the Zanu PF leadership, under former president Robert Mugabe, had run into the ground what was once Africas most promising economy.

To make way for the ex-security officials, the Zanu PF politburo  the supreme decision-making organ of the ruling party in-between congresses  even waived some of the entry requirements for war veterans to enable them to participate in the primaries, which ran from April 29 to May 1.

But in what political analysts described as a vote of no confidence in the militarys encroachment into the political arena, most of the former soldiers and security chiefs were soundly pummelled by minnows and the more experienced Zanu PF politicians.

Those who were shut out by voters at the extended polls included retired major Max Zvidzai (Chirumhanzu-Zibagwe) and retired generals Elasto Madzingira and Clifford Mumbengegwi (Chivi North) who lost to fellow army counterpart, Mathias Tongofa.

In Chivi Central, another army officer Manasa Mahapa bit the dust, with the same fate befalling Denis Masomere  a retired lieutenant colonel, who lost to businessman Killer Zivhu.

In Gweru-Vungu, another retired colonel Tenias Shava received a baptism of fire and would have to wait for five more years to try his luck again.

There was also gnashing of teeth among retired officers from other security arms with Edmore Veterai  the former police assistant commissioner, who was the face of operation Murambatsvina in 2005  being among some of the prominent faces that fell by the wayside during the primary polls.

But not all men and women who used to wear military fatigues or were in the other arms of the security services were repudiated by the people.

In Chiredzi South, incumbent, Kalisto Gwanetsa, who is a retired brigadier-general won just as did former Central Intelligence Organisation director Albert Ngulube, who swept to victory in Beitbridge East.

As if they had sensed danger, top former generals who spearheaded Mugabes downfall after 37 years in power, opted for less competitive senatorial seats. The most notable figures being Vice President Constantino Chiwenga, minister of Lands and Rural Resettlement Perrance Shiri, and the minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Sibusiso Moyo.

Analysts canvassed by the Daily News said while those accustomed to life in the barracks were used to giving orders, those who chose to swap their military fatigues for politics were finding it difficult to adjust to life as career politicians.

Respected University of Zimbabwe lecturer Eldred Masunungure said soldiers cannot stand against politicians who have acquired the skill of bargaining and even deceiving.

Right now we have two sides, the military and political but the military come short of delivery because they are in the wrong place. They are military actors in a political arena, some fell short because they do not have the skills to engage, they just makes orders and that is where they fell, said Masunungure.

Former minister of Youths and Mugabes nephew Patrick Zhuwao wrote an opinion piece yesterday tracing the defeat of most Zanu PF heavyweights at the reversal of the land reform programme, revision of the Indigenisation Act and an attempt to cull thousands of national youth service (NYS) graduates.

The military junta has not taken into account the 80 000 NYS graduates who are firm believers of generational renewal and economic empowerment. The military junta has mistakenly sought to expunge the ministry responsible for the youth and economic empowerment. The military junta has sought to reverse the land reform programme. The military junta is negating the ideological premise that formed the core of the NYS orientation programme, said Zhuwao

Although the losing heavyweights are crying foul even appealing to the politburo  in which they are members  insiders said if the will of the people is reversed then there would be another bhora musango  the 2008 scenario where candidates sabotaged Mugabe, resulting in him losing to former prime minister, the late Morgan Tsvangirai.

Academic and researcher Ibbo Mandaza said Mnangagwa and his military allies misread the peoples mood last November as an endorsement to their rule.

Mnangagwa has no chance in the coming elections. People did not want only Mugabe to go but all of them to go. There is no difference between Mugabe and Mnangagwa and people want the whole lot to go, people who have been supporting Mugabe are Chiwenga, the military and Mnangagwa and people are demonstrating their dislike of the old guard, said Mandaza.

With elections set for July this year and fault lines already emerging between civilians and the military guard, political analyst Maxwell Saungweme said the writing is clearly on the wall, no one wants military rule.

These primaries also clearly show that people made it clear in November 2017 that they did not want Mugabe anymore. But by supporting the ouster of Mugabe, they did not in the same token state what government they wanted. They did not aver that they wanted military rule. I hope the outcome of Zanu PF primaries sends a clear signal to securocrats that some Zimbabweans appreciated soldiers removing Mugabe, but did not approve of replacing Mugabe by a military junta, said Saungweme.

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Related Zimbabwe Latest NewsPresident Emmerson Mnangagwas advisor Chris Mutsvangwa has blamed Temba Mliswa for his Zanu PF primary election loss in Norton.

Mutsvangwa, who was hammered by Langton Mutendereki, alleged Mliswa wanted a weak candidate which he can defeat in the National Assembly polls and also alleged he bribed police details, who were returning officers.

The elections were just so disorganised, I am sorry and there was too much infiltration by the G40, Mutsvangwa told journalists at a breakfast meeting organised by Misa-Zimbabwe Chapter to mark World Press Freedom Day.

He has infiltrated the party because he is gamatox and he is working with the police, with Webster Shamhu, because they have revenge. So you see again, I am going to make sure that the Norton electorate is not shortchanged because that is democracy. Between my duty to Zanu PF and my duty to the Norton electorate, my duty is to the electorate, because they are supreme.

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Related Zimbabwe Latest News- Another 111 Nigerian migrants in Libya are set to return on Thursday, May 3

- About 7,720 stranded Nigerians in Libya have been rescued so far by the International Organization for Migration

One hundred and eleven Nigerian migrants still in Libya are expected to return home on Thursday, May 3, according to Ambassador Ketil Karlsen, the Head of European Union (EU) Delegation to Nigeria and ECOWAS.

Karlsen said no less than 7,720 Nigerians have been repartraited from Libya, Guardian reports.

He said: It is vital for us that the return is done in an orderly manner where the returnees are giving opportunity to start life again.

READ ALSO: 2019: Obasanjo, Atiku reunite in Lagos (photos)

We are partnering with IOM to give them funding and vocational training to enable them to start something.

"We are also working on increasing the European investments in Nigeria as part of solution to the challenge. We recognise Nigerian youths contribution everywhere in the world.

We are trying to redouble access to students visa and access to students exchange programme; this is the kind of partnership we want to have."

PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 news app

Legit.ng earlier reported that some Libya returnees on Tuesday, April 24, were at the Edo state government house in Benin City to protest the management of their stipend accounts by financial institutions where their accounts are domiciled, and related issues.

The protest was peaceful and the issues raised were largely administrative such as N1,100 deduction for Automated Teller Machine card, maintenance fee and sundry issues.

Nigerians speak on slavery in Libya - on Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit- There Nigerian Air Force (NAF) 54th anniversary wass filled with so many firsts

- The anniversary witnessed the a first ever historical photo gallery of the NAF

- Photos displayed showed the gradual development of the NAF from its inception to date

The Nigerian Air Force (NAF) on Friday, May 4, displayed a historical photo gallery display at the NAF Base Kaduna as part of activities marking the 2018 NAF day celebrations, which is also the 54th anniversary of the Service.

According to a statement by the NAF spokesman, Air Vice Marshal Olatokunbo Adesanya, the NAF historical photo gallery was aimed at depicting a progression of the evolvement of the NAF from infancy to a formidable Air Force capable of projecting air power not only in Nigeria but also beyond the shores of the country.

The CAS taking the guest of honour and other prominent Nigerians round the photo gallery.

READ ALSO: 54th anniversary: Nigerian Air Force wings 9 engineering/armament personnel

In addition, a static display of aircraft weaponry as well as NAF Research and Development efforts was held to show how the NAF has continued to find innovative solutions to some of its technological challenges in the past few years.

Speaking during the historical photo gallery display, the guest of honour, the minister of interior, Lieutenant General Abdulrahman Dambazau (rtd), who was represented by the permanent secretary in the ministry, Dr Bello Umar, lauded the NAF for initiating the historic photo gallery, noting that it would serve as a source of inspiration to young Nigerians.

A Nigerian Air Force personnel admires a historical photo at the gallery. Photo credit: Sodiq Adelakun

The gallery would also serve as a reminder of the enormous sacrifices of those who have gone before us and inspire those serving and intending to serve the nation to greater heights, he added.

Dr Umar also stated that the NAF had greatly evolved for the past 5 decades and had become a model for other Air Forces in Africa. He therefore congratulated the Chief of the Air Staff (CAS), Air Marshal Sadique Abubakar, for his innovative leadership and efforts in Research and Development, which had helped to position the NAF into a highly efficient Air Force in Africa.

Nigerians admire the historical photo gallery display at the NAF Base Kaduna.

Earlier in his welcome address, the CAS pointed out that the historical photo gallery became necessary to showcase the gallantry of NAF pilots and other personnel and also depict the huge transformation the NAF had undergone in the last 54 years.

He equally noted that the Service had taken part in several operations in defence of Nigeria's territorial integrity. The CAS recalled with nostalgia how the NAF, barely 2 years after its establishment meritoriously participated in the Nigerian Civil War.

The CAS also enumerated how the NAF had participated effectively in troops airlift, logistics resupply, medical evacuation, close air support and interdiction missions during several operations since then, in support of Nigerias aspirations.

This historic photo gallery is therefore intended to remind Nus of how far we have come, appreciate the contributions of our heroes past and challenge us to continue to press forward and give our best to the nation and to the Service, he said.

Later in the day, the NAF signed and renewed of Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) and between the Service and 20 tertiary institutions, in line with the current NAF leadership efforts at making the Service more self-reliant.

In his address, the Chief of Standards and Evaluation, AVM Kingsley Lar reiterated the commitment of the NAF towards finding solutions to most of its technological challenges by continuing with the strategic partnership with relevant Ministries Departments and Agencies of government.

The Nigerian Air Force team and one of the universitires sign the MoU as others look on.

He thanked the institutions for their continuous support, which had brought about various innovations and solutions to many of the NAFs technical challenges.

In their goodwill messages, Vice Chancellors and representatives of the various tertiary institutions lauded the efforts of the current NAF leadership at bridging the gap between the gown and the town, noting that it had gone a long way in optimizing the abundant talents in Nigerias academic institutions with attendant huge cost savings for the nation.

The CAS and other senior officers pose for a photograph with the representatives of the Universities.

READ ALSO: Nigerian Air Force unveils two MI-35M helicopter gunships

Awards were later presented by the CAS to deserving institutions at a gala night later in the evening.

Nigerian Air Force winged 10 flying officers - on Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit Newspaper- The APC national chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, has secured the support of some top members of the party in the battle to retain his chairmanship

- Not less than four out of the six south-south states have firmly stood behind Oyegun for the national chairmanship office of the ruling party

- However, Oyegun advised his supporters not to relax but fight for victory till the end

There were indications on Saturday, May 5 that the incumbent national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, might have crossed a major hurdle in the battle against Adams Oshiomhole to keep his position.

This was following the fact that at least four out of the six south-south states have firmly stood behind Oyegun for the national chairmanship office of the ruling party.

READ ALSO: Boko Haram members will leave the forests and surrender - Hajiya Aisha Wakil reveals

Leadership reported that apart from Edo and Delta states who are supporting Oshiomhole, members in the remaining state chapters of the party in the geo-political zone have separated themselves from the ex-governor who is backed by the the Bola Ahmed Tinubu camp and threw their weight behind the incumbent leader.

The party chairmen of state chapters in the zone who openly declared their support for Oyegun are as follows: Chief Davies Ikanya (Rivers), Deacon Joseph Fafi (Bayelsa), Etim John (Cross River) and AmaduAttai (Akwa Ibom).

Added to this, the deputy national secretary of the party, Hon.Victor Giadom, who is from the zone have indicated his interest to back the party chairmen.

However, Oyegun urged his supporters not to rest on their oars under the delusion of belonging to the ruling party, adding that the 2019 elections will be quite difficult.

Oyegun said: I am passing the buck over to you today. At the end of this exercise, I want to see a reunited APC under whatever leadership your exercise brings up. We have a tough election ahead of us and we must prime ourselves for that election.

"We must not cuddle ourselves with any false sense of being the party in power. Our population today is much more aware of their rights than they have ever been before. So, as you proceed, please ensure that all these views and opinions are brought together into a one United APC.

The task that you have undertaken to perform is a heavy and tough one. The APC is known, in spite of induced controversies, for the cleanest primaries and congresses. Our last presidential primary was by all account one of the best ever held and I dare say anywhere.

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It was a convention that was watched worldwide and you are supposed to repeat the feat. I have no doubt that this one, given the controversies that have preceded it, will also be a most watched convention. So, you have the task of producing a convention that is free, fair and provide a level playing field for anybody who wants to aspire to any position.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng reported that Oyegun on Sunday, February 25, was passed a vote of confidence by 20 governors on the partys platform.

The governors reportedly endorsed the party chairman, at a meeting. They also urged the partys national leader, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to reconcile any difference he has with Odigie-Oyegun.

APC is the worst party in Nigeria, I regret being a member - On Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit- A Nigerian lady has taken to social media to narrate how another girl stole her boyfriend from her

- According to her, the lady in question did it all in a bid to teach her a lesson

- She urged people to learn to appreciate what they have before it's too late

Relationships are not known without its problems and why some people seem to have a good grip on the whole idea of dating, others however, aren't so lucky. A Nigerian girl identified by her Facebook username as Wf Quinn Jacquees has taken to the platform to share her story.

According to her post, she lost her boyfriend to another girl who had set out to revenge simply because she was rude to her. She revealed that although she was tempted to go sleep with the girl's main boyfriend but she decided to be the classy one.

She wrote on Facebook: Okay now everyone's in bed let me tell my story by moonlight...... A true life story. So this is what happened to Me like a year ago. How time flies I look back at it and I laugh a little louder. There was this slay queen on Facebook, we weren't much of friends and then one day I mistakenly tagged her in one of my posts. I never ever do that. Then people kept commenting on the post "cute" sweet"dope"beautiful" etc and the slay mama inboxed me and told me to try and stop the comments that they were disturbing her. Too many notifications. I smiled and told her to unlike and untag herself if she wanted to stop getting notifications on the post

READ ALSO: Gloria Bamiloye gives reasons why Christian women should not wear trousers, says it's not a sin if they do

She got mad, unfriend me well I wasn't bothered cos she wasn't paying my bills nor house rent or school fees. I never knew she vowed to pay me back in double folds,to get to my boyfriend. and teach me a lesson wow. And the hoe succeeded I woke up one day and found out that she was going out with my broke boyfriend . I was mad I wanted to go find her bf too f*ck him, twerk on his d*ck, give him a blow job and rub it all in her face that I can do better but then something stopped me. im not just that kind of b*tch. I'm like even b*tches got class! And I let them have fun funny enough the dude never had s*x with me I was glad for that so am not his ex

After some months the slay Quinns boyfriend started chasing after me I knew he was up to something maybe pay back to the girl too. it was a perfect opportunity for me to pay back as well but I rejected it and stayed cool.she started the relationship with my ex with s*x in the club and all. Well they seemed happy until after some months new cloth d sweet to wear but once it's old you abandon it. And that's what he did.well the slay mama f*cked up just cos of revenge cos her boyfriend used to pay her house rent and all but then she left him for my broke boyfriend not all that glitters is gold. But well I later found someone I really loved and he's worth it

READ ALSO: Motivational speaker reveals how a lady lost a job before her interview due to how she communicated in a chat

Plus I'm grateful to her for bringing her boyfriend my way he's a really nice person. He knows am an ice cream fan and he gets it for me all the time. We're super cool friends.

Why am I telling y'all this?? Learn to appreciate what you have learn to forgive for that's why we're humans and not angels. We all have flaws. If we learn to tolerate each other we'll be happier. vengeance is for God do not do his job!

Learn b*tch what rock my boat may sink your ship!"

See post below:

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Why do Single ladies prefer to date married men? (Nigerian Street Interview) | Legit.ng TV

Source: LegitThe All Progressives Congress (APC) congresses which took place on Saturday, May 5 across the country has been described by President Muhammadu Buhari as a sign the party's constitution is supreme; he also said the events show Nigerians' belief in democracy

President Muhammadu Buhari on Saturday, May 5 reacted to the generally peaceful manner in which the All Progressives Congress (APC) congresses took place across the country.

The president expressed his joy over the conduct of people at the events. He said: "The APC ward congresses today are a demonstration of our firm belief in the ideals of democracy, and the supremacy of the partys constitution.

READ ALSO: Updated: Violence rocks Ekiti APC governorship primaries, exercise stalled

"Also a reminder that politics should be driven, not by selfish ambition, but by a desire to serve the people and improve their lives.

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"I am not in politics for fun, frivolity or to amass wealth. I have always been driven by a deep sense of commitment to make a difference to the lives of our people. And my decision to seek a second term in office is informed by this passion to truly serve Nigeria and Nigerians.

Legit.ng earlier reported that in a statement signed by Malam Garba Shehu, one of his spokespersons, Buhari spoke at the on-going ward congress of the APC held at Bayagida Model Primary School in Daura.

In the statement, the president also maintained that the passion to serve and see real changes in the lives of Nigerians informed his choice to join partisan politics in the first place, and this, he said, inspired him to contest elections in 2003, 2007, 2011 and 2015.

Also, Legit.ng reported that Buhari urged the party executives elected in his Sarkin Yara A electoral ward to discharge their responsibilities with fear of God and in accordance with the party constitution.

President Buhari on 2019 presidential election: will you vote for him? | Legit.ng TV

Source: LegitPak Interior Minister shot at in election rally

Al Jazeera News, Islamabad :

Pakistani Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal has been wounded after being shot in the shoulder by an unidentified attacker at an election rally in central Punjab province, according to officials.

Iqbal was shot on Sunday while sitting in his vehicle after having addressed the crowd gathered in his native Narowal district, Federal Minister Talal Chaudhry told local TV station Geo News.

Iqbal's son Ahmad, also speaking to Geo News, said the interior minister was out of immediate danger.

"He is being treated at the district headquarters hospital in Narowal. He is conscious and out of danger," said Ahmad Iqbal.

Television footage showed a prone Iqbal being wheeled into a government-run hospital following the attack.

Chaudhry said that at least one man had been arrested at the scene of the attack, and that investigations were ongoing.

Pakistani Prime Shahid Khaqan Abbasi's office issued a statement condemning the attack.

"The prime minister has called for immediate report into the incident from IG Police Punjab."

Iqbal's ruling PML-N party will complete its five-year tenure in government later this month, with the South Asian country due to hold a general parliamentary election in July.The convoy of the Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General TY Buratai was intercepted by armed bandits/armed robbers at midnight of Saturday, May 5, while on a routine tour of operational areas by the Nigerian Army to curtail the activities of evil men across the country.

The incident reportedly took place along Numan - Yola Road at about 11.30 pm on Saturday, May 5.

READ ALSO: What enraged subjects did to Emir Al-Makura in Nasarawa

Four of the armed robbers were arrested with 3 Dane guns, machetes and charms. The bandits who mounted roadblock where the COAS convoy ran into were reportedly on their daily operation of attacking innocent Nigerians.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng had previously reported that officers and men of the Nigerian Army were warned by Buratai against using social media to air their grievances or discussing operational strategies which could be injurious to the country's national security.

Buratai issued the warning while speaking during an Officers Office Management and Documents Security Workshop at the command officers mess in Abuja on Wednesday, May 2.

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The army boss was represented by the chief of policy and plans, Major General Rasheed Yusuf. He stated that the army has well-established channels to address complaints, adding that resorting to social media to air grievances is highly prohibited.

TY Danjuma, Nigerian army and the herdsmen crisis | on Legit.ng TV

Source: LegitThe most anticipated award of the year which is the 12th edition of the Headies Music Awards held on Saturday, May 5.

The event which took place at the Eko Convention Centre, Victoria Island Lagos was glamorous with top celebrities and dignitaries from all works of life in attendance

Wizkid, beautiful songstress Simi and the Omo Baba Olowo himself Davido were the biggest winners of the night.

READ ALSO: Davido celebrates Chiomas birthday with a new song

Wizkid won four awards - Headies Viewers Choice Award (Come Closer), Best Music Video (Come Closer), Best RnB/Pop Album (Sounds From the Other Side), and Best Collabo, for his feature in Tiwa Savages Ma Lo.

Simi on her part grabbed the Best RnB Single for Smile for Me, the Best Recording of the Year for Joromi, and her album - Simisola - won the Album of the Year.

Davidos IF won the Best Pop Single and Song of the Year categories, and was also named the Artiste of the Year.

Also DMW artist Mayorkun won the Next Rated award of the year and was handed over his car keys.

READ ALSO: BBNaija: Miracle receives his N45m worth of prizes

See full list of winners below:

Rookie of the Year

TENI

Best Rap Single

You Rappers Should Fix up your Life  M.I

Best Street Hop

Penalty  Small Doctor

Best Pop Single

IF  Davido

Best RnB Single

Smile for Me  Simi

Lyricist on the Roll

You Rappers Should Fix up your Lives  M.I

Best Performer

Yemi Alade

Producer of the Year

Kiddominant

Best Collabo

Ma Lo  Tiwa Savage feat. Wizkid

Best Reggae/Dancehall Single

Holy Holy  2Baba

Best Recording of the Year

Joromi  Simi

Hip Hop World Revelation

Reekado Banks

Next Rated

Mayorkun

Best Alternative Song

Fun mi lo wo mi  Aramide feat. Sound Sultan & Koker

African Artiste of the Year

Nasty C

Headies Viewers Choice

Come Closer  Wizkid

Best Music Video

Come Closer  Wizkid. Directed by Daps

Best Vocal Performance (Female)

Butterflies  Omawumi

Best Vocal Performance (Male)

Folashade  Praiz

Best RnB/Pop Album

Sounds from the Other Side  Wizkid

Best Rap Album

El Hadj  Reminisce

Song of the Year

IF  Davido

Album of the Year

Simisola  Simi

Artiste of the Year

Davido

Special Recognition Award

Kaffy

Headies Hall of Fame

Chris Ubosi

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Exclusive Interview: Falz talks about lover, plans to do new movie in 2018 | Star Chat on Legit.ng TV.

Source: Legit.ngBig Brother Naija finalists and partners Tobi and Alex are just too hot together and many believe they they have more to their chemistry.

The Double Wahala themed TV reality show has ended since Sunday, April 22, but the couples who met on the show are still carrying on giving us couple goal.

BBNaija most celebrated partner, Tolex, Tobi and Alex; attended the 12th edition of Headies held on Saturday, May 5, and they left many drooling over their bond and their outfits.

While their fans wants things to happen between the two ex-housemates, both are yet to come up with the real feelings they have for each other.

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Jeremiah Ogbodo of Swanky Signature styled Tobi and Alex in black and gold outfit.

READ ALSO: Headies 2018: Wizkid, Simi, Davido win big | Full list of winners

While Alex was decked out in all-black sheer dress, Tobi looked suave in a gold-and-black a bespoke suit.

Prior the event, Tobi had his signature haircut and that helps accentuate his handsomeness on the red carpet.

Legit.ng had earlier reported how Tobi and Alex stormed Abuja in matching outfit and shoes. They also visited the Vice President Osinbajo's daughter Kiki at her Glam'd Africa beauty palour where they danced with her.

BBNaija Finale 2018: Nigerians share their thoughts on Cee-C, Miracle - Street Gist| Legit.ng TV

Source: LegitLekki Palm City Estate, Ajah, reportedly witnessed commotion after some alleged soldiers mercilessly brutalised some tenants living in the Estate for asking their landlord, identified as Majuka Nnamdi Emmanuel, to refund their money.

An unconfirmed report by Gistreel said one of the tenants had demanded that the N1.3million he paid for the house rent be refunded after some armed robbers attacked the house and carted away valuables.

But Majuka, the landlord, allegedly refused and said that he can only refund the money only if someone else pays for the house.

READ ALSO: What enraged subjects did to Emir Al-Makura in Nasarawa

Arguments erupted as other tenants joined to ask for their money. However, the Landlord allegedly hired some hefty soldiers the following morning and woke the tenants up with heavy flogging.

They were allegedly beaten to the extent that one of them even fainted and was rushed to a nearby hospital.

The landlord, Majuka Nnamdi Emmanuel, who allegedly hired soldiers to beat his tenants for asking him to refund their money. Credit: Gistreel

One of the tenants allegedly brutalised by soldiers hired by the landlord. Credit: Gistreel

Another picture showing how the alleged soldiers mercilessly flogged the tenants. Credit: Gistreel

Legit.ng previously reported that Kayla Jenkins also known as Okaylaaa who is a popular Instagram celebrity was called out by her former landlord over the state in which she left the apartment.

The landlord and his wife identified as Paul and Paula Hopwood, rented the property in Prestwich, just outside of Manchester, to 24-year-old Okaylaa.

However, they claimed that she and her flat mate racked up rent arrears amounting to 9,500, forcing the couple to go to court seeking an eviction order.

The couple who were interviewed on a popular British television show, Bad Tenants Rogue Landlords, revealed that she owed them rent running into thousands of pounds.

Would you go into business with a liar or a thief? on Legit.ng TV:

Source: LegitBarely one week after the massacre of local miners at Janruwa village, in Birnin-Gwari local government area of Kaduna state, 27 people were killed in another attack in Gwaska village on Saturday, May 5.

Daily Trust reported that armed bandits from neighbouring Zamfara state, encircled Gwaska up to Kuiga village around 2.30pm on Saturday, May 5 shooting sporadically and killing people mostly children.

The bandits reportedly burnt down the village of about 3,000 inhabitants and survivors mostly women are taking refuge at Doka district in the area.

READ ALSO: What enraged subjects did to Emir Al-Makura in Nasarawa

Members of the local government under the umbrella of the Birnin Gwari Vanguards for Peace and Good Governace said: "Most of those killed are volunteers that tried to defend the village and children that cannot escape the onslaught.

"The vigilantes informed us that the casualties will be more but promised to mobilized tomorrow for evacuation of more casualties.

"We would continue to appeal to authorities to take urgent steps to forestall further attacks and extinction of communities in Birnin-Gwari local government area of Kaduna state."

Daily Trust stated that a reliable source who pleaded for anonymity for fear of being attacked confirmed the development.

He said: "The Gunmen are from Zamfara state axis attacking and shooting people mostly children. They also completely burnt down many houses in Gwaska village where they spent over three hours.

"The survivors escaped to Doka village and the injured ones have been taken to Birini Gwari hospital."

The police public relations officer, ASP Mukhtar Aliyu, reportedly did not answer his call at the time this report was filed.

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Legit.ng previously reported that the convoy of the Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General TY Buratai was intercepted by armed bandits/armed robbers at midnight of Saturday, May 5, while on a routine tour of operational areas by the Nigerian Army to curtail the activities of evil men across the country.

The incident reportedly took place along Numan - Yola Road at about 11.30 pm on Saturday, May 5.

Four of the armed robbers were arrested with 3 Dane guns, machetes and charms. The bandits who mounted roadblock where the COAS convoy ran into were reportedly on their daily operation of attacking innocent Nigerians.

TY Danjuma, Nigerian army and the herdsmen crisis | on Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit.ng News- NNPC has disowned a recruitment advert trending on social media

- The corporation said it is not carrying out any recruitment exercise now and will advertise its vacancies in the dailies when it is recruiting

- It urged members of the public to be wary of the scam

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has disowned a recruitment advertisement currently trending in the social media.

The advertisement, set in NNPCs corporate colour with its logo, invites candidates with background in Sciences, Engineering, Business/Finance, Social Sciences, Arts/Humanities as well as Medical/Health Sciences to apply, giving required educational attainments of prospects to include: Masters degree, Bachelors degree, Higher National Diploma (HND) and National Diploma.

Describing the advertisement as phantom in a statement made available to Legit.ng, Ndu Ughamadu, the general manager public affairs of the corporation, called on unsuspecting members of the public to be wary of the scam.

READ ALSO: Breaking: Armed bandits reportedly kill 27 in Birnin Gwari

NNPC advised members of the public to disregard any announcement of recruitment or invitation to recruitment interview appearing in the social media, saying the corporation was not carrying out any recruitment exercise now.

The corporation reminded job seekers to note the antics of scammers who deploy such communication strategies as text messages, vacancy announcements on social media platforms as well as forged letters inviting job seekers for non-existing job interviews with a view to extorting money from them.

NNPC cautioned that any applicant who entertained such invitations would have himself or herself to blame, encouraging those who had already fallen victims to volunteer information to the law enforcement agencies.

The corporation stated that as equal opportunities going concern, it would, as usual, advertise vacancies in the corporation through the national dailies.

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Meanwhile, Legit.ng had previously reported that Isiaka Abdulrazaq, the chief financial officer (CFO) of the NNPC said that the introduction of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) in August, 2015 reduced the number of accounts managed by the corporation from over 2000 to less than 200.

The TSA, which is a centralised federal government revenue account kept by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), was proposed and only partially implemented in 2012 but was effected fully by the Buhari-led administration in 2015.

Is it really difficult to get a job in Nigeria? - on Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit- Farida Waziri, ex-chair of EFCC commended Magu for completing the commission office complex project

- She noted that she was the one who initiated the project but Magu actualised it

- Waziri also commended the Buhari-led administration for completing projects started by previous administrations

A former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Farida Waziri, has expressed joy at the completion of the N24 billion office of the commission in Abuja.

Waziri who initiated the project during her tenure said on Saturday, May 5, that she was pleasantly shocked by the ability of the acting chairman of the anti-graft agency, Ibrahim Magu to bring the plan to fruition.

Magu, according to her, has shown an example of why continuity is necessary in governance in Nigeria, the Nation reports.

READ ALSO: Nigeria police go tough; say new recruits must write JAMB exams before enlistment

Speaking during a visit to the 10-storey complex, Waziri said: My first reaction was that of shock and excitement.

Shock, because when we went to lay the foundation stone, it was a total bush that was there. There was no single building in that area and we had a lot of canopies. This edifice standing is so beautiful.

I have not been to Trump Tower but it looks like Trump Tower to me.

Somebody asked me: Is that EFCC headquarters? He said he thought it was an oil company and I said no, it is EFCC headquarters.

So I was so happy and I felt so proud that I thought about the project. And also I didnt just think about it but I took positive steps to initiate it.

Waziri said if successive administrations in the country could embrace continuity like President Muhammadu Buharis government has done, Nigeria would be better off.

She added: I had the vision and I will say Magu actualised it and that is how it should be in a country like Nigeria. There should be continuity in government. It should not be that when someone starts something, you come in and because you didnt start it, you trample on it and say it is not good enough.

It is happening every day in our lives and in this country especially at state levels. A governor comes up with a project, another will dismantle it.

The EFCC on Thursday, May 3, had a test-run management meeting at the complex ahead of its inauguration by President Buhari.

Waziri initiated the project as a result of congestion at the present headquarters of the agency in Wuse II, Abuja.

Following a memo presented by a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Mr. Yayale Ahmed, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) on November 24, 2010, approved N18b for the construction of the new 10-Storey building to house the Headquarters of the EFCC.

It was gathered that a poor timeline for the release of funds delayed the completion of the project leading to a variation of the contract sum by the construction giant, Julius Berger Plc.

The EFCC acting chairman, Magu said he was excited that the new headquarters is ready for use.

He added: The federal government has spent over N24billion to build. But I will later crosscheck to give you the exact figure.

I thank Mr. President for according this project a priority. It is part of his commitment to the anti-graft war. This is a legacy project which many generations will be proud of.

No leader in Africa has provided a conducive environment for an anti-corruption agency like President Buhari has done.

We have also received support from ministers and all MDAs on the release of funds and putting the necessary infrastructure in place.

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This commission is grateful to the National Assembly for their interest in the project. Many of these leaders including Speaker Yakubu Dogara, the deputy Senate president, Ike Ekweremadu, the chairmen and members of all the committees on anti-corruption had always visited the site to monitor the progress of work. It shows that if we are determined, we can all be on the same page in this war against corruption. It is not a personal thing at all.

Legit.ng previously reported that the EFCC, on Thursday, May 3, arrested Owolabi Kayode Samuel, Esther Olubukola Mate and Abimbola David-Orugun and arraigned them before Justice Hakeem Oshodi of the Lagos state high court for misappropriating N4.576m.

The accused, identified as staff of Hope Worldwide Foundation, a Non-Government Organisation (NGO), taking care of HIV/AIDS patients, were arraigned alongside Cumulative Ventures Limited and Continental Best Buys Limited.

The first prosecution witness, Abasiekong Udobang, the programme manager of MTN Nigeria, informed the court how the suspects misappropriated funds meant for the treatment of people with the disease and the less-privileged in the country.

The EFCC stage a walk against corruption - On Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit- Dr Anthony Sani, secretary-general of the Arewa Consultative Forum says the group cannot endorse Buhari,

- He also claimed that the non partisanship of the group is the reason for this

- Sani noted that the ACF caters for all northerners irrespective of party affiliations

Secretary-general of the Arewa Consultative Forum, Dr Anthony Sani has disclosed that the group cannot endorse President Muhammadu Buhari given its status as a non partisan group that caters for all people of the north, irrespective of political affiliations.

Sani who disclosed this during an interview with Punch also claimed that the ACF did not participate in a summit which purportedly passed a vote of no confidence on Buhari.

READ ALSO: N24b office complex: I was pleasantly shocked by Magu - Ex-EFCC chair Waziri

"ACF did not take part in the summit which you claim passed a vote of no confidence in President Buhari. Those who organised the summit exercised their democratic right to association and opinion.

"You have included ACF as part of those who passed the vote of no confidence in the President just because two members wrote their status as coming from ACF, but they did not attend the summit as representatives of ACF. They did so in their individual capacity. That explains why ACF had to put the record straight to the effect that ACF did not participate in the summit and so cannot be expected to own the outcome," he said.

When asked if the ACF will endorse Buhari as the candidate of the north, Sani says the group can only present a list of qualities in candidates.

"ACF cannot be expected to be ahead of political parties whose constitutional roles include presentation of presidential candidates. To do otherwise is not how the platform, which comprises members from different political parties, operates.

"We normally present a list of qualities which voters should look out for in good leaders in order to help them to make informed decisions on the day of elections. That has been our approach since ACF is not partisan group.

Going further, he gave reasons why the body cannot endorse any candidate for that matter.

"I have told you that it is not the place of ACF to endorse candidates on behalf of political parties considering the fact that the platform is not partisan; it comprises members from different political parties.

"I hope you do not want ACF to play the roles of political parties whose briefs include presentation of candidates for elections. What is more, there is still one more year to go for a fair and realistic assessment of performance of the (incumbent) regime."

Meanwhile, Legit.ng had reported that Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) dissociated itself from a communique passing a vote of no confidence in President Muhammadu Buhari and other northern politicians.

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The Punch reports that a key member of the forum and leader of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF), Prof. Ango Abdullahi, and 17 other northern groups at a summit on Saturday, March 24, had passed a vote of no confidence in President Buhari, noting that the President and other politicians in the region had failed the north.

Lagosians groan as President Buhari's visit grounds activities - on Legit.ng TV:

Source: Legit.ng- Nigeria banks customers have lamented the excess charges by banks through the Automated Teller Machine withdrawals

- Some claim they dreaded making withdrawals using other banks ATMs because of the continued charge of N65 for every transaction

- They called on the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and other relevant authorities to look into the matter so as to help poor Nigerians

Commercial Bank customers within the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) have decried excess charges by banks through Automated Teller Machine (ATM) withdrawals.

Some customers who spoke to a News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) correspondent, said they dreaded making withdrawals using other banks ATMs because of the continued charge of N65 for every transaction.

According to the customers, most banks within the city centre have programmed their ATMs to dispense only N10,000 or less per transaction, thus ripping off customers withdrawing more than that amount.

The customers complained that if they had to withdraw N100,000 or more through other banks ATM, it meant they would lose so much money.

They, however, called on the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and other relevant authorities to look into the matter so as to help poor Nigerians.

Miss Agatha Young said: I live in Kubwa, one of the suburbs around the city centre and almost all the banks ATMs in my area dispense maximum of N10,000.

Recently, I needed to withdraw N200,000 and my banks ATM was crowded, so I went to use another banks ATM only to discover that the machine was dispensing only N10,000 per transaction.

I was only able to withdraw N150,000 because other customers were waiting on the queue and I was tired of going through the same process.

I also discovered I was charged almost N1000 for that transaction as I had exceeded three withdrawal limit using the other banks ATM, which is outrageous.

Mr Sunday Mgbede, residing in Nyanya, another suburb around the city centre also said most of the ATMs in his area dispensed maximum of N10,000 per transaction.

If you want to make withdrawals at weekends around the Nyanya/Mararaba axis, you will discover that only few ATMs are dispensing over N10,000 per transaction.

The concerned authorities should please look into this matter because people are suffering, there is no money in the country, yet banks want to make profit off customers.

Even the N65 charge which CBN authorised should be charged after three transactions, I am not sure the banks follow the rule due to the debit alerts we receive after withdrawals.

Another bank customer Erica Jonah who narrated her experience, said she used her ATM card to withdraw N100,000 from another bank and discovered the machine was programmed to dispense N10,000 per transaction and was charged N65 per every transaction.

Jonah said that was not her first experience, describing the practice by banks involved in it as fraudulent.

She also called on regulatory bodies in the industry to look into the matter with a view to curbing such excesses by banks involved in the practice.

Meanwhile, Mrs Gift Agbo, a former banker, said most ATMs used by banks in the country were not designed for Nigerias currency and that is why the amount it dispensed was limited.

Some of these machines are old and not programmed for the kind of money we have in the country.

The notes which many banks put in the machines also limits the amount that can be dispensed by the machines.

I am sure this problem can be resolved if Nigerian banks invest in customised machines that are suitable for our environment and currency, she said.

In its reaction, CBN Consumer Protection Department said it had received several complaints from bank customers over the low withdrawal limit set by banks on their ATMs.

Mr Fada David, the senior manager, Complaints Management Division of the Department, assured customers that the apex bank was working to make sure that such complaints were addressed.

Yes we have received complaints from people saying they could withdraw for example N40,000 from bank A yet they are not able to get that much if they carry a card of Bank A to bank B ATM.

First of all, I want the public to know that withdrawal from any ATM at all is not supposed to attract any charges until you withdraw more than three times in a month.

If you are using your banks ATM, you are at liberty to withdraw as many times as you like in a month without incurring any charges.

Also, we want to encourage customers to engage their banks to find out why there is such a withdrawal restriction on ATMs, he said.

David also urged customers to embrace the cashless policy and use other payment methods such as POS, internet and other mobile banking applications; to reduce over dependence on cash.

You can use other payment channels for goods and services. You can go to the market, buy something and use your mobile app, pay for that product.

Unless it is absolutely necessary that you need to take cash, consumers can take advantage of a lot of other payment channels to pay for goods and services and do other transactions, he said.

David said that bank customers also have the responsibility to improve the way their bank serves them by officially writing to complain about bad services.

According to him, it is only then will the bank address the issue to make sure that their customers are happy with the services being rendered.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng had reported that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Lagos zonal office, arrested 13 suspected Internet fraudsters for conspiracy, possession of fraudulent documents and obtaining money under false pretence.

The suspects are- Badejo Tobi; Abiola Dimeji; Anthony Godwin; Osoba Adeboye; Adeleken Abiodun and Awokoya Oriyomi Yusuf. Others are: Oyatayo Ismail; Coffie Meschark; Sylvester Amaddin; Olawale Farouk; Adeniran Tolani; Taiwo Michael and Oyekanmi Ayodeji.

The EFCC stage a walk against corruption - on Legit.ng TV:

Source: Legit- Emir of Mubi says the the emirate council and security agencies have identified the loopholes in security which led to the attack on the area

- The emir disclosed steps had been taken to plug all security loopholes

- Alhaji Abubakar Ahmadu who described the Mubi attack as unfortunate, assured that it would not happen again

The emir of Mubi in Adamawa state, Alhaji Abubakar Ahmadu said that the emirate council and security agencies have identified the loopholes in security that led to the recent bomb blast in the town which killed many people.

The emir, who disclosed this on Sunday, May 6, when he received the chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Tukur Buratai in his palace, said steps had been taken to plug the loopholes.

More than 20 people died in the incident, while over 50 others sustained injuries in the twin bomb blasts at different locations in Mubi on May 1.

The traditional ruler described the incident as unfortunate and assured that it would not happen again.

READ ALSO: Bandits reportedly kill 45 in Kaduna fresh attack

He said: After the unfortunate bomb blast, immediately I summon all my council chiefs and the local government chairman.

I assure you things will change as we have already identified the loopholes and we shall address them.

Earlier, Buratai noted that security situation had improved in the town compared to three years ago, even though there were still pockets of attacks.

He said: This is the time we should reflect on what went wrong and ensure it does not happen again.

He urged the residents to be vigilant and work closely with security agencies.

The army chief said: The situation requires vigilance. Bombers disguise in different ways. People can identify them by the abnormal way they dress.

Therefore, people should be vigilant. Because of improvement in security situation people have relaxed, but it is now they should reflect on their past mistakes.

There should be continued relationship with security agencies and provision of necessary information.

He assured that security agencies would continue to ensure that bombers do not have access to the community, but added that when they do, they would be apprehended before they cause havoc.

He also stressed that synergy between the military and traditional institution was vital in ensuring adequate security in the community.

PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 new app

Meanwhile, Legit.ng had reported that President Muhammadu Buhari condemned the Boko Haram terrorist attack which occoured in a mosque in Mubi, Adamawa state describing it as very cruel and dastardly.

According to a statement issued by Garba Shehu on Tuesday, November 21, the president commiserated with the people of the state and assured them that the government would not relent in its fight against terror.

Nigerian Air Force operations against Boko Haram - on Legit.ng TV:

Source: Legit NewspaperPresident seeks OIC support for peaceful life of Rohingyas



President M Abdul Hamid on Sunday sought the OIC's support to ensure a just and peaceful life of Rohingya Muslim who are discriminated, oppressed and victims of systematic persecution in their Rakhine state homeland in Myanmar.

"In Bangladesh, we are now faced with a formidable challenge of the influx of more than 1.1 million Rohingyas . . . What has been happening in neighbouring Myanmar not only represents a clear violation of core International Human Rights treaties but also shows a burning example of ethnic cleansing," President Abdul Hamid said in a banquet speech at Bangabhaban on Sunday evening given in honour of OIC Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM).

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Chief Justice Syed Muhammad Hossain, Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali, cabinet members, foreign ministers of the Organisation Islamic Cooperation (OIC) countries, secretary general of OIC Dr. Yousef A. Al-Othaimeen and OIC assistant secretary general, among others, attended the banquet.

"Our world is challenged by conflict and Islamophobia. The OIC needs to articulate a vision for a just global order, where Muslims do not suffer from Islamophobia or ethnic cleansing," the President said, stressing a vigorous role of OIC members on the basis of solidarity in this regard.

Giving a salient features of ethnic cleansing in Myanmar for decades, Abdul Hamid said having been deprived of citizenship under the 1982 citizenship law, they (Rohingyas) are denied access to health and education, prohibited from taking part in civil and political life, and deprived of their social, economic and cultural rights in their Rakhine state homeland.

"The latest episode of violence starting from August 2017, is a sharp escalation of long-running, state-led persecution and attacks on the Rohingya population," the President mentioned.

Appreciating OIC's efforts in promoting the just cause for Rohingyas, in the same vein, he commended OIC's continued role in remaining engaged for justice for Palestinians.By Jerri-Lynn Scofield, who has worked as a securities lawyer and a derivatives trader. She now spends much of her time in Asia and is currently working on a book about textile artisans.

Last month, Bernie Sanders announced he would soon propose a federal job guarantee program. Jamie Galbraith wrote a piece in The Baffler last week, debunking criticisms of the program which werent confined to the usual suspects on the right.

Some criticisms of a federal job guarantee focus on the costs and purported difficulties of administering such a program. Dean Baker wrote in The Daily Beast

The proposal calls for the program to be administered at the state and local level. This also presents issues (many of these governments have serious corruption problems), but even using state and local employment as a denominator, we would still be talking about doubling current levels. It requires some serious faith in government to think that this sort of leap in employment levels can be well-managed if done in a short period of time. It doesnt help that many of these workers will have little education and job experience.

(I note in passing that Baker seems to assume mistakenly that the new workers would have a guaranteed federal job, rather than a federal job guarantee a point I dont intend to discuss further see the Galbraith piece above for further analysis).

Indias Rural Job Guarantee

India has for more than a decade had a rural jobs guarantee program in place, for unskilled workers. If India can succeed in designing and implementing such a policy, why cant the US?

Economist Jayati Ghosh wrote this assessment of The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act of 2005 (MGNREGA) in The Guardian in 2015:

It was a historic legislation based on two interlinked goals: ensuring livelihood security to rural residents by providing at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work; and using the programme to mobilise existing surplus labour in the countryside, to unleash productive forces and generate more economic growth in rural areas. The treatment of employment as a right of citizens that must be delivered by the state involved a crucial reversal of the underlying basis of public delivery in India, which has mostly been driven by a paternalistic view of the state as delivering gifts to the people.

The jobs provided a minimum wage which varies by Indian state (the current per diem rate in the state of West Bengal, for example, is 176 INR a bit less than USD 3). Employment must be provided within five km of the workers home.

Roughly 70% of Indias population still lives in the countryside, according to the Business Standard (2013 figures). The jobs are unskilled labor and one program priority priority is infrastructure: e.g., roads, canals, ponds, wells.

Over to Ghosh again for a synopsis of the programs positive effects::

Obviously, such a major transformation was never going to be easy, and there have been concerns about corruption and unevenness in implementation across states. Even so, the programme has had several tangible positive effects (pdf): increasing rural wages and reducing gender wage gaps; smoothing and stabilising consumption by poor people; enabling better access to nutrition, health and education; increasing financial inclusion because of payments through bank accounts; and reducing distress migration. In some places it has helped to improve rural connectivity and agricultural productivity by creating more sustainable forms of irrigation and production. It has also served as a built-in stabiliser of the economy during downturns.

World Bank Approves

MGNREGAs success has been so manifest even the staunchly neoliberal World Bank lauded it in its 2014 World Development Report.:

Indias Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act illustrates how good governance and social mobilization go hand-in-hand. This law, enacted after pressure from the Right to Food Campaign and others, creates an entitlement of 100 days of unskilled employment per year, at minimum wage, to all workers in rural areas who demand it. The law also provides for social audits and redress of grievances. Demand for work is massive, mostly from poor and disadvantaged groups, and at times of the year where no other work is available. Not only does the program offer a useful safety net, but it also helps spread awareness of rights and promotes dignity (p. 155).

This is not the the type of policy one would expect the World Bank usually to praise, to say the least. The World Bank also acknowledged the program has drawn more rural poormany of whom lack bank accounts into the formal banking system as wage payments are made into bank accounts (World Development Report p. 30, and 202).

The high-water mark of the programs success was 2009-2010, according to Ghosh:

The peak period for the programme was the fiscal year 2009-10, when more than 2.8bn days of employment were provided to members of 54m rural households. Even at its peak, total spending on the programme amounted to only 0.8% of GDP, making it probably the most efficient employment programme ever.

The purpose of this post is not to focus on the Indian job guarantee scheme per se. It has never been perfect, and although the legislation promises a minimum guarantee of days of employment, that goal has never been met. Over to the World Bank report:

A state such as Rajasthan, which promotes transparency and accountability and has a long history of popular mobilization, performs relatively better: in Rajasthan, 84 percent of job seekers report being successful (against 56 percent nationwide), receiving 71 days of employment (against 37 nationwide), on average. The fact that the law is organized as a right motivates job seekers collective action to hold authorities accountable for supplying employment instead of siphoning off the allocated funds (p. 155; citations omitted).

Modi Starves Funding

More seriously as Ghosh discusses in detail, the situation has further deteriorated since Narendra Modi became Prime Minister, as a consequence of a policy decision not to fund the program adequately. But thats a problem with Modiism rather than a flaw in the program per se.

In West Bengal, eligible unskilled rural workers currently are offered far fewer than the programs promised one hundred days of guaranteed labour per year and usually dont even manage fifty. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is firmly committed to the rural employment policy, and has pressured state authorities to improve administration; but her hands are tied if the central government fails to allocate necessary funding. In India, most all taxes, including all income taxes, are assessed and collected by the central government, and revenues in turn allocated to the states; most Indian states themselves collect de minimis taxes, and none collect enough to make up the shortfall.

Starving the program of necessary funds has moderated upward pressure on rural wages, as well as reduced the bargaining power of rural workers and lowered their standards of living, according to Ghosh, who discusses further details and implications in her piece.

The Bottom Line

The point of this post isnt that the Indian program provides a turnkey model for the US. The Indian program is limited to rural employment rather than being universal; it only guarantees one hundred days of employment rather than a full-time job; the jobs on offer are funded by the central government and administered at the state level. The US program would be different in at least these three aspects.

But MGNREGAs existence and ten-year track record rebut the general criticism that a federal job guarantee is simply too costly and difficult to administer. No less a natural critic of such a scheme than the World Bank has lauded the Indian program. Theres also a stereotype floating about that India is bad at at managing government bureaucracies and implementing complicated programs. When properly funded, MGNREA was certainly successful, Ghosh suggests, at raising rural wages, improving living standards, and increasing the relative bargaining power of the rural poor.

So, tell me again, why cant a federal job guarantee work in the United States?Making young people aware of all the opportunities they could avail of was vital, Tipperary senior hurling manager Michael Ryan told a careers exhibition hosted by Clonmel High School.

The Tipperary hurling manager praised Clonmel High School for their initiative in staging the event, which attracted companies from throughout South Tipperary.

Ninety three companies hosted stands at the exhibition, which was well attended by not only High school students but also students from Loreto, Presentation and CTI secondary schools in the town.

Michael Ryan said there was so many opportunities out there now for young people and he described the career exhibition as an ideal opportunity to talk to so many people in so many different professions on the one day.

Also among the guests was Brendan Maher, captain of the senior hurling All-Ireland winning Tipperary team of 2016.

High School vice principal Anthony Reynolds said they were delighted not only with the turnout of local companies, who gave their full backing to the event, but also with the engagement the stands generated among senior cycle pupils in particular.

Above - Leaving Cert students of Clonmel High School who attended the Careers Exhibition at the school.

"For ninety three companies to attend was an incredible response and some of those companies would have had a number of representatives at their stand.

"For companies to put their expert staff at the disposal of young students trying to identify the most suitable career for them was a very generous expression of goodwill and one that was greatly appreciated", he said.

He was very pleased with how many former students came back to the school to represent their professions. The organisers and all of the teaching staff at the school had received a very positive feedback from the students.

"The students were impressed with the honest and informative conversations they had and the diverse range of careers showcased. We hope to build on the success of this event and are planning for 2019" said the vice principal.(Natural News) A study published in the Journal of Physiology suggested that older adults who regularly perform muscular stretching have a lower risk of lower leg problems.

In conducting the study, researchers from Florida State University and Kansas State University in the U.S. and the University of Electro-Communications in Japan placed splints on the lower limb of aged rats so that the calf muscles were stretched. The splints were placed on one leg for thirty minutes for five times a week in four weeks. Then, they compared the blood flow, arterial function, and the number of capillaries in the muscles of the stretched lower limb to the unstretched limb.

They discovered that regular muscle stretching done five times a week for four weeks increased the blood flow to the lower leg muscles. In addition, they found that it improved the functions of arteries in the lower leg muscles, and increased the number of capillaries within stretched muscles.

Our research suggests that static muscle stretching performed regularly can have a real impact by increasing blood flow to muscles in the lower leg, explained Judy Muller-Delp, lead researcher and professor at Florida State University.

Muscle stretching has a lower intensity than aerobic exercises and is commonly done as a warm-up or cool-down. Therefore, even older individuals can perform muscle stretching with minimal risk of injury. Although the benefits of exercise are widely known, only a few older adults participate in regular exercise programs. This is mostly because of their limited mobility and weak muscles.

The study indicated that even people who have difficulty in walking due to pain or those who lack mobility could perform muscle stretching to improve their health.

Daily stretching exercises for seniors

Stretch exercises can increase the mobility and flexibility of the elderly. Listed below are stretch exercises older adults can do every day or as often as possible. But before you start, make sure to do warm-up exercises, such as walking in place and arm circles, for five to 10 minutes.

Neck side stretch  This exercise will loosen any tension in the neck and the tops of the shoulder. To do this, sit tall in a chair and gently lean your to one side, then the other, to warm up your neck. Then, lift your right arm up and over your head, while your palm gently rests on the left side. Next, gently pull your head to the right, and hold it for 20 to 30 seconds. Do the same to the other side.

 This exercise will loosen any tension in the neck and the tops of the shoulder. To do this, sit tall in a chair and gently lean your to one side, then the other, to warm up your neck. Then, lift your right arm up and over your head, while your palm gently rests on the left side. Next, gently pull your head to the right, and hold it for 20 to 30 seconds. Do the same to the other side. Shoulder and upper back stretch  This stretch will help loosen muscles and enhance spinal flexibility, which can help you stand straight again. To do this, stand tall with your arms by your sides. Then, reach behind you with both hands, pull your shoulders back, and clasp your fingers together. If you feel a stretch already, hold it. Then return to standing tall, and repeat.

 This stretch will help loosen muscles and enhance spinal flexibility, which can help you stand straight again. To do this, stand tall with your arms by your sides. Then, reach behind you with both hands, pull your shoulders back, and clasp your fingers together. If you feel a stretch already, hold it. Then return to standing tall, and repeat. Back stretches  Back stretches can help increase mobility in the spine as well as rounded shoulders. It will also improve blood flow. To start, stand tall with your hands on your hips. Gently lean back, looking up at the ceiling. Hold it for three seconds, then return to standing. Do this for 10 times.

 Back stretches can help increase mobility in the spine as well as rounded shoulders. It will also improve blood flow. To start, stand tall with your hands on your hips. Gently lean back, looking up at the ceiling. Hold it for three seconds, then return to standing. Do this for 10 times. Standing quadriceps stretch  This exercise is great for lengthening the quadriceps muscle, which is at the front of the thighs. This part can often become shortened and tightened due to sitting or hunching forward. To start, stand tall while holding on to the back of a chair or countertop with your free hand for balance. Then, slowly bend your right knee and hold your foot. Hold it for 30 seconds, and repeat on the other leg.

Read more news stories and studies on older people by going to Longevity.news.

Sources include:

MedicalXpress.com

YuriElkaim.com(Natural News) In the interest of stopping global warming, government officials in the United Kingdom have partnered with companies and governments in the state of Virginia to hack down large swaths of southern hardwood forest in order to create biomass energy for use across the pond.

Since continuing to burn native fossil fuels like coal wont help the U.K. achieve its greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, the country has decided to clear-cut entire forests here in the United States and burn all the wood thats collected to generate electricity  and its calling this mass destruction of trees green energy.

This partnership between Great Britain and Virginia is costing U.K. taxpayers the equivalent of nearly $1 billion annually, as their electricity bills are padded with extra green fees that supposedly help to cover the cost of mowing down Americas hardwood forests and turning them into fuel for homes and businesses.

Because trees are technically renewable, the whole thing is considered to be beneficial in helping to curb the threat of climate change, despite the fact that burning wood creates a tremendous amount of heat and ash pollution. But tacking green onto the endeavor is apparently enough to pacify the climate fanatics who support the move, and believe that it will help to reduce the U.K.s carbon footprint.

This is yet another shocking example of the mindless, destructive, anti-science stupidity of the climate change alarmists, warned scientist Mike Adams, publisher of Climate.news and founder of a globally-recognized food and environmental science lab (CWClabs.com). Industries are literally murdering living forests in the name of greening the planet, Adams said. The very same people who used to be tree huggers are now tree murderers, and none of them appear to recognize any contradiction in their own stupidity.

According to The Ecologist, the felled trees in Virginias hardwood forests are being turned into millions of tons of small wood pellets that are regularly shipped over to the U.K.s largest power station, Drax, which is located in North Yorkshire. A U.S.-based company known as Enviva first processes the logs into these pellets, which are then hauled across the Atlantic and burned as fuel at the Drax plant.

Its a laborious process that British authorities claim will help to cut the nations carbon emission by 57 percent by the year 2030. Drax plans to completely phase out the burning of local coal, instead bringing in the wood pellets from overseas, which is supposedly greener.

According to officials at Drax, the burning of wood pellets rather than coal will supposedly help reduce carbon emissions at the plant alone by as much as 80 percent. This figure comes from laboratory experiments conducted at the University of Nottingham that supposedly show major carbon reductions.

Truth bomb: Burning wood actually produces more carbon than burning coal

But is this actually true? Not exactly. As explained by The Ecologist, to generate the same amount of energy from wood pellets as from coal ends up producing about eight percent more carbon  meaning wood-burning is actually more polluting than coal-burning.

But because European law regards wood biomass as carbon neutral, this isnt even considered  not to mention the mass destruction of hardwood forests thats left in its wake. And Drax doesnt even have to report the amount of carbon emissions coming from its chimneys due to this carbon neutral designation.

If Drax was, in fact, required to monitor carbon emissions, it would reveal that biomass is hardly green in the way that some people think it is. At least 11.7 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) was generated at Drax just last year alone  and if this was all biomass energy, it would be an additional eight percent more CO2.

And while the replanting of trees can help to sequester some of this carbon, trees take several decades to regrow. This implies that creating biomass is hardly a green endeavor, and is actually causing widespread destruction to, in this case, Americas precious natural resources.

Britain may be on track to eliminating the use of coal but they are not on track to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions, The Ecologist explains. Were not going to meet our one and a half or two-degree targets that all governments, including the British government, agreed to in Paris.

Burning more wood makes it absolutely impossible to meet that target. We now know that if we overshoot that the consequences last for 100s to a thousand or more years. So theres no off switch, theres no reverse gear.

Sources for this article include:

TheEcologist.org

NaturalNews.comA child abduction suspect considered "armed and dangerous" was taken into custody Saturday evening after he abducted his two young daughters, according to the Los Angeles Police Department. The abduction prompted an Amber Alert across Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego Counties earlier in the evening.

The alert was issued around 7 p.m. and called off around 8:30 p.m. The girls were found safe in the Willowbrook area, police said.

The suspect's vehicle was described as a 2014 black and purple Dodge Challenger with California plate number 7WKZ957.

Anthony Lee Gaines Jr., 29, was wanted in connection with abducting the girls, ages 5 and 7, at 3 a.m., according to the Amber Alert.

Gaines is described as an African American male who is 6'3" and weighs around 155 pounds. He was last seen wearing a black shirt and black jeans. He is possibly armed and dangerous, CHP officials said.

Kayleigh Gaines, 7, is described as African American. She's 4'5" tall with black hair and black eyes. She weighs around 67 pounds. She was last seen wearing a blue shirt, black tights and purple Croc sandals.

Madison Gaines, 5, is also described as African American. She's 4'1" with black braided hair and brown eyes. She weighs 65 pounds. She was last seen wearing a red shirt with three cats on it, blue tights and pink Crocs.The California Highway Patrol is seeking the publics help in locating a vehicle in connection to a fatal hit and run that occurred Friday night on State Route 4 in Contra Costa County.

Officers received a call Saturday morning about a possible body found off the roadway near Bixler Road in East County. Upon arrival, CHP confirmed a deceased male, who is still unidentified.

CHP believes the male could have been a victim of a hit and run and ask the public for help in finding a Toyota Tundra or Toyota Sequoia in the 2002 to 2006 range, or a Lexus, with collision damage consistent with hitting a large object.

If anyone has information regarding the incident, they ask the public to call the Contra Costa CHP in Martinez at 925-646-4980 or 1-800-TELL-CHP.San Jose police are investigating an officer-involved shooting that occurred near the San Jose State University campus Sunday morning, according to the department.

No one was injured as a result of the shooting, which occurred along the 500 block of South 10th Street after a report of a possible home invasion at an apartment complex, police said.

A suspect connected to the incident was taken into custody, according to police.

San Jose State student Ethan Cox said many students live on the street and were jolted awake from their sleep.

"It sounded like four or five gunshots; it woke everybody up," he said. "After that, we kind stayed inside."

At least one officer opened fire as police looked for two suspects, one of them armed with a gun who reportedly refused to drop it.

San Jose police Chief Eddie Garcia is slated to address the officer-involved shooting at 3 p.m. Monday.

Further information was not available.Jockey Jose Ortiz, 24, remembers the last time he visited the school in Puerto Rico that kick-started his horse racing career.

The teacher in charge at Escuela Vocacional Hipica, the Vocational Equestrian School of Puerto Rico (VES), in Canovanas, east of San Juan, asked the incoming class if they knew who their visiting guest was.

The ones who knew me made me feel as if I was someone big, Ortiz recalled in between races recently at his home racetrack, New York City's Aqueduct. This is the moment you realize everything youve worked for and that you were here, sitting, in that very same room.

It was early February and the incoming class of jockeys didnt have basic training facilities, because the school's grounds were still torn apart by Hurricane Maria. Yet there he was, standing in front of 15 jockeys, many from humble origins, having taken home for the first time the Outstanding Jockey Award in the Eclipse Awards by The National Thoroughbred Racing Association, one of the top honors a jockey can earn.

Now they sit there, and I can offer some hope that they can make it, too, if they set their minds to it, Ortiz said.

Ortiz's older brother Irad, 25, moved to New York in 2011 and Jose followed a year later. Now both headliners at Aqueduct are gearing up to race in the Kentucky Derby. They will contend with one of their role models, Puerto Rican jockey and past Kentucky Derby winner John Velazquez.

In all, three jockeys originally from Puerto Rico will compete at the Derby  and all schooled at VES. Brothers Jose and Irad will compete on top of Good Magic and Hofburg, respectively, while Velazquez will ride Vino Rosso.

I grew up watching John Velazquez winning races like the Belmont Stakes, the Kentucky Derby, and it was my dream to do the same, Jose Ortiz said of Velazquez, who entered the sports Hall of Fame in 2012 and also sat in the seats of the island's Equestrian Vocational School.

"But riding in Puerto Rico, I wasnt going to get any of that," Jose Ortiz said. "Ive come to the United States to follow my dream.

Jose and his brother are among four Puerto Rican jockeys who this year make up the top 10 riders by earnings for bettors, according to Equibase. Heading into the Derby, Jose's haul this year was ahead of Velazquez's and Manuel Franco's. Last year, Jose's wins bagged $27 million. The jockeys get a percentage of those winnings.

As his fortunes have risen on the mainland, Puerto Rico's equestrian industry finds itself "seven to 10 years into a minor crisis," as described by Jose Maymo Azize, who oversees the industry for Puerto Rico's government.

In the '70s and '80s, brands like Budweiser and Marlboro sponsored races in Puerto Rico and money was pouring in from betting during what's known as the glory days of horse racing in Puerto Rico. Boricuas would flood horse tracks and off track betting centers, known as agencies, to place their wagers. Now, priorities have shifted.

Following a 10-year fiscal crisis in which the American territory racked up an unsustainable amount of debt, Puerto Rico since last year has endured the aftermath of two natural disasters  hurricanes Irma and Maria.

Between September, when Maria made landfall, and January, about 100 racehorses died or had to be euthanized due to diseases and stress-related conditions, Maymo Azize said.

VES sacrificed one of its 12 horses because it got laminitis, an inflammatory condition inside the hoof. Ana Delia Velazquez, 42, director of the VES of Puerto Rico since 2001 said this was due to the foot-and-a-half of water in which some horses found themselves after the storm.

The public school operates inside Puerto Ricos only racetrack, Hipodromo Camarero. After the storm, the lights were out, the glass walls were broken and so were the screens. The stables roots had flown away and the road was damaged.

Both the racetrack and school have slowly restarted operations.

Maymo Azize said his agency has suffered from a lack of funding that has affected Puerto Rico.

And horse owners, trainers, groomers and jockeys simply make more money on the mainland. The prices, awards and prestige no longer cover the financial risks of up-keeping horses.

Winnings are low because the industry depends on how much money is placed on bets, said Ana Delia Velazquez.

The best price is that of the Clasico del Caribe," Velazquez explained, referring to Caribbean countries' equivalent to the Derby. We are talking about an $80,000 [purse], which most of the time is the minimum allowance in the United States.

She added that Hurricane Maria was the cherry on top of an already struggling economy.

People have to feed their families, and gambling is obviously not a priority, she said.

Meanwhile, over the last couple of years, VES alumni have become superstars in the U.S. racing world. The school forged new talents like Manuel Franco, who is one of the youngest jockeys on the professional circuit at just 21, also a top 10 earner. And Evin Roman shines in races in Santa Anita Park, California.

Passion toward horses that resides in the streets and ranches of Puerto Rico is shared by other VES students and alumni.

Following in the steps of the Ortiz Brothers, Andrea Rodriguez, a 20-year-old jockey in the graduating class of December 2018, plans to excel in the U.S. She hope to make her mark in a male dominated sport.

In my case it comes with the family, Rodriguez said. We very much have equestrian veins."

Rodriguez grew up attending races at Puerto Rico's Camarero racetrack and said she decided at age 6 this was what she wanted to do for the rest of her life.

Rodriguez's great aunt, Aide Rodriguez, was the first female trainer on the island, and she hopes to live up to her legacy.

In my case, its always been clear for me that there will be less opportunities for me [as a woman], she said.  But Ive always placed bets on myself and in women.

She said she's looking for the right opportunity to move to the mainland.

I really like equestrianism here [in Puerto Rico] because it is the one I grew up in," she said. "But I like that in the States Ill have the option to try different things.At least 19 people have been shot and wounded across the city of Chicago on Saturday, according to police.

In the city's most recent shooting, a 12-year-old boy was shot while standing in a group in the 3300 block of West Madison, police said.

The shooting occurred after an altercation between an unidentified man and a woman, and the man pulled out a gun and fired shots into the group of people, striking multiple victims.

The boy was taken to Stroger Hospital in critical condition after being shot in the abdomen, and a 23-year-old man is in stable condition at Stroger after being shot in the arm.

A pair of people were in critical condition at Illinois Masonic Hospital after they were shot in the 2500 block of North Cicero on Saturday morning.

At approximately 5:36 a.m., the pair was driving northbound when a person in a grey sedan fired shots at the vehicle. A 28-year-old woman was shot in the neck, and a 35-year-old man was shot in the leg.

Both people were rushed to Illinois Masonic in critical condition, and no arrests have been made, police said.

Another man is in critical condition after he was shot multiple times while riding his bike in the 3700 block of West Roosevelt, police said. A dark-colored vehicle pulled up alongside him at approximately 3:11 p.m., and one of the occupants opened fire.

The man was shot multiple times, and was taken to Mount Sinai in critical condition.

The circumstances surrounding a shooting in the 3600 block of North Luna are unclear, but what is known is that a 16-year-old boy was shot in the face inside of a residence just after 2:30 a.m.

He was taken to Illinois Masonic Hospital in stable condition, but witnesses at the scene gave conflicting statements to police, according to authorities.

Here are the rest of Saturdays shootings:Need for labour-friendly laws

Dr. Forqan Uddin Ahmed :

The pride & glory of May day will never fade. With the hope to liberate the workers class from deprivation, the 1st May is celebrated in the whole world. This celebration is not confined not only to the lobour class. It has become a universal event now. The spirit of the day has reduced discrimination & creating path of equalization and human civilization. Bangladesh is also in the process of this exercise.

May day is a day of all labour class. In this day, the labourers enjoy the day as of their own. They celebrate the day with high exaltation. But the greedy capitalists, do not like to spare the day. Bangladesh came to birth with the progressive concept but no mentionable changes are yet to take place for the workers class. Today May day is observed only for observation & formalities sake. Now it has become a political showdown & flattery business. We see the bad intention of some interested people where the workers are only used and sometimes abused.

But May day is internationally recognized. But its significance is ignored. And it's importance is less taken. Virtually this day is a day of sacrifice, glory & struggle. This day is a milestone & red letter day to all workers of the world. Because the workers are being dignified & honored only for this day. The workers protested against ill treatment; duty hours and about their legal rights. In the long run it was achieved. The workers & the toiling masses from generation to generation are contributing for their own country. But it was always ignored. The workers produce the industrial products but the industrialists, capitalize their products. They are only used as a tool of their capital. They are rather being oppressed. It is really a matter of misfortune that this workers class are always considered helpless. Only they are treated as the slave. But this mind-set has been changed now. There are many records in the history that no legal rights ended in smoke. The present worker class are not the back benchers in the society as it was in the past.

The basic needs of human man kind are equally applicable to a worker. This must be ensured from the owners or authority side. The developed countries are doing that. There lies the labour dignity in those countries. In the 21st century, how much rights are enjoyed by the workers? In the present socio-economic and political aspect the workers interest must be considered. Because, the workers are the assets of the country and they are our pride also. We are in the advanced economy only for them.

For this reason, they should not be neglected. Our prime minister has given importance about our farmers. We must also agree with our prime minister. A construction worker and a Rickwa puller takes pain and works hard, but their remuneration and wages are not befitting. They should be looked into and taken to consideration. We are to bear in mind that we will have to live for better humanity. It is noted that, in garments sectors of Bangladesh, a terrible disaster took place at Rana Plaza of Savar. As a result of bad situations 1127 lives are lost, 2500 were rescued and many were wounded. 5 years have been passed after the occurrence but no mentionable changes have yet taken place. Peoples lives are in-secured and many garments are being damaged and called off due to sabotage. Many have being unemployed. Now this doesn't give a positive signal to the significance of noble May day. There are worker's agitation with very trivial issue. And with an ill motive things are broken and razed to fire.

Again fire took place in buildings and hundreds of workers die. These are repeatedly taking place. As a result, garments are made lay off and closed. Even there are affects and damages in our national life. This is not accepted and expected. It is hopeful that we have over-come by the co-operation from home & abroad.

In May day, the children rights are also raised along with the labour rights but the sad reality is that our society is not so serious about the development of the children. Child development is not followed by any code. More over many children are involved in risky job. In order to make the day a success, children must be refrained from doing risky jobs. In present world, the workers are the root of progress and civilization. What is more deserving and glorious than anything to a worker? From this realization, the intellectuals are appreciating the workers value. So, the labour issue is at the top. They can't be resisted by any way. Though there are the constitutional instruction, the proprietorship, control of production machineries, production system, distribution policy have been snatched away from the hands of people. Many state-runs organizations have been seiged and handed to private channel. Farmers, workers and the non-advanced class are still under pressure and exploitation. The workers are being deprived of getting the due commissions. The women workers are also bereft of getting due shares and made difference.

It is learnt that, there are a large number of workers, in the labor market and they are deceived by the capitalists. The business operators and owners are taking the chance. In some cases, the labour organization and trade unions try to negotiate or settle disputes but no result is gained. Ultimately the workers become handicapped and humanity gets distorted. If workers are well privileged, economic condition of country will improve. If labour rights are established and their interest is uphold mass people will be benefitted. Society will be ideal, resourceful, peaceful. Gradually sufferings will be removed.

The poor will be enlightened. Society will be civilized. There will be no more anarchy, chaos, confusion, discrimination and discomforts. Bangladesh will be spot free and there will be no bad name or image crises. In the long run, Bangladesh will be self-reliant, happy and prosperous. Let us join our hands to keep up the dignity of labour and resist corruption and make our Bangladesh a strong and advanced country.



(Writer, Columnist & Researcher)The Bridgeport delegation in the Connecticut House of Representatives scored a tremendous political victory last week, bolstering the prospects of a casino one day being built in Connecticut's largest city.

It came in the critical waning days of the legislative session.

Even though the "Request for Proposal" process that could start later this year does not explicitly mention Bridgeport, the delegation has pushed for the chance to get a casino in their backyard for years, and the 77-73 vote in the House at least makes it feel like there is momentum on their side.

But, there's not.

The vote in the House will more than likely turn out to be a symbolic gesture. It's significant, but symbolic.

The odds of passage in the Senate are long, to say the least.

Standing in the way of even discussing the issue are what can best be described as immovable objects on the issues of gambling expansion and defenders of the state's compact with the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan Tribes.

Achieving 77 votes in the House was no small task, but in the evenly divided Connecticut Senate, every one of the 36 members' stances on gambling is magnified.

Let's start with Sen. Cathy Osten, (D - Sprague). She has been staunchest defender of the existing compact, and for that matter, the casinos themselves. As employers, Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun, are the two most important in her Senate district. She will not allow even another casino awarding process to take place if it could, even in the slightest possible way, do harm to the state's relationship with the tribes.

Remember, that MGM has been the strongest lobby behind the open and competitive bid process for a commercial casino. You also have to remember that MGM is opening its Springfield casino later in 2018, which is the entire argument the tribes had for pushing the East Windsor casino in the first place.

Next, there's Sen. Tim Larson, (D - East Hartford). Yes, he lives in East Hartford, but he represents East Windsor, the site of the state's already approved third tribal-run casino, but the first located off reservation land.

Larson has been one of the loudest supporters of the East Windsor project, touting it as the job creator the tribes' have sold it as for years.

Even supporting a RFP process for a commercial casino anywhere else in the state would be like sending a message to his constituents that he was hedging his bets on the East Windsor casino project.

On the Republican side there are Sen. Tony Hwang, (R - Fairfield), and Sen. Paul Formica, (R - East Lyme). They are likely to oppose the RFP legislation in the Senate, but for very different reasons.

First, Formica has been a supporter of the tribes' East Windsor effort, backing the argument that the southeastern casinos will emerge in a better position with traffic being diverted from MGM's Springfield casino. Second, he does not want to jeopardize the hundreds of millions in revenues for the state as a result of the compact with the tribes. He was also present for the demolition ceremony signaling the start of development at the East Windsor site. He wore a hardhat.

With Sen. Hwang, you have a staunch opponent of gambling. In May 2015, when the casino expansion debate started, Hwang said, The fact is we have not done a thorough analysis of the societal cost of gambling. Does that sound like someone excited about allowing for what could a be fourth casino in Connecticut?

In a chamber where you need 19 votes to pass anything, the Bridgeport and MGM sympathizers are already down possibly four, making the math incredibly difficult, if not impossible to get the House-passed bill through the upper chamber.

The merits of the Bridgeport casino can be debated, and they have been in Connecticut for years. It's possible that MGM is exactly right, that a Bridgeport casino can capture the New York market and be successful in ways an East Windsor casino can only dream of.

However, with just two days remaining for lawmakers to meet and after hitting the jackpot with Friday's House vote, it looks more like the tribes may have the political upper hand, leading Bridgeport's push to go belly-up.The final East Haven police officer injured in an explosion in North Haven last week has been released from the hospital, police say.

According to East Haven Police, the fifth and final East Haven officer was released from the hospital on Saturday. The officer is resting comfortably at home with his family.

Ten members of the South Central Regional SWAT team were injured after a police standoff and explosion on Quinnipiac Avenue in North Haven on Wednesday, police say.

Police say the incident began as a domestic incident Wednesday afternoon when a woman contacted police. When officers arrived, they say a man inside of the home refused to communicate with officers and barricaded himself inside. The South Central Regional SWAT team was called in and while they were clearing outside of the house, there was an explosion from a barn on the property.

Officers say they found human remains on the property after the explosion while investigating, but it is unclear where and who they belong to. The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner will determine who the person was and how he or she died.

Nine members of the tactical team were taken to Yale-New Haven Hospital, according to North Haven Police. They included five officers from East Haven, three from North Haven and one from Branford. Officials classified the officers' injuries as serious saying they range from concussions to leg injuries, but are not life-threatening.

It is not clear what caused the explosion. The fire marshal is still investigating the cause.Republicans from across the Golden State gathered in San Diego this weekend for the California Republican Party Convention.

While Democrats dominate the State Legislature, a pair of gubernatorial candidates with San Diego ties is fighting to take back the Governors seat.

A vocal group of conservative activists spent their morning rallying outside the Convention in support of Gubernatorial Candidate Travis Allen.

Ill tell you right now, we repeal this Gas Tax. This is Jerry Browns $52 billion tax that hurts the poorest the very most, said Allen.

Allen is an Orange County Assembly Member who grew up in Chula Vista. Hes also a loud opponent of Californias Sanctuary Law.

Last year I had legislation to actually defund every sanctuary jurisdiction in the State of California, Allen said.

From the loud rally outside to the more businesslike networking inside the Convention, the States Republican are hoping the issues of taxes and immigration will give them momentum going into the June Primary.

Democrat Gavin Newsom is seen as the favorite in the Governors race, but the latest polls show Allen, and fellow Republican John Cox getting a huge boost in support.

I think people are recognizing that we need to come out of this convention united and strong and turn this state around, said Cox.

Cox is from Rancho Sante Fe and is currently second in most polls. Hes hoping his business background will help him get the States Republican endorsement.

Im a businessman. Ive held people to account. Ive made budgets. Ive worked on solutions to problems. Politicians talk, they dont get results, said Cox.

There was a bit of a disruption Saturday when anti-Semitic Senate candidate Patrick Little, who has praised Adolph Hitler, was thrown out of the convention. Little, who is challenging Sen. Dianne Feinstein, advocates for limiting the number of Jews in government. State GOP spokesman Matt Fleming said Little has never been an active member of the party and the GOP condemns anti-Semitism and all bigotry.



Delegates will vote on Sunday and then the California Republican Party will announce their endorsements.A man who once stalked and broke into the home of actress Sandra Bullock committed suicide by cutting himself during a standoff with a SWAT team at his La Crescenta home, authorities said Saturday.

An autopsy showed Joshua Corbett died from "multiple incised wounds," coroner's Lt. Brian Kim said.

The standoff began about 6:45 a.m. Wednesday, when police went to the residence in the 2400 block of Harmony Place to serve a warrant, Los Angeles Police Department Officer Drake Madison said.

Police said the man at the home, later identified as Corbett, threatened the officers and barricaded himself inside, prompting a response by a SWAT team.

Officers eventually entered the home, and found the man dead of a "self-inflicted injury," police said.

Police did not say why they were trying to serve a warrant at the home, but TMZ reported Corbett was facing arrest for an alleged probation violation.

Corbett pleaded no contest last year to two felonies for breaking into Bullock's West Los Angeles home in 2014. He was placed on five years probation and was ordered to continue treatment at a mental health facility.

He was also subject to a 10-year protective order requiring him to stay away from the actress.

Bullock, who won an Oscar for her leading role in ``The Blind Side,'' called 911 on June 8, 2014, while hiding in a bedroom closet, telling a dispatcher a stranger was in her home.

"I'm locked in my closet," Bullock told the police operator during the call, which was played during a preliminary hearing. "I have a safe door in my bedroom, and I've locked it, and I'm locked in the closet right now."

Corbett -- who climbed a fence to get onto the star's property at 5 a.m. that day -- was carrying photos of the actress and a notebook containing a letter to her, according to testimony presented at his preliminary hearing.

Detectives described an arsenal of weapons they said were discovered in the defendant's residence after Los Angeles police searched the converted garage where he was apparently living. He was not charged with having a weapon with him at the time of the pre-dawn break-in at Bullock's home.

The case against him was put on hold in January 2017 after one of his attorneys declared doubt about the defendant's mental competence. A judge in March 2017 agreed to lower his bail but ordered him to confined to a mental treatment facility in Tarzana.A man whose car crashed into a light pole was killed on Saturday near the Whittier Narrows Recreation Area near South El Monte, authorities said.

The silver Honda sedan crashed into a pole on southbound Rosemead Boulevard at 3:43 p.m. Saturday near the on-ramp to the westbound Pomona (60) Freeway, California Highway Patrol Officer Stephan Brandt said.

The victim was pronounced dead at the scene, Brandt said.

The CHP issued an advisory, warning that southbound Rosemead Boulevard traffic would be affected in the area due to the wreckage and downed pole, he said.What to Know Forty-seven year old John Dominick Aglio was charged with intimidation and written threats to kill or injure, according to a news release.

In the Facebook post, Aglio said he wanted to "murder everyone at the Caribbean Club," police said.

Aglio was arrested and booked into jail on a $1 million bail, police said.

A Florida man is behind bars after allegedly posting on Facebook that he wanted to murder everyone at

a Key Largo bar.

Forty-seven year old John Dominick Aglio was charged with intimidation and written threats to kill or injure,

according to a news release. Police said the Facebook postings were filled with expletives and suggested

that Aglio believed the bar - or people at the bar - were associated with the death of his uncle more than three decades ago.

Authorities said Aglio's uncle was found shot to death on Card Sound Road, shortly after visiting

the Caribbean Club.

In the Facebook post, Aglio said he wanted to "murder everyone at the Caribbean Club," police said. He also said he was

going to make people at the bar "all pay one at a time" and "they don't know what the word hate really

means," according to the release.

Authorities were alerted to the threatening social media posts on March 22 by an unidentified man. Aglio was

initially detained in Pinellas County, but was transferred and booked into the Monroe County Detention Center

Saturday.

Aglio was arrested and booked on a $1 million bail, police said.

A Florida man is behind bars after allegedly posting on Facebook that he wanted to murder everyone at a Key Largo bar, authorities said.



Forty-seven year old John Dominick Aglio was charged with intimidation and written threats to kill or injure, according to a news release. Police said the Facebook postings were filled with expletives and suggested that Aglio believed the bar - or people at the bar - were associated with the death of his uncle more than three decades ago.

Authorities said Aglio's uncle was found shot to death on Card Sound Road at the time, shortly after visiting the Caribbean Club.

In the Facebook post, Aglio said he wanted to "murder everyone at the Caribbean Club," police said. He also said he was going to make people at the bar "all pay one at a time" and "they don't know what the word hate really means," according to the release.



Authorities were alerted to the threatening social media posts on March 22 by an unidentified man. Aglio was initially detained in Pinellas County, but was transferred and booked into the Monroe County Detention Center Saturday.



Aglio was arrested and booked on a $1 million bail, police said.

What to Know In a pair of Southwest whistleblower complaints, mechanics claim they're discouraged from reporting potential safety issues

The safety complaints from airplane mechanics come during a protracted labor dispute between Southwest and it maintenance staff

A Southwest spokesman says the complains don't align with the company's culture of safety

At least 10 mechanics who work on Southwest passenger jets in Dallas and Los Angeles say the air carrier has discouraged maintenance personnel from reporting potential safety issues.

According to a pair of whistleblower complaints obtained by NBC Dallas, Southwest supervisors have been accused of applying "pressure not to document discrepancies" and creating "a culture of fear and retribution."

Among the most troubling claims is an allegation that a Southwest supervisor "reacted with hostility" last year when a senior mechanic reported corrosion around the weight inside a planes rudder.

"Instead of praising him and saying thanks for finding the corrosion, he was subject to disciplinary interrogation," said Lee Seham, an attorney who represented the whistleblowers.

According to the FAA, the rudder corrosion problem turned out to be a systemic risk associated with multiple 737 airplanes. Boeing, the manufacturer, along with FAA inspectors and airlines, are now monitoring for rudder corrosion more closely.

The FAA investigation of the whistleblower reports make clear that no Southwest jets were allowed to fly in unsafe conditions and the FAA failed to substantiate most of the violations of FAA rules alleged by the airplane mechanics. But federal investigators warned that Southwests questioning of mechanics findings in the Dallas hangar appeared to be "a tool used to influence a relaxing of standards, to look the other way."

In the case of the Los Angeles maintenance hangar, the FAA concluded disagreements between mechanics and supervisors created "the absence of a just safety culture."

The safety complaints from airplane mechanics come during a protracted labor dispute between Southwest and its maintenance staff. Airplane mechanics working for the company have not had a collective bargaining contract for five years.

Brad Hawkins, a spokesman for Southwest, sent an email disputing the notion that mechanics are ever discouraged from speaking up about safety issues and stressing that bullying and intimidation by supervisors is not tolerated.

"While we do expect our mechanics to work their assigned tasks, we do not prohibit employees from raising safety concerns at any time and, in fact, encourage the reporting of safety concerns through our 24-hour automated Safety Reporting System," Hawkins said.

Southwest also questioned the findings of the individual FAA investigator who evaluated the whistleblower claims.

"Southwests culture of safety does not align with the comments made by the individual FAA employee who conducted the investigation. Nothing is more important in our business than safety and, as such, compliance is always our theme," Hawkins added.

Ed Libassi, a 40-year veteran airplane mechanic who spent years working on Southwest planes at Long Island's MacArthur Airport, said his team never experienced pressure from Southwest to bury safety problems.

"At no time in the 15 years did Southwest ever, ever ask me to deviate, sign off, or turn a blind eye to something that I had found," Libassi said.

But Libassi also said he sympathizes with mechanics who feel managers are too discouraging when they reveal unexpected aircraft defects.

"The mechanic has to feel that they have the backing of the company," Libassi said. "We are not out there so as to take a blind eye and pretend that we dont see a crack thats there.Britain's ambassador to the U.S. said Sunday his country believes it's still possible to address President Donald Trump's concerns about the Iran nuclear deal in time to prevent him from pulling out of the agreement.

Kim Darroch said Britain has ideas for dealing with those concerns. They include Iran's ballistic missile program and its involvement in Mideast conflicts, issues that aren't part of the international agreement. Trump also objects to the accord's sunset clause, which allows Iran to resume part of its nuclear program after 2025.

"We think that we can find some language, produce some action that meets the president's concerns," Darroch told CBS' "Face the Nation."

The deadline for Trump's decision is this coming Saturday.

Britain's foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, has scheduled talks with U.S. officials in Washington this week. His trip follows visits in recent weeks by the leaders of France and Germany, who also tried to convince Trump to stick with the agreement. All three European countries signed the 2015 deal, along with Russia and China.

In an op-ed Sunday for The New York Times, Johnson wrote that the agreement offered the fewest disadvantages of all the options available. "It has weaknesses, certainly, but I am convinced they can be remedied. Indeed at this moment Britain is working alongside the Trump administration and our French and German allies to ensure that they are," he wrote.

Iran's president warned Trump on Sunday that leaving the nuclear deal would be a "historic regret."

The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee also advised against pulling out of the accord without a clearer idea of the consequences and urged Trump to give the Europeans time to address his concerns.

"So maybe the best thing is for the president to delay a bit more his deadline of this month and put the French and the British up to the test about whether it is possible to get this other sort of agreement," Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, said on "Fox News Sunday."A store owner is fighting for his life after he tried to scare off an armed robber by spraying him with a hose and was shot in the process.

The 50-year-old man, identified by family members as Le Poeng, was washing his car outside his store, the KCJ Deli on S. 54th and Delancey streets at 1:35 p.m. Saturday when he was approached by a robber armed with an AK-47, police said. When the robber tried to back him into his shop, Poeng, a father of three, sprayed him in the face with the hose.

"That's what the father is for," Poeng's brother told NBC10. "He tried to protect the children that was upstairs, as any father would do to protect the family and his three children."



The robber then opened fire, striking the store owner in the right side. The robber then fled west on Delancey Street.

The bullet went through the store owners stomach and exited out of his back. He was taken to Presbyterian Hospital where he remains in critical condition after several surgeries. Poeng's brother says he hasn't been able to communicate with him since the shooting.

"Please, please help this man out so he can come back to see his three kids," he said. "And pray for him. And whoever did this, just give up."



The gunman is described as a bald, black male standing 6-feet-tall and wearing a dark hoodie, ripped light blue jeans and white sneakers.

"Obviously we believe he lives close by because he walked up on a beautiful day like this with an AK-47," said Philadelphia Police Lieutenant John Walker.

As police search for clues, customers are hoping Poeng makes a full recovery.

"Every time I come in the store he asked me about how the kids are doing," said Jerome Pacy, a customer. "How my newborn is doing. How my fiancee is doing and stuff like that."

"He doesn't deserve that, man. He didn't."



If you have any information on the shooting, please call Philadelphia Police.

Google says it will do a better job of verifying the identity of political ad buyers in the U.S. by requiring a copy of a government-issued ID and other information.

Google will also require the disclosure of who is paying for the ad. Google executive Kent Walker is repeating a pledge he made in November to create a library of such ads that will be searchable by anyone by this summer.

Google's blog post comes short of declaring support for the Honest Ads Act, a bill that would impose disclosure requirements on online ads, similar to what's required for television and other media. Facebook and Twitter support that bill.

Google says applications under the new system will open by the end of May, with approval taking up to five days.OIC must be an effective body to play an effective role to protect Muslim interest

THE Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in a declaration on Sunday condemned the atrocities against Rohingyas in Myanmar and also termed it ethnic cleansing. It said: 'The systematic acts against the Rohingyas by the Myanmar security forces constitute a serious and blatant violation of international law.'

The OIC foreign ministers' summit also sought international support for implementing the Kofi Annan-led Commission's recommendations to resolve the crisis. The two-day conference of the 45th OIC Council of Foreign Ministers began in Dhaka on Saturday where the theme was 'Islamic Values for Sustainable Peace, Solidarity and Development'.

In the inaugural session, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina sought cooperation of all Muslim nations to maintain pressure on Myanmar for early repatriation of the Rohingyas from Bangladesh. The OIC foreign ministers earlier on Friday visited refugee camps in Cox's Bazar to see the distressful situation of Rohingyas in their own eyes.

At that time, OIC Assistant Secretary General Hashmi Yousuf laid emphasis on a more active role of UN Security Council to end this crisis.

At present, Bangladesh is bearing the brunt of keeping more than one million Rohingya refugees who entered here since August last year following a brutal cleansing operation conducted by the Myanmar military.

No doubt, it's a tough challenge to feed and give shelter to such a large number of people and also provide other necessary things like cloth and medicine. International organizations predicted that, Rohingya crisis would deepen in the future and so, the challenge would be much tougher for Bangladesh.

In the preliminary stage, many countries and organizations showed their enthusiasm to send relief materials for the refugees. But in the recent days they are showing less interest. So, Bangladesh will have to face financial trouble to tackle the situation. Besides, providing security to Rohingya refugees along with maintaining internal security has become another concern.

Several Rohingyas have already spread out in different parts of the country. Recently, the Expatriate minister admitted that 2.5 lakh Rohingyas went abroad using Bangladeshi passports. The natural beauty and ecological system of Cox's Bazar district are now in danger while miles of forests have been destroyed for their accommodation.

It is unfortunate that OIC has not been able to show willingness to play any effective role anywhere as a force of Muslim countries. The Muslim countries have resources to be a power influence on behalf of Muslims countries. For the Rohingya refugees the OIC countries can do enough but we have to see how much they do. Muslims are being treated as nothing of importance by the USA and many such countries in the West but they are used for their wealth. The Muslim countries are the biggest buyers of military hardware from the West, the money of these countries are kept in US banks. They waste millions of dollars to keep the USA otherwise pleased. There is no concern or shame that the USA is maintaining Israel as a nuclear power to punish the Muslims everywhere. The rich Muslim countries must have a sense of honour and demonstrate their weight and guts to be an influence in establishing justice for Muslims. The Muslim countries must shake of their image in the West as filthy and foolish rich countries.





Carolyn Tansey was all smiles Sunday. "My husband is coming home today," she told NBC 7. "Hes a pilot at HSC-6."

Tansey's husband returned to Naval Air Base North Island along with nearly 50 other members from Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron SIX (HSC-6).

The six helicopters were part of a six-month deployment; those returning include pilots, aircrew and maintainers.

"We were here seven months ago in the same hanger. It was such a different feeling," Tansey added. "Today were so blessed. So excited. Really, theres no words to describe how excited we are."

This is Kathleen Brown's first time waiting for her husband Joe to return from a deployment.

"It's hard, you know you miss your person, and you just can't wait to have them home. We make the best of it, but there's a piece missing."

Seven-year-old Grace Gonzalez dressed up in unicorn sunglasses and a pink kitten-printed summer dress to welcome back her dad. "I am waiting for my daddy to come home," she said. "I definitely know that hes going to take a nap."

When Carolyn Tansey finally saw her husband Matthew, she ran across the tarmac and jumped into his arms.

One of the best parts of my job is seeing the troops come home and reunite with their family pic.twitter.com/2adL09906Z  Ramon Galindo (@RamonGalindoNBC) May 6, 2018

"It was good to see her smiling and running out here," Matthew Tansey said after their reunion. "She looks beautiful. It's been a long time since I've seen her. So, it feels good to be home."

The helicopter squadron is part of the Theodore Roosevelt Strike Group, and over the past six months, they've coordinated with the Fifth Fleet in the Persian Gulf and the Seventh Fleet in Japan in what the Navy is calling a successful deployment.

USS Theodore Roosevelt was in Hawaii last week and is expected to return to San Diego this week after a deployment to Asia and the Middle East.An 18-year-old man previously arrested and charged in the death of a 16-year-old girl in D.C. is at large after he was accidentally released from police custody in Prince George's County, Maryland.

Dekale Bowman was arrested in January and charged with second-degree murder in the death of Taiyania Thompson, police said.

Thompson was shot inside an apartment on the 1000 block of Mt. Olivet Road Northeast on Jan. 25. She died on Jan. 28 in the hospital.

On Saturday, D.C. police said Bowman was wanted on an outstanding warrant.

According to court records, Bowman had been taken to Upper Marlboro, Maryland, in a separate case involving a stolen car. Authorities released him instead of returning him to the D.C. Jail or the Department of Youth Rehabilitative Services.

A spokesperson for the Prince George's County Department of Corrections said on Sunday that Bowman was brought into their custody on Wednesday, May 2, and was released on bond the next day. The spokesperson said there was nothing in the department's system indicating that he had any charges or warrants until Friday afternoon.



Bowman didn't show up to a court appointment on Friday afternoon.

The Prince George's County State's Attorneys office confirmed to News4 it was looking into how Bowman was released.

Previous court records said Bowman told a witness the shooting was an accident. Police said Thompson and Bowman had been dating for eight months, according to The Washington Post.

Thompson's grandmother, Tammy Carter, said it wasn't the first time her family had experienced a violent death.

When Thompson was 5 months old, her father, Dennis Wayne Carter, was shot and killed on 21st Street and Maryland Avenue in Northeast. He was only 17.

"My heart is torn to pieces. She's only a year younger than he was when he passed. It's crazy," Carter said. "It just brings back so many memories, like it just happened yesterday."



Thompson's father is buried in the Mount Olivet Cemetery, near where Thompson was shot. Carter said Thompson was devoted to her father's memory and would often go visit his grave.

Thompson told her grandmother she wanted to be buried at the same cemetery as her father when she died, but no one expected that to happen so soon or in this way.

"I don't even know how we're going to get through this," Carter said. "But we're strong, we're going to fight through it, we're going to make the best of it and we're going to keep her memory alive and his."

Carter said she'll remember her granddaughter's smile and caring personality the most.

"She was bubbly," Carter said with a smile. "She would never harm anybody. She'd give you the shirt off her back. That's how sweet she was."The Trump administration said Friday that it is ending special immigration protections for about 57,000 Hondurans, adding them to hundreds of thousands of immigrants from other countries battered by violence and natural disasters who are losing permission to be in the United States.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's widely anticipated decision not to renew temporary protected status for Hondurans means an estimated 428,000 people from several countries face rolling deadlines beginning late this year to leave or obtain legal residency in other ways.

Hondurans will have until Jan. 5, 2020, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said.

President Donald Trump  who wants to curtail legal immigration and has been cracking down broadly on illegal immigration  and his supporters note that the protections were never meant to be permanent.

Immigrant advocates decried the move and contend that ending the status will drive people underground who have been establishing roots in the U.S. for years or decades, including having American-born children.

For Hondurans, the program known as TPS has been in place since 1999 after Hurricane Mitch devastated in the Central American nation the year before.

The administration says conditions in Honduras have improved, while advocates argue that it still hasn't fully recovered from the hurricane and is now plagued by rampant violence.

Trump, his opponents argue, is effectively adding tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people to the ranks of those in the U.S. without legal status.

Marta Connor, a 50-year-old union organizer in Southern California who has lived in the U.S. for decades and has three American-born children, said before the announcement that she wasn't leaving, regardless of the administration's policies.

"One thing I can tell you is I am not going to Honduras," she said, noting that many of the asylum-seeking migrants in a caravan that recently reached the U.S.-Mexico border are from Honduras. "If they are coming, why am I going over there?"

"There is no way I will go back," Connor said.

Around 437,000 immigrants hailing from 10 countries have had temporary protected status, a designation created in 1990 to allow people from countries affected by natural disasters like earthquakes or man-made disasters like war to have a short-term safe haven. Only a few thousand still have that status.

Those with it have generally been able to work and with permission, travel outside the U.S. and return.

Countries are added to the list as circumstances warrant, with renewals coming usually around every 18 months. While some countries have been taken off the list, others have stayed on it for extended periods, which critics say turns the program into default amnesty.

Under Trump, the Department of Homeland Security has terminated the program for Sudan, Nicaragua, Nepal, Haiti, and notably El Salvador, which accounted for more holders of the special status than any other nation.

They have been given deadlines to leave or gain legal status if possible, starting in November for Sudan and throughout 2019 for the other countries. Several groups are suing to stay in the U.S.

The protections have been extended for 6,900 Syrians who already have them, but the administration has said it won't take on new applicants. Decisions are upcoming for South Sudan, Somalia and Yemen, which cover fewer than 1,700 people.

Daniel Sharp, legal director at the Central American Resource Center in Los Angeles, said he doesn't believe most immigrants with the status will leave after setting down roots with U.S.-born children, jobs and homes.

"People don't want to go back to being undocumented, but I don't think you are going to see a ton of people returning to their countries of origin," he said.

El Salvador actually had the protections twice, the first time in the early 1990s until December 1994. It's estimated that about 150,000 people were covered then.

Cecilia Menjivar, a University of Kansas sociology professor, said that while exact numbers are unknown, it's clear many stayed in the U.S. when the program ended. Some got permanent residency through family sponsorship, but immigration law has changed since then that "there are fewer avenues for legalization," she said.

Ramba Regmi, 53, a native of Nepal who's been in New York City for close to two decades, doesn't know what she's going to do. She spent many of those years without legal status after overstaying a visa but got protections after an April 2015 earthquake in Nepal killed more than 8,000 people.

With the legal authorization the program provides, she was able to go from working in a nail salon to owning one, where she employs three people. She financially supports her husband and adult children in Nepal, which she says still hasn't recovered from the earthquake.

"I never thought this was going to end, so what can I say?" Regmi said after the government declined last week to renew protections for about 9,000 Nepalis. "This is very difficult."Boston Police worked through the night and stood guard Saturday outside the Milfred Hailey apartments in the city's Jamaica Plain neighborhood after a double murder Friday night.

Dozens of police responded Friday to the area of 277 Centre Street where they found two men who had been shot.

CPR was performed at the scene, and both men, who have not been identified, were taken to Boston Medical Center where they later died from their injuries.



One victim was in his 50s. The second victim was in his 20s.

Alaysjia Williams tells NBC10 Boston that the victim in his 20s was a friend of hers. She describes him as a good person who was scheduled to graduate from Salem State University this week.

The state of safety in the neighborhood is debatable, depending on who you ask.

But all neighbors are saddened by the latest shooting.

"I am absolutely shattered of course, as a mother to hear about a 20-year-old who has passed is absolutely shattering because this is just a life full of potential," said one woman.

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, who participated in a gun safety meeting just hours before the fatal shooting, shared his disappointment.

"We probably had one of the best summer strategy meetings we've ever had. We talked about a lot of different things and plans for the summer to keep people safe, keep kids safe and last night we have two people killed," Mayor Walsh said Saturday.

Violence often rises along with the temperature in the spring and summer months. It's a troublesome trend sparking the minds of community activists looking for ways to cut the crime.

"I think what we need to do is think about how to incorporate young people into creating spaces and the programs that they want to attend," one woman said.

Boston Police Commissioner William Evans says the motive for the double homicide is not known. He is asking anyone who saw anything to call police at (617) 343-4470.

The shooting is under investigation.JetBlue is offering free flights to any police officers attending the funeral services for the Maine Sheriff's Deputy who was shot and killed in the line of duty.

A public viewing will be held for Corporal Eugene Cole on Sunday at the Skowhegan Armory from 4 -7 p.m.

Cole's funeral will be held Monday in Bangor.

A benefit supper is also being held to celebrate Cpl. Cole's life. All money raised will be donated to his family.

Cole was allegedly shot by John Williams, who appeared in court last week after he was caught following a 4-day manhunt.

Williams is now being held without bail.Crews responded Sunday to a fire at a home in Methuen, Massachusetts.

The fire occurred at 40 Timber Lane, and the homeowner says it started after an aerosol can exploded.

Peter Michael tells NBC10 Boston that he raced home to see his house engulfed in flames. He says his wife and 4-month-old daughter escaped just in time.

It started when an aerosol can was accidentally dropped on the basement floor and somehow ignited, according to Michael.

"It was kinda almost doing a firework thing, spinning around," he says.

Michael says the flames jumped onto a shag carpet and quickly spread through other parts of the house.

Methuen Deputy Fire Chief Richard Aziz says crews responded within minutes and knocked the fire out immediately.

"Not a total loss but there was some good damage, smoke damage," he says.

Fire crews were still on scene assessing the damage and preparing to board up the windows as of 5:30 p.m. Sunday.



Michael says his 4-month-old daughter was taken to the hospital but is doing fine. There are no reports of any injuries.

"All I care about is the family. I don't care about the house, I don't care about whatever is going to happen."

The family is staying with friends until the house can be repaired.

The fire is under investigation.A public viewing for the Maine Sheriff's Deputy who was shot and killed in the line of duty was held Sunday evening.

Sixty-one-year-old Cpl. Eugene Cole was killed April 25 in Norridgewock while working an early morning shift for the Somerset County Sheriff's Office.

John Williams, 29, of Madison, is being held without bail in connection to Cole's death after a four day manhunt.

According to WCSH-TV, Cole served in the U.S. Army before joining the sheriff's department. He also ran an electronics business and dabbled in music in his spare time.

Cole and his wife Sheryl had four children, one of whom is also a Somerset County deputy.

A private viewing service for close family and friends was held Saturday.

The public viewing service was held Sunday from 4 p.m.  7 p.m. at the Skowhegan Armory, 11 North School St., Skowhegan.

Thousands of mourners, including officers from around the country, are expected at Cole's funeral on Monday. Due to the crowd size, the funeral is being held at noon at the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor.

According to the Press Herald, an elite motorcycle unit from the New York City Police Department will lead the funeral procession from the Smart & Edwards Funeral Home in Skowhegan beginning at 9:30 a.m.Police are continuing to search for a suspect as 23-year-old Chris Joyce and 58-year-old Clayborn Blair are remembered by family and friends as loving, kind men.

Joyce and Blair were killed Friday night in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood.

Joyce's mom says her world is shattered after losing her son.

"They messed us up, real bad."

She says her son was about to graduate from college with a degree in accounting.

"He was an inspiration to the family, he was the life of the family. The real life."

Salem State University released a statement Sunday, saying, "It is with great sadness that we learned of the passing of our student, Christopher Joyce. Our thoughts are with his family and with the students who are suffering from a loss of a friend and classmate. We mourn the loss of Chris together, as a community."

University spokesperson Kim Burnett said support services are available for students, faculty, and staff.

"We ask that our campus have privacy at this time to grieve this tragic loss," Burnett said in the university's statement.

The second victim was also remembered Sunday.

"He was a loving father, a brother, a neighbor, an uncle, grandfather. He would give you the shift off his back."

Blair and Joyce were shot Friday night outside the Milfred Hailey apartments.

Officers were on patrol when they heard shots fired in the area of 277 Centre Street. They immediately responded to the gunfire where they found Joyce and Blair suffering from apparent gunshot wounds.

Both men were taken to area hospitals where they later died from their injuries.

Neighbors in Jamaica Plain are saddened by the shooting.



"I am absolutely shattered of course, as a mother to hear about a 20-year-old who has passed is absolutely shattering because this is just a life full of potential," said one woman.

The Joyce family says Mayor Marty Walsh and Boston Police Commissioner William Evans stopped by Sunday afternoon to talk with them,

Mayor Walsh had participated in a gun safety meeting just hours before the fatal shooting. He shared his disappointment Saturday.

"We probably had one of the best summer strategy meetings we've ever had. We talked about a lot of different things and plans for the summer to keep people safe, keep kids safe and last night we have two people killed," Mayor Walsh said.

Violence often rises along with the temperature in the spring and summer months. It's a troublesome trend sparking the minds of community activists looking for ways to cut the crime.

"I think what we need to do is think about how to incorporate young people into creating spaces and the programs that they want to attend," one woman said.

For Ruth Rollins, with the anti-crime organization Operation Lipstick, the city's latest murder shows there is still so much more work to be done.

"Unfortunately losing my son, it's a club nobody wants to join. Nobody should have to bury their child."

But Joyce's mom is preparing to do just that.

"There is emptiness, loneliness, hurt, anger, everything..."

Through their grief, the Joyce family is looking for justice. Police are still looking for a suspect.

Commissioner Evans says the motive for the double homicide is not known. He is urging the public to step up, asking anyone who saw anything to call police at (617) 343-4470. Anyone who wishes to make an anonymous tip can do so by calling the CrimeStoppers Tip Line at 1-800-494-TIPS or by texting the word 'TIP' to CRIME (27463).

The BPD is actively investigating the shooting.Police are searching for the suspect who they say shot a woman in Portland, Maine Sunday morning.

According to WCSH-TV, officers responded to an area of Parris Street at about 8:45 a.m. after receiving multiple reports of a gunshot.

When officers arrived to the scene, the 49-year-old female victim was located with non-life-threatening injuries. The woman, who has not been identified, was taken to an area hospital for treatment.

Police told WCSH-TV that the victim and the alleged shooter had been in a verbal argument before the incident happened.

Police said no arrests have been made but they are looking for a younger man who was driving a small, silver sport utility vehicle which may have a Massachusetts licence plate beginning with the numbers 771. The man may have had a passenger with him.Independent report puts West Berkshire in 10 fastest rural areas

WEST Berkshire has some of the fastest average broadband speeds for rural areas in the country, according to a recent report.

A study by Thinkbroadband  an independent website dedicated to providing information and news on broadband-related matters  found that the district has 98.4 per cent superfastbroadband coverage and average mean best case download speeds of 355mbps (megabits per second).

This is exceeded only by urban areas of Bournemouth and parts of central London.

The study ranked local authorities on the average broadband speed possible if everyone in the area bought the fastest available service.

West Berkshire is one of only three non-London authorities in the top 10, and is the only rural authority recognised as having exceptional upload and download speeds.

Superfast Berkshire, a joint scheme between the six Berkshire unitary authorities and Thames Valley Berkshire Local Enterprise Partnership, was started in 2011 as part of the Governments Broadband Delivery UK national programme.

The scheme set out to deliver superfast broadband to areas not serviced by the commercial plans of the private sector.

In August last year, contracts were awarded to BT and Gigaclear to complete the third and final phase of the project, which will see superfast coverage brought to more than 99.5 per cent of homes across the county over the next two years.

Speaking about the findings,West Berkshire Council executive member for economic development, Anthony Chadley (Con, Birch Copse), said: The fact that our broadband speeds are better than most of London, as well as any other major city in the UK, is something to be proud of and shows that West Berkshire offers not only excellent lifestyles opportunities for residents, but also the best possible conditions for business and industry.

The work doesnt stop here, though. Making West Berkshire a fantastic place to do business is one of our main priorities as a council; which is why we intend to increase our superfast coverage even further, and will have achieved full rollout by 2020.

Newbury MP Richard Benyon hailed the report as a testament to the fantastic legacy left by the late Roger Croft, the leader of West Berkshire Council who was killed in a car accident in France last year.

During his role as the authoritys executive for ICT, Mr Croft was instrumental in negotiating the councils contract with Gigaclear, the company involved with rolling out broadband in the most difficult to reach areas across the district.

Mr Benyon said: This all fits into a narrative Ive been talking about for some time  that West Berkshire is the best place to start and grow a business.

I am really pleased that the results are starting to show and that we are powering ahead in terms of digital connectivity.Treat them as workers and be grateful

THE RMG workers, who blocked Dhaka-Aricha highway in Savar protesting the death of their fellow worker on Saturday, withdrew the agitation following the garment authorities' assurance of providing Tk 8 lakh as compassion. Based on the assurance, the agitating workers withdrew their protest around 8:30 pm, reported a local daily.

Earlier, around 2000 workers of the H R Textile Mills Limited blocked the highway in Ulail area around 5:00 pm protesting the death of one Rashedul Islam, 25, a worker of the factory, hailing from Kurigram, as per the report. According to fellow workers, Rashedul felt very sick while he was on duty and sought leave from the garment authorities but denied permission.

As his condition deteriorated, the factory authorities took Rashedul to Enam Medical College Hospital where doctors declared him dead around 2:30 pm. Hearing the news, the workers took to the street and started ransacking vehicles of the factory. They also asked the authority of the garment factory to pay Tk 10 lakh to the victim's family members as compensation.

The RMG owners should give training to the supervisors who control the factories to ensure that they don't think of the workers as mere slaves chained to their institutions. While we have noble efforts by some notable RMG businessmen who even provide their workers with wards to keep their babies the vast majority of RMG owners don't think of their workers as anything except facilitators of production.

Workplace accidents in 2017 claimed 1,242 lives and injured 371 in Bangladesh, according to a report on casualties at workplaces by Occupational Safety, Health and Environment Foundation (OSHE). In 2016, 699 workers died in the workplace and 703 were injured. The number of the casualties almost doubled from 2015. In 2015, the number of deaths was 745, in 2014 it was 1,288 and in 2013 it was 7,650, including the victims of the Rana Plaza building collapse.

The conditions of the workers have been improved but much more needs to be done. Our problem is for attracting the buyers we have to show we are the cheapest. There must be a way to improve our position of negotiation with buyers.Gunn Memorial Library in Washington will present a new collection of watercolor paintings by noted artist and designer Jim Stanton May 13 through June 23.

A reception with the artist will take place May 19 from noon to 2 p.m.

The show at the Wykeham Road library will focus on the vistas of Litchfield County.

Working with expressive color, he explores a wide variety of brush strokes, patterns and rendering techniques informed by a study of Homer, Sargent, Hassam, and Wyeth.

Stanton began studying painting and drawing in a special high school arts program hosted by the University of Cincinnati, and continued his college studies there, majoring in graphic design at UCs College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning.

He graduated with honors, participating in the co-op study program in Chicago and New York.

Upon moving to New York City, he studied figure drawing and anatomy with Robert Beverly Hale, and watercolors with Mario Cooper and Dale Meyers at the Art Students League.

After working with several New York City design firms, he joined Hill and Knowlton, International Public Relations Counsel, in 1983 as a design director and vice president, concentrating on corporate, marketing and economic development communications.

He formed Stanton Design in 1995. Today, he designs publications, corporate identity and digital media.

He has provided illustrations for numerous award-winning publications.

Stantons artwork is in the collection of the town of Roxbury and prized by collectors across the United States.

He was also the winner of the ZIP Code day postmark design competition for both 06793 and 06794.

The Wykeham Road library is open Mondays and Fridays from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Saturdays from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.

For information, call 860-868-7586.Noman, 12 other BNP leaders detained in Gazipur

UNB, Gazipur :

Police on Sunday detained BNP vice chairman Abdullah Al Noman and 12 other leaders and activists of the party at Tongi of the district.

Contacted Kamal Uddin, officer-in-charge of Tongi Police Station, said they arrested Noman and others for their involvement in damaging public transports and creating trouble on the street.

He said they have continued their drive to arrest other troublemakers till filing of this report around 8pm.

Gazipur district BNP president Fazlul Haque Milon said law enforcers picked Noman and 14 other their party leaders and activists up as they came out of the BNP's Gazipur City polls mayoral candidate Hasan Uddin Sarkar's Tongi residence after holding a press conference over the High Court's stay order on the May-15 election.

Milon said several hundred law enforcers cordoned off Sarkar's residence confining many party leaders and activists, including him, to it.

Noman's personal secretary Nurul Azim Hiru told UNB that police took the BNP leader to the Tongi Police Station dragging into their vehicle after his detention.

Earlier in the day, the High Court stayed the Gazipur City Corporation election scheduled to be held on May 15.

An HC bench of Justice Naima Haider and Justice Zafar Ahmed passed the order following hearing on a writ petition.

The HC also issued a rule asking the government to explain as to why the inclusion of six moujas of Dhaka district into GCC should not be declared illegal.

Chief Election Commissioner KM Nurul Huda announced the election schedule for Gazipur and Khulna city corporations on March 31.

Awami League's Jahangir Alam and BNP's Hasn Uddin Sarkar are vying for the mayoral post in the polls.

Following the landmark SPRINT trial, there is a growing body of evidence for reducing systolic blood pressure targets, resulting in the development of new US guidelines. However, this has led to many questions about the impact of such fundamental changes in blood pressure management, and whether they should be implemented in other constituencies. Two new studies published in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology assess the benefits and costs of incorporating these more aggressive goals into clinical practice.

The Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial (SPRINT) published in 2015 was a randomized, controlled, open-label trial conducted at 102 clinical sites in the US. It compared an intensive systolic blood pressure target of 120 mmHg to the current standard target of 140 mmHg in individuals at high cardiovascular risk and without diabetes. It was halted early after interim analyses showed patients in the intensive arm showed a significant decrease in fatal and nonfatal cardiovascular events and death from any cause.

Based on these statistically-significant findings, as well as the growing global body of evidence showing a strong association between lower systolic blood pressure targets and a reduction in cardiovascular events, an intensive systolic treatment target of <120 mmHg for selected high-risk patients was adopted into the Hypertension Canada clinical practice guidelines in 2016.

In Fall 2017, the American College of Cardiology (ACC) and American Heart Association (AHA) issued new guidelines for high blood pressure that redefined hypertension as a blood pressure equal or above 130/80 mmHg, as well as lowered the blood pressure treatment goal for the general American population. However, there has been fierce discussion on both sides of the 49th parallel where to go from here.

In the first of the new studies, Alexander Leung, MD, MPH, from the University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, explained that, "The generalizability of the SPRINT intensive blood pressure treatment strategy to the Canadian population remains unknown. Uptake of these recommendations into clinical practice is expected to have broad implications on healthcare policy, resource utilization, and clinical outcomes and may pose certain challenges such as more frequent clinic visits, increased drug costs, increased rates of adverse events, and other heightened healthcare expenditures."

Dr. Leung and colleagues report on a cross-sectional study, using population-based, nationally representative data, to estimate the prevalence and characteristics of blood pressure in Canadian adults between the ages of 20 and 79 meeting SPRINT eligibility criteria. They found that 1.3 million (5.2 percent) Canadian adults met the criteria. If fully implemented, lowering the systolic blood pressure target to <120 mmHg in SPRINT-eligible high-risk individuals would prevent 100,000 deaths annually, but would substantially increase the proportion of Canadian adults receiving initiation or intensification of treatment for high blood pressure. Over 180,000 people, who were not previously considered to have hypertension or need for antihypertensive therapy, would be included. In addition, around 750,000 older individuals (or one in five) above the age of 50 currently treated for high blood pressure would require more medication to reduce their blood pressure further.

"Adopting intensive systolic blood pressure targets would result in a large number of individuals with treated hypertension being relabeled as inadequately controlled, as well as a significant proportion of the general population not previously considered to have elevated blood pressure being reclassified as requiring blood pressure lowering therapy," noted Dr. Leung. "Such a change would have far-reaching implications on healthcare resource utilization, public policy, and healthcare delivery."

In the second study, Remi Goupil, MD, MSc, from the Hopital du Sacre-Coeur de Montreal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and colleagues examined the differences between the 2017 Hypertension Canada and 2017 American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association (ACC/AHA) blood pressure guidelines.

"The 2017 ACC/AHA guidelines present a paradigm shift in the definition of high blood pressure, while updating treatment initiation thresholds and blood pressure targets," said Dr. Goupil. "This has led to many questions about the impact of such fundamental changes in blood pressure management, and whether it should be implemented in Canada."

The investigators assessed the number of individuals with a diagnosis of hypertension, blood pressure above thresholds for treatment initiation, and blood pressure below targets using the CARTaGENE population-based cohort. CARTaGENE is a population-based cohort designed to study demographic, clinical, and genetic determinants of chronic diseases. Individuals from the province of Quebec were randomly selected, based on provincial health registries, to be broadly representative of the general population. In total, 20,004 individuals 40-69 years old were selected in four distinct urban areas.

Analysis showed that adopting recommendations from the 2017 ACC/AHA guidelines in Canada would result in a substantial increase in diagnoses of hypertension and of individuals requiring drug treatment in Canadians aged between 40 and 69. It would also result in a change in blood pressure targets in a high proportion of hypertensive patients already receiving treatment. This would represent approximately 1.25 million more individuals with hypertension, and 500,000 more individuals requiring antihypertensive treatment.

"Switching to these new guidelines would result in a higher prevalence of hypertensive individuals in Canada and an increase in the number of people that would need to be treated," remarked Dr. Goupil. "Almost one in five individuals needing treatment would have a different blood pressure target from one guideline to the other. These changes would greatly impact the lives of millions of Canadians and result in a significant increase in the economic burden of this condition, with uncertain effects on cardiovascular complications."

In an accompanying editorial, Ross Feldman, MD, Medical Director of the WRHA Cardiac Sciences Program, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, points out that undertaking these more aggressive goals should be based on frank discussions with patients outlining both benefits and risk, and that management should be based on automatic office blood pressure (AOBP) readings, as used in the SPRINT trial, which may well correspond with higher ambulatory blood pressure (ABP) readings. Dr. Feldman is past President of the Canadian Hypertension Society and Hypertension Canada and has been involved in the Canadian hypertension guidelines since 1991.

"Regardless of the guidelines we use, in the post-SPRINT era there are more patients than ever who can expect clear benefit from applying lower targets for their blood pressure control--but with increased risk of adverse effects. These studies remind us that on a public health basis, getting the guidelines right does matter. For every adjustment in blood pressure targets, there are benefits and there are costs--both for patients and in our publicly-funded healthcare system, for all Canadians," remarked Dr. Feldman.

However, Dr. Feldman also points out that more important than any of the fine details of a guidelines process is the effectiveness in their dissemination and implementation. "It is better to have suboptimal guidelines that are followed than it is to have 'perfectly' crafted and up-to-date guidelines that are ignored."Bhaderwah: Over hundred villages in Jammu and Kashmir are "un-electrified", the state's Power Development Minister Sunil Kumar Sharma has said adding efforts were on to ensure power supply reaches them by the end of next month.

Sharma's comments come a week after the Centre claimed all villages in India had access to electricity.

A total of 102 villages in Jammu region remain un-electrified and all out efforts are on to cover these villages. We are hopeful of electrifying these villages by June 30 this year, Sharma told reporters here on Saturday.

He said the work to electrify these villages was on at war footing as Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made it his priority to provide electricity to each and every household in the country.

"In my home constituency (Kishtwar), 44 villages are without electricity, he said.

To meet the deadline, he said the department had deployed the Indian Air Force (IAF) to reach inaccessible areas.

I am quite confident that by June 30, all the left out villages of entire Jammu and Kashmir will be electrified, the minister said.

Sharma said though there was hilly and tough terrain in Jammu and Kashmir, luckily, the state was blessed with numerous water resources.

The Chenab river alone has a potential to generate 22000 MW of power, he said.

Besides, there are also hundreds of streams and rivulets where power can be generated. We have given the mandate to Jammu Kashmir Energy Development Agency (JKEDA) to tap the energy from these resources, he said.Srinagar: Five unidentified militants were killed in an encounter with security forces in Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir on Sunday, police said.

Top Hizbul Mujahideen commander Saddam Padder is also believed to be among the slain militants, Press Trust of India reported, but police officials said it can only be confirmed after ascertaining the identity of the slain terrorists.

Encounter concluded at Badigam Zainpora Shopian, 5 bodies of terrorists recovered. Well done boys - Army/ CRPF/J&K Police," DGP SP Vaid tweeted.

Encounter concluded at Badigam Zainpora Shopian, 5 bodies of terrorists recovered. Well done boys - Army/ CRPF/J&K Police. Shesh Paul Vaid (@spvaid) May 6, 2018

A police official said the identity and the group affiliation of the slain militants are being ascertained.

The encounter broke out after security forces launched cordon and search operation in Badigam village in Zainapora area of the south Kashmir district following specific information about the presence of militants in the area.

A Kashmir University assistant professor, who went missing on Friday, is believed to be among the slain militants. Mohammad Rafi Bhat, a contractual assistant professor in the Sociology department of the university, went missing on Friday.

Bhat, a resident of Chundina area of central Kashmir's Ganderbal district, was to join militant ranks and reportedly is among the militants who were trapped in Badigam.

Reportedly, Bhat is among the militants trapped there, Inspector General of Police (IGP), Kashmir, SP Pani said.

He said the police brought his family from Ganderbal to persuade him to surrender.

After receiving the input about his presence there, we brought his family from Ganderbal to persuade him to surrender, but so far, repeated attempts have not materialized, Pani had said earlier in the day.

Bhat's family informed the university authorities about his disappearance on Saturday.

Protests had rocked the university yesterday over his disappearance, following which the university's vice chancellor met the protesting students and assured them that all efforts would be made to trace the missing professor.

The vice-chancellor had also written to the Director General of Police, requesting him that all efforts be made to trace Bhat's whereabouts.

(With PTI inputs)New Delhi: An adult couple has a right to live together without marriage, the Supreme Court said, while asserting that a 20-year-old Kerala woman, whose marriage had been annulled, could choose whom she wanted to live with.

The top court held that live-in relationships were now even recognized by the Legislature and they had found a place under the provisions of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005.

The observations came while the apex court was hearing a plea filed by one Nandakumar against a Kerala High Court order annulling his marriage with Thushara on the ground that he had not attained the legal age of marriage.

Prohibition of Child Marriage Act states that a girl can't marry before the age of 18, and a boy before 21.

Nandakumar, who had approached the top court, will turn 21 on May 30 this year.

The high court had also granted the custody of Thushara to her father after noting that she was not Nandakumar's "lawfully wedded" wife.

A bench of justices A K Sikri and Ashok Bhushan said their marriage could not said to be "null and void" merely because Nandakumar was less than 21 years of age at the time of marriage.

"Appellant no 1 as well as Thushara are Hindus. Such a marriage is not a void marriage under the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, and as per the provisions of section 12, which can be attracted in such a case, at the most, the marriage would be a voidable marriage...

"It is sufficient to note that both appellant no 1 and Thushara are major. Even if they were not competent to enter into wedlock (which position itself is disputed), they have right to live together even outside wedlock," the bench said.

While setting aside the order of the high court granting custody of woman to her father, the apex court said that "we make it clear that the freedom of choice would be of Thushara as to with whom she wants to live".

It also referred to a recent case involving a woman from Kerala, Hadiya, where it had restored her marriage with Shafin Jahan on the ground that it was a marriage between two consenting adults.

The apex court had also clarified that a court cannot interfere in the marriage of two consenting adult and cannot annul the marriage in a habeas corpus (a writ requiring a person under arrest to be brought before a judge or into court, for securing the person's release) petition.Chennai: A 46-year-old man from Tamil Nadu, who accompanied his son to Kerala for the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET), died of a heart attack on Sunday as the aspiring doctor wrote the examination unaware of his father's death.

Chief Minister K Palaniswami conveyed his condolence to the kin of the deceased and announced a solatium of Rs 3 lakh from the CM's Public Relief Fund.

Krishnasamy had travelled with his son Kasturi Mahalingam to Ernakulam in Kerala, where the student was allotted a centre to appear for NEET-2018.

The father suffered a heart attack on Sunday morning when he was in a lodge after seeing off his son at the exam centre.

Later, Palaniswami announced that the Tamil Nadu government would bear the higher education expenses of Kasturi Mahalingam accepting an appeal from the student's mother.

The chief minister said the appeal was made by Krishnasamy's wife Barathi Mahadevi when he spoke to her over phone and expressed his condolence.

He said he had ordered officials to take appropriate steps to fund the education of the student.

Expressing anguish over the incident, Palaniswami said a team of officials has been rushed to the neighbouring state to bring back the body.

In an official release, he said the deceased was a resident of Vilangudi village in the delta district of Tiruvarur.

Krishnasamy, who suffered cardiac arrest was admitted to a hospital where he died, Palaniswami said.

As Krishnasamy breathed his last, his son wrote the exam unaware of his father's fate.

"I have sent a team of Tamil Nadu officials to Ernakulam to assist Kasturi Mahalingam to take his father's body home after he completes writing the NEET exam," the chief minister said.

He said Chief Secretary Girija Vaidyanathan has spoken to her Kerala counterpart seeking assistance to bring Krishnasamy's body back to Tamil Nadu.

Ernakulam District Collector Safirullah is taking swift steps to send Krishnasamy's body to his native village in Tamil Nadu, Palaniswami said.

The death comes against the backdrop of the Centre facing flak from opposition parties for not allotting centres for Tamil Nadu students in the state.

The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test or NEET is conducted for selecting students to study medical and dental courses.

Condoling the death of Krishnasamy, DMK working president M K Stalin hit out at the AIADMK regime for not pursuing legal measures to get exemption from NEET for Tamil Nadu students.

It may be recalled that Tamil Nadu had last year passed bills in the Assembly which sought to continue admission to medical courses based on plus two (Class 12) marks.

Ernakulam district authorities said Krishnaswamy's body was shifted to the General Hospital in Kochi.

His body will be taken to his native place in the evening and his relatives are expected to reach here soon.

A Kerala police pilot vehicle will accompany the vehicle carrying the body till it reaches the state's border with Tamil Nadu. Kerala Revenue officials will accompany the body till Thiruvaroor, they said.

Collector Safirullah and Deputy Police Commissioner of Kochi Karuppusami are at the General Hospital.The Bihar School Examination Board BSEB will be releasing the Bihar Board Result 2018 or BSEB Class 10 matric results 2018 on June 26 (tomorrow) at 11:30 am, Board officials have confirmed said. The BSEB Bihar School Examination Board will publish the Bihar Board Class 10 results 2018 or Bihar Matric Result 2018, Bihar Class 10 Matric Result 2018 on its official website biharboard.ac.in.

The Bihar School Examination Board BSEB conducted the Bihar Board Class 10 Matric exams 2018 from February 21 to February 28. The practical examinations were held from January 22 to January 24. The students can also check their Bihar Class 10 Matric Results 2018, BSEB Bihar Class 10 Results 2018, Bihar Board Class 10 Results 2018 on this website as well bihar.indiaresults.com or examresults.net

Students need to follow the steps to check Bihar BSEB Class 10 Matric Results 2018 or BSEB Class 10 Matric Results 2018:

* Log on to the Bihar School Examination Board BSEB website biharboard.ac.in

* Click on the Bihar BSEB Class 10 Matric Results 2018 or BSEB Class 10 Matric Results 2018

* Enter your roll number and the Bihar board Class 10 matric results 2018 will appear

* Click on 'Save' to download the result

* Students can take a print out for further reference

Total Number of students appeared: 17,58,797

Number of Centers: 1426

Number of students passed: 12,11,617

Prerna Raj scored 91.4% from Simultala Awasiya Vidyalaya in Jamui district, topped the Bihar 10th Result 2018 with 457 points.

Toppers in Bihar 10th Result 2018 :

1. Prerna Raj

2. Shikha Kumari

3. Anupriya

To check BSEB Class 10 Results 2018 result, students also can check their Bihar BSEB Matric Class 10 Results 2018, Bihar Board Class 10 Result 2018 via SMS:Kolkata: West Bengal Police have arrested BJP leader Mukul Roy's brother-in-law from New Delhi for allegedly duping railway job seekers, a senior official said on Saturday. Mukul Roy is a former Trinamool Congress MP.

Roy's brother-in-law Srijan Roy was arrested from New Delhi airport late last night by a team of police from Bizpur police station in North 24 Parganas district on the basis of complaints which were filed around six years ago, the police officer said.

"Srijan Roy has been arrested for taking money from several people on the pre-text of providing them jobs," a district police official said.

Various charges under different sections of the IPC, including 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 406 (punishment for criminal breach of trust), 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating), 471 (using a forged document as genuine) and others have been slapped against the arrested accused.

The accused was produced at a district court on Saturday and was remanded to 12-day police custody, he added.

Describing the arrest as "political conspiracy", Mukul Roy, who was the Union Railway Minister in 2012 when the cases were lodged against his brother-in-law, said he himself was the actual target of the move.

"This is a conspiracy hatched by Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee against me and my family members. She is resorting to such things because she is afraid of the Bharatiya Janata Party. I am the real target of this conspiracy," Roy said.

The BJP leader said he would fight such conspiracies "politically".Chandigarh: Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar will be leaving for his two-nation visit to Israel and the UK on Sunday.

The chief minister is leading a high-level delegation to Israel to study their best practices in the field of agriculture so that the same could be replicated in the state for the benefit of the farming community.

Khattar will also be visiting the UK to attract investment for the ongoing major industrial projects in the state.

Addressing a press conference here today, he said that the delegation would be in Israel from May 6 to 8 and in the UK from May 9 to 14. The chief minister will be returning on May 15.

Khattar said that during his visit to Israel, the delegation would be participating in the Agritech Israel-2018 scheduled to be held on May 8.

Notably, Agritech Israel 2018, the 20th International Agricultural Technology Exhibition, is one of the world's most important exhibitions in the field of agricultural technologies.

The chief minister said that a 10-year Indo-Israel action plan was started in the year 2008 for mutual cooperation in various fields.

Under the Indo-Israel project, 20 Centres of Excellence had been established all over the country, out of which five have been set up in Haryana.

In view of the success of this action plan, it has been extended for another three years till 2020.

Khattar said the technique of converting the waste and salty water for use in irrigation would also be studied and the possibilities of replicating the same in Haryana would be explored.

The homeland security and aerospace would be among the other key areas which would be deliberated and discussed during the visit as Israel is the hub of aerospace and internal security, he added.

The chief minister said that his UK visit would further strengthen the bilateral business relations besides attracting industrial investment to Haryana, especially in the major ongoing global city projects like Mass Rapid Transit System (MRTS) between Gurugram-Manesar-Bawal, logistic hub at Narnaul, Hisar Aviation Hub and IMT Kharkhoda.

The meetings would also be held with the leading industrialists regarding start-ups for creating job opportunities for the youth of Haryana, he added.New Delhi: The customs department arrested a 53-year-old man at the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport for smuggling 100 sets of Apple iPhone X worth Rs 85 lakh.

"The recovered mobile phones were seized under Section 110 of the Customs Act, 1962 and the passengers were arrested under Section 104 of the same Act. Further investigation into the matter is under process," said a statement by the customs department.

The man, who was returning from Dubai, was caught after the custom's intelligence unit was tipped off. He was coming through the green channel when he was stopped and a subsequent search led to the discovery.

The top-of-the-range iPhone X has been in high demand. According to research firm Strategy Analytics, Apple iPhone X was the worlds best selling smartphone in the first quarter of 2018. The 64 GB base model costs about Rs 85,000 in India, while only costing nearby Rs 70,000 in Dubai.Bengaluru: Article 84 (b) of Constitution of India provides that the minimum age for becoming a candidate for Lok Sabha election shall be 25 years. Similar provision exists for a candidate to the Legislative Assemblies vide Article 173 (b) of the Constitution read with Sec. 36 (2) of the R. P. Act, 1950. But the affidavit of a candidate contesting from BTM layout in Bengaluru states that she is only 20 years old.

Shabrin is the youngest candidate contesting this election, if we go by affidavits filed by the candidates.

Shabrin, who is contesting as an independent, is one of the thirteen candidates contesting from the constituency, which will also see Home Minister Ramalinga Reddy trying his luck from the same.

"I am a 1990 born. I am currently 27 years old. There must have been a mistake," said Shabrin, who is contesting elections for the first time.

When the said error was pointed out, returning officer of the constituency said that the records were all correct.

Seen here is the affidavit submitted by Shabrin.

"We verified her records and the certificates submitted by her shows she is 27 years old. Affidavit is filed by the candidate. There could be an error. But our scrutiny revealed she's eligible to contest," said Rangappa S, returning officer, BTM layout constituency.

However, even with these evidence, on record, she will remain the youngest candidate to have stood for the Karnataka assembly election until another candidate in future declares their age to be less than 20!

Besides this, the number of candidates from the youngest age group of 25-30 is 180, in the 71-80 age group there are 46 candidates and in the above 80 age group there are five candidates.

The highest number of candidates come from the age group of 41-50 - 802 candidates, followed by 669 candidates from the age group of 31-40, 549 from the age group of 51-60 and 301 from the age group of 61-70, according to the analysis of 2560 out of 2655 candidates, by the Association for Democratic Reforms, a NGO in the area of electoral and political reforms.None passed in 109 schools

Staff Reporter :

Students of 109 educational institutions were not among the 77.77 percent of those passed the SSC and its equivalent examinations, according to examination results published on Sunday.

Last year, the number of schools where no students passed was 93. However, in 2016, the number of school was 53.

Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid said, "Last year we identified many institutions where no student passed. They might have improved this year. This year more schools have been added to the list."

The number of students of these schools is very low. In a school, we found two students who sat for the examinations and both of them failed."New Delhi: Wading into the Jinnah row, Union minister V K Singh on Sunday said those Muslims, who supported the presence of Pakistan founder's portrait in the Aligarh Muslim University, were insulting their forefathers, who had rejected his ideology.

They are Indians today because of their forefathers, the minister of state for external affairs said in a social media post.

A controversy has erupted over the presence of Muhammad Ali Jinnah's portrait in the AMU, with BJP leaders demanding that it be removed. A picture of the man responsible for India's division cannot be accepted in a public-funded institution, they have said.

Singh said, "If you are not a Muslim but support the portrait's presence because you think that protests against it curbs your freedom, then you should think if you would like on the walls of your house a picture of somebody whose hands are stained with the blood of your own people"

Without a doubt, freedom is everybody's right. But we tend to forget that how many great people shed their blood in achieving it. Will they be proud today of the manner in which you are using your freedom? the former Army chief asked in the post titled 'Let us protect our freedom from abuse'.

The minister said, If you are a Muslim and want Jinnah's portrait on your walls, then this is a huge insult of your forefathers who had rejected his ideology. You are an Indian today because of them.

Apparently addressing AMU students, he said it is one of the leading universities in the country and they (the students) should be aware of the expectations the country has from them.

Singh suggested they have to choose between wisdom and prudence, or narrow-mindedness and extremism.

Violence broke out on the AMU campus on Wednesday as the row over the portrait triggered a right-wing protest.New Delhi: Two days after Friday prayers were disrupted by Hindutva outfits in Gurgaon, Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar said on Sunday that there has been an increase in the number of people offering namaz in open spaces. He added that prayers should be restricted to mosques and idgahs.

It is our duty to maintain law and order. There has been an increase in offering namaz in open. Namaz should be read in mosques or idgahs rather than public spaces, news agency ANI quoted Khattar as saying.

It is our duty to maintain law & order. There has been an increase in offering namaz in open. Namaz should be read in Mosques or Idgahs rather than public spaces: Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar on increase in the number of incidents of disrupting namaz in Gurugram pic.twitter.com/82ZQw6M2WN ANI (@ANI) May 6, 2018

The chief minister was reacting to the incidents of namaz disruption in Gurgaon.

According to a report in The Times of India, unprecedented scenes of people offering namaz getting up midway and running away in the face of slogan-shouting were witnessed on Friday in busy areas like Iffco Chowk, Udyog Vihar, Leisure Valley Park and Mall Mile on MG Road. At a park opposite Candor Techspace, a group of corporate executives prayed amid heavy security cover.

The report said that Hindutva outfits went around the city shouting slogans like 'Jai Shri Ram' and 'Bangladeshi wapas jao', and disrupted congregations.

Two weeks ago, Gurgaon police arrested six people for dismissing men while they were offering Friday namaz.

The group of men were allegedly heard shouting 'Jai Sri Ram', and directing namaazis to offer prayers only in mosques. The arrests were made a week after a video clip of the incident went viral.

The clip showed residents of two villages in Sector 53 stopping the namaaz that was being conducted in an open space where around 700 Muslim men gather every Friday afternoon.New Delhi: Five Hizbul Mujahideen terrorists, including an assistant professor at the Kashmir University, were killed in an encounter that began this morning in Jammu and Kashmir's Shopian.

A top Hizbul commander, once considered close to terrorist Burhan Wani, is also among those killed. Five local people also died in the clashes that followed the encounter.

The encounter broke out after security forces launched cordon and search operation in Badigam village in Zainapora area of the south Kashmir district following specific information about the presence of militants in the area.

The dead civilians have been identified as Sajad Rather of Sehpora Dooru, Zubair Ahmad Nigro of Ayangund Rajpora, Yasir of Shopian and Adil Bashir Ganie of Mahgund Ashmuji Kulgam.

Earlier, a civilian identified as Asif Ahmad Mir (17) of Rahmoo, Pulwama suffered critical head injuries near Badigam and later succumbed to injuries at SMHS hospital.

A police officer also confirmed the killings and said that it is being investigated under what circumstances they were killed.

A policeman and a soldier of 44 RR were injured in the initial exchange of fire with the militants, reports said. The injured were shifted to 92 base military hospital in Badami Bagh Srinagar.

Over a dozen protesters have been injured during clashes near the encounter site.Srinagar: He was sorry if he had hurt his parents, the son told his father on the phone. It was the first call of the day that Fayaz Ahmed Bhat received from his sociologist son  and the last ever.

Bhat was still bleary-eyed at his residence in Chundana in Ganderbal when his mobile phone rang early this morning, he told the police later.

It was his son Mohammed Rafi Bhat calling to bid farewell.

"I am sorry if I have hurt you, Rafi told his father before he was gunned down in an encounter with security forces at Shopian in South

kashmir today.

Rafi had left home on Friday last week and joined the Hizbul Mujahideen terror group, the police said.

The Jammu and Kashmir police, which was monitoring all calls from the encounter site, quickly got cracking and sent a police team to Bhat asking him to convince his son to surrender.

The father, accompanied by his mother, sister and wife, started their journey from their home to the encounter site. But barely after reaching Bota Kadal, 14km from their home, they heard the news about Rafi's end.

The family returned home to prepare for his funeral.

The senior Bhat told the police about his last conversation with his son and indicated he was convinced Rafi would not be there to hear their pleas, asking him to surrender.

"I am sorry if I have hurt you and this is my last call as I am going to meet Allah," Rafi told his father, who recounted the conversation to the police.

Rafi Bhat, a 33-year-old professor on contract with the Kashmir University's Sociology department, had left the varsity premises on Friday and had been missing since then.

Reports had suggested he had joined the terror group but his father had repeatedly told the police Rafi would not pick up arms.

Fayaz Ahmed Bhat, who was an overground worker for a terror outfit in the early 1990s, had been keeping a strict watch on his son ever since he had attempted to move to Pakistan-occupied-kashmir at age of 18 but was caught by the police and handed over to his parents.

Rafi, a Ph.D in his discipline, was among five militants killed by security personnel at the Badgam area of Shopian, nearly 80km from his house.

Two of his first cousins were also involved in militancy and had died in the early 1990s.As tension grips Aligarh Muslim University over Jinnah portrait, former students of the varsity say that at the time it was installed, circumstances were different and vote bank politics was not a part of the university. Ninety-four-year-old Riaz-Ur-Sherwani, who was 12-years-old when Jinnah was accorded life membership of AMUSU in 1938, says that it was a personal affair of the students, and it still is.

Sherwani is known to vehemently oppose Jinnah and his policies, however, he says that when the portrait was put up, the circumstances of the country were different and no outsider can dictate what is to be hung in the university hall.

Jinnahs portrait was unveiled by then pro vice-chancellor A B Habib. I was present at the meeting and saw the photo being unveiled. The Students Union was honouring Jinnah with the lifetime membership. It was a personal affair of the students and it still is their personal affair, no outsider can dictate what to hang in their Hall, the 94-year-old former student says.

He says that the rules of the Union were different in 1938, the pro-VC was the president of the AMU Students Union and the VP was elected by the students.

I dont remember everything that happened on the day of unveiling, but I do remember that the pro VC, who was the president of the Union, told Jinnah that from now he was Jinnahs teacher and Jinnah was his pupil, Sherwani recalls.

The former student says that every time Jinnah visited the varsity, people gathered to hear him but not everyone agreed with him.

I was opposed to his policies that were a part of India's partition movement. He used to come to the university often between 1938 and 1944  continuously for seven years  and stopped coming after he realised his work is done. Every time he came, there were people to hear him, but not everyone agreed with him, he says, adding that Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan used to stay at his place in Habib Manzil.

Sherwani reviewed a book by his friend Mukhtar Masood, and remembers reading a line -- Jinnah told Muslims that creation of Pakistan will mean Muslims would live in India under the Hindus. He strongly disapproved of Jinnah's politics.

Expressing his disappointment over Jinnah portrait row, the former student says, Whosoever you are, how can you say remove it? Jinnah is not alive today. It was hung in different circumstances of the country. Today India has diplomatic, trade and political relations with Pakistan. This action is not go well in line with the larger interest.

In 1944, he did his intermediate, when he saw Jinnah. Students used to swarm the university whenever he visited. I also used to go there, not because of interest but because it used to be a tamasha (drama).

Jawaharlal Nehru came as well. I admired Nehru and Azad, he smiles as he recalls the past.

Sherwani is one of those people who spent time in refugee camps and by the twist fate and circumstances he got stuck in Pakistan. He had no idea he would be stuck there for a long time.

His father, Obaid-ur-Rehman, who was a member of the UP legislative assembly, had to make efforts to get his sons back

His family was influential, so Sherwani got arrangements for his accommodation and education done.

He stayed in the house of some Kapoors at Waris Road in Lahore' and studied in Oriental College of Lahore. The former student says, They had many books, liquor and lots of photographs. It appeared they went for picnics very often.

Another former student, Amarjeet Singh Bindra, 83, says that the portrait issue has been raked up by politicians.

Being the first and the only non-Muslim member for the cabinet of the AMU Students Union then, Bindra says, I remember everything from those days, including the fact that the hall had many portraits. There must have been Jinnahs also, I do remember seeing it. But in the Union Hall we would be so busy with students issues that never did we sat and talked about the portraits, he says.

Bindra was the first non-Muslim member of the AMU Students Union cabinet (News18)

He was elected in the year 1957, when Colonel Zaidi was the Vice Chancellor and he was admitted to the university in 1956 when Zakir Hussain was the Vice Chancellor. Much before he got elected Bindra went to Rashtrapati Bhavan for an inter university meet, where the Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru told him, How come a Sikh is representing a Muslim university?

The student leaders were very focussed about their duties but today I dont see this, the portrait issue is now being used for political relevance, everybody from all streams of political affiliations are wanting to be heard so that they get political mileage at the time of elections, Bindra says.

His father Sardar Wazir Singh Bindra was a government servant in Sialkot. Bindra was born in 1937 in Rawalpindi, and grew up with seven brothers and a sister.

At the time of partition, the Bindras found themselves in a situation where all they could do was leave. They got on an army truck and fled. Bindra still remembers that his father had packed some potassium cyanide thinking if the women in the group were attacked at the time of leaving Pakistan, he would give them poison. Fortunately, nothing happened, he says.

The cabinet he was elected in was diverse. There was Bindra, a non-Muslim and two women Talat Khwahar and Bushra Fayaz. During his tenure he changed the mess facility from contract to cooperative - "Our style of politics was different - when I found the food was bad, I went to the VC with the plate to taste the food we got, things were taken note of and changed."

He terms his days of AMU as different because by then the political parties had not started their vote bank politics in AMU". "Now the student politics of AMU has become artificial, he says.

(More Sunday Features)Ujjain: Authorities of a town in Madhya Pradesh's Ujjain district withdrew an order on Saturday that had asked functionaries of village panchayats to intimate the police about any weddings in Dalit families three days in advance.

The order, issued on April 16 in Mahidpur town, 244km from Bhopal, came two days after a wedding procession of a Dalit groom was allegedly stopped by upper-caste men. The man belonged to the Scheduled Caste Balai community, said an official.

In the order, the sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) of Mahidpur, Jagdish Gome, had directed the secretaries of all village panchayats within his jurisdiction to inform the police three days in advance about any weddings being organised by families belonging to the Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Other Backward Castes (OBCs).

The order stated that these village panchayat secretaries were to immediately inform the local police station in-charge, in writing, by post or on the official WhatsApp group.

"The order issued by the SDM has been revoked with immediate effect," District Collector Manish Singh said.

The Mahidpur SDM said the order was issued as a "precautionary measure", following the incident on the night of April 14, which incidentally happens to be Ambedkar Jayanti.

Leader of Opposition in the state Assembly, Ajay Singh, however, termed the order a "blot" on social harmony.

"Dalits are being disrespected in a planned way across the state. The order issued by the district administration in Ujjain is a blot on the social harmony of the state," Singh said.

The senior Congress leader also pointed to a recent incident, which occurred in MP's Dhar district, in which police aspirants have had their caste categories marked on their chests during a medical examination.New Delhi: Former Supreme Court judge Markandey Katju says he was on the verge of being impeached when he was in the Allahabad High Court in 1992 after he ordered the reinstatement of a teacher whose appointment was cancelled by school authorities in Uttar Pradesh.

He also feels that the process of appointing the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court as the Chief Justice of India should be done away with as this "convention has proved to be defective".

Katju, who also served as the Chief Justice of the Delhi and the Madras High Courts, and as acting Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court, has come out with a book Whither Indian Judiciary, in which he takes an analytical inside view of the Indian judiciary.

On the appointment of the CJI, he writes, "The senior-most judge may be a man of integrity but may be mediocre person. He should be superseded and a judge next in seniority or one even lower down in seniority, if outstanding (as borne out from his judgments), should be made Chief Justice of India."

He traces the evolution of law and proceeds to analyse matters of critical importance like appointment of judges, contempt of court, delays in justice and the challenges facing the Indian judiciary.

Katju, who was also a former chairman of the Press Council of India, says the scenario of the country's legal system is not encouraging.

"It will take unanimous and cumulative efforts by all to achieve required progress in judicial reforms. We need radical reforms and a strong will and commitment to truly make a difference. But I doubt this will happen. Whither Indian judiciary? No one can say, but the scenario is not encouraging," he rues.

On the near-impeachment episode, he recalls, "I was appointed a permanent judge of the Allahabad High Court in November 1991, and was almost sacked a few months thereafter."

The trigger was the case related to Naresh Chand, who was appointed a biology teacher on ad hoc basis by the management of an obscure high school in Ghaziabad district of Uttar Pradesh.

But the District Inspector of Schools refused to approve the appointment on the ground that Chand was an OBC while the post was reserved for a Scheduled Caste candidate.

Consequently, his appointment was cancelled by the management of the school and his service was terminated.

"Chand challenged this before the Allahabad High Court, and the case came before me," Katju says, adding he quashed the order cancelling the appointment and directed his reinstatement.

"This judgment, delivered in 1992, created a furore all over India. While huge rallies, particularly of students, were held in support of my judgment in many parts of India, there were counter rallies elsewhere," he says.

Katju claims he started receiving threats via anonymous letters and on telephone and a large contingent of policemen had to be placed around the premises of the Allahabad High Court.

"From the newspapers I learnt that the members of Parliament belonging to the Scheduled Castes and Tribes held a meeting in Delhi and decided to bring a bill in Parliament for my impeachment," he writes in the book, published by Bloomsbury.

"I had just been appointed a high court judge, and here I was, on the verge of being sacked! For a long time I could not go for walks, and except for going to the high court had to remain confined to my house. Fortunately, the storm blew over and I survived," he adds.You are awestruck at the sudden facelift that your local bar has gone through. Punctuated with artworks, the walls now beam in a different tone. Lights have dimmed further. The acoustics turn more modest. Even the glassware has been replaced, not to mention the old menu along with its cliched drinks and snacks.

"Where did you get the idea?!" You scream at the barman after taking the first sip of a drink. Your tongue has never been treated like this in your entire life! Even the layering of the drink with its various ingredients is stupendous.

The barman, looks nonplussed, all stumped for an answer.

He doesn't know that the idea took birth far away in England, where art sits across science at a table discussing in hushed tone the aesthetics of a proper drink. Bars, world over, eagerly listen to and adopt some of the findings they make over drinks.

The Drink Factory

Imagine a set of people from different walks of life like perfumers, designers, chocolatiers and chefs putting their heads together to create the perfect bar experience. What glassware, what snacks, what colour, what texture, what aroma, what lights, what setting and what design could give the customer the best moment in a bar.

No, it is not all talk, art and philosophy.

People under the leadership of Tony Conigliaro, the pioneer of drink creation, have a veritable laboratory at the Drink Factory, London, with test tubes, peristaltic pumps, thermomixers and centrifuge behind them to work the magic into the drinks they make.

The aim  to "create boldly imaginative tastes that delight the mouth and excite the mind in equal measure". The research centre, which also functions as a mini-university for lectures and product development, informs bartenders around the world about the revolutionary discoveries they make with the help of professionals.

Want to taste a few of their drinks?

Visit one of the bars run by Tony Conigliaro, The Bar With No Name a.k.a 69 Colebrooke Row, from where he rose to fame. A perfect hideaway in London, the bar is a delightfully designed retro room that puts you in a relaxed mood with its unassuming air.

Start with 'Initials', a cocktail infused with birch, and close your eyes for the magic to take over. You find yourself ambling through silvery woods. Or open your eyes to see how much care they put into mixing various concoctions to create perfect landscapes for your mind to wander.

Perhaps the most popular item on the menu is the Prairies Oyster. Served Oyster style, the drink must be gulped in one go.

Want to rip it apart to see how the spell is made? The answer is simple  Tomato, yolk, horseradish, vodka, and some proper research. That is where The Drink Factory comes in.

(Manu Remakant is a freelance writer who also runs a video blog  A Cup of Kavitha  introducing world poetry to Malayalees. Views expressed here are personal)Mumbai: Veteran actress and social activist Shabana Azmi has been nominated as the Global Leadership Ambassador for Women in Public Service Project (WPSP), a Hillary Clinton-founded programme aimed at empowering the next generation of women around the world.

According to the official WPSP website, it is an innovative initiative to advance women to positions of influence in governments and civic organisations worldwide, and was founded by Clinton in partnership with the US Department of State and the Seven Sister Colleges of Barnard College, Bryn Mawr College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College and Wellesley College.

"I am honoured to be nominated as Global Leadership Ambassador for Women in Public Service Project at Wilson Centre, USA," Shabana tweeted on Sunday.

WPSP is a programme of the Global Women's Leadership Initiative. It also mobilises women on issues of critical importance in public service.

Shabana, who has been speaking up for women's rights and has been working towards uplifting women's status in the society through her Mijwan Welfare Society, was congratulated by actors like Tisca Chopra and Divya Dutta.

Acknowledging Tisca, Shabana wrote: "Women leaders can change the world. When women have a seat at the table, they lend their unique perspective to policy decisions that impact them and their communities. I commend WPSP Director Gwen Young and Advisor Sumera Haque for this urgent project."

While thanking Divya, who said Shabana was the "best one to bring in the change", she wrote: "Representation is more than numbers we need to take account of where women are present or absent in decision making. Building data and evidence base for women's leadership is critical."

The veteran actress emphasised that WPSP's goal of 50x50 is an important mission that needs people to step up and enable and empower more women to lead.Mumbai: Actress Alia Bhatt, who plays a spy in the forthcoming film "Raazi", says she learnt a new definition of patriotism which is more about contributing to the well-being of people selflessly rather than just feeling proud and loving your country.

"I learnt that what we believe is patriotism is quite opposite of what true patriotism is. We say we are patriots because we are living in the country and we love our country, but that is not enough," Alia told media here on Friday.

"We have to participate in activities that may not be beneficial to you but the larger population. During the journey of narrating the character, this is what I learnt which made me participate in things much more actively. What is the point of having so many followers on social media if I can't use my voice?"

The actress went to a village in Maharashtra along with superstar Aamir Khan on May 1 to actively participate in shramdaan' in the process of water conservation.

She shared: "You know you don't need to express your opinion all the time. You can feel for things and take action to solve a problem, instead of talking about the problem.

"When I went with Aamir, I understood that he is imparting knowledge to the villagers who need it, to survive and deal with the drought crisis of Maharashtra."

"I think that is true patriotism. That is why action speaks louder than words. What is the point of having a take on an issue, if I am not resolving the problem?" she explained.

"Raazi", a cross-border spy drama, is based on the book titled "Calling Sehmat". The film is set in Kashmir.

"In the film, Kashmir is not depicted in a negative light. Kashmir is a beautiful place and I love it. It is really unfortunate that their tourism business, which is a big part of the revenue, is affected because of the incidents that took place. People think that Kashmir is not a safe place to go, but that is not true," Alia said.

Directed by Meghna Gulzar, the film also features Vicky Kaushal and Soni Razdan. It is set to release on May 11.EU, rights activists express outrage over police brutality, arrests in Russia

Russin opposition leader Alexei Navalny is detained by police after calling for protests across Russia ahead of Vladimir Putin\'s inauguration for a fourth Kremlin term. Internet photo

AFP :

Foreign governments and rights activists on Sunday expressed outrage over mass arrests in Russia and the brutality with which protests were broken up on the eve of Vladimir Putin's inauguration.

The European Union slammed "police brutality and mass arrests" after nearly 1,600 protesters including opposition leader Alexei Navalny were on Saturday detained in 27 Russian cities during nationwide rallies ahead of Putin's swearing-in ceremony for a fourth Kremlin term on Monday.

Thousands had taken to the streets heeding a call from Navalny, a charismatic 41-year-old opposition politician, who was barred from challenging Putin in March's presidential election and called on Russians to stage rallies under the catchy slogan "Not our Tsar".

In Moscow, Saint Petersburg and a number of Russian cities the rallies were not authorised and police used force to break up the protests, beating demonstrators with truncheons and dragging them along the ground.

In a new development that shocked many, police in Moscow were helped by pro-Putin activists dressed as Cossacks, a paramilitary class who served as tsarist cavalrymen in imperial Russia.

Amnesty International said its representatives saw the "Cossacks" pummel protesters with whips and fists as police looked on. Pavel Chikov, head of the Agora rights association, told AFP that several dozen people received injuries, mostly haematomas, and several of them turned to his group for help.

The youngest protester who turned to Agora, was 13 years old, he said.

In Moscow alone some 700 people-including journalists and minors-were detained and more than 200 people were held in Russia's second city Saint Petersburg, said OVD-Info, an independent monitor that tracks arrests.

The European Union expressed its dismay over the violence, saying it threatened the fundamental freedoms of expression and media.

"Even if some of the demonstrations were not authorised in the location where they took place, this cannot justify police brutality and mass arrests," said EU spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic on Saturday.

In Ukraine-where a popular uprising ousted a Kremlin-backed regime in 2012 -- the foreign ministry said on Sunday it was "especially outraged" by the illegal detention of young people and minors in Russia.

Pictures of riot police detaining minors-some apparently in their early teens-went viral on the Russian internet. Maxim Shevchenko, a member of the Kremlin's rights council, said those who pitted the paramilitary activists against the protesters should be held responsible.

"It is an emergency event," he told Echo of Moscow radio station.

"Let those officials who decided to use them say their names and answer to Muscovites for what essentially is bringing paramilitary armed units into the city."

Political observer and writer Viktor Shenderovich said that by using paramilitary groups to break up the Moscow rally the Russian authorities were testing a new tool-violence by proxy.

"Pitting one part of society against another one means that the authorities are looking at-and are already testing-civil war as an instrument of political manipulation," he wrote. "This is very, very serious."

Navalny, who was grabbed by police and carried away by his arms and legs shortly after he appeared in Moscow's packed Pushkin Square, was released shortly after midnight and now faces up to 30 days in prison, his lawyer said.Voters pose outside a polling booth in Karnataka.



People were seen standing in queues to cast their votes in the early hours itself, factoring in that the temperature may go up later in the day. Also, it has been raining in different parts of south interior Karnataka for the last couple of days during the evening hours.



Senior citizens were seen in good numbers standing in queues at various polling stations to cast their votes early.



State BJP chief and party's chief ministerial candidate B S Yeddyurappa, and Pradesh Congress Committee G Parameshwara were among the first to cast votes in Shikaripura in Shivamogga and Yaggere in Tumakuru respectively.



Former prime minister HD Deve Gowda along with wife Chennamma cast their votes at Paduvalahippe in Hassan district. Film actors Ramesh Arvind, Ravichandran, also scion of Mysuru royal family Yaduveer Krishnadatta Chamaraja Wadiyar were among the prominent personalities to cast their votes early today.



There are reports about delay in polling due to some technical issues with the electronic voting machines (EVMs) from different parts of the state.



Election for the Jayanagara seat in Bengaluru has been countermanded following the death of BJP candidate and sitting MLA BN Vijaykumar.



The Election Commission has also deferred the polls for Rajarajeswari Nagar constituency to May 28 after a massive row erupted over a large number of voter ID cards being found in an apartment.



Suspecting something fishy, both Congress and BJP have pointed accusing fingers at each other in the matter. "Today people of Karnataka are standing in queues to create history & show the nation the way to liberal, progressive, peaceful & compassionate politics & governance. I thank them for their support & wish them well," Chief Minister Siddaramaiah tweeted.



Over 2,600 candidates are in the fray-- more than 2400 men and and over 200 women. The total voters including service electors according to the 2018 final rolls are 5,06,90,538, of whom 2,56,75,579 male voters, 2,50,09,904 female and 5,055 transgender voters.



Officials said 58,008 polling stations have been set up across the state, of which 12002 have been designated as "critical", with over 3,50,000 polling personnel on duty. Police have made elaborate security arrangements for the smooth conduct of polls that will go on till 6 pm.



"82,157 people have been deployed for poll duty that includes DSPs, home guards and civil defence, and forest guards and watchers," Karnataka DGP Neelamani N Raju said. This also includes about 7,500 personnel from states like Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Chattisgarh, Kerala and Goa, she said, adding, central forces have been deployed.



One among the interesting aspects of this election is that four candidates who have served as Chief Minister of Karnataka are in the fray-- Chief Minister Siddaramaiah (Chamundeshwari and Badami), B S Yeddyurappa (Shikaripura), H D Kumaraswamy (Chennapatna and Ramanagara) and Jagadish Shettar (Hubli-Dharwad Central.)New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah ruled out scope for hung Assembly in Karnataka and said that the Congress will be reduced to just PP  Puducherry and parivaar.

With just another week to go before the elections on May 12, the BJP has upped its campaign in Karnataka with Prime Minister Narendra Modi touring extensively in the state.

There is no question of an hung Assembly in Karnataka. Congress will now be limited to just PP  Puducherry and Parivaar (family), said Shah.

Earlier on Saturday, launching on attack on the Congress Prime Minister Modi said after the elections in Karnataka the Congress will be just a PPP party - Punjab, Puducherry and Parivar.

Amit Shah took out one P as he said that "Punjab is not Congress, it's the king's government there". He was alluding to Amarinder's royal roots as he belongs to the erstwhile royal family of Patiala.

Heaping praise on JD(S) leader Deve Gowda, Shah said he has been a "good leader".

Exuding confidence, Shah said: I have no doubts that we will form the government in Karnataka.

Accusing Congress of diverting attention by playing up the Lingayat issue, Shah said since the party is unable to fight elections on the issue of development, it was raising such issues.

Speaking about the Congress-led oppositions failed bid to impeach Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, Shah said: There should be no attack on the judiciary. The Congress wants to politicise the judiciary. I was attacked numerous times over the Judge Loya case but I emerged stronger everytime.

When asked if the TDP pulling out from NDA will have an impact on the numbers and the confidence of the party, Shah said: The numbers in the NDA family remain the same, TDP broke ties with us but JD(U) came into the picture.

It was only last year that JD(U) dumped RJD and came back to the NDA fold. As the corruption cases against RJD chief Lalu Yadav mounted, Nitish felt constrained and broke alliance with RJD.

Shah was completely at ease when asked if the united opposition against BJP worries him. He said, Even during the last election, all opposition parties were united against Narendra Modi, they will continue to be so in the future.Chitradurga (Karnataka): Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday accused the Congress of distorting history to divide the country and flayed the Siddaramaiah government in Karnataka for celebrating the "jayantis of Sultans" for the sake of "vote bank politics".

The PM was apparently referring to the Siddaramaiah government's controversial decision to celebrate Tipu Jayanti every year on November 10 to commemorate the memory of Tipu Sultan, the legendary 18th century ruler of Mysore.

Addressing an election rally, Modi said, "Look at the character of the Congress.... They dont think about heroes whose jayanti needs to be celebrated with respect, from whom we have to draw inspiration for generations to generations.

"Veera Madakari and Onake Obavva are forgotten, but for the sake of vote bank politics, they celebrate jayantis of Sultans," he said.

Onake Obavva, a Dalit woman, was the legendary wife of a soldier in the army of Madakari Nayaka, the last ruler of Chitradurga. She is said to have fought single-handedly and killed with a pestle several invading soldiers of the army of Hyder Ali, father of Tipu Sultan, in 1779. She was killed by Hyder Ali's soldiers in her valiant effort to protect the fort where her husband was the guard of a watch tower.

Celebration of Tipu Jayanti is strongly opposed by the BJP.

The celebration has also triggered a sharp division in society with some hailing Tipu Sultan as a hero who died fighting the British, while others calling him a "fanatic" ruler.

"By celebrating this jayanti, Congress has insulted people of Karnataka and Chitradurga. They have played with sentiments and feelings of people of Chitradurga, Modi said.

(With PTI inputs)London: In a major goof up, up to 1,500 junior doctors in the UK who were offered posts as registrars have had their job offers withdrawn, with authorities blaming human error for the mistake that has left many emotionally and financially stressed.

Last week, the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) discovered a significant number of candidates were credited with the wrong score, because of an error transferring data from one computer programme to another  and may therefore have received an incorrect job offer.

The RCP, which oversaw the recruitment, has apologised, blaming human error. It said the process would have to be re-run, the BBC reported.

In a statement, the British Medical Association said it was "appalled". "We cannot express how unacceptable we find this situation," adding: "This has caused extreme anxiety for trainees."

The junior doctors were alerted to the error on Friday. Fellow doctors described juniors as being in tears.

Many were set to uproot their families to take up the job offers, selling homes, putting offers down on houses, moving children to new schools and partners resigning from jobs to find new ones, the report said.

ST3 Recruitment is a nationally co-ordinated system for recruiting doctors across England, Scotland and Wales into a broad range of specialities. Last month, after attending interviews, up to 1,500 junior doctors received job offers in 24 different medical fields.

Each candidate was given a score which determined how likely they were to get their choice of hospital and specialty.

On Friday, the RCP wrote to all those who had offers, advising them that the offer was being rescinded. "We are deeply sorry that it has been necessary to rerun the ST3 offer process due to a mistake in this round of processing," states the letter from the RCP.

"We have taken this approach to be fair to all candidates which can only be achieved with the real scores used."

Speaking on behalf of the junior doctors, the BMA issued a statement, lamenting "the impact  both emotionally and financially  it is having on junior doctors across the UK".

Chairs Chaand Nagpaul and Jeeves Wijesuriya said they had spoken at length with Professor Jane Dacre, president of the RCP, "to articulate the strength of feeling". "We have heard from trainees who have, after receiving these job offers, put down deposits on homes, arranged moves or whose families had adjusted their plans," they said.

"We have conveyed our expectation that college will support and compensate these trainees for any inconvenience."

Liver doctor Ben Hudson said juniors were "in tears" while the RCP was "carelessly playing with people's futures". The statement added that the BMA would be taking legal advice regarding possible breach of contract, and compensation.

The RCP said the error was discovered on Thursday and the college had worked as quickly as they could to identify the nature and extent of the problem.

The offer process is scheduled to begin again on May 14, the report said. "We appreciate what a worrying time this is for you and will provide as much information as we can, when we can, so you know what is happening," the RCP stated in a letter sent out on Friday.

The RCP added that those doctors who had accepted offers  and made significant plans and commitments based on those offers  would be treated on a case-by-case basis. "We set the highest standards for our work and expect to be held to them. We have not met them here and are truly sorry," it said.

"We will learn from our mistake and make any changes necessary to fix it," the RCP added.Dhaka: Bangladesh has proposed restructuring of the charter of the Organisation of Islamic Conference to pave way for inclusion of non-Muslim countries like India as an "observer state".

The OIC is a 57-member grouping of Muslim majority nations.

"A number of countries not OIC members, have large number of Muslims as their citizens . . . There is a need to build bridges with those non-OIC countries," Bangladesh's foreign minister Mahmud Ali said as his counterparts in the group joined in their annual council called Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) in Dhaka.

He said the induction was needed so that a large number of Muslim population "do not remain untouched by the good work of OIC and "that is why, reforms and re-structuring is critical for OIC".

The Muslims may be minority in those countries, but in terms of number they often exceed the total population of many OIC member countries, Ali told the CFM after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina opened the meet yesterday.

Officials and analysts said the proposal was meant mainly for India where Islam is the second largest religion with Muslims constituting some 10 per cent of the global adherents of the faith.

Several OIC states countries and the secretary general of the grouping appreciated the proposal but experts said it could see opposition from Pakistan which had earlier opposed India's induction.India, however, has fairly robust relations with most OIC member states.Ankara: Turkey has never given up its goal of joining the European Union, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday as he announced his manifesto for next month's snap elections.

Speaking to thousands of supporters in Istanbul, Erdogan said that Ankara's counterparts in Europe did not show the same determination on the matter.

Turkey began talks to join the EU in 2005, 18 years after applying. While a series of factors slowed negotiations, notably the Cyprus issue and resistance in Germany and France to Turkish membership, since 2016 membership talks have all but collapsed.Paris/London: US President Donald Trump sparked anger in France and Britain by suggesting looser gun laws could have helped prevent deadly attacks in Paris in 2015, and linking a wave of knife crime in London to a handgun ban.

In a speech to the National Rifle Association (NRA) on Friday, Trump mimicked the shooting of victims in the Paris rampage, and said if civilians had been armed "it would have been a whole different story."

The French government issued its strongest criticism of Trump since he took office, at a time when President Emmanuel Macron has been reinforcing bilateral ties following a state visit.

"France expresses its firm disapproval of President Trump's comments about the Paris attacks on November 13, 2015 and demands that the memory of the victims be respected," the foreign office said in a statement.

"Every country freely decides on its own laws on carrying firearms, as in other areas. France is proud to be a country where acquiring and carrying firearms is strictly regulated."

Other French politicians including the mayor of Paris took issue with Trump's comments, after he acted out the scene of the massacre by Islamist assailants at Paris' Bataclan concert hall, where 90 of the 130 victims of the attacks died.

"They took their time and gunned them down one by one. Boom! Come over here. Boom! Come over here. Boom!," Trump said, using his hands in a gun gesture.

Former French president Francois Hollande, who was head of state at the time, said on Twitter that Trump's comments and antics were "shameful" and "obscene".

'KNIVES, KNIVES, KNIVES, KNIVES'

Trauma surgeons in London, meanwhile, said Trump had missed the point after, in the same speech, he linked knife crime there to an absence of guns.

Comments by Trump have caused upset before in Britain. Relations with Prime Minister Theresa May cooled last year after she criticised him for retweeting anti-Islam videos by a British far-right group.

Trump, who is due to visit Britain on July 13, told NRA members that a "once very prestigious" London hospital, which he did not name, had become overwhelmed with victims of knife attacks.

"They don't have guns. They have knives and instead there's blood all over the floors of this hospital," he said. "They say it's as bad as a military war zone hospital. Knives, knives, knives, knives," he added, making stabbing gestures.

London suffered a spike in knife crime early this year, and saw more murders during February and March than New York.

Last month, trauma surgeon Martin Griffiths told the BBC that some of his colleagues had likened the Royal London Hospital in east London where he works to the former British military base Camp Bastion in Afghanistan.

But on Saturday he indicated Trump had drawn the wrong conclusion from his remarks.

Griffiths posted his comment next to an animation of a stick figure with the phrase "The Point" flying over its head, and also linked to a statement on the hospital's website by a fellow trauma surgeon, Karim Brohi.

"There is more we can all do to combat this violence, but to suggest guns are part of the solution is ridiculous. Gunshot wounds are at least twice as lethal as knife injuries and more difficult to repair," Brohi said in the statement on Saturday.

Britain's government effectively banned handgun ownership in England, Scotland and Wales after a school shooting in 1996.Dubai: Sixteen women who went to Syria to join Islamic State have been jailed in Iran, a Tehran prosecutor said on Sunday.

The women were also ordered to pay back any money they had received from the Sunni Muslim jihadist group, the judiciary's news website Mizanonline quoted prosecutor Abbas Jafari-Dolatabadi as saying. Islamic State considers Iran's majority Shia Muslims to be heretics.

"These women had gone to Syria to support ... Daesh (Islamic State), had received terrorist training and carried out some operations there, and were arrested upon their return to Iran," Jafari-Dolatabadi said. The report did not specify the length of the jail terms.

Separately, a Tehran court on Sunday held the fifth hearing in the trial of eight men suspected in the killing of 18 people at the parliament and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's mausoleum last year - the first deadly attack claimed by Islamic State in Tehran.

Iran has said that the five gunmen and suicide bombers who were killed in the attacks had fought in the militants' strongholds in Syria and Iraq.

A total of 26 people have been charged in the case.Washington: Senator John McCain, 81 and battling brain cancer, has made clear he does not want President Donald Trump to attend his funeral, US media reported Saturday.

McCain, a Vietnam war vet and respected senator from Arizona who has had a turbulent relationship with Trump, instead wants Vice President Mike Pence to represent the White House, The New York Times and NBC News said, quoting people close to McCain.

McCain is also using a new book and documentary to express regret about not having selected former Senator Joseph Lieberman as his running mate in 2008 against Barack Obama and instead going with populist Sarah Palin, the Times said.

McCain has been fighting an aggressive form of brain cancer for more than a year.

He is currently back in Arizona, recovering from surgery for an intestinal infection.

McCain and Trump have had a rough relationship, particularly during the 2016 presidential primary, when Trump said McCain  a POW for years in Vietnam  was not really a war hero because he was captured.

Last summer Trump slammed McCain for a "no" vote that helped doom a key bill to repeal Obamacare  the health care reforms passed into law under president Barack Obama.Rouhani warns Trump of 'historic regret' over N deal

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has warned that the US will face "historic regret" if Donald Trump scraps the nuclear agreement with Tehran. Mr Rouhani's comments come as the US president decides whether to pull out of the deal by a 12 May deadline.

Mr Trump has strongly criticised the agreement, calling it "insane".

The 2015 deal - between Iran, the US, China, Russia, Germany, France and the UK - lifted sanctions on Iran in return for curbs on its nuclear programme.

France, the UK and Germany have been trying persuade the US president that the current deal is the best way to stop Iran developing nuclear weapons.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is travelling to Washington on Sunday to discuss the matter with White House officials. The UN also warned Mr Trump not to walk away from the deal.

However, he has threatened that the US will "withdraw" from the deal on 12 May - the end of a 120-day review period - unless Congress and European powers fixed its "disastrous flaws".

In remarks carried live on Iranian state television on Sunday, President Rouhani said: "If America leaves the nuclear deal, this will entail historic regret for it."

He warned Iran had "a plan to counter any decision Trump may take and we will confront it".

Iran insists its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful and says it considers the deal non-renegotiable.

Last week, Israel revealed "secret nuclear files" which it said showed Iran had run a clandestine nuclear weapons programme before 2003, and and had secretly retained the technological know-how, in breach of the agreement.

Iran branded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a liar and said the documents he produced were a rehash of old allegations already dealt with by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN's nuclear watchdog. But US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the documents were authentic and showed the 2015 Iran nuclear deal was "built on lies".

Mr Trump is already unhappy that the current deal only limits Iran's nuclear activities for a fixed period and does not stop the development of ballistic missiles.

He also said it had handed Iran a $100bn (72bn) windfall that it used "as a slush fund for weapons, terror, and oppression" across the Middle East.

Economic assets frozen by sanctions were returned to Iran under the terms of the deal. Iran has consistently denied US claims that it sponsors militant groups.

Media captionA timeline of what Trump's said about the Iran deal

During two days of talks in Washington, Mr Johnson will meet US Vice-President Mike Pence, National Security Adviser John Bolton and foreign policy leaders in Congress.

Earlier this month, he said it was important to keep the deal "while building on it in order to take account of the legitimate concerns of the US".

On Sunday, Mr Netanyahu again spoke out against Iran, saying it was better to confront Tehran sooner rather than later. Addressing a cabinet meeting, he accused Iran of supplying advanced weapons to the Syrian government that posed a danger to Israel.

He added: "We are determined to block Iran's aggression against us even if this means a struggle. Better now than later."

Berlin: French President Emmanuel Macron has warned that war could ensue if US President Donald Trump withdraws from the 2015 deal in which Iran agreed to curb its nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.

"We would open the Pandora's box. There could be war," Macron told German weekly magazine Der Spiegel. But he added: "I don't think that Donald Trump wants war."

Trump is set to decide by May 12 whether to pull out of the Iran deal. Trump has all but decided to withdraw but exactly how he will do so remains unclear, two White House officials and a source familiar with the administration's internal debate said on May 2.

Trump could still figure out a way to stay in the deal between the Islamic Republic and six world powers -- Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States.

Macron urged Trump not to withdraw when he met the president in Washington late last month.

Britain, France and Germany remain committed to the accord but, in an effort to keep Washington in it, want to open talks on Iran's ballistic missile programme, its nuclear activities beyond 2025 - when key provisions of the deal expire - and its role in Middle East crises such as Syria and Yemen.Islamabad: Pakistan's army chief has confirmed death sentences for 11 "hardcore terrorists" after military courts found them guilty of carrying out multiple attacks that killed 60 civilians and security forces in recent years.

In a statement on Saturday, the military said General Qamar Javed Bajwa also approved imprisonment for three people for their involvement in acts of terrorism. It says the 11 convicted Pakistani Taliban had killed 36 civilians and 24 troops in separate attacks in the country.

The trials are closed to the public but defendants are allowed to hire lawyers.

Pakistan resumed military trials for militants and lifted a moratorium on the death penalty after a 2014 attack on a school in Peshawar that killed more than 150 people, mostly young students.

The offences included attacks on armed forces and other law enforcement agencies, the destruction of various educational institutions and a deadly rampage at Bacha Khan University in the northwest in early 2016 that left 21 dead.

(With agency inputs)Washington: The United States on Saturday scolded China for attempting to impose "political correctness" on American carriers by asking them to classify Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau as Chinese territories.

A sternly worded White House statement excoriated Beijing for the demands, which it termed "Orwellian nonsense."

"President Donald J. Trump ran against political correctness in the United States," it said. "He will stand up for Americans resisting efforts by the Chinese Communist Party to impose Chinese political correctness on American companies and citizens."

The statement added that the Chinese Civil Aviation Administration sent a notice to 36 foreign air carriers, including a number of American carriers, on April 25, asking them to comply with Beijing's standards.

As of Saturday, the website of American Airlines listed Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau as entities separate from China. Rivals United Airlines and Delta listed Taiwan separately but not Hong Kong or Macau.

Taiwan has been self-ruled since splitting from the mainland after a 1949 civil war, maintaining its own government, military and independent foreign policy.

But Beijing has refused to recognize the island, viewing it as part of its territory awaiting reunification with the mainland  by force, if necessary.

The US has maintained a delicate diplomatic balance since 1979, recognising Beijing's sovereignty as part of its "One China" policy, while remaining Taiwan's most powerful unofficial ally and main supplier of arms.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong, a British colony until 1997, and Macau, a Portuguese colony until 1999, are now "special administrative regions" of China.

The move came after the US and China held high-stakes trade talks in Beijing aimed at forestalling a looming conflict between the world's two largest economies.

In January, Australia's Qantas Airways changed its website classification of Taiwan and Hong Kong from separate countries to Chinese territories, blaming its earlier approach on an "oversight."

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The bog turtle  the states smallest and rarest turtle  is endangered. There are now only five pockets in Connecticut where they live.

The wood turtle is in decline, too, and considered a species of concern. Like the bog turtle, its losing its places to live.

The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection knows some of the turtle nesting sites and strives to protect them, but it lacks the money and staff to study them thoroughly.

That applies to a host of species  birds, bats, amphibians, reptiles  in the state. Its hard to do fieldwork when there are no workers out in the field.

Eileen Fielding, director of Audubon Connecticuts Sharon Audubon Center, said that even when private grant money turns up, the DEEP cant always participate.

They are so understaffed, she said.

But now there is hope that some serious money for wildlife conservation and education could flow to the state in the near future.

The Recovering Americas Wildlife Act is slowly, surely moving its way through Congress. If it eventually passes, it could greatly boost the amount of money the DEEP and the state receive for wildlife conservation, from about $400,000 in 2017 to more than $12 million.

I think this is the most important piece of legislation Ive seen in my 30 year of conservation work, said Patrick Comins, executive director of the Connecticut Audubon Society.

Its a once-in-a-generation piece of legislation, said Sean Saville, campaign manager for Alliance for Americas Fish and Wildlife, the advocacy group supporting the legislation. Its website is at ournatureusa.com

This would be huge, said Lynn Werner, executive director of the Housatonic Valley Association, the environmental advocacy group with its state office in Cornwall Bridge.

If passed, the act could be like a newfound spring for the money-parched DEEP. According to the Council on Environmental Quality, the net percentage of the states general fund spending allocated to the DEEP stood at one-tenth of 1 percent for 2017. Connecticut loves its green world; it just hates to pay for it.

Its been going down for years, said Lori Brown, executive director of the Connecticut League of Conservation Voters. The funding is completely inadequate to the task.

U.S. Reps. Jeff Fortenberry, a Republican from Nebraska, and Debbie Dingell, a Democrat from Michigan, are sponsoring the proposed legislation, which has a bipartisan list of co-sponsors.

What it would do is take $1.3 billion a year from the $7 billion to $10 billion annually the U.S. government gets from leasing federal land for mining and drilling and allocate it to the states for wildlife conservation.

Its not a new concept.

In 1937, Congress passed the Pittman-Robertson Act, which uses the taxes paid on guns and ammunition purchases for wildlife conservation. In 1950, Congress amended the bill to send tax money paid on fishing gear to the states for streambed conservation.

Connecticut received more than $9 million in Pittman-Robertson money in 2017.

Jenny Dickson, the DEEP supervising wildlife biologist, said the money is limited to conservation projects involving birds, mammals and fish. But some of the states smaller creatures  insects, bats amphibians, reptiles  rank as the most imperiled species in the state and are in the most need of study, she said.

Pittman-Robertson doesnt cover them, she said, while the new funds could be used for butterflies, bees, bog turtles.

The state would have to provide a 25 percent matching grant for any of the funds from the proposed legislation. But Comins of the Connecticut Audubon Society said the state could create partnerships with conservation groups to provide some of those matching funds.

Saville of the Alliance for Americas Fish and Wildlife said the legislation is moving through the U.S. House of Representatives. The Senate will get a companion bill this year, he said.

But 2018 is an election year. Members of Congress will be out campaigning rather than passing legislation that could actually benefit their constituents.

Were thinking next year, he said.

If it passes, Dickson said, the act would provide money to help researchers better understand the life of the states wild things. But it could also be used for wildlife education and on improving places to better enjoy the outdoors. That would mean more money spent here by hikers and birders.

This bill wouldnt be a gain for the DEEP, Dickson said. It would be a a gain for everyone.

Contact Robert Miller at earthmattersrgm@gmail.comOIC wants global pressure on Myanmar

AFP, Dhaka :

Islamic foreign ministers on Sunday launched a campaign to mobilise international support for action against Myanmar over the Rohingya crisis, officials said. Foreign ministers and diplomats of the 53-member Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) set up a campaign committee during two days of talks in the capital Dhaka.

OIC secretary general Yousef bin Ahmed Al-Othaimeen called the move a key step toward ending a crisis caused by the exodus of about 700,000 Muslim Rohingya from Buddhist-majority Myanmar into camps in Bangladesh.

He said the new committee would "mobilise and coordinate international political support for accountability for human rights violations against the Rohingya community."

"This is very important. This is one of the concrete steps that has been taken to alleviate the problem for our (Rohingya) brothers and sisters," he said.

A military campaign launched in Myanmar's Rakhine state in August last year set off the massive influx of the Muslim minority into Bangladesh where they joined 300,000 refugees already living in squalid camps following previous violence.

The United Nations and United States have said the crackdown amounted to ethnic cleansing. The Myanmar army has said it only targeted militants.

Rohingya civilians have told of murders and rapes as they fled. They say the army burned hundreds of Rohingya villages to the ground.

Al-Othaimeen said Muslim nations had to "pressure the international community".

"This is not religious, this is human basic rights of our brothers and sisters in the last 50 years," he said.

The International Criminal Court prosecutor has already called for the tribunal to rule on whether it can investigate the allegations of mass rape and killings.

Bangladesh has put huge diplomatic effort into pressuring Myanmar to take back the refugees in safety.

The two nations signed a repatriation deal in November, but nobody has since returned.

The Rohingya have been persecuted for decades in Myanmar, where they are regarded as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and denied citizenship.

Last month a UN Security Council delegation visiting the camps called for the safe return of the Rohingya and an end to discrimination against them.

Canada's foreign minister Chrystia Freeland also called for "accountability" when she toured the Rohingya camps this week. Foreign minister AH Mahmood Ali said the OIC meeting had urged "strong action against the Myanmar government" on the Rohingya crisis.

Shandong Wanzefeng Fishery said a fully submersible ocean fish farming net cage called Deep Blue No 1, the worlds biggest, was delivered to the shipyard of state-owned Wuchang Shipbuilding Industry on Friday.

The 35-meter-high cage will be deployed in the Yellow Sea about 130 nautical miles east of Rizhao where the cold water is believed to be a suitable habitat for the fish.

Wang Yu, head of the Hubei Marine Engineering Equipment Research Institute, which designed the system, said the cage had a volume of 50,000 cubic meters and could generate a harvest of about 1,500 tonnes of salmon per season.

Its position underwater can be adjusted from four to 50 meters to ensure the best temperature for the salmon, Wang said at the farms launch in Qingdao on Friday.

It is the first attempt to set up such an open sea farm in China and more could follow, with Xinhua estimating the Yellow Sea could support an industry of more than 100 billion yuan (US$15.7 billion).

Salmon is growing in popularity in China, with the country consuming about 70,000 tonnes of the fish each year. China imported 40,000 tonnes last year, most of it from Norway and Chile.

China has tried to raise its production of farmed salmon but there are limits on the areas that can be used for aquaculture.

Deputy agriculture minister Yu Kangzhen said farming in the deep sea and outer ocean was the natural choice to ease pressure on fisheries closer to shore.

Back in 2006, I had a prediction about cubic mile deep ocean fish farms by the end of 2025. The prediction will not happen. In order to reach a cumulative one cubic mile of volume would require 80,000 of these cages.The SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket should be the next mission launched in one week by SpaceX.

The Block5 should have up to ten reuses of the first stage.

Falcon 9 Block 5 static fire test complete ahead of next weeks launch of Bangladeshs first geostationary communications satellite. Vehicle is healthy. Data review will take a few dayswill confirm a target launch date once that review is complete.  SpaceX (@SpaceX) May 5, 2018

The Falcon 9 block 5 could eventually be $40 million per launch. See column E of the analysis below.

SpaceX does not need to rush to lower prices because of weak competitors. SpaceX will have the capability to lower prices if there would be customers who are only willing to make a lot more launches at the lower price.

SpaceX could be its own high volume customer for hundreds of launches to deploy its internet satellite network of 4425 satellites.

After a month-long stay at the @Space_Station, Dragon will detach and return to Earth today with more than 4,000 pounds of @NASA cargo and research materials. pic.twitter.com/2J674seACa  SpaceX (@SpaceX) May 5, 2018NEW HAVEN >> Derrick Powell said having a loaded pistol pointed to his forehead by a student was one of the most frightening moments hes had as a school security officer.

Wed already taken one gun off of this student. The principal and I brought him into a room and I searched him again, said Powell, a Hillhouse High School graduate.

As I was searching him, he turned around and pulled a .380 (pistol) from under his hoodie and stuck it to my forehead and politely asked me to back up, Powell said.

Powell, 49, said in his 29 years on the job, he has confiscated more than 10 handguns and over a 100 knives from students.

Incidents like these and others are among some of the daily situations security officers say they encounter while working in schools to protect students, staff and administrators.

While officers are bound to perform certain duties to maintain order, they also serve as role models.

A lot of the parents we know, we went to school with them or now our children go to school with their children, said 25-year veteran Starr Birt, who is also a security supervisor. If they come into school irate, we have a tendency to pull them to the side and calm them down.

Students relate to us because we have a good rapport with them and their parents.

According to Birt, violence among students tends not to escalate because of off-campus relationships with officers.

They see us in the community after school, we know their families, said Birt, who is also a city native and a former police officer.

If there is a problem, they usually seek us first, she said. Most of the kids respond to us well; were more than security officers to many of these students.

The district has 21,500 students enrolled in 48 schools, according to its website.

School security officers, according to Powell, were established in the late 1970s after an outsider robbed the school store at Wilbur Cross High School.

It was that incident, said Birt, that actually motivated the powers (that) be to initiate some type of security for the district.

But incidents around the nation also draw attention, such as the recent school shooting of a 6-year-old boy at a South Carolina school, and Director of School Security Thaddeus Reddish said his primary focus is protecting the health and safety of students, staff and visitors.

Were adopting a community security services environment by engaging security officers, parents, community leaders and school administrators in a problem-solving partnership, said Reddish, 51, a 22-year veteran of the New Haven Police Department who retired as an assistant police chief.

The central mission of this partnership, he said, is student success. When students succeed, the entire community succeeds.

Reddish said other objectives the department wants to implement in schools include: a gun safety awareness week for all elementary schools; creating a safety and security committee in each school; and bridging the gap between security personnel and the city Police Department.

Superintendent of Schools Garth Harries said Reddish is prepared to respond to any potential issues in the schools involving students.

Our officers are key to ensuring the continued safety of each building and promoting healthy and welcoming school climates, said Harries.

Our security team is the front line to schools safety, he said. Its important that our staff and families work with them so they are able to do whats best for the schools.

Ongoing communication with families is an important measure to promoting students well-being and preventing school violence.

Parent LeShae Payton, whose eighth-grade daughter attends Engineering and Science University Magnet School, said school security is extremely important during these times.

We are dealing with senseless acts of violence that have been directed toward school children, said Payton, who is a social service professional.

I think security measures can be heightened, she said. I do appreciate the general phone calls and emails informing me of some situations that occur during school.

Yet, while the issue of school safety has been a major concern for parents and local, state and federal officials, some district security officers believe their roles in schools are taken for granted.

Powell said there are challenges among officers and some administrators in schools.

In the early years, we were a presence with the administration in the schools; we worked hand and hand with them, said Powell.

However, over the years, Powell said as administrators became younger, the respect for security officers has diminished.

Were on the bottom of the chain with some of them; (but) were not guards, were (security) officers, he said.

According to the Center for Disease Control, homicide rates in 2010 among African-American males ages 10-24 were 51.5 per 100,000 and exceeded those of Hispanic males 13.5 per 100,000. Non-Hispanic, while white males in the same age group were 2.9 per 100,000.

Powell said he has been to at least 100 funerals of students.

If there is a shooting or homicide in the city, its a 98 percent chance that they have come in contact with me or one of our officers, he said. Some of the training officers receive are for mental disorder, autism, active shooting and drug and gang training.

Despite the rigorous training officers endure before joining the department, Powell said officers experience post-traumatic stress after dealing with crisis situations.

After a shooting or a homicide, no one bothers to check to see how things affect us, said Powell. I cant recall a time where city leadership have ever walked into these buildings and acknowledged the work weve done.

But Hillhouse High School Principal Glen Worthy can attest to the dedication and commitment of officers Powell and Birt.

Worthy, 51, who grew up in the Newhallville section of the city, said the two officers collaborate well with administration to ensure the safety of schools.

As the schools new principal , I lean on officer Powell, because he has a lot of knowledge and history about the trouble spots in and around our school,, said Worthy, a Wilbur Cross High School graduate.

He was instrumental in helping me create a plan to make sure everyone in the building is safe, he said.

School security is paramount, said King Robinson Magnet School Principal Joseph H. Johnson, a Howard University graduate and a member of the Kappa Psi chapter of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Inc.

He said the officers who serve his school are a vital part of the schools team.

They engage students in classrooms, hallways and the cafeteria. They do their best to keep kids out of situations that may lead to their involvement, said Johnson, 40, whose head security officer at the school is a former police officer.

Regarding maintaining a peaceful and safe school environment, Johnson said, I couldnt do it without them.

There are ways to reduce some violence in schools, according to Reddish. Officers have to be connected to the community, he said.

Reddish said 95 percent of his officers working in the district live or have connections in the city.

The students love our officers. I see this when I walk into these schools, said Reddish, who also grew up in the Newhallville section of the city.

This unit is truly community-based security, he said. Theyre part of the city, theyre part of these kids lives; its one reason why I wanted this job.

New Light High School administrator Paul Camarco agrees that security officers are more than just about ensuring the safety of the building, students and staff. He said that at New Light, Officer Detrica Stewart is building positive relationships with students.

She is often the first friendly face students, staff and the public see in the morning. She greets the students and staff and takes the temperature of the day, said Camarco, 38. She gauges who is having a great day and who might need some help, counseling or extra attention.

Throughout the school day, Camarco said, Stewart is a welcome ear for the student to decompress or share life events.

She is also the first to help calm a student if they are having a particularly tough moment. 

Reach Community Engagement Editor Shahid Abdul-Karim at 203 680-9343.Nothing says summer quite like eating seafood out of a paper basket on the water.

From fried clam strips to fish and chips and lobster rolls, here are some of the top Yelp-reviewed casual seafood joints in southwestern Connecticut.

The top spot, according to Yelpers, is 7 Seas Restaurant in Milforda staple that has been around for more than 50 years.

The menu is a classic buffet of fried seafood, stuffed clams, New England clam chowder and bar food for the land lovers all served in a dark wood-paneled pub that brings you back to the 70s.

It's most famous for it's lobster rolls.

"I was craving a lobster roll and this place did not disappoint. I could barely finish it the portion was so big but I wasn't leaving any behind bc the flavor was so good. My first time visiting...def not my last," one Yelp reviewer wrote.

"We come yearly for the lobster rolls. The single is a mound of buttery lobster with a pile of golden steak fries. I've had the fish and chips before and it is delicious. A large filet with a crunchy crust and again a pile of golden fries...7 Seas is an iconic Milford gem. I will return again before the summer is out!," another posted.

In 2015, the restaurant reached a milestone50 years in business. Richard Smith's family opened the restaurant in the 1950s; it has changed a lot since then.

"It was more like a 'Cheers' way back when," Smith told Hearst back in 2015. "It was the same people sitting in the same seat drinking the same drink. You didn't know their name, but you knew what they drank."

These days, the clientele is a mix of families, professionals and everyone in between. The restaurant's decor hasn't changed much over the years, although it no longer features a jukebox or the popular shuffleboard.

Additional reporting by Keila Torres Ocasio.SEYMOUR  Police are asking the public for help identifying a man connected to an early morning armed robbery in Seymour.

The armed robbery occurred around 6 a.m. on Saturday at the Food Mart on New Haven Road. Anyone with information is asked to contact Inspector Joe DeNigris at Jdenigris@seymourpolice.org.NEW HAVEN  A long-running program operated by the Clifford Beers Clinic to help youths who are engaged in sexually inappropriate behavior is in danger of losing its funding July 1, according to a clinic leader.

Alice Forrester, the clinics CEO, said in an email to the New Haven Register that the program Juveniles Opting to Learn Alternative Behaviors has had good clinical success for at least 25 years.

She said the program is designed for  kids with high risk: problem sexual behaviors, sex trafficking, risk for substance abuse. Forrester said it serves 80-100 kids per year.

But because of funding cutbacks, state legislators moved the juvenile justice money from the state Department of Children and Families (to which the clinic had access) to the Court Support Services Divison of the state Judicial Branch.

Forrester noted the DCF has offered outpatient mental health services, including the JOTLAB program, for kids not involved with the courts. But she said CSSD works only with kids who are in the court system.

We keep them out of the court, Forrester said. If those kids went into the court system, the cost could triple annually for the kids.

In a letter to state Rep. Toni Walker, D-New Haven, Forrester said, With the transfer of dollars from DCF to CSSD, Clifford Beers has been notified by DCF that our contract will end as of July 1. CCSD has said they will only be able to use their dollars for kids in the juvenile justice system, and with their current providers.

Forrester told Walker, We find ourselves working with over 100 youths who are at great risk for arrest and school dropout. She said the program has been successful in keeping them in their homes and out of the juvenile justice system. There are just three programs such as this in Connecticut and the one at Beers is the only outpatient model.

Forrester called JOTLAB a critical program to the New Haven community and a life-saving impact for our youths and families.

She concluded her letter by telling Walker she realizes there is a state budget crisis but this program is a keystone of our work at Clifford Beers and it would be devastating to the New Haven community if it needed to close.

Forrester said Sunday that Walker has not yet responded to the letter, which was sent about a week ago. But Walker Sunday told the New Haven Register that while Alice does a fantastic job and her programs definitely need to be funded, she is not optimistic a majority of the legislators are willing to restore the funds.

People say, We need to cut spending, Walker noted. But when you cut spending, you cut programs. People dont seem to understand that. Government needs to be funded.

Walker added, We used to have more legislators who understood what we think the government should be doing.

Forrester said she hasnt given up hope the legislators will reverse themselves on this issue before July 1. I know its a tough budget year. But Clifford Beers for many years has been a leader in treating these kids.

randall.beach@hearstmediact.comHARTFORD  A strike by workers who care for disabled patients was avoided Saturday when the state Senate joined the House in approving a new wage pact for the employees.

About 2,500 members of the SEIU 1199 union were ready to strike on Monday if the Senate failed to approve a new wage pact already ratified by the House  a move that would have cost the state $1 million a day to replace the nonprofit workers.

The wage pact was ratified by a 29-4 margin, with three senators not voting, and the bill is expected to be quickly signed by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.

For years the state has been moving services into the private sector, said state Sen. Cathy Osten, D-Sprague, referring to previous decisions to privatize the group home workers.

Our private, nonprofit providers have not received wages acceptable for workers who take care of these wonderful people, Osten said. This will eliminate the need for a strike.

The bill directs the various state agencies responsible for the services to increase wages for both union and non-union workers who care for intellectually or developmentally disabled patients. The workers help the patients with eating, dressing, brushing teeth and other necessary activities.

For far too long, the people who provide care to our most vulnerable neighbors have been underpaid for their critical work, said Malloy.

The action taken by the Senate will ensure they are compensated fairly while helping to avert a strike that would disrupt the lives of the individuals with intellectual disabilities and cost Connecticut taxpayers an estimated $1 million per day, Malloy said.

job action called off

Jennifer Schneider, communications director for the SEIU 1199 union, said the vote ends the need for a strike.

We greatly appreciate the Senate, the House and the governor for taking up this important matter that will positively impact the lives and wages of 18,000 workers and thousands of clients across the state, Schneider said.

The Senate ended a 12-year drought of funding for services for the disabled in the private sector, Schneider said. Caring for people with disabilities is a difficult and important job and the workers who provide these services deserve to be valued.

The workers complained that they earn less than employees at a typical Dollar Store and had not received a wage increase in more than 10 years. The bill impacts 170 private providers serving about 12,000 clients.

Wages would rise to $14.75 per hour by Jan. 1, 2019, and there would be a one-time 5 percent increase for those earning more than $14.76 but less than $30 an hour.

The wage increase totals $21.5 million annually, but the state will pay only about $10.7 million of that cost, with federal Medicaid covering the remainder.

Amendment battle

Senate Republicans attempted to amend the Democratic-backed bill  the same one passed by the House  by reducing future wage increases from 5 percent to 1 percent.

The amendment also expanded the number of workers covered by the wage pact to additional branches of government.

I think this amendment provides for those who have been at a low pay, said Sen. Paul Formica, R- East Lyme. It provides 1 percent not 5 percent for those above. No one wants to see a strike.

But Democrats objected, pointing out any change to the bill would cause a strike.

I want to be clear that a vote for this amendment means a vote for a strike that will cost us $1 million a day, which I believe is not reimbursable, said Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, D-Norwalk.

The vote for the amendment failed by an 18-14 party line vote, with four Republicans not voting.

State Sen. Terry Gerratano, D-New Britain, said its time to grant the workers a raise.

They do this because the state has gotten out of providing services and now it falls on the nonprofits, Gerratano said. But they do this because they have the dedication and have that call that every one of us has to do the kind of service that is not just necessary, but they want to.

State Sen. Len Suzio, R-Meriden, said he understood the need to vote for the bill.

I recognize its been a long time since the people providing these services have received a wage increase, Suzio said. I think its appropriate that we do increase these wages, and to deny an increase affects the employers and the recipients of the services.

bcummings@ctpost.comHARTFORD  A 21-year-old man was sentenced to 30 months in prison for selling heroin and crack cocaine out his Hamden residence.

Miquel Lewis, 21, of Hamden, was sentenced on Wednesday, May 2, by U.S. District Judge Michael P. Shea in Hartford to 30 months of imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release, for narcotics distribution and firearm possession offenses.CEC says he is unware of reasons

Staff Reporter :

Chief Election Commissioner KM Nurul Huda has said he is unaware of the reason behind High Court's stay order about the Gazipur City Corporation election. "I saw a news on the television. It is the matter of the court. I will first know and understand the decision before commenting on the issue," CEC said hours after the election was stayed.

He was talking to reporters after dialogue with all mayor and councilor andidates in Khulna City Corporation election yesterday afternoon.

Meanwhile, in Dhaka, Election Commissioner Mahbub Talukdar announced stoppage of the Gazipur city polls, which was scheduled for May 15.

"Showing respect to the court order, we have asked the returning officer to stop the election process," he told reporters at the commission's Agargaon office. "We don't know why the election was stayed."

"As it has been stayed by the High Court, we are bound to comply with. We have asked to stop all electoral activities," he said.UNION  A 19-year-old Milford man was killed early Sunday morning when the ATV he was riding struck a log and crashed into a grove of trees, Connecticut State Police said.

He was identified as Bailey Garbriel Rogers of Jennifer Lane.Roseburg, OR (97470)

Today

Mostly cloudy early, then afternoon sunshine. High 64F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Mainly clear early, then a few clouds later on. Low around 40F. Winds light and variable.ACC grills 2 men for making unusual transaction

Special Correspondent :

The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) on Sunday grilled two businessmen over allegation of Tk 4.0 crore 'unusual transaction' in a bank account of former Chief Justice SK Sinha.

The duo Mohammad Shahjahan and Niranjan Chandra Saha made the transaction immediately after obtaining loans from the Farmers Bank.

ACC Director Syed Iqbal Hossain grilled them for over six hours (from 10am to 4pm) at the Commission's headquarters at Segunbagicha in Dhaka.

During quizzing, they (Shahjahan and Saha) admitted that they took Tk 2.0 crore loans each from the Gulshan branch of scam-hit Farmers Bank," Syed Iqbal Hossain told The New Nation in the evening over phone. "One Ranjit processed the loan on their behalf," he added.

Media reports earlier said that the duo took Tk 4.0 crore loan from Farmers Bank's Gulshan branch in 2016 providing fake documents and the money was transferred to the former chief justice's account held in Supreme Court branch of Sonali on November 16 through two pay orders (numbers 0092046 and 0092047).

When asked, Syed Iqbal Hossain said, "I asked them to show the deposit slips but they failed to provide it saying that they did not know anything about depositing the money."

"We will collect the deposit slips from the bank."

He also said that they would be summoned again.

After coming out from ACC grilling, Shahjahan told reporters that we took Tk 4.0 crore

loan from Farmers Bank and the ACC summoned us to know how we obtained it.

"We took the loan and gave it to Ranjit Babu  Ranjit is my school friend," he added.

He, however, said that he is not aware of home purchase deal and fund transaction between Shanti Roy (wife of Ranjit) and former chief justice.

Niranjan Chandra Saha said Ranjit Babu used us to obtain the loan. The loan amount was later handed over to Ranjit, who hailed from Tangail.

Both of them claimed that they are not businessmen. They took the loan as per the desire of Ranjit.

One ACC official said that they availed the loan (Tk 4.0) facility providing fake TIN certificates and trade licenses. Immovable assets of Shanta Roy have shown as third party mortgage for the loan.

While talking to The New Nation, two lawyers of Shahjahan and Niranjan Saha said that Tk 4.0 crore was deposited in the account of former Chief Justice, as price of the six-storied building (located at Sector-6, Uttara in Dhaka), which he sold to Shanti Roy.

"The payment was made through pay orders," claimed one of the lawyers Afaz Mahmud Rubel.

He said they have submitted the papers and documents (171 pages) related to the home purchase deed to the ACC.

"Our clients did not do anything wrong. They only helped Shanti Roy and Ranjit Roy on good faith," said Rubel.

Ranjit Roy was the so-called PS of the former Chief Justice.

Claiming innocence of their clients, Nazmul Alam, another lawyer said, Shanti Roy engaged into the building purchase agreement with the former Chief Justice (CJ) in 2016 at Tk 6.0 crore.

After the deal was signed, she paid Tk 1.95 crore to SK Shinha for repaying loans that he owed to House Building Finance Corporation and some others. Later, Tk 4.0 crore paid through pay orders.

Both the lawyers came to the ACC headquarters with Shahjahan and Niranjan Saha.

Viewed of

Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading.A Kansas man who fatally shot an Indian-born engineer after angrily confronting him about his immigration status at a bar last year was sentenced to life in prison on Friday, prosecutors said.

The man, Adam W. Purinton, pleaded guilty in March to first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder after witnesses said he yelled Get out of my country! before firing the shots that killed the engineer, Srinivas Kuchibhotla, and wounded two others.

The attack, which the federal authorities called a hate crime, reverberated around the world, magnifying concerns about anti-immigrant sentiments in America.

In addition to the life sentence, with no possibility of parole for 50 years, Judge J. Charles Droege of Johnson County District Court sentenced Mr. Purinton to nearly 14 years in prison for each of two counts of attempted premeditated first-degree murder. (Mr. Purinton also faces hate crime and firearm charges in federal court.)Why go through the turmoil of re-forming a beloved but long-dormant band whose place in pop history is secure? In 2018, a better question is, why not?

We decided we were going to never return to it rather than go back and try to figure everything out, Tanya Donelly said, referring to the implosion of her band Belly 23 years ago. Facing forward has been such a healthy model, Im starting to apply it to a lot of things in my life.

Ms. Donelly, 51, was phoning during a break in rehearsals with the band, who just released Dove, its third album  or its first since Season 6 of Seinfeld, to put it another way. The band is back playing in the bassist Gail Greenwoods Rhode Island basement, known as the Rock n Roll Control Center, just as it did when Ms. Donelly parlayed her status as an indie-rock lifer into mainstream pop success with Bellys 1993 debut Star, then flamed out shortly after its second album, King, two years later. I think we have an extremely fortunate complementary set of skills, she said. We were aware of it and then we lost sight of it, which is a very 20-something thing to do.

What was once a life-consuming, deeply romantic  or at least deeply romanticized  struggle to get signed, get heard and get along is now, for many bands of a certain vintage, a more comfortable experience, free of the pressures that may have contributed to their demise decades ago. They, as Belly does now, have more control over how they tour and how they make and release new music. It doesnt have that feel of a biological imperative, Ms. Donelly said.Audiences are not used to seeing the pianist Daniil Trifonov sweat. Whatever intensity he brings to daunting pieces by Rachmaninoff or Liszt, he never appears pushed to his limits. Everything seems to come so easily.

That changed on Friday, when Mr. Trifonov performed the seventh and final program of his ambitious Perspectives series for Carnegie Hall, a recital called Decades. The idea was to survey the 20th century by playing something from each decade  not short stopover pieces, but arduous, seminal works. He wanted, he said in an interview on Saturday, to dramatically show the evolution of piano writing, which was so rapid in the 20th century.

Mr. Trifonov, also a composer, does play his own works, full of Romantic fervor and Scriabin-like colorings. But Daniil doing Stockhausen?

Despite (and perhaps because of) its implausibility, the recital was a triumph. That it was clearly a herculean effort requiring tremendous mental focus and physical stamina  you could sometimes hear him breathing heavily  made it all the more impressive. I have seldom heard an artist put so much effort into a single concert.When she was 22, Sofija Stefanovic was a contestant in a pageant to determine the beauty queen of a country that no longer exists. The competition for the title of Miss Ex-Yugoslavia was held in Australia, the country to which Ms. Stefanovics family had moved when the author, born in Belgrade in 1982, was 5. Its a weird idea for a competition  bringing young women from a war-torn country together to be objectified, Ms. Stefanovic writes, but in our little diaspora, were used to contradictions. Having lived through the mounting political tensions in Yugoslavia, which led to a decade of war, Ms. Stefanovic had to adjust to life in a calmer but very different place. In her new memoir, she writes about the trials of immigration with seriousness but also a disarming humor. Below, she discusses the onstage performances she delivered that inspired her to write the book, her admiration for the creativity of certain revolutionaries and more.

When did you first get the idea to write this book?

Ive always told anecdotes about my childhood, being an immigrant kid in Australia during the Yugoslavia wars and trying to fit in, but I never thought they would appeal to a larger audience. When I moved to New York City about four years ago, I went to a Moth story slam, where you put your name in a hat and if its drawn out you tell a story in front of a bunch of strangers. In New York, you can be whoever you want and no one bats an eye, so I thought, what the hell? It went really well, and people were receptive to it. I thought it was cool that people identified with the themes of cultures mixing and nostalgia. I was spurred by that.

I was hoping to write when I moved to New York, but the performance part I hadnt done before. That was exciting and really rewarding, because despite being introverted I really like being on stage. Being a writer, youre isolated and alone. When youre on your computer all day, no one claps for you at the end.

Whats the most surprising thing you learned while writing it?

As a child, there were a lot of things I couldnt control: my parents moving us, English as a second language, the wars back home. I was really obsessed with Disney films and books that had classic narrative arcs  a beginning, middle and end. In the ones I liked the most, an outsider hero set out to do something amazing. I found, writing this book, that I still have a pretty strong need for narrative and to make sense of the world. I cant just say, This happened, and thats it. I have to dwell on it, and come up with the beginning, middle and end, to calm myself down and find some order in chaos. The problem is, as youre growing up in the real world, its not actually neat. I keep asking these questions that dont necessarily have answers, because its real life.77.77 pc pass SSC exams

After announcement of SSC results, the students of Motijheel Ideal School and College celebrating their victory on Sunday.1. Before he became President Trumps do-it-all fixer, Michael Cohen was a hard-edge personal-injury lawyer and businessman.

A New York Times review of thousands of pages of public records, and interviews with bankers, lawyers and businessmen who have interacted with Mr. Cohen, reveal that he has often operated in the backwaters of the financial and legal worlds.

Now his business records are under the microscope of federal prosecutors  posing a potential threat not just to Mr. Cohen, but also to the president. There is only one China in the world.

All foreign companies doing business in China must purge any references to Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan that imply they are independent of China, the countrys foreign ministry decreed.

The directive was first given to airlines. After the U.S. objected (an official called it Orwellian nonsense), China said all foreign companies would have to comply. Above, a youth group in Hong Kong on Friday conducted a Chinese-style military march.

The friction adds to deepening U.S.-China tensions. Talks in Beijing last week ended with no agreement on averting a possible trade war.Douglas Holtz-Eakin, an economist and president of the American Action Forum, a conservative group, said those results were hardly surprising. Trade has never been an easy sell to the public, he said, because the costs, in shuttered plants and lost jobs, are large and obvious, while the benefits  lower consumer prices and greater productivity  are diffuse and hard to see.

You have to make the case on a regular basis that the benefits are greater than the costs, Mr. Holtz-Eakin said.

Mr. Holtz-Eakin, who has endorsed Mr. Kane, said the Republican Party needed candidates who would make the case for policies that are more popular with economists than with the general public, among them immigration, fiscal restraint and trade.

Campaigns are teachable moments in the United States, Mr. Holtz-Eakin said.

If any district in Ohio is likely to be receptive to Mr. Kanes economics lessons, it is the 12th. The district  which went for Mr. Trump by about 10 points in 2016  includes rural areas, but the bulk of the population lives in relatively affluent, educated Columbus suburbs that have largely escaped the postindustrial decline that has afflicted Youngstown, Dayton and other cities. Dublin, where Mr. Kane moved late last year, is one of the states wealthiest cities, with a median household income of more than $125,000.

Campaigning on a recent Monday, Mr. Kane did not try to run away from his more contentious positions, or from his wonkish resume. At a meet-and-greet with voters at a French bakery in Dublins quaint downtown, Mr. Kane broke the ice with stories about his days at the Air Force Academy, but quickly pivoted to citing articles he had written promoting free trade and entrepreneurship.

Even on friendly turf, however, Mr. Kane faced some skepticism. When one attendee, Caroline Lahrmann, asked about immigration, Mr. Kane noted that he had written 20 articles and was working on a book about the subject. Then he moved into an intricate discussion of immigration policy: why immigration is important for the economy and why he supports work permits, but not a pathway to citizenship, for people in the country illegally.The commercial for HP features a large family enjoying Christmas dinner together  that is, until the words global warming are uttered. A heated exchange between two sisters follows, culminating in one shouting at the other to leave her house.

A younger member of the family excuses herself from the table and prints out photos of the sisters over the years, arranging them in the shape of a heart. Soon, one of the feuding sisters is taking a pie to the other as a peace offering. HPs closing message: If we never reach out, well never come together.

The commercial is one of many influenced by research that marketers began conducting after the 2016 presidential election. Donald J. Trumps victory came as a surprise to a number of advertisers, spurring soul-searching questions about how well they understood Americans who do not live in coastal cities and what the sharp political polarization in the country meant for the messages they create.

When marketers for HP met to review a new ad campaign a month after the election, they said they found themselves asking, Do we think the situation we are portraying here is relevant to the Trump voter?WASHINGTON  At a rally in Michigan a little over a week ago, President Trump assured his supporters that he had kept his promise to abolish the Affordable Care Act  even though Congress had failed to repeal the Obama-era health law.

Essentially, we are getting rid of Obamacare, Mr. Trump said, reminding a cheering crowd that the individual mandate that required most people to have health insurance or pay a penalty was scrapped as part of the Republican tax bill he signed into law last year. Some people would say, essentially, we have gotten rid of it.

But despite Mr. Trumps longstanding desire to unwind the signature legislative achievement of his predecessor, many parts of the Affordable Care Act remain in place. And the Trump administration is even enforcing some of its provisions more aggressively than President Barack Obama did  a reality that has enraged business groups and Republicans in Congress who still want the law officially repealed.

While the individual mandate may be dead, the employer mandate  the requirement that many companies offer health insurance to their workers or pay a penalty  is very much alive. Under Mr. Trump, the Internal Revenue Service has been pursuing companies that fail to comply with the mandate and, according to the agency, was sending penalty notices to more than 30,000 businesses around the country.Adrienne Elizabeth Watson and William Read Jennings were married May 5 at Newfields, formerly known as the Indianapolis Museum of Art. The Rev. Brian Shivers, a Presbyterian minister, officiated.

The bride, 30, works in Washington as the deputy communications director for the Democratic Party and director of its war room, used for political planning, strategizing and project management. She previously served as a spokeswoman for Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign. She graduated from Indiana University.

She is the daughter of Terry Watson and Dr. Nicholas H. Watson of Carmel, Ind. The brides father retired as a dentist in Carmel. Her mother, who is also retired, was a dental hygienist in Carmel.

The groom, 34, directs public engagement for PredictIt, a real-money political-prediction market headquartered in Washington. He graduated from the University of Arkansas and did press advance for President Obama's 2008 and 2012 campaigns. He is also a drummer with the Invisibles, a Washington-based rock band.Dr. Joanna Elizabeth Perdomo and Dr. Scott Andrew Elman were married May 5 at the Womans Club of Coconut Grove in Miami. Dr. Lillian C. Buchhalter, a friend of the couple who became a Universal Life minister for this event, officiated in a ceremony that included traditional Jewish elements.

The bride and groom met at Washington University in St. Louis, from which each graduated, he summa cum laude.

Dr. Perdomo, 29, is a third-year pediatrics resident at Boston Childrens Hospital and at Boston Medical Center. She received a medical degree from the University of Chicago.

She is a daughter of Nancy L. Perdomo and Jose E. Perdomo of Miami. The brides father is the senior vice president for ethics and compliance at Nicklaus Childrens Hospital, which is in Miami. Her mother works as a registered nurse and clinical documentation specialist, also at Nicklaus Childrens Hospital.To fly over the island now is to behold its beautiful landscape  and realize the monumental obstacle it poses to restoring electric power to the island. From the air, you can follow the path of the main power grid that circles the island and branches off in a crosshatch of patterns. Downed power lines snake along mountain ridges like strands of unraveled twine leading to broken toothpicks. Follow the path of one and youre likely to find a home on the other end without power. Each downed line represents an islet of humanity disconnected from the present.

Along with the New York Times reporters James Glanz and Frances Robles, we traversed the island by following the path of darkness left by Hurricanes Maria and Irma, visiting communities that are slowly regaining power and those that are still without it. The story tracks the early decisions officials made as hurricanes bore down on the island, and the substantial challenges of repairing a long-neglected power grid buffeted by back-to-back hurricanes. Bulldozers cleared paths up mountain ridges for utility workers, while in other places workers trudged through muddy tropical terrain to reach their objective. In some places, like San German, helicopters lowered poles into place atop steep ridges in a laborious process that would restore power to roughly 30 homes.

But not all of the obstacles are physical.

Supplies were slow to make it to the island in the days and weeks after the hurricanes. Contractors with little experience in disasters of this magnitude were hired, further slowing recovery.As of last April, New York had sold only three of its 13 prisons that had closed since 2011, and only one, the former Mid-Orange Correctional Facility in Warwick in the Hudson Valley, had found a new use, as an office park.

Chateaugay is a rural town in the North Country with about 2,000 residents. The median income is approximately $40,000 a year. Nearly 28 percent of the residents are below the federal poverty level  almost double the percentage for the state over all, according to the census.

The prison, which had 234 inmates, helped the economy, said Assemblyman Billy Jones, a Democrat, who is a former corrections officer and a past mayor of Chateaugay.

We were a large agriculture area at one time, he said. When dairy farming decreased in the late 1980s or early 1990s, a lot of people found jobs in these prisons. To see them closing, its hard on our economy.

Mr. Jones said that, while he understood the changes to the drug laws, he believed the prison should have remained open because it was among the newer medium-security facilities, and it also provided a place for parole violators to get counseling.

There has been no real, good plan when these facilities shutter, he said.

Mr. David and others disagree. The prison is being put up for auction to avoid the lengthy process of requesting proposals, Mr. David said.

The State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision kept the buildings heated during harsh winters to keep them in good shape. Workers were offered jobs at other prisons, and the state is working with communities to develop economic proposals in places where prisons closed.Even by the dizzying standards of New York City philanthropy, a recent $6.24 million donation to the Henry Street Settlement on the Lower East Side was a whopper  the largest single gift from an individual to the social service group in its 125-year history.

It was not donated by some billionaire benefactor, but by a frugal legal secretary from Brooklyn who toiled for the same law firm for 67 years until she retired at age 96 and died not long afterward in 2016.

Her name was Sylvia Bloom and even her closest friends and relatives had no idea she had amassed a fortune over the decades. She did this by shrewdly observing the investments made by the lawyers she served.

She was a secretary in an era when they ran their bosss lives, including their personal investments, recalled her niece Jane Lockshin. So when the boss would buy a stock, she would make the purchase for him, and then buy the same stock for herself, but in a smaller amount because she was on a secretarys salary.90pc wives unaware of husbands' income

ACC thinking to protect them providing legal support

Staff Reporter :

Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) Chairman Iqbal Mahmud on Sunday said that in 90 per cent case wife does not know anything about the acquisition of her husband's income which is shown in the name of his wife's income.

Whereas, the innocent woman is being accused under the law who does not know anything about illegal income her husband. So, the ACC is thinking of protecting such women from the legal framework, he said.

The ACC chairman said this while speaking as the chief guest at a meeting of the Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) on 'Family Liability, Income Role, Risk and Doing of Revenues and Property Managed by Corruption' organized at MIDAS centre in the city.

In this context, Iqbal Mahmud mentioned a total of 118 cases of this kind from the year 2015 to 2017.

"Women are becoming victims of corruption. There was no solution to the issue. Who does not know anything, why do I accuse her? After working for two years at ACC the cases got baffled. Before making a decision, I will talk to women organizations and ministries," he added.

Iqbal Mahmud also said, "In the last two years we have got a woman who knows about her husband's illegal income."

He said the women accused in the cases say they do not know anything, but they have signatures on paper. They are also in the director or any other post. So, women have to be aware. Before signing the bank check or empty check, she will know why she is signing.

TIB Program Manager Shammi Laila Islam presented a paper prepared by it on different statistics of the ACC. It has been said that in the last one decade, 29 cases filed by ACC were awarded to the court for financing the husband's corruption work or acquiring known unutilized assets or for concealing information. 26 of the 29 people have been convicted for helping husband's corruption. Of them, 25 have been sentenced for three years and one for two years' normal jail. From 2007 to March this year, in almost all the cases, the amount of money or property earned illegally has been confiscated, which amounted to Tk 50 lakh to Tk 80 crore.

TIB Executive Director Iftekharuzzaman also emphasized the need for awareness of women so that they do not take responsibility for illegal assets. Likewise, women's decisions and empowerment are important. He called for ACC's campaigns in this regard.

Professor Dilara Chowdhury told the meeting that husbands do not listen to their other wives, but only for the sake of corruption, the wives are forced to comply with.

Khushi Kabir, Rokeya Kabir, Shahin Anam, Farah Kabir, Prof Asif Nazrul and lawyer Tanvir Siddique took part in the meeting, among thers.

The president of a leading Jewish seminary died Saturday morning after the small plane he was piloting crashed about 70 miles northwest of Manhattan, according to the institution.

The death of the president, Rabbi Aaron D. Panken of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, was announced by Jean Bloch Rosensaft, a spokeswoman for the seminary, late Saturday night.

[Obituary: Rabbi Aaron Panken, Reform Seminary President, Dies in Plane Crash at 53]

The Federal Aviation Administration said an Aeronca 7AC aircraft crashed just after takeoff from Randall Airport in Orange County, N.Y., on Saturday morning. F.A.A. officials said two people were aboard the plane but did not release their names and conditions. A spokesman for the New York State Police did not immediately respond to a request for additional information.

But Ms. Rosensaft confirmed that Rabbi Panken, 53, had been killed in the crash. In an interview, she said he was a highly skilled pilot who had been on what she called a routine flight check with an instructor. The Times Herald-Record of Middletown, N.Y., said the second person on the plane had injuries that did not appear to be life-threatening.Afonso Dhlakama, the leader of Mozambiques main opposition group, who was held responsible for exceptional brutality by its often young soldiers during a civil war that claimed up to a million lives, died on Thursday at his hide-out in the Gorongosa mountains in southeast Africa. He was 65.

The Mozambican authorities confirmed the death but did not specify the cause. News reports said it was either diabetes or a heart attack.

President Filipe Nyusi, who had been negotiating a rapprochement with Mr. Dhlakama, a former guerrilla commander, said he had tried to have him evacuated by helicopter for medical treatment.

I could not, because he was in a place where I could not help, the president said.

The impact of Mr. Dhlakamas death on a frail truce, negotiated in advance of elections scheduled for 2019, was not immediately clear.By 1931 Winston Churchill had fought more election battles than any other member of the British Parliament. He ruefully calculated that one day in 30 of his adult life had been consumed by arduous and worrying campaigning.

Churchills famous conclusion was that democracy constituted the worst form of government  except for all those other forms that have been tried. He was not succumbing to pessimism; on the contrary, faced with an array of unappetizing options, there is a deep wisdom in choosing the one with the smallest downside and then fixing its limitations.

So it is with the Iran nuclear agreement that President Trump is now reviewing, with May 12  this Saturday  looming as the next deadline for him to pull out of the deal. Of all the options we have for ensuring that Iran never gets a nuclear weapon, this pact offers the fewest disadvantages.

It has weaknesses, certainly, but I am convinced they can be remedied. Indeed at this moment Britain is working alongside the Trump administration and our French and German allies to ensure that they are.When Reed Hastings needed a break from the early days of building Netflix, his board allowed him to live in Italy part time for a year with his family. When Marissa Mayer, the former Yahoo chief executive, had a child, she had a nursery built in the office. When I had a daughter a year ago, I could afford to pay for child care throughout my maternity leave and afterward, so returning to work was seamless.

But the people who are working in warehouses and call centers and retail stores around the country generally have few safety nets. I have a deeper understanding now than when I founded Rent the Runway about the ways these missing safety nets contribute to unemployment and limit social mobility. When I announced our new paid family sick leave plan at our warehouse, for instance, a woman stood up to see whether she could use this policy to care for her daughter, who was scheduled to have a C-section soon. Before that, she had been planning to simply quit her job, without ever telling us why.

This has to change. As a founder of a company that has grown from two employees to 1,200 over the last eight years, I implicitly understand that Rent the Runway would not exist without the dedication and loyalty of our team. Dont I owe it to the team that got me here to take care of them?

I believe that these new policies are not only in the best interests of our employees but also of Rent the Runway itself, which Im hoping will see higher retention rates, lower training costs and better overall productivity from more experienced employees. I believe that these new policies will help us retain corporate employees too, or at least those who care about working at a company that takes values seriously: I received more positive feedback about these changes from my corporate team than about any other leadership decision I have ever made.

Its time for business leaders to step up and fulfill not only their fiduciary duty to shareholders, but also their moral duty to society to treat every worker equally.

We have the power to create the kind of workplace culture we want. And I hope our actions create a ripple effect at companies that will either have to disrupt their own cultures or see millennial and Generation Z employees choose to work at companies that more closely align with their values.

I want Rent the Runway to be an example of what a modern workplace should be  a leader in creating a more human workplace, where the heart is just as important as the head, and where we show that we care about each and every member of our team equally.OLD TOWN ALEXANDRIA, Va.  Nestled in centuries of dirt and debris, several well-preserved ships and artifacts have been unearthed that offer a glimpse of life at what was once one of the busiest ports in the North American colonies.

At the site for Robinson Landing, a new townhouse and condominium development along the Potomac River here, excavations have uncovered the protruding, curved wooden bones of the ships. Three ships were scuttled and buried here centuries ago as Alexandria sought to expand its land into the deeper waters of the river.

It tells us a lot about the resourcefulness of our predecessors, how pragmatic they were, said Dan Lee, the city historian in the Office of Historic Alexandria. They dont put ships in there because theyre sentimental, but because they needed something and they found a way to do it.

The three ships, buried just feet from each other, were an unusual find in a neighborhood where residents have fought for decades to preserve the remains of everyday artifacts unearthed in construction since the 1960s. In 2015, the remains of a ship were found a block away in the construction site for a hotel, but archaeologists were shocked earlier this year to find the three ships so close to one another.Their practices came to light in March when The New York Times and The Observer of London reported that Aleksandr Kogan, a University of Cambridge psychology professor, had obtained the data of up to 87 million Facebook users through a quiz app. Mr. Kogan sold the information to Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm with ties to the Trump campaign, so it could build psychographic profiles of American voters. Last week, Cambridge Analytica said it would cease operations after the uproar over its use of personal information.

But while what happened with Mr. Kogans Facebook data set is now known, the fate of other information hoards is murkier. In many cases, the data was used for research or scholarly articles. The information was then sometimes left unsecured and stored on open servers that offered access to anyone. Some academics said the data could have been easily copied and sold to marketers or political consulting firms.

The potential result is more leakage of Facebook users information through academic circles, said Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, a professor of political communication at the University of Oxford who has studied data collection from Facebook.

The academic world is highly decentralized, and each individual, each institution, has a different way of securing their data, Dr. Nielsen said. Even if almost everyone in the academic community is careful and protects the data, you still can end up in a situation where someone is careless or acts in bad faith and sells access. Its hard to imagine how Facebook stops that from happening.

The Times reviewed half a dozen Facebook data sets compiled by academics from 2006 to 2017. One, gathered from 2015 to 2017 by researchers in Denmark and New Zealand, examined 1.3 million people in Denmark  about a quarter of the countrys population  to determine how liking one political page on Facebook could predict how someone would vote in the future. Another set, from 2013, by a group of Norwegian academics focused on the civic engagement of 21 million Facebook members on four continents.And you thought the fine-feathered avengers from that Alfred Hitchcock movie were scary. Wait until you get a load of the title characters of another classic called The Birds, especially once they start exercising their right to bear arms.

These winged gunslingers show up in the Greek director Nikos Karathanoss rowdy riff on Aristophanes The Birds, the 2,500-year-old comedy about the quest for utopia, which opened in a cacophony of tweets and caws on Sunday night at St. Anns Warehouse in Brooklyn. Embodied by a phalanx of defiantly bare-breasted actresses, they advance toward the audience on a wave of fury.

I will massacre your mama and your auntie and your kids, one of them says. Thats among the milder threats. These avian beings have had it with a human race that eats them for dinner and wreaks havoc with nature. Today I am the beast, they chant in unison. Today the Law is writ again.

Yikes! Who knew that building a paradise for egg-layers would be the bloody, messy business it becomes in this artfully anarchic, exhausting production? Then again, it is a homo sapiens who has planted the seeds for this rebellion, and people  being people  have a way of stirring up hatred in the name of progress.The second ghost from the archives is Katherine M. Luder, who, starting at age 67 and continuing until her death 24 years later, was Fryers secretary and something more. (The doctor and myself were a little, intensely, utterly platonically, very married, she says with typical tartness. Ha, chew on that.) Luder recapitulates in her relationship with Fryer the arc of the worlds growing acknowledgment, toleration and embrace of gay people, or at least a quicker form of it.

She also connects the dots to feminism, ageism and, most powerfully, AIDS, which she came to comprehend as Fryers young patients showed up for appointments in ever more ill-fitting clothes. In what is perhaps the plays highlight, Luder, played by Laura Esterman, a New York stage treasure who has never been better, memorializes those patients, whose names she of course cant divulge, in a way that is no less concrete for being totally abstract.

Thats the plays method, too, coming at us with its cool cred thrust out like a business card but still, when you shake its hand, warm to the touch. By the final monologue, in which Ken Marks plays Fryers father, Ercel, Mr. Gordon risks even sentimentality. In reality, Ercel died, at home in Kentucky, two years before his sons momentous speech; its the play that gives him posthumous knowledge of it. And this too: Though he still has trouble saying the word homosexual, Ercel wants us to know he is proud that he signed all nine letters he wrote to his son  theyre in the boxes  Love, Daddy.

From where I sat among the psychiatrists, that bit of schmaltz, beautifully tempered in Mr. Markss performance, paid off.

It pays off because 217 Boxes tells us something real about the world whether or not its version of Fryers colleagues and family is as accurate as the archive from which their stories are drawn. Liberation, the play demonstrates, is not just necessary and beneficial to the oppressed but also to society as a whole. This is the greatest loss, our honest humanity, Fryer said on that hot Dallas day in 1972, and that loss leads all those others around us to lose that little bit of their humanity as well.

That he said this while sweating behind a rubber mask does not make it any less true. And that 217 Boxes turns it into something moving does not make it any less fine.Meet Gina, a spy for over 30 years, a devoted public servant and a devotee of Johnny Cash. Shes dedicated her life to protecting our nation. Meet Gina, a spy for over 30 years, an overseer of torture, and a destroyer of valuable documents. She believes that waterboarding should be something that we use. This is Gina Haspel, the nominee to head the C.I.A. with two distinct storylines about her. A C.I.A. P.R. blitz aimed at bolstering her nomination tells us most of what we know about Haspel. Gina Haspel is the best prepared person ever to be nominated for this job. A nonpartisan person. Shes got a spine of steel. Her only goal is to live out the agencys mission. The C.I.A. tells us that she joined towards the end of the Cold War. She wanted adventure and meaning in her life. We dont get too much detail. We know she first deployed to Africa, then later overseas during the Gulf War. At one point she helped catch two terrorists linked to an embassy bombing. They dont say where. But pretty much everything else about her 33 years at the agency is classified. And all the while, the C.I.A. says she remained a big fan of her alma maters basketball team: the University of Kentucky Wildcats. Now critics of Haspel are more concerned with what the C.I.A. isnt saying about her. America shouldnt be known for torture. She was supportive of the program. A cover-up from A to Z. A dirty past. After 9/11. she managed a secret C.I.A. prison in Thailand. And at that prison she oversaw the torture of a detainee. And then, later, she helped execute an order to destroy videotapes of brutal interrogations. Heres her then-boss explaining why he didnt want the tapes kept: It would make the C.I.A. look bad. And it would actually, in my view, it almost destroyed the clandestine service because of it. The president decided to focus on good Gina. Gina the trailblazer. Gina, by the way, who I know very well  who I worked very closely with... will be the first woman director of the C.I.A. Critics worry that the presidents embrace of torture wont get any pushback from Haspel. What do you think about waterboarding, Mr. Trump? I said, I love it. And Id bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding. Torture works, O.K., folks. Haspel recently gave a very rare public appearance on Capitol Hill. Her aim: to woo some of her critics. She smiled and appeared approachable, more public servant than controversial public official.WASHINGTON  As he weighs opening nuclear disarmament negotiations with North Korea, President Trump faces a regime that for decades has hidden key elements of its nuclear programs from international monitors and has banned inspectors from the country.

As a result, the first step in any meaningful agreement would be a declaration from North Korea about the scope of its nuclear program, a declaration that no one would believe.

It would have to be followed by what experts call the most extensive inspection campaign in the history of nuclear disarmament, one that would have to delve into a program that stretches back more than half a century and now covers square miles of industrial sites and hidden tunnels across the mountainous North. And it might demand more than the 300 inspectors the International Atomic Energy Agency now deploys to assess the nuclear facilities of nearly 200 countries.

For Mr. Trump, getting the right declaration and inspection process is critical given his argument that false declarations from Iran undercut the legitimacy of the 2015 nuclear accord, which he is debating pulling out of later this week.Yes, the decision belongs on the local level

No, no one should be able to dictate whether people wear masks

Vote

View ResultsWASHINGTON  In his State of the Union address in January and again in New Hampshire in March, President Trump made a bold promise: Youll be seeing drug prices falling very substantially in the not-too-distant future, he said, and its going to be beautiful.

Not if the pharmaceutical companies can stop it.

Big Pharma is pouring money into a lobbying campaign to thwart any serious efforts to rein in prescription drug prices ahead of a presidential speech this month where Mr. Trump plans to lay out his drug pricing proposals.

There is apprehension across the industry, said Bruce Artim, who retired recently after 11 years as the director of federal affairs at Eli Lilly and Company. Pharma folks are nervous.

Drugmakers spent $171.5 million lobbying the federal government last year  more than insurance, electronics, oil and gas or any other industry, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, an independent group that tracks money in politics.Like several other countries in Latin America, Peru has a criminal statute for femicide, the crime of killing a woman or girl because of her gender. But it can be difficult to prove. Mr. Hualpa is being investigated for attempted femicide.

Social norms have yet to catch up with the legal standards, advocates say. Last year, a congresswoman, Maritza Garcia, was forced to resign from her position leading a legislative committee on women and families after saying women sometimes give men the opportunity to kill them.

Many times, you can have an aggressor who is acting totally normal and, suddenly, the woman makes him flip out by telling him: Im leaving you or Im cheating on you, Ms. Garcia said. Those phrases should never be said by a woman.

One of the most notorious cases of sexual violence in recent years was in 2015 when Adriano Pozo was recorded attacking his girlfriend at the time, Arlette Contreras, at a hotel after a birthday party.

Im going to make love to you, he told her, according to court papers. When she refused, he said, Then I will rape you.

At that point, Mr. Pozo pushed her to the floor, according to the court records. He choked her as she tried to resist, a medical report found. He allegedly threatened to kill her.

Ms. Contreras, a young lawyer, managed to escape from the hotel room. But Mr. Pozo, who was naked, chased her down to the lobby while being recorded by multiple security cameras.He said that at least one woman was among those killed, and that 33 others had been wounded.

Mohammadin Mangal, deputy head of the health department for Khost, said that at least 12 bodies and the wounded had been taken to the hospital after the attack. (Some Afghans take the dead directly to funerals rather than to the hospital).

The attack occurred two weeks after a suicide bomber struck a voter registration office in Kabul, the capital, killing at least 57 people. The Islamic State in Afghanistan claimed that attack; Taliban insurgents denied any responsibility for it.

The Taliban also denied any role in the attack on Sunday.

Voter registration began on April 14, after voting cards issued in previous elections were invalidated because of widespread forgery. Citizens must now go to registration centers to have their national identity documents stamped to show that they can vote in the elections for the national parliament, planned for October.

The elections are three years behind the schedule mandated by the Afghan Constitution. A disastrous and disputed presidential election in 2014 led to widespread disagreement among political parties about how to conduct elections, both for Parliament this year and for presidency in 2019.

Voter registration has proceeded very slowly, according to officials. In addition to the attack on a registration center in Kabul on April 22, there have been at least four other attacks reported on registration centers or officials since the voter drive began.BEIJING  Tensions between Washington and Beijing have spilled into a new and unexpected battleground: the pull-down menus on airline websites, where customers click on departures and destinations.

After the White House on Saturday accused the Chinese government of Orwellian nonsense for ordering 36 airline companies to purge their websites of references to Macau, Taiwan and Hong Kong as separate countries, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs struck back on Sunday.

In effect, the ministry told foreign companies that obeying official Chinese demands on how to refer to these areas would be the price of doing business in China.

No matter what the U.S. side says, nothing will alter the objective fact that there is only one China in the world, and that the Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan regions are inseparable parts of Chinese territory, a spokesman, Geng Shuang, said on the ministrys website.KARACHI, Pakistan  Pakistans interior minister narrowly escaped an apparent assassination attempt Sunday evening when a gunman slipped into a small crowd of supporters and colleagues surrounding the minister, firing a shot that pierced his right shoulder.

The attacker was quickly apprehended and the minister, Ahsan Iqbal, taken to a hospital; government officials said he was in stable condition. The shooting, which took place in Punjab Province, left Pakistanis on edge as the country prepares to hold general elections as early as July.

Although a motive for the shooting has yet to be declared, Mr. Iqbal is a staunch supporter of Pakistans religious minorities, often considered heretics by the countrys radicalized offshoots of Sunni Islam. Mr. Iqbal met with religious minorities across Pakistan in recent weeks, encouraging them to go to the polls and promising to provide security to nervous constituents.

In the end, Mr. Iqbals own security detail couldnt give him the protection he promised religious minorities, who are frequent victims of terrorist attacks as well as harassment and discrimination by the authorities. This past week, the minister met with Hazaras, who practice Shiite Islam, listening to their complaints of widespread discrimination at the hands of the police forces that Mr. Iqbal leads.The 324 members of the assembly cannot vote on binding laws, but recommend that countries make democratic reforms and defend human rights. While the institution has a low profile, it has been credited with pressuring countries to abolish the death penalty, as well as helping the former Soviet-bloc countries transition to democracy.

Last year, after receiving complaints that lawmakers had helped silence criticism of the countrys record on human rights and the rule of law, the assembly ordered an investigation into its members activities in Azerbaijan.

Three former European judges led the 10-month inquiry, and their findings, released two weeks ago, highlighted cases of conflicts of interest and corruption involving about a dozen former and current lawmakers. The investigation concluded that the officials had benefited from helping Azerbaijan dodge criticism from the European assembly in its reports on countries and some of its votes.

Corruption is one of the most widespread and insidious of social evils, the 291-page report concluded. The parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe has not been spared that scourge.

Mr. Samuelsen highlighted the case of Mr. Agramunt, who is a senator representing the Popular Party of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy of Spain. In a radio interview last week, Mr. Agramunt, 66, said he had been threatened with blackmail by a Ukrainian lawmaker who claimed to have photos of him with ladies.

Mr. Agramunt jokingly told the Spanish radio station, Cadena Ser, when asked whether he had slept with prostitutes in Azerbaijan, that he would have been happy to share such photos with his friends if they had existed, but that he was too old for such activity.

Mr. Agramunt later apologized for his comments about prostitutes.

Like other lawmakers named in the report, he denied any wrongdoing, telling Cadena Ser that the former judges report was filled with accusations, comments and rumors made anonymously and with neither proof nor evidence.Mr. Netanyahu said that the deal was fatally flawed on weaponization, referring to the military application of Irans enriched uranium, and that the documents proved it was based on a lie. He added that the cache of more than 100,000 pages was now being shared with the intelligence services of the countries that negotiated the agreement with Iran: the United States, Russia, China, France, Germany and Britain.

To those arguing that the documents did not prove any Iranian violation of the accord since it came into effect in 2016, Mr. Netanyahu said that was missing the point.

If you dont violate a dangerous deal, it doesnt make it less dangerous, he said, adding that the accord was based on a fictitious Iranian report to the International Atomic Energy Agency, in which Iran denied having ever planned to build a weapon.

Mr. Netanyahu also dismissed experts who said the documents just proved why a deal was necessary. A deal that enables Iran to keep and hide all its nuclear weapons know-how is a horrible deal, he said.

The accord gave Iran unlimited enrichment in both ways, he said, because it removed economic sanctions on Tehran and at the same time gives them the ability to enrich uranium on an industrialized scale when the restrictions in the deal end.

The last thing you can say about it is that it blocks all of Irans paths to the bomb. In fact, it does the very opposite, Mr. Netanyahu said. If you do nothing to this deal, if you keep it as is, you will end up with Iran with a nuclear arsenal in a very short time.

Mr. Netanyahu has staked his political career on blocking Iran and its nuclear ambitions, which pose a potential existential threat to Israel, but there is no sign so far that his campaign has shifted European leaders who have lobbied Mr. Trump not to scuttle the deal.As residents surge back into a city that less than a year ago was embroiled in fierce battle, garbage is piling up and informal dumps have sprung up throughout the city.

Adding to the problem is a lack of dump trucks. Islamic State fighters tried to defend their position in Mosul by using state-owned dump trucks to block roads and even turned some of them into truck bombs. During months of intense battle to wrest the city back after three years of militant rule, the trucks were either destroyed by airstrikes or blown up by the radical fighters themselves.

At the main city dump, some of the citys poorest residents sifted through debris looking for anything salvageable. The foul smell emanating from the sea of trash was inescapable and the thick, chemical-infused smoke wafting through the air burned the nose.

Many of the scavengers were young children. Armed with hooked metal rods, they descended on every new dumpster that arrived with a mixture of excitement and desperation. They seemed to encourage one another with the idea that there could be treasure amid the trash.

There were also many women scavenging in these harsh conditions. Though wary of a foreign journalist, the eldest of the group explained that many of them were widows and this was their only way to survive and provide for their children. Under the Islamic State, she said, women were forbidden from doing this activity and only since the groups defeat had such large numbers of women joined in.It took months to restore electricity in Puerto Rico after hurricanes dealt a one-two punch. Many homes are still without power, and the systems future is far from certain.

A transmission tower and downed lines in the mountainous terrain of eastern Puerto Rico. Workers from the island and throughout the United States have worked to restore power after Hurricanes Irma and Maria last September.

A transmission tower and downed lines in the mountainous terrain of eastern Puerto Rico. Workers from the island and throughout the United States have worked to restore power after Hurricanes Irma and Maria last September. Todd Heisler/The New York Times

YABUCOA, P.R.  Rafael Surillo Ruiz was on the way to San Juan when he noticed that all the traffic lights had gone out. Mr. Surillo is the mayor of Yabucoa, among the first communities struck by Hurricane Maria last September, and for months he had been lobbying federal officials, local officials, utility officials  anyone who might help the thousands of his constituents still waiting to get their power back.

Now, as he headed north for yet another meeting, the phone calls from home confirmed the worst: Not only was his city of spiky mountains, lush green marshes and rugged coastline totally powerless again; the entire island was blacked out.

It was a rudely inauspicious omen, even for a man sunk seven months deep in frustration and disbelief.

You have to understand that half our population still does not have power, Mr. Surillo said the day after the April 18 blackout, recalling the morning after Maria when he emerged from his operations center to see the Yabucoa city hall devastated, houses smashed and downed power lines and poles littering the streets and countryside. The realization that the island has been left with such a flawed and fragile system after so much time and money spent on recovery, he said, hurts in our hearts and souls as Puerto Ricans.

After Maria and the hurricane that preceded it, called Irma, Puerto Rico all but slipped from the modern era. Even now, while officials say the $2.5 billion reconstruction effort has restored power to 98 percent of the grids customers, swaths of hilly country across the island are still pitch black after dark, punctuated by lights run on private generators. (About 60 percent of Yabucoas residents had power as of May 1.) Even restored sections of the grid are nightmarishly unreliable, as evidenced by last months outage, the second major power failure in a week and the fourth since early February.

Yasmin Morales Torres standing in what was left of a relatives home in Yabucoa. In the storms devastation, the island all but slipped from the modern era. Todd Heisler/The New York Times

On the mainland, much of the coverage of the recovery has focused on the struggles of the islands beleaguered power authority and its politically disastrous hiring of Whitefish Energy Holdings, a tiny and inexperienced Montana contractor linked to the Trump administrations interior secretary. Here in Puerto Rico, the perception of a condescending and under-responsive government in Washington has been fed by the enduring image of President Trump seeming to minimize the catastrophe while tossing paper towels into a crowd.

But an examination of the power grids reconstruction  based on a review of hundreds of documents and interviews with dozens of public officials, utility experts and citizens across the island  shows how a series of decisions by federal and Puerto Rican authorities together sent the effort reeling on a course that would take months to correct. The human and economic damage wrought by all that time without power may be irreparable.

When the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, known as Prepa, hired Whitefish for the reconstruction, it also declined to request direct assistance from mainland utilities that for decades had routinely dispatched workers to help one another recover from disasters large and small.

At the same time, the Federal Emergency Management Agency made a highly unusual decision of its own. Rather than advise Puerto Rico to accept aid from the mainland utilities, FEMA abruptly called in the Army Corps of Engineers  never mind that the corps had never rebuilt a major grid after a storm and by its own account had not made preparations to take on the task in Puerto Rico.

The result was a chaotic tangle of overlapping missions and fumbling coordination.

Compounding those problems, the grid was decrepit, corroded and poorly maintained, and Prepa  which, like Puerto Rico as a whole, is effectively bankrupt  had failed to keep sufficient stocks of replacement parts and other critical supplies. Shipments of parts from the mainland were slow to arrive and languished in the battered ports. The terrain is so forbidding that replacing a single power pole can require a helicopter and a team of line workers. The effort seemed to go impossibly awry.

Ive never seen anything like that  not in a developed nation, said Ed Muller, a former energy executive whose generation and transmission equipment suffered flooding by Hurricane Sandy in New Jersey, severe storm damage in Jamaica and earthquakes in California. In the Caribbean, he said, hurricanes come through regularly, and have forever. You move people in and you get it done. And we havent done it.

Many experts and public officials have also lamented the decision, largely driven by federal disaster-assistance law, to rebuild a poorly designed grid almost exactly as it was. The system that we have up now in Puerto Rico is vulnerable to a hurricane, and its going to happen again, said Rolando Ortiz Velazquez, the mayor of Cayey and head of the Mayors Association of Puerto Rico.

Palo Seco is a major power plant in the San Juan area. Like much of the electrical system, it is in a state of disrepair. Todd Heisler/The New York Times

It took more than a month for Prepas decision on aid from utilities, known as mutual assistance, to be undone. In late October, with the reconstruction seemingly stalled, Gov. Ricardo A. Rossello of Puerto Rico met with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, a veteran of Hurricane Sandy and other natural disasters. Mr. Cuomo strongly recommended invoking mutual aid.

Weeks more would pass before the full mobilization got underway, but beginning in November, the first of some 3,000 utility workers from across the country began pouring in. The first wave had a distinctly New York flavor  San Juan streets filling with trucks and workers bearing the insignia of Con Edison, the New York Power Authority and other organizations. Carlos D. Torres, Con Edisons recently retired storm and emergency czar, became Mr. Rossellos choice to lead the restoration and reshape the effort.

After the ferocity of Maria, there has been a whirlwind of blame cast among the parties involved.

Bad, very bad, Mr. Ortiz said when asked for his judgment of a program that, he said, repeatedly reneged on promises and timelines. They have not listened to the communities, and they have not told them the truth.

Pretty much everyone spoke of Marias awesome power and the extreme challenges posed by Puerto Ricos precipitous landscape.

Prepas new chief, Walter Higgins, said that he was communicating with unhappy municipalities, but that the catastrophic damage in mountainous terrain made the job more difficult than any other restoration ever experienced in Puerto Rico, perhaps anywhere.

For its part, FEMA said its effort had moved rapidly, though it conceded that the final pieces  the last mile  were especially challenging.

To Mr. Torres, who speaks with the wisdom of many storms, the human forces at work in Marias wake were at least as daunting as the natural ones.

I tell you, I thought Sandy was the worst storm of my life, Mr. Torres said. Compared with Maria, it turned out to be a cake walk, he said, adding, There are a lot of complexities here that are far beyond what Sandy was.

Thousands of miles of power lines, often stretching across high-altitude areas, were downed or damaged. By Tim Chaffee and Veda Shastri

The Corroding Grid

As Maria approached before dawn last Sept. 20, Cecilio Ortiz Garcia had a premonition of what was to come. Dr. Ortiz is a professor at the University of Puerto Ricos campus in Mayaguez, and for the last few years, he and his colleagues had been studying the long decline of Prepa and its electrical grid.

When Maria came, Dr. Ortiz said, she found a system that was already on its knees. By 5 a.m., nearly every light on the island was out.

The electrification of the entire island began only in the late 1800s, when sugar and tobacco barons began allowing local municipalities access to their power systems, Dr. Ortiz said. Luis Munoz Marin, the activist who became the islands first elected governor in 1948, built up the grid and made it the industrial pride of Puerto Rico. By the late 1950s, helicopters were ferrying power poles to the islands remotest corners.

The slide began with Mr. Munozs defeat in 1968. Since then, Dr. Ortiz said, the islands two pre-eminent political parties have made Prepa more a patronage bank than a center of technical excellence  a view shared by some who have grappled with Prepa from within. Juan F. Alicea Flores, a former director, recalled that whichever party was in power would hand over an organizational chart filled with politically connected people.

 You are the leader, but the team is ours, they would say, Mr. Alicea said, recalling the negotiations he endured.

Prepa suffered another blow after building oil refineries and fossil fuel power plants, many on the southern coast  only to see the 1973 oil crisis pummel the island financially for making those bets. More recently, a series of poorly advised bond issues left the authority bankrupt, $9 billion in debt.

Vines crawling up a transmission tower. The power grid has been in decline for decades, and much of the infrastructure is in hard-to-reach areas. Todd Heisler/The New York Times

As a result, the plants in the south have become what Dr. Ortiz called a cemetery of rust. Conducting wire carried by aging transmission towers must hopscotch forested mountain ranges to carry power to the densely populated San Juan area in the north. That leaves the towers, and therefore the entire system, extremely vulnerable to high winds.

Performing inspections after Maria, utility experts observed what had become of Mr. Munozs achievement. The deadman anchors  concrete-encased steel rods  attached to the guy lines holding up transmission towers had corroded, according to Jeffrey A. Miller, an engineer for the federal Energy Department. While other utilities that use those anchors have protocols for regular inspections and repair, Prepa did not, he said.

Given the age of the system as a whole, its not a stretch that that was a culprit in the majority of the transmission lines that fell, Mr. Miller said, adding that the high winds were a factor as well.

A recent tour of the major power plant in the San Juan area, Palo Seco, revealed a grimy, corroded mess, with grand old turbines opened up and rusting, like someones forgotten auto repair project on a front lawn. Local distribution systems were no better. Linemen found incomprehensible snarls of wiring and defunct equipment perched atop rotting wooden power poles.

During the Palo Seco tour, Prepas executive sub-director, Justo Gonzalez, said a recent restructuring forced on the utility because of its debt had focused largely on financial restrictions. They forgot about the maintenance, he said. (Mr. Higgins, the new Prepa chief, said that maintenance of Palo Seco was now in the budget, and that the authority was carrying it out.)

Blue tarps from FEMA still cover damaged roofs awaiting repair in southeastern Puerto Rico. By Tim Chaffee and Veda Shastri

No Call for Mutual Aid

As unpredictable as major storms are, the utility industry has a standard bag of post-disaster tricks. Because every utility knows that it may need help next, there is seldom a problem mustering enough workers via mutual aid. Some 10,000 workers from 21 states traveled to Texas and Louisiana after Hurricane Harvey last summer, according to the Edison Electric Institute, an industry group. And after the one-two punch of Irma and Maria, the United States Virgin Islands took the standard step of bringing in a contractor and about 800 mainland utility workers.

Indeed, a range of experts, including officials from the principal industry groups, said they could not recall an instance in recent decades of a utility failing to request mutual aid after a grid was knocked out in a major storm.

In Puerto Rico, mutual aid should have been one of the first things they did, said James Lee Witt, who ran FEMA during the Clinton administration.

How large was the task? Puerto Rico has 2,400 often mountainous miles of high-voltage transmission lines, 342 substations and 30,000 miles of lower-voltage distribution lines that go to neighborhoods and homes, according to Prepa. Maria damaged 80 percent of that system.

But on Sept. 28, eight days after Maria made landfall, two parallel decisions drove the monumental rebuilding into uncharted territory.

In a conference call with Prepa, government and utility officials delivered a collective offer of mutual aid: We stand ready to help you, they said, according to Mike Hyland, a senior vice president at the American Public Power Association, who was on the call. But the Prepa officials, he recalled, said they were hiring Whitefish to restore the entire system.

Line workers from New York and Wisconsin utility companies gathered for a safety meeting at dawn in San Juan. Todd Heisler/The New York Times

With that, Prepa placed its chips on a tiny company with hardly any full-time employees. None of us had ever heard of Whitefish before, said Jonathon Monken, an Army reservist who had been called to duty in a FEMA operations room in Washington and is senior director for system resiliency at PJM Interconnection, which runs power grids in multiple states. Like, who?

At the same time, FEMA made its own request, enlisting the Army Corps to provide emergency repairs to the grid.

FEMA had already given the corps a task it routinely performed: bringing in emergency generators for hospitals, clinics, town centers and other facilities. By all accounts, those measures were carried out successfully.

But the corps has never repaired an electrical power grid of this magnitude as part of a domestic disaster response, said its commander, Lt. Gen. Todd T. Semonite. Although it had placed a small contingent in Puerto Rico before Maria to assess eventual damage, he added, the corps could not predict the assignment to restore the grid.

FEMA and the corps both said they had had no hand in Prepas decision to hire Whitefish. Asked why FEMA had brought in the corps, Lea Crager, a FEMA spokeswoman, said, Due to the magnitude of this storm and the devastation caused to the grid, we knew repair and rebuilding of the grid would take a joint effort.

The political brouhaha ignited by the Whitefish hiring vastly complicated matters. Initially, questions focused on Ryan Zinke, the interior secretary, whose hometown is Whitefish, Mont., where the company is based. Mr. Zinke and the company itself said he had nothing to do with awarding the contract, even though his son worked a summer job at Whitefish. Beyond questions about Whitefishs capability, the uproar was magnified by the opaque wording of the $300 million contract, the size of the companys markups and a Twitter threat to withdraw from San Juan after criticism by the mayor. Whitefish soon apologized.

Ricardo Ramos, Prepas director at the time, has made a series of disparate statements about why the authority did not invoke mutual aid.

It was always my intention to call upon them, Mr. Ramos said in a recent interview.

A decades-old generator at Palo Seco, a crucial station in the islands power grid. Todd Heisler/The New York Times

But until they receive reimbursement from FEMA, utilities often must pay for things like workers food and housing via mutual aid. In October, Mr. Ramos told The New York Times that he had not wanted to exhaust Prepas emergency funds paying mutual-aid groups while waiting for reimbursement. (Mr. Trump had declared that FEMA would provide full reimbursement for emergency work in Puerto Rico. Whitefish, though, said it was not requiring payment up front.) Mr. Ramos also said that Prepa would have been hard-pressed to provide the workers with hotel rooms, food, fuel and other supplies.

Mr. Ramos said he had no regrets. Mr. Rosello, however, acknowledged that his government had fallen short  that it should have had some sort of agreements already in line, as well as a rainy-day fund for mutual-aid payments.

That is one of those lessons learned, he said.

A Response in Slow Motion

Whatever was or was not said and done, the overlapping duties, without the experienced utilities that had coordinated and carried them out through decades of storms, seemed to be a prescription for chaos. That, by many accounts, is exactly what followed.

In practice, all the players answered to Prepa, according to Mr. Miller of the Energy Department.

The lights of San Lorenzo can be seen from the hilltop home of Sylvia and Reggie Martinez. They have been living without power since Hurricane Irma. Todd Heisler/The New York Times

Prepa was trying to manage the overall restoration process, Mr. Miller said, but they would work on a line and not finish it. The authority, he added, had the appearance of not knowing what was going on, but jumping from point to point and putting out spot fires, so to speak.

In the first days, as Prepa officials struggled in the mud and darkness to begin the journey back to a functioning grid, it turned out that the authority had not even stockpiled enough gasoline to see it through the emergency.

We spent five or six days just scrambling to get gas, Mr. Gonzalez said, reaching out to gas stations to make special arrangements for our employees. It was a battle.

Angel R. Figueroa Jaramillo, president of the Electrical Industry and Irrigation Workers Union, said he found rudderless teams of Prepa workers waiting for orders. There was no work, he said. The men were standing around for two days waiting to find out what to do.

Mr. Higgins, the new Prepa chief, said, Prepa has an emergency plan and employees know it. Once the storm had passed and communications were established, he said, every effort was made to make the best use possible of every person.

For its part, the Army Corps moved as swiftly as federal regulations allowed, General Semonite said. But even after invoking emergency measures to speed the effort, he said, it was not until Oct. 19 that the corps awarded the second of two major restoration contracts. The contractors, in turn, had to scout the damage before work could begin.

Mildoel Rodriguez, who is disabled, relied on candles to see in his home after dusk until power was restored last month. Todd Heisler/The New York Times

By February, crews with the corpss main contractor, Fluor, had started returning home amid criticism in some quarters that the work had gone sluggishly. Fluor has defended its work.

Mr. Rossello said the corpss bureaucracy was all but immovable in an emergency that demanded quick action.

They didnt have a sense of urgency; there was always a bureaucratic excuse for one thing or another, he said.

In his communications with mayors, Mr. Torres, the retired storm czar who became the governors lieutenant, said delayed deliveries of millions of parts  the Pentagons responsibility  often slowed power restoration in those desperate communities.

Maj. Catalina Carrasco, a spokeswoman for the Army Corps, said she was aware of the governors concerns, adding that the Corps had made clear from the start that the effort would be lengthy because of the extensive damage caused by the two hurricanes, the challenges of terrain, the state of the grid system before the storms and the long distance restoration materiel must travel to the island.

The work was further complicated by the strictures of federal law. The Stafford Act, which governs FEMA reimbursements, in most cases requires rebuilding to pre-disaster specifications. In Puerto Rico, that meant recreating electrical components that gave the impression of a time capsule from the 1950s and 60s. In some cases, like an outmoded transmission cable called the Puerto Rican Special, the parts had to be rebuilt from scratch, Mr. Miller said.

The sense of spinning in place was summed up by the experience of 20 workers from Lakeland, Fla., hired as subcontractors by Whitefish. The workers arrived expecting to pick up their trucks, which had left Florida 10 days earlier. Every morning I waited for the call to pick up the trucks, Charlie Russell, the Lakeland Electric supervisor on the ground, wrote to his bosses.

A crew from Oklahoma Gas and Electric repairing a pole. Some 3,000 utility workers from across the country assisted in the restoration effort. Todd Heisler/The New York Times

He waited and waited. Puerto Ricos damaged ports, shut down after the storm, were now jammed with a backlog of containers.

Mr. Russell asked at his hotel for the location of Prepas offices, where he might get some answers. He set out on foot with a Spanish-speaking co-worker to a district office two miles away. They found it, but security guards would not let them in. They tried again the next day. Eventually he found a Prepa supervisor, but he had no tasks for the men.

In the end, Lakeland Electric was in Puerto Rico for 22 days. The crew did repair work for two and a half. The bill, which taxpayers will probably foot: $820,271.25.

Turbines lay destroyed in Punta Lima. This wind farm is one of the few sources of renewable energy on the island. By Tim Chaffee and Veda Shastri

The Island Adapts

As time slipped away, people settled into new routines without electricity.

In the hills above downtown San Lorenzo, Sylvia Martinez woke at 3:30 a.m. every workday, heated water on the gas stove and carried it to her bathroom in a pot so she could shower  using a plastic cup  before her long commute to San Juan. She developed an affection for easy-to-make meals of Cheez Whiz and crackers. Mildoel Rodriguez, who is disabled, relied on candles to see as dusk settled in among the dizzyingly steep hills on the outskirts of Cayey. In Humacao in the east, Luz Rivera conducted Bible study classes with her friends by flashlight.

Some who could afford it took to paying unauthorized workers to climb the poles, connect the lines and bring power to houses and neighborhoods. In San Juan, Alejandro Cubina paid a worker $500 to fix the lines powering his business, a tree nursery. Thats the Macondo way, Mr. Cubina said, referring to the hidden factors at work in the city of that name in One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Mr. Ortiz, the Cayey mayor, began organizing unofficial workers, including former Prepa employees, to hook up his desperate city, but he ignored an unspoken Macondo rule: Rather than keep the work secret, he informed Prepa. The authority shut the effort down, citing safety issues, he said.

It was against this backdrop of scant visible progress that Mr. Rossello met with Mr. Cuomo in a back room at the San Juan convention center on Oct. 26, more than five weeks after the storm.

Ms. Martinez lighting her stove at dusk. After the power went out, she began heating water on the stove so she could shower  using a plastic cup  before heading to work in the morning. Todd Heisler/The New York Times

Mr. Rossello was accompanied by a handful of his top emergency officials; Mr. Cuomo had brought along two top aides and Gil C. Quiniones, chief executive of the New York Power Authority. Mr. Ramos was not there.

The Puerto Rico governor expressed frustration and repeated what everyone knew: Despite a swarm of federal officials and contractors having arrived to help, power was still almost completely out across the island.

In a recent interview, Mr. Cuomo  who is seeking a third term  deflected suggestions that his involvement in the recovery was meant to cultivate political capital. Rather, he said, he was motivated by cultural and personal connections with the large number of Puerto Rican New Yorkers.

Even so, storms  or, more precisely, the way public officials deal with them  are unmistakably political, especially in New York, where the failure to clear city streets after a 1969 blizzard famously crashed Mayor John V. Lindsays rising political star. For his part, Mr. Cuomo has generally received far higher marks for his handling of Sandy and other storms.

Mr. Cuomo pointed out in the interview that he and Mr. Rossello shared a bond dating to an earlier storm: In his office, Mr. Cuomo keeps a picture of himself huddling in a shelter with Mr. Rossellos father, Pedro, then Puerto Ricos governor, during Hurricane Georges in 1998, when Mr. Cuomo was federal housing secretary.

Workers securing a pole that a helicopter lowered into place in the mountains of San German. Todd Heisler/The New York Times

Now Mr. Cuomo urged Mr. Rossello and his colleagues to invoke mutual aid. For Mr. Rossello, a professor of biomedical engineering who had taken office just a few months before, this was a case of first impression, Mr. Cuomo explained.

They say: O.K., one question,  Mr. Cuomo recalled.  What is a request for mutual aid? 

Then, using Sandy as an example, Mr. Quiniones laid out how Long Island power officials had requested mutual aid and received nearly full reimbursement from FEMA for the immediate restoration.

At that point, Mr. Quiniones said, Mr. Rossello signed on.

Not long after, Mr. Rossello demanded Whitefishs ouster and Prepa terminated the contract. Whitefish stayed to finish work that included repairing five transmission lines, which a company spokesman says was successfully done. Whitefish filed papers in federal court to recover more than $100 million that it said it was still owed.

Precarious Progress

The black-and-yellow helicopter appeared over a ridge to the south. Beneath it was a 35-foot length of pine  a power pole  dangling from 100 feet of rope. The pilot, Andrew Chan, of Portland, Ore., flew northward along an ascending mountain valley toward a bare outcropping where utility workers were waiting next to a partly trampled barbed-wire fence, a downed power pole and a pink tin-roofed house.

Julie Angulo Ramos, of San Juan, danced after her home got power in February. As she ran to switch on appliances, her friend pulled a string to turn the kitchen light on and off repeatedly. Todd Heisler/The New York Times

The steep gravel-and-concrete lane leading to the house in San German, in western Puerto Rico, was too treacherous for a heavy vehicle. Which was why Mr. Chan was lifting the load up the heavily forested valley and past the pink house, pivoting 180 degrees and slowly approaching the workers  their hard hats tilted upward, the aircraft bobbing and pitching slightly in the wind.

Mr. Chan lowered the pole toward a hole in the dirt as Ron Overbye and Brock Stigall of Greensboro, N.C., yanked on guy lines until the pole was in place. Using a controller in his left hand, Mr. Chan disconnected the rope and flew southward again, disappearing over the ridge to pick up a second pole and then the conducting wire to string between them.

In all, it would take 18 workers  from an Army Corps contractor called PowerSecure  a full week to light up about 30 houses in this unforgiving terrain, said Maj. Michael Meyer, a corps spokesman. And these were just two of over 41,000 power poles that the Army Corps says it has shipped, using the Pentagons Defense Logistics Agency, along with 4,545 miles of conducting cable and wire and 36 million repair parts.

After Prepas request for mutual aid on Oct. 31, the various parties in the effort began trying to make up for lost time. Mr. Torres arrived in San Juan in early November and, working with Prepa and the Army Corps, set up a control room, placed management teams in seven regions of the island and unified the command structure.

By Nov. 17, the New York contingent had begun powering up citizens in San Juan. (Mr. Ramos, under pressure over the Whitefish hiring, resigned that day.) By early January, after the mutual aid paperwork was ironed out, workers had arrived from Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, Wisconsin and elsewhere.

Children celebrated after workers restored power to their school in San Juan. Todd Heisler/The New York Times

Ahsha Tribble, FEMAs deputy administrator for the region that includes Puerto Rico, said the agency had made unbelievable progress, adding that by late April, 78 percent of the transmission has been energized, as we continue to support Prepa in the emergency work to restore power.

Still, the shadow of the Stafford Act hangs over the entire effort. In the work done so far, the new lines, like the old ones, will stand on exposed ridges to carry power over the mountains from south to north. Despite years of demands from environmental and industrial groups, new solar farms that would wean the island from fossil fuels and power more resilient local grids will remain largely unbuilt.

The governments bullish figures aside, how far along is the power restoration? With the continuing blackouts, and nearly 900 temporary generators still on the island, according to congressional testimony, it is hard to gauge the true state of the grid or how lasting the fixes will be.

Mistakes by contractors overseen by Prepa have triggered the island-wide blackouts: a tree being cut down to clear the way fell into a live line, a conductor left dangling in the mountain wind shorted out and a piece of equipment too close to another line caused another short. In the fourth case, a component at the Monacillos substation in San Juan overloaded and caught fire. Because the system still lacks enough backup lines and generators, each fault shut down most of the grid.

What is undeniable is that when utility trucks from the mainland finally arrive in a neighborhood, there is joy. In February, on Buenos Aires Street in San Juan, a crowd gathered at Julie Angulo Ramoss home as a group of utility workers from WEC Energy Group in Wisconsin rounded the corner, ready to power the street. One of them, Josh Blankenberg, went up in a bucket and connected the leads at the top of a pole. The street lit up. People shouted, prayed, danced, whistled.

Thanks to God! Thanks to you! Ms. Angulo shouted to the workers.

For others, that moment took longer to arrive. Workers from Commonwealth Edison in Chicago hooked up the home of Mildoel Rodriguez, in Cayey, and the surrounding neighborhood during the first days of April. Others are still waiting. Ms. Rivera, in Humacao, does not have power and has heard nothing from Prepa or the local government.

At 3:30 each workday, Mrs. Martinez wakes to prepare for her long commute to San Juan, on a route where many traffic lights lack power. She has taken to making easy meals of Cheez Whiz and crackers. Todd Heisler/The New York Times

And in San Lorenzo, after her breakfast of Cheez Whiz and coffee, Ms. Martinez still carries hot water from her stove to the shower in a three-gallon pot. Then she drives to work in the predawn, the Big Dipper visible in the sky above the dark hilltop.Karnataka: Will Congress not allow Kumaraswamy to be CM for full 5-year term?

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BJP attacks Siddaramaiah for his alleged links with ponzi scam accused Vijay Eswaran

India

oi-Deepika

By Deepika

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday levelled fresh allegations against Siddaramaiah, saying that the chief minister had attended the 2013 World Economic Forum meeting in China and received a costly gift from "declared absconder" Vijay Eswaran.

Addressing a press conference in Bengaluru, BJP national spokesperson Sambit Patra said that Siddaramaiah met Eswaran when he went to attend the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in China in 2013 and invited him to invest in Karnataka.

In September 2013, Siddaramaiah went to attend World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in China and there he met Vijay Ishwaran who is an absconder. There was another absconder and Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) has called both a national threat: BJP pic.twitter.com/abRI62Qshk  ANI (@ANI) May 6, 2018

The attack comes in the wake of the recent allegations levelled by the Congress on Prime Minister Narendra Modi of meeting PNB Fraud accused Nirav Modi during World Economic Forum 2018 in Davos.

Sambit Patra said that the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) had declared Vijay Eswaran an absconder and yet, the chief minister met him.

The BJP spokesperson also alleged that Siddaramaiah had received a gift from Eswaran and wondered if it was a premium Hublot watch.

Adding further, he demanded a clarification on the matter from Congress President Rahul Gandhi.

In September 2013, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had gone to participate in the three-day annual meeting of the New Champions of the World Economic Forum and led a 22-member delegation.

Karnataka Assembly Elections 2018 is scheduled for May 12. The counting of votes will be conducted on May 15.

OneIndia News (with ANI inputs)Karnataka: Will Congress not allow Kumaraswamy to be CM for full 5-year term?

Is it chief minister Kumaraswamy or chief manager of Congress Ktaka ATM? BJP has an answer

All is well between Congress, JD(S)? Kumaraswamy meets Rahul as Karnataka waits for full cabinet

I am very much a Hindu and believe in secularism says Siddaramaiah

India

oi-Chennabasaveshwar

By Chennabasaveshwar

CM Siddaramaiah said separate religion status for Lingayat community was not political issue. He said that previous government had constituted the committe.

CM Siddaramaiah was speaking in a debate organised by Bangalore Reporters Guild and Press Club of Bangalore on Sunday. Also, Home Minister Ramlingaa Reddy.

About Congress party's prospects in the elections, he said, '' In 2013, BJP didn't get a single seat in seven districts. JDS won only 4 seats in North Karnataka. However, the Congress had won at least 2-4 seats. On the basis if this performance, the I say Congress will get more seats."

He took a jibe at former CM HDKumaraswamy, and saying '' He thinks he will be kingmaker.''

About PM Modi's rally, he said, ''This election BJP has dependent a lot on PM Modi. Local leaders have no face value.''

''PM Modi has visited the state 7-8 times during the elections. I observed his speech doesn't suit his stature. All BJP leaders are using unparliamentary language in rallies,'' he said.

About his retorts to PM Modi'jibes and he said, the '' I can't ignore PM Modi's jibes calling me 'Seeddha rupaiya', '10 percent government'. If I keep quite people will believe these jibes.''

On Mahadayi issue, '' Sonia Gandhi was not a PM. But Modi is PM. He had told us to talk to Goa Congress. That was not expected of him. Being a PM it is his responsibility to relove the issue. He should not drag Sonia Gandhi into this issue.''

Siddaramaiah alleged that PM Modi is hiding failure of his government by rasing such issue. He is For example, rise of fuel prices in the country. He asked why there was a steep rise in prices when crude oil prices are falling.

Where are the ache din? State BJP leaders are in illusion that Modi can change fortune of the party in Karnataka.

"I am very much a Hindu, and believe in secularism and BJP is always trying to communalism. PM Modi says 'sab ka sath sab ka vikas', the but didn't not give ticket to Muslims and Christians. His claims are irrelevant."

Karnataka Assembly Election dates Date of notification April 17 Last date to file nominations April 24 Last date to withdraw nominations April 27 Date of polling May 12 Date of counting May 15

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Story first published: Sunday, May 6, 2018, 12:50 [IST]Ishrat Jahan case: Discharge plea of two ex-cops to be heard on Aug 7

Ishrat Jahans mother opposes discharge plea by Vanzara

India

oi-Oneindia Staff

By Oneindia Staff

Ishrat Jahan's mother has opposed the discharge applications filed by former Gujarat police officer, D G Vanzara. She will file an application before the special CBI court which is hearing the plea filed by the former cop in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case.

Meanwhile Vanzara told the court that there was no prima facie evidence to prove the conspiracy allegedly hatched at his chamber, as mentioned in the charge sheet, Vanzara's plea said.

Ishrat, a 19-year-old college girl from Mumbra near Mumbai, her friend Javed Sheikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amzad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar were killed in an alleged encounter by Ahmedabad police on the outskirts of the city in June 2004.

The police had claimed that these four were terrorists affiliated to the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, while the CBI later said it was a fake encounter.

The CBI however opposed the discharge pleas of former Gujarat Police officers D G Vanzara and NK Amin. In its reply before the special CBI court in Ahmedabad, the agency said it had sufficient evidence to establish the charges against the two. After taking the CBI's reply on record, judge J K Pandya adjourned the hearing to May 5.

Amin, who was working under Vanzara when the alleged fake encounter took place, has raised multiple grounds, including that the CBI didn't follow the legal procedure while making certain accused persons prosecution witnesses or 'approvers'.'Jinnah did not want separate country for Muslims', says Farooq Abdullah

Jinnah row: After uproar in AMU, now its founder's portrait removed

India

oi-Madhuri

After the uproar over Muhammad Ali Jinnah in the Aligarh Muslim University, now a fresh incident of removing the portrait of AMU's founder Sir Syed Ahmad Khan has come to the fore. A portrait of AMU founder Sir Syed Ahmed Khan has been removed in PWD's guest house in Aligarh. There are also objections been raised by another Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader to Jinnah House and Jinnah Hall in Mumbai.

Mumbai BJP MLA Prabhat Lodha has demanded that Jinnah House and Jinnah Hall should be converted to cultural centres and that Jinnah's name must be removed from them, as reported by Zee News.

Earlier on Saturday, Aligarh Muslim University students continued the indefinite dharna and boycott of academic activities for the third day, demanding action against the right-wing protesters, who entered the campus and demanded the removal of Jinnah's portrait from the student union's office.

Police on Wednesday had resorted to lathicharge, lobbed teargas shells to disperse AMU students demanding the arrest of protesters who had barged into the campus,

The Jinnah row started after BJP's Aligarh MP Satish Gautam wrote to AMU raising objections to the portrait. The University said portraits of all life members of the student union hang there. Jinnah, a founder member of the University Court, had also been given this honour before Partition. AMU vice-chancellor Tariq Mansoor on Friday visited the Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College Hospital where three of the students injured in the police lathi-charge are being treated.

agitating over the portrait of the Pakistan founder.

Meanwhile, AMU Teachers' Association (AMUTA) has sent a memorandum to President Ram Nath Kovind asking him to "urgently institute" a high-level judicial probe into the incident.

Jinnah, a lawyer and politician, was the founder of Pakistan and also served as the leader of All-India Muslim League from 1913 until Pakistan's independence on August 14, 1947.

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Story first published: Sunday, May 6, 2018, 10:49 [IST]Accused of being a police informer, Maoist kangaroo court kills one person

Chhattisgarh: 1 Naxal killed in encounter in Surakhera forest of Bijapur

Success against naxals continues: 8 part of deadly hit-squad gunned down

Karnataka elections: After 2 years, Sonia to address first election rally in Bijapur

India

oi-Madhuri

Former Congress president Sonia Gandhi will address her first election rally for upcoming Karnataka Assembly polls on May 8 at Bijapur. This will UPA chairperson's first public campaign after two years.

Sonia, 71, had skipped campaigning in all state elections after she was forced to call off a road show in Varanasi midway due to ill health on August 2, 2016. The event was to launch the party's poll campaign in the 2017 Uttar Pradesh elections.

Manickam Tagore, Congress secretary in-charge of Karnataka is reportedly keeping an eye over the arrangements at Bijapur.

Speaking to reporters about Sonia's rally, Tagore asserted that Sonia's rally will motivate cadre and send a strong message to voters.

She did not campaign for her party in Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland Punjab, Goa, Uttarakhand, Manipur Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh Assembly elections.

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Story first published: Sunday, May 6, 2018, 8:10 [IST]It may take 2-3 years for the creation of theatre commands

Kashmirs most wanted: 2 down, 7 to go

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

The Army had recently prepared a hit-list of 9 top terrorists in the Valley. So far the Army has gunned down two who were part of the list.

While Sameer Tiger was killed in an encounter at Pulwama last week, the forces achieved more success when it gunned down, Showkat Tak alias Abu Hufaiza on Saturday. He was killed after an 8 hour encounter that took place at Srinagar.

Showkat was part of the Lashkar-e-Tayiba and was highly dangerous. All the three terrorists who had been holed up inside the house were killed in the operation that also left four security personnel, including an officer, injured.

Who remains:

Riyaz Naikoo alias Zubair Ul Islam, Hizbul Chief Of Kashmir Valley from Beighpora Pulwama Category A++

Zakir Rashid Bhat alias Moosa, Ansar Chief from Noorpora Awantipora Category A++

Zeenat Ul islam alias Usman Hizb Area Commander Shopian from Shopian Category A++

Dr Saifullah alias Abu Musaib, Hizb Commander Srinagar Area From Malangpora Pulwama Category A++

Saddam Padder alias Zaid, Hizb Commander Shopian from Heff Shopian Category A++

Altaf Kachroo alias Mooin ul Islam, Hizb Commander Kulgam From Redwini Kulgam Category A++

Naveed Jatt alias Abu Hanzalla From Pakistan Hizb Commander Rajpora to Newa, Category A++

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Story first published: Sunday, May 6, 2018, 8:59 [IST]Modisms in Karnataka: Congress a dealwala not a dilwala party

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's jam packed rally was loaded with talk about heroes, Dalits and nationalism. The PM who is on a whirlwind tour of Karnataka took at a dig at the Congress while calling it a dealwala and not a dilwala party.

Modi who shared the stage with Sriramulu who is contesting from Molakmuru in Chitradurga said that there are so many people who have done so much for the country. He cited the example of Onake Obavva and Madakari Nayaka. He asked why is a Jayanti of Tipu and not these people which is being celebrated.

He said that the Congress for the sake of votes would celebrate the Jayanti of Sultans but not of those who celebrate have sacrificed their lives for the country. He was making a clear reference to the controversy that erupted post the Tipu Jayanti celebrations.

Congress is into the habit of twisting facts of history to bag a few votes. Whose Jayanti are they celebrating. They do not want to celebrate the Jayanti of the brave says Modi while taking a dig at Tipu Jayanti. Why not Jayantis of Onake Obavva or Madakari Nayaka, Modi also said during his rally at Chitradurga.

The people should be aware of the injustice meted out by the Congress to Nijalingappa. He questioned Nehru and in the bargain he was sidelined. Nijalingappa stood for the poor and Dalits, Modi also said.

Dr. B R Amedkar too was sidelined by the Congress. He stood for the people, but was never accepted by the Congress. The Congress had reserved the Bharat Ratna for its family. It was under Atal Vajpayee that the Bharat Ratna was conferred to Dr. Ambedkar, Modi also said.

It was the BJP which gave recognition to B R Ambedkar. His 125th birth anniversary was celebrated by us not only in India, but across the world. We never played any caste politics. It was under the A B Vajpayee that Dr. Abdul Kalam was made the President of India. When I became the the PM, we decided to make Ram Nath Kovind the President Narendra Modi also said.

The Congress is worried. The PM is from the backward community and the President is from the Dalit community. This has worried them and they have started spreading rumours to instigate the Dalit community, Modi also said. I will do everything for the Dalits, backward classes and oppressed. I am one among you and I will ensure your well-being, Modi further added.

Modi had the crowd in splits when he asked why the Congress is so fond of beds. He said they love beds because they hide their ill-gotten wealth under it.

Karnataka Assembly Election dates Date of notification April 17 Last date to file nominations April 24 Last date to withdraw nominations April 27 Date of polling May 12 Date of counting May 15The Congress is stuck in labyrinth of its own mischief on Lingayat issue: Naqvi

India

oi-Vinod

By Vinod

Union Minority Affairs Minister in the Narendra Modi government Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi is known for his one-line satires on opposition parties and leaders. As a minority minister, he is not only appreciated by the people in the government but also among the minority communities as such.

As per Naqvi the part time ministry has been transformed into its real working ministry with his signature slogan 'Development Without Appeasement' has now many takers. Naqvi has been managing elections affairs of the Bharatiya Janata Party for long. With Karnataka elections campaign going on in full swing, One India correspondent Vinod Kumar Shukla spoke to Naqvi about elections, Modi magic, minority votes and even controversial issue like Tipu Sultan: Excerpts of the interview:

Q. Karnataka election campaign is gradually reaching its zenith with Prime Minister Narendra drawing huge crowd and has been able to connect people through his rallies in the state still there is apprehension about BJP falling short to form the government in the state. Your comment!

A. The BJP in Karnataka is going to emerge victorious with thumping majority. Riding on the popularity of the Prime Minister, commitment of the Central government for the inclusive growth, poor governance record of the Congress in the state will help the BJP succeed. The message is all across the state that the incompetent government of Congress failed to deliver. So the BJP is a very effective and strong alternative for the state.

Q. Rahul Gandhi too is in the battlefield not as a naive player but behaving like a seasoned politician with his pinching questions giving tough time to the BJP. What impact it will have on the state elections?

A. See! The Grand Old Party has a Brand New Acquired Role Model these days that is 'Mogambo' [Iconic character in villainous role in Hindi cinema]. If Parliament session gets washed out Mogambo is rejoiced, if progress of the country is jeopardized Mogambo is again rejoiced, when surgical strike is conducted to neutralise terrorists in Pakistan then Mogambo rejoices by raising doubt over the entire exercise taken up by Army and top of that Mogambo rejoices by paying disrespect to Vande Matram. The Congress these days relishes donning the character of Mogambo.

Q. Karnataka has a sizable minority population. Your ministry has been running several programmes benefitting minority communities. Do you think that it will have its impact on these elections in any manner?

A. Let me make it clear to you that our development initiatives are not for the vote bank politics. We want to empower people and ensure development without appeasement as the way people had been exploited in the past 70 years that they have started realizing and understanding motives of the past governments and ours. Today faith of the minority people towards the Bharatiya Janata Party and Narendra Modi has increased immensely. The minority community has been voting the BJP in big way and they will also vote in Karnataka as well.

Q. The Congress government has raised the issue of Lingayats just before the elections with a promise to give them status of minority. There are already six scheduled minorities in the country. You are the minister responsible for these communities, how do you look at this move? Will it make any difference?

A. The issue was actually started in 2013 when the Congress was ruling at the Centre. Even during the Congress regime Union Home ministry along with some other central ministries clearly stated that Lingayats are part of the Hindu society. First Lingayats cannot be looked upon a separate entity from the Hindu fold; second if Lingayats are separated from the Hindu society they won't be able to avail benefits of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe. So all these things must be asked from the Congress if they want to really help the community or want to harm them. Actually the Congress is stuck in the labyrinth of its own mischief.

Q The BJP has not done as it was expected in Gujarat Assembly elections last year. How do you look at the election of another important state where the BJP is expected a tough going?

A. There is a misconception about Gujarat elections that BJP did not fare well. We have improved our vote percentage. After 22 years in the government in the state, we have not only formed the government again but have also been able to increase our vote percentage. Isn't it an achievement? It is a matter of getting motivated and not getting demoralized.

Q. The issue of Tipu Sultan especially his centenary celebration was marred with controversy as the BJP vehemently opposed. Tipu is a celebrated personality in history. How will it impact electoral behaviors of people in the state?

A. It is not a matter of Tipu Sultan being a huge personality or a small personality from the pages of history. There are different aspects of history written all across and some aspects of history of Tipu Sultan is unsightly. So this dichotomy always remains there. A big section feels that the ugly aspect of Tipu Sultan had harmed the nation that is one of the important perspectives that cannot be ignored.

Q. Will these elections have any repercussion on the national elected that is likely in 2019?

A. There is one or two elections in every a few months and every time it is said that it will have its bearing at the Centre. The election of the Lok Sabha will be held in 2019 that will be on Centre performance and state elections have their own importance. We have recently won many elections, we have won Tripura and many others but we did not say it was Centre's election. State elections have their own dynamics. But we definitely get benefited from the leadership of Modi ji and top leadership of the party.

Q Elections are due in states like Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh by the year end. These are some important elections before country goes for general elections in 2019. Do you think the result of Karnataka will impact these elections in any manner?

A. What we feel is that elections in states like Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh will be held on performance of state governments. The BJP is ruling Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh for the past 15 years. We have been able to take these states to development path and have also been able to provide good governance there. I feel that we will be able to succeed again in forming government in these states.

Q The issue of governance and law and order in Uttar Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir is being raised where the BJP is at the helm of affairs. This might impact voting behavior and pattern of electorate elsewhere. Your comment!

A. Whether it is tragic incidence of Kathuwa or Unnao or any other such incidence in any other part of the country, it gives shame to humanity. There is no question of showing any mercy on the people involved in such kind of heinous crimes. There is law and provisions of law to punish such people. The cabinet passed this law and ordinance was issued for giving death sentence to perpetrators of such crimes. I feel that the government must be sensitive and state governments must also take right steps in this direction. They have taken right steps in this regard.

Q There is a perception about your ministry that it is one of the best performing ministries under the Modi government. You are responsible for issues related to minorities. It is said that minorities voted for BJP in 2014, is there any possibility that this could be better in 2019 with all your work in their minds?

A. See earlier the minority ministry was a part time ministry and the ministry was virtually run by officials but I started visiting places where work for them were being undertaken and started taking note of schemes of the ministry. I tried to ensure that maximum numbers of people are benefitted by our schemes. In two-and- half-year around 2.75 crore girls and boys were given scholarship. Schools, polytechnic and infrastructure have been built to benefit minorities. Some are complete and some in the process of getting completed. As far as employment is concerned, if you look at all schemes started by the ministry over 10 lakh people have been given employment in past two years. We are trying to do better and better for these communities without keeping in mind that who will vote for us and who won't. We will keep on working for them.Afghan territory must not be used to carry out terror attacks against other countries: BRICS Leaders

Anti-Putin protests break out in Russia resembling 2012; over 1,000 detained

International

oi-Shubham

By Shubham

Over 1,000 people were detained across Russia on Saturday, May 5 - two days before Vladimir Putin was set to be inaugurated for his fourth term at the helm, for showing protests against his extended stay in office.

According to Moscow Times, the latest protest is the first major one since January when Alexei Navalny, an opposition leader, had appealed for boycotting the March 18 elections after he was denied the right to contest because of a suspicious conviction which his supporters says was politically staged. It was then when thousands had resorted to peaceful protests on the streets.

Putin, nevertheless, emerged winner in the election bagging 77 per cent of the votes and he is currently the longest-serving leader of Russia since Joseph Stalin who was at the helm for 30 years.

The May 5 protests, however, turned violent unlike the previous one as thousands across the vast country marched after given a call by Navalny in April. The clashes between the protesters and the lawkeepers were most severe in Moscow, the report said.

The Moscow Times report said by the time Navalny's supporters gathered at Pushkin Square at the capital around 2 pm local time, hundreds of pro-Kremlin "volunteer" militia had already been there. They wore orange-and-black St. George's ribbons, considered the symbol of patriotism, and confronted the protesters and tore their placards that read slogans like "He is not our tsar" and "I am against corruption".

After the pro-Kremlin supporters clashed with Navalny supporters, the latter alleged that even the policemen dealt with them sternly, the report added.

Several protesters were soon arrested by the riot police though others stood ground. Later, Navalny arrived on the spot and he was welcomed with cheers. Navalny praised the protesters saying he was proud, the report added. Navalny was also detained later.

At some places, the scene turned ugly as the protesters clashed violently with the police and were beaten up mercilessly. It resembled the clashes that took place on the eve of Putin's inauguration in 2012 which saw the Kremlin beginning to crack down on an emerging opposition movement. It is said that Putin had suspected the US and especially Hillary Clinton for encouraging the protests and to avenge this, had allegedly interfered in the American presidential election of 2016.

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Story first published: Sunday, May 6, 2018, 10:05 [IST]Collapse of Kabul will go down as one of the greatest defeats in American history: Donald Trump

Thousands of terrorists might have been airlifted out of Kabul: Trump slams Biden

Never in history has withdrawal from war been handled so badly: Trump

Donald Trump speaks with British PM on Iran nuclear deal, trade

International

pti-PTI

Washington, May 6: US President Donald Trump spoke with British Prime Minister Theresa May and discussed issues including the Iran nuclear deal and the promotion of free and fair trade in particularly with regard to China.

In the call with May yesterday, Trump also talked about denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula, the White House said. President Trump "underscored his commitment to ensure that Iran never acquires a nuclear weapon," it said.

Trump's remarks came ahead of British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson's visit to Washington to urge him not to scrap the Iranian nuclear deal. The UK and its European allies have until May 12 to persuade Trump to stick with the deal.

President Trump has frequently criticised the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA. Trump has set a May 12 deadline for the US and Europe to address the issues he has with the nuclear deal  under US law, the President has to recertify the deal every few months.

The Iran nuclear deal was reached in Vienna in July 2015 between Iran and the P5 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council) plus Germany and the European Union. "The two leaders discussed the promotion of fair and reciprocal trade, particularly with regard to China," the White House said.

As planning continues for his upcoming meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Trump emphasized his goal of a denuclearized North Korea, it said. Trump would visit the United Kingdom in July.

PTIHow Pakistan used almonds to fund terror and back-stab Indias good-will on LoC trade

A change of guard in the ISI and what it would mean

Ex-ISI chief Lt General Hameed next in line for post of Pakistan Army chief

Pakistan Interior Minister injured after gunman opens fire at political rally

International

oi-Deepika

By Deepika

Pakistan's interior minister Ahsan Iqbal was injured on Sunday when an unidentified assailant opened fire at him in Narowal, the Dawn reported.

The Minister received a bullet in his right shoulder after which, he was rushed to nearby hospital for medical assistance, the reports said.

His son, Ahmad Iqbal, also confirmed the attack and said that his father was out of danger.The attacker fired with a 30-bore pistol from a distance of around 18 metres.

But the security forces responded immediately and apprehended him, District Police Officer Imran Kishwar said. However, the reason behind the attack was not immediately known.

Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif described it as an "assassination attempt", Dawn News reported.

The suspect, believed to be in his early 20's, was taken into police custody and is being interrogated.

The minister, of the Pakistan Muslim League party, was attending a political gathering in his hometown Narowal when the attack on him took place.

Reportedly, Prime Minister Shahid Khaqqan Abbasi strongly condemned the attack and summoned report from Punjab Inspector General of Police.

Punjab government spokesman Malik Ahmad Khan confirmed the attack and arrest of the attackers. He said the minister is stable but being shifted to Lahore.

"Police are investigating the attack and we will know how he (attacker) was able to reach so close to the minister," he said.

He said that the attacker was initially identified as Abid Hussian and his age was said to be between 20-22 years. He is said to be a resident of Narowal.

The attack on the interior minister highlights the issue of security of high-profile politicians ahead of the elections scheduled to be held after June.Would you like to know how many people have read this article? Or how reputable the author is? Simply sign up for a Advocate premium membership and you'll automatically see this data on every article. Plus a lot more, too.

Article originally published in the Washington Post

Back in March, about 150 Prince George's and Charles county residents attended a Maryland Department of the Environment hearing to provide and hear testimony on the department's potential override of a Charles County zoning disapproval of a liquefied natural gas compressor station.

Included in Richmond-based Dominion Energy's Eastern Market Access Project is a natural gas compressor station on Barrys Hill Road in the community of Bryans Road. It is part of Dominion's Cove Point station on the Chesapeake Bay and the company's effort to become the country's second-largest exporter of liquefied natural gas.

Sixty area residents spoke against the plant; four spoke in support.

Experts/residents included MIT and Yale professors, national park workers, physicians and other health workers, government policy experts and many who were concerned about the natural, environmental and health effects. People with respiratory illnesses, parents, animal owners and farmworkers testified with genuine alarm about breathing the resulting pollution.

The reasons for the plant made no sense from a public policy or health perspective:

*The proposal did not include scheduled and unscheduled "blow downs," more than 100 per year. Blow downs are essentially managed belches of extra emissions.

*The proposed smokestack for pollution releases is only 50 feet high, which is inexplicably low and which will spew pollutants throughout the neighborhoods. Dominion's own "good engineering stack height" is 113.5 feet.

*The application does not include "fugitive emissions," leaks common at LNG facilities.

*The Maryland General Assembly passed and Gov. Larry Hogan (R) signed a bill banning fracking because of the contaminants and dangers. But the state would allow fracked gas at this station.

*Critically, no Health Impact Assessment under the standards of the Maryland Department of Health has been conducted.

Residents were concerned that given the failure to meet standards, the Charles County station could become a horrific parallel to Three Mile Island and Flint, Mich., both of which were also called "safe" before the facts came out.

Since the hearing, additional factors have come to light that could explain how bad policy becomes a public fact here:

*Whatever his post-scandal status, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt's now-famous sweetheart housing deal was to live for cheap rent in the building of the leading lobbyist for liquefied natural gas. Moreover, what phone calls did he make in his equally infamous $43,000 soundproof phone booth to his landlord? Did they discuss how to override local zoning?

*On April 3, President Trump held a news conference with Baltic states leaders, after Trump and Chief of Staff John F. Kelly told Pruitt they have his back. The president of Lithuania announced, "And American liquid gas will come on time, and will make us more independent in our decision-making and diversifies our gas supply."

*Despite being asked, no one at the hearing could state whether anyone connected to Dominion or others in the LNG industry gave campaign contributions and if so, how much, to Hogan, area members of Congress or state legislators, Pruitt when he was Oklahoma attorney general or Trump.

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From Smirking Chimp

The 300 asylum seekers who arrived at the US border on April 29 after a month-long, 2,000-mile journey have another grueling struggle ahead of them, according to the immigration attorneys who are donating their time to represent them.

More than three-quarters of asylum claims from Hondurans, Guatemalans and Salvadorans between 2012 and 2017 were denied, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, and this year's caravan of asylum seekers are facing a climate made even more hostile by the xenophobic Trump administration.

Once the asylum applicants -- who traveled in a caravan to the Tijuana-San Ysidro border from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala -- establish that they face a credible fear of persecution in their home countries, their ordeals are just beginning.

Los Angeles immigration attorney Colleen Flynn told Truthout that because of retaliation by the Trump administration, even those who establish "credible fear" could face years of detention.

"Some will bond out, but many others will be unable to raise the money for high bonds," Flynn said. "There is a possibility their kids will be taken away."

In the face of these fears, Flynn said, the asylum seekers she met in Tijuana are "incredibly resilient, incredibly hopeful, really brave."

Hundreds of supporters, many of whom had marched 150 miles from Los Angeles, gathered on the US side of the border in solidarity with the asylum seekers. It was "a really moving sight to see people coming together at the border," said Kath Rogers, executive director of the National Lawyers Guild's Los Angeles chapter.

When the asylum seekers arrived at the border, however, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers informed them that the port of entry was "at capacity" and repeated that mantra throughout the day. When Gilbert Saucedo, an attorney, human rights advocate and co-president of the LA chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, asked the CBP officers, "Is that what you were told to say?" they said "yes," Saucedo reported to Truthout.

Pueblo Sin Fronteras, a group that has accompanied migrants and refugees on their journeys for 15 years, took issue with the officers, saying in a statement: "Customs and Border Protection is the largest law enforcement agency in the country, and is able to detain, transport and incarcerate thousands of people in a day, but is pretending that they don't have the 'capacity' to accept 150 refugee parents and children whose arrival has been anticipated and communicated weeks in advance."

The asylum seekers have a legal right to have their applications considered, and many of them have meritorious claims. Notwithstanding Trump's bloviating, CBP officers began slowly processing the asylum requests. By the end of the fifth day, roughly half of the caravan asylum seekers had been taken to San Diego for processing.

Meanwhile, the remaining asylum seekers continue to wait. They are camping on the ground in unseasonably cool and drizzly weather. Mostly women and children, they are cold and hungry, despite some rations provided by their supporters.

"It just broke my heart to see them," Saucedo said.

Flynn spoke of a group of women whose lives are endangered in their home countries because they are transgender. These women "really kept spirits up" among the asylum seekers, "singing, dancing, elevating the mood and keeping people's hopes alive."

Trump Administration Tries to Keep Asylum Seekers Out of US

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From Information Clearing House

The Iran nuclear deal is on the verge of sinking on May 12, when Donald Trump will decide whether or not to waive the nuclear-related sanctions, as the deal calls for. While the world is cheering the upcoming meeting between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (including Trump's fans calling for a Nobel Peace Prize), Trump is needlessly and recklessly driving our nation down a path toward war with Iran -- and neither Congress nor the American people seem to care.

French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, fearing the consequences of a broken deal, visited the White House. Macron tried to appease Trump by suggesting new agreements to the deal, something Iran's government views as ludicrous. According to Iranian president Hassan Rouhani -- who has been subjected to enormous domestic criticism for striking a deal with Washington only to see the U.S. threaten to back out so quickly: "We will not add anything to the deal or remove anything from it, even one sentence. The nuclear deal is the nuclear deal."

Instead of appeasing Trump's irrational stance, European leaders could have declared that they would side with Tehran by invoking a dispute resolution mechanism in the agreement, which could buy another 45 days to convince the United States to stay in the deal. They would have done better warning Trump they would invoke trade penalties if the United States tried to enforce sanctions on oil imports from Iran.

Instead, they left empty-handed and remained quiet when the U.S. president, in their presence, continued to call the agreement "insane" and "ridiculous." At a news conference with Merkel by his side, Trump virtually threatened to bomb Iran if it tried to develop nuclear weapons.

This is something Trump's new National Security Adviser John Bolton advocated in a 2015 New York Times opinion piece entitled "To Stop Iran's Bomb, Bomb Iran," where he proposed a U.S. or Israeli bombing of Iran's nuclear reactors. "An attack [on Iran's nuclear facilities] need not destroy Iran's entire nuclear infrastructure, but by breaking key links in the nuclear-fuel cycle, it could set back its program by three to five years," Bolton mused, adding, "The United States could do a thorough job of destruction, but Israel alone can do what's necessary."

How would Iran respond? Iran and its allies, such as Hezbollah, could retaliate by attacking both Israeli and U.S. troops stationed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and on military bases throughout the Middle East. The conflicts that have consumed the Middle East for the past 16 years would get infinitely worse, and drag the United States deeper into the abyss.

This is precisely where Trump's team seems to be headed. Newly installed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in his first week on the job, traveled to Saudi Arabia and Israel -- Iran's greatest adversaries and opponents of the nuclear deal -- calling for concerted international action against Iran.

While Saudi Arabia just bombed a Yemeni wedding as part of its relentless, three-year attacks that have been killing, maiming and starving millions of Yemenis, Pompeo ignored Yemen and instead concurred with the Saudi rulers that Iran "destabilizes this entire region." Pompeo also failed to mention that it is the Saudi's extremist Sunni ideology, not Iran's Shiism, that forms the theological underpinnings of radical terrorist groups from al-Qaida to Islamic State.

In Israel, Pompeo and Benjamin Netanyahu complained that the nuclear deal does not do enough to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear-weapons capability, saying nothing about Israel's totally illegal nuclear arsenal. Israel has been advocating for the U.S. military to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities, even though Israel has several hundred nuclear weapons of its own and Iran has none. And while Israel has refused to join the Non-Proliferation Treaty and would never allow inspections of its nuclear facilities, Iran has joined the treaty and has agreed to the most intrusive inspections ever devised.

Israel immediately followed Pompeo's visit by striking an Iranian-linked target in Syria on April 30, killing 11 Iranians and ratcheting up regional tensions.

The great tragedy of the horrifying specter of another Middle East war is that it is wholly fabricated by the U.S. administration. The Iran deal is a good one (it would be amazing if Trump could negotiate as good a deal with North Korea), and Iran is fully complying with its end of the bargain. The International Atomic Energy Agency has said so in 10 consecutive reports. America's European allies have said so. So has a recent State Department report and Trump's own Defense Secretary James Mattis, who, by the way, told a congressional committee that keeping the nuclear agreement intact was in the U.S. national interest.

The party that has not been in compliance is actually the United States. The deal requires that the signatories allow Iran's reintegration into the global economy. At a NATO summit last May, Trump tried to persuade European partners to stop making business deals with Iran. The Trump administration has also been blocking permits for companies to engage in commercial transactions with Iran.

Just the lack of certainty over U.S. support for the deal has already scared off potential investors. While Iran's trade with Europe has increased slightly over the past few years, very few major deals have been signed. The one large deal by the French oil company, Total, is now under threat because of uncertainty over U.S. sanctions. There is still no major European bank willing to finance trade with Iran because of fear of possible U.S. penalties.

The Iranian currency has taken a tremendous hit in the last six months, losing a quarter of its value. The precipitous drop was attributed in large measure to Trump's appointment of hardline anti-Iran figures Mike Pompeo and John Bolton to senior posts in his administration.

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From Information Clearing House

This is the moment when a newspaper claiming to uphold that most essential function in a liberal democracy -- acting as a watchdog on power -- formally abandons the task. This is the moment when it positively embraces the role of serving as a mouthpiece for the government. The tell is in one small word in a headline on today's Guardian's front page: "Revealed."

When I trained as a journalist, we reserved a "Revealed" or an "Exposed" for those special occasions when we were able to bring to the reader information those in power did not want known. These were the rare moments when as journalists we could hold our heads high and claim to be monitoring the centres of power, to be fulfilling our sacred duty as the fourth estate.

But today's Guardian's "exclusive" story "Revealed: UK's push to strengthen anti-Russia alliance" is doing none of this. Nothing the powerful would want hidden from us is being "revealed." No one had to seek out classified documents or speak to a whistleblower to bring us this "revelation." Everyone in this story -- the journalist Patrick Wintour, an anonymous "Whitehall official," and the named politicians and think-tank wonks -- is safely in the same self-congratulatory club, promoting a barely veiled government policy: to renew the Cold War against Russia.

It is no accident that the government chose the Guardian as the place to publish this "exclusive" press release. That single word "Revealed" in the headline serves two functions that reverse the very rationale for liberal, watchdog-style journalism.

First, it is designed to disorientate the reader in Orwellian -- or maybe Lewis Carroll -- fashion, inverting the world of reality. The reader is primed for a disclosure, a secret, and then is spoon-fed familiar government propaganda: that the tentacles of a Russian octopus are everywhere, that the Reds are again under our beds -- or at least, poisoning our door handles.

"British diplomats plan to use four major summits this year -- the G7, the G20, Nato and the European Union -- to try to deepen the alliance against Russia hastily built by the Foreign Office after the poisoning of the former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal in Salisbury in March."

This -- and thousands of similar examples we are exposed to every day in the discourse of our politicians and media -- is the way our defences are gradually lowered, our critical thinking weakened, in ways that assist those in power to launch their assault on democratic norms. Through such journalistic fraud, liberal media like the Guardian and BBC -- because they claim to be watchdogs on power, to defend the interests of the ruled, not the rulers -- serve a vital role in preparing the ground for the coming changes that will restrict dissent, tighten controls on social media, impose harsher laws.

The threat is set out repeatedly in the Guardian's framing of the story: there is a self-evident need for "a more comprehensive approach to Russian disinformation"; Moscow is determined "systematically to divide western electorates and sow doubt"; "the west finds itself arguing with Russia not just about ideology, or interests, but Moscow's simple denial, or questioning, of what the western governments perceive as unchallengeable facts."

Tom Tugendhat, son a High Court judge, a former army officer who was honored with an MBE by the Queen in his thirties, and was appointed chair of the Commons' important foreign affairs select committee after two years in parliament, sets out the thinking of the British establishment -- and hints at the likely solutions. He tells the Guardian:

"Putin is waging an information war designed to turn our strongest asset -- freedom of speech -- against us. Russia is trying to fix us through deception."

Second, there is a remedy for the disorientation created by that small word "Revealed." It subtly forces the reader to submit to the inversion.

For the reasons set out above, a rational response to this front-page story is to doubt that Wintour, his editors, and the Guardian newspaper itself are quite as liberal as they claim to be, that they take seriously the task of holding power to account. It is to abandon the consoling assumption that we, the 99 percent, have our own army -- those journalists in the bastions of liberal media like the Guardian and the BBC -- there to protect us. It is to realize that we are utterly alone against the might of the corporate world. That is a truly disturbing, terrifying even, conclusion.

But that sense of abandonment and dread can be overcome. The world can be set to rights again -- and it requires only one small leap of faith. If Russian president Vladimir Putin truly is an evil mastermind, if Russia is an octopus with tentacles reaching out to every corner of the globe, if there are Russian agents hiding in the ethers ready to deceive you every time you open your laptop, and Russian cells preparing to fix your elections so that the Muscovian candidate (Donald Trump, Jeremy Corbyn?) wins, then the use of that "Revealed" is not only justified but obligatory. The Guardian isn't spouting British and US government propaganda, it is holding to account the supremely powerful and malevolent Russian state.

Once you have stepped through this looking glass, once you have accepted that you are living in Oceania and in desperate need of protection from Eurasia, or is it Eastasia?, then the Guardian is acting as a vital watchdog -- because the enemy is within. Our foe is not those who rule us, those who have all the wealth, those who store their assets offshore so they don't have to pay taxes, those who ignore devastating climate breakdown because reforms would be bad for business. No, the real enemy are the sceptics, the social media "warriors", the political activists, even the leader of the British Labour party. They may sound and look harmless, but they are not who or what they seem. There are evil forces standing behind them.

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From Truthdig

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu understands the power of framing a story. On April 29, he gave a televised presentation and revealed, in dramatic fashion, the existence of an alleged archive of documents, drawings and photographs that proved Iran once had a program dedicated to the acquisition of a nuclear weapon, contrary to public claims that senior Iranian officials made in the past.

The relevance of Netanyahu's message is up for debate. Most observers acknowledge the expose' may prove embarrassing to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Iran, which together certified in December 2015 that all issues pertaining to the so-called "possible military dimensions" of the Iranian nuclear program had been resolved. But there is unanimous agreement that nothing in Netanyahu's presentation shows Iran is operating in violation of its commitments under the agreement reached with the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, Germany and the European Union regarding its ongoing nuclear activities (formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Program of Action, or JCPOA.)

While Netanyahu hailed the work of the Israeli intelligence service (Mossad) in acquiring the Iranian archive, the narrative Israel has promulgated about this archive and how it came into its possession is less than convincing. Upon closer scrutiny, what emerges is less about the covert collection of secret information and more about manipulating opinion. Netanyahu's presentation could have been an episode of a Donald Trump reality television show, since the Israeli prime minister was performing for an audience of one -- the American president.

On May 12, Trump will announce his decision on whether the United States will remain a party to the JCPOA. Was Netanyahu's revelation a legitimate function of a sovereign state that, armed with alarming new information pertaining to international peace and security, opted to publicly expose this threat? Or were the motives more nefarious, with the Israeli prime minister intending to manufacture a case for which there was no substantive supporting documentation in order to manipulate the policies of another country?

Upon closer examination of the issue, the answer becomes clear: Netanyahu was conducting a classic information operation against the American president and, by extension, the American people.

The mission of any intelligence-driven psychological warfare/information operations effort is to manipulate public opinion to support controversial foreign policy and/or national security policies and decisions. Intelligence is either cherry-picked or manufactured and then selectively released to the public at a time most beneficial to the policy objective being supported.

I have considerable personal experience in this sort of operation. From 1994 through 1998, while serving as a weapons inspector with the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq, I had a front-row seat to the inner workings of the Israeli intelligence service when it came to the conduct of the full spectrum of intelligence operations against Iraq. During this time, I witnessed the good, the bad and the ugly of how Israel collects and analyzes intelligence information. I sat in on discussions with the head of Aman (the Israeli military intelligence service) as options regarding the proper utilization of this intelligence were discussed.

I can attest that as long as Israel viewed the work of U.N. inspectors as being useful in furthering its national security objectives -- namely, when the U.N. was seen as a viable instrument of eliminating Iraqi weapons of mass destruction -- its intelligence services engaged in classic intelligence work. They gathered information about Iraq using a wide range of intelligence collection capabilities and conducted analysis designed to produce intelligence assessments geared toward discovering the truth about Iraq's proscribed capabilities. This information, and Israel's role in producing it, was shrouded in secrecy, as is normally the case when a nation does legitimate intelligence work.

In the fall of 1997, the intelligence war between the U.N. inspectors and Iraq shifted away from the search for hidden weapons of mass destruction capabilities inside Iraq and moved to the corridors of the United Nations itself, where a public relations war was being waged between the supporters of the weapons inspection process and the supporters of Iraq.

Until this time, the U.N. weapons inspectors had operated in the shadows, the details of their work hidden from public scrutiny. However, once the Iraqis and their allies turned the tables on this shroud of secrecy, accusing the inspectors of being little more than a front for intelligence services hostile to Iraq (rightly so, it turned out), the mission of the inspectors shifted away from searching for the truth on the ground in Iraq to shaping public opinion around the world about the nature of their work.

The CIA worked hand in glove with the U.N. inspectors and CNN to produce a program dedicated to Iraqi concealment and deception, while the British MI6, through a project known as "Operation Mass Appeal," used intelligence information in the possession of the inspectors but deemed to be of insufficient quality to support an inspection, to seed stories to compliant journalists around the world for the purpose of shaping public opinion. This was classic information operations/psychological warfare, and I played a central role in its conduct.

At first, Israel stood on the sidelines, working with U.N. inspectors to finish the job on the ground inside Iraq. But as the U.N. disarmament effort in Iraq became more about the political and economic isolation of the regime of Saddam Hussein (in preparation for eventual regime change in Baghdad) and less about bringing closure to the disarmament of Iraq's WMD capability, Israel saw the light. Realizing the Security Council was no longer going to permit U.N. weapons inspectors to carry out aggressive inspections inside Iraq, Israel pulled its support from the inspection process, and aligned itself with those in the business of preparing public opinion for a war with Iraq. This required Israel to do a 180-degree turnaround regarding its intelligence-driven assessment of Iraqi WMD capabilities.

In the spring of 1998, when I met with Amos Gilad, the new head of Aman's research division (responsible for the production of Israel's national intelligence estimates), he indicated that, thanks to the work of U.N. inspectors, Israel assessed that Iraq's WMD programs had been eliminated. Four years later, on the eve of the American-led invasion of Iraq, Gilad changed his mind, claiming that Iraq had both chemical and biological weapons, long-range missiles to deliver them and a nuclear weapons program in the first stages of development.

This wasn't Gilad's first experience with manipulating intelligence for political objectives. During the time of the Camp David accords in 2000, Gilad led a campaign to undermine the credibility of PLO leader Yasser Arafat by painting him as a proponent of Palestinian unrest designed to harm Israel. The intelligence information Israel gathered showed the exact opposite to be the case. Gilad, however, was operating not in support of the truth, but rather the political ambition of then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak, whose campaign slogan at the time was, "There is no partner for peace." Gilad, later investigations showed, had doctored the intelligence in order to paint a false and misleading picture of on-the-ground truth.

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Imagine lawmakers allowing lead to remain in gasoline because of the oil and gas lobby. Imagine them allowing secondhand smoke in public places because of the tobacco lobby.

Imagine lawmakers allowing unvetted people to train in the US as pilots because of the flight school lobby. Imagine them allowing people to board planes with box cutters because of the hand tool lobby.

Pretty ridiculous except that's exactly why we have the parade of bloody AR-15 massacres--the gun lobby.

Why don't the pols who consistently defeat assault weapon bans, improved background checks, ammunition control and laws against gun trafficking, crooked dealers and straw buyers, tell their constituents the truth--hey, we're sorry some of you are getting killed out there but we are afraid of the NRA.



Lawmakers Care More About Guns than Americans

(Image by Martha Rosenberg) Details DMCA



Constituents would then realize the gun lobby is just like the Mafia in the 1950's which was also tolerated by politicians because of personal investment, threat of retaliation, extortion and political pressure. It was stronger than the government itself. In the 1960's, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy reversed the mob's historical terrorism by getting laws passed which restrain the black hand of the Mafia to this day.

Flash forward to 2011 when a Congressperson was shot in the head by a legal gun owner who was also a legal conceal carrier thanks to Arizona laws. The gunman could have made "the trek to the Legislature with his Glock and his high-capacity magazine legally concealed under his clothing, he could have strolled into the state House or Senate, walked into a committee hearing, or into the one of the galleries and picked off state legislators as if they were mechanical ducks in some carny's shoot-'em-up game," remarked Phoenix's New Times at the time. What was the collective reaction of federal lawmakers upon seeing one of their own savaged? Nothing. No bills--no acknowledgement that lawmakers themselves are now targets.

Assault weapon attacks are as inevitable as hurricanes says the gun lobby and federal and state lawmakers cosign the intelligence- insulting propaganda. No laws will stop these attacks say both the lobby and lawmakers as if weekly AR-15 massacres happen in other developed countries. It's not mental illness or gangs as gun lovers and the pols who serve them claim--it's the guns.

Exposure to lead causes high blood pressure, digestive problems, nerve disorders, memory and concentration problems and muscle and joint pain, particularly in young children. That's why it's banned. Exposure to secondhand smoke causes an estimated 46,000 heart disease deaths a year in adult nonsmokers in the United States. It increases the risk of heart disease by 25 to 30 percent. That's why its banned in public. Almost 3,000 people died on 9/11 which is why eight comprehensive new laws were immediately passed.

But the same lawmakers who protect us from dangerous cribs and E. coli in lettuce allow innocent people to be killed in airports, movie theatres and schools because they won't stand up to gun lobby leaders. Or should that be gun lobby "dons"?

(Article changed on May 6, 2018 at 15:55)

(Article changed on May 7, 2018 at 02:35)

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From Paul Craig Roberts Website



Vladimir Putin

(Image by theglobalpanorama) Details DMCA



If reports coming out of Russia are true, Vladimir Putin is considering appointing Washington's agent, Alexei Kudrin, to negotiate Russia's surrender to Washington.

In checking out this story with well-informed and connected experts, I am advised that John Helmer in his report might have put too much credence in the story planted on the Financial Times by Kudrin. One expert whose judgment I trust told me that Kudrin and other members of the "pro-US lobby" -- the traitors that The Saker calls the Atlanticist Integrationists -- are playing their usual games.

Kudrin may have gone too far this time by planting the story in the UK's Financial times of his forthcoming appointment as negotiator of Russia's surrender to Washington. The expert, whom I trust, told me that everyone in the Putin administration really dislikes Kudrin as a person and political figure -- the sly games he plays, exploiting Putin's personal loyalty from the past. It is widely said in Russia that Putin is too loyal to old friends like Kudrin who no longer serve him well. Kudrin's few allies are in Medvedev's group, and Washington's incompetence recently sanctioned a couple of Kudrin's Russian allies.

Another expert whom I trust responds that rumors fly in Russia like they do everywhere as ambitious people jocky to elevate themselves in the media. In contrast to the rumors that Putin is going to turn Russia's fate over to an American agent, he reports rumors that Putin, pushed by nationalist patriotism and the military, is about to purge the Russian Fifth Column -- Kudrin and the pro-Washington faction.

On the other hand, a Russian journalist tells me that in actual fact, Putin himself is the biggest pro-Western liberal of them all and that Kudrin was instrumental in bringing Putin from St. Petersburg and installing him in the Moscow establishment.

Perhaps Putin's inaugural address will indicate whether Kudrin will be given the power to surrender Russia or whether the pro-American Fifth Column will be finally excluded from the government, or whether nothing changes.

Kudrin sounds like a traitor who should be put on trial for treason. It seems unlikely that Putin would make Kudrin the number two man in the Russian government. Kudrin, a protector of oligarchic control of Russia by billionaires who stole their fortunes by "privatizing" public assets, is also known for his advocacy of austerity for the Russian population while creating more billionaires by privatizing state assets.

Possibly there is as much fake news in Russia as there is in the US and Europe, and that the truth is that Kudrin is a nonentity and not a player in Russian government decisions. However, if Kudrin is elevated, perhaps his rise is due to neoliberal economics.

Kudrin along with the Russian central bank and most Russian economists who have been brainwashed by American neoliberal economics -- "junk economics" in Michael Hudson's accurate characterization -- believe that the success of Russia's economy depends on being tied to Washington's imperial system. They believe -- very erroneously and quite stupidly -- that without American investment and the lifting of the sanctions, the Russian economy is doomed. That is what they say. The case could be that, like global economic interests everywhere, the oligarchs are only concerned with money, not with their country's sovereignty.

As Michael Hudson and I have pointed out, the neoliberal economics taught to Russians by Americans in effect makes Russian economists agents of the West. The Russian economists represent policies that work to Washington's, not to Russia's, interest. Pepe Escobar, who believes Putin is moving in the opposite direction from Kudrin, acknowledges the pro-Washington faction's control over Russian economic and financial policy.

As there are few economists to tell Putin any different, the Russian government receives advice that Russia will fail unless its economy is integrated with the West.

Kudrin also intends to cut Russia's military capability in order to save money with which to pay interest on foreign loans that oligarchs will use to privatize public assets. The consequence would be to make Russia's vassalage permanent as a colony of the West.

In my article on May 3, I asked if Russia knows what's up. Apparently not in the Middle East. The Russian government thinks Syria is about fighting terrorism and working out a peaceful settlement. But this is the last thing that Washington and Israel want. Washington and Israel want Assad and Iran overthrown so that Hezbollah is left without support and Israel can occupy southern Lebanon. Perhaps the Russian government's inability to decipher the situation is the reason that Russia, always hoping to involve Washington in a peace settlement, never decisively brought the war in Syria to an end. Now Russia is faced with US, French, and British forces in the American-occupied part of Syria and with Israeli military attacks on Syrian army positions.

If Kudrin is permitted to put Russia under Washington's control, China, whose government also seems impervious to the real situation that it confronts, will stand alone. By privatizing state assets and creating billionaire oligarchs more loyal to money than to China, the Chinese government has created levers for Washington to use to neutralize China.

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From Share Blue

Trump's new lawyer Rudy Giuliani seems like he's trying to run Trump off a cliff.



It was a head-scratcher when Rudy Giuliani was announced as Trump's new top defense attorney just a few weeks ago, while the White House struggles to contain mounting legal woes.

As a lawyer, Giuliani hadn't practiced inside a courtroom in nearly three decades, and his background was as a prosecutor, not a defense attorney.

Turns out the skeptics were right.

It's been two days since Giuliani's scattershot interview on Fox News -- where he conceded Trump paid back his attorney Michael Cohen for the $130,000 hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels in 2016 -- and the White House is still reeling.

"The explosive revelation, which Mr. Giuliani said was intended to prove that Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen violated no campaign finance laws, prompted frustration and disbelief among the president's other legal and political advisers, some of whom said they feared the gambit could backfire," the New York Times reported.

"The president's other lawyers ultimately determined that Mr. Giuliani had consulted with Mr. Trump, people close to them said, but were left speechless about why he decided to make the disclosure in such a high-profile way and without any strategy to handle the fallout."

Aside from the political ramifications from lying about paying off a porn star prior to Election Day, Giuliani may have actually increased Trump's legal exposure:

Giuliani's goal on Fox News seemed to be to inoculate Trump from any campaign donation violations in terms of Cohen's hush-money payment. But it appears he failed miserably at that.

Instead, all Giuliani did was to obliterate whatever strains of credibility the White House may have still had among the non-believers.

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Hematology is the branch of medicine which deals with the study, diagnosis, and treatment of blood-related disorders. It diagnoses issues related to white blood cells, red blood cells, platelets, bone marrow, and lymph nodes. Hematology also deals with the liquid portion of blood known as plasma. Some blood-associated diseases are anemia, leukemia, myelofibrosis, blood transfusion, malignant lymphomas, and bone marrow stem cell transplantation. Hematology analyzers, coagulation analyzers, flow cytometers, and slide strainers are some of the hematologic instruments used to analyze blood and blood-related disorders. Hematology analyzers are highly specialized instruments used to count the number of white blood cells, red blood cells, and platelets.Hematology analyzers are made up of multiple analytical modules with unique sample preparation processes. They assist in the diagnosis of various diseases, such as infections, anemia, viruses, diabetes, genetic problems, and cancer. It also regulates plasma drug level for both therapeutic and illicit drugs. Fully automated hematology analyzers and semi-automated analyzers are the two types of hematology analyzer available based on the type of automation. Fatigue, pale skin, and shortness of breath with exertion are some of the common symptoms of blood disorders. Clinical testing laboratories, hospitals, and research institutions are some of the users of hematology analyzers and reagents.Request for Table of Contents @Currently, North America dominates the global hematology analyzer & reagent market, followed by Europe. This is due to the regions high disposable income and increasing adoption of automated hematology instruments by diagnostics laboratories in these regions. Asia is expected to be the fastest growing market in the next five years. This is due to the developing healthcare infrastructure and increasing funding towards the development of hematology products in this region. Moreover, rising awareness about better healthcare and a large patient population base are also driving the growth of the hematology analyzer & reagent market in Asia.Increasing adoption of automated hematology instruments, rising technological advancements, and integration of basic flow-cytometry techniques in modern hematology analyzers are some of the key factors driving the growth of the global hematology analyzer & reagent market. In addition, rising demand for high-throughput hematology analyzers and development of high-sensitivity point-of-care (POC) hematology testing are also fuelling the growth of the global hematology analyzer & reagent market. However, the high cost of hematology analyzers and intense competition among existing players are restraining the growth of the global hematology analyzers & reagent market. In addition, stringent and time-consuming regulatory policies for hematology instruments also impede the market growth.Usage of microfluidics technology in hematology analyzers and introduction of digital imaging system in hematology laboratories could open up opportunities for new players in the global hematology analyzer & reagent market. In addition, increasing focus toward emerging markets, such as India and China, could also open up opportunities for new players in the global hematology analyzer & reagent market. Moreover, safety and quality of hematology analyzer could be a challenge for the growth of the global hematology analyzer & reagent market. Increasing instances of partnership among hematology instruments and consumables manufacturers is one of the recent trends in the global hematology analyzer & reagent market.Request a Sample Brochure of the Report @The major companies operating in this market are Sysmex Corporation, Abbott Laboratories, Beckman Coulter, Inc., Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc., Mindray Medical International Limited, Siemens Healthcare, HORIBA, Ltd. and NIHON KOHDEN CORPORATION.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,Telephone - +1-646-568-7751USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:Antithrombin III Deficiency Testing Market Growth Dynamics over 2021

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Antithrombin III is a non-vitamin, K-dependent protease that naturally blocks abnormal blood clot formation in the bloodstream. Deficiency of antithrombin III causes various blood clot disorders in the human body. For instance, congenital antithrombin III deficiency is a common antithrombin deficiency, which usually occurs when individuals receive the abnormal antithrombin III gene from their parents. This abnormal gene causes abnormal blood clots in the human body which block blood flow and damage organs.Antithrombin deficiencies are mainly divided into two types: type I and type II. The type I antithrombin deficiency is characterized by an inadequate amount of normal antithrombin present in the bloodstream. In this condition, there is simply not enough antithrombin present to inactivate the coagulation factors. The type II antithrombin deficiency is characterized by adequate amount of antithrombin present in the bloodstream. However, it does not function properly and is unable to carry out its normal functions.Request for Table of Contents @The major symptoms of blood clotting include fainting, coughing up blood, shortness of breath, pain when taking deep breaths, and swelling of legs. In addition, some physical symptoms of blood clots are abnormal lung sounds, fast breathing, swollen foot or leg, and fast heart rate.The global antithrombin III deficiency testing market is categorized on the basis of various types of deficiencies, diagnostic procedures, and end users. Based on the type of deficiencies, the report covers type I antithrombin deficiency and type II antithrombin deficiency. Based on the type of technology, the report covers monoclonal antibodies, molecular diagnostics, differential light scattering, immunoassays, flow cytometry, chromatography, gel micro droplets, diagnostic imaging, and others. Based on end users, the report covers commercial or private labs, physician offices, hospitals, public health labs, and academic research institutes.In terms of geography, North America dominates the global antithrombin III deficiency testing market. This is due to increased government funding on healthcare infrastructure in the region. In addition, technological advancement in antithrombin III diagnostic procedures has also propelled the market in North America. The U.S. represents the largest market for antithrombin deficiency testing in North America, followed by Canada. In Europe, Germany, France, and the U.K. hold the major shares of the antithrombin III deficiency testing market. The antithrombin III deficiency testing market in Asia is also expected to show high growth rates in the next five years. This is due to the various initiatives undertaken by governments to increase awareness about blood clotting disorders in the region. In addition, increased investments by many foreign diagnostic instrument companies have also propelled the growth of the antithrombin III deficiency testing market in the region. India, China, and Japan are expected to be the fastest-growing markets for antithrombin III deficiency testing in Asia.Advanced applications of antithrombin deficiency diagnostic instruments and increasing prevalence of blood clot disorders are the key drivers for the global antithrombin III deficiency testing market. Also, increased government support in the form of funding and rapid technological advancements have fueled the growth of this market.An increasing number of mergers and acquisitions involving diagnostic consumables manufacturing companies and rapid product launches are the key trends in the global antithrombin III deficiency testing market.Request a Sample Brochure of the Report @The major companies operating in this market are Abbott Laboratories, Avocet Medical Inc., Axis-Shield plc, Beckman Coulter Inc., Becton, Dickinson and Company, Trinity Biotech PLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc., Siemens AG, Roche, Chrono-log Corporation, Sysmex Corporation, Hyphen Biomed and American Diagnostica GmbH.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,Telephone - +1-646-568-7751USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:Nanomedicines Market- Trends and Opportunities Prophesy 2021

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Nanotechnology refers to the engineering of functional systems at the molecular scale. It includes construction of items from the bottom up, using modern techniques and tools to make complete, high-performance products. Nanomedicines refer to medications that are based on the application of nanotechnology in the medical field. They include monitoring, construction, repair, and control of human biological systems at the molecular level, using nanodevices and nanostructures. Increasing prevalence of diseases or disorders caused by damage at molecular level, is driving the market for nanomedicines.In addition, the great presence of unmet medical needs and increase in investment in the field are driving the market for nanomedicines. Applications of nanomedicines include diagnostic imaging and identification and therapeutic delivery of medication to the exact location. Nanomedicines are generally injected, whereas they can be ingested as well. The time duration for which the drug stays in the body can be manipulated. Nanomedicines are highly effective in the killing of bacteria, viruses, and cancer cells, as well as the repair of damaged tissues. Oncology is the largest segment in the global nanomedicines market, whereas, cardiovascular market is the fastest-growing segment in the nanomedicines market.Request for Table of Contents @North America dominates the global market for nanomedicines due to its large population of senior citizens, leading to an increased demand for improved and efficient medications, and technological advancements in the region. Europe, followed by Asia, is expected to experience high growth rate in the next few years in global nanomedicines market. China and India are expected to be the fastest-growing nanomedicines markets in Asia. Some of the key drivers for the nanomedicines market in emerging countries are the large pool of patients, rising government funding, and increasing research and development in the field of medicine.Factors such as aging populations, increasing prevalence of disorders that could be treated better with nanomedicines, and growing awareness about the availability of alternative treatment using nanomedicines are driving the global nanomedicines market. In addition, improvement in healthcare facilities and technological advancements in the field have been driving the nanomedicines market. However, factors such as side effects associated with intake of nanoparticles and lower adoption rate by patients has been restraining the global nanomedicines market. In addition, factors such as the medicines high cost and the lack of an organized regulatory framework are restraining the global market for nanomedicines.Growing demographics and economies in developing countries such as India and China are expected to offer good opportunities for the global nanomedicines market. The marketing of some new products with better efficiency, such as nanorobots, is expected to offer good opportunity for the global nanomedicines market. Proposed nanorobots would be able to enter cells and correct DNA, could carry tiny cameras and be powered by electrolysis in the blood, and could break up blood clots and kidney stones. In addition, they could repair cells, tissues, and even organs. A rising number of mergers and acquisitions, new product launches, and an increasing number of collaborations and partnerships are some of the latest trends that have been observed in global nanomedicines market. In addition, a growing number of patent expirations has been observed in the global market for nanomedicines. Side effects associated with nanomedicines are a challenge for global nanomedicines market.Request a Sample Brochure of the Report @Some of the major companies dealing in global nanomedicines market include Abbott Laboratories, GE Healthcare, Johnson & Johnson, Merck & Company Inc., Pfizer Inc, and CombiMatrix Corporation. Other significant players of the market include Celgene Corporation, Mallinckrodt plc., Sigma-Tau Pharmaceuticals Inc., Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., Nanosphere Inc., and UCB SA.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,Telephone - +1-646-568-7751USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:Female Infertility, Menopause, and Contraceptive Drugs Market Trends And Dynamics By 2021

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Menopause, also termed as climacteric, refers to cessation of menstruation. It usually occurs in females aged between 45 and 55 years. Female infertility refers to a condition of infertility in females. Various causes for female infertility are polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), hypothalamic dysfunction, premature ovarian insufficiency, and hyperprolactinemia. Contraceptives are drugs and devices that are used to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. Contraceptive drugs are further classified as contraceptive pills, topical contraceptives, and contraceptive injectables. The female infertility, menopause, and contraceptive drugs market is growing at a significant rate due to increasing disorders related to fertility and menopause and rising awareness about different menopause, female infertility and contraceptive drugs. In addition, government initiatives for improving female health are driving the market for female infertility, menopause, and contraceptive drugs.Request for Table of Contents @North America dominates the global market for female infertility, menopause and contraceptive drugs due to the increasing prevalence of disorders related to menopause and female infertility in the region. In addition, high usage of contraceptive pills in the region due to the high efficiency provided by the drugs is driving the overall market for contraceptives. Asia, followed by Europe, is expected to experience high growth rate in the next few years in the female infertility, menopause, and contraceptive drugs market. China and India are expected to be the fastest growing female infertility, menopause, and contraceptive drugs markets in Asia. Some of the key driving forces for the female infertility, menopause and contraceptive drugs market in emerging countries are large pool of patients and rising government initiatives by funding and strict laws.Increasing awareness about different disorders in female fertility, menopause, and complications in female health by not using birth control measures is contributing to the growth of the market for female infertility, menopause and contraceptive drugs. In addition, the increasing prevalence of female sexual disorders and improvement in healthcare facilities and technological advancements in the field have been driving the female infertility, menopause, and contraceptive drugs market. However, the side effects associated with the intake of contraceptive drugs and lower adoption rates for drugs associated with treatment of female infertility and menopause have been restraining the market.Growing populations and developing economies in countries such as India and China are expected to offer good opportunities for the global female infertility, menopause, and contraceptive drugs market. The arrival on the market of some new products with better efficiency is expected to offer good opportunity for the global female infertility, menopause, and contraceptive drugs market. The growing number of mergers and acquisitions, new product launches, and increasing number of collaborations and partnerships are some of the latest trends that observed in the global female infertility, menopause and contraceptive drugs market. The side effects associated with intake of female infertility, menopause, and contraceptive drugs are a challenge for the market.Request a Sample Brochure of the Report @Some of the major companies dealing in global menopause, fertility and contraceptive drugs market include Aventis SA, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, Johnson & Johnson, and Merck & Company, Inc. Other significant players in the global menopause, fertility, and contraceptive drugs market include Novartis International AG, Bayers AG, Pharmacia & Upjohn, Inc., Organon, Inc., Berlex Laboratories, Parke-Davis, G. D. Searle & Company, TAP Holdings Inc., The Ares-Serono Group, and American Home Products Corporation.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,Telephone - +1-646-568-7751USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:White Spirits Market Accounting for US$ 8,103.2 Mn by 2025

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White Spirits Market: Global Industry Analysis (2012-2016) and Forecast (2017-2025), a new report published by Persistence Market Research, tracks the performance of the global white spirits market for a projected period of eight years, i.e. between 2017 and 2025. According to this report, in terms of value, the global white spirits market is expected to expand at a CAGR of 4.2% during the assessed period.This market is estimated to be valued at US$ 5,832.3 Mn by 2017 end and reach US$ 8,103.2 Mn by the end of 2025. The steady growth is anticipated in terms of demand from various applications, such as paints thinner and cleaning & degreasing solvents which is expected to drive the growth of the white spirits market during forecast period.Request for Table of Contents @Global White Spirits Market: Key RegulationsNeed: In the recent past, regulatory bodies have begun implementing regulations mandating the reduction of VOC emissions due to rising environmental concerns and deteriorating air quality across the globeRegulations: Directive 2004/42/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 April 2004 on the limitation of emissions of VOCs due to the use of organic solvents in certain paints and varnishes and vehicle refinishing products and amending Directive 1999/13/EC Paints based on white spirits, intended to be used by the general public, are restricted in Denmark for indoor use on ceilings and walls.In 2007, the Scientific Committee on Occupational Exposure Limits proposed the following value as recommended occupational limit value for white spirits: 20 ppm (116 mg/m) as 8 h average level, 50 ppm (290 mg/m) as 15 min short-term exposure limit level.Request to Sample of Report @The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has set the legal limit (permissible exposure limit) for white spirits exposure in the workplace as 500 ppm (2,900 mg/m3) over an 8-hour workday. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health has set a recommended exposure limit of 350 mg/m3 over an 8-hour workday and 1,800 mg/m3 over 15 minutes.Description: The VOC directive that aims to reduce ozone formation potential of VOCs in connection with photochemical reactions in ambient air, defines 12 sub-categories for coating products applied to buildings and five subcategories for vehicle refinishing products for which limits are set with regard to VOC content. The maximum permissible VOC content range is 30840 g/l, depending on the product.Effect on the White Spirits Market: Owing to regulations related to VOC emissions, there is increasing demand for low aromatic white spirits globally, which hinders demand for conventional white spirits. Major manufacturers are shifting focus towards marketing of white spirits with low aromatic content so as to comply with regulations.Global White Spirits Market: Forecast by ApplicationOn the basis of application, this market is segmented into paint thinner, cleaning solvent, degreasing solvent, fuel, disinfectant and others. In terms of application, the paint thinner segment is expected to witness healthy growth owing to increase in demand from industrial and architectural/decorative coatings during the forecast period.Request Report Multiple Chapter @Building & Construction segment is expected to register nearly 1.3X growth between 2017 and 2025. The Paint Thinner segment is anticipated to witness sound growth. It is expected to grow with a CAGR of 4.9% over the forecast period.Global White Spirits Market: Forecast by Grade TypeGrade type segment consists of low flash grade, regular flash grade and high flash grade. Regular flash grade segment is projected to expand at a relatively higher CAGR over the forecast period. The regular flash grade segment is estimated to account for a 60.9% revenue share in the global white spirits market in 2025, followed by high flash grade and low flash grade segments respectively.Global White Spirits Market: Forecast by Product TypeProduct type segment includes type 1, type 2 and type 3 segments. In terms of value, the type 1 segment has been estimated to account for a 46.1% share by 2025 end. This is projected to grow 1.4X during the forecast period to be valued at US$ 3,778.4 Mn in 2025, expanding at a CAGR of 4.3%Global White Spirits Market: Forecast by RegionAPAC is the key market that accounts for a major share in the global white spirits market. The market in APAC is expected to register high CAGR over the forecast period and provide significant opportunities in the global white spirits market owing to the growing paints & coatings, automotive, packaging and building & construction industry in this region as well as shifting of manufacturing industries to China, India and ASEAN Countries. APAC is estimated to account for around 41.4% share in terms of value in the global white spirits market in 2017.Get full report now @Global White Spirits Market: Key PlayersExxonMobil Corporation, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Total S.A., Idemitsu Kosan Co., Ltd., Neste Oyj, Haltermann Carless Deutschland GmbH, DHC Solvent Chemie GmbH, GSB Chemical Co. Pty. Ltd., and Al Sanea Chemical Products are some of the key companies operating in the global white spirits market.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,Telephone - +1-646-568-7751USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comExplosive Detection Technologies Market Expected to Account US$ 3.9 Bn by 2024

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The global demand for explosive detection technologies is expected to increase at a Y-o-Y growth rate of 5.4% in 2016. Global consumption of explosive detection technologies is estimated to be pegged at 41,960 units by the end of 2016 and is expected to increase at a CAGR of 5.2% over the forecast period (20162024).In a new report titled Explosive Detection Technologies Market: Global Industry Analysis and Forecast, 20162024, Persistence Market Research analyzes the global explosive detection technologies market and provides a forecast for the next eight years.Request for Table of Contents @Demand for explosive detection technologies is expected to increase at a significant rate across airports in order to ensure security. Increasing regulations across the globe to enhance security, increasing passenger volumes, upcoming airport construction projects, and increasing terror threat perception are major factors expected to drive the demand for explosive detection technologies worldwide.A growing geo-political unrest in various countries across the globe is also expected to support market growth in the near future. Top market players are focusing on obtaining long-term supply agreements for explosive detection technologies for government and other applications, which in turn is expected to increase installation of new devices in various countries across the globe.Request to View Sample of Research Report @Development of improvised explosive devices is a major challenge for the explosive detection technologies market. Moreover, explosive detection is a labor intensive process requiring faster screening to avoid significant delays. This factor is likely to restrain the growth of the explosive detection technologies market over the forecast period.The global explosive detection technologies market is segmented on the basis of Function, Technology, End User, and Region. The Manual segment is expected to expand at a CAGR of 6.1% in terms of value and the Automated segment is expected to expand at the highest CAGR of 8.0% in terms of value over the forecast period.Request Report Multiple Chapter @The Bulk Detection segment is estimated to account for a market value share of 57.4% by the end of 2016; while the Trace Detection segment is anticipated to be valued at US$ 2,285.7 Mn by the end of 2016 and is expected to reach US$ 4,154.7 Mn by the end of the forecast period. The Air Transport and Critical Infrastructure segments are estimated to collectively account for over 55% revenue share by the end of 2016.On the basis of regions, the global explosive detection technologies market has been segmented into North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East & Africa. Asia Pacific is estimated to account for over 20% share of the global explosive detection technologies market in terms of value by the end of 2016, projected to expand at a value CAGR of 9.0% over the forecast period.Get full report now @Markets in North America and Europe are estimated to collectively account for over 60% share in terms of value by the end of 2016. North America and Europe are expected to contribute significant revenue share to the global explosive detection technologies market throughout the forecast period.Leading players operating in the global explosive detection technologies market are  Safran SA, Smiths Group plc., L-3 Communications Holdings Inc., Kromek Group plc, OSI Systems Inc., Elbit Systems Ltd., Chemring Group PLC, Implant Sciences Inc., Guangzhou Skyscanner Electronic Equipment Co. Ltd., Security Electronic Equipment Co. Ltd., Suzhou Aoteng Electron Technology Co. Ltd., Kunshan Sanxun Electronics Technology Co. Ltd., Tongfang Weishi Technology Co. Ltd., and Shanghai WeiEn Security Equipment Co. Ltd.To Know More Information @About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,Telephone - +1-646-568-7751USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comThailand Water Pump Market Expected to Account for US$ 25.6 Mn by 2021

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Persistence Market Research (PMR) in its recent report titled, Thailand Market Study on Water Pump: Industrial Segment to Witness Highest Growth by 2021, projects that the Thailand water pump market is expected to grow at a healthy CAGR of 6.3% during the forecast period.In terms of revenue, the Thailand water pump market accounted for US$16.7 Million in 2014 and is projected to reach US$25.6 Million by 2021.Factors fuelling the market include low manufacturing costs, expansion of water supply network, massive urbanization and industrialization, increasing arable land and land under cereal production. Thailand is an agriculture-driven country. Growth in the agricultural sector, linked with increasing arable land and land under cereal production is leading to growing trend of micro irrigation in small farms, which is projected to increase deployment of centrifugal water pumps.Request for Table of Contents @Similarly, the country is undergoing rapid economic growth and industrialisation and is also poised to emerge as a substantial market. It plays a crucial role as its one of the manufacturing hubs for water pumps. Deployment of monobloc pumps is increasing due to the growing trend of family farming, which is carried out on small agricultural plots and requires low HP centrifugal pump for micro irrigation. Pumps for domestic and agriculture application offer minimal product differentiation in terms of cost and quality. Similar buyer trends apply to both end-user segments.On the basis of pump type, the submersible water pump segment is estimated to be the most dominant segment, with 63.5% of the overall Thailand water pump market share in 2015, followed by monobloc water pump segment with 36.5%share. Growth of the monobloc water pumps segment over the forecast period is expected to be driven by increasing demand for application in agro-industrial and food production purposes.Request to View Sample of Research Report @As of 2014, Thailand is among the worlds top ten countries in terms of water consumption for agro-industrial and food production. Central & Eastern Thailand region was the largest market in terms of revenue contribution, accounting for 30.2% of the overall Thailand water pump market in 2014.The Bangkok area is one of the most prosperous parts of Central & Eastern Thailand and is a dominant contributor to the national economy, with the infertile Northeast being the poorest in similar terms.Southern Thailand market is projected to lose 80 BPS during the forecast period. The region is part of a narrow peninsula, with a distinctive climate and terrain. Its economy is based on rice cultivation and rubber production. Mountainous terrain and absence of large rivers are conspicuous features of this region.Request Report Multiple Chapter @By end-use application, the agriculture segment is projected to continue its dominance throughout the forecast period. Agriculture application segment is expected to gain 40 BPS during the forecast period as a major portion of the countrys GDP is generated from agricultural activities. However, the industrial segment is forecasted to register the highest CAGR by 2021.Growth of the market in East Asia is mainly driven by increased adoption of water pumps in power plants, for development of new infrastructure, in heavy industry, municipal wastewater treatment plants, irrigation and drinking water facilities.Key players in the Thailand water pump market includeGrundfos, KSB AG, Kirloskar Brothers Limited, Ebara Corporation. Global players like Grundfos, Sulzer Ltd, Flowserve Corporation focus on research and development initiatives to introduce innovative products to attain sustainable advantages over the competition. In addition, these players also focus on expanding their regional presence through mergers and acquisitions.Get full report now @Water pump manufacturers in Thailand usually sell their products via distributors, who account for approximately 80% sales share as compared to 20% share via direct sales.Global and regional players in Thailand water pump market focus on entering into long-term tie-ups with engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) companies and distributors. Chinese players have tie-ups with retailers to enhance customer reach.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,Telephone - +1-646-568-7751USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comSodium Bicarbonate Market Dynamics, Segments, Size and Demand, 2017  2027

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Sodium bicarbonate is a white solid crystalline but appears as a fine powder, and its chemical formula is NaHCO3. It is also called baking soda, and its mineral form is nahcolite. Sodium bicarbonate has the variety of usages includes certain drug intoxications, treating metabolic acidosis and replacing bicarbonate lost due to serious diarrhea, unconventional uses such as graffiti removal and household uses and produced from synthetic and natural soda ash. Sodium bicarbonateis an electrolyte and works in the blood by neutralizing excess acid. When there are excess losses from the body, it may also replace sodium bicarbonate. Sodium bicarbonate is widely used in chemical and food industry where as in cosmetics industry, it is used in deodorants and air-fresheners.Global sodium bicarbonate Market: DynamicsThe major driving factors of global sodium bicarbonate market are rapidly growing pharmaceutical and chemical industry, owing to rising demand for cleaning products along with increasing health consciousness among consumers. The macroeconomic factor responsible for the growth of the global sodium bicarbonate market are emerging economy such as Brazil, Argentina, India, and China, owing to a rapid rate of urbanization along with increasing per capita income in these countries. Another key factor which is driving the growth of sodium bicarbonate market is significant growth in the food industry, owing to a high demand for packaged food across the globe. Significant growth in the cosmetics industry is also the key driving factor of global sodium bicarbonate market, attributed to a high demand of personal care products among consumers. In recent years, high demand in animal feed industry is majorly driving the global sodium bicarbonate market. The key restraining factors which restrict to grow global sodium bicarbonate market are its side effects such as eye and skin irritation and govt. Regulations for usage of sodium bicarbonate in industries. High Mergers and Acquisitions among market players for accounting high market share across the globe is the key trend of global sodium bicarbonate market.Request Report Sample@Global Sodium bicarbonate market: SegmentationGlobal sodium bicarbonate market can be segmented by end-use industry, application type, product form type, and region. Among end-use industry, Chemical and Food & Beverage industry is estimated to witness high market share over forecasted period.Global sodium bicarbonate market is segmented by end-use industry type as follow:-Food & BeverageCosmeticsAgricultureChemicalPharmaceuticalPetroleumFeedGlobal sodium bicarbonate market is segmented based on application type as follow:-AdditivesSolventsHouseholdLeavening agentsGlobal sodium bicarbonate market is segmented on product form type as follow:-PowderWhite crystalWet solidLiquidVisit For TOC@Global sodium bicarbonate market: Regional OutlookBased on the geographies, global sodium bicarbonate market is segmented into seven regions includes Western Europe, North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Japan, Asia-Pacific except Japan and Middle East & Africa. Among the mentioned region, North America accounts high market share in sodium bicarbonate market across the globe followed by Western Europe and other Asian countries, owing to a high demand of sodium bicarbonate for chemical and food industry. China is the largest market of sodium bicarbonate based on consumption as well as production across the globe. Large market players of global sodium bicarbonate market such as Solvay and Novacap are targeting to invest in Asian countries, owing to a high demand of sodium bicarbonate in detergents, personal care, and food products across the region. Saudi Arabia is estimated to witness a positive growth rate in global sodium bicarbonate market due to high demand in food and agriculture industry in the Middle East & Africa region. It is predicted to witness a positive growth rate of global sodium market in Germany and Belgium, owing to high usage of sodium bicarbonate in the chemical industry across the region.Few prominent players of global sodium bicarbonate market as follows:VitroSolvayChurch & DwightNatural SodaNovacarbTata ChemicalsFMC CorporationHaohua Honghe Chemical Co., Ltd.Tosoh 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:616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:Heavy Oil Cracking Catalyst Market Opportunities and Forecast Assessment, 2017  2027

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A heavy Oil Cracking Catalyst is an integral part of any oil refinery process. These catalysts are used to convert high molecular weight and high boiling point hydrocarbons to more valuable products such as olefin gases, gasoline and other petroleum products. The suppliers generally provide a dedicated technical team to their customers to provide better provide pre-sales, sales and after-sales services based on specific requirements of individual refineries to perfectly combine feedstock, operation parameters and catalysts for maximum effectiveness. Heavy Oil Cracking Catalysts help in cracking the hydrocarbon chain in distilled crude oil to produce transportation fuels such as gasoline and diesel fuels and other petroleum-based products. Apart from cracking, Heavy Oil Cracking Catalyst additives are also used to reduce sulfur in gasoline, maximize propylene production in refinery units and reduce sulfur oxide, nitrogen oxide and carbon monoxide emission from refinery cracking units. The demand for additives is expected to rise in near future as cracking produces sulphur and nitrogen compounds. The high demand for ultra-low sulphur containing diesel and aviation fuels will be a major driving factor propelling the growth of the heavy oil cracking catalyst market. Also, supply solutions to meet customized needs of the clients through tailored products and services will add to the growth of this market.Heavy Oil Cracking Catalyst Market: Drivers and RestraintsIncreasing scarcity of oil resources is one of the key factors driving demand of Heavy Oil Cracking Catalysts in coming years. These catalysts are required for improving light oil yield and efficiently utilizing existing oil resources. The primary source of air pollution are the olefins that exist in vehicle exhaust. Developing countries such as China and India will face issues regarding depleting petroleum reserves due to high economic growth. Also, increasing usage of petroleum products to cater to rising demand from manufacturing, industrial and transportation sectors is also anticipated to drive the demand for Heavy Oil Cracking Catalysts during the forecast. Cracking catalysts that reduce olefins in gasoline are anticipated to gain importance in coming years to comply with rigorous environmental protection standards being implemented by various government authorities. The demand for heavy oil cracking catalysts will also be fueled by expected technological up gradation and enhancement of existing equipment in the region. However, high operation and investment costs are two major restraints expected to negatively impact future demand for Heavy Oil Cracking Catalysts. Demand for gasoline in developed regions such as Europe and North America is declining and this may heavily impact Heavy Oil Cracking Catalyst industry growth in these regions.Request Report Sample@Heavy Oil Cracking Catalyst Market: SegmentationOn the basis of hydrocarbon type, the Heavy Oil Cracking Catalyst Market can be segmented into:Vacuum Gas Oil (VGO)ResidOil SandsOn the basis of application, the Heavy Oil Cracking Catalyst Market can be segmented into:CrackingOlefin reductionPropene enhancementOther additivesHeavy Oil Cracking Catalyst Market: Region Wise OutlookThe global Heavy Oil Cracking Catalyst Market is segmented into seven key regions: North America, Latin America, Western Europe, and Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific Excluding Japan (APEJ), Japan and Middle East and Africa (MEA). As of 2017, the growth in developed regions such as Western Europe, Japan and North America will be driven by new product innovations that comply with strict government regulation owing to rising environment concerns across the globe. APEJ and Latin America regions are also expected to register a significant CAGR over the forecast period owing to strategically increasing investments in the petroleum refining sector to cater to the growing demand. MEA is also projected to expand with a significant CAGR over the forecast period due to expected future investments in the downstream sector to compliment huge oil reserves in the region.Visit For TOC@Examples of some of the market participants in the global Heavy Oil Cracking Catalyst Market identified across the value chain include:Haldor TopsoeChina National Petrochemical CompanyAxensJohnson MatheyCRI Catalyst CompanySud-ChemieAlbemarle CorporationGrace Davison, IncBASF SEExxonMobil ChemicalAbout Us Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:Hexylene Glycol Market Global Trends, Analysis and Outlook 2017  2027

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Hexylene Glycol (HG) is an organic compound derived from acetone which has two alcohol functions. Hexylene glycol is a clear, colorless oily liquid with a characteristic order and it is fully miscible in water. Hexylene glycol is mainly used as solvent or coupling agent in many products such as metal working fluid, paints &coatings, skin care products, textiles & leather and many more. Another prime application of Hexylene glycol is as a chemical intermediate and it is used as a building block for chemical synthesis. It is manufactured in different grades depending upon the level of purity required for its application. For instance, Pharmaceutical Grade products are manufactured under appropriate controls for use as a raw material in pharmaceutical or biopharmaceutical production.Hexylene Glycol also finds its another application in oil and gas industry as a down hole lubricant for oil & natural gas fields and it is an ingredient in grinding and extrusion aids. Hexylene glycol is also employed as an antifreeze and as a coupling agent for hydraulic fluid. The above mentioned application in diverse sectors is expected to have a positive impact on the demand of hexylene glycol leading to the healthy growth of hexylene market during the review period.Global Hexylene Glycol Market: Market DynamicsHexylene glycol market is expected to have a significant growth over the forecast period owing to large number of applications both, commercially and industrially. The demand for hexylene glycol is primarily driven by increase in demand from growing paint and coating industry. Among the end use industries, industrial coatings segment is dominating the global hexylene glycol market, and this segment is expected to be the most attractive segment for hexylene glycol market with a bright prospect for the growth. Another key driver for the growth of hexylene glycol market is increasing use as a solvent or viscosity agent for consumer products like skin care products. Although, some agencies such as Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Cosmetic Ingredient Review (CIR) have approved the use of hexylene glycol as solvent in skin care products, some studies have revealed that it is an irritant, which might slightly affect the growth of hexylene glycol market. Hexylene glycol market is relatively mature market hence provide relatively low opportunities for growth and development.Request Report Sample@The growth of hexylene glycol market is driven by rising demand and multiple functionalities of hexylene glycol in industries such as, pharmaceutical, industrial coatings, oil & gas and Leather & textile. One of the key trend identified in the market is that key manufacturers are investing a large amount in emerging countries to order to penetrate and enhance their market presence and distribution network through joint ventures, acquisition and capacity expansions.Global Hexylene Glycol Market: SegmentationOn the basis of end use, global hexylene market is segmented as:Industrial coatingsChemical IntermediateLeather and Textile ProcessingAntifreezeCosmetics & Personal CareAgricultural useOthersOn the basis of grade, global hexylene glycol market is segmented as:Pharmaceutical GradeIndustrial/ Technical GradeGlobal Hexylene Glycol Market: Regional OutlookEurope is estimated to dominate the global hexylene glycol market, owing to major concentration of hexylene glycol production facilities in Europe, driving the continuous growth and innovation in the hexylene glycol market. However, North America and European hexylene glycol market have reached their saturation and hence expected to expand at relatively slower rates over the forecast period. Asia pacific hexylene glycol market is expected to expand at steady rate during the assessment period owing to increasing demand from continuously growing end use industries driven by increasing industrialization and urbanization. Latin America hexylene glycol market is estimated to grow at relatively higher pace owing to increasing foreign investment and increasing privatization.Visit For TOC@Global Hexylene Glycol Market: Key PlayersExamples of some of the market participants operating in the global rust remover market are as follows:Monument ChemicalBASF SEThe Dow Chemical CompanyArkema GroupSolvay S.A.Slozeni kosmetikyShell GroupLonza GroupVWR International, LLCATOFINA Chemicals IncBAX ChemicalsWORLD CHEM INDUSTRIESAbout Us Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:Data Management Platforms Market Estimated to Expand at a Robust CAGR over 2026

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Data Management Platform is a data warehouse that collects large amount of data, sorts it according to various verticals and stores it and finally releases information in a way which is useful for marketers, publishers and other businesses. They harbor and manage any form of information. For a marketer, DMPs usually manage cookie IDs which are used to generate various audience segments, which are in turn used to target online ads to specific set of users.Due to the rise of ad technology, advertisers now buy media across a vast array of sites and through various middlemen. The advantage of a Data Management Platform is that it can link all the advertisers activity with audience data and resulting campaign into one consolidated location and use that data to optimize future media buys and ad creative. Hence Data Management Platform is the most beneficial to marketers, agencies and publishers. But one of the drawback of a DMP is without being linked to another technology, it single-handedly cannot do much. Therefore usually the information of a DMP is fed into a Demand Side Platform (DSP) which helps to inform ad buying decisions.A sample of this report is available upon request @The work of a DMP can be divided into a three step process:Import data: Collects data through various sources and organizes it at customer levelFind segments/cluster: Consumers whom to target the messages. The segments can be manually made by the user or the DMP can make it automatically make it for you.Send instructions: Whom to send it, through which channel/medium and what message to sendThere are various channels through which data can be integrated in a DMP, they are:1st party data integration: integrated with ad servers, demand side platforms and supply side platform2nd party data integration: combines data from 1st party users with data of strategic partners3rd party integration: standard integration with 3rd party data providers like social media platformsOffline data integration: integrate data from offline sourcesMobile data integration: integrate data from mobile devicesData export tools: can extract data from a DMP in bulkMarketers can make use of Data Management Platform for the following:Import dataMatch customer IDsCollect new dataHelp define groupsProvide access to data vendorsEstimate price and reachSuggest new groups of people to targetUse above information to buy advertisingGenerate reportsData Management Platforms Market: Drivers and ChallengesThe presence of digital marketing plays a vital role in the growth of data management platforms market. The marketing and advertising agencies have grown more competitive over the past few years, also personalization of ads to various target markets has increased which has led to many agencies adopting DMPs. DMPs can easily unify data from multiple sources and also segment the users to different categories based on their behavior pattern. This intuitiveness has driven many marketers to shift to DMPs.Also, there are new sources of first party data which are emerging such as TV set-top boxes, data collected from automobile and wearable technology. Hence, Internet of Things is one of the major driving factors of marketers adopting DMPs.The challenges that are being faced are that sometimes based on the information available from a DMP, a marketer may come up with some strategy, but it becomes counterproductive if the user has already purchased that item from somewhere else. Also, many a times it happens that users just browse through websites to check out a certain product, but never end up purchasing it. In that case the time and resource invested in formulating a strategy for such kind of users will go to vain.Personalization is one more method by which marketers target their audience, but this can again act in a negative way because it might happen that multiple users will be making use of same device, in that case the marketer is unsure whether the advertisement was displayed to the correct end user.One more challenge is that the mobile platform behaves differently than other technologies. Quite frequently there are no cookies available in a mobile device. Hence, picking up data by default will not work on such devices. Therefore data management platforms have to function beyond cookies to be really effective.Data Management Platforms Market: SegmentationSegmentation On The Basis Of Type:Open Data Management Platforms: The access to data is more open for third party agencies. The data which is collected via Open DMPs is related to demographic and audience data, website information and other advertising related data.Private Data Management Platforms: They can be either used along with open DMPs or can be used as a standalone platform. This data includes information on user profiles and client purchases.Segmentation On The Basis Of End-User:Advertisers: Can segment their customers and also target new customersPublishers: Can sell their specific solutions for target audience to advertisersTo view TOC of this report is available upon request @Key Market PlayersThe major players present in the Data Management Platforms Market are Adobe Systems, Inc., Oracle BlueKai, IgnitionOne, Inc., Rocket Fuel, Inc., NeuStar, Inc., MediaMath Inc., V12 Group Inc. and Lotame Solutions Inc.Regional OverviewCurrently North America is dominating the Data Management Platforms market due to maximum advancement in technology. Asia Pacific is gradually rising in this market, as it is directly related to the population of a place. Hence over the years, APAC market will gradually rise.About UsFuture Market Insights is the premier provider of market intelligence and consulting services, serving clients in over 150 countries. FMI is headquartered in London, the global financial capital, and has delivery centres in the U.S. and India.FMIs research and consulting services help businesses around the globe navigate the challenges in a rapidly evolving marketplace with confidence and clarity. Our customised and syndicated market research reports deliver actionable insights that drive sustainable growth. We continuously track emerging trends and events in a broad range of end industries to ensure our clients prepare for the evolving needs of their consumers.Contact Us:Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way,Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage,New York 10989,United StatesTel: +1-347-918-3531Fax: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:Hydrocarbons Accounting Solution Market Expected to Witness a Sustainable Growth over 2026

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The ultimate goal of all oil and gas operators across the globe is to extract hydrocarbon as cost effective as possible. In order to achieve this goal, their entire system should be automated and error free starting from the extraction process to the delivery and transportation of oil and gas to buyers, which can be achieved by implementation of hydrocarbons accounting solutions. Additionally, oil and gas operators are increasingly launching their projects in remote locations that are often in difficult environmental condition, which in turns, also increases the demand for hydrocarbons accounting solution across the upstream industry. Hydrocarbons accounting solutions are being increasingly adopted by players in upstream industry for various applications such as production management, reporting and allocation, transport management solution (takes care of transportation data and activity while transporting hydrocarbons through pipelines, trucks or vessels), and sales management, revenue management and other supply chain management related applications.A sample of this report is available upon request @Global Hydrocarbons Accounting Solution Market: Drivers and ChallengesTechnological innovations in cloud computing and data analytics are contributing immensely in making these type of hydrocarbons accounting software more robust and accurate, which helps to increase adoption of these solutions among the end-users. Most of the hydrocarbons accounting solution providers offers solutions, which can be integrated seamlessly with multiple applications such as ERM, reserves management, GIS, land and lease management, well management and other applications used by upstream industries. Previously, upstream industry was not bounded by government rules and regulations. However, with changing market scenario around oil and gas producers, the requirement to manage this industry by intelligent solutions increases.In order to achieve an objective of increased production in cost effective and efficient manners, various oil and gas operators have different specific requirements across the industry, hence its a challenge for hydrocarbon solutions providers to provide customized solutions which support different needs and yet maintain profitable business model.Traditionally, hydrocarbon accounting has mostly taken place at the level of individual fields or operating companies. However, changes in the global market around producers of a field, the pursuit of natural gas, and increased regulation are just some of the factors driving oil and gas companies to look for applications that have a more comprehensive view.Global Hydrocarbons Accounting Solution Market: SegmentationGlobal hydrocarbons accounting solutions can be segmented on the basis of component, deployment type and end-use sector. On the basis of component, global hydrocarbons accounting solution market is segmented into software and services. Service segment is further sub-segmented into consulting, implementation and support. On the basis of deployment type, global hydrocarbon software market is segmented into cloud based software and on-premise software. In 2015, cloud based hydrocarbons accounting solution is estimated to dominate the market and is expected to remain dominant throughout the forecast period. Deployment of cloud based hydrocarbons accounting software reduces requirement of trained IT personal team because of 24*7 full technical support from the solution providers is the main force driving the growth of cloud based hydrocarbons accounting software market. On the basis of end-use sector, global hydrocarbons accounting solution market is segmented into upstream companies, mid-stream companies and downstream companies.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @Global Hydrocarbons Accounting Solution Market: Regional OutlookOn the basis of region, global hydrocarbons accounting solution market is segmented into seven regions: North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, MEA, Asia Pacific Excluding Japan and Japan. Among aforementioned regions, MEA is expected to be the dominant market followed by North America because, most of the petroleum companies of the world are present in these two regions.Tieto, SAP, Adept Solutions, P2 Energy Solutions (formerly Merrick Systems), Wipro Limited, Quorum Business Solutions, Inc. are some of the big players of global hydrocarbons accounting solution market.About UsFuture Market Insights is the premier provider of market intelligence and consulting services, serving clients in over 150 countries. FMI is headquartered in London, the global financial capital, and has delivery centres in the U.S. and India.FMIs research and consulting services help businesses around the globe navigate the challenges in a rapidly evolving marketplace with confidence and clarity. Our customised and syndicated market research reports deliver actionable insights that drive sustainable growth. We continuously track emerging trends and events in a broad range of end industries to ensure our clients prepare for the evolving needs of their consumers.Contact Us:Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way,Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage,New York 10989,United StatesTel: +1-347-918-3531Fax: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:Disposable Protective Apparel Market to Reap Excessive Revenues by 2022

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Disposable protective apparel is used in many industries including manufacturing, construction, health care etc. to provide protection from many different hazards. Disposable protective apparel includes shirts, belts, vests, pants, jackets, and hats are the most popular. Benefits of using disposable protective apparel includes, versatility (used as multifunctional), affordability (less price compare to durable protective apparel) and sustainability (recyclable product to maintain sustainable practices).Increase safety for workforce by government for instance, offering safety to workers from hazardous particle, provide abrasion resistance, and barrier protection among others is expected to drive the demand for disposable protective apparel across the globe. Also, development of innovative products by companies to ensure development of cost-effective material along with creation of novel designs is expected to bolster the global disposable protective apparel market growth in the near future. Also, increasing industrial and infrastructural industries across emerging economies is anticipated to fuel the demand for cost-effective thereby, driving the demand for disposable protective apparel in the next five to six years.Request to View Sample of Research Report @However, increased automation in end-use industry leads to less deployment of workforce thus, less demand for disposable protective apparel among end users. This is restricting the growth of global disposable protective apparel market. However, increasing safety awareness in emerging countries and small manufacturers is an opportunity for global disposable protective apparel market.Global Disposable Protective Apparel market is segmented by: product type, end use, user type, application and by regionGlobal Disposable Protective Apparel Market by Product TypeHead ProtectionEye ProtectionEar ProtectionFoot ProtectionHand ProtectionBody ProtectionBreathing ProtectionGlobal Disposable Protective Apparel Market by End UseConstruction & ManufacturingHealth CarePharmaceuticalOil, Gas and MiningOthers (Military)Global Disposable Protective Apparel Market by User TypeIndustrialPersonalGlobal Disposable Protective Apparel Market by ApplicationThermal Protective ApparelsChemical Protective ApparelMechanical Protective ApparelGerm Protective Apparel Or Biological ApparelOthers (General and Industrial Cleaning Protective Apparel)Global Disposable Protective Apparel Market by RegionAsia PacificEuropeNorth AmericaLatin AmericaThe Middle East & AfricaNorth America and Western Europe hold major share in total disposable protective apparel market and Asia Pacific excluding Japan is expected to be one of the fastest growing market. This is attributed to development in infrastructure and manufacturing industry, which has increased significantly in recent years leading to demand for protective apparel among end users.Request for Table of Contents @Some of the key players operating in the global disposable protective apparel market are The 3M Company, Lakeland Industries, Inc., Enviro Safety Products, Medline Industries Inc., Honeywell International Inc., UVEX ARBEITSSCHUTZ GmbH, Dastex Reinraumzubehor Gmbh & Co.KG, E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, Cellucap Manufacturing, Dolphin Products and Anchortex Corporation.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance. To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,Telephone - +1-646-568-7751USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:Luxury Pens Market Highly Favorable to the Growth Rate by 2022

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The growing e-communication among the corporates and other social class people around the world has become a threat for written communication. Due to the increasing brand awareness and high disposable income of people (especially among young adults), the luxury pens market is witnessing a decent growth. Likewise, luxury pens key players which are having brands such as Lamy, Aurora, Mont Blanc, Grayson and Parker are trying to encash the opportunities in this growing luxury pens market. The major players are opting to make their luxury pens more royal by making it diamond studded and gold plated, to grab the maximum market share. One of the key trend in the market is that the manufacturers are strategically investing in product development by modifying the luxury pen nib with platinum and other expensive metals. In spite of the sluggish market and curtailed discretionary spending, the luxury pens market is growing at a good rate. Hence, the global luxury pens market has got a great potential in the forecast period. The global luxury pens market is anticipated to witness a moderate single digit growth in the upcoming years.Request for Table of Contents @The growing global luxury pens market can be attributed to the growing disposable income and brand awareness amongst people. Growing population coupled with the changing lifestyle of people in the developed countries is anticipated to drive the demand for global luxury pens market. Moreover, possessing a luxury pen has become a status symbol these days and hence, high class society people are opting for luxury pens. Likewise, the attractiveness of luxury pens again plays a great role for boosting its market.The luxury pens market is a niche market, and also there are not much retailers available in the market, which can hamper the luxury pens market. Likewise, the import duty of such luxury pens is high enough to impact its market. Due to its high range the inventory cost of the dealers increases, hence it requires more working capital management which can decline the luxury pens market. Moreover, there is an increase in e-communication among people which would further decline the luxury pens market.Global Luxury Pens Market: SegmentationThe global luxury pens market can be segmented on the basis on product type, raw material and application.Global Luxury Pens Market by Product TypeBall Point PensConverter PensFountain PensRoller Ball PensFine Liner PensStylus PensMultifunctional PensBrush PensDie PensGlobal Luxury Pens Market By Material Used:-Precious gold metalsPrecious resinRubberStainless SteelSterling SilverPorcelain/ CeramicCarbonLacquerGlobal Luxury Pens Market by Application:-CalligraphyScreen WritingDocument MarkingGlobal Luxury Pens Market by Region:Asia PacificEuropeNorth AmericaLatin AmericaThe Middle East & AfricaAsia Pacific is the fastest growing region in the global luxury pens market. Countries such as India and China are the upcoming countries where demand for such luxury items are at peak because of the increase in disposable income of people. Even, North America is a flourishing luxury pens market due to the improving brand awareness of luxury pens amongst people.Request to View Sample of Research Report @Global Luxury Pens Market: - Key PlayersSome of the key players identified in the global luxury pens market are Paradise Pen Company, Montblanc International GmbH, C. Josef Lamy GmbH, Grayson Tighe, Parker Pen Company, A.T.Cross Company, Sanford L.P.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance. To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,Telephone - +1-646-568-7751USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:Piping and Fittings Market Prophesied to Grow at a Faster Pace by 2022

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Piping in general terms can be termed as a conveyance for any fluidic or gaseous materials used in special applications while fittings are the peripheral of pipes which helps in regulation and measurement of fluid flow. Piping is considered to be the high performance instrument as it acts as a transporting media for very high parameter constraints like high pressure, high temperature, heavy flow and hazardous materials.The market for pipe and fittings can be categorized based on the material used, applications, and geographical regions. Based on the material type the market can be segmented into steel pipe, copper pipe, aluminum pipe, glass pipe, plastic pipe and Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) pipe. PVC pipes are further segmented into Rigid Polyvinyl chloride (RPVC) and Chlorinated Polyvinyl Chloride (CPVC) Pipes and fittings can be selected based on the end use application. Pipes and fittings have variety of domestic, commercial and industrial applications.These are used globally and has got a wide scale of applications as it has been used in every aspects from household to industrial appliances. Depending upon the end use applications the market for pipes and fittings can be segmented as domestic and industrial applications. At the domestic level pipes and fittings can be used in sewages, drainage systems, plumbing etc. For industrial sectors pipes and fittings can be used for carrying hazardous wastes or chemicals, liquefied natural gas, industrial affluent etc. In terms of geographical regions, the pipes and fittings market is segmented into Europe, Asia Pacific, North America, Middle East and Africa and Latin America. The fittings segment can further be segmented into different types based on its shape and application as coupling, tee, nipple, valves, elbow, plug, cross, closet-flange, clean out, trap-primers and many more.Request for Table of Contents @Request to View Sample of Research Report @With the continuously growing population, the market for construction materials is on high demand. Being a vital requirement, pipes and fittings are the prerequisite for housing. Urbanization has led to the increase in drainage requirement with a wide network of connection. In order to cope with advanced piping connection, there is an increased demand for pipes and fittings, which in turn, is driving the market growth. There has been a growing trend for rain water harvesting system globally which has helped pipe and fitting market to fuel up. As most of the pipes and fittings are installed underground in case of any breakdown or failure, the maintenance cost can be much higher. Use of synthetic materials for piping is increasing widely which helps to overcome the drawbacks of copper or aluminum pipes like that of complex installation process, maintenance issues and many more.Some of the key players in the manufacturing of pipes and fittings Include Saint-Gobain, Grohe Corporation, Jaquar Corporation, Kohler Company, Hindustan Sanitaryware and Industries Ltd (Hindware), Aliaxis Group, Alumasc Building Products, Aluminum Roofline Products (ARP), Amazon Civils, Anglian Home Improvements, Ash & Lacy Building Systems, Marley Plumbing & Drainage, McAlpine and Co, , Pegler Yorkshire Group, PF Copeland Rainwater Systems among others.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance. To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,Telephone - +1-646-568-7751USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:Cigar Market Highly Favorable to the Growth Rate by 2022

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Cigars are firmly-rolled cylindrical bundle of fermented and dried tobacco which is ignited and smoked by drawing in the mouth. Cigar tobacco is mostly grown in Latin America, Philippines, Eastern United States, Spain and Italy. Cigar is considered to be a status symbol by many and is more prevalent in European countries within premium segment.The Cigars market across the globe is expected to show a single digit increase in CAGR growth by the year 2019. There is a significant increase in the Cigar market due to the usage of Cigar in multiple occasions such as social parties, birthday parties, colleges and among corporate.Request to View Sample of Research Report @The key drivers of this market include the addition of smokers to inhale and cigars are considered superior than cigarettes due to lower levels of nicotine. Rising middle class, culture shift and affluent life style are among other driving forces in cigar consumption. Restraining factors could be plethora of government regulations and ban on tobacco production and consumption in several countries. In addition growing health concerns and aging of population act as another major restrains to consumption of Cigar. Major distribution channels are supermarkets, speciality stores and departmental stores.Request for Table of Contents @The Cigar market can be segmented into three major types on the basis of composition as wrappers, fillers and binders. It can also be segmented on the basis of shape and size as Parejo, Figurado, Pyramid, Culebras, Tuscanian and Little Cigars. In this report we have segmented the market geographically into North America, APAC, Europe and RoW regions.Some of the key players in the Cigar market are Finck Cigar Company, ITC Limited, Altadis, General Cigar Company Inc., Partagas cigars, Perdomo cigars, Oliva cigars, Rodrigo cigars, Paul Stulac cigars, and Rocky Patel cigars.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance. To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,Telephone - +1-646-568-7751USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:Collaborative Robot Market by Application: Packaging, Material Handling, Quality testing, Assembly, Machine Tending, Welding, Others by 2024

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This report offers strategic analysis of the global collaborative robot market, and the market growth forecast for the period 2016 to 2024. The scope of the report contains competitive analysis of various market segments based on the payloads, application and industries of the collaborative robot market across different geographic segments.Collaborative robots are designed to help human beings as a guide in specific tasks. In general robots are designed and programmed to operate autonomously wherein collaborative robots operate simultaneously with humans. Lightweight of the collaborative robots is one of the important factor due to which growth of collaborative robotic market is likely to increase. Collaborative robots are the type of industrial robots that are grabbing more demand due to their collaborative nature with human and allows human to work side by side with these robots safely. Collaborative robots are light in weight, easy to assemble and can work side by side with human without hampering the safety of the human. These robots are flexible in nature that allows to handle repetitive and short run tasks along with ergonomically difficult tasks. Due to the nature of these robots, they are used in home labs, offices, farms, hospitals, warehouses, thereby allowing the robots to help in carrying out the job in a better way.Request For Report Sample:With the increasing numbers of manufacturing sectors the demand of robotics is escalating. Since collaborative robots are the lightweight and flexible robots that work side by side with human safely, increases the demand of collaborative robots in manufacturing industries especially SME (Small Manufacturing Enterprise). This robotic technology is likely to optimize to support responsive production methodologies. Operators can swiftly program robotic movements based on logical process steps and using intuitive tools, with no programming experience.The collaborative robot market is bifurcated based on payload into up to 5 Kg, 6  10 Kg and above 10 Kg. Among these segments 6  10 Kg accounted for the highest revenue share during the forecast period. They are used in operating heavier tasks that weigh up 10 Kg like palletizing, packaging, pick and place and assembling. This type of robots helps in saving time on production lines where distance is a factor. Moreover, on the basis of application, the collaborative robot market is segmented into packaging, material handling, quality testing, assembling, machine tending, welding and others. Material handling segment accounted for the highest market share in the global collaborative robot market. These robots helps in controlling and storing of materials in distribution centers, warehouses and also used for disposal. On the basis of industries the market is bifurcated into automotive, food and beverage, aerospace, plastic and polymers, metals and machining and others.Request For Report Discount:To support in strategic decision making, the report also embraces competitive profiling of leading players in the industry, their market share in different regions of North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa and Latin America. Asia Pacific held the highest market of collaborative robot globally. Presence of numerous number of industries and need for automation is driving the demand of Collaborative Robot market in Asia Pacific region. Additionally, several business strategies adopted by key players has also been deliberated in the report. The market attractiveness analysis is included in the report provide understanding into industry competition and market dynamics.The report also provides breakdown and review of several factors affecting the market growth, which are appropriately defined as market drivers, restraints, and opportunities. These causes regulate innumerable existing trends and their effect on market growth. In all, the report includes a complete analysis of the global collaborative robot market, and provides an estimation of progress for the period 2015 to 2024, considering the various factors affecting the market.Browse Full Report:The market has been segmented as follows:Collaborative Robot market, by payloads: Up to 5 Kg 6  10 Kg Above 10 KgCollaborative Robot market, by Application: Packaging Material Handling Quality testing Assembly Machine Tending Welding OthersCollaborative Robot market, by Industries: Automotive Food and beverage Aerospace Plastic and Polymers Metals and Machining OthersAbout Us:Research Report Insights (RRI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver a host of services including custom research reports, syndicated research reports, and consulting services which are personalised in nature. RRI delivers a complete packaged solution to clients; this combines current market intelligence, technology inputs, statistical anecdotes, valuable growth insights, 360-degree view of the competitive framework, and anticipated market trends.Contact Us:Research Report Insights101 Maimuna ApartmentKoliwada Vasai West,Mumbai-401201Email: sales@researchreportinsights.comWeb Site:Laser Cutting Machines Market key players: Amada Miyachi CO, Bystronic Incorporation, ALPHA Laser GmbH, Coherent Incorporation, DPSS Lasers Incorporation: 2020

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The laser cutting machine is a machine which uses laser beam to cut materials such as acrylic, plastic, wood, fabric, and many other non-metallic materials. The laser cutting machines initially casts laser beam on the surface of work piece, melts it and finally evaporates the particular area of work piece using the energy released by laser. Furthermore, the laser cutting technique is able to improve working efficiency and reduce cost. Laser cutting machines are widely used to process metal and non-metal materials. It also symbolizes significant manufacturing tools, which are important to the production of a range of finished goods and manufactured parts.The global laser cutting machines market is expected to witness a substantial growth during the forecast period. This is due to its increasing demand across various end use industries such as automotive, consumer electronics, defense and aerospace, industrial and others.. Increasing incidences of transient voltage and lightning accidents globally is increasing the usage of surge protection devices. If the surge or spike is high, it can cause some heavy damage to the machine.The increase in the usage of electrical equipment such as personal computers, printers, industrial control equipment like PLCs, microwaves, washing machines and alarms are amplifying the demand for surge protection devices across the globe. Industrial sector is the highest revenue generating application segment in this market whereas; commercial segment is analyzed to be the fastest growing application segment in the surge protection devices market.Request For Report Sample:Adoption of high technologies equipment such as LCD and LED televisions in the emerging countries are also contributing to the growth in demand for surge protection devices market across the globe. These high technology devices are sensitive and could be damaged by even smaller fluctuation in the voltage. In order to protect these devices from the spikes or surges, there is a requirement of surge protection devices. North America is analyzed to dominate the global surge protection devices market throughout the forecast period. Asia Pacific is analyzed to be the fastest growing region in this market. Moreover, rapid growth of industrialization in this region is also contributing to growth of surge protection devices market.This market research study analyzes the surge protection devices market on a global level, and provides estimates in terms of revenue (USD million) from 2014 to 2020. It recognizes the drivers and restraints affecting the industry and analyzes their impact over the forecast period. Moreover, it identifies the significant opportunities for market growth in the coming years.Request For Report Discount:The report segments the market on the basis of geography as North America, Europe, Asia Pacific (APAC), and Rest of the World (RoW), and these have been estimated in terms of revenue (USD million). In addition, the report segments the market based on the technology, which includes solid state lasers, gas lasers and semiconductor lasers. Moreover, it segments the market on the basis of process as fusion cutting, flame cutting and sublimation cutting. Furthermore, the report segments the market based on the end use industry, which include automotive, consumer electronics, defense and aerospace, industrial and others. All these segments have also been estimated on the basis of geography in terms of revenue (USD million).For better understanding of the laser cutting machines market, we have given a detailed analysis of the supply chain. A detailed Porters five forces analysis has been given for a better understanding of the intensity of the competition present in the market. Furthermore, the study comprises a market attractiveness analysis, where the applications are benchmarked based on their market scope, growth rate and general attractiveness.The report provides company market share analysis of various industry participants. The key players have also been profiled on the basis of company overview, financial overview, business strategies, SWOT analysis, and the recent developments in the field of laser cutting machines. Major market participants profiled in this report include Amada Miyachi CO, Bystronic Incorporation, ALPHA Laser GmbH, Coherent Incorporation, DPSS Lasers Incorporation, Trumpf Laser GMBH + Co. Kg and IPG Photonics Corporation among others.Browse Full Report:Laser Cutting Machines Market: By geography North America Europe Asia Pacific Rest of the WorldLaser Cutting Machines Market: By technology Solid state lasers Gas lasers Semiconductor lasersLaser Cutting Machines Market: By process Fusion cutting Flame cutting Sublimation cuttingLaser Cutting Machines Market: By end use industry Automotive Consumer electronics Defense and aerospace Industrial OthersAbout Us:Research Report Insights (RRI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver a host of services including custom research reports, syndicated research reports, and consulting services which are personalised in nature. RRI delivers a complete packaged solution to clients; this combines current market intelligence, technology inputs, statistical anecdotes, valuable growth insights, 360-degree view of the competitive framework, and anticipated market trends.Contact Us:Research Report Insights101 Maimuna ApartmentKoliwada Vasai West,Mumbai-401201Email: sales@researchreportinsights.comWeb Site:Ultrasonic Sensors Market: Key Playars Siemens AG, Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd., Rockwell Automation Inc., Microsonic GmbH, Baumer Group, MaxBotix Inc., OMRON Corporation, by 2023

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The ultrasonic sensors are used for liquid level measurement, object detection, distance measurement, anti collision detection and pallet detection among others. Ultrasonic sensors are used to improve the operational efficiency and provide additional safety in manufacturing facilities. This is one of the major factors fueling the demand for ultrasonic sensors globally.The need for demand of automation and focus on improvement of production efficiency has increased across industries such as automotive, chemical, construction, and food and beverages among others. Moreover, increasing demand for advanced features such as automatic steering controls, park assist system, blind spot detection and adaptive cruise control is also expected to have a positive impact on the demand for ultrasonic sensors globally.Report For Report SampleThe rising concern for driver safety has ensured the integration of antilock braking systems (ABS) in most of the vehicles. Moreover, the ultrasonic sensors are used to control steering, acceleration and braking while parking the vehicle. In addition, the ultrasonic sensors also gather location information of the vehicle. In addition, the emerging concept of wearable medical devices is also aiding to the growth of the market. The wearable medical devices are embedded with various types of sensors such as ultrasonic, temperature, heart rate sensors and pressure sensors among others. The ultrasonic sensors can be used to visualize the internal parts of the human body without causing any negative impact. These factors are driving the growth for the market during the forecast period.By types, the market is divided into ultrasonic proximity sensors, ultrasonic retro-reflective sensor, ultrasonic through beam sensor, ultrasonic 2 point proximity switches. On the basis of application the ultrasonic sensors market segmented into liquid level measurement, object detection, distance measurement, anti collision detection, pallet detection and others. By industry the market is categorized into automotive, power and gas & oil, chemical, agriculture, construction, pulp and paper, material handling, food and beverage, medical and healthcare and aerospace and defense among others. Moreover, the report also provides cross sectional analysis of all the above segments across different countries within different regions such as North America, Asia Pacific, Europe and Rest of the World.In 2014, among the different types of ultrasonic sensor, the ultrasonic proximity sensors occupied the largest market share. However, the ultrasonic through beam sensors segment is anticipated to witness the fastest growth rate. The rapid growth of this segment is attributed to the increasing demand for microprocessor controllers and ability to detect fast moving objects in short range.Among the different applications of ultrasonic sensors, the liquid level measurement sensor held the largest market share in 2014. Increasing use of liquid level measurement sensors for level surface detection, non contact level measurement and monitoring liquid level changes in tank among others is aiding to the growth of this segment.Geographically, the Asia Pacific ultrasonic sensors market is predicted to experience the fastest growth from 2015 to 2023.The rapid expansion of production facility and the falling prices of the sensor components is fuelling the growth in this region.In order to get a better understanding of the ultrasonic sensors market, a key trends analysis has been included for all the segments. Furthermore, the market share of the major players in the optical position sensors in semiconductor modules and chips market has also been discussed in terms of market share revenue held globally. In addition, the key players in the market have also been profiled in terms of their product segments, financial overview, recent developments and business strategies adopted by them. The leading players in the market include Pepperl+Fuchs GmbH, Siemens AG, Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd., Rockwell Automation Inc., Microsonic GmbH, Baumer Group, MaxBotix Inc., OMRON Corporation, Honeywell International Inc., Branson Ultrasonics Corporation, Gems Sensors & Controls, Senix Corporation and Crest Ultrasonics Corp. among others.Request Report Discount:The global ultrasonic sensors market can be segmented as follows;-Global Ultrasonic Sensors Market, By TypeUltrasonic Proximity SensorsUltrasonic Retro-Reflective SensorsUltrasonic Through Beam SensorsUltrasonic 2 Point Proximity SwitchesGlobal Ultrasonic Sensors Market, By ApplicationLiquid Level MeasurementObject DetectionDistance MeasurementAnti Collision DetectionPallet DetectionOthersGlobal Ultrasonic Sensors Market, By IndustryAutomotivePower and Oil & GasChemicalAgricultureConstructionPulp & paperMaterial HandlingFood and BeverageMedical and HealthcareAerospace and DefenseOthers (Metal working, Printing, Textile)Global Ultrasonic Sensors Market, By GeographyReport Analysis:About Us:Research Report Insights (RRI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver a host of services including custom research reports, syndicated research reports, and consulting services which are personalised in nature. RRI delivers a complete packaged solution to clients; this combines current market intelligence, technology inputs, statistical anecdotes, valuable growth insights, 360-degree view of the competitive framework, and anticipated market trends.Contact Us:Research Report Insights (RRI)101 Maimuna ApartmentKoliwada Vasai WestMumbai-401201Phone - (+91) 787-575-8555Website:Email: sales@researchreportinsights.comLingerie Market: Key Players Jockey International Inc. (Kenosha, Wisconsin, U.S), Hanes (North Carolina U.S.), Groupe Chantelle (Cachan, France), LVMH (Boise U.S), by 2024

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Lingerie market has occupied a significant position in the apparel industry in recent years as it not only serves its functional benefits but also is considered as an basic necessity to every woman. The the global lingerie market has been bifurcated on the basis of product types into bras, knickers and panties, lounge wear, shape wear and others which includes baby doll, corsets, chemises and chemisoles among others. Bra as an essential necessity and also a fashion accessory to every women and it has captured the largest market share in 2015. Knickers and panties also occupied a significant position in the same year, thus contributing significantly to the overall market size of the lingerie industry. The market is further segmented on the basis of distribution channel into online stores and storefront. Online stores captured the largest market in 2015 due to high penetration of internet services and rapid advancements in the field of technology, thus creating a strong platform for the manufacturers of lingerie Further, the e-commerce giants are engaged in strong promotional activities due to which they provide with continuous discount options and various other offers which attract both consumers and manufacturers to avail this platform.Females in the developing countries are experiencing latest trends towards carrying themselves in public. They are changing their outlook towards accepting innerwear as a casual affair and take time to choose and make a purchase. The outerwear of women has undergone a dramatic change and due to this women prefer selecting inner wear, especially bras that can match with their attire. They try to purchase lingerie depending on the occasion or event, such as there are special sport wear bras for gymnasium purpose.Report For Report SampleIt can be demonstrated from the product differentiation brought by the lingerie manufacturers over online and retail stores. Thus this is a key factor complementing the growth of the global lingerie market. Lingerie has witnessed a rapid acceptance in the fashion industry. Women from all backgrounds want to try out the latest trends in the inner wear segment. Most of the large brands have exclusive stores in shopping malls or independent stores. In developing countries like India and China, brands like Jockey try to reach out to customers through small roadside innerwear shops. Additionally, lingerie is available at stores as well as online. Brands like Victoria Secret have country specific websites for easier transactions and shipment.However, the lingerie wear maintains high cost for advertisement and other marketing promotions. This is due to the cost of celebrities or models that are hired for being featured in the photo shoots. Moreover, the destination or location cost of the photo shoot depends and therefore larger brands do not compromise in keeping high cost for their lingerie wear. Therefore, this factor is majorly hindering the growth of the market and the impact of the same is likely to reduce by the end of the forecast period.Moreover, the global lingerie market is experiencing moderate growth in the apparel segment as nowadays individuals are more inclined towards branded items, most of which are usually priced on the higher end. People from all backgrounds and income group want to avail a comfortable and lasting inner wear that can be fashionable as well as skin-friendly. There are many local brands or companies that manufacture cheap quality products to cater to the wide population in the under developed or developing countries. Mergers and acquisitions are a strategic way of entering the market and understanding the current needs and preferences of the population. Through this, the large companies will benefit in capturing the market and at the same time, will enable the small companies to fight for a better position in the market..Moreover, in this report the study provides different countries included in different regions such as North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America and Middle East and Africa. North America includes U.S. and Rest of North America. Europe includes U.K., Germany, France, Russia, Italy and Rest of Europe. Asia Pacific includes countries such as India, China, Japan and Rest of Asia Pacific. In addition, Middle East and Africa includes country such as UAE, South Africa and Rest of Middle East and Africa. Latin America comprise of countries such as Brazil and Rest of Latin AmericaAsia Pacific is anticipated to witness the fastest growth during the forecast period. Transition in the lifestyle of the consumers which is backed by rapid urbanization and increasing purchasing power is a major factor behind the high growth of this market in Asia Pacific. Further, consumer exposure to the same by way of advertisements through televisions, and print media among others is another key factor responsible for the growth of the Lingerie Market in this region.Some of the major key players operating in the global contact lens market are, Jockey International Inc. (Kenosha, Wisconsin, U.S), Hanes (North Carolina U.S.), Groupe Chantelle (Cachan, France), LVMH (Boise U.S), L Brands Inc. (Columbus, Ohio), MAS Holdings Limited (Colombo, Srilanka), Ann Summers (London, U.K.), Marks and Spencer (London U.K), PVH Corporation (New York, U.S) among others.Request Report Discount:The report analyzes the factors that are driving and restraining the growth of the lingerie market. This report will help manufacturers, distributors and suppliers to understand the present and future trends in this market and formulate strategies accordingly.The global lingerie market can be segmented as follows;- Global Lingerie Market, by Type Bra Knickers and Panties Lounge wear Shape wear Others Global Lingerie Market, by Distribution Channel Online Stores Store Front Global Lingerie Market, by Geography North America U.S. Rest of North America Europe U.K. Germany France Italy Rest of Europe Asia Pacific China Japan India Rest of Asia Pacific Latin America Brazil Rest of Latin America Middle East and Africa UAE South Africa Rest of Middle East & AfricaReport Analysis:About Us:Research Report Insights (RRI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver a host of services including custom research reports, syndicated research reports, and consulting services which are personalised in nature. RRI delivers a complete packaged solution to clients; this combines current market intelligence, technology inputs, statistical anecdotes, valuable growth insights, 360-degree view of the competitive framework, and anticipated market trends.Contact Us:Research Report Insights (RRI)101 Maimuna ApartmentKoliwada Vasai WestMumbai-401201Phone - (+91) 787-575-8555Website:Email: sales@researchreportinsights.comHealth official: 'Very pleased with increased interest in getting vaccinated'

localCharleston, SC (29403)

Today

Showers this morning then scattered thunderstorms developing during the afternoon hours. High 81F. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies early will give way to cloudy skies late. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low 69F. Winds light and variable.John McCain has reportedly barred U.S. President Donald Trump from attending his funeral when he dies.

The Arizona Republican Senator loathed Mr Trump so much that he planned to distance him from beyond the grave, reports said.

The ailing Arizona Republican, who has brain cancer, is organising his funeral  and close associates have reportedly told the White House that Mr Trump would not be invited.

Instead, Vice President Mike Pence, who served with Mr McCain in Congress, would be asked to attend the service, the New York Times reported on Saturday.

The funeral ceremony for the former Republican Presidential candidate would be held at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.

A stream of politicians, including former Vice President Joe Biden and former Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, have been visiting Mr McCain at his Arizona ranch and a nearby hospital in recent weeks.

Mr Trumps long-running feud with Mr McCain has roots in the early days of the 2016 presidential race.

The senator criticised Mr Trump for disparaging Mexican immigrants in the June 2015 speech in which the president declared his candidacy.

Three weeks later, Mr Trump called McCain incompetent and dismissed his experience as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

Hes not a war hero. Hes not a war hero because he was captured. I like people that werent captured, Mr Trump told an Iowa crowd.

U.S. President, Donald Trump (Photo Credit: Financial Tribune)

Mr McCain is seen as one of the most respected U.S. politicians, who enjoys a cross-party goodwill among politicians.

He fought in the U.S. military war in Vietnam and was a prisoner of war.

During the Vietnam War, he was almost killed in the 1967 USS Forrestal fire.

While Mr McCain was on a bombing mission over Hanoi in October 1967, he was shot down, seriously injured, and captured by the North Vietnamese.

Taken prisoner after his plane was shot down, he suffered five and a half years of torture and confinement before his release in 1973.

(NAN)Temitope Alonge, the Chief Medical Director of University College Hospital, Ibadan, says the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is partnering with the VVF centre in the premier health facility to address the condition, including reintegration of patients.

Mr Alonge made this known to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) while fielding questions in Ibadan on the treatment and rehabilitation of VVF victims into the society.

Fistula Care Plus, USA, began supporting the centre in 2012 to address complex cases. The centre is a training centre and accepts referrals from neighbouring state hospitals across the South West in addition to providing family planning services.

A pool effort sponsored by a Nigerian Nollywood actress was successfully carried out in 2014 on 20 women.

We were able to bring hope and succour to the women who had been suffering and living with this condition for varying periods of time. The women had repair surgeries done at no cost to them and their families.

UCH reserves 14 bed spaces for fistula patients. But this has now been expanded to 21 bed spaces.

Through collaboration with Fistula Care Project, we have been able to build community awareness and increase focus on the integration of family planning services with fistula and maternal health care, he said.

NAN reports that UCH is the only facility in the South-west catering for VVF patients.

Mr Alonge, however, called on the federal government, international health organisations and other stakeholders to partner Nigeria to fight the menace, saying it is becoming a threat to public health.

He also called on federal government and other philanthropists in the health sector to intervene in the rehabilitation of the victims in the country.

Another Fistula surgeon and Head of Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at UCH, Ayo Arowojodu, told NAN that the federal government needs to strengthen the health system and change public perception about VVF.

We have realised that early marriage is no longer one of the predisposing factors to developing VVF. Any woman can develop fistula at any age, if during delivery she fails to go to a place where she can get safe CS.

Statistics show that every day, 145 women in Nigeria die giving birth. About 12,000 to 15,000 others end up with obstetric fistula, one of the complications of delayed birth.

We need to ensure that the Society of Gynaecologists and Obstetricians of Nigeria trains the medical students and house officers.

This is because most Caesarean Section (CS) done in hospitals are not performed by specialists; we should tailor the training not only to the specialists but also to the younger medical officers, he said.

A Surgeon in Ogun, Dr Adewunmi Alayaki, called on the federal government to subsidise the treatment of VVF.

He told NAN in Abeokuta that the treatment needed to be subsidised as most patients are indigent and could not afford to pay for the treatment.

Mr Alayake, however, said the ailment was not too rampant in the South West Zone.

The last one I saw was last year in the State Hospital Ilaro. I referred her to UCH Ibadan.

Because it is not rampant here, we really dont need a centre for it, the sub-specialist in the repair of it in our tertiary institutions are enough to take care of them, he said.

Mr Alayaki, a former Secretary of the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA), urged the appropriate authorities to engage in rigorous advocacy because of the way patients are treated as outcasts.

He also advised relations of the sufferers to exercise patience with them and give them lots of care and love while also looking for a way to cure them.

We need a lot of advocacy on that; they are seen as outcasts and because theres no money to treat them, coupled with the perpetual urine odour oozing out of them, nobody wants to associate with them.

But if their relations and friends get to know theres a solution which they can afford, I believe they should settle for that, rather than pushing them away, he added.

In Osun, Orgy Ernest, a Consultant on Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital Complex (OAUTHC), Ile-Ife, said victims of VVF needed encouragement and love from their relatives for them to be able to feel free in the society.

A Hospital ward with health workers used to illustrate the story

Mr Ernest noted that early ante-natal care by pregnant women at recognised hospitals was one of the ways to prevent VVF.

He said husbands should encourage their wives to always patronise qualified doctors during pregnancy, adding that in case there was any complication, the doctors would be able to correct them immediately.

He said though VVF corrective surgery was expensive, those who needed it should try everything possible to get it done.

Also speaking, Rafiu Isamotu, the Osun Commissioner for Health, said reintegrating VVF victims back into society required joint efforts of individuals and government.

Mr Isamotu said some VVF victims recently underwent free corrective surgery through the support of the state government at Wesley Hospital, Ilesa.

The commissioner said that the victims had been reintegrated back into the society quietly without any form of stigma.

Government has being creating awareness on the causes and effects of VVF which is not that common in Osun.

Private individuals can also play key roles through counselling, seminars, and also by going to rural areas to sensitise the people on the dangers of early marriages, among others.

Although VVF is caused by many factors among which is prolonged child birth, there is urgent need for government and the media to partner in senstising people on the causes and prevention of VVF among women, he said.

A Professor of Medical Sociology at the Ekiti State University, Ado Ekiti, Taiwo Christopher, deplored the stigmatisation of VVF patients.

There have been calls that VVF patients be given treatment free of charge in the country through the collaboration of the Federal Government and other well-meaning individuals, he said.

(NAN)The Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Kayode Fayemi, has blamed desperate aspirants for Saturdays violent disruption of the All Progressives Congress governorship primaries at Kayode Oluyemi Stadium in Ado Ekiti.

One of his co-contestants, Babafemi Ojudu, a special adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on political matters, however, blamed Mr Fayemi for the violence.

The exercise was suspended indefinitely after some supporters of 32 aspirants disrupted the voting process accusing Mr Fayemi, a leading governorship aspirant, of compromising the process.

A meeting of the aspirants held with the Organising Committee led by Nasarawa State Governor, Tanko Al-Makura, resolved to suspend the election indefinitely amidst continued agitations by supporters of the other 32 aspirants.

The crisis began at about 5.30 p.m. when some agents raised observations and protested that officials of the State Security Service (SSS) were dictating to delegates who they should vote for.

One of the supporters attacked voting area and a commotion ensued, disrupting the entire process.

Police and other security agencies shot sporadically into the air to scare the supporters from further doing damage.

Many of the delegates scampered for safety outside the venue of the election and did not return,

Efforts by the Al-Makura -led committee calm frayed nerves and get the process underway was unsuccessful.

The agent of Mr Fayemi, Adewunmi Abejide, while speaking on the cause of the crisis, said the other agents saw that his principal was obviously coasting to victory after five local governments had voted and decided to disrupt the process.

But the other aspirants disagree, saying that the Mr Fayemi had plotted to compromise the process contrary to rules and guidelines of the primaries.

Some of agents accused Mr Abejide of dictating to delegates who to vote for and also writing the serial numbers of their ballot papers to authenticate who they actually voted for, probably for pecuniary gains after the poll.

The protest attracted their principals and other interested parties, who joined the fray and made spirited efforts to grab the ballot boxes to stall the entire process.

There was an issue somewhere about the exercise and they raised observation about sharp practices that had compromised the process which led to protest. And the feeling was that the process should be suspended to avoid bloodshed, said Bimbo Daramola, one of the aspirants.

Asked to confirm that violence erupted because Mr Fayemi was leading with a wide margin in about five of the 16 local governments, the aspirant said it was not true.

I dont believe that is correct. The results have not been counted, so that was an assumption, he said.

Ekiti APC is not in any way fractured, we are one big family. If Fayemi defeats us, we are all going to back him, because the party is supreme. But this must come through a free, fair and credible process.

The Director General of the Babafemi Ojudu campaign, Ranti Adebisi, said the process could not continue because it had been compromised.

The guideline stipulated that each aspirant can only bring in four supporters, but Fayemi brought many. His agents, including DSS were issuing cards to delegates to fill when they vote for him, so that they can later come for the money he promised them, he said.

I contested against Fayemi in 2007 and I knew what I am talking about. The process has been compromised. Even, Fayemi has been bragging around that he is a friend to Alhaji Tanko Al Makura, so we are disappointed that this could happen.

However, Mr Fayemi has condemned the disruption of the exercise by thugs working for some aspirants.

In a statement signed by his media aide, Yinka Oyebode, he said the APC as a party did not deserve the type of ridicule which the shameful act of the hoodlums had subjected it to.

Mr Fayemi said the disruption of the primary election was the height of desperation on the part of some aspirants, who having seen defeat staring them in the face, conspired together to ensure that the exercise was not concluded.

According to him, the aspirants resorted to violence and destruction, having realised that he was already in a clear lead in the five local governments that had cast their votes.

He also said he was not surprised by the disruption of the exercise, stating that the security agencies had, a few days to the primary, been notified of plans by some aspirants to deploy hoodlums to disrupt the voting exercise.

He, however said that the security agencies took note of the information and promised to beef up security at the venue.

It is quite painful seeing some desperate elements trying so much to rubbish the party we all laboured to build to national reckoning, out of share lust for power, Mr Fayemi lamented.

If the quest for political position is to serve, then one wonders why the desperation being displayed by the likes of Femi Ojudu and Bimbo Daramola.

Certainly the conduct of these desperate aspirants falls short of the minimum standards expected of anyone that professes progressive ideals.

We urge our teeming supporters and loyal party members not to be discouraged by this despicable act. This surely shall pass, and better days are ahead. Our collective rescue mission has indeed begun.In this interview with PREMIUM TIMES Lois Ugbede, the National Secretary of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Shehu Gabam, speaks on the partys preparation for the coming Ekiti and Osun governorship elections, ongoing discussions with some governors and over 60 senators, the visit of its officials to former military president, Ibrahim Babangida and other issues. Excerpts:

PT: There are two elections coming up, namely the governorship elections in Ekiti and Osun States. How prepared is your party for the elections?

Gabam: We are well prepared because there was an INEC guideline guiding Ekiti State and Osun State elections. But before then we have been on ground in EKiti State. If you have your agents on ground in Ekiti State, they will tell you right now in virtually every local government that we are very strong. We have four gubernatorial aspirants who purchased their forms and returned it officially yesterday and there will be a screening committee to screen them before they go back to the field to commence campaign. We are working tirelessly. We know what the situation in Ekiti state is quite very fluid we are exploiting such situation to our own good as SDP is a major force that has come on stage. And of course, we are applying off on it in all our elections including the presidential election. So, we want to make a paradigm shift from the tradition of delegates who are always used to take away decent, credible and responsible people from occupying responsible positions and mediocrities and criminals always having their way by buying delegates so as to get to those positions. We felt that we should restore a community-based democracy, a participatory democracy. People should vote from their polling units, from their wards, from their local government areas and the state so that no community will say that somebody was imposed on them. They must have known a particular person they are bringing forward to vote for, who understand what their challenges or what their peculiarities are as a community so that when he gets there to either state or national assembly, he would able to protect and work for the interest of the community. This is a restoration of participatory democracy.

PT: Do you see SDP winning the elections considering the fact that two major parties are presently in power in the two states  PDP in EKiti and APC in Osun?

Gabam: I am over-optimistic we will win EKiti and Osun States. PDP is very weak. Forget about the rhetoric of Governor Ayo Fayose which is his tradition. When it comes to clear operation, I have been to EKiti and I have seen the enthusiasm. We have the pulse of the feelings of the people of Ekiti State and I know that they are desperately looking for a change. They are looking for a new face, someone who can deliver whatever he promises and by the time we unveil our new manifesto and constitution, you will be shocked. We have captured the mindset of Nigerians, what Nigerians are feeling and what they are looking forward to. So, we are working on such document. By our next convention we will unveil all those things for Nigerians to see all those promises. What we intend to do to transform the country are also there. So I can tell you that my expectation in Ekiti State is 85 per cent and that we are going to win Ekiti State. The PDP is weak. There is this tendency to sort of have a collaboration to see how we can work together as a team. Those were the issues we raised before leaving PDP and fusing into SDP. Democratically speaking, the space is becoming very competitive, very intimidating and we must work together to ensure that the environment is free of all intimidation and all tendency by government that is in place to silence virtually everybody. We fought for democracy, we negotiated the exit of military and restored democracy in Nigeria in 1999 and therefore there are some of us that cannot be intimidated. We have been there for a very long time and we know the dynamism that is involved in the system.

We are very sure by Gods grace of taking Osun State. So far we have about two strong persons that are eyeing SDP, one of them is out, Senator Omisore that joined the SDP. Also there is one of them who is very strong that is coming on board and we are expecting about six other people from Osun State that are soon going to join SDP. So I am sure you have been reading on the pages of newspapers the serious crisis going on between the PDP and the SDP in Osun State  the tearing of so called posters, offices being converted into SDP and so on and so forth. This kind of political frictions between the political gladiators is already going on in Osun State. So, the political environment is really very charged and I am sure in the next one month you will see those physical changes. As far as the political parties are concerned, the pictures will be clearer.

PT: There are speculations that some APC chieftains are planning to join the SDP and notable among them is a former Kano State governor and the senator representing Kano Central Senatorial District, Rabiu Kwankwaso. How true is that?

Gabam: We are interfacing with a lot of senators. I wont call names. We are interfacing with over 60 senators and a lot of governors as well and other VIPs across the length and breadth of Nigeria. So the discussions have gone very high, processes are ongoing. We have provided hope, just the way we restored hope in 1999 when hope was lost. We restored democracy to Nigeria and the fundamental reason why we left PDP back to SDP is to restore the hope that Nigerians have seem to have lost again and we have restored that hope in SDP. We have reinvigorated the SDP, We are repackaging the SDP, and we are relaunching SDP as a major fundamental platform for all Nigerians to key in. Dont forget we had a very unique history at the time during the military regime when the two party system were being promoted, SDP and NRC were registered. NRC has fizzled out, but SDP remains. SDP is the only party in the history of Nigeria that has produced a president and vice president of the same religion. Nigerians have not gone into religious, ethnic or sectional correlations when they are voting. They had policies and programmes that were so dear to the Nigerian people. So these are issues that we looked into and were very clear in our thoughts that we need a party that will serve as a rallying point to every Nigerian irrespective of tribe and religion, irrespective of where you come from. It will be a platform that will accommodate, that will give you the opportunity to vie for whatever position you want to vie for. We were very specific in our terms when we said SDP will be a platform for all Nigerians and the logo is quite catchy. It is a household hold name  a white horse, very daring, very powerful. Every community knows what horse is all about because what markets a party is the logo and also the manifesto of the party and the ability to capture the sensibilities of Nigerians. There is a breakdown of law and order virtually in every part of this country. There is the loss of confidence in the system. There is abuse of the system. There is a gross incompetence as an act of governance and you have a lot of issues that are related to misfit in providing leadership. These are the issues we are re-positioning strongly and also providing a protectionist system. What we saw in the National Assembly, a kind of attack by thugs led by somebody who call himself a senator is one of the greatest disservice the country has gone through. We must protect institution of democracy. The parliament must be protected at all cost. We will not condole an act by any individual being covered by whatever elements either in government or outside government to ridicule democracy. We fought for democracy. Some people died in the process of fighting for this democracy. So, no responsible, patriotic citizen will support what happened in the National Assembly. It is one of the most dastardly act carried out by some set of people and I believe the law enforcement agencies must do their job. If we want to have one country, nobody should be above the law and no society should condone an individual exhibiting a very bad behavior as if he an omega of things. Anybody can decide to employ a criminal behaviour to do whatever he wants to do. It is easy to be criminal than to be decent. These are some of the things we detest and as a citizen I detest it and as a Nigerian who has the right to talk about it.

Number two, we also find it very displeasing the comment of the president about the youth. I have been to several countries. Perhaps, it is only in Nigeria you see people struggling, selling pure water to survive. On the streets you see people selling banana, selling groundnut, just to meet the basic needs of life. If they cant be encouraged, they shouldnt be discouraged. And I am sure at the time of the election I know people who are pushing wheel barrow, selling water, selling recharge cards, selling groundnut, selling sugarcane who contributed to the election of the president. Perhaps, he was misquoted. If he was misquoted then he owes Nigerians a lot of explanation on what he means by that statement. I think there is need for him to expatiate clearly. I saw a bit of an attempt to explain it by his media man. I think that is grossly insufficient. The president who made the statement needs to make a lot of clarification. He is the president of Nigeria and we must respect him as the president of Nigeria. We are respecting that office as the president and the commander-in-chief but making derogatory statement is uncalled for irrespective of our shortcomings. No society is perfect, Nigeria is not a perfect society, America is not a perfect society and crime is not new to any society. America, as organised as it is we are recording daily crimes. People go to school to kill innocent children that are in secondary school and primary school. So it is not about crime, it is about standing for what the country stood for, protecting the image of the country, linking the global community, defending the integrity of the nation. That is what leadership is all about.

PT: You said something about the old SDP and new SDP and you were trying to link them up. The old SDP was banned and it cant be the same with the new.

Gabam: No, it was re-registered by INEC.

PT: But as a different party entirely?

Gabam: They are bearing the same name; it is just that the time differs. Yes as at that time the election was annulled the parties were banned. People find the name so interesting and the manifesto of the party and the ability of the party to mobilise Nigerians to vote in a very unique way despite our diversity makes it a very historic political party. So, the group of people led by the current chairman Olu Falae went to INEC did all the necessary formalities to make sure the party was registered again. So its the same, an old wine in a new bottle.

PT: So, are the manifestoes the same?

Gabam: The manifesto is being modernised to meet up the challenges of the younger generations like you. I dont know how old you are. If you were there when SDP was registered you need to know the history of SDP. It is a party that the younger generations need to read its history. Perhaps, you heard about June 12. You need to know what led to June 12. These are the issues Nigerians need to be reminded about. What really cut us off as a people is because at a certain time history as a subject was stopped from being taught in schools, which is a great disservice to the country. It is a party that we feel it is critical for it to be strengthened this time around given the breakdown of law and order, sectionalism, the killings and also the barbarism going on in the country. We cannot condone such kind of exercise at all. We want to build a nation that is accommodating, that is self-preserving.

PT: With the election coming up, are you zoning your offices, particularly the presidency?

Gabam: There is no official position of zones but the presidency is most likely to come from the north. I think I am very certain about that.

PT: PDP recently made a statement about reaching out for an alliance or merger. Did the party reach out to the SDP?

Gabam: It didnt originate from the PDP, it is a collection of people who feel there is a need to have a broad-base of coalition. The country is under threat. The crisis is rocking the country very heavily and what we witnessed in 1998, this kind of segregation, this kind of agitation has bounced back to the system. So, there is the need for the political class that always makes the sacrifice to once again come together to see how hope can be restored, have sense of purpose, sense of rationality above any other thing. Yes, we belong to different political parties but we felt that there is the need to come together as a major force to create the balance, the sense of belonging and the sense of participation. So, for this reason the parties are interfacing in these areas and of course there are other areas of interest that have not been defined yet but as time goes on, we will define those areas specifically and will see how we can come to terms and work alongside, preserve and defend democracy throughout the country.

PT: Is it true IBB has joined the SDP?

Gabam: It wasnt a rumour. I was part of those who went there as the national secretary of the SDP. We went to pay him a courtesy call and also to thank him for the efforts he made in the past and also to solicit his support as father figure of the country who has ruled the country and has done excellently well. The reception was quite overwhelming and he went memory lane to talk about the party and his belief that party system should be very strong and that other parties can exist but there is need for the country to have two political parties. Of course we presented a gift to him which he cherished while he called on all Nigerians who believe in democracy and want a very strong and virile democracy to register with the SDP. He called on the younger generation to register with SDP and he said in specific terms that if he was a young man he would have registered with the SDP and champion the course of marketing SDP. So, yes by and large he is completely telling everybody SDP is the way out giving the situation we are in right now.Amid the controversy over the proposed anti-hate speech law, the sponsor of the bill on Friday gave reasons for proposing he bill. He said his intention was not to muzzle the media or curtail free speech in Nigeria.

Sabi Abdullahi (APC, Niger North) said the law, if passed, would promote national integration and ensure Nigerians were more responsive to the sensibilities of others by avoiding utterances capable of inciting violence and needless killings.

The senator gave the clarification as a panellist in the discussion on The Impact of Hate Speech on Press Freedom. The discussion was organised by the U.S. Embassy, Abuja, as part of the programme to mark the 2018 World Press Freedom Day.

Mr Abdullahi, who is also Chairman of the Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, also explained why he recommended perpetrators of hate speech be treated as murderers.

My interest in introducing the anti-Hate Speech Bill is for the country to have a law that would make Nigerians more responsive to the sensibilities of other Nigerians and avoid utterances capable of inciting violence and needless killings, he said.

If we have a law that moderates incidences that incite people to hatred and violence, it will allow people to live in peace. I am interested in ensuring Nigerians are saved from the killings going on today. We want to produce a society that is peaceful and ready to protect the dignity of persons.

Hate speech is about right to life. Most violence are traced to irresponsible statements by influential persons. That is why the bill says if someone made a speech that instigated people into violence and killings, that person should be committed for murder, which must be proven beyond reasonable doubt.

Mr Abdullahi said experts have traced the roots of hate speeches to two fault lines, ethnicity and religion, in view of the multi-ethnic and religious differences in the country.

He said a study by the Centre for Ethno-Information Technology and Development, Kano, between June and December 2015, recorded over 5,385 incidences of hate speeches, with over 94 per cent attributed to ethnicity and religion.

Noting fears by Nigerians, particularly among media practitioners, that the proposed law is a prospective tool for government to muzzle the press from performing its constitutional role in society, Mr Abdullahi urged critics to be circumspect and cautious.

Media and press freedom are not negotiable. Without them, the enthronement of democracy in Nigeria would not have been possible. But, to sustain and deepen democracy, we must support and protect free press at all cost, without which democracy would suffer, he said.

He noted the thin line between hate speech and press freedom, saying both were sensitive subjects requiring Nigerians to always be alive and alert to their responsibilities, by ensuring incisive criticisms of government was a civic duty based only on facts.

On the definition of hate speech, Mr Abdullahi referred to it as a very severe form of public speech targeted at an identified group, capable of inciting people to hatred, violence and killings.

Besides, he said, other elements of hate speech include statements that, when considered, were not helpful in their social and historical contexts.

A visiting South Africa-based American journalist and photographer, Linda Hervieux, who was also on the panel, presented a global perspective to the discussion.

World Press Day event by the U.S. Embassy in Abuja on Friday

Other members of the panel included the Director-General, National Broadcasting Commission, Ishaq Kawu, and a former Executive Director, Africa independent television (AIT), Imoni Amarere.

Ms Hervieux, who gave the American perspective on the topic, said hate speech, as defined by American journalism think tank, the Newseum Institute, was a speech that tags a person or group on the basis of attributes such as race, religion, ethnic or national origin, sexual orientation, disability or gender.

Drawing a thin line between hate speech and free speech, Ms Hervieux who wrote at various times for the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, the New York Daily News, and the Daily Beast, said anti-hate speech laws in U.S. were linked to regulations under the First Amendment of the Constitution.

Describing hate speech regulation as tricky, particularly in the current era of the internet and fake news, she said often laws targeting hate speech or fake news could be used as instruments for muzzling the press.

Although she said such laws do not necessarily diminish the freedom of the press, Ms Hervieux said they constituted a slippery slope requiring tremendous vigilance by citizens to ensure they do not become tools of oppression (by government).

Citing various experiences in U.S., UK, France, Germany and South Africa, Ms Hervieux said questions by journalists criticising anti-hate speech laws often centred on the definition of hate speech and how they are enforced.

How sound are the institutions or public officials who enforce restrictions against hate speech? Or how honest are the officials? Or what their interests are? Is there a hidden agenda behind those efforts? Is the effort aimed at protecting people or silencing critics of government? she said.

Apart from the latest World Press Freedom index showing Nigeria in the red tier as one of the places the practice of journalism is difficult, Ms Hervieux said Reporters Without Borders organisation also noted recently that although Nigeria has a very vibrant media, there were reasons for concerns.

To check hate speech, she said we need to encourage more speeches from many different voices by educating citizens about the value of free speech, rather than enforced silence.

She said the media has an important role to play in spotlighting violence and speech that targets victims by race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and religion, status, identity.

The anti-hate speech bill is set for Second Reading and public hearing at the parliament. It has been criticised by activists and journalists as a tool to gag free speech undermine the media.Victims of Vesico Vaginal Fistula (VVF) in North West Nigeria are being rehabilitated after treatment to ease their reintegration into the society without discrimination, a check by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) has revealed.

The states of Kano, Kebbi, Kaduna, Jigawa, Zamfara, Sokoto and Katsina make up the region.

The reintegration programme being supported by health officials, donor agencies, families and community leaders have helped the victims to return to their communities and enjoy normal lives after the treatment.

However, some of the victims are still asking for more especially in the area of skills training to enable them cater for their financial needs.

In Kano State, the Fistula Foundation Nigeria, said it has adopted social and physical reintegration approaches to return VVF patients to their communities.

Musa Isa, who heads the organisation, told NAN in Kano that the intervention helps the women to overcome social, physical and socio-economic challenges which were identified by the women themselves.

He said that the women had complained that those challenges deter most of them from going back to their communities.

According to him, the physical approach involved the surgery where the women are operated upon, while the social integration involved fighting stigma among the patients and building their capacity in many ways to ease their stress.

We first identified 368 patients who were inoperable from Kebbi, Sokoto, Kano, Kaduna and Jigawa states for the reintegration.

With support from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and Fistula Foundation California, we were able to provide social and economic support to the patients, he said.

He explained that the foundation secured free accommodation for the patients and set up literacy classes and empowerment initiatives for them.

Mr Isa further explained that they paid advocacy visits to communities of the patients and organise interactive sessions in order to clear misconceptions about the illness.

We also follow up on those that were reintegrated back to the communities to ensure they were using their skills and have no challenges, he said.

He added that the foundation had also conducted reconstruction of the neo-vagina for the inoperable patients, to enable them remarry.

With support from the UNFPA, about 30 women went through the reconstruction surgery successfully and five of them have already been remarried.

Mr Isa revealed that some of those reintegrated to their communities had returned to the cities due to challenges and resorted to street begging.

He expressed optimism that with continuous support of NGOs, the reintegration of VVF patients would be much easier in the state.

ZAMFARA

In Zamfara, the Executive Director, Centre for Community Excellence, Adamu Abubakar, said a robust enlightenment programme has been going on to sensitise communities on the illness and the need to embrace the VVF patients.

Mr Abubakar told NAN in Gusau that the centre has been collaborating with another organisation, Engender for Health, in the last three years on the sensitisation programme.

Most communities now understand the danger of VVF and more women are attending Antenatal clinics.

The awareness campaign is done through community leaders and has succeeded in making husbands allow their pregnant wives to go for routine check-up.

The executive director, however, said that the major challenges still remain in the area of transportation of victims from rural areas to hospitals, poverty and poor personal hygiene.

He also noted that healthcare facilities for VVF patients were grossly inadequate, as the state has only one centre attending to the patients.

Mr Abubakar, therefore, urged the federal government to set up at least one VVF centre in each senatorial district in the country.

A member of Religious Leaders Advocacy Champion involved in health issues in the state, Abubakar Abubakar, noted that discrimination against VVF patients in the state has drastically reduced.

People have begun to understand ways they can help patients as against discrimination and isolation.

Husbands and relatives now take their patients to hospital even without any intervention due to sustained advocacy campaign especially in Maru, Bukkuyum, Tsafe and Zurmi Local Government Areas which recorded more cases of VVF, he said.

Mr Abubakar explained that the campaign is being conducted in public places including palaces of traditional rulers, schools, mosques, markets and during weddings.

Fatima Alti, a VVF patient at Farida General Hospital, Gusau, said she was brought to the centre by her husband and has not experienced any form of social discrimination from her family members.

The Coordinator of the VVF Centre, Rakiya Abubakar, told NAN that cases of VVF ware declining in the state.

Ms. Abubakar said: Now we are receiving less number of clients as against previous years, I think people are more proactive on the matter.

KEBBI

In Kebbi, Abubakar Dakingari, the Medical Director of the State VVF Centre, said cases of stigmatisation of fistula patients has reduced by 80 per cent in the state.

He told NAN in Birnin Kebbi that the victims now enjoy support and encouragement from their husbands and relatives.

In 2013, when we came in, we met a statistics of stigma on women affected by the VVF so alarming and painful that over 40 per cent of women affected by the ailment were divorcees; they were divorced simply because they were victims of VVF.

We embarked on awareness campaigns, involving traditional and religious leaders that VVF is not a communicable disease and is preventable.

We educated the society through the leaders that the victims found themselves affected because the father and husband or the government were not doing enough, and the fault was not from the women.

The awareness campaign assisted tremendously in the reduction of stigmatisation of the VVF victims.

Almost all the women that are here have husbands and their husbands are still with them supporting them at all levels, Mr Dakingari said.

He said most patients were affected by the disease due to prolonged labour or through genital mutilation.

He explained that the centre offers treatment free to patients from within and outside the country.

We have patients from Benin and Niger Republics as well as some states within the country as we have the best VVF treatment centre in the country, he said.

Mr Dakingari stressed that most women affected by the condition were from remote villages that lacked roads and functional healthcare facilities.

He said the centre was supported by USAID and some NGOs.

We have received hospital equipment, theatre beds, surgical tools, family planning items and examination lamps by the Fistula Care Plus (USAID) as a donation.

The facilities would be utilised to boost the capacity of the centre and effectiveness of the service being delivered.

The surgeon said the centre had assisted 50 pregnant women treated of fistula ailment to deliver from January to date.

Because of the nature of their condition after undergoing treatment, we instructed them to come when their expected date of delivery were due in order to assist them have smooth and complicated free delivery, he said.

A pregnant fistula victim, Habiba Shehu from Augie Local Government Area of the state, said that she was affected by the ailment two years ago when she was undergoing labour.

But now, you can see I am pregnant again waiting for the coming of another baby with the assistance of the doctors in the centre.

I was told If I had pregnancy again to come when my expected date of delivery came nearer and here I am with my husband, she said.

Hadiza Sani, another VVF victim, said she had fistula problem five months ago but was fully treated at the centre.

I am living with my husband and five children, but I have never had any fistula until my fifth delivery.

On his part, the Director of Health, Birnin Kebbi Local Council, Shehu Muhammad, urged the State House of Assembly to enact a law against stigmatising VVF patients.

Most of the VVF patients have lost confidence in seeking treatment sequel to stigma from their husbands, relations and the public.

The law against stigmatisation would relieve patients of feeling unwanted and isolated by the society and relations, especially considering that culture and society are responsible in the way women emerged VVF patients.

The stigmatisation had resulted in patients becoming traumatic and affected by hypertensive related diseases, said Muhammad.

Tsahara Bawa, the Kebbi State Commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Development, said that the state government was providing assistance to treated VVF patients as part of effort to reintegrate them into the society.

We empower the victims by training them and giving skills on tailoring, knitting, beads and soap making, as well as sewing and grinding machines.

KADUNA

In Kaduna State, some of the VVF victims urged the state government to scale up intervention, access to treatment and psycho-social support.

The victims also urged the government to come up with ways to ease the victims reintegration into the society.

One of the women suffering from VVF, Jummai Joseph, aged 35, said she got the condition following prolonged labour she suffered in delivering her fifth child.

She said: I had complications due to prolonged labour and was taken to Kawo hospital for delivery.

I lost the baby which had to be removed via Caesarian Section; but my greatest shock was when the doctor told me I have VVF.

My life has never been the same ever since. I spent a lot of money to get treated.

She said that a reasonable number of women are suffering from the disease with no health facility within their reach and appealed to government to provide modern healthcare facilities for VVF victims.

She called on husbands to be patient with their wives having fistula by being loving and caring.

Another woman, who identified herself simply as Martha, said she also got the condition after prolong labour.

She added that the absence of health facility in their community made her to patronise old women with little experience of how to tackle complications during child birth.

Most of the victims are been treated as outcast by their families and even the society; government must do something about it for us to live a normal life.

A resident of Kaffin Gwari in Igabi Local Government Area, Esther Marcus, said not less than 20 women in the community are suffering from VVF due to lack of health facility.

We do not have anything in this community, not even a patent store to buy medicine. We have to go to Kawo for everything. One can only imagine what we go through during medical emergency.

We do not even have trained traditional birth attendants. We have to fall back on old women with a bit of experience about child birth whenever our women want to deliver and we have lost quite a number of children in the process.

In Zaria, a Lagos based NGO, Hope Ambassadors, have intervened in the area of moral support, encouragement, love and care to VVF patients at Gambo Sawaba General Hospital, Kofar Gayan, Zaria.

The President of the organisation, Mandy Olowu, told NAN in Zaria that the intervention was due to the great work being done by the hospital in the last 26 years.

These people need moral support, encouragement; love and care from people to enable them live a normal life.

VVF is a disease that can be cured and is non-communicable. Therefore, we should not run away from our relations, friends or loved ones because of the problem.

Our mission is to come and appreciate the efforts of the hospital, doctors and present some little gifts apart from words of hope to VVF patients responding to treatment here.

Am happy with what I saw in the hospital, the patients are well accepted and being taken care of. However, this is not the case in the west, there is stigma, people feel that the disease is not curable at all, she noted.

Yunus Ibrahim, the Imam of Sunnah Mosque, Kababari, Zaria, advised people to embrace rehabilitated VVF patients to enable them live normal life.

There is every need for people to accept the rehabilitated patients to give them a sense of hope to live like any other individual.

This is a sickness from our creator and we thank Allah (SWT) that such sickness is being healed; therefore, we have to reintegrate them into the society without discrimination.

I enjoin us all to accept them, love them, sympathise with them and give them all the necessary support to feel normal and loved.

A mother to one of the victims, Malama Bilkisu Umar, expressed appreciation to the hospital management as well as international donor agencies for the rehabilitation exercise.

She also thanked some NGOs for extending hands of fellowship to the patients and urged them to sustain the tempo.

A VVF victim, Rebeca Dodo, also called on government at all levels to consider the possibility of introducing a special after care programme for VVF patients.

We want a situation where government will introduce a programme to give rehabilitated VVF patients special training to assist them after the treatment.

Most times, when a woman is rehabilitated she will find it very difficult to be reintegrated into the society because of stigma.

However, when we are given entrepreneurial training, this will certainly go a long way in assisting us, she said.

KATSINA

Reports from Katsina State indicate that no fewer than 31,200 VVF patients were successfully treated at the National Obstetric Fistula Centre, Katsina, from 1984 to 2017.

Aliyu El-Ladan, the Medical Director of the centre, told NAN that the centre conducts between 400 and 500 surgeries on VVF patients annually.

He revealed that the centre is also a VVF research institute where patients from across the country and beyond patronise for free and effective treatment.

The medical director noted that the centre has one of the biggest VVF rehabilitation centres in Africa that train victims after treatment to reintegrate them into the society.

He further said that of recent, about 53 women were rehabilitated and given knitting and tailoring machines as well as N20,000 cash to set up their own businesses.

Mr El-Ladan said that was done with the support of the Katsina State Government.

He said that they conduct enlightenment campaign in the media on the causes and preventive measures against the disease.

He added that they have also identified VVF high risk areas in the state with a view to involve all stakeholders on how to address the problem.

Mr El-Ladan said that financial constraint was one of the challenges affecting the centre because their services were free.

But the medical director decried the attitude of some of the victims who after treatment develop another complication.

Some women after being discharged, and when having pregnancy, they dont attend Ante-Natal Care (ANC).

Such women usually develop complication that leads to another VVF operation.

So, we decided to open ANC care and offer CS operation free of charge for them just to prevent them from series of surgeries.

As I am speaking to you now, we already have maternity unit reserved for such women in the centre, he said.

Mr El-Ladan also urged state governments and NGOs to support the rehabilitation of VVF victims and full reintegration into the society.

SOKOTO

From Sokoto State, Lawal Bello, the Chief Medical Director of Maryam Abacha Hospital, Sokoto, says various governmental, non-governmental organisations, community and individual efforts is facilitating the reintegration of VVF patients with their respective families.

Maryam Abacha Women and Children Hospital, VVF Centre, used to illustrate the story. [Photo credit: International Centre for Investigative Reporting]

Mr Bello told NAN in Sokoto that different organisations approached the hospital on one way or the other with the sole aimed of improving the lives of patients.

The state Commissioner for Health, Balarabe Kakale, said all VVF patients are treated by the government free of charge in the state.

Besides treating them free of charge, Gov. Aminu Tambuwal has directed us to ensure that all of the women were trained and supported with a trade to smoothen their reintegration back into the society.

Sokoto State Governor, Aminu Tambuwal

So we are empowering them socially and economically through various means, Mr Kakale said.

We have introduced various measures to ensure that all pregnant women go for antenatal examination in health facilities as a measure to prevent prolong labour and prevent occurrence of VVF among our women, he added.

Speaking to NAN on the VVF issue, the Permanent Secretary, Sokoto state Ministry of Women and Children Affairs, Aisha Dantsoho, said various programmes were introduced at empowering VVF patients to become productive in their respective settlements.

Mr Dantsoho said huge amounts were being spent on the programmes, noting that the beneficiaries are trained on soap and detergent making as well as how to prepare various types of perfumes, body sprays, disinfectants and antiseptic.

According to her, in September 2017, no fewer than 100 VVF patients received empowerment training in a joint programme conducted by United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) with Sokoto State government on soap making and other cosmetics production skills.

She said the knowledge impacted on the women would prepare them to manufacture cosmetics and educate others in their respective communities.

During the exercise women have indicated enough commitments and embraced the modern trades as they learnt the skills diligently.

They are now empowered to sustain themselves when they return to their communities, she said.

The permanent secretary said the state government in collaboration with the National Directorate of Employment (NDE), conducted another set of training programme for 200 women comprising VVF patients where they were taught different trade and skills to make them self-reliant.

A scholar, Rilwan Muhammad, described VVF as a destiny and advised husbands and patient families to always accept them after treatment to enable them enjoy normal live.

Mr Muhammad said the treatment along with medical doctors guides after treatment indicated that they can become normal, stressing that religion consider them safe as it is not a disease that is communicable or that could endanger lives.

(NAN)Despite violence and alleged illegalities across many states where Nigerias ruling All Progressives Congress held its ward congresses, the party described the conduct of the election as generally peaceful.

Violence and alleged illegalities were recorded in several states including Bauchi, Delta, Ebonyi, Enugu, Oyo, Abia, Imo and Rivers.

PREMIUM TIMES reported how at least one person was killed in each of Rivers and Delta states while a local government secretariat was burnt down in Bauchi State during the congress.

In other states like Enugu, Oyo and Ebonyi, party officials alleged rigging and manipulation of the process.

The processes were totally flawed, foreign minister Geoffrey Onyeama said of the primaries in Enugu.

The APC, in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Bolaji Abdullahi, however said the exercise was generally peaceful.

Mr Abdullahi commended members who served in the congress committees for their dedication and impartiality.

He admitted there were challenges in some states and called on members to be law abiding and seek redress through the appeal committees set up in their respective states where there are issues.

The All Progressives Congress (APC) wishes to congratulate all its members for the generally peaceful conduct of the Partys ward congresses which took place across the country over the weekend.

We however acknowledge there are some issues arising from the conduct of the elections in some states.

With this in view, the party had set up various appeal committees which will begin sitting from Monday, May 7, 2018.

We therefore call on all Party members to remain law abiding and where there are issues, they should seek redress through the appeal committees in their respective states.A chieftain of the governing All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kaduna State, Yusuf Ali, has chided the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, for what he described as serial and flagrant disregard to the nations democratic institutions.

Mr Ali made the remarks in a statement issued to journalists in Abuja Saturday evening.

The police chief has twice failed to appear before the Senate who invited him for questioning over the predicament of a senator, Dino Melaye, and the continued insecurity across the country.

The lawmakers have since fixed another date for him to appear.

Mr Ali said while the police chief continues to trample on the National Assembly with impunityhe should know that posterity is watching and he might end up on the wrong side of the nations democratic history.

The nation has watched in dismay how the IG has shunned several invitations extended to him by the National Assembly as regards his stewardship as the chief law enforcement officer in the land.

His conduct, as exhibited, was in contempt of our democracy and has laid a very terrible and dangerous precedence in the nations body politic, he said.

The politician said the Senate simply wants Mr Idris to answer questions regarding the spike in attacks and killings of innocent citizens across the country.

He said the police chief owes Nigerians an explanation as to why these things are happening yet he has chosen to dance on the grave of the innocent without even showing a modicum of respect for the souls that have departed.

He said by his actions, Mr Idris has told Nigerians in unambiguous language that he cannot be held to account.

To add salt to injury, even the President who appointed him confessed on live television that the IG disrespected his direct orders on the killings in Benue State, he said.

A mud building set ablaze by soldiers in Benue community

Mr Ali said a lot of commentators and public officials have raised concerns about the politicisation of policing in Nigeria, saying it is not about Saraki or Ekweremadu or the PDP, but the National Assembly, which is the citadel of democracy in Nigeria, which ought to be respected if not the nation, will slide into anarchy.

When the IG disrespects the people he is supposed to give account to, it goes to tell the primary school pupil to disregard his or her teacher because the children now see these things on the television and in the Social Media.

Therefore, I am appealing to Nigerians of good conscience to rise up to this anomaly and condemn it. You dont go to the National Assembly just to defend your budget. No! You have to give account to Nigerians through their elected representatives. You dont pick and choose which laws to obey or orders to disregard, Mr Ali said.

He also said in order to guard against such malfeasance in the future, the National Assembly should take a second look at the Police Act with a view to rejiging it and making it more responsive and responsible.

He commended the maturity exhibited by the National Assembly in handling such a provocative issue and said the electorate is behind them.The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) says former governor of Plateau State, Jonah Jang, has honoured its invitation for questioning over an alleged N5.6 billion fraud.

In a statement on its website, the commission said it had concluded interactions with the ex-governor, while investigation continues on other strands of the matter.

It did not give further details.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the commission, on March 22, threatened to declare Mr Jang wanted for allegedly spurning its invitation.

The ICPC, through a statement signed by its spokesperson, Mrs Rasheedat Okoduwa, said Mr Jang had been evasive since October 2017, when it opened investigation into alleged corruption-related activities during his tenure.

Mr Jang reacted through a statement by his media aide, Clinton Garuba, on March 23, that there had never been a time the commission invited him.

Mr Jang currently represents Plateau North in the Senate under the PDP.

(NAN)The opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Nigeria has filed a petition at the United Nations (UN) against President Muhammadu Buhari.

In a letter to the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, the National Chairman of PDP, Uche Secondus, told the world body that Mr Buhari has a predetermined plan to use federal agencies like the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the army, and the police to truncate Nigerias democracy.

The PDP, in the letter which is dated April 30, 2018, accused Mr Buhari of violating the Nigerian constitution and persecuting members of the opposition, as well as attacking journalists and well-meaning Nigerians who hold different opinions from Mr Buharis party, the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The British, German, French, Chinese, the U.S, and the Russian embassies in Nigeria, as well as the European Union secretariat in Abuja, were copied in the letter.

The PDP said the Federal government was behind the spate of violent killings between herdsmen and farmers in different parts of the country.

The party mentioned the recent arrest and arraignment of a senator from Kogi State, Dino Malaye, and how another senator, Matthew Urhoghide, was physically attacked by pro-APC thugs in his home state of Edo as evident of the presidents intolerance of opposition and criticism.

The attack of the PDP senator, Mr Urhoghide, at the Benin airport, came days after he called for Mr Buharis impeachment in the Senate for approval and withdrawal of $496 million from the Excess Crude Account (ECA) without the lawmakers consent.

Mr Malaye, though a member of the ruling APC, has been a constant critic of the president.

Before his dramatic arrest and arraignment, the senator was engaged in a running battle with the police. The police in March accused Mr Melaye of arming political thugs in Kogi State. He was later declared wanted for alleged complicity in a murder case.

The PDP, which accuses Mr Buhari of being desperate to retain power, said the president was shielding his corrupt party members from the law, while allegedly using the guise of anti-corruption to witch-hunt members of the opposition.

President Buhari recently declared he was going to run for a second term in office.

In Kogi, Borno and Kaduna states, there are reports of the government sponsoring agents to attack and destroy properties belonging to opposition members and supporters.

The Governor of Kaduna s5tate demolished a property belonging to an opposition member and perceived political opponent; the PDP secretariat in Borno state was demolished; whilst partys properties and those of supporters were destroyed by agents of government in Adamawa State, Mr Secondus said in the letter.

Mr Secondus also said, All notable opposition leaders are being harassed or hounded by security operatives using all manners of frivolous and vexatious allegations.

Today, despite our constitutionally guaranteed freedom of association and speech, Nigerians now live in fear of this intolerant, overbearing, bigoted and dictatorial administration seeking to foist a fascist regime on our country.

How do we explain or justify the evil plan of the APC-led federal government to monitor citizens phone calls and social media communication purportedly to check for hate speeches without any enabling law?

We decry this raging intimidation of our party officials, members and supporters and call on the United Nations and the international community to stand up and condemn this drift towards stone-age despotism. Nigeria is a democratic state and we reject any attempt by anybody to suppress the constitutionally guaranteed rights of the people, particularly, regarding the choice of how they should be governed.

The PDP assured the UN Secretary General that the party would continue to pursue the ideals of democracy for the common good of the people as laid down by the founding fathers of our party.

The opposition party lost to the APC in a keenly contested election in 2015 that saw former President Goodluck Jonathan conceding victory to Mr Buhari even before the final results were officially announced.

The ruling APC has consistently accused the PDP of destroying the nations fortunes while it held sway for 16 years.By Mohammed Bello Adoke

My attention has been drawn to the above captioned publication by one Samuel Ogundipe in the Premium Times of May 5, 2018. The publication which can at best be described as fake news is nothing but an elaborate attempt at dressing up falsehood to pass as truth and substituting reality with fiction in order to misinform undiscerning members of the public, denigrate my person and cause disaffection and ill-will between me and my principal, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, GCFR who gave me the rare opportunity to serve this great country in the capacity of Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice.

The false and malicious publication by Samuel Ogundipe placed heavy reliance on a so called recorded telephone call placed by one Carlarmaria Rumor of RAI Television in Italy on November 5 2015 wherein I was quoted to have stated that: Dan Etete collaborated with some Italian Oil workers to divert some funds to foreign accounts in an illegal move that betrayed the spirit of a tripartite agreement which the Nigerian Government entered into with Italian oil giant Agip-Eni and Royal Dutch Shell on the one hand and Malabu Oil and Gas limited on the other hand.

I want to place it on record that I did not grant any telephone interview to Carlamaria Rumor or any other person in respect of OPL 245 Settlement Agreement. The said Carla Maria is unknown to me, has never spoken to me and I could therefore not have granted her a 1 hour 17 minutes phone interview. I have checked RAI Television website, but the said Carla maria Rumor is not listed either as a TV or print journalist with RAI Television. This is clearly a case of a phantom RAI journalist that exists only in the figment of the imagination of Samuel Ogundipe. Furthermore, Micheal Nomah whom Ogundipe claims to have contacted to react to his fake story is also unknown to me and has never represented me on any legal issue.

Ogundipes malice and mischief became quite evident when he stated in his publication that: Mr Adoke, AGF from 2010-2015, admitted that Mr Etete, an ex-convict, was actively involved in the talks held between Nigerian government officials, representatives of Agip-Eni, Shell and other players. This indicates that Mr Adoke recognised Mr Etete as the owner of Malabu Oil and Gas and dealt with him accordingly, thereby sidestepping Mohammed Abacha and other beneficial owners of the controversial oil firm, thereby giving the impression that I deliberately choose to deal with Dan Etete to the exclusion of other known beneficial owners of Malabu Oil and Gas Limited.

He however did not reckon with the fact that since 2001, Dan Etete had been the only person that engaged successive governments on behalf of Malabu Oil and Gas Limited. He was effectively the alter ego of the company to knowledge of all government officials involved in the negotiation and implementation of OPL 245 Settlement Agreement. Mr. Mohammed Abacha only appeared on the scene when the Settlement Agreement had been executed and implemented. However, realising that his claims to part ownership of the shares in Malabu Oil and Gas Limited amounted to a shareholder dispute, I accordingly advised him to go to court to assert his claims as the court was the only proper forum to effectively resolve such shareholder dispute.

Mr Ogundipe also went to great length in the publication to impute improper conduct on my part by alluding to the so-called cozying up and offering Millions to the phantom Ms Rumor. However, any discerning mind would see through his tissue of lies. What will be the motive for asking for a relationship from a person that I have never met or spoken to in exchange for information that was not exclusive to me and already in the public space? Nigerians know that I am not a stakeholder in Malabu, Agip-Eni or Shell, neither did I benefit from the proceeds of the sale of OPL 245 by Malabu Oil and Gas limited. If indeed if I was given 2.2 million Dollars for the OPL 245 transaction as alleged by the EFCC, why would I be offering to give the money to the imaginary journalist? How on earth would any one believe that I could talk so carelessly and recklessly to a journalist that I had never met in person, when indeed, I am fully aware of the clandestine plans to nail me at all cost? It is simply incredulous.

Mr Ogundipe also alluded to the existence of a tape, which according to him forms part of the Exhibits in the Milam/Italian proceedings. I first heard of the existence of such a tape in a publication by Vrij Nederland 26th October 2017 with the caption: Shell in Nigeria: Corrupt Constructions. I caused my Solicitors to write to Vrij Nederland protesting the libelous publication and requested that they disclose the tape, and details where the alleged interview took place, including relevant date. Vrij Nederland declined to name their sources and the disclosures requested by me on the alleged tape despite my absolute denial of the interview alleged.

The disclosure requested was to afford the parties interested in the tape recording to subject it to forensic analysis to determine the genuineness of the recorded tape and of the telephone interview alleged. I am informed by objective sources as well as sources from the Italian proceedings that the content of the alleged tape recording of the supposed interview on many aspect of the interview with the Report appears (on the face of it) wrong and out of question to such a point, to the extent many top ranking officials of the party engaged in the current Milan/Italian proceedings, believe my voice/content of the tape recording of the interview alleged have been manipulated by the Report Journalist cited in the Premium Times Publication. The Party referred is understood to be currently seeking technical expertise from phonic court experts to test whether the voice in the file of the interview as utilized by the journalist has been fabricated. This is in addition to my absolute denial of the tape recording and the telephone interview with the Report journalist as alleged. But Ogundipe did not deem it necessary to exercise such caution in his publication because of his burning desire to satisfy his paymasters. He threw caution to the wind and made sweeping statements and conclusions that not only defy logic, but also cannot stand objective scrutiny.

It is clear to me that Journalists in the mold of Ogundipe have taken the seeming inertia on the part of our courts to grant punitive damages as a licence to libel and defame people at will. One is minded to caution that the consequences of this kind of yellow journalism will not go unpunished for long. Our Courts are gradually waking up to this challenge and before long; the likes of Ogundipe and those who offer them platforms to carryout their nefarious activities will be held accountable through the legal process.

I therefore want to appeal to well meaning Nigerians especially my colleagues, friends and family who read the fake story and were alarmed by the extent of malice and falsehood therein to disregard the story in its entirety and be mindful of the fact that Ogundipes publication was only designed to achieve the followings:

(a) pitch me against my Principal, His Excellency, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, GCFR whom I hold in high regard with a view to causing ill will and disaffection between us;

(b) down play the significance of the judgment of the Federal High Court, Abuja Coram Hon. Justice Binta Murtala Nyako which upheld the extent of presidential powers under our Constitution and declared that I acted within the confines of the Presidential Directives/ approvals given to me as a Minister of the Government of the Federation and therefore incurred no personal liability for implementing the OPL 245 Settlement Agreement, and

(c) denigrate my person, attract public opprobrium and lower my estimation in the eyes of right thinking members of society.

Goodluck Jonathan

But since his publication is based on malicious falsehood, he has failed to achieve his objectives and has in the process opened himself and the Premium Times up for a libel suit.

I therefore give Samuel Ogundipe and the Premium Times 48 Hours notice within which to retract the offending publication, tender an unreserved apology in the Premium Times and two other National Newspapers with wide circulation in Nigeria, failure upon which I shall not hesitate to instruct my Solicitors to immediately commence legal action against them to redress this unacceptable conduct.

Mr. Mohammed Bello Adoke, SAN, CFRGovernor Samuel Ortom of Benue has denied any plan to dump the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The denial is contained in a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Terver Akase, issued to journalists in Makurdi.

It said that the media report on the governors purported plan to leave the APC was false, misleading and handiwork of detractors playing politics with the blood of the people.

We read a report in a national daily of today which named Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom, as one of the All Progressives Congress (APC) leaders planning to defect to another political party.

The report which is obviously sponsored is not only false but also misleading. Governor Ortom has no intention to leave APC for another party and has not consulted anyone on the matter.

The statement stressed that Mr Ortom enjoys cordial working relationship with other leaders of the party both at the local, state and national levels.

It said that the main focus of the governor was to deliver greater benefits of democracy to his people including tackling the security challenges confronting them.

There is no cause to warrant his defection to another party, the statement stated.

It explained that Mr Ortoms stance of seeking justice over the invasion, killing and wanton destruction of property by suspected herdsmen was what any good leader ought to do.

The statement said the governor was appreciative of the efforts being made by President Muhammadu Buhari in ending the conflicts in the state.

According to the statement, the governor is fully aware that the killings in Benue began during the past PDP-led administrations in the state.

It must be noted that the killings predate the APC as a party and the present administration. The governors focus is on solving the problem in collaboration with other stakeholders.

It added: Fortunately, President Buhari has responded positively by sending troops and other security operatives to chase away the armed militia from Benue communities.

The statement further dismissed insinuations that Mr Ortom had fallen out of favour with other leaders of APC in Benue, including a senator, George Akume.

The report is aimed at creating acrimony between the governor and the senator.

Governor Ortom was popularly elected to lead Benue State and he has demonstrated uncommon commitment and selflessness in justifying the confidence reposed in him.

He, will therefore, not be distracted by baseless reports and rumour of defection.

What is of greater concern to the governor now, is how to stop the killings in the state and also tackle the humanitarian crisis that displaced nearly 500,000 people.

It stated the government was collaborating with the federal government on the rehabilitation and resettlement of the displaced persons.

(NAN)The Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, has commended the orderly conduct of congresses held to elect ward officials for the governing All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state.

APC held congresses across the 36 states and Abuja on Saturday.

PREMIUM TIMES reported how the congresses were mired in controversies and violence in some states.

In a statement by his spokesperson, Samuel Aruwan, on Saturday, Mr El-Rufai gave the applaud after participating in the congress at his Ungwan Sarki ward.

The governor said party members and other notable personalities across the 255 wards in the state have worked together to deliver a very satisfactory outcome.

I am receiving reports from all the 255 wards showing that the new APC leadership in the wards are emerging in a peaceful and orderly manner. It is an impressive exercise in democracy at the local level.

There are no adverse reports from any part of the state. The reports indicate that things are going well. All the stakeholders are working together to bring about a strong leadership for the party at the ward level.

The Kaduna APC will continue to wax stronger as a united party, whose members are loyal to its constitution, and are committed to the goal of serving our people, he said.The Chief Imam of the Katsina Metropolis Central Mosque, Muhammad Lawal, is dead.

Aged 95, Mr Lawal died on Sunday after a protracted illness.

The family spokesman, Mohammed Ahmed, who confirmed the death to News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), said that their father died after a prolong sickness.

Mr Ahmed said that the deceased had been the chief Imam of Katsina for the past 41 years.

He disclosed that the deceased left behind four wives, 27 children and several grand children.

The funeral prayer was conducted at the premises of Katsina Central Mosque and the deceased was later buried at Dantakum burial ground in Katsina metropolis according to Islamic rites.

Meanwhile, the Emir of Katsina, Abdulmumini Kabir, and Governor Aminu Masari have described the death of the Chief Imam as a great loss to Katsina people and the Islamic world.

They prayed to Almighty Allah to forgive him all his sins and grant his family the fortitude to bear the irriparable loss.

Thousands of people including Mr Masari and the emir as well as prominent Islamic scholars attended the funeral prayer.

President Muhammadu Buhari has sent his condolence to the government and people of Katsina State over the passing of Mr Lawal.

President Buhari joins the Katsina Emirate, the immediate and extended family of the cleric, his associates and all Muslims in the state in mourning the cerebral religious leader, who spent his days praying and teaching values and precepts of the Quran.

The president believes Malam Liman, who passed on at the age of 95 years, lived a pious, worthy and highly recommendable life that will be remembered by posterity. He urged all Muslims in the state to immortalise him by living the virtues of love, peace and neighbourliness he lived and propagated.

President Buhari prays that Allah would grant the soul of the departed good rest, and comfort his family.

(NAN)Some leaders of the Katsina State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) have alleged that no ward election was conducted in the state on Saturday, and threatened to go to court if any result was released.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the APC ward congresses were conducted nationwide on Saturday, May 5, with results already being received from various states.

But a group of leaders of the party in Katsina State, led by Abdulkadir Damale and Hassan Isah, in a statement on Sunday in Katsina, claimed that the congresses were not carried out in the state.

We wish to draw the attention of the national leadership of the APC that no ward congress was conducted in Katsina State.

In Katsina State, the electoral officials sent from the national headquarters of the party were hijacked by officials of the state government.

These state government officials sat in the government house and other undesignated venues and filled the result sheets with the names of people selected by government officials .

We, therefore, reject any purported release of result as an outcome of the ward congress.

We are calling on the APC national headquarters to set-up a committee to investigate this illegality, the statement added.

It said that setting up a committee to investigate what happened was the only way to restore public confidence and ensure the support of party members ahead of next years election.

We are prepared to proceed to the court if any result is announced, the APC stalwarts warned.

Contacted, Mohammed Tanko, chairman of the ward congress election committee in Katsina State, dismissed the claims that no election was held in the state.

We actually conducted elections in all the 34 local governments; the turn out was massive and we ensured that all aspirants were given equal opportunities.

Since we arrived, we have not visited the government house; allegations that we sat at the government house and wrote names of government cronies are mere lies.

Those making the allegations are suffering from inferior complex and may not even have come out to contest for any post. They merely want to smear our names, he said.

Mr Tanko said that a committee had been set up to listen to complaints by aggrieved members, and advised those not satisfied to lodge their petitions.

(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.



Company aims to modernize industry, promote organic rice farming and improve farmers' quality of life.

Media Contact

Ms. Tanaka

wtanaka@sitrick.com

+1 (415) 369-8447 Ms. Tanaka+1 (415) 369-8447

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-- SABA INDUSTRIES GROUP (http://sabaindustriesgroup.com/)INVESTS US $100 MILLION IN SOUTHEAST ASIA RICE INDUSTRYCOMPANY AIMS TO MODERNIZE INDUSTRY, PROMOTE ORGANIC RICE FARMING AND IMPROVE FARMERS' QUALITY OF LIFEDATELINE  Saba Industries Group (http://sabaindustriesgroup.com/), a manufacturer and global exporter of rice and other commodities, today announced that it is investing US $100 million in Southeast Asia's rice industry to help modernize the sector, promote organic rice farming and improve farmers' quality of life. The investment will span two years and represents one of the largest investments in Southeast Asia's rice industry.With its investment, Saba Industries (http://sabaindustriesgroup.com/)is buying outdated and abandoned rice mills in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand and converting them into storage facilities with bio-energy rice dryers that can help combat the effects of climate change. Saba Industries will also buy farmers' rice paddies and supply farmers with equipment, seeds and organic fertilizer  all free of charge. This is a sea change from the centuries-long practice of farmers being forced to purchase everything necessary to farm, leaving them with mounting debt and continuing the cycle of poverty. Saba Industries ( http://sabaindustriesgroup.com/ ) also trains farmers in organic farming.Golden Grain Rice ( http://goldengrainrice.com/ ), a Saba Industries (http://sabaindustriesgroup.com/)subsidiary, will process the farmers' rice and distribute it to wholesalers throughout Southeast Asia and parts of Africa and the Middle East.In addition, Saba Industries' (http://sabaindustriesgroup.com/)philanthropic arm, Saba Family Foundations (https://sabafamilyfoundations.com/), plans to build and operate schools and health clinics in farming communities that have no access to basic education and healthcare services. The schools and clinics will be staffed by local instructors, doctors and nurses who know the communities well and speak the language."Rice is a major food staple all over the world, and consumption is growing rapidly every year, especially in non-Asian regions such as Africa and the Middle East," said Malini Saba (https://malinisaba.com/), Founder and Chairman of Saba Industries (http://sabaindustriesgroup.com/). "Farmers are the key to ensuring that rice production and quality keeps pace with demand. But the old way of farming puts farmers and their families at risk. Helping farmers reduce their debt, improve their lives and farm organically is the only way the rice industry can survive and thrive. Moreover, helping people achieve economic stability is the right thing to do."Saba Industries Group (http://sabaindustriesgroup.com/), founded in 1996 by entrepreneur and philanthropist Malini Saba (https://malinisaba.com/), is a holding company that operates commodities businesses.Saba Industries (http://sabaindustriesgroup.com/)focuses on rice, iron ore, gold, wheat and palm oil. Ms. Saba (https://malinisaba.com/)is perhaps the only woman who owns and operates a rice business.Founded in 2002 by entrepreneur and philanthropist Malini Saba (https://malinisaba.com/)to focus on the needs of under-served women and children worldwide. The foundation (http://sabafamilyfoundations.com/)'s three areas of focus are healthcare, education and human rights. The foundation has undertaken numerous projects, including: partnering with Stanford Medical Center to train physicians from developing countries; distributing preventative health information on HIV/AIDS, immunizations, gastric and reproductive health; providing vocational education for women in Togo, West Africa; and supporting human rights issues around the world.Media Contact:Wendy TanakaSitrick And Companywtanaka@sitrick.com(415) 369-8447(424) 255-0482 mobileBy: USOH

End

-- The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles is showcasing images of various Hindu deities in its "Pathways to Paradise" exhibition, which will continue till August five.It includes "Krishna Uprooting the Parijata Tree" (1525-50) and "The Goddess Shri (Lakshmi)" (about 1475)both watercolor paintings; and "Pendant with Narasimha" (9th-10th century).Welcoming the J. Paul Getty Museum for exhibiting artifacts showcasing Hindu deities, Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada today, said that art had a long and rich tradition in Hinduism and ancient Sanskrit literature talked about religious paintings of deities on wood or cloth.Rajan Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, urged other major art museums of the world, including Musee du Louvre and Musee d'Orsay of Paris, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Uffizi Gallery of Florence (Italy), Art Institute of Chicago, Tate Modern of London, Prado Museum of Madrid, National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, etc., to frequently organize Hindu art focused exhibitions, thus sharing the rich Hindu art heritage with the rest of the world.The J. Paul Getty Museum houses European paintings, drawings, sculpture, illuminated manuscripts, decorative arts, and photography from its beginnings to the present, gathered internationally. Timothy Potts is the Director. "Pathways to Paradise" was curated by Bryan C. Keene.Hinduism, oldest and third largest religion of the world, has about 1.1 billion adherents and moksh (liberation)is its ultimate goal. There are about three million Hindus in USA.WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind.  Purdue University will connect live to the International Space Station to award NASA astronaut and alumnus Andrew J. Drew Feustel an honorary doctorate during its spring commencement ceremonies at the West Lafayette campus.

Feustel, a Purdue College of Science graduate (BS 89, MS 91) currently stationed aboard the ISS, will receive an honorary Doctor of Science degree via a live link to the ISS during the Friday evening (May 11), ceremony in Purdues Elliott Hall of Music. In order to accommodate the timing of available communication with the International Space Station, the Friday night (Division II) commencement ceremony will begin 10 minutes early at 7:20 p.m.

Graduates must arrive at the Armory for check-in by 5:45. Graduates arriving after that time may not be able to participate in Commencement. The procession to Elliott Hall of Music will begin at 6:50.

Ticketed guests must arrive at Elliott Hall of Music by 6:45 p.m. to ensure they are seated before the procession begins. The doors will open for ticketed guests at 5:50 p.m.

During the ceremony, Feustel will also give remarks, which are scheduled to begin at 7:56 p.m.

Ordinarily, a Purdue dean places the ceremonial hood on honorary degree recipients, but for obvious logistical reasons, an exception has been made in this case. Fellow Boilermaker and NASA astronaut Scott Tingle, who is also stationed on the ISS, will stand in and place the hood on Feustel.

NASA will air a portion of the commencement ceremony, including remarks by President Mitch Daniels and the honorary degree conferral, live on NASA TV in a broadcast beginning at approximately 7:35 p.m. at www.nasa.gov/live. All of Purdues six commencement ceremonies will be livestreamed in their entirety at http://www.kaltura.com/tiny/3d86e.

Purdues tradition has always required that honorary degree recipients be present at commencement but, given the mission Drew has undertaken on behalf of science and his fellow citizens, our Trustees felt an exception in this case is more than warranted, said Purdue President Mitch Daniels. Plus, it will give our graduates an exceptionally fun and unique way to remember their special day.

Feustel earned a bachelors degree in solid earth sciences in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences in the College of Science and a masters degree in geophysics from Purdue. He is a veteran of three NASA spaceflights and is currently assigned to Expedition 55/56 aboard the ISS where he and his crewmates are working on about 250 science investigations in fields such as biology, Earth science, human research, physical sciences and technology development.

By the ceremony on May 11, he will have spent a total of 80 days in space, including 51 days in space on this, his third mission, and will have conducted seven spacewalks totaling 48 hours and 28 minutes of spacewalking time. His eighth spacewalk is planned for May 16. He is scheduled to return to Earth in October.

Before joining NASA in 2000, he was a geophysicist for the Engineering Seismology Group in Ontario, Canada, and an exploration geophysicist for Exxon Mobil Exploration Co. His first spaceflight was the STS-125 final mission to the Hubble Space Telescope in 2009, followed by Space Shuttle Endeavors final mission to the International Space Station on STS-134, where he served as the lead spacewalker in 2011.

Drew is an outstanding geoscientist, giving him a unique perspective in viewing Earth from space, said Patrick J. Wolfe, the Frederick L. Hovde Dean of Science and Miller Family Professor of Statistics. His exceptional contributions to science and to our nation are an inspiration to future generations of scientists, and to Boilermakers everywhere. We couldnt be prouder of his achievements, and to claim him as one of our own.

Purdue, known as the Cradle of Astronauts, has graduated 24 NASA astronauts, including the first and most recent people to walk on the moon, along with hundreds of others who work at NASA and in the space industry. More than one-third of all U.S. spaceflights with humans aboard have included at least one Boilermaker. By the end of 2018, Purdue astronauts will have spent the equivalent of more than 1,100 days in space.

Contact: Tim Doty, 765-496-2571, doty2@purdue.edu

Note to Journalists: Media interested in covering the event should send requests on company letterhead to Jim Bush, jsbush@purdue.edu, or Tim Doty, doty2@purdue.edu, by Tuesday (May 8). More information is available here.WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind.  A Purdue University-patented technology shows promise in using microscopic bubbles filled with oxygen to help with various medical treatments, including improving cancer therapeutics and helping wounds heal faster.

Samara Biotech LLC, a Purdue startup, has developed an easy-to-use method to inject oxygen nanobubbles intravenously so they can be targeted precisely at wounds or cancerous tumors. The bubbles do not actually do the therapies, but enhance other therapies, such as improving chemotherapeutics or radiation efficacy, said Pushpak Bhandari, Samara Biotech founder.

Its an oxygen delivery system at its core that can be applied toward many diseased states, Bhandari said Oxygen is critical in almost every biological process, so this helps in a variety of ways.

Studies have shown that a lack of oxygen in tumor cells changes how cells function, contributing to cancer growth. Low oxygen, or hypoxia, is a major challenge in treating some cancers because it is common in a majority of malignant tumors. Tumor cells are starved of oxygen, causing them to become resistant to conventional treatments such as radiation and chemotherapy. This can lead to a need to increase radiation doses or chemotherapy concentration, which often adversely affects patients.

The nanobubble shells disintegrate inside the tumor cells, increasing the cellular oxygen levels. The release of oxygen inside the hypoxic cells destabilizes the hypoxia-driven pathways and inhibit tumor growth, Bhandari said.

Normal cells are two to three times more receptive to cancer therapies compared with hypoxic cells, he said.

Early testing published in the journals Nature Scientific Reports and ACS Nano shows that the oxygen nanobubbles are effective in significantly delaying tumor progression and improving survival rates in clinical trials. The nanobubbles can be guided precisely to a tumor using an ultrasound beam, which can lead to better efficacy while using a 50 percent lower concentration of a chemotherapeutic drug.

The ability to precisely steer oxygen nanobubbles offers considerable promise for a wide range of biomedical applications, Bhandari said.

Bhandari believes the oxygen nanobubbles could be particularly effective against brain cancer, bladder cancer and certain sarcomas that are most common in bones, muscles, tendons, cartilage, nerves, fat and blood vessels.

Bhandari, who earned a doctorate in biological engineering from Purdue in 2017, also believes the oxygen nanobubbles can be more effective at treating wounds than a hyperbaric chamber or topical oxygen therapy because the nanobubbles can be more precisely targeted.

Bhandari is continuing to look at other wound-healing applications, saying the method could be used to treat complications from diabetes and other illnesses.

He plans to begin his cancer studies in dogs initially because nearly half of all dogs die of cancer. He said he will be dealing only with naturally occurring cancer in dogs and hopes those studies will help advance and speed the research into human cancers. He said he has been working with Purdues College of Veterinary Medicine.

The oxygen nanobubbles also act as contrast agents for ultrasound imaging, allowing researchers to create highly sensitive, highly reliable detection agents to monitor therapy.

Bhandari started Samara Biotech in 2015, taking the name from a winged seed that allows the wind to carry it further from the parent. He said in Eastern philosophy it also connotes the circle of life.

The Purdue Office of Technology Commercialization filed a patent on the technology. The Purdue Foundry and the Purdue Research Foundation have been working with Bhandari to commercialize his research.

We're looking for potential strategic partners, Bhandari said. We want to get the word out that there is a new technology that been evaluated quite well for a lot of different applications and were looking for more.

Samara Biotech also plans to seek federal and private funding as it continues its research.

About Purdue Research Foundation

The Purdue Research Foundation is a private, nonprofit foundation created to advance the mission of Purdue University. Established in 1930, the foundation accepts gifts; administers trusts; funds scholarships and grants; acquires property; protects Purdue's intellectual property; and promotes entrepreneurial activities on behalf of Purdue. The foundation manages the Purdue Foundry, Purdue Office of Technology Commercialization, Purdue Research Park and Purdue Technology Centers. The foundation received the 2016 Innovation and Economic Prosperity Universities Award for Innovation from the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities. For more information about funding and investment opportunities in startups based on a Purdue innovation, contact the Purdue Foundry at foundry@prf.org. The Purdue Foundry is an entrepreneurship and commercialization accelerator in Discovery Park's Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship whose professionals help Purdue innovators create startups

Purdue Research Foundation contact: Tom Coyne, 765-588-1044, tjcoyne@prf.org

Source: Pushpak Bhandari, pushpak@purdue.eduThe Pentagon this week claimed two US pilots were injured when military-grade laser pointers were shone into their eyes from China's navy base in Djibouti as the Americans came into land at the U.S. base.

U.S. officials made a formal diplomatic complaint and demanded Beijing investigate, with the defence department saying there had been similar incidents for weeks at its base in the Horn of Africa nation.In the coming days, President Trump plans to announce his final decision on whether the United States will withdraw from the 2015 Iran nuclear accord. President Trump, who has described the agreement as one of the worst deals he has ever witnessed, is expected to leave the pact.While the Left continues to lose its mind over Russia and the fairytale of collusion, the fact is Russia simply is not a real threat to the future of our democracy. By any measure, the threat to America's future freedom is China. When TrumpAn ordinary American neighborhood has been evacuated ... because of a volcano.

On Thursday evening, Hawaii County ordered roughly 1,500 people near Pahoa, Hawaii, to leave their homes. The cause: A new lava fissure opened on Kilauea, a massive volcano in the southeast of the state's Big Island. Lava from the fissure has come within several hundred yards of homes, threatening two subdivisions in the area. The fissure is also releasing toxic amounts of sulfur dioxide, according to Hawaii News Now.In gangsta rap, cartoonish threats of violence are routine. So fans of the German rappers Kollegah and Farid Bang were hardly shocked that, on their latest album, they bragged that their torsos were better defined than an Auschwitz inmate's and vowed to make another Holocaust (against whom was unclearpossibly rival hip-hop artists). But when, on April 12th, the duo won German music's highest honour, the ECHO prize, other musicians and critics were outraged. German music publishers decided to stop awarding the prize in order to prevent future controversies.

It was part of a busy month for European anti-Semitism. On April 8th Viktor Orban, prime minister of Hungary, won re-election after a campaign in which he demonised George Soros, a Jewish financier and philanthropist, as a shadowy billionaire secretly controlling the opposition for nefarious purposes. In Berlin on April 17th, a young Israeli was assaulted while wearing a kippah, or Jewish skullcap; the alleged attacker was a Syrian refugee. (Ironically, the victim was an Israeli Arab who was trying to prove to a friend that wearing a kippah was not dangerous.) The assault underscored fears of anti-Semitism within the 1.2m Muslim refugees who have arrived in Germany since 2015.Since Congress removed President Dilma Rousseff in 2016  in what the left called a parliamentary coup'  Brazil seems to have reconnected with a past many hoped was consigned to history. It is that of a country run by colonels and bandeirantes, powerful local figures who used violence against all who crossed them: the left, the poor, and the landless' occupiers of unused land which, according to the constitution, should be redistributed through agrarian reform.

Brazil will commemorate the 130th anniversary of its abolition of slavery on 13 May, yet a hated symbol of that era, the whip, reappeared on television screens when landowners used them on 22 March against members of the Landless Workers' Movement (MST) waiting to see former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's motorcade. Senator Ana Amelia Lemos of the rightwing Partido Progressista expressed unabashed support for these true gauchos who raised their whips'.Athens, GA (30605)

Today

A steady rain this morning. Showers continuing this afternoon. Thunder possible. High 76F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms this evening will give way to steady rain overnight. Low 67F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 80%.Three suicide bombers attacked the residence of the police chief of the Afghan city of Kandahar, leaving the militants and at least two police officers dead, officials say.

Ahmad Zia Durani, a spokesman for the Kandahar police, on May 5 told the dpa news agency that the militants struck late on May 4 or early on May 5 at the home of General Abdul Raziq, who was not at home.

The spokesman said a suicide bomber blew up his explosives-filled vehicle at the first checkpoint of the compound, killing two police officers.

Two militants on foot then followed the first assailant by attacking a second checkpoint, Durani said.

There were no claims of responsibility, although local police pointed to the Taliban militant group.

The Taliban and Islamic State (IS) insurgents have been conducting attacks against Afghanistan's Western-backed Afghan government, causing hundreds of deaths.

Meanwhile, a regional official told RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan on May 5 that a northern Afghan district that had been briefly seized by the Taliban has been recaptured by government forces.

Badakhshan Province Governor Faisal Begzad said government forces recaptured the Kohistan district from the Taliban after an hourlong battle earlier in the day.

The Taliban launched a surprise attack on May 3 on the Kohistan district, which is located along a route to the provincial capital, Fayz Abad.

Abdullah Naji Nazari, a provincial council member, said on May 5 that the captured district was the third under Taliban control in Badakhshan, which has about two dozen districts.

The Taliban has for years controlled the two other districts -- Wardoj and Yamgan.

Last month, the Taliban announced the start of its annual spring offensive.

A new report by the Special Inspector-General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) on April 30 said the Taliban controls 14.5 percent of Afghan districts, with some 30 percent being contested.

A U.S.-led coalition has been in Afghanistan since 2001, when it drove the Taliban from power after it said the group's leaders were sheltering Al-Qaeda militants responsible for the September 11, 2001, terror attacks in the United States.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan, AP, dpa, Tolo News, and VOAThe best bang for your buck! This option enables you to purchase online 24/7 access and receive the Sunday, Tuesday & Thursday print edition at no additional cost * Print edition only available in our carrier delivery area. Allow up to 72 hours for delivery of your print edition to begin. Print edition not available for Day Pass option.U.S. President Donald Trump has said he will announce his decision on the U.S. participation in the nuclear accord between Iran and world powers on May 8.

"I will be announcing my decision on the Iran Deal tomorrow from the White House at 2 p.m.," Trump tweeted on May 7.

The announcement comes ahead of a May 12 deadline for the U.S. administration to decide whether to keep supporting the landmark 2015 nuclear deal or reimpose sanctions on Iran.

Trump has threatened to pull out of the deal by not extending sanctions waivers when they expire on May 12, unless European signatories of the accord fix what he has called "serious flaws."

Meanwhile, the foreign ministers of Germany and France have joined Britains foreign minister in a public push to convince Trump not to pull out of the nuclear deal.

Speaking in Berlin on May 7 at a joint press conference with the French foreign minister, German Foreign Minister Heiko Mass said: "We believe that this agreement makes the world safer and without this agreement the world would be less safe. We fear a failure [of the nuclear accord] would result in an escalation."

Mass was speaking at a joint news conference with his French counterpart, Jean-Yves Le Drian, who said France, Germany, and Britain had resolved that they will stick to the Iran nuclear deal irrespective of Trump's decision.

"We are determined to save this deal because this accord safeguards against nuclear proliferation and is the right way to stop Iran getting a nuclear weapon," le Drian said on May 7.

Trump has also accused Iran of violating the spirit of the accord by supporting militant activity in the Middle East and by continuing to test ballistic missiles.

In Tehran, Iranian President Hassan Rohani said on May 7 that the United States would regret a decision to leave the nuclear deal and that Tehran would fiercely resist U.S. pressure to limit its influence in the Middle East.

"If they want to make sure that we are not after a nuclear bomb, we have said repeatedly that we are not and we will not be.... But if they want to weaken Iran and limit its influence, whether in the region or globally, Iran will fiercely resist," Rohani said in a speech broadcast live on state television.

In a separate comment on the Iranian presidency's website, Rohani said on May 7 that his country would remain in the nuclear accord even if the United States withdrew, on the condition that the other parties stay.

"Either what we want from the nuclear deal is guaranteed by the non-American parties, or it is not the case and we will follow our own path," Rohani said on the website.

Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on May 7 warned that Tehran's "fierce reaction to a violation of the nuclear deal with major powers will not be pleasant for America."

The nuclear deal was signed during the U.S. administration of President Barack Obama, and it provides Tehran with relief from sanctions in return for curbs on its nuclear program.

Britain, Germany, France, Russia, and China also signed the accord.

Boris Johnson, Britain's foreign secretary, is scheduled to meet with U.S. officials during his current trip to Washington.

He also is scheduled to make a series of appearances on U.S. television programs in a bid to convince Trump and his supporters that it is a bad idea to withdraw from the nuclear deal.

In an opinion piece published on May 6 in The New York Times, Johnson wrote that the accord was the best option available at this time.

"It has weaknesses, certainly, but I am convinced they can be remedied. Indeed, at this moment Britain is working alongside the Trump administration and our French and German allies to ensure that they are," he wrote.

With reporting by Reuters, AP, BBC, CBS, The New York Times, dpa, and Deutsche WelleIrans President Hassan Rohani says the United States would regret leaving the 2015 nuclear agreement and that his country has prepared plans to respond to any decision by U.S. President Donald Trump regarding the landmark accord.

"We have plans to resist any decision by Trump on the nuclear accord," Rohani said in a May 6 speech in northwestern Iran that was carried live by state television.

"If America leaves the nuclear accord, you will see soon that this will entail historic remorse for it, he added.

Rohani did not specify how Iran would react if the United States abandons the deal. But he said he had given "the necessary orders," notably to Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, in anticipation of Trump's decision.

Trump has threatened to pull the United States out of the Iran nuclear deal unless European allies fix its terrible flaws by May 12.

The deal provides Tehran with relief from sanctions in return for significant curbs on its nuclear program, but Trump has said the terms are not strict enough.

Germany, France, Russia, China, and Britain have also signed the accord and have urged Washington to remain part of the deal, saying it is the best way to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

French President Emmanuel Macron has warned that war could ensue if Trump withdraws from the deal.

"We would open the Pandora's box. There could be war," Macron told the German weekly magazine Der Spiegel. But he added: "I don't think that Donald Trump wants war."

Iranian officials have said that Tehran rejects demands by Trump for changes in the nuclear deal.

"Iran will not renegotiate what was agreed years ago and has been implemented," Irans Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in video posted on YouTube on May 3.



Speaking on May 5, Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Irans Supreme National Security Council, said his country will stand up to Trumps bullying over the nuclear deal.

This is an international agreement...and we certainly have the capacity to defeat your bullying, Shamkhani said in remarks aired on the state-controlled television.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned last week against ditching the nuclear deal if it could not be replaced with a viable alternative.

"If one day there is a better agreement to replace it, it's fine. But we should not scrap it unless we have a good alternative," Guterres said in a May 3 interview.

With reporting by Reuters, AFP and IRNAMOSCOW -- Russian lawmakers are currently considering a bill imposing countersanctions on the United States that includes a controversial provision banning the import of pharmaceuticals produced in the United States or its allies for which analogues can be obtained.

The bill's sponsor, Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, said that Russia currently imports 1,019 medicines from the United States and all but 90 of them would fall under the ban if the legislation passes. He added that the Duma intends to push the government to adopt a program that would eventually lead to the complete replacement of all imported medications with Russian equivalents.

Activists and patients, though, are speaking out against the proposal.

Human rights ombudswoman Tatyana Moskalkova issued a statement on April 29 urging deputies to remove the medicines passage from the bill, saying the state's desire to make a political point should not "put people's health in danger."

But one group in Russia has already run into the problem of being compelled to use substitute medications: organ-transplant patients.

Following such surgeries, patients must take immunosuppressants for the rest of their lives to prevent organ rejection. Without the antirejection medications, patients face numerous complications, including potentially fatal ones. In recent months, however, Russian health officials have been pushing doctors and patients to use generic substitutes as a budget-cutting measure.

In 2018, the government stopped purchasing the immunosuppressant Prograf, which is produced in Ireland, altogether. And patients say the results have been disastrous.

Natasha Tarasova is a 6-year-old patient who had been taking Prograf since her kidney transplant at the age of 6 months. Her parents were pushed to use a substitute.

"We gave her, as usual, two capsules in the evening -- not the ordinary medicine but a generic," Natasha's father, Roman Tarasov, told RFE/RL. "She was instantly covered in a rash, although the instructions said nothing about that kind of reaction. Two weeks later, we tried again. This time her eyes, throat, and lips became swollen.

"After that, I said we are not going to experiment anymore," he concluded. "My child is not a laboratory rat."

The Russian company that produced the drugs his daughter took purchased the ingredients from companies in the Czech Republic, India, and China, Tarasov told RFE/RL.

I have never given Masha a generic [drug] because I cannot conduct such experiments on my child. I am constantly appealing to foundations and searching for sponsors. Otherwise, we can't make it."

"No matter how hard I tried to find any trace of that company on the Internet," Tarasov said of the Chinese firm, "it turned out to be impossible."

"Moreover," he added, "the secondary ingredients in [the generic drug] were significantly different from the secondary ingredients in the Prograf. In order to reduce the cost of the end product, they replace [ingredients] with the cheapest possible alternatives."

After Tarasov was able to document that his daughter was allergic to the substitute, health authorities in Saratov Oblast approved an exception for her to obtain Prograf.

More than 32,000 people have signed a petition urging Russian President Vladimir Putin to change the government's policy and to allow at least children to receive Prograf.

Masha Khlopotovaya, a 6-year-old from the Far Eastern city of Blagoveshchensk, underwent a liver transplant in Moscow in 2013. Her mother, Lyudmila, was her donor. After her surgery, Masha spent nearly a year in the Shumakov Transplant Research Center.

In recent months, pharmacies have stopped selling Prograf, offering instead a Russia-produced substitute called Tacrolimus. But Masha's doctors in Moscow insist that Masha takes only Prograf.

"The doctors told me if you want to treat your daughter, just give her the original prescription," Lyudmila Khlopotovaya told RFE/RL. "I have never given Masha a generic because I cannot conduct such experiments on my child.

"I am constantly appealing to foundations and searching for sponsors," she added. "Otherwise, we can't make it. After all, not only do I have to pay for Prograf, but we also have to fly to Moscow four times a year for the tests. They have canceled subsidies on airplane tickets for sick children. Now they only subsidize train tickets. But from our home, it is six full days of travel, which is impossible for a sick child."

Lyudmila Pimenova, from the village of Ilek in Orenburg Oblast, spent several years waiting for a donor for a heart transplant in Russia. Eventually, she had the operation in India and now she takes Prograf -- "six to eight packages a month, depending on my tests."

Like other patients in her situation, she scrambles to find the money to buy Prograf, as well as to find the drug itself. But this situation is becoming increasingly difficult for her.

"But I can't take the risk," she told RFE/RL. "I simply might not get a second chance at life -- like hundreds of other patients who have had transplants."

She argues that the government's effort to push patients onto unproven substitute drugs is a false economy.

"If you look at it from the financial point of view, the government -- having spent huge sums on financing transplant operations -- is now spending more on additional examinations, keeping patients in hospitals, and on treating them from the complications of taking unproven analogues," she said.

The problem of unproven or substandard generics is not unique to immunosuppressants, says Aleksei Romanov, a psychiatrist from Saratov.

"Call me unpatriotic, but Russia has major problems with the production of pharmaceuticals," Romanov said. "The medicines that are produced often don't use original ingredients. I mean, the production is only partially in Russia -- the labels and the packaging. But the ingredients are imported from various countries. A little is produced in Russia, but only very little. Major problems arise when we are talking about new and technically complex formulas."

Dmitry Yanin, head of the International Confederation of Consumer Protection Societies, agreed.

"Although many medicines have been brought into local production, unfortunately this localization has been very uneven," Yanin said. "And for patients suffering from very serious illnesses, any attempt to change medications is a very serious issue. When the regions were forced for budgetary reasons to stop buying foreign medicines, the patients took this very badly. There have been both protests and real family tragedies.

"I think [in the end] they will strike out the part about medicines [from the countersanctions bill]," he added, "because this is a very serious issue. They will never be able to explain to mothers why their children can no longer get high-quality medicines."

Written by RFE/RL senior correspondent Robert Coalson based on reporting by RFE/RL Russian Service correspondent Yelizaveta Mayetnaya, with additional reporting by RFE/RL Russian Service correspondent Mikhail Sokolov and RFE/RL Tatar-Bashkir Service correspondent Katerina MayakovskayaTwenty-three miners were killed and 11 were injured in separate incidents at two coal mines in southwest Pakistan, officials say.

Attaullah Khan, Pakistans director of disaster management, on May 5 said a blast caused by a buildup of methane gas in the Marwar coalfields in Balochistan Province led to the collapse of a mine, trapping many workers.

"We have retrieved 11 bodies," said Khan, who added that five other bodies were still in the mine.

The Marwar coalfields are some 60 kilometers east of the Baluchistan capital, Quetta.

Jawaid Shahwani, the top government official in Quetta, said 16 of the 25 people inside the mine at the time were killed, with the remaining miners rescued and taken to hospital for treatment.

Seven miners were killed after a mine collapsed in similar circumstances at Spin Carez.

Mines in Pakistan are mostly owned by state-run Pakistan Mineral Development Corporation, which leases many of them to private contractors.

The country has suffered many coal-mine disasters, a situation critics have blamed on poor safety measures.

Based on reporting by Reuters, AFP, and Pakistan TodayPakistani Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal was rushed to the hospital in the eastern city of Narowal on May 6 with a gunshot wound. A gunman shot Iqbal in the right arm during a public meeting. His wounds are not considered life-threatening. Police have arrested a suspect in the attack. (Reuters)Pakistans Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal has been wounded in a gun attack in the central province of Punjab where he was attending a meeting, officials said.

Talal Chaudhry, the minister of state for interior affairs, said Iqbal was hit by a bullet in his arm in the attack in his native district of Narowal on May 6.

Iqbal was taken to a hospital with nonlife-threatening wounds, Pakistani media said, citing police and the ministers family.

Dawn.com quoted police officer Imran Kishwar as saying that the attacker used a pistol to fire at the minister from a distance of some 20 meters.

Police arrested a suspect they identified as Abid Hussain, who is believed to be 21 years old. They said he was found to be carrying a pistol.

Citing a police report, Reuters reported that the suspect was affiliated with the new ultrareligious Tehrik-e Labaik party, which focuses on highlighting and fighting blasphemy.

The report did not speculate on his motive, Reuters reported.

Labaiks leader, Khadim Hussain Rizvi, condemned the attack and said his party had not authorized anyone to take up arms.

Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi condemned the attack, which comes as Pakistan gears up for federal elections expected this summer.

With reporting by dawn.com, AFP, and ReutersArmenian opposition leader Nikol Pashinian said he is not ruling out cooperation with the ruling Republican Party (HHK) if he becomes the countrys next prime minister.

"Our possible cooperation will depend on the actual political situation, Pashinian told reporters on May 5.

Many potential situations are possible that will lead us into the future, he said, adding that his main goal is to "to create a government of reconciliation.

After leading a wave of protests throughout the Caucasus nation over the past several weeks, Pashinian appears to be on the verge of a dramatic rise to the prime minister's post.

The antigovernment protests forced HHK leader and former President Serzh Sarkisian to step down as prime minister just days after he was elected to the position by parliament.

Sarkisian had been president for a decade, but term limits forced him to step aside last month.

However, the HHK-dominated parliament quickly appointed him as prime minister, a switch made possible by constitutional changes that weakened the presidency while bolstering the prime minister's powers.

The move prompted thousands to heed Pashinian's call to take to the streets, outraged that the new system would have allowed Sarkisian to remain Armenia's leader indefinitely.

After failing in an initial parliamentary vote to gain the post, Pashinian was officially nominated for a second time as the only candidate for prime minister his Yelk faction and allied opposition parties on May 3.

Pashinian secured the backing of 41 lawmakers in the 105-seat parliament for his nomination for the next vote, scheduled for May 8.

The HHK holds 58 seats in the 105-seat parliament, but it has said it will vote for whichever candidate is backed by at least one-third of the lawmakers.

With the assurances, Pashinian urged his supporters to take a break from their street protests, stay in touch through Facebook, and be ready to return to the streets on May 8 to ensure parliament carries through on the HHK's pledge to make him the country's new leader.

Under Armenias constitution, if a prime minister is not elected in the second vote, parliament will be dissolved and early general elections would be held with the HHK-led acting government in charge of the electoral process.

Pashinian has said elections run by the HHK would not be fair, and he has called for the party to give up power.

In his comments to reporters on May 5, Pashinian said he would call snap elections once in office but only when he was "convinced they would be legitimate and transparent."

"My team and I are considering a few scenarios for holding the snap elections, he said, adding, without details, that "we will have to amend the Election Code for this purpose."

Pashinian on May 3 said he had met with the ambassadors of Russia, the United States, Georgia, and the European Union and informed them that he is working to settle the country's political crisis.

"Several issues of bilateral relations were discussed as well. Meetings with ambassadors accredited in Armenia will continue," he said in a statement on his Facebook page.

With reporting by TASS and RFE/RLs Armenian ServiceMOSCOW -- Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny says he has been released from custody after he and thousands of other protesters were detained as part of nationwide protests ahead of President Vladimir Putin's inauguration for a fourth presidential term.

They wrote up two protocols on me: organizing a rally and disobeying police, but at half past midnight they chose to release me pending trial, he wrote on Twitter early on May 6.

Veronika Polyakova, a lawyer for Navalny's Anticorruption Foundation, told Interfax that the case will be heard at Moscow's Tverskoi District Court on May 11.

Navalny and hundreds of other protesters were detained by police at an unsanctioned demonstration on May 5 in Moscow.

Navalny was taken into custody shortly after arriving at the rally on Pushkin Square in the center of the Russian capital, where riot police carted away other protesters and some were beaten by pro-Putin vigilantes.

Video showed police carrying a struggling Navalny out of the square, holding him by the legs and arms.

Navalny has already served several jail terms on charges related to organizing antigovernment protests.

Media reports said the number of protesters in Moscow was in the thousands. Police said the crowd numbered some 1,500 people, but officials routinely downplay the size of opposition protests in Russia. About 1,000 people participated in the rally in St. Petersburg.

"I think that Putin isn't worthy of leading this country. He has been doing it for 18 years and has done nothing good for it," Moscow demonstrator Dmitry Nikitenko told the Associated Press. "He should leave for good."

According to the independent police-monitoring group OVD-Info, some 1,612 people have been detained in 26 cities nationwide in connection with the rally. Some of those detained were reportedly minors.

In Moscow alone, the number of detainees was 703, while 233 protesters were detained in St. Petersburg.

Moscow police issued a statement saying that "about 300" people had been detained in the capital. No official figures were given for the country as a whole.

Under the slogan "He's Not Our Tsar," Navalny, 41, had called on supporters to take to the streets ahead of Putin's May 7 inauguration to protest what Navalny says is Putin's autocratic rule. In a post on Twitter on May 4, Navalny called Putin "a craven old man."

"We will force the authorities, comprised of swindlers and thieves, to take into account the millions of citizens who did not vote for Putin," Navalny said on May 4.

Putin is due to be sworn in for his fourth term on May 7, extending an 18-year reign that his supporters say has lifted the country "from its knees" and is denounced by his opponents as a corrupt, calcifying authoritarian kleptocracy.

Navalny, who has organized large street protests and published numerous reports documenting alleged corruption by Russia's ruling elite, was barred from running in the March presidential election due to a conviction on financial-crimes charges he contends were fabricated.

Authorities in Moscow warned Navalny supporters in advance against taking part in the protest, calling it "absolutely unlawful."

Riot police in the capital detained protesters, while men in traditional Cossack dress were seen beating some of the demonstrators as a police helicopter flew above the crowd.

Among the crowd on Pushkin Square were pockets of pro-Putin supporters, many of them young men, who shouted "Our country, our rules" and "We are for Putin."

As videos and photos of police roughly manhandling unresisting protesters flooded social media, Moscow police spokesman Vladimir Chernikov was quoted as saying "the police and National Guard today acted strictly in accordance with the law, competently and calmly."

"Unfortunately, as we expected, there were provocations on the part of the organizers of the unauthorized rally," he continued, according to Interfax.

Many of the protesters were charged with the administrative violation of disobeying police and are being released pending hearings.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert posted on Twitter that the United States "condemns Russia's detention of hundreds of peaceful protesters and calls for their immediate release."

"Leaders who are secure in their own legitimacy don't arrest their peaceful opponents for protesting," she wrote.

A spokeswoman for European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini issued a statement saying the police reaction in Russia threatened "the fundamental freedoms of expression, association, and assembly in the Russian Federation."

"Even if some of the demonstrations were not authorized in the location where they took place, this cannot justify police brutality and mass arrests," the statement said, adding that the EU expected Russia to "release without delay peaceful demonstrators and journalists."

With material from Current Time TV, AFP, Interfax, and Reuters

Scuffles occurred between supporters of the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party (SRS) and the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in the village of Jarak on May 6. LDP activist Djordjo Zujovic was assaulted after he used a bullhorn to say that the Radical Party's leader, Vojislav Seselj, is a "war criminal." Seselj's supporters were just returning from a rally they had held in Jarak as a replacement for their originally planned march to the nearby village of Hrtkovci, which was blocked by police. Hrtkovci is a village that had a Croat population until it was ethnically cleansed in 1992 by Seselj and his paramilitary units. Seselj was recently convicted of war crimes by a United Nations court. (RFE/RL's Balkan Service)Serbian police have prevented a Serbian far-right politician convicted of war crimes from holding a rally in an ethnically mixed northern village where he spurred ethnic hatred during the 1990s Balkan war.

Dozens of police on May 6 sealed off the village of Hrtkovci, northwest of Belgrade, blocking Serbian Radical Party leader Vojislav Seselj and his supporters from reaching the village and holding a rally there.

The UN war crimes court for the former Yugoslavia last month sentenced Seselj to 10 years in prison over his 1992 speech in Hrtkovci that resulted in the deportations of dozens of ethnic Croats from the village.

Seselj, a lawmaker in the Serbian parliament, remains free because he served his sentence while in custody during the trial.

The Serbian Radicals briefly gathered by police cordons and waved Serbia flags before dispersing.

A clash was reported with some members of the opposition Liberal Democratic Party, who held a banner that called Seselj a war criminal.

"We wanted to have a peaceful rally, and the regime banned it without any reason," Seselj told reporters before going back to Belgrade.

The Liberal Youth Initiative for Human Rights group demanded on May 6 that authorities strip Seselj of his parliamentary seat because of the war crimes conviction.

Based on reporting by RFE/RLs Balkan Service, Reuters and APThree dozens were wounded at the scene. The mosque was being used as a voter registration center. The blast was caused by a bomb placed in the mosque. The blast happened while people were busy with prayers, meanwhile in other part of the mosque people had gathered to get their voter registration cards for the election, Talib Mangal, spokesman for the provincial governor in Khost, said.

The Taliban denied involvement in the blast, and so far no group has claimed responsibility for the attack. We reject any kind of involvement in this incident, their spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said. However, ISIS is not known to have a presence in Khost. Afghanistan plans to hold elections in October, the first since 2014. There have been a number of attacks on voter registration centers since the process began. Last month, an Islamic State suicide bomber attacked a voter registration center in Kabul, killing 60 people and wounding at least 130 others. Now, in a separate incident, a vehicle carrying shopkeepers on their way to a market struck a roadside bomb in Afghanistans northern Faryab Province. Seven of them were killed. The U.S. and NATO concluded their combat mission at the end of 2014, switching to a counter-terrorism and support role.Radhika Apte

After featuring in multiple language films from Hindi, Marathi, Bengali and to projects in South India, Radhika Apte is all set to make her foray in Hollywood and the actor says she always had the desire to do international cinema. Apte will be seen in Michael Winterbottom's "The Wedding Guest", alongside Dev Patel and will also feature in producer-turned-director Lydia Dean's untitled World War II spy drama, with Stana Katic and Sarah Megan Thomas. "My desire was not just to do a Hollywood film but to do an international film. My desire was to do world cinema. I want to be able to do cinema in any language and do something I am capable or suitable to do. I don't want to restrict myself to just one kind of cinema," the 32-year-old actor told PTI. In the World War II film, the actor will be playing the role of the spy of Indian descent, Noor Inayat Khan. The movie traces the story of British intelligence officer Vera Atkins (Katic) and the two women she sends into France as spies, one of whom is Khan. "It is about women spies. A lot of people did not know about it and we have not had a film on them. I felt it is a very interesting and important subject. "Noor Inayat Khan is an inspiring character that I have come across. It has been interesting to get the opportunity to play her," she says. What appealed the most about Khan to Apte was that she had a certain internationality to her character.

British Indian actor Dev Patel and Indian actress Radhika Apte

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"She was born in Russia, her mother was an American, her father was an Indian Muslim. She was a British national who grew up in France. She used to write, she was a musician. She was ahead of her times. She was brave. I don't think there was any other character who is so unique and extraordinary," the actor says. She was not much aware of Khan but research helped her know more about her. Apte, however, remains tight-lipped about revealing more details regarding both of her international projects. She may be cracking international projects now, but the "Padman" actor says she has been giving auditions for films abroad for quite some time. "I have auditioned for a few films but I did not get the part. I audition for films more abroad than I do in India as in here people have seen my work more. Nobody knows about it there. I audition in India too but not as much," she says. "There were some international collaborations with my films like 'Parched', 'The Ashram'," she adds. Apte believes there are some differences in the working style between Hindi film industry and Hollywood. "There are few main differences between they work project to project. They are punctual - everything starts on time, ends on time. I feel, in India, we are capable of far more hectic work in a way. We are capable of any kind of disaster management with far more efficiency," she says.Journalist Upendra Rai booked in extortion

The CBI today registered a fresh case against arrested journalist Upendra Rai and his associate Rahul Sharma for allegedly extorting Rs 15 crore from a Mumbai-based builder by portraying himself as an income tax "power broker", officials said. The case comes two days after Rai was arrested by the agency for alleged dubious financial transactions and getting an Aerodrome Access Pass on the basis of false information. The Central Bureau of Investigation said that one of the directors of Mumbai-based White Lion Real Estate Developers Pvt Ltd, Balvinder Singh Malhotra, had filed a complaint with it against Rai. The agency alleged Rai approached Kapil Wadhawan, a relative of the promoters of the company, in September 2017, portraying himself as an income tax power broker. He also gave his credentials as a senior journalist to Wadhawan, who was connected to big media houses, the agency alleged in its FIR. The CBI claimed Rai told Wadhawan that he had sensitive information from the tax department about possible raids on the real estate firm and associated companies and that action might be initiated against the company under the Benami Act as well.

Upendra Rai allegedly extorting Rs 15 crore from a Mumbai-based builder

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He then threatened that he had the potential to tarnish the image of the White Lion companies and promoters due to his media connections, the complaint, and now part of the FIR, said. When Wadhawan met Rai at his Greater Kailash-1 residence in Delhi, Rai showed him purported documents of the Income Tax department indicating action was being contemplated against various companies including White Lion., the CBI alleged. The meeting was followed by calls from media, it claimed. He demanded a huge amount to "settle" the issue and "manage" media coverage, the agency alleged. Later, a consultancy agreement was signed on October 3 last year between M/s Upendra Rai and Associates and White Lion for a period beginning October 1 till September 30, 2018, to work out an arrangement to pay the huge amount demanded, it alleged. According to the CBI, the complainant alleged, "As per the agreement, a sum of Rs 15.19 crore (excluding GST and TDS) was paid from our Axis Bank, Bandra account to Rai's HDFC Bank account between October 2017 and April 2018.Dalits to submit notice three days before their wedding if they need protection

Authorities of a town in Madhya Pradesh's Ujjain district withdrew an order today that had asked functionaries of village panchayats to intimate the police about any weddings in Dalit families three days in advance. The order, issued on April 16 in Mahidpur town, 244km from Bhopal, came two days after a wedding procession of a Dalit groom was allegedly stopped by upper-caste men. The man belonged to the Scheduled Caste Balai community, said an official. In the order, the sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) of Mahidpur, Jagdish Gome, had directed the secretaries of all village panchayats within his jurisdiction to inform the police three days in advance about any weddings being organised by families belonging to the Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Other Backward Castes (OBCs).

A police team reviews security arrangements before the start of the wedding

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The order stated that these village panchayat secretaries were to immediately inform the local police station in-charge, in writing, by post or on the official WhatsApp group. "The order issued by the SDM has been revoked with immediate effect," District Collector Manish Singh said today. The Mahidpur SDM said the order was issued as a "precautionary measure", following the incident on the night of April 14, which incidentally happens to be Ambedkar Jayanti. The leader of Opposition in the state Assembly, Ajay Singh, however, termed the order a "blot" on social harmony. "Dalits are being disrespected in a planned way across the state. The order issued by the district administration in Ujjain is a blot on the social harmony of the state," Singh said. The senior Congress leader also pointed to a recent incident, which occurred in MP's Dhar district, in which police aspirants have had their caste categories marked on their chests during a medical examination.Rising fuel costs has gotten its fair share of attention, and is now a noticeable thorn that we dont know how to deal with. For those residing close to the Bhutan border in Assam, a trip across the border helps arrest fuel expenses because that means access to Bhutan cheaper fuel.

While the seriousness of the matter is yet to be tabled for unilateral discussion, a small group of individuals has found a solution. As of last week, Dhrubajyoti Goswami said, Petrol Price in Guwahati is now 75/- & Diesel is Rs. 64/- and a BEER is Rs.140/-.

But we NALBARIA have the solution..Just Cross over Bhutan International Border & get Full your Tank.

Petrol @ Rs. 52/- & Diesel @ Rs. 39/- . Also Take 2 BEERS @-Rs. 120/-. To add some cheer to the message, he informed, Dont worry.. NO VISA REQUIRED.

Its no surprise then that folks are crossing the border to buy daily consumption fuel and liquor. The price benefit is a great motivator with petrol and diesel retailing at twenty bucks lesser, even more.

A litre of petrol costs around Rs 52 in Bhutan as opposed to Rs 76 in Assam, while diesel costs nearly Rs 20 less. Bhutan-made beer comes for Rs 60 a can, Rs 20 cheaper than the Indian equivalent and premium scotch for less than Rs 2000. With currency valuation of Indian Rupee (INR/Rs) equivalent to Bhutanese Ngultrum (BTN), and border areas accepting both currencies freely, its not difficult to see why people wouldnt cross over for daily purchases.

Indian Oil, and Bharat Petroleum supply petrol and diesel to Bhutan. Since GST implementation from July 1, 2017, exports to Bhutan from India are zero rated. Excise duty on petrol and diesel levied is refunded to Bhutan. Excise duty exemption on fuel imports to Bhutan at source have equated to 17% reduction in petrol and 14% cut in diesel prices in Bhutan.

Resultantly, Bhutans revenue collection has reduced for the happy country has elected to pass on benefits to consumers over increased taxes to compensate revenue loss. While fuel volumes under consideration are small, it nevertheless does tantamount to trade diversion, and the matter is being brought to the notice of Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL).

With BJP coming into power in 2016, and GST implementation in 2017, all inter-state (Assam) check gates ceased to exist as theres no entry tax under GST. The move also aimed to curb corruption at border check posts since all transactions are online, which means no checks are possible in the absence of check posts. GST council committed to compensation for any revenue loss suffered by the state government owing to abolition of central sales tax. Tax growth was estimated to be up by 14 per cent under the GST.

The only restrictive measure in practice is from the Bhutanese end. Since, fuel was being transported and sold in border areas for a profit, for now, Indians can only buy Bhutan cheaper fuel worth upto Rs 500 per person.

Back in December 2015, Supreme Court passed a ruling that banned registration of luxury automobiles and sport utility vehicles with an engine capacity in excess of 2000cc in NCR. The move aimed at curbing air pollution in NCR thought to be brought on by emissions by diesel vehicles.30 months on, and Delhi, Gurgaon and multiple cities in north India still top the list of worlds most polluted cities.

Sales of petrol engine passenger vehicles and two wheelers have seen an increase in recent months. This has increased the consumption of petrol. Consumption of fuel has been increasing over the last few years.

If we compare, diesel consumption surged 14% during the month of August 2016, petrol consumption increased substantially by 25% during the same period. This resulted in a surge in petrol consumption which reached a 5 year high in July 2016, while diesel consumption surged primarily due to increased commercial transportation.

Fuel products sales improved 5.3 percent in April-March FY2018. Besides petrol and diesel for vehicular consumption, consumption of other industrial and commercial fuels also saw a surge in demand. These included fuel oil, petcoke and aviation turbine fuel. This increased demand indicates improved economic activity. Even as petrol and diesel demand increased, kerosene consumption declined. Consumption of Liquefied Petroleum Gas surged 8% YoY.College applicants and job hunters are often told to scour their networks for someone who could make a quick call or send an email on their behalf, telling the decision-maker a special applicant is heading their way.

But not much is known about whether and why these personal endorsements work. Do they get the applicant in the door? And once at the college or company, does the applicant benefit the organization they've tried so hard to join?

A Cornell University researcher and his colleague offer the first empirical evidence answering these questions. Personal endorsements give applicants a leg up on the competition, both in getting interviewed and admitted, according to their study of applicants to a university MBA program. Endorsed applicants also tend to support the university at higher rates by taking on leadership roles as students and giving more generous monetary donations as alumni. However, colleges and companies may be missing out on valuable talent if they accept only endorsed applicants, the researchers note in "Best in Class: The Returns on Application Endorsements in Higher Education," published in Administrative Science Quarterly.

"This research highlights how an endorser can have a large effect on who gets interviewed, and who gets admitted, into an MBA program," said co-author Ben A. Rissing, assistant professor of organizational behavior in Cornell's ILR School.

Rissing and his co-author, Emilio J. Castilla of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, found that endorsed applicants were interviewed about 82 percent of the time, while those without endorsements scored an interview only 34 percent of the time. Among those who interviewed, endorsed applicants received offers to join the program 64 percent of the time, while those without endorsements got offers only 52 percent of the time. "These are big differences," Rissing said.

Researchers found that endorsed individuals were no more qualified than their non-endorsed counterparts, based on merit-based competency assessments conducted by admissions staff who didn't know the applicants' endorsement status. While endorsed applicants were sometimes seen as stronger ''on paper'' (after a review of their application materials), they generally scored worse during interviews than non-endorsed applicants. Further, students who were endorsed as applicants were neither better performers academically (in terms of awards or GPA) or on the job market after graduation (in terms of salary or signing bonuses).

That said, those who were endorsed as applicants did emerge as ''better citizens" (more likely to lead student clubs) and ''better alumni" (more likely to donate to the university, and notably, more likely to give large amounts) than those who had not been endorsed.

Endorsements do seem to identify individuals who will be committed to the organization. But they do not necessarily identify better-qualified candidates, Rissing said. "Organizations should go through their application process and ask, 'Are we selecting on applicant characteristics that are going to result in organizational members who are most desirable?'" he said. In selecting for qualified applicants and those who are community-minded, he said, "It's a question of how to balance the two of these considerations, so one doesn't overwhelm the other. Both have merits."

The study also raises concerns about inequality. For example, first-generation students, immigrants, and students without financial resources might not yet have contacts who are willing or able endorse them, Rissing said. "There are smart, qualified and community-minded individuals in all of these groups. Is their potential lack of awareness of these endorsement channels going to limit their opportunities?" he said. "Decision-makers must be attentive to the reality that access to these types of social connections, such as endorsements, are not ubiquitous."People showing virtually no symptoms are likely the primary source of dengue fever, according to new research published in PLOS Pathogens. Nearly 400 million people each year are infected with dengue virus, which is transmitted through mosquitoes.

The study estimates that more than 80 percent of dengue virus infections are attributable to individuals with mild to no symptoms who do not seek treatment from a physician. The study also indicates that nearly a quarter of dengue virus transmission is the result of mosquitoes biting those already infected before the onset of symptoms. By the time those symptoms appear, the opportunity to prevent the virus from spreading has passed.

"Until a few years ago, it was assumed that individuals with mild to no symptoms contributed relatively little to dengue virus transmission," said Alex Perkins, Eck Family Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Notre Dame and senior author on the study. "Our research reveals that people showing no symptoms of dengue virus infection are contributing much more than was previously recognized, so that we now have a better idea of the large extent to which they contribute to the spread of this disease."

Researchers at the University of Notre Dame used mathematical modeling to quantify what fraction of dengue virus infections might be caused by people whose illnesses were undetected by public health surveillance systems. Their work involved integrating data sets on the amount of virus in the blood during various stages of infection, the severity of symptoms in relation to previous infections and the proportion of infections resulting in clinical consultation.

The World Health Organization currently focuses disease surveillance efforts on detecting outbreaks, monitoring trends in the number of cases and assessing the possibility of outbreaks. This surveillance encompasses the monitoring of suspected and confirmed dengue cases.

"Unfortunately, based on our study, those who need to be targeted with interventions are either being identified after they have already contributed to transmission or are not being identified at all," said Perkins. "Our results indicate that it might be necessary to shift emphasis toward more proactive disease prevention strategies that do not rely as strongly on responding to detected cases."

The lead author on the study is Quirine ten Bosch, a former biological sciences doctoral student and graduate fellow of the Eck Institute for Global Health at Notre Dame. She is currently a postdoctoral scholar at Institut Pasteur in Paris. Perkins and ten Bosch are affiliated members of the Eck Institute for Global Health.A new tree grows near City Hall.

On Saturday morning, a magnolia tree was lowered into the ground to honor the late Mayor Ed Lee on what would have been his 66th birthday, planted by city officials, family and members of the general public. Later in the day, Lees official photo was unveiled at City Hall.

Its a tradition for the citys Department of Public Works to plant an honorary tree each year  theyve been planted for Rosa Parks, Cesar Chavez, Rose Pak and others. This year, said Public Works Director Mohammed Nuru, the choice was simple: Ed Lee, whom he described as a big brother and mentor.

Ive planted many, many trees with Ed, Nuru said.

At the planting ceremony, Mayor Mark Farrell spoke, as did Lees sister Linna Kitamura, former Mayor Willie Brown (clad in blue from his hat to his shoes) and others, fondly remembering the work that Lee, who died of a heart attack in December, did for the city.

Brown, a Chronicle columnist, told a story about once driving around with Lee when Lee was director of public works. Brown said Lee pulled the car over, grabbed a shovel from the trunk and started to pick up trash. He remembers being flabbergasted when Lee told him that picking up trash was part of his work schedule.

Brown and his sister both paid homage to Lees corny jokes and his warmth to family, friends and colleagues.

The tree was lowered into a raised median by a crane. Then everyone was invited to pick up a shovel and throw soil onto the trees roots.

Rudy Corpuz Jr., the executive director of United Playaz, an anti-gun-violence organization, brought a shovel with special significance. It was made from melted-down gun parts from a gun buyback the group organized in December. Weve already planted 50 trees in the name of Ed Lee, Corpuz said as he shoveled dirt over the roots.

Brown gestured at the magnolia and said, That tree wont grow tall enough to match the stature of Ed Lee. It really ought to be a redwood.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

Still, maybe the magnolia  which is expected to bloom in the next few weeks  is more Lees style.

Ed was a simple kind of guy, so this tree-planting is very fitting, said Kitamura, his sister. No fuss, just a bit of soil, some water and some sunshine, and the tree will grow and soon beautiful white flowers will bloom, season after season.

Sophie Haigney is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sophie.haigney@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SophieHaigneyThe three most famous cats in Oakland were doing last week what cats do best. Nothing.

They were having a pretty good time doing nothing, too, and ignoring all the humans who were desperately trying, as humans will, to get a cat to do something.

Come on, sweetheart, said zookeeper Heather Paddock, holding out a dead mouse in vain. Come on. You want this. Come get it.

The three cats are the newly arrived Oakland Zoo mountain lion cubs. For two weeks, they have been getting familiar with their 1-acre enclosure in the zoos new California Trail section.

What that entails is ignoring two perfectly good tire swings, shunning a pair of splendid aerial platforms, and avoiding a cozy, custom-built concrete mountain lion den in favor of lying in a hammock halfway up a giant oak tree.

Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle

Like most hammock occupants, they have been staying put despite the pleas of people who believe they can give orders to a contented hammock occupant, regardless of species.

After half an hour, Paddock gave up and put the dead mouse back in its Tupperware box.

You can never really tell a cat what to do, she said.

The three cubs, all orphans abandoned by their mothers, came to the zoo over the winter. They have been resting up for the long-awaited grand opening of the $71 million California Trail. They stand to get in plenty of hammock time, because it looks like the grand opening is going to get delayed yet again, to July 12.

Thats because much remains to be done, to the jaguar and grizzly bear exhibits and to the kiddie playground with its California landmark replicas. (Workers must still install the concrete snow on the Mount Shasta climbing structure and complete the construction of the Mojave Desert sandbox.)

As for the cubs, when they arrived at the zoo, said zoo President Joel Parrott, they were very cute. Now, three months later, they are bigger and, thus, less cute.

Theyve grown out of their cuteness phase, he said. Now theyre beautiful. Soon they will be magnificent.

Even such compliments didnt budge Coloma, Silverado and Toro from their hammock. The three cubs, all offspring of different mothers, were brought to the zoo and have bonded into a family group, which seems to mean that when they chew on each others tails, as they spend a good part of the day doing, they dont really mean it.

The mountain lions were also ignoring the piles of hay and dung brought by zookeepers from other animal pens to give them something interesting to sniff. Keeper Sam Delzell called it sensory enhancement, which is what a pile of elephant dung surely is. But, he said, the mountain lions are more interested in sniffing the hay when its been soaked in human perfume  Calvin Kleins Obsession being their current favorite.

They like Old Spice, too, Delzell said.

In three weeks, the puma cubs will have to share the spotlight with four orphan grizzly bear cubs moving into the enclosure next door. Those creatures are catching a plane from Anchorage, Alaska, where they have been in custody since their two mothers were captured after breaking into homes and raiding the refrigerators.

The mothers were euthanized, and the cubs, unable to be returned to the wild, were headed for a similar fate before Oakland, a sanctuary city if ever there was one, stepped in.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

The California Trail section, the 45-acre hilltop expansion that will nearly double the size of the zoo, is the most ambitious zoo project in its 96-year history. Access is by an aerial gondola, the kind that usually carries skiers to 10,000 feet instead of animal lovers to 1,000 feet.

The gondola is not the only thing going up. When the new section opens, a ticket to the zoo will increase by $2, to $24. In a couple of more years, the price will unfortunately go up again, Parrott said. Thats what must happen when you shell out $71 million for new stuff.

Parrott said the animals of California Trail, almost all of them orphans, have a story to tell. Humans and their enticing refrigerators and deadly motor cars are responsible for the deaths of countless wild animals. Signs in the new zoo section will explain that the animals were here first and that its up to humans to learn to behave humanely around them, not the other way around.

Along with the hard lessons, there are good times. The 15-foot-tall Mount Shasta climbing structure will be ready for the grand opening, pledged the playgrounds designers and builders, the husband-and-wife team of Maren Van Duyn and Ron Holthuysen.

The other morning the two of them were busy putting the finishing touches on their mountain, under the watchful eye of Parrott and the kind of deadline pressure not experienced in the 600,000 years allotted for slapping together the original. When completed, the zoos Mount Shasta will feature a polished stone slide, a tunnel to climb through and fake concrete snow marking the climbing path to the summit.

While the final blobs of wet concrete were being mixed, husband and wife were still having a friendly debate about how best to apply it. Holthuysen wanted to apply the white concrete with a trowel. Van Duyn said that would make the snow too angular and she favored a brush and a sponge. The brush and sponge won.

She got her way, Holthuysen said with a smile. She usually does.

Steve Rubenstein is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: srubenstein@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SteveRubeSFRon Ordonez can trace his decades-long love affair with lowrider cars to growing up in San Franciscos Excelsior and Mission districts.

The colorful vehicles, with their gleaming rims and bouncing hydraulics, used to cruise through the streets every weekend, Ordonez said. He remembers the first time he got up close to one, and the driver asking if he wanted a ride before flipping on the hydraulic system.

It looked like a normal car, nothing fancy, but then it suddenly dropped down to the ground, Ordonez said. And I was hooked from then.

On Saturday, Ordonez was at home among fellow enthusiasts at the fifth annual Cinco de Mayo lowrider show hosted by John OConnell High School in the Mission. About 100 restored classics filled the lot in celebration of lowridings ties to the district as part of a fundraiser for the school.

Jailene Medina, a 2016 OConnell graduate who started the fundraiser, said she grew up in the lowrider community and wanted to organize an event that brought the neighborhood together.

Back in the day, the lowriders would take up all of Mission and 24th, down to 16th, Medina said.

The event also serves as a memorial to Sandy Cuadra, an activist who died of cancer in 2013. Vince Mabutas, Cuadras cousin, said that she was deeply invested in both the Mission neighborhood and the lowrider community.

The car show fundraiser, which raises about $4,000 each year to pay for student activities, allows the school to remain connected with the community, Assistant Principal Amy Abero said.

With San Franciscos tech boom, Mabutas said, hes noticed the Mission neighborhood changing quickly. New arrivals move in, but they dont invest in the community in the same way as longtime residents.

If youre going to move here, you gotta give something back, said Mabutas, who was born and raised in the Mission. I see people come here and give nothing.

Lowriding in San Francisco was at its peak in the 1970s, Mabutas said. But it declined after a period of police crackdowns, where the car enthusiasts were often accused of being gang members. But in the past 20 years, Mabutas said, theres been a revival of the car clubs cruising in the Bay Area.

Cesar Iglesias, a member of the New Temptations Car Club in Daly City, said that his club has always been received with enthusiasm every time they drive through the city.

Well cruise through the Mission and then up to Pier 39, he said. People love us.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

Iglesias and his fellow lowriders treat their cars as a labor of love. Hes invested more than $30,000 into his car, purchased in Concord about 13 years ago before he stripped it down to redo everything from the engine to the hydraulics.

Ray Goldstein, 71, said he came to the show after reading about it online. A self-described vicarious car fan with no car of his own, Goldstein pointed to a plum-colored Plymouth Deluxe as an example of how much work is invested in the cars on display.

That car over there is older than I am, Goldstein said.

The car in question, a 1947 model, belonged to Renato Gonzalez, who bought it 20 years ago and renovated every inch of it. A car enthusiast since he was a child, Gonzalez now works on the Plymouth with his 10-year-old son.

His hands are small, but he can do all the work, Gonzalez said. Its a family thing.

Annie Ma is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: ama@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @anniema15At the Jewish Community Center in San Francisco recently, Laurie Anderson sang, played and talked about her book, All the Things I Lost in the Flood.

Richard Buggs, who was in the sold-out audience, said she began her remarks by describing the day after the 2016 presidential election, and how difficult it was to get out of bed or even leave her apartment. Eventually, she heard about Yoko Onos response, to scream for a full minute.

So Anderson invited every member of the audience to scream  about anything we needed to release, said Buggs  and set a timer for one minute. She played her electric violin while we screamed ... amazing primal minute filled with screams of all different tones and volumes and frequencies ... felt great.

When the minute was over, she put down her violin and returned to the microphone in the center of the stage. Good job, she said.

Operatic tenor Michael Fabiano gave a private recital recently at the home of Barbara Brown to raise money for ArtSmart, a nonprofit he co-founded to bring classical music into classrooms through one-on-one sessions. The program, which began in Newark, N.J., was implemented this year in partnership with the San Francisco Unified School District at James Lick Middle School. Tony Bravo, who was at the recital, says Fabiano announced that he and his fiance, Met Opera Board member Bryan McAllister, are setting up a residence in San Francisco.

Here at the corner of Fifth and Mission, hearts are being broken as print newspapers become specimens for placement in the cabinet of antiquated curiosities. Eugene Schoenfeld forwards a San Rafael neighborhood Nextdoor listing from a teacher looking for a New York Times clipping of a story applicable to a unit a second-grade class is studying. Furthermore, wrote the educator, If you are planning to recycle your NY Times, wed love to have a chance to introduce our students to hard copy newspapers as a resource. We will be looking for the online version, of course, but would love for them to see it in print.

Saddened to hear of the recent death of man-around-North Beach Ernie Beyl, another man around North Beach, Ken Maley, was reading Beyls newest book, Stops Along the Royal Road, Adventures From a Lifetime of Travel. The book recounts Beyls time as a press officer for the P&O Cruise Line. Assigned to take a trip aboard the S.S. Himalaya, Beyl went to introduce himself to the captain. He was expecting him to be in pressed whites, but finding him instead stripped to the waist and wearing a lavalava, a floor-length sarong.

By the third day at sea, wrote Beyl, Capt. Latham and I had become buddies. When he realized I approved of his lavalava, he gave me one with great ceremony. ... I still wear my lavalava occasionally. Stripped to the waist, I wear it around the house when my wife is out  but I refrain from wearing it to Gino & Carlo or Original Joes.

Commercials:

Gwyneth Paltrow, accompanied by her fiance, Brad Falchuk, went to MAC on Grove Street and bought a little Dries van Noten, a few Engineered Garments and a couple of Comme des Garcons summer frocks. Annette Bening had dinner at Boulevard on Sunday, April 29; and Rajon Rondo of the New Orleans Pelicans, in town for playoff games against the Warriors, had dinner on Monday, April 30, at Hakkasan. In other commercial notes, Humphry Slocombe, which has created ice cream flavors for such SHN shows as Wicked, Cabaret, Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Into the Woods, has created The Color Purple ice cream (colored with organic blackberry puree and dried hibiscus flowers) for the show playing at the Orpheum Theatre this month.

Upon reading that Bob Dylans Heavens Door whiskey will be introduced this month, Ben Fong-Torres put on his lyricists hat. At his El Rio gig on Tuesday, May 8, hell sing, to the tune of Knockin on Heavens Door: Mama, the critics say I stink/ they say I cant sing any more./ Its enough to drive a man to drink/ Good thing Ive got my Heavens Door.

Leah Garchik is open for business in San Francisco, (415) 777-8426. Email: lgarchik@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @leahgarchik

PUBLIC EAVESDROPPING

How much time and money can you spend on yourself?Since leaving New Order nearly a decade ago, bassist Peter Hook has managed to chart his own course with the bands era-defining music. With his touring outfit, Peter Hook & the Light, the 62-year-old British pop icon has meticulously worked his way through the back catalogs of his former groups, New Order and Joy Division, playing their full albums in sequence. Hook has now moved on to the Substance albums, performing the singles compilations in full, tearing through hits like Blue Monday, True Faith and Love Will Tear Us Apart. He spoke to The Chronicle from his home in Manchester.

Q: New Orders frontman Bernard Sumner famously asserted you opened the gates of hell by touring Unknown Pleasures with your new band. What level of purgatory are we at now?

A: Well, Ill tell you what, no ones going to be bothered when they get there. Its 95 percent enjoyable. One of the wonderful things about the breakup of New Order is all of us got to do exactly what we wanted.

Q: For a lot of people, you have been cast as the bad guy in the New Order story. Did publishing the tell-all autobiography Substance last year help change the way people see you?

A: The thing is, its a very difficult situation to be in. You get Bernards book, which was one side. My book was the other side. People have to judge, dont they? I cant force that call as to who they side with. The sad thing is they were both so far apart. Thats what a book is for. Its for you to put your version out  hopefully the truth  and see what happens. When all is said and done, were a bunch of musicians squabbling. People are used to it. Ultimately, whilst I was hoping nobody would ever want to see New Order again because I wasnt there, I have to appreciate that people do. You cant get everything, can you?

Q: It speaks to the power of the music that people can put all the fighting aside and still turn up for the shows, doesnt it?

A: Luckily, the music is different to the personal thing. The thing about being in a group is the very chemistry that makes you write and create great music is the very chemistry that destroys your relationship.

Q: Do you feel bitter about the way it all went down?

A: Ive had a wonderful life and Ive had a great job. Im lucky that at my age of 62 people come along and watch. In New Order, we all had different ambitions, different goals. You compromise as long as you can, but it gets to a point where you have to do things that make you happy. We lasted 27 years. Thats a long, long time, especially from the auspicious start we had. We were like a phoenix rising from the ashes.

Q: Your face appears in movies, books, posters. Tween shops like Brandy Melville sell Joy Division T-shirts. Does it feel weird to become commodified like Superman or Bart Simpson?

A: That is a wonderful thought. Ive got too many faults to be like Superman. The thing is, I suppose, over the years you realize how much people have grown up with you and the music. Youre their favorite group through their life. Its the way I felt about Neil Young. These people, you bestow some odd mantle on them. They do become super figures. I remember when we were in Fuji playing the festival, Barney said Neil Young is in the next carriage. I literally hid under the table. I wouldnt talk to my hero.

Q: Are you enjoying running through the old albums in this band format?

A: Its all about respect. As far as Im concerned, when we play Im shown great response. Ive enjoyed so much doing the songs New Order didnt do so long. When we do Age of Consent, the audience loves it. When I finish performing an LP, I have to say goodbye to it again. I have to say goodbye to all this wonderful music. So there are real pangs of grief leaving the material twice.

Aidin Vaziri is The San Francisco Chronicles pop music critic. Email: avaziri@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @MusicSF

Peter Hook & the Light: 8:30 p.m. Saturday, May 12. $27.50-$40. The Warfield, 982 Market St., S.F. www.axs.com

Watch the official New Order music video from 1985 of The Perfect Kiss: https://youtu.be/x3XW6NLILqoBarbara Lustig called me out after meeting me recently, and Im glad she did.

Were never too old to learn a lesson.

Lustig attended Men and Boys 2018: Cultural and Personal Masculinities, an April 28 panel Id moderated at the Bay Area Book Festival in Berkeley.

The topic was masculinity, and the conversation I had with the two panelists explored the perniciousness of male entitlement. Yes, we went there.

We also discussed the rise of the angry white man  from white supremacists to mens rights activists  and how that self-absorbed behavior has been normalized by people, including the president. Its a development one of the panelists, sociologist Michael Kimmel, refers to as aggrieved entitlement, which is a sense that the benefits and status historically reserved for white men for simply being white have been withdrawn in favor of racial and gender equality.

Everything was on the table, which, I believe, is essential for honest discourse.

After the panel, I happily engaged with readers and attendees. But, while I was speaking to Lustig and another woman, I rudely stopped our conversation to engage a man whod walked up to me.

Lustig sent me an email that evening expressing her displeasure.

Neither you nor the interrupter took any cognizance of the fact that you and I were speaking, and he just interloped at ease, she wrote. I find it very ironic that here was an example of exactly what had been presented, but I think neither you nor the interrupter had the slightest realization that this was a good example of entitlement.

Lustig was mostly right. I realized what was happening, and I did it anyway.

At the core of my columns is the insistence that we have conversations with each other. I want more voices  more women, more people of color, more underrepresented populations  heard in The Chronicle. Ive probably written this before, and Ill probably write it again: Talking about our experiences is the only way we can have a better understanding of each other.

A lot of readers have asked me how to start this kind of conversation. Well, heres an example: I responded to Lustigs email and asked if shed like to talk about her experience.

Before I continue, let me tell you a bit about Lustig, who has a mellifluous laugh that Id like to hear again. Shes 83 and white.

The retired registered nurse has lived in Napa for 18 years. Shes a former president of Congregation Beth Shalom, and these days she volunteers at a local thrift store and plays mah-jongg, which she says is big in Napa.

Lustig is a widow, and the names of her four sons all begin with the letter G. Her husbands name was Gerald.

Though I didnt know it at the time, Id met Lustigs youngest son, Gary. He greeted speakers and panelists at The Chronicles outdoor stage at the book festival. They both wear glasses with lenses that darken in the sunlight.

The panelists and I touched on #MeToo, the international movement against sexual harassment and assault; harassment on dating apps; workplace equality; the way men look at their fingernails; and how Bill Cosby was finally  finally!  found guilty after decades of reprehensible, predatory behavior.

It just sounded so timely with all this #MeToo business going on, Lustig said when I asked why she attended. When that incident happened with you, it just brought it all together. All my life, Ive felt like Ive been intimidated by people, and I was thinking, is it mostly men?

I read all of my emails, and I attempt to respond to as many as time permits. But Lustigs hit me in the gut, because Id felt there had been such an open and positive discussion onstage about the toxicity of male behavior.

It happened so quickly after the talk that it just struck me, she said. It was like a moment where I was discovering something that Id just let it happen before. And this time, because of the talk, I was pretty sensitive to it.

I just thought, (the interrupter) feels entitled. And here I am just a woman.

Heres a fact I know to be true: I cant write and talk about men acting irresponsibly and disrespectfully without also holding myself accountable.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

I dont sit with my back to doors unless Im sitting with someone I trust with my life, and when people approach on my flanks, as the man did while I was talking to Lustig, I instinctively change my position.

Still, that doesnt excuse my actions.

The man and I had a brief chat, and I thanked him for attending. Lustig made me question why I deferred to him. I called the other panelist, UC Berkeley psychologist Dacher Keltner, to get his opinion.

Keltner, who explored the dynamics of power in his revealing 2016 book, The Power Paradox: How We Gain and Lose Influence, considers interruptions to be a daily abuse of power.

If your identity has the historical advantage of power, like a white male, you just do that, he told me. This is one of the most basic abuses of power, and women in the workplace talk about this all the time.

But why did I turn my attention to the man, who also was white, ignoring the good manners my parents instilled in me?

People who come from historically disadvantaged groups  women, people of color, lower class  tend to be more cooperative, Keltner said. We find women, people of color, lower class tend to promote civility more and avoid unnecessary conflict.

That makes sense. It also makes sense that white men such as the president, who embodies a virulent form of masculinity, would do everything in their power to hold onto their power. But their times up. Or in the presidents case, it soon will be.

The culture has really changed, and we accepted so much that now is not acceptable, and I think thats really a good thing, Lustig said. I think women now have more courage to speak out.

#MeToo.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Otis R. Taylor Jr. appears Mondays and Thursdays. Email: otaylor@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @otisrtaylorjrSAN DIEGO  For the sake of the California Republican Partys survival, its chairman, Jim Brulte, instituted a rule for candidates speaking to convention delegates Saturday: They only get to say positive things about themselves. If they want to say something negative, it ought to be about Democrats, not other Republicans.

The two GOP candidates for governor ignored Brultes plea  at least when they were offstage. There, one mocked the other as a beta male who stole his campaign slogan and the other retorted that his rival is immature and says a lot of dumb things.

To California Republicans, obeying Ronald Reagans oft-quoted 11th Commandment  Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican  isnt about etiquette. The fate of the GOP-held House could depend on whether Republicans show some unity Sunday.

Thats when the 1,400 state party delegates gathered in San Diego will vote on whom to endorse for governor. The party needs to coalesce around either San Diego County businessman John Cox or Orange County Assemblyman Travis Allen, because the California GOP is too small and weak to splinter in the June 5 primary race against four name Democrats. Only 1 in 4 registered California voters is a Republican.

If a Republican doesnt finish in the top two to win a spot on the November ballot, their absence in the marquee race could depress turnout among conservatives and imperil every GOP candidate on the ticket. And that could help Democrats win some of the seven GOP-held House seats in California they have focused on in their quest to win in the 23 Republican districts they need to regain control of the lower chamber.

Despite those stakes, the candidates ignored Brultes warning. Start with how Allen  who, unlike Cox, voted for President Trump  referred to Cox with a Trumpian insult. He called him a beta male. Allen, by his judgment, is the alpha in that equation.

John Cox has copied me on every major policy initiative, Allen, 44, said Friday as he pointed to one of Coxs signs plastered on the wall. You look at the sign right there: It says End sanctuary state. Take back California. Hes even trying to take my slogans. Its laughable. Maybe Ill send him an invoice for campaign advice.

Cox, 62, said that while Allen is immature and says a lot of dumb things, Im running a positive campaign based on my 40 years of managing people.

And then he ripped Allen.

His business  I dont even know what it does  but its wealth planning, which is basically (offering) a small amount of advice, Cox said in an interview Friday.

A candidate must receive 60 percent of the delegate vote to land the partys endorsement Sunday. And if one no one gets there?

Then you will have Cox and Allen beating each other up for the next four weeks and that would make it easier for (Democratic former Los Angeles Mayor) Antonio Villaraigosa to make it into the top two, said Lanhee Chen, a convention delegate who was the chief policy adviser on Mitt Romneys 2012 presidential campaign.

Allen needs the partys endorsement more. He has been mired in the middle of the pack of the top six candidates, and his campaign has far less cash in the bank. Cox is virtually tied with Villaraigosa behind Democratic Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom in an April survey from the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California. He has been gathering endorsements from party leaders, including House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield, Rep. Mimi Walters of Irvine, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Id like to get (the endorsement), but I dont think it ends my campaign if I dont get it, Cox said Friday.

Speaking to a group of Bay Area delegates Saturday, Cox pitched himself as the strongest GOP alternative to Newsom.

You people know him, real well, Cox said. And Ive been all around the Bay Area and I dont think they like him much, either. They just dont know yet that theres a viable alternative out there. In his speech to delegates Saturday, Cox said Newsom has got more baggage than Samsonite. He was born on third base and thought he had a triple.

Yet when asked in an interview where he and Allen differ on policy, Cox conceded not a lot. On Saturday, both men promised to end Californias sanctuary state law and overturn its new gas tax. They are both mainstream Republicans who believe that cutting taxes and regulations is the best route to economic success. Both criticize the power of public employee unions and would like to given more power to charter schools.

Allen said getting Sundays endorsement is very important. It would be fantastic. He is counting on turning out what he described Saturday as the silent supermajority. The forgotten Californians.

All weve got to do is turn out the Trump voters and the disaffected Democrats, and Travis Allen will be your next governor, Allen roared during his Saturday pitch to delegates.

After hearing the speeches Saturday, delegate John Eade, who lives in Hollister (San Benito County), said he is really impressed with Travis Allen. I like the way he goes for the jugular. I think we need someone like that against Gavin Newsom. We need some young blood in there.

But Angela Ryon, a delegate from San Diego, preferred Cox because hes forceful. He knows what hes talking about. I see him being ready to take on the big issues. And people who I respect, like Newt Gingrich, like him.

More than Allen, Cox pleaded for Republicans to put aside our differences. We need to come out of this convention united and strong, he told a group of Bay Area delegates Saturday. The Democrats are divided and weak. If we dont take advantage of this, God help us.

Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicles senior political writer. Email: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoliSAN DIEGO  The Republican Partys chances of holding onto the House may have taken a hit over the weekend, thanks to the California GOPs inability to rally around one of its two main candidates for governor.

The partys problem: Its already unlikely to have a candidate for Sen. Dianne Feinsteins seat on the November general election ballot, and the failure of delegates at the state GOP convention here to endorse either Assemblyman Travis Allen or businessman John Cox for governor hurts both candidates chances of surviving the June 5 top-two primary.

That could leave the GOP with no candidate in the two marquee state races this fall  potentially depressing conservative turnout in contests for several California House seats that Democrats hope to pry from Republicans in their effort to seize control of Congress.

Neither Cox nor Allen, R-Huntington Beach (Orange County), received the required 60 percent support from delegates Sunday to secure the partys nod. Cox received 55.3 percent and Allen 40.5 percent, with the rest of the delegates choosing no endorsement or abstaining.

Instead of focusing on pounding the four Democrats in the governors race in the month left before the primary, Cox and Allen are likely to spend time and resources fighting each other for voters who lean Republican.

Experts predict that roughly 41 percent of the ballots cast in the primary will be for a Republican candidate. A clear message from the state party might have helped consolidate support behind one candidate, making him a stronger bet to advance to the general election.

Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press

Cox was in a virtual tie for second place with former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a Democrat, in an April survey by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California. Allen was a few points back, in fourth place. All three trailed Democratic Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Republicans were already concerned that their voters would stay home in November, as the state party hasnt been able to recruit a serious candidate for U.S. Senate and Democrats are energized to express their opposition to President Trump. None of the GOP candidates for Senate even reached the threshold to be able to address the full convention this weekend, and party officials barred one of them, neo-Nazi Patrick Little, from attending.

And now, the GOPs gubernatorial hopefuls are likely to turn on each other in the crucial final weeks of the campaign, when most voters will start paying attention to the race.

Its sad, because our enemy should be Villaraigosa, said Greg Conlon of Atherton, a delegate who abstained because he is running for state treasurer. I would have preferred if we had gotten behind one or the other.

Gregory Bull / Associated Press

Landing the partys imprimatur would have been a bigger boon to Allen, whose campaign has just $147,609 in the bank compared with $1.2 million for Cox, a San Diego County businessman, according to fundraising figures. Cox has put $4 million of his own money into the race.

Now Allen will have to lean harder on his network of 40,000 volunteers, many of them Trump supporters who have gravitated to the assemblyman because Cox says he didnt vote for the president in 2016.

Allen cast the no-endorsement as a massive win because he blocked Cox from receiving it.

Im ecstatic, Allen said on the convention floor, where he continued glad-handing delegates long after the vote. John Cox tried to buy the Republican Party nomination. This sends a loud message that the Republican Party nomination cannot be bought.

Cox spokesman Matt Shupe said not winning the endorsement was a death blow to Allens campaign.

He doesnt have the resources to be a viable candidate for governor of California. We do, and we will continue to do so, Shupe said.

State party Chairman Jim Brulte noted that the Democratic Party also did not endorse a candidate for governor at its convention in February. I remain believing that there will be a Republican in the top two for governor, he said.

If not, said Mark Meuser, a Walnut Creek attorney who won the partys endorsement for secretary of state, that could be very difficult for all down-ticket races, from the Assembly to the (state) Senate to congressional races.

Now conservatives are wondering what would bring Republicans to the polls in November should there be no gubernatorial candidate. The options include tapping into a mix of frustration, anger and, as Rep. Mimi Walters, R-Irvine, put it, a fear of House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco.

If Nancy Pelosi cant take our seats, she cant become Speaker Pelosi again, Walters told delegates Friday, then paused before delivering her punch line. Wait a second. Did a chill just run through this room here?

Walters painted an ominous picture of Democrats trying to flip congressional seats in seven California districts that Hillary Clinton won in 2016, including her Orange County turf.

The Democrats think theres no stopping them this time, Walters said. Theyre not just coming for one of us. Theyre coming for all of us.

Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicles senior political writer. Email: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoliWord that San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott is being considered for the chiefs job in Los Angeles caught just about everyone by surprise.

Scott didnt give a heads up to either Mayor Mark Farrell, members of the police commission or even his command staff.

When L.A. Police Chief Charlie Beck announced back in January that he was preparing to retire, we asked SFPD spokesman Sgt. Michael Andraychak whether Scott  who had been a deputy chief under Beck  would be interviewing to succeed his old boss.

No, the chief is happy where he is at, and plans to live up to his commitment to the people of San Francisco to be the chief of this department, Andraychak said.

When we reached out to Andraychak last week, we instead heard back from department communications director David Stevenson, who responded the same way he has in the past, saying only the chief is focused on this city and its police department.

Farrell tells us the chief didnt even bring up the speculation over the L.A. job when they met Wednesday, the same day the Los Angeles Times quoted unnamed sources as saying Scott was invited for an interview.

Chief Scott is doing a great job for the city of San Francisco, so its no surprise that other cities would be interested in talking to him, Farrell said.

Especially Los Angeles, where Scott served for 27 years before Mayor Ed Lee brought him up to San Francisco 18 months ago to succeed Greg Suhr.

Scott was so popular in L.A. that a 50-member Southern California law enforcement delegation led by Beck flew up to attend his swearing-in.

Even then, insiders were speculating on how long Scott would stay.

From the get-go, word was that Beck would be retiring and that Scott was just passing through, said former Police Officers Association President Gary Delagnes.

Scott privately downplayed the speculation, even calling POA President Martin Halloran after Beck announced his planned exit to make it clear he wouldnt be applying for the post.

We had thought the chief had a full and complete commitment to the San Francisco Police Department, so for him to interview for any agency outside, including the LAPD, we find it surprising and disappointing, Halloran said.

Police Commissioner Petra DeJesus said it would be very concerning if Scott left while the department was still undergoing reforms recommended by the U.S. Justice Department.

Others at City Hall, however, note that times have changed and that Lees death in mid-December  coupled with the prospect of two mayoral elections in the next 18 months  has every department head in the city on edge.

And chances are, they would be interviewing with anyone who called.

San Francisco Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross appear Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays. Matier can be seen on the KPIX TV morning and evening news. He can also be heard on KCBS radio Monday through Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 5:50 p.m. Got a tip? Call (415) 777-8815, or email matierandross@ sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @matierandrossThe Bay Area has long grappled with mental illness, struggling in historic and modern times to treat its citizens.

San Francisco's history of mental health facilities starts with a shocking tale. During the Gold Rush, San Francisco used a ship called the Euphemia docked off the city to house the mentally ill. There, they were imprisoned along with criminals deemed unsafe to be left on land. In 1850, 12 individuals judged to be "insane" were locked in the Euphemia's hold.A quarter-century ago, there were 56 teenagers in the labor force for every limited service restaurant  that is, the kind where you order at the counter.

Today, there are less than half as many, a reflection both of teenagers decreasing workforce participation and of the explosive growth in restaurants.

But in an industry where cheap labor is an essential component in providing inexpensive food, a shortage of workers is changing the equation upon which fast-food places have long relied. This can be seen in rising wages, in a growth of incentives, and in the sometimes odd situations that business owners find themselves in.

This is why Jeffrey Kaplow, for example, spends a lot of time working behind the counter in his Subway restaurant in Lower Manhattan. Its not what he pictured himself doing, but he simply doesnt have enough employees.

Kaplow has tried everything he can think of to find workers, placing Craigslist ads, asking other franchisees for referrals, seeking to hire people from Subways that have closed.

Yet there he was during a recent lunchtime rush, ringing up veggie foot-longs and fountain drinks. He feared that if the line grew too long, people might get frustrated and not come back.

Every time theres a huge line, the next day the store is nowhere near as busy, he explained later as he straightened tables and swept up crumbs.

Across the country, Keith Miller, another franchisee, is dealing with the same problem. What employees? We dont have them anymore, joked Miller, who cant find enough workers for the three Subways he owns in Northern California.

Since 2010, fast-food jobs have grown nearly twice as fast as employment overall, contributing to the economic recovery. But rapid growth has created new problems. Some say restaurants have grown faster than demand, causing a glut of competition that is another source of pressure on business owners.

Restaurant owners are also worrying about increased immigration enforcement: Nearly 1 in 5 workers is foreign-born.

With unemployment at a 17-year low, businesses everywhere are struggling to find workers. Fast food is feeling the pinch acutely, especially as one important source of workers has dried up. In 2000, about 45 percent of those between 16 and 19 had a job  today its 30 percent.

We used to get overwhelmed with the number of people wanting summer jobs, Miller said, adding that he now gets maybe a handful of such applications, at most. I dont know what teenagers do all summer.

Gavin Poole, a senior at Montville Township High School in New Jersey, likes the idea of being his own boss  thats one reason he created a small business out of after-school landscaping and handyman work. The money has helped cover his cell phone bill and the payments on the Jeep Wrangler he leased last year. I want to be prepared for the future, because you dont know, financially, what situation you could be in, he said.

A recent analysis by economists at the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that an increased emphasis on education  and getting scholarships  had contributed to the decline in working teens, reflecting both the rising costs of education and the low wages most of them can earn.

Now, after years of benefiting from low-cost labor, employers are starting to pay more. Fast-food wages began rising in 2014, and have increased faster than overall wages since. But at $10.93 an hour, the pay is still less than half the average for an hourly employee, pushing companies to offer more incentives  like dental insurance, signup bonuses and even travel reimbursement  to entice workers.

Restaurants are notorious for churning through employees. But people are coming and going faster than they have in recent memory, according to data from TDn2K, a restaurant research firm. Last year, the turnover rate reached 133 percent, meaning that positions often had to be filled more than once.

That has forced business owners to adjust.

Tamra Kennedy, who owns nine Taco Johns franchises in the Midwest, started offering $100 as a bonus to new employees who reached 100 hours. She has started offering merit increases twice a year, and she pays all employees more than the minimum wage.

Hiring has been more challenging in the last two years than probably the previous 10, Kennedy said.

About half of her stores are understaffed. So she has devised workarounds: Digital probes, not people, now record food temperatures. She has also invested in expensive registers that can produce reports that employees used to do by hand.

Thirty years ago, I would not put up with the stuff I put up with today, said John Motta, a longtime Dunkin Donuts franchisee in Nashua, N.H. When an employee recently missed a shift, one of his stores could serve only drive-through customers for about an hour.

You try not to be too harsh on them, he said, because youre afraid tomorrow theyre not going to show up.

Rachel Abrams and Robert Gebeloff are New York Times writers.California Highway Patrol /

The California Highway Patrol asked for the publics help Sunday in identifying the driver in a hit-and-run that killed a 63-year-old man on Highway 4 in Discovery Bay.

A body was found Saturday morning on Highway 4 just west of Bixler Road, the CHP said. Authorities determined that the victim, a 63-year-old Antioch resident, had been killed in a hit-and-run.A drunken driver was arrested after colliding with another vehicle Saturday night on Highway 1 in Pescadero, causing the death of the suspects passenger, the California Highway Patrol said.

Paulino Najera, 21, of Pescadero was arrested on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter after the crash around 8:40 p.m. near Bean Hollow Road, said CHP Officer Art Montiel.The Swedish justice system apparently moves quickly, if G-Eazy's case is any indication.

Just a day after the Bay Area rapper was arrested in Stockholm on suspicion of assault and drug possession after an alleged nightclub brawl, he was reportedly found guilty, fined and released, Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet reported Friday.

TMZ reported Thursday that G-Eazy was "acting belligerent" at the club before throwing punches at security guards and that his girlfriend Halsey may have been struck in the scuffle. Police reportedly found cocaine in his pocket.

Prosecutor Carl Mellberg told Radio Sweden that he considered G-Eazy a flight risk and wanted him detained lest he avoid prosecution by fleeing.

"I consider him to be under strong suspicion of violence against a public servant," Mellberg said.

ALSO: G-Eazy launches new bourbon

It's not the first time this year the rapper's alleged cocaine use has been in the news this year. After photos of G-Eazy and Halsey apparently snorting cocaine on a yacht surfaced in January, he told The Breakfast Club, "It's New Year's Day. It's Miami. I'm on a yacht. What do you think I'm doing?"

He was given a fine of 80,000 Swedish Krona  about $9,000 US dollars  plus damages to the victims and two years probation, and will reportedly continue touring as scheduled, Swedish media reported.

Filipa Ioannou is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at fioannou@sfchronicle.com and follow her on TwitterATLANTA  The way things are going, the Giants might get Hunter Pence back in left field before Mac Williamson.

The team can extend Pences rehab assignment with Triple-A Sacramento only so long. Meanwhile, Williamsons recovery from the concussion he sustained slamming into a wall at AT&T Park has gone slower than hoped.

The Giants have learned all too well that is not unusual.

Manager Bruce Bochy reported that Williamson felt woozy after batting and fielding practice Friday night and was to be examined by a team doctor on the trip.

Before Sundays game, Bochy could not predict when Williamson might play, but his next games probably will be at Triple-A on a rehab assignment now that he has not faced a pitcher since April 27.

Its been a while, Bochy said. Now you run the risk of making a move and activating him, and his symptoms come back. Id say its more than likely hell go down for some rehab games.

Pence (right-thumb sprain) began his rehab April 27. By rule, it has to end May 16 unless he is reinjured and needs to start over. He was hitting .172 when he went on the disabled list. He is 6-for-27 (.222) with no extra-base hits and seven strikeouts for Sacramento.

Catcher signed: The Giants added minor-league catching depth by signing Ryan Hanigan, who famously stepped away from the plate and turned away when Buster Posey hit his grand slam off Cincinnatis Mat Latos in Game 5 of the 2012 Division Series.

The Giants need the help after Hector Sanchez incurred another concussion at Triple-A. Hanigan, 37, played 33 games with the Rockies last season

Briefly: The Giants had an odd defensive series against the Braves. They made some great plays but committed seven errors, two Sunday by second baseman Alen Hanson. Bochy said the ball seemed squirrelly coming off the dirt. The Giants last had seven errors in a three-game sweep in 1999, at Montreal.  Pablo Sandoval made one of those highlight plays Sunday, a backhand diving stop to rob Johan Camargo of two RBIs.  Losing pitcher Mike Soroka, from Calgary, Alberta, Canada, committed to Cal before signing with Atlanta as a first-round pick in 2015.  Bochy reported that Reyes Morontas back felt better. Moronta left Saturdays game in pain after facing two hitters and walking both on four pitches.

Henry Schulman is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer.DALLAS  Manuel Oliver was grieving in front of a crowd, spreading red paint on what would become the latest portrait of his son, killed in the mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fla.

Usually when he paints, Oliver, 50, listens to music he shared with his son  the Ramones or Guns N Roses. But on Saturday he listened to the crowd across from the National Rifle Association convention in Dallas. The demonstrators protesting the NRAs presence were hushed at first. Then Oliver struck the mural with a hammer. Then again, and again, tearing 17 holes, one for each of the Parkland victims, including his son, Joaquin. He affixed the 17-year-olds image to the center of the mural, inside a target.

Each strike echoed like a shot. The crowd gasped. At least one girl sobbed.

The Olivers, like other Parkland parents and students, are grieving through protest, refusing to allow the nation to forget their loss. They call it graphic activism, confronting gun advocates, including President Trump, by continuing to conjure images of their son after the Feb. 14 shooting.

As Olivers latest mural took shape, his wife looked on nervously. The crowd had gathered outside City Hall. Across the street at the convention center, more than 80,000 NRA members and supporters were meeting for the second day. Dallas police stood watch along the perimeter.

As her sons face flashed on a billboard displaying shooting victims, her husband gathered sunflowers and poked them through each of the holes he had hammered in the mural. He had pasted images on the mural, too. Dana Loesch, a host on NRATV, was dressed as a clown toting an AR-15 rifle. Trump, who addressed the convention the day before, appeared as a circus ringmaster.

Patricia Oliver smiled. She was glad for some relief. It can be painful watching her husband re-create the image of her youngest child, whom they still speak of in the present tense. She wears a Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School lanyard as a bracelet, along with an avocado charm that recalls her sons nickname, Guac.

You have to do what you can to feel better. I would do anything to have him here with us, she said. Today is prom day.

Once her husband finished his mural, he challenged Trump to visit their home in Coral Springs. Spend five minutes in Joaquins empty room, Oliver said, his hands sooty with black spray paint.

The Olivers were joined by fellow Parkland parent Fred Guttenberg, who spoke out against the NRA after his 14-year-old daughter, Jaime, was killed in the shooting.

I blame them and consider them a co-conspirator in my childs murder, Guttenberg said. As long as I cannot get the image of her running down a hall with an AR-15 at her back out of my head, Im going to keep doing this.

Molly Hennessy-Fiske is a Los Angeles Times writer.HILO, Hawaii  The flow of lava intensified Sunday from eruptions at Hawaii Islands Kilauea volcano, and molten rock was pouring from fissures that opened overnight, farther from the original eruptions.

At least 26 homes and four other structures have been destroyed, Hawaii officials said.

Toxic sulfur dioxide gas spewing near the fissures was at lethal concentrations, said U.S. Geological Survey volcano scientist Wendy Stovall. Lava fountains emerging from the cracks in the ground produced even more gas than previously observed.

Residents have been evacuated from two remote, rural neighborhoods on the eastern edge of Hawaii Island where the lava is emerging from the fissures. An estimated 1,800 people live in the affected area, and many have sought housing in shelters, with friends or on surrounding islands.

Scientists on the ground are reporting that lava flows are traveling through the forest, power lines are coming down, and a few explosions have been heard  likely from propane tanks or methane explosions, Stovall said.

ALSO Craziest images from the Hawaii volcano eruption

As lava inundates the heavily forested area, organic matter burns and releases methane. That methane gas can get trapped in pockets beneath lava flows or underground, and explode out violently, throwing rocks and debris in every direction, Stovall said.

Eruptions of lava fountains continued throughout the night. Because lava by Sunday was flowing farther than it did in the first days of the eruption, that means the magma supply is still present and shows signs of continuing, Stovall said.

The flows are still moving quite slowly, however  scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey monitoring them can walk away from the hot lava easily.

By Sunday morning on Hawaii, the total number of fissures that have at one point spewed or sputtered lava had risen to 10. On Saturday night, a new crack erupted, spewing lava as high as 230 feet.

Kilauea has been continuously erupting since 1983 and is one of the worlds most active volcanoes. In 2014, lava burned a house and smothered a cemetery as it approached Pahoa, the town closest to Leilani Estates. But the flow stalled just before it reached Pahoas main road.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Rong-Gong Lin II and Heidi Chang are Los Angeles Times writers.Do you wonder why the proportion of Americans declaring themselves unaffiliated with organized religion has skyrocketed in recent decades?

This trend is especially pronounced among adults under 30, roughly 40 percent of whom claim no connection to a religious congregation or tradition and have joined the ranks of those the pollsters call the nones.

To understand how so many now prefer nothing to something when it comes to religion, ponder the news over the last few days.

The same newspapers and broadcasts that were reporting on how President Trump finally admitted that he had indirectly paid a porn star to keep quiet about an alleged affair also offered accounts of what well call Jesuitgate, the controversy over who should be the chaplain of the House of Representatives.

On Thursday, Speaker Paul Ryan backed down from his effective dismissal of Rev. Patrick Conroy, a Jesuit priest, as chaplain. Ryan had said he asked the cleric to quit because he had provided inadequate pastoral services, but denied that Conroy was ousted because of a mild prayer for justice he delivered during the debate over the GOP tax cut.

That phrase pastoral services must inspire a chuckle from your average Millennial agnostic. It makes the work of holy men and women sound like the this-worldly tasks of the accountant, the mechanic or the dentist. (As the grateful son of a dentist, I speak with respect for these extremely useful professions.)

Conroy had initially agreed to Ryans request to step aside but withdrew his resignation in a quietly stinging letter. The priest noted that he had never been informed of the shortcomings of his pastoral services. If he had, he would have attempted to correct such faults.

Conroy also quoted Ryans chief of staff, Jonathan Burks, as telling him something like maybe its time we had a chaplain that wasnt a Catholic. Ryans office vehemently denied this (the Catholic vote is substantial) but the speaker announced he didnt want to have a protracted fight and that Conroy could stay.

Many of us could have told the speaker that its a mistake to mess with a Jesuit. But think about it: The House Republican leadership was more inclined to push out a chaplain than to impose accountability on a president who is a proven liar and trashes the rule of law for his own selfish purposes day after day.

This degree of partisan irresponsibility only aggravates the already powerful skepticism among the young about what it means to be religious. In their landmark 2010 book, American Grace, the scholars Robert Putnam and David Campbell found that the rise of the nones was driven by the increasing association of organized religion with conservative politics and a lean toward the right in the culture wars.

Revealingly, Putnam and Campbell found that Millennials with tolerant and open views on homosexuality were more than twice as likely to be religious nones as their statistically similar peers with conservative or traditionalist views on homosexuality. Many young people came to regard religion, in Putnam and Campbells words, as judgmental, homophobic, hypocritical and too political.

If you want a particularly exquisite hypocritical moment, consider that last Thursday, the very day when Trump had to admit his lies on the Stormy Daniels payoff, the president tweeted in commemoration of the National Day of Prayer. Prayer is the key that opens us to the treasures of Gods mercies and blessings, he proclaimed in a pious 42-second video set to a sentimental soundtrack of peaceful strings. I guess Trump can use some peace and a lot of mercy right now.

Whats maddening about all this is that religion has a strong case to make for itself  to the young and to everyone else  given its historical role as a prod to personal and social change and the ways in which movements for justice have been inspired through the centuries by the words of Exodus, Micah, Isaiah, Amos and Jesus.

Conroy was getting at this in the most uncontroversial way possible when he spoke in his now-contested prayer of how our great nation has created opportunities that have allowed some to achieve great success, while others continue to struggle. If a chaplain could be rebuked for voicing that simple and undeniable truth, whats the point of the religious liberty that Trump and his GOP allies celebrate?

And when will those who advertise themselves as religions friends realize they can do far more damage to faith than all the atheists and agnostics put together?

 2018 Washington Post

Writers Group

Email: ejdionne@washpost.com Twitter: @EJDionneThe transition from southbound U.S. Highway 101 to northbound Interstate Highway 280 is currently blocked after a multiple-vehicle traffic collision on Saturday night, according to the California Highway Patrol.

The CHP said officers on the scene are looking for "some people", although the CHP didn't clarify if they are motorists from one or two of the vehicles involved in the collision.The San Francisco Asian Heritage Street Celebration will bring performances, food, art and festivities to San Francisco's Tenderloin and Civic Center neighborhoods on Sunday.

In conjunction with Sunday Streets SF, the street fair will highlight several Asian cultures, including Burmese, Cambodian, Chinese, Filipino, Korean, Indonesian, Laotian, Vietnamese and Indian.PETALUMA (BCN)

A 30-year-old man was arrested Friday for stealing over a hundred cans of baby formula from Safeway stores, Petaluma police reported.

Police were dispatched to a Safeway on 701 Sonoma Mountain Parkway at 5:38 p.m. to reports of a "habitual shoplifter" loading an empty stroller with baby formula, police said.

Police contacted the man as he was about to drive away from the store. He initially provided false identification to officers, police said, but they later identified him as Jerry Young of Tracy.

Young's record showed that he had two outstanding warrants for theft and burglary.

Police searched his vehicle and found 96 cans of baby formula valued at a total of $4,500 and a small amount of narcotics.

Police said Young admitted to numerous recent thefts of baby formula in Northern California over the past three months and two thefts of 40 cans of baby formula from Petaluma Safeway stores in the past week.

Young was arrested for burglary, impersonating another, possession of stolen property, possession of a narcotic and the two warrants. He was booked in Sonoma County Jail.

###SANTA CRUZ (BCN)

A convicted murderer incarcerated for a 1995 killing was denied a parole request Thursday, Santa Cruz County District Attorney Jeffrey S. Rosell announced Friday.

The Parole Board at the Valley State Prison in Chowchilla denied Israel Jerome Garcia's request for parole for a period of three years, prosecutors said.

Garcia was convicted of robbing and killing his 77-year-old landlord in 1995.

Following his conviction, he was sentenced to prison in 1996.

Prosecutors said Garcia planned the crime for close to a week, and on May 10, 1995, he knocked on the victim's door, talked to him for about 20 minutes and then lunged at him a with razor blade and stabbed him 44 times.

Garcia also kicked the victim in the head several times as the victim tried to crawl away, prosecutors said.

Garcia spent the first 18 years in prison committing numerous crimes including trafficking narcotics, and in 2001, he slashed another inmate in the face with a razor blade, prosecutors said.

During the last four years in prison, Garcia has been involved in a self-help program and has been crime-free, prosecutors said. He also wrote an apology letter to the victim.

###Palo Alto police are investigating a fatal collision in the 400 block of East Charleston Road.

The road will be closed for the next few hours between Nelson Drive and Carlson Circle, according to police.

Drivers are asked to take alternate routes if traveling between Alma Street and Middlefield Road on East Charleston Road.

Police said they would release more information about the collision on Sunday morning once the investigation is complete.

###A new mural at a Chula Vista charter school stirred controversy as soon as the paint dried.

Depicted in colorful spray paint on a wall at the MAAC Community Charter School near San Diego is an Aztec warrior with a skull and feathered headdress, human heart in hand, alongside another warrior with a jaguar headdress holding up his kill: the president of the United States.

The recently revealed mural shows Donald Trump's decapitated head on a spear.

A local television news viewer reported the mural to a KUSI reporter, who began investigating the story Monday. The school's director Tommy Ramirez told the station the artwork was a part of an annual fundraiser called Battlegroundz, which celebrates street art and raises money for student scholarships.

CONTROVERSY IN SF: Fiery anti-Trump mural appears in Clarion Alley

After a few days of increased attention, the portion of the mural depicting the president was covered by a black tarp Wednesday, according to KUSI.

The artist, Sasha Andrade, responded by sharing a picture of the full mural on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram with the caption, "They can try to #censor it but here it is guys!!!!"

ALSO READ: Sign on Bernal Hill questions just who is allowed to dream

"We understand that there was a mural painted at the event this past weekend that does not align with our school's philosophy of nonviolence," Ramirez said in a statement to the Washington Post. "We have been in communication with the artist  who has agreed to modify the artwork  to better align with the school's philosophy."

Read Alix Martichoux's latest stories and send her news tips at amartichoux@sfchronicle.com.BEIRUT  Lebanons first national elections in nine years were marked by a tepid turnout Sunday, reflecting voter frustration over endemic corruption and a stagnant economy.

President Michel Aoun broadcast an appeal to voters to participate in a televised address an hour before polls closed in the evening. If you want change, you should exercise your right to vote, he said in a message published on Twitter at the same time.

The elections were the first since war broke out in neighboring Syria in 2011, sending over one million refugees to Lebanon, a small country with a population estimated at around 4.5 million. The war has divided the country, pitting parties supporting the Iran-sponsored Hezbollahs intervention in Syria to aid President Bashar Assad against Saudi-aligned parties opposed to it.

Official results were not expected to be announced before Monday.

The low turnout  between 32 percent and 42 percent in Beirut precincts, according to Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk  betrayed widespread voter apathy for the main political currents governing the country and left open the possibility that outside candidates could win seats in Parliament.

These leaders are destroying homes, not building them, said Ahmad Khashouq, 43, a security guard in Beirut. Khashouq, from the town of Zahle in the countrys Bekaa Valley, said he was not voting in the elections after feeling his vote was wasted in 2009.

More than 500 candidates ran for 128 seats in Lebanons National Assembly.

Fist fights broke out in and around polling stations around the country, as rival partisans accused each other and election officials of ballot stuffing and illegal campaigning. In the Choueifat district, a crowd inside a station accused the supervisor of illegal voting practices and smashed a ballot box, spilling its contents across the floor. The army ordered the media to turn off their cameras.

The voting was unlikely to change the existing balance of power among the major political factions in Lebanon, but many hoped new contenders from civil society groups could challenge the decades-old sectarian political system.

The main race was between a Western and Saudi-backed coalition headed by Prime Minister Saad Hariri and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group, part of a region-wide power struggle that is tearing apart the Middle East.

Hezbollah and its allies were expected to add more seats, while Hariri was likely to lose several. Some of his Sunni supporters saw him as being too soft on Hezbollah, and the billionaire businessman also faced criticism after laying off dozens of employees from his companies in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia.

Still, Hariri would most likely be named to form a national unity Cabinet after the vote. The rival sides are expected to recreate the unity government that currently exists, which includes Hezbollah.

Philip Issa and Bassem Mroue are Associated Press writers.JERUSALEM  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stepped up his calls to end the Iranian nuclear deal as President Trump weighs whether to withdraw the United States from the 2015 agreement.

A deal that enables Iran to keep and hide all its nuclear weapons know-how is a horrible deal, Netanyahu said at a news briefing Sunday.

The deal has to be either fully fixed or fully nixed, he said. But if you do nothing to this deal, if you keep it as is, you will end up with Iran with a nuclear arsenal in a very short time.

Trump faces a May 12 deadline over whether to uphold 2015 nuclear deal, which he long has criticized.

Netanyahu is an outspoken critic of the accord, which requires Iran to limit its nuclear enrichment in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions. Netanyahu says the pact will not prevent Iran, Israels bitter enemy, from reaching nuclear weapons capability.

Last week, Netanyahu said a half ton of Iranian nuclear documents seized by Israeli intelligence revealed that Iran had lied about its past efforts to produce nuclear weapons. He did not provide any evidence that Iran has violated the 2015 nuclear deal, but said the documents prove Tehran cannot be trusted.

European countries, which have been pressing Trump to stick with the deal, have said Netanyahus presentation only reinforced the importance of the agreement, which provides for inspections.

Earlier, Netanyahu accused Iran of supplying advanced weapons to Syria that pose a danger to Israel, saying its better to confront Tehran sooner rather than later.

Israel has repeatedly warned it will not tolerate a lasting Iranian military presence in neighboring Syria, and is believed to have been behind recent air strikes on Syrian military bases that killed Iranian soldiers, prompting Tehran to vow retaliation. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement.

Also Sunday, Israeli troops shot and killed three Palestinians who tried to breach the Gaza border fence, the military said, adding that an axe and a wire cutter were found in their possession.

Soldiers fired tank shells and machine guns at the men, according to a Palestinian medic, Izzat Shatat. He said the men had been close to the border fence, but that he was not sure if they actually crossed into Israel.

The attempted breach came at a time of heightened tension on the Gaza-Israel border, including more than a month of weekly mass protests near the fence. Gazas Hamas rulers have said the marches would continue until a decade-old blockade of the territory by Israel and Egypt is lifted.

Josef Federman is an Associated Press writer.BEIJING  A list of hard-line demands that the Trump administration handed China last week could make it even more difficult to resolve a trade conflict between the worlds two largest economies.

Thats the view of trade analysts who say the U.S. insistence that Beijing shrink Americas gaping trade deficit with China by $200 billion by the end of 2020, among other demands, is more likely to raise tensions than to calm them. The thrust of the demands is that China should give up policies that favor domestic companies especially in a strategic rivalry with the U.S. over technology  policies Beijing considers core to its state-driven economic model and vital for its future growth.

An editorial Saturday by Chinas ruling Communist Partys mouthpiece, the Peoples Daily, said Beijing was willing to engage in discussions that brought benefits to both sides but would not give in to strong-arm tactics that hurt Chinas interests.

In the face of the U.S.s fierce offensive of protectionism, China resolutely defends its national interest, the Peoples Daily said. It will never trade away its core interests and rejects the U.S.s demand for an exorbitant price.

A U.S. official confirmed the authenticity of a document outlining U.S. priorities that was presented to China ahead of two days of trade talks that ended Friday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity.

We have to bring fairness in trade between the U.S. and China, and we will do that, President Trump said Friday in Washington. Trump had campaigned for the presidency on a promise to reduce Americas trade deficit with China, which amounted last year to $337 billion in goods and services.

The intensifying trade dispute between the United States and China has rattled financial markets for weeks. In March, the Trump administration slapped tariffs on imported steel and aluminum. China countered with tariffs on a range of U.S. products, including bourbon and blue jeans.

An even higher-stakes fight looms over American allegations that China steals technology and forces U.S. companies to hand over trade secrets in exchange for access to the Chinese market. The United States is considering imposing tariffs on up to $150 billion of Chinese imports, and Beijing has countered with proposed tariffs on $50 billion in American products, including soybeans and small aircraft.

Seeking to avert a trade war, the United States last week sent a high-level delegation to Beijing, led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

Gillian Wong, Paul Wiseman and Dake Kang are Associated Press writers.To continue, please log in, or sign up for a new account.

We offer one free story view per month. If you register for an account, you will get two additional story views. After those three total views, we ask that you support us with a subscription.

A subscription to our digital content is so much more than just access to our valuable content. It means youre helping to support a local community institution that has, from its very start, supported the betterment of our society. Thank you very much!Could Australia be the first country in the world to impose a local content quota on Netflix? It's question being asked in media circles, and one that could soon be answered.

The Turnbull government commenced a review of support for the screen content sector nearly a year ago. That raised hopes within the film production community that streaming services such as Netflix and Stan (which is part owned by Fairfax Media, publisher of this column) could be forced to produce fixed amounts of Australian content, like their traditional TV rivals.

There's even been industry chatter that some form of announcement on this, perhaps designed to dovetail with already confirmed tax incentives to lure Hollywood productions back to Australia, could be forthcoming in this week's Federal Budget.

Well placed government sources indicate that this is wishful thinking; we'll only have to wait till Tuesday to find out.Elena Andoniou and Lauren Davie aren't holding out much hope for a boost to their business from the federal budget on Tuesday.

The owners of Those Girls Beverage company, which turns over more than $500,000 a year selling iced tea and hot cider, say the company tax cut for small business in last year's budget has had minimal impact. "Honestly, I didn't notice it," Davie says.

Lauren Davie and Elena Andoniou delivering their hot apple cider to cafe Monroe in Richmond. Credit:Simon Schluter

She says an extension of the instant asset write-off scheme, which allows small businesses to write off purchases up to $20,000 instantly for tax purposes and is due to end in June, could be helpful in future.

Those Girls has been unable to take advantage of the scheme so far."That was my first bad experience in telecommunications. I probably lost about $4 million-plus, not to mention the value of the actual business, which would have been $30 million." TeleChoice's survival after One.Tel's collapse "was a miracle", according to Abdou. He sold off property investments to fund the business and negotiated a deal for TeleChoice to move across to Optus. I never cried as many times in my whole life. I think I cried more in my 50s than I did as a child. Ehab Abdou "We signed two contracts with (Optus), the terms of the first contract especially wasn't very favourable, it helped us survive," Abdou says. "Everyone that dealt with us was quite nervous as we had lost a lot of money and really hardly anyone survived from One.Tel. But we paid off all our debts and we were good - we got our feet on the ground and we built our business."

TeleChoice's business boomed as an Optus dealer. At its peak, Abdou says TeleChoice made up more than 24 per cent of Optus' total business, with TeleChoice's turnover in excess of $100 million a year. "In our last contract, we would have connected about 2 million post-paid and pre-paid connections," Abdou says. However, the relationship soured and TeleChoice alleges Optus breached its contract. TeleChoice is seeking more than $100 million in damages in proceedings it filed in the Supreme Court of Victoria in December. Optus' defence is due on May 9. Ehab Abdou, founder of Telechoice with Liliane Seifen, the chief operating officer and one of Telechoice's 14 remaining employees. Credit:Luis Enrique Stopping the bleed

When TeleChoice's relationship with Optus ended, it employed close to 500 people and had 160 leases in shopping centres across Australia. "We were at that time a business that was worth $100 million and thinking we had a rosy future in front of us; we thought we were pretty safe," Abdou says. Loading Abdou and chief operating officer Liliane Seifen had to act swiftly for the business to survive. "We called it stopping the bleeding," Abdou says. "Our bleed was at a rate of $3 million a month for staff wages and stores. It was very difficult. We would put 50 people in the room and we would have to tell them. There was a lot of tears ... It was the worst time ever."

However, Abdou says TeleChoice paid all its debts. "I am proud to say, all our staff that left, everyone received their entitlement," he says. Still standing Abdou is keen to emphasise that despite the challenges, TeleChoice is still operating. "I don't know any other telecommunications company that was able to go through as many traumas as we have and still be standing," Abdou says.

After TeleChoice's relationship with Optus ended, it entered a new deal with Telstra Wholesale that has been in operation for five years. "Today, the majority of our numbers are done online, we are getting better and better at it," Abdou says. "Last month has been the best month we have had ever. We are on a growth path." In a very competitive market with price sensitive customers, Abdou is confident TeleChoice will survive. "We have gone from distributing someone else's product to manufacturing our own product and going after niche areas in the market," Abdou says. "We are resilient and still here to face Optus." Optus declined to comment as the matter is before the court.Even the Cannes Film Festival, now in its 71st year and as monumental as ever, has caught the combative mood of these woke times: this year, the talk leading up to the world's grandest cinematic event is all about the fights, controversies and political stand-offs.

From his palace on the Riviera, festival director Thierry Fremaux is battling with Netflix, fending off a rogue Portuguese producer trying to block his closing-night gala and trying to negotiate with the government of Iran, which won't let dissident filmmaker Jafar Panahi out of the country to attend his own premiere.

Wanuri Kahiu's film Rafiki, about two teenage girls who fall in love, was banned in her native Kenya.

This goes way up the food chain. The French authorities, according to the festival, are making a diplomatic approach in a last-ditch effort to get Panahi across the Mediterranean. Meanwhile, another competition filmmaker is under house arrest in Russia on trumped-up charges and a new talent from Kenya has just seen her film banned and condemned in her home country. The festival is pitching in for them too. It's all a far cry from frocks on the red carpet.

Some critics have suggested that Cannes is looking a bit like Berlin this year, albeit with better weather. Berlin Film Festival has always been its more politically engaged cousin, with social initiatives such as kitchens run by refugees, a conscious brief to give unknown directors and marginalised cultures a platform, and a jeans-or-whatever dress code.Alex and Emily have been crowned the winners of My Kitchen Rules for 2018.

After months of cooking challenges  along with plenty of shouting matches  the Seven Network revealed on Sunday night that the Queensland couple are the ones to take home $250,000 in prize money.

The pair did not find out they were this year's winners until the show wrapped up just after 9pm. Producers filmed two different endings in order to keep the outcome a secret until the very end.

The episode, which was filmed late last year, saw the final two teams plate up an impressive five-course meal. However, the judges were most wowed by Alex and Emily's lamb brains, pork belly and "penicillin" dessert.The Murray-Darling Basin Authority has sought to crack down on unauthorised releases of information, blocking access to public email domains and launching investigations into leaks.

Staff in the agency overseeing the implementation of the $13 billion Murray-Darling Basin Plan have been told they face criminal action if they breach public service obligations, according to emails obtained by Fairfax Media.

A flock of ibis fly over the dairy herd of owned by Daryl Hoey, near Katunga in Victoria. Credit:Nick Moir

It's understood the emails were prompted by a Fairfax Media article on February 17, which cited two former staffers  Maryanne Slattery and Bill Johnston  who criticised "rubbery figures" being used by the agency.

Phillip Glyde, the authority's chief executive, warned staff the following day the two had provided "very individual views" that failed to take into account the "breadth and totality" of its research.Designer Kym Ellery is one of Australia's most successful fashion exports. But she's the first to admit she made some big  and costly  mistakes along the way.

Now based in Paris, Ellery returned to Sydney last week to mentor fashion design graduate Lily James, through a new program at the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences.

Designer Kym Ellery (right) is mentoring fashion graduate Lily James through a new program at the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer

"I wish there had been more people around [as mentors] when I was starting up," Ellery said. "Fashion is where art and commerce meet and I wanted to share my knowledge ... and tell her about what I've learnt and the mistakes I've made."

James, 23, graduated from Raffles College, with a collection that takes its cues from her South Sudanese heritage but is also inspired by the art of Jackson Pollock and the Greek-British designer Mary Katrantzou.The Berejiklian government rejected the advice of two independent reports in approving the planning proposal for two Macquarie Group towers at Martin Place.

An artist's impression of Macquarie's proposed northern tower at Martin Place. Credit:Macquarie Group

The reports  one by the Independent Planning Commission, another commissioned by the Department of Planning and Environment  argued a proposed Macquarie Group tower on the south of Martin Place be set further back from the public square.

But the Department of Planning last week approved the planning proposals, after receiving advice from the Government Architect, Peter Poulet, in favour of allowing the towers closer to Martin Place.

This approval drew the ire of City of Sydney Lord Mayor, Clover Moore, who said the decision overturned a quarter-century policy of requiring new towers to sit at least 25 metres from Martin Place.The couple, who had been married for almost three years, had fought over financial issues and separated in June when Vaughan asked Milena to move out of their Wentworth Point apartment. A sessional lecturer in industrial design at the University of Technology, Sydney, Vaughan was being treated for a major depressive illness and had become obsessed with his wife and fixated on the idea she was seeing someone else. She had spoken to the police twice in June, saying she felt "unsafe to go outside" and she did "not want [Vaughan] to contact me ... I am worried what he will do because he is very controlling". On June 18, her sister in Colombia had received an email from an apparently bogus account in which the sender said they hoped Milena died in a car accident. Loading

In July, Vaughan was interviewed by police and denied he was a danger to his wife, and said he did not express that sentiment in the email. He said Milena had mental health issues. Days later, on August 17, 2015, the 41-year-old sat down at his computer and googled his estranged wife's name, the name of her workplace and "carotid artery neck". The scene in the car park on August 18 made Dr Knox-Haly stop in her tracks. Martha Knox-Haly said she was "terrified" but knew she had to act when her colleague was being attacked. She saw Milena's "little red car"  a Daihatsu Charade  pull into her usual spot outside the community centre. The black Peugeot followed immediately behind it.

"I thought, 'This doesn't look right.' It looked like road rage," she said. She saw Vaughan get out of the car and drop to his knees in front of Milena, who remained seated in the car with the door open and her feet on the ground. "I miss you," he told his wife. He was "pretending to sob", Dr Knox-Haly recalled, but he turned to her dry-eyed when she asked Milena if she was all right and said: "She's fine. I'm her husband." Dr Knox-Haly believed Milena was motioning for her to leave, and started to walk away. She discovered later that her colleague was asking her, under her breath, to stay. Shortly after, she heard "incredible screaming" and turned around to see Milena being "pulled out of the car" and Vaughan lunging at his estranged wife with the knife.

Dr Knox-Haly said she was "terrified" but knew she had to act. "I thought, bluff, bluff," she said. "I tried shouting at him in the loudest, angriest voice I could muster." She pulled Vaughan off Milena, who "fell to the ground" with stab wounds to her head, chest and arm. Vaughan then turned around, pushed Dr Knox-Haly and stabbed her in the skull. "He then ran back towards his car," Dr Knox-Haly said. Milena had collapsed next to the rear bumper of a parked car when Vaughan accelerated into her, crushing her between the two cars, before reversing and driving into her again.

"I saw him crush her head," Dr Knox-Haly said. He then sped away from the car park. Milena suffered multiple stab wounds and fractured ribs, a fractured shoulder, several fractured vertebrae and a fractured pelvis. "It's a small miracle she can walk," Dr Knox-Haly said. Dr Knox-Haly bears a scar from the stab wound to the head, which required stitches, and said she "cried every day for about 10 days after it happened". She returned to work after three weeks. "I know what to do to recover from trauma," she said.

On Friday April 27, Vaughan was sentenced in the Parramatta District Court to a maximum of 21 years for grievous bodily harm with intent to murder Milena and wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm to Dr Knox-Haly, after pleading guilty in August last year. He will be eligible for parole in 14 years, on August 18, 2029. "It will stay with all of us for the rest of our lives," Dr Knox-Haly said. * The Herald has chosen not to publish Milena's surname. Domestic Violence Line 1800 65 64 63.A billboard advertising a rifle near a childcare centre and a major intersection north of Brisbane is at the centre of complaints to the Advertising Standards Bureau.

While the sign does not violate advertising regulations, residents incensed by its prominence are demanding the ad be pulled.

The Gunworld Australia advertisement in Rothwell, located near Goodstart Early Learning Centre.

But the business that placed the advertisement questioned whether the children who attended the centre would even be aware of what was on the sign.

The billboard is near the intersection of Anzac Avenue and Deception Bay Road in Rothwell and a Goodstart childcare centre is on the other side of the intersection.The Australian Bureau of Statistics' spend on contractors is coming at a high cost as the agency admits it pays them up to double the rate compared to internal staff.

Agency officials have told a parliamentary inquiry that IT contractors cost double the salary of public servants doing the same work, while non-IT labour hire workers can receive up to 50 per cent more.

The admission provoked a backlash from Labor as its Finance spokesman Jim Chalmers and inquiry committee member Julian Hill called it a "smoking gun" exposing the Coalition government's waste in using labour hire firms.

'Smoking gun': Labor Finance spokesman Jim Chalmers has slammed the Coalition government's waste in using labour hire firms. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

"This latest evidence is the first time the public has been given a straight answer about how much of their money is being wasted, and it raises serious concerns about the Liberals spending blow outs," they said in a statement.A suite of measures to minimise tax avoidance will underpin the Turnbull government's promises of personal and company tax cuts and an early return to surplus in Tuesday nights budget.

Some will flow from a report of the governments black economy taskforce, which has not yet been released but was delivered to Revenue Minister Kelly ODwyer last year.

Obviously we have a strong focus on tax integrity, Ms ODwyer told Fairfax Media on Sunday. That is something that has been a defining feature of our examinations of the tax system.

Ms ODwyer and Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton on Sunday announced the establishment of an Illicit Tobacco Taskforce, which with new measures to collect tobacco duty will be budgeted to bring in an extra $3.6 billion over the next four years.The Turnbull government will launch a review of Australia's fuel reserves amid warnings that conflict in the Middle East or South China Sea could disrupt supply and threaten record-low domestic emergency stocks.

Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg will announce the National Energy Security Assessment on Monday amid a backdrop of declining domestic production, diminishing refining capacity and geopolitical risks in the oil-rich regions Australia sources the majority of its fuel from.

Latest government figures show Australia has just 22 days supply of crude oil, 59 days of LPG, 20 days of petrol, 19 days of aviation fuel and 21 days of diesel.

Overall, the country has just 49.6 days of net coverage which is well below the 90 day supply Australia and other nations agreed to store under an agreement with the International Energy Agency.

The last National Energy Security Assessment was in 2011, when Australian reserves were well above the 90 day requirement.Victoria will get almost $8 billion for new roads and railway lines from Tuesday's federal budget, with nearly a third of the nation's infrastructure pie to be spent on addressing the state's escalating congestion problems.

Given Melbourne's dramatic population growth and the burden that's placing on the citys transport network, nearly a third of the government's $24.5 billion infrastructure budget will be handed to Victoria.

Budget money is being thrown at Melbourne's clogged transport network. Credit:Paul Rovere

About $1.75 billion will be set aside to help build North East Link and for new tunnels and extra lanes on the Eastern Freeway.

The deal, which comes after years of stagnation, details two new railway lines for the south-east, including $475 million to link Monash Universitys Caulfield and Clayton campuses and $225 million to electrify the Frankston line to Baxter.The review promotes the idea of a curriculum based on achievement levels, and rejects the idea of lock-step delivery of a year-based curriculum. I worked under John Lambert at the NSW Board of Studies in the early '90s, when the NSW curriculum was designed to be more flexible, allowing students to progress through school at different rates, including acceleration for the more able. The HSC Pathways program was also established, allowing students to study for their HSC over a number of years, as well as incorporate university-level distinction courses. These ideas are not new. Unfortunately, we have moved away from that model.

Gonski said: Australia needs to start by setting higher expectations for students, educators and schools, and rejecting the idea that there are natural performance plateaus. I have never heard any teacher talk as though a plateau in student learning was natural or OK. I have never heard any senior member of a school staff talk as though a plateau in teacher or school progression learning was acceptable.

The review found that teaching curriculum based on year or age levels rather than levels of progress leaves some students behind and fails to extend others, limiting the opportunity to maximise learning growth for all students. I agree with that. But the review then argues that schools should deliver at least one years growth in learning for every student every year. What is one years growth? Students learn at different rates. Some students take a long time to get to the next level of achievement, others shoot through very quickly.That is the whole nature of differences in learning, which is known and understood by every teacher in Australia.

Gonski asserts the curriculum should be presented in a way that allows teachers to tailor it to different learning needs. It already does. All teachers I know understand that syllabus documents need to be interpreted according to the needs, abilities and talents of each of the students in their class. (It is much harder in the senior years as we prepare students for the external HSC). But syllabus documents also need to help teachers to know what are the agreed skills to be delivered, the most important parts of the subjects at the levels they are teaching, and how to incorporate cross-curriculum perspectives. Curriculum documents provide really important support for teachers to know what and how to teach.

But back to Gonski. How are we going to strengthen school-community engagement? What is a comprehensive national teacher workforce strategy? How are we going to ensure principals have the professional autonomy and accountability required to lead their school on the improvement journey most relevant to their starting point. Regarding the last of these questions, Gonskis suggestions seem to be solely around amending the AITSL Australian Professional Standards for Principals, or by aligning strategies for school leadership development with the nationally endorsed Australian guidelines for school leadership development, with implementation approaches monitored and evaluated for their effectiveness. I am not holding my breath that these sort of changes will make any difference to the job of a school principal.

Some of the work of the review is thoughtful and interesting. If you read the fine detail, there is informative data and provocative ideas to discuss. But in general, this more considered research and opinion is summarised into drivel, such as recommendation #3: Ensure all students have the opportunity within schools to be partners in their own learning. What on earth?

Some great work about the future needs of education is coming out of the NSW Department of Education. In one of the papers it commissioned, Richard Watson states: Im a little reticent to suggest that education needs to be reinvented, partly because many aspects of the system work perfectly well, and also because one of the big problems that education suffers from are endless attempts to reinvent it.

So my first suggestion to anyone involved in education in Australia or anywhere else is simply to stop. Stop with the endless proclamations, denigrations, exemplifications and modifications and allow the fine dust of any recent educational reforms to settle. And ignore PISA.The escalating argument about income tax is helping the government keep its powder dry on the bigger message in Tuesday nights budget.

The government will cut personal income taxes after months of talk about easing the burden on workers, but it will also try to reset the debate over its wider economic message.

This includes company tax cuts, which will remain in the budget even though they appear doomed in the Senate in their current form.

Treasurer Scott Morrison outside the Treasury building in Canberra. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

New measures in the budget could help the government build up the defences around the company tax cuts, responding to two of the biggest criticisms of the plan.The Coalition is being warned against sidelining budget repair in pursuit of personal income tax cuts, as Senate powerbrokers call for stronger action to prevent net government debt climbing to $365 billion.

The warnings put the Turnbull government on notice to expect another challenge to its agenda in the Senate, where key independents have stymied the Coalitions company tax cuts and are preparing to apply the same scrutiny to new sweeteners for voters.

A Senate fight over the tax package is certain, with crossbenchers emphasising the need to help those on the lowest incomes as the Coalition signals plans to benefit those earning more than the top income threshold of $180,000 a year.

The budget appears set to produce a surplus one year earlier than previously forecast while including aged care reforms and a major infrastructure plan that will be billed as a way to bust congestion in big cities.Voters will be promised billions of dollars in new spending on road and rail projects as part of a budget pledge to tackle the growing urban congestion blamed for sapping the Australian economy.

The government will expand an existing Urban Congestion Fund to spur investment in new projects to help commuters, as it comes under pressure to step up its overall infrastructure spend.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull already set up a congestion fund as part of negotiations with Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews but the model will replicated elsewhere to respond to concerns about traffic delays.

The Turnbull government will target frustrated commuters in Tuesday's budget. Credit:Wolter Peeters

Fairfax Media understands the government has already revealed the lions share of its major projects in recent weeks, ranging from $5 billion for Melbournes new airport rail line, to $300 million for a new freight line to Port Botany to take trucks off Sydney roads.Portable classrooms and air-conditioning could be paid for by the private sector and leased back to the state as NSW public schools face an unprecedented surge in enrolments, government documents reveal.

NSW faces significant enrolment pressures in the next 20 years, with numbers expected to swell in public schools from about 800,000 to almost one million students.

Private schools will also increase from nearly 400,000 to 500,000 students over the same period and 80 per cent of all growth will happen in Sydney, according to the latest predictions.

The government says it will need to rely on demountables and contemporary modular classrooms to absorb approximately half of the projected student growth to 2036.Maidguri: Armed bandits have attacked a village in Nigeria's northwest Kaduna state, killing at least 40 people, residents and officials say.

Police Inspector General Ibrahim Idris confirms the bandits invaded the village of Gwaska on Saturday, fighting local defence forces protecting the Birnin Gwari local government area, a community of about 3000 people. He said 200 policemen and 10 patrol vehicles were deployed to the scene.

A recent suicide bomb attack in Maiduguri, Nigeria, where violence is common. Credit:AP

A resident who helped fight the bandits said at least 40 people were killed and the toll will likely climb. He spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons. He said the attackers were from Zamfara state, and that they shot at children and torched houses as residents fled.

The attack came about a week after other unidentified gunmen attacked a nearby village.Islamabad: At least 20 miners have been killed after an explosion caused a coal mine to collapse in south-western Pakistan.

Three others were injured in the incident near Quetta city in the Marwar region of Balochistan province late on Saturday.

A Pakistani mine worker carries an injured colleague upon arrival at a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan. Credit:AP

More than two dozen miners were working at the time of explosion, according to Syed Husnain Ahmad Shah from the provincial rescue department.

Shah said the roof of the mine caved in following an explosion triggered by an accumulation of methane gas. The rescue operation, which lasted for more than 10 hours, had been completed.The government is facing public outrage over the treatment of women and children after several high-profile cases, including the rape and murder of an eight-year-old Muslim girl by a group of Hindu men in Kashmir.

Eighteen men are suspected over the death of the girl in the hill state of Jharkhand, the latest in a series of brutal attacks to rock the country.

Kolkata: Police in India have arrested the chief suspect in a gang rape and murder case in which a 16-year-old girl was burnt to death in front of her family.

In response to protests across the country and calls for stricter laws, the government announced last month that it would be introducing the death penalty for convicted child rapists. Minimum sentencing terms have also been raised and provisos issued that no rape case should take more than two months to prosecute.

Senior police and state officials have descended on the village of Raja Kendua, 160 km from the state capital of Ranchi, after the most recent case made national headlines.

The girl was allegedly abducted by four young men from near her house and raped as the rest of the family attended a wedding, police said. The family complained to the village panchayat (council of elders) on Friday morning, and the tribal chiefs told the accused to pay Rs 50,000 ($992) to the victim's family as restitution.

Enraged over the verdict, the four youths allegedly went to the house of the girl, assaulted family members and burnt the girl to death, investigating officers said. Police mobilised into action when Raghubar Das, the state's chief minister, expressed his grief over the murder on Twitter. Mr Das assured people that no one involved in the incident would be spared.

Action would also be taken against the village leaders for mishandling such a serious matter, police said. The state administration also announced financial support of Rs 250,000 for the victim's family.Oriental Pearls, a leading real estate developer of upscale urban living spaces, has signed an iconic, multi-million-dollar agreement with Tonino Lamborghini, the Italian company dedicated to lifestyle accessories and lavish design hospitality projects, to customise upcoming Royal Pearls real estate project.



As per the deal, the Italian firm will apply the Tonino Lamborghini branding, philosophy and values across Oriental Pearls' real estate developments in Dubai.



Tonino Lamborghini is the sole owner of the internationally registered Tonino Lamborghini trademark of the Italy-based company founded by the heir of the Lamborghini family.



By staying true to the tradition and heritage of his family, in 1981 Tonino Lamborghini created a lifestyle experience brand with a wide range of luxury design products to promote a distinctive Italian style and taste.



Through this partnership, Tonino Lamborghini has granted Oriental Pearls exclusive rights to use the luxury brand in Dubai in the real estate sector for a minimum period of 10 years, said the statement from the developer.



The exclusive agreement will bring Tonino Lamborghini's legendary and unsurpassed standards of luxury, exclusivity and customization to the Royal Pearls master-planned community that is currently taking shape in Dubai's Meydan One district, it stated.



Oriental Pearls CEO Ma Guolong said: "It gives us great pleasure to be able to partner with Tonino Lamborghini for our upcoming projects in Dubai, beginning with Royal Pearls. Oriental Pearls specializes in developing iconic, upscale living spaces and themed communities designed for the modern and discerning urbanite."



"Joining hands with Tonino Lamborghini enables us to offer our customers the ultimate bespoke living spaces, customized and fitted to designer premium standards that haven't been seen yet in Dubai," he added.



Through the deal, Oriental Pearls said it has also decided to be associated with other Tonino Lamborghini lifestyle accessories in order to deliver a luxury and premium quality real estate concept across their developments.



The agreement also grants Oriental Pearls the right to develop and operate, within the Royal Pearls Project, Tonino Lamborghini branded clubs, lounges, restaurants, cafes, gyms, spas as well as Tonino Lamborghini flagship or mono-brand stores in the community, said the statement from the developer.



These Tonino Lamborghini units can both be designed and furnished with the Tonino Lamborghini Casa design concept and furnishings as per the customers requirements, it stated.



Lamborghini said: "After four 5-star hotels and the recent launch of a luxury Tonino Lamborghini Real Estate project in China, I am delighted to start a new partnership in this highly developing sector in Dubai with the Oriental Pearls developer."



"For the next years to come, our combined efforts will be focused on bringing a new upscale concept of total living to this extraordinary city and country," stated the top official.



"This real estate project is especially dedicated to Italian art, design and lifestyle lovers. A clientele that shares our same passions and our same vision. Here they will find spaces and places that will perfectly reflect their personality and make them feel unique and special," he added.



Offering a range of smart, networked living spaces, set in carefully contoured lawns and meticulously manicured swathes of greenery, Royal Pearls, the upscale master-planned development coming up near the commercial heart of Dubai, that offers those in search of a modern, connected yet restful living environment, with a winning combination.



The unique and innovative 4.6 million sq ft development will see over 7,500 premium freehold apartments being offered to residents, with the first phase of development being delivered by 2020.

Located in the premium Meydan Development, the project is designed precisely to offer superior lifestyle choices set in calm and serene oasis-like surroundings, but within easy reach of the city's hotspots, Royal Pearls is an upscale urban dweller's dream come true.-TradeArabia News ServicePyongyang: North Korea has criticised the United States for what it calls "misleading" claims that Washington's policy of maximum political pressure and sanctions are what drove Pyongyang to the negotiating table.

Kim Jong-un, North Korea's leader, attends the inter-Korean summit at the Peace House in the village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) in Paju, South Korea, on April 27. Credit:Bloomberg

The North's official news agency quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman warning the claims are a "dangerous attempt" to ruin a budding detente on the Korean Peninsula after Kim Jong-un's summit late last month with South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

At the summit, Kim agreed to a number of measures aimed at improving North-South ties and indicated he is willing to discuss the denuclearisation of the peninsula, though exactly what that would entail and what conditions the North might require have not yet been explained.Washington: World leaders are intensifying their lobbying for the continuation of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran or to reimpose sanctions on Tehran, which would mean scrapping the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

The deal - sealed by US President Donald Trump's predecessor Barack Obama with the support of China, Russia, Germany, France and Britain - eased sanctions on Tehran in exchange for commitments to abandon its nuclear weapons program.

Trump has long expressed deep distaste for the deal and has imposed a deadline of May 12 for its scrapping or modification, a position stridently opposed by Iran.

Trump's recently appointed adviser, Rudy Giuliani, predicted on Saturday he would pull the US out of the agreement, pointing to the presence in the president's inner circle of new Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and long-time foreign policy hawk John Bolton.President Hassan Rouhani said on Sunday Iran had plans to respond to any move by US President Donald Trump on the 2015 nuclear agreement, and that the United States would regret a decision to exit the accord.

"America is making a mistake if it leaves the nuclear accord," Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said. Credit:AP

Trump has said unless European allies rectify "flaws" in Tehrans nuclear agreement with world powers by May 12 he will refuse to extend US sanctions relief for Iran.

"We have plans to resist any decision by Trump on the nuclear accord," Rouhani said in a speech carried live by state television.

"Orders have been issued to our atomic energy organisation ... and to the economic sector to confront America's plots against our country," Rouhani told a rally in north-east Iran.Huawei Consumer Business Group revealed that the Huawei P20 Pro has become one of its bestselling smartphone device in the UAE for 2018.



After only one week of being on public pre-booking, the Huawei P20 Pro has overtaken last years Huawei P10 Plus, outselling its predecessor by three times on the first sale day to become the most successful Huawei P series ever sold by the company in the UAE, said a statement.



The Huawei P20 Pro became a trending smartphone topic in the UAE with customers since its global launch in Paris, France, it said.



It was launched in the UAE on April 18, alongside the luxurious Porsche Design Huawei Mate RS featuring 40 MP Leica Triple Camera with Master AI.



Currently hailed as the best smartphone camera in the market, the Huawei P20 Pro camera is the first ever smartphone to rocket straight up to the number one slot in DxOMark's rankings  the trusted industry standard for camera and lens image quality measurements and ratings with an overall score of 109.



The announcement comes closely after the company broke news of its record-shattering sales on its e-commerce platform Vmall, where the handset maker generated 100 million RMB in revenue in the first 10 seconds the Huawei P20 Series was made available. While in Western Europe, Huawei P20 Pro is outselling its predecessor by 316 per cent.



Most of the sales of the Huawei P20 Series were derived from Germany, UK and France. According to Google Trends, the Huawei P20 Series has also been one of the hottest search queries in Western Europe, where Huaweis newest flagships were for a time the most searched smartphone on the search engine.



The outstanding sales performance of the devices across regions is an indication of consumers continued confidence in Huawei, and demonstrates the handset makers ability to innovate and deliver highly competitive products in the high-end segment.



The Huawei P20 Pro is now available at the Huawei Experience Store located at The Dubai Mall and across select retailers in the UAE. The smartphone is available in Black, Blue and Twilight colours at a price of Dh2,999 ($816.4).



Porsche Design Huawei Mate RS is also now available at the Huawei Experience Store located at The Dubai Mall and across select retailers in the UAE. The luxury smartphone is available in Black colour at a price of Dh5,999 ($1,633).



Huawei P20 Pro comes with VIP dedicated Hotline Service, door to door device collection-repair-return and free engraving services available at all Huawei Service centres across the UAE, it stated.  TradeArabia News ServiceGeorgetown, SC (29440)

Today

Cloudy with occasional light rain late. Low 71F. Winds ENE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%..

Tonight

Cloudy with occasional light rain late. Low 71F. Winds ENE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%.VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif.  NASA's InSight Mars lander is now cruising to the Red Planet.

The spacecraft began its 205-day, 301-million-mile (485 million kilometers) journey to Mars by launching atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in southern California early Saturday morning (May 5). The 4:05 a.m. PDT (7:05 a.m. EDT, 1105 GMT) liftoff marked the first time in history that an interplanetary mission began from the U.S. West Coast.

About an hour and a half after it left the ground, the InSight spacecraft separated from the Atlas rocket's Centaur upper stage, beginning its trip to Mars. Within just minutes of that, NASA's Deep Space Network antenna in Goldstone, California, obtained the signal from the now-interplanetary InSight, confirming the lander was alive. [In Photos: Atlas V Launches NASA's InSight Mars Lander]

NASA's Mars Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations (InSight) mission lifts off on an Atlas V rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on May 5, 2018. (Image credit: Cory Huston/NASA)

Set to study the deep interior of the Red Planet  detecting marsquakes and monitoring subsurface heat flow in an effort to understand how rocky planets are formedInSight has a plunge into the Martian atmosphere followed by a parachute- and thruster-assisted descent to the lava plains of Elysium Planitia in its future. The lander is scheduled to touch down on Mars at around 3 p.m. EST (2000 GMT) on Nov. 26.

Well before that though, beginning 10 days after launch and continuing throughout its cruise phase outwards, InSight will undergo a series of tests and trials to ensure that it is on track and ready for its mission at Mars.

During InSight's nearly 7-month interplanetary cruise, flight controllers will check out and calibrate of the spacecraft's subsystems and science instruments, track the spacecraft via NASA's Deep Space Network, perform attitude adjustments to orient the solar arrays and antennas, and execute maneuvers to keep the spacecraft on its planned trajectory, according to NASA.

An artist's illustration of NASA's InSight Mars lander on the Red Planet. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Six trajectory correction maneuvers are scheduled for the seven-month trip to Mars, and mission controllers will have two backup or contingency opportunities for additional maneuvers if needed.

"Some of them we may skip if our injection is really good, others we'll do," Tim Hoffman, InSight project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, told Space.com. "Some we will do just before entry, descent and landing, just to make sure we are hitting the exact corridor for that successful landing."

InSight's first two trajectory maneuvers are scheduled for 10 days and 84 days after launch, on May 15 and July 28, respectively.

These course corrections will make up for an offset in InSight's path to Mars that mission scientists intentionally built into its original trajectory as a planetary protection precaution. The offset avoids the possibility of the Centaur upper stage reaching Mars, having not been cleaned of Earth biologicals to the standards of all Mars-landing spacecraft.

If InSight's course is not corrected 10 days into its flight, the spacecraft would miss Mars by hundreds of thousands of miles. The Centaur, which separated from the Insight spacecraft about 90 minutes after launch, will remain on this Mars-dodging route after InSight steers itself toward the Red Planet.

In between tweaking the trajectory, flight controllers will also test InSight's science instruments, including SEIS, the seismometer provided by a consortium led by the French space agency CNES, and the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package, the self-hammering mole furnished by the German Aerospace Center DLR.

"We have a payload checkout planned for the middle of the cruise," said Hoffman. "In that period, we will turn on the seismometer, we will turn on the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package and we'll just check to see that they are alive."

"We obviously cannot take any seismic data or can't do anything with the hammering mechanism on the probe. It is essentially just a test to see if it is still looking good, is it still alive," he explained.

Separate from InSight's cruise, the Mars Cube One (MarCo) deep-space communications satellites that launched alongside and are now trailing the lander to Mars. Each performed a "detumble" maneuver soon after their separation from the Centaur, stabilizing their attitude. They then deployed their solar arrays and began communicating with Earth, NASA officials said.

"Both MarCO-A and B say 'Polo!'" said MarCO mission chief engineer Andy Klesh in a NASA statement. "It's a sign that the little sats are alive and well."

Robert Pearlman is a Space.com contributing writer and the editor of collectSPACE.com, a Space.com partner site and the leading space history news publication. Follow collectSPACE on Facebook and on Twitter at @collectSPACE. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.A weekly feature in which we're trying to find the most compelling, best acted, written, directed and just generally great, memorable scenes that we've seen in past seven days on TV.Dre and Bow decide to take some time. This whole episode was brilliant and heartbreaking, but that last moment when they decided to give up was intense.Dre remembers a conversation he had with Ruby about marriage when he was a kid.Their subsequent shock and Kurt fanboying over him was hilarious.Rosa and the rest of Amy's bachelorettes back her up when a small part of her wedding is threatened. The loyalty on display here was amazing. Rosa and Amy have such a wonderful dynamic, as do Rosa and Gina, and even Kylie is being integrated nicely with everyone. They only slightly judge Amy for being prudish and then cheer her on as she bends the rules like crazy for one night. Like true friends do.The 2.5 minute sing and dance style cover of "Angel Of Small Death & The Codeine Scene" by Hozier at the start of this week's episode of Code Black was really cool. The soundtrack was fantastic and the cast really scrub up nicely and have great rhythm! It was also very well filmed and directed. There were skeptics before the episode aired who thought this was a bad move for the series, but in reality it was one of the finest moments this series has produced.I didn't realize how much I missed the show until I finished watching this premiere. Yes, the case of the week format can often feel repetitive, but the character moments, especially those involving Sherlock's struggles are always wonderfully written and acted. There were many scenes worth highlighting in the article, like Holmes admitting to Joan what's wrong with him, but it's Sherlock's breakdown that made the biggest impression on me. The moment starts slowly, quietly, with Holmes standing in a room and wondering why he entered it. The simple realization of this small memory loss then hits him more painfully with every sentence spoken to Watson. It's an ordinary thing, to let a thought get away and lose focus for a second, but it's not something that happens to Sherlock Holmes. His mind is his strength and now it feels like he's losing pieces of himself. He admits that when waiting for his diagnosis, he was rather hoping for a quick death instead of something that could permanently damage his cognitive abilities. He becomes afraid that he's on the brink of losing the thing that matters to him more than most - his work. And without his work, he might not be able to stay sober, which will only worsen the state of his brain. The way Sherlock says it all, trying to stay unmoved, to keep his voice from breaking, not to cry or fall in despair, yet clearly breaking down on the inside. Jonny Lee Miller once again proves to be a true scene-stealer and though it's hard to watch Sherlock struggle, I can't wait to see what the actors and the writers will do next with this story. Kudos!Kate tells him she knows why he cared. Even in the small moments these two are fire, such great chemistry.Alex wonders why his mother is doing better now. While Justin Chambers delivered a particularly strong performance this episode, the scene with Alex at the batting cages really got me. While hes happy his mother is doing better, he cant understand why it has to be now, when theres no one who needs her to be a responsible mother. He wonders why she couldnt have been doing better when he and his siblings were children, when they needed her, so instead Alex had to step up and raise his brother and sister. And to twist the knife even further, Alexs mother doesnt even feel like she cant divert from her carefully planned schedule and spend any time with her son. Besides giving audiences a better understanding of Alexs upbringing, viewers really get a glimpse of how much he had to take on as a kid and just how much it still hurts. We really get to see the lasting effects of growing up with a schizophrenic mother, an alcoholic father and taking care of his siblings.This was a scene that felt like a long time coming because we've known about her for 14 seasons but never got to see her and her and Alex together until now. It seemed to be as much of a shock for Alex as it was for us to see her because she's doing better than she ever has and Alex has mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, it's great that she's doing better, but Alex is so upset that she wasn't this way when he needed her to be when he and his siblings were growing up. Moreso, she doesn't even tell Alex that she's better and when he shows up she pushes him away. A lot of pent-up frustration, anger and pain is let loose by Alex in this episode and Justin Chambers does a great job playing it.Alex confronts his mother and realizes he can't have a perfect family, but he's ok with her being fine. Sweet Alex Karev.Meredith announces that the Grey Method will now be called Grey-Cerone Method. Meredith doing the right thing just made me once more proud of our girl. She had many highs and lows this season but always kept the right and honest direction. The writers delivering this type of development in season 14 is truly remarkable.Rap brain may just be one of my favorite brains. It gave us a lot of funny moments that left me once again wondering, how on earth does this cast actually manage to film scenes? Because I'd just be spending all of my time laughing. This is probably the first episode since Mama's death where Liv and Major have attempted a conversation with each other. Granted she was on rap brain which inspired Liv to rap her feelings at Major, over standing by and letting Mama die. He of course didn't take it well, his two training officers were just watching on highly amused, and Peyton brought the argument to a whole by declaring that they both love each other and have been through worse so they'll get through this. Comedic moments that propel the plot forward is iZombie at its finest.A puzzled Eve begins going through her returned suitcase to find new, expensive clothing inside but is really rattled when she finds the Sorry, Baby! note from Villanelle inside. Sandra Oh perfectly captures Eves panic, even lashing out at her husband to get out. He thinks its because of him but in reality, Eves suddenly terrified for him.Tandy comforts Mike after seemingly discovering an empty desert where Mike hoped people would be. It was a sweet, tender moment, not something you often get to see with Tandy.We already knew Aubrey Plaza is wonderful in this role, but it's her desperation and wanting to be free (and those new eyes) that made her so compelling, despite that David learns how Lenny (as she is now) came to be, even though she does not. The flashback scenes themselves were also harrowing. There has to be credit given to Katie Aselton & Jemaine Clement in that Ghostbuster/Body-snatcher/Excorist-like scene (it stood with me all week), and of course, David's reaction to it.In a Rashomon-esque episode where we saw multiple characters interrogate Lenny before we eventually got to find out the truth about how her body was made, there were several scenes that could have been a highlight but for me, but this was a big reveal that really worked, providing an incredibly good ending to an excellent episode that was a fantastic showcase for just how good Aubrey Plaza can be. I was half tempted to nominate the scene where The Velvet Underground & Nico's Heroin plays as I love the band and that song - but this one stole it for me.Cam and Mitch are in the kitchen cooking with nothing but an apron. Then Mitch's mother walks into their kitchen and they scream and DeDee tells them to put on some pants so they can hug. Mitch and Cam walk out of the kitchen with their butt touching. Mitch mentions why didn't they just back out, Cam replies, they already committed to that.Henry talks to Henry and says Lucy he is Dad. Even though the Regina-Henry scenes were powerful, this scene with all the small flashbacks was simply brilliant. Andrew J. West proved to be a perfect cast with an amazing acting range. The moment he said Lucy "It's not Henry, it's Dad" - goosebump from head to toe.Siren stepped things up yet again this week, with another thrilling episode that had a particularly heartbreaking moment as Xander's father was killed by the merman. His death wasn't exactly shocking since he was given more screen time this week than in the previous 6 episodes, but that didn't make it any less devastating. He really didn't deserve to die, and especially not in the way that he did and it'll be interesting to see if his death changes Ben's views on mermaids and how losing his father affects Xander.A lot of shows are touching on this relevant subject, but this scene between these two women that don't even know each other that well and yet find solace in each other was perfect.Sams third encounter with Reign in what Lena has described as the dark valley, parallel universe. After a terrified Sam rejects Reign's offer of power, Reign takes Sam by the throat and strikes at the heart of Sams fear, she threatens to kill Ruby. Odette Annable has been an outstanding cast edition to this season of Supergirl. In this scene she is acting with herself, showing her amazing talent by using her voice, body language, etc. to convincingly make us believe its a scene between two different actresses. Kudos to her for her work with this storyline!Back in season five, Lucifer was portrayed as the ultimate evil, the most terrifying and powerful monster the Winchesters had to face. In the next years, though, his story evolved and his many sides were revealed, for better or worse. In this hour, it seems that he found a great balance between these two images. And the moment when he brings Sam back to life and offers him a deal is a wonderful example of that. Speaking of Sam, his death in the middle of the hour genuinely caught me by surprise. It felt so unexpected and random that it was hard to believe it actually happened, especially with everyone's reactions to losing their loved one. The best part was definitely the quick return and the entire conversation between Sam and Lucifer. The story shared by these two is unlike any other. Sam is absolutely terrified of him, yet still remains strong and ready to fight him. Jared Padalecki did such a fantastic job in this scene (and the episode). The interactions between him and Mark Pellegrino might just be one of the show's best. During the moment, Lucifer offers to keep Sam alive as long as he takes him to his son, Jack, and lets everyone know he's alive thanks to Lucifer. Such a tense, well written and wonderfully acted moment. Kudos!I love that this was their fresh start, and that he loves her so much he didn't even care that she's pregnant with someone else's baby. Them getting caught up in the moment was great.Since the powerful and wonderfully acted rise of the Red Queen is already covered in the article below, let me highlight another memorable moment of the week - the death of Thelonious Jaha. There has been many scenes in the past where I expected Jaha's story to be over, yet this one took me by surprise. Most of the time, he's been very interesting character, no matter which side he was currently supporting. Whether he was in conflict with the rest of the main characters or acted as the leader, or worked to guide and counsel those in charge, he always put his people first. Jaha wasn't necessarily someone easy to like, but he was at least respected by most. In the end, his final words and hope to join his wife and his son (Wells!) were beautifully moving. He asked Octavia to take care of a little boy named Ethan after he's gone and he said goodbye to two of his oldest friends. It was an unexpected farewell, and all the actors did a wonderful job in the moment. Jaha got to save his people one last time before his death and made the ending even more impactful and emotional. Kudos to cast & crew for this great episode.Octavia creates Wonkru. Masterful performance from Marie. She grew into such a fighter and incredible leader. Her evolution was crowned with her becoming the Red Queen, Leader of Wonkru.Octavia makes the grounders choose between Wonkru or being the enemy of Wonkru. One of the most badass moments this show has ever had. Nice to see Octavia finally in charge.Octavia takes a stand for Wonkru and fights her way through opponents, imposing herself as their leader.The opening scene with Philip and Elizabeth's fight, when he informs her he won't go through with the Kimmy mission and has already warned her. Elizabeth angrily retorts that he just wanted to sleep with her the entire time. It was gut-wrenching, especially because all these years Philip specifically tried his best to avoid having to sleep with her. Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys are phenomenal.Philip's phone call to Elizabeth to tell her to come home.After finally realizing that her husband has been erased by the power hungry nature of The Thinker, Marlize tells him that she is leaving. When he tries to threaten her, she scoffs- reminding him that without her he is nothing.Beverly tries (and fails) at persuading Barry not to pitch. This scene was funny for a few reasons. 1) Barry thinking Beverly had called him a 'dumb bitch' when she actually murmured 'don't pitch', then mixing up piranhas and pariah, and of course the role reversal of Murray & Beverly. He is usually the more grounded parent, constantly telling the kids their dreams are unrealistic whilst Beverly is the one spurring them on, but this week he got so caught up in one of the kids actually doing something he likes that he had the Beverly goggles on. And of course Beverly proclaiming that 'I have failed as a mother' is her thing, and Barry using that against her.Elijah reveals he knows who he is and rejects Klaus. There were plenty of standout moments to choose from in this Elijah-centric episode, from Elijahs pain of trying to remember who he is and the confusion of finding out he craves blood, but Daniel Gilles heartbreaking admission that Elijahs fully aware of who he is and that he wants nothing to do with Klaus and his family is my favorite. For more than four seasons, Elijah has been the one person who has never given up on trying to save Klaus. When everyone else has turned their back on the hybrid, Elijah has never once stopped loving and fighting for his brother, so it only made Elijahs rejection of his brother all the more painful. From what Elijah has pieced together, he knows that Elijah has spent a thousand years trying to save Klaus from himself, and this new Elijah cant imagine a more miserable existence. In fact, hes glad that his memory was erased because he believes hes finally found happiness for the first time in his life. And watching every word Elijah uttered cut a little deeper was just so heartwrenching and painful, and awful, but I just couldnt bring myself to look away. I was spellbound.This was a fantastic Elijah-centric episode as we explored his new identity and persona on his own away from the rest of the cast. Seeing the two square off and Elijah act so confidently about sending Klaus away forever was powerful to watch, as was Klaus' phone call where he revealed that he hasn't been able to find him yet despite encountering him seconds before.Teddy finds out the truth about who he is. This was a good scene for me. There were plenty of awesome moments in this episode but I liked how Dolores revealed to him about who he is, in a really effective moment for the character that potentially could have further ramifications for him going down the line. It was about time he found out.It was such a delightful surprise to see the often villainous Giancarlo Esposito show up apart of the new The Door narrative, making for a far more precocious version of El Lazo than Lawrence, which in turn matches the maturity of The Man in Black now on the search for a weapon, same as Dolores. It's unclear if this was just a cameo, but I would surely be delighted if the character would turn up again, as having Esposito, even as a recurring character, could only be an asset for such rich dialogue Westworld often spouts and with a cast that is already amazing.On the cover of a December 2013 edition of Time magazine, the publication proclaimed billionaire Carl Icahn the most important investor in America in recognition of the leverage he has exerted on corporations.

Early last week, Icahn could rightfully stake claim to being the most important investor in Xerox. But days later, he was just another shareholder, albeit one still trying to rally his fellow stockholders to ward off a sale of the technology giant to a Japan conglomerate.

In a dramatic pivot, the board of Xerox reasserted its stewardship of the Norwalk-based icon less than 48 hours after ceding control to Icahn and fellow investor Darwin Deason.

The latter billionaire had sued Xerox in New York state court to block a $6.1 billion sale to Fujifilm Holdings, with Xeroxs board last week announcing mass resignations  including those of Chairman Bob Keegan and CEO Jeff Jacobson  only to reverse course after a Thursday night deadline passed, with a judge having yet to approve elements of a settlement agreement between Xerox and the rogue investors.

That left Xeroxs future an open question heading into the weekend, with the board appealing the judges ruling temporarily blocking the Fujifilm deal while indicating it would consider all options under Keegan and Jacobson to improve the fortunes of the company and its investors  and tacitly acknowledging the awkwardness of reinstating a leadership team that had been displaced only days before.

The judges opinion highlighted the dissent of Xerox director Cheryl Krongard, an experienced financier in her own right as former CEO of Rothschild Asset Management, who had questioned Jacobsons motivations in pursuing the Fujifilm deal. And the judge cited one of Xeroxs own financial advisors stating the Fujifilm deal undervalues Xerox.

Icahn and Deason have vowed to continue their fight, offering investors an overarching vision for how they would have Xerox run under Greenwich resident John Visentin and Icahn Enterprises CEO Keith Cozza, whom they propose as Xerox CEO and chairman respectively; against the vision of Fujifilm in which Xerox would continue under Jacobsons leadership with headquarters offices in Norwalk and Tokyo.

Selling control

Icahn had already taken credit for championing Xeroxs January 2017 spinoff of Conduent, representing the business process outsourcing operations Xerox inherited in its 2009 acquisition of Affiliated Computer Services under former Xerox CEO Ursula Burns. Deason became a major Xerox shareholder via the sale of ACS, which he had founded, with Icahn amassing Xerox stock in 2015 to become the companys largest stakeholder with nearly one in every 10 shares.

The creation of Conduent is only one of many deals with Icahns fingerprints over the years, to include some touching Connecticut such as the 2009 spinoff of Time Warner Cable, which Icahn had promoted. The cable operator moved its headquarters to New York City from Stamford, where it had been based. Charter Communications then acquired Time Warner Cable in 2016 and has been adding headquarters staff in Stamford.

And Icahn pressed for the sale of Oklahoma-based Kerr McGee to Anadarko, a precursor transaction to the latter company spinning off the titanium dioxide mining giant Tronox, which would establish its headquarters in Stamford with state aid. Tronox later was successful in a lawsuit against Anadarko in which Tronox claimed it was saddled with billions of dollars of Kerr McGees environmental liabilities, with U.S. regulators taking its side.

Merritt 7 Corporate Park is becoming a familiar haunt for Icahn, who in addition to the Xerox proxy fight is exerting pressure as well on the board of directors of Newell Brands, a massive consumer products company with corporate offices adjacent to Xerox overseeing brands like Elmers and Jostens.

As the case with many private equity firms, Icahn has long looked to unlock value in the stocks in which he invests, whether through jettisoning jobs deemed superfluous, selling off less profitable corporate assets or merging businesses with counterparts. More than most PE firms, the Icahn name has become iconic in the arena of corporate takeovers, both for the brand names behind the proxy battles he has waged, to include TWA, U.S. Steel and Yahoo; and for tactics which some critics have derided as amounting to corporate piracy.

In the past, Icahn has been unapologetic in defending his moves as benefiting all investors in a company, and as needed steps that corporate boards do not take in protecting their entrenched self interests, arguments he has slapped onto his rationale for continuing the Xerox proxy fight.

In a missive last month to investors, Icahn and Deason cited an email purportedly by Xerox director and former Citigroup CEO Charles Prince  among those who had been slated to leave the board  noting the historical import of any sale of Xerox to a foreign company.

(Its) sad: a (formerly iconic) U.S. company selling control to a Japanese company, the Prince email states according to Icahn and Deason. But there is a Joint Venture Agreement ... which made it practically impossible for Xerox to sell to anyone else. ... A really amazing problem.

Anythings for sale

Icahn and Deason have suggested that a multiyear accounting scandal at Fuji Xerox in Japan could give Xerox grounds to extricate itself from the joint venture, allowing it to sell directly in the Asia-Pacific regions growing markets, and that significant other opportunities exist for Xerox including improving its sales channels and commercializing breakthrough technologies produced at its Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in California.

As the watercooler conversation buzzed this week in Xerox offices across America, unanswered is the question of changes Visentin and Cozza might push for a company that had already shed 3,000 jobs in the 15 months, close to 10 percent of its workforce. Last year under Jacobson, Xerox had secured $4.4 million in incentives to maintain its headquarters in Norwalk with a base workforce of at least 150 people.

For now, all questions are on the table as Xeroxs proxy battle extends into May.

At the right price, anythings for sale  but thats not something new, thats something thats been part of our strategy for the last 20 years, Cozza said Wednesday during an Icahn Enterprises conference call. Our strategy and job is to increase the value of our portfolio of companies through a number of different means, whether its tack-on acquisitions, improving the cost structure, putting in the right management team, etc.  Whether we own it for 30 years or three years, at some point market multiples get to a point where we think thats a fair exit price.

Alex.Soule@scni.com; 203-842-2545; @casoulmanFile under "great work if you can find it": Gardner Dunn is the Japanese whisky ambassador for Suntory Whisky, that country's oldest commercial distillery. I couldn't make it to Japan to talk spirits, but I could travel a couple of miles from The Post to the embassy (which is officially Japanese soil), where he was visiting, to learn more about one of Japan's most treasured exports. I also met with official ambassadorial counselors and diplomats, whose job descriptions include promoting cultural understanding between countries through food ("soft power," they call it), and explain why Japanese whisky, which has become an It Liquor in the United States in the past few years, is a distinctly Japanese product.

Japanese whisky wasn't even available in the United States until the late 1980s. It hit the gourmet radar in the early 2000s, when whiskies from Japan's two largest distilleries, Nikka and Suntory, won two major international whisky awards (one of which was the first time a whisky from outside Scotland was ever recognized). Even after that, said Dunn, "from 'Lost in Translation' a lot of people thought Suntory was some fictitious company used for the movie." Then the 2015 "Jim Murray's Whiskey Bible" named Suntory's 2013 Yamazaki Single Malt Sherry Cask the best in the world, a drink of "near incredible genius," and the fury was off and running, complete with whisky investment funds, futures and auctions.

The Japanese business philosophy of kaizen, constant experimentation and innovation distinguishes that country's whisky from, say, Scotch whisky or American bourbon whiskey. With each barrel, Japanese whisky makers and blenders try to evolve the liquor; Mitsue Morita, public affairs counselor for the Japanese Embassy, calls her country's whisky a "dynamic" product. The 12-year-old Japanese whisky you drink 20 years from now should not taste the same as the 12-year-old one you drink today. In comparison, whisky makers in Scotland are often so obsessed with consistency that they make dents in their new metal pot stills to replicate old ones they are replacing.

So blenders who make Japanese whisky are critical to the process, and making Japanese whisky is akin to making fine wine. Just as wine varies greatly with years of production and reflects the terroir, or land, so does Japanese whisky. To preserve their palates, blenders tend to eat the same food every day and aren't allowed to smoke or eat garlic when tasting whisky. (Count me out on two of the three.)

As for reflecting the terroir, I call it the three W's of Japanese whisky: the water, the weather and the wood. All three are particular to Japan, and its whisky wouldn't be the same without them.

First, the water. Suntory built Japan's first commercial whisky distillery, which it called the Yamakazi distillery, in 1924, on the same location as the first Taian teahouse four centuries earlier. The water is extremely soft, lacking minerals that would interfere with the full expression of the tea - or, now, whisky.

The reverence for water continues when whisky is served in bars, particularly in the mindfulness demonstrated in what Morita calls the "art" of highball service in which "everything is in harmony." The quality of water added to make the uber-popular highball is critical, as there are three parts water or soda to one part whisky, diluting the drink to the level of a strong beer. Ice is crucial, too. Unlike in the United States, several companies in Japan compete for restaurants' ice business, advertising artisanal, low-oxygen ice. Ice balls are often hand-chipped at the bar. (Dunn recommends Bar High Five in Tokyo.)

Second, the wood. Japanese whiskies are aged in barrels made of Japanese oak, or mizunara. Dunn says mizunara is more porous than American or European oak. Mizunara trees grow mainly in one forest in Hokkaido and have to be 200 years old to make a barrel, so Suntory creates only about 130 barrels per year. The trees are also often crooked, making it difficult to cut straight planks for a barrel. Mizunara casks are far rarer than American or European oak casks.

Third, the weather. Japan has four distinct seasons. When the barrels expand in the humid summer, whisky is sucked into the wood, infusing the liquid with flavor and character. When the barrels contract in the winter, the whisky makers say the liquor is "sleeping." Dunn says: "Scotland has two seasons: Cold and wet, and warm and wet. Nothing wrong with that; it makes great whisky." Most of the Japanese distilleries actually import ingredients from Scotland (reflecting the heritage of the first Japanese whisky maker, who learned his trade in Scotland), so the alternately hot and cold environment is a key factor to create a product that is unmistakably of Japan. Then the aromas of fragrant spring flowers (think cherry blossoms) and fall foliage affect the whisky, according to its makers and lovers.

Japanese whisky's body and balance also help it pair well with foods. The drink can range from peaty to smoky to light to fruity, so there is a whisky for most meals. And while single-malt Japanese whiskies are valued, the prevalence of blends in Japan means that whisky makers mostly create balanced, smooth and subtle flavors.

The next time you visit Japan - or a Japanese restaurant - consider whisky with your meal. The three W's are a delicious example of soft power at its best.

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Video: Discover the 3 Ws-the water, the wood, and the weather-that make aficionados swoon over Japanese whisky. In this transportive series, The Post's Mary Beth Albright explores countries' treasured food customs with diplomats from embassies based in Washington DC.(Billy Tucker/The Washington Post)

Embed code:Anyone who went to Eastern Connecticut State University or who has been to Willimantic has seen the famous Frog Bridge. And now a national site has taken notice.

The site 24/7 Wall St. recently named the Frog Bridge Connecticut's "strangest roadside attraction."

"Officially, it's the Thread City Crossing, but it's known as the Frog Bridge because of the four copper frogs on each end of the steel bridge over the Willimantic River.

The frogs commemorate 1754's The Battle of the Frogs, a story about a large-scale death of frogs fighting over the last water in the middle of a drought. The frog deaths were loud enough to convince residents that the French and American Indians coming to town to slaughter them. The invaders never came, and the frog battle became a part of Willimantic history," the site writes.

But this is certainly not Connecticut's only oddity. Click through to see some unique sites and things to do in Connecticut.

RELATED: 15 strange things to know about Connecticut



In 2017, Wild Bill's Nostalgia Store in Middletown was named Connecticut's most overrated "tourist trap."

Some of the store's attractions include PeeWee Herman's bike, a picture of PT Barnum, a non-working fun house, sculptures and the famous jack-in-the-box. The store is also featured in Atlas Obscura, Road Side America, Road Trippers and other sites and travel books. Page said they don't advertise the store, but rely soley on word of mouth and press.T he mother of a teenager shot dead in south London has paid an emotional tribute to her son, saying he had so much potential.

Rhyhiem Ainsworth Barton, 17, was shot in Cooks Road, Kennington, just after 6pm on Saturday.

Paramedics from the London Ambulance Service and London's Air Ambulance rushed to the scene, but he was pronounced dead just before 7pm.

His mother Pretana Morgan today said: "I couldn't have asked for a better son. My son was a very handsome boy.

"He's got so much potential."

Pretana Morgan speaks to reporters at the scene of her son's killing / PA

Ms Morgan said Rhyhiem was "trying to make a difference" by learning to work with children.

Rhyhiem Ainsworth Barton was shot in Cooks Road, Kennington (PA)

"This is not life. My son's a good boy," she said.

She also criticised the police, saying: "We're not being protected because of the police. The police are the ones putting us in danger."

A police cordon in Warham Street, Southwark / PA

Rhyhiem's godmother Lacey Main said he was a rapper and was made a target because he was young.

She said he was talented, adding he did not insult the people she believes are behind the shooting.

Ms Main said there have been incidents with boys coming to a nearby youth club in the area, adding: "So where is safe, then, from these people that they can cause so much havoc?"

She said Rhyhiem was shot at by someone in a car.

Police at the scene of the shooting in Kennington, south London / REUTERS

Ms Main added: "Any loss of life is a loss. It doesn't matter where they come from. It doesn't matter what religion, what culture, what skin colour... a life is a life. A young life is a young life."

Abigael Adeoye, 17, said she was best friends with Rhyhiem and knew him since primary school.

"I was with him everyday," she said.

Asked what her favourite thing about him was, she said: "That he was bubbly. He was really bubbly."

She added: "He used to message me every day and say 'Abigael come and see me'. I should have told him to stay at home yesterday."

Ms Morgan expressed her wishes to have Rhyhiem's remains returned to her.

"I just want them to hand over my son's body," she said.

The death is the latest in a spate of violent crimes in the capital, as police investigate more than 60 alleged murders so far this year.

London mayor Sadiq Khan urged anyone with any information about the incident to contact police.

"My thoughts are with the loved ones of the teenager who was tragically last night in a shooting in Southwark," he said.

"I have been in contact with the Metropolitan Police Commissioner about this appalling crime and am reassured the Met Police are doing everything they can to bring those responsible to justice."

A post-mortem examination will take place in due course. No arrests have been made.Abu Dhabi Ports has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Make-A-Wish Foundation UAE (MAW) as a partner to its current CSR strategy, a media report said.



Under the terms of the agreement, Abu Dhabi Ports will help raise awareness of the activities and programs undertaken by the charitable organisation, as well as offer its assets to grant wishes for critically ill children, reported Emirates news agency Wam.



Company employees will also have the opportunity to volunteer to be part of granting the wishes in an effort to engage them more in CSR activities.



Make-A-Wish serves a unique, and vital, role in helping strengthen and empower children battling critical illnesses, inherent in the belief that wishes make life better for kids with critical illnesses. This simple, but powerful belief inspired the founding of Make-A-Wish and drives everything the foundation does.



The agreement was signed in the presence of Sheikha Nour Fahim Al Qassimi, board member, Make A Wish Foundation-UAE, by Captain Mohamed Juma Al Shamisi, CEO of Abu Dhabi Ports and Hani Mohammed Al Zubaidi, CEO of Make-A-Wish Foundation.



Al Zubaidi said: "We are delighted to partner with socially responsible corporations in the UAE to further our cause. Our previous collaboration with Abu Dhabi Ports had seen great success and we look forward to working closely during the coming year with the companys employees in the future."



Captain Al Shamisi added: "The Year of Zayed is an ideal opportunity to encourage UAE residents to give back to the community. Abu Dhabi Ports has already made the commitment to find meaningful and impactful ways to improve the social welfare of people living in the UAE and we are delighted to partner with Make-A-Wish Foundation as our next step. This is a truly worthy cause and our management and employees look forward to aiding this organisation wherever we can."



Last month, Abu Dhabi Ports granted their first ever wish through the Foundation for an 11-year-old Bahraini girl, Ghaya, who suffers from type 1 diabetes, whose wish it was to go on a cruise trip with her family. The wish was granted through Abu Dhabi Cruise Terminal, a wholly owned asset of Abu Dhabi Ports.A ctress Liz Hurleys 6 million Herefordshire mansion was raided by burglars while she was at home after hosting a dinner party.

The model, 52, alerted police to the burglary in the early hours of a Sunday morning after she entertained guests at her home on the Saturday night, the Sun reported.

The thieves, who have not been caught, broke in through an upstairs window and made off with jewellery, according to the newspaper.

It is said the thieves fled when Hurley and her friends disturbed them and then called the police. Her 16-year-old son Damian is also reported to have been at home at the time of the break-in.

Liz Hurley with her nephew Miles who was stabbed in an attack in south London in March / Liz Hurley/Instagram

Hurley, whose nephew Miles, 21, also a model, was stabbed in a road rage attack in south London in March, was left shaken by the burglary and has reportedly increased security at the sprawling mansion.

The Sun quoted a source as saying: Liz was very upset by this but has done the sensible thing and increased security. The source added: The place is now like Fort Knox.

A West Mercia Police spokeswoman said: At about 9am on Sunday 19 November 2017, West Mercia Police received reports of a burglary in progress at a property.A 13-year-old boy was shot in the head moments after another teenager was injured in a gun attack in broad daylight on a busy high street.

Police were called at lunchtime to the shooting of a 15-year-old boy in Wealdstone in Harrow, north-west London.

Within two minutes officers were alerted by paramedics about a second boy who had been injured nearby.

Both youngsters suffered head injuries and rushed to hospital but neither was thought to be in a life-threatening condition, a Scotland Yard spokeswoman said.

Double shooting: A police officer at the scene on Sunday afternoon / PA

Police said they are investigating whether the incidents were linked however no one has been arrested and no firearm recovered.

It came amid a spate of shootings in the capital, with four people being shot in 24 hours, one fatally.

Why are our children killing each other?

A shopkeeper said the younger victim, who is not 12 as previously believed, was "lucky to be alive".

It is believed a gunshot pellet grazed the back of his head.

Police tape: The two boys were discovered with gunshot wounds within minutes of each other / PA

The manager of a betting shop, who did not give his name, said he was passing by on his lunch break and saw people gathered outside Specsavers around a person on the ground.

He said: "He was holding his head down. I could not see his face but could see his white t-shirt was proper covered in blood.

"He was sitting calmly as the paramedics were looking after him."

Forensics: A grey sweatshirt lies at the scene of one of the shootings / PA

A grey Adidas sweatshirt with blood stains on the hood lay crumpled on the ground outside a Specsavers store along with a police exhibit number.

It comes after Rhyhiem Ainsworth Barton, 17, was shot dead on the streets of Kennington, south London, just after 6pm on Saturday.

Mother of teenager shot dead in south London claims 'he had so much potential'

And just over 24 hours later, on Sunday evening, a 22-year-old man was shot in New Cross, south-east London. His injuries are not believed to life threatening.

A Met Police spokesman said: Officers were first called around 1.17pm to High Street, Wealdstone, to reports of a person having been shot.

At the scene a 15-year-old boy suffering from a gun shot wound was treated by London Ambulance Service before being taken to a central London hospital for treatment.

His injuries are still being assessed  we await details of these and his condition.

At around 1.19pm, London Ambulance Service alerted police to reports of a second boy with gunshot wounds in a different nearby location at High Street, Wealdstone.

A 13-year-old boy was treated at the scene before being taken to a west London hospital where he remains currently. We await an update on details of his injuries and his condition.

Palmerston Road, just off Wealdstone High Street, was blocked off with police tape and manned by uniformed officers on Sunday evening.A number of scuffles broke out as thousands of people descended on London for a 'Day for Freedom' rally that saw appearances from high profile far-right speakers.

The rally, which organisers said was to "defend free speech", began at Whitehall in central London at 3pm, with members of the 'Democratic Football Lads Alliance' and the 'Veterans Against Terrorism' groups in attendance.

Video footage emerged on social media of a number of scuffles breaking out amid a counter-protest by anti-fascism activists.

Counter-activists were filmed chanting Nazi scum repeatedly at those attending the march as they walked by.

Despite some unrest, a number of people took on social media to state that the march remained peaceful.

Thousands of people attended the Day for Freedom event in central London / @craigmelson/Twitter

Police said that one man was arrested in connection to a public order offence and possession of Class A drugs.

The Anti-Fascist Student Network (AFSN) had urged opponents to join the planned counter-demonstration, saying: Tommy Robinson may be trying to reinvent himself as a journalist, but he's still pushing the same hatred.

Counter protesters at the event on Sunday afternoon / EJ Ward/Panda Radio

Mr Robinson, the former leader of the English Defence League, was one of many right-wing figures who made an appearance at the event.

Leading member of the alt-right movement Milo Yiannopoulos and right wing Canadian activist Lauren Southern, via video link, also spoke.

Ms Southern was held by police in Calais and refused entry to the UK in March.

Tommy Robinson speaks at the 'Day for Freedom' event / @craigmelson/Twitter

Speeches were also made by YouTuber Mark Meechan  best known as Count Dankula  and UKIP leader Gerard Batten.

Mr Meecham became an outspoken free speech advocate after he was fined 800 for teaching his girlfriend's pet dog to perform a Nazi salute.

In a statement, Mr Robinson said before the event: "This is bigger than me or any of us as individuals so we have to stand up together to defend our freedom of sp

"We decided to focus our efforts on making sure we pull off a large scale, credible event. So we won't be marching - instead we have an incredible line-up of speakers, performers, videos and content to offer on the day.A Tory MP who called someone claiming to be one of his constituents a complete tw** on Twitter has defended his actions and said he did not have a clue what the word means.

Lichfield MP Michael Fabricant said he had meant the word "twit" when he became involved in heated exchange over this week's local elections.

The posts on Friday began when a Twitter user challenged Mr Fabricant over the town of Burntwood in his constituency, saying it had been neglected and calling the MP "weak and wobbly".

Mr Fabricant wrote back: "Says a complete tw** who seems unaware that there is no vote this year in Burntwood! And I neglect no part of my lovely constituency. That's why I'm loved!!"

Amid criticism of Mr Fabricant over the post to the Twitter account @Darcycanfly, which reportedly belongs to local teenage student Darcy Norgate, the Tory MP defended the move.

MP for Lichfield Michael Fabricant / PA Archive/PA Images

He wrote a post saying "snowflake alert", adding: "Rude twitter person who could be from anywhere (St Petersburg or Glasgow) makes rude comment then 'surprised' to be called a tw**! Oh, come on!!!"

Mr Fabricant then posted a statement saying "Momentum trolls" often commented on events in Lichfield and that the Twitter account listed no details about her age or where she lives.

He added: "Twitter is not like Facebook. It is not for those who are easily offended - unless they deliberately choose to be offended for political gain. 'Snowflakes' they are called. Labour activists love playing that game."

Mr Fabricant then wrote that he did not have a clue what the word "tw**" means, adding: "I think of it as twit".

Mr Fabricant later wrote: "For 'tw**' substitute 'twit' - which is what I meant.

"But the rest is, of course, true. Revealing how #OldLabour trolls have jumped on that bandwagon.

"If you are constituent making a serious point, you will always be treated seriously. But not if twitter location says 'Wonderland'.

He added that if Darcy really is a constituent, she should make contact with him through his Parliamentary website or by letter and that he would be more than happy to meet her and talk about politics.

In 2013, Mr Fabricant suggested that Russell Brand sounded like a "tw**" during a Newsnight interview he gave to Jeremy Paxman about the political system.B ritains first private police force is set to be rolled out across the nation following its success in three of Londons wealthiest neighbourhoods.

The force, called My Local Bobby, makes citizens arrests and can gather evidence to launch private prosecutions.

Clients who pay up to 200-a-month are given a direct line to a local officer, who they can also track on an iPad, and enjoy a meet-and-greet service from Tube stations or cars.

The scheme, which was set up by former Met officers David McKelvey and Tony Nash, is currently being trialled in Belgravia, Mayfair and Kensington.

Founders David McKelvey and Tony Nash are both former Met officers

In two years, the agency has reportedly achieved more than 400 convictions for fraud, intellectual property theft and other offences.

They now intend to move forces into other cities, as well as rural areas, amid a rising demand for the officers.

The force is being trialled in Belgravia, Mayfair and Kensington / Getty Images

Mr McKelvey told the Sunday Express: You dont see policemen walk around the streets any more. If you call 101 its a 30-minute wait and it is not a police officer who answers.

My Local Bobby is basically taking things back to Dixon of Dock Green-style policing.

The officers, who wear distinctive red caps and bibs, have regularly moved on drug users and drunks from central London neighbourhoods.

A spokesman for the Met police said: We would encourage residents who have concerns about policing in their area to contact their local Safer Neighbourhoods Team.

There are dedicated officers working in every ward across the capital. Where organisations or communities wish to fund their own security patrols we will work with these personnel in the most appropriate way to prevent and detect crime.Grand Duchess Vladimir's Tiara

This imposing tiara features 15 interlaced diamond circles with large pearl droplets. The pearls can be taken out and replaced with emeralds or it can be worn "widowed" - without drops.

Tsar Nicholas II's aunt, the Grand Duchess, hid the piece in the vault at Vladimir Palace in 1918 when she fled St Petersburg in the wake of the revolution.

It was found by a member of the British Secret Intelligence Service who smuggled the jewels out of Russia for the Grand Duchess.

It was later sold to Elizabeth II's grandmother, Queen Mary, and was then eventually inherited by the Queen. It has also been worn by the Duchess of Cornwall.

The Oriental Circlet Tiara (also known as the Indian Tiara)

This was a favourite of the Queen Mother. The large but delicate-looking piece features diamond lotus flowers and arches, and wraps itself nearly all the way around the wearer's head.

Prince Albert had it made as an opal tiara for Queen Victoria in 1853. But Queen Alexandra later replaced the opals, which were thought unlucky, with rubies.

Queen Mary's Fringe Tiara

The Queen wore Queen Mary's Fringe Tiara when she married the Duke of Edinburgh in 1947.

First worn as a tiara by Queen Victoria in 1839, the diamond fringe would connect Ms Markle to royal family history and to a successful royal partnership that has lasted more than 70 years.

Strathmore Rose Tiara

A demure choice would be the pretty Strathmore Rose Tiara, which belonged to the Queen Mother and was a present from her parents in 1923.

It can be worn on top of the head or across the forehead as a bandeau. The delicate floral design has not been worn in public for many years.A number of passengers were injured after a group of youths reportedly hurled an object at a moving train, shattering a window.

The train was travelling between London and Rochdale on Saturday afternoon, with Charlton fans heading to the teams final game of the season among those on board.

Passenger Jimmy Seed said there was suddenly a loud bang as the train travelled between stations in the Manchester area.

He said that the object smashed into the frame of the window, adding if it had hit the glass directly "someone could have been killed".

Mr Seed told the Standard: There were only two carriages. It looked like the youths were aiming at the driver.

There was a loud bang as the object hit the train.

A girl sitting next to me had small cuts to the face, and possibly a fragment in her eye, we all at glass in our hair.

Another women had small cuts to her back.

Mr Seed said that the driver told him his trains had been targeted before, with youths reportedly often trying to film the incidents on their mobile phones.

He added: The train was travelling at 60mph according to the driver. He told me his train had been targeted before.

The conductor saw youths on a bank overlooking the track when the train was heading into Manchester Victoria.

The incident happened 20 minutes or so later when the train was heading back to Leeds. It occurred between Moston and Mills Hill stations.

The conductor was fairly sure it was the same youths. Apparently they try to film the incidents or get photos afterwards.

The object cracked the polycarbonate frame. Had it hit the glass someone could have been killed. There were children close by.

I was on my way from London to see Charlton play at Rochdale and had to abandon ship.

A British Transport Police spokeswoman said: Shortly before 6pm today we were called to the Mill Hills area of Manchester after reports an object had struck a train window.

The window then shattered causing a number of passengers to be injured. The injuries are believed to be superficial with one woman being taken to hospital for further assessment.

It is believed that the object was thrown from a nearby embankment. An investigation is now underway to trace those responsible.B rits are bracing themselves for a weekend washout as heavy rain and thunderstorms move across large swathes of the country.

Dry and bright conditions will start to give way to wet weather from Saturday with the south of England expected to be the worst affected.

Forecasters have warned that hours of heavy rain are expected to fall in London and the south east on Saturday afternoon.

The deteriorating conditions come after days of unusually hot and sunny weather for May.

Britain basks in the hottest Bank Holiday Monday on record 1 /10 Britain basks in the hottest Bank Holiday Monday on record A woman takes a photo of the wildlife in Regent's Park, London PA A jogger on Brighton seafront as the Bank Holiday Monday PA Sunbathers in Regent's Park PA An elderly couple eating ice cream in the hot weather, in Regent's Park, London PA People enjoying the hot weather in a pedalo in Regent's Park, London PA A woman working on her laptop in the hot weather on a Bank Holiday, in Regent's Park, London PA Paddle boarders enjoy the weather in the sea at Hastings, Britain REUTERS People enjoying the hot weather in a pedalo in Regent's Park, London PA Women reading books in the hot weather in Regent's Park, London PA Paddle boarders enjoy the weather in the sea at Hastings, Britain REUTERS

This week's early May Bank Holiday was the hottest on record as temperatures soared 28.7C in west London.

Met Office forecaster Mark Wilson told the Standard: It is a mixed weekend to come. For many areas it will be a dry, bright start but through the day you are going to see rain moving in.

There will be heavy rain in the afternoon in London and the south east and East Anglia.

London will see heavy rain for at least a few hours and there is a low risk of thunder storms.

There will be showers across south west England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and thunder storms in those areas are more likely.

Northern cities including Manchester will experience drier and brighter conditions with a lower chance of showers.

On Saturday, the mercury is expected to peak more than 10C lower than earlier in week, with maximum temperatures of around 16 or 17C.

On Sunday, southern parts of England will continue to experience damp conditions, while other parts of the country will avoid the washout.

Mr Wilson added: On Sunday we are looking at a similar picture. There will be heavy showers in eastern parts of Scotland and southern England, with the areas in between seeing drier, brighter weather.

Temperatures will be much cooler than what we have seen of late, again around 16 or 17C.UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan has ordered the payment of one-month bonus salary to all serving and retired government employees, civilians and military, as well as beneficiaries of social welfare services, in celebration of the centennial anniversary of the birth of the founding father, the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, observed on May 6.



A total of Dh1.6 billion ($435 million) will be disbursed before Eid Al Fitr.



President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed said that the UAE, its people, and all those who love the UAE are celebrating the Sheikh Zayed centennial anniversary.



Zayed was the source of giving and generosity during life and he is also our stimulus to follow his legacy after his death, he added.



Today, 100 years have passed since his birth and the UAE will remain strong, loyal and pioneer thanks to the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, he said in conclusion.



Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, hailed the directives of President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa on this historic occasion.



Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid said: Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed and his brothers are an extension to the giving of the late Sheikh Zayed. The Zayed Centennial is a historic Emirati occasion the UAEs people will always memorise the anniversary of the late Sheikh Zayed.



Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, emphasised that Zayed Centennial is a national day, a historic anniversary, and a landmark for gratitude, loyalty to the anniversary and the march of the founder of the nation.



The UAE is strong thanks to the history of Zayed, his sons, and Zayeds values that run in the blood of every Emirati citizen, His Highness Sheikh Mohamed said.



The payment of a months salary is for all serving and retired government employees, civilians and the military. It will be a basic monthly salary for employees up to a maximum of Dh50,000 for every beneficiary and a minimum of Dh5,000. As for retirees, the limit will be Dh50,000 and the minimum will be Dh10,000.



It will also include beneficiaries of social welfare services provided by the federal government. An additional month's allowance will be paid to them.



The directives of President Sheikh Khalifa also state the completion of the payment before Eid Al Fitr for the convenience of citizens.  TradeArabia News ServiceThe updates to Russias Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier are scheduled to begin this month, and the ship will be put back into active service in 2021. Vice Admiral Viktor Bursuk, the Russian navys deputy commander-in-chief in charge of procurement, has stated that the revamp will include arming the flat top with the brand-new Poliment-Redut shipborne air-defense system, which is generally comparable to the US AEGIS.

The system boasts four or eight vertical launch systems. It can fire three types of surface-to-air (SAM) interceptors: the short-range 9M100, medium-range 9M96M, and long-range 9M96 missiles.

The 9M100 is a solid-propellant weapon with a range of 1015 km. and an inertial guidance system with active infrared (IR). The 9M96M is an IR-guided missile with an active radar terminal homing guidance system. Its FRAG-HE 26 kg. warhead travels at a speed of 900m/s and it has a maximum range of 40-50 km.

The 9M96 is a new missile that is resistant to jamming and can intercept targets at a speed of Mach 15 (4,800-5,000 m/s) and at an altitude of 35 km. It can hit incoming threats at a range of 150 km. An active radar homing head and inertial navigation system are used for midcourse guidance. The thrust vectoring control system offers impressive maneuverability at any altitude or range.

The SAM is equipped with a directed explosion warhead to improve the chances of fully destroying fast moving and agile targets upon direct impact. The hit probability is 0.9 against aircraft, 0.8 against drones, and 0.7 against missiles. Thrust vectoring makes it possible to achieve high Gs and angular rate capability.

A datalink from the MFMTR X-band radar blast is used for midcourse guidance. Its 24 kg. fragmentation warhead produces a controlled pattern. A radar fuse controls the warheads timing.

The 9M96 missile was initially developed for the S-400 Triumf ground-based air-defense system that has already been delivered to China. It will soon be sent to Turkey. India, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar are also quite interested in this system.

The three vertical-launched, solid-fuel, one-stage missiles have a variable range of 1-150 km. at an altitude of 5 m. to 30 km. At a speed of 2,100 m/s they can hit targets traveling at 1000 m/s. A Poliment-Redut-equipped frigate can carry 32 medium/long-range or 128 short-range missiles. Any combination is possible  one launcher can house either one medium- or long-range weapon or four short-range SAMs. The four-faced phased array antenna can track 16 targets at once. The detection range is 200 km. Russian sources report that the system can engage surface targets as well.

The combination of various-range missiles makes it possible for one Poliment-Redut to carry out the missions of three air-defense systems. It provides multi-tier defense, reducing reaction time. It can fire at a rate of one launch per second. The vertical start is an important advantage, enabling the system to counter a target approaching from any direction. These highly agile missiles can use an optimal trajectory to kill highly maneuverable threats.

The lead ship of the Russian navys Admiral Gorshkov-class frigates has been equipped with this system, along with the Steregushchiy-class (Project 20380) and the Gremyaschiy-class (Project 20385) corvettes. The combination of the Poliment-Redut and the close-in weapon systems keep these ships well protected against any kind of air threat. For instance, the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier will also receive the naval version of the Pantsir cutting-edge close-in weapon. Because of the Poliment-Redut, these vessels can provide area defense, which is crucially important for a navy destined for a wide variety of peacetime and wartime missions all over the world.US President Donald Trump contradicts himself all the time; all of the progressive promises he made during his campaign were dropped as soon as he won the White House, and only his conservative promises are being implemented under him, especially his promises against economic regulations and the regulatory agencies such as the EPA. Trump as the President can be understood truthfully only by what he does, not by what he says, since his words are self-contradictory. Judged in this way (by what he does), he is the most libertarian President ever to have occupied Americas highest office. He is determinedly destroying the regulatory agencies.

The core of libertarianism is its opposition to economic regulations  that is, to regulations of what corporations are legally allowed to do. Libertarianism opposes any such tampering with market forces."

The financial donor network that is headed by the billionaire libertarian Koch brothers has been exultant over what Trump has done. Among their achievements as listed by a flyer at the Koch Seminar Network have been (just to name a few):

CFPB Arbitration Rule  Repealed by Congressional Review Act.

EPA Waters of the US Regulations  In Process of Being Formally Repealed

Keystone XL Pipeline, Dakota Access Pipeline  Permits Approved

BLM Stream Protection Rule  Overturned

EPA Clean Power Plan  In Process of Being Formally Repealed

Withdraw US from Paris Climate Agreement  Withdrawn

Treasury Department estate-tax rules  Eight Rules Repealed

The Koch brothers donor network is planning to donate $400 million to keep Republican control of Congress in 2018  they want this intense libertarianism to continue ruling Washington.

The big policy-area where the Kochs and the Trump Administration differ is on immigration (and this includes the travel ban), because corporate America wants all the access to the cheapest labor that they can get. So, they dont want any enforcement of immigration rules. They want their workers to be desperate, in order to drive wages down and profits up; and this means opening the foodgates to foreign workers. The more workers who are competing for the jobs, the lower the wages will be, and the higher their profits will be.

However, on all other aspects of foreign policies, the Kochs have been enormously successful with Trump.

The far-right National Review magazine said:

If youre the Koch network, the world looks pretty good right now: Sweeping tax reform has been passed, Obamacares individual mandate is repealed, Republicans control the House and Senate, like-minded governors and state legislators control a majority of states, and after one year in office, President Trump has proven to be a more conventional free-market Republican than many expected  at least in the realm of policy.

This network has accomplished more in the past five years than I have in the previous 50 Ive been at this, Charles Koch told an audience of more than 500 well-heeled donors to the Koch Seminar Network at a luxury resort outside Palm Springs.

On 25 October 2017, the Los Angeles Times headlined Trump or Pence? Either way, the Koch brothers have won. The Kochs had selected Pence to become his running-mate so that with this Republican ticket, they could score not only a Trump Presidency but then maybe subsequently a Pence Presidency.

Actually, while Pence had been a long-time favorite of the Kochs, Trump  with his many self-contradictory remarks and no public-policy track-record to go on  was just lots of question-marks, not the consistent exclamation-points of approval that Pence was, for them. The Kochs thus concentrated their political money instead, on winning Congress and state houses, during 2016.

And, then, lo and behold, once Trump actually came into office, he turned out to be nothing that he, as a candidate, had spoken out of the left side of his mouth, and he was everything that he had spoken from its right side: he was almost a perfect libertarian. Even his anti-immigrant focus needed to be accepted by the Kochs, because, without it, Trump couldnt have won enough votes from American Whites so as to make winning the election even possible for him. After all, Trump won the white vote by a record margin  58 percent to 37 percent; and, furthermore, Trump won voters without a college degree by eight points. Which Americans were the most hurt by desperate immigrants coming into this country? Those immigrants were competing for jobs that uneducated American Whites held. In retrospect, therefore, the Kochs knew that Trump had actually been their ideal Presidential candidate all along  the only candidate who not only was an extremist libertarian like themselves, but who possessed the capability actually to win the White House. He turned out to have been their dream-candidate.

But this isnt all: Two of Trumps top donors, who also turned out to provide to his campaign the necessary high-tech expertise so as to be able to outflank Hillary Clintons high-tech guru Googles Eric Schmidt, were the high-tech billionaires  both members of the Kochs network, and extremist libertarians themselves  Peter Thiel and Robert Mercer, both of whom fed into Trumps campaign their fellow leader of Cambridge Analytica (which was so core to Trumps campaign), Stephen Bannon, who actually managed Trumps wins in the three states that put him over the top: Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. And consider: Which part of the electorates in those three states caused Trump to win these crucial states? It was chiefly the uneducated white voters there. Mercer and Thiel werent born billionaires like the Kochs were, but they, like the Clinton campaigns Eric Schmidt, were more in the self-made man model, who each by his personal combination of technical brilliance and lack of moralistic qualms, worked his own respective individual way into Americas aristocracy  they didnt inherit any of it, such as the Kochs and Trump did.

Trump is the type of libertarian who possessed all the means to win, for the Kochs and the rest of their network, everything that they care the most about, which is the destruction of regulations and laws that restrict or restrain what their corporations can legally do. Maybe Pence would be even better for them, but what would be more important, in their eyes, would be whether hed hire the right people, like Trump did in order to win, so as to become enabled to advance effectively the anti-regulatory agenda, which is the core of libertarianism.

To a libertarian, the personal right to property is the core right, and every other right is meaningless without it. The government has no right at all, other than to protect citizens right to their property. What a corporation does with its property is no matter of the governments concern, so long as that corporations transactions are entirely voluntary. This is what the Kochs and their network care about and protect  all private property-rights. This is what they seek to maximize. Trump is the best President theyve ever had. And, come 2020, if Trump is still the President, theyll be donating heavily to his re-election campaign. Whereas his voter-base will be, as it has been, uneducated Whites, his donor-base will be billionaires, especially the libertarian ones  which is most of the billionaires. Defeating such a candidate would be a formidable task, unless the economy will have tanked by then. Trump won office as the change candidate: Asked which mattered most to their vote, almost 4 in 10 (39 percent) said a candidate who 'can bring needed change. Among those change voters, Trump took 83 percent of the vote to just 14 percent for Clinton. If a Clinton-Obama-type pro-corporate Democrat will again be running against Trump, then there wont be a change candidate, but Trumps campaign war-chest will dwarf his opponents and Trump will likely win yet again. However, if a Bernie-Sanders populist will be the Democratic Partys nominee, then no matter how big Trumps war-chest would be, the change candidate could win; and, this time, that candidate wouldnt be Trump.Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal was injured during an assassination attempt at a corner meeting in his constituency Narowal here on Sunday.

The assailant Abid Hussain, 21, shot at the interior minister from a distance of 15 yards as the latter entered his vehicle to leave the rally ground in tehsil Kanjrur, confirmed DPO Imran Kishwar.

The PML-N leader was shifted to the operation theater at Services Hospital in Lahore for a surgery to remove a bullet that had pierced into Iqbal's body.

An initial report issued by the police had said Iqbal's bone was fractured after he received a bullet in his right shoulder.

Workers of Pakistan Muslim League - Nawaz (PML-N), standing near the assailant, tackled the man after he opened fire at Iqbal, said Punjab Government Spokesperson Malik Ahmed Khan. He further said the suspect was stopped from firing a second shot.

A 30-bore pistol was recovered from the arrested suspect, confirmed DPO Kishwar. Abid is reportedly a resident of Narowal.

Iqbal was shifted to DHQ Hospital in Narowal immediately after the attack. His son, Ahmed, confirmed that his father was conscious and out of danger.

After receiving initial medical treatment in Narowal, the interior minister was shifted to Services Hospital through a helicopter sent on the directives of the Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

State Minister for Interior Tallal Chaudry, said an investigation was underway into the incident.

The Inspector General of Punjab Captain (retd) Arif Nawaz Khan took notice of the incident and summoned a report from Narowal DPO Kishwar. The police chief issued orders to take strict legal action against the suspect."Our call to respect the vote demands respect for the people of Pakistan. This country does not belong to a few people; it belongs to the nation of 220 million people," he said.

The Pakistan Muslim League-N supremo (PML-N) was addressing a rally in Mansehra in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Party officials had earlier that the public gathering would kick-off around 2pm at the Mandi Mawaishian Ground. However, owing to gusty winds and rain, the arrangements at the venue were adversely affected and the event was delayed.

The organiser of the event, Federal Religious Affairs Minister Sardar Mohammad Yousaf, said earlier that a 120 by 40 feet stage has been set up at the venue for the party leadership.

Yousaf, who has been elected to the National Assembly from the area, had added that "come rain or sunshine, the show will go on".

He claimed to have made arrangements of over 100,000 people and vowed to prove this to be Hazara Divisions biggest public gathering.



Nawaz says has no competition with Imran, Zardari

The PML-N supremo and daughter have been addressing a string of rallies across the country recently as part of their 'respect the vote' campaign following Nawaz's disqualification by the Supreme Court last year.

Addressing a rally in Sadiqabad on Wednesday, Nawaz said he had no competition with Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Imran Khan and Pakistan Peoples Party Asif Ali Zardari.

Addressing the participants, he said that it appeared as if Sadiqabad had been awakening today, the heart of south Punjab had been awakening. "I am very lucky for one does not get such respects from the people easily."



People's court exonerated Nawaz Sharif, says Maryam in Mansehra

In February this year, Maryam, addressed a social media convention of the party in Mansehra District.

It was the first of its kind event as well as Maryam's first rally in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

"The court of the people exonerated Nawaz Sharif. One after the other, the people's court gave its verdict, as it did in Lodhran," she had said at the event.Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly on Sunday said the names of nominees for the slot of caretaker prime minister for the upcoming general elections would come out by May 15.

Addressing the foundation stone laying ceremony of Allama Iqbal University in Aror (popularly known as Rohri), he said the name of caretaker prime minister will hopefully be finalized in May.

Talking about Muttahida Qaumi Movement Pakistan (MQM-P) leader Farooq Sattar, Shah said the former is currently disconcerted as his party doesnt accept him into the party fold.

Referring to Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasis remarks that the aliens would conduct the upcoming general elections, he said even politicians acknowledged that aliens exit.

Highlighting the importance of education, the opposition leader said that the world is incomplete without education, which enables the human being to tell apart what is good and bad.

Earlier, PM Abbasi had said that the government will agree on any name proposed by the opposition for caretaker prime minister.

He said this while speaking to journalists after a farewell dinner hosted by Speaker of the National Assembly Sardar Ayaz Sadiq for members of the assembly nearing the end of its tenure.

The premier said that the government and opposition should reach consensus over a caretaker setup to avoid any disagreement thereof so that the matter does not go to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to install the caretaker government.Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Haqiqi chief Afaq Ahmed said on Sunday that the Pakistan Peoples Party can never become 'a party of Muhajirs'.

"It is in the party structure of PPP to spread ethnic hate," the party leader said in a rally at Liaquatabad flyover. "They changed the name of Karachi Building Control Authority to Sindh Building Control Authority due to their bias."

Ahmed paid tribute to the martyrs of the city who 'laid down their lives for the protection of Urdu in the country'.

The Haqiqi chief said that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf has started to express concern for Karachi when the elections are just around the corner.

"Noone said anything when people were mercilessly killed in the city," the senior politican said.

Ahmed demanded the provincial authorities to change the name of District Central to Liaquatabad.

"Why can't those who have enjoyed power for 35 years were not able to finish Quota system. Now even if its abolish now it won't benefit the Muhajirs, he said.

Earlier, MQM-Pakistan held a rally at the Liaquatabad's Tanki Ground on Saturday. The rally by both the factions of the party was held in response to the Pakistan Peoples Partys gathering at the same venue on April 30.

The MQM-P leaders in their address accused the PPP of having held a rally at the same venue last week by capturing the streets of Liaquatabad.

"Hold rallies everywhere, we will run you off from there," Khawaja Izhar said at the rally.

Addressing the participants, Dr Farooq Sattar said the party had "challenged us in our homes".

Criticising the PPP, Sattar said the people of Sindh were trapped in a vicious "wheel of cruelty". "It is not just the Muhajirs, or the Urdu-speaking. It is the people of Sindh, everyone is trapped in this wheel of cruelty and [quota system]."

He added that "seeds of hate" were sowed against the people of Sindh. "The defeated [labourers] are still living the life they were living decades ago," he said, and called on the masses to reject the feudal system and the landlords.

Sattar said that despite the hardships and differences, MQM-P vote bank remained the same.

"No matter the hardships, struggles, differences, our vote bank and our support base will stay the same. MQM-P vote bank was one yesterday, and it is one today," he asserted.Voting has begun in Lebanon's first parliamentary election in nine years, with over 500 candidates vying for 128 seats.

Polling stations opened at 7:00 a.m. local time (0400 GMT) on Sunday and will close at 7:00 p.m. local time (1600 GMT).

Official results are not expected until Monday or Tuesday, but early details may emerge on Sunday night.

The 128-parliamentary seats are split evenly - 64 for Christians and 64 for Muslims including Druze, with the two halves further divided among 11 religious groups.

Each of the 15 electoral districts has parliamentary seats apportioned according to its demographic make-up.

Tens of thousands of Lebanese nationals living abroad cast their votes last month.

Lebanon's parliamentary elections were delayed three times since 2009 due to the crisis in neighboring Syria as well as disagreement over the country's new electoral law.

In an interview with BBC Arabic TV on Saturday, President Michel Aoun underlined the importance of national unity and expressed hope that the new government would be formed soon.

"I hope that a new government will be formed quickly and according to the constitution. But if national unity is not preserved, the majority will take over, and the rest will become the opposition," he said.Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and hundreds of anti-Kremlin activists were detained by police on Saturday during street protests against Vladimir Putin ahead of his inauguration for a fourth presidential term.

Navalny had called for people to take to the streets in more than 90 towns and cities across the worlds largest country to register their opposition to what Navalny says is Putins autocratic Tsar-like rule.

Putin won a landslide re-election victory in March, extending his grip over Russia for six more years until 2024, making him the longest-lasting leader since Soviet dictator Josef Stalin who ruled for nearly 30 years.

Navalny, who was barred from running in the election against Putin on what he says was a false pretext, was detained soon after showing up on Moscows central Pushkinskaya Square where young people chanted Russia without Putin and Down with the Tsar.

Footage of the detention posted online showed five policemen carting him off to a waiting van by his arms and legs.

Navalny, who has been detained and jailed for organising similar protests in the past, had managed to briefly address several thousand people beforehand, saying he was glad people had shown up.

Reuters reporters saw riot police systematically detaining other protesters in Moscow, some of them harshly, before bundling them into buses. In St Petersburg, protesters were prevented from reaching the citys central square.

Pavel Kuznetsov, a 72-year-old pensioner wearing a T-shirt depicting Putin wearing a crown with a line through it, said he and others had turned up in Moscow to protest against what he said was an election designed to keep a dictator in power.

Weve come out here to demonstrate against the puppet elections, he said.

OVD Info, a human rights organisation that monitors detentions, said it had received reports of police detaining over 350 people across the country.

Protests took place in the Far East and Siberia as well.

In the Urals city of Yekaterinburg, around 1,500 km (900 miles) east of Moscow, a Reuters reporter saw a crowd of more than 1,000 people protesting, some shouting Down with the Tsar!

Putin, 65, has been in power, either as president or prime minister, since 2000.

Backed by state TV and the ruling party, and credited with an approval rating of around 80 percent, he is lauded by supporters as a father-of-the-nation figure who has restored national pride and expanded Moscows global clout with interventions in Syria and Ukraine.

PROTESTS ILLEGAL

The authorities regard most of the protests as illegal, arguing that their time and place was not agreed with them beforehand.

Putin has dismissed Navalny, who was barred from running in the presidential election on what he said was a trumped up pretext, as a troublemaker bent on sowing chaos on behalf of Washington. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, a close Putin ally, has called Navalny a political charlatan.

Putin is due to be inaugurated on Monday in a Kremlin ceremony heavy on pomp and circumstance.

With almost 77 percent of the vote and more than 56 million votes, his March election win was his biggest ever and the largest by any post-Soviet Russian leader, something he and his allies say gave him an unequivocal mandate to govern.

However, European observers said there had been no real choice in the election, and complained of unfair pressure on critical voices. Critics like Navalny accuse Putin of overseeing a corrupt authoritarian system and of illegally annexing Ukraines Crimea in 2014, a move that isolated Russia internationally.Bay of Plenty

We are looking for a storeman with an OSH forklift license. You will need to be physically for as the job is about 70% forklift...



View or Apply on GoodWork.co.nzEarlier today, Dubai Airports marked the anniversary of the birth of Sheikh Zayed by launching an art exhibition inspired by his life and works at the Dubai International Airport (DXB).



As part of the ongoing celebrations to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of the late HH Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, Dubai Airports has created a dedicated Year of Zayed gallery in Terminal 3, arrivals at DXB.



The pieces of art, specially commissioned as part of the artDXB programme, have been created by students of the Mawaheb from Beautiful People art studio in Dubai and Diaa Allam, Arabic calligraphy artist. In addition, the Mojo studio has produced a piece of mosaic art using imagery of His Highness.



Each of the contributing artists were given the theme Inspired by Zayed and asked to produce something that would not only highlight the importance the legendary leader has within the UAE, but showcase it to the thousands of international passengers travelling from the terminal every day and spread his inspirational message around the world.



The five pieces produced by students of Mawaheb are creative interpretations on canvas of some of the inspirational quotes taken from HH Sheikh Zayeds writing. Arabic calligrapher Allam was then asked to bring the pieces together by writing the quotes on the canvas over the painting.



Exhibiting by the side of these paintings is a mosaic style image compiled of images of Zayed and his life achievements which was designed and created by Mojo at their studio in Al Serkal Avenue. Egyptian artist, Allam, created an artistic impression portrait of Sheikh Zayed using his trademark Arabic calligraphy as a live activation on the launch day.



The Year of Zayed is a tribute to HH Sheikh Zayeds inspirational leadership which created a lasting vision of prosperity, determination and tolerance, all of which are firmly embedded in UAE culture. - TradeArabia News Service

Bay of Plenty

Our client has plenty of work in the pipeline and as such they are in need of qualified or experienced carpenters for an...



View or Apply on GoodWork.co.nzClick the image above to watch the video

The weather forecast today is for a fine day with southwesterly breezes.

Its a two-clothing layer day today with a high of 19 and an overnight low of 10 degrees. Humidity is 84 per cent.

High tide is at 11.50am and low tide is at 6.10pm. Theres a sea swell of .4m with a sea temperature of 18 degrees. Sunset tonight is at 5.20pm.

If youre going fishing the next best fish bite time is between 5 and 7pm.

In NZ history on this day in 1846 a devastating landslide obliterated the Ngati Tuwharetoa village of Te Rapa on the south-west shore of Lake Taupo.

In 1856 Henry Sewell became the countrys first premier.

Sewell held the position for just 14 days before being replaced by his provincialist rival William Fox, whose ministry in turn lasted just over a week.

In 1888 there was anti-Chinese hysteria in Dunedin.

A meeting in Dunedin presided over by the mayor unanimously called for a ban on further Chinese migrants.

In world history on this day in 1429 Joan of Arc broke the English siege of Orleans. In 1824 Beethovens Ninth Symphony premiered in Vienna.

In 1847 the American Medical Association was formed. In 1877 Indian chief Sitting Bull entered Canada with a trail of Indians after the Battle of Little Bighorn.

In 1915 the German submarine U-20 torpedoed the passenger ship Lusitiania, sinking her in 21 minutes with 1,978 people on board.

In 1942 in the Battle of the Coral Sea, Japanese and American navies attacked each other with carrier-launched warplanes.

It was the first time in the history of naval warfare where two fleets fought without seeing each other. In 1945 Germany signed an unconditional surrender, effectively ending World War II in Europe.

Today is the birthday of English poet Robert Browning (1812), German composer Johannes Brahms (1833), Russian composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840), inventor of the Polaroid Land Camera Edwin Herbert Land (1909) and first lady of Argentina Eva (Evita) Peron (1919).

A quote from Peter Tchaikovsky who once wrote "Inspiration is a guest that does not willingly visit the lazy. There is no doubt that even the greatest musical geniuses have sometimes worked without inspiration."

To get involved in some of the many activities happening around the Bay, please check out our Whats on page.

Our locations for todays video are Pikowai and the top of Hopukiore.

Have a great day!It feels as if the rumors, speculation, and leaks, surrounding LGs G7 ThinQ flagship lasted forever, but the company finally unveiled the handset last week. Early hands-on reviews have been a bit mixedsome like it, while others think it fails to stand out from the top Android phones. But the big talking point is its notch; a feature that LG claims to have invented.

The G7 ThinQ joins, among others, the upcoming OnePlus 6, Huawei P20 and P20 Pro, and Asus ZenFone 5 in sporting a screen cut-out. And while it was Essential who released the first handset with a notch back in May 2017, Apple increased its size and popularized the concept when it unveiled the iPhone X in September that same year, leading to the term iPhone X-style notch.

News of the G7 ThinQ's notch wasn't well received by many Android fans, but whatever you think of it as a feature, LG says its not copying Apple or Essential. The company claims it came up with the idea years ago.

LG planned the notch design before Apple. The display design may look similar to that of other smartphones, but boasts differentiated features, said Hwang Jeong-hwan, chief of LGs mobile division.

Korean publication The Investor reports that LG doesnt even like the word notch being used to describe the feature, as it apparently insinuates that something is missing. LG prefers to call it a secondary display, presumably as it adds more screen space (on either side of the cut-out).

LG isnt the only phone maker that says it invented the notch. Huaweis mobile chief, Li Changzhu, said the company came up with the idea three to four years ago, but never used it until the P20 over fears that consumers, especially those in China, wouldnt like the asymmetric look it creates in displays.

LG might claim to have come up with the notch idea, but one feature it appears to be copying from the iPhone X is its augmented reality-based animated emojis, which Apple calls Animoji. Hwang said they would eventually be arriving on the G7 ThinQ, as well as other LG handsets. Those software features can be updated later and will be available both on the G7 and other preceding models to meet the demand of consumers who want a longer lifespan for their smartphones, he said. LG wouldnt be the first to take inspiration from the Apple in this respect; Samsung revealed its similar AR emoji in the Galaxy S9.

In addition to its notch/second screen, which can be hidden with the addition of black bars around the sides, the G7 ThinQ boasts a boombox speaker that supposedly makes it ten times louder than other smartphones, a dedicated Google Assistant button, and a display that can reach 1000 nits of brightness. It does feature an LCD screen, though, as the company is only using OLED in its V-series devices. LG says the phone will arrive in the US on June 2. No word yet on price.Cambridge Analytica, the company mired in the middle of Facebook's user privacy scandal, may be shutting down and filing for bankruptcy, but its problems are far from over. A new development has seen a UK watchdog order the firm to tell a US citizen what data it holds on him within 30 days or face criminal charges.

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) announced that it has served an enforcement notice on Cambridge Analytica affiliate SCL Elections, under the UKs 1998 Data Protection Act. It must comply with a subject access request made by American David Carroll, an associate professor at New York's Parsons School of Design, on January 10, 2017long before the privacy saga hit the headlines. Carroll had become suspicious about the company, and the methods it used to build psychographic profiles of US voters.

On March 27, Carroll received some information from SCL Elections, but he wasnt satisfied that this encompassed all the data held about him, and it didnt explain how it was obtained or what it would be used for. He complained to the ICO in September 2017.

The company refused to answer the ICOs questions and claimed that Carroll wasnt entitled to the data as he isnt a UK citizen or based in the country, an argument the watchdog called incorrect. According to The Guardian, Cambridge Analytica said Carroll had no more rights than a member of the Taliban sitting in a cave in the remotest corner of Afghanistan.

UK Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham said: The company has consistently refused to co-operate with our investigation into this case and has refused to answer our specific enquiries in relation to the complainants personal data  what they had, where they got it from and on what legal basis they held it.

"It is important that Professor Carroll, and other members of the public, understand what personal data Cambridge Analytica held and how they analysed it."

Cambridge Analytica, which worked on Donald Trump's 2016 campaign, harvested the personal data of 87 million Americans via Facebook without informing them. Now that Carrolls demand has been granted, the firm could face a deluge of requests from other US citizens who want to know what data it holds on them.

Main image credit: Quote Catalog"We have decided to accept the resignation of the President of the Council of Ministers, Guido Bellido, whom I thank for his services," said President Pedro Castillo. | Read MoreEmirates has landed six of its special Year of Zayed livery aircraft on six continents for the May 6 centennial birthday of the UAEs Founding Father, HH Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan.



Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, chairman and chief executive, Emirates Airline & Group, said: Today, we celebrate the centennial anniversary of the birth of the UAEs founding father, HH Sheikh Zayed, who dedicated his life to building a thriving and vibrant UAE. The principles and initiatives he set in motion have become the foundations for the UAEs progress. We hope through our special liveries we honour his memory and legacy and help spread his inspirational messages around the world as our aircraft continue to circle the globe in 2018.



This tribute to the late HH Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan was first unveiled in November 2017 on the fuselage of Emirates 100th A380 aircraft, commemorating the late founder's 100th birth year.



Currently, 10 Emirates aircraft carry the special livery for 2018. The Year of Zayed Emirates aircraft have circled the globe to over 90 cities on over 1,800 flights. - TradeArabia News ServiceSchool teachers and principals are "drowning in paperwork", costing them critical time for preparing classes and threatening their core job of educating children, research has found.

A University of Sydney study of more than 18,000 public school teachers and principals across NSW found 97.3 per cent reported an increase in administration duties over the past five years. More than 95 per cent were spending more time on analysing and reporting data.

While their paperwork has dramatically increased, teachers and principals say administration and curriculum support from the NSW Department of Education has decreased. This has led teachers to do an increasing amount of work at home to avoid the extra burden having an impact on students in the classroom.

Susan McGrath-Champ, left, Associate Professor in Work and Organisational Studies at the University of Sydney, and Joan Lemaire, NSW Teachers Federation deputy president.

Susan McGrath-Champ, Associate Professor in Work and Organisational Studies at the University of Sydney Business School, said an online survey conducted early this year showed increasing workloads were limiting the capacity of educators to give their "fullest attention" to teaching and learning.The warm and sunny weather that Sydney experienced over the weekend will continue through the week, with temperatures forecast to reach 25 degrees over the next four days.

But rain is predicted to arrive by the weekend, affecting Mother's Day plans, with maximum temperatures forecast to drop to as low as 17 degrees on Friday, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.

After enduring some cooler mornings last week, the coming days will hold some reprieve.

Sydney is experiencing above average temperatures for this time of year. Credit:James Alcock

"It's been quite chilly over the last few mornings. But this week it will be warmer, making it easier to get up," Weatherzone meteorologist Kim Westcott said.For heroine Offred of The Handmaid's Tale, the trigger was the smell of bread in the kitchen. For Marcel Proust, a miniature sponge cake dipped in tea led to one of the greatest works of French literature. For celebrity chef Maggie Beer, the thought of a childhood feast of golden syrup dumplings made her "whole body smile".

It floods my mind with memories of afternoons of BMX riding and Rubiks Cubes. Credit:Jennifer Soo

And for you, the sensory trigger could be hot buttered toast, tuck shop fish-and-chips or your nonna's spaghetti and meatballs.

These are all examples of food nostalgia  the powerful link between the sights, tastes and smells of food and your most treasured memories. The food manufacturers know it. And they exploit it, tapping into the delicate interplay between sense and memory to sell the taste of your childhood back to you.

"Search for websites with the word 'candy' combined with 'vintage', 'retro', or 'nostalgia', and it becomes readily apparent that many people use candy as a pathway to the past," wrote John S. Allen, author of The Omnivorous Mind: Our Evolving Relationship with Food.But they dont and it isnt because theyre not thinking about it. The BT research suggests they are more disciplined about budgeting than Baby Boomers and Generation X and theyre adept at saving. More than one in six millennials have savings equal to six months income, 11 per cent have equal to four to six months income and nearly one in four have equivalent to one to three months income. That's cumulative, so it's a little over half of all millennials who have at least one month's income saved.

Is that one reason the younger generation is so confident about money even though two out of five of them are in the midst of financial insecurity right now? Because they recognise the value being disciplined about money will deliver over time? Perhaps but saving is only possible when a gap can be created between income and expenses: uncertainty around employment and the rising cost of living means thats not always going to be feasible. Even the best savers will struggle to save without work.

Perhaps the real reason millennials are confident about money is because they dont attach the same significance to financial freedom that previous generations have. In a study of 1000 Australian millennial workers by the global HR think-tank Reventure fewer than half the cohort believed financial security was important to their overall wellbeing. This compared with three out of five baby boomers.

Forty-two per cent of workers define wellbeing as balance in physical, mental, social and spiritual life and only 12 per cent said it is having their desire for a house, income and success met, lead researcher Dr Lindsay McMillan said. What is interesting is that despite this, millennials are highly driven towards success  twice the rate than that of baby boomers  yet do not seem to be motivated by financial security.

By contrast women are thinking about it and what theyre seeing isnt pretty. BTs study shows nearly seven out of 10 women acknowledge that superannuation is critical to secure their financial future but more than half of women believe they wont have enough for retirement and almost a third are unsure. Is it any wonder they dont share the millennial positivity?No surprises if this happened I would not be surprised if the federal government gives the $500 million to Adani to control. Peter Carlin, Frankston South Alternatives are there, the will is missing The $500 million is good news, but it won't do a thing to slow global and ocean warming, which research has shown to be the main culprit of coral bleaching. We must bring down our emissions by banning coal mines (present and future) and by putting our energies into wind and solar power generation and storage. With our abundant sunshine and open spaces Australia could be 100 per cent renewable powered in a relatively short space of time. All we need is the political will.

Ron Hayton, Beaumaris A pledge based in hypocrisy The pledge is nice, but since it fails to help mitigate the causes of threats to the reef, it is hypocritical. There is no way that the Coalition or anyone else can balance environmental concerns with its pro-mining jobs focus through the Adani coal mine. Barbara Fraser, Burwood FORUM

What cost education? The article ("The real cost of attending state school", The Sunday Age, 29/4) was a sadly disturbing exposure on where we are heading in this state and Australia on the principle of a free education for children in a government-funded schools education system. In a truly free, no fees, no expenses public education system families should not have to pay a cent towards a quality education system. In Finland all schools are of the same high quality with the same high calibre teachers and are all provided with the same start in life. Will we ever reach that same starting point for all out students in Australia? Henk van Leeuwen, Elwood

Nursing a fantasy Has anyone told Education Minister James Merlino that April Fool's Day was not at the end of the month? ("$65m boost in budget for prep wellbeing", The Sunday Age, 29/4) He says that school nurses will assess the behaviour and emotional well-being, general development, sleep, speech and language, hearing and vision of 12,000 preps. Will these nurses be with the preps 24 hours a day, seven days of the week? Marise de Quadros, Newport Save the forests Only just over 1 per cent of Victoria's old growth rainforest timber remains and it is disappearing ("Kicking into the forests debate", The Sunday Age, 29/4). The highlands forests are being destroyed primarily for paper production when other reliable and environmentally sustainable sources are available. No organisation or political entity has the right to destroy irreplaceable, public, ecological assets for short-term fiscal or political gain or to cause species extinctions for a handful of anachronistic jobs.

The case for a great forest national park is compelling and it should not take grandmothers knitting in logging-coupe moonscapes to halt the destruction of this state's great natural living treasures. Lawrence Pope, North Carlton Different standards An individual in Victoria is quite rightly charged, fined $7500 and banned from owning an animal for 10 years ("In the face of cruelty", The Sunday Age, 29/4) for deliberating imposing cruelty on a defenceless dog. However the directors of live sheep export companies who have overseen the deaths of thousands of sheep at sea, have it would appear, been neither charged, fined or banned from conducting their business. Ian Gray, Benalla

Cruelty is cruelty At long last, the RSPCA will increase the "shock factor" of their animal cruelty advertisements. To reinforce these advertisements however the punishment(s) meted out to guilty offenders also needs to increase in their severity. I am gobsmacked that a person can shoot a starving dog in the head, tie its legs and leave it in the bush todie. The relatively small fine of $7500 and a 10-year ban from animal ownership for acts like these is certainly not commensurate with such premeditated cruelty and hardly a deterrent for those with a predilection to these behaviours. This makes a sham of our judicial system. If a person is found guilty of doing a similar thing to another person, forget the fine, they spend considerable time in jail. In our "sophisticated" society, is there a difference between animal and human cruelty? Deb Hunt, Moonah, Tas

Downer claims wrong So Alexander Downer boasts that Australia stands up for the things it believes in and sometimes other countries don't like it ("It is wrong to think we're always wrong, says Downer", The Sunday Age, 29/4). This is sickening, as one of his proteges, Greg Hunt, seeks to limit public access to details of Australia's disgraceful negotiations with Indonesia and Timor-Leste over Timor Sea gas resources. Downer was the minister who did his best to stitch up our impoverished neighbour, Timor-Leste, from a position of weakness. Norman Huon, Port Melbourne Strengthen the VCE Julie Szego (Comment, 29/4) captures the concerns about the VCE, but it is worthwhile remembering that before the VCE, only 18.5 per cent of students continued to higher education in 1984 and many students did not complete years 11 and 12. What the VCE system has achieved is almost universal education at years 11 and 12 for all our young people with more than 90 per cent of students, in Victoria, completing post-compulsory education successfully.

Whilst the ATAR system might have its flaws, is allowing universities to determine their own entry requirements going to lead to more equitable outcomes? Perhaps the way forward is to strengthen the VCEsystem. Arlene Roberts, McKinnon Good move on tax Hooray for Labor on its announcement that it will abolish the GST on women's sanitary products if it wins the next election ("Labor vows to axe the tampon tax", The Sunday Age, 29/4). These are not "luxury goods", but a medical and hygiene necessity. Condoms have always been GST-free, and let's face it, these are, for the most part, merely recreational equipment for men, in no way universally medically necessary. Rosemary Sceats, Macleod

Conflicting views So the Turnbull government is committing half a billion dollars to protect the Great Barrier Reef from the climate change some in the party says does not exist. How interesting. Marie Nash, Balwyn Trade isn't welfare Malcolm Turnbull dismisses as "reckless" plans to end live exports, a mere 33 years after a 1985 Senate inquiry heralded the need for such change. Are we instead expected to trust these shipping companies with finding a "better" way to do the wrong thing?

As a veterinarian, I can attest that there are no "mitigations" to relieve the extreme physiological and psychological distress endured by livestock at sea. Ruminants are designed to spend their days at pasture, chewing grass. They are not meant to withstand cramped conditions in 10-tier shipping vessels for up to 35 days, on rolling seas and at temperatures up to 37 degrees. Deaths (note deaths less than 1400 per 70,000 sheep are considered acceptable) are only the tip of the iceberg. The livestock export trade is irreconcilable with any conception of animal welfare, and the expectation of Australians. Furthermore, ongoing crises including high mortality voyages, and voyages refused permission to unload at destination ports, do major damage to trading relationships and Australia's reputation as a premium agricultural exporter. Politicians who fail to take the only principled stand on the issue will fall on the wrong side of history. Dr Claire Kaufman, Ringwood

Help the vulnerable The death of Sadif Karimi ("What happened to Sadif Karimi?", The Age, 3/5) highlights the vulnerability of many new arrivals to Australia who struggle with language, new environment, homesickness and pregnancy. With appropriate support many of these young women can get through this difficult period. It is hard to believe a very successful program assisting new mothers at Monash Medical Centre and Dandenong Hospital has been closed this year after 28 years due to lack of funding. Where is the logic in this decision which will deprive so many young mothers of valuable support? Maggie Lynch, Brighton NAPLAN follyJane* was brought up as a devout Mormon in Melbourne. "From the age of 12, you get probing questions about whether you have any unclean thoughts," she said. "You get told you should be ashamed of having any sort of sexual thoughts or being inquisitive. Loading "To be honest, I lied  I wasn't going to be telling this man (a Mormon bishop), who is friends with my parents, that I had sexual thoughts." Before they can attend the Mormon temple  an important religious milestone  children must undergo so-called "worthiness interviews" with bishops, who are akin to lay preachers.

A church handbook for senior religious figures, seen by The Age, lists matters for discussion with children, which include "moral cleanliness" and "refraining from any kind of sexual activity", including pornography. Later as a teenager, Jane started dating a young Mormon man. She says she was beaten and raped by him but was told by church authorities not to go to police. "You are taught that being impure sexually is next to murder, it would be better to die fighting off a rape than to be raped," she said. 'I drank the Kool-Aid' Shawn was raised a Mormon and travelled overseas as a missionary.

"I drank the Kool-Aid when I was a Mormon, everything the Mormon Church said about sexuality and sexual values I followed 1000 per cent," he said. Ex-Mormon, Shawn Credit:Dominic Lorrimer He moved to Australia at 21 as an "extremely devout" Mormon before an "epiphany" several years later led to him to question his faith. From a young age, Shawn was asked by Mormon leaders if he kept the "law of chastity" and if he was being sexually pure. At 18, when he was about to go to the UK as a missionary, he was asked "point blank" by a church leader whether he had a "masturbation problem". The leader had a day job as an engineer, and no training in psychology. Shawn was consumed by "immense" shame and guilt and would confess to a senior church figure every time he masturbated. He was asked to check in weekly.

"I had no idea about sex at all," he said. Shawn says he believed that sex was "evil" and when he started dating a fellow Mormon he was asked explicit questions. When a senior church leader found out he had intimately touched his girlfriend, he took that to a higher religious figure in the church. 'Sharing feelings' A representative of the church in Australia defended the questioning of children about sexual purity and said there were times when a discussion of "moral cleanliness" was appropriate.

"They [church leaders] are counselled to not be unnecessarily probing or invasive in their questions, but should allow a young person to share their experiences, struggles and feelings," the spokesman said. When a church leader meets a child or young person they are encouraged to ask a parent to be in an adjoining room. After public pressure from current and former Mormons, the church's headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah, recently tweaked its policy to allow a parent or adult to be in the room with the young person if they "prefer". It did not stop children from being interviewed one on one. A therapist and wife of a Mormon bishop, Julie de Azevedo Hanks, recently told The Salt Lake Tribune the questioning about sex was "intrusive" and "inappropriate." In no other situation would a parent allow or encourage their minor child to have sexual conversations with an adult,'' she said.

The church spokesman said leaders are told to seek professional assistance when they hear of abuse. "We condemn any inappropriate behaviour or abuse, regardless of where or when it occurs." People gather for a mass resignation from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City in 2015 after the church targeted gay members and their children. Credit:AP Power imbalance The recently completed royal commission into child sex abuse in Australia received 18 allegations of abuse relating to Mormon institutions. In correspondence to the royal commission, obtained by the Sunday Age, one Mormon man wrote in graphic terms about his experience of "worthiness interviews" and the "humiliating" process.

"As you can imagine there is a major power imbalance having a child sit across from a male adult who is 'called of God', being asked to give an accounting of their 'dirty' habits," he wrote. He criticised the church's "obsessive" emphasis on questioning children and listed typical questions that are asked in interviews including whether children looked at pornography or masturbated. Commissioner Andrew Murray said in response that he had read with "considerable concern" the account of "abuse" from the Mormon man. 'Have you done this?' Stephanie McLean said her interviews were not as graphic as some others.

Other Mormons describe a process of "bishop roulette", where the questioning was more or less explicit depending on who your leader was. "I had to go through the interviews," McLean said. "I had those same questions, have you done this? Have you done that?" She said that once she had done her worthiness interviews, she was able to go to Mormon Temple and participate in the baptisms of dead people, including people she did not know. Mormons believe they should share the "blessings" of baptism with dead people who were never baptised as Mormons while living. That is often their ancestors. Mormons believe the dead can then choose to accept or reject the baptism in the afterlife.

Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and Jewish Holocaust survivors are among those posthumously baptised as Mormons. I was dunked 20 times in 15 minutes,'' McLean said. Mormonism, she said, was "really a full immersion experience, they want you there all the time" including many hours before school and on weekends. ''It's highly conditional. You can't just be an Easter and Christmas Mormon, it doesn't work that way." *Jane's name has been changed to protect her privacy.Claims of bullying from the bench will be a focus of the biggest-ever survey into the health and wellbeing of Victorian barristers.

The survey comes after the revelation that a barrister had lodged a formal bullying complaint against a County Court judge.

The complaint was ultimately dismissed, but it indicates the level of concern in a profession already under stress from an increasing number of cases, ever-changing legislation and intense media scrutiny.

Two Victorian magistrates have taken their lives in the past year and another has been stood down over harassment allegations.

Last week's Victorian budget funded 18 more magistrates to help ease workloads, amid a package of measures to ease pressure in the system.

The TransGriot is available for speaking engagements, college lectures, panel discussions, media interviews, conferences or Trans 101 education efforts for your school, business or professional organizations.



For local Houston area, Texas or national events, you can e-mail me at transgriot@yahoo.com



For events outside the Houston metro area, I ask that my travel and lodging expenses be covered.



This is separate from my speaking fee.



If you are interested in having me appear as a speaker or panelist, you can e-mail me with the date and details of your proposed event.

Please book as early as possible because my speaking and event calendar slots during the year rapidly fill up.An Italian woman who was stabbed five times outside Claisebrook train station says she will stay in Perth despite her terrifying ordeal.

Stella Trevisani, 27, needed more than 300 stitches after a 15-year-old boy allegedly stabbed her in an attempt to steal her mobile phone after she had finished her shift at the Partisan in East Perth on March 17.

In hospital after the attack.

She has since revealed although she is now living with her boyfriend, the attack has left her too frightened to use public transport at night.

"I wouldnt go anywhere at night-time," she said.Victorias rising gas prices have sparked a new search for underground storage sites along the state's west coast, which could be drawn on to insure consumers against future shortages and price spikes.

The price, volume and availability of gas is under scrutiny. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer

The Andrews government will begin a search in July for new gas-storage fields in Victoria's south-west, but will keep a moratorium on onshore gas exploration until 2020.

The ban has provoked harsh criticism from the opposition and Australia's competition watchdog, who claim it's holding back investment in the sector and keeping prices high.

Gas prices have soared in Victoria. By March, wholesale prices were roughly double what they were two years ago, the most recent data from the Australian Energy Regulator shows.Beijing: Trade experts have warned Australian companies that they need to be cautious in China as a dispute escalates over how foreign airlines including Qantas, describe Taiwan.

Beijing has reacted angrily after the White House labelled as "Orwellian nonsense" a letter sent by China's civil aviation authority to 36 foreign airlines demanding that, on their drop-down menus, they refer to Taiwan as part of China.

A Taiwan flag stands at the National Palace Museum in Taipei, Taiwan. Credit:Bloomberg

The letter comes as Beijing's worsening trade spat with the US heightens tensions between the two economic giants.

The letter to airlines offered more detailed instructions on how Taiwan should be described when compared with an earlier warning in January that Taiwan not be called a separate country.Noumea: French President Emmanuel Macron has acknowledged the "pain of colonisation" during a visit to New Caledonia that was rich with symbolism and emotion as the South Pacific archipelago prepares to vote on whether to break free of French rule.

Wrapping up a three-day trip, Macron said, "France would not be the same without New Caledonia" - but he was careful not to openly campaign for the territory to stay French when it holds an independence referendum in November.

French President Emmanuel Macron is surrounded by independence Kanak flags on Ouvea Island, off New Caledonia, on Saturday, May 5. Credit:AP

The territory east of Australia has about 270,000 inhabitants including the native Kanaks, who represent about 40 per cent of the population. New Caledonia already enjoys a broad degree of autonomy, but is an important part of France's overseas holdings that stretch from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean and the north-east coast of Canada.The Edwin T. Meyer Awards Ceremony 2018

Special Feature from Jon Rosner

The Edwin T. Meyer Automotive Design Competition Scholarship is a fun event. It is held annually at the Academy of Arts Universitys extraordinary Car Museum on Van Ness Avenue in downtown San Francisco. We were surrounded by several dozen shimmering classics. Behind us sat a 1948 Tucker, across a 1937 Alfa Romeo, down the way a 1937 Bugatti and just above a 1956 Lincoln, hallowed ground.

Tom Matano, Director of the Automotive Design Program spoke first and had the crowd smiling with wry tales as part of his introduction of Dick Ruzzin, former Director of Design, Chevrolet Division of General Motors. Dick spoke for about 20 minutes regaling us with off the cuff tales about Harley Earl. Dick really wanted to go into design, but Dick had been told that he would have to quit his present job in order to be allowed to even apply for a position at GM Styling. His very pregnant wife told him to do it even though colleagues had told him that his work was not good enough. Plus the Head of personnel at GM had informed him that they only take one in two hundred applicants. Suffice is to say that he got the job. Great story.

Dick explained to the audience about the design elements on the panels of the five finalists Kevin Chen, Joshua Reese, Arin Singh and Michael Garrick. Dick really seemed to enjoy their interpretations of the iconic Chevrolet Nomad.

2018 Eddie Meyer Scholarship Design Competition

Design Brief:





2030 Chevy Nomad inspired by the spirit of late Mr. Edwin T. Meyer



If Mr. Edwin T. Meyer was alive in 2030, what would he come up with? How would his, relentless pursuit for the performance/efficiency, be manifested in the Chevy Nomad in the year 2030.



Is it powered by ICE or air? Could it be a hybrid, all electric or hydrogen? Will it still the have 2 door sports wagon body style like the original?



Study the history of the Nomad and exude the essence of the concept and apply it for the year 2030 environment.

Several overheard conversation seemed to be leaning towards one design as there was agreement that one could easily see that short wheel-base Nomad gliding down the road and would recognize that it was a decedent of the original Chevrolet Corvette based Nomad. It just looked right. Dick made similar comments and awarded Kevin Chen the $10,000.00 scholarship while offering high praise for the work of the other students who would each go home with $1,000.00 Scholarship. And he encouraged the five finalists to stick with it as he did, that they all had bright futures ahead of them.

ABOUT DICK RUZZIN

Dick Ruzzin is a retired automobile designer from General Motors Design Staff. During his career he worked on more than 140 car design projects as a creative designer, studio head and as Director of Design for G.M. Europe in Germany and as Director of Design forChevrolet in the United States. He also did work in England, Italy, Australia, Brazil, Sweden and Japan and acted as a design educational consultant after retirement in China and Taiwan as well as for GM Design Center.

His favorite projects in which he had full design responsibility for are the 1990 Chevrolet APV, and the 1991 Caprice as well as the 1992 Cadillac Eldorado, Seville, Deville and Fleetwood. In Europe the 1993 Opel MAXX concept car and all of the Opel production cars are special personal achievements. The 1979 X Car Advanced Design work was also memorable for its impact on the future of General Motors.

He is a car and design enthusiast and has made a special effort to develop his design communication skills. He has written for International Design Magazine and Alitalia as well as writing a design and art book, BELLA MANGUSTA, The Art and Design of the De Tomaso Mangusta, in 2016.

He created the Eyes On Design concept, a car design concourse in 1988 while in Cadillac Studio and the Design Awards at the North American International Auto Show as well as other design oriented activivities.

He owns a DeTomaso Mangusta, the only one built at the factory with a Chevrolet Corvette engine and a Corvette powered 1979 Bitter CD. He had a major role in the design of the Bitter CD while working in Germany in 1971.

Born in Detroit in 1936 he lives in Grosse Pointe Park, MI and has two Siamese cars, Mia Mia and Maurice.Chrysler Road Monsters say Good Bye to Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca

Special Feature By Jon Rosner

Chrysler arrived at Western Automotive Journalists Media Day 2018 with a fleet of hemi powered vehicles. This author thought, OK these are for the street. And while on the street we found that it is still quite easy to take a right hand turn, add a dab too much power and have the rear end request visitation rights, but it is now just as easy to ease off the gas and have the tail tuck right back in again, nice. But street only? Wrong Bubba. These were for the track too.

While the Hellcat once again demonstrated all the subtlety of a rampaging bull in a bad mood, the rest of the beasts were, for the most part, astoundingly civil. This author took more than a little tongue-in-cheek delight in seeing a large Dodge hemi-powered SUV blow past a BMW X5 and a Volvo V90 in the passing zone while definitely holding its own in the corners and switchbacks. Now that is nice chassis tuning. You could squint your eyes and pretend that the hemis on the track were from the age of the dinosaur, certainly they were making the right kinds of noises. Precocious, rambunctious kids let loose is a safe place might be an apt description of the Chrysler products we were testing.

By the time you read this Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca will be no more. The new name is, hold on, WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. But in these waning days Chrysler brought out their hemi monster brigade for one more big play date, and to make a point. The hemis are still here, they are affordable to buy, get solid gas mileage (as long as you stay out of the engine room most of the time) and they go like stink not only in a straight line, but through the corners too. And the hemis more than held their own at a very twisty and challenging race track.

Clearly, not my mothers Chrysler. Can someone please explain to me why a MINI Countryman four wheel drive gets pretty much the same EPA ratings and real world fuel consumption as one of these hemi monsters? This author can accept the idea that Chrysler has taught their beasts how to dance, but to sip fuel too? Most impressive.

OK Chrysler. Whats the encore?Junot Diaz. Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

In the days since author Zinzi Clemmons confronted Junot Diaz and accused him of sexual misconduct at a literary festival in Sydney, Australia, and later tweeted about her allegations, a number of other women have come forward with stories of alleged sexual harassment and abuse at the hands of Diaz. On Friday evening, author Alisa Valdes opened up about Diazs misogynistic abuse in a blog post titled, I tried to warn you about Junot Diaz.

In 1996, the year Diazs short-story collection Drown came out, Valdes was a young reporter at the Boston Globe who was looking to make the jump from journalism to books. When Valdes went to interview Diaz while he was on book tour, he allegedly treated her rudely, and then suggested they finish their interview at her apartment later that night so he could look over her manuscript.

She describes the encounter below.

Junot came over that night. I had the book out  it was the first 100 or so pages of what would later become THE DIRTY GIRLS SOCIAL CLUB, called MERENGUE back then. Diaz sat too close to me on my couch. I remember being super uncomfortable, crossing my arms defensively, and him moving them, opening them, and his staring at my chest.

Why are you doing that, youre so lovely, he said.

We were more or less the same age, and he wasnt my teacher, but there was still a strange power dynamic. He was the NY literary writer, the darling of the New Yorker. I was a rising star in literary nonfiction, longing to enter his world. He told me, sincerely I thought, that he loved my writing, that no one was writing with my voice and it was much needed. He said hed do what he could to help me get it to the right people when it was finished.

That night, they ended up having sex, and Valdes later visited Diaz a handful of times in New York City. While at first, she thought she had found a kindred spirit in Diaz, she says he quickly became misogynistic, demeaning and cruel.

She describes her experience of leaving him as painful and upsetting. After she published her book The Dirty Girls Social Club, Diaz allegedly didnt congratulate her  Valdes says he only mentioned her book to her once as one that girls in his classes like, after she reached out to congratulate him on his Pulitzer.

Frustrated with his treatment of her, Valdes wrote a blog post saying that the only difference between herself and Diaz was that the latter fit the white liberal stereotype of Latino other-ness and misery, and she didnt. His response and those from his fans were allegedly cruel.

He said I was arrogant, she writes. He wasnt the only one. Many Latinos who loved him, his readers, wrote to me to tell me I was a horrible person for bringing down one of our own.

To conclude the post, Valdes thanks all the other brave women who came forward with allegations against Diaz.

Thank you, Zinzi, Carmen, Monica, for giving me the courage to know it wasnt just me, she writes. Or me at all. It was him.

The Cut has reached out to Valdes for comment.

Read the full post here.Prince Louis and Princess Charlotte. Photo: Handout/Getty Images

Not even two weeks after the Duchess of Cambridge gave birth to Prince Louis, Kensington Palace shared the first official photos of the baby prince, including a tender shot of birthday-girl Princess Charlotte kissing her new little brother that has landed on the front pages of multiple Sunday newspapers.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are very pleased to share two photographs of Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, taken by the Duchess at Kensington Palace, reads the Instagram caption on the photo, which was shot by Kate Middleton. This image was taken on 2nd May, on Princess Charlottes third Birthday. The Duke and Duchess would like to thank members of the public for their kind messages following the birth of Prince Louis, and for Princess Charlottes third birthday.

Kensington Palace also posted a photo of baby Louis just days after he was born, resting on a white pillow and wearing a knitted sweater by Spanish designer Irulea (that Charlotte also wore in her first public portrait).

Just one question: Where was Prince George?Explosion Hits Religious Site17 Dead, Even More Casualties

An explosion at a mosque used as a voter center in the eastern Afghan province of Khost on Sunday killed at least 17 people and 34 wounded, local officials said, in the latest attack on preparations for long-delayed parliamentary elections.

Basir Bina, spokesman for the provincial police, said people were gathered after afternoon prayers in the mosque, which was also being used as a voter registration center for parliamentary elections due in October, Reuters reported.

The explosion was caused by a bomb that had been placed in the mosque, Bina told CNN.

Talib Mangal, who is a spokesman for the provincial governor in Khost, told The Associated Press that there was one woman among those killed in the blast. The blast happened while people were busy with prayers, meanwhile in other part of the mosque people had gathered to get their voter registration cards for the election, he added.

Officials say a bomb blast inside a mosque in Afghanistan that was being used as a voter registration center has killed at least 12 people and wounded 33. https://t.co/aTOnt2fSYg  The Associated Press (@AP) May 6, 2018

He said the blast appeared to have been caused by explosives left in the mosque rather than by a suicide bomber.

Habib Shah Ansari, head of the health department in Khost, a mountainous region on the border with Pakistan, said 17 were confirmed dead from the blast with 34 injured.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the explosion, which adds to a series of attacks on voter centers since the registration process began in April. The Taliban, which has warned people against taking part in the election process, issued a statement denying any involvement.

Medical aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres said it had donated emergency supplies to the Khost provincial hospital where many of the wounded were taken.

Last month, around 60 people were killed in a suicide attack on a voter center in the capital Kabul, which was claimed by the ISIS terrorist group and there have been a string of smaller incidents that have deterred many from going to the voter centers. ISIS is not known to have a presence in Khost, AP noted.

ISIS terrorists targeted a voter registration site in Kabul, killing 60 people and injuring 130 others, according to reports in April.

Afghanistan: Khost mosque blast kills 13, wounds dozens https://t.co/p12SJ0bwd3 pic.twitter.com/lbrPcIt7Ll  Al Jazeera News (@AJENews) May 6, 2018

Sundays blast came as fighting has spread across Afghanistan, with government officials saying that a district in the northern province of Badakhshan which was seized by Taliban fighters last week had been retaken.

However Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid denied the reports that Kohistan district had been retaken, saying in a statement that security forces had been driven back.

Blast at mosque in Afghan province of Khost kills at least 12; site was used as voter registration center https://t.co/xq43xxYtrI  The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) May 6, 2018

In a separate incident in the northern province of Faryab, seven people were killed when the car they were travelling in hit a roadside bomb early on Sunday morning, Mohammad Karim Yuresh, spokesman for Faryab police, said.

Several days ago, nine journalists were killed in twin blasts that hit Kabul, according to reports.

After the first bombing, journalists rushed to the scene. Thats when the next attacker detonated his bomb, killing the nine media workers.

An Agence France-Presse (AFP) photographer, a cameraman for the Afghan TOLO TV broadcaster, and several reporters for Radio Free Europe died, Kabul police spokesman Hashmat Stanekzai told The Associated Press.

This is a devastating blow, for the brave staff of our close-knit Kabul bureau and the entire agency, AFPs global news director, Michele Leridon, told The Guardian. We can only honor the strength, courage, and generosity of a photographer who covered often traumatic, horrific events with sensitivity and consummate professionalism.

Radio Free Europe also confirmed that its journalists Abadullah Hananzai, Maharram Durrani, and Sabawoon Kakar were killed, according to The Guardian.

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Reuters contributed to this article.U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping about to shake hands at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, on November 9, 2017. (Damir Sagolj/File Photo/Reuters)

Former Presidential Campaign Adviser Andrew Puzder on the USChina Trade Relationship

A delegation of U.S. senior trade officials visited Beijing on May 3 and 4, hoping to ease trade tensions and negotiate a fairer trade relationship.

Reports about the talks indicated that a deal wasnt reached, but there were some concessions. China said it would reconsider duties on U.S. sorghum, increase U.S. imports to lower the trade surplus, and lower tariffs on certain U.S. goods.

One of President Donald Trumps former presidential campaign advisers, Andrew Puzder, believes that the United States is in a good negotiating position. In business, you have to pay attention to the customer, he said by email. America is Chinas biggest customer. A lot of the media seems to have concluded that Beijing wont make concessions, but I believe it would be unwise for China to ignore its biggest customer and put at risk a trade relationship that is more important to the Chinese economy than it is to the U.S. economy.

Puzder was Trumps first nominee for labor secretary and serves as a policy adviser for America First Policies, a super PAC founded to advocate for Trumps policy agenda. He spoke with The Epoch Times about how the United States can seek to maintain an equitable trade relationship while also holding the Chinese regime accountable for its actions that run counter to free competition.

High Tech a Central Issue

Intellectual property (IP) theft has been the focus of recent trade tensions, with the Trump administration imposing $50 billion worth of tariffs on Chinese high-tech imports as punitive measures for Chinas aggressive acquisition of U.S. tech companies and policies of forcing U.S. firms in China to transfer technology in exchange for market access.

Puzder explained that the administration has turned to tariffs because other remedies, like complaints at the World Trade Organization or diplomatic communications to the Chinese government, have proven ineffective.

The administration is also considering placing restrictions on Chinese investments in sensitive U.S. industries. Reuters recently reported that U.S. Treasury officials are discussing with American industry groups a draft of legislation that would increase scrutiny on Chinese deals to acquire sophisticated American technology.

In the field of artificial intelligence (AI), the Chinese regime is also investing a great deal of capital in an effort to catch up with American innovations. How can the United States ensure it continues to be a world leader? To lead in AI, we need to do the same things that enabled us to lead in other fields of technology: We need to let capitalism work. Technology is advancing so quickly and is so specialized that only free market entrepreneurs have the necessary motivation to drive technological advances, Puzder said.

However, he also said that government has a role. One thing the government can do is fully fund the presidents plan to rebuild the armed forces; the DoD [Department of Defense] is investing heavily in AI, and if past experience with Defense research is any indicator, the private sector spinoffs should be game changers. Ultimately, he believes the United States could continue to be an AI leader as long as there are continued government efforts at stopping IP theft.

How to Protect American Innovation

What are some ways to protect the U.S. high-tech sector from such theft? The idea of restricting certain visas for Chinese nationals has been raised before, in reaction to the many instances of espionage and IP theft conducted by Chinese nationals who arrived in the United States for research or work purposes.

I think we need to be very careful about broadly restricting lawful immigration, but in technology fields where the Chinese government has expressed a clear desire to obtain foreign intellectual property, I think its reasonable to apply extra scrutiny to Chinese nationals, particularly if they dont intend to move permanently to the United States, Puzder said.

I think the administration is looking at the principle of reciprocity, in which the Chinese have consistently expressed disregard for international rules by fencing off their markets and discriminating against our companies, we will do the same. I think there is logic in that, because China will start changing its approach if we impose real costs on their actions.

Puzder also agreed that academic espionagea topic of a recent Congressional hearingwas an important issue. Its important to prosecute those who violate U.S. export control laws [restrictions on shipping sensitive technologies and goods outside of the United States] to the fullest extent of the law in order to deter violators. He added that there should be measures to ensure Chinese students attending school in the United States are not being monitored by the Chinese regime.

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How Doctors in China Turn into MurderersGeorgia Executes Death Row Inmate. Here Is What He Did

Georgia executed a man convicted of stealing a car from an off-duty prison guard he met at a Wal-Mart in 1996 and murdering him with a blast to the head from a sawn-off shotgun, a state official said.

Robert Butts Jr., 40, was put to death by lethal injection on Friday at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Center in Jackson. He became the 10th inmate put to death this year in the United States.

Butts was convicted of murdering Donovan Parks in an area southeast of Atlanta, according to court records.

Butts and an accomplice, Marion Wilson, carjacked Parks and Wilson pulled the victim by his tie out of the car and onto the pavement. Butts then shot him in the head, the records said.

The two tried to sell the car at a shop in Atlanta that strips down vehicles, but were turned down. Afterward, they set fire to the car, court records said.

The execution was originally scheduled for Thursday but the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles issued a stay on Wednesday to consider the case further. Late on Thursday, the board lifted the stay, allowing the execution to proceed.

Lawyers for the death row inmate had asked the state clemency board to spare his life and sentence him to life in prison. They said the accomplice was the trigger man and that the tainted testimony of jail house informants, who said Butts told them he pulled the trigger, was used in his trial.

Robert Butts did not shoot and kill Donovan Parks, they wrote.

Two of three cell mates have admitted to lying when they testified in court that Butts confessed to the killing, the clemency petition said.

The lawyers also launched a last-minute appeal on Friday with the U.S. Supreme Court, which was rejected.

The state has argued that he was duly convicted and deserves to die for his role in the brutal killing.

Wilson was also sentenced to death for his role in the killing and is appealing his case.

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People Gather to Protest Real Bodies Exhibition in SydneyMan Stops Car in the Middle of Busy Freeway, Hops Onto School BusBut Not the Usual Way

Dashcam video from a Massachusetts school bus showed a man stopping his car in the middle of a freeway before climbing on the hood of the bus.

The man also berated the bus driver from outside as traffic whizzed by.

CBS News reported that the suspect is a 42-year-old Dorchester man. CBS Boston reported that his name is Kevin Crowe.

Crowe explained why he did it, saying the bus had dark tinted windows on the side which I found to be very suspicious on a school bus for children, according to CBS.

Because the bus driver or any other person on the bus could be harming that child unbeknownst to anybody who is outside of the bus, Crowe said. He eventually left the scene after he felt satisfied with the situation.

It was a logical action and if its a crime then Im sure Ill have to face whatever criminal penalties there are for that, Crowe said.

Joe Rizoli, the bus driver, recalled the incident.

In the middle of the Mass Pike he stops! And he gets out of his car like, I want to talk to you,' added Rizoli, reported CBS. So he comes around the bus coming in on my door. Now Im not letting him in my door, and then he starts to climb on the bus.

Rizoli didnt get out of the bus, which didnt have any students on board at the time.

What normal person pulls a person over on the Mass Pike in the middle lane? Thats not normal, he told Boston 25.

As the man walked back to his car, the driver pulled around him and drove away.

My concern is this guy, he really broke a lot of rules here, a lot of laws, Rizoli said, adding that hes been a school bus driver since 1979.

I dont know what the [expletive] this guy was going to do, I thought he was crazy, he came to the front of my bus again after a failed attempt to get into the passenger door and jumped on the hood of the bus, Rizoli told MassLive.com.

He said the incident shows why school buses should all have cameras on board.

I just think he needs help. It was so dangerous for all of us, for him, for me, the people behind us could have smashed into us, Rizoli said.

The incident is still under investigation. Police were able to identify the man based on information gathered from the dashcam video. No charges have yet been filed, Fox reported.

NECN reported that police are seeking to suspend the mans license.

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Why is Falun Gong persecuted?Top US College Lost Weapons-Grade Plutonium

Idaho State University lost one gram of weapons-grade plutonium that was being used for research before it was misplaced.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a statement that Idaho State University cant account for about a 30th of an ounce, or 1 gram, of the material used inside nuclear weapons and reactors.

The NRC considers the loss of control of licensed radioactive material a significant regulatory concern because of the potential for unauthorized possession or use of licensed radioactive material or the unnecessary exposure of members of the public to radiation, the NRCs statement reads. The NRC considers the failure to provide information to the Commission that is complete and accurate in all respects a significant regulatory concern.

An $8,500 fine has been proposed for Idaho State University.

The NRC has very rigorous controls for the use and storage of radioactive materials as evidenced by this enforcement action, agency spokesman Victor Dricks told The Associated Press.

He said that the amount that was misplaced is too small to make a nuclear weapon, but it could be used to make a dirty bomb to spread radioactive contamination.

The universitys vice-president of research, Dr. Cornelis Van der Schyf, said that incomplete record-keeping was the reason for the loss.

Unfortunately, because there was a lack of sufficient historical records to demonstrate the disposal pathway employed in 2003, the source in question had to be listed as missing, he told AP.

And, he added, The radioactive source in question poses no direct health issue or risk to public safety.

A school employee noticed that one of its 14 samples of plutonium went missing during a routine inventory investigation. The material was marked for disposal in 2003, but there was no record that it took place.

Officials searched the Idaho campus but didnt find the missing plutonium.

We suspect that it ended up in a landfill for radioactive materials, Dricks told the LiveScience website.

Idaho State University has a nuclear engineering program that works with the U.S. Department of Energys Idaho National Laboratory, which is located some 65 miles northwest of the school.

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I Was a Communist SlavePresident Donald Trump speaks at the NRA-ILA Leadership Forum during the NRA Annual Meeting at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas, Tex., on May 4, 2018. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images)

Trump Motivates Supporters to Vote in Midterms During NRA Speech

President Donald Trump has focused much of his speech at the 147th annual meeting of the National Rifle Association on energizing his supporters to ensure a win for Republicans in the midterm elections.

Were here today because we recognize a simple fact: the one thing that has always stood between the American people and the elimination of our Second Amendment rights has been conservatives in Congress willing to fight for those rights, he said.

He especially focused on the Senate, where Republicans hold 51 of 100 seats.

They say we have a majority. We have one. We have a majority of one person. Thats not really a majority, Trump said.

We got to get Republicans elected, we got to do great in 18.

Two special elections included, there will be 35 Senate seats up for grabs come election day on Nov. 6. Of those, 23 are held by Democrats, two by independents  Bernie Sanders and Angus King  currently allied with Democrats, and eight by Republicans.

In addition, voters will decide on all 435 voting seats in the House of Representatives, where Republicans currently hold 235 seats versus 193 held by Democrats.

Get out and vote. Dont be complacent, Trump said. Like 90 percent of the time, you win the Presidency and, for whatever reason you lose the midterm. We cant let that happen.

He used the example of his own position as the underdog of the 2016 presidential election.

You werent sure that Trump was going to win but you all went out there. You all went out there and voted. You voted.

He also used the example of Neil Gorsuch, who was only confirmed as the Supreme Court Justice after Republicans changed the Senate rules to break the Democratic filibuster.

We put an incredible new justice on the Supreme Court, Judge Neil Gorsuch. Yet virtually every single Democrat in the Senate opposed Neil Gorsuch just like they have consistently opposed judges who will protect your basic freedoms, Trump said.

In the remainder of the speech, Trump talked mainly on issues of gun ownership rights and benefits of responsible gun ownership, giving a shout out to Stephen Willeford, the Sutherland Springs hero who shot Texas church shooter Devin Kelly, who killed 27 people.

Willeford used to be an NRA instructor and shot Kelly with his AR-15 rifle.

After the Parkland massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, Trump initially expressed tentative support for measures such as raising the age limit for buying rifles.

He has since endorsed more modest proposals, such as legislation aimed at providing more data for the background check system.

He emphasized his previous proposals to head off future mass shootings.

We strongly believe in allowing highly trained teachers to carry concealed weapons, he said. And we want highly trained security guards.

Trumps administration is also pursuing a proposed regulatory ban on bump stocks, which enable a semi-automatic rifle to fire a steady stream of bullets. The devices were used in an October 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas that killed 59 people. NRA supports the ban, but not every member agrees.

Im not happy with the bump stock issue, said Florida accountant Richard Brinkman, 62, who watched Trumps speech.

Aside from that, however, he supported the President.

Overall, Im very happy with him, he said. Best president yet.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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The National Guard Has Started Deploying Troops to the U.S.Mexico BorderUnited Airlines Flight Attendant Under Investigation Over What She Said on Plane

A United Airlines flight attendant was allegedly drunk and cursed during boarding announcements, according to reports.

If your seatbelt isnt tight, you [expletive] up, the flight attendant reportedly said.

According to The Telegraph, United Airlines refunded passengers on the plane, which was heading from Denver to North Dakota.

Police in Williston, North Dakota, said they got a call from airport officials before the flight landed on Thursday. They said that an occupant was intoxicated and also had a medical condition.

Police determined that the person was drunk. The investigation was forwarded to the FBI.

Drunk and disorderly  belligerent flight attendant, one passenger wrote on Twitter, while noting the boarding announcement. The person added: I went to the cockpit and talked to the captain and police were waiting when we landed.

We are aware of a concerning incident involving a flight attendant serving on our regional service provider Trans States Airlines flight 4689. As a gesture of goodwill, we have compensated all customers aboard the flight and we apologize for any inconvenience or distress this may have caused, United Airlines wrote in a statement, according to People magazine.

A spokesperson for Trans States Airlines told the publication that the employee is currently being held out of service in the meantime.

United Airlines has been under fire in recent months. A French bulldog, died on a United flight after it was booked into an overhead bin.

The 9-month-old dog, named Kokito, stopped breathing on the March flight heading from Houston to New York, Fox News reported. A flight attendant told the owner, Catalina Robledo, to place the animal in the overhead bin rather than underneath the seat.

The family that owned the dog is considering filing a lawsuit against United, according to lawyer Evan Oshan. They also want to know the name of the flight attendant whom they are holding responsible for the animals death.

United, in a statement, announced that it will enact new policies or pet air transportation to improve the safety of the travel experience.

A number of dog breeds will be banned from flying on United flights, the airliner stated. They include bulldogs and other short-nosed or snub-nosed dogs such as pugs. Strong-jawed dog breeds like the American Pit Bull Terrier and Mastiffs are also banned. Several breeds of cat were also banned.

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Why is Falun Gong persecuted?American Electric Power Co., Inc. engages in the business of generation, transmission and distribution of electricity. It operates through the following segments: Vertically Integrated Utilities, Transmission & Distribution Utilities, AEP Transmission Holdco and Generation & Marketing. The Vertically Integrated Utilities segment engages in the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity for sale to retail and wholesale customers through assets owned and operated by its subsidiaries. The Transmission & Distribution Utilities segment engages in the business of transmission and distribution of electricity for sale to retail and wholesale customers through assets owned and operated by its subsidiaries. The AEP Transmission Holdco segment engages in the development, construction and operation of transmission facilities through investments in its wholly-owned transmission subsidiaries and joint ventures. The Generation & Marketing segment engages in non-regulated generation and marketing, risk management and retail activities. The company was founded on December 20, 1906 and is headquartered in Columbus, OH.

Read MoreEagle Materials, Inc. is a holding company, which engages in the provision of heavy construction materials, light building materials, and materials used for oil and natural gas extraction. It operates through the following segments: Cement, Concrete and Aggregates, Gypsum Wallboard, Recycled Paperboard, and Oil and Gas Proppants. The Cement segment deals with the manufacture, production, distribution, and sale of portland cement. The Concrete and Aggregates segment involves mixing cement, sand, gravel, or crushed stone and water to form concrete, which is then sold and distributed to construction contractors. The Gypsum Wallboard segment mines and extracts natural gypsum rock, which is used in the manufacture of gypsum wallboard. The Recycled Paperboard segment processes paper fiber, water, and paper chemicals to form recycled paperboards, then sell them to gypsum wallboard manufacturers. The Oil and Gas Proppants segment produces frac sand used in oil and natural gas exploration, and provides transloading and storage for well servicing companies. The company was founded in 1963 and is headquartered in Dallas, TX.

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Ex-CEO who oversaw doomed nuclear project to be sentenced

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP)  The executive who oversaw a $9 billion plan to build two nuclear reactors in South Carolina is getting ready to go to prison, more than four years after he announced the mammoth project had failed without ever generating a watt of power. Former SCANA Corp.

Read ArticleRED DEER, Alta. - United Conservative Leader Jason Kenney, in a fiery speech to party members, is promising an all-out attack on the "green left" and those who secretly fund and support the demonization of Alberta's oil.

"The special interests have targeted Alberta oil and not Saudi, Venezuelan, or Russian oil because they saw us as the boy scouts, the soft target," Kenney told about 3,000 delegates and observers in his keynote speech at the party's founding convention Saturday night.

"If I'm premier, those days are over.

"We will fight back for economic survival."

The battle, he said, will be waged on multiple fronts.

"We will set up a fully staffed rapid response war room in government to quickly and effectively rebut every lie told by the green left about our world class energy industry," he said.

"We will pass a law banning foreign money from being spent by special interests during Alberta elections."

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Kenney said a UCP government would create a special legislature committee to probe the sources of foreign money funding any groups working against Alberta's interests.

He vowed to fight through the courts if necessary to get Ottawa to strip charitable status from "bogus charities" such as the David Suzuki foundation.

Suzuki has been highly critical of Alberta's oilsands and has called for it to be shut down.

Kenney also reiterated earlier comments to take actions on lenders working against Alberta's interests, such as HSBC.

HSBC, Europe's largest bank, announced last month it would no longer finance fossil fuel ventures such as pipelines and oilsands.

"If companies like HSBC decide to boycott our oilsands, our government will boycott them," said Kenney, adding that he will be rounding up allies.

"We will politely ask the energy industry groups to up their game in telling their story and stop playing defence," he said.

"We need an industry champion to follow the lead of the brave forestry company Resolute Forest Products, which is standing up to bullying by suing (environmental advocate) Greenpeace for defamation."

The speech is set against the background of Alberta fighting to get the Trans Mountain pipeline expanded.

Ottawa has already given approval for the Kinder Morgan project, which would triple the amount of oil flowing from Alberta to tankers on the B.C. coast.

B.C. is fighting the project, saying the risk of oil spills is too high, and Kinder Morgan has now said it will decide by the end of the month whether the project is still feasible.

In retaliation for B.C.'s action, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley briefly banned B.C. wine, and is bringing in legislation that may see oil flows to B.C. reduced, causing gasoline and other prices to potentially spike.

Kenney said Notley's team has misplaced its trust in Prime Minister Trudeau to see the pipeline completed, and has also failed to take the fight to Alberta's opponents.

He said, on the oil front, and in areas ranging from fiscal policy to education to a carbon tax, Notley's NDP deserves to be voted out in the spring 2019 election.

"Our province is being damaged every day by an ideological government that takes its inspiration from the failed theories of socialism, by a resentment of success, a distrust of enterprise," said Kenney.

"The New Democrats are not bad people. They just have bad ideas."

The UCP was created on a plan launched two years ago by Kenney to amalgamate the two right-centre Wildrose and Progressive Conservative parties.

Kenney urged the party members to keep working hard.

"If we present a positive vision of economic renewal, I guarantee you this tax-raising, debt-quadrupling, job-killing NDP accidental government will be one and done," he said to cheers.

Read more about:MONTREALEnvironmentalists in Montreal convinced dozens of consumers to open their grocery bags on Sunday as part of an attack on plastic that aims to reduce excess packaging.

Activists gathered outside an east-end grocery store, where they offered to unwrap customers purchases and put them in re-usable containers.

Sundays event was inspired by the Plastik attack movement that originated in Bristol, England, and has led to similar events elsewhere in the world.

Co-organizer Caroline Thibault said the goal of the event was to encourage stores to reconsider the amount of packaging they use.

These are individual choices, but I think that just by talking about it positively, people realize that its a matter of common sense, she said.

They tell themselves, Indeed, my pepper doesnt need to be wrapped in plastic film. 

An hour after the event began, shopping baskets outside the store began to fill up with discarded packaging from produce, cookies and cereal.

The gathering took place outside a Provigo in the Rosemont neighbourhood, which agreed to the event.

Thibault said similar events are being planned in cities around the world including London, Paris and Geneva.

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Feds launch online public consultation on plastic, marine wasteA man is dead after an early morning stabbing in the Beaches.

Police rushed to an apartment building on Queen St. E. near Victoria Park Ave. just before 3 a.m. Sunday for the report of a stabbing.

When officers arrived, they located Robert Joseph Walker, 48, on the second floor hallway with stab wounds.

He died of his injuries at the scene, police said.

The homicide unit is investigating. Police say there is no suspect information known at this time, but they do not believe there is a public safety threat.

Anyone with information is asked to contact police at 416-808-7400 or Crime Stoppers.A former Toronto police officer, who lost his job after he was convicted and jailed for assaulting a civilian, has been sentenced to three years in prison for sexually assaulting a security company co-worker in northern Ontario.

Roy Preston was sentenced last month after a judge found him guility in December of sexually assaulting Destiny Douglas on Aug. 1, 2015 while they were both employed with Toronto-based Cancom Security. Preston was 46 at the time, Douglas 19.

Preston has filed an appeal and has been released on bail.

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Toronto police officer accused of assaulting a young Black man is now charged with professional misconduct

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At his sentencing hearing at the Gore Bay courthouse, the judge agreed to Douglass request to waive the automatic publication ban requiring her anonymity.

I didnt want to stay quiet about this because this is often a battle fought in silence and alone, Douglas wrote in an email of her decision to speak out. She has set up a Facebook page for victims of sexual assault called Life After.

Ontario Superior Court Justice Alex Kurke convicted Preston, now 49, after a trial where Douglas testified about two separate incidents with Preston on the Manitoulin Country Fest grounds. They and several other Cancom employees were camping in advance of providing security and other services at a summer festival.

Douglas testified Preston, who had trained her for a week in July, groped her while they carried firewood together and that she left no doubt she wasnt interested.

Despite the rebuff, Preston later came into the trailer where she was going to sleep and raped her, Douglas told court. Prestons lawyer, Margaret Bojanowska, argued the groping did not occur and that Douglas, for financial reasons, crafted an implausible rape story from a consensual encounter, according to the judgment.

The judge believed Douglas. Preston did not testify.

He (Preston) knew that the complainant was not consenting, but he hoped to get her consent as he went, and really did not care if she consented or not, Kurke wrote. He never did secure the complainants consent, but he chose to keep going anyway.

Reading from her victim impact statement, Douglas told the judge the impact of the assault on her life has been unimaginable, emotionally, psychologically, physically, and the legal process horrendous. She referred to Preston as a mentor.

Imagine being required to remember the most shameful night of your life. I felt extremely violated and still feel that way. She has been diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), according to the judgment.

During his sentencing submissions, Crown Attorney Kenrick Abbott told the judge Preston had a previous assault charge relating to use of force, which ultimately cost him his job, according to the Manitoulin Expositor.

He was referring to Preston, while a Toronto police constable, sucker-punching Said Jama Jama in 2003. The punch was caught on video and received widespread media attention. Two years later, Preston was convicted of assault, sentenced to 30 days in jail and was ultimately fired by the Toronto Police Service.

Preston lost two appeals.

The appellant took part in a serious unprovoked assault on a civilian and then to cover up his involvement attempted to fabricate evidence that could have led to the conviction of an innocent man, the Ontario Court of Appeal said in 2008.

His entire course of conduct represented an appalling breach of trust. We agree with the appeal judge that the sentence imposed was, if anything, on the lenient side.

In an email to the Star this week, Douglas wrote she believes the sexual assault was preventable if the company we both worked for had done their due diligence in their hiring process and did not overlook ... the previous criminal charge and conviction of Mr Preston.

Ronald Wells, owner of Cancom, said the company did not overlook Prestons history, and that he had been forthright about his past.

The way we took it was well heres a guy who suffered the consequences, lost his job, who not better to teach our staff what not to do... and how to govern themselves in the course of their duties, Wells said.

I asked him to share his experience with candidates and he did. He didnt try to hide it.

Preston also held a valid provinically-issued security guard licence, his assault conviction not being among a long list of disqualifying offences, Wells said.

According to a spokesperson for the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services, the provincial registrar considers past convictions, even those that are not on the list of disqualifying offences, before granting a private security licence.

Applicants must disclose all outstanding criminal charges or convictions for which they have not received a pardon  including those not found under the Regulation, wrote Brent Ross in an email.

Preston, who worked part-time for the company for about half a year in 2015, was terminated after the sexual assault charge was laid, Wells said. He added there were no other complaints about his conduct.

We as a company are very saddened. Its very upsetting.

Preston had also been working, as recently as September 2016, according to a Metroland article, as a firearms instructor with the Mississauga-based Queens College of Business, Technology and Public Safety.

He is no longer employed, a woman answering the phone said this week. We wont be able to answer any more questions.

Preston declined to comment for this article, according to lawyer Chris Sewrattan, who has filed the appeal on Prestons behalf.The Toronto Star took home prizes for two outstanding investigations at the annual awards ceremony for the Canadian Association of Journalists on Saturday night.

Undercover in Temp Nation, an undercover investigation into the death of 23-year-old temp worker Amina Diaby inside one of the GTAs largest industrial bakeries by reporters Sara Mojtehedzadeh and Brendan Kennedy, won in the labour reporting category.

Read more: Torstar wins six prizes at National Newspaper Awards

The project was a huge team effort in a time of scarce resources, and we are really grateful to everyone who backed it and contributed to it, Mojtehedzadeh said.

She tweeted a photo of the awards box granted to the 12-person team credited for the investigation.

To Kennedy, the legislative changes that came out of their stories was the most satisfying outcome, but getting recognized like this alongside other great work feels great.

I think the award is also a testament to Saras dedicated reporting on temp agencies and precarious work for several years now. She showed a lot of nerve with this story in particular, and all of us on the team were lucky to be able to work with her, he said.

We also wouldnt have been able to do this without the support of Amina Diabys family and other temp workers who trusted us with their stories.

The Stars coverage of Motherisk, with CBCs The Fifth Estate and The Current, won in the open media category. The investigation detailed how a once-respected lab inside the Hospital for Sick Children performed tests for more than 100 child welfare providers in five provinces, making a significant effect in at least 50 cases on decisions to remove children from their families.

The tests have since been discredited, the lab shut down and cases put under review  but many of the decisions cant be undone.

I feel incredibly lucky to work in a newsroom that is willing and able to support a story like Motherisk, as well as collaborative projects with journalists outside the Star, reporter Rachel Mendleson said.

Im so grateful to the teams at the CBCs The Current and The Fifth Estate for bringing so much passion and creativity to this story. We were able to dig deeper, push the envelope further and reach a much larger audience by working together.

Twenty-one journalists  including Mendleson, multiple editors, producers, directors and designers  were credited as part of the Motherisk win.

Star editor-in-chief Michael Cooke saluted all the nominees and recipients of the CAJ awards.

This powerful collection of work shows that important and change-making journalism is alive and kicking in our country and Canadians are demonstrably better off, the better our newsrooms get at doing this kind of reporting, he said.

Bravo to everyone.

Read more about:John Tory says he wants to launch a blitz this summer against companies and individuals who owe the city tens of thousands of dollars in fines, after an auditor general report found the unpaid arrears are shortchanging Toronto by a staggering $577 million.

I find this a source of a great concern, the mayor said in an interview Sunday. What you have here is the city being denied a great amount of money that it could use, that is meant to be paid by people who have broken the law, and have been convicted of the same.

He says that there is still time to launch a blitz in 2018, which will focus on the newest and biggest accounts, he said.

At least we can make a big dent in the summer, he said, adding that regular reporting to the public (on the issue) will hold our feet to the fire, of both elected people and officials who are in charge of this.

The audit, conducted last month by Beverly Romeo-Beehler, looked at all provincial offences and municipal bylaws, such as infractions ranging from speeding, trespassing, alcohol infractions.

Parking wasnt included in the probe. The audit found that 2/3 of people were diligent in paying their fines, but more needed to be done to go after those who didnt.

Given that the City is faced with constant pressure to find funding for crucial programs and services, it is important that those who owe debts to the City pay them, she wrote in the audit.

She also found that that three main issues were: a lack of comprehensive collections strategy, inadequate data systems and insufficient performance targets.

Tory said that going after those who dont pay their fines comes down to a question of fairness.

We have to decide to deploy the full arsenal to track the scofflaws down, said Tory, alluding to some of the recommendations put forth by the auditor general.

He said among the AGs recommendations the city should implement quickly include:

Creating partnerships with the Canadian Revenue Agency to grab income tax refunds to cover outstanding fines.

Creating agreements with municipalities outside of Toronto to be able to add the taxes to their property bills. He said, for example, there are 30,000 people in York Region who owe $11 million in fines to the city.

The city already has such agreements in place with Mississauga, Ottawa and Belleville.

Tory said he would need clarification on the legality of adopting some recommendations such as withholding business licences to businesses that dont pay up. And some of the auditor generals recommendations will also require permission from the province.

But in the meantime, he plans to press staff on why recommendations from a previous 2012 AG report were not implemented.

My questions (to staff) on Monday are going to be, lets get on with it. How come we havent done it before now?

He said the city also needs to look at infractions that have been around for a long time to make sure the records are up to date.

Some examples of outstanding fines listed in the report include:

A company and its owners together have more than $575,000 in default, related to violations of an industry act. The fines defaulted in September 2016. The company is still in operation, but has not made any payment towards their outstanding fines. Due to an administrative error, all the defendants have not gotten a default notice. No collection action has been taken including assignment of the account to a collection agency.

An individual with 38 offences totalling nearly $130,000. Of these, eight relate to driving without insurance and 16 relate to Highway Traffic Act offences including careless driving. The individual has had their licence suspended and plates denied. We do not know if this individual is still driving a vehicle.

A restaurant was fined for public health related violations in July 2013 and was required to pay by December 2013. Nearly $36,000 still remains in default. The only action taken has been to assign this account to a collection agency.

Read more about:Helena Morrissey has spent years as the CEO of a major finance firm in London, founded the 30% Club  which campaigns for gender balance on boards  and is a married mother of nine. In her new book, A Good Time to Be a Girl: Dont Lean in, Change the System, Morrissey argues for a new approach to diversity and inclusion in the digital age.

So Im telling you to take some risks, to experiment and to stretch yourself. That may make you feel uneasy. Let me share one experience from my school days that taught me the value of overcoming that natural reluctance, that fear of failure.

My first real understanding of how being a girl might bring specific challenges came in the sixth form, when at 16 I found myself alone in a class of boys taking Maths at my co-educational state school. We also had two male Maths teachers. Quickly exposed to the difficulties that came with being different, I wasnt just left out, but teased mercilessly, particularly when I got anything wrong, which happened often. A vicious circle developed: the more pressure I felt, the less confident and more flustered I became, which only worsened my academic performance. At the end of the first term, I felt miserable and isolated. My parents encouraged me to consider changing subjects. I was reluctant, partly because I could see that my loss in confidence was contributing to the problem. I needed to break the downward spiral.

This class was the double maths group  we were taking Maths and Further Maths A levels. The Further Maths course involved 12 topics. Six were relatively straightforward  but the examiners therefore set quite unpredictable questions that would test real mastery of each subject. Six other topics were deemed hard, but only a narrow set of questions would ever be asked. A candidate had to answer just six questions. A possible way through occurred to me: by mastering the six difficult topics I could predict the questions and be confident that I could answer them.

This may sound an over-ambitious plan for someone towards the bottom of the class, but it worked. I plugged away, one topic at a time, till I conquered six. My new approach and very gradual success (vaguely) impressed the boys and our teachers. Slowly, I became more accepted. Alongside that personal triumph, I could see how the dynamic of that sixth-form Maths class changed. At the start of our two-year course, the group was competitive, and no one helped each other out, even when none of us could solve a problem, but gradually we became more collaborative. We actually started having fun. We also spurred each other on to greater success. It was many years since a pupil from the school had gone to either Oxford or Cambridge University: that year, five of us won places.

One of the results of this episode was that I gained in confidence; but  even more significantly  I learned to find a way through in what felt like an impossible situation. This, in fact, is one of the most important tools needed if we are to fulfil our potential in the workplace (and in life generally). Any career is more of a labyrinth than a ladder; there are twists and turns for everyone, man or woman, and dealing with the setbacks, learning how to overcome the natural human reaction of feeling discouraged, of wanting to walk away, is vital.

The thing about labyrinths is that if you keep going, even when you seem to be walking back on yourself, you do reach the centre. My daughter Flo and I have walked a labyrinth together several times and every time the experience has a powerful impact, reminding us that we can reach our destination, as long as we persevere.

But we have to stay in the labyrinth to get to the centre. Many years after my sixth-form experience, Lord Davies conducted a survey as part of his Women on Boards review. Over 2,600 people responded  almost 90 per cent of them women. When asked to describe any steps you took to overcome particular issues you faced (in progressing your career) the most frequent response was I left the job. As my own early career experience showed, there may be moments when that is really the only way forward  but it should not be our default option.

Things will never change and we will never learn how to overcome obstacles if we always abandon ship. If the cost of child care, a real problem in the U.K. in particular, where families spend around a third of their income on nurseries and child minders, is the issue, discuss that with your boss. Ive seen cases where managers simply havent done the maths  and would actually much rather see what can be done to help than see women leave because it doesnt pay to work. If your career potential is theoretically encouraging but the reality less so, you need to make a judgment  and I would base that on whether the culture is right, whether you have allies who can help you emerge on the other side, or whether you are on your own, in which case its time to move on.

I have seen many more people regret not trying something than trying and falling short. But we do need to deal with the unpredictability of the outcome when we stretch ourselves, to learn to see our shortcomings as just that, rather than fatal blows. I have definitely tested the outer boundaries of my capabilities, and there were moments when I realized I had taken on too much.

In March 2013, I was asked by Nick Clegg, then deputy prime minister, to conduct an independent review into the processes and culture within the Liberal Democrats, and to make recommendations for change. The review was prompted by a series of high-profile allegations that the party had failed to act on complaints of sexual harassment made against a former chief executive. I was keen to help if I could and was particularly interested in the focus on culture.

As I gathered evidence for the review, it quickly became clear that the cultural challenges  not just in the Liberal Democrats but in party politics generally  are even more acute than in the corporate sector. Party politics are intrinsically intertwined with the strong forces of personal power and ideology. Intense shared beliefs, coupled with an overt competitiveness in parliamentary politics, create a different situation than in a company. When I was disappointed to be passed over for promotion by my first employer, I was able to leave and find employment elsewhere, at a firm that suited me better. If this early career disappointment had been within the only political party that fitted with my strong ideological beliefs, finding an opportunity elsewhere wouldnt have been an option.

Seeing these issues up close, interviewing people whose whole careers, friendships and in some cases family lives were inextricably tied up with a political party, was an intense experience. The vulnerability of young researchers, interns and volunteers working for powerful politicians was both obvious and disturbing. At the same time, employment practices were often much less formal and protective than in business, as subsequent revelations across Westminster have sadly corroborated.

I needed to undertake a comprehensive review, to hear from each and every person who said they had experienced bullying or harassment. At the same time, I couldnt let the review encroach too far on either my job or my family, so I gave myself just six weeks to complete it. This was a Herculean task, and I was on my own, having committed to complete confidentiality for the witnesses. I got up at 3 a.m. each day and worked throughout the weekends. This inevitably took its toll on my health and family life. By the time I emerged, I knew I could not accept such a task again in the context of other big responsibilities.

As we try to encourage the next generation, parents, teachers and mentors need to strike a delicate balance. We do not want girls to be discouraged (especially when their opportunities are greater than ever before)  but neither should we give the impression that everything is solved just yet. I have spoken at many schools; one of the best events was hosted by Wellington College, a private, co-educational school, when Sir Anthony Seldon was an innovative and inspiring headmaster.

Wellington had invited girls from six other local schools to join their own sixth-form girls at a conference entitled Girls at the Top. What stood out was the candour of the speakers. The message running throughout the day was that the girls had wonderful opportunities ahead but also should be aware that the world was not quite equal. There was no sense of trying to take the wind out of their sails, more of creating awareness, to help them make the right decisions and not fall at the first hurdle if they suffered setbacks.

One speaker, a headmistress, also pointed out that while it might feel very distant now, if the girls thought they might want to have children this was something to bear in mind when they were thinking about a career choice. She wasnt discouraging them from aiming for the very top of their chosen field; simply to be mindful of other life ambitions. Its easy to compartmentalize decisions, but they are all connected.

A (male) executive complained to me, Young people seem not to just want a job, they want an odyssey. I thought that it was marvellous to want an epic journey  and I want to encourage you to embark on your own odyssey. Women at all levels have been shown to want work with a purpose beyond earning money and getting promotions. Many of us feel this particularly acutely after having children; after all, the alternative way we might be spending our time is with them, which sets a high bar for fulfilment at work. Now the evidence suggests that as the next generation thinks ahead, both boys and girls want work with meaning, employers whose values align with their own, and balance in their lives.KABULA bomb blast inside a mosque in eastern Afghanistan that was being used as a voter registration centre killed at least 14 people and wounded 33, officials said.

Habib Shah Ansari, the provincial head of public health, confirmed the toll from the attack, which took place in the city of Khost, the capital of the province of the same name.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but both the Taliban and a local affiliate of Daesh, also known as ISIS, reject democratic elections and have targeted them in the past. Daesh is not known to have a presence in Khost, but has expanded its footprint into other areas in recent years.

Last month, a Daesh suicide bomber attacked a voter registration centre in Kabul, killing 60 people and wounding at least 130 others.

Afghanistan plans to hold elections in October, the first since 2014.

The Taliban and Daesh have launched a relentless wave of attacks since the start of the year, killing scores of civilians in the capital, Kabul, and elsewhere. Afghan security forces have struggled to combat the groups since the U.S. and NATO concluded their combat mission at the end of 2014, switching to a counterterrorism and support role.

Elsewhere in Afghanistan, a vehicle carrying shopkeepers on their way to a market struck a roadside bomb in Afghanistans northern Faryab province, killing seven of them. Police spokesman Karim Yuresh said another civilian was wounded in Sundays attack, in an area where both the Taliban and IS are active.

In the eastern Paktia province, a car bomb killed two people and wounded another three. Abdullah Hsart, the provincial governors spokesperson, said the attack late Saturday targeted Hazart Mohammad Rodwal, a district chief, who was among the wounded. The Taliban claimed the attack.

Read more:

Suicide bomber kills 57 at Afghanistan voter centre in attack claimed by Daesh

A black day for our country, and for every journalist in Afghanistan

Read more about:BEIRUTLebanons first national elections in nine years were marked by a tepid turnout Sunday, reflecting voter frustration over endemic corruption and a stagnant economy.

Politicians had urged citizens to vote, and security forces struggled to maintain order as fights broke out in and around polling stations.

President Michel Aoun broadcast an appeal to voters to participate in a televised address an hour before polls closed in the evening. If you want change, you should exercise your right to vote, he said in a message published on Twitter at the same time.

The elections were the first since war broke out in neighbouring Syria in 2011, sending over one million refugees to Lebanon, a small country with a population estimated at around 4.5 million. The war has divided the country, pitting parties supporting the Iran-sponsored Hezbollahs intervention in Syria to aid President Bashar Assad against Saudi-aligned parties opposed to it.

Early results were expected to start coming in late Sunday, but official results were not expected to be announced before Monday.

The low turnout  between 32 per cent and 42 per cent in Beirut precincts, according to Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk  betrayed widespread voter apathy for the main political currents governing the country and left open the possibility that outside candidates could win seats in Parliament.

Machnouk put national turnout at 49 per cent, compared to 54 per cent in 2009. The drop came despite a reformulated electoral law designed to encourage voting through proportional representation.

These leaders are destroying homes, not building them, said Ahmad Khashouq, 43, a private security guard in Beirut. Khashouq, from the town of Zahle in the countrys Bekaa Valley, said he was not voting in the elections after feeling his vote was wasted in 2009, the last time elections were held.

More than 500 candidates ran for 128 seats in Lebanons National Assembly.

Fist fights broke out in and around polling stations around the country, as rival partisans accused each other and election officials of ballot stuffing and illegal campaigning. In the Choueifat district, a crowd inside a station accused the station supervisor of illegal voting practices and smashed a ballot box, spilling its contents across the floor. The army ordered the media to turn off their cameras.

In Zahle, politician Mryiam Skaff accused members of the right-wing Lebanese Forces party of beating up her supporters in polling stations.

The voting was unlikely to change the existing balance of power among the major political factions in Lebanon, but many hoped new contenders from civil society groups could challenge the decades-old sectarian political system.

Sarah Brjawi, 33, said she was voting for Nouhad Yazbek, a woman running on a coalition list of political independents and activists running in Beirut.

Brjawi, who walked the streets of Beiruts Ras el-Nabea neighbourhood with her clown troupe before voting, said she was perplexed by voters who said they supported their satirical act, poking fun at the countrys endemic corruption and political stagnation, while saying they would vote for establishment parties again.

This country is really bipolar, said Brjawi.

The main race was between a Western and Saudi-backed coalition headed by Prime Minister Saad Hariri and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group, part of a regionwide power struggle that is tearing apart the Middle East.

This shows Lebanons democracy and the importance of democracy. This is a democratic wedding, and as we said from the start, congratulations to whoever wins tonight, Machnouk, the interior minister who was a candidate on Hariris list, said after casting his ballot in Beirut.

As Hariri entered a public school in Beirut to vote, a woman in a wheelchair complained that polling stations were not equipped for voters with disabilities.

We are human beings. It is not fair that we have to be carried like bags of potatoes, Silvana Lakkis told him. The prime minister promised to address the problem in the next elections.

When we see what is happening in countries around us and Lebanon is holding democratic elections, this shows that Lebanon is fine, Hariri said after waiting in line around 20 minutes to cast his ballot. Order is nice, he quipped.

Hezbollah has sent thousands of fighters to back Syrian government forces, a move that has been criticized by many Lebanese, mainly Sunni Muslims and Christians, who see the group as dragging their country into regional conflicts.

Leading Hezbollah legislator Ali Ammar defended his groups involvement in Syria, saying it is protecting Lebanon from the evil powers of the Islamic State group and Al Qaeda.

In Hezbollah strongholds in southern Beirut, there was a steady flow of voters. Streets were festooned with candidates posters and Hezbollahs signature yellow flags. Outside polling stations, Hezbollah supporters displayed a replica of the voting ballot on a big board and explained to voters which among the colour-coded lists was theirs and how to vote for it. They wore yellow shirts with the slogan We protect and build written on them.

We love the resistance, Amira Sidani, 85, said after casting her ballot.

This years vote was according to a new election law providing for proportional representation for the first time. Voters chose one list of allied candidates as well as a preferred candidate from among them. In the past, the winning list took all the seats in an electoral district.

The change cracked open the door for more outsiders to compete in elections, challenging political titans who have long ruled Lebanon based on a sectarian and family patronage system.

Mohammed Ali, 30, riding his scooter to the beach, said he was not voting because there are no choices. He said his relatives vote for whoever pays them, but he was not interested in the money.

The legislatures term was supposed to expire in 2013, but lawmakers approved several extensions since then, citing security concerns linked to the spillover from Syrias war. Lebanese who support opposing sides in the war have clashed on a number of occasions, and Sunni extremists have carried out several bombings.

Some 586 candidates, including 86 women, were running for the 128-seat parliament, which is equally divided between Muslims and Christians.

Hezbollah and its allies were expected to add more seats, while Hariri was likely to lose several. Some of his Sunni supporters saw him as being too soft on Hezbollah, and the billionaire businessman also faced criticism after laying off dozens of employees from his companies in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia.

Still, Hariri would most likely be named to form a national unity cabinet after the vote. The rival sides are expected to recreate the unity government that currently exists, which includes Hezbollah.

The vote came a week after Lebanese living oversees voted in 39 countries around the world. It was the first time Lebanons large expatriate community was allowed to take part in an election. That, along with the new electoral law, injected some unpredictability to the process.

Read more about:WARSAW, PolandPolish rescue workers on Sunday found the bodies of two miners after an earthquake hit a coal mine in southern Poland.

Three other miners remain missing some 900 metres below ground since the quake hit Saturday morning in the mine, located in the town of Jastrzebie-Zdroj, close to Polands border with the Czech Republic.

The head of the Jastrzebie Coal Company, Daniel Ozon, said a doctor confirmed the two fatalities and identification of the victims was underway.

The first victim, initially identified by Ozon as a 38-year-old man, had been trapped under some metal. He said the identification still needed to be confirmed by DNA tests. The second miner was found a few hours later, trapped in the rubble, he added.

More than 200 workers were involved in the rescue operation. Ozon said emergency workers were pumping air into the affected area to lower the level of methane gas before they can safely move ahead.

After the quake hit, four miners were rescued quickly but seven others went missing. Two of the missing were later found alive and have been hospitalized.

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and President Andrzej Duda travelled to the town, visiting the hospitalized miners and meeting with their families and some of the rescuers.

Duda extended his condolences to the victims families.

Authorities have launched an investigation into the accident.

Polands State Mining Authority said the temblor had a magnitude of 3.4, while the European Mediterranean Seismological Centre pegged it at 4.3. TVN24 said the quake was also felt on the surface and shook some houses.

Coal mining is a major industry in Poland. Coal remains the main source of energy and heating in the country but Poland is taking some steps to shift toward renewable, cleaner sources of energy. The Main Statistical Office said some 65.8 million metric tons of coal were extracted last year in Poland, some 4.8 million tons less than in 2016.

Still many of Polands mines are dangerous, with methane gas that has led to a number of deadly explosions and cave-ins. So far this year, six miners including Sundays casualties have been killed at different mines, according to the State Mining Authority.

In 2016, eight miners were killed in a cave-in at the Rudna mine in Polkowice and methane explosions killed five miners at the Myslowice-Wesola mine in 2014.JARAK, SerbiaSerbian police on Sunday prevented a Serbian far-right leader convicted of war crimes from returning to an ethnically mixed northern village where he spurred ethnic hatred during the 1990s Balkan War.

Dozens of policemen sealed off Hrtkovci, 40 kilometres northwest of Belgrade, blocking Serbian Radical Party leader Vojislav Seselj and his supporters from reaching the village and rallying there.

The Radicals briefly gathered by the police cordons before dispersing.

A squabble was reported with some liberal protesters who came to denounce Seselj. Police later said they were searching for a man who punched a Liberal Democratic Party member.

The UN war crimes court for the former Yugoslavia last month sentenced Seselj to 10 years in prison over his 1992 speech in Hrtkovci that resulted in the deportations of dozens of ethnic Croats from the village.

Seselj remains free because he served his sentence while in custody during the trial. He is also a lawmaker in the Serbian parliament.

The Liberal Youth Initiative for Human Rights group demanded Sunday that authorities strip Seselj of his parliamentary seat because of the war crimes conviction. The group insisted that any delay or refusal (to do so) presents an illegal defence of Seselj and his extremists policies.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic was a former close ally of Seselj, but he now says Serbia should join the European Union and build regional co-operation.

Some 100,000 people died in the war in the 1990s that erupted after the breakup of the former, multi-ethnic Yugoslav federation.BERLINHigh school students in Germany have gathered tens of thousands of signatures in an online petition to complain about an unfair final English exam, saying the test was much harder than in previous years.

By Sunday, the students from the southwestern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg had gathered almost 36,000 signatures  even though only 33,500 people took last months statewide exam.

They complained that text excerpts from American author Henry Roths 1934 novel Call it Sleep were too difficult and obscure to analyze and asked for the grading to be more lenient this year.

The final high school exams in Germany  called the Abitur  are a rite of passage that all students who want to enter university have to pass.

Only those with excellent grades and test scores will get into the most coveted university programs, with medicine among the hardest. But other subjects such as engineering or language studies also offer only a limited amount of places.

Many German students, parents and teachers have been stressed out for months over the Abitur. Often schools will cancel all regular classes for younger students during the tests so the Abitur students wont be disturbed.

The online petition has created such uproar that even state governor Winfried Kretschmann weighed in, though he showed only limited compassion.

Theres no right to a simple Abitur, he told the frustrated teenagers. You wish for it, but you dont have a right to it.

At the same time Kretschmann admitted that his own English skills were too weak to actually judge whether the disputed text had been overly difficult, the German news agency dpa reported.

Students said the passage from Roths novel that they had to analyze  a metaphorical description of the Statue of Liberty  was difficult to understand because of its unknown vocabulary. They also complained the questions they had to answer were not asked precisely.

They quoted some of the texts most difficult sentences to illustrate their point: Against the luminous sky the rays of her halo were spikes of darkness roweling the air; shadow flattened the torch she bore to a black cross against flawless light the blackened hilt of a broken sword. Liberty.

The states education ministry responded by asking external experts to evaluate the exam  who then concluded its level was appropriate. Educational authorities also noted that students in the eastern German state of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania had to analyze the same passage and did not complain about it.

That has not stopped the number of signatures online from growing, as younger and out-of state students sign the petition in a show of solidarity.

I was struggling like all the others, even though I spent a year abroad in America! Aimee Schaefer wrote in the comment section of the petition. You would think that I can understand everything by now, but I had to look up a lot of vocabulary ... whoever compiled this exam must really hate us Abitur students.The Ontario Medical Association hosted its annual general meeting last week, which was one of the most important councils in the organizations history. Amidst a growing health care crisis, physicians developed strategies to improve patient-centred medicine by focusing on continuity of care.

Continuity of care is the vertical integration of systems to create an environment of quality patient care over time. Simply, it is the coordination of medical services across hospitals, clinics and the community that enables individuals to receive comprehensive and efficient care.

Health-care institutions recognize continuity as a key pillar for improving patient outcomes, and many are striving to streamline their medical partnerships. However, these initiatives are impacted by the Ministry of Health, a government body lacking any resemblance of continuity over the past quarter century.

Ontario has had 12 health ministers in the past 25 years, or on average, a new official every other year. This exhausting turnover has led to the inability of the government to generate meaningful progress on health care. Worse, election cycles have undermined the implementation of any long-term strategy for health-care reform, in favour of quick fixes every four years. We are seeing more of the same now.

This is why an overhaul of provincial health-care leadership must be given serious consideration during this election. We should start with a restructuring of the Ministry of Health. In order for our health-care system to develop immunity against political epidemics, our health agency should be completely independent of the government.

This could be accomplished by assembling a coalition of health-care leaders tasked with appointing a Senator of Health. This commission should reflect the diversity of health-care, including community and academic physicians in addition to other health-care providers who represent a balance of political inclinations from across the spectrum.

This team would then conduct its own search for a senator and senator-designate, both of whom should have a robust background in health care. The senator would be granted a four-year term beginning halfway through a provincial governments mandate, and would have the support of the senator-designate who would then take over for another four years. Each senator would be prohibited from holding elected office for a period of 10 years following his/her tenure.

Collectively, this framework offers several advantages. First, by installing leadership on a schedule that is off-cycle from elections, we would reduce the political influence on health-care decisions.

Next, by choosing a senator and senator-designate, we would create a culture of continuity for sustainable policy as part of a broader future vision. Finally, by encouraging the senator to return to health care, we would incentivize leadership to improve our system without being seduced by partisan political ambition.

Ultimately, our health-care system can only evolve to better serve our communities if we demand stable, reliable and innovative leadership. This requires a fundamental restructuring of the Ministry of Health.

We can no longer depend on the political party du jour and its revolving door of administration that is now a hallmark of our provincial health-care leadership.If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, it appears Ontario PC Leader Doug Ford has vastly upgraded his opinion of reporters and the news media.

In his former incarnation as Toronto city councillor, Ford called reporters trying to hold his mayor brother, Rob, to account sucky little kids who lie through their teeth.

But look!

Here he is, about to set out on the June 7 campaign trail, and how has he chosen to frame himself as a transparent candidate willing to be held to account?

In TV news-style videos on Facebook that have a PC apparatchik pretend to be a reporter while Ford pretends to present himself for media scrutiny.

Whatever one makes of the Ford Nation Live sham, it does say something about the merit of real journalism.

Ford is a candidate who has broken with tradition and declined to have a media bus accompany him while he campaigns. He ducks reporters at most every turn. He has offered Ontarians next to nothing by way of a platform.

So how does he seek to camouflage that evasiveness?

By using the frame of traditional news coverage  without, of course, the fact-checking and accountability - to establish credibility.

This exercise is the very definition of fake news.

Fake news is not, as many think, mere errors in reporting. Journalism is practised by human beings. By definition, there will be errors. The moreso because it is a craft practised in modern times with shrinking staffs feeding ever more platforms at ever faster pace.

But journalism has codes of conduct, standards and mechanisms of accountability.

Its first obligation is to the truth. Its first loyalty is to citizens. It is a discipline of verification. Its errors are admitted and corrected as soon as possible.

Fake news is the intentional production and publication, for self-serving, misleading or malevolent ends, of material that is untrue or untested.

Whether he knew it or not, Ford chose an auspicious time to embark on this charade.

Last Thursday, journalists marked World News Day, celebrating the power of journalism to change lives, communities, business and government.

The day also commemorated those journalists who have in recent years been killed during or for the practice of their craft.

For all Doug Fords insults, journalists around the world have put their lives on the line while he declines to even take questions  other, perhaps, than the softballs served up by an employee.

Fords ad campaign attempts to win for himself the credibility that comes to a candidate willing to be questioned on the details, intent, purpose and potential consequences of his or her plans.

That credibility properly accrues from a willingness to have character, competence and ability to think and perform under pressure tested.

To be sure, political campaigns have been ever more staged and controlled in recent generations  with genuine public exposure limited and words tightly scripted to cast the candidate in an almost supernatural light.

The official PC campaign ads say, for instance, that Doug Ford is here for the people of Ontario  to clean up the hydro mess, to bring jobs back, to end hallway health care, to put money back in your pocket, and to restore accountability in government.

It would be a service to the people of Ontario he purports to respect if reporters could spend some time asking Ford to explain how that string of impressive promises might actually be achieved.

Voters deserve the opportunity to kick the tires on any vehicle theyre being offered. Instead, Ford appears interested only in having his tires pumped by fawning underlings.

In short, these Facebook videos amount to Ford placing around his neck the gold medal for winning a race he declines to actually run.

The only consolation is his implicit recognition of the value and virtue of real reporters on the job.

To paraphrase Sally Fields, he may not like us, but he respects us.

He really respects us.

Read more about:In 2016, Ontario passed legislation introducing new election financing rules. This week marks the beginning of the first campaign period that will take place under the new framework.

As the rules were being developed and debated I remember being especially worried about the outcomes for first-time female candidates. Fundraising for political campaigns is a difficult undertaking, particularly for women.

I imagined the struggle placed on new candidates now restricted from being in the room at their own fundraisers to thank donors. Donor appreciation is a large part of fundraising. When an individual decides to direct their generosity to supporting your political vision and your ability to execute it, it only feels natural to have an opportunity to look them in the eye and thank them.

The legislation also drastically reduced (by nearly 90 per cent) the total amount of money individuals could donate to campaigns. It further banned corporations, unions and other groups not affiliated with political parties from making political donations.

It was a game changer.

Campaigns are in need of volunteers and individual donations now more than ever.

This isnt an election to sit out, press mute, or wait for an outcome. This is an election to be engaged, informed and critical of the vision being offered by each party, and contribute in whatever way you are able.

Begin by making sure you are registered to vote. Elections Ontario launched a new online tool last year to make this more convenient. It only takes a few minutes.

Next, get to know the candidates. It has brought me immeasurable joy to see a new generation of women self-select and run successful nominations across the province.

Its difficult for so many of us leading just-in-time lives, but I hope youll find a couple of hours to find a candidate you support, walk into their campaign office and ask how you can help.

Let the bug catch you. Step into the excitement of the movement. Offer your time and energy. Canvass, deliver literature, make phone calls, fundraise, or help organize an event.

If party politics arent for you, consider contributing to an issue-based campaign.

#OntarioThrive was launched this week by a powerful coalition of non-partisan organizations aiming to ensure measurable commitments on gender equity are at the forefront of the discourse throughout the campaign.

They are organizing events and asking candidates for their positions on a range of issues, including health and education, campus sexual violence, gender-based violence, child care, housing, minimum wage, ending violence against Indigenous girls and women, and anti-racism.

The best gift that comes with volunteering on campaigns, no matter the outcome, is the family built along the way. Lifelong true friends connected by a passion to make impossible things happen, forever tied as you grow one another into your best selves, better prepared to impact the world around you.

Each time I get involved in a campaign it is with a sense of responsibility to my own ancestors who were not always afforded the ability to contribute to shaping political outcomes. Black women who had to fight for the right to vote, participate in political discourse, and run for office.

I contribute because I believe it is my job to help shape the world I hope to bring children into. I look forward to one day teaching my daughter, by example, the same appreciation for this civic duty.

There was a portion of Barack Obamas farewell address in Chicago on Jan. 10, 2017 that particularly moved me: Because of all our outward differences, we, in fact, all share the same proud title, the most important office in a democracy: Citizen. So, you see, thats what our democracy demands. It needs you. [] Show up, Dive in. Stay at it.

Im committed to volunteering as much of my time as possible to supporting #womenforwynne. I look forward to the new friendships forged along the campaign trail in the coming weeks.

The title track on my campaign playlist is Without a Fight by Janelle Monae.

I want to look back at this election after June 7 and know I did everything I could do. Whatever that is for you, I hope you will be moved to do it too.

Tiffany Gooch is a Liberal strategist at public affairs firms Enterprise and Ensight and an advocate for increased cultural and gender diversity in Canadian politics.

Read more about:VANCOUVERA small migration of Ismaili Muslims to Vancouver from across B.C. is taking place this weekend, as they gather to meet the Aga Khan on his Diamond Jubilee tour.

The Aga Khan is the worldwide religious leader, or Imam, of the Ismaili Muslims, a branch of Shia Islam. Vancouver is the latest stop on his world tour to celebrate his 60th as Imam  he was previously in Ottawa where he paid a visit to the prime minister.

Farrah Jinah, a volunteer for the festivities happening at BC Place, said the Aga Khans visit is a rare time when the growing Ismaili community, which is spread across the province, can come together. About 20,000 people are expected at this weekends events.

Ive been meeting people I havent seen for a long time, Jinah said. I have friends that came over from Victoria with their families, and folks from Kelowna, Nanaimo are making their way to the city.

Participants in the Diamond Jubilee celebrations will gather in small groups to hear the Aga Khan speak, give guidance on religious and community matters, and lead prayer services.

Rahim Talib, another event volunteer, remembers when the Aga Khan last visited Vancouver a decade ago for this 50th anniversary celebrations.

I still remember sitting here before, in the same location, and getting a chance to listen to what he shared, Talib said. Any time the Aga Khan comes to visit its really special.

The Aga Khan is known for his dedication to community service, and leads the Aga Khan Development Network, which helps impoverished communities in Asia and Africa. In advance of the Diamond Jubilee celebration, both Talib and Jinah participated in the Ismaili Civic 150, a pledge for Ismailis across Canada to commit to one million hours of community service.

For Jinah, who volunteered over 20 hours teaching art workshops to children in Vancouvers West End, the Ismaili ethos of community service is reflected in all Canadians.

Giving back and caring for others and helping the vulnerable, Jinah said, these are strong Canadian values and what we focus in our community as well.

Read more about:BETHALTO  Two were arrested Saturday night after they reportedly robbed the Caseys General Store in Bethalto, leading to a multiple-agency chase into St. Louis, as the suspect getaway vehicle, a light blue Chrysler PT Cruiser, shed car parts and wheels after hitting police spike strips.

The initial report was dispatched at approximately 11 p.m. A white male with reddish-blond hair, approximately 30 years old and possibly intoxicated, reportedly robbed the Bethalto Caseys, 5246 Illinois Route 140, before fleeing in the family sedan westbound.Indias privately-held Manipal Hospitals sweetened its bid for rival Fortis Healthcare Ltd on Sunday, offering to inject Rs 21 billion ($314 million) to help the ailing hospital operator meet its immediate cash needs.

Manipal and its consortium partner TPG Capital are offering Rs 160 per share for the acquisition, according to a letter from Manipal posted by Fortis on the stock exchange feed.

Manipal, which plans to merge its business with that of its rival, said its offer values Fortis at Rs 83.58 billion ($1.25 billion). In its previous offer, Manipal had offered to buy Fortis hospitals for Rs 63.22 billion.

Fortis has been the target of five companies and investment groups, who are vying for control of its 30-odd hospitals across India. The countrys private healthcare market is expected to enjoy strong growth with the introduction of a new government insurance plan that is expected to make private healthcare more affordable for millions of poor families.

Fortis has set up an advisory committee to evaluate the binding offers. Its board plans to meet on May 10 to consider the recommendations.

Manipal has proposed to provide Rs 21 billion through preferential allotment of equity shares by Fortis, which needs funding to repay its existing loans and other commitments, the letter said.

Earlier this month, Malaysias IHH Healthcare Bhd lifted its offer to Rs 175 a share, while Indian businessmen Sunil Munjal and Anand Burman increased their combined offer to invest in the company to Rs 18 billion. Both these bidders are vying for partial equity stakes in the company.

Radiant Life Care, backed by private equity firm KKR & Co , has also made a binding offer to acquire Fortis Mumbai-based Mulund Hospital for an enterprise value of Rs 12 billion and a separate non-binding offer involving spin-off of diagnostic services arm SRL.

Chinas Fosun International, the only one to have not revised its initial offer, had made a non-binding offer last month to invest up to $350 million subject to due diligence for a stake that would be less than 25 per cent.

Some investors are unhappy that the Manipal-led consortium has been given more time than rivals to match or top the rival bids and say they plan to vote against the group if it is selected as the winning bidder.

The group, which initially reached an agreement with Fortis in March, before rival suitors made their interest public, had been given until May 6 to submit a bid, while the other four suitors were bound by a May 1 deadline.Ayodhyas Ram temple is at the centre of a controversy once again. The chief priest of Ram Lalla Temple has made serious allegations of theft against the temple administration.

The chief priest, Acharya Satyendra Das, on Sunday alleged that people associated with the temple administration have been stealing jewellery worth crores of rupees from Daan Patraa box kept near the idols, in which those who come for darshan deposit cash or jewellery.

The chief priest has alleged that stealing of jewellery has been going on since long, but has not given the exact amount that was stolen. He only claimed that the stolen items would be worth crores of rupees.

He has named a clerk, Basant Maurya, working in the office of Faizabad commissioner, in connection with the theft. The chief priest alleged that Maurya has become a billionaire because of theft.

According to Satyendra Das, since 2000, there has not been any record of jewellery received as offering, despite the fact that every year, devotees denote jewellery in good amount as offering.

This is not for the first time that Satyendra Dev hurled allegations against the temple administration. Earlier too, he had accused the temple administration of not sanctioning adequate money for celebrations associated with Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas.

A couple of weeks ago, the chief priest had alleged that for a small ceremony, some new dresses were stitched for the idols placed at the disputed site; new flags, curtains, and other puja materials were arranged too. The arrangement costed little over Rs 50,000. However, when he sent the bill to the official receiver of Ram Lalla, who is commissioner and a senior bureaucrat, only Rs 42,000 was approved. Upset, the chief priest had complained about this to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, and is waiting for the CM's office to initiate action in this regard.Accusing the Congress of distorting history as part of a conspiracy to divide society, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today flayed the Siddaramaiah government in Karnataka for celebrating the "jayantis of Sultans" for the sake of "vote bank politics".

Modi was apparently referring to the Siddaramaiah government's controversial decision to celebrate "Tipu Jayanti" every year on November 10 to commemorate the memory of Tipu Sultan, the legendary 18th century ruler of Mysore.

Addressing an election rally here, the prime minister said, "Look at the Congress character....whose jayanti needs to celebrated with respect, from whom we have to draw inspiration for generations to generations, they can't think about celebrating their jayantis".

"Veera Madakari and Onake Obavva are forgotten, but for the sake of vote bank politics they are into celebrating jayantis of Sultans," he said.

A Dalit woman, Onake Obavva was the legendary wife of a soldier in the army of Madakari Nayaka, the last ruler of Chitrdurga.

She is said to have fought single handedly and killed with a pestle several invading soldiers of the army of Hyder Ali, father of Tipu Sultan, in 1779. She was killed by Hyder Ali's soldiers in her valiant effort to protect the fort where her husband was the guard of a watch tower.

Celebration of "Tipu Jayanti" is strongly opposed by the BJP.

The celebration has also triggered a sharp division in society with some hailing Tipu Sultan as a hero who died fighting the British, while others calling him a "fanatic" ruler.

"By celebrating this jayanti, Congress has insulted people of Karnataka and Chitradurga. They have played with sentiments and feelings of people of Chitradurga, Modi said.

"Congress by celebrating jayanti of those who gave poison to Nayaka's of Chitradurga by betrayal and those who killed the courageous lady Onake Obavva have insulted this land, you and the history," he said, as he sought to connect with local historical sentiments.

The way in which Congress had betrayed the legacy and courage of the sons and daughters of this land could not be forgiven, the prime minister said.

Modi also accused the Congress of sidelining several national stalwarts for the sake of one family.

He also hit out at the Congress for "spreading lies and trying to mislead Dalits."Top Hizbul Mujahideen commander Saddam Padder, whose photograph alongside Burhan Wani went viral after the latters killing that sparked protests in the Valley in 2016, has been killed in a gunfight with the security forces.

A total of five militants were killed in the gunfight in Badigaon area of Shopian in South Kashmir on Sunday even as the security forces made appeals to the trapped militants to surrender.

The encounter broke out after security forces launched a search operation in the area following specific information about the presence of militants.

Saddam Paddar is one of the most known militants from South Kashmir and was one of the main contenders for leading the militant group after its chief Zakir Musa rebelled to float his own outfit .

With the operation concluded, the troops are withdrawing bound by bound as a crowd of around 5,000 people gathered in the area.

The militants who have been neutralised are Saddam Paddaer (r/o Shopian, HM), Bilal Mohd (r/o Shopian, HM), Adil Malik (r/o Shopian, LeT), Towsif Sheik (r/o Kulgam, HM) and Prof Rafiq Bhatt (r/o Ganderbal, newly joined, HM).

Bhatt, a resident of Chundina area of central Kashmir's Ganderbal district, is an assistant professor of sociology at Kashmir University. A constant appeal was made to him and his associates through loudspeakers to surrender, security sources said.

Bhatt joined militancy a few days ago and was meeting Padder when the security forces launched the operation.

Earlier on Saturday, protests had rocked the university over Bhatt's disappearance, following which the university's vice chancellor met the students and assured them that all efforts would be made to trace the missing professor.South Kashmir witnessed yet another bloodbath today after five militants were killed in an encounter and five civilians died in clashes with security forces.

Mohammad Rafi, one of the five militants killed in an encounter at Badigam, Shopian, was an Assistant Professor of Sociology in Kashmir University, while another militant, Saddam Paddar, was the last remaining militant from the 11-member Burhan Wani group.



Wani, a popular young Hizbul Mujahideen commander, was killed on July 8, 2016, which sparked an uprising that year in which more than 100 youth died and thousands were injured.



Rafi,32, a resident of Chunduna, Ganderbal, had joined Hizbul Mujahideen only two days back.



SSP Shopian Shailendra Kumar Mishra appealed to the militants to surrender but they spurned the offer and preferred to fight.



A policeman and a soldier of 44 Rashtriya Riffles were also injured in the encounter.



The holed up terrorists fired heavily on the search party. Security forces in their guarded response fired back,'' a police spokesman said. ''Meanwhile, police made repeated attempts to make the hiding terrorists surrender. In the process, family members and nearby community headmen were also roped in vain to surrender them.



You stop firing and come out. For God's sake stop firing, you will get nothing from out. I am SSP Shopian talking, Mishra said on a public address system.



The holed up militants responded with a barrage of fire to Mishra's appeal for surrender.



During the encounter five ultras of outlawed Hizbul Mujhadeen were neutralised, a police spokesman said.



The slain militants were identified as Saddam Paddar, Bilal Moulvi, Adil Malik, Tawseef Sheikh and Mohommad Rafi Bhat.



The encounter led to clashes between police and protesters who wanted to rescue the militants. Intense clashes led the death of five civilians in police and CRPF firing.



The protesters blocked roads and pelted stones on the security forces who first fired smoke shells and then opened fire.



Hospital sources said that some of the injured are in critical stage.



It sounds very depressing to note that our State is losing young lives to the unending cycle of violence,'' said Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti in a statement.



She said todays deaths have brought a stark fact to fore that gun, either way of a militant or that of security forces, is no solution for resolving issues. ''I have reiterated it time and again that political issues need political interventions, she said.



The separatist Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL) reacted to the killings by extending the shutdown by another day and called on people to march to the civil secretariat to stage a sit-in till carnage is stopped.



As the darbar (bi-annual shifting of government headquarters) of the rulers who preside over our massacres and murders will open in Srinagar, leadership, and people including lawyers, traders, transporters, doctors, government employees journalists and others will move towards the civil secretariat at around 12pm and stage a peaceful dharna till the perpetrators do not agree to put an end to the daily carnage,'' said JRL.

Two neighbouring coal mines collapsed after gas explosions in Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province, killing 23 people, officials said.

The first accident occurred in Marwaarh, 45 km east of provincial capital Quetta, due to a gas explosion yesterday.

The roof caved in following the blast triggered by the accumulation of methane gas, killing 16 miners, Deputy Commissioner Farrukh Atique said.

We have recovered all the 16 bodies from the rubble caused by the collapse in the coal mine, Atique said.

There were 30 labourers inside the mine when the explosion occurred. All the injured miners were rescued and taken to the hospital.

Rescue officials said a dozen of the dead miners belonged to Shangla district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The collapse apparently took place because of a gas explosion and the miners working at that time were trapped inside. Some died on the spot, while others who were badly injured breathed their last under the rubble, Atique said.

Chief of Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) Muhammad Tariq also confirmed that 16 miners had been killed.

Hours later, another coal mine collapsed in Sooranj area, in which seven miners were killed, Geo TV reported.

Two workers were rescued in an unconscious state, while bodies of two miners were recovered last night, an official said.

The rescue operation resumed this morning and bodies of remaining five labourers were recovered.

Mining is considered highly dangerous in Pakistan where dozens of miners are killed each year due to lack of modern mining facilities, training and equipment.

According to the Pakistan Central Mines Labour Federation (PCMLF), about 100 to 200 labourers die on average in coal mine accidents every year.

Last month, at least 11 miners were killed in two separate mining incidents in Darra Adam Khel area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Jhelum district of Punjab.

PTIFrench President Emmanuel Macron has warned that war could ensue if US President Donald Trump withdraws from the 2015 deal in which Iran agreed to curb its nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.

We would open the Pandoras box. There could be war, Macron told German weekly magazine Der Spiegel. But he added: I dont think that Donald Trump wants war.

Trump is set to decide by May 12 whether to pull out of the Iran deal. Trump has all but decided to withdraw but exactly how he will do so remains unclear, two White House officials and a source familiar with the administrations internal debate said on May 2.

Trump could still figure out a way to stay in the deal between the Islamic Republic and six world powers  Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States.

Macron urged Trump not to withdraw when he met the president in Washington late last month.

Britain, France and Germany remain committed to the accord but, in an effort to keep Washington in it, want to open talks on Irans ballistic missile programme, its nuclear activities beyond 2025  when key provisions of the deal expire  and its role in Middle East crises such as Syria and Yemen.Pakistan Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal was shot and injured in an assassination attempt during a rally in Narowal district of the country's Punjab province on Sunday, police said.

District police officer of Narowal Imran Kishwar said a local resident opened fire at the minister soon after he concluded his speech during a rally in Kanjrur town of the district, Dawn reported.

The gunman Abid Hussain, 22, managed to fire just one shot that hit the minister's right arm. The suspect was arrested by the police soon after he fired the shot, the officer said.

The minister was rushed to the District Hospital in Narowal where he is undergoing surgery. He is out of danger, the officer said.

Chief Minister of Punjab Province Shahbaz Sharif sent a helicopter to shift the minister to a hospital in Lahore, the provincial capital of Punjab.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi condemned the attack and ordered the police to trace the planners behind the attack.

Iqbal is considered among the top brains of Pakistan's political elite. He has two portfolios, including minister of interior and minister of planning, development and reform.Sign up for The Knick 

Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter.BETHLEHEM  A 21-year-old woman from Albany has been charged in connection with a stabbing Sunday afternoon in the parking lot outside OTB in the Delaware Plaza in Delmar, police said.

Nahjayyah Daise was charged with felony assault and misdemeanor possession of a weapon.Albany

Call it SUNY Polytechnic Institute 2.0.

As the state seeks to move SUNY Poly past the Alain Kaloyeros era, it has hired former GlobalFoundries CEO Doug Grose to lead the school's high-tech research operations and economic development projects, which span from Albany to Buffalo.

But Grose will not be the new Kaloyeros, who built SUNY Poly from scratch into a world-class computer chip manufacturing research center over the past 20 years. Kaloyeros was ousted in the fall of 2016 following his indictment on federal bid-rigging charges.

Instead, Grose has been chosen to lead a newly established organization called NY CREATES that will operate SUNY Poly's research labs and clean rooms, making them available to researchers from universities across the state and elsewhere. Those researchers will seek to develop high-tech breakthroughs alongside commercial tenants like IBM and GlobalFoundries that already use the campus for their advanced research and development.

"I think it's an incredible resource for the state," SUNY Chancellor Kristina Johnson told the Times Union in an exclusive interview alongside Grose and Howard Zemsky, the state's top economic development official. "It's a really solid part of the SUNY system, and will continue to be a resource to attract researchers not only from Albany but Binghamton, Buffalo, Stony Brook, Cornell, Rochester. So it becomes something broader. That's the message here, that we're opening this up."

Grose grew up in the Mohawk Valley and attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy where he studied materials engineering and has had a front row seat to watch the rise of Tech Valley and the Capital Region's computer chip industry.

He started his career at IBM and oversaw chip production and development at the company's chip fabs in East Fishkill and Burlington, Vt., working closely with IBM's research operations at SUNY Poly. From 2003 to 2004 he served as chief operating officer at SUNY Poly, back when it was still part of the University at Albany and known as Albany Nanotech, one of many IBMers to hold an administrative role at the school over the years.

In 2007, Grose was hired by Advanced Micro Devices to lead manufacturing and two years later helped the company spin off its chip production as GlobalFoundries, becoming the company's first CEO and overseeing construction of the company's Fab 8 computer chip factory in Malta.

Grose was replaced in 2011 and since then has kept a low public profile, working on startup companies and as a consultant. He will make $270,000 a year in his new job as an employee of the Research Foundation for SUNY, the entity that oversees research grants for the SUNY system.

"It's a good fit, and we wanted to make sure we had credible, experienced industry expertise and relationships at the front and center of this economic development effort. Doug fit that bill," said Zemsky, whose agency has spent the past 18 months restructuring SUNY Poly's economic development operations. That effort included creating a $207 million fund included in last year's state budget that has been used to stabilize SUNY Poly's finances, attract new tenants and bolster some of SUNY Poly's projects that suffered in the wake of the scandal. Grose says he has always believed in the role that SUNY Poly has played in the region's high-tech growth and says it can be an even greater factor.

Like Johnson, Grose says SUNY Poly can serve a national role in advanced manufacturing, painting a picture that sounds similar to the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, Germany's network of state-supported research labs.

"I'm happy to be back," Grose said. "I was here once before in my life. There were a lot less buildings than there are now, but at least I know my way around. I'm excited. It's all about building off the assets that are here, both the physical assets and also the intellectual assets, the people.

"What's exciting to me is to open this up to New York state and the universities, and it's a U.S. asset that we eventually can grow to," he said.

Grose will exclusively run the research and economic development side of things, and Bahgat Sammakia, who leads the academic side of SUNY Poly, will remain in his role for the time being.

"He is an interim president, so eventually he will be going back to Binghamton," Johnson said.

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With no apparent long-term replacement for Sammakia waiting in the wings, Johnson was asked if the plan was to merge SUNY Poly's Colleges of Nanoscale of Science and Engineering back into UAlbany after being spun off several years ago by Kaloyeros and merged with SUNY IT in Utica. Such a move would impact hundreds of students and dozens of faculty and staff.

"We're exploring where the future on the academic side will go," Johnson said. "And I think the idea of opening it up is we want faculty and students of other universities to come in and work together with industry partners and with the SUNY system, together on teams. So yes, we're going to open this up both for an academic (purpose) as well as for industry research teams."

Grose was asked if he was worried about the baggage that comes with the job regarding the criminal case against Kaloyeros and the fallout and criticism of SUNY Poly's economic development role. Kaloyeros is set to go on trial in federal court in Manhattan next month, and prosecutors are expected to paint a picture of corruption despite Kaloyeros maintaining his innocence.

"I'm looking forward," Grose said. "I'm not looking backwards. I'm looking forward to the opportunities ahead of us crafting this in a unique way that maybe wasn't there before, so no, I'm not looking back ... I wasn't paying attention to what was going on here, so I come in with a fresh approach. It's refreshing to see where we could take this place."

NY CREATES will replace SUNY Poly's two real estate nonprofits that own the school's buildings and land and through which the school has initiated its economic development projects in Utica, Rochester, Syracuse and elsewhere. Those entities have been overseen by former state budget director Robert Megna, who works for SUNY. Grose will take over Megna's duties overseeing them as they transition into NY CREATES, which stands for New York Center for Research, Economic Advancement, Technology, Engineering and Science.

NY CREATES will also establish a technology advisory board that will offer advice on where technology is headed and which investments would make the most sense.

Although there has been political pressure on the state to curtail SUNY Poly's economic development mission, Johnson and Zemsky say these are incredible assets that have been created, especially locally. Johnson says that the Capital Region's own nanotech sector that is anchored by SUNY Poly and GlobalFoundries' Fab 8 chip factory is still evolving  and she believes there is a lot more to come since tech clusters generally take about 30 years to mature.

She pointed to the Research Triangle Park in the Raleigh-Durham area in North Carolina, which landed its first high-profile tenants like IBM back in the 1960s.

"It really got rocking and rolling in the mid-'90s (when employment in the park hit 45,000 people)," Johnson said. "So that's a 30-year incubation  and we're doing it faster here. Now the next phase is the really exciting part where you're seeing tangible results and devices that haven't been built anywhere else in the world, so it's a pretty exciting time."

lrulison@timesunion.com  518-454-5504  @larryrulisonDuanesburg resident Kevin Hogan reminisces about his long-ago meeting with the band U2 when they played at the University of Albany on May 7, 1983. Hogan is an alum of the Legislative Correspondents Association and his twitter handle is @kevindhogan.

I took Bono's photo. He took mine. It was a pre-selfie world back then, but we probably should have taken a photo together. My awkward adolescent moment would have been easily forgotten if the band was just a one-hit wonder, but U2 went on to conquer the world.

I was a high school senior who worked as an usher at the Hellman Theatre on Washington Avenue across the street from SUNY Albany, which held an outdoor concert each spring. Next to the movie theater was the Thruway House motel.

UAlbany's traditional Mayfest was renamed Celebration 83. But many 18-year-olds were not celebrating the fact the legal drinking age was raised to 19 just six months earlier in New York State.

On May 7, 1983, a big tour bus was parked at the Thruway House. My boss said it was probably the Irish band I liked. I walked over to the bus, knocked on the door and entered the unoccupied bus. On the table was a paper listing the band members and their second floor motel room numbers.

I went to Bono's room and knocked on the door. He opened it. I told him I was looking forward to the show and if he needed any help with his bags. He essentially said: 'Thanks, but no thanks. I'll be down at the tour bus shortly.' I'm sure he was shocked to have me show up at his door. I was shocked at how short the rocker was.

I pulled the same awkward stalker move with drummer Larry Mullen. He wasn't as surprised as Bono, chatted with me and let me take his bag down to the bus. Meanwhile, bassist Adam Clayton was chain smoking cigarettes and walking around outside wrapped only in a white towel.

While the band members readied themselves, I went back to the theater to get my co-worker Dave Reed who I planned to go to the concert with. We stood near the tour bus and I snapped some photos with my crappy Kodak 110 camera.

Finally, 22-year-old Paul Hewson, aka Bono Vox, sporting a frosted mullet greeted us, exchanged some pleasantries and I took his photo. Instead of giving my camera to Dave, we just stood there like real life Beavis and Butt-Head. Bono would eventually take pity on our awkwardness and said "Let me take your photo." He then jumped in the tour bus.

I don't have any memory of Celebration 83's opening acts  David Johansen and Robert Hazard. U2's performance stole the show. Bono's onstage exuberance had him at one point climbing to the top of the scaffolding and waving a white flag during "Sunday Bloody Sunday." They played ten songs and finished with an encore of "New Year's Day," "Gloria," "I Will Follow" and "40."

Actually, the day they took the stage in Albany, U2's third album War peaked at No. 12 on the U.S. Billboard charts. They exploded onto the music scene in 1983 and became rock superstars four years later with the release of The Joshua Tree.

I was too young to see U2 when they first played Albany's legendary J.B. Scott's nightclub in 1981. With or without Bono in the photo, I'll settle for that day at SUNY Albany. And after all these years, Bono will have another chance to take my photo  I have tickets to U2's show next month in Newark, N.J.

Cash's boyhood home preserved

The Man in Black's boyhood home has been added to the National Register of Historic Places.

The Arkansas Historic Preservation Program announced Friday that the home in Dyess where country music icon Johnny Cash lived from age 3 through high school has been added to the register. Dyess is a small Arkansas town close to the Tennessee border.

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The five-room farmhouse was built in 1934 as part of the Dyess Resettlement Colony by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports that the house is owned by Arkansas State University, which spent $575,000 to buy, restore, furnish and landscape the property.

Cash died in 2003.

 Associated Press

Storming back to downstate club

"The Storm Rolls Back In"  and we're not talking about the weather.

That's how a Long Island strip club advertised Stormy Daniels' return this weekend to the venue where the porn star first appeared in February.

Since then, Daniels  whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford  has taken center stage in the nation's tumultuous political life. She says she had an affair with Donald Trump before he became president. And Trump's personal attorney, Michael Cohen, paid her $130,000 to keep silent before the 2016 election.

Employees at the Gossip club in the hamlet of Melville told The Associated Press that she had two performances on Friday and two more coming up on Saturday. The Gossip entrance fee is $20 for men. Women enter for free.

 Associated PressSUNDAY, MAY 6, 2018

Code enforcement offices in local governments throughout the Capital Region are beset with low-paid workers, inspectors who face conflicts of interest and weakened state oversight of training and certification.

The Times Union reviewed government records and interviewed more than a dozen building industry experts in the wake of a grand jury investigation that exposed systemic problems plaguing the Schenectady city code enforcement office. The grand jury report released last month found that monumental disorganization and lack of oversight of inspectors "directly contributed to the deaths" of four people in a 2015 fire in an apartment building on Jay Street.

Schenectady has since put an assistant police chief in charge of codes and is running training for the inspectors  many of whom are new hires. But a wider review of other municipal codes offices raises questions about how they operate and if there are inherent problems in their line of work, which involves keeping the public safe by inspecting everything from properly vented clothes dryers to safely installed balconies.

"When we do our job, nothing happens," said Bob Cordell, a retired town of Colonie inspector who runs a consulting firm. "Your safety is their responsibility when you go inside  anywhere."

A review of records obtained by the Times Union concerning inspectors in the Capital Region's largest municipalities shows:

Despite Albany being the region's largest city, with likely the highest volume of vacant and blighted structures, it is paying code inspectors the least among the region's most populated municipalities. Some hires in recent years also have no experience in building or construction.

The Times Union found some inspectors, who are supposed to look critically at a contractor's work or take building owners to task, also work in construction or the real estate business. The most pointed example is in North Greenbush, where building department coordinator Michael Miner's company is constructing houses in town. Miner, who said he has talked with the town attorney in the past to make sure he is operating ethically, said his colleagues in the building office inspect his homes.

Several local inspectors interviewed by the Times Union noted the reduced role the state Department of State, which certifies municipal code inspectors, has in their work. It takes more than a year for the agency to update its online list of who is properly certified, and many inspectors said there are fewer staff members available to provide guidance. The state also no longer provides the yearly training sessions that are required for recertification. The Department of State rejected that claim  saying the budget for the building standards and codes division has grown by nearly $1 million since 2013.

Sante DeBacco, a code enforcement official in Coeymans and Ravena, said while he believes the Schenectady case tainted the profession locally, he believes most codes offices are rigorous about training and upholding ethical standards. Schenectady code enforcement officer Kenneth Tyree was tried for manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in relation to the 2015 fire  he had inspected the Jay Street building the day before without noticing the fire alarm system wasn't working. A jury acquitted him after his attorney argued that Tyree did not have the proper training. He was, however, found guilty of lying about a previous felony conviction on his job application and is scheduled to be sentenced for that on Tuesday.

"Even though the gentleman was found not guilty, I think that the code enforcement community was given a black eye, for which it will take a while to recover from," DeBacco wrote in an email to the Times Union. "I also think that the issue in Schenectady was an isolated issue. .... The vast majority of code enforcement individuals are highly professional, dedicated to their jobs, and adequately trained to perform their duties."

Disparity in pay

The city of Albany has had its own struggles with the quality of its code inspection department. In 2011, firefighters were still being paid a stipend to do the inspections. But after an internal audit found the city was behind on rental inspections and largely ignoring commercial buildings, Albany built a separate, dedicated code enforcement staff. But despite the volume and poor condition of many of the city's buildings, Albany pays code enforcement officers the least of the region's largest municipalities: $36,555, at least $6,000 less than Cohoes, Schenectady and Troy, which have the next-lowest salaries.

Robert Magee, director of Albany's buildings and regulatory compliance office, said the salaries are in line with what other positions pay at City Hall, noting "you would find in a lot of cities the budget is pretty tight."

A city code inspector's job is to look at existing structures and rental units, while the building inspectors  who are paid more  are in charge of reviewing new construction. Last year, city officials looked into the activities of senior building inspector Dan Sherman after he made $65,166 in overtime, more than double his salary, by issuing an unusually high number of emergency demolitions in 2016. An internal audit found no evidence of misconduct on his part but said Albany should do more to try and stabilize buildings first.

Four out of the last seven code inspectors hired in Albany in recent years also had no experience in construction or building trades. But Magee said previous experience does not always connote quality. He also rejected the idea that Albany's low salaries impact what kind of job candidates the city gets. Code inspector Joshua Gold was a television news producer before getting the Albany job in 2013. He said all the time shadowing the certified inspectors in the department, as well as the six months of classes required by New York state, prepared him well for his job. He inspects rental units for everything from smoke detectors and loose carpeting to poorly hung vinyl siding.

"I go through extensive training," Gold said. "I know what I'm doing and I know what I'm looking for."

Conflicts of interest

The desire to hire inspectors who know something about construction can, however, lead to another issue  when government employees who are supposed to be critical of contractors still work in the industry.

The village of Stillwater's building inspector resigned a few months ago after a neighbor raised alarms about him signing an order to condemn a building  and then buying the house at a Saratoga County auction. Former inspector Steve Streeter purchased the house under his company name in 2017 before demolishing it in anticipation of building on the property.

Stillwater Mayor Frank Tatum, who was a village trustee when the incident happened, told the Times Union in an email that he and the board had "planned to step up enforcement of ethics rules to prevent a re-occurrence of situations like this" when Streeter resigned.

Ballston building inspector Brian Theriault is a licensed real estate agent and a landlord, but he said he does not own property or do any real estate business in town. Theriault said ethics are important to him  noting that when he previously worked in Malta he made the supervisor get a permit for a new shed. "I find I go above and beyond what is required," he said.

Miner in North Greenbush was open with the Times Union when contacted about a home his company, Miner Homes LLC, is building on Kimberly Circle. He said conflicts often arise in his job  such as when he has had to approve building permits and do inspections for the town supervisor or Town Board members  and said he tries to be careful about separating himself from inspections that happen at his properties.

"Obviously I don't review my plans and I don't do my own inspections," Miner said. "I do feel a little awkward. But I know what I'm doing is OK."

State oversight

Becoming a state-certified code inspector requires taking 120 hours of classes provided by the state Department of State and another 24 hours of training each year to remain certified. East Greenbush code enforcement officer Kevin Hitchcock, however, said he could not get the state to put him on the publicly available certification list for two years, which caused him problems as code violators attempted to claim he was not certified to do his job.

Until a few weeks ago, the list on the Department of State's website only showed those who had the proper training back in 2016. "They told me in an email two years ago (the agency lacks) ... the manpower to update the list," Hitchcock said. "What good is the list if it's not accurate?"

Tyree, the embattled codes officer from Schenectady, wasn't listed with the state as a certified code inspector until almost a year after the fatal fire, according to the Department of State. Whether that was because of backlogs at the state agency or his possible failure to take the courses until then is unknown. The state has not yet answered a Freedom of Information request for details about Tyree's training.

Support from the state "is not as readily available as it used to be," said Colonie building department manager Paul Shepard, referencing what seems to him to be fewer staff members to provide opinions on cases.

"When we go through the code book, sometimes things aren't as clear as they should be," Bethlehem assistant building inspector Mark Platel said about the need to have experts available to answer questions. "I know they're trying as hard as they can."

Also, because the state no longer runs the yearly recertification training, inspectors must find outside vendors that sometimes offer little in the way of new class topics.

The Department of State refused the Times Union's request to talk about such issues with staff from the division devoted to building standards and codes. But it provided statistics, such as the fact that the department's staff of 44 has only gone down by one person since 2013 and that the number of initial training courses inspectors take upon being hired has increased over the past five years.

Cordell, who organizes the training provided by the Capital District New York State Building Officials Conference, said the main problem is that young people are not interested in the work.

"If we can get enough people into this profession at the beginning of their careers, we'd be in good shape," he said.

Schenectady changes

Before the March 2015 blaze, Schenectady fire officials tried to warn the codes office more than a dozen times that the apartment building across from City Hall had serious violations, including an inoperable fire alarm system. But those warnings went unanswered.

A separate state comptroller's office audit of the codes office also found there was no indication that 684 multiple-unit buildings in Schenectady had been inspected in at least three years. Eric Shilling, the head building inspector at the time of the fire, was testifying about the department before the grand jury when he committed suicide. The district attorney's office has said Shilling was not a focus of the criminal investigation, which did result in a separate conviction of the apartment building's manager for not keeping the structure up to code.

The grand jury's report, issued in May 2017 but not released until after Tyree's trial, found in the codes office "not all employees had passed the requisite exams, or even taken them in one case." The report provided several recommendations, including requiring background checks on job candidates, providing a policy manual for all inspectors to follow and the immediate inspection of all multiple-resident dwellings.

Domenic Viscariello is the Schenectady codes boss who testified at trial that he didn't know if Tyree  a personal friend  had the appropriate state certification at the time of the fire to hold landlords' accountable for violations. He is still working in the city codes office.

Assistant Police Chief Jack Falvo, left, and Chief of Codes Chris Lunn at the code enforcement office in City Hall Friday April 27, 2018 in Schenectady, NY. (John Carl D'Annibale/Times Union) Assistant Police Chief Jack Falvo, left, and Chief of Codes Chris Lunn at the code enforcement office in City Hall Friday April 27, 2018 in Schenectady, NY. (John Carl D'Annibale/Times Union) Photo: John Carl D'Annibale Buy photo Photo: John Carl D'Annibale Image 1 of / 23 Caption Close Unsafe conditions: Issues plague region's building safety efforts 1 / 23 Back to Gallery

Assistant Schenectady Police Chief Jack Falvo, who took over the department in January, said he could not comment on personnel matters. But Falvo said he is now running the city's code inspectors through police-style training that has included grading on mock inspections and classes on how to take photos and write appearance tickets.

"When I spoke to the staff, I told them the police department is what I know," Falvo said. "We're quasi-military, and you're going to get a sample of that."

lstanforth@timesunion.com  518-454-5697Ellis Medicine president and CEO Paul Milton is leading the American Heart Association's annual spring fundraiser, the 2018 Capital Region Heart Walk and Run.

Milton recruited a team of 11 business leaders with one goal: raising $645,000 for the American Heart and American Stroke Associations.

The 2018 Capital Region Heart Walk and Run takes place on Sunday, June 3, at the University at Albany. Registration for the timed run begins at 8 a.m., and the run starts at 8:30 a.m. Registration for the 1- or 3-mile walk begins at 9 a.m., and the walk begins at 10:30 a.m.

"When you go to the Heart Walk and Run, it's incredibly moving to talk with the people wearing survivor caps, and see the child survivors with their superhero capes," Milton said in a statement. "This event is so much more than statistics. It's about meeting someone who was brought back to life after a sudden cardiac arrest; or someone learning to walk again after a stroke; or a child who had surgery when they were just a few days old. We need to keep funding the good work of the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association so that we continue to meet more survivors  and prevent these two diseases from ever happening."

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Milton has assembled a group of business executives committed to raising funds and enlisting participants at the Heart Walk. They are Michael Arce, Capital Cardiology Associates; Paul Fallati, The Galesi Group; Victor Giulianelli, St. Mary's Healthcare, Amsterdam; Barb Hess, SEFCU; Karen McMahon, Rivers Casino & Resort; Adam Naumann, Glens Falls Hospital; Sara Rindenello, Albany Med; Heather Rogers, CDPHP; Ellen Sax, MVP Health Care; Elmer Streeter, St. Peter's Health Partners and Jeff Winnacott, Ellis Medicine.

Sean McMaster of B95.5 is an emcee. Ellen Abbott is the stroke ambassador and 15-year-old Natashha Byron is the Heart Hero. There will be a Kids Zone, health screenings, a social media station, Memory Lane and a tribute to survivors.Delmar

The Delmar Farmers Market celebrated its 10th anniversary this weekend by banning plastic bags. It will offer shoppers bags made from 100 percent recycled paper, according to Paul Tick, one of the market's founders.

The market located at Bethlehem Central Middle School at 332 Kenwood Ave. prides itself on being green. Vendors range from Autumn Hills Llamas & Fiber's knit scarves and gloves to Bake for You's pastries and cookies made with organic sugar and free range eggs.

"Most vendors are within a 35 mile drive of the market," Tick said.

On June 17, the market will host Renewable Energy Day with solar, geothermal, and wind energy vendors ready to give demonstrations and answer questions. The Capital District EV Drivers Club will bring a bevy of electric cars for visitors to test drive.

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Currently, farmers offer a wide array of wares including cheese and cream from Alpine goats in Berne's Cotton Hill Creamery to stone fruit, apples, grapes and chestnuts from Hudson's Little River Farm. There are berries, spring flowers, organic honey and grass fed beef as well as produce.

New York State Sen. Neil Breslin, a Democrat representing the 44th District, honored the Delmar Farmers Market with an April 27 legislative resolution commending the market for its contribution to agriculture and tourism.MENANDS  He was a husband and father with a good job as an accountant for Zaman, a respected newspaper proud of its nickname: "The Turkish New York Times."

But now at the Turkish Cultural Center in Menands, he asks to be called by the nickname "Umit." He fears the Turkish government might punish his relatives in Istanbul if he speaks to media anywhere. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan often declares his hatred of the mainstream press, which he has denounced as an "enemy of our people and our state."

Umit says it all began after Erdogan survived a 2016 coup attempt, after which the government immediately seized control of Zaman and fired the editors and reporters. Erdogan declared a state of emergency and jailed journalists, academics, judges, business owners, and even cooks and midwives, without trial. He accused them all of coup plotting.

"I never wrote or edited an article in my life, but I was brought in for interrogation then fired immediately along with hundreds of employees," Umit said. "I was worried the government would seize my bank account and my family would be in poverty. My wife wondered if I would be thrown in prison."

In fact, Erdogan also arrested and imprisoned 31 Zaman journalists accusing them of being members of a "secret parallel state." Umit's family gathered what money they could and escaped to upstate New York via his student visa.

Center volunteers prepared a feast last week as a fundraising dinner for Turkish refugees. They have resettled 10 families in the Capital Region over the past year.

Former New York assemblyman Jack McEneny attended the meal, where cardamon, chocolate, mint and smoky paprika scented the air. There was a photo gallery displayed of Turkish families who made the dangerous escape across the Aegean Sea to Greek refugee camps. McEneny noted the irony; Greece and Turkey have been adversaries for centuries.

"And now Turkish refugees see the ancient enemy as the only safe haven," McEneny said. "I don't think many Americans are aware of the Turkish refugee crisis. They don't realize the impact the brain drain, the loss of brilliant minds and professional class leaving Turkey, will have on that country which was a democracy. Then Erdogan used the coup as an excuse to purge the civil service, judicial system and media of his imagined enemies."

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In September 2016, the Times Union reported how Erdogan's attacks almost forced the cultural center here to close. Pennsylvania-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, a friend turned bitter adversary of Erdogan's, leads a movement that supports moderate Islam, interfaith friendship and secular education. The center had ties to the Gulen movement and many Turkish refugees admire it. But Erdogan was suspicious of the Gulen movement's managerial style and widespread influence. After the coup, he denounced the movement as coup plotters, which Gulen denies.

Human Rights Watch says there is no proof to support the charge. Yet the center's donations plummeted in 2016 after the coup. Founder and executive director Veysel Ucan, the only paid staffer, was let go. But Thursday night, it was filled with members, volunteers and friends raising money for families who had fled Turkey hoping for a safe haven.

Ucan presided over the feast as the center's interim president.

"We're trying to help them with English lessons and help them learn the history of the area so that this will feel like home and not just a place to run to," Ucan said.Jeff Weiner may need to update his interests on his LinkedIn account. The CEO of the professional networking behemoth is also trying out his real estate skills, listing his Menlo Park, CA, estate for $9,988,000.

According to property records, the Colonial Revival originally built in 1949 was last sold in 2010 for $5.3 million. So if the deluxe property sells for the asking price, the exec stands to pocket a profit.Xiaomi's gorgeous, nearly bezel-free Mi Mix 2S is a sight to behold, and it works on U.S. networks. But is it worth importing?

Those who hate the notch might just love the Mi Mix 2S, the latest premium smartphone from China's Xiaomi. While that name might be unfamiliar to most in the U.S., Xiaomi has garnered a worldwide reputation in recent years for innovative design, powerful hardware and low prices, even though the bulk of the company's products never make it out of Asia. And there's no better example of those traits in the company's portfolio than the Mi Mix series, which manages a mostly bezel-free look without relying on an unsightly notch.

Like all of Xiaomi's wares, the Mi Mix 2S is technically unavailable on our shores. However, while most of Xiaomi's other phones lack support for Western networks, the Mi Mix 2S is a truly global device, with support for GSM networks everywhere, including AT&T and T-Mobile in the U.S.

But here's the real question: Now that U.S. customers can finally use one of China's hottest phones, should they go through the trouble and expense of importing this device? Unique though the Mi Mix 2S inarguably is, it makes too many compromises for us to put it among the elite tier of Android mainstays, such as the Galaxy S9 and Pixel 2.

Price and Availability

The Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S starts at 3,299 yuan, which translates to a little less than $530. For that, you get a device with 64GB of storage and 6GB of RAM. Additionally, there's a 128GB option with the same amount of RAM, as well as a 256GB model paired with 8GB of RAM that comes with a wireless charger, which we've tested here.

In truth, $530 isn't bad, but you'll probably pay a little more depending on the vendor you choose for importing the phone. And therein lies the biggest problem with Mi Mix 2S ownership in the states: Theres no clear outlet that we or Xiaomi can direct you to to buy this device.

This isn't a Huawei P20 situation, where the phone is sold in practically every other country. The path to buying that phone is as simple as going to the appropriate region of Amazon and checking the box for international shipping. The Mi Mix 2S is offered only in Asia for the time being, with limited sales in some European territories to follow at a later date. If you want one of these devices, your best bet is to visit one of the many retailers that specialize in importing such products, like Flipkart or HonorBuy, and try your luck there.

Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S Specs

Price 3,299 yuan ($527)

OS Android 8.0 Oreo with MIUI 9.5 Screen Size (Resolution) 6-inch LCD (2160 x 1080) CPU Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 RAM 6 GB/8GB Storage 64GB/128GB/256GB microSD Slot No Rear Camera Dual: 12 MP f/1.8; 12 MP f/2.4 telephoto Front Camera 5 MP f/2.0 Battery Size 3,400 mAh Battery Life (Hrs:Mins) 10:15 Water Resistance No Size 5.94 x 2.95 x 0.32 inches



Design: Who needs a notch?

Although it's hardly the only player anymore, Xiaomi is one of the originators of the bezel-less design trend that swept the smartphone industry over the past year.

The first Mi Mix, released in November 2016, sported thin edges around three sides of the device, with a rather large chin at the bottom that housed the front-facing camera. The second generation repeats the same general aesthetic, with slightly more-rounded corners, which make the whole thing a bit more comfortable to hold.

The rear of the phone looks as though it's been dipped in a pool of dark silver, and the effect is more akin to that of fine jewelry rather than your run-of-the-mill handset.

As you'd expect, forcing that camera down to the basement greatly affects the way you take selfies  but we'll elaborate on that later. In terms of design, though, that unconventional camera location allows the Mi Mix 2S to get by with a very minimal top bezel. There's just enough room for the earpiece straddling the seam between the glass front and aluminum frame, and it sounds surprisingly good in phone calls.

Around the back of this device, Xiaomi distinguishes itself from the competition through the use of ceramic. The rear of the phone looks as though it's been dipped in a pool of dark silver, and the effect is more akin to that of fine jewelry rather than your run-of-the-mill handset. It's all set off with a dash of gold trim tastefully applied to the iPhone X-like vertical camera stack and fingerprint sensor. The elegant "Mi Mix Designed by Xiaomi" branding completes the look.

Overall, the Mi Mix 2S bears more than a passing resemblance to one of our favorite-looking high-end handsets, the Essential Phone  albeit a bit softer and less monolithic. It's flattering to find yourself in such company, Xiaomi.

But despite all that style, the Mi Mix 2S lacks creature comforts you'd expect from a phone of this price. There's no headphone jack. To make matters worse, although audio is piped out of both the bottom speaker and the earpiece, the latter sounds remarkably tinny when playing media. The Mi Mix 2S isn't water-resistant, and although it technically has NFC, our device didn't meet Google Pay's security standards  making tap-and-pay transactions a nonstarter.

MORE: Xiaomi FAQ: What You Need to Know Before You Buy

Upon checking with Xiaomi, we discovered the issue was caused by an unlocked bootloader on our our review unit, which we're told isn't the way these devices are supposed to ship to customers.

Display: Nothing special

In another similarity to the Essential Phone, Xiaomi opted not to include an OLED display, which you'll find in the iPhone X, Galaxy S9 and even the discontinued $499 OnePlus 5T. Instead, the Mi Mix 2S has a 6-inch LCD panel with full-HD+ resolution, more similar to the LG G7's screen.

Like with so many LCD-touting phones, there's nothing strictly wrong with the Mi Mix 2S' screen. It's sharp and accurate enough, with the ability to reproduce an acceptable range of colors. But it lacks the punch and perfect blacks of Samsung's boundary-pushing AMOLED displays, not to mention the eye-searing brightness you get from Sony and Motorola's LCD-powered offerings.

Stacked side by side with a Galaxy S9+ while playing the trailer for Avengers: Infinity War, the Mi Mix 2S underwhelmed, with muted hues and slightly poorer visibility in darker scenes. Look closely, and you'll see some light stippling that crops up on solid colors caused by the display's pixel matrix. Fine details, like the texture of Black Panther's suit, just weren't as crisp on the Mi Mix 2S.

The Mi Mix 2S' screen lacks the punch and perfect blacks of Samsung's boundary-pushing AMOLED displays, not to mention the eye-searing brightness you get from Sony and Motorola's LCD-powered offerings.

In terms of numbers, Xiaomi's flagship was again solid but nothing to challenge to status quo. The Mi Mix 2S topped out at a full-screen brightness of 441 nits. Colors were accurate, registering a Delta-E score of 0.28 (numbers closer to 0 are better), though saturation and temperature can be adjusted to taste on the Settings menu. The phone reproduced 124.4 percent of the sRGB color space, which is also satisfactory for an LCD panel. For comparison, the Galaxy S9 reached 630 nits and a 231-percent gamut, which is about as good as it gets among modern handsets.

Camera: Solid in sunlight

The "S" in the name Mi Mix 2S stands for a few extras not found in the regular Mi Mix 2: an updated processor, wireless charging and, perhaps most importantly, a pair of dual cameras. (Previously, there was only one.) You'll find two 12-megapixel shooters on the back of Xiaomi's flagship: a main one with an f/1.8 aperture and a secondary telephoto at f/2.4.

But that's not all, because like so many phones marketed on the strength of their photo-taking prowess, the Mi Mix 2S' cameras are smart. Xiaomi has followed in the footsteps of Huawei and LG with its new AI Camera feature that allows the device to recognize scenes and adjust settings appropriately on the fly.

To see what the Mi Mix 2's new duo of lenses could do, I took it, along with the dual-lens Galaxy S9+, out into the wild. Despite the overcast skies, both Xiaomi and Samsung's phones impressed capturing this tranquil scene in a Pennsylvania state park.

The Mi Mix 2 demonstrates punchier colors and more-realistic contrast in comparison to the washed-out hues produced by the Galaxy S9+. But then again, the sharper S9+ nails the finer details, like the ripples of water down the stream and the sediment along the banks of the creek. The two phones excel in different areas, so it's tough to pick a winner.

These portraits tell a similar story. Both devices clearly opt for different styles; the Galaxy's is more dramatic, with deeper shadows in comparison to the Mi Mix 2S' more natural, muted exposure. Again, there's this slight fuzziness to Xiaomi's rendition, most evident as you zoom in on the model's denim jacket. But this is another case in which the choice of a winner is simply a matter of preference.

However, that changed as the afternoon wore on. These close-ups of moss on the side of a tree taken with each device's telephoto lens favor the Galaxy S9+ in a big way. While the Mi Mix 2S pulled out its foliage filter to pump up the saturation here, I wouldn't say the result worked to Xiaomi's advantage. The moss should have been a lush mix of greens and yellows, not straight-up emerald. The Mi Mix 2S' take lacks nuance, depth and detail. It also could have used some of the blur the Galaxy S9+ expertly applied to the foreground.

The Mi Mix 2S saved its worst performance by far for the low-light round. Xiaomi's device delivered a muddy mess of a shot back in our office. The photo resembled something you'd get out of a budget prepaid handset from five years ago rather than the work of an ostensibly state-of-the-art flagship. The Mi Mix 2S was no competition for the Galaxy S9+, which captured the small plant with remarkable clarity and no noise in sight.

What about that 8-MP front-facing camera? I know  it looks awful, not unlike the "nose cams" adorning many laptops in recent years. Thankfully, though, because the Mi Mix 2S is a phone and not a computer, this camera placement is not that bad. Just turn the device upside down before snapping a selfie, and the screen will flip, too. It's not ideal but far from the worst-case scenario.

The selfie camera's position at the bottom isn't as big a deal as you might think.

As for the images the front camera produces, those are a different story. The Mi Mix 2S' front-facing camera couldn't reconcile the gray sky, leading to a dreary portrait and very blown-out clouds. The Galaxy S9+ suffered from a similar problem, but the extra dash of color in my face and the background lifts the frame in a much-needed way.

Performance: The fastest (for now)

We're smack dab in the middle of smartphone season, which means you can expect new devices to up the ante for performance until the end of the year. For now, though, Xiaomi can claim the title as most powerful Android handset in the world.

That's mostly thanks to the Snapdragon 845 chipset inside, which by itself is already a very capable slice of silicon. But the Mi Mix 2S is one of the first 845-powered products to also feature an optional 8GB of RAM, rather than 4GB or 6GB, as in the Galaxy S9 and S9+, respectively. And that makes the difference between a fast phone and a reallyfast phone.

MORE: Best Smartphones on the Market Now

Our 8GB Mi Mix 2S edged out the Galaxy S9+ in Geekbench 4, a benchmark that measures overall performance, There, Xiaomi's device turned in a score of 8,377, compared to Samsung's 8,295. That's a slight but noteworthy difference, because the extra RAM means the Mi Mix 2S can juggle more apps running concurrently without experiencing slowdown.

Surprisingly, however, the Mi Mix 2S' strong showing didn't carry over to 3DMark's Sling Shot Extreme graphics test. The phone managed only 3,248 in the OpenGL ES 3.1 portion of the benchmark, while the Galaxy S9+ notched 4,617.

It's hard to say why the Mi Mix 2S underperformed in 3DMark, as this phone carries the very same Adreno 630 GPU found in Samsung's flagship. What's even stranger, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds Mobile ran just as smoothly on the Mi Mix 2S as it did on the Galaxy S9+. In any case, having gamed with the phone, we don't believe the numbers are worth sweating; the Mi Mix 2S is a top performer.

Battery Life: Just above average

The 3,400-mAh battery inside the Mi Mix 2S lasted 10 hours and 15 minutes after streaming web pages on T-Mobile LTE. That's just above the 9:50 average for smartphones.

It's a good result, but not quite as good as those from other top-line devices, like the 11-hour Galaxy S9+, the 12-hour Google Pixel 2 XL or the astonishingly long-lasting Huawei Mate 10 Pro, which called it quits after 14 hours and 39 minutes.

While we didn't have the Mi Mix 2S' stock adapter on hand to perform a charging-speed test, Xiaomi did provide Tom's Guide with one of the company's own wireless charging pads, which come packaged with the 256GB model. Clad in white silicone with a minimalist look, Xiaomi's 7.5A pad takes the Mi Mix 2S from empty to full in about 3 hours. That's hardly a pinch, but then again, the pad is quite inexpensive, costing the equivalent of $15 when bought alone.

Because both the Mi Mix 2S and the wireless charger operate on the Qi standard (the same used on Apple's latest iPhones), you can use any Qi pad in place of the Xiaomi one. Some of them are more powerful than Xiaomi's stock pad and will top up the handset faster. Here are some of our favorites.

Software: An unusual take on Android

Welcome to Android as you've never seen it before. Although the Mi Mix 2S comes equipped with Android 8.0 Oreo, Google's operating system looks and runs completely differently here than on other handsets, and that's because of Xiaomi's MIUI interface.

MIUI has actually been around for a very long time  seven years, in fact, which means it predates Xiaomi's own phones. Back then, MIUI was pitched as an alternative to stock Android that provided devices like the original Motorola Droid with a user experience more akin to that of iOS. MIUI didn't even support the Google Play store, then known as the Android Market.

Xiaomi's MIUI interface feels cohesive in a way most custom Android skins don't.

Fast-forward to 2018, and MIUI now launches on all of Xiaomi's hardware. The design  which was once heavily inspired by Apple's flair for skeuomorphism, realistic textures and 3D buttons  is flatter and more minimalist to emulate the iOS of today. More importantly, the Play Store is on board.

I have to hand it to Xiaomi for accomplishing something I've long thought impossible: creating an Android skin I actually don't hate using. Many of the same features offered by other manufacturers, like the ability to duplicate apps and create "secret" alternate user profiles, appear in MIUI as well. However, Xiaomi's interface feels cohesive in a way most custom takes on Android don't.

For one thing, the extra functionality is typically useful and never feels tacked on. I like the iPhone X-style gestures that Xiaomi offers as an alternative to Android's traditional navigation bar. I also like the weather widget thoughtfully included above the quick toggles in the notification shade.

MORE: Android Tips to Unlock Your Phone's Full Potential

Those are the kind of little quality-of-life improvements that MIUI offers, and they mesh well with the simplistic, airy and clean aesthetic Xiaomi's established for this phone. It's not for Android purists, nor do I prefer it to the Pixel 2's software. However, MIUI is a stylish departure from tradition that should excite users pining for something that doesn't feel totally like Android or iOS.

For updates, Xiaomi takes a different approach than other manufacturers. The company tells us its Chinese customers are more concerned with getting the latest edition of MIUI, rather than Android updates. For that reason, Xiaomi phones typically receive only one major Android version upgrade during the devices' life spans, while they get up to five or six years of new MIUI software. However, with Google streamlining the Android update process through Project Treble, Xiaomi says it's currently reconsidering its practices.

Bottom Line

There's a lot to like about the Mi Mix 2S. While the greatest minds at other phone makers are busy aping the iPhone X's notch, Xiaomi set down its own path. This is one of the prettiest handsets of the year thus far and likely will remain in that conversation through the end of 2018.

In terms of performance, the Mi Mix 2S is similarly admirable. But right now, Xiaomi's range-topper mostly benefits from Samsung's exclusive hold on the Snapdragon 845 chip here in the U.S. Once that subsides, as it will in the coming weeks with handsets like the Sony Xperia XZ2 and Asus ZenFone 5Z, Xiaomi's advantage will surely erode.

That leaves us with a beautiful phone capable of excellent performance that U.S. buyers will soon be able to get elsewhere, whose other qualities aren't necessarily knocks against it but don't impress, either. The iPhone X and Pixel 2 XL outclass the Mi Mix 2S' hit-or-miss dual cameras, while the Galaxy S9 duo offers far better screens and a more extensive feature set, with water resistance, a microSD card slot and booming stereo speakers. The OnePlus 6  which hasn't been announced yet  will also bring Snapdragon 845 power and will likely compare favorably in terms of price, if history is a good predictor.

One day, the Mi Mix 2S might be sold in these parts. Xiaomi already has a small presence in the U.S., selling assorted tech products on Amazon, and CEO Lei Jun has gone on record saying he'd like to add phones to that roster by the end of this year or early next. If that plan pans out, the Mi Mix 2S would make for quite a premiere, especially if Xiaomi can keep the price down.

But that's not the reality. The Mi Mix 2S doesn't contend with the best devices in its class, and prospective buyers have to jump through too many hoops just to get their hands on one. It's interesting, but simply too inconvenient to recommend.

Credits: Shaun Lucas/Tom's GuideThings will get more emotional, and the Sonata will be gorgeous

Two big pieces of news come from Hyundai today, courtesy of an interview with Autocar. Hyundai Styling Chief, Sang-yup Lee told the outlet that the Russian doll styling wont work for the brand as there are just too many models globally and one look wouldnt suit them all. This is in regard to the awesome styling of the recently revealed Le Fil Rouge, and the future of Hyundai styling in the near and long-term.

You have a king, queen, bishop, knight  theyre all different, but they become a team when theyre all together, said Lee. This is our strategy. I call it a Hyundai look, not a family look.

With that in mind, it shouldnt come as a surprise that Hyundai already has another concept in the works, and it will be more emotional. Lee sees it as a way to demonstrate how Hyundais new design can be interpreted differently. He said that if the Le Fil Rouge is the queen, then the next concept will be the bishop. So, you can expect to see something pretty radical from the Korean brand by the end of this year as it continues to move further and further away from the econobox history it once embraced.

Lee also added in that a new production car in 2019 would take a lot of design cues from the next Le Fil Rouge, which could be really good news. The next production car to come out of Hyundai could very well be the next-gen Sonata. It was introduced in 2015 but was facelifted in 2017. The last two generations had short life cycles (4 to 5 years, max) so 2019 would be the perfect time to showcase an all-new 2020 Sonata.

The Le Fil Rouge was one of the best-looking concepts at the 2018 Geneva Motor Show, and the Sonata would look quite nice with those stout lines and sporty presence, dont you think?Do you have a news tip?

Want to share good news story, or do you have information that should see the light of day? Then we want to hear from you.

More hereA state of emergency is the exceptional power of a government to suspend certain rights or freedoms where some eventusually war, disease or natural disasterthreatens to undermine the very fabric of the state in question.

What is the legal basis for it?even the parks a quit expensive compared to Malawi, Kenya and Zimbabwe.....The Parks are indeed expensive, apart from the fact Tanzania has far better parks and a far better varierty of parks than the three countries you mentioned, the Tanzania government made a conscious decision years ago to charge a high price so they would not attract mass tourism and back packers.

The mass tourism part didn't work ...Also they think they have a resource no other country has so if you want to see it pay for it.

regarding the vehicles the cost reflect that also .......if people are wiling to pay for it why not charge it.

If you are a Tanzania and able to buy a really decent second hand toyota land cruiser for example...it has probably taken you 10 years to save up for it or longer at a cost of 50,000,000/-. You charge US$ 170 - US$ 250 per day for it hire. ( with fuel and driver) .Within two years you will probably have your money back. I would think therefore US$ 300 is a lot for a day trip of 300 kms.

Also you would rather rent the car for 10 days than 1 so the price reflects that as well.This sounds way too hectic, are you doing an overland or fly in safari? It is a several hours to Amboseli from Nairobi and traffic can be terrible. To go there for half day seems not ideal.

Personally Id stick to one country with just 8 nights or days and since you are coming and going from Nairobi Id stick to Kenya. Youd be wasting time traveling which could be spent game viewing. I stayed 4 nights alone before visiting the Mara North conservancy. You could combine the Mara with a couple other parks, like Amboseli. Ol Pejeta is a good place for seeing rhinos.

Since youd be in Nairobi I wouldnt miss visiting the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. There you can see baby elephants who have been rescued as victims of poaching, human wildlife conflict or other causes. They have a public visit at 11 am. The babies come in and sees fed milk bottles and then play around in the mud if the weather warrants. If you foster a baby you can go to a foster parent visitation at 5 pm (You have to contact them or have your operator areange for you to do the foster parent visit). They have over 20 baby elephants under their care in Nairobi alone right now. The 5 pm visit you get to see them put to bed and many come up to the front of their stockades/stables where you can touch them.

There is an option for a fly in safari which will save you long hours of driving time. Youd fly in and use camp guides and vehicles. They run a little more expensive since you have to pay for airfare. I have not used but I know Gamewatchers has tented camps in Mara, Amboseli, Ol Pejeta and offer packages, they get very good reviews. I know people who have stayed at their Porini camps.

If youd prefer to go to Tanzania then id suggest flying to Arusha instead of Nairobi, if you can and doing the northern circuit with Serengeti, Ngorongoro and Tarangire. I went to Tarangire in September and it was wonderful. Id think in September maybe Tanzania is better for migration.

I wouldnt do both Serengeti and the Mara its the same ecosystem.

Tented camps can sometimes be more expensive than lodges. September is considered high season so it will run more expensive than if you go in an lower or mid season. If the migration isnt a must see and budget is more a concern you could consider a different month where rates can often be significantly less or promotions are offered. Ive never gone for the migration have not been disappointed by any of my trips. I even saw a ton of wildlife in the Mara North in the month of December.

Edited: 3 years agoHello all ,

Desperately looking for some advice.

We are a fit, young at heart and reasonably well travelled older couple. This will be our 2nd trip to Vietnam and we want to travel in the south this time. We are not going till December but have booked our flight from phu quoc to HCHC as that willl be our final flight before going home. Phew!

My questions are....Is the pollution on phu quoc that bad? We are looking at staying at Ong Long.

Would we be better to go somewhere else for a bit of R&R?

If so any suggestions?

Very much appreciate any recommendations/ opinions.

RoseHi all,

We have 16 days in Vietnam in September. Want to get a real feel for the place, so basically doing Hanoi to Hoi An. Any ideas on itinerary?

We've found a couple of backpacker tours ( ) ( ) that road it all the way from Hanoi to Hoi An, which we like the idea of, but we're not backpackers.

Thanks in advance for advice.

WayneHi all, I did a 3 week trip to Japan last year and liked it so much that I am doing another 2.5 week trip this summer. Last year, I did Tokyo/Kyoto/Osaka/Hiroshima/Takayama/Mt Fuji/Kamikochi.

I am looking for input on my upcoming trip from June 20-July 8 from Australia to Japan.

About me: I am a young male traveller who loves hiking and the outdoors, and adventure. When I go on trips, I enjoy doing as much as possible including waking up early and lots of activity. I do not have a budget, but I am planning to stay in hostels/camping for this trip.

My current plan: Arrive early June 20th in Tokyo, and depart July 8 evening from tokyo.

This gives me 19 full days.

Day's 0-13 Fly straight to Hokkaido, rent a car and do a big road trip around Hokkaido. A few places I want to see: Sapporo, Mt Asahi, Mt Poroshiri, Mt Meakan, Mt Oakan, Lake Mashu, Mt Shari, Mt Shiretoko, Noboribetsu, Mt Tarumae, Hakodate, Farm Tomita, some onsens.

Questions: What is the best order to see these places? What are some of the best places to camp for these destinations? Are there any other places in Hokkaido that I should put on my list or remove?

Days 14-16: Fly to Tokyo, go to Yamanashi prefecture. Climb Mt Kita, Mt Aino. Travel to Nikko.

Day 16-17. Explore Nikko. Climb Mt Nantai, see the shrines/temples, go to an Onsen.

Day 17-19 Relax in Tokyo.

Questions: Does it make sense to see Nikko first or the Akaishi mountains? What is the best way to travel between Nikko and Akaishi mountains area by train/bus? Are there any websites where I can find people to join for the hikes? Like a meet up group?

Edited: 3 years agoRe: Possible to withdraw AUD directly from ATMs in Fiji?

3. Re: Possible to withdraw AUD directly from ATMs in Fiji?

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This topic has been closed to new posts due to inactivity. We hope you'll join the conversation by posting to an open topic or starting a new one.

To review the Tripadvisor Forums Posting Guidelines, please follow this link: http://www.tripadvisor.com/pages/forums_posting_guidelines.html

We remove posts that do not follow our posting guidelines, and we reserve the right to remove any post for any reason.For English speaking babysitters in Tokyo:

I just wanted to share on the trip advisor forum for parents like us that are always looking for English speaking babysitters while traveling internationally. We were traveling in Japan for awhile and so I tried several different babysitting services while we were in Tokyo so we could do more adult activities without the kids for some hours. The agencies like babysitters.jp and the services directly in the hotels came out to a whopping $50/hour after it was all said and done with the hourly rate + additional fees and charges for transportation, admin, etc with a minimum 3-hours required (and the sitters were only paid around $12/hr). You are also assigned a babysitter and trust who you are assigned to with no input.

I finally used Carefinder where you pay a membership fee and then you have access to a ton of different babysitters that speak English (and other languages), are screened, insured, and vetted by the company personally and you can interview / message any potential sitters before offering a babysitting job to someone. Each sitter has a profile listing their experience and reviews from other parents that have used them. I ended up paying a sitter $10/hr for one kid, and $15/hr when we had 2 kids the week after and both babysitters we got were amazing. Both had several years of nanny experience, spoke English and followed our instructions with no problems.

Even with the membership fee tacked onto the hourly rate, we saved literally hundreds of dollars using Carefinder for English speaking babysitting services in Tokyo, we selected the babysitter ourselves, and got a better quality sitters.

I just wanted to provide this resource for Carefinder ( ) to anyone that needs English babysitting in Tokyo! It was a lifesaver for us traveling parents!Re: 5 nights in New york help with my itinerary

3. Re: 5 nights in New york help with my itinerary

I think you planned pretty well. You probably won't get everything in that you want to get in. So my general suggestion is do what you really want first thing in the day.

As for restaurants I would Suggest Searching the neighborhoods that you Think you will b visiting - researching on yelp.com. Or menupages.com . This is what I do before my trips.

Perhaps Research a few restaurants that you know fit your budget. All restaurants do Post their menus outside so this is helpful.

There are many many restaurants and take away places all over the place. But sometimes you do get stuck, New York is a very exhausting place. so a little Preliminary research on restaurants that fit your budget or your style is helpful.

Diners offer meals on the cheaper side also pubs& food halls.

if you enjoy Chinese food- Manhattan Chinatown iS there with inexpensive choices.

Times Square is a Must for the first time visitor but I don't recommend eating in Time Square- go west. Edited to add sorry I thought you said you were eating in Times Square but you did not say that. Excuse me.

The Hell's Kitchen neighborhood which is just west of Times Square Primarily on 8th and 9th Avenue in the 40s and the 50s. There's lots of good offerings of food there. All prices are available from cheap to expensive. Georgio's Country Grill is in Hell's Kitchen I recommend this restaurant- moderately priced.

In the East Village Han Dynasty is a great Chinese restaurant.

check out the food Blog of Ziggy. EatingWithziggy.com. Especially The the z-list.

Many many choices here.

Edited: 3 years agoFlew from Malaysia and was my first trip to NY and ended with a bad experience on the very first day. Touched down at JFK on the 20th of April, 2018 at night. Immediately went to the taxi stand to take a taxi, a guy was standing right beside the taxi stand and asked us where we are going. I said to Medford, Long Island, and he asked us to follow him. I asked why we are not the yellow taxi stand, and he said those only go to lower Manhattan. I wasn't paying much attention at that time and thought that he was one of the taxi drivers. Went to his car (not even a taxi), I asked again what are the charges, he said according to the book, and he showed me taxi receipts that he able to issue.

Went from JFK to Medford Long Island, and was charged USD448 at the end. Asked the receptionist at the hotel after that and said I was overcharged. Only that time I realized I was scammed. These scammers pray on travelers after long haul flight and didn't pay much attention. I managed to snap some pictures of the whole incident. Please share this with your family and friends so that no one else will be caught the same situation (All relevant pictures have been posted in Yelp ( ), posted date: 6th of May, 2018). Don't listen to anybody and only get on an official taxi.

Before I left the JFK Airport Terminal 8 on my flight out on the 29th of April, 2018, I went to the Welcome Center at the arrival terminal 8 to lodge a report. Talked to the customer service personnel and the police officer of the airport. They were furious to hear what has happened and the police officer also noted down all the details (Car plate number: HNZ 7181). The police explained that there are already police officers and plain cloth officers around but this still happening. I sincerely hope that more can be done to protect the visitors. (Although i noted the signs in the airport that says don't get on unofficial rides, but this is still not enough as there should be police officers standing right beside the taxi stand to protect incoming travelers). These scammers are really daring to stand beside the taxi stand to scam people. Please share this post to other sites too. Thank you.Jeff Koinage is one of the most popular and successful Kenyans in the whole world probably. A journalist a professional interviewer, a presenter of his own talk-show. It seems his last name is very famous. But Jeff is not the only one of the Koinanges who made the name glorious. Jeff Koinange family has quite a history strongly connected with the history of the country. Lets learn it.

Source - businesstoday.co.ke

Jeff Koinange family background

Jeff Koinange age 52 was born in Kenya in 1966. And you can safely say that he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Why is that? Well, it is all about his family tree.

His grandfather Koinange wa Mbiyu, the founder of the family. Illiterate himself but very smooth-talking and active did a lot so that Kenya could gain independence from Great Britain.

He actively supported the Mau Mau Revolt and then was given a post of the headman by British authorities. In 1938 he became the Senior Chief of Kiambu District. He lived a long and bright life. Koinange wa Mbiyu had six wives and 36 children.

Source - www.nation.co.ke

Jeff Koinange and family history continues with the name of Peter Mbiyu Koinange Jeffs uncle. Mbiyu Koinange continued his fathers work and did everything he could for the independence of Kenya.

He was the first Kenyan ever to get higher education. For this purpose he went to USA state Verginia and entered Hampton Institute. Then he continued his studies in Ohio where he got a Bachelor Degree. After a year there he went to study in Columbia University and Cambridge. This was followed by the University of London. And only after that he returned home as an educated man his father and family could be proud of.

Source - alchetron.com

Mbiyu Koinange served his country as a politician and a member of the Cabinet of the first President of the independent Kenya - Jomo Kenyatta. And his younger brother chose a political career as well. For more than three decades he was a colonial chief and then a civil servant.

Source - www.sde.co.ke

Jeff Koinange father

As it was mentioned above the founder of the Koinanges family had six wives and his third wife gave birth to his son Fredrick Mbiyu Koinange the man later would be Jeffs father.

Fredric was a businessman in Nairobi, he owned the first Kenyan petrol station. He fell in love with the daughter of a prosperous farmer and made a proposal. The couple got the family blessing but Fredric didnt have the opportunity to actually marry his fiancee. The emergency state was announced on the territory of Kenya and the man was arrested and imprisoned.

After some time his fiancee got tired of waiting him and she eloped with another man. So, her elder sister Hilda, the first child in the family started to send letters to Fredric. At that time she was a teacher. Its said that he was confused by the fact at the beginning. But that letters supported him and through them the couple fell in love. Hilda started visiting him in the Manyani.

Hilda got pregnant and their son Jeff was born. But Fredric didnt get a chance to see him growing into famous journalist. He died two month after the day his son appeared into the world. So Hilda raised Jeff and three other children alone.

READ ALSO: Meet man claiming to be Jeff Koinanges long lost son

Jeff Koinange biography

Source - the-star.co.ke

As you see Koinanges family history is quite interesting. Jeff Koinange biography is interesting itself as well. Jeff Koinange family can be really proud of him as of part of the dynasty. Jeff is the first African reporter famous in other countries. And he is the first African journalist who got an Emmy. And now everyone is curious about how big Jeff Koinange net worth is and how many Jeff Koinange cars there are in his garage. But first things first.

Did you know that from the very start the author of great book Through My African Eyes did not think about himself as about the future journalist? It all began with meeting a stranger in the flight where Jeff worked as a steward. That passenger told him that Jeffs voice can help him make a successful career in the industry. Only after that Jeff entered the university in New York to get a degree in in Broadcast Journalism.

After that Jeff Koinange has built a solid and notable career as a journalist and has gained a well-deserved reputation of a professional. He started it as a reporter for ABC News and then become a producer for NBC.

The new millennium started for Jeff at CNN where he has been in chief for reports from the whole African continent. Their work with CNN lasted six years.

In 2007 Mr. Koinange left CNN after being accused by the government of Niger for staged report on the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta. Jeff denied all the accusations and left to host the popular Capital Talk on K24. By the way, Jeff Koinange was awarded as The Best Talk Show Host for his show eight year ago. Which is in 2010 and 2011.

Currently Jeff is hosting popular Kenyan talk show Jeff Koinange Live on Citizen TV and he also is the Chief of E.A Bureau at Kenya Television Network.

Family and personal life

Source - www.msanii.com

Jeff Koinange family photos appear on the web very seldom to put it mildly, almost never better to say we can suppose that Jeff Koinange wife and he himself strongly believe that private life must stay private.

We know that Jeff is married to Shaila Koinange. It also is not a secret that her and Jeff Koinange son Jamal Mbiyu Koinange was born in 2007 after nine years of his parents childless marriage. So, now the boy is pre-teen.

And maybe the family is right keeping their life in secret. It is safer this way. And safety of the family is the most important thing for every man. Especially taking the bad experience they had a couple of years ago, when Jeff Koinange house was robbed.

So, what can we tell about Jeff Koinange in general?

He is without a shadow of a doubt a decent part of his notable family. A talented, gifted and hardworking professional who can be trusted by colleagues and by his audience equally. Last, but not least Jeff Koinange salary corresponds to his professionalism. And his net worth estimated by Forbes as ksh 50 billion clearly affords Jeff Koinange car of choice to be a Mercedes Benz G-class.

Source - www.sde.co.ke

READ ALSO: Jeff Koinange family history and background

Source: Tuko Breaking News- The movie star took the city by surprise as no one was expecting to see her

- Her visit was so secret even county officials were caught completely unaware

- Lupita was reportedly accompanied by investors when she landed in the lakeside city

- The governor's daughter later held a meeting with her dad together with the visitors

- Her handlers reportedly made sure the usually nosy and inquisitive journalists did not get a chance to ask her questions

Lupita Nyong'o was spotted in Kisumu city on Saturday, May 5, 2018. Yes, this may sound like a prank, but it is true.

The celebrated Oscar award-winning actress secretly jetted into the country and stealthily made her way to Kisumu city, catching nearly everyone off-guard including county officials who were reportedly expecting visitors but not Lupita .

Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens

READ ALSO: Tabia 5 za wanawake za kushangaza kanisani

Kenyan-born actress Lupita Nyong'i receiving Oscar Award for her role in the 12 Years A Slave film. Photo: Jason LaVeris/WireImage.

READ ALSO: Lupita Nyong'o announces another African project after a successful Black Panther

TUKO.co.ke has reliably established Lupita arrived in the country in the company of several foreign investors.

Report by The Standard newspaper indicated the actress was also accompanied by a number of county officials including Alice Moraa, Thomas Oukoa, Achile Alai and radio-host and comedian Jalang'o besides a contingent of security personnel.

READ ALSO: Raila graces Nairobis Black Panther premier in the company of governor Nyongo

Lupita Nyong'o speaks onstage at 'Time's Up' during the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival at Spring Studios on April 28, 2018 in New York City. Photo: Roy Rochlin/Getty Images.

Lupita, the investors and the county officials traveled around the city under tight security and later held a private sit-down with Governor Peter Anyang' Nyong'o, her father.

The media was not allowed to either take photos or interview Lupita during the impromptu visit to the lakeside city. Her handlers reportedly insisted on total privacy.

TUKO.co.ke understands the investors may be looking forward to support the Kenyan artists, which might help explain why they came along with Lupita.

READ ALSO: Lupita keeps her promise, sponsors 600 Kisumu school children to watch black panther

Award-winning actress Lupita Nyong'o featuring in new movie, Black Panther, that was premiered in Kisumu city in 2018. Photo: Capital FM.

The actress's surprise visit came about three months since her movie, Black Panther, a new super hero blockbuster, was premiered in Kisumu city on February 13, 2018.

This was also her second visit to Kenya since she scooped the prestigious and highly coveted Oscar Award in 2014 for her role in the 12 Years a Slave movie.

Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news.

Willy Paul Interview for Tuko Buzz: Relationship, critics and going secular - On Tuko TV

Source: Tuko.co.ke- The heavily pregnant woman had bled throughout the night

- She sustained two gunsho wounds after getting hit by stray bullets

- She had been marooned by raging floods in the area and couldn't access help

A seven month pregnant woman from Eborr village in Marsabit county who had bled the whole night was rescued from floods on Saturday, May 5.

The middle aged woman sustained two gunshots after she was hit by stray bullets as rangers pursued hyenas that terrorised the village.

Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens

According to NTV, Captain Stephanus Kruger who had flown Devolution Cabinet Secretary Eugene Wamalwa and other government officials to the area, abandoned his official duties to rush her to the hospital.

READ ALSO: Mtizame Gavana Joho alipokuwa kijana barubaru (picha)

Stephanus Kruger who had flown Devolution Cabinet Secretary Eugene Wamalwa and other government officials to the area, abandoned his official duty to rescue her. Photo: Eugene Wamalwa/Twitter.

READ ALSO: Supply us with condoms - Kilifi flood victims cry out to government

The woman was reportedly marooned by raging floods in the area and efforts to rescue her were futile.

The villages then made distress call upon seeing the helicopter hovering above their village.

Area chief Karicha Boru said poor communication network coverage further hampered their efforts as they moved to the hilltops in search of network so that they could communicate.

"There was too much bleeding. You see she is seven months pregnant.We moved to the mountain in order to signal the county ambulance. However they kept telling us the car could not wade through the flood," he said.

READ ALSO: Kilifi governor dispatches condoms to flood victims after their cry

The villagers then carried her to the helicopter where Captain Kruger and a nursing officer handling flood victims put her on a drip.

She was airlifted to a waiting ambulance which was 40 km away and taken to a hospital in Moyale where she is recuperating.

Wamalwa was leading government officials in assessing trail of damages left by ongoing heavy rains experienced in parts of Kenya.

Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram.

Nairobi floods: Heavy rains rock Nairobi city (Kenya News) - on TUKO TV

Source: Tuko- They claimed ODM party leaders intention for the recent handshake was was not genuine

- Murkomen wondered why Raila was engaging in political activities and not unity call

- The leaders said they were not scared of the opposition chief's candidature for 2022

Leaders allied to Jubilee party have hit out at ODM counterparts for playing politics with the now famous handshake between NASA principal Raila Odinga and President Uhuru Kenyatta.

Led by the Senate Majority Leader Kipchumba Murkomen, they said the disclosure by some ODM MPs that Raila would be their presidential candidate in 2022 was a clear indication that his intention for the recent handshake was suspect.

Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens

Murkomen wondered why Raila who entered into a unity pact with Uhuru was engaging in political activities at the expense of bringing Kenyans together for the sake of unity and development.

READ ALSO: Mtizame Gavana Joho alipokuwa kijana barubaru (picha)

Murkomen was now engaging in political activities at the expense of bringing Kenyans together. Photo: Kipchumba Murkomen/Twitter.

READ ALSO: I'm not interested in 2022 politics - Raila Odinga

Speaking in Elgeyo Marakwet county during an interdenominational prayer service on Sunday, May 6, attended by Deputy President William Ruto, the leaders said opposition leaders were now using the handshakes to push Railas political agenda in 2022.

It is now becoming increasingly clear that the recent handshake is being used for a political agenda. What looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck is a duck.

Raila is telling us that the recent handshake is for the unity of this country while in political rallies he is talking about 2022 politics. This means he is not sincere in this matter, said Murkomen.

The leaders, however, said they were not scared of the opposition chief's candidature for 2022, saying it would be a walkover for Ruto.

READ ALSO: ODM declares it will sponsor presidential candidate in 2022 after Raila-Moi handshake

Jubilee leaders said opposition leaders were now using the handshakes to push Railas political agenda in 2022. Photo: Raila Odinga/Facebook.

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Your father is not a small god - Khalwale tells Gideon Moi

Ruto is the preferred Jubilees presidential candidate.

We are ready and prepared to face Raila come 2022. Rutos development record speaks for itself. Now that James Orengo has told us that their candidate will be in the ballot in 2022, we now know that the ongoing handshakes are about the future of Raila ," added Gatundu South MP Moses Kuria.

Ruto steered cleared off the 2022 debate assured Kenyans the governments development agenda will not be distracted by politics.

He said they were focused on the implementation of the Big Four agenda which are manufacturing, universal healthcare, affordable housing and food security.

READ ALSO: Kalonzo, Mudavadi, Wetangula spotted in rare get together party without Raila

I want to assure Kenyans that we will not be distracted by politics in implementing our development agenda. Our plans are firm and on course as this will enable us present our report card to Kenyans when the time comes, said Ruto.

The deputy president urged those who were joining hands with Jubilee to concentrate on the unity and development of the country.

Among other leaders present were Governors Jackson Mandago of Uasin Gishu and Alex Tolgos of Elgeyo Marakwet, MPs Moses Kuria, Daniel Rono , Kwenya Thuku and Lydia Haika.

On Saturday, May 5, a group of politicians led by Siaya Senator James Orengo lambasted those calling on the ODM party leader to retire from politics.

They said Raila had not accomplished his mission and was the best bet for the Orange party.

Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news.

Top-4 Inspiring And Lovely Families of Powerful Kenyan Politicians - On Tuko TV

Source: Tuko05/04/2018

By Jill Gambon

Voters got to hear candidates address the issues and students got to participate in the political process as the university hosted debates between Democrats in the Massachusetts 3rd Congressional District race.

Held on April 29, the debates brought 12 candidates to Durgin Hall to field questions about foreign policy, the federal deficit, wage stagnation, gun policy, immigration and other topics. The candidates are seeking the seat being vacated by U.S. Rep. Niki Tsongas, who is stepping down at the end of the year.

The candidates were split in two groups, based on the results of a Boston Globe-UMass Lowell poll conducted in April. The poll showed a majority (59 percent) of respondents have not yet made up their minds about whom they will vote for in the Sept. 4 primary.

The debates, sponsored by UMLs Center for Public Opinion and The Boston Globe, attracted hundreds of attendees. UMass President Marty Meehan was on hand, as were local elected officials, candidates families and supporters, students and faculty.

Photo by Tory Wesnofske Photo by Tory Wesnofske Political science major David Todisco, center, serves as a debate panelist along with Boston Globe State House Bureau Chief Frank Phillips, left, and Lowell Sun city hall reporter Rick Sobey.



Shaila Bornstein, a junior majoring in criminal justice, was a panelist during the first debate, and David Todisco, a senior political science major, participated in the second.

Students from UMLs College Democrats chapter served as timekeepers and ushers.

Civic engagement by young people on both sides of the political aisle is important to the health of our democracy. Im pleased UMass Lowell students are at the forefront, Chancellor Jacqueline Moloney said in welcoming attendees to Durgin Hall.

Todisco, president of UMLs College Democrats, agreed.

I think its an amazing opportunity, he said, adding that students are paying attention to the race, and several candidates have already come to campus to meet with his group.

Photo by Tory Wesnofske Photo by Tory Wesnofske With a dozen Democrats vying for the 3rd Congressional District seat, the field was divided into two debates.



Prof. Frank Talty, who is also co-director of the Center for Public Opinion, said educating the public on the issues is part of the universitys mission.

As a public university in a district where we are the major institution of higher learning, we have an obligation to participate in civic engagement, he said.

Bornstein spent the week before the debate preparing for her role as a panelist. She reviewed the questions she was going to ask, memorized the schedule and familiarized herself with the stage at Durgin.

I wanted to be able to speak comfortably and confidently, she said.

Photo by Tory Wesnofske Photo by Tory Wesnofske Students watch the afternoon debate at Durgin Hall.

Bornstein said the debates offered students an opportunity to get involved in the political process.

You get to experience democracy first-hand. You get to hear the candidates answers in real time and see how they respond, she said. Thats different than watching speeches on Facebook.

Facing off in the first debate were Jeff Ballinger, Beej Das, Leonard Golder, Patrick Littlefield, Bopha Malone and Keith St. John. In the second debate, candidates Alexandra Chandler, Rufus Gifford, Dan Koh, Barbara LItalien, Juana Matias and Lori Trahan took the stage.

The winner of the Democratic primary will face Pepperell businessman Rick Greene, the only Republican candidate in the race, in the Nov. 6 general election.

Watch the debates.Ukraine and its international partners call for the immediate release of illegally detained persons and ensuring their rights to peaceful protest.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine strongly condemns the brutal attacks of the Kremlin regime's punitive units against Russian citizens who have taken to the streets to stage "He's not our tsar" peaceful protest rallies that rolled across Russia ahead of Vladimir Putin's inauguration.

Read alsoPolice detain over thousand protesters at anti-Putin rallies across Russia

"Detentions and arrests of more than 1,600 peaceful citizens is a further proof of fear of the regime and the shameful state policy of suppressing human rights and fundamental freedoms, attempts to stamp out any dissent in Russia. Use of violence against minors and young people is especially outraging," the ministry said in a statement on May 6.

Furthermore, Ukraine and its international partners call for the immediate release of illegally detained persons and ensuring their rights to peaceful protest against tyranny and injustice.

As UNIAN reported earlier, protest rallies titled "He's not our tsar" and set up by supporters of the Russian opposition's Alexei Navalny, launched across Russian cities on Sunday, May 5.

Activists staged rallies in the cities of Vladivostok, Khabarovsk, Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Irkutsk, Barnaul, and Krasnoyarsk.

Opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who stood behind the protests, as well as his associate Nikolai Lyaskin were detained in Moscow.

A total of over 1,200 people were taken to police stations in the Russian capital.This year, about 3,700 service members from 13 NATO allies and partner nations are taking part in the event.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko proudly boasted about the success of the Ukrainian military in the Combined Resolve X international drills held in southeastern Germany.

Read alsoUkroboronprom showcases BMP-1AK IFVs delivered from Poland (Photo, video)

"Organizers of the Combined Resolve X international exercises had to change the scenario [of drills] because of the daring, professional and surprisingly effective actions of Ukrainians [military]. Our paratroopers from the 79th separate assault brigade [Mykolaiv] and tankers from the 14th separate mechanized brigade showed real success at the military training area," Poroshenko wrote on Facebook.

As was earlier reported, servicemen of the 79th separate assault brigade and tank platoon of the 14th separate mechanized brigade would participate in the Combined Resolve X international drills on April 9-May 12, 2018.

According to Poroshenko, this year, about 3,700 service members from 13 NATO allies and partner nations are taking part in the event. During the exercises, the Ukrainian assault company will use seven BTR-80 amphibious armored personnel carriers, and tank crews will carry out tasks, using five T-84 tanks.One of the detainees had a passport of a Russian citizen.

The SBU Security Service of Ukraine in the city of Kharkiv on May 5 detained a group of young people who attacked a Donbas war veteran Dmytro Verbych, an ex-'Cyborg,' a nickname given to Ukrainian soldiers who defended Donetsk airport.

Read alsoUkraine's 'Cyborg' stabbed by a group of four in Kyiv

"One of the detainees said she was walking about in Kyiv's Podil area with two guys and a girl. In her words, they saw a young man wearing a T-shirt with images of [Ukraine's] national symbols. The guys said that the man was a Ukrainian nationalists [a supporter of the so-called "Bandera ideology"], therefore he should be punished," the Ukrainian online news outlet Obozrevatel wrote, referring to its sources.

The young people, who position themselves as anti-fascists, pursued the veteran for a while. Then the attackers put masks on and stabbed Verbych, spraying tear gas. The perpetrators then fled towards a Silpo supermarket and boarded a trolleybus," the publication said.

One of the detainees was carrying a passport of a Russian citizen in the name of Vyacheslav Lukichev.

The police are checking the links of the attackers and identifying possible customers, Obozrevatel said.

As UNIAN reported earlier, Verbych was attacked at 59/5 Kostiantynivska Street in Kyiv. He was stabbed in the lower back and sprayed with tear gas. The attackers tried to kill him with a hammer then.The aggressor employed banned mortars, artillery, and tanks to attack the Ukrainian position.

Russia's hybrid military forces attacked Ukrainian army positions in Donbas nine times in the past 24 hours, with two Ukrainian soldiers reported as wounded in action (WIA).

Read alsoUNICEF on Donbas: 200,000 children forced to learn in bullet-riddled classrooms

The most intense hostilities were recorded near the villages of Krymske, Novotoshkivske, Luhanske, Vodiane, Shyrokyne, and the town of Avdiyivka, Ukraine's Joint Forces Operation (JFO) Staff press service wrote on Facebook.

As reported, the Ukrainian military suppressed the enemy fire, as appropriate. The aggressor employed banned mortars, artillery, and tanks to attack the Ukrainian position.

"The JFO units performed active defense, suppressing the occupiers' attempts to use armored vehicles. Our separate units conducted successful joint operations. During a raid, one militant was taken prisoner," the report said.

Intelligence data claim, six militants were killed in action and another four  wounded.

On the eve, on May 5, the Russian-led militants fired at the Hnutove checkpoint in Donetsk region twice. There were many civilians there, who were evacuated to shelters.The enemy used anti-tank guided missiles to attack the checkpoint.

The State Border Guard Service of Ukraine says the Hnutove checkpoint, located in Donbas, eastern Ukraine, has resumed operations, after being attacked by Russian-led militants.

Read alsoOSCE reports attempts by armed formations in Donbas to relocate monitors' cars for inspection

"Today, the Hnutove checkpoint is operating as usual," the agency's press service said in a statement on May 6.

As UNIAN reported earlier, on the morning of May 5, the occupiers used the anti-tank guided missiles twice (at 9:10 and 9:50) to attack the checkpoint, when there were many civilians there.Rescue teams and paramedics are now working at the scene.

Russian-occupation troops, in violation of international humanitarian law, opened fire from 152mm and 122mm artillery systems on the village of Zaitseve in Donetsk region's Bakhmut district twice at about 11:00, May 6.

Read alsoRussian-led militants shell residential buildings in Maiorsk, use 120mm mortars  JFO Staff

"According to preliminary data, one person was wounded as a result of the shelling, while a residential house caught on fire. Rescue teams and paramedics are now working at the scene. The OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine was briefed on the incident," Ukraine's Joint Forces Operation (JFO) Staff said.

As UNIAN reported earlier, the Russian-led militants used proscribed weapons to attack the Ukrainian strongholds nine times over the past day, with two Ukrainian soldiers reported as wounded in action.

The Ukrainian military suppressed the enemy fire, as appropriate. The aggressor employed banned mortars, artillery, and tanks to attack the Ukrainian strong points.Police said they are investigating whether the two incidents are linked.

Two boys, aged 13 and 15, have been shot in north-west London.

Police were called just minutes apart to the shootings at two locations in close proximity in High Street, Wealdstone, The Telegraph reported.

Both boys suffered head injuries but neither is thought to be in a life-threatening condition, police said.

Read alsoKnife-wielding student goes on rampage in Russian school, sets classroom on fire

Both were taken to hospital. Scotland Yard said the younger boy suffered a shotgun pellet wound to the head.

Officers were called to High Street at 1.17pm on Sunday to find a 15-year-old boy had been shot.

Two minutes later they were alerted by London Ambulance Service about a second victim, aged 13, who had been shot at a different location nearby.

Police said they are investigating whether the two incidents are linked.

No-one has been arrested and no firearm has been recovered.

Palmerston Road, just off Wealdstone High Street, was blocked off with police tape and manned by uniformed officers.

A grey adidas sweatshirt with blood stains on the hood lay crumpled on the ground outside a Specsavers store along with a police exhibit number.

Read alsoBloomberg: U.S. investigates Florida 'Kalashnikov' factory with ties to Putin allies

A shopkeeper said the youngster was "lucky to be alive" and they believe a bullet grazed the back of his head.

The manager of a betting shop, who did not give his name, said he was passing by on his lunch break and saw people gathered outside Specsavers around a black man on the ground.

He said: "He was holding his head down. I could not see his face but could see his white t-shirt was proper covered in blood.

"He was sitting calmly as the paramedics were looking after him."

He described Wealdstone as a "kind of rough area and it can be a bit aggressive".

He added that "seeing police around here is just another day" and he was used to seeing boys "just hanging around" in the street.

A green first aid bag could be seen behind the cordon as forensics officers took photographs and passers-by were diverted from the scene.(@FahadShabbir)

The 8th International Judicial Conference (IJC) held at Islamabad on 4th and 5th May concluded on Saturday by passing consolidated recommendations titled "Islamabad Declaration 2018"

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 5th May, 2018 ) :The 8th International Judicial Conference (IJC) held at Islamabad on 4th and 5th May concluded on Saturday by passing consolidated recommendations titled "Islamabad Declaration 2018".

The inaugural & concluding sessions of the conference were presided over by the Chief Justice of Pakistan/Chairman, Law and Justice Commission of Pakistan (LJCP), Mian Saqib Nisar, said a press release issue here by LJCP.

National and international researches, members of academia, judges, lawyers and professional experts deliberated upon the thematic groups of the conference which were chaired by the judges of the Supreme Court of Pakistan.

The recommendations of thematic groups were presented by the chairperson of each thematic group in the concluding session and the same were approved by the house as the Islamabad Declaration 2018.

Consolidated recommendations of the Islamabad Declaration 2018 are as follows: Group I: Regional, Economic Integration and Effective Dispute Resolution Mechanism in the Context of China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) 1.

Introduction of Multimodal Transport Law and Infrastructure in the region to increase the significance of Pakistan's position as a Transit State in the trade between Central Asian Republics. Specifically, the modernization of the law on Carriage of Goods by Sea.

2. Creation of a Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency at a regional level akin to the one established under World Bank (MIGA). 3. Establishment of a Multi-tier Regional Arbitration Centre to resolve any disputes that may arise.

First tier can be the appointment of Dispute Resolution Advisors, as a method to avoid disputes, second tier could be; constituting a dispute review board and the third tier would involve appointment of a dispute adjudication board.

Such a mechanism should exist at a district and provincial level to make dispute resolution accessible. 4. Amendment of Article 8 of the Agreement between Government of Peoples Republic of China and Government of Islamic Republic of Pakistan for the Avoidance of Double Taxation and Prevention of Fiscal Evasion with Respect to Tax on Income, to make the distribution of tax revenues between both countries more equitable and to explicitly allocate the fiscal rights of both signatories to the agreement.

5. Higher Environmental Standards to be applied to all CPEC projects which based on a harmonized set of policies agreed between the two countries. There should also be cooperation and exchange of skills between all provincial environmental protection agencies.

6. The Ministry of Planning, Development & Reforms should make their documents and agreements, made under CPEC, more accessible to the public at large. Group II: Alternative Dispute Resolution Methodologies and Deterring Factors 1.

ADR is admittedly a more effective and efficacious mode of dispute resolution as compared to regular litigation. In several countries. It has effectively been implemented through different models.

2. It is the need of the hour in Pakistan. Directly transplanting a foreign model may not be advisable. Indigenization is the key to cater for Pakistani conditions in the following manner: A. Commercial disputes especially involving local or foreign investment: Time honored international models can be easily adopted and adapted but with emphasis on mediation rather than arbitration which may then be translated into court decrees through appropriate proceedings and legislation if necessary.

In this regard special emphasis needs to be placed on international co-operation and human resource development in Pakistan. B. In pending litigation effective selection of disputes amenable to mediation and ADR is necessary.

Judges need to be specially trained for this purpose because court annexed mediation has been found to be the most effective way C. Vast expanse of people,for socio-economic reasons, have no access to courts at all for redressal of their grievances and protection of their rights.

We tend to forget these faceless voiceless, teeming millions. Access to justice needs to be facilitated through an alternative to our existing court system at the grass root level under the cover of law.

Group III: Strategy for Delay Reduction and Expeditious Disposal of Backlog of Cases 1. Reducing Adjudication Tiers: Instead of having a 4 tier system, a 3 tier system should be introduced, having trial, appeal and constitutional stages, where purely legal issues would be adjudicated.

Questions of facts will be finalized at the 2nd tier. 2. An effective ADR mechanism be instituted: ADR should be made a compulsory part of the dispute resolution process and should be enforced through effective legislation and encouraged by the courts.

It is also important for the parties to follow Pre-Action Protocols/Pre-trial procedures, by meeting beforehand in an attempt to settle their issues, before bringing their case to the court. As a whole there is a need for an effective ADR program to reduce the burden of litigation from courts.

3. Adjournments on Frivolous Grounds to be curbed: Unnecessary adjournments sought by counsel should be discouraged. Adjournments should only be allowed in exceptional circumstances. There is, furthermore, a dire need for reduction of strikes in the courts.

It is of utmost importance that the communication between the Bar Councils and Bar Associations is enhanced so that neither unnecessary adjournments are sought nor granted by the courts. 4. Case-flow Management System: It is recommended that a Case Management System be introduced in order to keep track of cases that as a consequence will help in reducing backlog by speedy disposition of cases.

5. Use of Information Technology and Forensic Sciences: It is imperative that the use of information technology is implemented in different aspects of our justice system, in areas such as registration of electronic FIR, electronic record of case documents, case scheduling and judgments.

6. Strictly following Statutory provisions that curb delays and discourage unnecessary applications: Judges must actively avail the powers granted to them under various laws to curb delays. For example, the maximum duration of stay orders, or the submission of documents within a given time period, must be strictly followed.

Frivolous applications and appeals should be disposed at the earliest opportunity and strongly discouraged. 7. Training of Lawyers and Judges: Participants emphasized on the need of training for lawyers and Judges.

In order to achieve this, training programs for lawyers and judges should be commenced, and the role of judicial academies needs to be strengthened. 8. Increased number of judges and Courts: It is also recommended that the number of courts and judicial staff should be increased in order for speedy disposition of cases.

9. Increased cooperation between Bar and Bench: It is emphasized that both the Bar and the Bench must work together in order to curb delays. GROUP IV: Legal Education and Uniform Selection Criteria for Judicial Officers in Pakistan Legal Education: 1.

Need for greater scrutiny and governance by law schools based on international standards. The criteria for admission of students and recruitment of teachers should be stringent and meritorious and should be clearly defined.

2. Need for a centralized entrance examination that is uniform for all provinces. Should it be equivalent to the CSS examination? 3.

Need for a system that would enable a mechanism to determine which universities are regulated and which are unregulated and consequently, what do with unregulated universities? 4.

Legal education should also encompass several exercises such as mock trials so that students possess the requisite communicational and advocacy skills. It should also include opinion writing and drafting lessons so that students can develop important critical analysis skills.

5. Need for an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approach towards legal education apart from the standard and major law subjects, students should also be taught alternative dispute resolution, clinical education, case study as a method of teaching and other non-legal subjects.

Alternative dispute resolution, in particular, should be taught in detail, as to encompass the various branches that stem from it. Uniform Selection Criteria: 1. The profession of a judicial officer is an ever-evolving one in terms of learning.

Whether renewal of licenses should be made on this basis? 2. There is need to upgrade the standard equivalent and set a uniform standard selection criteria which currently varies from province to province.

Whether there needs to be a centralized system of examination across all provinces that also promotes equality, transparency and meritocracy. 3. How many years of practice are relevant for induction? Whether lateral entry into the judicial system should be allowed? Or is there a need to restrict ourselves to initial induction? 4.

Analytical grading system: Alongside standard eligibility requirements, it is also very important to have a uniform interpretation of qualities whilst selecting judicial officers as is done in other jurisdictions in the world.

These include: appropriate knowledge of the relevant law and its underlying principles, integrity and independence of mind, impartiality, decisiveness, motivation, sound judgment and temperament, ability to quickly absorb and analyse information and work under pressure, ability to communicate orally and in writing in clear standard English, ability to ensure fair court proceedings, ability to work constructively with colleagues and treat everyone with respect and sensitivity as well as the willingness to learn and develop professionally.

5. There was a thought that there should be a federal judicial bureau that offers career planning and Federal Judicial academy should be improved in a manner that it serves as a centre of excellency.

Group V: Relationship of Political and Economic Stability with Revamping of Criminal Justice System Political and Economic Stability: 1. Political instability undermines economic stability and therefore should be avoided.

2. An unstable political environment reduces investment and the pace of economic development. 3. Broad based political consensus should develop the economic agenda to foster investment and economic growth.

Nexus between an Efficient Criminal Justice System and the Economy: 4. The Criminal Justice system should operate to engender confidence in those investing in the economy and safeguarding their persons and property.

Record Keeping, Investigation and Prosecution: 5. Photographic and biometric record both, of under trial and convicted offenders be maintained in provincial and central databases. 6. The above mentioned provincial and central databases should be so maintained, that they can interact with NADRA record to help trace criminals and determine their identities 7.

Law enforcement and prosecution agencies should be trained to gather evidence scientifically and without contaminating crime scenes and latest DNA, fingerprints and forensics techniques should be employed to solve crimes, applying forensic protocols diligently for the successful prosecution of criminals.

8. Enforced disappearances and what are specialized as extrajudicial killings are crimes and those responsible for the commission of such acts must be prosecuted as criminals. 9. Prosecution should ensure that sufficient evidence has been collected that will be of assistance in convicting the accused.

10. All crime scenes should be professionally secured, forensically examined, and extensively photographed as soon as possible. 11. If the investigation officers do not properly collect evidence and investigate crimes, their failure / negligence should be recorded in their personal file and disciplinary action may also be initiated against such officers.

12. Police should be specialized, held accountable; should have operational autonomy, functional specializationin investigation, to better serve the community. Criminal Trials: 13. Priority should be given by courts to criminal trials and when a trial commences, the must proceed without being adjourned.

As a major cause of adjournments is the non-production of the accused, there must be sufficient vehicles available for transporting them to court. 14. In terrorist cases where witnesses may be vulnerable, mechanisms be developed to ensure recording of evidence promptly and concealment of the identity of witnesses, if necessary.

Testimony of such witnesses may also be recorded electronically from a location where the witness feels secure. Combating Extremism: 15. Anti-Terrorism Act should be enforced, terrorists and terrorist organizations must be proscribed without delay and they must not be permitted to hold meetings or propagate their views, must not be allowed to contest elections and those claiming to be members of proscribed organizations be prosecuted in accordance with Anti-Terrorism Act.

16. To counter extremist ideology a counter terrorism narrative must be developed and disseminated. Those under trial for terrorist acts or convicted for them must be weaned away from the extremist ideology espoused by them.

17. If the media broadcasts and propagates the views of terrorist, then those doing so must be prosecuted in accordance with the law. Terrorism: 18. Standard operating procedures should be developed with the help of experts as to how law enforcement agencies should act/react after a terrorist attack.

Jails and Specialized Detention and Rehabilitation: 19. The law (Juvenile Justice System Act 2018) with regard to the detention of juveniles and their rehabilitation be implemented. 20. Hardened and desperate criminals should not be kept with first time offenders.

21. The Probation of Offenders Ordinance, 1960, which is applicable to offenders convicted and sentenced to less than three years imprisonment, should be applied for rehabilitation purposes and keeping prison population low.

Avenues should also be explored for supervised community services. 22. The Control of Narcotic Substances Act 1997 mandates the establishment of rehabilitation centres and these be established to properly treat addicts and rehabilitate them.

Aerial Firing: 23. Specific law should be enacted prohibiting aerial firing, as the bullets fired in the air upon return to earth can cause fatalities and serious injuries. Crime Statistics and Research: 24.

Crime statistics with genre of the type of crime committed be maintained including convictions and acquittals to better develop future methodologies. 25. Universities and academia should be encouraged to conduct research in respect of different aspects of the criminal justice system as such research would help highlight shortcomings and is an invaluable tool for reform.The Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) of Sindh police claimed to have arrested four suspected terrorists associated with an outlawed organization during separate raids in the metropolis in the wee hours of Saturday

Karachi, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 5th May, 2018) : The Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) of Sindh police claimed to have arrested four suspected terrorists associated with an outlawed organization during separate raids in the metropolis in the wee hours of Saturday.

According to details, the CTD personnel acting on intelligence information about presence of terrorists in Site and University Road area carried out raids at their hideouts. Four terror suspects, identified as Kamran alias Huzaifa, Abdul Rauf alias Abu Rizwan, Kifayat, and Irshad alias Zakariya, were arrested during these raids, a CTD official said.

He claimed the arrested militants had received terrorist training in Afghanistan. CTD in-charge Chaudhry Safdar said the four alleged terrorists were rounded up during raids conducted in SITE area and near University Road.

Safdar further noted that receipts of chanda(welfare funds) were recovered from the arrested suspects, who, according to authorities, have received terrorism-related training in Afghanistan. Further investigation and questioning of the arrestees is now underway, he added.

A first information report (FIR) has been registered against them at the CTD police station and an investigation against them is underway. Separately, the police claimed to have gunned down an outlaw associated with gang war while his two accomplices managed to escape after an alleged encounter in Old Golimar.

A police official said the killed criminal has been identified as Rashid, who was involved in drug trade and was wanted in different heinous crimes.ISLAMABAD, May 6 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 6th May, 2018 ) :The European Union member states in Pakistan celebrated Europe Day again in a unique manner, in light with the 2018 European Year of Cultural Heritage.

A "EuroVillage" was set up in Pakistan National Council of the Arts (PNCA), aiming at promoting the European culture and values. Federal Minister for Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD), Dr Tariq Fazal Chaudhry was the chief guest in the opening ceremony of one-day event.

Federal Minister for Postal Service Maulana Ameer Zaman Bukhari also attended the ceremony. Addressing the participants, the Minister said that Pakistan's relations with EU were very cordial. He lauded the role of European Union for organizing a Eurovillage in Pakistan for the second time.

He said that such events would strengthen relations between the Member States of EU and Pakistan. In his welcome address, Ambassador of the European Union to Pakistan Jean Francois Cautain recalled that the reason the EU was organizing a EuroVillage with participation from the member States was "to remind everyone of the EU's cultural richness while also underlining our unity".

The Ambassador affirmed that "the European Union is, and will continue to be a strong, cooperative and reliable partner to Pakistan. We stand for multilateralism, for human rights, and for international cooperation.

We work at home and abroad to promote sustainable development, inclusive societies, and the fight against inequality of any type.

The visitors were provided with multiple displays of Europe as a culturally rich and friendly place.

The EU's as well as the Member States' stands showcased the countries' culture and traditions, languages, food and music to Pakistan's general public as well as general information about the EU and the EU Member States.

The premises of PNCA were transformed into a genuine carnival with stalls with European typical food. There were information and activity booths for adults and children including quizzes, selfie walls and giant cut outs of famous landmarks in Europe.

The evening ended with live performances of the European bands Lohninger and Fischbacher Duo, Wild ManGoes, Hun Solo and the Pakistani artist Zeb Bangash. A famous European illusionist Charlie Caper also enthralled the audience with his performance.

The partnership between the European Union and Pakistan has progressed since 1962 in tandem with the European integration process. In order to further strengthen EU-Pakistan relations the two sides in 2012 adopted a 5-year engagement plan with the common goal of building a strategic partnership for peace and development rooted in shared values, principles and commitments.

The EU-Pakistan 5-year engagement plan came to an end in 2017 and the two sides are now aiming at endorsing a new strategic framework for partnership and cooperation that can guide relations aiming, at further strengthening the already strong ties between the peoples of the EU and of Pakistan.(@FahadShabbir)

RAWALPINDI, May 6 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 6th May, 2018 ) :Rawalpindi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (RCCI) will hold a business opportunity conference in Belgium on May 8. The President of RCCI Zahid Latif Khan while talking to APP Sunday said, the aim of the conference is to promote Pakistan soft image besides improving the trade relations between the two countries.

The business to business meeting will be held on the sidelined of the conference, he added. In this regard, he said all the arrangements have been completed. He said the RCCI has been organizing conferences in the country and abroad from time to time to attract the business community.

Industrial products, pharmaceutical, garments, leather products, health, information technology (IT), poultry and furniture will be displayed on the occasion, he added. He hoped that the conference would help to tap in European Union markets.(@FahadShabbir)

SOFIA, May 6 (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 6th May, 2018 ) :A military parade involving more than 1,600 soldiers, 52 combat vehicles and 14 helicopters and airplanes, was held here on Sunday to mark the Day of the Bulgarian Army.

The parade, attended by country's President Rumen Radev and Parliament Speaker Tsveta Karayancheva along with cabinet ministers, ambassadors, military veterans and thousands of citizens, was opened by a Mi-17 helicopter carrying the national flag.

The helicopter was followed by a march of army units, the National Guard and the Guard Brass Band, as well as a representative unit of the Macedonian Army. Meanwhile, Mi-24 and AS-532 AL helicopters, and C-27J, L-39ZA, PC9M, Su-25 and MiG-29 aircraft flew over them.

Right after that, the parade was joined by T-72 tanks, self-propelled howitzer 2S1, various armored vehicles, as well as tactical operational missile complex Tochka, and anti-aircraft missile system Osa-AK, among others.

"At the crossroads of geography, Bulgaria has survived for 13 centuries," Radev said while addressing the parade. "Bulgaria is a pillar of peace in our historically burdened region," Radev said, adding that sovereignty can be secured by enough strength and valor.

Bulgarian army was officially established in July 1878, shortly after the country's liberation from Ottoman rule, and May 6 was officially pronounced as the Day of the Bulgarian Army in 1880.(@ChaudhryMAli88)

Bogota, May 5 (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 6th May, 2018 ) :Cuba will host peace talks between the Colombian government and leftist ELN rebels aimed at ending a five-decade conflict after Ecuador bowed out as host, negotiators said Saturday.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos is trying to conclude a peace agreement with the country's 1,500-strong last active rebel group, similar to the one signed with the larger FARC guerrillas in November 2016.

The FARC has since become a political party. Five other countries -- Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Norway and Venezuela -- have vouched for the dialogue. "After jointly examining the options to renew dialogue as soon as possible," Colombian government and ELN negotiators will resume talks "in Havana starting next week," a joint statement read.

"We hope to move forward quickly," added Santos.

On April 18, Ecuador said it was suspending its role as guarantor of the peace talks between Colombia and the National Liberation Army guerrillas, which have been hosted in Quito since early 2017.

Ecuadoran President Lenin Moreno told Colombia's RCN television that he wanted to end Ecuador's role following a flareup of violence along their common border. Moreno's remarks came as Ecuadoran and Colombian troops pressed a hunt along their respective sides of the border for a small band of ex-FARC rebels turned criminals responsible for the kidnapping and murder of a three-man Ecuadoran journalist team.

However, peace talks with the ELN are being held against the backdrop of a more hostile political context in Colombia, after hardline conservatives opposed to peace with the rebels have gained ground in recent legislative elections.RABAT, May 6 (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 6th May, 2018 ) :Better job growth helped push Morocco's unemployment rate down to 10.5 percent in the first quarter of 2018 from 10.7 percent a year earlier, said the official High Commission for Planning on Sunday.

The commission said in a note that Morocco's economy created some 116,000 jobs between January and March compared to 109,000 during the same period last year. Services, agriculture and construction created 50,000, 43,000 and 32,000 jobs respectively, according to the note.

Manufacturing lost 9,000 jobs. The unemployment rate in urban areas was slightly down from 15.7 percent to 15.6 percent, while it significantly decreased from 4.1 percent to 3.5 percent in rural areas due to bountiful rainfall.

Unemployment remains high among urban youth aged between 15 to 29, particularly graduates. The Moroccan government has set it as one of the top goals to reduce the unemployment rate to 8.5 percent by 2021.Managua, May 6 (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 7th May, 2018 ) :Mostly pro-government lawmakers in Nicaragua on Sunday set up a truth commission to investigate the deaths of at least 45 anti-government, mostly student demonstrators, over two weeks.

The five-member panel of investigators, which will act outside the legislature, is free to probe as they deem appropriate, said legislature speaker Gustavo Porras, an ally of President Daniel Ortega.

The investigators are due to report back to lawmakers within a three-month deadline. The protests against Ortega erupted on April 18 and claimed at least 45 lives, according to human rights groups.

Officials stopped updating their toll after counting 10 deaths in the first three days. Initially triggered by reforms to cut spending on Nicaragua's deficit-laden social security system -- later abandoned by Ortega -- the protests swelled to include other grudges against the 72-year-old president, widely seen as autocratic and distant.

The protests are the worst Ortega has faced in the past 11 years, since the leftist former Sandinista rebel returned to power after a lengthy stint in opposition. The demonstrations however have become more peaceful in recent days.

Ortega has said he is willing to hold talks to calm the situation but made few moves to follow through. The students have also already demanded an independent commission be set up to investigate the protest deaths, and given a deadline of Tuesday.

Students and the political opposition have called for a nationwide demonstration for Wednesday. The president's Sandinista party has an absolute majority in the one-chamber assembly in Managua.Demonstrators at the headquarters of MINUSCA, the UN peackeeping mission in the Central African Republic (AFP or licensors)

At the Regina Coeli, Pope Francis prayed that all people might say no to violence

By Christopher Wells

Following the Regina Coeli, Pope Francis invited everyone to pray for the people of the Central African Republic, a country which, he recalled, he has had the joy of visiting. The Holy Father travelled to the country in November 2015, as part of his first pastoral visit to Africa.

In his remarks on Sunday, Pope Francis noted that the Central African Republic has in recent days experienced serious violence that has seen many people killed or wounded, including a priest.

May the Lord, through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, help everyone to say no to violence, in order to build peace together, the Pope prayed.

The priest and at least 25 more people were killed when a church was attacked earlier this week in Bangui. The Red Cross reports almost 100 people were wounded in the attack, some critically. The attack adds to a list of recent deadly clashes in Central African Republic where state control is breaking down and inter-faith violence threatens to flare again.

Freeds Bakery, the featured bakery on Food Networks hit show Vegas Cakes, will create an exclusive, cake slice in celebration of National Eat What You Want Day on Friday, May 11 (Pictured: Freeds Bakery Eat What You Want Cake).

For the socially-acceptable cheat day, Freeds Bakerys Eat What You Want Cake Slice will be a Spiced Chocolate cake filled with Magic Middle filling, a mix of buttercream, Bavarian cream, peanut butter, chocolate curls, and whipped marshmallow, topped with a mixture of chocolate-covered potato chips, smores crumbles, chocolate wafer cookie pieces, and drizzled with dulce de leche.

The over-the-top slice is priced at $5.15 and available exclusively on Friday, May 11. Each cake slice will be available in-store while supplies last.Zimbabwe's new president is rolling out freedoms as never seen before in the country recovering from the 37-year grip of former leader Robert Mugabe.



For some, however, President Emmerson Mnangagwa is going too far. Others accuse him of mere window-dressing ahead of July's historic election.



Signs of change are clear. Late last month, a popular musician returned from exile in the United States to perform protest songs in front of tens of thousands of people on the outskirts of the capital, Harare. Days later, an annual arts festival in Harare was allowed to invite as its headline act a South African band once banned for a video seen as mocking Mugabe.



Mnangagwa promised democratic reforms when he took over in November after Mugabe resigned under pressure from the military, ruling party and the public. Many have been closely watching Mugabe's former deputy ever since for proof that he means it.



Arrests of political activists and opposition officials, once routine during Mugabe's rule, have significantly slowed. The opposition has been holding campaign rallies without interference, unlike in the past. Freedom of speech is remarkably improved, with Zimbabweans openly criticizing the government without fear of retribution, especially in urban areas. In rural areas, non-governmental groups say they are still recording some cases of intimidation such as village heads demanding people's voter registration details.



And on Wednesday, Mnangagwa publicly criticized his own ruling party for using police officers as polling agents during its internal elections, a first in a country long used to Mugabe's sharp-tongued defense of deploying security agents to conduct party business.

Mnangagwa has received widespread support for that and similar gestures.



But the new president, whose administration has popularized the term "Zimbabwe is open for business" after years of international sanctions over human rights abuses, also has touched a nerve in the largely conservative country with certain decisions.



His government has legalized marijuana farming for medicinal and scientific purposes. It allowed commercial sex workers to exhibit at the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair, an event officially opened by Mnangagwa himself, as a way to educate the public about their work and safe sexual practices.

On social media, on the streets and in political corridors, some criticize the president for taking his liberalization agenda too far.



"The government is setting us booby traps that will end up ruining our families. The government wants to spoil our youngsters," said former vice president and now opposition leader Joice Mujuru.



Others support the president, citing the economic benefits of commercial sex work and marijuana farming in the once-prosperous country whose economy collapsed under Mugabe.



"The level of liberalism in Zimbabwe is making heads spin," tweeted Nick Mangwana, a ruling party activist.



"We have sexual rights groups exhibiting at ZITF. Some are saying it's prostitutes galore, we are having [marijuana] being liberalized, but more important it's a very open and free political space. Take the good with the bad," Mangwana said.



Sex work is common but socially reviled in Zimbabwe and is banned by law, although the Constitutional Court in 2015 ruled that the practice of arresting women just for soliciting sex is illegal.



By legalizing marijuana farming, Zimbabwe has become the rare African country to do so.



Kizito Chisanza, who sells secondhand clothes in the capital, said he hopes it is the first step toward legalizing recreational use.



Such talk likely would have scandalized Mugabe, who was openly disdainful of the drug. During his rule, Parliament members who advocated for its legalization were openly jeered.



Some early critics of Mnangagwa say they are skeptical of his government's commitment to reform. They cite incidents such as the banning of some civil society protests by police, the use of dogs and water cannon to put down student protests, slow-paced electoral reforms and the failure to solve the case of Itai Dzamara, an activist abducted in 2015 who remains missing. He is widely seen as a symbol of resistance to Mugabe and abuses committed under his rule.



"Mnangagwa is going for populism. The substantive issues remain untouched. The economy is in bad shape and genuine political reforms are still a mirage," said Phillip Pasirayi, director of the Center for Community Development in Zimbabwe, a non-governmental organization.



Such critics are "still tied to the past which is now beyond us," information minister Simon Khaya-Moyo said at a public event on Thursday.



"There could still be a residual perception among some of our people that political change has been cosmetic," Khaya-Moyo said. "Of course this is not true."Afghan forces backed by air strikes have retaken a district in the northern province of Badakhshan that was seized last week by Taliban insurgents, officials said, as fighting continued across Afghanistan.

Provincial police spokesman Sanaullah Rohani said Kohistan district, which fell to the insurgents Thursday, was retaken by army and police forces backed by air support Saturday.

Taliban fighters were also pushed back in Teshkan district, where they had taken a number of checkpoints.

The Taliban suffered heavy casualties, but there is no updated information on the exact number as the area is remote and the telecommunication system weak, he said.

Violence elsewhere

With the Talibans annual spring offensive well under way, there was violence in several parts of the country.

A vehicle carrying shopkeepers on their way to a market Sunday has struck a roadside bomb in Afghanistans northern Faryab province, killing seven.



Police spokesman Karim Yuresh says another civilian was wounded in the attack, in an area where the Taliban and an Islamic State affiliate are active.



In the eastern Paktia province, a car bomb killed two people and wounded another three. Abdullah Hsart, the provincial governors spokesman, says the attack late Saturday targeted Hazart Mohammad Rodwal, a district chief, who was among the wounded. The Taliban claimed the attack.

Late Saturday, a district governor in Paktia province, on the border with Pakistan, was among five people wounded in a car bomb explosion, Abdullah Hasrat, spokesman for the Paktia provincial governor said.

Also Saturday, a suicide bomber detonated a vehicle packed with explosives in an attack on a house belonging to Kandahar police chief Abdul Razeq in Spin Boldak on the border with Pakistan.

Razeq, who has a fearsome reputation fighting the Taliban and who has survived dozens of assassination attempts, was not harmed in the attack, which he confirmed had taken place.Anti-India protests and clashes raged in Indian-controlled Kashmir for a second day, leaving scores of people injured Sunday, police and residents said, as government forces battled a group of rebels in a village.

Hundreds of villagers threw rocks at Indian troops in a bid to help rebels who were trapped in a civilian home in southern Shopian area, police said. Counterinsurgency officers and soldiers cordoned the village following intelligence that at least three militants were hiding there, police said.

As the rebels and soldiers fought, government forces also fired bullets, shotgun pellets and tear gas at the protesters who tried to reach the gunbattle site. At least 14 civilians were injured, one of them critically.

According to police, among the trapped rebels were a top commander and a university assistant professor who formally joined the militant ranks just two days ago.

A statement by the University of Kashmir on Saturday said the sociology teacher, Mohammed Rafi Bhat, has been missing since Friday.

Most Kashmiris support the rebel cause while also participating in civilian street protests against Indian control. In recent years, mainly young Kashmiris have displayed open solidarity with rebels and sought to protect them by engaging troops in street clashes during military operations. Last year, at least 29 civilians were killed and hundreds wounded during such clashes.

Shops and businesses shuttered in most parts of Kashmir following a strike call by separatists against Saturdays killings of a civilian and three rebels in the disputed regions main city of Srinagar.

Internet on mobile phones also remained suspended for the second day, a common practice by Indian authorities to make organizing protests more difficult.

Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan each administer part of Kashmir, but both claim it in its entirety. Rebels have been fighting Indian rule since 1989, demanding Indian-controlled Kashmir be made part of Pakistan or become an independent country.

In recent years, Kashmir has seen renewed rebel attacks and repeated public protests against Indian rule as a new generation of Kashmiri rebels, especially in the southern parts of the region, has revived the militancy and challenged New Delhis rule with guns and effective use of social media.

India accuses Pakistan of arming and training the rebels, a charge Pakistan denies.

Nearly 70,000 people have been killed in the uprising and the ensuing Indian military crackdown.Australia's bid to join the rapidly growing space industry will receive a multimillion-dollar boost. Most developed countries, including New Zealand, have agencies dedicated to promoting industries in space. Australia has many space startups, some of which have struck deals with NASA and other international agencies.



Australia is entering the race into space late compared to other developed nations. The National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA), the U.S. civilian space program, was set up in 1958, while the Canadian Space Agency was formed in 1989. The United Kingdom Space Agency aims to capture 10 percent of the global space market by 2030.



Australia currently does not have rockets that can transport satellites into orbit, nor does it have any launch capabilities. However, the rapid advance of technology and reusable rockets have drastically cut the cost of doing business in space.



A company in Australia's Northern Territory is working with Indigenous groups to build a launch site.



Professor Anna Moore, a member of the Australian government's Expert Reference Group, which advises officials on creating a space agency, says a cash-boost in this week's federal budget will go a long way.



"The (AUD) $50 million injection is a great start for setting up the agency itself. We are talking about setting up the administration, the legal aspects, working across government," said Moore.



The Australian space industry has grown by about 10 percent annually over the past two decades. Experts believe it has the potential to create thousands of jobs, and say that a domestic space agency will consolidate the sector, give it direction and foster international links.



Brad Tucker is an astrophysicist at the Australian National University.



"I think it is overdue since the 60s, with the launch of the first satellite, and Australia was one of the first countries to get into the business and it is now great to hear that the Australian government is paying attention," he said.



Private sector finance will also be needed to match the government's contribution to help set up a new national space agency.Located just outside Washington, Arlington County, Virginia, is one of the richest, most educated and mostly white counties in the United States. It didnt matter to Cambodian-American Chanda Choun that less than 11 percent of the population is Asian. When a seat opened on the Arlington County Board after the November 2017 election, he decided to run.

Choun, who the Arlington County Department of Voter Registration and Elections believes is the first Asian-American to run for office there, saw his opportunity to be of service to a place he now calls home.

I didnt see anybody with a military background, I didnt see anybody with an immigrant background, and I didnt see anybody with a tech background stepping up, he said. Thats all it came down to.

But it wasnt quite so cut and dried. Arlington exerts a pull on Choun, who calls the place the love of my life.

I didnt get to choose where I was born. I didnt get to choose where the refugee resettlement agency placed my family. I didnt get to choose where the Army sent me. But I can choose where I am now. And I choose Arlington, according to Chouns campaign website. I will get married in Arlington. My children will run through the parks of Arlington. I will die in Arlington and be buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Part-time position

The five-member Arlington County Board is the jurisdictions governing body. Being a board member is a part-time job, one that can be the first rung in the political career ladder. But Choun says he has no aspiration to higher office.

Choun, a 30-year-old program manager at the cybersecurity company Securonix, came to the United States as a baby when his family fled Cambodias Khmer Rouge, which ruled from 1975-1979, a time when 1.7 million people died.

Grateful that his family was chosen for resettlement in Connecticut from a Thai refugee camp for Cambodians, Choun enlisted in the U.S. Army at 17. He rose from private to staff sergeant and left after 12 years, although he remains on part-time reserve duty.

Choun began campaigning in February to Make Arlington the North Star of Virginia, as his campaign literature proclaims.

He secured by the March 29 deadline 125 signatures of registered Arlington County voters, which is required to get on the primary ballot. He believes he can defeat in November independent John Vihstadt, an established incumbent county board member.

First, however, Choun must defeat fellow Democrat Matt de Ferranti in the June 12 primary. Choun and de Ferranti have already faced off in party-sponsored public debates.

Choun says his background has prepared him for working on two critical issues facing the county: the budget shortfall and attracting more tech companies to fill Arlingtons many vacant offices.

Hes also aware of the importance of raising money and has raised more than $28,000, largely through a personal loan. De Ferranti has raised more than $35,000 from small donors.

Cambodian-Americans

Rithy Uong, the first Cambodian-American elected to any U.S. public office, served three terms on the City Council in Lowell, Massachusetts, which has the second-largest Cambodian community in the nation.

Uong, who says he is tracking Chouns run, says a candidate must be able to raise funds, but it is critical for a candidate to build trust and rapport with voters. Voters, he says, care less about a candidates background and more about issues particular to their community.

Choun says his most immediate priority is building a nimble election campaign organization.

Essentially, just as in any new endeavor, any sector, its a business startup, he says. Id group it down to three domains: people, process, tools.

Choun is self-managing his campaign until the voters decide his future in the June primary. However, he has hired creative director Minh Pham, a Vietnamese-American, who is also new to political campaigning. Pham also likens their effort to a startup. Choun has also hired a field manager, John Victoria.

While social media is an important tool for reaching out to voters, Choun says that to be seen as a member of the community, he needs to attend as many meet-and-greet events as possible in the 26-square-mile county.

Im bringing my message, my person to the community, he says. I dont want the community to come to me.

VFW meet-and-greet

To that end Choun asked to hold his first meet-and-greet event at John Lyon Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 3150, a veterans community meeting post in Arlington.

An Air Force veteran with 28 years of service, Patrick Pope met Choun before the event and said Arlington voters are open to candidates like Choun who dont mirror the countys white majority.

I think a lot of Arlington voters are looking for somebody fresh, with some fresh ideas and fresh perspective, looking for someone who doesnt have deep ties with a political machine, but instead speaks to power as a person of the community, Pope said.

Lynn Borton, 56, another Arlington resident, has lived in the county since 1985. She learned about Chouns event from Facebook and, like Pope, believes that voters need to get to know first-time candidates.

I think there is value in meeting people, Borton says. You can learn something, you can make an assessment that is unmediated, literally un-media-ated, but I dont know that thats everything.

Chouns main challenges as a first-time candidate, Pope notes, will be getting Democratic Party support and name recognition.

But Pope believes voters also need to make an effort to meet the candidates.

I think its important to get to know who your candidates are. You cant do that just by watching the television ad or looking at a newspaper advertisement. Youve got to get out and be engaged, he says. If you expect your representative to be engaged, then you need to be engaged as [an] informed voter.As primary season kicks into high gear, Republicans are engaged in nomination fights that are pulling the party to the right, leaving some leaders worried their candidates will be out of a step with the broader electorate in November.

Primaries in four states on Tuesday, all in places Donald Trump carried in 2016, showcase races in which GOP candidates are jockeying to be seen as the most conservative, the most anti-Washington and the most loyal to the president. It's evidence of the onetime outsider's deepening imprint on the Republican Party he commandeered less than two year ago.



In Indiana, Republicans will pick from among three Senate candidates who have spent much of the race praising the Trump and bashing each other. In West Virginia, a former federal convict and coal baron has taken aim at Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., with racially charged accusations of corruption.



In Ohio, Republicans are certain to nominate someone more conservative than outgoing GOP Gov. John Kasich, a 2016 presidential candidate, moderate and frequent Trump critic. Even Kasich's former running mate, Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor, has pledged to unwind some of Kasich's centrist policies, including the expansion of the Medicaid government insurance program following Democrats' 2010 health insurance overhaul.



With Trump's job approval hanging around 40 percent and the GOP-run Congress less than half that, the abandonment of the middle has some Republicans raising alarms.



"The far left and the far right always think they are going to dominate these elections," said John Weaver, a Trump critic and top strategist to Kasich, who has been become a near-pariah in the primary to succeed him.



"You may think it's wise in a primary to handcuff yourself to the president," Weaver said. "But when the ship goes down, you may not be able to get the cuffs off."



North Carolina Republicans will weigh in on the fate of Republican Rep. Robert Pittenger, facing a primary challenger who almost upset him two years ago. Pittenger features Trump prominently in his campaign. Challenger Mark Harris, a prominent Charlotte pastor, has tried to turn the table, saying Pittenger is a creature of Washington who refuses to help Trump "drain that swamp."



Tough primaries certainly don't have to be disastrous. They often gin up voter attention and engagement, and can signal strong turnout in the general election.



Dallas Woodhouse, who runs the North Carolina Republican Party, said candidates benefit because they must "make their arguments and voters become more aware of the election."



Trump and his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton each survived internal party battles in 2016. Clinton won the national popular vote that year, but in the states that mattered most  Ohio and North Carolina, among them  wary Republicans gravitated back to Trump while Clinton struggled to hit the usual Democratic base targets.



Few national Republicans look at West Virginia and see helpful enthusiasm.



Former coal executive Don Blankenship has accused McConnell of creating jobs for "China people" and charges that the senator's "China family" has given him millions of dollars. McConnell's wife is Trump's transportation secretary, Elaine Chao, who was born in Taiwan.



Indiana Senate candidates are trying to appeal to Trump voters by adopting the president's harsh immigration rhetoric and penchant for personal insults. The candidates have even channeled Trump by assigning derisive nicknames to one another: "Lyin" Todd Rokita, Luke "Missing" Messer and "Tax Hike" Mike Braun.



In several of the Tuesday primaries, Democrats are watching with delight, and having less trouble aligning behind nominees. The chief beneficiaries would be Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Joe Donnelly of Indiana, both sitting on healthy campaign accounts after avoiding their own primary fights.



The leading Democrat for the North Carolina seat, Marine veteran Dan McCready, has raised almost $2 million, slightly more than Harris and Pittenger combined, in a district Trump won by about 12 percentage points. "He will absolutely make this competitive," Harris said.



In the Ohio governor's race, liberal former Rep. Dennis Kucinich and former state Attorney General Richard Cordray have managed to avoid open warfare. Cordray, who also led the federal consumer watchdog agency launched under President Barack Obama, is the favorite.



Republicans watched their state party, led by pro-Trump leadership that replaced Kasich allies after the 2016 elections, endorse state Attorney General Mike Dewine, while Taylor has effectively shunned an earlier endorsement from Kasich.



"If Ohio Republicans are divided into Trump Republicans and Kasich Republicans, the Trump Republicans have won," said the state Democratic chairman, David Pepper. "That helps us."



Gallup measures Trump with an 89 percent job approval rating among Republicans nationally, but 35 percent among independents and 42 percent overall. Historically, presidents below 50 percent watch their party suffer steep losses in midterm elections.



Democrats must flip about two dozen Republican-held seats to reclaim a House majority, and they must do it with Republican-run legislatures having drawn many districts to the GOP's advantage. In North Carolina, Harris said the makeup of the district, which stretches from Republican areas of metro Charlotte east through small towns and rural counties, makes his pro-Trump, anti-establishment message a primary and November winner.



Senate Democrats are just two seats shy of a majority, but must defend 26 incumbents, 10 in states where Trump won, including Ohio, Indiana and West Virginia. Republicans are defending nine seats, just one in a state Trump lost.Polls have closed across Lebanon 12 hours after voting began in the country's first national election in nine years.

Overall, turnout was tepid throughout the day, even as President Michel Aoun appealed to voters in a televised address an hour before the polls closed to turn out to cast their ballots.

"If you want change, you should exercise your right'' to vote, he said in a message published on Twitter at the same time.

The last election in Lebanon was held in 2009 for what was supposed to be a four-year term. But the outbreak of a civil war in neighboring Syria forced the parliament to extend its term twice, due to security concerns.

The main competition is between the Western-backed coalition of Prime Minister Saad Hariri's Future Movement Party and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group.

Eighty-six women are running for seats in Lebanon's 128-member parliament that is equally divided between Muslims and Christians.

Hezbollah and its allies are expected to add more seats, while Hariris party is likely to lose several. Some of his Sunni supporters see him as being too soft on Hezbollah. The billionaire businessman has also faced criticism after laying off scores of employees from his companies in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia.



Still, Hariri likely will be named to form a national unity Cabinet. The rival sides are expected to re-create the unity government that currently exists, which includes Hezbollah.

Early results were expected to start coming in later Sunday, but official results are not expected to be announced before Monday.

Security was tight to prevent tensions from spilling over near most polling stations and Interior Minister Nouhad Mashnouk said things appeared to be under control.

Arab news channels showed video of what they claimed was a woman candidate being harassed by Hezbollah supporters in southern Lebanon. VOA could not independently confirm the claim.

Veteran Lebanese Christian political leader Dory Chamoun told VOA he and many other Lebanese were eager to cast their ballots "after a long drought."

WATCH: Lebanon elections

"It was about time we had those parliamentary elections, except that the electoral law, which they came out with, is not exactly something that is an example of democracy," he said.

Chamoun said that he hoped the pro-Western alliance to which he belongs would "win up to 18 seats" in the new parliament, but that he "was not optimistic," given what he considers flaws in the electoral law.

Under Lebanons new electoral system, voters cast two votes: one for a list of candidates and another for their preferred candidate within that list. A special formula based on the preferential vote determines who gets the seats.



Edward Yeranian contributed to this report from Cairo.Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed Sunday to launch a new offensive against Kurdish militants along the country's borders with Syria and Iraq.

Turkey has conducted two previous operations aimed at Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, militants Ankara considers an extension of Kurdish fighters the Turkish government has been clashing with for three decades for control of southeastern Turkey.

In an address to thousands of supporters in Istanbul in advance of June's snap election, Erdogan said, "We will not give up on constricting terrorist organizations. In the new period, Turkey will add new ones to the Euphrates Shield and Olive Branch operations in order to clear its borders."

He added, "We shattered the terror corridor being formed on our southern border with these operations. Our soldiers, who lastly wrote an epic in Afrin, are ready for new missions. The operations will continue until not one terrorist is left."

Erdogan called for the June 24 election more than a year ahead of the planned vote, which analysts say was designed to capitalize on nationalist sentiment running in favor of the successful military operation in the Syrian border town of Afrin.

With the election, Turkey is transforming its governing system to an executive presidency, abolishing the position of prime minister and vesting the ruling power in the presidency.

Erdogan said that with the presidential and parliamentary votes, Turkey would "take the stage as a global power."Gerardo Tan's home in Stevensville, Maryland, is simple but sits right along the Chesapeake Bay. As a 90-year-old man who has survived war, he's grateful for the tranquil life he now has. But he has one goal left to accomplish.

He is still waiting for compensation that was promised to him for serving as a Filipino soldier during World War II when the Philippines was a U.S. territory. His service earned him three medals, but his battle to get recognition  and payment  from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is still going on.

"I am really angry at the VA," he said, "but there is nothing I can do about it except wait and wait and wait."

Tan and other Filipino veterans are entitled to compensation thanks to a law then-President Barack Obama signed in 2009 that awards $15,000 to veterans like him who are in the U.S. Those in the Philippines are supposed to get $9,000.

That law restored pay and benefits that were taken away from them after wartime President Harry S. Truman signed what is known as the Rescission Act of 1946.

That act stripped recognition from Filipino veterans like Tan, who were suddenly considered outsiders when the U.S. recognized the Philippines' independence.

Obama's reversal in 2009 provided some relief, but that chapter of history still haunts the 17,000 surviving Filipino veterans like Tan.

"Money is not really the point," he said. "It is the treatment."

Another veteran, Celestino Almeda, 100, has a similar story.

He was unaware of the Rescission Act until he became a U.S. citizen in 1996.

"When I arrived," he said, "we found out that the only benefit we had from the government is the Supplemental Security Income," which is a federal income supplement funded by general tax revenue and designed for aged, blind and disabled people with little or no other income. "We cannot even go to the veterans hospital."

Bureaucracy makes it difficult for veterans to get compensated.

A Veterans Affairs official told VOA the agency recognizes the difficulty of finding decades-old documents, but said eligiblity could be established only by military and government records.

In Tan's case, he fought as a guerrilla and has no discharge papers, which makes it hard for him to be recognized.

But there are congressional efforts to fully restore all of the benefits for the veterans. In February, Senators Brian Schatz of Hawaii, a Democrat, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, a Republican, introduced the Filipino Veterans Fairness Act of 2018, which would allow veterans and their spouses and children to qualify for some of the same benefits other veterans normally get.

Murkowski said she would keep up the fight on Capitol Hill. "We are going to give it one more go this year, and hopefully these honored veterans will get the benefits and the respect they have clearly earned," she said.

So, more than seven decades after the war ended, this battle goes on.Afghan Sikh and Hindu faithful have a new home just outside Washington. The AsaMai Hindu Temple, the first shrine for Afghan Hindu and Sikh followers in the region, opened its doors earlier this month during the Vaisakhi' festival, which is celebrated by both faiths. VOA's Afghan service reporter Mohammad Ahmadi visited the temple and filed this report.High school students in Germany have gathered tens of thousands of signatures in an online petition to complain about an "unfair" final English exam, saying the test was much harder than in previous years.

By Sunday, the students from the southwestern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg had gathered almost 36,000 signatures  even though only 33,500 people took last month's statewide exam.



They complained that text excerpts from American author Henry Roth's 1934 novel "Call it Sleep" were too difficult and obscure to analyze and asked for the grading to be more lenient this year.



The final high school exams in Germany  called the Abitur  are a rite of passage that all students who want to enter university have to pass.



Only those with excellent grades and test scores will get into the most coveted university programs, with medicine among the hardest. But other subjects like engineering or language studies also offer only a limited amount of places.



Many German students, parents and teachers have been stressed out for months over the Abitur. Often schools will cancel all regular classes for younger students during the tests so the Abitur students won't be disturbed.



The online petition has created such uproar that even state governor Winfried Kretschmann weighed in, though he showed only limited compassion.



"There's no right to a simple Abitur," he told the frustrated teenagers. "You wish for it, but you don't have a right to it."



At the same time Kretschmann admitted that his own English skills were too weak to actually judge whether the disputed text had been overly difficult, the German news agency dpa reported.



Students said the passage from Roth's novel that they had to analyze  a metaphorical description of the Statue of Liberty  was difficult to understand because of its "unknown vocabulary." They also complained the questions they had to answer were not asked precisely.



They quoted some of the text's most difficult sentences to illustrate their point: "Against the luminous sky the rays of her halo were spikes of darkness roweling the air; shadow flattened the torch she bore to a black cross against flawless light  he blackened hilt of a broken sword. Liberty.''



The state's education ministry responded by asking external experts to evaluate the exam  who then concluded its level was appropriate. Educational authorities also noted that students in the eastern German state of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania had to analyze the same passage and did not complain about it.



That has not stopped the number of signatures online from growing, as younger and out-of state students sign the petition in a show of solidarity.



"I was struggling like all the others, even though I spent a year abroad in America!" Aimee Schaefer wrote in the comment section of the petition. "You would think that I can understand everything by now, but I had to look up a lot of vocabulary... whoever compiled this exam must really hate us Abitur students."A powerful bomb ripped through a crowded mosque being used as a voter registration center in southeastern Afghanistan, killing at least 17 worshipers and wounding 33 others.

The attack came hours after unknown gunmen in a northern Afghan region kidnapped seven engineers, mostly Indian nationals.

The mosque bombing occurred in Khost province, which borders Pakistan. Provincial Afghan police chief Abdul Hanan confirmed the death toll to VOA, saying he anticipated the death toll to rise.

Hanan said initial probe suggested the blast was caused by a planted device, though initial reports said a suicide bomber carried out the attack.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the deadly violence. The Taliban has denied involvement.

Late last month, a suicide bomber detonated his vest at a voters identification card distribution center in Kabul, killing nearly 60 people and wounding over 100 others.

Islamic State claimed claimed responsibility for that attack.

Indian engineers kidnapped

Afghan officials said that six Indian engineers along with their local colleague went missing Sunday morning near Pul-e-Khomri, the capital of restive northern Baghlan province.



The abductees were working at an electricity substation and were traveling to work when armed men ambushed them and took them away, a provincial police spokesman, Zabihullah Shuja, told VOA.



The victims were employees of an Indian company that runs the substation.



There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the incident in an Afghan province where Taliban insurgents contest several districts.



Transmission lines and installations in Baghlan are used to supply electricity imported from the neighboring Central Asian countries of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to northern Afghan provinces, including Kabul.



Last month, the Taliban destroyed a key tower during fighting with Afghan forces, plunging the national capital and a vast area in northern Afghanistan into darkness for several days.



Afghan forces retake northern district



Meanwhile, officials in nearby northern Badakhshan province confirmed Sunday that Afghan security forces, backed by airpower, have retaken a district from the Taliban.



The insurgents had last week overrun Kohistan, which borders Pakistan after several days of intense clashes.



A provincial government spokesman said the retreating Taliban suffered heavy casualties, but he gave no numbers.



The Islamist insurgency announced its annual spring offensive last month, leading to an intensification in violence across Afghanistan.



Officials also confirmed a roadside bomb struck a passenger vehicle in northern Faryab province, killing seven people. The victims were shopkeepers on their way to market.



Saturday, three heavily armed suicide bombers attacked a house belonging to Abdula Razeq, the powerful police chief of the southern Kandahar province. One assailant blew himself up at the entrance of the building while the other two were gunned down by Afghan security forces.



Razeq later told VOA that neither he nor his family members were present at the house when the attack occurred in the town of Spin Boldak on the Pakistani border.



The police chief has a fearsome reputation fighting the Taliban and has survived many assassination attempts.A tough new warning from Israel to Iran is raising fears of war in the Middle East.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel is prepared to confront Iranian aggression sooner rather than later.

Speaking at the weekly Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, Netanyahu accused Iran of transferring advanced weapons to neighboring Syria, including missiles and anti-aircraft batteries it intends to use against Israel.

We do not want an escalation, Netanyahu said, but we are prepared for any scenario.

The tough rhetoric follows a presentation on national TV a week ago, in which Netanyahu exposed what he said were tens thousands of documents proving that Iran had a secret nuclear weapons program which could be quickly revived at any time.

The files, which were seized in Tehran by Israeli intelligence, could reinforce threats by U.S. President Donald Trump to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal by May 12. The three European countries that signed the agreement, Britain, France and Germany, have tried to persuade Trump not to withdraw.

In an Israel Radio interview, former general Yisrael Zeev said Netanyahu appears to be preparing the nation for war.

He said Israel may have to launch a preemptive strike against Iranian assets in Syria, prompting Iran and its ally Hezbollah in Lebanon to fire missiles into Israel.

Netanyahu will visit Moscow on Wednesday to discuss the situation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the main power broker in Syria. Putin will no doubt urge Netanyahu to act with restraint.

But Netanyahu told the Cabinet that Israel must learn from history. He said nations that were not prepared to take timely action against aggression paid a much higher price later on.At least seven Kenyan soldiers were killed and two others seriously injured after a powerful improvised explosive device (IED) targeted a military vehicle near the Somali town of Dhobley near the border with Kenya, witnesses and officials say.

The vehicle was in a convoy on patrol when it was hit by the IED, causing a massive explosion, witnesses said.

A Somali military official who did not want to be named said he saw the bodies of seven Kenyan soldiers and two others badly injured in the explosion. The officer said the IED tore apart the vehicle, killing the soldiers instantly.

The al-Shabab militant group claimed killing 15 soldiers in the explosion. Kenyan military officials could not be reached for comment.

Witnesses put the number of casualties higher. A resident in the area said the explosion affected two vehicles and the death toll is more than 10, with several other soldiers injured.

The convoy was part of the Kenya military serving under the African Union Mission in Somalia known as AMISOM. The vehicles were on their way to a military base in Dhobley in Somalia's Lower Jubba region.

Last week, seven Somali government soldiers were killed in the same area in an IED explosion that destroyed their vehicle.

IEDs increasingly have been the weapons of choice for al-Shabab, according to military experts. The group frequently targets Somali and AMISOM military convoys with IEDs as part of their deadly ambushes on supply routes in south-central Somalia.French President Emmanuel Macron has warned that war could ensue if U.S. President Donald Trump withdraws from the 2015 deal in which Iran agreed to curb its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

"We would open the Pandora's box. There could be war," Macron told German weekly magazine Der Spiegel. But he added: "I don't think that Donald Trump wants war."



Trump is set to decide by May 12 whether to pull out of the Iran deal. Trump has all but decided to withdraw but exactly how he will do so remains unclear, two White House officials and a source familiar with the administration's internal debate said on May 2.

Trump could still figure out a way to stay in the deal between the Islamic Republic and six world powers  Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States.

Macron urged Trump not to withdraw when he met the president in Washington late last month.

Britain, France and Germany remain committed to the accord but, in an effort to keep Washington in it, want to open talks on Iran's ballistic missile program, its nuclear activities beyond 2025 - when key provisions of the deal expire  and its role in Middle East crises such as Syria and Yemen.Dressed in flowing, elegant gowns, Michelle Dittmeier and three friends struck poses in front of a towering stream of water and surrounded by trees in Parkland, Florida.

Three of the girls made fun of the fourths flat and plain sandals, comparing their sparkly high heels.

Im driving! I have to wear these! she exclaimed.

They laughed as one of the mothers told them to move their arm, put their head down, stand still for the camera.

Nearly three months after the students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School were thrown into the national spotlight under the most unnatural circumstances, the Class of 2018 participated in one of the most routine and traditional American high school experiences  their senior-year prom.

Ive looked forward to it since freshman year, Nikhita Nookala, a senior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, said as she got her first-ever gel manicure: a neutral tan to complement her gold dress.

Well, its a special occasion! she laughed when asked why she splurged for the more expensive and longer-lasting gel.

On February 14, a shooter killed 17 people after storming Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School with a high-power assault rifle. The tragedy inspired a movement nationwide, sparking marches in Washington and state capitals, and creating a prolonged gun-control debate with Parkland youth becoming the voice of the movement.

Many of the MSD high-schoolers have stepped into leadership roles typically held by adults.

But on May 5, Nookala and her classmates were just kids enjoying a classic American rite of passage.

A lot of people have been asking me if it feels like bittersweet prom, said Suzannah Barna, another senior in Parkland, sitting next to Nookala as her crimson nails dried.

I think like for me, as much as it does, Im trying to not feel that way about it just because you only get one prom," Barna said. "And its kind of like what every high school looks forward to.

A lot of seniors used the word normal when describing how prom was going to be, and how they wanted it to be.

Its normal in the sense that its normal for seniors to go to prom, Felicia Burgin, an MSD teacher and senior class advisor, told VOA.

Its not normal in the sense that there have been so many vendors who have come out to donate or do this or do that its really. ... I dont even know what to call it. Its so over-the-top, she added.

In the wake of the shooting, the hotel where the prom was held offered tens of thousands of dollars of extra services, including large LED screens, and multiple attendants at a made-to-order risotto bar inside the hall. A local doughnut company donated what they call a donut wall. Local photographers offered free prom photos, and some parents and beauticians organized free hair and makeup services before the event.

Theres a lot of people from the community that wanted to, like, help out and sponsor our prom, and the venue itself gave a really big discount and the alumni network secured the DJ and the party favors so we didnt have to pay any of that, Nookala said.

At 12:01 a.m. Saturday, hotel staff at the Westin moved audio equipment into the ballroom. They set up a large LED screen to be used for a memorial to six seniors who perished.

Dittmeier worked with Burgin to create six journals for each of the seniors who died: four in the shooting, one from cystic fibrosis, and another who committed suicide.

Theres a journal for each of the six seniors who are no longer with us, Dittmeier told VOA, explaining that students would have an opportunity to express themselves and write messages to their classmates who could not attend prom.

But the journals, as well as the memorial, were just a few of many elements at the prom. Though the tragedy and trauma of the shooting is still fresh, the focus of the prom remained celebratory.

You cant ignore it, but you dont really want to focus on it, Burgin said. Its such a huge balance.

Were just normal people, Dittmeier said. Were living life like were kids because we are. Even though we now have to act a little more mature because of what has happened, but were still just normal kids.

Please visit our Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn for more stories for and about students.Police body camera footage and telephone recordings captured an incident in which two Native American teenagers were pulled from a Colorado college tour and questioned after another tour member reported odd behavior by creepy kids.

The camera footage released Friday by Colorado State University shows two police officers searching the teens pockets and questioning whether they were part of the tour.

The officers determined that 19-year-old Thomas Kanewakeron Gray and his 17-year-old brother, Lloyd Skanahwati Gray, had done nothing wrong and let them go after about five minutes.

Questioned, searched

But the incident last Monday has caused an outcry as a case of racial discrimination and prompted the university to apologize and try to make amends.

The video footage shows the brothers, one wearing a T-shirt and the other a hooded sweatshirt, walking in a group and down a set of stairs when an officer approaches and directs them to step aside, saying he and another officer, who is not visible in the video, are going to check the teens pockets.

The younger brother has his hands in his pockets, and police officers ask him to take them out.

At first, the officer visible in the video asks the Grays short, focused questions, including whether they were part of the tour group and why they didnt cooperate when others asked them their names.

The reason we stopped you and talked to you is because someone from the group called and said you guys just kind of came into the group, the officer said. They also said they tried to ask you guys questions and you didnt want to answer questions.

The older teen quickly responds, explaining that they had arrived late for the tour and that his younger brother is shy. The younger teen offers to retrieve the email confirming their tour reservations.

Yeah, yeah, do that, and then well get you out of here, the officer shown in the video said.

The other officer adds: People were just worried because you guys were real quiet and they didnt know who you were because you guys didnt show up with parents or any of that stuff.

'We were just quiet'

By then, however, their tour group had moved on without them and the brothers left the campus in Fort Collins, a city of about 160,000 and 65 miles (105 kilometers) north of Denver, and returned home to New Mexico.

I think its pretty discriminatory, Thomas Kanewakeron Gray said Thursday. Me and my brother just stayed to ourselves the whole time. I guess that was scaring people; that we were just quiet.

Caller's claims

According to a police recording from a woman on the tour that started the incident, the caller told a dispatcher that the teens arrived late in the tour and wouldnt respond to questions about their names or what they wanted to study at the school.

They are not, definitely not, a part of the tour, said the woman, identified in a police report as a 45-year-old white woman from Colorado. And their behavior is just really odd. And Ive never called, ever, about anybody. But they joined our tour. They wont give their names.

The woman also said during the call that the teens were lying the whole time, but doesnt offer specifics to support the claim, except to say that one of them laughed when she asked what they were studying. She also repeatedly told the dispatcher that her concern could be completely paranoid and apologized if its nothing.

Theyre probably fine and just creepy kids, she said.

Other than saying the teens were wearing all black clothing with dark stuff on it, the caller did not physically describe them until questioned by the dispatcher. She said she believed they were Hispanic, and described their clothing as having a weird symbolism or wording on it.

It appears at least one of the brothers was wearing a T-shirt of a death metal band called Cattle Decapitation. On its Facebook page, the band offered the teens free guest list spots to our shows for life.

The callers name was redacted in the police report, along with the teenagers names.

Mother furious

The teens mother, Lorraine Gray, said Friday that she remained infuriated over the incident and questioned the police handling of it, as well as the callers decision to report her sons.

What do their clothes have to do with anything? Why would you be worried about a persons clothes? the mother said.

Gray says one of the officers who questioned her sons later told her in a phone call that maybe the incident would teach the teens to speak up for themselves in the future.

She said the family has received apologetic messages from the university and an offer to return to the school for a VIP tour. However, she said they are not ready to respond, given that she and her sons have not had the opportunity to fully discuss the situation.

University apologizes

The school also said it would refund the money that the teens spent on travel and take steps to prevent a similar situation from happening again, including the use of lanyards or badges to identify tour guests.

Two young men, through no fault of their own, wound up frightened and humiliated because another campus visitor was concerned about their clothes and overall demeanor, which appears to have simply been shyness. The very idea that someone  anyone  might look like they dont belong on a CSU Admissions tour is anathema, university president Tony Frank wrote in an email to students and staff Friday.

The younger son is a senior at Santa Fe Indian School, which is about a 30-minute drive from the family home and where he stays in a dorm during the week with other Native American students from tribes across the United States.

The older brother is a student at Northern New Mexico College in Espanola and hoped to transfer.

The siblings saved until they had enough money to drive the roughly seven hours from the familys home in Santa Cruz, New Mexico, to Fort Collins for the tour.

The older brother said the school was their first choice, because of its proximity to Denver, where they could attend concerts. The brothers, both Mohawk, are musicians, and study contemporary and traditional music.

The brothers ordeal marks the latest in a series of incidences nationwide spotlighting treatment minorities often face in everyday circumstances, including the arrest of two black men at a Starbucks in Philadelphia who were handcuffed and taken to jail after a worker said they had refused to buy anything or leave.At least 45 people died in an attack on a village in northern Nigeria, a police official told Reuters on Sunday, the latest in a string of incidents underscoring insecurity in parts of the country.

President Muhammadu Buhari won Nigeria's 2015 elections partly on promises to bring security to Africa's largest economy and most populous nation, but has struggled to fulfil those pledges. He is now seeking a second term in February 2019.

His critics and opponents question his track record tackling the multitude of conflicts that plague Nigeria, from Boko Haram and a thriving Islamic State West Africa insurgency in the northeast, to clashes between farmers and herders in the hinterlands that have left hundreds dead.

It was not immediately clear why the Gwaska village in the northern state of Kaduna was attacked on Saturday.

"Yesterday, we recovered 12 corpses and today we retrieved 33," Austin Iwar, Kaduna's commissioner of police, told Reuters by phone.

The village, in the Birnin-Gwari area of Kaduna, lies near an area known for banditry, where thick forests provide remote hideouts from law enforcement.



Those groups of bandits have for years frustrated authorities' attempts to apprehend them, and in some cases have amassed thousands of stolen cattle and fought off security agent task forces sent to deal with them.North Korea has warned the United States not to misread its overtures of peace as a sign of weakness, as U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un prepare to hold their first-ever summit.

"The U.S. is deliberately provoking the DPRK at the time when the situation on the Korean Peninsula is moving toward peace and reconciliation,'' a Foreign Ministry spokesman told North Korean state media Sunday. DPRK  the Democratic People's Republic of Korea  is the North's formal name.

The official was referring to U.S. claims that Trump's policy of maximum political pressure and sanctions are what drove the North to the negotiating table.

The criticism comes weeks before the U.S.-North Korea summit planned for later this month or early June, and after last month's historic meeting between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

At that meeting, Kim promised to work toward a denuclearized Korean Peninsula and to move North Korea's clocks ahead by 30 minutes to correspond with the South Korean time zone, a pledge he fulfilled Saturday.

Beware of moving back to square one

But the North Korean spokesman said Sunday that movement of U.S. military assets in the region and talk of human rights violations also have hurt the peace process.

"This act cannot be construed otherwise than a dangerous attempt to ruin the hard-won atmosphere of dialogue and bring the situation back to square one," he said.

Trump has indicated that the date and place of the summit have been chosen, and said he believes the Demilitarized Zone that divides the Koreas might be a good venue. Singapore was also believed to be a potential site.

Before Trump meets with Kim, Washington is hoping to gain the release of three Korean Americans accused of anti-state activities. Trump hinted that the release of Kim Dong Chul, Kim Hak Song and Tony Kim was in the offing.



There was no sign of an imminent release, though the men had reportedly been moved to the North Korean capital.



The White House, meanwhile, has announced a separate meeting between Trump and Moon at the White House on May 22 to "continue their close coordination on developments regarding the Korean Peninsula."Li Rui, who was Mao Zedong's secretary in the late 1950s, celebrated his 101st birthday in a hospital ward recently, feted by "almost all of my friends in and outside Beijing" who sent greetings or visited.

"People coming and going, it was extremely busy," he said, adding, "I will live longer. I feel my health is no big problem."

Last month, between visitors to his room in Beijing Hospital, an institution that tends to senior cadre, Li spoke with VOA's Mandarin service. He criticized Mao, something that has landed him in prison in the past, and decried the "low education" of China's current leader, Xi Jinping.

One of Mao's few remaining early compatriots, Li Rui is "a deeply respected  former secretary of Mao who suffered during the Cultural Revolution and helped establish the institutions of post-Mao collective leadership," according to David Ignatius, writing in The Washington Post after China's 19th Communist Party Congress in October.

Li signed up with the party as a young man. He joined Mao's forces in their stronghold, Yanan, where he wrote editorials for the party newspaper, Liberation. His outspoken work earned him a year in prison on charges of spying after a purge of so-called reactionaries. But upon his release, Li continued to rise within the party.

Mao selected Li to be one of his personal secretaries in 1958 on a part-time basis. He fell from favor when he criticized an economic policy  the Great Leap Forward  designed to create industrialized, self-sufficient communes, and by inference, Mao. Li was stripped of his party membership and positions following the 1959 Lushan Conference, a gathering that resulted in a "second leap" that led to the party's criticism of Mao.

Jailed, then rehabilitated

Li was jailed for eight years in Qincheng Prison near Beijing, his incarceration overlapping with the beginning of the Cultural Revolution in 1966. After the turmoil ended in 1976, he was rehabilitated and appointed deputy minister of the Central Organization of the CPC.

Most recently, he declined an invitation as a senior party member to the opening of the 19th party congress. Why Li did this is a matter of debate. It may have been a way to register disagreement with Xi's consolidation of power or because of an article credited to him that came out against censorship by the government and urging it to allow people to speak freely, which are lasting concerns of Li's.

As he entered his 102nd year and spoke with VOA, Li laughed at what he called "a thing on the internet" credited to him: "Mao's mistakes are not corrected and Xi accumulates his evil."

Li praised Xi Zhongxun, the father of China's current president, while expressing disappointment with the son.

"When did I last meet with Xi Jinping? When he was secretary of the Zhejiang Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China.  His level of education was so low," Li said.

Xi graduated from Tsinghua University, where he completed a graduate program in Marxist theory and ideological and political education, and has a doctor of law degree, according to official state media. Those educational accomplishments are widely derided by China's netizens, and to VOA, Li described Xi as operating at an "elementary school level.  Of course I did not look down on him  because he was a son of Zhongxun, who was remarkable."

Xi Zhongxun "commanded Communist guerrillas in northwest China, rose to the rank of deputy prime minister after the 1949 revolution, got ousted by Mao Zedong in 1962 and, after 16 years in disgrace, re-emerged to pioneer some of China's boldest economic reforms," according to the Post.

TV dramas

Li also took aim at the proliferation of television dramas about Mao, who is shown variously on the Long March, fighting the Japanese and being a hero of the revolution. "There are four or five television dramas being aired these days about Mao Zedong," Li told VOA. "There are too many dramas about Mao Zedong."

Mao "hated intellectuals," Li told VOA. In Yanan, the Rectification Movement, an effort to thwart challenges to Mao's position, was a way to criticize Wang Ming, a rival, and Zhou Enlai, who was born to the gentry and educated in France.

"In fact, first, those who had been international students; second, university professors; third, major officials  all were [intellectual] counterrevolutionaries" to Mao, Li said to VOA.

Secondary school teachers and middle officials "were semi-revolutionaries," he said. "[Then] primary school teachers.

"Mao from his bones disliked intellectuals.  After all, Mao was still a peasant and he was extremely narrow-minded."

Li's latest criticism of Mao is not something new or quiet. "As early as 1958, Mao said the personality cult was necessary," Li told The Guardian in 2005. "By the time of the Cultural Revolution, this had become an evil cult."

"Mao's methods were even harsher than the emperors of ancient times," Li said. "He tried to control the minds of the people."

Li acknowledged, however, that "in the past, if I talked like this, I would have been killed or jailed."Ahsan Iqbal, Pakistans federal interior minister, survived an assassination attempt Sunday in the central Punjab province.

Police confirmed the attack, saying the minister sustained a bullet injury in his right shoulder. Iqbal was quickly taken to a nearby hospital, where doctors described his condition as stable. He was later airlifted to the provincial capital of Lahore for further treatment.

Iqbal was shot at twice while he was boarding his vehicle after attending a public meeting in his native town of Narowal.

The lone would-be assassin, a local resident in his early 20s, has been arrested and his weapon seized, a senior district police official told reporters.

The attacker reportedly told police he intended to kill Iqbal because of religious and political differences.

Sundays incident comes as Iqbals ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, or PML-N Party, is due to complete its tenure later this month before the country holds new elections.

Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi condemned the attack in a statement and asked the police to immediately submit their report on the incident.

The United States also condemned the attack on the Pakistani minister.

"We wish him a speedy recovery," said U.S. ambassador David Hale in a brief statement issued to media.Irans president said Sunday if the U.S. withdraws from the nuclear deal between Iran and world powers that Washington would regret the decision.

Hassan Rouhani said in a televised address, If the United States leaves the nuclear agreement, you will soon see that they will regret it like never before in history.

We have plans to resist any decision by Trump on the nuclear accord, Rouhani said in a speech carried live by state television, Reuters reported.

Orders have been issued to our atomic energy organization ... and to the economic sector to confront Americas plots against our country, Rouhani told a rally in northeast Iran.

U.S. President Donald Trump has said he will decide by May 12 whether Washington will remain an adherent to the nuclear agreement.

He has said he will pull out of the pact if amendments are not made, including a proposal to limit Irans ballistic missile program, which Iran has maintained is a defensive deterrent.

Irans foreign minister said Thursday Iran will not renegotiate a 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers.

We will neither outsource our security nor will we renegotiate or add onto a deal we have already implemented in good faith, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on YouTube.

Meanwhile, a foreign policy adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned last week Iran would withdraw from the deal if Trump follows through on his threat to pull out of the accord.

Ali Akbar Velayati said on Irans state television website, If the United States withdraws from the nuclear deal, then we will not stay in it.

Velayati warned against any attempts to renegotiate in exchange for sanctions relief, saying, Iran accepts the nuclear agreement as it has been prepared and will not accept adding or removing anything.

The three European countries that signed the agreement, Britain, France and Germany, have repeatedly tried to persuade Trump not to withdraw.

China and Russia also signed the deal. All of the signatory countries are members of the United Nations Security Council.Nearly a year ago, an investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller was tasked by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein with exploring any links or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump, and, additionally, any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation, according to the appointment order.

Since the order was issued on May 17, 2017, the investigation has grown into a multipronged effort that has resulted in criminal proceedings against 19 people  five U.S. nationals, 13 Russians and one Dutch national  and three Russian organizations.

Here are four areas of the investigation:

Trump campaign officials business deals involving Russia

Perhaps the most visible results of the investigation so far are the indictments of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his business partner, Paul Gates.

On Oct. 30, 2017, Manafort and Gates surrendered to FBI agents to face charges they conspired to launder money, failed to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts, acted as unregistered agents of foreign principal, and made false statements, including statements under the Foreign Agent Registration Act. The charges were related to consulting work they did for pro-Russian businesspeople in Ukraine. Gates has pleaded guilty, while Manafort maintains his innocence.

CNN has reported that the FBI is looking for suspicious ties between Trump and Russia in financial records related to the Trump Organization (the collective name of a group of some 500 business entities owned solely or principally by President Trump), Trump himself, his family members, and his campaign associates.

Transactions under investigation include Russian purchases of Trump apartments, a New York City development with Russian associates, the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow, and Trumps sale of a Florida mansion to Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev for $30 million more than its appraised value.

Russian campaign contacts

In addition, the probe is looking at contacts between Russian government officials and Trump campaign officials.

George Papadopoulos, a former Trump foreign policy adviser, pleaded guilty Oct. 5, 2017, to making false statements to FBI agents about contacts he had with agents of the Russian government while working for the Trump campaign in 2016. He is cooperating with Muellers investigators.

Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty Dec. 1, 2017, to willfully and knowingly making false, fictitious and fraudulent statements to the FBI about contacts and communications with Russias then-ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak. Kislyak returned to Russia in August 2017 and now serves in the Russian legislature.

On Feb. 16, 2018, Mueller issued indictments for 13 Russian citizens and three Russian entities regarding campaign contacts, plus released new charges against Manafort and Gates on February 22.

Russian attempts to influence US voters through cyberspace

In January 2017, U.S. intelligence agencies concluded with high confidence that the Russian government interfered with the U.S. election by hacking into the computers of the Democratic National Committee and John Podesta, campaign chairman for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. The hackers then forwarded the contents of the emails to WikiLeaks.

NBC has reported Mueller is assembling a case against Russians who carried out the hacking and leaking of private information designed to hurt Democrats in the 2016 election. NBC said potential charges include violations of statutes on conspiracy, election law, and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Beyond the targeted hacking, Muellers team is investigating at least one Russia-based troll farm  a group or organization intentionally posting inflammatory comments on social media to disrupt an online community  known as the Internet Research Agency.

In February, a federal grand jury issued indictments for 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities, alleging they pretended to be Americans online, creating posts that were meant to sow discord within the American political system and spread distrust toward the candidates and the political system in general. The eight-count indictment charges that by early to mid-2016, the defendants were using their online identities to support Trumps candidacy and disparage his challenger, Clinton.

The indictment also alleges the defendants encouraged minorities not to vote, or to vote for a third-party candidate.

On Dec. 14, 2017, the Wall Street Journal reported Mueller had requested that data analysis firm Cambridge Analytica turn over the emails of any of its employees who worked on the Trump campaign.

In 2018, Cambridge Analytica was found to have inappropriately acquired the personal information of more than 50 million Facebook users while working on Trumps presidential campaign. Having also done work for a pro-Brexit campaign in Britain, the company is now the subject of investigations in both countries.

Cambridge Analytica announced Wednesday it was filing for bankruptcy and shutting down.

Obstruction of justice

A fourth prong of the special counsel investigation is whether the Trump administration obstructed justice with requests to federal law enforcement agencies to state that there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Part of that investigation centers on whether the firing of FBI Director James Comey in May 2017 amounted to obstruction of justice, after, according to Comey, Trump tried and failed to get Comey to swear to the president a vow of loyalty and to end an investigation of former National Security Adviser Flynn, who was fired in February 2017.

The Mueller team has Comeys personal notes on his interactions with the president while head of the FBI, but a federal judge has denied multiple Freedom of Information Act requests to make the notes public.

Meanwhile, Comey has released his own version of what took place between him and the president in a memoir released last month titled, A Higher Loyalty. The volume of preorders drove the book to No. 1 on Amazon.coms bestseller list, four weeks before its April 17 release.Violence flared in Indian Kashmir for a second day as 10 people  five rebels and five civilians were killed in the restive Himalayan region and dozens were injured during anti-Indian protests.



The rebels, who included a university professor, were killed in a gunbattle when police surrounded their hideout Sunday in Shopian district, south of Kashmir's summer capital, Srinagar. The civilians died when security forces fired tear gas and bullets to control a massive local crowd that turned out in the streets in a show of support for the militants.



The sociology professor, Mohammad Rafi Bhat, had joined the militant ranks just two days before, according to police. A senior official said they had brought the family of the professor to pressure him and the other rebels into surrendering, but they refused to do so despite repeated appeals.



Police said a top militant of the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, one of the groups fighting for Kashmir's independence, also died in the gun battle.



Sunday's violence comes after three militants and four civilians died Saturday in Srinagar.



Kashmir University has suspended classes for two days starting Monday to foil possible protests. A curfew was enforced and internet services were blocked Sunday in Srinagar.



The professor who had joined the militants has again turned the spotlight on the challenge that is confronting Indian authorities in Kashmir, a growing number of radicalized youth and educated people joining the ranks of militants fighting to free Kashmir from Indian control.



"A professor taking arms is unusual and it is worrying", said Radha Kumar, a writer and policy analyst who served as a government interlocutor in Kashmir some years ago.

Also worrying, say observers is the rising and open public support for separatist rebels, demonstrated by stone-pelting crowds that turn out in anti-Indian protests.



Analysts say New Delhi's failure to engage in a political dialogue in the restive region is fanning the anti-India sentiment.



The government has repeatedly said violence has to end before it can hold talks. But it signaled a slight softening in its stance when it appointed an an interlocutor for Kashmir in October.



But the renewed bouts of violence indicate there is no headway in returning peace to the region, say observers. "The main reason is lack of political process.There is no dialogue to resolve the political issues," says Radha Kumar." The rather strident counter anti-militancy activity they are undertaking is not in itself productive."



Officials say nearly 120 people have died in violence in Kashmir this year including 67 militants, 22 civilians, and 28 security personnel.



A separatist insurgency that flared in Kashmir in 1989 had quieted for nearly a decade, but since 2016 violence has been on the rise. The Himalayan region is divided between India and Pakistan.U.S. President Donald Trump spoke with Britains Prime Minister Theresa May on Saturday on issues including the Iran nuclear deal, a week before the president is to decide whether Washington will leave the pact, the White House said.

Trump is set to decide by May 12 whether to withdraw from the 2015 Iran deal, in which the Islamic Republic agreed to curb its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. Trump has all but decided to withdraw, White House officials said on May 2.

Still, Trump could figure out a way to stay in the deal between the Islamic Republic and six world powers: Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States.

Britain, France and Germany agreed that the deal is the best way of stopping Tehran from getting nuclear weapons, Mays office said in late April.

French President Emmanuel Macron urged Trump to stay in the deal when he met with the president in Washington last month.

In the call with May, Trump underscored his commitment to ensure that Iran never acquires a nuclear weapon, the White House said.

The two also talked about nuclear issues in North Korea.

As planning continues for his upcoming meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, President Trump emphasized his goal of a denuclearized North Korea, the White House said.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is traveling to Washington on Sunday for a two-day visit, when he will meet Vice President Mike Pence and national security adviser John Bolton, for talks on Iran, North Korea, Syria and other issues, Britain said.

The UK, the United States, and European partners are united in our effort to tackle the kind of Iranian behavior that makes the Middle East region less secure  its cyber activities, its support for groups like Hezbollah, and its dangerous missile program, which is arming Houthi militias in Yemen, Johnson said in a statement.

Trump is slated visit the United Kingdom in July.Turkey will retaliate if the United States enacts a proposed law that would halt weapons sales to the country, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Sunday.

Lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives released details on Friday of a $717 billion annual defense policy bill, including a measure to temporarily halt weapons sales to Turkey.

In an interview with broadcaster CNN Turk, Cavusoglu said the measures in the bill were wrong, illogical and not fitting between the NATO allies.

"If the United States imposes sanctions on us or takes such a step, Turkey will absolutely retaliate," Cavusoglu said. "What needs to be done is the U.S. needs to let go of this."

The proposed U.S. National Defense Authorization Act, which is several steps from becoming law, would ask the Defense Department to provide Congress with a report on the relationship between the United States and Turkey, and would block the sale of major defense equipment until the report was complete.

Turkey plans to buy more than 100 of Lockheed Martin's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jets, and is also in talks with Washington over the purchase of Patriot missiles.

Turkey signed an agreement with Russia in December to buy S-400 surface-to-air missile batteries as part of Ankara's plans to boost its defense capabilities amid threats from Kurdish and Islamist militants at home and conflicts across its borders in Syria and Iraq.

The move to buy S-400s, which are incompatible with the NATO systems, has unnerved NATO member countries, which are already wary of Moscow's military presence in the Middle East, prompting NATO officials to warn Turkey of unspecified consequences.

Cavusoglu dismissed the warnings, saying Turkey's relations and agreements with Russia were not an alternative to its ties with the West and accused the United States of trying to control Turkey's actions.

"Turkey is not a country under your orders, it is an independent country... Speaking to such a country from above, dictating what it can and cannot buy, is not a correct approach and does not fit our alliance," he said.

Relations between Ankara and Washington have been strained over a host of issues in recent months, including U.S. policy in Syria and a number of legal cases against Turkish and U.S. nationals being held in the two countries.

Last month, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Cavusoglu that the United States was seriously concerned over Ankara's decision to buy the Russian S-400 missile batteries.

Cavusoglu said he would visit the United States next week to meet Pompeo, but added a specific date had not been set yet.The White House on Saturday sharply criticized China's efforts to force foreign airlines to change how they refer to Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, labeling China's latest effort to police language describing the politically sensitive territories as "Orwellian nonsense."

Amid an escalating fight over China's trade surplus with the United States, the White House said China's Civil Aviation Administration sent a letter to 36 foreign air carriers, including a number of U.S. carriers, demanding changes.

The carriers were told to remove references on their websites or in other material that suggests Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau are part of countries independent from China, U.S. and airline officials said.

The White House said in a statement that President Donald Trump "will stand up for Americans resisting efforts by the Chinese Communist Party to impose Chinese political correctness on American companies and citizens."

"This is Orwellian nonsense and part of a growing trend by the Chinese Communist Party to impose its political views on American citizens and private companies. ... We call on China to stop threatening and coercing American carriers and citizens," the statement said.

Taiwan is China's most sensitive territorial issue. Beijing considers the self-ruled, democratic island a wayward province. Hong Kong and Macau are former European colonies that are now part of China but run largely autonomously.

Trade friction

The White House's sharp criticism followed contentious trade talks between senior U.S. and Chinese officials this week.

The Trump administration demanded a $200 billion cut in China's trade surplus with the United States by 2020, sharply lower tariffs and a halt to subsidies for advanced technology, people familiar with the talks said.

"My group just got back from China. We're going to have to rework China because that's been a one-way street for decades," Trump said Saturday at an event in Cleveland.

"We can't go on that way," he said, although he also said he has a lot respect for Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Trump earlier this week praised his relationship with Xi, but there were no signs of significant progress at the talks on Thursday and Friday, raising fears of a trade war between the world's two largest economies.

Trump has already proposed tariffs on $50 billion of Chinese goods, which could go into effect next month.

China has said its own retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods, including soybeans and aircraft, will go into effect if the U.S. duties are imposed.

It has also requested that Washington treat Chinese investment equally under national security reviews and stop issuing new restrictions on Chinese investment.

Airlines' 'next steps'

A spokesman for Airlines for America, a trade group representing United Airlines, American Airlines and other major carriers, said Saturday that it was working with the U.S. government to determine "next steps" in the dispute about how airlines should refer to Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau.

In January, Delta Air Lines, following a demand from China over listing Taiwan and Tibet as countries on its website, apologized for making "an inadvertent error with no business or political intention," and said it had taken steps to resolve the issue.

Also in January, China suspended Marriott International Inc.'s Chinese website for a week to punish the world's biggest hotel chain for listing Tibet, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau as separate countries in a customer questionnaire.

The apparent intensification of efforts to police how foreign businesses refer to Chinese-claimed territories  even if only in pull-down web menus  underscores how sensitive the issue of sovereignty has become in China.

China's aviation authority said in January that it would require all foreign airlines operating routes to China to conduct comprehensive investigations of their websites, apps and customer-related information and "strictly comply with China's laws and regulations to prevent a similar thing from happening."

Australia's Qantas Airways said in January that it had amended its website to no longer refer to Taiwan and Hong Kong as countries rather than Chinese territories after China issued a similar warning.This week, Chads parliament voted to introduce a new constitution that will allow two more terms for President Idriss Deby, who has led the country since 1990. On May 17, Burundians will vote on a constitutional amendment that would enable President Pierre Nkurunziza, president since 2005, to stay in office an additional 16 years.

And in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a worsening humanitarian crisis unfolds while President Joseph Kabila refuses to step down, despite reaching the end of his mandated time in office nearly 18 months ago.

An analysis by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies (ACSS) earlier this year found that less than 40 percent of countries have enforced constitutional term limits, and leaders in just 15 countries have stepped down after two terms.

An author of that study says the consequences can be severe.

Joseph Siegle is the director of research at ACSS and worked on the report. He told VOA, The lack of term limits has created these systems where populations cannot change their leaders through constitutional and established political means.

It leaves fewer options of using the political process to make those changes and leads to justification for violent alternative measures to be taken, he added. The connection between term limits and conflict reflects the source of political violence in Africa. Most of the conflicts in Africa are the result of political crises, Siegle said.

Those include conflicts in the DRC, where Kabila has refused to organize new elections, and in South Sudan, where President Salva Kiir has clung to power in the face of a violent uprising.

Africa has seen a succession of historic transfers of power in recent months, including handovers in Angola, Gambia and Zimbabwe. But none of those countries has had leaders step down at the end of a mandated term. In Angola, president Jose Eduardo Santos had been in power 38 years; in Zimbabwe, president Robert Mugabe had ruled for 37.

Two of those mens contemporaries remain in office: Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea, currently in his 39th year as president, and Paul Biya of Cameroon, in power 35 years.

Third democratic wave

In the wake of the Cold War, in the 1990s, a global democratic reform movement swept through Africa, Siegle said, leading to the dismantling of the one-party states that were previously enshrined in constitutions and the formation of opposition groups with legal backing.

Over time, new systems of governance resulted in elections and the emergence of term limits. Most African leaders who stepped down at the end of their terms did so in the early 2000s.

Tanzania was at the forefront of political reforms. Ali Hassan Mwinyi, the countrys second president, stepped down in 1995, after 10 years in power. He was the first African president to fulfill two terms and step down.

There was a legacy of the rule of law in Tanzania that you didnt see in some of the other countries, Siegle said. Tanzanias first president, Julius Nyerere, paved the way for Mwinyis two-term presidency, according to Siegle. Although Nyerere led for more than 20 years, he also oversaw the transition to a multi-party state.

Nelson Mandela, I think, we could put in that same category. He isnt on our list because he didnt actually serve two terms. Mandela stepped down in 1999, after serving one term. Once Mandela set the precedent, nobody else was going to stay on past their mandates, Siegle said.

Press freedoms

In countries that observe term limits, press freedoms are much greater, based on 2018 rankings by Reporters Without Borders.

Countries with term limits have an average press freedom index of 28. For countries without term limits, with leaders who have not reached their limits, or with limits that have been modified or removed, the average index is 45.

Higher scores are worse on RSFs scale, with the worst-possible score being 100.

Stability

Siegle warned against equating consistent leadership with stability. Indefinite rule, he said, leads to conflict, economic problems and development issues more often than not. Its a misnomer that autocracy leads to stability, he said.

Governmental and societal institutions become weaker, he added, eroding the checks and balances necessary for a robust political system.

Looking ahead, Siegle foresees that all African nations will have the ability to institute term limits, and all leaders will face increasing pressure to do so.

Some pressure to step down is even coming from former leaders. Hailemariam Desalegn, the former prime minister of Ethiopia, called upon South Sudans Salva Kiir to step down, characterizing the conflict in South Sudan as a failure of leadership.

Immediately after my resignation, I asked them, please would you resign because you failed to resolve this problem in South Sudan, he said in response to a question from Mo Ibrahim, a Sudanese-British billionaire businessman who hosted a forum in Kigali, Rwanda, last month.

Ibrahims foundation awards a one-time $5 million payment, and a $200,000 annual payout for life, to African heads of state who uphold the promise to transfer power peacefully.

Leaders should come to their senses, to their mind, and they should somehow leave so that they can give to the new leadership, new blood leadership, who can take the country to the next level, Desalegn added.The ruling Zanu PF party has ordered a re-run of primary elections in constituencies where big wigs linked to President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his inner circle were walloped by political novices.

The partys secretary for administration Obert Mpofu told journalists in Harare on Saturday on the sidelines of a Politburo meeting that almost 10 constituencies would have to conduct fresh polls in areas where there were gross irregularities.

The party would announce a new date for the primaries in Mashonaland West, Harare and Mashonaland Central where some of the preferred Zanu PF parliamentary candidates failed to make the grade.

Mpofu said, The politburo has resolved to have re-runs in constituencies where gross malpractices were noticed or were identified. The commissariat department will inform the affected constituencies at the earliest possible time. They are very few, less than 10. They are mostly in Mash West and some are in Harare  But the details of these constituencies will be pronounced by the commissariat department.

Christopher Mutsvangwa, who is President Emmerson Mnangagwas special advisor, war veterans leader Douglas Mahiya, Matabeleland South Provincial Affairs Minister Abednico Ncube and several other senior party members bit the dust in the just-ended primary elections.

Zanu PF will be featuring Mnangagwa as the partys presidential candidate this year after he toppled former president Robert Mugabe in a defacto military coup last November.

Mutsvangwa, Mahiya and others claim that the elections were rigged by the police in favour of some people believed to linked to the ousted Generation 40 faction of the party, which wanted former First Lady Grace Mugabe to succeed her husband.Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue.

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We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking I agree below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service.WESTPORT  A local man was among four people convicted of stealing government information and using it for illegal trading.

Theodore Huber, 56, of Westport, a partner at Deerfield Management Company, was convicted last week after a four-week trial in New York Federal Court, according to a release.When the pain became simply too much to bear, Susan Doerksen begged her husband of 59 years to help her end her life and finally end the pain.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 6/5/2018 (1249 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When the pain became simply too much to bear, Susan Doerksen begged her husband of 59 years to help her end her life and finally end the pain.

After making the hardest decision of his life, Bert Doerksen was thrust into an ordeal that would see him not only lose his wife, but also become the centre of a criminal trial that threatened to see the 79-year-old put behind bars.

PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Martin Glazer, Bert Doerksens lawyer, says his client was a fine and decent man.

It was November of 1997 and Susan Doerksen did not know how long she could continue to live with the chronic back pain and other ailments that had plagued her for decades.

"It was so unfortunate because she had lived with the pain for so long and she got to the point that she just could not take it anymore," Bert and Susan Doerksens son Jim Doerksen said from his ranch in California.

"The medical system failed my mother, and after we buried her, the justice system failed my father."

It was a November evening in 1997 when Susan told her husband Bert she had decided she no longer had the will to live.

A diary written by Bert Doerksen after his wife was gone and eventually released to the public tells the haunting story of how he helped the love of his life end her own life, by helping her to sit in the couples old Oldsmobile in the garage of their Southdale home and fill that vehicle with carbon monoxide.

"I warmed the car up nice and warm, removed my key and shut it off. I went inside to Susan and begged her once more not to go ahead," Doerksen wrote in his diary. "She asked me if it was ready. I said yes. She asked if anything would happen to me and I said no, she was going to do everything herself.

"We went arm-in-arm to the car. I was very careful walking down the three steps to the garage level as she had taken all these pills. Susan picked up her own car key, opened the car door, inserted the key and started the car.

"We kissed and hugged once more."

Earlier in the evening Burt had travelled to a nearby store to buy supplies that would allow the car to fill up with carbon monoxide.

As Burt sat in his kitchen he hoped to hear the sound of a honking horn, because that would be Susan letting him know that she had changed her mind and no longer wanted to die.

"She never blew that horn," Bert wrote in his diary. "And I really did not expect her to. So I sat and watched the clock. After the longest 10 minutes of my life, I went to Susan. When I opened the door, she waved me back to go away.

"I blew a kiss to her. She tried to blow one back but could not quite raise her hands to her mouth."

Bert went back to the house and the next time he went to the garage he checked his wifes pulse and realized she was dead.

'We went arm-in-arm to the car. I was very careful walking down the three steps to the garage level as she had taken all these pills. Susan picked up her own car key, opened the car door, inserted the key and started the car. We kissed and hugged once more'  entry in Bert Doerksen's diary

He went back into his home, poured himself a whiskey and then called his daughter Jeny to tell her what had happened.

Soon, emergency workers were at the Doerkson home and Susan was pronounced dead.

Bert also wrote in his diary that despite the possibility of losing his wife, he would ultimately not stop her from making her own decision.

"She wanted to die so desperately, even by suicide," Bert wrote. "She asked, and I promised I would not stand in her way if she had made the final commitment.

PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Bert Doerksen lived another six years after his wifes death.

"These were terrible times, and these promises were made with tears flowing from both of us."

Jim Doerksen, who was living in California when his mother died, said for many years he and his father begged doctors to give Susan stronger drugs to help ease her pain.

He said his mom broke her back in an accident when she was a teenager and pain persisted throughout her life, but that pain became unbearable in her later years.

"I was in Winnipeg and I went to HSC and had to get pretty serious with some doctors," Jim said. "I said, My mother must get help, shes at her wits end."

Still the pain persisted, but Jim said he did not expect to find out one night his mother had chosen to take her own life while his dad sat in their home.

"My sisters and I didnt know this was going to happen" he said. "We heard her threaten that she had to do something, but I think we didnt take it seriously enough and all of a sudden it happened.

"My dad loved my mother, he didnt want to see her go and he was very lonely after she was gone."

Susan would be laid to rest, and Bert would be forced to go through the rest of his life without her, but only months later something else happened that thrust Bert into the middle of the criminal justice system and saw the frail, old man facing the possibility of spending the rest of his life behind bars.

In late January 1998 Bert was charged with assisting his wife commit suicide. That charge carried the possibility of a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.

It was the first time a charge of assisted suicide had been laid in Manitoba.

Martin Glazer, the lawyer hired to defend Bert, said two decades later he still remembers it as one of the most unique and sad cases he has ever been a part of in his more than 30 years practising law.

"Bert was a very fine and decent man, he was your typical law-abiding citizen and a hardworker," Glazer said form his office overlooking downtown Winnipeg.

"He was a retired World War II veteran. He was not the kind of person you would ever expect to see involved in the criminal justice system."

Glazer also remembers watching Bert cry many times because of how much he missed his wife, and because he was now on the verge of a major criminal trial.

"He and his wife loved each other," Glazer said. "They were married for 59 years. This was her decision, it was not his decision. She couldnt bear the pain. He begged her not to go through with it.

"The whole situation is very sad."

Glazer said as soon as he got involved with the case his strategy was to put as much pressure on those in charge of Canadas justice system to drop the charges.

That pressure included letters written to then Manitoba Justice Minister Vic Toews, and a public campaign to get as much media attention on the case as possible, because he believed the majority of the public would side with the now 80-years-old, frail and partially crippled Bert.

"We had a whole campaign," Glazer said. "We tried to get the government to drop the charges, we never thought it was in the public interest to prosecute."

Months went by with charges still looming over Bert and he was hit with more grave news, by August of 1998 he was diagnosed with terminal cancer and told he had only months to live.

Bert Doerksen didnt want his wife of 59 years, Susan, to end her own life, but allowed her to make her own decision when she decided she could no longer live with chronic pain.

In a letter Glazer wrote in 1998, he pleaded with Manitobas justice department to do what they could to get the charges dropped, but still the case moved forward.

"It is a long-standing practice of Attorney Generals in Manitoba not to become involved in individual cases despite the legal and constitutional ability to do so," Deputy Attorney General Bruce MacFarlane wrote in a letter addressed to Glazer.

With that, Glazer and members of Berts family continued their pleas through the media.

"At one point I said, Do you want us to haul him into court on a stretcher? Is that what you guys want?" Glazer said.

Glazer said Bert was also offered a deal where he could plead guilty to the charge and face no jail time, but Bert refused.

"They offered no jail time and he refused. Its a credit to him because he knew he didnt commit a crime," Glazer said.

Glazer added at no point did he see any family members turn against Bert for what he had done.

"They werent angry because they said, Mom wanted to die, she told us she wanted to die," Glazer said.

"They were not happy that their mom was dead, but they were relieved that the pain had ended and thats what they wanted for her the whole time.

"They wanted what was best for her."

It was July 28, 2000 when Bert Doerksen and his family finally got the news they had been hoping for and news that would allow Bert to die in peace.

Just days before he was set to go to trial, justice officials dropped the charges against Bert as Crown attorney Brian Wilford entered a stay of proceedings.

Wilford told the court at the time that Berts grave illness was the only reason they dropped the charges.

"Let me just say this decision has nothing to do with the merits of the case. It has everything to do with the status of Doerksens health," Wilford told the court.

Doerksen was not even in court when the decision came down, as his failing health would not allow him to get there.

Glazer and Jim Doerksen say they believe the public pressure they mounted was the reason the charges were dropped.

"We tried to get the charges dropped and we were successful in the end. But it was a difficult journey, it took a lot out of him," Glazer said.

"I was frustrated but I was confident that ultimately somewhere along the line it would be OK for him. I was just hoping he would not die in the process."

Now, two decades later the case is still something that weighs on the mind of Berts son, Jim, who is the same age his father was when his mother died, and he credits the public pressure in helping to get the charges dropped.

"He only got off the hook because the political pressure got too tough on Vic Toews and the people in charge in Manitoba at that point," Jim said.

"It was the pressure. Believe me it was the pressure."

Cory Ruf is a spokesperson for Dying with Dignity Canada, a national organization that among other things works to raise awareness about choices Canadians have when it comes to end-of-life issues and medically assisted dying.

He said although laws on assisted suicide have changed since 1997, he still worries the current system is forcing some Canadians to make horrible decisions just like Bert and Susan did.

Medically assisted dying was legalized in Canada in the summer of 2016, but with rigid guidelines that decide who is eligible.

Ruf said even today Susan would not be eligible to have a doctor help her end her life, because there was no reason to believe she was going to die in the "foreseeable future."

Among other criteria for medically assisted dying in Canada, two physicians and/or nurse practitioners must independently confirm their written agreement the patient has an "incurable grievous and irremediable medical condition that is in an advanced state of irreversible decline, that the patients natural death is reasonably foreseeable and that the patient is capable and willing of receiving a medically assisted death."

Ruff said he knows of cases in Canada of people in so much pain they have deprived themselves of food and water in an effort to bring about their own death, or as a way to convince their doctors that their death is reasonably foreseeable.

"The imposition of the reasonably foreseeable requirement has essentially deprived people of that option, who would otherwise be eligible or have the right to make their own choice," Ruf said.

"Its leading people and families into very difficult situations and situations that resemble what individuals and families were put into before assisted dying was legalized.

"People are still going overseas to access assisted dying, and people are depriving themselves of food and water in order to hasten their own death so the way the law is set up is still depriving people of making those choices when it comes to end of life."

After the charges were dropped, Bert went on to live a few more years and live longer than any doctors had predicted.

According to Jim, Bert lived out his life to the fullest until the day he died, spending a lot of that time with Jim and his wife Betty at their ranch in California, travelling there despite his cancer.

"He said, It doesnt matter where I am, I am going to be in pain whether Im at home or at your place," Jim said.

Bert also travelled often to his sons home after his cancer diagnosis because he did not know which trip would be is final visit with his son and daughter-in-law.

"He just needed to do that, and I have to hand it to him," Jim said. "He just knew he had to spend one last time at the ranch."

Jim said he remembers having guests at the house just weeks before his dad died and it was Bert who cooked for the guests

"My dad made the chili," Jim said with a laugh. "And everybody raved about it. Through the pain and everything he just kept doing what he wanted to do."

Bert lost his battle with cancer on Nov. 8, 2003 at the age of 85 and was laid to rest in Winnipeg.

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Jim said he will always live with the fond memories of all the time he spent with his father.

"He was quite the guy and quite the character," Jim said.

"He was a great guy, he was a great dad."

Dave Baxter is a freelance reporter, photographer and editor who writes about Manitoba crimes for the Sunday Special.

crimefilesmanitoba@gmail.com

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Ltd., Alfa Aesar (Hong Kong) Limited, Allergon AB, Alphine Mountain Limited, Ambion Inc., Apogent Denmark ApS, Apogent Finance Company, Apogent Holding Company, Apogent Technologies Inc., Apogent Transition Corp., Apogent U.K. Limited, App-Tek International Pty Ltd, Applied Biosystems B.V., Applied Biosystems Finance B.V., Applied Biosystems International Inc., Applied Biosystems LLC, Applied Biosystems Taiwan LLC, Applied Biosystems Trading (Shanghai) Company Ltd., Applied Biosystems de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Applied Scientific Corporation, Avances Cientificos de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Avocado Research Chemicals Limited, B.R.A.H.M.S. Biotech GmbH, B.R.A.H.M.S. GmbH, B.R.A.H.M.S. UK Ltd, BAC BV, BAC IP BV, Barnstead Thermolyne LLC, Beijing Phadia Diagnostics Co Ltd, Bender MedSystems GmbH, BioTrove Corporation, BioTrove International Inc., Bioanalysis Labsystems S.A., Biochemical Sciences LLC, Biolab, BmT GmbH Laborprodukte, Bonsai Tecnologies - Sistemas para Biotecnologia e Industria Unipessoal Lda, Brammer Bio, Bumi-Sans Sendirian Berhad, CAC Limited, CB Diagnostics AB, CB Diagnostics Holding AB, CEPH International Corporation, CHK Holdings Inc., CRS Robotics, CTPS LLC, Capitol Scientific Products Inc., Capitol Vial Inc., Cellomics Inc., CellzDirect Inc., Cenduit GmbH, Cenduit LLC, Cezanne S.A.S., Chase Scientific Glass Inc., Chromacol Limited, Clintrak, Clintrak Clinical Labeling Services LLC, Clintrak Pharmaceutical Services LLC, Cohesive Technologies (UK) Limited, Cohesive Technologies Inc., Columbia Diagnostics Inc., Compendia Bioscience Inc., Comtest Limited, Consolidated Technologies Inc., Consultores Fisher Scientific Chile Ltd, Core Informatics, Core Informatics LLC, Core Informatics UK Ltd., D-finitive Technologies Inc., DCG Systems B.V., DCG Systems C.V., DCG Systems G.K., DCG Systems GmbH, DCG Systems Korea Ltd., DCG Systems LLC, DPI Newco LLC, DSM Pharmaceutical Products Inc., Dharmacon, Diagnostix Ltd., Dionex (China) Analytical Ltd, Dionex (Switzerland) AG, Dionex (UK) Limited, Dionex Austria GmbH, Dionex Benelux B.V., Dionex Brasil Instrumentos Cientificos Ltda, Dionex Canada Ltd., Dionex China Limited, Dionex Corporation, Dionex Denmark A/S, Dionex Holding GmbH, Dionex I LLC, Dionex Pty Ltd., Dionex S.A., Dionex S.p.A., Dionex Singapore Pte Ltd., Dionex Softron GmbH, Dionex Sweden AB, Distribution Solutions International Inc., Doe & Ingalls Investors Inc., Doe & Ingalls Limited, Doe & Ingalls Management LLC, Doe & Ingalls Properties II LLC, Doe & Ingalls Properties LLC, Doe & Ingalls of California Operating LLC, Doe & Ingalls of Florida Operating LLC, Doe & Ingalls of Maryland Operating LLC, Doe & Ingalls of Massachusetts Operating LLC, Doe & Ingalls of North Carolina Operating LLC, Doublecape Holding Limited, Doublecape Limited, Drakeside Real Estate Holding Company LLC, Duke Scientific Corporation, Dynal Biotech Beijing Limited, EGS Gauging Ltd., EGS Gauging Technical Services Company, EP Scientific Products LLC, Ecochem N.V., EnviroEquip Pty Ltd, Epsom Glass Industries Limited, Equibio Limited, Erie Electroverre S.A., Erie Finance Limited, Erie LP Holding LLC, Erie Scientific Company of Puerto Rico, Erie Scientific Hungary Kft, Erie Scientific LLC, Erie U.K. Limited, Erie UK 1 Limited, Erie UK 2 Limited, Erie UK Holding Company, Erie UK Senior Holding Limited, European Laboratory Holdings Limited, Eutech Instruments Europe B.V., Eutech Instruments Pte Ltd., Eutech Instruments Sdn Bhd, Ever Ready Thermometer Co. Inc., FEI Asia Pacific Co. Ltd., FEI Australia Pty Ltd, FEI CPD B.V., FEI Company, FEI Company Japan Ltd., FEI Company of USA (S.E.A.) Pte Ltd., FEI Czech Republic s.r.o., FEI Deutschland GmbH, FEI EFA Inc., FEI EFA International Pte. Ltd., FEI Electron Optics B.V., FEI Electron Optics International B.V., FEI Europe B.V., FEI France SAS, FEI Global Holdings C.V., FEI Hong Kong Company Limited, FEI Houston Inc., FEI Italia Srl, FEI Korea Ltd., FEI Melbourne Pty Ltd., FEI Microscopy Solutions Ltd, FEI Munich GmbH, FEI Norway Holding AS, FEI SAS, FEI Saudi Arabia LLC, FEI Servicos de Nanotecnologia Ltda., FEI Technologies Inc., FEI Technology de Mexico S.A. de C.V., FEI Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., FEI Trondheim AS, FEI UK Ltd., FHP LLC, FRC Holding Inc. V, FS (Barbados) Capital Holdings Ltd., FS Casa Rocas Holdings LLC, FS Mexicana Holdings LLC, FSI Receivables Company LLC, FSII Sweden Holdings AB, FSII Sweden Holdings I AB, FSIR Holdings (UK) Limited, FSIR Holdings (US) Inc., FSUK Holdings Limited, FSWH Company LLC, FSWH II C.V., FSWH International Holdings LLC, Fermentas China Co. Ltd, Fermentas Inc., Fermentas International, Fermentas Sweden AB, Fermentas UK Limited, Fiberlite Centrifuge LLC, Finesse Scientific Equipment (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Finesse Solutions AG, Finesse Solutions Inc., Finnzymes Oy, Fisher Alder S. de R.L. de C.V., Fisher Asia Manufacturing Ventures Inc., Fisher Bermuda Holdings Limited, Fisher BioImage ApS, Fisher BioPharma Services (India) Private Limited, Fisher BioSciences Japan G.K., Fisher BioServices Inc., Fisher Bioblock Holding II SNC, Fisher CLP Holding Limited Partnership, Fisher Canada Holding ULC 1, Fisher Canada Holding ULC 2, Fisher Canada Holding ULC 3, Fisher Canada Limited Partnership, Fisher Chimica BVBA, Fisher Clinical Logistics LLC, Fisher Clinical Services (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Fisher Clinical Services (Bristol) LLC, Fisher Clinical Services (Colombia) LLC, Fisher Clinical Services (Korea) Co. Ltd, Fisher Clinical Services (Mexico) LLC, Fisher Clinical Services (Peru) LLC, Fisher Clinical Services (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Fisher Clinical Services Colombia S.A.S., Fisher Clinical Services GmbH, Fisher Clinical Services Inc., Fisher Clinical Services Japan K.K., Fisher Clinical Services Latin America S.R.L., Fisher Clinical Services Limited Liability Company, Fisher Clinical Services Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Fisher Clinical Services Peru S.R.L, Fisher Clinical Services Pte Ltd., Fisher Clinical Services U.K. Limited, Fisher Emergo B.V., Fisher Germany Holdings GmbH, Fisher Hamilton China Inc., Fisher Hamilton Mexico LLC, Fisher Holdings ApS, Fisher Internet Minority Holdings L.L.C., Fisher Laboratory Products Manufacturing (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, Fisher Luxembourg Danish Holdings SARL, Fisher Manufacturing (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Fisher Maybridge Holdings Limited, Fisher Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Fisher Scientific (Austria) GmbH, Fisher Scientific (Hong Kong) Limited, Fisher Scientific (M) Sdn Bhd, Fisher Scientific (SEA) Pte. Ltd., Fisher Scientific A/S, Fisher Scientific AG, Fisher Scientific Australia Pty Limited, Fisher Scientific Biotech Line ApS, Fisher Scientific Brazil Inc., Fisher Scientific Central America Inc., Fisher Scientific Chile Inc., Fisher Scientific Colombia Inc., Fisher Scientific Company, Fisher Scientific Company L.L.C., Fisher Scientific Costa Rica Sociedad de Responsabilidad Limitada, Fisher Scientific Europe Holdings B.V., Fisher Scientific GTF AB, Fisher Scientific Germany Beteiligungs GmbH, Fisher Scientific GmbH, Fisher Scientific Holding Company LLC, Fisher Scientific Holding HK Limited, Fisher Scientific Holding U.K. Limited, Fisher Scientific Holdings (M) Sdn Bhd, Fisher Scientific Holdings (S) Pte Ltd, Fisher Scientific International LLC, Fisher Scientific Investments (Cayman) Ltd., Fisher Scientific Ireland Investments Unlimited, Fisher Scientific Ireland Limited, Fisher Scientific Japan Ltd., Fisher Scientific Jersey Island Limited, Fisher Scientific Korea Ltd, Fisher Scientific Latin America Inc., Fisher Scientific Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Fisher Scientific Mexicana S. de R.L. de C.V., Fisher Scientific Mexico Inc., Fisher Scientific Middle East and Africa Inc., Fisher Scientific Norway AS, Fisher Scientific Operating Company, Fisher Scientific Oxoid Holdings Ltd., Fisher Scientific Oy, Fisher Scientific Pte. Ltd., Fisher Scientific S.A.S., Fisher Scientific S.L., Fisher Scientific SPRL, Fisher Scientific The Hague I B.V., Fisher Scientific The Hague II B.V., Fisher Scientific The Hague III B.V., Fisher Scientific The Hague IV B.V., Fisher Scientific The Hague V B.V., Fisher Scientific U.K. Limited, Fisher Scientific UK Holding Company 2, Fisher Scientific UK Holding Company Limited, Fisher Scientific Unipessoal Lda., Fisher Scientific Venezuela Inc., Fisher Scientific Worldwide (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Fisher Scientific Worldwide Holdings I C.V., Fisher Scientific Worldwide Inc., Fisher Scientific de Mexico S.A., Fisher Scientific of the Netherlands B.V., Fisher Scientific spol. S.r.o, Fisher Servicios Clinicos (Chile) LLC, Fisher Servicios Clinicos Chile Ltda, Fisher WWD Holding L.L.C., Fisher Worldwide Distribution SPV, Fisher Worldwide Gene Distribution SPV, Flux Instruments, Fuji Partnership, G & M Procter Limited, G V Instruments Limited, GV Instruments Canada Ltd., GV Instruments Inc, Gatan Inc, General Scientific Company Sdn Bhd (M), Genomed molekularbiologische und diagnostische Produkte GmbH, Gerhard Menzel B.V. & Co. KG, Gold Cattle Standard Testing Labs Inc., Golden West Indemnity Company Limited, Goring Kerr Detection Limited, Greenville Service Company Inc., HENO GmbH i.L., Hangar 215 Inc., Helmet Securities Limited, Henogen, HighChem, HyClone International Trade (Tianjin) Co. Ltd, Hybaid Limited, I.Q. (BIO) Limited, IDnostics AG, ILS Laboratories Scandinavia AB, Inel Inc., Inel SAS, InnaPhase Inc., InnaPhase Limited, IntegenX, Intrinsic BioProbes Inc., Intrinsic Bioprobes Inc., Invitrogen (Shanghai) Investment Co. Ltd., Invitrogen Argentina SA, Invitrogen BioServices India Private Limited, Invitrogen Europe Limited, Invitrogen Finance Corp., Invitrogen Holdings LLC, Invitrogen Holdings Ltd., Invitrogen Hong Kong Limited, Invitrogen IP Holdings Inc., Invitrogen Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Ion Torrent Systems Inc., Ionalytics Corporation, JSC Thermo Fisher Scientific, Jouan LLC, Jouan Limited, Jouan SA, Kendro Containment & Services Limited, Kendro Laboratory Products Ltd, Kettlebrook Insurance Co. ltd., Keystone Scientific, KonTEM GmbH, Kyle Jordan Investments LLC, LIFE TECHNOLOGIES CORPORATION, LTC Tech South Africa PTY Ltd., La-Pha-Pack GmbH, Lab Vision (UK) Limited, Lab Vision Corporation, Lab-Chrom-Pack LLC, Lab-Line Instruments Inc., Labomex MBP S. de R. L. De C.V., Laboratoire Service International - L.S.I, Laboratory Management Systems Inc., Laboratory Specialties Proprietary Ltd., LambTrack Limited, Laser Analytical Systems Inc., Liberty Lane Investment LLC, Liberty Lane Real Estate Holding Company LLC, Life Sciences International (Poland) SP z O.O, Life Sciences International Holdings BV, Life Sciences International LLC, Life Sciences International Limited, Life Technologies AS, Life Technologies Australia PTY Ltd., Life Technologies BPD AB, Life Technologies BPD UK Limited, Life Technologies Brasil Comercio e Industria de Produtos para Biotecnologia Ltda, Life Technologies Chile SpA, Life Technologies Clinical Services Lab Inc., Life Technologies Co. Ltd., Life Technologies Czech Republic s.r.o., Life Technologies DaAn Diagnostic (Guangzhou) Co. Ltd., Life Technologies Europe B.V., Life Technologies Finance Ltd., Life Technologies Finland Oy, Life Technologies GmbH, Life Technologies Holdings PTE Ltd., Life Technologies Inc., Life Technologies International B.V., Life Technologies Japan Ltd., Life Technologies Korea LLC, Life Technologies Limited, Life Technologies Magyarorszag Kft, Life Technologies New Zealand Ltd., Life Technologies Norway Investments US LLC, Life Technologies Polska Sp z.o.o., Life Technologies SA, Life Technologies SAS, Life Technologies s.r.o, Linkage Biosciences Inc., Linkage Biosciences S.a.r.l., Loftus Furnace Company, Lomb Scientific, Lomb Scientific (Aust) Pty Limited, MTI-GlobalStem, Marketbase International Limited, Matrix MicroScience Inc., Matrix MicroScience Ltd., Matrix Technologies Corporation Limited, Matrix Technologies LLC, Maybridge Chemical Company Limited, Maybridge Chemical Holdings Limited, Maybridge Limited, Medical Analysis Systems Inc., Medical Analysis Systems International Inc., Medical Diagnostics Systems Inc., Metavac LLC, Microgenics Corporation, Microgenics Diagnostics Pty Limited, Microgenics GmbH, Microm International GmbH, Microm Laborgerate S.L.U, Molecular BioProducts Inc., Molecular Probes Inc., Molecular Transfer Inc., NAPCO Inc., NERL Diagnostics LLC, NOVODIRECT GmbH Labor- und Industrie- Megerate, Nalge (Europe) Limited, Nalge Nunc International (Monterrey) LLC, Nalge Nunc International Corporation, Nanjing WeiKangLe Trading Industrial Co Ltd, NanoDrop Technologies LLC, National Scientific Company, Navaho Acquisition Corp., Neomarkers Inc., New FS Holdings Inc., NewcoGen PE LLC, Nihon Dynal K.K., Niton Asia Limited, NovaWave Technologies Inc., Nunc A/S, ONIX Systems Inc., OXOID CZ s.r.o., Odyssey Holdings Corporation, Odyssey Luxembourg Holdings S.a r.l., Odyssey Luxembourg IP Holdings 1 S.a r.l., Odyssey Luxembourg IP Holdings 2 S.a r.l., Odyssey Venture Corporation, Omega Data Systems, One Lambda Inc, Onix Holdings Limited, Orme Scientific Limited, Owl Separation Systems LLC, Oxoid (ELY) Limited, Oxoid 2000 Limited, Oxoid AS, Oxoid Australia Pty. Limited, Oxoid Company, Oxoid Deutschland GmbH, Oxoid Holding SAS, Oxoid Holdings Limited, Oxoid Inc., Oxoid International Limited, Oxoid Investments GmbH, Oxoid Limited, Oxoid N.V., Oxoid New Zealand Limited, Oxoid Pension Trustees Limited, Oxoid Senior Holdings Limited, Oxoid UKH LLC, PAX - DSI Acquisition LLC, PE AG, Pacific Rim Far East Industries LLC, Pacific Rim Investment LLC, Panomics L.L.C., Panomics S.R.L., Patheon, Patheon API Inc., Patheon API Manufacturing Inc., Patheon API Services Inc., Patheon Austria GmbH & Co KG, Patheon B.V., Patheon Banner U.S. Holdings Inc., Patheon Biologics (NJ) LLC, Patheon Biologics Australia Pty Ltd, Patheon Biologics B.V., Patheon Biologics LLC, Patheon Calculus Merger LLC, Patheon Cooperatief U.A., Patheon Development Services Inc., Patheon Finance LLC, Patheon France SAS, Patheon Holdings B.V., Patheon Holdings I B.V., Patheon Holdings II B.V., Patheon Holdings SAS, Patheon I B.V., Patheon I Holding GmbH, Patheon Inc., Patheon International AG, Patheon Italia S.p.A., Patheon KK, Patheon Life Science Products International GmbH, Patheon Manufacturing Services LLC, Patheon Pharmaceuticals Inc., Patheon Pharmaceuticals Services Inc., Patheon Puerto Rico Acquisitions Corporation, Patheon Puerto Rico Inc., Patheon Regensburg GmbH, Patheon Softgels B.V., Patheon Softgels Inc., Patheon U.S. Holdings Inc., Patheon U.S. Holdings LLC, Patheon UK Limited, Patheon UK Pension Trustees Limited, Pelican Acquisition Corporation, Perbio Science (Canada) Company, Perbio Science AB, Perbio Science BVBA, Perbio Science France SAS, Perbio Science Inc., Perbio Science International Netherlands B.V., Perbio Science Invest AB, Perbio Science Nederland B.V., Perbio Science Projekt AB, Perbio Science Sweden Holdings AB, Perbio Science Switzerland SA, Perbio Science UK Limited, Phadia AB, Phadia Diagnosticos Ltda, Phadia GmbH, Phadia Holding AB, Phadia International Holdings C.V., Phadia Korea Co. Ltd, Phadia Luxembourg Holdings S.a.r.l., Phadia Malta Holdings Limited, Phadia Oy, Phadia Real Property AB, Phadia Sweden AB, Phadia Taiwan Inc., Phadia US Inc., Phadia s.r.o., Pharmacaps Mexicana SA de CV, Phenom-World B.V., Phenom-World Holding B.V, Phenom-World Innovations B.V., Phinotex, Pierce Biotechnology Inc., Pierce Milwaukee Holding Corp., Pierce Milwaukee Inc., Polychromix, Power Sweden Holdings I AB, Power Sweden Holdings II AB, Power Sweden Holdings III Aktiebolag, Princeton Gamma-Tech Instruments LLC, Princeton Security Technologies, Prionics AG, Prionics Asia Ltd., Prionics Deutschland GmbH, Prionics France SAS, Prionics Italia S.r.l., Prionics Lelystad B.V., Prionics USA Inc., Priority Air Express LLC, Priority Air Express Pte. Ltd., Priority Air Express UK Limited, Priority Air Holdings Corp, Priority Solutions International, Promedica Pty Limited, Proxeon, Proxeon Biosystems ApS, Qiagen, REP GBP I-B Blocker Inc., Raymond A Lamb Limited, Remel Europe Limited, Remel Inc., Richard-Allan Scientific Company, Robbins Scientific LLC, Robocon Labor- und Industrieroboter Gesellschaft m.b.H, Rupprecht and Patashnick, Rupprecht and Patashnick (R&P), Russell pH Limited, S.C.I. du 10 rue Dugay Trouin, SCI Inno 92, STC Bio Manufacturing Inc., Samco Scientific (Monterrey) LLC, Samco Scientific LLC, Saroph Sweden AB, Schantz Road LLC, Seradyn Inc., Shanghai Life Technologies Biotechnology Co. Limited, Shanghai Thermo Fisher (C-I) Trading Co. Ltd, Shanghai Thermo Fisher (S) Trading Co. Ltd, Southern Trials (Pty) Ltd., Specialty (SMI) Inc., Spectra-Physics AB, Spectra-Physics Holdings Limited, Spectra-Physics Holdings USA LLC, Spectronex, Staten Island Cogeneration Corporation, Sterilin Limited, Stokes Bio Ltd., Sweden DIA (Sweden) AB, SwissAnalytic Group GmbH, Systems Manufacturing Corporation, TFLP LLC, TFS Breda B.V., TFS LLC, TFS Singapore HK Limited, TFSL Financing GP LLC, TFSL Senior GP Holdings 2 LLC, TK Partnership, TKA Wasseraufbereitungssysteme, TMOI Inc., TPI Real Estate Holdings LLC, TSP Holdings I LLC, TWX LLC, Technology Design Solutions Pty Ltd, Thermedics Detection de Argentina S.R.L, Thermo Allen Coding Limited, Thermo Asset Management Services Inc., Thermo BioAnalysis LLC, Thermo BioAnalysis Limited, Thermo BioSciences Holdings LLC, Thermo CIDTEC, Thermo CRS Holdings Ltd., Thermo CRS Ltd., Thermo Cambridge Limited, Thermo Cayman Holdings Ltd., Thermo Corporation, Thermo DMA Inc., Thermo Detection de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Thermo Dutch Holdings Limited Partnership, Thermo EGS Gauging LLC, Thermo Eberline Holdings I LLC, Thermo Eberline Holdings II LLC, Thermo Eberline LLC, Thermo Electron (Calgary) Limited, Thermo Electron (Chile) S.p.A., Thermo Electron (Karlsruhe) GmbH, Thermo Electron (Management Services) Limited, Thermo Electron (Proprietary) Limited, Thermo Electron A/S, Thermo Electron Australia Pty Limited, Thermo Electron Export Inc., Thermo Electron Holdings SAS, Thermo Electron Industries, Thermo Electron LED GmbH, Thermo Electron LED S.A.S., Thermo Electron Limited, Thermo Electron Manufacturing Limited, Thermo Electron Metallurgical Services Inc., Thermo Electron North America LLC, Thermo Electron Pension Trust GmbH, Thermo Electron Puerto Rico Inc., Thermo Electron SAS, Thermo Electron Scientific Instruments LLC, Thermo Electron Sweden AB, Thermo Electron Sweden Forvaltning AB, Thermo Electron Weighing & Inspection Limited, Thermo Elemental Limited, Thermo Environmental Instruments LLC, Thermo Fast U.K. Limited, Thermo Finland Holdings LLC, Thermo Finland Holdings MT1 B.V., Thermo Finland Holdings MT2 B.V., Thermo Finnigan LLC, Thermo Finnigan Limited, Thermo Fisher (CN) Luxembourg Holding S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher (CN) Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher (CN) Malta Holdings Limited, Thermo Fisher (CN-I) Luxembourg LLC, Thermo Fisher (CN-II) Luxembourg LLC, Thermo Fisher (Cayman) Holdings I Ltd., Thermo Fisher (Cayman) Holdings II Ltd., Thermo Fisher (Finland Holdings 2) LLC, Thermo Fisher (Finland Holdings) Limited Partnership, Thermo Fisher (Gibraltar) II Limited, Thermo Fisher (Gibraltar) Limited, Thermo Fisher (Heysham) Limited, Thermo Fisher (Kandel) GmbH, Thermo Fisher CHK Holding LLC, Thermo Fisher China Business Trust, Thermo Fisher China Business Trust II, Thermo Fisher Costa Rica Sociedad de Responsabilidad Limitada, Thermo Fisher Cyprus Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Detection Mexico LLC, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics (Ireland) Limited, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics AB, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics AG, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics AS, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics Aps, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics Austria GmbH, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics B.V., Thermo Fisher Diagnostics GmbH, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics K.K., Thermo Fisher Diagnostics Limited, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics NV, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics S.L.U., Thermo Fisher Diagnostics S.p.A. , Thermo Fisher Diagnostics SAS, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics Sociedade Unipessoal Lda, Thermo Fisher Eurobonds Ltd., Thermo Fisher Financial Services Inc., Thermo Fisher GP LLC, Thermo Fisher German Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Germany B.V., Thermo Fisher India Divestco Private Limited, Thermo Fisher India Holding B.V., Thermo Fisher Insurance Holdings Inc., Thermo Fisher Insurance Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Investments (Cayman) Ltd., Thermo Fisher Israel Ltd., Thermo Fisher Production et Services SAS, Thermo Fisher Project Cyprus LLC, Thermo Fisher Re Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Asheville) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Australia) C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Barbados) Holdings Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Breda) Holding BV, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Bremen) GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific (CN) Limited Partnership, Thermo Fisher Scientific (China) Co. Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific (China) Holding Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific (China-HK) Holding Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific (DE) Holding S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Ecublens) SARL, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Finance I) B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Finance I) S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Finance II) S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Finance III) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Finance III) S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Fuji) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Guangzhou) Co. Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Holding II) B.V. & Co. KG, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Hong Kong) Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific (IVGN) B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific (IVGN) Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Johannesburg) (Proprietary) Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Mexico City) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Milwaukee) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Mississauga) Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Monterrey) S. De R.L. De C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific (NK) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (PN) Austria Holding GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific (PN) UK LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (PN) UK Limited Partnership, Thermo Fisher Scientific (PN-I) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific (PN-II) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific (PN1) UK Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Panama) B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Panama) Dutch LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Praha) s.r.o., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Real Estate 1) GmbH & Co. KG, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Real Estate 1) S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Schweiz) AG, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Shanghai) Instruments Co. Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Shanghai) Management Co. Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Suzhou) Instruments Co. Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific AL-1 LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific AU C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific AU II Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific AU LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific AU Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Africa Proprietary Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific Aquasensors LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Australia Pty Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific B.V.B.A., Thermo Fisher Scientific BHK (I) Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific BHK (II) Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Baltics UAB, Thermo Fisher Scientific Beteiligungsverwaltungs GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific Biosciences Corp., Thermo Fisher Scientific Brahms LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Brasil Instrumentos de Processo Ltda., Thermo Fisher Scientific Brasil Servicos de Logistica Ltda, Thermo Fisher Scientific C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Cayman Investments LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Chemicals Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific China (C-I) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific China (S) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific China Holdings I B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific China Holdings II B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific China Holdings III B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific China Holdings IV B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Chromatography Holdings Aps, Thermo Fisher Scientific Chromatography Holdings S.a r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus I C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus I Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus II C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus II Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus III C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus III Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus IV C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus V C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Denmark Senior Holdings ApS, Thermo Fisher Scientific Erie 1 Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Erie Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Erie Financing S.a r.l, Thermo Fisher Scientific Europe GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific FLC B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific FLC Finance C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific FLC II B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific FLC LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific FSIR Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific FSIR Financing S.a.r.l, Thermo Fisher Scientific FSUKHCO Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Falcon Senior Holdings Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific Finance Company BV, Thermo Fisher Scientific GENEART GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific Germany BV & Co. KG, Thermo Fisher Scientific GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific HR Services Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Holdings (Cayman) I, Thermo Fisher Scientific Holdings (Cayman) II , Thermo Fisher Scientific Holdings Europe Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific IT Services GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific India Holding LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific India Pvt Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific Investments (Luxembourg) S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Investments (Malta) Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Investments (Sweden) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Investments (Sweden) S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Investments Malta (Sweden Financing) Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Invitrogen Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Japan Holdings I B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Japan Holdings II B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Japan Holdings III B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific K.K., Thermo Fisher Scientific Korea Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific LSI Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life CV GP Holdings II LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life CV GP Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Enterprises C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Enterprises GP LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Financing (Cayman), Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Financing C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Financing Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Holdings I C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Holdings II C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Holdings III C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Holdings Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life International GP Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life International Holdings I C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life International Holdings II C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments GP LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments I S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments II S.a r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments III S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments IV S.a.r.l, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments Malta Holding I LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments Malta Holding II LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments Malta I Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments Malta II Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments US Financing I LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments US Financing II LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life NL Holdings GP LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Netherlands Holding C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Senior GP Holdings II LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Senior GP Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Senior Holdings C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Senior Holdings II C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Senior Holdings Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Switzerland Holdings GP LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Tech Korea Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Enterprise Holding Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Investment I LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Investment II LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Investment UK I Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Investment UK II Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Investments Holding LP, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Israel Investment I Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Israel Investment II Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Luxembourg Holding LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Luxembourg Enterprise Holdings S.a r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Luxembourg German Holdings S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Luxembourg Life Technologies UK Holding S.a r.l, Thermo Fisher Scientific Luxembourg Sweden Holdings I S.a r.l, Thermo Fisher Scientific Luxembourg Sweden Holdings II S.a r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Luxembourg Venture Holdings I S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Luxembourg Venture Holdings II S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., Thermo Fisher Scientific Malta Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Messtechnik GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific Mexico City S. de R.L. de C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Middle East Holdings Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific Milano Srl, Thermo Fisher Scientific NHK Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific New Zealand Holdings, Thermo Fisher Scientific New Zealand Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Norway Holdings AS, Thermo Fisher Scientific Norway US Investments LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Odyssey Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Odyssey Holdings Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Operating Company LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Oy, Thermo Fisher Scientific PN2 C.V, Thermo Fisher Scientific PN2 LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific PRB LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific PRB Malta Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific PRB S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Panama I Cayman Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific Peru S.R.L., Thermo Fisher Scientific Pte. Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific Re Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific SL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Senior Financing LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Senior Holdings Australia LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific South Africa Proprietary Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific SpA, Thermo Fisher Scientific Spectra LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Spectra Malta Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Spectra S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Spectra-Physics Holdings Luxembourg I S.a r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Spectra-Physics Holdings Luxembourg II S.a r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Spectra-Physics Investments Malta Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Switzerland Holdings C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific TR Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Taiwan Co. Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific Vermogensverwaltungs GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific West Palm Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Wissenschaftliche Gerate GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific Worldwide Investments (Cayman), Thermo Fisher Scientific eCommerce Solutions LLC , Thermo Fisher Senior Canada Holdings LLC, Thermo Foundation Inc., Thermo Gamma-Metrics Holdings Pty Ltd., Thermo Gamma-Metrics LLC, Thermo Gamma-Metrics Pty Ltd, Thermo Holding European Operations LLC, Thermo Hypersil Ltd, Thermo Hypersil-Keystone LLC, Thermo Informatics Asia Pacific Pty Ltd., Thermo Instrument Controls de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Thermo Kevex X-Ray LLC, Thermo Keytek LLC, Thermo LabSystems Inc., Thermo LabSystems S.A., Thermo Life Science International Trading (Tianjin) Co. Ltd., Thermo Life Sciences AB, Thermo Luxembourg Holding S.a.r.l., Thermo Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Thermo MF Physics LLC, Thermo Measurement Ltd, Thermo Measuretech Canada Inc., Thermo Neslab LLC, Thermo Nicolet Limited, Thermo Onix Limited, Thermo Optek (Australia) Pty Ltd., Thermo Optek Limited, Thermo Optek S.A., Thermo Orion Inc., Thermo Portable Holdings LLC, Thermo Power Corporation, Thermo Process Instruments GP LLC, Thermo Process Instruments L.P., Thermo Projects Limited, Thermo Quest S.A., Thermo Radiometrie Limited, Thermo Ramsey Italia S.r.l., Thermo Ramsey LLC, Thermo Ramsey S.A., Thermo Re Ltd., Thermo Scientific Microbiology Pte Ltd., Thermo Scientific Microbiology Sdn Bhd, Thermo Scientific Portable Analytical Instruments Inc., Thermo Scientific Services Inc., Thermo Securities Corporation, Thermo Sentron Canada Inc., Thermo Sentron Limited, Thermo Shandon Inc., Thermo Shandon Limited, Thermo Suomi Holding B.V., Thermo TLH (UK) Limited, Thermo TLH L.P., Thermo Trace Pty Ltd., Thermo-Fisher Biochemical Product (Beijing) Co. Ltd., ThermoLase LLC, ThermoSpectra Limited, Trek Diagnostic Systems LLC, Trek Diagnostic Systems Ltd., Trek Holding Company II Ltd., Trek Holding Company Ltd., Trex Medical Corporation, USB Corporation, Union Lab Supplies Limited, United Diagnostics Inc., VG Systems Limited, Westover Scientific Inc., ZAO PE Biosystems, eBioscience GmbH, eBioscience Ltd, eBioscience SAS, and picoSpin LLC.As the National Rifle Association rallies in Dallas, TX for their annual convention this week, one local restaurant owner is taking a stand in favor of gun control.

Customers who visit his restaurant, Ellen's, in downtown Dallas near the convention center over the weekend will find that their receipts contain a message that says, "Thanks for visiting Ellen's! A portion of this week's proceeds will be donated to organizations dedicated to implementing reasonable and effective gun regulations. Welcome to Dallas!"

Groves wants people to know that he is not anti-gun or against the Second Amendment. As the owner of a restaurant and as someone who cares about these issues, being pro-Second Amendment and being pro-safet y are not incompatible," he said.

To no ones surprise, Groves has received a lot of backlash from NRA supporters. Customers have been leaving bad reviews and calling and threatening to shoot up the restaurant. A lot of these protesters are taking to the internet to attack Ellens, including the NRA.

Attn @AnnualMeetings attendees. Steer clear of Ellens in downtown Dallas! Why go there when there are so many other great choices. #sorrynotsorry #StandAndFight #DefendTheSecond pic.twitter.com/joX7pPoPm4  NRA (@NRA) May 5, 2018

Groves claims he was inspired to write the message because of the 2016 Dallas shootings, an incident where six police officers were killed. He, like many Americans, believe there sound be some form of gun control in our country. Support for universal background checks is almost universal at 97%.

Story continues

According to a post on his Facebook, Graves wasnt sure at first what he should do when the NRA would be in town.

He clearly made a choice and is standing by it. But attacking a small, local business in a city where you are a guest is laughable and low, even for NRA supporters. On behalf of their staff, the restaurant later took to their Facebook to express their feelings on the responses they have been receiving and wanted to clarify that they support finding solutions to the senseless killings that happen much too frequently.

The restaurant has had a lot of people showing support of their stance.

Thx for dedicating yourself to such a good cause even when you know the backlash you'll get for it!! your bravery is what we need more of in this country!!  Malini Correa (@malinicorrea) May 5, 2018

As a Dallasite, can't wait to try this place. Thanks @NRA for free publicity  Si (@wild_berry_09) May 5, 2018

Everyone hurry on over to Ellen's Southern Kitchen in Dallas...and leave yuge tips. https://t.co/bILyxSzu2g  Kimberley Johnson (@AuthorKimberley) May 4, 2018

They're probably in for a treat because GQ just called Dallas the next best new food city. Maybe the NRA and its supporters should think about what theyre going to say before they start attacking the citys clearly thriving food scene.

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The Wine You Should Drink With The Premiere Episode Of SweetbitterIn just two weeks, on May 19, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry will say their I dos at the St. Georges Chapel inside Windsor Castle. But after Markles father walks her down the aisle and the newlyweds climb into their carriage, they wont immediately head off to their honeymoon.

Despite reports that they would be jet-setting off to Namibia, the lovebirds will not take flight for their dream South African adventure post-nuptials. According to Kensington Palace spokesman Jason Knauf, who spoke to People, The couple will be going on honeymoon, but not straightaway.

Theres good reason for that. As Knauf revealed, They will have their first engagement as a married couple in the week after the wedding.

Once thats taken care of, however, Travel + Leisure reports that they will likely head to the luxurious estates at the Hoanib Valley Camp , located in the middle of the Namibia desert.

It wouldnt be the first time Prince Harry whisked his love off to Africa: Back in August, the duo celebrated the actress 36th birthday in Botswana  the same country from which the prince sourced the center diamond for his bride-to-bes yellow gold diamond engagement ring.

Are you excited for the royal wedding? Tweet us @BritandCo.

(Photos via Kirsty Wigglesworth/AFP/Getty)Parkland shooting survivor Cameron Kasky isnt mincing words when it comes to Donald Trump s position on gun control.

He's a professional liar who will say anything to appease whatever crowd he's at. If he's in front of families, he might say something in support of common sense gun reform, Kasky, a junior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, told CNN when asked what he would say if given the opportunity to have a conversation with the president. But then when he's at the NRA, he'll say something to get a big cheer."

The president recently addressed the National Rifle Association for the first time since the mass shooting in Parkland, FL at the organizations annual convention in Dallas, TX. In his speech, Trump didnt mention the common sense gun law reforms he had discussed with victims of the Parkland shooting. Instead, he warned gun owners not to become complacent leading up to the midterm elections.

Your Second Amendment rights are under siege, Trump said in his remarks. But they will never ever be under siege as long as I am your president.

In response, Kasky compared the NRA convention to Comic-Con (in that only die-hard fans think to attend) and urged average gun owners to hold Trump accountable for his words and actions.

The average NRA members, the ones who maybe got their membership free with the purchase of handgun, theyre not showing up there and theyre not holding Trump accountable for what he needs to actually talk about, Kasky said. This is President Trump trying to appeal to a group of people who really, really like weapons that shoot bullets fast.

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Donald Trump Jr. & Vanessa Are Getting Divorced(MOSCOW)  Russians angered by the impending inauguration of Vladimir Putin to a new term as president protested Saturday in scores of cities across the country  and police responded by reportedly arresting more than 1,600 of them.

Among those arrested was protest organizer Alexei Navalny, the anti-corruption campaigner who is Putins most prominent foe.

Police seized Navalny by the arms and legs and carried the thrashing activist from Moscows Pushkin Square, where thousands were gathered for an unauthorized protest.

Police also used batons against protesters who chanted Putin is a thief! and Russia will be free!

Demonstrations under the slogan He is not our czar took place throughout the country, from Yakutsk in the far northeast to St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad on the fringes of Europe.

The protests demonstrated that Navalnys opposition, although considered beleaguered by Russian officials and largely ignored by state-controlled television, has sizeable support in much of the country.

I think that Putin isnt worthy of leading this country. He has been doing it for 18 years and has done nothing good for it, said Moscow demonstrator Dmitry Nikitenko. He should leave for good.

OVD-Info, an organization that monitors political repression, said late Saturday that at least 1,607 people had been detained at demonstrations in 20 Russian cities. It said 704 were arrested in Moscow alone, and another 229 in St. Petersburg.

Moscow police said about 300 people were detained in the capital, state news agencies said, and there was no official countrywide tally.

Let my son go! Iraida Nikolaeva screamed, running after police in Moscow when they detained her son. He did not do anything! Are you a human or not? Do you live in Russia or not?

Navalny was to be charged with disobeying police, an offense that carries a sentence of up to 15 days, news reports said, though when he would face a judge was not immediately clear. Navalny has served several multi-week stretches in jail on similar charges.

Story continues

In St. Petersburg, police blocked off a stretch of Nevsky Prospekt as a crowd of about 1,000 marched along the renowned avenue. Video showed some demonstrators being detained.

Putin is to be inaugurated for a new six-year term on Monday after winning re-election in March with 77 percent of the vote. Navalny had hoped to challenge him on the ballot but was blocked because of a felony conviction in a case that supporters regard as falsified in order to marginalize him.

Navalny has called nationwide demonstrations several times in the past year, and their turnout has rattled the Kremlin.

Saturdays protests attracted crowds of hundreds in cities that are far remote from Moscow, challenging authorities contention that Navalny and other opposition figures appeal only to a small, largely urban elite.Gaza City (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - Three Palestinians were killed when they tried to infiltrate Israel from the Gaza Strip on Sunday, the Israeli army said, the latest shootings linked to tensions along the border.

The army said four people "attempted to infiltrate" by breaking through the security fence.

"Troops arrived at the scene and fired shots towards the terrorists, as a result of which three were killed," an army statement said.

It added that a bag was found with cutters, an axe and other materials.

Gaza's health ministry identified two of the dead as Bahaa Rahman Qudeih, 23, and Mohammed Abu Rayda, 20. A name had not yet been provided for the third person.

The latest deaths raised to 52 the toll of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces since protests and clashes began along the Gaza border on March 30.

Hundreds more have been wounded by gunfire.

Demonstrators are demanding Palestinian refugees be allowed to return to the homes they fled or were expelled from during the 1948 war surrounding Israel's creation.

Israel argues allowing the so-called right of return would effectively spell the end of the country as a Jewish state.

No Israelis have been hurt in the weeks of protests and the military has faced international criticism for its use of live ammunition.

It says it only opens fire when necessary to stop infiltrations, attacks and attempts to damage the fence.

It accuses Hamas, the Islamist movement that runs the Gaza Strip and with whom it has fought three wars since 2008, of seeking to use the protests as cover to carry out violence.

Overnight Israel struck a facility belonging to Hamas in reaction to kite-borne fire bombings, which have reportedly caused significant damage to Israeli fields.Kano (Nigeria) (AFP) - Fighting between armed bandits and militiamen left 45 dead in northern Nigeria, police and a local militia said Sunday, amid escalating rural violence often involving cattle rustling, robbery and kidnappings.

"The 45 bodies were found scattered in the bush. The bandits pursued residents who mobilised to defend the village after overpowering them," said a vigilante who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals.

"The dead included children abandoned by their parents during the attack" in the village of Gwaska, in Kaduna state.

"The attackers were obviously armed bandits from neighbouring Zamfara state who have been terrorising Birnin Gwari area," he added.

The Kaduna state police chief, Austin Iwar, confirmed the attack, saying: "There was violence between the militias, who are very powerful, and bandits."

He could not break down the casualties, saying only: "For now all we know is that 12 people were buried yesterday and 33 today."

The vigilante said the bandits struck at about 2:30 pm (1330 GMT) Saturday and stayed for three hours before retreating to their base in the forest in Zamfara.

"They burnt down many homes," he said.

The killings follow the death of 13 people in prolonged clashes between cattle thieves and local civilian militia in Zamfara last week.

The attacks underlined the diversity of Nigeria's security threats that persist because of an overstretched army and security forces.

Rural communities in Zamfara have been under siege for several years from cattle rustlers and kidnapping gangs, who have raided herding communities, killing, looting and burning homes.

To defend themselves, villages and herdsmen form vigilante groups, but they too are often accused of extra-judicial killings, provoking a bloody cycle of retaliatory attacks.

Adding to the proliferation of violence due to these criminal groups, Nigeria is in the grip of a security crisis as nomadic herders and sedentary farmers fight over land in an increasingly bloody battle for resources.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has been criticised for failing to curb the violence, which is becoming a key election issue ahead of presidential polls in 2019.

The military and police are fighting Boko Haram jihadists in the north, militants and pirates in the oil-rich south, a simmering separatist movement in the east as well as the bloody conflict between herdsmen and farmers spanning the vast central region.Paris (AFP) - France's economy minister on Sunday warned that the survival of strike-hit Air France was in the balance following the departure of the company's chief executive over a pay dispute.

Unionised staff are set to walk out for the 14th day on Monday as they press for a 5.1-percent salary increase this year as the company recovers from years of losses and restructuring.

Jean-Marc Janaillac, boss of parent company Air France-KLM, resigned on Friday after staff rejected a final pay offer from him which would have raised wages by seven percent over four years.

"I call on everyone to be responsible: crew, ground staff, and pilots who are asking for unjustified pay hikes," Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire told the BFM news channel on Sunday.

"Be responsible. The survival of Air France is in the balance," he added.

He warned that the state, which owns 14.3 percent of the group, would not serve as a backstop.

"Air France will disappear if it does not make the necessary efforts to be competitive," he warned, ruling out any government intervention to purge the company's debts.

Air France-KLM reported a net loss of 269 million euros ($322 million) in the first quarter of the year.

Despite the strike, the company says it will be able to maintain 99 percent of long-haul flights on Monday, 80 percent of medium-haul and 87 percent of short-haul.Alexei Navalny, the most prominent of Vladimir Putins domestic political opponents, has been arrested at the beginning of a Moscow rally, part of nationwide demonstrations he organized against Russias autocratic leader. Navalny is reportedly charged with organizing illegal protests.

The unauthorized rallies have continued in cities across Russia, according to the BBC, with protesters shouting slogans including Down with the Tsar! and Russia without Putin. Dozens of participants in the rallies have been arrested along with Navalny, with one source telling Russian pro-democracy group OVD-Info that as many as 50 arrests were made in the city of Krasnoyarsk.

Videos and photos emerging from Russia show what appear to be large crowds assembled for the protests. Pro-Putin counterprotestors have also reportedly taken to the streets.

Get CEO Daily, Fortunes newsletter for leaders.

The protests come days before the scheduled inauguration of Putin for his fourth term as president, which would extend his effective political control of Russia into its third decade. Putin won re-election with nearly 77% of the vote, but international observers have described the election as essentially rigged.

Among the measures to preserve the illusion of Putins popular support was the exclusion of Navalny himself from the election. His candidacy was blocked in December on the basis of embezzlement charges that he credibly claims were politically motivated. Though multiple candidates did nominally oppose Putin in the election, Navalny has said only those who dont pose the slightest threat to Putin were allowed to run.

Russian authorities have also recently taken new steps to hamper Navalnys efforts to expose the web of cronyism that undergirds Putins power. Parts of Navalnys website were blocked in Russia in February. Social media sites including Instagram have also complied with Russian government takedown requests linked to Navalnys investigation of alleged corruption involving oligarch Oleg Deripaska and Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Prikhodko.LONDON (Reuters) - Trauma surgeons in London said U.S. President Donald Trump had missed the point after he linked a wave of knife crime in the British capital to a ban on handguns.

Anger also flared in France after Trump, in a speech to the National Rifle Association (NRA), used his hands in a gesture to mimic the shooting of victims in Paris in 2015.

Trump, who is due to visit Britain on July 13, told members of the NRA in Dallas, Texas on Friday that a "once very prestigious" London hospital, which he did not name, had become overwhelmed with victims of knife attacks.

"They don't have guns. They have knives and instead there's blood all over the floors of this hospital," he said. "They say it's as bad as a military war zone hospital. Knives, knives, knives, knives," he added, making stabbing gestures.

London suffered a spike in knife crime in the early part of this year, and the total number of murders during February and March exceeded that in New York.

Last month, trauma surgeon Martin Griffiths told the BBC that some of his colleagues had likened the Royal London Hospital in east London where he works to the former British military base Camp Bastion in Afghanistan.

"Some of my military colleagues have described their practice here as being similar to being at Bastion," he said. "About a quarter of what we see in our practice is knife and gun injury. And it's now we're doing major life-saving cases on a daily basis."

But on Saturday he implied Trump had drawn the wrong conclusion from his remarks, saying on Twitter that he would be happy to invite Trump to his "prestigious" hospital to discuss London's efforts to reduce violence.

Griffiths posted his comment next to an animation of a stick figure with the phrase "The Point" flying over its head, and also linked to a statement on the hospital's website by a fellow trauma surgeon, Karim Brohi.

Story continues

"There is more we can all do to combat this violence, but to suggest guns are part of the solution is ridiculous. Gunshot wounds are at least twice as lethal as knife injuries and more difficult to repair," Brohi said in the statement on Saturday.

Britain's government effectively banned handgun ownership in England, Scotland and Wales after a school shooting in 1996.

Diane Abbott, the opposition Labour Party's spokeswoman for home affairs, said she could "hardly see how violent crime in London justifies the licensing of guns in the U.S.".

Trump's comments have caused upset before in Britain, which views itself as the United States' closest ally. Relations with Prime Minister Theresa May cooled last year after she criticised him for retweeting anti-Islam videos by a British far-right group.

Trump's NRA speech also drew anger in France on Saturday, after the U.S. president, using his hand in a gun gesture, acted out how a gunman had killed hostages one by one during an attack in Paris in November 2015.

Trump said a civilian could have stopped the massacre at the Bataclan concert hall, where 90 of the 130 victims of the attack died, had they had a gun.

Former French president Francois Hollande, who was head of state at the time, said on Twitter that Trump's comments and antics were "shameful" and "obscene".

Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo said Trump's portrayal of the 2015 attacks was "contemptuous and unworthy".

(Reporting by David Milliken; Editing by Stephen Powell)In June 1995, Monica Lewinskys move to Washington, D.C., was unremarkable. She was a 21-year-old recent college grad with an unpaid internship in the office of President Bill Clintons Chief of Staff Leon Panetta, landed with the help of a family connection. But, as the nation later learned, things happened quickly from that point, as it was that year that she began a relationship with the President that would last about two years and lead to an epoch-shaping scandal.

The relationship between Lewinsky and President Clinton came to light 20 years ago, and the fallout would dominate 1998s news.

???????????? for 20 years, i've marked 16 jan as the day i survived another year from 1998. on this 20th (!!!) anniversary, thinkin' maybe we could try a survivor's chain. whaddya think? (too corny?) RETWEET if you survived the unimaginable in your life ????????????  Monica Lewinsky (@MonicaLewinsky) January 16, 2018

And even 20 years later, the scandal continues to serve as a reference point for American politics, from Lewinskys tweets  for example, her quip that blaming the intern is so 1990s after Sen. Marco Rubio called out a journalism intern over a story  to President Trumps addition of Clinton impeachment lawyer Emmet Flood to his own legal team. Below is a glimpse, with two decades of hindsight, at how that historic year unfolded.

January

Jan. 7: Lewinsky signed an affidavit stating that she never had a sexual relationship with Clinton, at the request of attorneys representing Paula Jones, who had accused Clinton of sexual harassment in 1994. Jones claimed she suffered emotional damage after Clinton exposed himself to her in an Arkansas hotel room in May of 1991. A conservative legal group that had volunteered to fund her lawsuit had gotten an anonymous tip about Lewinsky, so Jones lawyers subpoenaed Lewinsky in hopes of arguing that Clinton displayed a pattern of workplace harassment.

Story continues

Jan. 12: Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr  who had been investigating Whitewater, a scandal-plagued Arkansas real-estate venture with which the Clintons had been involved  receives more than 20 hours of tapes of phone conversations that seem to contradict the affidavit. The tapes come from Linda Tripp, who had become close friends with Lewinsky in 1996 while the two worked in the Pentagons public affairs office, and to whom Lewinsky had confided about President Clinton.

Jan. 13: At the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Pentagon City, Va., Lewinsky dishes more about the relationship to Tripp, whos been secretly wired by FBI agents, per Starrs orders.

Jan. 16: A court of appeals panel gives Starr the green light to add the Clinton-Lewinsky allegations to his portfolio to see if she lied under oath. Tripp tells Jones lawyers about Lewinskys affair with the President.

Jan. 17: Matt Drudges Drudge Report reports that Newsweek had been tipped off about President Clintons affair with a White House intern named Monica Lewinsky, but had yet to run a story about it. On the same day, Clinton denies the affair in a deposition in the Jones suit  the deposition that earns him the dubious distinction of being the first sitting U.S. President to give testimony in a civil case in which hes the defendant.

Jan. 21: Drudge publishes allegations that Lewinsky had kept a garment with Clintons dried semen. Mainstream news outlets pick up his report over the course of the week. FBI tests, however, find no DNA evidence on Lewinskys clothes.

Jan. 26: President Clinton denies the report on television, uttering what would become one of the most memorable lines of the scandal: I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.

Pres. Bill Clinton emphatically denying having an affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky, during a White House event with First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton at his side, on Jan. 26, 1998

Jan. 27: On The TODAY Show, First Lady Hillary Clinton dismissed the allegations as a vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced [his run] for president. That same day, Andy Bleiler, who had had a five-year affair with Lewinsky, goes public with the claim that she had told him she had oral sex with the president and joked to his wife that she would invest in presidential kneepads.

Jan. 29: U.S. District Court Judge Susan Webber Wright rules that the Lewinsky scandal cant be incorporated into the Jones suit, arguing the matter is not essential to the core issues in this case.

February

TIME's Feb. 2, 1998, issue, a special report

Feb. 2: When it comes to women, Clinton has had a lifetime of enablersnot just the friends who egged him on but also the ones who helped him sidestep accusations, TIME notes in a special report on the scandal. If it takes a village to raise a child, maybe it takes a circle of complicit friends to help a grown man go on acting like a teenager.

Feb. 6: Clinton says in a press conference that he wont resign.

Feb. 10: Lewinskys mother, Marcia Lewis, appears before a grand jury. Suspected of encouraging Lewinsky to lie to Joness lawyers and accused of hiding the stained dress, she was grilled by Starrs team for nearly three days until she became too overwhelmed. Starr granted Lewis full immunity in exchange for delivery of the suspect dress, TIME reported.

Feb. 11: Retired Secret Service agent Lewis C. Fox became the first person to publicly say that he saw the president and Lewinsky alone together, the Washington Post reports.

March

Mar. 15: Kathleen Willey, a campaigner for and donor to Clintons in 1992 presidential campaign, tells 60 Minutes that Clinton groped her in the Oval Office in 1993. Over the next two weeks, a flight attendant and a former Miss America also claim they were groped by Clinton.

Mar. 21: President Clinton moves to invoke executive privilege to prevent top aides from testifying about private conversations that they had with him.

April

Apr. 1: A judge dismisses Paula Jones sexual harassment suit over a lack of evidence. Paula Jones will file an appeal at the end of July.

Apr. 29: D.C. Circuit Court judge Norma Holloway Johnson, who would preside over the grand jury investigation into the affair, rejects Lewinskys lawyers argument that she has an immunity agreement with Starr. (Immunity had been offered, but the deal was never completed.)

Apr. 30: I really believe its important for me not to say any more about this, Clinton says at a press conference in response to a question about whether he thought the American public should care about what President does in his private life. I think that Im in some ways the last person who needs to be having a national conversation about this.

May

May 5: Lewinskys lawyer William Ginsburg tells reporters he agreed to let Vanity Fair send celebrity photographer Herb Ritts photograph his client in Malibu, Calif., because Starr has imprisoned her libido. He said he hoped that the shoot would help her feel good about herself.

May 22: Judge Holloway says Secret Service agents must testify before the grand jury in the Lewinsky case, rejecting an argument that they have protective function privilege.

Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter

June

Jun. 2: Clintons lawyers stop pursuing his claim of executive privilege, and the media argues thats because he didnt want to be known as the first president since Richard M. Nixon to take an executive privilege claim to the Supreme Court. Also this day, Lewinsky fires Ginsburg and hires new lawyers, Jacob Stein and Plato Cacheris, who met secretly with Starr to reiterate that they want to get things done quietly, but without their client having to plead guilty to anything.

Week of Jun. 10: The July issue of Vanity Fair appears on newsstands, featuring those glamour shots of Lewinsky posing like Marilyn Monroea look that does not go over well in the court of public opinion.

July

July 17: Subpoenaed Secret Service agents report to the grand jury, and Clinton himself is served with a subpoena that compels him to testify. Over the course of the following week, Clintons personal secretary Betty Currie and lead Secret Service agent Larry Cockell would also testify.

July 27: Lewinsky meets with Starrs prosecutors in New York City. The next day, they announce an immunity deal for her.

July 29: Clinton agrees to testify before the grand jury voluntarily.

August

Aug. 3: A blood sample is taken from Clinton for DNA testing against stains from the blue dress taken from Lewinsky. The story becomes public news on Aug. 19.

Aug. 6: Lewinsky begins to testify before the grand jury, having already spent days in interviews.

Aug. 17: Clinton testifies to the grand jury for more than four hours on closed circuit television. He admits to inappropriate intimate contact but also says that he had given accurate evidence in January, arguing that, It depends on what the meaning of the word is is. That evening, he speaks to the nation in a televised address, admitting for the first time that he had a relationship with Lewinsky Indeed, I did have a relationship with Miss Lewinsky that was not appropriate. In fact, it was wrong. It constituted a critical lapse in judgment and a personal failure on my part for which I am solely and completely responsible, he says.

Bill Clinton confesses on television to the American people that he did indeed have sexual relations with

September

Sept. 9: Congress receives two copies of Starrs 445-page report on the investigation, and supporting evidence, which take up 36 boxes. In the report, he details the findings of his four-year, $52 million investigation, only mentioning the Whitewater land deal a handful of times. The report cites 11 impeachable offenses.

Sept. 11: Congress releases the Starr Report to the public. Over the following days, video of Clintons testimony, as well as transcripts of Lewinsky and Tripp are released.

Sept. 14: A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll finds that Clintons approval is rating up, at 64%. Meanwhile, 31% think he should be impeached and 36% say he should resign.

A photograph showing former White House intern Monica Lewinsky meeting President Bill Clinton at a White House function, submitted as evidence in documents by the Starr investigation and released by the House Judiciary committee Sept. 21, 1998.

October

Oct. 2: Transcripts of Lewinsky and Tripps taped telephone conversations are released.

Oct. 5: The House judiciary committee votes along party lines to recommend an impeachment inquiry. In such a situation, the House decides whether to charge the president with impeachment, and what charges should be brought, then the Senate acts as a jury and decides whether to acquit or convict. (A two-thirds majority in the Senate is required to remove the president from office.)

Oct. 8: The House of Representatives votes to begin an open-ended impeachment inquiry, allowing the House Judiciary Committee to draw up charges based on Starrs report allegations. Thirty-one Democrats vote in favor of opening the inquiry.

November

Nov. 3: In 1998s midterm elections, Democrats score unexpected gains, adding five seats in the House while the ratio of Republicans to Democrats remains the same in the Senate. (In a typical off-year election the presidents party loses seats.) Surveys of voters showed that a majority didnt want congress to hold impeachment hearings or want Clinton, whose popularity remained high, to resign.

Nov. 5: The House Judiciary Committee asks Clinton 81 written questions about the independent counsels report. Questions ranged from Do you admit or deny that you are the chief law-enforcement officer of the United States of America? to a precise accounting of whether he gave particular gifts to Lewinsky.

Nov. 13: Clinton settles the appealed sexual harassment suit with Paula Jones out of court, paying her $850,000 and admitting nothing.

December

Dec. 11: The House Judiciary committee votes to recommend impeachment. They approve two articles of impeachment pertaining to perjury  one for lying to a grand jury and another for his testimony in response to questions about his relationship with Lewinsky  and one about obstruction of justice.

Dec. 12: Clinton says he wont resign, and again denies lying under oath. That same day, the House Judiciary Committee approves a fourth article of impeachment, alleging falsehoods in his answers to the 81 questions the committee had asked. They also reject a resolution to censure his reprehensible conduct, supported by Democrats; such a measure would have allowed Congress to express disapproval without resorting to impeachment.

Dec. 16: Clinton orders air strikes against Iraq after Saddam Hussein refuses to allow U.N. weapons inspectors to enter the country, delaying the House impeachment vote.

The Dec. 21, 1998, cover of TIME

Dec. 19: The House of Representatives votes to impeach President Clinton on two of the four articles of impeachment (the charge of perjury in his Aug. 17 federal grand jury testimony, and charge that he prevented, obstructed and impeded the administration of justice.) Clinton vows to remain in office until the last hour of the last day of my term. A Gallup poll finds record-high approval of how he handles his job as president.

As the year came to a close, TIME noted that 1998 had taken a toll on Washington:  All around the city there was a feeling that brutal, lasting damage had been done to an already threadbare culture of political accommodation, that impeachment would be not the end of something but the beginning. And that it would be something bad.

After 1998

Jan. 7, 1999: The Senate begins its trial of President Clinton. In an impeachment trial, the Supreme Courts Chief Justice presides and the 100 Senators serve as jurors.

Jan. 19, 1999: Clinton delivers his State of the Union address, which doesnt mention the investigation or impeachment at all.

Jan. 27, 1999: The Senate rejects a motion to dismiss impeachment charges.

Feb. 8, 1999: Closing arguments are delivered from the two sides. The Senate begins private deliberations the following day.

Feb. 12, 1999: The Senate finishes the impeachment trial, acquitting Clinton on both charges. The votes come in at 55-45 on perjury and 50-50 on obstruction of justice. Republicans block a Democratic move to censure President Clinton. By TIMEs count, 2,345 minutes of the CBS, NBC and ABC evening newscasts between Jan. 22, 1998, and Feb. 12, 1999, had been devoted to the scandal.The health care venture between Berkshire Hathaway, Amazon and JPMorgan Chase will have a CEO to head the independent company within a couple of a months, according to billionaire investor Warren Buffett.

Buffett did not name any specific candidates during his annual shareholders meeting in Omaha, Nebraska.

The three corporate heavyweights -- Buffett, along with Amazons Jeff Bezos and JPMorgans Jamie Dimon -- announced the initiative, intended to reduce the health care costs of employees, in late January. Most likely, the health care venture, which they said would be free from profit-making incentives will be set up as a benefit corporation, which is not solely driven by maximizing profits -- although profits are welcome.

Theres a chance, which no one can quantify, that we can do something significant, Buffett said on Saturday. We are positioned better than most to try.

The Oracle of Omaha emphasized again that the three leaders would were not motivated by profiting and called health care the tapeworm of the U.S. economy.

We want our employees to get better medical services at lower cost, he said.

Related ArticlesBy Jonathan Stempel

OMAHA, Neb. (Reuters) - Warren Buffett said he would be happy if his conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway Inc owned more than 5 percent of Apple Inc's stock, including if the iPhone maker bought back more of its shares.

Buffett made his assessment before tens of thousands of Berkshire shareholders attending the conglomerate's annual meeting on Saturday in Omaha, Nebraska.

It came two days after Buffett revealed having bought 75 million additional Apple shares, and four days after Apple said it may buy back $100 billion of stock.

"I'm delighted to see them repurchasing shares," Buffett told Berkshire shareholders at the conglomerate's annual meeting.

"I love the idea of having our 5 percent, or whatever it is, maybe grow to 6 or 7 percent without our laying out a dime. But you have to have a very, very special product, which has an enormously widespread ecosystem, and the product is extremely sticky."

Apple's share price hit a record high after Buffett revealed having boosted Berkshire's already large stake in the Cupertino, California-based company to roughly 240 million shares, now worth some $44 billion.

While Buffett "very much" approves of Apple repurchasing shares, he and Munger expressed skepticism that Apple could find meaningful acquisitions on which to spend cash.

"The reason companies are buying their stocks is that they are smart enough to know it's better for them than anything else," Munger said. He said he and Buffett do not approve of all repurchase strategies.

Buffett's initial commitment to Apple surprised many given his usual aversion to companies in the technology sector, but the billionaire views Apple more as a consumer products company.

The investment also helps Buffett deploy Berkshire's cash and equivalents while he looks for his first major acquisition since paying $32.1 billion for aircraft parts maker Precision Castparts Corp in January 2016.

Even after the Apple investment, Berkshire's holdings of cash and equivalents was $108.6 billion, the company said on Saturday.

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Buffett made his comments in response to a shareholder question posted by CNBC journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin.

"$100 billion is a lot of money," the question concluded.

"I used to think so," Buffett joked, prompting laughter and applause.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in Omaha, Nebraska; Editing by Jennifer Ablan and Nick Zieminski)alexander nix

Pedro Nunes/Reuters

Data research firm Cambridge Analytica got in trouble for allegedly illegitimately gaining access to the personal data of millions of Facebook users.

The company says it's deleted that data, but that fact is in dispute.

With the firm now in bankruptcy, that data and the psychological profiles it built from them could be considered to be its key assets, assuming it still has them.

As such, the data and profiles could be auctioned off to the highest bidder in the bankruptcy process.



With Cambridge Analytica in bankruptcy, one of the things it could potentially sell to settle its debts is the very same thing that got it in trouble in the first place  the user data it gleaned from Facebook.

Cambridge Analytica says it no longer has such data, but that fact is in dispute. If the firm does still have the data or the psychological profiles it created from it, they could be considered some of its primary assets and put up for auction in the bankruptcy process.

"Personal identifiable information in bankruptcy can be sold," said Jim Vincequerra, a partner at law firm Alston and Bird who specializes in bankruptcy law. "It's a defined term in the bankruptcy code, and there is a specific provision that addresses it."

In the US, when companies file for bankruptcy they are required to list their assets, or what exactly the firm owns. If Cambridge Analytica lists any user data or psychological profiles, those assets could be sold to the highest bidder, Vincequerra said. Bankruptcy auctions are open to anyone who can prove they're able to pay the asking price.

But Cambridge Analytica has another option. It could sell or transfer such data to a third party instead of putting it up for auction, Vincequerra said. That possibility is especially concerning for privacy advocates because Cambridge Analytica's executives have set up another company, dubbed Emerdata, which reports indicate is effectively just a rebranded version of the same firm.

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"This is a company that has proven that they will weaponize anything they can get their hands on and that's not a company I want having my psycographic profile," said Jeff Pollard, a principal analyst at Forrester, a market research firm.

Cambridge Analytica is at the center of a global debate about data privacy for allegedly breaking Facebook's rules to obtain the personal data of up to 87 million of the social network's users. The company reportedly used the data to create psychological profiles of Facebook users to target them with ads on behalf of the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential election and on behalf of those advocating that Great Britain should leave the European union ahead of the Brexit vote that same year.

Saying that the increased scrutiny of its business has driven away nearly all of its clients, Cambridge Analytica announced Wednesday it was shutting down and declaring bankruptcy.

"I think what should happen to this information is that it shouldn't exist anymore," Pollard said. "I think we know that in part some of that information was obtained from Facebook and other sources without permission, and they at least stated they had already deleted that information but hadn't."

Cambridge Analytica's bankruptcy could set a new precedent

There are already provisions in existing case law for dealing with consumer data that's held by companies that are going through bankruptcy. Typically, such information is comprised of customer lists or data belonging to clients of the bankrupt company.

Generally in such cases the court will appoint a privacy ombudsman to protect the interests of consumers. The ombudsman's job is to make sure data isn't sold in a way that's inconsistent with the privacy policy customers originally agreed to.

But what's unusual in the Cambridge Analytica case is that it potentially has data on people who weren't its clients and didn't have a direct relationship with it. Because of that, it's unclear exactly how an ombudsman might treat such data or whether the ombudsman might block a sale. That issue hasn't been settled by the courts.

Cambridge Analytica isn't the only company that has data on consumers who never directly established a relationship with the firm. So whatever the court decides, it could set a new precedent for future bankruptcy cases.

"That's the thing I've been wrapping by brain around, because I don't think the bankruptcy court has ever confronted an issue like this," Vincequerra said. "If we are confronted with a proposed sale transaction, it'll be interesting to see how the courts deal with this issue. It'll be an interesting case study for the 21st century."

NOW WATCH: Jeff Bezos reveals what it's like to build an empire and become the richest man in the world  and why he's willing to spend $1 billion a year to fund the most important mission of his life

See Also:

SEE ALSO: Twitter is telling everyone to change their password after a bug left 330 million passwords exposedThe nameplate of political consultancy, Cambridge Analytica, is seen in central London: Reuters

UK authorities have ordered consulting firm Cambridge Analytica to hand over all the personal information it has on an American professor or face prosecution.

Coming in the wake of a roiling controversy over online privacy that has led Cambridge Analytica to cease operations, the case could spur criminal penalties and have broad privacy implications.

In January of 2017, more than a year before it was revealed that Cambridge Analytica had garnered information encompassing up to 87 million Facebook users, Professor David Carroll asked the consulting firm to explain what days it had gathered on him.

Dissatisfied with the companys response, Mr Carroll appealed to the Information Commissioners Office (ICO). He believed Cambridge Analytica had not shared the entirety of its data on him and that it had not explained how it accumulated the information it had.

After the company refused to cooperate, according to the ICO, regulators served an enforcement notice to Cambridge Analyticas parent company SCL Elections Ltd. Failure to comply could result in an unlimited fine, the ICO said.

The company has consistently refused to co-operate with our investigation into this case and has refused to answer our specific enquiries in relation to the complainants personal data  what they had, where they got it from and on what legal basis they held it, information commissioner Elizabeth Denham said in a statement.

The right to request personal data that an organisation holds about you is a cornerstone right in data protection law and it is important that Professor Carroll, and other members of the public, understand what personal data Cambridge Analytica held and how they analysed it, Ms Denham added.

Mr Carroll told the Guardian that he hoped the order would solve a lot of mysteries about what the company did with data and where it got it from.

According to reports later corroborated by Facebook, the data was funnelled to Cambridge Analytica by a researcher named Aleksandr Kogan, who had drawn the personal information both of people who used a survey app and of their friends. Facebook has accused Cambridge Analytica of failing to destroy the information, a charge Cambridge denies.

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Cambridge Analytica went on to work for Donald Trumps presidential campaign. While the company has said it did not used any disputed data to try and target appeals to voters, the connection - along with allegations, denied by the company, that it worked with pro-Brexit entities - have put a spotlight on the role of personal data in modern politics.

Last week Cambridge Analytica announced that it would file for bankruptcy, blaming a siege of media coverage that had driven away almost all of its customers. Ms Denham, the information commissioner, said that would not prevent the company from potentially facing criminal penalties.

Whether or not the people behind the company decide to fold their operation, a continued refusal to engage with the ICO will potentially breach an Enforcement Notice and that then becomes a criminal matter, she said.Michael Peck

Security, North America

AI is here.

Could a Computer Stop the President from Launching Nuclear War?

When Vladimir Putin recently announced the development of Status-6a nuclear-armed, underwater city-busting dronehe was doing more than brandishing Russia's might.

He was also demonstrating how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing the nuclear arms environment, according to a report by RAND. "The drone would be launched from submarines in the Russian Arctic, traverse the ocean at perhaps 100 kilometers (62 miles) per hour, while autonomously circumventing antisubmarine defenses, and deliver its deadly payload to the U.S. coastline, presumably after a villainous American first-strike attack destroying the Kremlin. The difficulty of communicating underwater would require a degree of autonomous capability on the part of the drone that has become possible only recently as a result of progress in AI."

AI has long been a staple of nuclear warfare fiction: an advanced computer almost triggered a nuclear war in the movie Wargames; an AI named Skynet almost wipes out humanity in the Terminator series. Today, there is considerable concern about autonomous drones and their AI, and whether they will be able to kill without human authorization.

During several workshops last year, RAND examined several scenarios involving AI and nuclear warfare. Illustrating the complexity of the problem, "participants appeared to agree that advanced AI could severely compromise nuclear strategic stability and thereby increase the risk of nuclear war," yet they couldn't reach a consensus on how exactly this would happen.

Recommended: 5 Worst Guns Ever Made.

Recommended: The Worlds Most Secretive Nuclear Weapons Program.

Recommended: The Fatal Flaw That Could Take Down an F-22 or F-35.

On the one hand, some experts worry that better AI could enable better targeting and tracking of an adversary's nuclear forces. In turn, this would induce fears of a successful first strike, which would make nuclear trigger fingers all the itchier.

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On the other hand, others paradoxically argue that intelligent machines would be better able to ensure compliance with arms control treaties. One group of experts "suggested provocatively that a future AI system could essentially be the arms control regime, monitoring compliance and adjudicating violations without human input," RAND said.

Most interestingly, the study raises the possibility that AI could advise leaders during a nuclear crisis. Rather than relying on emotionally or ideologically driven human advisers, AI can present calm, data-driven options regarding use of nuclear weapons.

Then again, advice from a machine is only as good as the machine itself. "Alarmists might be concerned that such a capability could be incorporated before it is sufficiently robust or without fully understanding its limitations," RAND concludes. "If an AI adviser were proven effective, however, it could increase stability by reducing the likelihood of human error and by providing radical transparency, which could reduce the risk of miscalculation. But many experts were concerned by the potential for an adversary to subvert even a very capable AI by hacking, poisoning its training data, or manipulating its inputs."

Michael Peck is a contributing writer for the National Interest. He can be found on Twitter and Facebook.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Read full article[caption id="attachment_30057" align="aligncenter" width="558"]

bankruptcy_petition

Photo Credit: Bigstock[/caption] Cambridge Analytica's decision to shutter its business amid the unfolding controversy surrounding its use of user data obtained from Facebook Inc. could mean that bankruptcy proceedings are soon headed for a Manhattan federal courtroom. However, the case could bring with it a string of headaches for creditors of the London-based consulting firm, as they try to recover against the company's estate, two University of Chicago Law School bankruptcy professors warned this week. Cambridge Analytica and its parent SCL Elections Ltd. announced Wednesday that they had begun insolvency proceedings in the U.K. after being "vilified" for actions the companies said were above-board and common in the "political and commercial arenas." Cambridge Analytica said parallel proceedings will "soon be commenced" in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. The announcement followed weeks of allegations that Cambridge Analytica improperly obtained the private data of 87 million Facebook users to create sophisticated psychological and political profiles. Cambridge Analytica, which is largely funded by billionaire and GOP donor Robert Mercer, is said to have had tied with President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign. Cambridge Analytica denied any wrongdoing related to the data breach. The company has since been targetedalong with Facebookin a series of lawsuits over the alleged misuse of data. But Cambridge Analytica's expected bankruptcy threatens to complicate those proceedings and raise a host of new issues, as well. According to the two experts, the main task for a bankruptcy judge will be to determine the total amount of the company's assets and the value of the outstanding claims against it. "The basic problem ... is this may be a case where the denominator is very large and the numerator is very small," said Douglas Baird, professor and former dean of the University of Chicago Law School. "You can't get blood from a stone." Cambridge Analytica, a Delaware limited liability company, is a private firm, and Baird cautioned that he had no knowledge of its finances. The firm would be required to submit information regarding its corporate structure and an assessment of its assets and liabilities when it files for bankruptcy. Anthony Casey, also a bankruptcy expert at the University of Chicago Law School, said that he expected any pending cases against Cambridge Analytica to be stayed and the claims folded into the bankruptcy proceedings, where a judge would conduct a "mini-trial" to determine the value for pro rata distribution. Facebook also faces the possibility of being dragged into the bankruptcy case, if the company is determined to be jointly and severally liable for the alleged wrongdoing, either under the tort law or any contract it may have had with Cambridge Analytica. However, depending on Facebooks preference of forum, that may not be a bad option. "They're going to have to litigate the issue in a court. They may have to litigate it in bankruptcy court," Casey said, noting the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York's reputation as a "sophisticated" court. "They may prefer that to other courts," Cambridge Analytica's estate, for its part, may decide that it has claims against Facebook, which it could then pursue in a bid to increase the assets available for distribution. The estate could also potentially target the company's own directors, on the theory that they knew about the alleged wrongdoing or violated some duty they had to the company. "It's claims going out and claims going in," Casey said. However, it is not clear whether there is any evidence to support either of those scenarios, the scholars said. If the pool turns out to be too small for Cambridge Analytica's creditors to fully recover against the state, investors could sue the company's individual directors for breaches of duty to the company, or they could target SCL, Cambridge Analytica's parent company, in a long-shot bid to pierce the corporate veil. As of Friday evening, Cambridge Analytica had not yet filed for bankruptcy in New York. The U.K.'s Information Commissioner's Office, an independent regulatory body, said this week that it would continue investigating Cambridge Analytica and SCL, despite the companies' decision to wind down its affairs.Washington (AFP) - The US jobs report on Friday showed the black unemployment rate in April fell to its lowest on record but the figure hides a multitude of racial disparities.

And those disparities reflect the failure to bring able-bodied people into the workforce at a time when many jobs go unfilled.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly crowed about the falling unemployment rate for African-Americans, taking credit for economic policies that have driven strong hiring, and he did so again Friday after the Labor Department released the jobs report.

But the data show the rate, which hit 6.6 percent last month, has been declining steadily since it peaked at nearly 17 percent in March 2010 at the tail end of the Great Recession -- compared to a high of nine percent for whites.

However, with employers around the country struggling to find enough skilled workers to fill open positions, while the Trump administration is cracking down on immigration -- usually a sure supply of new workers -- economists say the country still faces racial barriers to employment and earnings, reflected in the much smaller share of blacks in the labor force compared to whites.

To be counted as part of the labor force for purposes of the Labor Department's data collection, a person must either be employed or unemployed and have looked for a job in the past four weeks.

The share of people who are unemployed but in the labor force generates the jobless rate and that rate fluctuates either because of an increase in the number of people who find jobs or a drop in the number of people in the labor force.

- Fewer blacks in the workforce -

The overall jobless rate fell below four percent in April for the first time in just over 17 years, but the drop was due mostly to the labor force shrinking, rather than increased hiring.

The participation rate for African-Americans lags that of other racial groups but not by much: just under 62 percent, compared to about 63 percent for whites and Asians. Hispanics, who can come from any racial group, have the highest participation rate at 66.4 percent.

Story continues

However, that misses the large numbers of blacks excluded from the pool of available workers: the share of blacks in the workforce compared to the total population is under 58 percent, compared to 61 percent for whites and Asians, and over 63 percent for Hispanics.

For prime age workers, 25-54 years old, the differences are even more stark, and prime age black men lag more than 10 points behind men of all other worker groups.

"The unemployment rate for young black men parallels many developing and third world countries," said Nicole Smith, chief economist at Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce.

And the rate is "entrenched," meaning they "aren't moving, aren't cyclical in nature, are not influenced by the business cycle."

The problem is so long-standing that the Federal Reserve -- which has achieving "full employment" as one of its two policy goals -- has studied the issue extensively and held a conference to on it last year.

One paper by Fed labor economist Tomaz Cajner and others confirms that the disparities cannot be fully explained by documented factors like age and education: in economist-speak the "observables."

"(T)he remarkably low participation rate of black men is largely unexplained by observables...and has shown little improvement over the last 40 years," Cajner and his coauthors wrote.

And even amid the economic recovery from the Great Recession "the disparities remain substantial," the paper said.

- Potential workers in prison -

Smith told AFP educational opportunities are a key factor to explain the differences, but they also reflect entrenched discrimination in a country that has long struggled with its history of racism.

"Those variables are in fact highly correlated with each other. The lack of opportunity in education is highly influenced by race, highly-influenced by socio-economic status, even by your location," she said. There is "a discrimination component."

That in turn snowballs into helping determine the chance of getting and holding a job and of keeping it during an economic downturn, as well as workers' earning potential over a lifetime.

Another factor is the much higher incarceration rate for blacks, which can bar them from the workforce permanently since many employers will not hire, or even consider, anyone with a criminal record.

In 2016, blacks represented 12 percent of the US adult population but 33 percent of the prison population, according to the Pew Research Center. Whites accounted for 64 percent of adults but 30 percent of prisoners, while Hispanics represented 16 percent of the adult population, and just 23 percent of inmates.

Smith said this is significant especially for young black men because "you can never get that off your record."Phnom Penh (AFP) - A newspaper hailed as Cambodia's last independent English daily has been sold to a Malaysian investor with apparent business links to premier Hun Sen, rattling a journalist community that has been battered by the strongman ahead of elections.

Bill Clough, the Australian publisher of the 26-year-old Phnom Penh Post, said in a statement Saturday that the paper had been purchased by a Malaysian investor identified solely as "Sivakumar G".

The announcement did not disclose the price of the sale or any information on the new owner's other ventures.

But a person close to the matter confirmed to AFP that the buyer is the head of Asia PR, a public relations firm based in Kuala Lumpur whose website describes its CEO "Siva Kumar G" as a journalist by training.

The website lists as a former client Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, whose government stands accused of a sweeping crackdown on independent media, NGOs and rival politicians ahead of July polls.

An Asia PR spokeswoman declined to comment.

The sale, which caught the newspaper's staff by surprise, swiftly raised concerns about a contracting space for independent media in a country that lost its other main English newspaper last year.

"The Post is really the last remaining newspaper that comes out every day and does long investigations on corruption, illegal logging and politics," said Abby Seiff, a Cambodia-based freelance journalist and former Phnom Penh Post editor.

"The journalist community is concerned about what the implication (of the sale) could be. It's just two months until the election and there's not much independent media left," she added.

In his statement, former owner Clough acknowledged that "turbulence" in Cambodia ahead of elections had put a spotlight on the Phnom Penh Post and left it as "the last remaining truly independent media group in the country".

- 'Climate of terror' -

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The Post's chief rival, the Cambodia Daily, was forced to shut in August 2017 after it was handed an unpayable tax bill -- announcing its closure the same day authorities arrested opposition leader Kem Sokha on treason charges.

The crackdown also saw dozens of radio stations taken off the air and the jailing of two reporters from Radio Free Asia, which shut its bureau after 20 years due to a series of legal threats.

Cambodia fell 10 places in this year's media freedom ranking by Reporters Without Borders, which described the country as hosting a "climate of terror that has drastically curtailed press freedom".

In recent months local media had reported that the Phnom Penh Post was facing tax troubles.

Clough's statement said "publicised tax claims" had been settled with the government last week and that the paper now faces "no threat to its ability to continue its work".

Chad Williams, a former Phnom Penh Post editor-in-chief, said the quick settling of the tax bill and appearance of a buyer "strongly suggests the government approves of the sale."

"And it's hard to imagine they would approve if they thought the new ownership planned to maintain the paper's role as the country's sole remaining watchdog," he added.

The Post, founded by American journalist Michael Hayes in 1992, is seen as a key pillar of the country's fragile democracy, which observers say has taken a nosedive in recent years as Hun Sen clears out opposition politicians and other critical voices.Moscow (AFP) - Vladimir Putin on Monday begins his fourth term as Russian president, but has kept the possible reshuffle of his inner circle a closely guarded secret.

Here are key events in the history of post-Soviet Russia, a history in which Putin has played a leading role.

- Death of the USSR -

On December 8, 1991, Boris Yeltsin, who has served six months as president of the Russian Federation, stands alongside the leaders of Ukraine and Belarus and proclaims the death of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union.

The leaders of several former republics, including Russia, agree that the Soviet Union "no longer exists". Soon afterwards Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has no option but to resign.

Yeltsin swiftly launches an ambitious programme of market reforms, privatising key sectors, easing price controls, allowing the ruble to float.

In 1993, he dissolves Russian parliament unconstitutionally, triggering a rebellion, then orders tanks to shell parliament building where deputies have taken refuge. 148 are killed according to the official toll.

The following year Yeltsin sends Russian troops into the small independent republic of Chechnya. In 1996 a peace deal ends the first Chechen war which left tens of thousands dead.

The 1998 financial crisis plunges millions of Russians into poverty. The health and education systems crumble and corruption spreads.

- A tsar is born -

In August 1999, Yeltsin propelled a virtually unknown figure to become his prime minister. That man was Vladimir Putin who had been head of the KGB's successor, the FSB intelligence service.

Putin swiftly forged an image as a strongman in a country traumatised by a series of attacks attributed to Chechen separatists.

Yeltsin, battling health and drinking problems, sensationally resigned on New Year's Eve 1999, leaving his protege to take control of the biggest country on Earth.

Putin formally succeeded Yeltsin as president at the ensuing election in March 2000.

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From 2000 to 2009 the conflict in Chechnya left tens of millions dead.

During his first two mandates -- he was re-elected in 2004 -- Putin reinforced his control over parliament, placed regional governors firmly under Moscow's thumb, demanded unconditional loyalty from the media and restored all the powers of the intelligence service.

He also took on Russia's new super-rich oligarchs, who prospered under Yeltsin, including oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky who was imprisoned for ten years and now lives in London.

Meanwhile Putin also addressed Russia's economic woes, introducing strict monetary controls but also benefiting from huge oil revenues.

- President Medvedev -

As Russia's constitution ruled out a third consecutive mandate, Putin names a young ally, deputy prime minister Dmitry Medvedev, as his preferred successor as president.

Medvedev is duly elected in March 2008, with no real opposition standing against him.

Putin becomes prime minister and takes the reins of the ruling United Russia party, which controls parliament.

In 2009 Russia is hit hard by the global economic crisis, but afterwards growth resumes.

- Controversial return to the top job -

In December 2011 a protest movement begins -- unprecedented since Putin came to power -- angered by what the opposition denounced as fraudulent elections won by Putin's United Russia party.

However the wave of protests does not prevent Putin from returning to the presidency in 2012, for a six-year mandate thanks to a constitutional reform.

His election, with 64 percent of the vote, had "serious problems" according to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) which complained that there had been no serious competition to Putin and the result was never in doubt.".

- Reviving 'Great Russia' -

Putin seeks to restore "Great Russia" , annexing the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in 2014.

This move brings Russia's relations with the West to their lowest levels since the Cold War, with Western powers accusing Moscow of also militarily supporting a separatist struggle in eastern Ukraine, a charge the Kremlin denies.

The United States and European nations impose a raft of sanctions which hit the Russian economy.

Russia becomes a major player in the Syrian conflict, intervening in September 2015 and helping the forces of President Bashar al-Assad to get the better of the rebels.PARIS (Reuters) - President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday underscored New Caledonia's importance to France, but stopped short of calling for the territory's residents to vote against independence in a forthcoming referendum.

The Indo-Pacific island, some 1,200 km (750 miles) off the east coast of Australia, will vote in November on whether to remain French, marking the culmination of long talks over its future.

As the referendum approaches, tensions have been simmering on the island, where fighting erupted in the 1980s between supporters and opponents of independence.

"It's not for the head of state to take a position on a question that is only being put to the people of New Caledonia, and such a positioning would only disturb the debate," Macron said in a speech at the end of a three-day visit to the territory.

He then added: "France would not be the same without New Caledonia."

Denise Fisher, a former Australian consul-general in the territory, said on Thursday that some in the pro-independence camp had threatened to boycott the vote.

Recent polls show a majority of people against breaking with France.

Macron - who this week called for a new strategic alliance between France, India and Australia to respond to challenges in the Asia Pacific region - also highlighted the nickel-rich island's strategic importance in the face of growing assertiveness from China.

"In this region of the world, China is building its hegemony, step by step. It's not about fear-mongering, but about looking at reality," Macron said, adding that China was a partner but that its dominance could impinge on opportunities for others.

Australia and New Zealand have separately warned that China is seeking to exert influence through its international aid programme in the Pacific, which China denies.

Earlier on Saturday, Macron paid homage to those killed in the "Ouvea cave massacre" 30 years ago, on one of the islands in the New Caledonia archipelago. Nineteen indigenous separatists and two French soldiers were killed after a hostage taking.

(Reporting by Jean-Baptiste Vey, Writing by Sarah White; editing by John Stonestreet)Gennady Golovkin reacts as Vanes Martirosyan is counted out in the second round Saturday night. (Getty Images)

CARSON, Calif.  This was Canelo Alvarezs crowd. These were his people. And yet, on the night when he was supposed to be facing his archrival for all the marbles, he was nowhere to be found.

When his name was mentioned, the crowd booed lustily.

And when the fight theyd come out to watch ended with a devastating knockout, his fans loudly chanted, Triple G! Triple G! Triple G!

Because of a pair of failed drug tests, Alvarez was forced to withdraw from his mega-Cinco de Mayo rematch in Las Vegas with Gennady Golovkin.

Golovkin, angry at Alvarez for what he believes was the intentional use of performance-enhancing drugs, came out with something to prove against Vanes Martirosyan, who was signed to replace Alvarez.

Martirosyan landed a few hard shots in the first and connected on a good combination just before the devastating final sequence. Golovkin caught Martirosyan with a jab, a double right hand, a left hook, another right hand and a crushing left.

Martirosyan fell face first in his own corner as referee Jack Reiss tolled the count. He got to his knees but was in no shape to continue and Reiss waved it off at 1:53 of the second.

It isnt going to be one of Golovkins most memorable bouts. Martirosyan isnt Alvarez, and he hadnt fought in nearly two years. In addition, the bout Saturday was his first at middleweight.

There wasnt much for Golovkin to gain by beating Martirosyan, as odds better than 20-1 showed. But he came out and not only won the fight but won over the heavily Hispanic crowd that had long worshipped Alvarez.

Alvarez, though, clearly wasnt embraced by this crowd, who booed every time his name was mentioned.

Golovkin has often said he fights Mexican style as an homage to the many great brawling Mexican and Mexican-American fighters, and he did so again on Saturday.

On a night hed hoped would be the crowning achievement of his career, when he figured hed make an eight-figure purse and definitively establish himself as the best middleweight in the world, Golovkin essentially had to settle for a tune-up.

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After scoring a decision win over Daniel Jacobs and a disputed draw with Alvarez in September, Golovkin got back to his finishing ways.

Vanes Martirosyan takes a punch from Gennady Golovkin losing in a second round knockout during the WBC-WBA Middleweight Championship at StubHub Center on May 5, 2018 in Carson, California. (Getty Images)

He pounded Martirosyan, a 2004 U.S. Olympian, with crushing blows he simply couldnt withstand.

It was like being hit by a train, Martirosyan said. It wasnt one punch. It was all of his punches. Its the hardest Ive ever been hit.

Thats often how it is with Golovkin, who is now 38-0-1 after scoring his 34th knockout.

More than 20 minutes after the bout ended, he climbed back into the ring with his long blue robe on and waved to what remained of the crowd, basking in the glory.

It feels great to get a knockout, he said. Vanes is a very good fighter. He caught me a few times in the first round. In the second round, I came out all business after I felt him out in the first round.

Before the fight, he pegged the odds of facing Alvarez in September, when Alvarezs suspension will have ended, at 10 percent.

He seemed opened to it Saturday after the fight, though. I want everyone, he said when asked who is next. Asked specifically about Alvarez, he spoke in the affirmative, without mention of his now bitter rivals name.

Absolutely, he said when asked about Alvarez. I have lots of belts. I challenge anyone to come and take my belts. I dont care who it is. Lets clean the division out.

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Berlin (AFP) - German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier voiced concern Sunday over a "substantial change" in trans-Atlantic ties, amid European tensions with US President Donald Trump over trade, defence and the Iran nuclear deal.

Steinmeier, Germany's largely ceremonial head of state, conceded that the EU's biggest economy -- which has long enjoyed US protection under the NATO umbrella -- needs to "grow up" and "realise our international responsibility".

"But, honestly speaking, I'm really concerned about the development of the trans-Atlantic relationship," said the former foreign minister in an interview with public broadcaster ARD.

"Not because I'm looking at a president with some irritating Twitter messages, but because a substantial change is now going on and (there is) a new American administration that no longer sees us as parts of a global community where we act together but sees the world basically as an arena where everyone has to somehow find their own way."

Steinmeier said that German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron had on their recent Washington visits both "done the right thing by pointing to common European interests" on trade and preserving the Iran nuclear agreement.

Trump has threatened punitive tariffs on metals imports while so far exempting the EU and other allies, and to tear up the 2015 Iran nuclear deal under which sanctions were eased in return for Tehran's commitment not to pursue a nuclear bomb.

Steinmeier recalled that former US secretary of state John Kerry, when he signed the pact, had stated that it may have prevented a war.

"That was an important sentence because one has to remember what could happen if this agreement collapses again and new rearmament takes place in the Middle East," said Steinmeier, stressing that the turbulent region could "not endure another conflict".

He also warned against growing Western alienation from President Vladimir Putin, saying that even though Russia was defining itself through "a differentiation from Europe rather than cooperation", diplomacy must seek ever new "initiatives and opportunities" for dialogue.Brits expressed astonishment Saturday after President Donald Trump blasted London knife fights in his speech boosting gun ownership at the National Rifle Association convention. Britains homicide rate is a fraction of Americas.

Trump told the NRA convention in Dallas on Friday that a once very prestigious London hospital was like a war zone for horrible stabbing wounds. He said London has unbelievably tough gun laws, adding, they dont have guns; they have knives and instead theres blood all over the floors of this hospital.

He then stabbed the air several times, pretending to hold a knife, as he uttered, Knives, knives, knives.

London political leaders and physicians condemned Trumps remarks and called any implication that guns would stem a troubling increase in knife violence outlandish.

To suggest guns are part of the solution is ridiculous, said surgeon Karim Brohi of the Royal London Hospital in a statement. Gunshot wounds are at least twice as lethal as knife injuries and more difficult to repair.

Britain effectively banned handgun ownership after a 1996 school shooting.

According to figures from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the murder rate in the U.S. is approximately five times higher than Britains. There were 4.9 intentional homicides per 100,000 people in 2015 in the U.S. and .90 per 100,000 in 2014 in Britain, according to the U.N. statistics.

Trump lies on everything, former British justice secretary Charlie Falconer said before contrasting the nations murder rates. He also said such comments hurt relations between the countries.

Trump makes Londoners dislike him more, and the U.S. dislike London more, he told The Guardian. Trump gives the impression he couldnt give a fig.

4.88 per 100000 murdered in US per annum, 0.92 per 100000 in UK. Implication UK has similar murder rate to US except knives not guns obviously false. Trump lies on everything, but lots of people in US now believe London a knife-armed war zone. https://t.co/4G9JGLeWBg  Charlie Falconer (@LordCFalconer) May 4, 2018

Trauma surgeon Martin Griffiths of the Royal London Hospital complained recently about the increase in knife crime  which rose 21 percent last year in the U.K.  in a BBC Radio interview that was picked up by Breitbart. That was likely the source of Trumps comments. At least 35 people were fatally stabbed in London by April of this year.

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But despite the recent spike, London remains safe compared to a number American cities, the BBC recently reported. In 2017, Londons murder rate per 100,000 people was 1.2. New York Citys rate was nearly three times higher. Baltimores rate was more than 45 times higher than Londons, according to FBI data.

In a tweet Saturday, Griffiths indicated that Trump missed his point about London violence entirely with an animation showing the words the point floating over the head of a stick figure. He offered to invite Trump to my (prestigious) hospital to meet with Londons police commissioner and mayor to discuss the citys success in reducing violence.

Happy to invite Mr Trump to my (prestigious) hospital to meet with our mayor and police commissioner to discuss our successes in violence reduction in London @SadiqKhan @metpoliceuk @NHSBartsHealth #WindrushAwards pic.twitter.com/G4vYqTkfbL  Martin P Griffiths (@martinpgriff) May 5, 2018

.@realDonaldTrump disgraceful speech - UK knife crime nowhere near your off-the-scale gun deaths. When you come to London, come and meet our amazing young people, youth workers and NHS workers instead of banquets and pomp: BBC News https://t.co/46vmRqQzMP  Sarah Jones MP (@LabourSJ) May 5, 2018

London comedy writer Robert Webb joked about his war zone city in a tweet.

Well its a beautiful day here in Trumps war zone. Ive been to the shop & didnt get even mildly stabbed. Now were nicely stocked up on tinned goods & I wont have venture out again till Tuesday. Phew!  Robert Webb (@arobertwebb) May 5, 2018

US life expectancy: 78.7 years

UK life expectancy: 81.6 years



US health spend: $9,892/person

UK health spend: $4,192/person https://t.co/u4ecWUENxG  James Ball (@jamesrbuk) February 5, 2018

Trump reportedly plans to visit London in July. Hes expected to be greeted with protests.

On Friday, Trump also managed to disgust the French by acting out the 2015 terror attack at the Bataclan concert hall in Paris. He used his finger as an imaginary gun and said, They took their time and gunned them down one by one. Boom! Come over here. Boom! Come over here. Boom. He insisted armed civilians could have stopped the attack that killed a total of 130 people.

Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo blasted Trumps comments as contemptuous. Former French president Francois Hollande called his remarks shameful and obscene in a tweet.

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Les propos honteux et les simagrees obscenes de Donald Trump en disent long sur ce quil pense de la France et de ses valeurs. Lamitie entre nos deux peuples ne sera pas entachee par lirrespect et loutrance. Toutes mes pensees vont aux victimes du 13 novembre.  Francois Hollande (@fhollande) May 5, 2018

Frances Foreign Office said in a statement: France expresses its firm disapproval of President Trumps comments about the Paris attacks ... and demands that the memory of the victims be respected. France is proud to be a country where acquiring and carrying firearms is strictly regulated.

France expresses its firm disapproval of @realDonaldTrump's remarks on the subject of the November 13, 2015 attacks in Paris, and asks that the memory of the victims be respected. https://t.co/bY6o1duBHg  French Embassy U.S. (@franceintheus) May 5, 2018

Also on HuffPost

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.Chicago (AFP) - The governor of the US state of Iowa signed into law Friday a ban on abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected, which occurs as early as six weeks into a pregnancy.

The bill, approved by the Midwestern state's Republican-controlled legislature just two days earlier, was expected to trigger a legal battle, which conservatives hope will land the flashpoint social issue back at the US Supreme Court.

"I understand and anticipate that this will likely be challenged in court," Governor Kim Reynolds said in a statement after the signing.

"However, this is bigger than just a law. This is about life. I am not going to back down from who I am or what I believe in," she said.

Considered the most restrictive in the country, critics say the law would deny abortions to many women before they even know they are pregnant -- with an exception for victims of rape or incest.

The state legislature approved the bill Wednesday after heated debate.

Abortion foes celebrated, hailing the legislation as the first step in potentially dismantling Roe v. Wade -- the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision that granted women the legal right to an abortion.

But the Supreme Court in 2016 rejected appeals by both North Dakota and Arkansas to preserve similar "heartbeat" laws, which had been struck down by lower courts.

Abortion opponents in Iowa argued that the Republican administration of President Donald Trump may have an opportunity to appoint more conservatives to the high court in the next few years, just in time for this latest law to wind through the legal system.

The American Civil Liberties Union condemned the Iowa bill's passage Wednesday and vowed to defend abortion rights in the state.

"All we can say right now is that we fought this legislation every step of the way and regret that it has made it this far," ACLU of Iowa's spokeswoman Veronica Fowler told AFP.

"It is clearly unconstitutional and it effectively blocks the right (to) an abortion for most women," she said.Former Sen. Joe Lieberman said Sunday he hopes President Trump withdraws the U.S. from the Iran nuclear deal  an agreement Lieberman calls a mistake.

Im encouraged by what the president has said so far and I hope he does pull out, Lieberman told Maria Bartiromo during an interview on Sunday Morning Futures.

A Democrat-turned-independent, who served 24 years in the Senate representing Connecticut, Lieberman said part of his duties included working with both political parties to put sanctions and economic pressure on Iran in an effort to stop its nuclear weapons development program and denuclearize the country.

Under the framework of the 2015 deal  officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action  agreed to by the U.S., Russian, China and other world powers in Europe, Iran must reduce its uranium stockpile and, in return, economic sanctions on the Middle Eastern country would be lifted. The deadline for extending the deal is now less than a week away, and Trump, who has long been critical of it, warned that he would pull out of the agreement if disastrous flaws are not fixed.

The worst part of the nuclear deal is that it didnt really end Irans nuclear program, Lieberman said. Its clear that they got tremendous capacity. They basically put the brakes on for a while to get the economic pressure off of them to get the $100 billion. They can go back and have a legitimate nuclear weapons development program in about 10 years. And thats not the security that the world needs.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Sunday the country will respond to any action Trump takes on the nuclear deal and warned the U.S. would regret leaving the agreement.

America is making a mistake if it leaves the nuclear accord, Rouhani remarked during a speech carried by state television. If America leaves the nuclear accord, this will entail historic remorse for it.

If the U.S. does withdraw, Lieberman still believes other European countries will continue to work with the U.S., even if they protest the presidents decision.

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Theyre going to continue to do business with us and theyre going to turn their backs on the Iranians and most of the rest of the world would do the same, he said.

In an effort to salvage one of the Obama administrations top foreign policy accomplishments which he helped craft, former Secretary of State John Kerry has been engaging in shadow diplomacy with an Iranian official, according to the Boston Globe.

Kerry met with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif two weeks ago at the United Nations in New York  their second in about two months  to discuss ways of keeping the deal intact, the Globe reported, citing a person briefed on the meetings.

The reported meetings have caused some to question whether Kerry violated the Logan Act, a law enacted in 1799 that prohibits private citizens from negotiating on behalf of the U.S. government without authorization. No one, however, has been successfully prosecuted for violating the legislation.

John Kerry is not negotiating on behalf of the U.S. government  I hope everybody hes talking to knows that, the former Connecticut senator said. But in my opinion, what hes doing is inappropriate and he shouldnt be doing it.

Related ArticlesLondon (AFP) - British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson will on Sunday begin a two-day visit to Washington, with the Iran nuclear deal, Syria and North Korea on top of the agenda, the Foreign Office said.

Johnson will meet US Vice President Mike Pence, National Security Advisor John Bolton and Congressional foreign policy leaders.

"On so many of the world's foreign policy challenges the UK and US are in lockstep," said Johnson, highlighting the joint responses to Russian provocations, North Korea and Syria.

"The UK, US, and European partners are also united in our effort to tackle the kind of Iranian behaviour that makes the Middle East region less secure -a its cyber activities, its support for groups like Hezbollah, and its dangerous missile programme," he added.

Britain remains committed the nuclear deal Iran signed with world powers in 2015, but US President Donald Trump has threatened to abandon the agreement when it comes up for renewal on May 12, calling it "insane".

Britain, France and Germany -- the three European countries that signed the deal -- have repeatedly tried to persuade Trump not to abandon it.Irans president has warned Donald Trump that pulling the US out of the nuclear deal with other world powers would be a historic regret.

Hassan Rouhani said his country had plans to respond to any move by the US president.

Mr Trump has said unless his European allies rectify flaws in the landmark deal  signed by the US, China, Russia, Germany, France, the UK and Iran  he would refuse to extend US sanctions relief for Iran, which has in return has agreed to limit its nuclear activities.

He will decide on 12 May whether to reimpose sanctions, effectively tearing up the 2015 agreement.

In a speech to a rally in northern Iran that was broadcast live by state television, Mr Rouhani said: We have plans to resist any decision by Trump on the nuclear accord.

Orders have been issued to our atomic energy organisation ... and to the economic sector to confront Americas plots against our country.

He added that if the US opted to pull out of the deal, it will soon realise that this decision will become a historic regret for them.

Hassan Rouhani refuses to negotiate about Irans missile programme (AFP/Getty)

Britain, France and Germany remain committed to the nuclear accord.

Boris Johnson has travelled to the United States as part of last-minute diplomatic efforts to deter the US leader from scrapping the deal.

The foreign secretary will meet senior figures during the two-day trip, including vice president Mike Pence and Mr Trumps hawkish new national security adviser John Bolton  both of whom have been critical of Iran and the deal.

Earlier this month, French president Emmanuel Macron made similar overtures to Mr Trump during his three-day trip across the Atlantic.

But he subsequently admitted: My view  I dont know what your president will decide  is that he will get rid of this deal on his own, for domestic reasons.

Reiterating a rejection by Iranian leaders of talks on Irans missile programme, which Tehran says is defensive, Mr Rouhani said: We will not negotiate with anyone about our weapons and defences, and we will make and store as many weapons, facilities and missiles as we need.

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He also assured Iranians no change will occur in our lives next week regardless of Mr Trumps decision.

Iran has faced economic trouble in recent weeks, with some analysts blaming the uncertainty surrounding the accord.Tehran (AFP) - Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Sunday that if the United States quits the nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers then Washington would regret it "like never before".

US President Donald Trump has threatened to withdraw from the agreement when it comes up for renewal on May 12, demanding his country's European allies "fix the terrible flaws" or he will re-impose sanctions.

"If the United States leaves the nuclear agreement, you will soon see that they will regret it like never before in history," reformist Rouhani said in a televised speech in northwestern Iran.

"Trump must know that our people are united, the Zionist regime (Israel) must know that our people are united," Rouhani said.

"Today all (Iran's) political factions, whether they be from the right, the left, the conservatives, reformers and moderates are united," he added.

The nuclear deal was struck in 2015 between Iran and Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States, then led by Barack Obama.

Under the pact, sanctions were eased in return for a commitment not to pursue a nuclear bomb, but Iran says it is not reaping the rewards despite complying with the deal.

Trump has consistently complained about the agreement, citing perceived flaws including "sunset" provisions lifting some nuclear restrictions from 2025.

In an attempt to salvage the deal, French President Emmanuel Macron has recently pushed to extend its scope to address this issue, as well as the absence of any limits on Iran's conventional missile capabilities and Tehran's role in the region.

Iran's support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, via the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah in Syria's civil war, and its backing for Shiite Huthi rebels in Yemen have added to frictions between Tehran and Western powers.

- 'Honouring our commitment' -

Rouhani vehemently reiterated his country's opposition to curtailing its non-nuclear missile capabilities, in his speech on Sunday.

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Tehran "will build as many missiles and weapons as needed" for its defence, he said.

"We are honouring our commitment, but we are telling the whole world we will not negotiate with anyone about our weapons and our defence."

Iran's president also said that while he is open to discussing the country's regional role, he would not abandon what he described as its fight "against terrorism."

"We want to talk to the world so that our region is safe" but "we will not allow you to create a new Daesh" he said, using an Arabic term for the Islamic State group.

While Rouhani did not elaborate on this point, Iran's ally the Syrian government has consistently referred to all armed opponents as "terrorists" and accused the West of facilitating terrorism.

Iran has always denied it sought a nuclear weapon, insisting its atomic programme was for civilian purposes.

Rouhani did not specify how Iran would react if the US pulls out of the 2015 deal.

But he said he had given "the necessary orders", notably to Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, in anticipation of Trump's decision.

As the May 12 US decision point nears, Iranian leaders have shuffled between placatory and hawkish comments, although the hardliners have taken a uncompromising stance.

On Thursday Ali Akbar Velayati, the foreign policy adviser to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned Tehran would quit the nuclear deal if the United States withdraws.Jerusalem (AFP) - US President Donald Trump has not informed Israel of whether he will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal it opposes on or before a May 12 deadline, a senior Israeli official said Sunday.

The comments came as Israel pushed its case to have the deal changed or eliminated, arguing intelligence documents it recently unveiled on Iran's alleged nuclear ambitions helped demonstrate why.

Some experts and analysts believe Trump will pull out of the agreement concluded in 2015 under his predecessor Barack Obama and which he has harshly criticised.

They have also questioned whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's televised unveiling of the trove of tens of thousands of intelligence documents on April 30 was coordinated with Washington.

"In effect, I don't know what Trump will decide because he hasn't told me," the senior Israeli official said on condition of anonymity, making clear Israel had not yet been informed of Trump's decision.

The official added however that "I think that he has the same sceptical view."

Proponents of the nuclear deal argued the trove of documents Israel obtained from Tehran shed little new light on Iran's nuclear programme and in fact made the case for why the accord is important.

Netanyahu argues the documents show the deal with his country's main enemy was built on a lie -- Iran denied having pursued nuclear weapons -- and demonstrates it has a secret atomic weapons programme ready to activate at any time.

World powers that were party to the agreement, including Britain and France, said those arguments only strengthened the reasoning for the deal, which has safeguards in place designed to keep Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons.

They also said the intelligence documents did not show Iran was violating the deal.

Trump could decide by May 12 to reimpose US sanctions on Iran lifted as part of the agreement.

The Israeli official said while he did not know what Trump's course of action would be, there could be a range of options.

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He said he believed one option could be Trump declining to renew a waiver on sanctions against Iran due to expire on May 12, but using the lag time between when sanctions take effect to negotiate from a stronger position.

Trump could alternatively decide to single out firms key to Iran's economy for what are known as secondary sanctions to apply pressure on Tehran.

"I think you want to ratchet up the pressure," the Israeli official said.

Netanyahu on Sunday meanwhile disputed arguments from deal proponents that the intelligence trove he unveiled had no new details. He also said it did not matter if Iran violated the agreement or not since the deal was fatally flawed.

"If you dont violate a dangerous deal, it doesnt make it less dangerous," he said.

Trump and his Middle East allies, particularly Israel, argue the agreement was too weak and needs to be replaced with a more permanent arrangement and supplemented by controls on Iran's missile programme.Gaza City (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - Israel struck a facility of the Gaza Strip's Hamas rulers overnight, the movement's military wing said on Sunday, with the Israeli army saying it was reacting to kite-borne fire bombings.

A military spokeswoman said it was a direct response to a new Palestinian tactic of flying kites with firebombs attached across the Gaza border into Israel to set farmers' fields alight.

"Last night an aircraft struck a terror post belonging to the Hamas terror organisation adjacent to the security fence in the northern Gaza Strip," a spokeswoman told AFP, without describing the target.

Hamas's Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades military wing said in a statement that it was a border observation post and that nobody was injured in the attack.

"The strike was in response to an incident that took place yesterday in which terrorists launched burning incendiaries in an attempt to light fires in Israeli territory," the Israeli spokeswoman said.

Israeli media have in recent days reported significant damage to farms due to kite-flown Molotov cocktails, though the devices face difficult odds in making it across the fence while staying alight.

Forty-nine Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since protests and clashes began along the Gaza border on March 30, and hundreds of others have been wounded by gunfire.

Demonstrators are demanding the right to return to their homes seized by Israel in 1948, which Israel argues would effectively spell the end of their country as a Jewish state.

No Israelis have been hurt in the weeks of protests and the military has faced international criticism for its use of live ammunition.

The Israeli military spokeswoman made a point of adding that the latest strike had no connection to a so-far unexplained explosion in the central Gaza Strip on Saturday which killed six Hamas fighters.

Ezzedine al-Qassam said the dead were all its members and blamed Israel for the explosion, without providing details or proof.

Some past explosions in the Gaza Strip have resulted from the accidental detonation of explosive materials belonging to militant groups.Jerusalem (AFP) - A key Israeli government panel on Sunday endorsed a draft bill that would make it harder for the Supreme Court to overturn legislation it ruled unconstitutional.

A justice ministry statement said the ministerial committee on legislation voted to send the bill to parliament, where it must pass three rounds of voting in order to become law.

The right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long argued that the court is too active in striking down bills which contravene international humanitarian law or existing Israeli legislation.

Israel has no written constitution but has a set of "basic laws," which the Supreme Court uses as a guide in its decisions.

Under the new bill, a majority of a single vote in the 120-seat parliament could overrule court decisions to quash laws.

According to the Israeli Democracy Institute think tank, the court intervenes significantly less often than in other democracies, vetoing just 18 laws between 1992-2017.

Opposing the new bill from within the government is Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon.

He is threatening to instruct his centre-right Kulanu party to use its 10 votes against the bill when it comes to the Knesset floor, perhaps later this week.

"It is a blow against the rule of law," he said of Sunday's decision. In a statement, he demanded the government and court address their differences through dialogue.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presents material on Iranian nuclear weapons development - AP

Israel would rather face a military confrontation with Iran now than later, Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday, as both supporters and opponents of the Iran nuclear agreement made last-ditch appeals to Donald Trump ahead of his decision on the deal next week.

With the clock ticking ahead of Saturdays deadline for Mr Trump to announce whether he is pulling the US out of the Iran deal, Israel said it was prepared for a war to stop Iranian forces embedding in neighbouring Syria.

We are determined to block Iran's aggression against us even if this means a struggle. Better now than later, Mr Netanyahu said.

Nations that were unprepared to take timely action to counter murderous aggression against them paid much heavier prices afterwards. We do not want escalation, but we are prepared for any scenario.

Israel has struck Iranian forces in Syria several times in recent weeks and tensions between the two sides are especially high after Mr Netanyahu announced that Israeli spies had stolen thousands of files on Irans nuclear programme.

As Mr Netanyahu urged Mr Trump to scrap the fatally flawed nuclear agreement, Iran issued its own warning against the US leaving the deal.

If the United States leaves the nuclear agreement, you will soon see that they will regret it like never before in history," said Hassan Rouhani, Irans president. "Trump must know that our people are united, the Zionist regime (Israel) must know that our people are united.

Iran has said that if the US reimposes sanctions it may resume enriching uranium, potentially putting it back on a path towards conflict with the US, Israel and its Arab rivals like Saudi Arabia.

Israeli officials said Sunday that they still did not know what Mr Trump would decide about the nuclear agreement but they were ready for the potential fallout if he did withdraw.

In a briefing in Jerusalem, Israeli officials suggested that an end to the nuclear agreement would mean a return to a situation similar to the early 2010s - when Iran was enriching uranium but facing biting US sanctions, American and Israeli cyber attacks, and threats of possible airstrikes on its nuclear facilities.

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Iran's president Hassan Rouhani

If they resume [enriching uranium] they risk incurring a response from both the US and Israel, a senior Israeli official said.

The officials said they believed even if the US was alone in reimposing sanctions - while Russia, China and European countries stayed in the deal - it would still put Tehran under major economic pressure.

They said they were hopeful that the economic damage would limit Irans ability to deploy forces in Syria as well as arming the Lebanese militant group Hizbollah and providing support to rebel forces in Yemen.

The first thing sanctions would do is smash their cash machine, an Israeli official said. They said that the money Iran had gained since the lifting of international sanctions was an engine for empire and allowed Tehran to bankroll proxy groups across the Middle East.

Con Coughlin: Israel's only aim is to persuade Trump to scrap the Iran nuclear deal - and it could work

Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, is expected to meet Mike Pence, the US vice president, and John Bolton, Mr Trumps top security adviser, in Washington this week as he makes a final British appeal to the White House to stay in the agreement.

France and Germany are likely to make their final own pitches to Mr Trump this week.

If Mr Trump does announce that he is reimposing sanctions on Iran, the sanctions would not kick back into force straight away - creating a window of time where the US might to try to force Iran and Europe to accept a renegotiation of the agreement.

Mr Trump would be negotiating from a position of extreme strength in such a scenario, an Israeli official said.

Mr Netanyahu spoke to Theresa May, the prime minister, on Friday about the Iranian intelligence that Israel stole from Tehran. British officials are expected to come to Jerusalem to inspect the documents.

Meanwhile, it was reported that Mr Trumps aides hired an Israeli intelligence agency to dig for dirt on Obama administration officials involved in negotiating the nuclear deal. The investigation was aimed at discrediting the deal, according to The Observer.JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Benjamin Netanyahu will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday in Moscow to discuss regional issues, the Israeli prime minister said in a statement on Saturday.

Israel has been lobbying world powers to "fix or nix" a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran as a May 12 deadline set by President Donald Trump approaches.

Israel is also concerned that Iran is establishing a military presence in Syria, and it has attacked Iranian targets there.

Since intervening in the Syrian civil war on behalf of President Bashar al-Assad in 2015, Russia has generally turned a blind eye to Israeli attacks on suspected arms transfers and deployments by his Iranian and Hezbollah allies.

But when Moscow condemned an April 9 strike that killed seven Iranian personnel, and blamed Israel, it set off speculation in Israel that Russian patience might be wearing thin.

On Thursday, Israels defence minister reminded Russia of his governments decision not to join Western sanctions against it, and asked that Moscow reciprocate with a more pro-Israel approach to Syria and Iran.

Netanyahu and Putin spoke by phone on Monday after the Israeli prime minister presented what he said were Iran's secret nuclear files which document it having worked toward developing atomic weapons in the past. [L8N1S81NS]

U.S. and Israeli officials said the information showed Iran had lied about its past work to develop nuclear arms but intelligence experts said there was no smoking gun showing that Tehran had violated the nuclear deal under which it curbed its atomic programme in return for relief from economic sanctions.

Trump has given Britain, France and Germany a May 12 deadline to fix what he views as the deals flaws - its failure to address Irans ballistic missile programme, the terms by which inspectors visit suspect Iranian sites, and sunset clauses under which some of its terms expire - or he will reimpose U.S. sanctions.

Moscow has repeatedly said it wants the Iran nuclear deal left intact. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday Russia would deem any changes to the deal to be unacceptable.

(Reporting by Maayan Lubell; editing by John Stonestreet and Stephen Powell)President Donald Trumps son-in-law Jared Kushner erroneously reported information about two real estate loans, bringing the number of times hes updated his federal disclosure form to 40 times or more, according to a report.

The two latest misstatements concerned loans that Kushners family-run real estate company Kushner Cos. made to two projects in Brooklyn, 9 DeKalb Avenue and 215 Moore Street, ProPublica reported on Thursday. The loans could have yielded more income through interest over a year than the amount the loans themselves were worth, according to an analysis of Kushners disclosure by the nonprofit media organization.

A Kushner representative told ProPublica that the accurate income ranges are $50,001$100,000 for the DeKalb loan and $15,001$50,000 for the Moore loan.

Trending: Americans Feel Politicians' Misconduct Goes Unpunished And Rule of Law Not Respected [Survey]

Jordan Libowitz, spokesman for the nonprofit legal watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), told Newsweek Friday it is mind-boggling how someone can have that many errors and that many amendments and keep their job.

If anything, one or two amendments, but were at 40 at this point, Libowitz said. If he were not married to the presidents daughter, it would be shocking that he still is a presidential adviser.

Don't miss: Trump Boasts His Approval Rating is Above Obama Based on Poll That Consistently Favors Him

But a Kushner representative in a statement shared with Newsweek said that Kushner has not filed 40 revisions of his disclosure report.

The representative explained that Kushner filed his disclosure with the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) twice, with the first report in March 2017, the second certified by the office in July 2017, and an addendum to the report filed in January 2018.

Revising a report during the OGE review process is not uncommon, and the Integrity database will note a revision for each day in which a change has been made to the draft, the statement read. The other 30-something revisions referred to in the ProPublica article merely refer to revisions to the draft working document that were being made in consultation with OGE so that the second submission could be certified.

Story continues

This article was first written by Newsweek

More from NewsweekFans huddle under plastic before the 144th running of the Kentucky Derby horse race at Churchill Downs Saturday, May 5, 2018, in Louisville, Ky. (AP)

LOUISVILLE, Ky.  Pre-race favorite Justify justified the hype, running off with the roses in what is officially the wettest Kentucky Derby in the 144-year history of the race.

In the process, the highly touted 3-year-old colt ridden by Mike Smith and trained by Bob Baffert ended a 136-year run since a horse won the Derby without having raced at age 2. With the so-called Curse of Apollo reversed, Justifys connections can now turn their sights toward a Triple Crown bid. The Preakness will be contested May 19, with the Belmont on tap for June 9.

Justifys win also extends the streak of favorites winning the Derby to six straight years, longest in the history of the race.

Undefeated in four career starts, Justify has wasted little time rocketing to the forefront of thoroughbred racing. His first career race was in mid-February, and the California-based horse has defeated all comers since.

A rain-soaked crowd of 157,813 watched Good Magic finish second to Justify Saturday, with Audible third.Chicago (AFP) - Kansas lawmakers moved Friday to make their state the latest in the US that allows faith-based adoption agencies to deny their services to same-sex couples.

The Republican-dominated state legislature approved the contentious bill overnight, giving legal cover to groups that cite their religious beliefs in refusing to place children with gay and lesbian parents.

The state's Republican governor promised to sign the measure into law.

Opponents, which included child welfare advocates, claimed the bill codifies discrimination, but proponents said it would encourage more adoption agencies with religious ties to operate in the state.

"Catholic charities and other adoption agencies are key to the fabric of our communities. I look forward to signing this bill because it increases the opportunities for needy children to find loving homes," Kansas Governor Jeff Colyer said in a statement.

The gay rights group Human Rights Campaign called the proposed law "patently discriminatory" and urged the governor to veto it.

"This insidious bill will make it harder for kids to find qualified loving homes," HRC senior vice president JoDee Winterhof said.

"Business leaders, child welfare advocates, faith leaders and ordinary Kansans have all spoken out against this bill."

At least eight states have adopted similar measures, while others have passed laws banning discrimination based on sexual orientation in adoption cases.

The Oklahoma legislature passed a religious-based adoption bill Thursday similar to the one in Kansas and matching laws already enacted in Alabama, Michigan, South Dakota and Texas.

A Texas lesbian couple challenged the southwestern state's law in February, after their foster care application was denied.

Their lawsuit claimed the Texas law "impermissibly discriminates against same-sex couples who are prospective foster and adoptive parents."Nicholas J. Myers

Security, Europe

Russia is watching.

A Large Military Exercise Just Started in the Baltics. Here Is Why It Matters.

On May 2, 2018, Estonia began the largest exercise in its history since regaining independence in 1991. The exercise is called Siil 2018 (hedgehog in Estonian), will last until May 14, and features 15,000 servicemen including 2,000 foreigners from ten NATO countries (Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the United Kingdom and the United States) and five non-NATO countries (Finland, Georgia, Ireland, Sweden and Ukraine).

The northernmost of the Baltic States, Estonia has been under pressure to increase its defense spending since the 2014 crisis in Ukraine, owing to its proximity and tumultuous history with Russia. Tallinn has increased the countrys defense spending to record levels, meeting NATOs 2 percent requirement and making little Estonia one of only six alliance members to reach that goal. Estonia has increased the readiness of its reserves with regular exercises, a task other NATO members on the eastern flank are only starting to tackle. On March 1, 2018, Estonias Chief of Staff, Brig. Gen. Martin Herem declared that Estonia can cant be occupied within days, throwing the gauntlet down for any hypothetical Russian aggression.

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Understandably, the Russian press has taken interest in Siil 2018, running the headline largest military exercise frequently. For a country of fewer than 1.5 million people, these statistics and headlines are indeed impressive. Some Russian commentators have discussed the possibility that the Baltic States are preparing their own aggression against Russia, either literally or by simply conducting these exercises in regions with Russian-speaking populations.

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However, how does a 15,000-strong exercise stack up against Russian military exercises? It should be noted that most of the 13,000 Estonians participating in Siil 2018 come from the Estonian reserves (Kaitseliit). Russia, by contrast, has a rather dysfunctional reservist recall system only just beginning to rectify its problems. Even Belarus has a better reservist training and reintegration system than Russia.

However, Russia today retains a juggernaut of a regular force with a variety of supporting services technically not considered part of the armed forces. One of those services, the Ministry of Emergency Situations, hosted a massive 112,000-man exercise across Russia just two weeks ago. Including the ancillary government personnel involved, its total number of participant was greater than 640,000. However, this was an exercise designed to respond to large-scale natural disasters like floods and wildfires, not military operations (though these forces would certainly be providing support to Russian infrastructure and stricken population centers during a war).

In September 2017, Russia famously promised there were only 12,700 participants in Zapad-2017. Laying aside assessments of why that claim was dubious, this would suggest Russia does not regularly perform exercises of the magnitude of Siil 2018. However, suggesting that would be an act of Russian information warfare: Moscow conducted a 19,000-man exercise in the Far East in January 2018.

Furthermore, Russia has a tendency of breaking up larger military operational exercises into smaller pieces, such as conducting an amphibious exercise over an unnecessarily long period of time, practicing only individual pieces of the operation. Adding together all activities in Russia just from April 2327, 17,389 servicemen were exercised. Russia is a large country, but exercises including 1,000 or more participants took place in five events.

Looking closer to Estonia, more than 20,000 Russians were documented by the Russian Ministry of Defense to have participated in March 2018 in the three regions adjacent to the Baltic States (Kaliningrad, Pskov and Leningrad Oblasts). My analysis suggests that March 2018 was a special time for training in the Western Military District, but not sufficiently so to merit a general name for the larger collection of exercises.

This is a spot assessment of three random events in Russia since the start of 2018 is hardly comprehensive, only hinting at the capabilities Russia regularly displays with its armed capabilities in what the Foreign Minister of Lithuania calls military hooliganism. Other incidents, such as the firing of shipborne missiles over the Latvian exclusive economic zone (EEZ) even as the leaders of the Baltic States visited the White House at the beginning of April 2018, are so numerous as to be trivia.

Estonias large-scale Siil 2018 exercise is not trivial. It is the largest exercise in independent Estonian history. However, were the exact same exercise taking place inside Russia, no one would notice it as it would blend in with all the other military activities ongoing there discreetly. Except the fact that the existence of fifteen other nations willing to say they would defend Russia truly would be newsworthy.

Nicholas J. Myers is a Russian and Belarusian military analyst at War Vs Peace. You can follow him @WarVsPeaceOrg or see his research at warvspeace.org.

Image: Flickr

Read full articleWashington (AFP) - Presidential lawyer Rudy Giuliani said Sunday that Donald Trump would not be required to comply with a potential subpoena from the special counsel investigating possible collusion with Russia.

But Giuliani, whose statements since he recently joined Trump's legal team have created some confusion, also said that the president "wants to testify" and that "we may actually work things out with Bob Mueller," the special counsel.

The former New York mayor and onetime prosecutor was asked on ABC's "This Week" whether Trump would comply with a subpoena if Mueller were to issue one.

"We don't have to," Giuliani replied. "He's the president of the United States. We can assert the same privileges other presidents have."

President Bill Clinton had resisted a subpoena during the investigation of his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, then a White House intern. But he ultimately testified for more than two hours before a grand jury.

When Giuliani was asked if he was confident that Trump, should he appear before Mueller, would not invoke his constitutional right under the Fifth Amendment to remain silent, Giuliani responded, "How could I ever be confident of that? ... Every lawyer in America thinks he would be a fool to testify."

Yet he listed a series of points suggesting the Trump team has given considerable thought to the framework of a potential interview.

Giuliani said he would want such testimony to be "only for two and a half hours. Only with an arranged format... (not) under oath. Only a Q&A. We get the questions in advance."

"So," he added, "we may actually work things out with Bob Mueller. Because working with him directly is good."

But any such plan, he suggested, could be derailed depending on how the Mueller investigation proceeds.(CROWN POINT, Ind.)  A former Marine who authorities say preyed on women in an area of Gary, Indiana, known as a hangout for prostitutes and drug users pleaded guilty Friday to killing seven women under a plea deal that will spare him the death penalty.

Darren Vanns surprise plea Friday in the killings came after the 47-year-old Gary mans defense team filed a motion Thursday that scheduled Fridays change of plea hearing.

The usually combative Vann was largely emotionless during Fridays hearing as Lake County Judge Samuel Cappas reviewed the terms of the plea agreement that calls for him to be sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Vann is now set to be sentenced May 25.

Lake County Prosecutor Bernard Carter said he hopes Fridays plea agreement brings closure to the victims families.

Victims relatives watched quietly during Fridays hearing as Vann uttered the word guilty seven times, once for each murder count read aloud by Cappas.

Marvin Clinton, who was the longtime boyfriend of one of the seven victims, 28-year-old Teaira Batey of Gary, wiped tears from his eyes outside the courtroom afterward, saying hes relieved that Vann had finally admitted guilt in the killings.

Clinton, who had a son with Batey whos now six, said hes also relieved that Vann will receive a life sentence instead of the death penalty.

(The death penalty) would have been the easy way out. I want him to suffer. These women will haunt him for the rest of his life, he told The (Northwest Indiana) Times . I prefer him to stay locked up, so when he goes to bed at night and closes his eyes, he sees these women.

Vann was scheduled to stand trial in October in the strangulation deaths of Afrikka Hardy, 19, of Hammond, and Anith Jones, 35, of Merrillville. Prosecutors were seeking the death penalty for Vann in their deaths.

Vann was arrested in October 2014 as police in Hammond investigated the killing of Hardy, whose body was found in a bathtub inside a Hammond motel room.

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When Hammond police arrested him, Vann told them he had killed six women in Gary within the previous year. According to a probable cause affidavit, Vann called the women mistakes, and told police he would lead them to the other victims.

During the next several days, Vann led authorities to the bodies of the six other northwest Indiana women, whose remains had been hidden in abandoned buildings in Gary.

Vann was also charged with killing Batey and four other Gary women: Tracy Martin, 41; Kristine Williams, 36; Sonya Billingsley, 53; and Tanya Gatlin, 27.

Vann allegedly targeted women who lived near an area of Gary where women gathered to engage in prostitution or take drugs, according to court documents filed in March 2016.

When asked by Hammond detectives why he started killing women in northwest Indiana, an affidavit quoted him as saying, Just I guess, anger. Cause I feel I shouldnt have went to prison the first time. You see what Im saying?

Vann had moved back to Gary after his July 2013 release from a Texas prison where he served time on a sexual assault charge involving a prostitute.

Vann served in the Marines but received an other than honorable discharge in 1993.Washington (AFP) - Senator John McCain, 81 and battling brain cancer, has made clear he does not want President Donald Trump to attend his funeral, US media reported Saturday.

McCain, a Vietnam war vet and respected senator from Arizona who has had a turbulent relationship with Trump, instead wants Vice President Mike Pence to represent the White House, The New York Times and NBC News said, quoting people close to McCain.

McCain is also using a new book and documentary to express regret about not having selected former Senator Joseph Lieberman as his running mate in 2008 against Barack Obama and instead going with populist Sarah Palin, the Times said.

McCain has been fighting an aggressive form of brain cancer for more than a year.

He is currently back in Arizona, recovering from surgery for an intestinal infection.

McCain and Trump have had a rough relationship, particularly during the 2016 presidential primary, when Trump said McCain -- a POW for years in Vietnam -- was not really a war hero because he was captured.

Last summer Trump slammed McCain for a "no" vote that helped doom a key bill to repeal Obamacare -- the health care reforms passed into law under president Barack Obama.

Video: John McCain Calls for Return to Civility in Memoir Excerpt

For more news videos visit Yahoo View.Amid Sen. John McCains (R-Ariz.) battle with brain cancer, the 81-year-old reportedly wants President Donald Trump to stay away from his funeral.

Friends of the Vietnam war veteran and 2008 presidential candidate, who has had a rocky relationship with Trump, asked the White House that they send Vice President Mike Pence instead, The New York Times and NBC News reported on Saturday.

The service is planned for Washingtons National Cathedral and will have eulogies read by former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, a source close to McCain told NBC News.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is seen last summer after having surgery to combat an aggressive form of brain cancer. McCain has said he doesn't know how much time he has left. (Photo: Aaron Bernstein / Reuters)

McCain has been battling an aggressive form of brain cancer since being diagnosed with the disease in July. He is recovering at his Sedona, Arizona, home after undergoing surgery for an intestinal infection last month.

I dont know how much longer Ill be here, McCain said in an excerpt released last week from his upcoming memoir, The Restless Wave: Good Times, Just Causes, Great Fights, and other Appreciations.

Maybe Ill be gone before you hear this, he said in an audio recording of the excerpt. My predicament is, well, rather unpredictable. But Im prepared for either contingency, or at least Im getting prepared.

His son-in-law, Ben Domenech, reportedly said last week that McCain hugged him and asked him to take care of his daughter, Meghan. The couple married in November.

Grant Woods, McCains friend and former chief of staff, told the Times that though McCain is receiving a lot of visitors, no one is actually saying goodbye, given that the senator doesnt like overt sentimentality, he said.

Former Vice President Joe Biden was among the recent visitors. The two men served together in the Senate, and McCain reportedly encouraged Biden to stay in politics. Biden, 75, has been rumored to be considering a run for the White House in 2020.

Sen. McCain is seen in October before being awarded the 2017 Liberty Medal by former Vice President Joe Biden in Philadelphia. Biden was one of McCain's recent visitors in Arizona. (Photo: Charles Mostoller / Reuters)

Its no secret that McCain and Trump have repeatedly butted heads, particularly in recent years.

In 2015, Trump dismissed McCains heroism in the Vietnam War, saying he is not a war hero because he was captured. McCain, a Navy pilot, was repeatedly tortured during the more than five years he was held captive in North Vietnam. He said last fall that Trump never apologized for his insulting remark.

Story continues

McCain also famously shot down his own partys attempt to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act last year. Trump, who had pushed hard for the repeal bill, called McCains move totally unexpected and honestly terrible.

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Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.Sunday, May 6, 2018

Warren Buffett (L), CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc, and Charlie Munger, vice chairman of Berkshire are seen on a screen at the companys annual meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, U.S., May 5, 2018. REUTERS/Rick Wilking

Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A, BRK-B) held its annual shareholder meeting in Omaha, Nebraska on Saturday. The meeting attracted about 42,000 investors, both young and old, seeking wisdom from the investing legends.

Chairman and CEO Warren Buffett and Vice Chairman Charlie Munger fielded questions about investing, cybersecurity, health care, trade policy, Wells Fargo, cryptocurrency, real estate and firearms, among other things.

Here are our highlights:

Heres why Warren Buffett is sticking with Wells Fargo: Buffett referenced previous investments hed made in American Express (AXP), Geico and Salomon Brothers as companies that had made big mistakes but worked hard to turn things around. I see no reason why Wells Fargo (WFC) as a company  going forward is in any way inferior to other big banks in which it competes. [Yahoo Finance]

Warren Buffett proves why investing in stocks beats gold: Over the course of his lifetime, Buffett said, hes seen why investing in the U.S. economy is a much better bet than gold. [Yahoo Finance]

Why bitcoin is rat poison to Buffett, turd to Munger: Its no secret that Warren Buffett is not a fan of cryptocurrency like bitcoin (BTC-USD), which he calls probably rat poison squared. But the real reason? He just doesnt like gold. A long-time value investor, Buffett compares cryptocurrency to gold, which he sees as a nonproductive asset. [Yahoo Finance]

Warren Buffett: Trade with China is a win-win situation: Buffett offered his take on the ongoing trade negotiation between the worlds two largest economies. [Yahoo Finance]

Buffett on investing in NRA-affiliated companies: When posed with a question about investing in companies that support controversial organizations such as the NRA, Big Tobacco and other politically-charged entities, Buffett took a very clear stance on his belief that ones personal beliefs do not necessarily need to correlate with that of the company which they represent. [AOL]

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Buffett to Musk: There are some pretty good moats around: Elon Musk recently took aim at the idea a successful business needs a moat  a competitive advantage that keeps rivals at bay. The pace of innovation, he said, is more important in the long run. On Saturday, Warren Buffett and his business partner, Charles Munger, shot back. [Bloomberg]

Berkshire-Amazon-JPMorgan health care initiative to have a CEO soon: Warren Buffett said during the companys annual shareholder meeting on Saturday that the company was making a lot of progress and would likely have a CEO in place within a couple of months. [Yahoo Finance]

Munger says single-payer health care will come when Democrats take control: If the U.S. turned toward a single-payer system it would mean that the government would provide health care for citizens rather than them buying individual insurance plans through private companies as they do now. That would likely leave many health insurance companies as well as pharmacy benefit managers out in the cold, a fate Charlie Munger seemed less than heartbroken to see. [Yahoo Finance]

Buffett: We will continue to buy more real estate brokers: Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A, BRK-B) wants to help you buy your first or new home via its Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices. Berkshire only does about 3% of the nations total residential real estate transactions. Buffett said he would like the company to eventually do 10% of the residential real estate business in the country. [Yahoo Finance]

Warren Buffett: Cyber is uncharted territory and its going to get worse, not better: Buffett warned that theres about a 2% risk of a $400 billion disaster occurring as a result of a cyber attack of other issue. [Yahoo Finance]

Why Buffett will never invest in Microsoft: Warren Buffett said its hard to conduct business with friends without people assuming there is information being passed around under the table. He talked about the dangers and potential implications of teaming up with Microsoft (MSFT) founder Bill Gates, especially with how it could possibly be perceived in the media and amongst other companies. [AOL]

For more coverage on the 2018 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholder Meeting , go here



Like what you just read? Get the Morning Brief sent directly to your inbox every Monday to Friday by 6:30 a.m. ET. And feel free to share it with a friend!

The Morning Brief provides a quick rundown on what to watch in the markets, top news stories, and the best of Yahoo Finance Originals.The James Webb Space Telescopes spacecraft element undergoes acoustic testing. (NASA Photo / Chris Gunn)

NASA says its reviewing its options for repair and corrective action for the multibillion-dollar James Webb Space Telescope after tests shook fastening hardware off the observatorys sunshield covers.

The issue isnt expected to force further delays in the Webb Space Telescopes launch, which was recently postponed to no earlier than May 2020.

Word of the loose hardware surfaced this week when Webb program director Greg Robinson referred to the issue during a presentation to the National Academies Space Studies Board, sparking a report in Space News. Robinson was quoted as saying its not terrible news, but its not good news, either.

In todays follow-up report, NASA said its not uncommon for such issues to turn up during pre-launch testing. This is an example of why space systems are thoroughly and rigorously tested on the ground to uncover imperfections and fix them prior to launch, Robinson said in the NASA update.

He said NASA is reviewing options for repair and the next steps in spacecraft element launch environmental testing.

The team is reviewing the test data and hardware configuration and is actively working towards corrective action in the near future, Robinson said. We expect to get back to the environmental test flow shortly and continue to move safely and methodically toward mission success.

The telescopes components are currently at Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems facilities in Redondo Beach, Calif., for tests aimed at simulating the stresses that will be experienced during launch and deployment. The spacecraft element of the telescope  which includes the folded-up sunshield and support platform (also known as the spacecraft bus), but not the optics or scientific instruments  recently underwent two environmental tests.

One test simulated the mechanical shock caused by separation of the telescopes payload adapter after launch. Another test subjected the spacecraft element to the extreme sound and resulting vibration that are associated with the launch. After the acoustic test, inspectors found that the fasteners designed to hold the sunshield in place during launch had come loose.

Story continues

Once NASA decides exactly how to proceed, the spacecraft element is due to undergo further testing, including a simulation of the intense shaking itll get when its launched from French Guiana on an Ariane 5 rocket.

This weeks report could fuel further questions about the Webb telescopes progress. In March, NASA announced that it was postponing the launch by an additional year, increasing its oversight of Northrop Grummans work and launching an independent review of the project. The agency might have to seek still more money from Congress for spacecraft development.

More from GeekWire:Managua (AFP) - Mostly pro-government lawmakers in Nicaragua on Sunday set up a truth commission to investigate the deaths of at least 45 anti-government, mostly student demonstrators, over two weeks.

The five-member panel of investigators, which will act outside the legislature, is free to probe as they deem appropriate, said legislature speaker Gustavo Porras, an ally of President Daniel Ortega.

The investigators are due to report back to lawmakers within a three-month deadline.

The protests against Ortega erupted on April 18 and claimed at least 45 lives, according to human rights groups. Officials stopped updating their toll after counting 10 deaths in the first three days.

Initially triggered by reforms to cut spending on Nicaragua's deficit-laden social security system -- later abandoned by Ortega -- the protests swelled to include other grudges against the 72-year-old president, widely seen as autocratic and distant.

The protests are the worst Ortega has faced in the past 11 years, since the leftist former Sandinista rebel returned to power after a lengthy stint in opposition.

The demonstrations however have become more peaceful in recent days. Ortega has said he is willing to hold talks to calm the situation but made few moves to follow through.

The students have also already demanded an independent commission be set up to investigate the protest deaths, and given a deadline of Tuesday.

Students and the political opposition have called for a nationwide demonstration for Wednesday.

The president's Sandinista party has an absolute majority in the one-chamber assembly in Managua.For only the second time in its history, the Nobel Prize in literature will not be awarded as a sex scandal engulfs the committee that gives out the prize.

In the biggest crisis for the prize since the prize was launched in 1901, four people have resigned from the Swedish Academy over how it handled claims made against photographer Jean-Claude Arnault, the husband of academy member Katarina Frostenson.

Arnault was accused of groping Crown Princess Victoria, the heir to the Swedish throne. He denied all the claims made against him.

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The academy said that the smaller committee, and reduced public confidence in it, meant that instead it would give out two awards in 2019. It termed this a reserved prize, effectively meaning that the award would be delayed but would be given to an eligible work from this year.

RTX3VZ6J (1)

TT News Agency/Jonas Ekstromer via REUTERS/File Photo

Apart from the two world wars, the only time the literature prize was not awarded was in 1935, although there was no reason given for that omission. French existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre refused the award in 1964.

Don't miss: Dr. Oz Will Serve on Trump Administration Sports Council, White House Says

In a statement, the academy said it needed to regain confidence in its work, before the next Literature Prize winner is declared.

The active members of the Swedish Academy are of course fully aware that the present crisis of confidence places high demands on a long-term and robust work for change."

We find it necessary to commit time to recovering public confidence in the Academy before the next laureate can be announced, said Anders Olsson, the interim permanent secretary.

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After the sexual assault claims were made, three members of the 18-strong committee quit over the decision not to expel Frostenson.

Members of the committee then engaged in unprecedented public spats in the Swedish media, which culminated in the resignation of permanent secretary Sara Danius. That, in turn, sparked widespread protests in Sweden, as it looked like a woman was being punished for male behavior; Swedish media, meanwhile, speculated how much the global #MeToo campaign influenced the academy's decision.

Membership in the academy, which was established in 1786, is for life, and a resignation means there is an empty chair until that member dies. That is why the Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf said he wanted to change this rule and allow new members to be nominated.

The Nobel prizes are decided by different groups. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awards the prizes for physics, chemistry and economics, while the Nobel Assembly awards the medicine prize.

U.S. President Donald Trump has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by a group of Republicans for his role in denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula. The Norwegian Nobel Committee decides on the Nobel Peace Prize.

This article was first written by Newsweek

More from NewsweekPhoto: Instagram/WashNews

Seniors at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School attended their prom on Saturday, but some moments of the days events were, not surprisingly, somber.

Many of the Parkland students are outspoken activists now, and they honored their classmates who were killed in the school shooting in February. But theyre also still teenagers who want to do normal things, and of course many of them want to go to their senior prom.

Anisha Saripalli, a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas, told NBC News that it was sad that her best friend, Carmen Schentrup, couldnt attend the prom, because she was a victim of the shooting. She was the most excited to go to prom, Saripalli said about her friend.

Some of the students honored their lost friends in meaningful ways while still attending the prom. Nicolette Miciotta and Carley Ogozaly honored their slain friend Meadow Pollack by posing for a prom photo with her father, Andrew Pollack. Ogozaly also wore the dress Meadow had planned to wear to the prom, in her memory, the Miami Herald reported. And the teens traveled to the prom in a pink limo that had We love you, Meadow written on the windows.

I would have just worn a simple black dress, Ogozaly told the Miami Herald. But I know Meadow would have argued with me that it would be too plain. Me wearing this pink sparkly thing and me doing my nails the way Meadow would have is my way of making sure Meadow doesnt miss prom.

According to the Miami Herald, the Parkland teens who were named among Time magazines 100 Most Influential People were also at the prom. The teens featured in the magazine included Emma Gonzalez, Alex Wind, Jaclyn Corin, Cameron Kasky, and David Hogg. The teens have fought publicly for stricter gun control legislation after the tragedy at their school. The Parkland students organized the March for Our Lives on March 24, and theyre still advocating for reform.

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Another student, Dillon McCooty, accompanied his late friends girlfriend to the prom. Joaquin Oliver was also killed in the shooting, so McCooty and Olivers girlfriend, Victoria Gonzalez, went to the prom together in his memory.

Parkland students are off to Stoneman Douglas prom tonight! Joaquin Olivers best friend, Dillon McCooty, is taking Joaquins girlfriend Victoria Gonzalez to prom, in honor of his friend.  RIP Guac#ParklandStrong #MSDStrong #ChangeTheRef pic.twitter.com/Fgh1R2t9fx  (@WashNews) May 5, 2018

Julia Cordover, Marjory Stoneman Douglass senior class president, told NBC News that the prom was another way to take in the reality of everything after the tragedy. Its not necessarily a celebration but also a remembrance, Cordover told the outlet. The students are honoring their lost friends, but theyre still living their lives as teens and going to prom.

One student, Sara Imam, wrote on Twitter that the students prom photos will include empty spots where their lost classmates would have been. Tmrw, let us celebrate their lives, and enjoy our #prom for them too, Imam tweeted on Friday.

With my dress laid out with all my matching accessories, I can't help but remember; There will be empty spots in our prom pictures tmrw. There will be space on the dancefloor for those we lost this year. Tmrw, let us celebrate their lives, and enjoy our #prom for them too.  Sara Imam // #NEVERAGAIN (@_saxarmaxim) May 4, 2018

Prom is in 6 days and 6 beautiful souls who would have danced the night away with us wont see it, because of cystic fibrosis, suicide, and gun violence. Ethan, Kaitlyn, Meadow, Nick, Joaquin, and Carmen are flying higher than ever.  Nikhita Nookala (@nikta04) April 29, 2018

Today is prom. A night we have all been looking forward to for such a long time. Tonight we will not have 6 eagles with us to celebrate and it just seems surreal. Meadow, Joaquin, Nick, Carmen, Ethan, and Kaitlyn you are with us forever <3  Aly Sheehy (@Aly_Sheehy) May 5, 2018

Another student, Demitri Hoth, tweeted that his late friend Carmen Schentrup would be dancing the night away with me in my heart at prom.

Carmen will be dancing the night away with me in my heart!!! https://t.co/F4Grh1kXuP  Demitri Hoth // #NEVERAGAIN (@DEMICHX) April 29, 2018

After all the Parkland students have gone through, they deserved an evening to just feel like regular teens again.

Its clear from the Marjory Stoneman Douglas students actions and tweets that their late classmates will never be forgotten. But it seems they found a way to celebrate their prom night while still honoring those lost.

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day.

Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:

 Teachers gun remark to students prompts police investigation

 The Parkland shooting suspect is getting fan mail, money, and sexual pictures in jail

 Fox News host who mocked Parkland survivor is threatened with boycott

Related Video:Consumer Reports has no financial relationship with advertisers on this site.

Consumer Reports has no financial relationship with advertisers on this site.

A growing number of medical services, from MRIs to blood work to outpatient surgery, could cost you lesssometimes a lot lessif you pay the provider out of your own pocket and leave your insurer out of the picture.

That this is possible seems contrary to what many of us have come to understand about how health insurance is supposed to work. We think using it always saves us money, partly because we assume our insurer negotiates the best rates for health services, and partly because we expect our insurer to pick up the tab for whatever cost remains, or at least much of it.

In many cases, that is still truebut not always, especially for the growing number of people in high-deductible plans who must spend thousands of dollars on health services before insurance even starts to kick in to cover some of the cost.

According to experts Consumer Reports talked to and a review of pricing options offered by dozens of healthcare providers, more doctors, hospital networks, and treatment centers are touting big discounts for patients who pay cash upfront and forgo using their insurance.

Companies like MD Save, with a network of hundreds of hospitals, clinics, labs, and doctors in 25 states, illustrate the shift. It bills itself as an online healthcare marketplace that connects healthcare providers offering big discounts to people willing to prepay their bill online.

That doesnt mean you shouldnt have health insurance. Like homeowner and auto insurance, health insurance protects you from financial shocks that could bankrupt you if you or a family member has a medical crisis that requires major hospitalization or expensive treatments.

But as consumers shoulder more of the cost of their care, they are seeking ways to save money.

And healthcare providers are finding that by charging people who pay cash less than the insurer-negotiated rate for some health services, they can come out ahead financially too, says Bill Kampine, co-founder and senior vice president of analytics at Healthcare Bluebook, which uses insurance claim databases to estimate prices for medical care.

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Healthcare providers make up for charging lower prices other ways, Kampine says. Cutting out the insurer as the middleman can significantly reduce the providers administrative and billing costs. And healthcare providers who get cash upfront dont have to chase down the money later, either from a patient or the insurance company. Its a much easier transaction in a cash pay environment, Kampine says.

Where You Can Save

Reduced fees for paying cash are more common for diagnostic procedures, such as CAT scans, X-rays, and ultrasounds, but cash payers can also often get a better deal for certain lab work, prescription drugs, out-patient surgeries, and therapeutic services, such as physical therapy, Kampine says.

Some imaging centers even offer off-peak discounts for patients who pay cash and use services after traditional business hours, say, getting an MRI after 7 p.m. Its like surge pricing by Uber, says Jeanne Pinder, CEO of ClearHealthCosts, a business she founded that researches healthcare prices and allows you to compare costs for specific procedures at different providers around the U.S. The sites PriceCheck tool gets data on insurance-negotiated prices, Medicare rates, and cash prices directly from healthcare providers, as well as from patient crowdsourcing.

The differences in price can be significant, Pinder says. A woman in Louisiana who shared her story with ClearHealthCosts reported paying $766 for an echocardiogram using her insurance. She later learned that the cash price for the same procedure was almost half as much: around $400.



When Cash Payments Can Cost You

Still, even if paying cash is likely to reduce your annual outlay for medical expenses, there are some important drawbacks to consider.

The main one is that the money you spend typically wont count toward your deductible. As a result, those dollars will be wasted if you need medical care that requires you to meet your whole deductible anyway, Pinder says.

The money you spend also may not be counted toward your out-of-pocket maximum, which caps the total amount you owe for deductibles, copays, and coinsurance. After you meet your out-of pocket max, your insurer picks up 100 percent of your costs.

The Smart Way to Pay by Cash

Heres how to figure out whether paying directly, rather than using your insurance, is the right move for you.

Weigh the situation. Whether it makes sense to use insurance depends on your specific circumstances. Cash payment generally makes sense only if you're seeking care subject to a deductible which you haven't met yet and dont think you will reach anytime in the same calendar year (deductibles reset annually). Of course, you never know when you'll get sick and need expensive medical care. Make sure you put enough money aside to meet your deductible.

Research price and cost compare. Healthcare prices vary widely, even within the same local area and especially by provider, so it's important to shop around.

First, check your insurance company's website, or call your insurer, to get an estimate of the cost of your test or procedure. Dont forget to consider copays and coinsurance, which requires you to pay a percentage of the cost of a service (typically 20 percent). Then see whether you can do better by paying cash. Healthcare Bluebook and ClearHealthCosts publish both insurance-negotiated prices and cash rates where available. And a growing number of healthcare providers are being transparent and publishing their cash prices online.

Some, like The Surgery Center of Oklahoma, which bills itself as a free market-loving, price-displaying, state-of-the-art surgical facility, dont take insurance at all. The Surgery Center posts cash prices for dozens of outpatient procedures, such as an Achilles tendon repair ($5,730) and cataract surgery ($4,000). Its prices are all-inclusive, bundling all related fees for the surgery, such as medications or needed specialists. That's still a lot of money, but for a family with a high deductiblesay $8,300, the average for families who buy insurance on their ownpaying cash could help them save thousands.

Keith Smith, an anesthesiologist and medical director of The Surgery Center, also co-founded an organization called the Free Market Medical Association that lists hundreds of other providers that publish cash prices.

Theres also a push for greater price transparency from the Trump Administration. Last month, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services proposed a rule that would require all hospitals to post their standard charges online by Jan. 1, 2019.

Be persistent. Not all healthcare providers make it easy to find out the cash price. That's because if they have a contract with your insurer, undercutting the negotiated price could be a contract violation. So you should ask directly how much your care would cost you with your insurance, and how much if you pay cash, Pinder says. If the healthcare provider balks, keep asking. You may have to be persistent or go to another provider," she says.

Talk with your insurer. Although most insurers wont count cash payments toward your deductible, its not a hard-and-fast rule, Kampine says. Ask your insurer what its policy is. Request from your doctor's office what is known as a superbill," which is an itemized statement of charges and includes information such as diagnosis and procedure codes. Submit that to your insurance company when asking whether your payment can be applied to your deductible.

Use tax advantaged dollars. You can ease the pain of using your own money if you have a flexible spending account or health savings account. Money in FSAs and HSAs, which can be spent on a wide range of healthcare services, is put away pre-tax, so it lowers your taxable income. Most employers offer flexible spending accounts, which you can fund up to $2,650 a year. You have to have a high-deductible health plan to have an HSA, but if you do, you can put away $3,450 a year pre-tax for an individual and $6,850 for families to spend on out-of-pocket medical expenses.

Shop around for drugs, too. As with procedures and tests, you can sometimes save on prescription drugs by paying cash. But your pharmacist may not be able to reveal whether their retail, cash price is lower than your insured price due to "gag clauses" in their contracts with middleman known as pharmacy benefit managers. To work around this, you have to directly ask the pharmacist whether there is a lower price available.

First, look for online discounts at websites such as GoodRx or Blink Health. Then bring them to a pharmacy. Most will honor those coupons, our Consumer Reports secret shoppers have found, and the discounted price could be lower than your insurance copay. Or consider low-cost pharmacies, such as Costco, Sam's Club, or HealthWarehouse.com, all of which often have everyday low prices. Read more about how to shop around for prescription drugs.





More from Consumer Reports:

Top pick tires for 2016

Best used cars for $25,000 and less

7 best mattresses for couples





Consumer Reports is an independent, nonprofit organization that works side by side with consumers to create a fairer, safer, and healthier world. CR does not endorse products or services, and does not accept advertising. Copyright  2018, Consumer Reports, Inc.Moscow (AFP) - Vladimir Putin will be inaugurated for a historic fourth term on Monday, extending his almost two-decade rule by another six years after predictably winning Russia's March presidential election.

But with no successor and no political competition, what are the possible scenarios when his term ends in 2024?

- Fight for influence -

Without constitutional reform, Putin will not be able to run for a fifth time -- Russian law forbids serving more than two consecutive terms.

Putin, who will turn 72 in 2024, could decide to leave the Kremlin after 24 years in power, making way for a successor.

Russian politics is now dominated by infighting between rival clans of technocrats and the "siloviki" -- representatives of the security services and the army.

"There is already a fight for influence," said political analyst Nikolai Petrov. "Nobody will wait passively, each group will try to promote its interests," he added.

In a March interview to American TV channel NBC, Putin said he had been thinking of a potential successor since 2000.

"There is no harm in thinking about it but at the end of the day it will be the Russian people who decide."

But in making sure no one can compete with him, no politician is currently popular enough to succeed the Kremlin chief. Many analysts say Putin leaving power in six years is unlikely.

- Role swap -

One way Putin could continue ruling Russia after 2024 is to stay in power in a different role.

The Russian strongman could revisit his 2008 move, which saw him put forward Dmitry Medvedev as president while he himself became prime minister before returning to the Kremlin in 2012.

"Putin may prepare the regime for a transfer of power. But not from Putin to another president but from Putin to Putin in some other role," said Petrov.

But memories of mass protests in Moscow when Putin and Medvedev swapped back and Putin returned to the Kremlin may put the Russian leader off this option.

Story continues

Putin's age also makes this scenario problematic. Putin will be 78 in 2030, when he is constitutionally allowed to run for another term.

Konstantin Kalachev, head of the Political Expert Group think tank in Moscow, said Putin knows his successor will have to introduce unpopular economic reforms and wants to "go down in history as the man who did not lose at anything".

- Needs protection -

Putin could choose to follow China's Xi Jinping in abolishing presidential term limits, thus allowing him to remain president for life.

"I don't think he will refuse power in 2024 even if he has had enough, he is (already) visibly tired," said independent political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin.

"He can't leave because he does not believe that anyone will protect him," he added, saying that Putin has built a system in which everything depends on who is at the top.

So far, Putin has ruled out ruling Russia for life.

"I never changed the constitution, especially for it to benefit me and I do not have this kind of intention today," he told NBC in March.

Oreshkin said Putin does not want to be remembered for changing the constitution and that if he were to remain president for life, it would be done "more elegantly" than in China.Moscow (AFP) - A KGB officer turned world leader, Vladimir Putin has stamped his total authority on Russia, silencing opposition and reasserting Moscow's lost might abroad while building a strongman image through macho stunts.

Putin, 65, who will be inaugurated as president for the fourth time on Monday, has reimposed the Kremlin's grip on society since taking power 18 years ago after a lawless but relatively free decade following the demise of the USSR.

On the international stage, he has dealt with three US presidents, thrust Moscow into a new rivalry with the West by snatching Crimea from Ukraine and launched a pivotal intervention in Syria.

Named the world's most powerful person by Forbes for the past four years running, the judo black belt has carefully nurtured his image as a powerful leader with photo opportunities showing him riding topless on horseback in the Siberian wilderness and darting an endangered tiger.

Supporters laud him as a saviour who restored pride and traditional values to a humiliated nation.

To foes, however, Putin has dragged his homeland further from democracy, presided over a seizure of the state by a new elite of former secret police cronies and stoked nationalism in a bid to restore Moscow's lost empire.

- 'Hit first' -

Putin was born into a working-class family in Leningrad -- now Saint Petersburg -- on October 7, 1952 and cut his teeth in the city's rough-and-tumble neighbourhoods.

"The Leningrad streets taught me one thing: if a fight is unavoidable, you have to hit first," Putin said in 2015.

He fulfilled a childhood dream by joining the KGB intelligence service, with a posting in 1985-1990 in Dresden -- then East Germany -- just as Soviet power was crumbling.

His political rise began after he returned to work at Saint Petersburg city hall under his mentor, liberal mayor Anatoly Sobchak.

By 1996, he was called to Moscow to work in the Kremlin under Russia's first democratically elected president Boris Yeltsin, who in 1998 made little-known Putin head of the KGB's successor, the FSB.

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Battling health and drinking problems, frail Yeltsin in August 1999 named Putin prime minister and his popularity shot up as he oversaw the launch of a second war to crush rebels in the Chechnya region.

When Yeltsin sensationally resigned on New Year's Eve 1999, Putin took over as president of the biggest country on Earth.

- A tsar is born -

Buoyed by an influx of petrodollars that saw living standards soar, the Kremlin under Putin forged its own "sovereign democracy" in which the trappings of pluralism -- such as political opposition and civil society -- were subverted.

He has guarded his private life jealously and once famously told journalists to keep their "snotty noses" out of his business.

After three decades of marriage, he divorced his wife Lyudmila in 2013 but rumours of new romance -- including with a former Olympic gymnast -- have not been confirmed.

In line with the constitution, when Putin ended his second term in 2008, he handed power to protege Dmitry Medvedev and moved to become prime minister -- but few doubted who was really in charge.

In 2012, he returned as president in the face of huge street protests.

While the demonstrations petered out after a police crackdown, the spectre of unrest spurred tough new measures to eradicate dissent.

- Crimea, Ukraine, Syria -

Putin, who once decried the collapse of the USSR as the "greatest geopolitical catastrophe" of the 20th century, has ferociously defended Moscow's sphere of influence and also challenged perceived US hegemony.

When crowds in Ukraine ousted Russia-backed leader Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014, the Kremlin faced losing its dominance over a key neighbour.

Within days, Putin ordered special forces to seize the strategic Crimea peninsula and -- after a hasty referendum rejected internationally -- in March 2014 signed off on the region's annexation.

The redrawing of Russia's border sparked the worst standoff with the West since the Cold War and unleashed a wave of nationalism at home that saw Putin's popularity soar.

Soon the Kremlin was accused of masterminding a rebellion in east Ukraine that turned into a festering conflict that has cost more than 10,000 lives.

Despite sanctions pushing the economy into recession, Putin also launched a bombing campaign in Syria to support leader Bashar al-Assad in 2015. It is widely seen as the key factor that tipped the war in Assad's favour.

Putin was then accused of spreading his tentacles much further and Moscow's old foe -- the United States -- found itself in the crosshairs.

After Donald Trump's shock election win, US intelligence accused Putin of ordering a hacking and influence campaign to get Trump to the White House.

"Those that lose always look to blame someone else," Putin retorted.Meghan Markle with her mother Doria Radlan - Pix supplied as a technical service by Tim Stewart News Limited 07932745508. No copyright inferred o

The Queen is to welcome Meghan Markle's parents personally to Britain ahead of the royal wedding, as the bride gives her mother a central role in her day.

Doria Ragland and Thomas Markle, the American actress's parents, are to spend time with the Queen, Duke of Edinburgh, Prince of Wales, Duchess of Cornwall and Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in the days before their daughter's wedding, as they are welcomed to Windsor with open arms. The show of support from the senior members of the Royal family will begin a week of celebrations, as Prince Harry and Ms Markle plan a wedding to include the family of Diana, Princess of Wales, and both of the bride's parents.

In a departure from tradition, Ms Markle will be accompanied by her mother for the journey to St George's Chapel by car on Saturday May 19, before her father walks her down the aisle. Palace aides said it was important for Ms Markle to honour each of her parents, who divorced when she was six, saying she was "delighted" to have them "by her side on such an important and happy occasion".

Ms Markle and her mother will be joined en route to the chapel by child bridesmaids and pageboys, expected to include Prince George and Princess Charlotte.

The children's baby brother, Prince Louis, who will be less than a month old, will not be among the wedding guests, the Palace said, although the Duchess of Cambridge will attend as the Duke performs best man duties.

Royal wedding | Read more (Open content)

The Duke of Edinburgh, who is recovering from a hip replacement operation, is not yet confirmed to attend, however Prince Harry and Ms Markle are "very much hoping" he will be there.

In a series of announcements about the wedding released by Kensington Palace yesterday, Jason Knauf, Prince Harry's communications secretary, said that the couple's day "will be guided by tradition" while also reflecting "the personalities of Prince Harry and Ms Markle".

Story continues

The American tradition of the rehearsal dinner the night before the ceremony will be eschewed, he said, with the two families instead getting to know one another in private in the week ahead of the celebration.

The Queen will welcome Ms Ragland, whom Ms Markle once lovingly described as a "free-spirited clinical therapist", and Mr Markle, a former Hollywood lighting director who now lives in Mexico, to her home.

Ms Markle, as a girl, with her father Thomas Credit: TIM STEWART NEWS LIMITED

It will be the first opportunity for Prince Harry to meet his future father-in-law in person.

He has already spent time with his mother-in-law as his transatlantic romance with Ms Markle unfolded, and the two were pictured talking together at the Invictus Games in October.

The Prince and his fiancee will sleep in separate venues before the ceremony, returning after their private evening reception at Frogmore House to spend their first night as husband and wife at Windsor Castle.

From then, they will delay their honeymoon to return to their home of Nottingham Cottage at Kensington Palace, before going back to work for their first public engagement as a married couple the following week.

Ms Markle has already spoken of her desire to "hit the ground running" as she becomes a full-time member of the Royal family. However among the wedding updates provided by the Palace yesterday, one particular detail remained firmly under wraps.

Asked at a press conference whether the public would see a "balcony moment" from the newly-weds, similar to that of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's kiss after their 2011 wedding, Mr Knauf said: "I have no comments on kissing today."

"The day will be guided by tradition while also reflecting the personalities of Harry and Meghan."Rand Paul says he's not trying to oust Mitch McConnell. But he keeps backing candidates who've shown little regard for the Senate majority leader. (Photo: Alex Wong via Getty Images)

LOVELAND, Ohio  Rand Paul says hes not trying to oust his fellow Kentuckian, Mitch McConnell, from his seat atop GOP leadership in the Senate. But some of the candidates hes supporting sure are.

Paul, a former presidential contender, came to a convention center in this Cincinnati suburb on Thursday to campaign for Mike Gibbons, an investment banker running for the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown. Gibbons is facing Rep. Jim Renacci (R-Ohio), who has the backing of both McConnell and President Donald Trump, in next weeks primary.

Gibbons, along with several other candidates Paul is backing, has refused to support McConnell as majority leader. Paul is also supporting state Sen. Kelli Ward in Arizona, who is directly challenging McConnell-backed Rep. Martha McSally. Another candidate hes backing, West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, indicated he wouldnt back McConnell during a Fox News debate earlier this week.

This handful of candidates poses no real threat to McConnells leadership. But the endorsements show how Paul is still trying to shape the Senate Republican conference in a more libertarian, anti-establishment direction, even as hes come under fire for eventually supporting both the GOP tax law and the confirmation of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo after initially threatening to torpedo both.

Were really trying to find people who arent beholden to leadership, Paul told reporters after the Gibbons rally. He later added he wasnt specifically referring to McConnell: It isnt so much about a person. And Im trying not to make it about a person. Frankly, Im trying to keep good relations with my fellow senators.

Its not about him so much as it is about leadership in general, he said. Whenever I think of leadership, I think Dear Leader, and this structure that isnt really American.

Gibbons wasnt as diplomatic.

The guy Im running against was recruited by Mitch McConnell. Do you think hes not going to go with him on every single thing? he said. Im proud of the fact that [McConnell] isnt supporting me.

Story continues

Renacci remains the front-runner in the contest and is airing ads that emphasize Trumps endorsement of him  although the high number of undecided voters in public polls indicates a Gibbons victory remains possible. Renacci dismissed Pauls backing of Gibbons as insignificant.

Excited to share my first TV ad in Ohio's U.S. Senate race and how as your next Senator, I will always Fight for Ohio! #OhSen pic.twitter.com/J3MNpWbqV3  Jim Renacci (@JimRenacci) April 13, 2018

Im humbled to have the President of the United States and the entire Ohio Republican party supporting my campaign, he said in an emailed statement. I am glad to see he found someone from Kentucky to support his.

Besides Gibbons, the candidates Paul is supporting are a mixed bunch. Ward, who previously challenged occasional Paul nemesis John McCain during the 2016 cycle, is in a three-way race with McSally and former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio to secure the GOP nomination for outgoing Sen. Jeff Flakes seat. Morrisey is locked in a battle with Democrat-turned-Republican Rep. Evan Jenkins in West Virginia. Montana Auditor Matt Rosendale is the front-runner to battle Sen. Jon Tester, a Democrat. All three had the backing of former White House strategist Steve Bannon when he was plotting to oust McConnell before his political self-immolation in January.

Political consultants with strong ties to Paul are also deeply involved in two of the contests. Gibbons senior adviser is Michael Biundo, who worked for Pauls 2016 presidential bid. And Jesse Benton, a former Paul aide who was convicted of conspiracy and other charges for his role in a bribery scheme during the runup to the 2012 Iowa caucuses, is working for both a super PAC supporting Ward and for Maine state Sen. Eric Brakeys campaign for U.S. Senate. (The Daily Beast first reported Bentons resurgence.)

Meanwhile, Paul has endorsed primary candidates in two races ignored by most Republican senators: Hes supporting state Del. Nick Freitas for the nomination to challenge Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), and backing Brakey to challenge Sen. Angus King, a Maine independent who caucuses with Democrats.

Freitas and Brakey, who are both running in contested primaries, are ideological soul mates for the libertarian-minded Paul, and Brakey previously worked for former Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas)  who is Rand Pauls father  when the elder Paul mounted presidential bids. As a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 2016, Brakey argued for a host of libertarian policy proposals, including the legalization of medical marijuana. Freitas recently ignited a firestorm with a passionate defense of gun rights on the floor of the Virginia legislature.

Were looking for people who are conservative first and party second, Paul said, noting he wants candidates who share his vision of a Constitution that dramatically limits the size of the federal government.

During the Loveland rally, in front of a crowd of about 100 people, both Paul and Gibbons warned of the exploding national debt, and emphasized their status as political outsiders and their support for term limits. When the Republican Party gets in charge, there is no conservative party, Paul said to applause as he lambasted the spending bill passed by the GOP Congress and signed into law by Trump in March.

Im not looking for the lesser of two evils, Paul said. If theres a race with two Republicans, and I think both Republicans are establishment schmucks, Im not going to endorse either one of them.

Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trumps newest lawyer, once again made waves on a political talk show over the weekend, this time talking about whether Trump would cooperate in the Russia investigation.

Speaking to ABC News George Stephanopoulos on Sundays episode of This Week, Giuliani said that his client, Donald Trump, doesnt have to comply with a subpoena from special counsel Robert Mueller, in addition to saying he could not be confident that the president would not take the Fifth Amendment if he has to testify in the Russia investigation.

How can I ever be confident of that? Giuliani said, regarding Trump pleading the Fifth, when Stephanopoulos asked how Trump would handle being called to testify.

Giuliani pointed out that Trump has previously said he wants to testify, and that while he ultimately may end up doing so, as his lawyer, Giuliani said he has a responsibility to tell the president he would be taking a great chance.

Pres. Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani tells @GStephanopoulos "we don't have to" comply with a potential subpoena from the special counsel, adding "He's the President of the United States. We can assert the same privileges other presidents have." https://t.co/LYBy2d6vA3 pic.twitter.com/EefBTa11GQ  ABC News (@ABC) May 6, 2018

Ive got a client who wants to testify I hope we get a chance to tell him the risk that hes taking, Giuliani said. "So he may testify. We may actually work things out with Bob Mueller. Because working with him directly is good.

The former New York City mayor also said that Muellers team keeps undermining the potential for talk to Trump with them. Trump himself said Friday he would love to talk to Mueller if he was treated fairly.

Story continues

Stephanopoulos also asked Giuliani whether Trump would comply with a subpoena.

"Well, we don't have to, Giuliani said simply. "He's the president of the United States. We can assert the same privileges other presidents have."

Giuliani caused a media frenzy last week after telling Fox News Sean Hannity that Trump repaid personal attorney Michael Cohen for the $130,000 payment Cohen made to porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election, supposedly for her silence regarding an alleged affair with Trump in 2006.

See original article on Fortune.com

More from Fortune.comN'Djamena (AFP) - Six people were killed, including four government officials and a soldier, in an attack by Boko Haram jihadists on a Chadian army checkpoint on an island in Lake Chad, a military source told AFP Sunday.

The overnight killings, which cost the life of a civilian along with two customs officials, two forestry agents and the soldier, occurred when "Boko Haram elements attacked an advanced post of the Chad army" in Gabalami in the country's far west, the source said.

The attackers were "repelled" but managed to escape without suffering losses, the source added.

Boko Haram, a militant movement opposed to Western influence and seeking an Islamic state based on Sharia law, has caused the deaths of at least 20,000 people since it took up arms in 2009 in Nigeria.

Neighbouring Chad has seen a recent increase in attacks by the group.

Last month, Chad's national television reported that three of the country's soldiers had been killed during a clash with the jihadists, without giving the location.

It came as fighting took place between Boko Haram and Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) soldiers in Arge in Nigeria's Abadam district, which is on the Chad border.

A Chadian soldier, as well as 20 Boko Haram members, were killed in another clash in late March in the restive Lake Chad region.

Two more soldiers were killed in an ambush in the same area a month earlier, in the first Boko Haram attack on Chadian soil since May 2017, in which nine soldiers died.

Chad, Cameroon and Nigeria have all joined the military effort by Nigeria to crush Boko Haram.South Korean police on Saturday prevented activists from launching anti-Pyongyang leaflets to North Korea, citing an agreement reached at a historic inter-Korean summit last month.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in agreed to restore peace and reconciliation and cease all hostile acts when they met at the border truce village of Panmunjom on April 27.

"Hostile acts" include broadcasting through loudspeakers installed along their tense border and distributing propaganda leaflets to each other's side.

Accordingly, the two Koreas removed their propaganda loudspeakers this week.

Some 300 police were deployed at a public park in Paju City near the border where a group of some 20 activists including defectors from North Korea gathered to launch leaflets by gas-filled balloons.

Police kept the activists apart from a rival group of some 40 people who accused them of seeking to ignite confrontation with the North.

"Stop provoking a war," they chanted.

Police surrounded a small truck carrying some 5,000 leaflets, plastic balloons and gas canisters, preventing the activists from unloading them.

Park Sang-hak, a leading activist and former North Korean defector, said South Koreans were "intoxicated by Kim Jong Un's peace offensive" even though the North has not changed at all.

He vowed to continue efforts to send leaflets over the border to "let North Koreans know the truth" and "bring an end to the North's Kim Jong Un regime".In the nearly six years since SpaceX was awarded $440 million to develop a means to transport humans to space for NASA, the company has only sent cargo. The company was awarded another $2.6 billion in 2014 to send NASAs astronauts to space, according to NASA. The company is on track to send its first astronauts to the International Space Station later this year.

The past four years have raised some concerns about the safety of those astronauts though, according to The Washington Post. The company had one of its Falcon 9 rockets bound for the ISS explode just 139 seconds into the mission in 2015, an explosion NASA called an anomalous event in a report this year.

The following year, on September 1, another SpaceX rocket, along with the satellite it was meant to deliver to space, exploded at Cape Canaveral Space Launch Complex 40 during a static-fire test for the launch.

Trending: Hillary Clinton Thought About Moving to New Zealand After Losing Election to Trump

The explosions caused concern for those at NASA who worried that if the rocket could blow up with cargo on board, it could also explode once it had people on board as well, The Post reported.

Some of the concerns from those at NASA have to do with SpaceXs fueling method, called load-and-go. It involves keeping the fuel extremely cold, so it takes up less space and then loading it right before the launch while the astronauts or cargo is on board, according to The Post.

Despite these concerns, NASA and SpaceX plan to launch the first manned mission in a Dragon craft aboard one of its Falcon 9 rockets later this year.

Don't miss: 'PUBG' Savage Map Renamed Sanhok, Next Beta Session Announced

The second quarterly meeting of the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, scheduled for May 17, will offer more up-to-date information about how substantial concerns are about the upcoming launches. The meeting gives priority "to those programs that involve the safety of human flight," and will offer updates on the Commercial Crew Program, according to a notice from NASA.

Story continues

During a Congressional hearing in January Dr. Hans Koenigsmann, vice president of build and flight reliability at SpaceX spoke on the fueling processes of the company and said that SpaceX actually believes that the "load-and-go" fuelling process is a safer way to fuel.

What we tried to do here is we tried to minimize the time we expose personnel, not just astronauts, but also crew to the hazard of fueling, Dr.Koenigsmann said during the panel.

Most popular: Ivana Trump Goes on Dancing with the Stars After Making Fun of Maria Maples for Doing the Same

In this particular case, our procedure is actually that we put the astronauts, we strap them in, we make sure theyre comfortable, and then the ground crew retreats and we arm the pad abort system that weve already tested. Then we start fueling the main propellants basically within what amounts to half an hour or something like that. So its a relatively quick procedure and we believe that this exposure time is the shortest possible and therefore the safest approach, he told the panel.

Last summer, Elon Musk, SpaceX founder and CEO tweeted that his company was Looking forward to launching @NASA astronauts to the International Space Station next year!

NASAs launch schedule for the year shows that SpaceX is set to launch its first Dragon capsule designed for humans without a crew in August as a test as is competitor Boeing. Boeing is set to launch the first crewed mission in November, according to the schedule. SpaceX is scheduled to launch its crewed mission the following month.

This story was updated to include further information about SpaceX's fuel loading process and the Commercial Crew Program.

spacex dragon capsule

NASA/SpaceX

This article was first written by Newsweek

More from NewsweekStormy Daniels appeared on Saturday Night Live. (NBC)

The ongoing problem with Saturday Night Live in the Donald Trump era is that it is required to treat the president as a joke rather than the serious threat he is. Early on, during Trumps candidacy, Alec Baldwin started playing Trump as a stupid windbag  this fit the SNL tradition, going back to Chevy Chase impersonating Gerald Ford as a clumsy dolt. But once Trump was elected, it was no longer possible to reduce him to a foolish pop-culture phenomenon. Yet this is what SNL persists with, and so bringing the real-life Stormy Daniels onto Saturdays Donald Glover-hosted show was almost inevitable.

To make more of a splash, the show crammed a cavalcade of stars into the opening sketch: In addition to Baldwin, Ben Stiller played Trump attorney Michael Cohen; Martin Short was Trumps Dr. Bornstein; Scarlett Johansson played Ivanka Trump to Jimmy Fallons squeaky-voiced Jared Kushner. There was a joke made about Trumps new chief of staff Kanye West  I wonder how hard the shows writers tried to persuade Glover to play Kanye, without success. And finally there was Stormy Daniels herself, at ease in front of the cameras (no surprise there) if a little wooden in her line readings (no surprise there either).

The sketch was one big dud. Everyone yammered the lines, which werent so much jokes as bullet points taken from the news (Bornsteins office raided by Trump goons; Rudy Giuliani saying hed lay off Ivanka but let Jared twist in the wind). Since Trump took office, SNL hasnt been able to come up with comic situations that are any more overblown than what the president and his administration has done in real life. And just as the Stormy Daniels case is, more or less, a distraction from the serious stuff taking place around the Robert Mueller investigation and Trumps attempts to derail it, so did the Stormy SNL skit seem like a low-stakes morsel of prechewed political commentary. The most pointed line of the sketch was uttered by Daniels, who, when asked what she wanted, didnt say money but rather a resignation. There was a smattering of applause from the audience at that  not because the majority of a New York City crowd probably agreed with that sentiment but because everyone has heard so many different, probably futile ways Trump could possibly be removed from office, none of them even seem worth encouraging with applause anymore.

Story continues

The rest of the show  the stuff that included Glover prominently  was a lot better. Loved that Migos spoof.

Saturday Night Live airs Saturdays at 11:30 p.m. on NBC.Cairo (AFP) - Egypt's antiquities ministry said on Sunday that tests had debunked a theory that there are hidden chambers next to the tomb of Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings.

Experts used ground penetrating radar (GPR) which provided "conclusive evidence of the non-existence of hidden chambers adjacent to or inside Tutankhamun's tomb," the ministry said in a statement.

More details will be announced in a speech later in the day by the head of an Italian scientific team, Francesco Porcelli, of the Polytechnic University in Turin, the statement said.

It said Porcelli had submitted a report that "concluded, with a very high degree of confidence... the hypothesis concerning the existence of hidden chambers or corridors adjacent to Tutankhamun's tomb is not supported by GPR data."

Previous scans had suggested the possibility of hidden chambers, although experts disagreed on the results.

British Egyptologist Nicholas Reeves had theorised that the tomb was in fact that of Nefertiti, the wife of Tutankhamun's father, King Akhenaten.

The theory held that when the boy king died unexpectedly at a young age, he was rushed into the outer chamber of the tomb in southern Egypt.

Akhenaten was known for trying and failing to force Egypt to convert to monotheism.

DNA evidence has shown that Akhenaten was Tutankhamun's father, but Egyptologists do not agree on the identity of his mother.Mohammed Ayoob

Security, Middle East

A ballistic missile is launched and tested in an undisclosed location, Iran, March 9, 2016. REUTERS/Mahmood Hosseini/TIMA

This game of chicken can be very dangerous.

Toward Armageddon: Israel, Iran and the United States Could End up in a War

As May 12the date for President Trump to make a decision on whether the United States will withdraw from the JCPOAlooms in the background, and the confrontation between Israel and Iran is reaching very dangerous levels. The escalation seems to be driven by Israeli calculations that a major Israeli military confrontation with Iran will overcome any residual hesitation the U.S. administration may have about reneging on the nuclear deal.

However, regardless of President Trumps decision on the JCPOA, this game of chicken can be very dangerous. The Iranian regime, if pushed to the wall as a consequence of repeated attacks on Iranian targets in Syria, may lash out against Israel regardless of the consequences. Its credibility is increasingly under attack from domestic opponents who have become emboldened in expectations of the United States reneging on the nuclear deal thus exposing Rouhani and Zarif to ridicule.

Tehran is also likely to let loose its regional proxies, such as Hizbullah and Iraqi-Shia militia, to attack Israeli and American targets in the region without making any distinction between the two. American targets in Iraq and Syria are far more vulnerable to such attacks than fortified Israeli positions within its borders. Therefore, the likelihood of damage to American targets will be far greater.

Prime Minister Netanyahus dramatic PowerPoint presentation about the Iranian nuclear weapons program may be old hat for the knowledgeable. but is aimed at bolstering Trumps resolve to walk out of the nuclear deal. In fact, without access to the intelligence reports at Netanyahus disposal, I had predicted as far back as 2011 that it is time for world leaders to recognize the inevitability of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons capability, even if it remains untested, with Tehran following the policy and adopting the rhetoric of deliberate ambiguity. It was the JCPOA signed in 2015 but agreed upon between the United States and Iran as early as November 2013 in Oman that prevented such an eventuality.

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Nevertheless, Netanyahus latest statement reiterating known facts about Irans nuclear program has been music to President Trumps ears and to those of his closest advisors on the issue: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton. Both of the new appointees reinforce the presidents visceral dislike of Iran and, even more, of the JCPOA negotiated by his predecessor Barack Obama. Their appointment in the run up to May 12 had sent the clear message that President Trump has decided to renege on the deal.

Americas European allies have drawn exactly the opposite lesson from Netanyahus disclosures. They have made the point publicly that this endorses their position that had it not been for the JCPOA Iran would have raced toward acquiring nuclear weapons capability and either succeeded or landed the world in a major conflagration with unpredictable outcomes. To them the JCPOA is the kingpin in the strategy to prevent Iran from going nuclear anytime soon. Reneging on it would expose the world once again to the same dangers.

While the Europeans, especially France, are willing to entertain the idea of renegotiating the deal with Iran to keep Trump on board, it is widely recognized that the Iranian government is firmly opposed to doing so. The political climate in Iran has reduced any wiggle space that the Rouhani-Zarif duo may have had on the nuclear issue. Trumps anti-Iranian rhetoric is the primary factor undermining the Rouhani administrations credibility within Iran. Any show of weakness by the Iranian government at this stage will spell doom for it and return Iran to an undiluted hard line regime that would make Ahmadinejad look like Mahatma Gandhi.

Tehran has two options left. One, continue with the implementation of the JCPOA ignoring Americas withdrawal since as Foreign Minister Zarif has argued Washington under Trump was never a serious party to the deal. This would isolate the United States and divide the western alliance if the Europeans continue to honor their commitments to the JCPOA.

However, an American withdrawal will probably hobble that deal beyond repair. The American and European economies are so closely intertwined that American threats of sanctioning European firms dealing with Iran are likely to scare off most European entities interested in dealing with Iran.

Moreover, as it is Iran has not begun to receive the substantial economic benefits it had expected from putting its nuclear program in cold storage as a result of American foot-dragging. The financial returns are minimal, certainly not enough to balance the political negatives for the Iranian government to stick to a hobbled deal.

This is where the second options kicks in. Iran could decide to withdraw from the JCPOA following the American withdrawal, declare it null and void and end the intrusive inspections tied to the agreement. It would be extremely difficult for the other parties to the JCPOA to hold Iran responsible for scuttling the deal and to reimpose sanctions if Tehran takes this step in response to the American withdrawal.

This is where the million-dollar question arises. Will Iran stop at withdrawing from the JCPOA or, using the American withdrawal from it as a justification, disavow the NPT as well. This has now become an open question in light of opposition demands that Tehran leave the NPT that has unnecessarily shackled its nuclear program without providing adequate compensation.

Withdrawal from the NPT and racing for the bomb is likely to appear increasingly attractive to the Iranian elite in light of the United States refusal to stand by its commitment to the JCPOA. Irans mastery of the nuclear cycle, and the knowledge its scientists have gained from operating its various nuclear facilities, are unlikely to have been lost despite the temporary freezing of its uranium-enrichment program under the terms of the JCPOA. As the Iranians have said over and over again their nuclear enrichment program can be restarted with redoubled vigor within hours of such a decision being taken.

Equally important, the principal lesson that Iran is likely to have drawn from Americas decision to negotiate with North Korea at the highest level, while threatening Iran both with withdrawal from the JCPOA and the imposition of new sanctions, is that it is North Koreas nuclear arsenal and delivery capabilities that have brought the American president to the negotiating table. It is now coming to be generally accepted in Iran that had Iran developed nuclear weapons instead of signing away its right to do so, the American president would have gone running to Tehran to negotiate a nuclear deal more favorable to Iran than the JCPOA. It is difficult to refute this impression in light of President Trumps actions in relation to North Korea as compared to Iran. As one analyst put it succinctly, North Korea has shown how to play nuclear poker with TrumpIran may follow suit.

Where does all this leave us? There is a good chance of an impending full-scale war between Israel and Iran (and its proxies) that in all likelihood will drag in the US as well. Whether this happens or not, there is an even better chance of Tehran withdrawing from both the JCPOA and the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) as a result of Americas reneging on the JCPOA. The withdrawal from both seems to have now become intrinsically intertwined in the Iranian psyche as there is growing realization that merely withdrawing from the JCPOA will not serve Irans purpose of acquiring nuclear weapons capability. It is essential that all IAEA inspections be terminated for that to happen. The North Korean example has driven home the point to Tehran that withdrawal from the NPT is essential in order to build Iranian nuclear capabilities and bring the Americans back to the negotiating table.

If Tehran decides to renounce both the JCPOA and the NPT, then it will introduce an unprecedented degree of uncertainty into the already volatile politics of the Middle East. The United States will have to engage in a major warnot just from the air but on the ground as wellwith Iran in an attempt to get it to reverse its course. This could turn Iran into a Vietnam and Afghanistan combined for the United States sucking Washington into an unwinnable morass. Alternatively, it would mean the United States accepting the unpalatable reality of a nuclear Iran after having expended a lot of bombast to the contrary. Such an outcome is also likely to have very negative consequences for its credibility among allies and adversaries alike.

Mohammed Ayoob is senior fellow at the Center for Global Policy in Washington, DC and University Distinguished Professor Emeritus of International Relations at Michigan State University.

Image: A ballistic missile is launched and tested in an undisclosed location, Iran, March 9, 2016. REUTERS/Mahmood Hosseini/TIMA

Read full articleShaking up immigrant communities, the Trump Administration announced Friday it is ending Temporary Protected Status for 57,000 Hondurans whove been raising families and working legally in the United States for two decades. The immigrants were provided this limited legal status following a 1998 killer hurricane that ravaged the small nation that today is struggling with organized crime and political unrest.

The Hondurans face the prospect of becoming undocumented if they dont leave the U.S. in 18 months, by Jan. 5, 2020. As a result of the decision, they join the ranks of other immigrants whove seen their temporary protected status terminated by the Trump Administration. That group includes 59,000 from Haiti and 200,000 people from El Salvador who also face either uprooting or becoming undocumented this summer or early next year, respectively.

Many of these more than 300,000 immigrants, collectively, have lived here for a good portion of their lives under TPS, as this status is known. Critics of Trumps move to end TPSwithout Congress opening a path for people to try to obtain permanent legal statussay communities should brace for the fallout of shattered families, and losses to businesses that the immigrants work in or operate themselves, as the Center for Public Integrity has reported.

Hundreds of thousands of U.S.-born children stand to lose parents who will have to decide whether to leave them behind in the U.S. or move them back to precarious conditions in their home countries. Haiti is suffering from the after-effects of an earthquake, and both Honduras and El Salvador have been reeling from rampant gang-related violence. As many immigrants have admitted, they also must decide whether to attempt to remain in the U.S. as undocumented immigrants for as long as they can manageif they cant find a way to obtain legal status, which is unlikely for the majority under the current immigration system.

Related story: Thousands of immigrants with protected status face possible deportation

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This story is part of Immigration. Stories on immigration policies and practices . Click here to read more stories in this topic.

Don't miss another Immigration investigation: Sign up for the Center for Public Integrity's Watchdog email.

A wide range of civil rights, religious and business associations, including the Chamber of Commerce, have spoken out against revoking TPS for so many people from dangerous, dysfunctional and impoverished countries.

Congress created TPS in 1990 as a way to provide refuge to foreigners in the U.S. if a natural disaster or political or social upheaval created conditions that are too dangerous or difficult for the foreigners to safely return.

In a Friday announcement, the Department of Homeland Security said that DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen has determined that the disruption of living conditions caused by the hurricane that struck Honduras in 1998 should no longer be regarded as substantial. Thus, Nielsen reasoned in a narrow interpretation of TPS, the protection for Hondurans here should be terminated. Other administrations have reasoned that living conditions were still too precarious to accommodate the return of so many people, and that it was in the U.S. interest to allow people to remain.

The Haitians whove had TPS since 2010following that massive earthquake that year will lose their status on July 22 of this year. The Salvadorans received TPS in 2001 following a massive earthquake that struck that country. Many Salvadorans were already here, undocumented, at that time after the leaving the chaos of a nation consumed by civil war in the 1980s and early 1990s. The Salvadorans will lose their TPS as of Sept. 9, 2019.



Also facing future potential deportation are 9,000 Nepalis, who were provided TPS after a 2015 earthquake and lose it June 24, 2019, and 5,300 Nicaraguans, who were provided TPS in 1999 after the same hurricane that struck Honduras. The Nicaraguans lose TPS on Jan. 5, 2019.

In November 2017, a Honduran woman in the Washington, D.C. areawhich has a large concentration of Hondurans with TPSspoke with the Center for Public Integrity when it became evident that the new Trump Administration was considering pulling the plug on TPS.

Im so nervous I cant even think about what I would do if I lose TPS, the woman said, asking for her name not to be revealed. For 13 years, she said in 2017, she had cleaned a U.S. government building, a job requiring a special ID, from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. After that shift, she cleaned a private building from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Days before the decision, Honduran TPS recipient Orlando Lopez, expressed anxiety. All TPS recipients have to register and go through background checks, and are disqualified if they have criminal records. We work hard and do not have criminal records, he said in a call with reporters. I own a home and business with my family and every year I pay my taxes.

Emeryville, Calif., Mayor John Bauters, told reporters: Strangers, families and friends would have to piece together their (the TPS immigrants) lives after this decision is made. There isnt anything worse that we could do right now than remove a massive amount of people who are integral to the American economy and whose family ties and lives are connected primarily to the United States.

The Department of Homeland Securitys Friday announcement said that the decision to terminate TPS for Hondurans in 18 months is designed to allow for an orderly transition, and to provide time for the Hondurans to seek alternative lawful immigration status if they are eligible.

In reality, though, options to seek legal status are very limited for TPS holders. Most do not have a close family member who can sponsor them. Most employers have no access to visas to try to sponsor them. If they can afford the expense, they can attempt to seek relief through immigration court, with uncertain outcomes. Many immigrant rights advocates are urging Congress to act by approving a path that would allow TPS holders to seek permanent immigrant status.

READ MORE:



Where did Temporary Protected Status recipients immigrate from?

TPS: What you need to know

Trump administration to end temporary protected status for immigrants from El Salvador

This story is part of Immigration. Stories on immigration policies and practices . Click here to read more stories in this topic.

Copyright 2018 The Center for Public Integrity. This story was published by The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C.President Donald Trump took the opportunity during a tax reform roundtable in Cleveland, Ohio, on Saturday to say he was above Obama, citing his approval rating from a conservative-leaning poll.

We just had a poll, 51 or 52, which came out, you know, very nicely, Trump said, referring to a Rasmussen Reports poll on Friday that showed 51 percent of likely U.S. voters approve of his job performance while 49 percent disapprove.

Then I turn on like, you know, one of the networks and I see, Donald Trump, whos not very popular Im saying, What are you talking about? Trump continued. In fact, you saw the poll came out that Im above Obama.

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Im above Obama, Trump reiterated, drawing claps from the audience.

Trump called Rasmussen, which consistently publishes more favorable results toward him than other polls, one of the more accurate polls for the election in November 2016.

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I mean, I get nothing but bad publicity. I say, how is that possible, Trump said.

The president used the rating to convey, I think were going to do very well in the midterms.

Saturday was just the latest of multiple times that Trump has used a Rasmussen finding to claim he is more popular than his predecessor Barack Obama.

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In early April, Trump touted a Rasmussen poll that put him at a 50 percent approval rating and ignored three other polls by Gallup, Harvard and Investors Business Daily that indicated his approval ratings were between 38 and 44 percent.

Thank you to Rasmussen for the honest polling. Just hit 50%, which is higher than Cheatin Obama at the same time in his Administration, Trump tweeted.

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Trump made a similar claim in March.

Rasmussen and others have my approval ratings at around 50%, which is higher than Obama, he tweeted, and yet the political pundits love saying my approval ratings are somewhat low. They know they are lying when they say it. Turn off the show - FAKE NEWS!

This article was first written by Newsweek

More from NewsweekBy Mark Hosenball WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's nominee to lead the CIA, Gina Haspel, sought to withdraw over concerns about her role in the agency's interrogation program, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Sunday. Haspel's offer to withdraw on Friday was prompted by growing concern among her supporters that White House staff were becoming nervous that the nomination was in trouble, the sources said. The Washington Post first reported her offer to withdraw. Haspel was summoned to the White House on Friday for a meeting to discuss her history in the interrogation program that employed techniques, including waterboarding, widely condemned as torture, the Post reported, citing four unidentified senior U.S. officials. She told the White House she would step aside to avoid a brutal Senate Intelligence Committee confirmation hearing on Wednesday that might damage the CIA, the officials told the Post. She then returned to agency headquarters in Langley, Virginia. White House aides including legislative affairs liaison Marc Short and spokeswoman Sarah Sanders then rushed to Langley for discussions on Friday that lasted several hours but did not secure a commitment from her to stick with the nomination, the paper said. Only on Saturday afternoon was the White House assured she would not withdraw, the Post quoted the officials as saying. "Acting Director Haspel is a highly qualified nominee who has dedicated over three decades of service to her country," White House spokesman Raj Shah said in response to a request for White House comment. "Her nomination will not be derailed by partisan critics who side with the ACLU (rights organization) over the CIA on how to keep the American people safe," he added. Trump named Haspel, the first woman tapped to head the Central Intelligence Agency, to succeed Mike Pompeo, who became secretary of state last month. Haspel's nomination has encountered opposition over her role in a defunct program in which the agency detained and interrogated al Qaeda suspects in secret prisons overseas using techniques widely condemned as torture. Former President George W. Bush authorized the Rendition, Detention and Interrogation Program after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Many details of Haspel's work remain classified. Sources familiar with her career who requested anonymity said that at one point she was the chief of the CIA station in a country where harsh interrogations were used on at least one terrorism suspect. Later, she served as chief of staff to Jose Rodriguez, the head of CIA undercover operations. In consultation with Rodriguez in 2005, Haspel drafted a cable ordering CIA officers to destroy videotapes of al Qaeda suspects being tortured. Haspel's supporters argue that while she drafted the cable, Rodriguez sent it without the approval of CIA Director Porter Goss and without informing Haspel that he would do so. The destruction of the tapes is a key issue for Senate critics of Haspel, who complain that public agency disclosures regarding its interrogation programs have been inadequate. (The story was refiled to fix a typo in "complain" in the last paragraph) (Additional reporting by Doina and Roberta Rampton; Editing by Sandra Maler)Former Vice President Joe Biden revealed that during a recent visit to his ailing friend Republican Senator John McCain, the two conversed about how the U.S.s international reputation is being damaged under President Donald Trump.

Biden, who spent several hours at McCains ranch in Arizona last Sunday, told The New York Times that the senator battling brain cancer knows hes in a very, very, very precarious situation, and yet hes still concerned about the state of the country.

We talked about how our international reputation is being damaged, Biden said in the report published Saturday, And we talked about the need for people to stand up and speak out.

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Biden also said McCain encouraged him to not walk away from politics.

The vice president under Trumps predecessor Barack Obama decided not to run in the 2016 presidential election because he and his family were grieving over their son, Beau, who died of brain cancer in May 2015.

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Biden has been contemplating a 2020 presidential bid, and recently said he would make a decision by the end of 2018.

Though they are from opposing political parties, Biden and McCain became close friends over decades of traveling together abroad and the senator had a close bond with the former vice presidents sons.

By contrast, McCains relationship with Trump has been marked with clashes and criticism. McCain cast a decisive vote against legislation Trump pushed that was designed to effectively repeal Obamacare.

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McCain in a book he co-wrote, The Restless Wave, scheduled to be released later this month, expressed disdain for what he perceives as Trumps admiration for autocratic leaders, according to the Times.

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He seems uninterested in the moral character of world leaders and their regimes, McCain wrote of Trump. The appearance of toughness or a reality show facsimile of toughness seems to matter more than any of our values. Flattery secures his friendship, criticism his enmity.

People close to McCain told the White House that the senator plans to invite Vice President Mike Pence, not Trump, to his funeral.

This article was first written by Newsweek

More from NewsweekDonald Trump has said that a London hospital is as bad as a military war zone because of knife violence during a speech at the annual National Rifle Association convention praising gun rights.

The comment came during a wide ranging speech in which Mr Trump promoted the work he is doing as president and sought to promote American gun ownership by comparing the US to European countries.

I recently read a story that in London  which has unbelievably tough gun laws  a once very prestigious hospital, right in the middle, is like a war zone for horrible stabbing wounds, Mr Trump said.

Yes, thats right. They dont have guns, he continued. They have knives. And, instead, theres blood all over the floors of this hospital. They say its as bada as a military war zone hospital. knives, knives knives. London hasnt been used to that. Theyre getting used to it. Its pretty tough.

London has seen a particularly violent start to the year  it has clocked more murders than New York City in recent months. That violence has been driven by a surge in knife crimes, with an overwhelming percentage of the murders coming from knife violence. In response, Britains interior ministry has indicated it is consulting on new laws that could further restrict dangerous weapons. That could include banning online stores from delivering knives to residential addresses, or making it an offence to have certain types of knives and weapons in public.

This government is taking action to restrict access to offensive weapons as well as working to break the deadly cycle of violence and protect our children, families and communities, a Home Office spokesperson said in April.

An email to the White House seeking clarification on which hospital Mr Trump was referring to, what article he read, or why he chose to compare gun and knife violence was not immediately returned.

The United Kingdom has some of the most restrictive firearms laws in the world, and requires citizens to undergo a grueling application process in order to lawfully own a gun.

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Those laws were put together piecemeal following the end of the Second World War, but were largely spurred by two national tragedies in 1987 when 16 people were killed in Hungerford, and then in 1996 in Dunblane when a shooter killed 16 schoolchildren.

The tight gun control in the UK has led to a drop in firearm violence, and gun violence deaths in England and Wales rests at about one person per every one million, according to the Geneva Declaration of Armed Violence and Development. Thats compared to the US, which sees 160 times as many gun homicides, and has a population roughly six times larger.

Before discussing the knife violence in the UK, Mr Trump referenced France's strict gun control laws as well. Mr Trump used the 2015 attacks in Paris as an example where he says more guns could have saved some of the 130 people who were killed. France's gun deaths are typically very low, however, and annually amount to about as many people as were killed during that terror attack in total.Istanbul (AFP) - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday vowed to launch further cross-border offensives against terror groups as he revealed his ruling party's manifesto ahead of snap elections on June 24.

Erdogan made a series of promises about the economy and uniting the country during a rally in Istanbul attended by several thousand people.

The Turkish head of state last month announced snap presidential and parliamentary elections on June 24 to the surprise of Turkish politics observers.

Experts say Erdogan wants to exploit the rising nationalist feeling after an operation in Syria this year and to hold polls before the economy worsens.

After June 24, Turkey will implement constitutional changes approved in an April 2017 referendum to create an executive presidency which expands the head of state's powers.

Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2002 and has since remained the country's biggest political force.

"June 24 is going to be a milestone for Turkey," Erdogan said.

The president said Turkey would launch cross-border offensives, similar to previous military operations in Syria, adding that Turkey would never give up its fight against terror.

"Turkey will launch additional offensives like Euphrates Shield and Olive Branch operations to clear its border of terror organisations in the new era," Erdogan said.

Operation Euphrates Shield took place between August 2016 and March 2017 against the Islamic State group, while the Olive Branch offensive targeted the People's Protection Units (YPG) militia in its western enclave of Afrin earlier this year.

- Turkey committed to EU -

The president did not give any details on where the next operation could take place although there has been speculation Ankara could launch an offensive in northern Iraq.

Turkey says the YPG is linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been waging an insurgency inside Turkey since 1984.

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The PKK has bases in the Qandil mountain area of Iraq.

Erdogan also repeatedly threatened in the past to expand the Afrin offensive to YPG-held Manbij, which raised fears of a confrontation with United States forces there.

During his 70-minute speech, Erdogan discussed a range of domestic and foreign issues.

He repeated Turkey's commitment to joining the European Union despite prior tensions with several EU member states and long-stalled membership negotiations.

Erdogan highlighted the AKP's success in starting formal membership talks in 2005.

"We have absolutely not given up our objective of full membership of the European Union even if we have not seen the same determination and desire recently from our interlocutors," he insisted.

Erdogan said interest rates -- despite the Turkish lira's decline in value against the US dollar -- would fall alongside inflation and the widening current account deficit.

Inflation hit 10.85 per cent in April while the lira has lost over 11 per cent of its value against the greenback since January.

- 'Media embargo' -

Erdogan's speech was broadcast live on all the main television channels but the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) candidate Muharrem Ince, chosen two days earlier, hit back at the "media embargo" against the opposition.

Ince's first rally in Yalova, northwestern Turkey, was not broadcast live on Saturday by the main news channels including CNN Turk and state broadcaster TRT.

"The TV channels which even broadcast AKP's district congresses live did not broadcast our splendid rally live," Ince said on Twitter earlier on Sunday, blaming Erdogan.

"We will go on to break this media order. If the media embargo against the opposition at the orders of the palace continues, we will hold our rallies outside TV channels."

In recent months, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim and Erdogan have given speeches to district-level party congresses each weekend which have always been broadcast live.(In 2nd paragraph, corrects judge's name to U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis, not U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 4 (Reuters) - A U.S. federal judge in Virginia sharply questioned the scope of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's prosecutorial powers on Friday as part of legal proceedings over President Donald Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort's efforts to dismiss an indictment against him.

At a hearing at the federal courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia, U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis said Mueller should not have "unfettered power" in his Russia probe and that the charges against Manafort did not arise from the investigation into Moscow's alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. election. (Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; writing by Susan Heavey; editing by Jonathan Oatis)Dubai (AFP) - The United Arab Emirates, facing criticism from top Yemeni allies over its presence on the island of Socotra, said Sunday its role on the strategic Yemeni territory had been "distorted".

The UAE is key part of the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, launched in 2015 to roll back Huthi rebel gains and restore the internationally-recognised government to power.

Splits have emerged, however, in the pro-government camp.

In January, the government's de facto capital of Aden was rocked by deadly clashes that saw UAE-backed forces seize much of the city from other pro-government forces.

On Friday, a Saudi delegation travelled to Socotra to diffuse new tensions on the island after the UAE deployed forces without informing the government of President Abedraboo Mansour Hadi.

The delegation met with Yemeni Prime Minister Ahmed bin Dagher in the presence of an Emirati official, Yemen's Saba news agency reported.

Bin Dagher nevertheless took to social media on Sunday to question the UAE military presence he witnessed during an official visit to Socotra.

"On [April 30] ... the first Emirati military aircraft arrived carrying two armoured vehicles and more than 50 Emirati soldiers, followed immediately by two other aircraft carrying tanks and armoured vehicles and soldiers," Bin Dagher said in a statement published to Facebook.

"This raised a number of questions, and left the island in a state of anxiety."

Socotra, which has been spared the violence that has ravaged mainland Yemen, sits at the exit of a bustling shipping lane that leads from the Mediterranean Sea to the Indian Ocean.

Like Aden, it become a flashpoint of contention in the anti-Huthi camp.

"The continuing disagreement and its spread to all the liberated provinces down to Socotra, is clearly harmful ... and something that can no longer be hidden, and its impact has spread to all military and civil institutions," Bin Dagher said.

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"Correcting this situation is everyone's responsibility."

The UAE Foreign Ministry said it was "surprised" by the Yemeni prime minister's statement and blamed the Muslim Brotherhood for drumming up anti-Emirati sentiment over Socotra.

"These malicious campaigns, which are led by the Muslim Brotherhood... are part of a long and repeated series of attempts to distort the role of the UAE," it said, adding:

"The UAE military presence in all liberated Yemeni provinces, including Socotra, comes within the efforts of the Arab Coalition to support legitimate government at this critical stage in the history of Yemen."The aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman during a training exercise in the Atlantic: US Navy

The US Navy is resurrecting its Second Fleet to counter the renewed threat from Russia.

Admiral John Richardson, chief of naval operations, said the reformed group would control ships, aircraft and landing forces on the East Coast and north Atlantic Ocean.

"Our National Defense Strategy makes clear that we're back in an era of great power competition as the security environment continues to grow more challenging and complex," said Admiral Richardson when he announced the move.

"That's why today, we're standing up Second Fleet to address these changes, particularly in the north Atlantic."

The Second Fleet, based in Norfolk, Virginia, was originally formed after the Second World War and was involved in the blockade of Cuba during the missile crisis.

It disbanded in 2011 to save money and its responsibilities were merged into the United States Fleet Forces Command.

At that time the US was primarily focused on terrorism and the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now its top national security concern is what intelligence analysts call "inter-state strategic competition".

The 2018 National Defense strategy specifically mentions China, Russia, North Korea and Iran and calls for "sustained investment to restore readiness and modernize our military to make it fit for our time".

"It is increasingly clear that China and Russia want to shape a world consistent with their authoritarian model  gaining veto authority over other nations economic, diplomatic, and security decisions," it says.

The US has also offered its naval facilities in Norfolk, Virginia, as the base for the proposed Nato Joint Force Command for the Atlantic.

Nato is expected to make its decision on the location of the new command this summer.

"The new JFC-Norfolk will ensure that NATO can successfully conduct operations across the full spectrum of Alliance missions in the trans-Atlantic region in the northern Atlantic," said the Department of Defense in a statement.

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"The future Atlantic-oriented JFC represents part of the ongoing NATO effort to adapt its command structure to ensure that the Alliance can meet the challenges in todays security environment.

"It will strengthen NATOs deterrence and defense posture, and its ability to project stability beyond its borders."The Kentucky Derby quickly turned into a muddy affair as rain poured on Churchill Downs Saturday

However, thousands still came out to watch the Run for the Roses. The weather also brings in an interesting element for those betting on the race as some horses run better on mud than others.

It seems like many Kentucky Derby-goers werent betting on rain though, and many were clad in ponchos over suits and summery dresses. Umbrellas also arent allowed at the Kentucky Derby to prevent obscured views.

Its forecast to continue raining through the 144th Kentucky Derbys post time of 6:34 p.m. on Saturday  making a likely repeat of last years soggy derby in which Always Dreaming won.

A fan looks for shelter as it rains prior to the 144th running of the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs on May 5, 2018 in Louisville, Kentucky

Curt Schuman of Louisville looks at a program before the 144th running of the Kentucky Derby horse race at Churchill Downs, in Louisville, Ky on May 5, 2018

Todays weather forecast for the #KentuckyDerby: Rain. ?



Our tip: Look for a horse thats a proven performer in the slop  like My Boy Jack (12/1). pic.twitter.com/fVt8X5wrOh  Bovada Official (@BovadaLV) May 5, 2018

A fan looks for shelter as it rains prior to the 144th running of the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs on May 5, 2018 in Louisville, Kentucky

It is raining at the Kentucky Derby and people have started betting a lot of money on one horse: NBCS * It is expected to rain all day at Churchill Downs leading up to the Kentucky Derby. * The track could be muddy and as a result gamblers have started betting heavily on My Boy pic.twitter.com/Fl2Qy3qFEk  Buji (@BujicaBogdan) May 5, 2018

#KentuckyDerby day got off to a drizzly start for the second year in a row, with spitting rain and the forecast predicting downpours to last all day pic.twitter.com/kpErcAmsah  WBEN NewsRadio 930AM (@NewsRadio930) May 5, 2018Investigators working with Special Counsel Robert Mueller questioned Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, the New York Times reported Friday. Investigators stopped the Russian oligarch as he stepped off a private plane, searched his electronic devices and questioned him, according to the report.

There is no reason to believe that the special counsel suspects Vekselberg of wrongdoing. The oligarch has not publicly commented on the report.

As founder and president of the Renova Group, Russias largest conglomerate, Ukraine-born Vekselberg is one of Russias wealthiest men, with a fortune estimated at $13.5 billion by Forbes in 2015.

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His fortune was built in gas and aluminium, and he is described by Reuters as one of a dwindling group of tycoons who built their fortunes independently of the Kremlin.

Vekselberg's business ties with the U.S. reportedly extend back to 1990, when he co-founded Renova as a joint U.S.-Russian venture.

In 2003, he played a key role in negotiating a venture with BP to create the joint venture TNK-BP, with BP selling its half of the company to Kremlin-controlled Rosneft for $26.8bn in 2012.

Vekselberg is reportedly close to President Vladimir Putin, and once won favour with the Kremlin by buying a set of Faberge eggs made for the former Russian royal family and bringing them back to Russia.

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But in 2008, after Renova bought out two major Swiss construction firms, Vekselberg denied to Swiss media claims of Kremlin influence.

"This is just total nonsense. Our investments in Swiss products have nothing to do with the Russian government or Russian state capital," he told Swiss Info.

In 2016 associates of Vekselberg were arrested by Russian law enforcement officials on bribery allegations. The raid came as the Kremlin sought to tighten its hold on the Russian economy, and amid the waning influence of oligarchs outside of Putins inner circle.

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The oligarchs connections to members of Trumps team go back to 2015, when Vekselberg was seen at a Moscow dinner hosted by RT and attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trumps former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

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Trump sacked Flynn in 2017, claiming the general had failed to disclose the extent of his contact with Russian officials to Vice President Mike Pence.

Vekselberg also attended Trumps 2017 inauguration in Washington DC.

GettyImages-57408861

Getty Images

His ticket was given to him his cousin, Andrew Intrater, who donated to Trumps inauguration fund, according to the Times report.

Vekselberg was one of a number of Russian individuals sanctioned in what the U.S. says is a response to Russian destabilization campaigns. Assets totalling between $1.5 billion and $2 billion were frozen in April, as a result of sanctions imposed on Vekselberg and his Renova Group conglomerate, and all U.S. dollar bank accounts of companies controlled by Renova have been blocked.

This article was first written by Newsweek

More from NewsweekRussian President Vladimir Putins most popular critic Alexey Navalny has been arrested at a protest against the president.

Navalny, who was not allowed to run in the last Russian elections, organized a series of rallies across Russia in protest of Putins impending fourth and unprecedented inauguration as president. A number of Navalnys supporters were arrested ahead of the protests, and when he arrived in Moscow to kickstart the rally in the capital, police detained the activist himself.

We are going out on the streets of our country against the establishment of a monarchy, against corruption, against inequality, censorship and lawlessness, a post from Navalnys team on social network VKontakte announced.

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In a series of social media posts, Navalny and his supporters have accused Putin of effectively ruling Russia like a king, calling the protest  He is no Tsar to us. Navalny was arrested after meeting crowds on Pushkinskaya square, the Meduza news site reported. On previous occasions, Navalny was arrested before even making it to the protest venue.

Although Putin enjoyed a spike in his popularity over is last term after annexing Crimea and reverting to a familiar siege rhetoric on Russia, the economy has experienced another recession, real incomes have dropped and public services faltered.

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Recent independent polls showed that Putins approval rating remains above 80 percent, but most Russians disapprove of virtually every other branch of government, including the prime minister, the cabinet and federal representatives.

Navalnys rally, held before Putins inauguration on Sunday, aims to show that despite the presidents comfortable win in this years elections, there is a large group of Russians that do not believe Putin has the solution to Russias problems. The vote was marred by widespread reports of ballot-box stuffing and fraud, but it is widely accepted that no challenger permitted on the ballot could have defeated Putin even in a fairer contest.

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05-05-Navalny

Stringer/Reuters

The protest held in Moscow and an identical event in Russias second city, St. Petersburg, did not receive official approval from the government. By Saturday afternoon, at least 400 people were reportedly detained across Russia, independent news site Mediazona reported.

This article was first written by Newsweek

More from NewsweekBerkshire Hathaway Inc. brk-b bought an additional 75 million shares of Apple Inc. aapl , bolstering its stake and backing the iPhone makers ability to generate profits, CNBC reported, citing Chairman Warren Buffett.

The stock purchase adds to the almost 170 million shares that Berkshire Hathaway already owns and would see it overtake State Street Corp. stt to become Apples third-largest investor, according to data compiled by Bloomberg bloomberg . The Cupertino, California-based company was already Buffetts biggest shareholding.

Buffetts announcement comes just days after Apple reported quarterly sales and profit that topped analyst estimates on surging services as revenue rose at the fastest pace in more than two years. The results helped end a recent swoon in Apple shares amid concern its flagship iPhone X model was struggling to win consumers.

It is an unbelievable company, Buffett said, according to CNBC. If you look at Apple, I think it earns almost twice as much as the second most profitable company in the United States.

Berkshire Hathaway is holding its annual meeting this week in Omaha, Nebraska.

While Apple still gets more than 60% of its revenue from iPhones, services are playing an increasingly important role as growth in the overall smartphone market slows.

For more about Apples other services, watch Fortunes video:

Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook sells a growing array of services through a base of more than 1.3 billion Apple devices, including music, cloud storage, movies and apps. Revenue from services surged 31 percent to a record $9.2 billion in the most recent quarter.

An Apple Music subscription costs $10 per month (unless theyre on a family plan), and the number of paying users recently hit 40 million. The middle tier for iCloud storage costs $2.99 a month. The company now has 270 million paid subscribers across applications and its own services, up by 100 million from the same period a year ago.Warren Buffett has warned about the  nightmare tied to new accounting-rule changes. Now its beginning.

The rules, which require Berkshire to report unrealized gains or losses in equity investments in net income, helped fuel a $1.14 billion loss at Buffetts Berkshire Hathaway Inc. in the first quarter, the Omaha, Nebraska-based company said Saturday in a statement. That marked the companys first net loss since 2009.

The requirement will produce some truly wild and capricious swings in our GAAP bottom line, Buffett said in his annual letter to shareholders released in February. The accounting change will severely distort Berkshires net income figures and very often mislead commentators and investors.

Buffett has said operating results are a better barometer of company performance, in part because Berkshires more than $170 billion stock portfolio can fluctuate from quarter to quarter. Operating profit, which doesnt include those changes, jumped 49 percent to $5.29 billion during the first quarter as insurance underwriting swung to a profit after a difficult 2017.

A 16 percent jump in revenue at auto insurer Geico helped the company turn an underwriting profit, according to a regulatory filing. Geico was helped by rate increases that pushed premiums higher. The railroad business also posted a gain in profit due to increased revenues per car as fuel prices rose.

Berkshires cash pile fell to $109 billion at the end of March from the record $116 billion at year-end, the first decline in two years. Buffett has said that deploying that cash into new, large acquisitions is key to increasing earnings over time. The first quarters drop was driven in part by spending more than $12 billion on more Apple Inc. shares.

The company reported the value of Apple its stake at $40.7 billion as of March 31, a jump from $28.2 billion at the end of 2017. Buffett said in a CNBC interview that aired Friday that his company bought an additional 75 million shares of the technology company in the first quarter.

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Berkshire said the fair value of its investment in Kraft Heinz Co. dropped by more than $5 billion to $20.3 billion in the quarter, as shares slipped almost 20 percent.

Berkshire shareholders are gathering in Omaha for the companys annual meeting Saturday, where Buffett and his business partner Charles Munger discuss everything from the economy to investing tips and even the pairs wagers on certain companies.

During the weekend, Buffett also showcases the businesses that Berkshire owns, including Geico and BNSF Railway Co. Berkshires railroad, utilities and energy businesses reported a 31 percent increase in profit during the first quarter.

Heres some other takeaways from Berkshires earnings release:

Book value, a measure of assets minus liabilities, declined to $211,184 a share from $211,750 per Class A share at the end of 2017. Underwriting at the insurance businesses generated a gain of $407 million in the first quarter, compared to a loss of $267 million during the same period a year earlier. Investment income at those operations rose 11 percent to $1.01 billion.Recently I got an email from a dear friend who teaches at Knox College, asking, "Is there any chance you can come to Knox in the next few weeks?"

The Jewish community at Knox has been navigating some tough stuff around racism and antisemitism. (I don't want to give that stuff energy by linking to it; if you're interested, Google will enlighten you.) And there's no Jewish chaplain or campus rabbi to offer pastoral and spiritual support as the Jewish community navigates these tight places.

So I'm going to Knox for a few days. While I'm there I'll join the chair of the religion department for a few of his classes, and I'll give a poetry reading. But the primary purpose of my visit is to offer care to the campus Jewish community. I'll hold "office hours" for anyone who wants to talk, and I'll offer a Jewish contemplative practice opportunity that will be open to all.

My visit to Knox is pastoral. I'm not coming as an expert in antisemitism or racism. (The College is looking into having an actual expert in those areas come to campus in the fall -- hopefully a Jew of color.) I'm coming to be a chaplain, a "non-anxious presence." I hope my visit will offer some comfort to Jewish students/faculty/staff. Those who are in tight places need care.

What's unfolding at Knox is part of a much larger phenomenon. People and organizations and institutions are beginning to grapple with the far-reaching effects of both racism and antisemitism and how different forms of oppression can mirror, intersect, and collide with each other. There's an opportunity for tremendous learning here -- and also a need for inner work to prepare the soil so that the seeds of that learning can bear fruit.

Many Jews with white skin don't think much about how our skin benefits us and how we partake in white privilege by virtue of our skin. And we may also be unconscious of how horrendous and pernicious are the impacts of racism in this country. America still hasn't reckoned with our legacy of chattel slavery or how that legacy persists in structural racism of all kinds, including police violence against people of color, mass incarceration of people of color, and widespread prejudice against people of color.

Many people who are not Jewish don't think much about the legacy of centuries of antisemitism: from ancient hatreds that led to exile, to Church teachings about deicide, to pogroms and mass slaughter (from Lisbon to Kishinev), to the Holocaust: the 20th-century Nazi attempt to eradicate the Jewish people from the face of the earth. And they may also be unconscious of how even light-skinned Jews fear the antisemitism that's built into white supremacist worldviews, and of the trauma we carry as Jews.

(I spoke about these issues at length in my Rosh Hashanah sermon last year: After Charlottesville.)

And, not all Jews have white skin. It's easy to frame the tensions at Knox, or the recent tensions around whether or not the ADL should participate in Starbucks' anti-bias training, in terms of the colliding worldviews of Jews and people of color -- but that framing erases altogether the presence of Jews of color. And... I don't want to make Jews of color responsible for educating the rest of us -- for sensitizing their Jewish community to racism, or sensitizing their community of color to antisemitism.

We all need to take responsibility for educating ourselves, even when (especially when) that learning is uncomfortable. There's so much that we all need to learn about each other... and when we're feeling attacked or traumatized or activated by an incident of hatred or bias, it's incredibly difficult to do that learning. When we're feeling attacked, emotionally and spiritually we shut down. It's a valuable defense mechanism. We need to honor that and give it appropriate time before we can move beyond it.

As I prepare for my visit, I'm working on the practice of cultivating compassion for everyone who feels afraid and marginalized and attacked in the current American political climate as incidents of hatred continue to mount. I'm reminded of the teaching that no one gets to tell a member of another group whether or not they're experiencing oppression: we need to listen to each other and honor each others' experience. I'm thinking about how rarely we give ourselves space to pray, reflect, and heal.

I'm thinking about how important it is that our communities come together to work against hatred, prejudice, and bigotry of all kinds. I'm thinking about the work we can do together when we find the places where our yearnings and politics align -- without demanding complete mutual understanding or ideological perfection, because if we demand complete understanding from our allies before we can begin to work together, we'll never get to the kind of justice that the world so desperately needs.

And I'm thinking about the need to replenish ourselves as we work toward that more just world. Sometimes in order to have the strength to have the difficult conversations about how someone else's unconscious "stuff" hurts us, we need to turn inward first. We need to notice, and balm, our own aching places before we can build bridges or coalitions with others -- especially when our interactions with those others have re-activated those aches. We need to be kind to ourselves as we process and heal.

May I be an instrument of balm and comfort for those in need.Warren Buffett and Elon Musk

On Tesla's recent earnings call, CEO Elon Musk called one of Warren Buffett's core investment principles "lame."

Buffett responded by reiterating the importance of the so-called strategic moats he's touted for many years.

Follow Business Insider's coverage of Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting 2018.

Warren Buffett doesn't have any time for Elon Musk's criticisms.

As part of Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting in Omaha, Nebraska on Saturday, Buffett was asked about comments made by Musk on Tesla's recent earnings call.

They were made in reference to the use of strategic "moats," which Buffett has historically touted as a key element of his investment equation. The thinking is that a moat is anything that serves as a competitive barrier to disruptive entrants to an industry.

"First of all, I think moats are lame," Musk said. "Theyre like nice in a sort of quaint, vestigial way. But if your only defense against invading armies is a moat, you will not last long. What matters is the pace of innovation. That is the fundamental determinant of competitiveness."

Buffett wasn't having it.

"Being a low-cost producer is an incredibly important moat," he responded, while conceding that "Elon may turn things upside down in some areas."

"I don't think he'd want to take us on in candy," Buffett also joked.

The Berkshire chief went on to invoke Geico, one of his firm's investments. He noted that the technological advancement so highly touted by Musk hasn't lowered the company's costs by that much.

In the end, it's mightily apparent that Buffett is going to keep doing things his tried and true way, whether Musk likes it or not.

Follow along with all of Business Insider's coverage of the Berkshire Hathaway meeting here.

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See Also:

SEE ALSO: One group of traders is on pace to shatter performance records  here's what they're buyingWarren Buffett has indicated he would be interested in increasing his stake in Apple , as long as shares in the technology giant were available at the right price.

Speaking at Berkshire Hathaways annual shareholder meeting, the billionaire praised Apple for choosing to buy back its own stock, after the company announced last week it could buy back as much as $100 billion worth of stock.

GettyImages-540179190

Alex Wong/Getty Images

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We would love to see Apple go down in price, he told shareholders, as reported by Reuters.

Im delighted to see them repurchasing shares. I love the idea of having our 5 percent, or whatever it is, maybe grow to 6 or 7 percent without our laying out a dime.

On Thursday, the 87-year-old revealed he had bought 75 million shares in the iPhone maker on top of the 165.3 million Berkshire Hathaway owned at the end of last year.

The figure make the holding company Apples third-largest shareholder, behind Vanguard Group and BlackRock.

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At the time, the holding was worth more than $28 billion but after the recent share purchase and an 8 percent increase in Apples stock price, Berkshires stake is now worth more than $44 billion.

"It is an unbelievable company, Buffett said in an interview with CNBC. "If you look at Apple, I think it earns almost twice as much as the second most profitable company in the U.S.

Buffett also praised Apples penchant for developing extremely sticky products that were extremely successful with their customers, so much so that that users become strictly attached to gadgets such as iPhones, MacBooks and iPads.

Story continues

Last week, Apple reported its profit in the first three months of the year stood at $13.8 billion, a 25 percent increase from the corresponding period 12 months earlier.

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The California-based giants market valuation, meanwhile, has surpassed the $930 billion mark.

Buffett also spoke about one of Apples main rivals - Google - admitting it had been a mistake for Berkshire not to invest in Alphabet, its parent company, and Amazon.

However, the Oracle of Omaha told investors investing Berkshires cash stockpilewhich currently amounts to around $108 billionwas a challenge.

My phone is not ringing off the hook with good deals, he said.

At the AGM, the company told shareholders that it had swung to a $1.14 billion loss at the end of the latest financial year, compared with a profit of $4.06 billion in the previous 12 months.

However, operating profit excluding investment and derivative gains and losses, surged 49 percent year-on-year to a record $5.29 billion.

This article was first written by Newsweek

More from NewsweekThe White House released a blistering statement attacking China's government for a recent demand that U.S. and other airlines change the way they refer to Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau in promotional materials.

"This is Orwellian nonsense and part of a growing trend by the Chinese Communist Party to impose its political views on American citizens and private companies,'' White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Saturday in a statement.

U.S. airlines were among several that received letters from China's Civil Aviation Administration calling for strict guidelines for any references to Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, according to the White House. The Chinese government considers those entities as part of China and objects to references that indicate they are independent.

"China's internal internet repression is world-famous,'' Sanders said in the statement. "China's efforts to export its censorship and political correctness to Americans and the rest of the free world will be resisted.''

The sharply worded statement comes just hours after a high-level delegation from President Donald Trump's administration returned from a visit to Beijing. The visit was part of a broader attempt to stave off a trade war between the world's two biggest economies.

Trump said Friday on Twitter that he'd be receiving a briefing on Saturday about the visit.

See original article on Fortune.com

More from Fortune.comException to the ban

There are exceptions to the ban. Pit bull service dogs are allowed, but have to be licensed as such, kept confined behind a 6-foot fence and be spayed or neutered and microchipped. Pit bulls participating in dog shows or other sporting events are allowed in the city for up to 96 hours.Legislative norms that prohibit smoking in public will be in force in Georgia starting May 1. They were adopted last year, but their implementation was postponed several times - authorities were afraid of reaction of smokers, who make up a significant part of the population. Georgia was considered one of the most smoking republics of the former Soviet Union. Authorities clearly didn't want to affect their way of life, but after signing of a historical agreement on association with the EU, Georgia took a number of obligations to change legislation in line with the EU norms.

Brussels closely monitors implementation of this agreement. One of the important indicators of Tbilisi's readiness to rebuild the country in a European way are all kinds of restrictions that affect lifes of those who have bad habits.

From now on people can't smoke indoors, in particular in "any structure that has a floor, ceiling and walls." Personal house or apartment are exceptions, just like "specialized institutions for studying the harm of smoking," prisons, as well as mental health institutions. It won't be possible to smoke at stadiums starting from 2020, although it's hard to imagine a fan who doesn't smoke in Georgia.

Fines for violation of this law are pretty strict: an institution (cafe or bar) that committed a violation is fined 500 lari ($204) for first offense and 1000 lari ($408) for the second one. In case of third violation, institution will closed or its license will be revoked. Individual can be fined 50 to 100 lari for smoking in prohibited places. Offender will also pay a fine for smoking at the stairwell of his apartment building.

Despite pressure from foreign partners, legislatorslegislators had to make some concessions. For example, casinos became one of exceptions. Gambling industry brings huge revenues and is considered to be one of the most important parts of tourism. Ban on smoking in casinos is almost impossible - it will be necessary to close casino and accept transition of the gambling business underground, in other words, into the shadow economy.

But what about traditions that people got used to? There are almost always several hundred people at Georgian weddings and funerals. But authorities hinted that when it comes to fines, police will show flexibility in exceptional cases and delicate circumstances.

Advertising of tobacco products is prohibited completely. Packs of cigarettes will now have horrifying pictures depicting consequences of smoking on them. Tobacco importers will be fined millions of lari for violations.

Discussion that unfolded in society showed that conscious part of it agrees with this reform, aimed at protecting people's health. Such consciousness is a great indicator of a country that begins to live according to civilized norms, it's natural for developed countries.The IAF attacked a Hamas military position in the northern Gaza Strip near the border fence on Saturday night after Palestinians flew incendiary kites from there in an attempt to set fires in Israel.

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This was the latest in several arson attempts from the Gaza Strip Saturday.

Palestinian rioter prepares incendiary kite on Gaza border (Photo: AFP)

"We will continue to act against terror attacks above and below ground," the IDF said in a statement. "The Hamas terror organization is solely responsible for any terrorist activity emanating from the Gaza Strip."

The IDF also stressed there was no connection between the strike and the explosion in the city of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip earlier on Saturday, which killed six Hamas members.

During clashes on the Gaza border on Friday , an IDF drone was able to bring done one incendiary kite, apparently by cutting its string.

An IAF drone bringing down an incendiary kite (:  ")

X

However, rioters managed to down using slingshots two IDF surveillance drones used to monitor activities in the protesta simple Phantom 3 drone and a more advanced Matrice type drone.

The IDF made clear that the scout UAVs were only used to document the border disturbances and that there was therefore no fear of classified intelligence being gathered from them.Hamas has tightened security measures on its leader Ismail Haniyeh and other senior officials amid growing concern of attempts on their lives.

The decision was made following the recent assassination attempts against the Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah and Hamas security head Tawfiq Abu Na'im, according to the Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper.

Hamas' concerns do not only stem from alleged Israeli attempts, but also from ISIS-related elements collaborating with elements within the Palestinian Authority.The Border Police detained on Saturday night an east Jerusalem resident after he breached the az-Za'ayyem checkpoint connecting Jerusalem and Ma'ale Adumim.

The suspect was taken in for questioning on suspicion of trying to smuggle eggs.

Circumstances leading to the incident are suspected criminal.Afghan forces backed by air strikes have retaken a district in the northern province of Badakhshan that was seized last week by Taliban insurgents, officials said, as fighting continued across Afghanistan.

Provincial police spokesperson Sanaullah Rohani said Kohistan district, which fell to the insurgents on Thursday, was retaken by army and police forces backed by air support on Saturday. Taliban fighters were also pushed back in Teshkan district, where they had taken a number of checkpoints.

"The Taliban suffered heavy casualties, but there is no updated information on the exact number as the area is remote and the telecommunication system weak," he said.Some hundred vehicles left Umm al-Fahm on Sanday on the way to the government buildings in Jerusalem to protest against violence in the Arab society.

The vehicles got underway via route 65 in Wadi Ara and Highway 6. They are expected to arrive at Highway 1 in the upcoming hours.Twenty-five NGOs and nine members of the ultra-Orthodox Matmidim faction were convicted on Sunday of defrauding the state for funding.

The nine Haredi faction members were convicted of several counts of fraud, forgery and money laundering to the tune of NIS 24 million.Aides to US President Donald Trump reportedly hired a private Israeli intelligence firm last year to "get dirt" on prominent Obama administration officials who were involved in talks on the Iran nuclear deal in an effort to discredit them and consequently the deal, according to a story in the British Observer newspaper Saturday.

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According to the Observer, Trump aides contacted private investigators in May 2017, asking them to look into Ben Rhodes, who served as deputy national security advisor for strategic communications in the Obama White House, and on Colin Kahl, who served as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East.

The pact between Iran and six major powersBritain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United Stateswas among former US President Barack Obamas signature foreign policies but has been described by Trump as one of the worst deals I have ever witnessed.

Former US President Obama and current US President Trump (Photos: AP, Shutterstock)

Under the deal, Iran strictly limited its enrichment of uranium to help allay fears this could be put to producing atomic bomb material, and won major sanctions relief in return.

Trump gave Britain, France and Germany a May 12 deadline to fix what he views as the deals flawsits failure to address Irans ballistic missile program, the terms by which inspectors visit suspect Iranian sites, and sunset clauses under which some of its terms expireor he will reimpose US sanctions.

According to the Observer, officials linked to Trump's team contacted the Israeli private investigators several days after the American president's visit to Israel last year.

"The idea was that people acting for Trump would discredit those who were pivotal in selling the deal, making it easier to pull out of it," a source told the Observer.

Obama with his team, including Rhodes (Photo: Gettyimages)

Documents seen by the Observer showed that investigators contracted by the private intelligence agency were asked to dig into Rhodes and Kahl's personal lives and political careers.

"Among other things they were looking at personal relationships, any involvement with Iran-friendly lobbyists, and if they had benefited personally or politically" from the deal, the Observer reported.

Investigators were also asked to contact journalists who supported the deal, including writers from the New York Times, MSNBC, the Atlantic, Vox and Haaretz, to see whether Rhodes and Kahl broke protocol by providing the media with classified information.

The Observer noted, however, that while sources confirmed the Trump aides had contacted the private investigators and provided them with an "initial plan of attack," it remains unclear how much work was actually done, for how long, whether any pertinent information was uncovered and whether any use was made of it.

Both Rhodes and Kahl told the Observer they had no knowledge of the investigation.

"I was not aware, though sadly am not surprised," Rhodes said. "I would say that digging up dirt on someone for carrying out their professional responsibilities in their positions as White House officials is a chillingly authoritarian thing to do."





Austria's Chancellor Sebastian Kurz announced Sunday that he and his Minister of Education Heinz Fassmann will be arriving in Israel during next June.

"Austria has the tremendous historic responsibility of not forgetting the awful crimes committed during the Holocaust, and has an obligation to Israel and its citizens' safety," Kurz tweeted.

"I expect to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and deepen the relationship between our two countries," he added.Zionist Union leader Avi Gabbay warned Sunday that passing legislation that would give the Knesset override power over the High Court of Justice would seriously harm Israeli democracy, saying Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying "to turn us into a democracy like Turkey."

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"The only thing Netanyahu is busy doing is perpetuating his rule," Gabbay told Ynet in an interview. "He wants to get reelected, which is legitimate. But the question is how much he is willing to change his country to make that happen. He's willing to do everything for it to happen."

The override power initiative, also known as a notwithstanding clause, became a top priority for nationalist lawmakers following uncertainty over the fate of illegal African migrants in the aftermath of a series of failed deals for their deportation.

Prime Minister Netanyahu; Zionist Union leader Gabbay (Photos: Reuters, Alex Kolomoisky)

Bayit Yehudi will bring the bill proposal calling for a 61 MK majority to a vote at the Ministerial Committee for Legislation on Sunday, despite attempts by Netanyahu to postpone the vote.

"The right way to pass the override power is by recruiting all parts of the coalition," Netanyahu said during a Likud ministers meeting on Sunday. "We wanted to postpone by a week and reach agreements, so we could bring the bill (to a vote) with the support of the entire coalition."

Debate between coalition partners centers around the number of lawmakers needed to recertify a bill struck down by the court. While Bennett and Shaked stuck to their demand of a 61 MK majority, Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit and Chief Justice Hayut maintained a 70 MK majority was needed.

Education Minister Bennett and Justice Minister Shaked (Photo: Alex Kolomoisky)

Bayit Yehudi leader Naftali Bennett portrayed the legislation as the "balance law," dubbing it as "the most important legislation in a generation."

"It would create a balance between the executive and legislative authorities and the judiciary," Bennett explained. "Unfortunately, the High Court has recently turned everything into justiciable: It canceled the Infiltration Prevention Law three times and tied the government's hands, making it unable to remove illegal infiltrators from the State of Israel."

"I'm glad a wide consensus is taking shape in the government and in the Knesset surrounding this legislation. This is a great day for Israeli democracy, which is important to all of us," Bennett went on to say.

Gabbay disagreed with such assertions, saying the override power initiative is just a part of "a real process of the erosion of Israeli democracy."

Gabbay with MK Tzipi Livni at a protest against the override power (Photo: Motti Kimchi)

"The override power is one issue out of an entire collection of things this government uses to take our freedoms from us, it wants to create a tyranny of the majority," Gabbay asserted. "In a democracy, there are mechanisms that block the majority from doing certain things, otherwise there's no stopping it."

The Zionist Union leader opined that if Netanyahu wanted to stop the legislation, he could.

"He's a prime minister. If the prime minister wants, there will be no legislation like that," he said. "They want to bring Turkey into Israel, where there's no real freedom of speech or freedom of movement, and everything depends on the regime and it can do whatever it wants. Only last week, the Knesset passed a law saying the prime minister and defense minister could decide on their own to declare war."Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Sunday that Iran is supplying advanced weapons to Syria that pose a danger to Israel, asserting that its better to confront Tehran sooner rather than later.

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We are determined to block Irans aggression against us, even if this means a (military) conflict. Better now than later, Netanyahu said at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting. We do not want escalation but we are ready for any scenario.

In recent months, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards have "transferred advanced weaponry to Syria in order to attack us both on the battlefield and on the home front, including weaponized UAVs, ground-to-ground missiles and Iranian anti-aircraft batteries that would threaten air force jets," the prime minister added.

Prime Minister Netanyahu (Photo: Emil Salman)

Israel has repeatedly warned it will not tolerate a permanent Iranian military presence in neighboring Syria. Iran is a key ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, and has provided crucial military aid to his forces.

Netanyahu is scheduled to meet on Wednesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, another ally of Assad, to "discuss regional developments."

"Meetings with the Russian President are always important for the security of Israel and the coordination between the IDF and the Russian military. Israel maintains full freedom of action to defend itself. All of our meetings are important, but this week's meeting is especially important in light of Iran's increasing efforts to establish a military presence in Syria against Israel," he said.

Putin also invited Netanyahu to join him for the annual march marking the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany, after which they will convene in the Kremlin.

The meeting was confirmed following a phone conversation between the two this past Monday, in which they had agreed to meet as soon as possible.

This will mark the two leaders' eighth meeting in the past two years. During the period, they spoke at least 12 times on the phone.

Putin and Netanyahu meet in Moscow (Photo: EPA)

Israel is concerned of the possible sale of the Russian-made S-300 aerial defense system to Syria. A Russian diplomat said two weeks ago that Israel contacted Russia asking for the system to not be provided to Assad's army.

Russian daily Kommersant quoted experts that said Israel may respond negatively to such a decision, going so far as to bomb the area in which they are stationed.

Before arriving in Russia, Netanyahu will embark for Cyprus Tuesday, for a tripartite meeting with Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.

Netanyahu said he plan to discuss "a series of issues, first and foremost the feasibility of laying a joint Israeli-Cypriot-Greek gas pipeline to Italy. The export of Israeli gas to Western Europe could make a very significant contribution to the Israeli economy."The Iraqi Air Force launched a series of strikes on ISIS positions in Syria, News.am reported citing TASS news agency.

Press service of Iraqi PM, commander of the countrys armed forces, Haider al-Abadi, said that these airstrikes targeted the terrorists command unit in Syria.

The Iraqi PM had given the order for this military operation.The Ministerial Committee for Legislation approved Sunday the override power legislation, which would allow the 120-member Knesset to pass laws already struck down by the High Court of Justice (HCJ) with a simple majority of 61 MKs.

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The bill proposal, which would constitute and amendment to the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty, will be brought to a vote at the Knesset likely on Wednesday.

Minister Naftali Bennett and PM Netanyahu (:  )

The bill received the support of eleven committee members, among them Housing and Construction Minister Minister Yoav Galant, despite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus appeals for the discussion to be held next week.

The override power initiative, also known as a notwithstanding clause, became a top priority for nationalist lawmakers following uncertainty over the fate of illegal African migrants in the aftermath of a series of failed deals for their deportation.

Comprised of 15 judges, the Supreme Court is widely seen in Israel as a liberal bastion, and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked has been pushing for a bench more representative of conservative Israelis.

Its members are appointed by a selection committee that includes Shaked, three Supreme Court justices and representatives of the Bar Association.

Shortly after the committees vote, Kahlon, who was at the time taking a tour of the Gaza region in south Israel, announced his intention to block the bill from advancing.

The passage of the bill in the Ministerial Committee of Legislation is a violation of the coalition agreements and a blow to law enforcement, Kahlon said.

The Kulanu faction will continue to struggle against the override powers clause and we will fight. We will not allow extreme elements to lead the daily agenda in the State of Israel, the minister promised.

Minister Moshe Kahlon (L) and Minister Yoav Galant (Photo: Yair Sagi)

While discussions were necessary on striking a balance in the relationship between the courts and the Knesset, Kahlon added that the latest move in the committee was extreme.

We said in the last few weeks that we are prepared to hold broad discussions on the arrangement and relationship between the court and the Knesset. This is a move that has be undertaken after years of the issue not being dealt with, but not in an extreme and unilateral way as happened today.

Deputy Attorney-General Raz Nazri said that while the bill was not unconstitutional, Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit was still opposed to it.

The position of the attorney general is that all the proposals should be opposed. We are not saying it isn't constitutional, because it is an amendment to the Basic Laws, but we are opposed to it. The Basic Law on Legislation addresses all complexities of relations between the authorities, Nazri said.

Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon (Kulanu) was absent from the discussion in which participants sought to clarify whether he could impose a veto on the bill.

Bayit Yehudi leader Naftali Bennett and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked (Bayit Yehudi) hailed the committees decision and said that it marked the governments beginning of the building of a separation wall between the three branches of government.

Ayelet Shaked (Photo: Motti Kimchi)

The bypass clause will return the public confidence in the High Court of Justice and will restore the original functions of the branches: the Knesset legislates, the governments implements and the court interprets, a joint statement said.

One branch cannot intervene in the affairs of the other. It should be remembered that the Knesset, as a representative of the nation, is the sovereign as in any civilized democracy," it added.

During the committee discussion, Bennett and Shaked asked that a vote be removed from the days agenda on an initiative led by MKs Motti Yogev and Nissan Slomiansky, both from the Bayit Yehudi party, which sought to strip the HCJ of any authority to strike down laws.

Education Minister Bennett, who has been at the forefront of the override powers bills promotion, said that, Raz is right in saying that the Basic Law: Legislation is an important law. The problem is that Kahlon has a veto over the Basic Law: Legislation and not on the override powers.

Last week, Netanyahu met with Supreme Court Chief Justice Esther Hayut for two hours to discuss the legislation.

According to the Prime Minister's Office "the different positions were heard, and there was an in-depth and serious discussion."

Earlier, Zionist Union leader Avi Gabbay warned that passing legislation would seriously harm Israeli democracy, saying Netanyahu is trying "to turn us into a democracy like Turkey."

"The only thing Netanyahu is busy doing is perpetuating his rule," Gabbay told Ynet in an interview. "He wants to get reelected, which is legitimate. But the question is how much he is willing to change his country to make that happen. He's willing to do everything for it to happen."Southern Tel Aviv residents in support of the deportation of African migrants welcomed on Sunday the advancement of the override power bill in the Ministerial Committee for Legislation.

"It's a day of hope for southern Tel Aviv residents. We congratulate Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Education Minister Naftali Bennett for putting an end to the High Court of Justice's unbearable dictatorship," they said in a statement.

"We expect the government to lead the High Court back to his natural place and for it to formulate a sane immigration policy," they went on to say.Hamas's military wing continued on Sunday to blame Israel for the death of six of its members in an explosion the Deir al-Balah the previous day.

"The explosion happened while the Hamas military wing members were tracking the biggest spy system Israel has planted in the Gaza Strip. Israel will pay a heavy price, it's inevitable," Hamas's military wing said.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said the six fatalities had thwarted many security and intelligence actions, vowing to "strike the enemy until victory."A convoy of over 100 vehicles made its way to the Government Quarter in Jerusalem on Sunday morning to protest violence in the Arab sector , which has claimed 15 victims since the beginning of 2018.

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The protesters claim local authorities are powerless to stop the violence and demand that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intervene.

Israeli Arabs protest violence in sector

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"Netanyahu promised Siham Agbariya (whose husband and two of her sons were murdereded) several years ago that he would make sure the issue is handled, but unfortunately he's not doing anything. It's all just empty promises. We want serious action and not empty promises," one protester said.

Protest convoy passing through Wadi Ara

The convoy began by leaving Umm al-Fahm, traveled through Route 65 in the Wadi Ara area and then made its way to Highway 6, connecting to Highway 1 en route to the capital.

The participants were waving black flags. "We want to have our cry heard and for our suffering following the violence and murders that destroyed our society to be known," said one protester.

Halima Gara from Jatt, whose husband and son were murdered , told her family's story. "My son Al-Lateef was murdered in 2013, and 10 months later my husband Muhammadwho was on his way to visit our daughterwas also murdered. They were both murdered in cold blood. I haven't recovered since, my life has been destroyed," she said.

She went on to say that "the convoy is very important to all of us. We want everyone responsible to hear about our suffering. Every time I hear about a murder, I immediately start crying. It's very difficult for me. I can't remain silent anymore in face of acts of murder and violence."

MK Yousef Jabareen (Joint List), who joined the convoy, called the government's inaction "a grave and dangerous failure."

"It appears criminals have free rein as long as the victims are Arabs. I blame the police for not acting to eradicate the violence for reasons of 'Divide and conquer,'" Jabareen accused.

Participants of the convoy

"Data shows that out of over 520 shootings in Umm al-Fahm, indictments have been filed in only six instances. That is a one percent rate," he lamented.

Jabareen's fellow Joint List lawmaker Jamal Zahalka also participated in the protest, and said he "blamed the police for the rampant crime, for not fighting it and for its helplessness."

"Every crime that goes unpunished is a green light for the next crime. The police know to fight crime and have succeeded in eradicating crime organizations and narrowing down criminal acts in the Jewish sector. However, Arab crime organizations are being overlooked by the police, which does too little to stop the wave of violence in Arab society."

Joint List's MK Said al-Harumi added, "Violence and crime are wildly spreading in Arab villages and towns. We protest today in front of the Prime Minister's Office and want our loud cry against this dangerous phenomenon and against the government's helplessness in treating it to be heard.

"We will continue using all the means at our disposal until violence and crime are eradicated from Arab communities."

Since 2018, 15 people from Arab communities have been killed. Some of the cases have not been solved yet.

In addition, during that time period people were wounded by gunshots, as well as incidents in which houses, vehicles and businesses were shot at.

The protest was organized by the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel with the help of the Umm al-Fahm municipality and other activists.IDF soldiers killed three Palestinians while trying to cross and sabotage the southern end of the Gaza border fence on Sunday afternoon .

On their bodies, units found a camera, an axe, an oxygen mask, gloves and two bottles of benzene.

The IDF launched an investigation following suspicions that the Palestinians attempted to plant explosive devices next to the fence.Hamas's military wing, which blames Israel for an explosion that killed six of its members , claimed Sunday it had occurred "while they were tracking the biggest technological spy system Israel has planted in the Gaza Strip."

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The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades called the Saturday night blast in Deir al-Balah a "deplorable Zionist crime" perpetrated against its fighters.

"During a complicated security and intelligence operation conducted by Qassam Brigades to investigate a serious and a grave security incident conducted by the Zionist enemy against Palestinian resistance, a deplorable crime took place against our Mujahideen in the area of Zawayda in central Gaza Strip," it said.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said Sunday after funerals for the dead militants that they "thwarted hundreds of security and intelligence operations throughout the years."

He vowed to "hit back at the enemy until we win," saying Hamas was "in an open war with the enemy."

The blast rocked Gaza near 7:30pm, with Reuters television capturing a pillar of smoke rising above the village of Zawayda near the coast of Gaza, far from the border with Israel, where tensions have escalated in recent weeks.

Gaza media initially reported the blast was caused by a "work accident."

One of the victims was reportedly a commander of the engineering unit, which is part of the Qassam Brigades' central strip division, while another was a communications commander for the same division.Thousands of demonstrators joined the weekly protest in Tel Aviv against government corruption Saturday evening.

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Demonstrators marched from Habima Square to Rabin Square, protesting against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government.

Scenes from Saturday's protest (:  ,    )

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Several hours prior to the march, the police had arrested one of the protest's leaders, Yishai Hadas, after he waved a sign that said "Crime Minister" in English while standing along the route of the Giro d'Italia bicycle race, which is taking place in Israel for the first time.

Thousands attended the rally to lend their support to the High Court (Photo: Motti Kimchi)

Hadas brought his sign to past demonstrations at Habima Square, but protest organizers claim the police confiscated the sign so it would not be captured by foreign media cameras covering the important race.

Attorney Daniel Haklai, who represents Hadas, called the arrest "unfortunate and disturbing."

"Hadas expressed his political freedom of speech by holding up the sign. Political freedom of speech is at the heart of the principle of freedom of speech," Haklai went on to say. "In a democratic country, political freedom of speech has to be defended, and the ones who use it cannot be arrested."

Protest organizer Yishai Hadas was arrested for holding up a sign saying 'Crime Minister' on the Giro d'Italia's route

"Hadas wanted the foreign media covering the Giro d'Italia race to capture his sign and he insisted on his democratic right to protest in front of the entire world," Haklai concluded.

The police said Hadas had interrupted the race and failed to follow police instructions.

Protest organizer Eldad Yaniv argued that Netanyahu was warmongering to deflect from the criminal investigations against him.

"We were told that Netanyahu had treated the IDF with caution until he realized he's going to jail. All of his attempts to instigate conflict on the northern and southern borders and with Iran stem from his fear and understanding that his end is near," Yaniv said.

"It's also the reasons why last week Netanyahu passed a decision without anybody noticinghe can go to war just by consulting Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, without Cabinet," he went on to say.

(Photo: Motti Kimchi)

Yaniv said the prime minister intends to "complete his mission by attempting to paralyze the High Court of Justice with his efforts to pass the override power bill . It's a disgrace."

The Zionist Union's Chairman Avi Gabbay said, "In times like these, we can't be sitting on the fence. Democracies collapsed when the majority sat on the fence. It's not the time to say everything will be alright."

"We came here tonight to support the citizens who protest and tell this government we'll fight for democracy. We won't allow our democracy to come to ruin or to transform us into Turkey or Russia," he went on to say.

"Only during the past week, Netanyahu and Lieberman decided they could declare war by themselves. We're talking about the same Netanyahu who said Lieberman is incapable of sitting through one Cabinet meeting and the same Lieberman who said Netanyahu is a fraud and a liar. Can anybody trust those two?" Gabbay wondered.

Zionist Union co-chief Livni (center) said PM Netanyahu was shifting attention away from his coalition's actions against Israel's democracy (Photo: Motti Kimchi)

The Zionist Union's Tzipi Livni, who spoke at the march as well, drew attention to the fact that when everybody was busy with the prime minister's televised statement about Iran's nuclear program last week, three democracy-changing laws were approved.

"The prime minister and defense minister being allowed to declare war on their own volition without taking into consideration the government or the Security Cabinet, erasing the basic tenet of equality from the Declaration of Independencethese were among the laws approved last week," said Livni.

"Next week's plan is to pass the override power bill bypassing and paralyzing the High Court that defends Israel's citizens," she went on to say, explaining that the court had been delegitimized for the past few years and is paying the price since it's the gatekeeper responsible for keeping Jewish and democratic Israel's basic values and your rights as Israel's citizens."

(Photo: Motti Kimchi)

Speaking at the march, Meretz Chairwoman Tamar Zandberg said, "We are at war for the State of Israel and we'll win, since the Israeli public wants and believes in a democratic country."

"The prime ministerwho the police recommended be indicted for briberywants to put his hands on the Israeli High Court of Justice and we'll not allow it," Zandberg concluded.Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan suggested Sunday that the phenomenon of incendiary kites being flown by Palestinians from Gaza into Israel could be brought to an end if the ruling Hamas terror group is forced to pay the price for using them.

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If Hamas starts to pay the price for what leaves its territory, I believe that this phenomenon will stop. All terror is terror and we must treat its perpetrators and operatives as terrorists, the Likud minister said in an interview with Ynet.

Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan (Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg)

Whoever assembles and sends burning kites with Molotov cocktails, a camera or anything else intended to land in Israeli territory and to cause damage, should be treated as a terrorist in the middle of a terror attack, he argued.

The kites have been put to effective use in recent weeks as the new, primitive weapon has so far eluded the IDFs high-tech capabilities, burning hundreds of square meters of Israeli farmland.

Erdans statements were echoed by those of Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon earlier on Sunday. There is a solution to incendiary kite terrorism, which is terrorism in every respect. Ramallah starves Gaza, closes its taps and their anger is taken out on us," he said during a tour of the Gaza border region.

Kahlon, who leads the Kulanu party, also advocated for making punishment for Palestinians in Gaza who fly the burning kites into Israel as stringent as that of those who launch rockets from the strip.

Minister Erdan also addressed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus expected visit to Russia, during which he will meet with President Vladimir Putin and join him for the annual march marking the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany, after which they will convene in the Kremlin.

It is a huge honor that the prime minister of Israel meets so many times with the head of one of the most important powers in the world. It reflects closeness and mutual respect, Erdan said. There is no doubt that we have extremely significant interests in Syria, the most important of which is to prevent Iranian entrenchment. It is a good thing that the prime minister is going again to reiterate that there is no compromising on this issue.

Regarding US President Donald Trumps upcoming May 12 decision on whether or not to withdraw from the Iranian nuclear deal signed in 2015, Erdan predicted that a decision to remain in the deal would hinge on a radical change to the agreement that served as a hallmark of former president Barack Obamas foreign policy.

I think if there isnt an extremely fundamental change to the agreement, President Trump will pull out . he said. If the US withdraws from the agreement now, unlike during Obamas term when Israel was alone, we will stand alongside the strongest military superpower in the world.

Protesters have been making judicious use of kites in Gaza border protests

Erdan also touched on the Knesset vote last Monday which transferred authority from the government to the cabinetand in some case to the prime minister and defense minister onlyto declare war and to launch military operations.

In 99.9 percent of the situations, as I understand it, this clause should not see actual use since it will be possiblebased on intelligence that the State of Israel hasto know that we are preparing for a wide-scale operation and there will therefore be time to convene the cabinet."

There could be an action or need to thwart in a military attack some action initiated by the enemy against us and therefore an immediate decision must be made, he concluded.Sixteen women who went to Syria to join Islamic State have been jailed in Iran, a Tehran prosecutor said on Sunday.

The women were also ordered to pay back any money they had received from the Sunni Muslim jihadist group, the judiciary's news website Mizanonline quoted prosecutor Abbas Jafari-Dolatabadi as saying. Islamic State considers Iran's majority Shi'ite Muslims to be heretics.

"These women had gone to Syria to support ... Daesh (Islamic State), had received terrorist training and carried out some operations there, and were arrested upon their return to Iran," Jafari-Dolatabadi said. The report did not specify the length of the jail terms.

Separately, a Tehran court on Sunday held the fifth hearing in the trial of eight men suspected in the killing of 18 people at the parliament and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's mausoleum last yearthe first deadly attack claimed by Islamic State in Tehran.

Iran has said that the five gunmen and suicide bombers who were killed in the attacks had fought in the militants' strongholds in Syria and Iraq.

A total of 26 people have been charged in the caseDUBAI - President Hassan Rouhani said on Sunday Iran had plans to respond to any move by US President Donald Trump on the 2015 nuclear agreement and the United States would regret a decision to exit the accord.

Trump says that unless European allies rectify "flaws" in Tehran's deal with world powers by May 12 he will refuse to extend US sanctions relief for Iran.

"We have plans to resist any decision by Trump on the nuclear accord," Rouhani said in a speech carried live by state television.

"Orders have been issued to our atomic energy organisation ... and to the economic sector to confront America's plots against our country," Rouhani told a rally in northeast Iran.

"America is making a mistake if it leaves the nuclear accord," Rouhani said.On May 5-6, 2018 the 45th session of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) member states was held in Dhaka, Peoples Republic of Bangladesh, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said in a message.

The delegation headed by Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov represented Azerbaijan at the event. At the session Mammadyarov delivered a speech.

Dhaka Declaration adopted at the Session (para18) underlines the need for earliest political resolution of all crisis and conflicts in order to avoid their negative and destructive impact in accordance with the principles of the UN and OIC Charters and in this context, reaffirms firm solidarity with Azerbaijan and stresses the resolution of conflict on the basis of principles of territorial integrity and sovereignty, Trend reports.

The session adopted a number of important resolutions on Azerbaijan, including resolutions on Armenia's aggression against Azerbaijan and the destruction of religious and cultural heritage in the occupied territories.

The resolution entitled "The aggression of the Republic of Armenia against the Republic of Azerbaijan" demands the implementation of the relevant UN Security Council resolutions and expresses concern that Armenia has not yet implemented demands contained therein. Also, all states are urged to refrain from providing any supplies of arms and military equipment to Armenia and not to allow the use of their territories for transit of such supplies. At the same time, acts of destruction, plundering and vandalism of archaeological, cultural and religious monuments in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan are sharply condemned.

It also calls for the earliest settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict on the basis of sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability of the internationally recognized borders of the Republic of Azerbaijan, in accordance with the generally accepted norms and principles of international law, relevant UN Security Council resolutions, as well as OSCE documents and resolutions.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday stepped up his calls to end the Iranian nuclear deal as US President Donald Trump weighs whether to withdraw the United States from the 2015 agreement

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In a briefing to foreign reporters Netanyahu said "a deal that enables Iran to keep and hide all its nuclear weapons know-how, is a horrible deal."

The deal "has to be either fully fixed or fully nixed," he said. "But if you do nothing to this deal, if you keep it as is, you will end up with Iran with a nuclear arsenal in a very short time," he said.

PM Netanyahu (Photo: Emil Salman)

Trump faces a May 12 deadline over whether to uphold 2015 nuclear deal, which he long has criticized.

Netanyahu is an outspoken opponent of the deal, which requires Iran to limit its nuclear enrichment in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions. Netanyahu says the deal will not prevent Iran, Israel's bitter enemy, from reaching nuclear weapons capability.

Last week, Netanyahu said a "half ton" of Iranian nuclear documents seized by Israeli intelligence revealed that Iran had lied about its past efforts to produce nuclear weapons. He did not provide any evidence that Iran has violated the 2015 nuclear deal, but said the documents prove Tehran cannot be trusted.

Netanyahu said Israel is passing on the findings "to the main intelligence services."

European countries, which have been pressing Trump to stick with the deal, have said Netanyahu's presentation only reinforced the importance of the agreement, which provides for inspections.

Earlier, Netanyahu accused Iran of supplying advanced weapons to Syria that pose a danger to Israel, saying it's better to confront Tehran sooner rather than later

PM Netanyahu gives presentation on Iran's atomic archive (Photo: AP)

Israel has repeatedly warned it will not tolerate a lasting Iranian military presence in neighboring Syria, and is believed to have been behind recent airstrikes on Syrian military bases that killed Iranian soldiers , prompting Tehran to vow retaliation. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement.

Netanyahu told the Israeli cabinet that Iran has delivered advanced weapons to Syria "in order to attack us both on the battlefield and on the home front."

"We are determined to block Iran's aggression against us even if this means a (military) struggle. Better now than later," he said. "We do not want escalation, but we are prepared for any scenario."

Israel has long viewed Iran as its biggest threat because of Tehran's nuclear activities, its support for armed groups across the region and its leaders' frequent calls for the destruction of the Jewish state. In recent years, Iran has provided crucial military support to Syrian President Bashar Assad.For the first time in a decade, the Israeli Embassy in Cairo is planning to host a reception this week in honor of Israels 70th Independence Day. Alongside the excitement, however, there have been some domestic events that have cast a cloud over the festivities.

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One prominent example was an image with anti-Semitic undertones that appeared in an Egyptian weekly. Moreover, many senior Egyptian officials attempted to have the event cancelled altogether.

The anti-Semitic caricature published in Rose al-Yusuf

In recent yearsdue to the fear of terrorist attacks, turmoil in the country following the Tahrir Square Revolution that toppled two presidents and the 2011 attack on the Israeli embassyIsraeli diplomats lowered their profile and left Egypt. A new ambassador was appointed, in fact, only in 2016.

This week's event is scheduled to take place Tuesday at the Cairo Ritz Carlton under heavy security. It will be hosted by Ambassador Dr. David Govrin and hundreds of influential Egyptians, including government ministers, parliamentarians, businessmen, journalists and cultural figures.

Chef Shaul Ben Aderet will oversee the culinary aspects of the event, and will prepare a Middle Eastern meal including lamb chops, hummus, shakshuka, falafel, a variety of salads, Moroccan fish and kadaif (shredded filo dough) cookies.

Chef Shaul Ben Aderet will preside over the cooking for the event (Photo: Yossi Aloni)

A diplomatic drama has been brewing behind the scenes lately, however, as many Egyptians are not pleased at such steps of normalization between the two countries. After invitations were sent out, senior Egyptian officials tried to have the event canceled and even notified the Israeli embassy of their intentions.

The official reasoning given was security considerations, but the belief is that they feared the reaction of the Egyptian street.

Rose al-Yusuf published the event invite with a photo of the ambassador

Jerusalem refused to back down, however, and applied pressure to the Egyptian government to cancel the veto. The Prime Ministers Office communicated to the Egyptians via several different channels that the event was critical in order to resume normal diplomatic relations.

With the intervention of senior Israeli security officials, the Egyptian opponents caved and the veto was canceled. The event is set to take place as planned.

Crisis was not altogether averted, however, as an anonymous source leaked the event's details to the Egyptian weekly political magazine Rose al-Yusuf, which then published a photo of the invitation including the location, alongside a photograph of the Israeli ambassador, with the clear intention of wanting to spoil or endanger the event.

The magazines front page included an anti-Semitic caricature that looked as if it came from the Nazi propaganda tabloid Der Sturmer: a Haredi Jew reading the Bible while the main title proclaimed, Israeli embassy celebrates 70 years to the Nakba at the Ritz hotel.Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Sunday his country had plans to respond to any move by US President Donald Trump on the 2015 nuclear agreement and the United States would regret a decision to exit the accord

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Trump says that unless European allies rectify "flaws" in Tehran's deal with world powers by May 12, he will refuse to extend US sanctions relief for Iran.

"We have plans to resist any decision by Trump on the nuclear accord," Rouhani said in a speech carried live by state television.

President Hassan Rouhani (Photo: AFP)

"Orders have been issued to our atomic energy organization ... and to the economic sector to confront America's plots against our country," Rouhani told a rally in northeast Iran.

"America is making a mistake if it leaves the nuclear accord," Rouhani said.

Britain, France and Germany remain committed to the nuclear accord but, in an effort to keep Washington in it, want to open talks on Iran's ballistic missile program, its nuclear activities beyond 2025when key provisions of the deal expireand its wars in Syria and Yemen.

"We will not negotiate with anyone about our weapons and defenses, and we will make and store as many weapons, facilities and missiles as we need," Rouhani said, reiterating a rejection by Iranian leaders of talks on Iran's missile program which Tehran says is defensive.

"You (US) should know that you cannot threaten this great nation because our people withstood eight years of ... defense (in the war with Iraq)," Rouhani said in another speech during his visit to Razavi Khorasan province.

"We want to preserve our peaceful nuclear technology for electricity, medicine, agriculture and health ... and we do not seek to threaten the world or the region," Rouhani said.

Iranian FM Javad Zarif said Iran refused to renegotiate the deal

Rouhani's comments come just days after Iran's foreign minister said it will not renegotiate the nuclear deal it signed with major powers.

"Let me make it absolutely clear once and for all. We will neither outsource our security, nor we will renegotiate or add on to a deal we have already implemented in good faith," Mohammad Javad Zarif said in a message posted on YouTube.

In a magazine interview, French President Emmanuel Macron warned a decision by Trump to withdraw could lead to war.

"We would open the Pandora's box. There could be war," Macron told German weekly magazine Der Spiegel, adding "I don't think that Donald Trump wants war." Macron urged Trump not to withdraw when he met him in Washington late last month.

President Trump has yet to divulge to Israel his decision about the nuclear agreement (Photo: AFP)

Trump has not told Israel whether he will change or scrap the deal, a senior Israeli intelligence official said on Sunday. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opposes the deal, which he says only halts Iran's nuclear capability temporarily.

The official said Trump shared Israel's skepticism about the deal and voiced hope for new US sanctions, noting the effect of past measures against Iran's banking and oil sector.

Trump said last week that Israel has been proven right after Netanyahus presentation of what he said was conclusive proof of a secret nuclear weapons project underway in Iranevidence that the prime minister said showed that Tehran had lied big time to the international community.

You know in seven years that deal will have expired and Iran is free to go ahead and create nuclear weapons. Thats not acceptable. Seven years is tomorrow. Thats not acceptable, Trump said during a press conference at the White House.BERLIN -- A Holocaust survivors' group is urging German authorities to intensify their search for a notorious neo-Nazi who didn't show up for her prison sentence.

The International Auschwitz Committee said Sunday it hopes that Ursula Haverbeck, 89, who has been sentenced to two years in prison for incitement, will soon be found.

Haverbeck was sentenced last year for repeatedly denying the Holocaust -- a crime in Germany. She was supposed to start her prison sentence on Wednesday in the town of Bielefeld.The Defense Exports Department of the Defense Ministry publicized the data for 2017's defense exports on Wednesday, showing that sales increased by 40% over 2016 and amounted to 9.2 billion dollars.

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Defense industry companies signed multiple new contracts with the assistance of the Defense Ministry, strengthening Israels hand in the international defense market.

Rafael Advanced Defense Systems' Spike missiles in South Korea (Photo: AFP)

The ministry's report listed the following sales percentages: missile and aerial defense systems amounted to 31%, radar and aerial defense systems accounted for 17%, upgrades and avionics for 14%, ammunition and weapon stations for 9%, communications systems also for 9%, observation and optics for 8%, intelligence and cyber systems for 5%, services and miscellaneous for 3%, UAVs for 2% and marine systems and satellite and space for 1% each.

As for a geographic breakdown, 58% of exports headed to Asia-Pacific nations, 21% to Europe, 14% to North America, 5% to Africa and to 2% Latin America.

A 2.5 billion dollar air defense system sale to India served as the lions share of the sales increase. Missiles and air defense systems saw the biggest increase in sales, while unmanned military drone sales decreased compared to previous years, owing to competition from China and the US.

Defense Minister Lieberman (Photo: TPS)

The Cypriot navy purchased coast guard cutters and four military patrol boats were sold to Argentina last year. A billion euro drone deal to Germany and a Gil Missile sale to India are planned for 2018.

Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said, Within two years we increased defense exports by dozens of percentage points. This is a huge accomplishment that was achieved through hard work by the industry and the ministry and through a series of contracts signed with countries that expressed faith in our ability and creativity.

This achievement will allow us to increase the research and development budget, create more jobs and especially to increase the IDFs superiority over the coming years, he said.

The defense industry employs 150,000 people directly or via contractors.EILAT, Israel -- Elia Viviani won the third stage of the 101st Giro d'Italia on Sunday for his second bunch sprint finish victory in as many days as the Grand Tour race bid farewell to its historic start in Israel.

The Italian finished the lengthy 229-kilometer (143-mile) route through Israel's Negev desert down to its southern tip of Eilat along the Red Sea in just over five hours. Viviani edged Italian countryman Sacha Modolo at the finish line and pumped his fist in triumph in a near repeat of his sprint victory on Saturday in Tel Aviv.WASHINGTON - The Republican leader of the US House Armed Services Committee said President Trump should not walk away from the Iran nuclear deal.

President Donald Trump is facing a May 12 deadline on whether to re-impose sanctions against Iran. Texas Congressman Mac Thornberry said on Fox News Sunday it would be a mistake for Trump to scuttle the nuclear accord reached with Tehran. "I would counsel against it," he said.

As Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Thornberry is considered a key Republican voice on national security issues. Thornberry said that while he was opposed to the deal when it was signed by the Obama Administration in 2015, exiting the agreement now would erode Washington's leverage against Tehran.

"I thought it was a bad deal," he said. "But the key question is, ok, what happens next if the US pulls out? Does Iran kick out those inspectors so we lose the visibility we have?"The Republican leader of the US House Armed Services Committee said President Trump should not walk away from the Iran nuclear deal.

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President Donald Trump is facing a May 12 deadline on whether to re-impose sanctions against Iran. Texas Congressman Mac Thornberry said on Fox News Sunday it would be a mistake for Trump to scuttle the nuclear accord reached with Tehran. "I would counsel against it," he said.

Rep. Mac Thornberry said he would advise President Trump against pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal (Photo: Reuters)

As Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Thornberry is considered a key Republican voice on national security issues. Thornberry said that while he was opposed to the deal when it was signed by the Obama Administration in 2015, exiting the agreement now would erode Washington's leverage against Tehran

"I thought it was a bad deal," he said. "But the key question is, okay, what happens next if the US pulls out? Does Iran kick out those inspectors so we lose the visibility we have?"

President Trump threatened to withdraw the US from the deal (Photo: AFP)

Trump has signaled he may tear up the 2015 deal and re-impose sanctions later this month. Trump Administration officials have said the nuclear accord fails to address Iran's ballistic missile program and will allow Tehran to rebuild its nuclear program after some of its provisions expire.

Thornberry said that Trump should work with European allies to address these shortcomings in the accord. But scuttling the deal, he said, would take pressure off Iran by dividing Washington from its allies.

"The Europeans are not going to re-impose sanctions so where does that leave us and Iran?" he wondered.

As part of the 2015 deal between Iran and the six powersthe US, Britain, Russia, France, Germany and ChinaIran agreed to halt and reduce its nuclear program in return for removing most of the international sanctions levied on the Islamic republic.

Trump should work with European allies to address deal's shortcomings, Thornberry said (Photo: AFP)

Furthermore, Iran agreed to restrict its uranium enrichment for a decade and assented to a demand to dismantle thousands of centrifuges. It further agreed to export most of the uranium enriched to a high grade it had already produced.

The agreement set up a review mechanism carried out by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), as part of which inspectors will visit sites suspected to be related to the nuclear program, including military bases. Iran was permitted to continue operating a nuclear program, albeit strictly for civilian purposes.On the day that the Ministerial Committee for Legislation approved the override power legislation, which would allow the Knesset to pass laws already struck down by the High Court of Justice with a simple majority of 61 MKs, Deputy Attorney General Avi Licht spoke about how his office is viewed by many government officials.

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Licht spoke Sunday at the Israeli Democracy Institute at a session on the Department of Counseling and Legislation at the Ministry of Justice. He said that the prevailing attitude towards his office could be summed up in three words: "Under whose authority?"

"There is a sense of decline of professionalism in the legal service," he said. "Unlike previous years, we operate in a realm of illegitimacy, and the ideological line with which we grew up is challenged by a different ideological line, without judging what is correct."

Dep. AG Avi Licht (Photo: Dana Koppel)

"Although there have always been objections to the work of the Justice Ministry," Licht explained, "lately our work of safeguarding the public welfare and advancing human rights are perceived among growing audiencesincluding the Knesset and the governmentas illegitimate."

"There exists an ideological approach that maintains that what we are doing is forbidden, and can be summed up in three words: 'Under whose authority?'" he lamented.

Internally, he believes, there also exist complications. With the growth in the consulting and legislation departments, it is growing ever more difficult to present one cohesive position to the public.

"That is why the guide we wrote determines a uniform approach that reflects the value system as we see it, and when you know you are doing the job right, it is easier for you to deal with external criticism," he said.

Licht said it was law enforcement's place to iterate their position regarding the law (Photo: Orel Cohen)

The deputy attorney general continued, "There is no minister or person that I know of who wants to work contrary to the law, and our job is to delineate the limits of the lawwhat is permitted and what is forbidden. However, we must also express our opinion even when there is no legal impediment."

"Our job is to advance human rights and proper procedures as well, and it is important for us to stand and say what we think is right, even if we cannot impose a course of action," he iterated.

"Generally, the matter does not call for obstruction, but is rather a matter of legal difficulty, so we offer alternatives and other possible solutions," Licht said. "This is not a coercive discourse but rather a discourse of persuasion and a 'flood of difficulties' Our aim is not to impose a veto."

Fmr. Chief Justice Barak: Knesset not allowed to override Israel's identity

Meanwhile, at the Ono Academic College conference held in honor of retired Supreme Court Justice Salim Jubran, retired Supreme Court Chief Justice Aharon Barak addressed the override power legislation.

Fmr. Chief Justice Barak said the Knesset was not authorized to nullify the character of the Israel as a Jewish and democratic state (Photo: Motti Kimchi)

"The interpretation of the Declaration of Independence establishes the genetic code of the Constituent Assembly, which is intended to establish a constitution that will realize the vision of the people and its creed. It is not authorized to act contrary to the vision. The Knesset is not authorized to nullify the character of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state," Barak alleged.

The head of the Bar Association, attorney Effi Naveh, said at the opening of the conference, "Following the decision today on the issue of the override power clause, I hope that the parties reach a compromise that will not harm the standing of the Supreme Court, which serves as the last refuge of the weaker populations in society."

Naveh added that the Central Committee of the Israel Bar Association will convene in the coming days to formulate the official position of the association on the matter.

Shortly after the committee's vote on the override power legislation Sundayat the behest of Education Minister Naftali BennettFinance Minister Moshe Kahlon, who was absent, announced his intention to block the bill from advancing.

Finance Minister Kahlon vowed to fight the override power (Photo: Motti Kimchi)

"The passage of the bill in the Ministerial Committee of Legislation is a violation of the coalition agreements and a blow to law enforcement," Kahlon said.

"The Kulanu faction will continue to struggle against the override power clause and we will fight. We will not allow extreme elements to lead the daily agenda in the State of Israel," the minister promised.While the new American Embassy in Jerusalem is expected to be inaugurated next week, the road to the diplomatic mission actually beginning operations is still a ways off.

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The current move, then, is mostly symbolic, including a changing of a sign and the move of the ambassador and his secretary, and possibly a visit from US President Donald Trump, who decided on the move to begin with.

The capital's American consulate stretches across 6,000 square meters of actual construction, with rights to up to 25,000 square metersrights that will be realized in full over the next six years to create the new embassy complex.

The new US Embassy in the capital will be inaugurated next week (Photo: Amir Mann / Ami Shinar Architects & Planners)

According to the plan, a perimeter wall more than three meters high will be built and an escape route will be paved. A basementwhich has thus far remained lockedwill be put to use and an opulent, high-end chamber and office will be built for the ambassador.

The construction of the wall is not a declaratory move, as until work on it is completed the mission will be an embassy in name alone. Moreover, even following the festive inauguration ceremony, the US ambassador will only be able to make limited use of the complexusing it for meetings and daily activities, but not residing there permanently.

In the second phase, set to be carried out over the next three years, floors will be added to the structure as well as a new building that will house embassy employees coming in from Tel Aviv.

At the same time, the embassy reached out to a Jerusalem realtor to help it locate properties for rent, in order to move various other units to the capital as well.

Architect Amir Mann will oversee planning for the building (Photo: Ilya Melnikov)

An embassy building on the ground of the nearby Diplomat Hotel will only be built in the future, explained architect Amir Mann of the Amir Mann / Ami Shinar Architects & Planners firm. Mann served as the head of the planning team for the consulate complex.

Embassy to be planned by American firm

Some 20 planning companies and two New York firms were hired to map out the project. The American State Department usually employs selected American firms, but deviated from the norm by hiring a local Israeli team, including an Israeli contractor to carry out the work.

Unlike the consulate building, it appears the embassy structure will be planned by an American team, possibly accompanied to some extent by Israelis.

A five-storey structure was originally planned to be built on the sitewhich stretches over some 25 dunam in the capital's Arnona neighborhood. The building was to include a 5,000 square meter floor for the consulate, with a four-storey structure above it to serve the remainder of the US government's activities in Jerusalem.

The plan was created and approved at a record time of 14 months. However, due to budgetary limitations, the additional floors over the consular structure have yet to be completed.

The move will initially only be symbolic (Photo: Uzi Porat)

A road and a kilometer-long access route were completed, however, using American funds, to allow access directly to the complex with minimal traffic in the adjacent residential neighborhood. A car park for employees and visitors was built as well.

The embassy will not replace the existing Tel Aviv consulate, which will provide passport issues and renewals and US visa services, alongside other consular services.

The aforementioned services are also provided in the existing Jerusalem structure, which is not planned to meet the entire demand of people contacting the Tel Aviv mission.

The Diplomat Hotel, which serves as a residence for elderly olim, will be demolished. The embassy will then be built in its stead, while integrating existing structures and constructing new ones both above and below ground.

Israelis residing around the ambitious project are less than pleased. The embassy is located on the Seam Zone, and locals fear for their safety and complain that the works will be carried out at an accelerated pace against the orders of local planning and construction bylaws.

Simulation of the embassy's interior (Photo: Amir Mann / Ami Shinar Architects & Planners)

Their impact on the project will nevertheless be minimal, as the government has marked the project as one of national importance. Arnona residents still appealed to the High Court of Justice against a building permit exemption given to the wall surrounding the embassy.

In its reply to the petition, the state said, "A difficulty was discovered in the Jerusalem municipality building the fence, and talks are therefore ongoing among government ministries to agree on the identity of the body that will carry out the work."

As for the project's cost, President Trump has said he received a document citing a cost of one billion dollars, but assured the American public by claiming actual costs will run in the neighborhood of a quarter of a million dollars.

MKs incensed at being shut out of embassy opening

A number of MKs protested the fact that tickets for the inauguration event had run out, leaving them out of the proceedings once again, after their exclusion from the torch lighting ceremony this past Independence Day.

Several coalition MKs contacted the US Embassy's staff and were disappointed to learn they would not be invited due to constraints of space.

PM Netanyahu and a handful of other dignitaries will be the only ones invited to the embassy's opening (Photo: Emil Salman)

Apart from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, embassy officials said, only heads of parties will be invited to the grand opening, in addition to a very limited number of ministers and other officials.

"We're the worker bees who did all of the legwork for the embassy move," lamented one MK. "It's very disappointing to be shut out of the ceremony at the moment of truth."Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova highlighted on Sunday the role of Irans anti-terrorist activity in Syria, TASS reports.

"In the search for a political settlement and efficient anti-terrorist activity in Syria, Iran can play and does plan an indeed effective and important role in fight against terrorism," the diplomat said in an interview with Irans IRNA news agency.

The Islamic Republic News Agency quoted her as saying that Irans role in fight against terrorism was important not only for Syria, but for the whole region as well. The Russian diplomat also noted that an attitude to Iran, first of that of the US, "will bring neither peace nor tranquility in the region, will not make Europe more secure".

US statements about its possible withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) signed among world powers and Iran poses a threat to the legal foundations of the present-day world, Zakharova said in an interview with the IRNA.News

Dallas, Texas - Fifty-seven individuals, who are connected to various white supremacist gangs have been charged in a case led by the Texas Department of Public Safety Criminal Investigations Division and coordinated by the Texas Anti-Gang Center with participating partners such as the Dallas Police Department Criminal Intelligence Unit and the Drug Enforcement Administration. Special Agent in Charge Clyde E. Shelley, Jr. of the Drug Enforcement Administration made the announcement along with Erin Nealy Cox, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, Monday at a press conference.

The 57 individuals were charged in conspiracy to commit kidnapping and drug trafficking conspiracies outlined in the Indictment. 42 of those defendants were arrested in last weeks takedown operation, ninewere already in custody at various locations on unrelated state charges, and six have not yet been arrested.

Each of those defendants arrested made their initial appearance last week or will do so today before a U.S. Magistrate Judge.

Not only do white supremacists gangs subscribe to a repugnant, hateful ideology, they also engage in significant, organized and violent criminal activity, Attorney General Sessions said. Under the Trump administration, the Department of Justice has targeted every violent criminal gang member in the United States. The quantities of drugs, guns, and money seized in this case are staggering. And so I want to thank U.S. Attorney Erin Nealy Cox, Assistant U.S. Attorney P.J. Meitl, DEA, the Marshals Service, ATF, as well as our fabulous state and local partners, Texas DPS and the Dallas Police Department, for their hard work. Todays indictment, arrests, seizures make this country safer.

According to the Indictment, the defendants were members of, associated with, or performed drug transactions with, various white supremacists organizations or individuals including the Aryan Circle, the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas (ABT), the Aryan Brotherhood, the Peckerwoods, the Soldiers of Aryan Culture, and the Dirty White Boys, and they engaged in a conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and other illegal narcotics throughout North Texas and elsewhere. Some defendants were also member of or associated with the criminal street or prison gang Tango Blast. Certain defendants used firearms to further their drug trafficking activities.

The Indictment alleges that from approximately October 2015 through April 2018, the defendants conspired together, and with others, to possess with intent to distribute 500 grams or more of methamphetamine. According to the Indictment, the defendants arranged for the acquisition of methamphetamine and its distribution and delivery. They used stash houses or other locations to store the methamphetamine and acted as intermediaries and brokers to negotiate the acquisition, price, delivery and payment for the quantities of methamphetamine.

In January 2018 and February 2018, according to the Indictment, four defendants kidnapped an individual and held the victim for several days to obtain stolen drug proceeds that the defendants believed belonged to them. The defendants pointed a pistol at the victims head, threatened to kill the victim, hit the victim with a large wooden object on the back of the head and used a hatchet to chop off a portion of the victims left index finger.

Throughout the investigation, agents stopped the flow or seized over 190 kilograms of methamphetamine, 31 firearms, and seized approximately $376,587 in cash.

Drug trafficking is a dangerous and violent businessthat is a reality. It is clear that these hate-fueled gangs will do whatever they must do in order to carry on their drug trafficking business. Firearms, body armor, illegal drugs, drug proceeds and unspeakable physical violence are the tools of their trade. The collaborative law enforcement and prosecutorial effort that led to the Indictment and arrest of these defendants is the first step in closing down their drug dealing organizations for good.

This operation was coordinated through the Texas Anti-Gang Center. The TAG serves as the unified headquarters for an estimated 75 - 100 of the regions most knowledgeable and experienced federal, state and local anti-gang investigators, analysts and prosecutors. The TAG is comprised of various law enforcement agencies, and has implemented innovative approaches to fighting violent criminal gangs and the transnational criminal organizations. Today violent criminal gangs and their allied networks are involved in virtually every type of felonious activity, including drug production and distribution; weapons-smuggling, extortion, kidnapping and murder for hire; home-invasion; metal and heavy equipment theft; major fraud, money laundering and bulk cash smuggling; gambling and dog-fighting; and prostitution and human-trafficking, including both adults and children for sexual exploitation.

A federal criminal Indictment is a written statement of the essential facts of the offense charged. A defendant is entitled to the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. If convicted, the defendants sentence will be determined by the court after a review of the federal sentencing guidelines and factors unique to the case, including the defendants prior criminal record, the defendants role in the offense and the characteristics of the violation.

The Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Marshals Service North Texas Fugitive Task Force, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Dallas Police Department, Irving Police Department, Garland Police Department, Rockwall Police Department, Mesquite Police Department, Fort Worth Police Department, Dallas County Sheriffs Office and Rockwall County Sheriffs Office assisted in the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney P.J. Meitl is prosecuting.News

Las Cruces, New Mexico - Sixteen individuals are facing drug trafficking and money laundering charges as the result of a multi-agency investigation led by DEA and HSI that targeted cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine traffickers and money launderers operating in southern New Mexico, west Texas and as far east as Tennessee and South Carolina. During the course of the investigation, law enforcement authorities seized approximately 3.6 kilograms of cocaine, approximately 2.5 kilograms of heroin, approximately 13 kilograms of methamphetamine, $176,860 in assets, to include eleven vehicles, and 10 firearms.

The investigation culminated Thursday when 14 of the defendants were arrested in Las Cruces, N.M., and El Paso, Texas, by teams of federal, state, county and local law enforcement officers during a law enforcement operation.



The results of the investigation were announced by U.S. Attorney John C. Anderson, Special Agent in Charge Kyle W. Williamson of the DEAs El Paso Division, Acting Special Agent in Charge Jack P. Staton of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in El Paso, Special Agent in Charge Ismael Nevarez, Jr., of the Phoenix Field Division of IRS-Criminal Investigation, Chief Patrick Gallagher of the Las Cruces Police Department, and Dona Ana County Sheriff Enrique Kiki Vigil.



In announcing the results of the investigation, U.S. Attorney John C. Anderson said, The charges filed and drugs seized as the result of this investigation illustrate the success of our Districts collaborative efforts to root out drug traffickers who operate in our communities. My Office is proud to work with our federal, state, county and local law enforcement partners to safeguard families in Las Cruces and throughout New Mexico.



Yesterdays arrests show the value of information sharing and coordination with our federal, state, and local law enforcement partners to target criminal organizations that are responsible for the drug-related violence in our communities, said Special Agent in Charge Kyle W. Williamson of DEAs El Paso Division. By working together to reduce drug trafficking and use across the nation, we are making our communities safer and our families stronger.



The success of yesterdays enforcement action exemplifies HSIs commitment to work with its law enforcement partners to disrupt and dismantle transnational drug trafficking organizations in our community, said Acting Special Agent in Charge Jack P. Staton of HSI El Paso. These DTOs not only deal drugs; they commit violent crimes and wreak havoc in our neighborhoods.



It takes coordination, hard work and dedication to take down transnational drug trafficking organizations with each agency contributing its own expertise to the investigation. IRS-CI will continue to work with its law enforcement partners to protect the residents of New Mexico from drug trafficking organizations, stated Special Agent in Charge Ismael Nevarez, Jr., of the Phoenix Field Division of IRS-Criminal Investigation.



The Las Cruces Police Department is honored to work alongside our counterparts, from local and federal agencies, to help eradicate harmful drug operations that are poisoning our communities, said Las Cruces Police Chief Patrick Gallagher. We believe our actions will have a significant impact on drug trafficking organizations working locally and regionally.



There is no greater purpose for the Sheriffs Department than to ensure the safety of our children, said Dona Ana County Sheriff Enrique Kiki Vigil. Yesterdays joint effort to take drugs and criminals off the street is a continuation of that mission, and our community is better for it.



The charges against the defendants, which are contained in five separate federal indictments, are the result of an investigation that began in April 2017, and initially targeted Eulalio Valentin Chavez, 31, of Las Cruces, the leader of a drug trafficking organization that allegedly distributed cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine in Las Cruces. The investigation expanded to include four other drug trafficking organizations that allegedly imported cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine from Mexico, and distributed the drugs in the Las Cruces, N.M., and El Paso, Texas, area, as well as transported drugs as far east as Tennessee and South Carolina. The investigation was designated as part of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) program, a nationwide Department of Justice program that combines the resources and unique expertise of federal agencies, along with their local counterparts, in a coordinated effort to disrupt and dismantle major drug trafficking organizations.



Based on the investigation, a federal grand jury returned five indictments on April 18, 2018, charging 15 defendants with federal drug trafficking, money laundering and firearms offenses. The indictments generally allege that the defendants conspired to violate the federal narcotics trafficking laws and violated the federal narcotics laws in Dona Ana County, N.M., and elsewhere. The indictments also charge certain of the defendants with money laundering and firearms offenses. Four of the indictments include overt acts that describe the DTOs alleged operations, including the quantities of drugs allegedly routinely distributed by the DTOs and the broad geographic scope of one of the DTOs distribution network. The final defendant was arrested during yesterdays enforcement operation and will be charged in a criminal complaint with drug trafficking and money laundering offenses that will be filed today.



Fourteen of the 16 defendants charged as the result of the investigation were arrested during yesterdays law enforcement operation. The two remaining defendants were already in custody and will be transferred to federal court to face the charges against them.



The defendants arrested on April 25, 2018 will make their initial appearances in federal court in Las Cruces today, April 26, 2018, at 10:30 a.m. The defendants will remain in federal custody pending arraignment and detention hearings, which are scheduled for May 1, 2018, in Las Cruces federal court.



These cases were investigated by the DEA, HSI, IRS, U.S. Border Patrol, the Las Cruces Police Department and the Dona Ana County Sheriffs Office. The FBI, U.S. Marshals Service, New Mexico State Police, Hatch Police Department and New Mexico Air National Guard assisted with yesterdays law enforcement operation. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Selesia Winston and Sarah M. Davenport of the U.S. Attorneys Las Cruces Branch Office are prosecuting the cases filed as the result of the investigation.



SUMMARY OF CHARGES IN INDICTMENTS



INDICTMENT: United States v. Jose I. Caro, et al., 18-CR-1251



Count 1 of the Indictment charges Jose I. Caro and Eulalio V. Chavez with participating in a cocaine trafficking conspiracy. If convicted on this count, each faces a statutory penalty of a mandatory minimum of five years and a maximum of 40 years in prison and a $5 million fine.



Count 2 charges Chavez with distributing cocaine. If convicted on this count, he faces a statutory penalty of a maximum of 20 years in federal prison and a $1 million fine.



Counts 4 to 7 and 9 charge Caro and Chavez with distributing cocaine. If convicted on this count, each faces a statutory penalty of a maximum of 20 years in federal prison and a $1 million fine.



Counts 3 and 8 charge Caro and Chavez with using communication facilities to facilitate drug trafficking crimes. The maximum statutory penalty for a conviction on each of these counts is imprisonment for four years and a $250,000 fine.



Jose I. Caro, 33, of Las Cruces, was arrested yesterday in Las Cruces.



Eulalio V. Chavez, 32, of Las Cruces, was arrested yesterday in Las Cruces. Chavez also is charged in United States v. Grado, et al., 18-CR-1254, and United States v. Ordonez, et al., 18-CR-1255.



INDICTMENT: United States v. Fidel Gonzales, et al., 18-CR-1252



Count 1 of the Indictment charges all six defendants with participating in a heroin and cocaine trafficking conspiracy. If convicted, two of the defendants face a statutory penalty of a mandatory minimum of five years and a maximum of 40 years of imprisonment and a $5 million fine, and the other four defendants face a maximum statutory penalty of 20 years of imprisonment and a $1 million fine.



Count 2 charges certain four defendants with participating in an international money laundering conspiracy. The maximum statutory penalty for a conviction on this count is imprisonment for 20 years and a $500,000 fine.



Counts 3 to 9, 11, 12, 16 and 17 charge certain defendants with using communication facilities to facilitate drug trafficking crimes. The maximum statutory penalty for a conviction on each of these counts is imprisonment for four years and a $250,000 fine.



Counts 10 charges four defendants with international money laundering offenses. The maximum statutory penalty for a conviction on this count is imprisonment for 20 years and a $500,000 fine.



Counts 13 and 14 charge two defendants with distributing cocaine. The maximum statutory penalty for a conviction on this count is imprisonment for 20 years and a $1 million fine.



Count 15 charges one defendant with possession of cocaine with intent to distribute. The maximum statutory penalty for a conviction on this count is imprisonment for 20 years and a $1 million fine.



Charges against Defendants



Fidel Gonzales, 36, of Las Cruces, is charged in Counts 1, 2, 3, 4,6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 16, and 17 of the indictment. Gonzales was arrested yesterday in Las Cruces.



Brian Estrada, 36, of Las Cruces, is charged in Counts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 of the indictment. Estrada was arrested yesterday in Las Cruces.



Brian Nevarez, 33, of Las Cruces, is charged in Counts 1, 5, 12, and 14 of the indictment. Nevarez was yesterday in Las Cruces.



Barbara Lozoya Michel, 64, of El Paso, Texas, is charged in Counts 1, 2, 9, 10, and 16 of the indictment. Michel was arrested yesterday in El Paso.



Orlando Bustillos, 27, of Las Cruces, is charged in Counts 1, 12, and 15 of the indictment. Bustillos was arrested yesterday in Las Cruces.



Fidel M. Ortiz, 54, of Las Cruces, is charged in Counts 1, 2, 10, 11, and 17 of the indictment. Ortiz was arrested yesterday in Las Cruces.



INDICTMENT: United States v. Martin Montelongo-Salas et al., 18-CR-1253



Count 1 of the indictment charges Martin Montelongo-Salas and Giovanni Melero with participating in a heroin trafficking conspiracy.



Count 2 of the indictment charges Montelongo-Salas and Melero with distributing heroin.



Count 3 of the indictment charges Montelongo-Salas and Melero with possession heroin with intent to distribute.



If convicted on Counts 1, 2 or 3, Montelongo-Salas and Melero each face a statutory penalty of a mandatory minimum of five years and a maximum of 40 years of imprisonment and a $5 million fine.



Melero is charged in Count 4 with possession of cocaine with intent to distribute. If convicted on this count, Melero faces a statutory penalty of a maximum of 20 years of imprisonment and a $1 million fine.



Count 5 charges Melero with carrying a firearm during and in relation to a drug trafficking crime. If convicted on this count, Melero faces a statutory penalty of a mandatory five years of imprisonment, consecutive to any other sentence imposed in this case.



Count 6 of the indictment charges Melero with being a felon in possession of a firearm. Melero is prohibited from possessing firearms or ammunition because of his prior felony convictions. If convicted on this count, Melero faces a statutory penalty of a maximum of ten years of imprisonment and a $250,000 fine.



Martin Montelongo-Salas, 31, of Las Cruces, was arrested yesterday in Las Cruces.



Giovanni Melero, 31, of Las Cruces, is in custody at the Dona Ana County Detention Center and will be transferred to federal court to face the charges against him.



INDICTMENT: United States v. Alonso P. Grado, Jr., et al., 18-CR-1254



Count 1 of the indictment charges four defendants with participating in a heroin and methamphetamine trafficking conspiracy. If convicted the defendants face a statutory penalty of a mandatory minimum of ten years and a maximum of life of imprisonment and a $10 million fine.



Counts 2 to 4, 6, 7, and 9 to 13 of the indictment charge certain defendants with using communication facilities to facilitate drug trafficking crimes. The maximum statutory penalty for a conviction on each of these counts is imprisonment for four years and a $250,000 fine.



Count 5 of the indictment charges certain defendants with distributing heroin. The maximum statutory penalty for a conviction on this count is a mandatory minimum of five years and a maximum of 40 years of imprisonment and a $5 million fine.



Count 8 charges certain defendants with distributing methamphetamine. The maximum statutory penalty for a conviction on this count is a mandatory minimum of ten years and a maximum of life of imprisonment and a $10 million fine.



Charges against Defendants



Alonso P. Grado, Jr., 40, of Deming, N.M., is charged in Counts 1, 8, and 12 of the indictment. Grado was arrested yesterday in Las Cruces.



Rene Verdugo, 44, of Las Cruces, is charged in Counts 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 of the indictment. Verdugo is currently in federal custody and pending disposition on a supervised release violation for a prior felony conviction. Verdugo is also charged in United States v. Ordonez, et al., 18-CR-1255.



Stephan E. Morales, 35, of Las Cruces, is charged in Counts 1, 4, 5, 9, 11, and 13 of the indictment. Morales was arrested yesterday in Las Cruces.



Eulalio V. Chavez is charged in Counts 1 to 8 and 10 of the indictment. Chavez is also charged in United States v. Caro, et al., 18-CR-1251, and United States v. Ordonez, et al., 18-CR-1255.



INDICTMENT: United States v. Savannah J. Ordonez, et al., 18-CR-1255



Count 1 of the indictment charges four defendants with participating in a methamphetamine trafficking conspiracy. If convicted, the four defendants each face a maximum statutory penalty of 20 years of imprisonment and a $1 million fine.



Counts 2 and 3 of the indictment charges two defendants with using communication facilities to facilitate drug trafficking crimes. The maximum statutory penalty for a conviction on each of these counts is imprisonment for four years and a $250,000 fine.



Counts 4 and 5 of the indictment charge two defendants with distributing methamphetamine. The maximum statutory penalty for a conviction on this count is imprisonment for 20 years and a $1 million fine.



Count 6 of the indictment charges one defendant with possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute. The maximum statutory penalty for a conviction on each of these counts is imprisonment for 20 years and a $1 million fine.



Charges against Defendants



Savannah J. Ordonez, 33 of Las Cruces, is charged in Counts 1, 3, and 4 of the indictment. Ordonez was arrested yesterday in Las Cruces.



Eulalio V. Chavez is charged in Counts 1 and 2 of the indictment. Chavez was arrested yesterday in Las Cruces. Chavez is also charged in United States v. Caro, et al., 18-CR-1251, and United States v. Grado, et al., 18-CR-1254.



Verdugo is charged in Counts 1 to 3, and 5 of the indictment. Verdugo is also charged in United States v. Grado, et al., 18-CR-1254.



Dierdre Gonzalez, 47, of Garfield, N.M., is charged in Counts 1 and 5 of the indictment. Gonzalez was arrested yesterday in Garfield.



Charges in indictments and criminal complaints are only accusations. Defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.Arizona News

Tucson, Arizona - This years 2018 Law Enforcement Torch Run for Arizona Special Olympics kicked off for Border Patrol agents in the Tucson Sector in Vail on Monday morning but will continue through May 5 within other state law enforcement organizations.

Members of various BP stations

gathered to run a section of the Torch

Run through the town of Vail, Arizona

The Law Enforcement Torch Run consists of numerous runs held throughout the U.S. and around the world every year to raise awareness to support for the Special Olympic Games and their programs statewide.

The program, which began in 1981, provides local law enforcement agencies an opportunity to volunteer in the communities they serve. In Arizona, each agency participates in different segments of a long journey to pass seven Flame of Hope torches around the state to the final destination in Mesa.

Runners from multiple Tucson Sector stations joined with children from various backgrounds while other students and teachers cheered them along a 5-mile leg west from Vail along Mary Ann Cleveland Road.

This year marks the 50th Anniversary of Special Olympics.Border News

San Luis, Arizona - U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers arrested a U.S. citizen Friday, in connection to a failed methamphetamine smuggling attempt at Arizonas Port of San Luis.

Officers removed 54 pounds of meth

from the quarter panels of a smuggling

vehicle

Officers referred a 40-year-old Yuma, Arizona woman for additional questioning as she attempted to enter the U.S. from Mexico Friday morning in her Toyota sedan. When they searched her vehicle, officers discovered nearly 54 pounds of meth within the vehicles quarter panels, worth more than $161,000.

CBP officers seized the drugs, while the subject was arrested and turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcements Homeland Security Investigations.Border News

Nogales, Arizona - U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at Arizonas Port of Nogales apprehended a U.S. citizen involved in connection with a failed attempt to smuggle more than $71,000 worth of methamphetamine into the United States Monday.

A CBP canine led officers to the

flooring of a smuggling vehicle, where

they located 24 pounds of meth

Officers working at the Mariposa Crossing referred a 37-year-old Phoenix woman for further inspection of her Nissan SUV Monday morning. A CBP narcotics detection canine alerted to a scent that it was trained to detect, resulting in drugs being located in the vehicles flooring. The inspection led to the discovery of nearly 24 pounds of meth, worth more than $71,000.

Officers seized the drugs as well as the vehicle, while the subject was arrested and turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcements Homeland Security Investigations.Border News

Arivaca, Arizona - Tucson Station Border Patrol agents arrested an MS-13 gang member from El Salvador shortly after he entered the United States illegally south of Arivaca early Wednesday.

Agents apprehended 57-year-old Noe Bernal-Portillo and transported him to the Tucson Station for processing. Agents conducted a records check and learned Bernal has numerous felony convictions, including a 1997 conviction for attempted murder in Las Vegas, Nevada. He will remain in federal custody pending prosecution for re-entry as an aggravated felon.

All persons apprehended by the Border Patrol undergo criminal history checks using biometrics to ensure illegal immigrants with criminal histories are positively identified.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials welcome assistance from the community. Citizens can report suspicious activity to the Border Patrol and remain anonymous by calling 1-877-872-7435 toll free.Border News

Nogales, Arizona - U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at Arizonas Port of Nogales apprehended a U.S. citizen involved in a failed smuggling attempt involving almost 11 pounds of heroin Tuesday.

Officers working at the Morley Pedestrian Gate referred a 52-year-old Marana, Arizona woman for further inspection. A CBP narcotics detection canine alerted to a scent that it was trained to detect, resulting in the discovery of drugs that were wrapped around her midsection. The heroin weighed almost 11 pounds, an excess of $188,000.

Officers seized the drugs, and turned the arrested subject over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcements Homeland Security Investigations.

Federal law allows officers to charge individuals by complaint, a method that allows for filing of charges for criminal activity without inferring guilt. An individual is presumed innocent unless and until competent evidence is presented to a jury that establishes guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

CBP's Office of Field Operations is the primary organization within Homeland Security tasked with an anti-terrorism mission at our nations ports. CBP officers screen all people, vehicles and goods entering the United States while facilitating the flow of legitimate trade and travel. Their mission also includes carrying out border-related duties, including narcotics interdiction, enforcing immigration and trade laws, and protecting the nation's food supply and agriculture industry from pests and diseases.Border News

McAllen, Texas - Two illegal aliens residing in Pharr have been ordered to federal prison for conspiring to interfere with commerce by threats or violence and to carrying a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence, announced Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Special Agent in Charge Will Glaspy, Houston Division and U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Patrick. Rogelio Acosta-Moctezuma, 39, and Jose Israel Villa-Reyes, 28, admitted they conspired to rob an undercover agent. Acosta-Moctezuma also pleaded guilty to an unrelated charge of conspiring to export defense articles.

U.S. District Judge Micaela Alvarez imposed a 107-month sentence for Acosta-Moctezuma, while Villa-Reyes was ordered to serve 103 months. Not U.S. citizens, both are expected to face deportation proceedings following their sentences. In handing down the sentence, Judge Alvarez noted that while no one was hurt in this case, there is a bad problem south of the border with violence drug cartels commit and that she is seeing more of that violence being imported here. She noted those concerns and the fact that the crime occurred in a public place.



On Feb. 1, 2017, a confidential informant negotiated the purchase of two kilograms of cocaine and three kilograms of methamphetamine for $60,000. The informant arrived at a parking lot in Pharr with an undercover agent to meet with Acosta-Moctezuma and Villa-Reyes and pick up the narcotics.



Shortly after their arrival, the agent said he was going to call for the delivery of the money. While on the phone, Acosta-Moctezuma exited the vehicle and approached the agent, at which time law enforcement arrested him. A pistol was in his waistband, which he admitted was given to him for the purpose of meeting with the buyers. Villa-Reyes remained in the vehicle, but was also found with a pistol.



The packages they brought to the transaction revealed the presence of Styrofoam and another substance, but no narcotics. Both admitted they went to the meeting with the weapons not to sell drugs but to steal the $60,000.



In the unrelated case involving the conspiracy to export defense articles, Acosta-Moctezuma admitted to supplying a .223 rifle to an undercover agent posing as a buyer who was going to smuggle the rifle to Mexico. He was sentenced to 37 months in prison on that case, to run concurrent with the robbery charge.



Both men will remain in custody pending transfer to a U.S. Bureau of Prisons facility to be determined in the near future.



The Drug Enforcement Administration and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives conducted the investigation with the assistance of the Border Patrols Evidence Collection Team and the Pharr Police Department. Immigration and Customs Enforcements Homeland Security Investigations conducted the unrelated defense articles investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Leonard is prosecuting the case.Islamabad: Under the Prime Ministers programme for Green Pakistan, 24.7 million saplings have so far been planted in 100 districts throughout the country, while 20.11 million new plants have been made ready for plantation, reported a news source. The target to achieve by 2021 is the plantation of 100 million plants in the country.

Spanning five years, the project will cost PKR 3.65 billion, out of which the federal government will generate 56% of the total funds required, while the provinces are to arrange the remaining funds. So far, funds worth PKR 940.34 million have been released for the project.

As per the project plan, provinces are to plant trees along 1,000 kilometres of road avenues and also along the canals. While in Islamabad, saplings are to be planted in Margalla Hills, Shakarparian, Golra Shareef, Saidpur, Bari Imam, Noorpur Shahan, and Kashmir Highway.Ghanaian actress, Fella Makafui is known to be one of the most active and vocal celebrities on social media.

But she did not have it easy today on Instagram as she literally fought a social media user who mocked an outfit she wore.

Fella Makafui had attended Actress the unveiling of Glitz Africa Magazines 20th edition in turquoise looking dress over white shoes and celebrity blogger, Nkonkonsa.com shared a photo of Fela at the event.

An Instagram user @charlie_dior commented on the photo "Bend down boutique ," an expression which is used to describe second-hand clothing.

READ ALSO: From her pregnancy till now - Nana Aba Anamoah's baby daddy spills all the beans on radio (AUDIO)

Obviously not pleased, Fella threw jabs at @charlie_dior saying "No sweet ,its actually a #riverisland dress ..Probably your two month chop money"

@charlie_dior who did not take it lying down replied saying "@fellamakafui plz stop with the bullshit !!! This dress is as basic as ur personality... you are really a beautiful woman and ur body is great but ur outfits kills me .. u cant dress to save ur life ... I really know people who will like to style you for free.. u really do need a stylist ... come on WTF! And please dont get me started with the white shoes ! Why on earth will u pair those shoes with that dress!! Its horrible ... Im just saying"

READ ALSO: Former Tiger Eye crew member 'exposes' Anas' secrets

And in came the sucker punch, @charlie_dior's claim that "@fellamakafui I found the dress on river Island website lmaooo it 10 stop bragging let me style u or I know someone who can start styling u for free .. it not what u wear it how u wear it!"

The last claim seemed to have killed Fella's vim for the banter who told @charlie_dior "oga na you carry am ... Your blood too dey hot !!! Abeg take panadol "

Interestingly, Fella Makafui's response at first did not sound friendly like the last and she even told off those who tried to stop her from responding to the guy's post.

YEN.com.gh has not verified @charlie_dior's claim of the dress being 10 euros but Fella's inability to counter his claim right there suggests he may be right.

READ ALSO: 11 rich, powerful, yet single Ghanaian women you should know about

Check out some of the trending news in Ghana in YEN.com.gh's video below:

READ ALSO: Video of Obinim making a woman carry bag of cement in exchange for lotto numbers goes viral

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Please contact us on Facebook or Instagram now

Source: Yen.com.ghHead of Yelk bloc parliamentary faction, candidate of Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan informs that member of the world famous System of a Down rock group Serj Tankian will arrive in Yerevan on May 7, News.am reported.

I am glad to inform that Serj Tankian will arrive in Yerevan at 20:05, May 7. Get ready for a powerful meeting ceremony, Pashinyan wrote on his Facebook page.Maxwell Mawu Mensah, the husband of celebrated actress, Nana Ama Mcbrown, has fired back at critics who accused him of not talking or smiling each time he is seen in public with his wife.

Nana Ama and husband, Maxwell

The critics had suggested that Maxwell was being forced by Nana Ama to appear with her in public even though he did not want to.

They further claimed that Nana Ama was forcing herself on him.

Nana Ama had earlier addressed the criticism with an explanation that her husband was a shy person, who was not expressive in public.

READ ALSO: 11 rich, powerful, yet single Ghanaian women you should know about

At an event to mark the 20th issue of Glitz Magazine in Accra, Maxwell addressed the critics personally after being prompted by his wife, stressing that he could not be talking and smiling in public for no reason.

"When I 'm walking, I should just be talking for no reason?", he asked in Twi.

He suggested that he could not be talking and smiling in public for no apparent reason because he was not mentally deranged.

Watch the video below:

READ ALSO: Fella Makafui fights social media user over her 'cheap' dress

Nana Ama and her husband got married in 2016 after dating for several years.

The two were involved in an accident in 2013, which landed them in the hospital.

However, they both made a full recovery and tied the knot three years later.

Check out some of the trending news in Ghana in YEN.com.gh's video below:

READ ALSO: Look inside Jackie Appiah's millionaire mansion and view photos of her luxurious cars

Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish on YEN.com.gh? Please contact us on Facebook or Instagram now.

Source: YenGhanaan musician, Patapaa Amisty, drew mockery from many social media users when he appeared at last month's VGMAs in an oversized suit.

The suit sparked many memes and jokes on social media, with one Facebook user questioning whether Patapaa's measurement was taken before the suit was made.

Patapaa appears to have learnt a great deal of lesson from that episode, and at the Ghana DJ Awards held at the Accra International Conference Centre on Saturday, the musician wore a casual dress, seeking to avoid unnecessary attention.

Patapaa's dress at the Ghana Djs Awards event

He opted for a yellow T-shirt over a pair of black shorts with grey sneakers to match.

However, unlike at the VGMAs when he controversially missed out on an award, Patapaa won Song of the Year at the Ghana DJ Awards.

READ ALSO: Are you Nadia Buari's sister? - Social media user accuse Gifty Osei of 'trying' to look like the actress in latest photo?

Below is the full list of winners at the 2018 Ghana DJ Awards:

Overall DJ of the year  DJ Vyrusky

Best Highlife DJ of the year  Oyoko Dehyi3

Best Hiplife DJ of the year  DJ Slim

Reggae/Dancehall DJ of the year  King Lagazee

Best Male Radio DJ of the year  DJ Slim

DJ song of the year  One Corner (Patapaa)

Lifetime Achievement Award of the year recipient  Mark Okraku Mantey

Best International DJ of the year  Cuppy Music

DJ/Artiste Collaboration of the year  DJ Vyrusky (Adwenfi ft Kuami Eugene and Shatta Wale)

Record Promoter of the year  DJ Vyrusky

Best Female DJ of the year  DJ Nyce Gospel DJ of the year  Papa Bills

Best Campus DJ of the year  iPhone DJ

Best Nightclub DJ of the year  Vision DJ

Scratch DJ of the year  DJ Mpesempese

Best Event DJ of the year  DJ Mic Smith

Artiste DJ of the year  DJ Shiwaawa

Share your views on this with us in the comments section below.

Check out some of the trending news in Ghana in YEN.com.gh's video below.

READ ALSO: My breakup with "ungrateful" Shatta Wale is permanent - Michy tells her mum

Have a hot story or scandal to share with YEN.com.gh? Send it to us on Facebook now!

Source: Yen.com.ghMichelle Diamond, the ex-girlfriend of dancehall star, Shatta Wale, has shared a new photo on Instagram on the occasion of her 25th birthday.

Shatta Michy shared this photo on Instagram to mark her 25th birthday.

She captioned it: "Happy birthday to this selfless, gorgeous , lovely lady. Its been a crazy 25 years on earth & I pray for peace, long life & Gods wisdom to continue on this journey. A toast to the Queen."

Her numerous fans have also taken to the social media platform to wish her well.

"Gorgeous 25 gal..... Ure such a beauty @michygh God bless you endlessly," on social media user wrote.

"You couldn't have been born in any other month hun ....You rock.....keep wallowing in greatness...happy birthday," an Instagram user wrote.

Michy's birthday comes amid a bitter breakup with her boyfriend of many years and "baby daddy", Shatta Wale.

At the time of this publication, Shatta Wale had yet to wish her a happy birthday on any of his social media platforms, an indication that their breakup is permanent..

YEN.com.gh reported earlier that Michy has told her mother that she will never go back to an "ungrateful" Shatta Wale.

Michy, who is known to have supported Shatta Wale financially when he was a struggling musician, has accused the artiste of physically abusing her in the course of their relationship.

In several social media posts, she has suggested that the breakup has made her a stronger woman.

Shatta Wale has fired back, saying Michy's allegations of physical assault are false. He has refused to further discuss the matter publicly, describing it as "complicated".

READ ALSO: Patapaa wore another "killer" dress to the Ghana DJs Awards and Ghanaians just cannot handle it

What do you make of this? Share your views with us in the comments section below. Check out some of the trending news in Ghana in YEN.com.gh's video below.

Have a hot story or scandal to share with YEN.com.gh? Send it to us on Facebook now!

READ ALSO: My breakup with "ungrateful" Shatta Wale is permanent - Michy tells her mum

Source: YenPopular media personality, Nana Aba Anamoah, has shared new photos that show her slaying in a stunning white dress.

Nana Aba Anamoah

Nana Aba took the pictures when she attended the opening of Becca's Kora Spa in Accra.

Nana Aba was one of several celebrities who attended the opening of the spa to lend their support to Becca.

From left: Nana Aba Anamoah, Jackie Appiah, Becca

Actress Jackie Appiah and Dentaa Amoateng were among the several celebs in attendance.

From right: Dentaa Amoateng, Becca and Nana Aba

For Nana Aba, the event marked a getaway from the social media scrutiny that was generated when Richard Brown, the reported father of her young son, expressed love for him on social media.

The development provoked several news reports that tried to unravel why Brown and Nana Aba fell out, and why he had suddenly turned up to claim the television presenter's son after so many years.

READ ALSO: Video of Moesha Boduong without her 'hips and bakassi' leaks on social media

Nana Aba's white dress drew massive praise from many social media users.

"Serving us with some beauty this morning," on Instagram user wrote.

"Looking beautiful as always," another Instagram user wrote.

Nana Aba is currently a presenter at GHOne TV, where she hosts the State of the Nation political show.

READ ALSO: Patapaa wore another "killer" outfit to the Ghana DJ Awards and Ghanaians just cannot handle it

Share your views on this with us in the comments section below.

Check out some of the trending news in Ghana in YEN.com.gh's video below:

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Source: Yen.com.ghWannabe celebrity and actress, Rosemond Brown says she has made Deloris Frimpong-Manso Delay relevant.

According to the budding actress, she has made Delay and her show popular again in the last couple of days.

Rosemond Brown

READ ALSO: Mahama leads 9th NDC Unity Walk in Bolga

Rosemond claims Ghanaians started talking about Delay just because she cancelled an interview with a star like her.

I have made Delay popular because wherever you pass everybody is talking about Delay because she cancelled my interview. Even my name is currently dying out but you can hear Delay everywhere because she decided not to interview me, she said on Peace FM.

Join YEN on Instagram to be always informed and entertained!

Delay had scheduled to interview Rosemond on her show but her followers suggested that she aborts the idea because Rosemond Brown has not done anything worthy of emulation to be given such a prestigious platform as the Delay Show.

The interview was cancelled eventually because followers of Delay kicked against the idea.

But wannabe Rosemond says she deserves an apology from Delay for subjecting her to such public ridicule and making gains out of her revered name.

Top 4 Scandal Quotes from Moesha Boduong CNN Interview:

READ ALSO: I believe when one dies, there is no heaven or hell  Sister Deborah

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Source: YenTurkey will retaliate against the US if Washington blocks the supply of F-35 fighters to Ankara, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said, Sputnik reports.

Cavusoglu said that a proposal by US lawmakers to temporarily stop weapons sales, including F-35 jets, to Turkey was wrong, illogical and not fitting of the alliance between the NATO allies.

"Next week I will go on a visit to the United States. It's about the fact that the cancellation of the sale of the F-35 is not acceptable, and if it (the cancellation) happens, then they (the US) will receive an appropriate response from Turkey," Cavusoglu said.HCM CITY  Online shopping platform Lazada.vn on Thursday announced that it would cooperate with international and domestic fashion and cosmetic companies to become the leading fashion and cosmetic online shopping platform in Viet Nam.

The company said the market had great potential as many of its customers, most of whom are women, now care about these products.

Lazada cited a report from Q&ME which said that 73 per cent of customers shop online for fashion items.

To achieve its goal, the company on Thursday announced its partnership with the giant firm, Au Chau Fashion and Cosmetic Company Ltd (ACFC).

Accordingly, famous brands distributed by ACFC, including Calvin Klein Jeans, Calvin Klein Underwear, Levis, Dune and Diesel, will be sold on the online shopping platform.

Along with ACFC, the company will sign contracts with other domestic and foreign fashion brands, according to Nguyen Thanh Thuy, a senior official of Lazada.

By 2020 the company targets becoming the first choice of customers who love fashion, she added.

On the occasion of its sixth anniversary in Viet Nam, the company is offering its customers many attractive promotion programmes from May 9 to 11, including smartphones such as the iPhone X, Samsung Galaxy S8 and Samsung Galaxy J7 Prime at preferential prices.

Flash sales will be also organised during this time.

Every month, Lazada attracts 30 million views. The website www.lazada.vn is a platform trading over 2 million products in 16 categories.

Lazada, which was established in 2012 as a start-up, is now a leading online shopping platform in Southeast Asia with presence in Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Philippines, Malaysia and Viet Nam. VNSBAC LIEU  Energy Capital Vietnam plans to build a liquefied natural gas (LNG)-fueled power plant, expected to cost about VN91.4 trillion (US$4 billion), in the Mekong Delta province of Bac Lieu.

The plants development follows a memorandum of understanding (MoU) inked between the company and the provincial Peoples Committee last week, the Nhan Dan (People) newspaper reports.

The 100ha plant, which has a total designed capacity of 3,200 MW, will be implemented in three phases. The first phase will be launched this year and will begin operations in late 2021 with a capacity of 1,000MW. The second and third phases will be completed in 2024 and 2027, with capacities of 1,000 and 1,200 MW, respectively.

The committee chairman Duong Thanh Trung said the building of the project is in line with the National Energy Development Strategy and the provinces conditions. The MoU will serve as an important foundation for the two sides to prepare documents for submission to relevant agencies and the Prime Minister, Trung said. -VNSBINH INH  Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc agreed in principle to a plan to build the south central province of Binh inh into a scientific and educational urban area when visiting the International Centre for Interdisciplinary Science and Education (ICISE) yesterday.

This is a brave and pioneering step which helps gather renowned scientists from around the world, thus contributing to promoting the nations science, Phuc told ICISE scientists. He stressed the importance of science and technology, including basic and applied sciences in the countrys development.

The Government leader spoke highly of the achievements of the ICISE, particularly in holding major international scientific events.

In the context that the fourth Industrial Revolution is posing both opportunities and challenges for Viet Nam , ICISE should grow more sustainably and effectively in order to foster the countrys basic science research and improve its human resources.

Emphasising the importance of applying scientific achievements in economic development, PM Phuc hopes the centre will work to speed up the application of science technology to the real world.

He also requested the centre create a better environment to attract more scientists, and connect more closely with universities and fundamental science centres, both inside and outside the country.

The leader required the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Viet Nam Academy of Sciences and Binh inh province to create favourable conditions to bring into full play the intelligence of ICISE scientists.

ICISE was founded by Prof. Jean Tran Thanh Van and his wife, Prof. Le Kim Ngoc, in 2013. Since then, the centre has held 40 international symposiums, with the participation of over 3,500 scientists, including 12 Nobel winners.HCM CITY Nearly 800 HCM City officials and members and volunteers of the Viet Nam Red Cross Society took part in the annual celebration of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement held on May 5.

On May 8 celebrations are held around the world to commemorate the birthday of the NGOs founder, Henry Dunant.

The theme of this year is the dedication, bravery and achievements of all volunteers and staff, whose life-saving and life-changing services ensure that we keep our commitment to humanity, Gianni Volpin, the International Committee of the Red Crosss representative in Viet Nam, said.

Every year millions of Red Cross and Red Crescent volunteers and staff around the world are able to reach more than 160 million people and provide a diverse and innovative range of services, he said.

Whether natural or man-made disasters, armed conflict or health and social care issues, our volunteers and staff are there to help people in need without discrimination. The month of May is important for the Viet Nam Red Cross (VNRC), which celebrates it as Humanitarian Month across the country," he said.

The VNRC, with some four million volunteers, has outstanding achievements to its credit, with the Tet (Lunar New Year) charity campaign for the poor and the victims of the Orange Agent being a great example of humanitarianism and dedication to help the most destitute.

The blood bank of the VNRC, blood donation campaigns and clubs make a significant contribution to the lives of people who need transfusions.

Tran Thi Hong An, deputy chairwoman of VNRC, said the Humanitarian Month is celebrated across the country with the aim of helping poor households escape poverty in a sustainable manner and raise public awareness of humanitarian works. VNSNew skills: Mentally-ill patients are taught to make brooms at the Centre for Mental Illness and National Devotees in Hai Duong Province. VNA/VNS Photo Hien Anh

Viet Nam News by Manh Minh and Luong Huong During the day, the Centre for Mental Illness and National Devotees in the northern province of Hai Duong looks like a busy workshop. In one of the rooms, some people are busy making brooms while in others, people are assembling electric fans, making incense sticks or weaving bamboo mats. Seeing these people so focused on their work, few would reckon that they are mentally ill patients undergoing treatment at the centre and are learning a new trade as part of their therapy. Tu Van Tai, a patient from Kinh Mon District, has been admitted to the centre for three years. After using the new therapy technique, his condition has improved. I used to feel bored, tired and homesick during my early days at the centre, he says. But the doctors took care of me, and with medicines and learning a new skill, I feel much healthier, he adds, taking a break after weaving a mat. He says it now takes him four days instead of weeks to finish a 1.6m by 2m mat. The therapy started with broom-making four years ago. With the assistance of staff members from the apprenticeship department, more skills have been integrated into the programme. Many patients have been quick to get hold of jobs and have been creating products on their own, showing that the job training for patients has gradually yielded good results. The input material is provided by provincial companies, which are also in charge of introducing their products to the markets, even abroad. The development of the apprenticeship department has offered opportunities to 60 per cent of the patients to learn a new trade, increasing their chances of reintegration into society. Last year, the inmates at the centre produced an estimated 90 tonnes of incense sticks, over 9,000 brooms - an increase of 18 per cent compared to the same period in 2016 - in addition to 14,000 electric fans and 160 mats. With the money earned from selling the products, the centre has been able to diversify the menu, introducing more nutritious meals for the patients. During holidays, special parties are also organised.

Therapy: Doctors of the Centre for Mental Illness and National Devotees in Hai Duong Province instruct mentally-ill patients how to make incense sticks. VNA/VNS Photo Hien Anh

Vocational training: Mentally-ill patients learn how to assemble electric fans. VNA/VNS Photo Hien Anh

Besides vocational training, another part of the therapy includes teaching patients to raise pigs and poultry and plant vegetables to produce fresh food for their daily meals.

Such therapeutic labour fetched the centre an abundant source of food in 2017, including an estimated 27 tonnes of vegetables, 12 tonnes of pork, 2 tonnes of poultry and 10,000 eggs. While the amount of vegetables tripled, the output of meat increased by 2 tonnes compared to 2016.

According to Vuong Tien Tao, head of the apprenticeship department, the new method of therapy has significantly supplemented medicines, helping the patients to recover quickly and stabilise their speaking, hearing, holding and thinking capacities.

The patients attend the workshops during the day, which helps them sleep better at night. The cases of patients making a fuss at night have also reduced significantly. Some patients who have shown improvement have been taken back home by their families, he says.

Treating patients like family members

At present, the centre has 405 patients. All of them are treated with affection, dedication and patience by the centres staff.

Each of us consider our patients our family members, says doctor Nguyen Thi Minh Huong, vice director at the centre.

In the morning, they coordinate with the supervisors in instructing the patients to do morning exercises, wash their own clothes and have breakfast. The nurses have to constantly check every room to monitor any cases of sleeplessness or anxiety in the patients.

We have to study and select the most appropriate trades to teach the patients and at the same time, find enterprises that will agree to coordinate, Tao says.

The staff of the Apprenticeship Department have to learn the trades themselves to be able to instruct the medical workers, who then teach those to the patients.

Its not unusual that training the patients takes months. They need instructions at every step. Sometimes, the symptoms of their mental illness are manifested during the workshop, and they even attack nurses. In such a case, we have to intervene immediately, bring the patient back to the treatment room and administer medicines, Tao says.

To make the labour therapy most effective, new patients have their conditions thoroughly checked, based on which they are treated and taught appropriate skills.

Their workshop lasts for four hours twice a day, except Sunday.

Without patience and heart, no one can take over such job, Tao says. VNSProf Dr Trinh Van Minh of the Viet Nam National University, Ha Noi, who is president of the Regional Committee of Experts of lAgence Universitaire de la Francophonie (AUF) (Francophone Universities Association) in Asia Pacific, was given in March the Honour Award of the Group of Francophone Embassies, Delegations and Institutions in Viet Nam (GADIF) for his important contributions to the development of the French language, and the values of Francophonie.

The professor, who is author of a dozen books and about 30 scientific articles written in French and published in international and national magazines, speaks with Vuong Bach Lien on his love of the French language and his advice to young people seeking success in a globalised world.

Inner Sanctum: Congratulations on your recent award! Could you tell us how you felt on receiving the prize?

The award is an acknowledgment of my personal contribution to the development of the French language and the values of Francophonie. Over the last 40 years, Ive occupied different posts including Head of the French department at Hue University of Education, Head of the Faculty of Education Management at the University of Education, which is connected to the Viet Nam National University, and President of the Regional Committee of Experts of AUF in Asia Pacific. I was really happy and touched to be honoured with this award and being able to contribute my modest part to this collective work.

Inner Sanctum: After a career of 40 years working with the French language, could you explain your reasons for choosing this path?

Choosing to learn French and later studying the language was destiny for me, but at the same time, a challenge and an interesting experience while most other people choose to learn English.

The influence of past family members is often decisive in the choice of jobs children choose. My family is no exception. My father studied French during the French colonisation, so the fact that I studied at the French department of the University of Languages and International Studies was an important thing for my family. Afterwards, my children and grandchildren also learned French.

Another reason behind my love for the French language is that it is very interesting in terms of its strict structure and the rich cultural values that are conveyed through the words. Many literary classics and great philosophical works were written in French.

Inner Sanctum: For you, which song or book best reflects French culture?

People of my age had the opportunity to discover the French culture full of romanticism and humanism through literature we studied in school. Many masterpieces of French literature were translated into Vietnamese. Of which, I have been most impressed by the book Sans Famille (Nobodys Boy) by Hector Malot, in particular the messages behind the destinies of human beings.

In modern French literature, the work LEtranger (The Stranger) by Albert Camus also helped me discover the complexity in human personalities and questions of existence.

And the song that I love the most is Les Feuilles Mortes (Autumn Leaves) by Yves Montand.

Inner Sanctum: Could you tell us more about your work? And how do you find the time for all your pursuits?

At the moment, I dont take part in management work at the university anymore, I just conduct research and teach, as well as guide masters and PhD students.

I am also a member of the Scientific Council at the AUF (on a global level) and President of the Regional Committee of Experts of this association in Asia Pacific.

I give professional advice and evaluate the cooperation projects of AUF university members. Actually in Asia Pacific, AUF has 72 university members, most of them in Viet Nam.

And as President of the Orientation Council of the Asia-Pacific Regional Francophone Centre (CREFAP)  an affiliate of the International Organisation of Francophonie, I am a representative from Viet Nam contributing to build annual action plans, based on the educational and training needs of French language in each country.

In reality, I spend most of my time on teaching and research at the university. The activities with other francophone associations do not occupy much of my time, and moreover, they can complement each other. For example, my management work and teaching at the university gives me experience in the work of consulting and evaluating scientific activities in cooperation with the AUF.

Inner Sanctum: What special qualities are needed to do those jobs?

I think that to be passionate and responsible are two of the most important things.

Faced with changes in society, besides mastering a foreign language, we should have a lot of knowledge and competence to adapt to the demands of globalisation. In this context, foreign languages are considered a tool for work, because if we only consider foreign languages as the final target, we may not be able to find a job easily.

Moreover, in this culturally diverse world, the fact that we only master one foreign language will limit our communication, and our ability to gain knowledge and experience from others which are conveyed in different languages. Language and culture are closely associated. If you can master another foreign language, you have another tool to discover international diversity, which is very important to achieve balanced and sustainable development.

Inner Sanctum: Is this also your advice to young people?

Yes. Mastering several foreign languages will multiply your job opportunities and personal development. For those who have learned French or are thinking of learning it, they should be aware that if they start with French, and then continue to learn English, it will be much easier than if they start with English and continue to learn other languages.Although noodles are a staple ingredient in Asian cuisine, the popularity of such dishes are not limited to this part of the world. My Duyen reports on a HCM City restaurant that specialises in Thai, Korean, Japanese, Chinese and Vietnamese flavours.

In the heart of downtown HCM City, the Noodle Noodle restaurant lives up to its name as it offers a wide variety of tempting Asian noodle dishes all in one place.

Adjacent to the Times Square Building, Noodle Noodle is a two-story venue overlooking the broad Nguyen Hue Pedestrian Street.

The restaurants eye-pleasing decor helps to set the stage for a satisfying meal featuring classic noodle soups from Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Chinas Sichuan province, and Viet Nam.

With such a variety, however, it can be hard to choose. Should we have the Tonkotsu ramen from Japan or the kim chi BBQ pork noodle soup from South Korea, or the tom yum soup with seafood from Thailand? And what about the Hiyachi Udon from Japan or traditional Vietnamese pho with beef, chicken and seafood?

After perusing the menu, we decided that multiple visits were in order. But for now, we would settle on our favourites.

Kai Speth, vice president of operations and business performance of the WMC Group which manages Noodle Noodle, said: Theres universal appeal to a simple bowl of noodles, with each part of Asia giving its own unique twist.

To give diners more options, Noodle Noodle has designed a collection of 10 appetizers that are specialties of the region. We adults chose the hotter versions of dishes as my children balk at anything that is even remotely spicy.

I chose the chicken Zhong Qing-style (VN138,000) and spicy wanton with pork and vegetables (VN78,000), while my kids enjoyed the Chinese deep-fried prawns (VN78,000) and Gillet pork chop (VN68,000) for each dish.

But what a surprise! My dishes, although good, were even too spicy for me!

My kids, however, were crazy for the deep-fried prawns and pork chops, which had been recommended for those who like crispy foods. Coated with cassava powder, the prawns and pork were placed in a small wooden rectangular- shaped case that impressed my eight-year-old twins.

They crackle when I eat them, my son said, while my daughter thought they were tender and juicy.

To please my kids, I ordered Japanese pan-fried pork dumplings (VN68,000), and I tried them, too. We both liked the not-too-spicy dish.

It was the first time my daughter had tried the dish. It looks simple but its taste is irresistible, she said.by Le Hoai Nam

To meet Diem, his ex-wife, ong went to a refreshment stall on the side of a street. A few minutes later, she turned up in a black Camry. Getting out, at first glance she seemed greatly displeased with his casual clothes.

Youve come by bus, havent you? she asked him in a contemptuous voice. Pawned your motorbike? she went on.

Blushing with shame he replied, I needed the money to wire a building for lighting and high-tech gadgets. Ill get it back soon.

Hmm, at the age of fifty, with a degree in electrical engineering, you should be ashamed of yourself for having pawned your terrible motorbike, she mocked him.

Its not a big deal, Ill be sorted soon.

Really? What did you want to see me for then? Not for money, eh?

Certainly not! Have I ever borrowed anything from you?

Dont beat around the bush, please. I havent got much time to waste here.

After a moment of hesitation, he put forward a proposal. Diem, I beg you for a favour. Can you take care of Thuy Phuong, our poor daughter, instead of me for a short time? he asked.

She was greatly surprised at first and then refused point-blank.

My husband doesnt want involved in my past while were leading a happy life. If the kid stays with us, our life would change dramatically, she said.

ong felt totally confounded. He tried to convince her once again.

By the end of this year, Ill sign a few business contracts, he explained to her. Right now, I have to focus on getting paid. As for our daughter, she needs love and the care of a female very much. Therefore, I beg you for a favour, this one only, for a period of three months at most. Before Tet, when I finish work, please look after her, he entreated.

Youre always the root of my bad luck and despair, she groaned. Just go home, will you. Ill explain the problem to my husband, I need to talk to him before answering you. Ill ring you up later, she concluded.

Standing up, he jotted down his phone number on a piece of paper then gave it to her. Thanks anyway, he said before leaving for the bus stop.

* * *

Some ten years ago, the married couple enjoyed a happy life in a little house in a narrow alley purchased with ongs honestly-earned income in a friendly community. She took pride in his good behaviour: dedicated to family and responsible to society.

* * *

In his late teens, he was enlisted into a frontier guard unit. Seven years later, after being demobilised he enrolled into the Hanoi University of Technology. After completing a three-year course of electrical engineering, he left the institution to join a team installing a 500 kv high-voltage line along the Truong Son. Finishing the task, he was appointed as bureau chief in a company in Hai Phong. While the path to glory was still ahead, he returned home looking sad one day.

Ive given up the position of bureau chief, he told Diem.

Why? she asked anxiously.

I cant hack the pace. So, Ive yielded my post to a younger engineer.

What a crazy man! While your job is coveted by many, youve quit it, she exclaimed angrily. Remember that you promised never to leave me in despair or penury. Are you still a man of honour?

Frankly speaking, my health is getting worse and worse. I want a more suitable job, answered ong. As a result, from a power bureau chief of the city he became head of a group of technicians of a company with a lower wage, leaving home early in the morning on a bone-shaking motorbike with a set of tools in a plastic box.

What a good-for-nothing guy! she lamented.

Diem gave birth to a premature baby girl, whom she named Thuy Phuong. The little one had been fed in an incubator for nearly a year. When Diem was told by her doctor that her daughter suffered from a congenital heart defect, she accused her husband of not providing her with enough nutritious food to birth a normal baby.

At the age of two, Thuy Phuong, with her clumsy stature, could not move comfortably like other toddlers.

Poor her! Just an ailing kitten! Diem blurted out.

To compensate for her defects, I hope that what she does have is perfect, including her name, ong told her.

You told me the day you set up a high-voltage power line over the Truong Son Range, you were contaminated by Agent Orange. Because of that, our kid is mentally handicapped, she said to him. But why havent you lodged a compensation claim to the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs?

For a non-commissioned officer like me, I would be rejected. As a lawyer, you know Im right.

* * *

Greatly discontent with her husbands submissive attitude, Diem was often engrossed in her work while she let Thuy Phuong crawl about the house. The little girl was once found picking up ants to put into her mouth. At the sight of her indifferent behaviour, ong criticised her as a heartless woman.

As a barrister in a private law firm, with a meagre salary, Im writing and doing my best to make both ends meet, she replied. You should send the kid to an orphanage, she added.

No, never. How cruel you are! Ill try my best to bring her up at home even if I have to sell my blood for her, he objected.

My life in penury is unbearable. I want a divorce. Youd better let me go, she told him.

Im not happy about it, he said. But if you really feel so forlorn while living with me and little Thuy Phuong, Ill not stand in your way.

* * *

The next day Diem made a phone call to ong to inform him her husband had agreed to let the child stay at her place for a little while.

ong led her daughter to the bus station to come to the same refreshment stall on the street they had met on the previous day. In her early teens, she remained slim and weak, quite different from other urban children of her age. Finding Diem getting out of the luxury car and approaching the stall, the kid hid herself behind her father with an embarrassed look.

Thats your mother, he said, pointing at the approaching woman. Dont be so upset.

Taking a glance at the little girl with a pale face and bad mood, Diem greeted both of them coldly.

How does she do at school? she asked him.

In her primary classes, she scored rather low. In the secondary junior school, she performed much better.

What else can she do?

She knows how to have a bath and wash her clothes, he answered. Whenever I prepare a meal, she usually follows me into the kitchen to practise cooking, yet shes still very clumsy. She likes music as well. When Im away from home, I put her under the care of a neighbouring teacher with her music lessons on the electric organ in the hope that she doesnt feel alone when Im out.

I pity on both of you. But the more piteous I feel, the sulkier I become. You arent a fashionable man at all, she remarked. In comparison with you, although my husband Beu didnt get a PhD degree with honours in arts hes much more practical than you. Each year, working out just a few research works we can lead a life of plenty, provided they are endorsed. When she stays with us, Ill let our little Dim play the piano for her to practise further, not a cheap electric organ, she went on.

Clearly, you belong to an upper class family. Anyhow, thank you for helping, ong said then he urged Thuy Phuong, Go to your mum, my dear. I must go to work now. Although she burst out crying, she reluctantly got into the vehicle with Diem. He waved goodbye to both of them then took a bus to his workplace.

* * *

Diems magnificent mansion was situated near a newly-opened road. Thuy Phuong lived in a self-contained well-furnished room. She was admitted into a junior high school nearby. Every day, she went to school and walked home. At home, on the first days when she stayed there with Dim who usually cast a curious glance at her, she felt rather uneasy. As for Mr Beu, he often watched TV from the sofa as if the newcomer was just a weird creature from an alien planet. He sometimes talked to her in jerky but bossy voice. One day, he explained to her about the universe, moral philosophy and economic notions like the negation of negations, surplus and its value, and so on. All were beyond her realm of knowledge. She just nodded her head for appearances sake.

Diem began achieving some success in writing. Each time, when a story of hers came out, she brought home two issues: one for her husband and the other for Thuy Phuong. Read to improve your knowledge about life, she told her. At first Thuy Phuong read them with enthusiasm, then the more she read them, the more she found them boring.

Why dont you like them? Diem asked her.

Perhaps theyre too sublime for me to get, replied the girl. Yet, why dont you write easy-to-understand tales such as HC Andersens The Steadfast Tin Soldier, The Little Match Girl, The Emperors New Clothes or The Little Mermaid and Brothers Grimms fairy tales like Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood and so on.

Now they are all outdated, my little child, she replied.

My teacher says theyre classics, mum.

Let them be! I write for the intellectual circle to enjoy. Sooner or later, they will be warmly welcome abroad.

Nonsense! Your books, if published, would soon be thrown into bins, Mr Beu mocked.

What about your work, darling? Not to mince matters; theyre rubbish! she retorted.

Whenever her mother and stepfather argued, the kid just stayed silent.

What interested her most was the orange Nokia mobile that ong bought her when they were apart. It was always in her pocket. Due to her poor pronunciation, she often used it to listen rather than to talk to him. Time and again, he sang for her.

In their lounge, there stood a brand new piano behind the sofa that a skinny music teacher in a big pair of glasses came to teach to Dim. In reality, she wasnt keen on music, she only practised the lessons given to her for a few minutes then she was engrossed in playing video games, much to the despair of the old instructor. Once Thuy Phuong was severely scolded by her mother when she tried to play with the keyboard.

It costs a huge amount, so its not a plaything for you to touch, she scolded the poor child.

The next morning, while listening to her fathers call, she just sobbed and sobbed, saying that Diems piano made her miss her music teacher very much.

Keep calm, my beloved daughter. Everything will be OK, he consoled her then sang a ditty to hush her cries.

During the first month after his departure, he almost rang her up every day. Then one month, two months and three months later, his calls became less and less frequent.

In despair, she gave up eating. She lay in bed for hours, skipping classes often, one after another, to the bewilderment of her mother.

When Tet was drawing near, everybody looked forward to its coming with great excitement. As for Thuy Phuong she only bore so gloomy a face that sometimes Diem reprimanded her severely.

Why do you look so sad? she asked her.

Oh no, nothing special mum! she replied shortly then walked away as if a huge burden was laying heavy in her heart. One night Diem woke up suddenly when she heard the music sounds of the piano echoing melodiously from the lounge. She slowly walked downstairs. To her amazement, Thuy Phuong was playing a charming piano piece. Chopins Grande Valse Brillante perhaps, she said to herself. She saw the little fingers graciously sweeping over the keyboard while the girl was humming.

How fantastic! she exclaimed softly. Suddenly, she remembered that when she took the little girl home for the first time, ong told her that Thuy Phuong had been taught music by his neighbouring electric organ instructor for a long time. In her minds eye, she thought that he said it only to boast. Therefore, she paid no attention at all.

Slowly and slightly she stepped toward the young pianist. It was there Diem silently enjoyed the wonderful piano piece together with her daughters clear singing as follows:Tonight I can hear the wind rustling through the tree leaves and the ditty sung by Dad with his angelic wings resounding to welcome me. My dear Dad, you are the sun, the earth, the river and the yellow rice fields spreading far and far away under sunshine.

As a natural instinct, Diem hugged her child tightly with great affection for the first time in her life.

My dear daughter, your father told me that you had been learning music from the electric organ, not the piano. However, you can play the piano so beautifully. Why is that?

Dear Mum, Dad only paid the fee for my organ lessons. But thanks to my teachers pity and love, she taught me how to play the piano as well, free of charge, replied her daughter.

Does your father know that you had free piano lessons from her too?

Oh no no, Mum! She forbade me to let him know so that he didnt have to pay more. If he had paid for my piano lessons too, in addition to the organ lessons, and if my teacher would have refused extra pay, Dad would have been greatly embarrassed.

Well, I see, I see! Being poor, yet he doesnt want to owe anything to anybody, she told her daughter. Whats the title of the song youve just sung?

It doesnt have a name, I wrote it because I miss Dad very much, thats all.

Saying so, she stopped playing then held her mothers hand tightly.

All of a sudden, she burst into tears.

Thuy Phuong, why have you cried so bitterly? she asked, looking at her face in tears.

Thuy Phuong took a piece of paper out of her pocket and gave it to her mother. She read it carefully. Her face gradually turned pale.

How long ago did you discover Dads lung cancer?

More than four months ago, Mum.

He told me that hed put his motorbike at a pawnshop for money to invest into some projects, hadnt he? she asked her daughter again.

Far from that, Mum! she shook her head. He sold it together with the wardrobe for money to get medicine, the poor girl spoke with a stammer.

Diem collapsed on the floor, heaving a deep sigh. Thuy Phuong stooped down to lift her up.

It seems to me that Dad passed right on the day he stopped calling me. Hes gone. He was blessed properly thanks to Gods mercy. Tomorrow Ill go away to look for his close kin.

Oh no no, theres no need for you to do so! Just stay here with me, she told her daughter with a passionate embrace. Early tomorrow morning, well set off to look for his grave. Its there well burn some joss sticks to pray for his rest in peace. VNS

Translated by Van MinhSINGAPORE  ASEAN must deliver more than just material prosperity for its citizens if it is to remain relevant in the next five decades, says former Foreign Minister of Indonesia Marty Natalegawa.

Addressing the second ASEAN Media Forum in Singapore on Friday, Dr Marty Natalegawa said, ASEAN must realise that people-centred ASEAN is not about material wellbeing but also political and governance conditions.

The Indonesian diplomat said that plans for ASEANs future should include reflections on what ASEAN achievements have been in the past. With that in mind, he reiterated the transformative changes that have taken place in the region.

In trying to extrapolate and display the future, we need to look at the past five decades to remind us of how many uncertainties there are ahead of us.

One transformative contribution by ASEAN he mentioned is that ASEAN has really transformed the nature of relations among Southeast Asian countries.

Five decades ago ASEAN were affected by conflicts, tensions and mistrust, and yet five decades later, thanks to ASEAN, we have an ASEAN community where the notion of open conflicts among ASEAN is now less likely than ever before, said Natalegawa.

But we must ask ourselves whether what has been sufficient for the next five decades would be sufficient for the next five decades.

He asserted that an outlook of business as usual by ASEAN was not good enough.

We now have an ASEAN with peace and stability in Southeast Asia , an ASEAN political security community but at the same time I see almost like a paradox of plenty.

We have many ASEAN instruments and frameworks but at the same time hesitance by ASEAN member countries themselves to actually make use of these instruments.

New state practices

ASEAN members must create new state practices to make use of modalities they have before them, he added.

He emphasised the need for ASEAN to renew trust, not only among each other but also in the instruments the group had created.

Otherwise, ASEAN would be known only for its capacity to constantly have plans, visions and programmes, he said.

The second transformative contribution by ASEAN that should inform planning for the next 50 years is how ASEAN has contributed to transforming the countries of Southeast Asia into a wider region with global influence.

Southeast Asian countries are largely owned by major countries, competitions, rivals in the region. Thanks to ASEAN efforts, the bloc has earned its centrality, said Natalegawa.

Nevertheless, he noted that besides the issue of competition between the US and China and its implications for ASEAN, there is also the issue of tension between India and China , China and Japan and the two Koreas , among many other dynamics.

The relevant question is so what? How can ASEAN actually navigate the situation?

Natalegawa reiterated that rather than just defining what ASEAN centrality means, as is usually seen in documents released by working groups and senior officials meetings, it was essential to deliver it.

You cant obtain reality simply by extrapolation and mantras, you have to deliver it. What we are still missing at the moment is an ASEAN concrete manifestation of its centrality, said the former foreign minister of Indonesia .

He was frank to say he was extremely disappointed that ASEAN had stayed silent on the issue of the Korean Peninsula .

When there was a threat of the long-range missile to reach Guam , which is not too far away from our region, we waited for summit for ministers to say a few words, he said.

Now we have developments in the peninsula, the best way we can say along the line is to ensure denuclearisation. This is potentially a game-changing moment, actually. Perfection is the enemy of the good, he said.

ASEAN must seize this, ASEAN must lock in this process. Dont wait until senior ministers meeting in July or the November summit.

Crisis management capacity

He added that the challenge for ASEAN in the future is for members to manage events domestically and regionally, and regionally and globally.

To that end, Natalegawa called for a better and more relevant crisis management capacity in ASEAN.

In any given year, things happen in the world without waiting for summits. So ASEAN must be a little bit more time sensitive, be seen to be proactive, and be seen as responsive.

To be relevant in the next five decades, the bloc must have the capacity to make a difference and develop a transformative outlook towards the wider region, he noted.

Leaders can actually lead and think of the way ahead. The decision to expand ASEAN from five to 10 members, to have the East Asia Summit, that was transformative. But we need to think outside of the box and be more transformative, even taking risks as a result.

There were certain moments in the development of ASEAN in which the bloc found it necessary to add more wealth and raise its ambitions.

For instance, in 2002 it was Singapore that introduced the ASEAN economic community; and then Indonesia with ASEAN political and security community; and the Philippines with a social and cultural community.

Natalegawa said ASEAN needed to demonstrate relevance beyond convening power to grapple and deal with the three critical issues of geopolitical shift, trust deficit and territorial disputes.

ASEAN has the capacity to convene meetings, but we need to be more than a meeting organiser. ASEAN must properly and concretely manifest what it wants of those meetings.  VNSIn the midst of celebrating LGBTQ Pride the U.S. Supreme Court rained on our virtual parade by ruling in favor of the Catholic Social Serv...Could not establish database connection.

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Jan 20 (18) Jan 19 (18) Jan 18 (26) Jan 17 (24) Jan 16 (23) Jan 15 (30) Jan 14 (20) Jan 13 (18) Jan 12 (24) Jan 11 (11) Jan 10 (23) Jan 09 (22) Jan 08 (17) Jan 07 (17) Jan 06 (9) Jan 05 (18) Jan 04 (15) Jan 03 (19) Jan 02 (14) Jan 01 (6) Dec 31 (12) Dec 30 (4) Dec 29 (15) Dec 28 (11) Dec 27 (7) Dec 26 (10) Dec 25 (16) Dec 24 (13) Dec 23 (16) Dec 22 (11) Dec 21 (26) Dec 20 (28) Dec 19 (14) Dec 18 (25) Dec 17 (23) Dec 16 (19) Dec 15 (22) Dec 14 (38) Dec 13 (26) Dec 12 (25) Dec 11 (27) Dec 10 (31) Dec 09 (15) Dec 08 (30) Dec 07 (31) Dec 06 (27) Dec 05 (38) Dec 04 (25) Dec 03 (27) Dec 02 (15) Dec 01 (36) Nov 30 (23) Nov 29 (17) Nov 28 (23) Nov 27 (13) Nov 26 (16) Nov 25 (14) Nov 24 (18) Nov 23 (21) Nov 22 (21) Nov 21 (24) Nov 20 (20) Nov 19 (23) Nov 18 (17) Nov 17 (17) Nov 16 (34) Nov 15 (25) Nov 14 (17) Nov 13 (21) Nov 12 (18) Nov 11 (9) Nov 10 (15) Nov 09 (9) Nov 08 (9) Nov 07 (12) Nov 06 (8) Nov 05 (4) Oct 29 (1) Oct 01 (1) Jul 29 (1) May 11 (1) Jul 11 (1)Yes, you can transfer your domain to any registrar or hosting company once you have purchased it. Since domain transfers are a manual process, it can take up to 5 days to transfer the domain.

Domains purchased with payment plans are not eligible to transfer until all payments have been made. Please remember that our 30-day money back guarantee is void once a domain has been transferred.

For transfer instructions to GoDaddy, please click here.The American military is recognizing that the cyber battlefield can be every bit as lethal as the traditional one. It can target systems from nuclear power plants to emergency responders -- certainly, a threat to our way of life -- as any device manufactured to kill soldiers, sailors, or marines, can bring down planes or sink ships. The question is whether we are doing enough, quickly enough, to counter the threat.

Fortunately, President Trump's reluctance to accept that Russia used the internet to interfere in our democratic processes does not seem to have restrained a willingness by the Pentagon to tackle the threat of cyberwar. It now has funded a joint cyber command on the level of every other uniformed force.

Recently, that level was put on display when every NATO nation had an opportunity to try out their capacities in a real live-fire exercise -- Operation Locked Shield, staged by the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defense Centre of Excellence, with its command center in the Baltic nation of Estonia. And while such exercises are held annually, this was the largest and most intricate ever mounted.

There were two teams. In the exercise, the Blue Team had to defend itself from the cyber attacks of the Red Team. The target was the fortified water plant supplying the fictitious Blue Team nation of a friendly ally, "Berylia," which had been experiencing sharply deteriorating security.

The Red Team, based in a larger, hostile but equally fictitious neighboring nation, not unlike Russia, has been on the move against Berylia. Red Team was throwing all it had in its cyber arsenal into a supreme effort to penetrate, seize and freeze the operations of the water treatment facility, crippling the ability of Berylians to respond to any ensuing attack by hostile forces from land or air.

Merle Maigre, the director of the center, told me in a phone interview that there were 22 cyber warfare teams from 21 NATO nations participating and a team from NATO itself defending Berylia.

In July 2016, cyber was added as a fourth domain of warfare, joining land, sea and air, which had been the alliance's focuses since its creation 69 years ago.

It was, as its organizers observed, "the largest and most complex international live-fire cyber defense exercise in the world." It included some 4,000 virtualized systems and 2,500 total attacks over two intense days, mounted out of a sprawling control room in the Tallinn headquarters of the Cyber Defense Centre.

The choice for the real-life location of this NATO center was hardly by chance, for Estonia, in 2007, was itself the target of the largest offensive cyber-attack ever mounted against a NATO member. Apparently originating in neighboring Russia, this massive attack disabled the websites of the Estonian government, political parties, newspapers, banks and many of the country's largest corporations -- all but paralyzing the tiny Baltic nation that was, until it won independence in 1991, a republic of the Soviet Union.

Since its formation in 2008, the NATO cyber center has been housed in a red brick building, at the heart of a 19th-century Russian czarist military compound. Its goal has been to make sure that another cyber invasion like the lethal 2007 event can never happen again. Hence, Operation Locked Shields.

"The goal of this exercise is to test and train the defense side, and the Red Team is providing fire to make the defense stronger," said Maigre. "What makes the exercise special is the focus on specialized systems, such as electricity, telecommunications, public utilities, which ultimately are all controlled by IT. But on top of that, we have married a strategic overlay, so within the Blue Teams there is also a layer of strategic decision makers -- policy experts, legal experts, strategic communications experts."

Acting together, the strategic thinkers and the technologists, determine the best defense, the best counter to the Red Team's attackers -- which include some of the best hackers in the NATO arsenal.

Indeed, hackers are not only the best offense but the best defense as well. One senior American air force officer, told me recently in a background briefing that some of American military's most adroit and accomplished cyber warriors come from the domestic community of young, cyber hackers who can do things for the US that they can't do, legally, anywhere else in the world.

The officer told a story about seeing a uniformed air force airman exiting a top-of-the-line Tesla at a roadside diner recently. When he approached the young man and asked him how he could afford that car on an airman's salary, the officer smiled and admitted that he was just a reservist. His day job was a high-level planning role at Google.

This is the type of individual that needs to be encouraged to enter military programs that can lead to victory in an operation like Locked Shields, or more critically on a real-life cyber battlefield of the future.

"The competition is a forcing function that drives collaboration and information exchange," explained Meghan Henderson, spokeswoman at US European Command. "We chose to partner with our Allies, specifically Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, in order to better exchange techniques and learn from one another."

Cyber warfare, as Locked Shields suggests, is an endeavor that draws strength from the cooperation of nations. It is multi-dimensional and highly expensive as well. And the United States has suddenly begun ramping up the resources devoted to cyber warfare.

The Defense Department budget devoted to cyber operations has grown 83% from 2014 through 2019, an annual rate of 12.8% a year, Dennis Murphy, senior research analyst for Jane's IHS Markit, told me in a phone interview. A Defense Department spokesman told me that this year, the first since sequestered spending has ended, US cyber defenses are budgeted at $8 billion. Jane's also estimates that the cyber mission force will hit 6,200 by the end of September, up more than 1,000 in the past year. But this must be only a beginning. After all, there are some 1.3 million active duty American military troops.

The US continues to recognize the multiplicity of potential cyber threats. It must not waver in this commitment. After all, a deft terrorist with a high-end laptop and the sensibilities of a determined hacker can wreak equal or greater havoc as one with a bomb.LOS ANGELES - A Los Angeles-based brand is selling jeans for $168 that leave very little to the imagination. Denim company Carmar debuted its "extreme cut out" jeans and people on social media couldn't believe how bare they are and wondered who would even buy them.

"Extreme Cut Out Pant is a high rise pant with large statement cutouts on front and back," says Carmar's website listing of the jeans.

The attention-grabbing trousers have a "relax fit" and a 10.5-inch front zipper  to cover up what's left to see.

After all, the company says, it caters to "the free-spirited generation of today."

If the jeans themselves aren't a deal breaker for you, maybe the price is. Ironically, the company is selling them for close to $200 despite the lack of fabric used to create them.

Carmar's Instagram page recently posted a photo with a model featuring the edgy jeans, with the caption: "The Extreme Cut Out Pant, for those who dare to bare." Users of the social media platform commented on the jeans, confused as to who would actually "dare to bare."

"You've got to be kidding me. Make them yourself people..." one Instagram user said.

"Good thing they have a zipper and a button at the crotch otherwise she'd be over exposed," said another.

"Who ever buys these jeans for $168 is out of their mind," said an astounded commenter.

Perhaps the novelty of the jeans combined with the bold fashion statement have struck a chord with consumers. Carmar's website says the jeans are sold out and is taking email requests to be added to the waiting list.

CBS News reached out to Carmar for comment.

WHAT OTHERS ARE CLICKING ON:SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A county judge is facing a recall election in a San Francisco Bay Area county after he sentenced a former Stanford University swimmer to a short jail sentence for sexual assault.

Political science professors say the June 5 election in Santa Clara County could signal the strength of the Me Too movement.

Judge Aaron Persky was targeted for recall after he sentenced then-sophomore Brock Turner to six months in jail in 2016 for sexually assaulting a woman incapacitated by alcohol.

Recall supporters argue that Persky takes sexual assault cases too lightly. The judge's supporters argue he was following the recommendation of the county's probation department and the sentence was legal.

The case is being seen as a harbinger of whether Me Too movement supporters turn out to vote.

(Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) - Justify crosses line first in Kentucky Derby.

At least one record was broken at the 144th Run for the Roses - and not one anyone will be celebrating.

The National Weather Service declared it the wettest Derby on record, and the rain is still coming down. The weather service tweeted that the official rainfall measurement stood at 2.83 inches at 6:10 p.m., about a half-hour before the big race.

Rain was still pouring, and the weather service expects it to taper off slowly through the evening. A flash flood warning was issued for areas within a few blocks of Churchill Downs. Puddles of ankle-deep were scattered around Churchill Downs, and the downpours sent Derby goers cowering for cover all day long.

The Courier-Journal reported that the rainfall Saturday edged out the previous record of 2.31 inches, which held for nearly a century since May 11, 1918.

The weather service also said it was the wettest May 5 in Louisville history.

___

6:20 p.m.

Justify is the social media and betting favorite to win the Kentucky Derby.

The unbeaten colt, which remained the 3-1 betting pick less than an hour before the 144th Derby despite the rain throughout the day and the track downgraded to sloppy, was the runaway choice on social media with 14,700 mentions, according to Talkwalker. The analytics firm measured data across social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook and found that users' opinions differed from the oddsmakers.

Justify had 3,400 more mentions than Bolt d'Oro (9-1), followed by Magnum Moon (11,000) and Mendelssohn (10,100), the site found. Those secondary choices differ from the early line, which listed Mendelssohn (5-1) second and Magnum Moon (6-1) third with My Boy Jack and Audible each at 8-1.

Audible had the fourth-most mentions on social media (8,500) while My Boy Jack was far back in 16th with 4,300.Posted 5/5/18

The Missouri Department of Economic Development rolled out a tool April 26 to help members of rural communities find and access the network of business and community development resources.The Turkey Cracks Down on Armenian, Assyrian, Greek Genocide Commemoration

The annual Armenian Genocide commemorative event that the Istanbul branch of Turkey's Human Rights Association (IHD) and the European Grassroots Antiracist Movement (EGAM) planned to hold on April 24 -- which they have been holding every year since 2005 -- was blocked by police, who seized the placards and banners about the genocide and carried out criminal record checks on participants. Three human rights activists were detained and then released. In an exclusive interview with Gatestone, Ayse Ghttps://www.aish.com/ho/i/Confronting-General-Eisenhower-Over-Allies-Refusal-to-Bomb-Auschwitz.html

In a direct and sharp rebuke, the Klausenberger Rebbe said the Americans and England shared in the guilt along with Hitler.

The Americans and England share in the guilt along with Hitler because they had the ability to bomb the railways leading to Auschwitz or the gas chambers.

That sharp rebuke was delivered by the Klausenberger Rebbe directly to General Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1945, according to the new Israeli documentary film, Astir Panai.

The Rebbe, his wife, and nine of their 11 children were deported to Auschwitz in 1944. Various accounts describe him as often going hungry because of his refusal to eat non-kosher food in the camp. He was transferred to a slave labor brigade in the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto, and then survived several death marches to sub-camps of Dachau before the Allies liberated the region at the end of April 1945.

The Rebbe ended up in Feldafing, a Displaced Persons camp established by the American occupation forces near Munich. The Rebbetzin and ten of their children had been murdered months earlier by the Nazis. Unknown to the Rebbe, their eldest son survived the Holocaust but died soon afterwards, in another DP camp nearby.

On Yom Kippur, in 1945, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europeand subsequently President of the United Statespaid a visit to Feldafing. In the documentary, Reb Moshe Reich describes what happened that day, based on what he heard from his father-in-law, Reb Yaakov Yitzchak (Horowitz) Barminka, a Sanz-Klausenberger chasid who was with the Rebbe both in Auschwitz and in Feldafing.

The DPs were deeply divided as to who should have the honor of greeting General Eisenhower and speaking at the welcoming ceremony, according to Reich. The Communists said they were entitled to the honor, because they [the Soviets] had liberated Auschwitz, he recalled. The Zionists said that they should have the honor, since they were building a state. As a compromise, they went to the Rebbe and said that he, as a holy man, should be the one to greet [Eisenhower]. But they said one thing to himthat he shouldnt speak as if he were giving a sermon, and he shouldnt recite the whole story of the Holocaust, but rather he should focus on revival.

A million Jews could have been saved If the Americans had intervened just a little bit earlier, it wouldnt have happened.

In the film, Reich continues: The Rebbe said nothing in response. Eisenhower arrived. As the Rebbe went to go up to the podium, he asked for a talis and he put it on. It was too late for anyone to do anything about that, because Eisenhower had already arrived. The Rebbe proceeded to speak about all the events of the Holocaust. The Rebbe said, The Americans and England share in the guilt along with Hitler, because the Americans knew, for at least several years [what was happening in the death camps]. And they had the ability to bomb the railway lines [leading to Auschwitz] and they could have bombed the places [where Jews were being murdered]. A million Jews could have been saved[including] all the Jews of Hungary. If the Americans had intervened just a little bit earlier, it wouldnt have happened.

The Rebbe spoke in Yiddish. A simultaneous translation into English was provided to General Eisenhower by Lieutenant Meyer Birnbaum, a young Orthodox Jewish soldier from Brooklyn who had been assigned to the American forces governing the DP camps. Lieutenant Birnbaum told me that Eisenhower had tears in his eyes when the Rebbe finished, Moshe Reich told Ami in an exclusive interview.

At the time, the Rebbe didnt know the details about the requests that had been made to the Allies to bomb Auschwitz, Reich noted to Ami. He spoke in general about the obvious fact that they were bombing in the area and could have hit Auschwitz. But after the war, when the Rebbe remarried, he became close to Rav Michoel Dov Ber Weissmandl, who in fact made the shidduch, and both of them were now sons-in-law of Rav Shmuel David Ungar. Rav Weissmandl then told the Rebbe about the efforts to get the Americans to bomb Auschwitz, and the Rebbe mentioned the issue a number of times over the years to his chasidim.

Rav Weissmandl was part of a group of rescue activists in Czechoslovakia and Hungary who, in 1944, received detailed maps of Auschwitz from two escapees. The rabbi then sent numerous messages to Jewish leaders abroad and Allied diplomats, urging the bombing of the railway lines leading to Auschwitz, as well as the gas chambers and crematoria. His pleas were sent to senior Roosevelt administration officials, but they were rejected.

General Eisenhower asked the Rebbe afterwards if there was anything in particular he needed. He had one request.

According to Reich, General Eisenhower asked the Rebbe afterwards if there was anything in particular he needed. The Rebbe could have requested a visa to America, or all sorts of other things from him, Reich said. He had one requestSukkot was coming in four days, and they didnt have the arbaah minim (the four species). Eisenhower sent the arbaah minim for the Rebbe, and they arrived just before Yom Tov began.

The website of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum describes General Eisenhowers visit to Feldafing, but does not report what the Rebbe said. Yad Vashems website quotes excerpts from what it calls the Rebbes sermon on Yom Kippur, although it is not clear if the words it quotes came from the Rebbes address to Eisenhower, or from another drashah he gave on Yom Kippur. In any event, Yad Vashem likewise makes no mention of the Rebbes remarks about bombing.

The release of Astir Panai coincides with a new controversy over a staff historian at the US Holocaust Museum, who has suggested that the Roosevelt administration had good reason to refuse to bomb Auschwitz.

The historian, Dr. Rebecca Erbelding, told the Times of Israel on April 15: Im extremely cautious about saying that bombing the gas chambers would have saved a lot of lives [Bombing] would have killed a lot of people. There were about 100,000 people in Auschwitz [in 1944]. And so if the [US] had carpet-bombed the camp, most of the camp would have died.

Erbelding set up a straw man. In fact, a number of Jewish organizations urged the US government to bomb Auschwitz in 1944, and asked not for carpet bombing, but for precision strikes either on the gas chambers and crematoria, or on the railroad lines over which hundreds of thousands of Jews were deported to their deaths.

The Allies carried out a number of successful precision bombing raids in World War II, including an attack on a rocket factory in the Buchenwald concentration camp. The planes hit the factory, but avoided striking the prisoners barracks. In another famous precision raid, British planes swooped low over a German prison in Amiens, France, and bombed the guard tower and outer walls, so that hundreds of prisoners could escape.

Erbelding is the one of the curators of a controversial exhibit opening this week at the US Holocaust Museum, titled American Responses to the Holocaust. It presents a revisionist view of President Franklin D. Roosevelts response to the Nazi genocide, claiming there was very little the Roosevelt administration could have done to rescue Jews.

But historians who have studied the question of bombing the camps or railways have pointed out that American planes flew over Auschwitz on a number of occasions in the summer and fall of 1944, when they were bombing German oil factories that were less than five miles from the gas chambers. Therefore, it would have been entirely feasible for them to strike the gas chambers or the railways. Since 12,000 Jews were being gassed daily, even a brief disruption of the mass-murder process would have saved many lives.

It seems the Klausenberger Rebbe agreed.

This article is reprinted with permission from Ami magazine.https://www.aish.com/jw/s/5-Signs-You-Need-to-Take-a-Fresh-Look-at-Judaism.html

So many Jews, myself included, stopped their Jewish education when they were kids and never examined the depth of Judaism through adult eyes.

A recent survey found that fully 62% of American Jews feel that being Jewish is merely an accident of birth. For so many of us, Judaism isnt where we look for answers to lifes big questions.

And thats a shame, because Judaism is chock-full of wisdom and insights for creating a meaningful, joyous life. But so many Jews, myself included, stopped advancing their Jewish education when they were children and never examined the depth of Jewish wisdom through adult eyes.

Here are five signs that it might be time to take a fresh look at Judaism as an adult.

1. You think Judaism is all about guilt.

Judaism gets a bad rap when it comes to guilt. Many Jews think our religion is one long guilt trip, replete with beating ourselves up and feeling shame. Perhaps its because Yom Kippur is one of the most-observed holidays among Jews that we mistakenly think Judaism is focused primarily on blame and fault.

Unlike some religions which regard people as innately sinful and bad, the Torah explains we each are created betzelem Elokim, in the image of the Divine (Genesis 1:26). We each contain a pure soul that reflects our celestial origins. Our essential core is good. What we do with this divine spark is up to us, but Judaism gives us infinite opportunities to grow and develop and to reinforce our connection with the Almighty. The Torah is our playbook, giving us tasks and guidelines that enable us to reach beyond ourselves, become more refine and connect to God.

When we make mistakes and come up short  which is guaranteed to happen  instead of fostering feelings of guilt, Judaism encourages us to pause, restock, and figure out how to do better. As King Solomon said, The righteous person falls seven times, and gets up (Proverbs 24:16). Recognize the mistake, get on track and move on.

2. You feel that Judaism doesnt speak to you personally.

A friend recently told me that her strongest feelings about being Jewish stemmed from the Holocaust and pride in the modern day state of Israel. Both of these issues are crucially important to the identity of modern Jews, but I asked her, Do you relate to Judaism personally? Does being Jewish affect your day-to-life? Your relationship with God?

These questions elicited a confused shrug.

Judaism is replete with meaningful mitzvahs that have the power to transform us, turning us into more spiritual beings. Each time we enjoy a delicious Shabbat dinner, were not only taking our place in a chain of countless generations of Jews who have done the same, were deepening our connection with the Divine. When we give tzedakah, perform acts of kindness, celebrate Jewish holidays, and put Jewish teachings into practice we are connecting to eternal truths and spiritual principles that stem from a transcendent, Infinite dimension that brings out our inner potential, elevating us and the world.

Being Jewish isnt only about Jewish history; its a vehicle for transforming our very souls as well.

3. You think there are no female Jewish role models.

I grew up hearing this and it took me years to learn that in fact many of Judaisms central role models are women. In our darkest time during slavery in Egypt, it was women who kept the Jewish people going, never losing hope that days would get better and would triumph, and refusing to give in to despair. Later, when the Jews sinned at Mount Sinai by building an idol to worship, it was Jewish women who remained steadfast in their belief in God, and refused to take part. In every generation, Jewish women have sustained us, strengthening the Jewish body and nurturing the Jewish soul.

Indeed, our tradition teems with women who inspire and shape our religion. We model our behavior towards guests on the hospitality of our matriarch Sarah, and we model the way we pray on a Jewish woman in the Torah named Chana. Each Purim we read the story of Queen Esther who saved the Jewish people. On Shavuot, we recall Ruth, the ultimate model of choosing Judaism and accepting the Torah. On Chanukah, we celebrate two Jewish heroines, Judith and Chana, and each year we recall the military victory wrought by Yael. From their ancient times to now, Jewish women have been a key part of our history, nurturing and guiding and inspiring us all.

4. You believe that Judaism has little to say about lifes pressing issues.

Growing up, I thought that the Talmud was archaic and irrelevant. So I wasnt sure what to expect when I sent my kids to a Jewish school and they took Talmud. Well, it didnt take long for my son to put what he was learning into practice. One day he found a $5 bill on the sidewalk and picked it up, exclaiming I know what to do with this! Hed been learning the Talmudic chapter on how to treat lost property and was thrilled to put the Jewish laws to use, asking neighbors if theyd lost any money and not resting until hed found the bills rightful owner.

The Talmud is an encyclopedic work that addresses every topic under the sun sharing its timeless wisdom on issues such as property rights, environmentalism, the ethical treatment of animals, settling disputes, treating people with respect, behavior in times of peace and conflict, and countless other real-world dilemmas.

From ancient insights from King Solomon to modern day thinkers, Judaism is teeming with knowledge that addresses myriad issues we face every day.

But only if we make an effort to learn it.

5. You think the synagogue is where Judaism takes place.

When I was a child, just about everything we did that was Jewish was performed in the synagogue, from praying and eating kosher foods to socializing with other Jews and learning things about our religion. Very few of those activities had a place in our regular, day-to-day life. It was only once I learned more about Judaism that I realized that for thousands of years the Jewish home has been the center of Jewish life.

My first glimpse of this was during my first visit to Israel when I arranged to have Shabbat lunch with a local Orthodox Jewish family. I arrived at their house and was surprised to find the mom sitting quietly studying Torah until her guests arrived. Id never seen anyone study Jewish texts outside of a synagogue class before. Shabbat lunch was leisurely: slowly, over sumptuous food, we sang Shabbat songs, discussed religious topics, listened to the familys children talk about the weeks Torah portion, and chatted. Hours later, when lunch was finally over, it knew that was the sort of home I longed to build: a place where Jewish holidays and Shabbat are celebrated, a place where guests are welcomed and where Jewish values permeate the very air.

In Hebrew, the Jewish home is referred to as a Mikdash Meat  a mini Temple that each of us has the power to create. Its a place where we instill Jewish values in the next generation, where we teach and learn, and where we watch with pride as Judaism is lived and performed.Meet some of the last remaining Jews in Ethiopia who are yearning to come home to Israel.

The last remaining 8000 Jews of Ethiopia are longing to finally return home to Israel. Even though they have been there for over 20 centuries, their faith has grown deeper and their longing to return home has only gotten stronger.

They pray the same prayers the Jews pray around the world, they keep Shabbat, observe family purity laws, and eat only kosher.

And they live in unbearable poverty. One family will live in a mud room with no running water, bathroom, or power. The average salary is about $3 for a full days work, and they are far away from any conventional medicine.

At the same time, they walk around with big smiles on their face, happy and satisfied. And you will hear one mantra over and over: This year in Jerusalem, Beezrat Hashem"

Israel has already made a decision to bring them all back to Israel, but it is been on hold for a couple of years now because of bureaucracy and budget issues.

Transfer balls: Mahrez to Arsenal is clickbait

The BBC says Leicester forward Riyad Mahrez is keen to join Arsenal. The 27-year-old Algerian is on his way to the Emirates, says the Sunday Express in what it hails as a transfer exclusive.

The story contains not a single new fact. But we do learn that Express Sport understands Mahrez favours a move to Arsenal. Apparently, Mahrez has a house in the capital and would prefer a switch there over a move to Manchester. So not withstanding Mahrezs shock realisation that people live in houses in Manchester and, unlike in London, anyone on a mere 100,000-a-week can afford one, Arsenal it is, then.

Maybe. Because the Express also understands, Tottenham and Chelsea remain alternative options, to say nothing of West Ham, Crystal Palace and Watford, which the Express doesnt.

Of course, this guesswork is based on previous reports linking Mahrez to Arsenal. You might have read them in the Express:

Not that the Express is the only newspaper to have told us that Mahrez to Arsenal was a done deal:

Mahrez to Arsenal it is, then

Mike Kritharis

Posted: 6th, May 2018 | In: Arsenal, Back pages, News, Sports, Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | PermalinkThat makes it impossible for city officials to aim scarce resources at the most problematic owners. And it makes it hard for researchers to know, for example, if property has become concentrated among fewer owners.

Because the stakes are so high and the spillovers significant, there has always been a public element to private property, said Susan Pace Hamill, a law professor at the University of Alabama who has written about L.L.C.s since the late 1980s.

Should tenants have a right to know who theyre renting from? she said. Should cities have a right to know who owns the property? The answer is a resounding yes.

L.L.C.s today hide what should be public information, she argues.

I am quite disturbed by that, she said. Having participated in the evolution of L.L.C.s from their early days, I feel like theyre being abused.

Wyoming passed the first L.L.C. statute in 1977 at the prodding of oil and gas interests, creating an entity with the liability protections of a corporation without the tax responsibilities of one. Hardly anyone took advantage of the tool, and few states followed until the I.R.S. blessed L.L.C.s a decade later. They then quickly became the entity of choice for all kinds of businesses, and by the mid-1990s, all 50 states had L.L.C. laws.

In Milwaukee, according to research by a Harvard doctoral student, Adam Travis, L.L.C.s have grown to about a quarter of the rental market in the two decades since they became legal in the state.

The original idea was never specifically about real estate, and anonymity wasnt particularly the appeal. But over time, Ms. Hamill said, state laws have made it easier to conceal whos behind L.L.C.s. So they have simultaneously grown more common and less transparent.The campaign will be run on TV, radio and the social media in a big way.

Lucknow: The Yogi Adityanath government has decided to make superstar Amitabh Bachchan the brand ambassador of the Kumbh Mela 2019.

The state government feels that Bachchan would be a perfect brand ambassador for the Kumbh Mela since he not only has a global appeal but also belongs to Allahabad where the Kumbh Mela will be held.

The success of the Gujarat tourism campaign with the tag line Kuchh din to guzaro Gujarat mein with Mr Bachchan is an example of his immense appeal. As brand ambassador for the Kumbh Mela, Bachchan will strike an emotional chord since he belongs to the city. A team of officials will soon be meeting the superstar to request him to be a part of the campaign, said a government spokesman.

The campaign will be run on TV, radio and the social media in a big way.

The Yogi Adityanath government wants to promote the Kumbh Mela as an international event and attract foreign and domestic tourists in large numbers.

The Modi government has already assured all help to the state government in making the Kumbh Mela an unforgettable event.

According to mela officer Vijay Karan Anand, the state government is also ensuring a special train to bring participants of the Pravasi Bhartiya Diwas 2019, which is to be held in Varanasi, to the Kumbh Mela in Allahabad.Earlier this week, a clash broke out between students of the AMU and the police over the matter.

The controversy surrounding Jinnah's poster triggered after the BJP Aligarh MP Satish Gautam wrote a letter to AMU's vice-chancellor seeking an explanation on the portrait of Pakistan's founder in the students' union office. (Photo: ANI)

Lucknow: Muslim organisations on Saturday burnt 'anti-Jinnah' posters outside BJP office in Lucknow in protest against the portrait of Muhammad Ali Jinnah in Aligarh Muslim University.

The police seized an effigy of Jinnah from them.

Earlier this week, a clash broke out between students of the AMU and the police over the matter.

Internet services were also suspended in Aligarh to prevent the communal flare-up over the issue.

The controversy surrounding Jinnah's poster triggered after Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Aligarh MP Satish Gautam wrote a letter to AMU's vice-chancellor seeking an explanation on the portrait of Pakistan's founder in the students' union office.

The portrait of Jinnah has been hanging on a wall in the students union office at AMU for decades.The circular asking Dalits to submit notice 3 days prior to the wedding if they need protection, was done to maintain law and order.

The circular asking Dalits to submit notice three days before their wedding if they need protection, was a preventive action to maintain law and order. (Photo: Representational)

Ujjain: Authorities of a town in Madhya Pradesh's Ujjain district withdrew an order on Saturday that had asked functionaries of village panchayats to intimate the police about any weddings in Dalit families three days in advance.

The order, issued on April 16 in Mahidpur town, 244km from Bhopal, came two days after a wedding procession of a Dalit groom was allegedly stopped by upper-caste men.

The man belonged to the Scheduled Caste Balai community, said an official. In the order, the sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) of Mahidpur, Jagdish Gome, had directed the secretaries of all village panchayats within his jurisdiction to inform the police three days in advance about any weddings being organised by families belonging to the Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Other Backward Castes (OBCs).

The order stated that these village panchayat secretaries were to immediately inform the local police station in-charge, in writing, by post or on the official WhatsApp group.

"The order issued by the SDM has been revoked with immediate effect," District Collector Manish Singh said on Saturday. The Mahidpur SDM said the order was issued as a "precautionary measure", following the incident on the night of April 14, which incidentally happens to be Ambedkar Jayanti.

Leader of Opposition in the state Assembly, Ajay Singh, however, termed the order a "blot" on social harmony. "Dalits are being disrespected in a planned way across the state. The order issued by the district administration in Ujjain is a blot on the social harmony of the state," Singh said.

The senior Congress leader also pointed to a recent incident, which occurred in MP's Dhar district, in which police aspirants have had their caste categories marked on their chests during a medical examination.The five terrorists gunned down include Kashmir university professor and top Hizbul Mujahideen commander Saddam Padder.

The encounter broke out after security forces launched cordon and search operation in Badigam village in Zainapora area. (Photo: ANI)

Srinagar: All the five militants trapped inside a house after the security forces launched a cordon and search operation in a village of Jammu and Kashmirs southern Shopian district on Sunday morning have been killed in a gunfight with the latter. Two security personnel were injured in the clash, the police said.

As the militant killings sparked off widespread protests during which the crowd turned violent at various places across south Kashmir, five civilians are also reported to have died in these clashes with the security forces.

Top Hizbul Mujahideen commander Saddam Padder, and University assistant professor are among the five militants killed in the encounter. The rest of the militants are believed to be Padder's close associates Tawseef Sheikh, Bilal Moulvi and Adil Ahmad. However, their identities are yet to be ascertained.

Padder was an aide of Hizbuls popular commander Burhan Wani whose death in July 2016 had sparked off widespread disturbances in Kashmir Valley and parts of Jammu region.

Dr Bhat, a lecturer of the Department of Sociology at Kashmir University, went missing from his Srinagar accommodation a few days ago. All efforts to trace him by the University authorities, the police and his family had failed.

Saddam Padder was an aide of Hizbuls popular commander Burhan Wani whose death in July 2016 had sparked off widespread disturbances in Kashmir Valley and parts of Jammu region. (Photo: File)

Shopian police stated that when they learned about Dr Bhat being one of the terrorists trapped, his family was called to persuade him to surrender. However, these efforts did not yield any results.

Inspector General of Police (Kashmir range) SP Pani said that efforts made by the security forces officials to persuade the holed up militants to surrender failed.

We made repeated appeals to them through public address system to surrender. We even brought their families to the encounter site to persuade them but to no avail, he said.

SSP Shopian Shailendra Mishra had said earlier, We appealed to them to surrender but continuous firing from inside is underway, cannot confirm the number of terrorists yet.

The clash at Badigam, Shopian comes a day after the security forces killed three Lashkar-e-Taiba militants in an encounter in Srinagars Chattabal area. A local youth was also killed when hit by a police bunker vehicle during a stone-pelting incident at nearby Noor Bagh.

The killings sparked off widespread protests across J&Ks summer capital where a complete shutdown is being observed on Sunday to mourn and protest the killings.

The police giving the details of the latest encounter between the militants and security forces said that the Armys 44 Rashtriya Rifles (RR), J&K polices counter-insurgency Special Operations Group (SOG) and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) laid siege to Badigam early on Sunday following inputs about the presence of militants.

As a firefight began between the reinforcements from Armys 23 Para Commandos, 34 RR, and 3 RR, the CRPF, and SOG were rushed to take on the heavily equipped terrorists.

The firefight has ended and the bodies of the militants along with several assault rifles and other weapons and warlike stores have been recovered from the encounter site, a police spokesman said here.

He added that one SOG man Anil Kumar and an Army jawan belonging to 44 RR were injured during the clash.

Soon after the encounter started, a huge crowd assembled in the area and subsequent clashes with the security forces began, a report from Shopian said.

One of the critically injured persons identified as 21-year-old Asif Ahmad Mir died in a Srinagar hospital. He had received a bullet wound in his head, the hospital sources said. Four other people have received pellet injuries in legs, sources said.

Another protester identified as Zubair Ahmad, a resident of Rajpora area of Pulwama, was killed in security forces firing at Nagbal (Shopian).

Reports said that the Army opened fire on stone-pelters at Nagbal when a small convoy of it carrying the bodies of slain militants was moving towards Zainapora police station of Shopian.

Yet another civilian Nasir Ahmad Kumhar was also injured in clashes and died in Srinagars SMHS Hospital, sources said. The two other civilians killed in security forces actions have been identified as Sajad Ahmed Rather, a resident of Verinag, Dooru in Anantnag district and Adil Ahmed, a resident of Mahigund Ashmuji village of Kulgam.Acting on information about the presence of militants in Zainapora area, security forces had launched a cordon and search operation.

Srinagar: Four terrorists have been killed in an ongoing encounter at Badigam area of Shopian district. An encounter broke out on Sunday between security forces and militants in Jammu and Kashmir's Shopian district, police said.

Acting on specific information about the presence of militants in Badigam village in Zainapora area of the south Kashmir district, security forces launched a cordon and search operation there on Sunday morning, a police official said.

"The search operation turned into an encounter after the hiding militants fired upon the forces, which was retaliated," the official said. "The gunfight is still on," he said, adding that further details were awaited.

Two security personnel have sustained injuries in the ongoing encounter.

"We appealed to them (terrorists) to surrender but continuous firing from inside is underway, cannot confirm the number of terrorists yet," said Shailendra Mishra, SSP, Shopian.Their bodies were found by near a mosque at Raheem Dar Mohalla, Shahgund, the official said.

J&K Chief minister Mehbooba Mufti has condemned the killing of three civilians in Bandipore and Baramulla districts. (Photo: AP)

Srinagar: Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT) militants abducted and later shot dead two persons in Bandipora district of Jammu and Kashmir, police said on Saturday. Another civilian was killed by militants in Baramulla district and a special police officer injured in Pulwama in separate incidents.

The militants barged into the houses of Ghulam Hassan Dar alias Hassan Rassa, 45, and his relative Bashir Ahmad Dar, 26,  both residents of Gulshan Mohalla, Shahgund Hajin in north Kashmirs Bandipora district  on Friday night and abducted them, a police official said.

At about 3.30 am on Saturday, the militants shot both of them dead, he said.

Their bodies were found by near a mosque at Raheem Dar Mohalla, Shahgund, the official said.

In a separate incident in Baramulla district, Mohammad Ashraf Mir, 35, a driver, was shot dead and his wife, Saima, 32, injured at Harwan in Sopore by militants who entered into their house on Thursday night.

Mir, who was hit by a bullet in the chest, succumbed to his injuries on Friday, said a police spokesman.

Saima, who was shot in both the legs, was taken to Srinagar for treatment, police said.

In southern Pulwama, militants shot at and critically wounded special police officer (SPO) Showkat Ahmed Dar near a filling station in Rahmoo area of the district on Saturday.

Chief minister Mehbooba Mufti has condemned the killing of three civilians in Bandipore and Baramulla districts.PM predicts big win; Cong says corruption BJPs weakest point.

Tumakuru (Karnataka): Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday stepped up the attack on the Congress and the JD(S) claiming that H.D. Deve Gowdas party has entered into a secret pact with th Congress for the Karnataka Assembly polls.

Predicting a handsome victory for the BJP, Mr Modi said, When the results for the Karnataka elections are out on May 15, then it will not be an Indian National Congress. It will become PPP Congress.

That means Punjab, Puducherry, Parivar Congress, he said.

Karnataka is one of the only four states ruled by the Congress. The other three are Punjab, Puducherry and Mizoram.

As the Prime Minister heli-hopped across the state, addressing four rallies and raising issues ranging from corruption to development, chief ministers Siddaramaiahs twitter account rang with rebuttals and rejoinders.

Heard you spun a new abbreviation PPP today. Sir, we have always championed the 3 Ps of democracy  Of the People, By the People, For the People. While your party is a Prison, Price Rise & Pakoda party. Am I right, Sir? the chief minister tweeted.

While Mr Modi targeted the Congress over corruption and dynastic politics, he hit out at the JD(S) for entering into a secret understanding with the Congress.

Poll surveys, political pundits... Everyone is saying the JD(S) cannot defeat the Congress. They cannot form government. If anyone can change the government in Karnataka, it is the BJP, he said.

If anyone is protecting the Congress, it is the JD(S)... Congress and JD(S) have a secret understanding... An understanding behind the curtains, said Mr Modi, who lavished praise on JD(S) patriarch and Mr Gowda only a few days ago.

The Prime Minister said that it was with the support of Mr Gowdas party that the Congress had its mayor in Bengaluru.

Mr Modi said the Congress, which ruled the country for decades, with one family in power for most part, neglected the poor and farmers.

Garibi, garibi, garibi (poverty, poverty, poverty) was their constant rant. But once the son of a poor mother became the prime minister, they clammed shut...Now they dont talk about poverty, he said.

He alleged the Congress was responsible for the backwardness of Tumakuru. The farmers, he said, were suffering because of the policies of successive Congress governments at the Centre and in the state.

Congress needs to be punished for ensuring Karnataka has a better future, Mr Modi said.

Responding to Mr Modi calling the Congress corrupt, Mr Siddaramaiah tweeted, So, now I need certificates from robber-barons? The BJP may be a washing machine, Karnataka is not.

Even if the CBI does not, we will punish the Reddy brothers and all those involved in the mining loot. SIT is already conducting investigations, said the combative chief minister.

On the Prime Ministers reference to the Mahadayi river water dispute, he tweeted, Dear Shri @narendramodi, Only the Prime Minister can intervene in Mahadayi when Goa CM does not agree for talks. Dear PM @narendramodiavare, I am glad you have made corruption an issue in this election because that is your weakest point. You are making baseless allegations of corruption against our government. Can you speak for five minutes on the ethics of using the Reddy Bros to win an election?In secret, behind locked gates, our Nation's Oldest City dumped a landfill in a lake (Old City Reservoir), while emitting sewage in our rivers and salt marsh. Organized citizens exposed and defeated pollution, racism and cronyism. We elected a new Mayor. We're transforming our City -- advanced citizenship. Ask questions. Make disclosures. Demand answers. Be involved. Expect democracy. Report and expose corruption. Smile! Help enact a St. Augustine National Park and Seashore. We shall overcome!The Karnataka Assembly elections are slated for May 12 and results will be out on May 15.

New Delhi: War of words intensified between Congress president Rahul Gandhi and Prime Minister Narendra Modi with a few days remaining for the high-stake Karnataka Assembly polls.

Mr Gandhi on Saturday dared Prime Minister Modi to speak for five minutes on BJPs tainted candidates, including its chief ministerial candidate B.S. Yeddyurappa. With just a week left for the 224-member Karnataka Assembly, both Congress and BJP have got into a war of words, challenging each other. BJP is making an all-out effort to oust the Congress government from the state.

You talk a lot. Problem is, your actions dont match your words. Heres a primer on your candidate selection in Karnataka. It plays like an episode of Karnatakas Most Wanted, said Rahul in a tweet.

Earlier Mr Modi had taken a dig at Mr Gandhi asking him to deliver a speech of five minutes without referring to his notes. So Mr. Gandhi attached a small video with his tweet the video says, Dear PM, Will you speak for 5 minutes on 8 tickets to the Reddy Brothers Gang? Making someone who has 23 cases of corruption, cheating, forgery, your CM candidate?When will you speak on your top 11 leaders facing corruption cases? the video says, carrying pictures and names of BJP leaders. The video further adds, Awaiting your reply! PS: You can refer to a paper for answers.

Mr Gandhis tweet is part of the Congress strategy to build its offensive against the BJP around the Reddy brothers. They represent a chunk of corruption allegations that mushroomed during the BJP government led by BS Yeddyurappa. The plan is to blunt the corruption charges that are being levied at the Congress by the top leadership of the BJP.

Mr Gandhi during his campaign in Gujarat Assembly elections last year had termed the GST as Gabbar Singh Tax, while in Karnataka he has also invoked other characters from the blockbuster film Sholay and said, The BJP is playing Sholay movie in Karnataka with a Gabbar Singh gang featuring the scam-tainted jailbirds of his party as Kalia and Samba, he said.

The Karnataka Assembly elections are slated for May 12 and results will be out on May 15.Removal of debris was reportedly done without maintaining any record.

Already suspicion has been aroused due to issues like expenses run up to serve tea to visitors as well as the huge number of rats killed at Mantralaya, says Dhananjay Munde. (Photo: File)

Mumbai: Senior National Congress Party leader Dhananjay Munde, on May 6, said that the removal of 900 tonnes of debris from the Mantralaya looked "suspicious" as it was reportedly done without maintaining any record.

Speaking to a news channel on May 6, Munde stated that he was going to follow it up, adding that there were several questions that the state government had to answer on the issue.

"I was surprised to see reports and documents stating that some 900 tonne debris had been shifted from Mantralaya and hardly any record has been kept of it. The details of what type of vehicles were used to transport it, the period when this debris was moved are also suspicious," Munde, the Leader of Opposition in the Maharashtra Legislative Council, said.

He asked the state government to answer his queries on who authorised this debris movement as well as the purpose behind it. "Who authorised the movement? For what purpose was it done? What was the activity that generated so much debris? The state government must have answers to these questions," Munde said.

He said that sloppy documentation of such issues at a place like the Mantralaya, which is the state's secretariat, was unacceptable.

"Already suspicion has been aroused due to issues like expenses run up to serve tea to visitors as well as the huge number of rats killed at Mantralaya," he said.

The NCP MLC said that he would demand all the documents pertaining to the debris movement and would raise the issue if discrepancies were found.A grand welcome gate decorated with national flags of Nepal and India as well as posters of Oli and Modi will also be installed near the venue.

Kathmandu: Kathmandus local governing body will hold a civic reception in honour of Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to Nepal this week.

Mr Modi is paying a two-day state visit to Nepal on May 11-12 at the invitation of his Nepalese counterpart K. P. Sharma Oli.

Kathmandu metropolitan city mayor Bidya Sundar Shakya will read out the letter of felicitation to be handed over to Mr Modi and hand over a symbolic key to him during the civic reception, according to deputy mayor Hariprabha Khadgi Shrestha.

Handing over a symbolic key has a historic and cultural importance, she said, adding Mr Oli will also attend the function.

KMC will also present a special gift to Mr Modi along with the letter of felicitation printed on traditional painting. The reception will be organised at City Hall here.

A grand welcome gate decorated with national flags of Nepal and India as well as posters of Oli and Modi will also be installed near the venue.

KMC has already started work for beautification of different places in the city ahead of Mr Modis visit. Some of the works being carried out by KMC include blacktopping major roads, painting city walls and planting new flowers and shrubs along major routes. Prior to his arrival in Kathmandu, Mr Modi will visit Janaki Temple in Janakpur.According to figures given out by the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, 97 per cent of all intercontinental data is carried via such cables

New Delhi: In order to harness the infotech potential of the Northeast and to make the region an IT hub, Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal has sought terrestrial cable-linking of the region with Bangladeshs Coxs Bazar rather than rely on the cable connectivity with Mumbai and Chennai.

The proposed move may hugely enhance Internet speed in the Northeast and allow more IT-enabled industries, including call centres, to be set up in the region, that already has a sizeable English-speaking population.

In an address during a meet on Act East policy held in the national capital on Friday, Mr Sonowal said: India has only two landing stations of the international submarine fibre-optic cable network, which are located at Mumbai and Chennai; both of which are far from Northeast India. On the other hand, due to geographical closeness, the northeastern region can have better access of the network from Cox Bazaar landing station in Bangladesh.

The Coxs Bazaar Internet gateway has already been accessed by Indias state-run BSNL but the bandwidth has not been brought to Assam and other northeastern states due to high rental costs.

If government of India can consider supporting BSNL in payment of rentals for initial few years, the region would be able to get the requisite high speed connectivity and bandwidth from Cox Bazar to become an IT hub, the CM added.

Traversing the sea bed, fibre-optic submarine communication cables carry telecommunication signals across continents, oceans and seas. Starting in the 1850s when the cables carried largely traffic for telegraph, and then progressing to telephony and data communications traffic, nowadays the fibre-optic cables carry digital data, which includes telephone, Internet and private data traffic.

According to figures given out by the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, 97 per cent of all intercontinental data is carried via such cables. At the beginning of 2018, there were about 450 submarine cables in service across the globe extending for more than 1.2 million km in total length.

While thousands of communication satellites are deployed in space, when it comes to Internet connectivity, cables are far more preferred than satellite links because space communications is time consuming and very costly as compared with latest fibre-optic submarine links that can transmit data at almost the speed of light.

Besides individuals and governments, users of fibre optic cable links include telecom carriers, mobile operators, multinational corporations, content providers etc.Prime Minister Narendra Modi further said the Congress had an eco-system of looting.

Raichur: Addressing his second rally on Sunday in poll-bound Karnataka, Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed confidence that the BJP will emerge victorious in the assembly election.

"There are many people who are sitting in AC rooms and saying that there will be a hung assembly. I want to tell them - Come here to Raichur and see the mood on the ground," PM Modi said at a rally in Raichur.

Hitting out at the Congress, the Prime Minister said, The Karnataka polls are about the future of the state. On one side, there is the BJP's development agenda and on the other side is the anti-development Congress.

Prime Minister Modi further lashed out the Siddaramaiah government for abusing him instead of giving an account of work the Congress has carried out for the state. The Karnataka Government must give an account of the work they have done for the people of the state. Instead all they do is- Modi, Modi, Modi. They just keep abusing me, he told the gathering.

Accusing the Congress for stalling Parliament proceedings, PM Modi said, Congress owes an explanation to the nation on why it is not letting Parliament function. Anti-Dalit and anti-OBC mindset of the Congress is the reason why the party is stalling Parliament and not allowing the creation of the OBC commission.

Prime Minister further said that the Congress had an eco-system of looting. Jan Dhan-Aadhaar and Mobile number (JAM) trinity of our government has stopped leakages. No wonder Congress is angry on me and abusing me. Congress is worried that if we come to power in Karnataka, they will face difficulty in looting the poor, he said.It stopped moving after two minutes and the doctor pulled out chunks of the bug in 20 seconds.

More bits were pulled out after which a specialist placed a microscope next to her face (Photo: Pixabay)

Feeling irritation in the ear may mean a lot of things but sometimes it can turn out to be something alarming. While tiny objects that end up in the ear can often be removed, at times the situation can be tricky.

Katie Holly from Florida felt something cold in her ear and decided to stick a cotton swab inside after assuming it was a piece of ice that slid inside. But then she felt something move and burrow its way deep in her ear.

When she pulled the swab out, she noticed brown bits that looked like eggs. The woman wrote that cockroaches had been a problem in her house and pest control measures had given temporary relief.

While Holly pulled out a couple of legs using tweezers, the insect had gone too deep in her ear canal. She was rushed to the hospital where a nurse injected the roach with anaesthetic to kill it as Holly noticed it was wriggling to avoid death.

It stopped moving after two minutes and the doctor pulled out chunks of the bug in 20 seconds as Holly went home with ear drops and antibiotics. But nine days later she still felt that her ear was numb and on flushing her ear four times, Hollys doctor saw another leg.

More bits were pulled out after which a specialist placed a microscope next to her face. This time the head, torso, limbs and antennae of a fully grown cockroach were pulled out of Hollys ear.

While it was shocking that much of the insect was inside for nine days, she didnt suffer any major damage or infection.The college also receives foreign officers from about 20 Asian & African friendly countries including, Bhutan, Nepal, Myanmar, Mozambique and Rwanda.

Gopalpur (Odisha): The Army Air Defence College, Gopalpur, has started training the Central paramilitary forces of the country on aerial threats. It recently conducted training for a batch of personnel of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), which is entrusted for protecting all airports.

Speaking to this newspaper, Lieutenant-general A.P. Singh, commandant of the military institute, informed that the ministry of home affairs recently took a decision for the CISFs training in view of threats from unmanned aerial vehicles, drones and war-copters. We have the capability to train them. So we conducted the training following a request from them, he said.

Lt. Gen. Singh elaborated, Our higher headquarters have given us the clearance. We discussed it with the chiefs of the CISF units, in rank of senior commandants, at the 20 airports including New Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai across the country. In February and March this year 20 CISF personnel underwent training here. It will follow as and when the government decides.

Giving details of the air defence courses he explained, At Gopalpur we train around 2,800-3,000 young recruits for the army air defence. As far as the commissioned officers from the National Defence Academy and Indian Military Academy are concerned, the figure is between 75 and 100. Four to five years later, the long air defence course is conducted for them for one year.

At present 39 courses of various types of different durations are conducted at the Army Air Defence College, Gopalpur. Lt Gen Singh noted, We are undergoing a major transformation as far as technological advancements and countering modern air threat ranging from unmanned drones to Beyond Visual Range engagements are concerned.

He added, New radars and missiles firing systems like Akash and Fly Catcher have been inducted and some others are in the pipeline. Men and officers are kept abreast of all the latest technologies in our arsenal through various compulsory and competitive courses besides regular firing exercises.

As the Army Air Defence Corps enters its 25th year of existence as an independent arm, Gopalpur Military station with its learning centres has emerged as a centre of excellence on all ground based air defence weapons and common training hub for all air defence warriors from the Air Force, Navy and CAPF also.

The college also receives foreign officers from about 20 Asian and African friendly countries including, Bhutan, Nepal, Myanmar, Mozambique and Rwanda.The CPI(M)s problem is that its stuck over the ethics of political economy that is acquisition, work, thrift, sobriety.

The sales of Karl Marxs large output of books have shot up after 2008. In 2018, he still sells; partly because it is his 200th birth anniversary and there are a slew of books, articles and weighty academic writings on the man who dissected capitalism, analysed the forces of history and arrived at the conclusion that a revolution of the working class was the best way to change things.

He wasnt the first to think many of these thoughts. He was the best, as the market continues to affirm his relevance. And China, where the Communist Party is flourishing as is its state-capitalist economy, is an affirmation that Marx, reinterpreted by Stalin, Mao Zedong, Deng Xioping and now Xi Jinping, is a puzzle that remains to be cracked. It can be argued that if China is the alternative economic superpower, with its far-flung links of trade, investment and assets from South America to Africa, from Asia to America and Europe, then Marx is not only relevant, but the idea of a Communist Party with all its ideological underpinnings is also relevant. This raises the question  why is it that in India, where the Communist movement began before 1920, its formal date of coming into existence in Tashkent, the party is struggling to be effective.

The reduction of the largest Communist Party in this country, the CPI(M), in terms of size and its influence in politics, confirms theres a crisis that it must deal with. The essence of being Communist cant be framed as angst  to be open to working, albeit at arms length with the Congress, or not to be. Nor can it be a promise to provide an alternative economic vision for lifting Indias poor out of poverty, reducing the ferocious inequalities where one per cent of people own 73 per cent of wealth, without spelling out what the CPI(M) thinks on the political economy, which Marx described as a natural result of the expansion of trade under which elementary, unscientific huckstering was replaced by a developed system of licensed fraud, an entire science of enrichment. The CPI(M)s problem is that its stuck over the ethics of political economy that is acquisition, work, thrift, sobriety. And, it has no solutions to the resulting tension between the real world and ethics, which was beautifully described by Marx as each sphere applies to me a different and opposite yardstick.

China has sorted it out and its qualms, whatever they are, about different and opposite yardstick(s). Ideology, as the CPC understands it, has not got in the way of producing dozens of billionaires, of whom six per cent are self-made women entrepreneurs, making it the best in its class in the world. However worried Xi Jinping may be about the internal dynamics of an economy that is strongly unequal, (in China, one per cent of households own 25 per cent of the wealth, according to a Beijing University study), the fact is that the income gap is getting larger and larger, as experts within China acknowledge.

Turning squeamish at the thought of being practical is fine, but only for a bunch of intellectuals with the wherewithal to support a life of activism and the privileges of living a life of the mind. The lakhs of people who voted for the CPI(M) in Kerala, Tripura and West Bengal need a successful party that offers an alternative development programme which can make them better off, protect their assets and allow them to invest in securing a comfortable future. That is what matters.

As a party committed to leading a peoples struggle within the parliamentary democratic system, the challenges to defining the alternative are much greater than it is for China, where the Communists successfully led a revolution and abolished the old order, nationalising everything, and then reworked the mission of the government and party. China unleashed the animal spirits of capitalism, turned its rural population into an army of migrant workers and now has reached the point where a debate is under way on whether China is establishing a new model of colonisation, through the One Belt, One Road idea, or is its model more palliative, but as ruthless as the system that ended in 1949.

To an average person, that is the vast majority who havent been anointed by the CPI(M) as bonafide cadres, China looks to have made its deal with the market, neo-liberalism and global capital. When the CPI(M) voices its opposition to neo-liberalism and questions the intentions of every political party except its own and its coalition Left partners, it really doesnt seem to have an alternative to offer. In 1957 in Kerala and again in 1977 in West Bengal, there were a slew of alternative policies and institutions that were established to implement these policies. In 1977, in West Bengal, the implementation of land reforms not only redistributed surplus land, but it also conferred on tenant farmers a legal right to cultivating the land. In 1978, it backed up these changes by putting in place a new institutional arrangement of three-tier panchayats as the first and nearest level of government. The CPI(M) government, which included men like the late Ashok Mitra, accepted there were limitations. But they found a way to push back on these limitations.

The same cant be said of the ideologically puritanical spirits who continue to challenge the choices that a CPI(M) government, working within the parliamentary system, in any state is bound to face: of how to deliver development or economic opportunities to a population that lives and works within a political economy that is an entirely developed system of scientific enrichment. The political dilemma of who is the bigger enemy  the BJP or the Congress  has two hinges for the CPI(M): the first is secularism, communal harmony and religious diversity; and the second is neo-liberal policies and business-trade with international finance capitalism and US neo-imperialism. The hesitations over who is politically kosher extends to the regional parties as well, turning the Communists into an isolationist force of declining attraction.The Supreme Courts judgment was just a catalyst that fired up the anger and frustration that had been accumulating for decades.

There is a growing unrest among the dalit community and the April 2 Bharat Bandh called by dalit groups was just an outcome of the frustration and anger that had been simmering for decades.

In an interview to Yojna Gusai, BJPs dalit face and Northwest Delhi MP Udit Raj says dalits aspirations and expectations have changed, and simply eating at a dalit house will not make them feel included.

The country recently witnessed a nationwide massive protest by the dalit community, which was seen as an outcome of the growing unrest among the community. Was it just because of the Supreme Courts recent judgment on the Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act?

It was not a sudden reaction to any one issue, but had been accumulating for many years. The April 2 Bharat Bandh was a turning point in the countrys history. For decades, dalits have been feeling neglected, their demands were being ignored, aspirations and expectations remain unfulfilled, participation in government jobs and education had been decreasing for years now. We have students who cannot get in good educational or professional institutions because these institutions are privatised. We have educated youths, who cannot find jobs in the private sector, because this sector is selective, employers here pick and choose and can fire anytime. Government jobs are still considered safe. Even in the public sector, contract system is being introduced.

The Supreme Courts judgment was just a catalyst that fired up the anger and frustration that had been accumulating for decades. Here was a judgment, which brought in a third person who was responsible for deciding whether or not a person has really committed a crime against the community member. What about the accountability of this third person? What if this third person could be influenced by perpetrators of crime against dalits or could be bribed? Will s/he sanction arrest of the perpetrator/s? Dalits have suffered a lot and this order was seen as a dilution of the act, which gives them protection so they reacted very strongly against it.

The SCs order on the Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act was catalyst for the dalit agitation?

The agitation was just a venting out of the simmering anger among the community over so many issues. The apex court had earlier upheld an order by another court, which had asked universities to prepare a department-wise roster of teachers vacancies for SC and ST candidates instead of an institution wise roster. Again the number of reserved seats in universities came down drastically. These are all precipitating factors. Cases of dalit atrocities, including the Una incident (in Gujarat), dalit grooms not being allowed to ride a horse or dalits being asked to give notices in advance before marriage (in Ujjain, MP) have been on the rise. What is all this? Is this the freedom given to us by the Constitution that we talk about? Moreover, such incidents are setting a bad example before the world community. Are dalits not Hindus? What are we telling the world that Hindus perpetrate more crime on their fellow Hindu citizens?

But most of these incidents took place in BJP-ruled states. The BJP has been facing flak over dalit atrocities.

I will not blame any government here but would like to cite an example of the Punjab government, which took caution for the April 2 Bharat Bandh and closed government offices. I dont know why such precautionary measures were not taken by other state governments. Perhaps they failed to gauge the undercurrent of the simmering anger. But what was worst is that dalits were confronted by other group of civil societies over the bandh. The so-called dominant caste colluded with the agitators. What happened after that, those dalits arrested are still facing action but those who protested during the Patel agitation (in Gujarat), against the release of Padmaavat and during the Jat agitation in Haryana, governments decided to withdraw cases against them.

Your party failed to foresee the impact of the dalit agitation?

This question should be asked to our party leaders as I am speaking not as a BJP leader but as a dalit activist. This is not just a political issue for me. Such political questions should be put before those (BJP leaders) who can answer them.

But have you ever taken dalit-related issues before your party leadership?

I have taken such issues many times, it is for the party leadership to take note and take a call accordingly.

Some BJP leaders have been in controversy over eating in dalit homes as part of the governments outreach programme Gram Swaraj Yojana

I totally support this outreach programme. But each ailment requires a particular treatment. When the issue is about aspiration for jobs, education, participation in governance, fight for dignity and rights, then will simply eating at a dalits home be enough? When there is a huge gap between dalits and non-dalits, do you think eating with dalits will solve everything? There are many steps under the programme for the community, but simply eating with dalits cannot woo them.InSight will dig deeper into Mars than ever before  nearly 16 feet, or 5 metres  to take the planets temperature.

InSight spacecraft launches onboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas-V rocket, from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. InSight, short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, is a Mars lander designed to study the "inner space" of Mars. (Photo: AP)

A robotic geologist armed with a hammer and quake monitor rocketed toward Mars, aiming to land on the red planet and explore its mysterious insides.

In a twist, NASA launched the Mars InSight lander from California rather than Floridas Cape Canaveral. It was the first interplanetary mission ever to depart from the West Coast, drawing pre-dawn crowds to fog-socked Vandenberg Air Force Base and rocket watchers down the California coast into Baja.

This is a big day. Were going back to Mars! NASAs new boss, Jim Bridenstine, said following liftoff. This is an extraordinary mission with a whole host of firsts.

The spacecraft will take more than six months to get to Mars and start its unprecedented geologic excavations, travelling 300 million miles (485 million kilometres) to get there.

InSight will dig deeper into Mars than ever before  nearly 16 feet, or 5 metres  to take the planets temperature. It will also attempt to make the first measurements of marsquakes, using a high-tech seismometer placed directly on the Martian surface.

Thats the real payoff of this whole mission and thats still lying ahead of us, said the missions chief scientist, Bruce Banerdt of NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Although fog prevented Banerdt from seeing the liftoff of the $1 billion US-European mission, he heard the roar of the rocket and all the blaring car alarms it set off.

It was just an incredible moment, Banerdt told The Associated Press by phone. Despite the challenges still ahead, I think I can bask in a little bit of satisfaction and just feeling like we really accomplished something today.

Besides InSight, the United Launch Alliances Atlas V rocket gave a lift to a pair of mini test satellites, or CubeSats, that are trailing InSight to Mars to serve as a potential communication link. Nicknamed WALL-E and EVE from the 2008 animated movie, the twin briefcase-size spacecraft popped off the rockets upper stage in hot pursuit of InSight, as elated launch controllers applauded and shook hands following the mornings success.

NASA hasnt put a spacecraft down on Mars since the Curiosity rover in 2012. The US, in fact, is the only country to successfully land and operate a spacecraft at Mars. Its tough, complicated stuff. Only about 40 per cent of all missions to Mars from all countries  orbiters and landers alike  have proven successful over the decades.

If all goes well, the three-legged InSight will descend by parachute and engine firings onto a flat equatorial region of Mars  believed to be free of big, potentially dangerous rocks  on Nov. 26. Once down, it will stay put, using a mechanical arm to place the science instruments on the surface.

Banerdt said Mars is ideal for learning how the rocky planets of our solar system formed 4.5 billion years ago. Unlike our active Earth, Mars hasnt been transformed by plate tectonics and other processes, he noted. InSight might also help explain why some planets  like ours  went on to develop life, while others did not.

Over the course of two Earth years  or one Martian year  NASA expects InSights three main experiments to provide a true 3D image of the interior of Mars. Scientists know Mars has an iron core and a crust, but beyond that, the inside is basically, completely unknown, said Banerdt.

The lander is equipped with a seismometer for measuring marsquakes, a self-hammering probe for burrowing beneath the surface, and a radio system for tracking the spacecrafts position and planets wobbly rotation, thereby revealing the size and composition of Mars core.

InSight, for seismologists, will really be a piece of history, a new page of history, said the Paris Institute of Earth Physics Philippe Lognonne, lead scientist of the InSight seismometer.

Problems with the French-supplied seismometer kept InSight from launching two years ago. California was always part of the plan.

NASA normally launches from Cape Canaveral but decided to switch to California for InSight to take advantage of a shorter flight backlog. This was the first US interplanetary mission to launch from somewhere other than Cape Canaveral.

The fog ruined the view for those gathered at Vandenberg along the central California coast. But it was a marvellous sight farther south. The rockets bright orange flame was visible for some time as it arced upward across the dark sky west of greater Los Angeles.

Not even two weeks on the job, NASAs new administrator, Bridenstine, observed the launch on monitors at space agency headquarters in Washington.

I cant think of a better way to start my day! Bridenstine tweeted.

United Launch Alliances president, Tory Bruno, also took to Twitter to celebrate. Next stop: Mars.He was in return from Dubai and was withheld at Delhi for smuggling 85.61 lakhs worth 100 iPhone X devices.

The 53-year-old accused was intercepted by the customs after his arrival from Dubai on Friday.

A man was arrested by the customs at the Delhi airport for allegedly trying to smuggle in 100 iPhone X handsets, an official said.

The 53-year-old accused was intercepted by the customs after his arrival from Dubai on Friday.

"Hundred iPhone X handsets worth a total of Rs 85.61 lakh were seized from his baggage after a thorough search," Additional Commissioner of customs at the airport, Amandeep Singh, said.

This week Apple has announced its quarterly earnings and contrary to analyst predictions, its most-expensive iPhone X came out to be its best-selling smartphone in the first quarter of 2018.

In comparison, iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, which were launched alongside the iPhone X, sold 12.5 million units and 8.3 million units respectively.John McCain, a Vietnam war vet and senator from Arizona, has been fighting an aggressive form of brain cancer for more than a year.

McCain has been fighting an aggressive form of brain cancer for more than a year. (Photo: AFP)

Washington: Senator John McCain, 81 and battling brain cancer, has made clear he does not want President Donald Trump to attend his funeral, US media reported Saturday.

McCain, a Vietnam war vet and senator from Arizona who has had a turbulent relationship with Trump, instead wants Vice President Mike Pence to represent the White House, The New York Times and NBC News said, quoting people close to McCain.

McCain is also using a new book and documentary to express regret about not having selected former Senator Joseph Lieberman as his running mate in 2008 against Barack Obama and instead going with populist Sarah Palin, the Times said.

McCain has been fighting an aggressive form of brain cancer for more than a year.

He is currently back in Arizona, recovering from surgery for an intestinal infection.

McCain and Trump have had a rough relationship, particularly during the 2016 presidential primary, when Trump said McCain -- a POW for years in Vietnam -- was not really a war hero because he was captured.

Last summer Trump slammed McCain for a "no" vote that helped doom a key bill to repeal Obamacare -- the health care reforms passed into law under president Barack Obama.The report said that the two countries will also take part in joint military drills in Russia in September

Islamabad: Pakistan Army Chief Qamar Javed Bajwa believes that military cooperation between Pakistan and India was the only option for prosperity, a report said.

A commentary published by UK think-tank Royal Unites Services Institute (RUSI) said that General Bajwa realised that the way to peace and prosperity in Pakistan was through military cooperation with India but New Delhi was not reciprocating approaches by senior Pakistani military officers.

The RUSIs expert on South Asia and Middle East Kamal Alam wrote in the report published by the RUSI that it was a historic first that General Bajwa invited Sanjay Vishwasrao, the Indian military attache, and his team to the Pakistan Day military parade in Islamabad this year and then General Bajwa said two weeks later that the Pakistan military wanted peace and dialogue with India.

The report said that the two countries will also take part in joint military drills in Russia in September, with Chinese participation, which showed that there was change in attitude since General Bajwa became the army chief in November 2016. It says, These initiatives come against a background of almost weekly exchanges of fire along the Line of Control in Kashmir.

Approaches by Pakistani military have been welcomed by some in India, because they are seen to be able to deliver on peace, said the report adding that senior Pakistani officer Lt. Gen. Aamir Riaz headed the first-ever high level contact group with India as Director-General Military Operation.

It mentioned Major General Ahmed Hayats so-called India Plan authored in 2013, which tried to ascertain how and when Pakistan should approach India.Police also used batons against protesters who chanted 'Putin is a thief!' and 'Russia will be free!'

Russian police detain a protester at a demonstration against President Vladimir Putin in St.Petersburg, Russia, Saturday, May 5, 2018. A group that monitors political repression in Russia says more than 350 people have been arrested in a day of nationwide protests against the upcoming inauguration of Vladimir Putin for a new six-year term as president. (Photo: AP)

Moscow: Russians angered by the impending inauguration of Vladimir Putin to a new term as president protested Saturday in scores of cities across the country  and police responded by reportedly arresting nearly 1,600 of them.

Among those arrested was protesting organizer Alexei Navalny, the anti-corruption campaigner who is Putin's most prominent foe. Police seized Navalny by the arms and legs and carried the thrashing activist from Moscow's Pushkin Square, where thousands were gathered for an unauthorized protest.

Police also used batons against protesters who chanted "Putin is a thief!" and "Russia will be free!"

Demonstrations under the slogan "He is not our czar" took place throughout the country, from Yakutsk in the far northeast to St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad on the fringes of Europe.

The protests demonstrated that Navalny's opposition, although considered beleaguered by Russian officials and largely ignored by state-controlled television, has sizeable support in much of the country.

"I think that Putin isn't worthy of leading this country. He has been doing it for 18 years and has done nothing good for it," said Moscow demonstrator Dmitry Nikitenko. "He should leave for good."

OVD-Info, an organization that monitors political repression, said late Saturday that 1,599 people had been detained at demonstrations in 26 Russian cities. It said 702 were arrested in Moscow alone, and another 232 in St. Petersburg.

Moscow police said about 300 people were detained in the capital, state news agencies said, and there was no official countrywide tally.

"Let my son go!" Iraida Nikolaeva screamed, running after police in Moscow when they detained her son. "He did not do anything! Are you a human or not? Do you live in Russia or not?"

Navalny was to be charged with disobeying police, an offence that carries a sentence of up to 15 days, news reports said, though when he would face a judge was not immediately clear. Navalny has served several multi-week stretches in jail on similar charges.

In St. Petersburg, police blocked off a stretch of Nevsky Prospekt as a crowd of about 1,000 marched along the renowned avenue. Video showed some demonstrators being detained.

Putin is to be inaugurated for a new six-year term on Monday after winning re-election in March with 77 per cent of the vote. Navalny had hoped to challenge him on the ballot but was blocked because of a felony conviction in a case that supporters regard as falsified in order to marginalize him.

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert criticized the actions of the Russian police.

"The United States condemns #Russia's detention of hundreds of peaceful protesters and calls for their immediate release. Leaders who are secure in their own legitimacy don't arrest their peaceful opponents for protesting," she tweeted.

Navalny has called nationwide demonstrations several times in the past year, and their turnout has rattled the Kremlin.

Saturday's protests attracted crowds of hundreds in cities that are far remote from Moscow, challenging authorities' contention that Navalny and other opposition figures appeal only to a small, largely urban elite.Muntazer al-Zaidi shot to prominence in Dec 2008 when he flung his shoe at Bush who was holding press conference in Baghdad.

Muntazer al-Zaidi, an Iraqi journalist famous for throwing a shoe at former US president George W. Bush in 2008, attends a rally in Baghdad on May 4, 2018 for the "Marching Towards Reform" alliance between Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr and the communist party, ahead of the May 12 parliamentary elections. (Photo: AFP)

Baghdad: The Iraqi journalist who grabbed headlines around the world by hurling his shoes at then US president George W. Bush is pitching for a seat in parliament at upcoming elections.

My ambition is to throw all the thieving politicians in prison, make them regret what they have done and confiscate their wealth, Muntazer al-Zaidi, 39, told AFP ahead of the May 12 vote in his conflict-scarred homeland.

Zaidi shot to prominence in December 2008 when he leapt up at a farewell press conference Bush was holding in Baghdad and flung his shoes at the US leader.

While he narrowly missed hitting the man responsible for launching the invasion of Iraq, Zaidi was later jailed for assaulting a head of state and ended up serving nine months behind bars.

After his release Zaidi sought refuge in Lebanon, where he settled and had a daughter.

The protest against Bush saw him hailed as a hero by many around the Arab world, and he remains unrepentant as he pushes for office.

I dont regret what I did, on the contrary, I just regret that at that moment I didnt have another pair of shoes, said Zaidi, who is running for an alliance between Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr and communists.

Placed low down on the Marching Towards Reform list in Baghdad, it appears Zaidi has little chance of actually getting elected -- but he remains defiant.

It would not be an honour to have thieves as colleagues, and my objective is to take back money that has been stolen, he said, when asked if he feared becoming like other politicians reviled for graft.

Zaidi explained that he chose to represent Marching Towards Reform as he said it is independent and looking to shatter the countrys sectarian divide.

As for his view on US involvement in Iraq -- a decade after he took aim at Bush, he remains deeply opposed and wants Washingtons troops out of the country.

He rejects the idea that the US military presence has helped Iraqi forces battle back the Islamic State group.

The US favoured IS, how can you say that they want to get rid of them? he asked.The Organisation of Islamic Conference is a 57-member grouping of Muslim majority nations.

Bangladeshs foreign minister Mahmud Ali said there is a need to build bridges with non-OIC countries which have large number of Muslims as their citizens. (Photo: AP)

Dhaka: Bangladesh has proposed restructuring of the charter of the Organisation of Islamic Conference to pave way for inclusion of non-Muslim countries like India as an observer state.

The OIC is a 57-member grouping of Muslim majority nations.

A number of countries  not OIC members, have large number of Muslims as their citizens . . . There is a need to build bridges with those non-OIC countries, Bangladeshs foreign minister Mahmud Ali said as his counterparts in the group joined in their annual council called Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) in Dhaka.

He said the induction was needed so that a large number of Muslim population do not remain untouched by the good work of OIC and that is why, reforms and re-structuring is critical for OIC.

The Muslims may be minority in those countries, but in terms of number  they often exceed the total population of many OIC member countries, Ali told the CFM after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina opened the meet on Saturday.

Officials and analysts said the proposal was meant mainly for India where Islam is the second largest religion with Muslims constituting some 10 per cent of the global adherents of the faith.

Several OIC states countries and the secretary general of the grouping appreciated the proposal but experts said it could see opposition from Pakistan which had earlier opposed Indias induction. India, however, has fairly robust relations with most OIC member states.During the Regina Caeli, Pope Francis said that we must love "with facts, not words". Love must become "the constant element of our existence", with the elderly, the sick "even if they are in the last stage", and the unborn. "Life must always be protected and loved from conception to its natural end. This is love." The pontiff mentioned the beatification of Chiara Fey in Aachen and asked for prayers for the Central African Republic. He also greeted the members of the Neocatechumenal Way.

Vatican City (AsiaNews)  In commenting today's Gospel (Jn, 15:9-17), in particular "Jesuss instruction to Remain in my love", Pope Francis stressed that "to live in the current of Gods love, to dwell in it in a permanent way, is the condition that ensures that our love does not lose its ardour and boldness. The pontiff added that "We must gratefully accept the love that comes from the Father and remain in this love, trying not to separate ourselves from it with selfishness and sin."

"Love is achieved in everyday life, in attitudes, in actions; otherwise it is just something illusory. Jesus asks us to uphold his commandments, which can be summarised as 'love one another as I love you (Jn, 15:12).

"How can we ensure that the love the Risen Lord gives us is shared by others? Jesus repeatedly showed with facts, not words, who are the others we have to love. They are the ones I meet on my journey and who, with their faces and stories, question me; they are the ones who, with their very presence, push me to go beyond my interests and certainties; they are the ones who wait for my willingness to listen and travel together for a while. Availability towards every brother and sister, whoever they are and in whatever situation they may be, starting from those close to me in the family, community, work, school . . . This way, if I remain united with Jesus, his love can reach others and draw them to himself, to his friendship."

"This love for others" must become "the constant element of our existence"; for this reason, "we are called to lovingly protect the elderly as a precious treasure, even if they cause money problems and stress. This is why we must give all possible assistance to the sick, even if they are in the last stage [of their lives]; this is why unborn children are always welcomed; this is why, ultimately, life must always be protected and loved from conception to its natural end. This is love."

"The Eucharist, to which we are called to partake every Sunday, has the purpose of forming the Heart of Christ in us, so that our whole life is guided by his generous attitudes. May the Virgin Mary help us remain in the love of Jesus and grow in love for everyone, especially the weakest, so as to fully match our Christian vocation."

After the recitation of the Regina Caeli, Francis spoke to the tens of thousands of pilgrims present in St Peters Square about yesterdays beatification in Aachen (Germany) of Chiara Fey, foundress of the Sisters of the Child Jesus. The Holy Father also called on everyone to pray for the Central African Republic, "A country that I had the joy of visiting and that I carry in my heart".

In the capital of that country, on 29 November 2015 in Bangui, Francis opened the first Holy Door of the Jubilee of Mercy. Recently, several violent incidents have taken place in the city, including an attack against a church that left 16 people dead and dozens wounded.

"May the Lord, said the pontiff, through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, help everyone say no to violence and revenge, so that peace may be built together."

The pope also greeted groups that belong to the Neocatechumenal Way, currently in Rome to mark the 50th anniversary of their foundation.Established in Spain in 1964 thanks to the collaboration between Francisco Jose Gomez Arguello Wirtz (Kiko) and Carmen Hernandez, the Way was recognised by Pope Paul VI in 1974 as a product of the Second Vatican Council. Currently, it is present in 134 countries with 21,330 communities in 6,270 parishes.

Vatican City (AsiaNews)  The Neocathecumenal Way is a journey to rediscover baptism and to develop the faith in the service of bishops and parish priests. Undertaken in parishes and small communities, it targets believers who want revive the richness of Christian initiation in their lives and adults who are preparing for the baptism by guiding them to a mature mission experience in the world.

The Way was born in 1964 among the slum dwellers of Palomeras Altas, Madrid (Spain), out of the collaboration between Francisco Jose Gomez Arguello Wirtz (Kiko) and Carmen Hernandez. The two found the power of the paschal mystery and the proclamation of the kerygma (the good news of Christs death and resurrection) among the poor, among whom the first community was born.

The new catechetical experience, which was inspired by the renewal process launched by the Second Vatican Council, was welcomed by the Archbishop of Madrid, Mgr Casimiro Morcillo. He encouraged the founders of the Neocathecumenal Way to bring it to other parishes of the archdiocese, which they did, first in Zamora, and then to other Spanish dioceses.

In 1974, Pope Paul VI recognised the Way as a product of the Second Vatican Council. His successors promoted and accepted the Way as an achievement and inspiration of the Holy Spirit to help the Church. In 1986, thanks to the support of Saint John Paul II, the first Redemptoris Mater seminary was set up in Rome. Two years later, the pontiff sent the first hundred families on mission, in various parts of the world.

Currently, the Neocathecumenal Way is present in 134 nations on all continents with 21,300 communities in 6,270 parishes. Some 1,668 families are on mission, including 216 on the missio ad gentes in de-Christianised or non-Christian cities. Diocesan missionary seminars number 120, with almost 700 itinerant catechists carrying out the work of evangelisation.Newspapers even bragged about the roles they had played in arranging particularly spectacular lynchings. But the real damage was done in terse, workaday stories that justified lynching by casting its victims as fiends, brutes, born criminals or, that catchall favorite, troublesome Negroes. The narrative that tied blackness inextricably to criminality  and to the death penalty  survived the lynching era and lives on to this day.

The Montgomery Advertiser was historically opposed to lynching. Nevertheless, when its current staff scrutinized the papers lynching-era coverage, they concluded that it had conveniently opposed lynching in the abstract while responding with indifference to its bloody, real-world consequences. The editors found that the paper too often presumed without proof that lynching victims were guilty and that, in doing so, it advanced the aims of white supremacist rule.

That description applies broadly to the Jim Crow-era South, where even newspapers that were viewed as liberal replicated the apartheid state within their pages  by separating news and birth announcements by race, by rendering law-abiding black people invisible and especially by denying African-Americans the courtesy titles Mr. and Mrs. This humiliating practice was meant to illustrate the impossibility of racial equality. It also let white readers know when a black person was being quoted so that the persons statement could be ignored.

The newspaper editor Ira Harkey , who was white, incurred outrage in 1949 when he abandoned the Southern journalistic practice of automatically labeling black people by race in stories and began cautiously extending the courtesy title Mrs. in the pages of The Pascagoula Chronicle-Star to certain carefully selected Negro women such as teachers and nurses. Harkey was reviled  and shot at  by racists in Mississippi for championing civil rights. He wrote bitterly of his earlier years at The New Orleans Times-Picayune, where there was a flat rule that Negroes were not to appear in photographs; it was required that they be airbrushed out of crowd scenes.By Konstantinos Vavitsas, CSIRO Future Science Fellow in Synthetic Biology, The University of Queensland

Rost/Shutterstock

Researchers believe that DNA  the molecule that stores information about life  could one day be used as a type of sensor, to record information based on its surroundings.

Synthetic DNA (not produced in an organism and not containing genetic information of a species) has already been used to store data, as a sort of biological hard drive.

But now, MIT researchers Weixin Tang and David Liu say that their CAMERA system (acronym for CRISPR-mediated analogue multi-event recording apparatus) makes bacteria able to record their surroundings.





Read more:

What is CRISPR gene editing, and how does it work?





The microbes are able to sense and note in their DNA the presence or absence of sunlight, antibiotics, or nutrients in their vicinity.

This system has two variations.

CAMERA 1 records the presence and intensity of an external molecule by changing the ratio of two small circular DNA pieces (called plasmid) inside the bacteria. This allows you to determine whether, how much and for how long the microbe was sensing the external molecule.

CAMERA 2 is more advanced and records by making a DNA edit (imagine the equivalent of burning a DVD, but on the genome).

Both systems can keep the information records steady for several hours. And as a true recording device, it has a reset function that cleans the information and sets the system ready for another recording.

How it works

An audio or video recorder in effect translates information. The composition and complexity of photons and sound waves is transformed in a way possible to store. A reading device then retrieves that information.

The same principles apply to recording in DNA format, and in this case there are two technologies that make this possible.

The first one is CRISPR/Cas9, a gene editing tool. CRISPR can target DNA sequences very precisely. In CAMERA 1, CRISPR works by breaking down one of these two circular DNA pieces, changing their ratio.

CAMERA 2 uses CRISPR to make small changes to the original DNA sequence. When the molecule of interest is in the environment, it causes the cells to produce CRISPR in a controlled manner. In that way, the result is precise and tied closely to the external cue.

The second technology is DNA sequencing, and in particular next generation sequencing. The information recorded needs to be retrieved and analysed.

That may sound straightforward, but keep in mind that we need to detect a few changes in a one or two letters out of the few million letters that make the bacterial genome.

Next generation sequencing allows reading DNA in very high speed and very high accuracy. More importantly, it makes the cost of reading DNA drop, making routine sequencing applications financially viable.

What can we use it for?

There are advantages of such a system compared to current sensors.

The applications on basic research are obvious. A recording device can store information about the history of a cell and tell us, for example, when a pathogen starts producing a toxin, or when the nutrients run low in a cell.

In order to answer such questions currently, we need to use either reporter genes, that require constant monitoring, or expensive and invasive metabolomics techniques.

The biggest application potential lies in micro-sensors. Specialised cells could monitor the concentrations of a varying of compounds.

The advantage to current chemical/electrical sensors is that biological systems are more versatile in monitoring and reacting to many compounds with high accuracy. As only a few molecules are needed for a successful recorder, bio-sensors can be smaller in size and record multiple signals at the same time.

The next breakthrough

In my opinion, a true breakthrough in the technology would be the development of a cell-free DNA recorder.

Recording in cells limits the recording environments to these that the cell can grow. A cell-free system, containing only the sensing molecules and the DNA-recording apparatus would have a number of advantages.





Read more:

Storing data in DNA brings nature into the digital universe





The information would be easier to access and assess, as it would not be buried in the genome of the organism. The system would be simpler, thus easier to calibrate and optimise. Moreover there would be a reduced risk for contamination, as it would not contain a living organism and it would rely on fully synthetic DNA.

Synthetic biology is promising to revolutionise biological research and applications. These developments have become possible due to the reduced cost to read and write DNA.

I expect more and more creative uses of this fundamental molecule of life, and exciting applications in our everyday life.

Konstantinos Vavitsas receives funding from the University of Queensland and CSIRO Synbio FSP platform. He is affiliated with the aforementioned organisations, he is member of the executive board of Synthetic Biology Australasia and community editor for PLOS Synbio.

Originally published in The Conversation.Contact The Californians Robert Price at 661-395-7399, rprice@bakersfield.com or on Twitter: @stubblebuzz. His column appears on Sundays, Wednesdays and Saturdays; the views expressed are his own.The Iranian government "does not approve" of the judiciary's recent blockage of the Telegram messaging app, President Hassan Rouhani said Saturday.

According to the Iranian judiciary website Mizan, Telegram messenger was blocked by the ruling of court this Monday, because it provokes "propaganda against the establishment, terrorist activities, spreading lies to incite public opinion, anti-government protests and pornography".

Iran had been considering the ban since January when protests over economic grievances erupted in more than 80 cities and later turned into demonstrations against the clerical and security elite. Since then, users largely have not been able to access it. But many Iranians evade the filtering through the use of VPN software, which provides encrypted links directly to private networks overseas, and can allow a computer to behave as if it is based in another country. But some Iranians use VPN software to get access.

"No social network or messenger has been blocked by this administration", he said, blaming the move on a "judicial decree" that he said circumvented his administration.

"The real owners of this country, i.e., the people, should be informed of the trend of affairs", he said.

The semi-official ISNA news agency also reported his remarks. The service touts itself as being highly encrypted and allows users to set their messages to "self-destruct" after a certain period, making it a favorite among activists and others concerned about their privacy.

Iran blocked Telegram - widely used by Iranians, the state media, politicians and companies - earlier this week to protect national security, state television said, weeks after a similar move by Russian Federation. Iranian authorities have been trying to convince the country to use indigenously made messaging apps instead, though activists worry those program likely can be monitored by the government.

"We want a free flow of information as well as the right for citizens of free choice", he said, adding that the block was "the direct opposite to democracy". The protests saw at least 25 people killed and almost 5,000 reportedly arrested.KABUL, Afghanistan (AP)  The Latest on the war in Afghanistan (all times local):

10 p.m.

Officials in Afghanistan say a bomb blast inside a mosque that was being used as a voter registration center has killed at least 14 people and wounded more than 30.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack in the eastern city of Khost. But both the Taliban and a local Islamic State affiliate reject democratic elections and have targeted them in the past.

Afghanistan plans to hold elections in October, the first since 2014.

Also Sunday, an Afghan official said seven Indian citizens and their Afghan driver were kidnapped in the northern Baghlan province.

___

7:30 p.m.

India's foreign ministry in a statement Sunday said the government was in touch with the Afghan officials over the reports of abduction.

"We are aware of the abduction of Indian nationals from Baghlan province in Afghanistan," the statement said. "We are in contact with the Afghan authorities and further details are being ascertained."

___

6:20 p.m.

An Afghan official says that the dead toll for the bombing at a mosque in the eastern Khost province that was being used as a voter registration center has risen to 14 people killed, including a woman.

Talib Mangal, spokesman for the provincial governor in Khost, said that a bomb placed inside the Yaqoubi mosque detonated and caused casualties among civilians who gathered both for prayers and to get voter registration.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

___

4:20 p.m.

An Afghan official says that seven Indian citizens and their Afghan driver have been kidnapped in the northern Baghlan province.

Mahmood Haqmal, spokesman for the provincial governor, says unknown gunmen abducted the Indian electrical engineers on Sunday near the provincial capital, Puli Khumri, as they were traveling to a power station.

No one has claimed the abduction, but the Taliban have a strong presence in Baghlan. In the past, the insurgents have cut power lines in the region, which are used to import electricity from central Asian countries to the Afghan capital, Kabul.

___

3:45 p.m.

An Afghan official says a bombing at a mosque in the eastern Khost province that was being used as a voter registration center killed 12 people and wounded another 33.

Habib Shah Ansari, the provincial head of public health, provided the first precise toll from the attack, which was earlier confirmed by other officials.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but both the Taliban and a local Islamic State affiliate reject democratic elections and have targeted them in the past. IS is not known to have a presence in Khost, but has expanded its footprint into other areas in recent years.

___

3:30 p.m.

An Afghan official says at least 30 people were "killed and wounded" in a bomb blast inside a mosque in eastern Khost province that was being used as a voter registration center.

Talib Mangal, spokesman for the provincial governor, confirmed Sunday's attack and provided the approximate toll. Baser Bena, spokesman for the provincial police chief, also confirmed the attack in Khost city, the provincial capital. Neither had an exact figure for casualties.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but both the Taliban and a local Islamic State affiliate reject democratic elections and have targeted them in the past. IS is not known to have a presence in Khost, but has expanded its footprint into other areas in recent years.

Last month, an Islamic State suicide bomber attacked a voter registration center in Kabul, killing 60 people and wounding at least 130 others.

___

11:30 a.m.

A vehicle carrying shopkeepers on their way to a market has struck a roadside bomb in Afghanistan's northern Faryab province, killing seven of them.

Police spokesman Karim Yuresh says another civilian was wounded in Sunday's attack, in an area where the Taliban and an Islamic State affiliate are active.

In the eastern Paktia province, a car bomb killed two people and wounded another three. Abdullah Hsart, the provincial governor's spokesman, says the attack late Saturday targeted Hazart Mohammad Rodwal, a district chief, who was among the wounded. The Taliban claimed the attack.

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 6)  Poet and fictionist Cirilo Bautista, born July 9, 1941, passed away this morning, May 6, 2018, at the age of 76.

Bautista was given the accolade of National Artist on June 20, 2014. Prior to that, he won a total of nine Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards in the fields of poetry, fiction and essay, in both English and Filipino.

Bautista graduated magna cum laude with a degree of AB Literature from the University of Santo Tomas (UST) in 1963, where he was also the literary editor of their school publication The Varsitarian.

He received his masteral degree in Literature from the St. Louis University in Baguio City, where he was also magna cum laude. He received his doctorate in Language and Literature from De La Salle University (DLSU). He taught creative writing and literature in all three of his alma maters.

His poetry and fiction would often deal with what it means to be Filipino. In his poem "Oh How to Find Silence In The World" he wrote:

"Being spotted in the color of skin,

why I take care in San Francisco,

waiting for the bus to Iowa.

They say racial prejudice is strong,

Negros and not whites kawawa,

and because of this they will revolt."

Nikko Garcia, current literary editor of The Varsitarian, said that Bautista's works would still resonate with Filipinos today.

"I think it's important for Filipinos to read him because he talks about what it's like to be a Filipino," Garcia said in a phone interview with CNN Philippines. "He wrote The Trilogy of Saint Lazarus as an epic poem in English and people will ask, how can something written in English be Filipino? But even if it's in English, he wrote The Trilogy of Saint Lazarus as an idiom of Philippine History" Garcia adds.

Garcia regretted never having a chance to meet Bautista in person, but he remembered fondly how his professors in UST would talk about the late author. His professors, Garcia recalled, remembered Bautista as a strict mentor who took the arts very seriously.

Malacanang sent its condolences in a statement released later that day.

"The Palace extends its deepest condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of renowned National Artist for Literature, Dr. Cirilo Bautista, who died at the age of 76," Malacanang said in a statement. "We remember him as one of the country's most passionate authors, whose devotion to the study of Literature paved the way for more Filipinos to develop their creative talent."GET OUR NEW APP Our new Spectrum News app is the most convenient way to get the stories that matter to you. Download it here.POLK COUNTY, Fla.-- A Polk County Schools employee is touring the district and showing off a R2-D2 replica that he built with his own hands.

Polk County Schools employee builds R2-D2 replica

Took over a year to make and cost $2,200

Rany Nothdorf is touring it around the district

Randy Nothdorf, a technology integration specialist, said it only took him a year and four months to build it. Nothdorf said he spent around $2,200.

Some people have spent as much as a car building theirs. I did not, Nothdorf told students at Dixieland Elementary School on Friday, while showing off the robot for Star Wars Day.

The R2-D2 replica is made of plastic and wood. Nothdorf said the hardest part was creating the feet.

The lifelong Star Wars fan said the project has introduced him to a lot of great people.

Just a way to connect with other people with skills, building stuff, coding stuff," he said.

Using a controller, Nothdorf makes it move, spin its head, make sounds and play music such as the Star Wars theme song.

"It's like you're watching TV, but you're not, Mindy Morenzy said. "It's just like he's in real life and not in the movie."

Morenzy was one of the many students at Dixieland Elementary School that got to see the robot in action.

Nothdorf said hes taken the robot to bookstores, Legoland Florida and many other places.

Hell soon head to Los Angeles to showcase it, along with a C-3PO suit he designed for his wife.ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- A vape pen explosion may have caused the death of a man in St. Petersburg on Saturday, according to authorities.

Vape pen explosion may have man's death

38-year-old man found dead inside house

Authorities are trying to determine cause of death

St. Pete Fire Rescue was called to a house in the 300 block of 19th Avenue North after reports of a fire.

When responding firefighters arrived, they found smoke coming out of the second-story window. Once inside, responders found the body of 38-year-old Tallmadge DElia.

According to investigators, a vape pen he was using exploded in his face.

DElia had multiple injuries to his face, according to authorities.

They [vape pens] have a lithium battery and they start to generate heat, said Lt. Steve Lawrence, a spokesperson with St. Pete Fire Rescue. In this case, we believe that exploded.

The explosion from the vape pen then caused a small fire to ignite in an area nearby.

Its unclear whether DElia was killed by the explosion or the fire.

The Medical Examiner will conduct an autopsy to determine cause of death.

No additional details were immediately available.The area of low pressure that brought the rain will track eastward into the Atlantic overnight.

Lows in the 70s

Dry, mostly sunny on Monday

Highs in the upper 80s this week

SEE BELOW: See our 7-day forecast 

Clouds will be thinning out overnight as a weak cold front slips by following the low. Lows will be slightly lower as the dew points drop, in the low 70s for Tampa to near 60 north.

The weak front never really sweeps all of the moisture out of way. Monday looks dry and mostly sunny, but there may be showers from Polk County to the east coast. Highs will still be in the upper 80s. It will be less humid though, with mostly sunny skies

Tuesday will also be mostly sunny. It will be a little breezy with northeast to east winds. Highs will be in the upper 80s.

On Wednesday the high temperatures will be in the upper 80s to around 90. Skies will be partly cloudy. East winds may be just strong enough to prevent a sea breeze.

Thursday still looks dry with a light wind leading to a sea breeze. Highs will be around 90, with low 90s inland.

On Friday, the ridge of high pressure overhead continues to build allowing for more warming. Skies will be partly cloudy with highs in the low 90s. A sea breeze will cool the coastal areas in the late afternoon.

View: Bay News 9 Interactive Radar

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The seven-day forecastCatholics are devoted to their saints.

The saints provide valuable intercession to prayers and therefore, are often called upon for additional aid.

They signify hope in times of despair and hopelessness.

Not only for their faithful intercession but because of the tremendous suffering the saints endured while never abandoning their devotion to God.

When praying to a patron saint Catholics are boosted by the knowledge of this saints true understanding of their particular plight. Be it, Saint Francis of Assisi known as the patron saint of animals or St. Anthony of Padua the patron saint of lost things.

Many Catholics have one saint, in particular, they turn most often to in prayer.

Yet there are also times when it feels necessary to pull out the big guns of faith.

And to call on the saints who can help when a situation seems impossibly lost.

The most notable is St. Jude the apostle but the good news is St. Jude may be the forerunner but there are a total of four patron saints of lost and impossible causes.

Catholics believe in the power of turning to our saints in heaven and asking for them to pray with us and to intercede on our behalf.

Turn to these four saints if feeling hopeless and in need of great miracles.

St. Jude of Thaddeus

It is said that St. Jude answers prayers of desperation because of his own unwavering faith. He is known not only for his intercession but for helping at the very last moment when it seems almost impossible. He is called upon by many and thus, has become one of the most prayed to saints.

St. Jude was one of the twelve apostles. Biblical scripture says it was Christ who inspired St. Bridget of Sweden in a vision to turn to St. Jude for aide. This inspiration that St. Jude would be the most willing to help eventually led others to turn to St. Jude in prayer. St. Jude was martyred while preaching his faith something all of the apostles realized may happen to them.

It is customary to thank St. Jude in newspaper or print so his message of hope in hopeless causes will find its way to even more people.

St. Jude is the patron saint of lost causes and desperate situations as well as hospitals.

St. Rita Cascia

Saint Rita led an extremely difficult life and one filled with tremendous heartache. It is because of the impossible situations and trials she faced that she is known as the patron saint of lost causes. Upon her death, many wanted to visit her and a miraculous thing happened. She became one of the incorrupt saints meaning her body never decomposed and can still be visited in Italy.

She wished to devote her life to Christ from a young age. However, her parents arranged a marriage with a man who ultimately was abusive and unfaithful. He would die an untimely death just as he was redeeming himself followed by the death of her sons. St. Rita pursued religious life just to be turned away time and time again. Eventually, she was accepted into the Augustinian Convent. She is known most for her gracious and spiritually devout willingness to accept all of the never-ending hardships which were sent her way.

The rest of her days were devoted to God despite illness and disfigurement.

She is known as the patron saint of lost and impossible causes, mothers, marital problems, illness, infertility, widows, and abuse.

St. Gregory Thaumaturgus

St. Gregory is known for helping to significantly build the Christian faith. He was initially sent to minister only a few Christians in a predominantly pagan community. St. Gregory himself had been raised in a pagan household and at fourteen after the death of his father was converted to Christianity by his teacher.

As a bishop, he successfully converted many and ultimately the community became predominantly Christian. This is perhaps St. Gregorys greatest legacy. He was a supremely devout missionary who not only converted many but performed wonders which many attribute to him being called the Miracle-Worker.

He is the patron saint of lost and impossible causes, and forgotten causes.

St. Philomena

There is controversy in the Catholic Church regarding St. Philomena. She was not known to be a saint until her martyred grave was discovered in Rome in 1802 followed by many miracles. Those who experienced the wonder believed her a saint and that God had waited for the right moment to bring her forth. Yet, in the 1960s St. Philomenas feast day was removed from the Catholic Church due to Pope John XXXIII. However, many saints remained devoted to her and her miracles as well as priests. Her feast day is August 11th.

St. Philomena was said to have been sacrificed for her unwillingness to relent her virginity at the young age of thirteen after her parents promised her to a Roman emperor. He later took her life because she would never succumb to his wishes.

She is known as the patron saint of infants, babies, and youth as well as priests and lost causes. She became known as the Wonder-Worker because so many of her prayers for intercession have resulted in miracles.

Miracle after miracle and wonder after wonder are attributed to the intercession of saints.

Thus, making it abundantly clear they are simply waiting to be called upon.

The saints understand the loneliness and despair which accompanies suffering and the corresponding prayer and faith necessary to overcome it.

Feeling hopeless?

The saints in heaven are waiting to pray with you.

Follow me on Facebook @Colleen Orme National Columnist

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on Twitter @colleenorme

on Pinterest @colleensheehyorme

E-mail: Colleen.Sheehy.Orme@gmail.comMetro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 6)  Kuwait sent back to the Philippines 61 overstaying Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) in what Foreign Secretary Peter Cayetano described as a "breakthrough" in bilateral relations.

"This is a very good gesture, positive step forward. As you know, in our official communications with them, we raised the concern of the 600 to 800 that are still in the shelters, na somehow hindi umabot sa amnesty [who somehow were not included in the amnesty]. So this is the first batch of 61," Cayetano said.

All the OFWs who arrived Saturday night will each receive P5,000 in financial assistance.

Cayetano said there are still some 600 to 800 OFWs in shelters in Kuwait waiting to return home. Some 120 others had complaints and asking for police assistance.

He clarified that the 61 who arrived and those staying in the shelters were not covered by Kuwait's amnesty program for overstaying foreigners which expired on April 22. They delayed their return home because of complications with their visas and other travel documents.

READ: Kuwait extends amnesty program till April 22

Cayetano assured that the follow-up protocols are being ironed out with the Kuwaiti government to assist the remaining OFWs in the Gulf state.

He added the Philippines meant no disrespect toward Kuwait or its laws, and remained grateful that the overwhelming majority of OFWs in the Gulf state are "very, very well taken care of."

He added, however, that it was still the country's obligation to take care of Filipino workers who were being maltreated.

He stressed that the DFA was careful to avoid provoking ill will from their Kuwaiti counterparts, and that the two countries were moving towards a "positive direction."

"We received word from them officially na inaasikaso na rin yung iba then yung 120 na humihingi din ng tulong inaasikaso na rin so ang kailangan maayos 'yung protocols natin with them para hindi maulit 'yung, so that there will be no offense and there will be no ill feeling when the OFW needs help," Cayetano added.

[Translation: We received word from them officially with them that they are accommodating the others and the 120 who are asking for assistance, are being taken cared of as well, so we need to fix the protocols so we won't repeat, so that there will be no offense and there will be no ill feeling when the OFW needs help.]

Cayetano said the proposed memorandum of understanding with Kuwait on the protection of OFWs remained on hold.

READ: PH-Kuwait worker protection deal 'up in the air' - Roque

"Ang instructions nga ni Presidente, ayusin muna 'to bago pumirma. Kasi kay Pangulo, hindi sapat that 99.9 percent ng OFWs ay sakop, gusto niya 100 percent; ibig sabihin, maprotektahan talaga 'yung 100 percent," he stated.

[Translation: The instruction of the President is to fix this before we sign. Because to the President, it is not enough that 99.9 percent of OFWs are covered, he wants 100 percent; meaning the 100 percent will really be protected.]

RELATED: Cayetano: Deployment ban to Kuwait will be lifted only if Filipinos are 100% protected

The secretary added, "there are other concerns that are there, and inaasikaso na ngayon. So pati 'yung tinanong niyo kanina na sabi ko medyo sensitive, inaasikaso na rin lahat 'yun, and I'll update you in a few days. But positive na 'yung developments, and maganda na 'yung direction ng usapan."

[Translation: Now, there are other concerns that are there, and are being fixed, so even the sensitive issues you asked a while ago we're fixing them, and I'll update you in a few days. But the developments are positive and the direction of discussions is good.]

Last February 13, the first group of OFWs returned to the country as part of the government's mass repatriation program. Around 400 Filipinos were successfully repatriated.

READ: Hundreds of OFWs from Kuwait back in PHMetro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 6)  The country's top diplomat said the government was moving quietly to challenge Beijing's recent actions in the South China Sea so it was unfair for critics to say that nothing was being done to resolve the matter.

In a press briefing on Saturday, Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano said the administration had opted to take the diplomatic approach as the country cannot go to war with China.

"Diplomatic action is the general term: it can include protest, it can include bilateral consultative mechanism, it can include note verbale, it can include a phone call MOFA (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) to MOFA. But we don't discuss details because that's the way diplomacy should be done," he explained on Saturday.

Cayetano's statement comes amid reports that Beijing had installed missile systems in the South China Sea, which is claimed by six countries.

READ: China may have deployed missile systems in S. China Sea  U.S. official

He said the Philippines can't solve the issue alone as there are many stakeholders involved.

"It's not just between the Philippines and China: it's between China and the neighbors in the region; it's between the claimants and the non-claimants; and it's between the claimants and the non-regional players," Cayetano said.

Cayetano stressed the need to rush a legally-binding code of conduct in the South China Sea to define accepted activities and behavior in the contested waters.

The Foreign Affairs Secretary spoke up in the wake of reactions to President Rodrigo Duterte's earlier statement blaming former President Benigno Aquino III for allowing a military build-up in the South China Sea.

READ: Duterte says U.S., ex-Pres. Aquino allowed military build-up in S. China Sea

In a speech in Davao Friday, Duterte said Aquino failed to confront China with the decision of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, erroneously saying that Aquino was still in office when the ruling came out.

"So Aquino filed an arbitration case. We won. He was still there. Bakit hindi niya ginawa kung 'yan talaga ang gusto ng 'yan silang mga yellow. Nanalo kayo. Nandiyan pa si Aquino, not so many months there. Bakit hindi niyo pinuntahan at sinita?" Duterte demanded.

[Translation: So Aquino filed an arbitration case. We won. He was still there. Why did he not attend to it if the yellows wanted it so much? You won, Aquino was still there. Why did you not head there and call them out?]

Cayetano said, "Ang sinasabi niya kasi, 'yung UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea) naman pare-pareho naman ng signatory. So noong nag-start naman ng massive building at reclamation noong panahon ni President Aquino and despite 'yung noise and 'yung sabi ng mga Allies na sa inyo UNCLOS, wala naman silang ginawang aksyon doon except makipagsigawan para pigilan ito. Sinisisi natin kay Pangulong Duterte ang mga naganap during President Aquino's time."

[Translation: He was saying the UNCLOS had the same signatories. So when the massive building and reclamation during President Aquino's time and despite the noise and Allies saying the UNCLOS was yours, they did nothing but have shouting matches to stop it. We are blaming President Duterte for things that happened during President Aquino's time.]

Cayetano said the current administration would employ a different strategy to resolve the issue, focusing on cooperation and diplomacy, given the complexities of the situation.

CNN Philippines Triciah Terada, Pia Garcia, and Chad De Guzman contributed to this report.Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 6)  Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano slammed Vice President Leni Robredo's remark on the diplomatic row between the Philippines and Kuwait, challenging her for saying the government violated Kuwait's sovereignty by staging unauthorized rescue missions.

"Hindi ba 'yung mga foreigner na nagra-rally dito, vina-violate 'yung sovereignty natin kasi bawal 'yun. Bakit sabi nila, puwede? Tapos tayo 'pag magre-rescue, pipintasan nila sarili nilang gobiyerno na breaking sovereignty," Cayetano charged in a press briefing Saturday. "Hindi puwedeng may double standard (There should be no double standard)."

[Translation: When foreigners rally here, they violate our sovereignty. Why are they allowed to do so? But when we rescue Filipinos, they criticize our government for breaking sovereignty.]

Cayetano was referring to Australian nun Patricia Fox, who was ordered to leave the Philippines by the end of May for engaging in political activities.

Robredo released a statement on Friday, saying the viral video showing Philippine embassy officials on a rescue mission in Kuwait could jeopardize the jobs of 260,000 Filipino workers in the Gulf state.

The video had prompted Kuwait to declare Philippine Ambassador Renato Villa persona non grata and expel him. It also arrested four Filipino drivers and issued warrants of arrest against Filipino diplomats who participated in the rescue effort.

The Vice President said the easing of diplomacy between the Philippines and Kuwait "must start with an honest and candid acknowledgment of the crisis, a willingness to accept accountability and a conviction to do what is right."

Cayetano, however, said the Philippine government is already accepting accountability for the incident.

"I'd like to assure Vice President Robredo that we are accountable: we're accountable to the President, we're accountable to the people, we're accountable to God," he said.

Cayetano also slammed Robredo for sending a video message to the United Nations in March 2017, where she criticized the country's war against drugs.

"'Pag tayo may nag-video...pero bakit siya, si Vice President Leni, nagpadala ng video sa UN na fake news na paninira sa sariling bansa?" he said.

[Translation: Why are they criticizing us for our videos...Why is it okay for Vice President Leni to send a video to the UN which is fake news and sabotaging our country?]

Cayetano then called on the opposition to follow "worldwide protocol" by letting diplomatic negotiations between two countries to finish first before criticizing, and to be fair in their criticisms.



1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.

2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.

3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.

4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.

5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.

6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.

7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.

8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.

9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.

10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.

11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)

12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.

13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.

14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.

15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

18. Gain control of all student newspapers.

19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.

21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."

23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."

24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.

25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.

26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."

27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."

28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."

29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."

31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.

32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.

34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.

36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.

37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.

38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.

39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.

42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.

43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.

44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.

45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.The Moralist Woodrow Wilson and the World He Made Patricia OToole Simon & Schuster 636 pages; $35 Instead of The Moralist: Woodrow Wilson and the World He Made, Patricia OToole could have titled her new book The Hypocrite. After all, as she herself points out, to lay claim to the moral high ground as often and as fervently as President Wilson did during his eight years in the White House was to court charges that he failed to live up to his own principles. He called for an end to secret treaties while negotiating secretly with the Allies in World War ...Dear Reader,

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Digital EditorThe Walmart-Flipkart deal is one of the biggest in the retail sector in India. However, those in the business are not affected. According to incumbents Business Standard spoke to, the coming together of the two big retailers will not impact their business. It is one more serious entry on the part of the largest retailer in the world.

But it wont impact the plans of local players. We will continue with our plans, said Damodar Mall, chief executive officer of grocery retail at Reliance Retail. A senior executive at Kishore Biyani-led Future group said the ...It is not just the promoters, but also stranded homeowners of Jaypee Infratechs (JILs) various projects as well as minority shareholders totalling around 138,000, who are fearing massive losses if the valuation of the beleaguered firm is slashed by less than half. They have written separately to the resolution professional objecting to the evaluation criteria for bids for JIL.

The committee of creditors (CoC) is slated to meet on Monday to take a call on various bids that have come for JIL. Homebuyers and minority shareholders have written separately to resolution ...The government's plan to attract $100 billion (about Rs trillion) investment in the telecom sector by 2022 is conservative, body has said.

Just two telecom operators, and Reliance Jio, have committed to invest Rs 740 billion this year alone, which is more than 10 per cent of the total government estimate, Director General Rajan S Mathews said.

"Telecom operators are investing $10 billion. Half of investment is expected to come from just these two players," he told PTI in an interview.

The government draft of the new telecom policy (NTP) -- 'National Digital Communications Policy 2018' -- aims to create 4 million new jobs by 2022, attract $100 billion investment in the sector and ensure broadband coverage at 50 mbps for every citizen.

It also proposes to address the woes of debt-ridden telecom sector by reviewing licence fees, spectrum usage charges, universal service obligation fund levy -- all of which add to cost of telecom services.

Appreciating the reforms proposed in the policy, Mathews said that rationalisation of spectrum price and related charges will further fuel the investments in the sector.

"If the policy gets implemented as proposed in the draft, the sector will be able to attract huge amount of foreign direct investments," Mathews said.

The policy draft proposes adopting "Optimal Pricing of Spectrum" to ensure sustainable and affordable access to digital communications.



It also proposes use of mid-band spectrum, particularly the 3 GHz to 24 GHz range, for next-generation networks.

Besides, it has outlined a roadmap for transmitting signals between mobile towers in E-band (71-76/81-86 GHz) and V-band (57-64 MHz) spectrum, in line with international best practices.

Mathews said the government should start allocating spectrum in E and V bands without auction to expedite the roll out of telecom infrastructure to meet the proposed objectives such as broadband for all and increasing the share of the telecom sector in GDP to 8 per cent from 6 per cent at present.

"The policy proposes to allocate E and V band spectrum in line with global best practices. Nowhere in the world these spectrum are allocated on the basis of auction. Telecom operators already pay for spectrum in auctions which comes bundled with backhaul spectrum.

"The E and V bands are for backhaul services so there should be no extra charge for them," he said.Bollywood star Salman Khan arrived in Jodhpur on Sunday for the hearing of his application before a sessions judge challenging the trial court order sentencing him to a five-year jail term in the 1998 blackbuck poaching case.

The application is listed for hearing on Monday before Jodhpur District and Sessions Judge Chandra Kumar Songara, the actor's counsel Nishant Bora said.

Fifty-two-year-old Khan reached Jodhpur this afternoon from Mumbai by a regular flight, a police official said.

He is accompanied by his sister Alvira, bodyguard Shera and some others, he said.

Khan was driven from driven straight from the airport to a five-star hotel, the official said.

The actor will be present in the court during the hearing of his appeal, his counsel said.

Khan was released from the Jodhpur jail, where he spent two nights, on April 7 after then District and Sessions Judge Ravindra Kumar Joshi here granted him bail in the case.

In a late evening order on April 6, Joshi was transferred to Sirohi as part of a reshuffle carried out by the Rajasthan High Court. He was replaced by Songara.

In his order granting bail, Joshi had allowed Khan's application for suspension of sentence for a month against his conviction.

The judge had asked the actor to appear before the court after a month on May 7 when it would hear his plea for suspension of sentence. He also directed Khan not to leave the country without the court's permission.

Chief Judicial Magistrate Dev Kumar Khatri had on April 5 sentenced Khan to five years in prison for killing two blackbucks during the shooting of "Hum Saath Saath Hain" in Kankani village near Jodhpur on the night of October 1, 1998.

The trial court had acquitted his Bollywood colleagues Saif Ali Khan, Tabu, Neelam and Sonali Bendre and a local, Dushyant Singh, giving them the "benefit of doubt" for the incident.In a fresh advisory, the Home Ministry quoting India Meteorological Department (IMD) said thunderstorm, along with rain, is likely in some places of Delhi and adjoining NCR on Sunday, while 13 states will be affected with the same, along with squall, hail on Monday. The home ministry noted that 124 people were killed while more than 300 injured in five states due to thunderstorm and lightning in the last two days.

The maximum casualty was reported in Uttar Pradesh where 73 people were killed, while 91 others were injured. Most of the deaths and injuries in the state took place in ...The Pakistani military leadership led by Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa is reaching out to India because it has realised that the way to peace and prosperity is through military cooperation with New Delhi, a Pakistani analyst has said in a British think-tank commentary. The powerful army, which enjoys considerable influence over policy decisions in Pakistan, has ruled the country for much of its life since it gained independence 70 years ago. "In a historic first last month, Pakistan's Army Chief of Staff (COAS) Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa invited Sanjay Vishwasrao, the ...Finance ministers of six states, including host Andhra Pradesh, will meet on Monday to discuss the terms of reference of the and its fallout for states.

Chief Minister N will inaugurate the day-long conclave at the Secretariat at 10 am, state Finance Minister said in a statement on Sunday.

alone would stand to lose Rs 80 billion per annum because of the 15th Finance Commission's recommendation to use 2011 census for devolution of funds, the minister claimed.

Similarly, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Kerala, Karnataka, Puducherry, Odisha, Punjab, West Bengal, Sikkim, Meghalaya and Mizoram would suffer badly, he said.

"We will adopt a resolution against the and submit it to the President," Ramakrishnudu added.

Finance ministers of West Bengal, Kerala, Delhi, Punjab and Karnataka would attend the conclave, being held as a follow-up to the one in Thiruvananthapuram last month.

The finance minister said the terms of reference of recommend using population from 2011 census. However, the ToR does not specify the weightage to be given to the population, he added.

"In the 14th Finance Commission, 2011 population was given 10 per cent weightage whereas 1971 population was given 17.5 per cent," Ramakrishnudu said.

The Finance Ministers conclave would push for the 2011 population weightage to remain at 10 per cent and that the 17.5 per cent weightage for 1971 population be allocated to performance-based indicators.A leader is someone who demonstrates whats possible  Mark Yarnell To be a doctor in India, you try and clear the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test or NEET and make it to AIIMS, or other state medical colleges. If you want to be an engineer, its the Indian Institute of Technology or IITs you have your eyes set on.

And if you want to manage one of Indias MNCs, you must aim for the Indian Institute of Management or IIMs. But what do you aim at if you want to be a teacher? Truth be told, there are no stellar organisations for ...The Corporate Affairs Ministry is considering a proposal to collect passport details of people serving as directors on the boards of companies as part of efforts to prevent fraudsters from fleeing the country, according to a senior official.

The proposal assumes significance amid instances of people leaving the country after defaulting on and siphoning of funds.

The ministry, which is implementing the Companies Act, has stepped up efforts to curb illicit fund flows and has already deregistered more than 226,000 firms for not carrying out business activities for long.

Corporate Affairs Secretary Injeti Srinivas has said the ministry is considering a proposal to collect passport details of directors of companies.

"The passport details at the digital warehouse will help authorities to take timely action and check fraudsters from fleeing the country," he said in a message published in the ministry's newsletter for the month of March.

Query sent to the Secretary seeking comments on the current status of the proposal did not elicit any response.

Last year, the ministry had disqualified over 300,000 persons for holding directorships at registered companies that failed to comply with regulatory requirements.

According to the newsletter, posted on the ministry's website, there have been several instances of economic offenders fleeing the jurisdiction of Indian courts, anticipating commencement of criminal proceedings which undermines the rule of law in India.

To deal with such issues, the government last month promulgated the Fugitive Economic Offenders Ordinance, 2018, giving authorities powers to attach and confiscate the proceeds of crime and properties of economic offenders like bank fraudsters or loan defaulters fleeing the country.

The Ordinance makes provisions for Special Court under the Prevention of Money-laundering Act, 2002 to declare a person as a Fugitive Economic Offender.

Among others, it provides for an application being made before the Special Court for a declaration that an individual as a fugitive economic offender, attaching his or her properties and proceeds of crime and selling of such properties.President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Modi recently met at Wuhan for a meeting that is being described as a major ice-breaker.

While we know the Indian reaction to the meeting, it is hard to figure where the meeting stands in President Xis priorities That the meeting figures high in Chinas priorities can be seen from the fact that this is Xi Jinpings first informal meeting in China. China has been worried about the Quad Australia, India, Japan, and the US, which was revived on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit in Manila in November ...Accusing the Congress of creating hurdles at every step of development, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said the Karnataka government must give an account of the work they have done for the people of the state, addimg all they do is calling out his name and abuse Modi.

PM Modi, addressing a rally at Raichur in Karnataka, said it's the right time to bid farewell to Congress party which opposes him on every issue. Earlier in the day at another rally in Chitradurga, Modi accused the Congress of indulging in "vote bank politics" for celebrating ...The more Modiji talks about the things his government has done for farmers, the more the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) will lose here, says Vikas Soppin, an engineer, with a degree in marketing, who is now a farmer activist.

He was referring to the Prime Minister Narendra Modis speech at Gadag two days ago where Modi said the Congress had paid only lip service to farmers. It is better that nobody from the BJP speaks about the famed fasal beema yojana because we know exactly what the yojana has achieved. To say that farmers in North ...US President Donald Trump spoke with British Prime Minister and discussed issues including the and the promotion of free and fair trade in particularly with regard to China.

In the call with May on Saturday, Trump also talked about denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula, the White House said.

President Trump "underscored his commitment to ensure that Iran never acquires a nuclear weapon," it said.

Trump's remarks came ahead of British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson's visit to Washington to urge him not to scrap the Iranian nuclear deal.

The UK and its European allies have until May 12 to persuade Trump to stick with the deal.

President Trump has frequently criticised the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA.



Trump has set a May 12 deadline for the US and Europe to address the issues he has with the nuclear deal under US law, the President has to recertify the deal every few months.

The was reached in Vienna in July 2015 between Iran and the P5 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council) plus Germany and the European Union.

"The two leaders discussed the promotion of fair and reciprocal trade, particularly with regard to China," the White House said.

As planning continues for his upcoming meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Trump emphasized his goal of a denuclearized North Korea, it said.

Trump would visit the United Kingdom in July.The East Texas Historical Association provides this column as a public service. Scott Sosebee is an associate professor of history at SFA and the executive director of the association. He can be contacted at sosebeem@sfasu.edu; www.easttexashistorical.org.After more than a year of assessing how effective OPEC and friends have been at keeping a lid on supply, it's fair to ask how much more they can produce. This is really a question about spare production capacity -- and it's an urgent one.

President Donald Trump has to decide by May 12 whether to extend waivers on Iranian sanctions, and all the indications are that he won't. The drop in supply could easily exceed a million barrels a day, if the president decides to impose extra-territorial sanctions on anyone doing business with Iran -- would-be buyers could decide that ...Six Indians on Sunday morning were abducted by unknown armed men in Afghanistan's Baghlan province.

On the whole, seven staff members of Indian company KEC International Limited have been abducted, confirmed the Afghan officials.

Out of the seven staff members abducted, whilst six are Indians, one is an Afghan. All seven of them were abducted in Bagh-e-Shamal village of the Pul-e-Khomre city capital of Baghlan province, reported Afghan's TOLO News.

According to the report, the incident took place when they were going to the village, where the company is said to own an electricity sub-station contract.

Baghlan provincial council have linked the incident to the Taliban, however, that stands unconfirmed, as the terror outfit has not commented so far.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)An Afghan freelance journalist was attacked by unidentified miscreants and sustained wounds here on Sunday.

The journalist, Nematullah Tanin was quoted by TOLO news as saying that he was attacked by the assailants when he came out of the house in Kabul's PD5 in Afshar area and was going somewhere for work.

The journalist added that a bullet whizzed past his head and he suffered a shrapnel injury as a result.

The miscreants fled after the attack.

On a related note, two suicide bombers killed almost 30 people in the double bombing in Shash Darak area of Kabul city. Nine journalists were also killed in the incident, who were covering the first attack at that time.

The second attacker impersonated as a member of the media fraternity.

Afghan Ambassador to India Shaida Mohammad Abdali on Friday dwelled upon the killing of nine journalists saying, "This was the bloodiest year for Afghan media. This was an attack on global media. More importantly, this attack was on Afghan youth."

According to the 2018 Press Freedom Index, Afghanistan ranks a lowly 118 out of 180 countries.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi on Sunday hit out at the Congress Party after their suspended leader Mani Shankar Aiyar praised Muhammad Ali Jinnah amid the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) portrait controversy.

Naqvi told ANI, that Aiyar's statement reveals the true feeling of the Congress party.

"These are the true feelings of the Congress party's sanskari freelancer. They have imbibed these thoughts from the environment in which they have carried out their political journey. This is not new they are known for making such statement," Naqvi said.

Echoing similar sentiments, another BJP leader S Prakash said that the statement of the suspended Congress leader reveals the fascination of the Congress party towards anti- elements.

"I am not surprised with the Congress party's fascination towards the anti- forces like Jinnah, Tipu Sultan and others. It is the Congress' culture and Mani Shankar Aiyar is only expressing the same openly," Prakash said.

Earlier on Saturday, Aiyar evoked a fresh controversy when he referred Jinnah as "Quaid-e-Azam" at an event in Pakistan.

In Aligarh, some groups have protested against the portrait of Pakistan's founder at the office of Aligarh Muslim University student union's office.

The matter hit the headlines after Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s Aligarh MP Satish Gautam questioned the portrait's presence in the AMU student union office.

On Thursday, 28 students and 13 cops were injured in a clash which broke out between AMU students and the police.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The security forces on Saturday recovered two improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that were planted by Naxals in an under-construction health center in Bandaguda Village of Chhattisgarh's Bijapur district.

Both the IEDs were defused.

"During operations at around 6:55 am, the security forces recovered two IEDs that were planted by Naxals," officials said.

Earlier on May 2, two jawans of Chhattisgarh Police's District Force were killed in an IED blast in Gariaband district while a Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA) jawan sustained injuries after an IED blast in Dantewada district on April 29.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)At-risk adolescents are less likely to exhibit depressive symptoms on social media as they age, finds a study.

The research suggests that adolescents with a diagnosis of depression may feel less stigmatized describing depressed mood on social media than previously hypothesized.

Social media use can provide important information on the mental of adolescents, including their own descriptions of their experiences. The purpose of this study was to analyze the patterns of social media posting describing depressive symptoms among an at-risk cohort of adolescents at two time points.

The study measured Facebook posts by participants at two time periods, labeled Time 1 as adolescents and Time 2 as young adults. Content analysis applied the Diagnoses and Statistical Manual (DSM) criteria for depression to identify displayed depression symptoms on Facebook.

The study found that the average number of references to depression among displayers was 9.30 at Time 1 and 4.94 at Time 2, showing a dramatic decrease in posts between adolescents and young adults.

"Considering differences between posts in Time 1 and Time 2, it is suggested that as teens develop, the likelihood to express depressive symptoms is lowered," said Dr. Kathleen Miller, one of the authors of the study.

"This may be related to the development of the prefrontal cortex which plays a role in inhibiting impulsive decisions."

Examples of posts referencing depression included "Basically at the point of giving up" and "Feeling the worst right now, just wanting to cry." The average number of references to suicide or self-harm was .34 at Time 1 and .08 at Time 2.

The research was presented during the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) 2018 Meeting in Toronto.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Israel has withdrawn its bid for a non-permanent seat at the UN Security Council for 2019-2020.

This has been described as "victory," by the Palestinian Foreign Ministry.

"The withdrawal of Israel - an occupying power - from the race for a Security Council seat is a victory for humanitarian principles and values that are based on international law and the Charter of the United Nations," the ministry said in a statement, as quoted by Sputnik.

The UN comprises of five permanent members (out of 15) which are Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Since 2000, Israel has been seeking a temporary seat on the Security Council. To become a permanent member, it requires the vote of two-thirds of the 193 members of the UN General Assembly.

The Palestinian ministry is, however, working with other countries and organizations to prevent Israel from gaining membership. '

Israel decided to pull out of the race after the Security Council in April called for an inquiry into the deaths of Palestinians and journalists, in clashes with Israeli soldiers on the border with Gaza.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday once again invoked the legacy of Baba Saheb Ambedkar and said Congress repeatedly insulted him.

Addressing second election rally of the day in Karnataka's Raichur district, the Prime Minister said Congress has always given preference to the "parivaar" and ignored others and that is why Ambedkar was never given Bharat Ratna.

At Raichur, which has a sizeable population of backward castes, he also labelled Congress' "anti-Dalit and anti-OBC mindset" as the reason behind the whitewash of the parliamentary session.

"Congress owes an explanation to the nation on why it is not letting Parliament function. Anti-Dalit and anti-OBC mindset of the Congress is the reason why the party is stalling Parliament and not allowing the creation of the OBC commission," the prime minister said.

On corruption, the Prime Minister told the gathering that the Congress leaders abuse him because he has made looting difficult.

"Congress had an eco-system of looting. Jan Dhan (Yojana), Aadhaar and Mobile number (JAM) trinity of our government has stopped leakages. No wonder Congress is angry with me and abusing me. Congress is worried that if we come to power in Karnataka, they will face difficulty in looting the poor," Prime Minister Modi said.

He hinted at a LED bulb scam during the erstwhile Congress-led Union government.

"When Sonia Gandhi's government was in power, LED bulb used to be sold at Rs 350. Now in our government, the bulbs are being sold at Rs 50. Where were the extra Rs 300 spent?" Prime Minister Modi asked.

Training guns at Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, the Prime Minister said, "The Karnataka government must give an account of the work they have done for the people of the state. Instead, all they do is- Modi, Modi, Modi. They just keep abusing me."

He added that it is the right time to bid farewell to Congress which opposes Modi on every issue.

Highlighting the Congress' declining poll performance, Prime Minister Modi said, "During the last Lok Sabha elections, the Congress that once had 400 Members of Parliament has been reduced to 40 MPs."

The Prime Minister also accused the Congress of ending the political career of former Karnataka Chief Minister S. Nijalingappa.

"How can we forget that Congress party put an end to the of the proud son and architect of modern Karnataka, Nijalingappa ji because he questioned the wrong policies of Nehru," Prime Minister Modi said.

On rape incidents in the country, he said the issue is not that how many such incidents have happened but the matter is that it does not suit a civilized society.

This was Prime Minister's second rally out of the four rallies scheduled for Sunday. Earlier, he addressed a rally in Chitradurga. Later, he would be addressing rallies in Jama Khandi and Hubli.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Sunday said that the Congress party will come back to power in Karnataka with full majority.

"Yeddyurappa and Kumaraswamy are both claiming that they'll come to power. If you look at BJP's track records they haven't won a seat in many crucial constituencies. Congress will come back to power in Karnataka with full majority," he said while addressing a Press Conference here.

He also said, "The time of income-tax raids during elections is questionable. Amit Shah and Modi are behind it."

Earlier, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had expressed confidence of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) forming a government with 'absolute majority' in Karnataka.

Prime Minister Modi said that the people of Karnataka would surely give a fitting reply to the Congress for the 'tormenting' times during their regime.

Continuing his attack, he also said that if anyone can defeat Congress, it is Bharatiya Janata Party.

Taking a jibe at Congress, he had said that the whenever they lose a state election they tend to blame the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM).

On a related note, Karnataka goes to polls on May 12 to elect representatives to the 225-seat assembly.

The results will be declared on May 15.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Hitting out at the Opposition in the poll-bound Karnataka, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati said that the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have neglected people in the last five years.

She further stated that people will be safe only under the Janata Dal (Secular) (JD-S) rule.

It is to be noted that the BSP and JD(S) have forged an alliance for the upcoming polls in Karnataka and the BSP will be fielding candidates from 20 seats.

"The Congress and BJP have neglected people and in the last five years, the Congress government did nothing for people where as the NDA government is attacking Dalits and minorities," Mayawati said while addressing a gathering in Kolar district.

"People will be safe only under the JD(S) regime which can give good governance and solve all burning issues of the state," Mayawati added.

Karnataka will go to poll on May 12 and the counting will take place on May 15.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Madagascar on Friday scrapped few parts of its new electoral laws as several elements of the laws went against their constitution.

As per certain media reports, the opposition had staged protests to accuse the ruling government of pushing them out of the electoral race.

According to a local court's website, there were elements in the laws, including revision of electoral lists and the length of political campaigns that went against the constitution.

The opposition argued that the deleted sections had favoured Madagascar's incumbent President Hery Rajaonarimampianina and called for his resignation.

It further alleged that due to the revised laws, certain candidates from the opposition were barred from contesting the elections.

Following the conflict between the ruling and the opposition parties, anti-government protests erupted on April 21 in capital Antananarivo.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Pakistan Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa has recognised that the way of achieving peace and prosperity in Pakistan could be done by military cooperation with India, according to an analytical report published by UK-based think-tank Royal Unites Services Institute (RUSI).

According to the report written by RUSI's expert on South Asia and Middle East Kamal Alam, General Bajwa had recently invited Sanjay Vishwasrao, the Indian military attache, and his team to the Pakistan Day military parade in Islamabad in March, Geo TV reported.

After two weeks, General Bajwa reportedly said that he wanted peace and dialogue with India.

The report said that India and Pakistan will also take part in joint military drills in Russia in September, with Chinese participation.

"These initiatives come against a background of almost weekly exchanges of fire along the Line of Control in Kashmir," the report noted.

The report further said that senior Pakistani officer Lieutenant General Aamir Riaz headed the first ever high-level contact group with India as Director-General Military Operations.

The report added that another top officer, Major General Ahmed Hayat, the Director General of analysis wing of the Inter-Services-Intelligence (ISI), authored the so-called "India Plan" in 2013, which tried to ascertain how and when Pakistan should approach India.

General Hayat underscored that the Pakistani military would approach India after Islamabad strengthened it defence diplomacy without pressure or threats from Washington D.C.

"It is a no-brainer that one cannot live in an environment of perpetual enmity with a neighbour six times your size, but the indicators have to be right," he said.

Meanwhile, India has rejected Pakistan's offer of a transit trade dialogue on Afghan-Indian commerce, as per the report.

The report further said that with a sustained approach by the Pakistani military to India, it could only be a matter of time before New Delhi agrees to at least talk to Islamabad for improving relations and pressing for peace and stability.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday will address four rallies in Karnataka ahead of the upcoming state legislative assembly elections.

In the last leg of his campaigning for May 12 polls, the Prime Minister will visit Karnataka's Chitradurga, Raichur, JamaKhandi and Hubli area.

Apart from this Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief, Amit Shah will also hold multiple rallies in the poll-bound state.

He will hold two public meetings and will take part in a road show in Belagavi.

In a related note, The Election Commission-appointed surveillance teams have seized suspect cash, jewellery and other inducements worth over Rs 120 crore in the poll-bound state yesterday.

Cash amounting to over Rs 67.27 crore, over five lakh litres of liquor worth Rs 23.36 crore, gold valued at 43.17 crore and other items such as pressure cookers, sarees, sewing machines, gutkha, laptops and vehicles, among others, worth about Rs 18.57 crore, was seized.

Karnataka goes to polls on May 12 and 2,655 candidates, including 219 women, are in the poll fray for securing 224 seats up. The results will be declared on May 15.

Data provided by the Chief Electoral Office in Karnataka has indicated that the BJP will contest all 224 seats, while the Congress will contest 222 seats. The H.D. Devegowda-led Janata Dal-Secular will contest on 201 seats.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will address the inaugural session of the bi-annual Naval commanders' conference on May 8.

In this four-day conference, the Indian Navy will review its new mission-based deployment philosophy aimed at ensuring peace and stability in the region.

On the inaugural day, Sitharaman's address will be followed by discussions with the officials of Ministry of Defence.

The new deployment philosophy is in sync with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of Security and Growth for All in the Region (SAGAR).

It aims at sustained, peaceful and responsive presence of Indian Naval ships in critical areas and choke points.

Various measures taken by the Indian Navy to improve Combat Efficiency, including the new transition cycle for ships and thereon to full-scale operations, will also be examined at the conference.

Apart from this, measures to ensure safety continued training, and checks and balances on crew proficiency on-board its frontline warships will also be reviewed.

Naval Commanders would deliberate upon steps to improve the Teeth-to-Tail ratio and explore niche fields such as Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Analytics.

Harnessing cutting-edge technology, specifically those 'Made-in-India', to improve organisational effectiveness and efficiency would be another key focus area of the Commanders.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)United States President Donald Trump's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) nominee Gina Haspel sought to withdraw from her post amid concerns over her role in an interrogation programme, officials said on Sunday.

Haspel met with White House officials on Friday to discuss her involvement in the interrogation programme during the George W. Bush administration that used techniques that were widely considered as "torture," and subsequent destruction of tapes that documented interrogations at a CIA "black site," The Washington Post reported.

While officials raised concerns over Haspel's involvement in the programme, she offered to step down as the acting CIA director, the report noted.

In 2005, Haspel ordered the destruction of videotapes documenting the interrogations of two men at the Thailand prison, amidst growing scrutiny of the detention and interrogation programme. The decision was made by Jose Rodriguez, the then head of the agency's clandestine service, The Hill reported.

An administration official told the Washington Post that Haspel would be nominated as the CIA director as planned before. Meanwhile, her confirmation hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.

On Friday, the CIA released a memo during the investigation ahead of the hearing.

In order to become the first female to lead the foreign intelligence service, she needs support of the Republicans, who hold a slim 51-49 majority in the US Senate.

The White House has openly promoted Haspel's track record and leadership experience.

The post of the CIA director fell vacant after Mike Pompeo was confirmed as the new US Secretary of State on Thursday.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)United States President Donald Trump's lawyer and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani on Saturday pointed out that there was a "good chance" that the three American hostages in North Korea will be released over the "next several days".

Speaking at the Iran Freedom Convention for Democracy and Human Rights here, Giuliani said, "There is a good chance that the three longtime hostages in North Korea will be released over the next several days. The (Trump) administration is working on it. I pray that that happens," The Hill reported.

On Iran, Giuliani added that President Trump was "committed to the change of regime."

"It's (Regime change in Iran) the only way to peace in the Middle East and more important than an Israeli-Palestinian (peace) deal," he was quoted by Politico as saying.

On the status of the three hostages in North Korea, Giuliani told CNN after the speech, "The less said about it right now, the better. But we could have three people released."

President Trump on Thursday hinted at the possibility of the release of three American hostages, who were detained in North Korea.

In a midnight tweet, President Trump wrote, "As everybody is aware, the past Administration has long been asking for three hostages to be released from a North Korean Labor camp, but to no avail. Stay tuned!"

The tweet comes after a report emerged that North Korea relocated three American detainees from a labour camp to a hotel on the outskirts of Pyongyang, ahead of a planned summit between President Trump and North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong-un, according to a South Korean activist, who was quoted by Yonhap News Agency as saying.

The three American citizens are - Kim Hak-song, Tony Kim and Kim Dong-chul. They were accused of espionage or doing "hostile acts" against North Korea.

On a related note, President Trump announced last week that he could meet North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un within "three to four weeks".

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)United States President Donald Trump on Friday called an unnamed hospital in London a "war zone", adding the hospital has the blood of victims of "knife attacks" all over the floors.

Speaking at the National Rifle Association (NRA) convention in Dallas, President Trump, while defending gun laws in his country, said, "They don't have guns, despite tough gun laws in the UK. They have knives and instead, there's blood all over the floors of this hospital. They say it's as bad as a military war zone hospital, knives, knives, knives. London hasn't been used to that. They're getting used to that. It's pretty tough."

It is not clear which London hospital the US President was referring to, CNN reported.

However, Dr. Martin Griffiths of the Royal London Hospital told BBC last month that his hospital was likened to an Afghan war zone.

"Some of my military colleagues have described their practice here as being similar to being at (Helmand province's former Camp) Bastion. We routinely have children under our care - 13, 14, 15 years old are daily occurrences, knife and gun wounds," Dr. Griffiths said.

Amidst this, Dr. Griffiths wrote on Twitter with an image suggesting the president had missed the point while adding that he was "happy to invite President Trump to his prestigious hospital".

According to figures released by London's Metropolitan Police, the city recorded 4,700 incidents of knife injuries between April 2017 and March this year, the highest reported figures in England and Wales since 2011.

About 60 suspected murders have been reported in London so far this year, including assaults and stabbings. While for last year, the city saw 116 murders, including at least 80 stabbing victims and 10 gunshot victims, the police said on Saturday.

The Metropolitan Police further said that despite the rise in numbers, London remained "one of the safest cities in the "

Last week, British Ambassador to the US, Kim Darroch, said in a statement that President Trump was all set to travel to the UK on a one-day working visit on July 13.

The visit had been repeatedly delayed over a series of diplomatic spats.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Sunday said that he has urged Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh to chalk out a plan to restrict the water of River Ravi from flowing to Pakistan.

Interacting with media, the Haryana Chief Minister said that the water of River Ravi which originally belongs to India, should be utilized for the people of the region.

"I have written a letter to the Chief Minister of Punjab asking them to take some step to prevent the flow of the water of River Ravi. We have also ordered our officials to come up with some proposal on the same, so that we can use the water for the people of Haryana and Punjab," Khattar said.

Under the provisions of the Indus Waters Treaty signed by India and Pakistan in 1960, the waters of the eastern rivers -- the Sutlej, Beas and Ravi, had been allocated to India.

While that of the western rivers --the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab to Pakistan.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Indian companies have invested over $4 billion in South Africa and created 18,000 direct jobs in the continent's biggest economy, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) said on Sunday

According to a new CII report "Indian Industry's Inclusive Footprint in South Africa - Doing business, doing good", prepared jointly with British advisory multinational Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC), there are 140 Indian companies operating in South Africa whose contributions go beyond foreign direct investment (FDI) in the country, and include key CSR and skill development initiatives.

"Indian companies operating in South Africa are not just investing funds and creating jobs, but are actively contributing to the upliftment of the communities in which they operate," a CII release said here.

According to the report, leading Indian companies such as Wipro, state-run Coal India, Cipla, Jindal Steel and Power, Mahindra and Mahindra have recently made investments in South Africa.

"In the healthcare sector, the entry of Indian pharma companies Ranbaxy and Cipla brought in drastic reduction in the cost of anti-retroviral drugs in South Africa, saving thousands of lives. Indian companies are taking steps to transfer skills to South Africans, particularly in the IT sector," it said.

In a statement, CII Director General Chandrajit Banerjee said: "The report highlights the journey of the historic and economic relationship between India and South Africa, looking at the key sectors where Indian companies are thriving."

PwC Chief Executive (Southern Africa) Dion Shango said: "Indian companies are demonstrating their commitment to sustainable development in South Africa across education and healthcare schemes to job creation, agricultural projects and empowering women."

A focus on ethical business practice comes through in the report, as this is of critical importance for Indian companies operating in South Africa, the statement added.

--IANS

bc/ksk

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)It is the great, not necessarily correct, but disruptive ideas about human nature and the world that evoke the most fervent reactions, both for and against. Some of the quite famous of these stem from a quartet of European thinkers, all born within seven decades in the 19th century, and having done most to shape the modern world -- Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, and Albert Einstein.

For all four helped to overthrow the existing worldview that humans were instinctively rational, that concord and harmony was the normal human condition, and that a "grand plan" underpinned the universe's functioning. But while Darwin's work spanned all living creatures, Marx's was about society, Einstein's looked at everything from the sub-atomic world to far-away universes, and Freud's work focussed on individuals -- and their minds.

Since this Sunday (May 6) is his 162nd birth anniversary, let us take a look at Freud's main theories and what his adherents and critics -- from renowned philosopher Bertrand Russell to poet W.H. Auden, surrealism's founder Andre Breton to modern pop icon Madonna, and even a best-selling author of suspense novels and Sanskrit scholar -- made of them.

The founder of psychoanalysis, which stressed the techniques of free association and transference (of feelings), Freud sought to redefine sexuality to include its infantile forms -- which led him to the "Oedipus complex" and dreams as symbols of wish fulfillment.

His method of clinically analysing symptoms led him to postulate that their origins lay in repressed memories and formed his theory of the unconscious -- a concept dating back to Plato -- and its psychical constructs of id, ego and super-ego. Then he conceived of "libido", an energy powering mental processes and responsible for erotic attachments, and a death drive, from which emanate compulsive repetition, aggression and neurotic guilt. Later, he sought to interpret religion and culture.

While all of our four thinkers have their staunch supporters and dedicated detractors, Freud, since he brought some uncomfortable views into contention, especially his emphasis on sex and an incestuous basis of identity formation, has more than a fair share -- though often contradictory.

In "Introducing the Freud Wars" (2002) by Stephen Wilson and Oscar Zarate (illustrator), psychiatrist Wilson, seeks an "uncompromising" investigation into the "chief accusations levelled against him (Freud) and the oppositions to his discoveries".

As Wilson tells us, Freud was charged with lying about his clinical practice, moral cowardice in his theorising, collusion in medical negligence, and overweening ambition, for drug addiction and "demonising children", and "responsible for delaying our recognition of infantile sexual abuse" as well as "the invention of false memories of infantile sexual abuse".

If this wasn't enough, he was "reproached for both unoriginality and myth-making, stating the obvious and mystifying us with the obscure" and was said to be guilty of encouraging both libertinism and puritanism, and misogyny and homophobia, and even planning to murder a close friend he later fell out with.

However, Wilson undertakes a balanced approach as he deals with these charges as well as others to show where Freud was on the right track, where he came to know he was wrong and admitted it, and where he was wrong, in light of further research.

One of the areas where Freud acknowledged he had been wrong was his seduction theory, attributing adult neurosis to childhood sexual abuse before later discerning they were "fantasies". However, Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, Sanskrit scholar-turned-psychoanalyst and newly-appointed Secretary of the Freud Archives, alleged that Freud abandoned this for personal reasons, and "began a trend away from the real world", which accounted for "the present-day sterility of psychoanalysis throughout the world".

Masson was soon sacked by the trustees, but did his charge have any basis? Journalist Janet Malcolm tells us in "In the Freud Archives" (1984), which also draws in Freud's daughter Anna, veteran psychoanalyst K.R. Eissler, and Peter Swales, a former assistant to the Rolling Stones. It also deals with legacies, posthumous reputations and the human tendency to believe only they can properly explain someone's thought.

And then, Freud figures widely in popular culture.

While Breton lauded him for studying dreams, Auden's "In Memory of Sigmund Freud" (1940), said: "He wasn't clever at all: he merely told/the unhappy Present to recite the Past.." and "if he succeeded, why, the Generalised Life/would become impossible, the monolith/ of State be broken..." and that "If often he was wrong and at times absurd/To us he is no more a person/Now but a climate of opinion", and Madonna sang "Sigmund Freud. Analyse this! Analyse this! Analyse this-this-this!" in James Bond's "Die Another Day".

A better estimation is made by psychiatrist/psychoanalyst Erich Fromm, who in "The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness" (1977), holds him "one of the last representatives of Enlightenment philosophy", who genuine believed in reason as a human strength.

His "Sigmund Freud's Mission: An Analysis of His Personality and Influence" (1959) and "Greatness and Limitation of Freud's Thought" (1979) offer more light on the discrepancies between early and later theories.

Then Richard Panek's "The Invisible Century" (2004) compares how Freud and Einstein rejected the 19th-century scientific paradigm that accurate measurements of physical aspects would yield the universe's secrets.

There is more to Freud than preconceived notions -- we just need to dig more and wide. He would have approved!

(Vikas Datta is an Associate Editor at IANS. The views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at vikas.d@ians.in <mailto:vikas.d@ians.in> )

--IANS

vd/sac

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Uh...didn't I STATE that Mueller is fishing?? WHY YES! I did because that's what prosecutors and investigators do. They go after little fish, hoping to reel in the big fish.



AND thanks for stating the obvious. You bet it's affecting a politician BECAUSE he is POTUS and a slimy excuse for a human being. Trump is dirty. Everyone KNOWS he's dirty. Trump admits HE'S dirty. So what's the problem?



Mueller is doing his job and he has uncovered a glut of illegal dealings. Interestingly enough you just don't seem interested in getting to the bottom of little stuff like Russians meddling in our elections, Manafort, Flynn, Papadopoulos, Gates, Cohen, a whole host of Russians, financial crimes, foreign money, lying to federal officials, and a porn star or two or three or.......



WHY? Why aren't you interested in prosecuting criminals? Why don't you support Mueller's investigation? IF Trump is innocent--why not support it?



Did you support the Bill Clinton investigation? Kenneth Star? Did you support the Benghazi hearings? The email investigations? The Clinton Foundation inquiry? How about Watergate? Did you support that investigation? The Kennedy assassination?? Have you supported any investigations in the past or are you just against ALL investigations and where they lead?

Why don't you want to know the truth--or at least as much of the truth as we can uncover?Assam Additional Chief Secretary Kumar Sanjay Krishna will head a probe ordered by Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal on Sunday into the alleged poor quality of bullet-proof vests used by police.

The Assam police has drawn severe criticism after Bordumsa police station incharge Bhaskar Kalita was killed in an encounter with the anti-talk faction of ULFA militants on Friday evening. Kalita was injured in his chest and abdomen even though he was wearing a bullet-proof vest.

"The allegations on quality of bullet-proof vests will be probed. I have already ordered an inquiry into the whole incident leading to death of Kalita. Kumar Sanjay Krishna will probe and submit a report to me," the Chief Minister said on Sunday.

Strongly condemning the killing of Kalita, he said that such incidents disturb peace, harmony and unity in society and seriously hamper developmental activities.

Reiterating his government's zero tolerance against terrorism, the Chief Minister also directed police to intensify operations against extremists.

An ex gratia of Rs 20 lakh will be given to the bereaved family, apart from the full salary every month till the time the police officer was slated to retire from service.

Director General of Police Kuladhar Saikia said that it was learnt that a lot of bullet-proof vests like the one used by the slain officer were procured during 2011-13.

"We will have to check records and find out the truth. The Chief Minister has already ordered a probe, and things will be clear," Saikia said, adding that anti-terror operations had been intensified along the Assam-Arunachal Pradesh border.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)West Bengal's ruling Trinamool Congress on Sunday accused the BJP and its leader Mukul Roy of violating the model code of conduct that is in place in the state ahead of the panchayat polls by trying to lure voters.

"A BJP leader, who has recently joined their party is saying that all the voters will be given free smart phones if BJP wins the Zilla Parishad seats. This is completely against the model code of conduct. It also shows the moral downfall of BJP as a party," said Trinamool Secretary General Partha Chatterjee.

"We have already informed the State Election Commission about this. It must take appropriate action. The people of Bengal may be poor but they will never surrender themselves to these kind of temptations," he said.

Roy, who defected from the Trinamool to the BJP last year, on Saturday said in a public meeting in north Bengal's Jalpaiguri that all the boys and girls above 18 years would be given free smart phones by the BJP if it came out victorious in the Zilla Parishad there.

Chatterjee also said that the BJP is propagating that they would drive away people of minority community from the Hindu-dominated areas if they win the elections.

"Such communalism by BJP is deplorable. We strongly condemn this. We have also informed the SEC about the same. It should do the needful to protect the secular fabric and democracy in the state," he added.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A Border Security Force (BSF) trooper killed three of his colleagues with his service rifle before committing suicide at a border outpost in Tripura, a police official said on Sunday.

"Sishu Pal, after a brief quarrel, opened fire on his colleagues including a head constable before killing himself at the Maguruli border outpost" in Unakoti district, the official said.

The incident occurred on Saturday night. The victims belonged to BSF's 55 Battalion.

BSF Deputy Inspector General Mrityunjaya Kumar told IANS: "Investigation of the incident is on. A detailed report is awaited."

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Campaigning in the Chengannur Assembly constituency for the May 28 by-election has finally gathered steam as the ruling LDF, the opposition Congress-led UDF and the NDA led by the BJP are pulling out all stops to woo the voters.

A cliff-hanger contest is expected since all three rival fronts have a strong base in the segment, a rarity in Kerala where mostly the Left Democratic Front led by the Communist Party of India-Marxist and the United Democratic Front have been traditional rivals.

The National Democratic Alliance led by the Bharatiya Janata Party, with just one legislator in the 140-member Kerala Assembly, had finished a close third in Chengannur in the 2016 Assembly polls.

The bypoll in Chengannur was necessitated due to the demise of CPI-M legislator K.K. Ramachandran Nair in early January.

Nair had wrested the seat -- a Congress stronghold for close to three decades -- in the 2016 polls after beating young Congress leader P.C. Vishnunath, who was aiming for a hat-trick from Chengannur.

While Nair secured 52,880 votes, Vishnunath got 44,987 votes and former state BJP President P. Sreedharan Pillai an impressive 42,682 votes.

The BJP has again fielded Pillai, who hails from the constituency while the ruling CPI-M has put its faith in Alappuzha District Secretary Saji Cherian and the Congress in D. Vijayakumar.

All the three fronts are leaving nothing to chance.

A victory will mean an icing on the cake for the Pinarayi Vijayan government as it is set to celebrate its two years in power a day before the May 31 result.

Congress' Leader of the Opposition Ramesh Chennithala, who hails from the constituency, said: "We want to win back this seat, which for years has been our stronghold. We will leave nothing to chance."

Cherian, however, is unfazed and is counting on the LDF government's good work.

CPI-M State Secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan said: "We are going to win easily as the UDF is on its way out as two of their allies in the 2016 polls are not with them at present."

However, Pillai could face problems this time as the Bharat Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS), a political arm of the SNDP that is a platform for the backward Ezhavas, is unhappy and is yet to come on board the NDA bandwagon for campaigning.

Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam (SNDP) supremo and BDJS founder Vellapally Natesan on Saturday said his party should field its candidate to "teach the BJP a lesson".

Both the BJP and the Congress are waiting for the Karnataka elections campaign to get over on May 10, where their star speakers are busy canvassing, to give a further fillip to their campaigns.

While Congress leader and former Defence Minister A.K. Antony is likely to hold a road show in the constituency, the BJP is expecting party President Amit Shah's visit towards May-end to boost its campaign.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Central government will provide 100 per cent of the funds to upgrade and expand the infrastructure of the judiciary in the northeastern states, a Tripura High Court Judge said on Sunday.

"Hundred per cent funding would be made by the Central government for upgradation and expansion of the infrastructure of the judiciary in the eight northeastern states. The funding pattern was earlier on the basis of 90:10 for Centre and state," Tripura High Court Judge Subhashish Talapatra told the annual conclave of judicial officers.

"Judiciary cannot execute its orders and judgement unless the government helps the judiciary.

"Most judges are not in favour of judicial activism. Our prime focus is to improve the quality of judgement and outreach the judiciary at the doorsteps of common men."

Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb inaugurated the day-long conclave where discipline and code of conduct of judicial officers, speedy disposal and reduction of pending cases, strengthening juvenile justice, holding Lok Adalat, mediation, and administrative issues would be discussed.

Addressing the conclave, Tripura High Court Chief Justice Ajay Rastogi said the Indian judiciary was now at a crossroad, facing challenges within and outside.

Justice Rastogi stressed the need to set up more family, commercial and consumer courts to settle disputes faster.

The Chief Justice urged the judicial officers to maintain accountability and transparency besides eliminating corruption.

The Chief Minister said the state government was bringing in police administration reforms with a view to increase efficiency and transparency.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Accusing the Congress of having the agenda of only opposing him, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday held the opposition party responsible for disruption of part of the budget session of Parliament in March.

"As the Congress agenda is only to oppose and criticise me, it does not allow even Parliament to function," Modi said at a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rally here ahead of the May 12 Karnataka Assembly elections.

"The Congress had an eco-system of looting which our government has come down heavily on. No wonder the Congress is angry with me and its leaders are abusing me," he added.

Campaigning for the party's candidates contesting from the state's northern part, about 470 km north of Bengaluru, the Prime Minister said the Congress owes an explanation to the country about why it disrupted Parliament.

The second part of the budget session from March 5 to April 6 was washed out due to disruptions owing to protests by the Congress-led opposition over several issues.

The Congress was functioning with an "anti-Dalit" mindset due to which it is stalling Parliament and obstructing according of a constitutional status on the Other Backward Classes Commission, Modi claimed.

Addressing hundreds of people in the drought-prone district, Modi asked the Congress government to give an account of their work done in the state.

"The Congress leaders keep abusing and criticising me. The Karnataka government must tell people about the work it has accomplished over five years in the state," the Prime Minister added.

Accusing the Congress of patronising the mining mafia in the southern state, Modi questioned what has been done by the state government in the state to conserve water.

"What has the Congress government done in Karnataka for water conservation? What efforts have been put towards de-silting? The Congress is patronising the mining mafia in the state and we need to free people from this mafia," the Prime Minister said.

Modi urged the people's to oust the Congress and instead elect the BJP to ensure Karnataka's development.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Showing his concern about the threat to the insurance industry, CEO of multinational conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway Warren Buffett has said that cybersecurity risks will get worse in the years to come.

"Cyber is uncharted territory. It's going to get worse, not better," CNBC quoted Buffett as saying at the company's annual meeting held at Omaha city in the US state of Nebraska late on Saturday.

He said he believed that cybersecurity incidents would rise and with it the potential to significantly harm the insurance industry.

"There's a very material risk which did not exist 10 or 15 years ago and will be much more intense as the years go along," he added.

Buffett said he does not want "much underwriting exposure to cybersecurity threats for Berkshire's insurance businesses".

According to the executive, the company has a "pretty good idea" on how to properly assess the probabilities for earthquakes in California and hurricanes in Florida, but not with computer hacking threats.

The investor expressed scepticism that any insurance company can assess the risk for cybersecurity events, the CNBC report said.

"We don't want to be a pioneer on this... I think anybody that tells you now they think they know in some actuarial way either what (the) general experience is like in the future, or what the worst case can be, is kidding themselves," he added.

Buffett also announced that Berkshire Hathaway has acquired another 75 million shares of Apple and now has 5 per cent stake in the company.

At the end of the first quarter of 2018, Berkshire owned $40.7 billion of Apple's shares -- up from $28.2 billion at the end of 2017, The New York Times reported.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)An employee of the government-run Osmania Hospital here has allegedly raped a woman who had come to the hospital for treatment of injuries she suffered at the hands of her husband, police said on Sunday.

Police have arrested V. Nagaraju, working as a ward boy in this oldest and the biggest government-run facility in Telangana. Home Guard Qamar Elahi has also been taken into custody for alleged abetment. The guard knew about the rape but did not inform his superiors.

According to police, the incident occurred on Thursday but came to light only on Saturday.

The 35-year-old woman had approached Banjara Hills police station after her husband physically assaulted her.

The police had sent her to Osmania Hospital for treatment. Police said she did not wait for an escort and left for the hospital with a letter from the police station.

After receiving treatment as an outpatient, she was seated in the waiting hall.

Finding the woman alone, the ward boy took her to the first floor on the pretext that a doctor will examine her. The employee allegedly violated her.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Five civilians were killed on Sunday in clashes with security forces after five militants were killed in a gunfight in Jammu and Kashmir's Shopian district.

Police sources said a protesting civilian, Adil Ahmad, injured during the clashes was declared dead on arrival by doctors at the Kulgam district hospital. Reports from the area said Adil was injured in Behibagh village in Kulgam district.

Three other civilians, Sajad Ahmad of Dooru in Anantnag district, Zubair Ahmad of Pulwama and Yasir Ahmad of Shopian, also succumbed to their injuries. Earlier, Asif Ahmad of Rohmou village of Pulwama died in a Srinagar hospital due to injuries suffered in the clashes.

Over a dozen civilians were injured in the clashes between the protesters and the security forces.

A mob torched two fire tenders during the protests.

Five militants, including Hizbul commander Saddam Paddar, Kashmir University assistant professor Muhammad Rafi Bhat, Tawseef Sheikh, Molvi Bilal and Adil Ahmad, were killed in the Shopian gunfight.

The slain professor belonged to Chunduna village of Ganderbal district. Authorities have suspended classes in the Kashmir University on Monday and Tuesday.

Authorities have handed over the professor's body to his family for burial in his Chunduna village in Ganderbal district.

After the professor's death, former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah tweeted: "Sadly this is also an answer to those who claim jobs and development are the solution to the violence and alienation in Kashmir.

"This is another tragic development in a steady stream of tragedies in Kashmir," he said.

Mobile Internet services in south Kashmir and in Ganderbal district have been suspended to prevent the spread of rumours.

--IANS

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(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Five militants including a Kashmir University teacher who went missing last week, were killed on Sunday in a gunfight with the security forces in Jammu and Kashmir's Shopian district, police said.

Director General of Police (DGP) S.P. Vaid said all five holed-up militants in Badigam village have been killed.

"Encounter concluded at Badigam Zainpora Shopian, five bodies of terrorists recovered. Well done boys - Army/CRPF/J&K Police," the DGP tweeted.

The slain militants have been identified as Saddam Paddar -- a top Hizbul Mujahideen commander, Tawseef Sheikh, Molvi Bilal, Adil Ahmad and Muhammad Rafi Bhat -- the missing Kashmir University assistant professor, who according to police had joined militant ranks.

Paddar was a close associate of Burhan Wani, who was killed in July 2016 in a gunfight in Kokernag area in Anantnag district.

Bhat was trapped along with militants in the gunfight.

Bhat, an assistant professor in the sociology department of Kashmir University, was reported missing on Friday. He belonged to Chunduna village in Ganderbal district.

Earlier, the police took his mother, wife and brother to Badigam village to persuade Bhat to surrender.

There were angry protests in the university campus on Saturday as students asked the authorities to locate Bhat.

Para commandos of the army were also deployed to help fight the holed up militants during Sunday's gunfight.

The security forces including Rashtriya Rifles (RR), Special Operations Group (SOG) and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) had surrounded Badigam following a tip-off about the presence of militants.

An army soldier and a policeman were also injured in the gunfight.

Besides, 12 civilians sustained injuries in the clashes between protesters and security forces near the gunfight site.

One civilian with critical injuries has been shifted to Srinagar for treatment.

Authorities have suspended mobile internet services across south Kashmir.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Filmmaker Meghna Gulzar says her father and celebrated writer Gulzar's inputs for a movie are like a painter's last stroke which leave a lasting impression.

The father-daughter duo joined creative forces for the forthcoming release "Raazi", which is based on Harinder Sikka's novel "Calling Sehmat".

Sharing her experience of working with her father and industry veteran Gulzar in the film, Meghna said here: "He has supervised dialogues, script of the film and penned down the lyrics I think his inputs in films are like painter's last stroke of the painting which changes emotion of that painting altogether... He is like that.

"We first write the script and do preps for the film, and then it's time to write the songs. As he comes in the picture to write lyrics for the film, the whole film gets elevated a few notches higher. He has seen the film and he really liked it. He has told me that 'It has become your habit to mute the audience after making film like Talvar and now again, you will do that with Raazi.'"

The movie, about a girl who risks her life by marrying a Pakistani army officer and moves to the neighbouring country to spy for her own, features Alia Bhatt and Vicky Kaushal.

British censors have given the film a 12A certification -- not generally suitable for children aged under 12 -- with no cuts.

Meghna said: "Forget the British censor board... We have got approval from Indian censors without any cuts, which I think is a big relief because you feel satisfied when people who are certifying the film can relate with your sensibilities and intentions through which you are presenting the film.

"I think certification also impacts business of the film when you obtain 12A certification from British censor board, then it is also important for producers of the film, and more audience can watch it in theatres."

The film is scheduled to release on May 11.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)AC Milan outplayed Hellas Verona 4-1 in late season action in Serie A, making official Hellas's relegation to Serie B, the Italian league's second division.

Milan on Saturday dominated the contest from nearly start to finish and took the lead at San Siro with a goal by Hakan Calhanoglu in the 10th minute, reports Efe.

Hellas then gave up two more goals by Milan forward Patrick Cutrone (32nd minute) and defender Ignazio Abate (49th minute) before substitute Lee Seung-woo notched the visitors' lone score in the 85th minute.

However, Milan boosted its lead back to three goals on a strike by substitute Fabio Borini in the 89th minute.

With the win, AC Milan has 60 points and has provisionally leapfrogged Atalanta into sixth place in Serie A, a spot that would earn them a berth in the Europa League's second qualifying round.

Hellas, for its part, will bid farewell to Serie A just one season after earning its promotion to the top-tier league.

--IANS

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(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Mumbai Indians (MI) kept their play-off hopes alive after registering a 13-run win over Kolkata Knight Riders in an Indian Premier League (IPL) tie at the Wankhede stadium here on Sunday.

The Rohit Sharma-led side, which is now placed fifth in the league points table with four wins from 10 games, delivered a good show in both the batting and bowling departments at home against third-placed Kolkata, who have 10 points from the same number of games.

After putting up a challenging 181/4, Mumbai's disciplined bowling restricted Kolkata to 168/6 to keep themselves alive in the tournament. Mumbai will now need to win all their remaining four games if they want to be in the top four at the end of the league stage.

A 91-run opening partnership followed by Hardik Pandya's quickfire cameo in the middle order propelled Mumbai to post a challenging 181/4.

Put in to bat, the hosts were off to a decent start as openers Suryakumar Yadav (59 off 39 balls) and Evin Lewis (43 off 28 deliveries) took Mumbai past the 50-run mark in 5.2 overs.

Just when everything was going Mumbai's way, Andre Russell drew the first blood for Kolkata as he dismissed a well-settled Lewis in the 10th over.

While trying to go for a six, a mishit from Lewis landed safely in the hands of Chris Lynn at short third man.

With the addition of another 15 runs in Mumbai's scorecard, incoming batsman and skipper Rohit Sharma departed after giving an easy catch to Rinku Singh off a Sunil Narine delivery.

SuryaKumar then tried to build another partnership with Pandya however, after adding 21 runs, the opener too, became a victim of Russell in the 15th over with the Mumbai scorecard reading 127/3.

His fall saw Krunal Pandya (14 off 11 balls) joining his brother in the middle and the duo added 24 runs to take Mumbai past the 150-run mark.

Narine broke the partnership in the 17th over with the Mumbai score being 151/4.

Hardik then went for some big shots and played a quick 20-ball 35 run innings while JP Duminy chipped in with an unbeaten 13 runs to take Mumbai to a fighting total.

For Kolkata, Russell was the pick of the bowlers with figures of 2/12 while Narine too, bagged a couple of wickets conceding 35 runs.

Chasing the target, Kolkata started the proceedings quickly. However, they received double jolts on 28 runs as openers Chris Lynn (17 off 13 balls) and Shubman Gill (7 off 5) were back in the dugout in the third and fourth over respectively.

While Mitchell McClenaghan packed Lynn, Hardik Pandya dismissed Gill to put the visitors on the back foot.

Robin Uthappa and Nitish Rana then put up a terrific fight, forging a 84-run partnership in the next 9.3 overs.

Mumbai's find of the tournament, spinner Mayank Markande finally provided much needed relief to his side as he sent back Uthappa in the 13th over.

Uthappa played a 35-ball 54 run knock, laced with six fours and three sixes.

Soon, Hardik landed another blow on Kolkata, sending Rana back to the dug out in the 14th over with Kolkata reeling at 115/4. Rana contributed with 31 runs, facing 27 balls.

Kolkata skipper Dinesh Karthik then played a fighting knock but lacked support from the other end as Andre Russell and Sunil Narine fell cheaply on nine and five runs respectively.

Karthik, who remained unbeaten on 36 off 26 balls, failed to take Kolkata beyond the target.

For Mumbai, Hardik picked up two wickets for 19 runs while McClenaghan, Bumrah, Krunal and Markande bagged a wicket each.

Brief Scores: Mumbai Indians 181/4 (Suryakumar Yadav 59, Evin Lewis 43; Andre Russell 2/12) beat Kolkata Knight Riders 168/6 (Robin Uthappa 54, Dinesh Karthik 36 not out; Hardik Pandya 2/19)by 13 runs.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Film celebrities Kamal Haasan, Vidya Balan, Puneeth Rajkumar, Jisshu Sengupta and Rajkummar Rao have lent their voice to "Amoli: Priceless", a digital documentary on commercial sexual exploitation of children.

Produced by Culture Machine, the documentary on the deep-seated and well-organised criminal industry will release on Monday in seven languages on YouTube and Facebook. It spotlights different forms of exploitation and the constant need that feeds the demand for this business.

The film is narrated in four chapters -- Mol (price), Maya (illusion), Manthan (internal conflict) and Mukti (liberation).

"Fundamentally, the objective is to dissuade men from buying sex from children," Sameer Pitalwalla, CEO and Co-Founder, Culture Machine Media Pvt Ltd, said in a statement.

"We believe that a combination of fear and stigma is what will deter men in the short-to-medium term. This can only materialise through unequivocal political commitment, proactive law enforcement and strict and swift justice.

"We want to magnify awareness about this issue through 'Amoli', and consequently, mobilise the general public to demand our police, judiciary and government to address the issue. This is about stoking public compassion and inspiring individual citizens to act in whatever manner they feel comfortable."

The 30-minute film is directed by acclaimed documentary filmmakers and National Award winners Jasmine Kaur Roy and Avinash Roy, with music by Tajdar Junaid.

Though shot in Hindi, dubbed-versions of "Amoli" are available in Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Marathi, Kannada and English. It has been strung together through stories of survivors who have been through the horrors of commercial sexual exploitation.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A Kashmir University assistant professor who went missing last week is reportedly trapped along with militants in an ongoing gunfight in Jammu and Kashmir's Shopian district on Sunday, police said.

Muhammad Rafi Bhat, an assistant professor in the sociology department of Kashmir University went missing on Friday afternoon. He belongs to Chunduna village in Ganderbal district.

There were angry protests in the university campus on Saturday as protesting students asked authorities to trace the missing teacher.

Informed sources said police has taken his mother, wife and brother to Badigam village in Shopian district to persuade Bhat to surrender.

Reports also said some top commanders of the Hizbul Mujahideen outfit are trapped in the gunfight in which two security men including a soldier of Rashtriya Rifles (RR) and a member of the special operations group (SOG) of state police have been critically injured.

The security forces including RR, SOG and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) had surrounded Badigam village following a tip-off about the presence of militants.

Authorities have suspended mobile internet services across south Kashmir.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Actress and writer Soha Ali Khan said that she was looking forward for the release of sister-in-law Kareena Kapoor starrer "Veerey Di Wedding".

Soha Ali Khan made the remarks while interacting with the media during the launch of the Marie Claire Salon here on Saturday.

Kareena is making a comeback in Shashanka Ghosh's "Veerey Di Wedding" after her pregnancy break. Talking about the movie, Soha said: "I have seen the trailer and the songs. I had fun watching it.

"I like these kind of films which we call 'chick flicks'. Apart from Kareena, I also know other people in the film. I know Sonam (Kapoor), Shikha (Talsania) is very good friend of mine. I thought she really stood out in the trailer as well. I really like the song 'Tareefan'. I am really looking forward for the film's release."

Soha's first short film "Sound Proof" is in the official selection for the New York Indian Film Festival 2018.

"I am very excited. My film's director has gone to New York and he didn't take me along with him," she said.

"Actually, they gave me an option to come to New York but now Inaaya is too small so, I couldn't go there. I am very excited for the film and I hope it will have good release in India as well and the audience would get the opportunity to watch it."

Soha called motherhood "difficult" but also "so much fun".

"I always say that Inaaya is my number one project right now. She wakes up at 7 a.m. and sleeps around 7.30 p.m. Whenever she is awake, I make sure that I spend most of my time with her," said the actor.

"She (Inaaya) changes three outfits in a day at morning, at lunch and in the evenings so, we experiment with her. We also experiment with her hairstyles. One day she wears a bow and another day, she wears hair band."

Soha was last seen onscreen in "Ghayal Once Again" with Sunny Deol in 2016.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Pakistani authorities have signed a MoU with Germany-based auto giant Daimler AG for the production of Mercedes-Benz trucks in the country, the media reported.

According to the Memorandum of Understanding, the local assembly of these trucks will mark a major shift in the domestic logistics and transportation industry towards the European manufacturers, reports Dawn news.

Ralf Forcher, Head of Sales for Daimler AG, said: "Pakistan's infrastructure and construction sectors have registered significant growth in recent years, having a direct effect on the logistics industry as it gives rise to an increased demand for commercial vehicles."

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Mounting an attack on the Congress for its alleged misdeeds, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said the BJP-led NDA government was building a new India for good education, jobs and healthcare.

"We are building a new India to give good education to our children, jobs for the youth, and healthcare for elders without discrimination, while the Congress cares neither for the present or the future of Karnataka," Modi said at a huge public rally in Hubballi, 410 km from here.

Addressing as many as four rallies for the second consecutive day in the state ahead of the May 12 Assembly elections, Modi said that what the Congress cared most about was to remain in power at any cost.

"Congress leaders are caught with huge cash and when our government takes action against them, they accuse me of being vindictive," Modi said at the Hubballi rally after campaigning at Bagalkot, Raichur and Tumakuru during a hot summer day.

Asserting that Congress President Rahul Gandhi and his mother Sonia Gandhi owe an answer to the people as to why their party leaders were out on bail, Modi said one of the state Ministers was raided by tax officials in the past.

Energy Minister D.K. Shivakumar, who was raided by tax sleuths in August last year for alleged tax evasion, was granted conditional bail on March 18 by a special court here.

"On the other hand, we are connecting far-off places with airways and expanding the civil aviation sector so that even the common man can fly to many destinations across the country," Modi said.

In the power sector, Modi claimed that the central government had given electricity to 18,000 villages in 1,000 days after they remained groping in the dark for 70 years since independence.

"As rural youths should benefit from long-distance education and farmers should get information digitally, we are giving impetus to Digital India drive to connect villages through the optical fibre network," the Prime Minister said.

Urging the people to remain vigilant and beware of the divisive of the state's ruling Congress, the Prime Minister said that the BJP would not accept such a division on the basis of caste, creed, community, religion or gender.

"People of Karnataka are aware of the Congress' thinking towards Basavanna. Its leaders are recalling the 12th century social reformer as elections are nearing. His statue was installed in Parliament during the leadership of BJP's then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee," Modi said.

Campaigning for the party's candidates from the state's northern part, about 470 km north of Bengaluru, the Prime Minister said the Congress owes an explanation to the country about why it disrupted Parliament.

"The Congress had an eco-system of looting which our government has come down heavily on. No wonder the Congress is angry with me and its leaders are abusing me," he noted.

Addressing hundreds of people in the backward district, Modi asked the ruling Congress government to give an account of its work done in the state.

"The Congress leaders keep abusing and criticising me. The Karnataka government must tell the state's people about its work in the last five years," the Prime Minister said.

Modi urged the people to oust the Congress and elect the BJP to ensure the state's development.

Slamming the Congress for ignoring the interests of Dalits, Modi said the grand old party had also insulted the architect of the Constitution, B.R. Ambedkar.

"The Congress has insulted Ambedkar. It never accepted him and never had any time for him," lamented Modi at the party rally in Chitradurga earlier in the day.

The party also disrespected its own senior leader and former Chief Minister of then Mysore state S. Nijalingappa for questioning then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's policies, Modi said.

"Nijalingappa, the proud son of this land, was insulted by the family (Congress) because he committed the big crime of questioning the policies of Nehru."

The Congress was doing "vote-bank politics" by celebrating the jayantis of Sultans instead of the leaders of the land who fought against them, Modi said, referring to Tipu Jayanti, which was celebrated as a state event.

"It is time for Karnataka to bid farewell to the Congress, which is unconcerned about people's welfare," he added.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Navy is all set to review its new mission-based deployment philosophy aimed at ensuring stability in the region in its first edition of this year's Naval Commanders' biannual meet beginning here on Tuesday, the Defence Ministry said on Sunday.

The four-day conference, from May 8 to 11, would be addressed by Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman during the inaugural session followed by discussions with Defence Ministry officials.

As part of the deployments philosophy, aimed at responsive presence of Indian Naval ships in critical and choke points, various measures taken to improve combat efficiency like new transition cycle for ships and thereon to full-scale operations will be examined at the conference, a Ministry statement said.

"Measures to ensure safety, continued training and checks and balances on crew proficiency on-board its frontline warships will also be reviewed."

At the conference, naval commanders would deliberate upon steps to improve the teeth-to-tail ratio and explore niche fields such as artificial intelligence and big data analytics.

Harnessing cutting-edge technology, specifically those "Made-in-India", to improve organisational effectiveness and efficiency would be another key focus area of the commanders, said the statement.

The Navy has been the flag-bearer of the indigenisation and "Make in India" initiative. A total of 27 ships and submarines are under construction in Indian shipyards.

The Navy promulgated the "Indian Naval Indigenisation Plan 2015-30" which has laid down plans for the next 15 years, the statement said.

"This allows for industry to formulate strategies to meet the requirements of the Navy through the new Strategic Partnership Model, notified in May 2017, as well as domestic research and development.

"These initiatives, which are aimed at enhancing indigenous defence industrial capability extending up to the Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), shall also be discussed," it said.

The optimal utilisation of the Navy's share of the defence budget through prioritising capital acquisitions and modernisation plans to bridge critical capability gaps would also be discussed.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Even two days after unidentified men smeared communal graffiti, Delhi University's St. Stephen's College is yet to file an official complaint, a varsity official confirmed on Sunday.

It was on Friday that students and others found the door of the college chapel scribbled with the oft-repeated communal slogan "Mandir wahin banayenge" (we shall build the temple there only) and a cross at the graveyard written over with "I am going to hell".

"We have not received any complaint from the college yet. We can only act once the college files an official complaint," Neeta Sehgal, officiating Proctor at the Delhi University, told IANS.

No official statement has been issued by the college administration so far either.

The act of defacement has over these two days been condemned by all major student groups, including the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), which is affiliated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) which trenchantly favours the construction of a Ram Mandir in Ayodhya in place of the now destroyed Babri Masjid.

The All India Students' Association (AISA), affiliated with the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), also spoke against the incident of defacement on Friday and urged the students to "defeat the attempts to communalise students on religious lines".

The Congress-affiliated National Students' Union of India demanded an enquiry into the matter attributing the act to "right-wing elements" with "fake nationalism".

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Odisha government on Sunday signed an MoU with Tata Trusts, Mumbai to set up a state-of-the-art Cancer Treatment and Research Hospital here.

The MoU was signed in the presence of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and Tata Trusts Chairman Ratan N. Tata.

As part of the MoU, Tata Trusts will set up and manage the cancer treatment facility in Bhubaneswar and it will be benchmarked to the Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai.

The Odisha government will facilitate and contribute in setting up the centre by providing land to the extent of 25 acres free of cost, said a statement.

The comprehensive care programme will be set up through a three-tier network of facilities with the Tata Trusts's proposed centre at Bhubaneswar and Acharya Harihar Regional Cancer Centre in Cuttack as apex centres, it added.

The medical colleges in the state and the district hospitals will be equipped to offer diagnostics and standardised day care chemotherapy with selected district hospitals additionally offering radiotherapy services, the statement said.

This will create a state-wide cancer care network with an objective to take treatment closest to patients.

The state government has decided to set programme priorities through an advisory committee headed by the Chief Secretary. It will recommend a Special Programme Management Entity, with members from the state government and Tata Trusts, for executing the proposed network of cancer care facilities.

A sum of Rs 800 crore has been earmarked for executing and grounding the cancer care projects under the programme over a period of next five years.

Of this, Odisha's share will be Rs 500 crore, while Tata Trusts have committed Rs 300 crore.

The state government will also fund the operational expenses of all facilities established under the programme and will support in full the free treatment of poor and needy patients.

--IANS

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(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Congress cannot be isolated by those trying to form a Third Front or Federal Front, says senior Congress leader Kamal Nath, who feels that the opposition should come together with state-specific anti-BJP fronts to unseat the Modi government in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

He dismisses reports that parties like the Trinamool Congress and Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS of Telangana) are not comfortable with the leadership of Congress President Rahul Gandhi and has no problems about Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK of Tamil Nadu) Working President M.K. Stalin talking to Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao.

The nine-time MP also rejects suggestions that the Congress was adopting a soft-Hindutva stance to counter an image that it was pro-Muslim.

"Congress is an all-India party. It can never be isolated. The question is to have an anti-BJP front. It has to be state-specific. That's the thing. The basic thing is that it will have to be anti-BJP. BJP polled 31 per cent votes in parliament (elections) and they claimed they have a national mandate which is false," Kamal Nath, who has just been appointed the Madhya Pradesh Congress chief, told IANS in an interview.

He was asked about efforts by leaders such as Rao, who is also the TRS chief, and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee talking about forging a Federal or a Third Front and whether there was an attempt to isolate the Congress.

Such efforts to unite regional parties have gained momentum in the past two months with Rao meeting leaders of several parties including Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav, Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) leader H. D. Deve Gowda, DMK leader Stalin and Jarkhand Mukti Morcha leader Hemant Soren. He has also received support for his proposal from former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Ajit Jogi. Rao has also met Banerjee, who is making efforts to bring together opposition parties and has pitched for one-to-one contest with the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

During her visit to Delhi in March, Banerjee had met Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar besides MPs from the Shiv Sena, TRS, Biju Janata Dal, Samajwadi Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and DMK. She also met Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and got the backing of former Union ministers Shatrughan Sinha, Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie in her efforts to forge a front against the BJP.

Banerjee had met United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and stressed on the Congress to join a united opposition front against the BJP.

Nath, a former Union minister, said the proposal of one-to-one contests against BJP-led NDA was being discussed.

"We are discussing it. Everything is under discussion at the moment because parliament elections are one year away," he said.

The 71-year-old leader said discussions among opposition parties were inconclusive and there was no question of any reservations about Congress President Rahul Gandhi leading the proposed anti-BJP front.

"Everybody is talking to everybody. There are back channels. So there is no question of reservations," he said in answer to a query about any apprehensions in the opposition camp about Gandhi's leaderhip.

Asked if the 2019 electoral battle will be a contest between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi, Nath said: "Let us see. It will be an anti-Modi, anti-BJP contest," he said.

There have been suggestions, including by Trinamool Congress MP Derek O'Brien, that opposition should play to its strengths and not pitch the next Lok Sabha polls as a presidential-style contest against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

O'Brien had also suggested that "collective leadership" would bring parties together against the BJP in each state and it was easier to take on Modi with a strong face in each state.

Asked if the Congress will take the lead in the opposition alliance, Kamal Nath said everything has to be state-specific.

"Everything has got to be state-specific. Like in West Bengal it has to be very different to Haryana. Kerala has got to be very different to Tamil Nadu," he said.

Sonia Gandhi has also been convening meetings of opposition parties to forge unity on various issues against the policies of the BJP-led government. These parties, which include some outside the Congress-led UPA, had put common candidates for presidential and vice-presidential elections last year against the NDA.

Kamal Nath also said there is nothing wrong about Chandrasekhar Rao talking to Congress ally DMK.

"Why not? I think everybody should talk to everybody. Then each one will understand everyone's position. Nothing wrong with that. You see non-dialogue is bad," he said.

To a question about the Congress adopting a soft-Hindutva approach with top leaders including Rahul Gandhi visiting temples, Nath said, "We are all deeply religious. This is a ploy that the BJP....(is resorting) to such a propaganda. We all visit temples all the time. I have built a 101-feet Hanuman Mandir in Chhindwara many years ago. I have been to temples. Does that mean I am becoming pro-Hindu? I am Hindu, I am not Hindutva. We are inclusive. Congress is very inclusive You cannot make divisions in society."

(Prashant Sood can be contacted at prashant.s@ians.in <mailto:prashant.s@ians.in> and Sidharatha Dutta at sidhartha.d@ians.in <mailto:sidhartha.d@ians.in>)

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Pakistan's Chief of Army Staff Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa has ratified death sentences handed down to 11 militants, according to an official statement.

The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) statement issued on Saturday said the convicts, who were tried by special military courts, were found guilty of attacks on the army, law enforcement agencies, academic institutions including Malakand University and the murder of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) MPA Imran Khan Mohmind and other civilians, reports Dawn news.

"On the whole, (the convicts) were involved in the killing of 60 persons including 36 civilians, 24 armed forces/Frontier Constabulary/police officials and injuring 142 others," it said.

Prison sentences were also handed out to three other militants.

The 14 convicts, who were members of proscribed organisations, admitted their offences before a magistrate and the trial court

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Pakistan Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal was injured on Sunday when an unidentified gunman opened fire at him at a political gathering in Punjabs Narowal town, the media reported.

Police said a bullet hit the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader in his arm and the suspect has been arrested, Dawn reported.

The interior minister has been rushed to District Headquarters (DHQ) Hospital in Narowal, where his condition is said to be out of danger.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Pakistan Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal was shot and injured in an assassination attempt during a rally in Narowal district of the country's Punjab province on Sunday, police said.

District Police Officer of Narowal Imran Kishwar said a local resident opened fire at the minister soon after he concluded his speech during a rally in Kanjrur town of the district, Dawn reported.

The gunman Abid Hussain, 22, managed to fire just one shot that hit the minister's right arm. The suspect was arrested by the police soon after he fired the shot, the officer said.

The minister was rushed to the District Hospital in Narowal where he is undergoing surgery. He is out of danger, the officer said.

Chief Minister of Punjab Province Shahbaz Sharif sent a helicopter to shift the minister to a hospital in Lahore, the provincial capital of Punjab.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi condemned the attack and ordered the police to trace the planners behind the attack.

Iqbal is considered among the top brains of Pakistan's political elite. He has two portfolios, including minister of interior and minister of planning, development and reform.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Director Will Gluck will be back to helm the sequel of "Peter Rabbit", which is slated to open in 2020.

Sony Pictures has dated "Peter Rabbit 2" for release on February 7, 2020 in the US and March 27, 2020 in the UK. Gluck will be writing the sequel too, reports variety.com.

The film adaptation is based on the classic tale by Beatrix Potter about Peter Rabbit and his family. It narrates the adventures that Peter Rabbit (voiced by James Corden) and his sisters Flopsy, Mopsy and Cotton-Tail (Margot Robbie, Elizabeth Debicki and Daisy Ridley) undergo to reclaim their home.

It highlights the tussle between humans and animals. It also stars Domhnall Gleeson and Rose Byrne.

"Peter Rabbit" has taken in $115 million in the US and is Sony Pictures' biggest ever non-Bond film in the UK, with a $55.7 million total in that market.

"Peter Rabbit" has grossed $325 million worldwide. The film notched first-place finishes in 22 territories internationally, including Australia, Russia, Germany and Spain. It will open in South Korea and Japan in mid-May.

In an India exclusive interview to IANS before the film released in India earlier this year, Gluck had shared how fun it was to narrate the classic tale. The film, brought to India by Sony Pictures, released in India on April 6.

"It was really fun to write. The fun part was getting the actors to give birth to the characters and kind of pair the characters with their personalities."

Asked what his next project would be, the "Friends with Benefits" director had said "no talking animals and no animations".

But that seems to have changed looking at the success story of "Peter Rabbit".

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Rapper Post Malone, who will be heading to the 2018 Billboard Music Awards as a nominee, will be headlining the official Billboard Music Awards after-party as well.

The rapper, who has scored 13 nominations across 12 categories for the ceremony on May 20, will keep the festivities going at Hakassan at the MGM Grand Hotel & Casino, reports billboard.com.

Stars like Ariana Grande, Camila Cabello, Dua Lipa and Shawn Mendes will be performing at the award gala, to be hosted by Kelly Clarkson. It will air in India on Vh1 on May 21.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Sunday requested Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh to extend all possible support to the farmers affected by the untimely Nor'wester in Odisha.

In a letter to the Agriculture Minister, Pradhan sought his personal indulgence to facilitate assessment of the situation and active intervention to ensure that the farmers get the required support to help them overcome the situation.

He said that widespread loss of crops and life in many districts of Odisha have occurred as a result of the untimely Nor'wester (Kalabaishakhi) spell of rains and hailstorm which swept many parts of the state over the past few days.

Although crop loss assessment hasn't been done as yet, conservative estimates state that as a result of this calamity, standing crops worth thousands of acres have been damaged, he added.

The intensity of damage is pronounced in six districts of Bargarh, Jajpur, Sonepur, Dhenkanal, Mayurbhanj and Balasore.

"Some pockets in these districts are already in the bottom of the poverty pyramid and the natural disaster shall further add woes to the farmers barely living on subsistence income," he added.

Pradhan that the situation of distress has already forced farmers to take drastic steps and two farmers have attempted suicide.

"There is, thus an imperative, to ameliorate situation and assuage the distress of the farmers through urgent remedial measures," he said.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)This year -- the year before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections -- was to witness elections in a total of eight states. Three are already done, and it will be interesting to see how voters' opinions shape electoral outcomes in the remaining five states.

In deciding who to vote for, citizens take into account certain factors which they think of as important in choosing their leaders. In most democracies, a common belief dominant among politicians is that of all the factors, it is good economics that makes for good But to attribute an incumbent's successful re-election to just economic growth might be too naive in a complex democracy like India.

There have been numerous studies conducted for the developed nations (especially the US) that primarily seek to prove the importance of economic policies on the popularity of the incumbent party. In India, however, there is a paucity of such forecasting models for electoral outcomes. This is somewhat explained by the fact that because of the disparities that exist within our regions, and hence among the citizens living in those regions, it indeed becomes difficult to capture the factors that have a role to play in affecting their voting behavior.

Going forward then, an attempt to develop a comprehensive prediction model of this kind must address two empirical questions. First, whether growth rates based on the economic theory of voting can explain state-level election results in India and, second, what are the other measures that voters might be considering in the process of rewarding/penalising the incumbent party in their state.

The economic theory of voting rests upon the popular notion that the chances of an incumbent party winning elections rise if the region experiences positive economic growth during its term. However, in India, in 2006, the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in Tamil Nadu lost the elections with a growth number as high as 13 per cent. Even more interestingly, Arunachal Pradesh in 2014 chose to re-elect the Congress party despite its poor show in the state in terms of economic aspects.

Moreover, a simple correlation analysis shows that there is a negative relationship between the growth rate of GSDP per capita of a state and the re-election of the incumbent party, implying that in most of the cases higher growth does not lead to the incumbent getting re-elected. This observation then means that our voters, while ranking the governing capabilities of different parties, also consider a whole lot of factors other than just the economic performance achieved.

The other factors that might contribute in shaping the voting patterns of our citizens can be (a) the level of social progress in a region, (b) the level of consumer and business confidence in the government at the Centre and (c) the level of social media leveraging by political parties. Using a probit regression model for the period 2006-2017 with the re-election of the incumbent party as the dependent variable and the rest of the factors as explanatory variables, the success rate of the predictions turns out to be 78 per cent. Perhaps the biggest prediction by way of this model was that Tripura would not be ruled by the Left any more.

For the upcoming elections in Karnataka, the model predicts that the incumbent Congress has only an 18 per cent chance of coming back to power given the conditions that exist today. Similarly, in the case of Mizoram, it is predicted that the ruling Congress has almost negligible chances of re-election. However, in Chhattisgarh the ruling BJP is expected to make a comeback. Likewise, in Madhya Pradesh, the BJP has a 90 per cent chance of coming back to power. In Rajasthan, however, it is going to be a close battle since the chances of the BJP again gaining power lies at around 60 per cent.

In the model, the social progress in any state is mapped through using the social progress scores from the Social Progress Index, India, which is positively related to the prospects of getting re-elected. The index is an integrated measure of the capacity of a society to meet the basic human needs of its citizens, establish the building blocks to allow the citizens to enhance and sustain the quality of their lives and create the conditions for all individuals to reach their full potential. Furthermore, two different indicators are taken to capture the confidence on the central government -- the Business Confidence Index by the CII and the Nielson Global Consumer Confidence Index. Lastly, the use of Google trends data (through newspaper articles, television news, or social media platforms) is made to portray the level of interest enjoyed by political parties on the internet.

One of the most striking features of this research is the noteworthy role of media in shaping elections in the country. Over the years, there has been no less than a revolution wherein the media platforms are not only just a carrier of information but also an influence over the perceptions of the voters about their political leaders. With the advancement of technology, the reach has only amplified. Clearly, since the voters may primarily be guided by the social development measures and not the economic indicators in their area, it is then for the political parties to focus on garnering interest in their favour by working on the real development issues that people face in today's times.

(Amit Kapoor is chair, Institute for Competitiveness and can be contacted at Amit.Kapoor@competitiveness.in <mailto:Amit.Kapoor@competitiveness.in>. The views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at amit.kapoor@competitiveness.in <mailto:amit.kapoor@competitiveness.in> and tweets @kautiliya. Manisha Kapoor is a researcher at Institute for Competitiveness, India)

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Sunday advised Prime Minister Narendra Modi to "copy" and implement centrally the Congress-led Karnataka governments sub plan for the welfare of the Dalits and Adivasis.

He said that since the Prime Minister was good at "repackaging" the Congress-led UPA government's schemes, he could try his hand at this one too.

"The Karnataka government's revolutionary SC/ST sub plan allocates 24 per cent of all resources to Dalits and Adivasis as per their percentage of population.

"Since Prime Minister Modi is skilled at repackaging and claiming credit for Congress schemes, this is a good one for him to copy centrally," he said in a series of tweets.

Both Modi and Gandhi have been busy in election campaign in Karnataka that is due to vote on May 12, which the Bharatiya Janata Party making a strong bid to unseat the Congress.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)But I dont want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.

"Oh, you cant help that," said the Cat: "were all mad here. Im mad. Youre mad."

"How do you know Im mad?" said Alice.

"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldnt have come here.

 Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland





With freedom comes responsibility.

 Eleanor Roosevelt



Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje has called for strengthening the state's radar system so that timely alerts can be issued for natural calamities.

The Chief Minister's directions came on Saturday when she presided over a review meeting to monitor the rehabilitation works in Alwar, Dholpur and Bharatpur where over 30 people were killed and 100 others injured in a powerful storm on May 2.

Raje also directed Rajasthan Chief Secretary D.B. Gupta to request the India Meteorological Department (IMD) to strengthen their radar system.

"The radar techniques in Rajasthan need to be strengthened too to ensure officials get timely information on natural calamities," she said.

She asked officials to maintain regular correspondence with the Met department to make sure that the information about disasters is received at the right time.

The Chief Minister also called for adequate arrangements to be made in the affected areas for restoration of water and power supply at the earliest.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny was released from police custody on Sunday after being detained for several hours the day before on charges of organising an unauthorised demonstration in Moscow against President Vladimir Putin.

Navalny posted on his Twitter account that he was released before his trial and that he left the Russian capital's police headquarters after midnight, reports Efe news.

The opposition leader was arrested on Saturday in central Moscow when he attended a protest under the slogan "He is not our tsar", which he himself had called for on the eve of Putin's swearing in for his new term in office.

Thousands of people attended rallies on Saturday called by Navalny, in downtown Moscow and in St. Petersburg, the two largest cities in the country, despite warnings from municipal authorities.

More than 1,200 people were arrested all over Russia.

Smaller demonstrations were held in close to 100 cities, although the police only acted against protesters where the marches had not been authorized by local authorities.

Arrests were reported in Chelyabinsk, Krasnoyarsk, Yakutsk, Novokuznetsk, Kemerovo, Yekaterinburg, Penza, Tver, Voronezh, as well as a dozen other cities

Navalny, the most vocal opponent of the Kremlin, campaigned for the presidential elections on March 18 but was unable to attend the elections because of his criminal record in a case he considers a political persecution.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Separatist leaders on Sunday called for a protest march and a sit-in outside the Civil Secretariat against the killings of five civilians and as many militants in the Valley.

Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL), separatist conglomerate headed by Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umer Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik, called for the protest march to the Civil Secretariat in summer capital Srinagar on Monday.

"Words fail to express the pain of the tragedy unfolding in #Shopian as the count of the brutally killed by Indian forces keeps rising!" Mirwaiz Umer Farooq tweeted.

"Tomorrow as the 'Durbar' of our killers opens in Srinagar, leadership and people from all walks, traders, lawyers, students, employees and others will move towards Civil Secretariat and will sit in a peaceful dharna till the daily carnage is stopped. The protest strike will continue."

The Civil Secretariat houses the offices of the Chief Minister, her cabinet colleagues and all senior bureaucrats of the state.

After their six-month sojourn in winter capital Jammu, the Civil Secretariat offices are scheduled to start functioning in Srinagar from Monday.

Five militants including top Hizbul commander Saddam Paddar and Kashmir University assistant professor Muhammad Rafi Bhat were killed in a gunfight with the security forces in Badigam village of Shopian district on Sunday.

After the news of the killings spread, five civilians were killed in clashes with the security forces in Shopian, Kulgam, Pulwama and Anantnag districts.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Militants abducted seven people, including six Indians, on Sunday in Afghanistan's Baghlan province, officials said, adding that talks were on to get them freed.

The kidnapping took place in Bagh-e-Shamal village, TOLONews reported.

Baghlan Governor Abdulhai Nemati said that those abducted worked for an Indian company KEC. The seventh person who was seized was an Afghan.

Nemati said the Taliban had done the kidnapping and moved the group to the Dand-e-Shahabuddin area of Pul-e-Khumri city.

He said they contacted the Taliban, whose representatives said the abduction took place because the insurgents thought that the seven were Afghan government employees.

Nemati said they were trying to rescue the victims with the help of tribal elders.

According to local officials, the incident occurred while the employees were travelling to the area where the company has a contract for an electricity sub-station.

Kidnapping of locals for extortion is common in Afghanistan. Most of those abducted have been Afghans but foreign workers have also become targets.

In 2016, Indian aid worker Judith D'Souza was kidnapped in Kabul. She was released after 40 days.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A soldier and a policeman were injured on Sunday in a gunfight between militants and security forces in Jammu and Kashmir's Shopian district.

The security forces including police, Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and Rashtriya Rifles (RR) surrounded Badigam village following a tip-off about the presence of militants.

"As the cordon was tightened, the holed-up militants fired triggering the gunfight," police sources added.

"The injured RR soldier and a constable have been shifted to a hospital."

Authorities have suspended mobile internet services across south Kashmir.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Aligarh Muslim University on Sunday postponed all examinations amid the prevailing tension within the campus over the portrait of Mohammad Ali Jinnah.

A university spokesperson said the examinations of the 2017-18 session will now commence from May 12, with no further postponements.

The decision was taken in a consultative meeting with University Vice Chancellor Professor Tariq Mansoor, Deans of various faculties and Principals of all colleges.

A 16-member coordination committee was also formed to look at the prevailing situation and to maintain peace.

The Hindutva groups have continued to mount pressure on the university administration to remove the portrait of Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)US President Donald Trump has floated a new idea about border security, saying that people might "have to think about closing up the country", the media reported.

"They don't want the wall but we're going to get the wall, even if we have to think about closing up the country for a while," CNN quoted Trump as saying during a tax reform roundtable in Ohio on Saturday.

"We're going to get the wall. We have no choice. We have absolutely no choice. And we're going to get tremendous security in our country.

"And we may have to close up our country to get this straight, because we either have a country or we don't. And you can't allow people to pour into our country the way they're doing," he added.

It was not immediately clear what Trump meant by the remarks. The White House has not commented.

Indian origin Democratic Representative Pramila Jayapal told CNN on Saturday that Trump "is absolutely out of his mind to think that is any kind of a reasonable solution for our economy or compassionate or in line with our values.

"This President has done everything he can every time he's in trouble to turn around and try to turn it against immigrants, and it really deeply saddens me," Jayapal said.

During the roundtable, the President sharply criticised Democrats, including Ohio's Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown, for their opposition to a border wall.

Trump has escalated his rhetoric against illegal immigration, especially in the wake of an annual migrant caravan that is seeking asylum in the US.

He has also ordered the National Guard to deploy troops to the border to address what the administration calls a "crisis" there.

Trump also told supporters at a speech in Michigan last weekend that if Congress did not meet his funding demands for border security, he may support a government shutdown this winter.

--IANS

ksk/mr

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)North Korea on Sunday accused the US of pressurising it with the policy of maintaining sanctions on the regime and military threats, and warned that these measures will not contribute to denuclearisation or peace in the region.

A Foreign Ministry spokesperson accused the US of "misleading the public opinion" by arguing that the willingness to denuclearise expressed by Pyongyang in the Panmunjom Declaration "is the result of pressure and sanctions", reports Efe news.

Pyongyang referred to the joint declaration signed by Kim Jong-un and the South Korean President Moon Jae-in at the inter-Korean summit held on April 27 ahead of a planned meeting between Kim and US President Donald Trump.

"The US is making open remarks that it would not ease the sanctions and pressure until North Korea gives up its nuclear weapons completely and also moving to aggravate the situation on the Korean peninsula by deploying strategic assets on the peninsula and increasing its attempt of taking up the 'human rights' issue against North Korea," said the spokesperson.

He added that the US is deliberately provoking Pyongyang "at a time when the Korean peninsula is moving towards peace and reconciliation, thanks to the historic inter-Korean summit".

The spokesperson stressed that the US should not misinterpret Pyongyang's pacifist willingness as weakness, and warned that "it would not be conducive" to continue with its "pressure and military threats".

In the Panmunjom Declaration, Seoul and Pyongyang agreed to work to achieve the complete denuclearisation of the peninsula and also pledged to sign a multilateral agreement to formally end the Korean War (1950-53), which ended with an armistice, but not a peace treaty.

--IANS

ksk/bg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)



But only if you consider being born into a wealthy family knowing how to get things done



NC-13 is an unlikely primary battleground for the DCCC to gin up. The district's in the middle of the state flowing west from Greensboro, through High Point, Lexington and Salisbury to Statesville and Mooresville. It went for Trump 53.4% to 44.0% and the PVI is daunting but not impossible [in a wave cycle] R+6. The incumbent, freshman Ted Budd, is an extremist Freedom Caucus member and not considered especially secure. The DCCC recruited a conservative Democrat, Kathy Manning, who has seriously outraised Budd. She's very wealthy and he's a blue color guy. As of the April 18th FEC reporting deadline she had $1,006,856 in her campaign warchest to Budd's $534,611. But on Tuesday she isn't facing Budd. She's in a primary contest with truck-driver Adam Coker (who has only raised $55,476).





Manning is an EMILY's List New Dem and like most DCCC-endorsed candidates, has nothing whatsoever to offer North Carolina citizens but her puffed up laughable bio. The DCCC likes her because she's an heiress. They love heiresses. Her issues page comes directly from a DCCC how-to memo with platitudes like "country over party" and "quality eduction." It's the silliest and least authentic issues page I've seen all cycle. She might as well come right to the point and admit she will be a bump on a log and a complete waste of a congressional seat who will do whatever the party bosses tell her to do.





Many working families in this part of North Carolina are petrified about loss of their healthcare. Manning offers no hope whatsoever... just more bio and more platitudes, complements of the DCCC: "When a chronic illness struck one of her daughters, Kathy experienced firsthand the frustration of fighting with big insurance companies, outrageous drug prices, and the fear that a pre-existing condition could prevent her daughter from getting insurance in the future. Kathy understands that we need to fix the broken parts of our healthcare system so that every American can get the care they need, including prescription medication at reasonable prices. Kathy will also work tirelessly to protect Social Security and Medicare for our seniors." Not a word about Medicare-For-All or single payer or even just a public option. Sometimes I wonder where the DCCC finds this kind of crap candidate-- or do they manufacture them behind their building in DC?





Yesterday local Democrats-- like local Democrats want to all across the country-- told the DCCC to butt out of their primary.

Democratic Party delegates for North Carolinas 13th Congressional District passed a resolution today requesting that the DCCC, the House Democrats fundraising arm, stay out of the primary election as voters select a nominee to challenge Republican incumbent Ted Budd in the states most heavily contested congressional race.



The resolution approved today by the NC 13th District Democrats during their annual convention at GTCCs Jamestown campus called support by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee a disruptive and undemocratic force, while calling on the state party to demand that the DCCC support of candidates during the primary election process be forbidden.



The DCCC named Kathy Manning, a Greensboro philanthropist and heir to the Kay Chemical fortune who is running in the 13th district, to its Red to Blue list shortly after she announced her campaign in December 2017. The committee describes Red to Blue as a highly competitive and battle-tested program at the DCCC that arms top-tier candidates with organizational and fundraising support to help them continue to run strong campaigns. Mannings fundraising totals-- $530,000 before filing had even begun-- prompted two prospective African-American candidates, Bruce Davis and Beniah McMiller, to bow out of the race. Manning faces one opponent in the Democratic primary  Adam Coker, a long-haul truck driver who has been campaigning almost continuously since early 2017. To date, Manning has raised $1.3 million, compared to $54,475 by Coker.



The vote by a show of hands by delegates at the 13th Congressional District convention demonstrated extremely strong support for the resolution, said Josh Brown, a delegate who is also Guilford County vice chair for High Point. A video of the vote provided by Coker shows that the delegates overwhelmingly supported the resolution, with the possible exception one person. Brown said about 100 delegates attended the convention.



To even bring it up, we had to get two thirds, Brown said. We had to suspend the rules. This was a big deal.



Brown said the motivation behind the resolution was to encourage a long-term course correction in the Democratic Party in response to a perception among voters that the party is rigged to the benefit of favored candidates and unresponsive to the will of the people.



Weve gone through so much heck since 2016 in the fight between Hillary [Clinton] and Bernie [Sanders], Brown said. We are encouraging our officers to stay neutral. It hurts when what I call an auxiliary gets involved. We end up having to explain, apologizing, cleaning up after their mess. As we ask ourselves to stay neutral at least publicly, we feel like its unfair to have to explain when people are upset. They dont call the DCCC; they call the county party. That vote represents frustration among local party officers about always having to explain or apologize for something we havent done.



The resolution also said that DCCCs intervention in the 13th district primary subverts the democratic process by undermining the purpose and function of primaries and causes division within the district as visibly evidenced by animosity on social media in arguments about the US House race in Guilford County.



The resolution added that the DCCCs involvement arguably usurps the protection afforded under the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution, the one-person, one-vote rule, and that the Democratic Party needs to claim the high moral ground by supporting free and fair elections, free from DCCC influence and other outside influences in our primaries.

So... who's fault? That's easy-peasy: Nancy Pelosi, Stenchy Hoyer, Ben Ray Lujan, Don McEachin, Dan Sena and Jason Bresler. All 6 should be barred from ever entering the DCCC building again.Over hundred villages in Jammu and Kashmir are "un-electrified", the state's Power Development Minister Sunil Kumar Sharma has said adding efforts were on to ensure power supply reaches them by the end of next month.

Sharma's comments come a week after the Centre claimed all villages in India had access to electricity.

A total of 102 villages in Jammu region remain un-electrified and all out efforts are on to cover these villages. We are hopeful of electrifying these villages by June 30 this year, Sharma told reporters here yesterday.

He said the work to electrify these villages was on at war footing as Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made it his priority to provide electricity to each and every household in the country.

"In my home constituency (Kishtwar), 44 villages are without electricity, he said.

To meet the deadline, he said the department had deployed the Indian Air Force (IAF) to reach inaccessible areas.

I am quite confident that by June 30, all the left out villages of entire Jammu and Kashmir will be electrified, the minister said.

Sharma said though there was hilly and tough terrain in Jammu and Kashmir, luckily, the state was blessed with numerous water resources.

The Chenab river alone has a potential to generate 22000 MW of power, he said.

Besides, there are also hundreds of streams and rivulets where power can be generated. We have given the mandate to Jammu Kashmir Energy Development Agency (JKEDA) to tap the energy from these resources, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Two persons have been arrested for allegedly being involved in several robbery and snatching cases, the Delhi police said today.

A woman filed a police complaint on May 4 stating that she was thrashed and looted by two persons in Mayur Vihar, while she was going to her school, they said.

A case of robbery was registered and investigation was initiated following which Pramod and Rahul were arrested, the police said.

During interrogation, it was revealed that Pramod was released from prison in March. He and Rahul were actively involved in robbery and snatching incidents in east and northeast Delhi," a release from the Delhi police said.

Three mobile phones, three vehicles were seized from the accused, the police said and claimed to have worked out 11 cases of car theft, snatching and robbery.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A 300-metre iron bridge, constructed by IRCON over a stream near the longest under-construction railway tunnel in India, collapsed in Ramban district of Jammu and Kashmir today, prompting the state government to order an inquiry into the accident.

Two trucks, loaded with construction material for the railway tunnel, were crossing the bridge over Nallah Bishlari in Ramsoo area when it collapsed, resulting in injuries to both the drivers and their conductors, officials said.

The four miraculously escaped the mishap with only minor injuries and were discharged after first-aid, they said.

The trucks were badly damaged however.

The bridge was laid by IRCON about four years ago on the approach road leading to the under-construction railway tunnel between Khari and Sumber areas in the district.

The tunnel will be the longest in India after completion.

Ramban Deputy Commissioner Tariq Ahmad Ganie inspected the site on accident and ordered an inquiry into the matter.

The inquiry would be conducted by the sub-divisional magistrate. He has to submit his report within 15 days, a government official said.

Minister for Disaster Management, Relief, Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Javaid Mustafa Mir has asked the deputy commissioner to inquire why safety norms were not followed and also fix the responsibility, the official said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Armed bandits attacked a village in Nigeria's northwest Kaduna state, killing at least 40 people, residents and officials said.

Police Inspector General Ibrahim Idris confirmed the bandits invaded the village of Gwaska yesterday, fighting local defense forces protecting the Birnin Gwari local government area, a community of about 3,000 people. He said 200 policemen and 10 patrol vehicles were deployed to the scene.

A resident who helped fight the bandits said at least 40 people were killed and the toll will likely climb. He spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons. He said the attackers were from Zamfara state, and that they shot at children and torched houses as residents fled.

The attack came about a week after other unidentified gunmen attacked a nearby village.

The Kaduna State government confirmed the attack but didn't give a casualty figure.

In a statement, the local government said it is concerned by the incessant banditry attacks in the region and has been engaging with the federal government on the matter.

"The Kaduna State Government has received with sadness reports of the murder of our citizens by armed bandits in Birnin Gwari," it said, adding that it is committed to resolving the problem.

President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the establishment of a permanent battalion of the Nigerian Army in the Birnin Gwari area.

The State Emergency Management Agency is providing aid to those affected, it said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Unidentified armed men abducted six Indians and one Afghan employee of an Indian infrastructure company in Afghanistan's Baghlan province today, a media report said.

The incident happened in Bagh-e-Shamal village of the provincial capital Pul-e-Khomre, TOLOnews reported, citing local officials.

They were abducted while travelling to the area, where the company, KEC, owns an electricity sub-station contract.

Baghlan provincial council has linked the incident to the Taliban.

No group has claimed responsibility for the abduction so far.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Six Indians working in a power company in Afghanistan's northern Baghlan province were allegedly abducted today by Taliban gunmen who apparently mistook them for government employees, Afghan media reports said.

External Affairs Ministry in New Delhi said it was in touch with Afghan authorities and was ascertaining the details of the incident.

The Taliban militants abducted the six Indian staff members and one Afghan employee of Indian company KEC early this morning in Bagh-e-Shamal area of the provincial capital Pul-e-Khomre, TOLOnews reported, citing officials.

The employees were abducted while they were travelling to the area where the company owns an electricity sub-station contract, the report said.

Baghlan governor Abdulhai Nemati said the Taliban group abducted the employees and moved them to the Dand-e-Shahabuddin area of Pul-e-Khumri city, according to the report.

It quoted Nemati as saying that the Afghan authorities spoke with the Taliban via local people and the terror group said it had abducted the staff members in error, believing they were government employees.

No group has, however, claimed responsibility for the abduction so far.

Nemati said they are trying to release the abductees through tribe elders and mediation.

In response to queries on the report of the abduction, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson said, "We are aware of the abduction of Indian nationals from Baghlan province in Afghanistan. We are in contact with the Afghan authorities and further details are being ascertained."



KEC, a global infrastructure engineering, procurement and construction major, is one of the largest Indian companies in Afghanistan and responsible for electricity supply in the country.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Seven Indian engineers of an RPG group company working in Afghanistan's northern Baghlan province were abducted today by Taliban gunmen who apparently mistook them for government employees, media reports said.

The External Affairs Ministry said in New Delhi it is in touch with authorities in Afghanistan and is ascertaining the details of the incident.

The Taliban militants abducted the Indians, working for Maharashtra-based company KEC, and their Afghan driver early this morning in Bagh-e-Shamal area of the provincial capital Pul-e-Khomre, TOLOnews reported, citing officials.

According to the Associated Press, the seven Indian nationals were electrical engineers.

The company employees were abducted while they were travelling to the area where KEC has a contract to operate an electricity sub-station, the Afghan channel reported.

Baghlan Governor Abdulhai Nemati said the Taliban group took the engineers hostage and moved them to the Dand-e-Shahabuddin area of Pul-e-Khumri city, according to the report.

It quoted Nemati as saying that the Afghan authorities spoke with the Taliban via local people and the terror group said it had abducted them, believing they were government employees.

No group has, however, claimed responsibility for the abduction.

Nemati said they are trying to get the abductees released through tribe elders and mediation.

In response to queries, the External Affairs Ministry spokesperson said, "We are aware of the abduction of Indian nationals from Baghlan province in Afghanistan. We are in contact with the Afghan authorities and further details are being ascertained."



Harsh Goenka, the chairman of the RPG Enterprises, the parent company of KEC, said he has requested External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to help rescue its employees.

"Request @SushmaSwaraj and Ministry of External Affairs to help rescue 7 of our managers from the kidnapping in Afghanistan.#KEC," Goenka tweeted.

KEC, a global infrastructure engineering, procurement and construction major, is one of the largest Indian companies in Afghanistan.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)More than 700 illegal borewells have been sealed in Delhi following a National Green Tribunal order in January this year, leading to water scarcity in various parts of the national capital and complaints from area residents.

According to SDM officials, a total of 718 borewells have been sealed so far. There are nearly 5,000 illegal borewells, according to the Delhi Jal Board (DJB).

Dwarka, Vikaspuri and Janakpuri are among the areas where borewells have been sealed. The move has led to water scarcity, despite the DJB sending filled water tankers there.

The Delhi government's current water policy commits 20,000 litres of free water per month to each household.

On January 30, the NGT directed the government to seal all unauthorised borewells in the national capital within three months.

Explaining the NGT order, Manisha Saxena, divisional commissioner, said the sealing of borewells began from north-west district, where chloride concentration in water was too high.

"So they asked DJB to mark them red, indicating that the chloride content is very high," she said, adding, the authorities will seal all illegal borewells among those marked red.

Saxena, however, said the sealing process was "difficult" because when the officials started sealing the borewells, the summer season had started and the DJB was facing reduced water supply.

"DJB isn't able to fulfil the basic need in Dwarka sub-city...due to which people had to use un-regularised measures," Kartik Mohana, a Dwarka resident, said.

Priyansh Goyal, a resident of Vikaspuri, said colonies were warned by Residents Welfare Associations to stop using borewells. "But we are facing water shortage for so long."



Navratan Bhakta, from Dwarka, said a few officials visited her society and sealed borewells "right away without saying anything". "They also asked about legal papers. Few societies showed them some contracts and were saved from sealing."



Sudha Sinha, general secretary of Federation of Cooperative Group Housing Societies, said: "We are not against sealing. If they want to seal borewells then they should provide us water. Water is our basic right and no one can take our right from us."Dinesh Mohania, DJB vice chairman, said: "We are deploying tankers as well as supplying water through pipelines wherever the sealing has occurred, but we don't have exact numbers since there are cases where borewell is used by one household only. People have used groundwater for irrigation purposes also. We haven't received any complaints regarding water crisis, if we receive, we'll take necessary actions.""We have also started a 50 MGD water treatment plant for supplying filtered water to Dwarka for the first time.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)From airplanes to oilfields, billions of dollars are on the line for international corporations as President Donald Trump weighs whether to pull America out of Iran's nuclear deal with world powers.

Regardless of where they are headquartered, virtually all multinational corporations do business or banking in the U.S., meaning any return to pre-deal sanctions could torpedo deals made after the 2015 agreement came into force.

That threat alone has been enough to scare risk-averse firms, like Boeing Co., into slow-walking deals agreed to months ago. A complete pullout by the U.S. would wreak further havoc and likely frighten off those considering making the plunge.

"I absolutely think those on the fence will not jump in," said Richard Nephew, a former sanctions expert at the U.S. State Department who worked on the nuclear deal and now is at New York's Columbia University.

"The only ones who will, will be those who see tremendous monetary benefit and no US risk." The 2015 Iran nuclear deal lifted crippling economic sanctions that had locked Iran out of international banking and the global oil trade.

In return, Tehran limited its enrichment of uranium, reconfigured a heavy-water reactor so it couldn't produce plutonium and reduced its uranium stockpile and supply of centrifuges.

For Western businesses, the deal meant access to Iran's largely untapped market of 80 million people. Most prominently, airplane manufacturers rushed in to replace the country's dangerously dilapidated civilian fleet.

In December 2016, Airbus Group signed a deal with Iran's national carrier, IranAir, to sell it 100 airplanes for around $19 billion at list prices. Boeing later struck its own deal with IranAir for 80 aircraft with a list price of some $17 billion, promising that deliveries would begin in 2017 and run until 2025. Boeing separately struck another 30-airplane deal with Iran's Aseman Airlines for $3 billion at list prices.

But Boeing has yet to deliver a single aircraft to Iran. The Chicago-based company's CEO recently stressed it understands the "risks and implications around the Iranian aircraft deal," which would be the biggest business agreement between an American company and Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution and US Embassy takeover.

"We continue to follow the US government's lead here and everything is being done per that process," Dennis Muilenburg said during a quarterly earnings conference call on April 25. "We have no Iranian deliveries that are scheduled or part of the skyline this year, so those have been deferred again in line with the US government process." Airbus, a European airline consortium based in Toulouse, France, likewise continues its sales at the discretion of the American government.

At least 10 percent of its aircraft components are of American origin, meaning it requires permission from the U.S. Treasury for its sales to Iran. Airbus has already delivered two A330-200s and one A321 to Iran.

Airbus declined to comment when asked by The Associated Press about its possible plans ahead of Trump's decision.

European airplane manufacturer ATR struck a $536-million deal with IranAir for at least 20 aircraft last year. It's already has delivered eight of its twin-engine turboprops to Tehran after earlier winning permission from the US Treasury.

"To date, we are on track to deliver the remaining ATR aircraft in due time, before the end of the year," ATR spokesman David Vargas told the AP.

The speed at which Western airplane manufacturers went into Iran is contrasted by a slow start by Western energy firms despite the country's vast oil and gas wealth. The exception is French oil giant Total SA, which in July signed a $5 billion, 20-year agreement with Iran and a Chinese oil company to develop the country's massive South Pars offshore natural gas field. The natural gas pumped by the deal will go toward Iran's domestic market.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Andhra Pradesh government is planning to refer Reliance Naval Engineering's proposed naval project near Visakhapatnam to its investment board in view of delay in its implementation and doubts raised by the company's auditors about the firm's financial position.

The shipbuilding facility, proposed with an initial investment of Rs 5,000 crore, is yet to take off though an MoU was signed by Reliance Naval and Engineering (formerly Reliance Defence), an Anil Ambani group company, with the state government in January, 2016.

Also there were some issues related to land allotment for the project.

A senior state government official said despite repeated requests, the company had so far not made any advance payment for the land it sought for setting up the world class naval facility at Rambilli along the East Coast, just 70 kms south of Visakapattanam.

"We are in the process of identifying land in Visakhapatnam. It has been six months since we have informed the company to come out with detailed implementation plan along with timelines and also make initial payment (10 per cent of the land cost)," the official said.

"We also hear reports about the companys auditors concerns on its financial position. We want to hear from the company on many issues," the official told PTI.

According to the official, the whole issue would be referred to the state Investment Promotion Board. "The board will take a final call on how to proceed further. They may impose stricter timelines this time.

When contacted, a company spokesperson said they were committed to implementing the project.

"Reliance Group is committed to the project and continues to engage with the state government for actively pursuing the land acquisition for its proposed naval ship-building facility at Rambilli near Visakhapatnam, the company official said in an email response.

In its notes to the companys 2017-18 earnings statement, auditors Pathak HD & Associates last month raised doubts about Reliance Naval Engineering's ability to "continue as a going concern".

The audit firm listed cash losses, erosion of network, loans being called back by secured lenders, current liabilities being substantially higher than assets and winding up petitions being filed by a few operating creditors to raise the doubts.

The company wants the state government to allot land on lease basis for 99 years at Re one per acre, besides other sops while the government has fixed the price at Rs 17.5 lakh per acre on sale basis, besides other incentives.

The government has expressed its willingness to allot 1,000 acres for the project initially.

Announcing the project, Reliance Group Chairman Anil Ambani had then said the facility would also lead to creation of a multi-tier array of defence ancillaries with further investments of Rs 5,000-10,000 crore and thousands of skilled jobs.

It would complement Reliance Group's existing facility at Pipavav in Gujarat and will have a clear focus on building strategic assets for the Indian Navy, he had said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Any voters?" Wrong. He won't lose the obsessed racists and willing fascists. In reality, though, he has lost voters. Polls show that most Americans know Trump's a liar. Revelations of more lies-- daily revelations of more lies-- isn't going to change anything. That he's a dishonest asshole is baked into the cake. It looks like Senor T was partially correct when he said he could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and not lose any voters. "voters?" Wrong. He won't lose the obsessed racists and willing fascists. In reality, though, he has lost voters.





A new Ipsos poll for Reuters found that union members who voted for Trump in greater numbers than for Hillary have been abandoning him. His support among union members is down by 15 points in the last year-- now at 47% from a high of 62%. Union members put Trump over the top in Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. That wouldn't happen again if the election was held today. Many union members who vote dfor Trump in 2016 have buyers remorse and plan to take it out on Republicans in November. Reuters quoted a 37 year factory worker in Dubuque: "Trump is for the rich. [Republican Congressman] Blums for big business. They said they were for the workers, but theyre not."

That sentiment should encourage Democrats, who saw their once-reliable labor vote help send Trump to the White House after he vowed to revive Rust Belt factories with trade tariffs and ailing coal mines with environmental deregulation. Now-- with coal still struggling and Trump stoking a trade war-- many union workers have soured on the president ahead of Novembers midterm congressional elections, the Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll shows.



...A loose coalition of union leaders, Democratic strategists and political action committees (PACs) aims to seize on that shift by directing money and campaign workers to about 30 competitive races in union-heavy districts. The party needs to gain 23 seats to retake the U.S. House of Representatives... Democratic strategists are targeting blue-collar enclaves of the Midwest, along with districts covering California farmlands, New York industry towns and Montana wilderness. They aim to trash the Republican tax cut, along with Trumps failure to back a minimum wage and his attempt to repeal Obamacare.



...In interviews with Reuters, union members criticized the tax cut, along with Republican moves in some states-- including Iowa-- to curtail collective bargaining by public employees. And while Trumps tough trade talk attracted many union workers to his campaign, some now worry his policies may protect some blue-collar jobs at the expense of others. Trumps steel tariffs, for instance, could raise prices for the raw material used in factories supporting union jobs.



Reuters/Ipsos polling data shows union workers now view Democrats more favorably on key issues such as healthcare, the economy and taxes.



The percentage of union members who favored Democratic stances on health care, for instance, rose 7 points to 42 percent since March 2017, compared with 29 percent favoring Republicans. Democrats saw similar gains on taxes, jobs and the economy.



Ken Jones, a retired mechanic and Teamster union member, backed Trump because he believed Clinton was crooked-- borrowing Trumps signature insult-- and that Trump might curtail illegal immigration, create jobs and fix Obamacare.



Now I see hes not going to do anything, said Jones, of Oklahoma, who plans to vote Democratic this fall. The working man dont get nothing out of it. I never voted Republican until Trump, and it was the worst mistake I ever made.

Pew released a new post simultaneously-- with some good news for Trump and some bad news.

A majority of Americans find little or no common ground with Donald Trump on issues, but the share who say they agree with him on many or all issues has risen since last August. The publics assessment of Trumps conduct as president is little changed over the past nine months, with 54% saying they dont like the way he conducts himself as president.



Currently, 41% of the public agrees with Trump on all or nearly all or many of the issues facing the country, while 57% agree with him on just a few issues or virtually none. In August, just 33% said they agreed with Trump on many or all issues.

Ethics, of course, is a weak point for Trump and his whole regime. In Congress it's another story, a very partisan one. Republicans are sticking with Trump like flies to dog shit. Members of Congress don't care about ethics at all unless someone is caught. Interestingly enough, over the weekend a Fairbanks newspaper reported that Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) warned Trump to keep his mitts off the Mueller investigation. This is particularly important because House Republicans are expected to impeach Rod Rosenstein this week. It will just take a couple of Senate Republicans to throw it out and with Murkowski's statement, it's likely she'll be one of them.The life of Mohammad Rafi Bhat, an assistant professor at Kashmir University, as a militant lasted less than 36 hours as he was among the five militants killed in an encounter with security forces in Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir today.

Bhat's involvement with militancy began sometime late afternoon on Friday and ended after he was trapped in a security forces cordon at Badigam in Shopian late last night, making him an ultra with possibly the shortest active time in militancy in the state.

Bhat, a resident of Chundina area of central Kashmir's Ganderbal district, was a contractual assistant professor in the Sociology department of the university and went missing around 3.30 pm on Friday.

He spoke to his mother the last time that day without giving any hint about his short-lived future plans.

Several youth, who joined the militant ranks in a wave following killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani in 2016, have had a short life with some of them getting killed within a fortnight.

Bhat's family informed university authorities about his disappearance yesterday morning, following which protests rocked the varsity campus over his disappearance.

The university's vice chancellor had met the protesting students and assured them that all efforts would be made to trace the missing professor.

He had also written to the Director General of Police, requesting him that all efforts be made to trace Bhat's whereabouts.

However, this morning Bhat was among the militants trapped in an encounter in Badigam village in Zainapora area of south Kashmir's Shopian district.

The encounter broke out after a cordon and search operation was launched by security forces following specific information about the presence of militants in the area.

Police said they brought Bhat's family from Ganderbal to persuade him to surrender, but to no avail.

Reportedly, Bhat is among the militants trapped there. After receiving the input about his presence there, we brought his family from Ganderbal to persuade him to surrender, but so far, repeated attempts have not materialized, Inspector General of Police (IGP), Kashmir, S P Pani had said earlier.

Bhat was killed in the encounter along with four other militants.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)An attorney for adult film star Stormy Daniels today alleged that President Donald Trump and his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani are now "making up" facts and have lost track of the truth.

Michael Avenatti, represents Daniels who claims that she had an intimate relationship with Trump years before he was elected president.

And days before the 2016 presidential election, she says she received USD 130,000 from Trump's then personal attorney Michael Cohen to not go public about her relationship with the president.

In the last few days, Trump has acknowledged that he reimbursed Cohen for the USD 130,000 he paid to Daniels.

Avenatti said there is ample evidence to prove that Cohen approached Daniels before the election to keep her mouth shut. The money being given to Daniels was part of the campaign finance, he asserted, which has been denied by Giuliani who is now the personal attorney for Trump.

"There is significant amount of evidence, there is no question that this had everything to do with the campaign. In fact, if you go back and replay that interview, and that will be done I'm confident, and if you look at the answers, you're going to find an inconsistency with what Rudy Giuliani just told you," Avenatti told ABC in an interview.

"Early in the interview he told you it has nothing to do with the campaign, later in the interview you asked him if there was going to be inconsistencies between Michael Cohen's testimony and Donald Trump and he equivocated. He basically said that well it may have had something to do with the campaign, but it also has to do with personal issues. There's no question this had everything to do with the campaign. You could look at the timing associated with the payment," he said.

Avenatti claimed that Trump and Giuliani are now making up things.

"It's an absolute unmitigated disaster for Rudy Giuliani and the president. It's a train wreck. I can't believe that that actually just happened. I mean what we witnessed by Rudy Giuliani may be one of the worst TV appearances by any attorney on behalf of a client in modern times," he said.

"He now expects the American people to believe that he doesn't really know the facts, that as to every key question you asked, he hasn't communicated with the president about it. I mean this guy's all over the map over the last 72 hours on some very simple facts that should be very straightforward," Avenatti said.

"I think it is obvious to the American people that this is a cover up, that they are making it up as they go along, they don't know what to say because they've lost track of the truth," said the attorney for Daniels.

Avenatti said that Daniels did not approach Cohen, it was the other way round.

"My client was preparing to tell her story, my client did not approach Michael Cohen, did not have anyone approach Michael Cohen, Michael Cohen approached my client in her council in an effort to shut her up in the days before the election," he said, asserting that he can prove that.

"We have evidence that the president knew in the months at least following the campaign, of this payment, certainly knew it long before his statement on Air Force One in April of this year where he effectively stood there and lied to the American people about not knowing anything about this payment. And then of course Rudy Giuliani a few days ago goes out and contradicts that," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik today said the BJD is seriously considering early selection of party candidates for the general elections due next year.

The chief minister, also the president of the ruling BJD, said this while responding to queries about the party's strategy following moves of the Congress and the BJP to select their candidates, for the polls due next year, well in advance.

Elections for Lok Sabha as well as state Assembly are due in 2019.

"We are looking seriously into the matter. A decision will be taken within the party forum," Patnaik told reporters soon after his return here from a five-day visit to Delhi.

Patnaik's statement assumes significance as the Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) and top leaders of BJP have made it clear that they are working towards early finalisation of their candidates for the polls due next year.

The chief minister also voiced confidence that his suggestion for inclusion of Mahatma Gandhi's doctrine of non-violence in the preamble of Indian Constitution would be accepted.

"I am certainly very hopeful (about his suggestion being accepted)," Patnaik said responding to a query.

During his Delhi visit, Patnaik attended the first meeting of the National Committee for Commemoration of 150th Birth Anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi on May 2 and called for inclusion of non-violence in the preamble of the Constitution as a tribute to the father of the nation.

"I had suggested that non-violence should be included in the preamble of the Constitution as a mark of respect to Mahatma Gandhi," the chief minister said.

Quoting Mahatma Gandhi's doctrine of non-violence, Patnaik during the meeting held on May 2 had said that progress cannot be achieved without peace and "progress requires the defeat of those who divide society on basis of class, caste and religion".

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The BJP today alleged that West Bengal State Election Commissioner A K Singh has been receiving threats from the ruling Trinamool Congress over conduct of panchayat polls, and his mobile phone was being tapped and land line calls were recorded.

State Election Commission Additional Secretary Shantanu Mukherjee, however, said the Commission has no knowledge of the alleged tapping of mobile phones and recording of landline calls, and it is not acting under any threat.

"The announcement of a one-phase panchayat polls on May 14 has been made under threat and intimidation by the ruling Trinamool Congress leaders and ministers. The SEC should apprise the court of the situation in a private statement to clear the air," BJP national secretary Rahul Sinha told a press conference.

"SEC A K Singh had even told a BJP delegation that his mobile phone is being tapped and the land line calls are recorded," Sinha claimed.

When contacted, Mukherjee told PTI that the SEC did not have any idea of what Sinha had said.

"We have no idea of what he was talking about. We have no knowledge about any mobile phone of SEC officials being tapped or landline calls recorded," he said adding that the SEC was also not acting under any threat.

SEC AK Singh was not available for comments despite repeated attempts.

Demanding the May 14 panchayat poll date be scrapped, Sinha said the panchayat polls should be conducted by the SEC under the supervision of the Calcutta High Court which is hearing several petitions on the panchayat polls.

"The entire state is waiting for the High Court verdict on the polls. Panchayat Minister Subrata Mukherjee had said it was the duty of the SEC to ensure security during the panchayat elections. But who will ensure the security of the SEC who is under serious threat," Sinha said.

He alleged that the TMC had prevented the opposition from filing nominations in over 20,000 seats or 34 per cent of the total seats in the three-tier panchayat polls.

Till May 4, seven BJP functionaries had been killed in panchayat-related clashes in the state, 412 party workers hospitalised and 38 functionaries went missing, Sinha alleged.

On deployment of central forces for the polls, Sinha said even if the forces were requisitioned, they would be confined to camps. For this reason "we call for holding of panchayat poll under the supervision of the judiciary."



Reacting to the allegations of the BJP leader, the ruling TMC claimed that the saffron party was trying to exert pressure on the State Election Commissioner and he should protest against such attempts.

"The BJP leaders were trying to exert all sorts of pressure on SEC A K Singh so that he acts in favour of them on various issues and Singh should protest against such machinations to monopolise him," TMC Secretary General Partha Chatterjee told reporters here.

On Sinha's charge of the SEC's phone being tapped, Chatterjee said there was "not a grain of truth" in it.

About the BJP's demand for a three-phase poll, he said the saffron party does not want the Muslims to exercise their franchise since the dates will then clash with the month of Ramzan.

The entire election process should end before May 16-17 as during the month of Ramzan, after an entire day fasting, Muslims could find it difficult to take part in the voting process and that too in such hot and humid conditions, All Bengal Minorities Youth Federation had earlier appealed to the SEC.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Following controversy over the BJP's Dalit outreach programmes in Uttar Pradesh, the BSP has decided to hold 'chaupals' or village meetings across the state to expose what is calls the "anti-Dalit face" of the saffron party.

"BSP leaders including coordinators and office bearers will be moving out to villages all over the state to hold chaupals to apprise all, especially the Dalits, about the anti-people and anti-Dalit steps being taken by the BJP government," a senior BSP leader said.

"Dalits are angry over the manner in which a mockery is being made out by the Uttar Pradesh ministers visiting villages, taking their own food and water and showing to the world that they are dining in Dalit households," he said, adding that their drama is getting exposed with every passing day.

"While one minister carries food and water with him and dines as if he is attending a feast, the other minister claims that they are spending nights in villages braving mosquito bites... these BJP leaders are only exposing their real mindset not only towards Dalits but also towards the villagers and their lifestyle.

"On our part, we will organise chaupals and interact with the villagers at the grass-roots level and apprise them of the reality of this government," he told PTI, requesting anonymity.

"Our leaders will tell the people as to how the BJP's so called pro-Dalit stance is a farce and designed only for its petty electoral gains. BJP leaders are carrying out a drama of sharing meals with Dalits in their homes but the food that they take is brought from other places as they do not want to eat the meal prepared by a Dalit in his house," he said.

Since BSP chief Mayawati is currently busy in Karnataka polls, the chaupal programme will take shape only next month, he said.

The BSP leadership has already alerted its office bearers and coordinators to keep a close watch on the BJPs "sahbhoj" (community feast) programmes.

BSP men have also been asked to prepare a list of events where the BJP leaders have shown disrespect during their outreach programme by ordering food, crockery or water from outside or any of them making statements which hurt the sentiments of Dalits, he said.

The BSP will also take this opportunity to refresh the memory of Dalits on various cases of atrocities on them during the BJP government by recalling incidents during the Bharat bandh against the dilution of SC/ST Act and lynching of Dalits among others and how the government has been lax in taking action against the culprits, he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Retail petroleum dealers have complained of receiving lower quantity of fuel from oil tankers which they say has risen sharply in step with surging fuel prices.

Oil Marketing Companies (OMC), however, rubbished the claim saying there is no room for dispute as proper checks are already in place.

"The short supply of fuel was always there but the difference has now jumped sharply. The minimum shortage we are experiencing now is 50 litres which can go up to 100-120 litres," West Bengal Petroleum Dealers Association president Tushar Sen told PTI.

A standard fuel reservoir is of 12,000 litres capacity.

Despite taking up the matter at the highest level, things have only worsened. More automation is needed to make the process foolproof, he said.

"There is need to fit some kind of flow meter in the fuel storage tank to measure the flow of fuel into the tank," he said.

OMCs say they have taken all steps to ensure that quantity dispute does not arise.

"From the terminal level, supply to the tankers is legal metrology stamped and calibrated flow meters are in oil carriers with special locks. The lock can only be opened by the dealer," Indian Oil spokesperson Alok Singh said.

Both petrol pump dealers and OMCs acknowledge off-the-record that the main problem of pilferage lies with the oil carriers during their travel to the dealer.

A Bharat Petroleum official, who did not wish to be quoted, said it is not right to blame the oil companies.

"There is provision to write a note of actual quantity receipt and then the dealer will get credit and a debit will be initiated for the tanker," he said.

At least 30-50 per cent of the dealers already own their oil carriers, the OMCs said.

An Oil Tankers Association office-bearer declined to comment on the issue.

Meanwhile, the BPCL official said a new automation system of geo-fencing is being tried out.

The technology is supposed to track and prevent opening of the lock of an oil carrier until the vehicle reaches the exact coordinate of the dealer's location.

"It will match the latitude and longitude of a location before it allows to open the lock," the official said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) has sought the response of the Bihar government on a contempt petition filed by an IAS officer for not complying with its order asking the state to consider his name for inter-state transfer after he apprehended threat to his life.

The Principal Bench of the CAT, comprising members Nita Chowdhury and V Ajay Kumar, issued notice to the chief secretary of Bihar and asked for a reply before May 30, the next date for hearing.

The CAT had last month lashed out at the state government for not providing security to 2013-batch IAS officer Jitendra Gupta, who has repeatedly complained of threat to his life from the "transport mafia", saying it apprehended a "repeat of Satyendra Dubey murder case".

"If he is not taken out of Bihar, we are afraid, there could be a repeat of Satyendra Dubey murder case, in which a bright young engineer (Dubey), working as Project Director in NHAI, Gaya, Bihar...was murdered by the road construction mafia," the bench had said.

Dubey had apprehended threat to his life and had sought security, which was not provided, it had said.

The tribunal had said that it was the duty of the Centre and the Bihar government to protect Gupta's life.

He has sought inter-state transfer from Bihar to Haryana, alleging threat to his life for acting tough against the 'transport mafia' in the state.

The IAS officer has alleged that the mafia, in connivance with the state vigilance department, has implicated him in a false case claiming that he seized four trucks on July 3, 2016 and demanded a bribe for releasing them. He was arrested in the case and had to spend a month in jail.

After being released on bail, Gupta moved the Patna High Court which quashed the FIR against him on October 28, 2016.

The Supreme Court had also upheld the high court order and directed the Centre on May 9, 2017, to consider his inter-state transfer after noting the threat perception.

The state government, in a letter to the Centre, however, said there was no probable threat to the officer's life and he could continue in the state 'fearlessly'.

The tribunal noted that the proposal for inter-cadre transfer of Gupta on the ground of extreme hardship was again placed before the committee headed by the secretary (Personnel) of the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) at its meeting held on August 17, 2017.

The committee had then recommended that the proposal may be submitted to Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) for consideration.

The Centre, on December 6 last year, had rejected the request for inter-cadre deputation.

The CAT had then directed the Centre's counsel to submit the reason rejecting "such a sensible and pragmatic recommendation".

It had quashed the Centre's decision declining the request of the officer to be transferred to Haryana, holding it "ab initio illegal, arbitrary and unreasonable" and asked it to consider his name again for inter-state transfer.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Gina Haspel, President Donald Trump's nominee for CIA director, who has been facing questions over her role in various clandestine torture programmes, has sought to withdraw ahead of her Senate confirmation hearing, a US media report said today.

The White House sent two of its top officials including Press Secretary Sarah Sanders to the CIA headquarters as part of its efforts to convince Haspel against it.

Haspel, 62, is currently acting director of CIA after Mike Pompeo resigned as he became the new secretary of state.

She has served in the CIA for more than three decades and had played a key role in America's fight against terrorism post-9/11.

Her confirmation hearing by the Senate Intelligence Committee is scheduled for May 9. Ahead of this, several top senators have asked tough questions on her role in several torture programmes. On Friday she was at the White House to explain her position on torture.

According to The Washington Post, she conveyed her intention to withdraw her nomination soon thereafter.

"Taken aback at her stance, senior White House aides, including legislative affairs head Marc Short and press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, rushed to Langley, Virgina, to meet with Haspel at her office late Friday afternoon," the daily said.

"Discussions stretched several hours, officials said, and the White House was not entirely sure she would stick with her nomination until Saturday afternoon, according to the officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations," the daily reported.

The Post said Trump wants Haspel to remain as nominee.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Congress leaders would be seeking divine blessings at various temples in MP in a bid to wrest power from the BJP in the state where the Assembly polls are due later this year.

The Congress state election campaign committee chairman, Jyotiraditya Scindia, will kick off the party's campaign for the polls from Ujjain district after offering prayers at the famous Mahakal temple on May 11, state party spokesman Pankaj Chaturvedi said.

"Scindia is a deeply religious person, he is going to visit many temples to seek blessings of the Almighty to overthrow the BJP government, which has been in power for over 14 years in MP," he said.

The newly appointed MP Congress president, Kamal Nath, who formally took charge of the party in the state on May 1, visited the Gufa Mandir in Bhopal on May 2.

The same day, he also went to the Mahakal temple in Ujjain and offered prayers at the Pitambara Peeth in Datia district.

A Congress leader said their party chief Rahul Gandhi was likely to start his election campaign in MP after visiting either the Mahakal temple or the Pitambara Peeth.

Gandhi would visit some prominent Hindu temples in MP, replicating his Gujarat electioneering model, the leader said on condition of anonymity.

Notably, senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh last month completed his 3,300-km 'Narmada Parikarma' (circumambulation) along the river banks on foot.

A BJP leader dubbed such tactics of the Congress leaders as "hypocrisy" to woo the voters, saying that the strategy won't work in the polls.

"The Congress leaders' visits to temples, especially Digvijayji's Narmada yatra, is just a hypocrisy. Everyone knows that Digvijayji believes in minority appeasement," state BJP general secretary V D Sharma said.

"The people know that the Congress leaders in MP have turned religious only to get votes. Their temple-going tactics to woo voters won't work in the forthcoming elections. They are anti-Hindu and believe in minority appeasement for votes," Sharma said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Congress will hold a state-level meeting of its Legal, Human Rights and RTI department here on July 15, a party official said.

Senior party leaders, including former union ministers P Chidambaram and Kapil Sibal, are expected to attend the meet, besides Rajasthan Congress chief Sachin Pilot and former chief minister Ashok Gehlot.

The meeting for finalising the preparations of the July 15 meet will be convened on May 12 here, the official said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Congress would emerge as the "number one party" in the Karnataka Assembly elections, Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut said today, taking a swipe at the BJP for mobilising the "entire central machinery" for state campaigns.

He also said the understanding between the BJP and his party for the upcoming Legislative Council polls in Maharashtra didn't mean the Sena would forge an alliance with it in the Lok Sabha and assembly elections in 2019.

"Whenever there are assembly polls, the entire central machinery and chief ministers of all BJP-ruled states go there (to campaign), leaving the administration of the country and of their own states in the lurch. The country is watching all this," Raut told PTI in an interview.

Slamming Yogi Adityanath, the Sena's Rajya Sabha MP said the seriousness with which the Uttar Pradesh chief minister took his duties became evident when he was seen campaigning in Karnataka while his own state reeled under a dust storm.

"Does the central leadership (of the BJP) not trust its own men in states? Why does Prime Minister Narendra Modi need to address dozens of campaign rallies when he is needed in Delhi to govern the country?" asked Raut, whose party is in alliance with the BJP in Maharashtra and at the Centre.

Though an ally, the Sena has been continuously criticising the BJP and its governments in states and at the Centre.

"There is a 'dust storm' in Karnataka today. Once it clears, the Congress will emerge as the number one party. People have started listening to Rahul Gandhi now," Raut added.

Asked if the understanding between the Sena and the BJP for May 21 Maharashtra Legislative Council elections was an indication that the bickering allies may join hands in the assembly and Lok Sabha polls, Raut replied in the negative.

The BJP and the Sena have agreed to contest three seats each in the elections to six local authorities constituencies in the upper house of the Maharashtra legislature.

"This arrangement is due to the sentiments of the local leadership of both the parties. Also, we are fielding candidates in three seats where the Sena has a strong presence," Raut said.

"This doesn't, in any way, mean we will have an alliance in 2019. The party is firm on the decision taken by Sena president Uddhav Thackeray that we will fight (future) elections on our own," Raut asserted.

"The Sena will win a majority in 2019 and the next chief minister will be of our party," he added.

Raut, who is the executive editor of Shiv Sena mouthpiece 'Saamana', also claimed the BJP had not won a single election in the Northeast on its own.

It formed governments in the region through the of "jod-tod", he said.

"Take the case of Meghalaya or Arunachal Pradesh. The BJP would not have formed governments there had it not allied with local parties. So, it was on the strength of other parties that it came to power. The BJP would not have won in Tripura had there been an alliance between the Congress and the TMC," the Sena MP said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A 39-year-old police constable was killed and a civilian sustained injuries when suspected Naxals opened fire at them in Chhattisgarh's Rajnandgaon district, the police said today.

The incident occurred late last night in Sadak Banajari village where the police jawan, identified as Ganeshwar Singh Uike alias Ravi, had gone to attend the marriage of his cousin brother, a local police official said.

Uike, who was a Naxalite before being recruited as constable in the District Reserve Guard (DRG) of Rajnandgaon, had surrendered before the police in 2011, he said.

He was said to be on the target of Naxals since 2016 when he joined the DRG, the official said.

As per preliminary information, Uike and another person accompanying him were outside the village, about 150 kms from here, when three Naxals, dressed as civilians, reached the spot and opened fire injuring both of them, he said.

The rebels then immediately fled the spot.

The two injured persons were rushed to a local community health centre where Uike succumbed to injuries, the official said.

The civilian who sustained bullet injuries on his hand was later shifted to the Rajnandgaon district hospital where his condition was reported to be out of danger, he said.

A search operation has been launched in the area to trace the Naxals, the official said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Telecom regulator TRAI is in the midst of consulting various international agencies and experts, and hopes to finalise its recommendation on spectrum auction "soon", Chairman R S Sharma has said.

Asked about the status of recommendation on spectrum auction, Sharma said that a review meeting on the same was held in the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) last week.

"There is a lot of work being done. We are consulting international agencies, consultants we well as experts and we will come out with our recommendations soon," Sharma told PTI.

But he declined to give a specific timeframe for the finalisation of recommendations on the issue.

The government is planning to hold the largest-ever spectrum auction of 3,000 MHz radiowaves in the upcoming sale.

It has sought recommendations from TRAI on the applicable reserve price and related issues for auction of spectrum in the frequency bands 700 MHz, 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1,800 MHz and 2,100 MHz, 2,300 MHz, 2,500 MHz, 3,300-3,400 MHz and 3,400-3,600 MHz.

TRAI is also expected to give its opinion on timing of the proposed spectrum auction.

In the previous auction held in 2016, the government had put a total of 2,354.55 MHz of mobile airwaves for sale in the bands of 700 MHz, 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1,800 MHz, 2,100 MHz and 2,300 MHz, cumulatively valued at around Rs 5.63 lakh crore at base price.

However, nearly 60 per cent of the radio waves, including premium 4G bands, remained unsold in that auction.

In the five-day auction in 2016, seven telecom companies made commitment of Rs 65,789 crore for buying 964.80 MHz of spectrum across multiple frequency bands.

The apex industry association COAI is of the view that operators are not ready for the next round of spectrum auction at this point, given the deep financial stress and ongoing consolidation in the sector.

The telecom industry has been reeling under Rs 7.5 lakh crore cumulative debt and hyper-competition has only made matters worse for the established operators.

Engaged in a brutal and prolonged tariff war with newcomer Reliance Jio, the older players have seen erosion in their revenues, and are incurring losses.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Based on recommendations of an expert panel, the Delhi government is likely to come out with a policy this week to cap profit margins of city hospitals on drugs and devices, according to sources.

The nine-member panel, headed by Director-General of Health Services Kirti Bhushan, was set up by the Arvind Kejriwal government on December 13 last year.

"We submitted the recommendations about two months ago and the new policy on capping of profit margin by hospitals should be out by this week," a top official told PTI.

The move comes after a public outrage on the death of a child due to dengue last year at a private hospital in Gurgaon, which charged the family around Rs 16 lakh for treatment.

The committee had suggested capping the profit margin for drugs and devices at a maximum of 50 per cent above the manufacturing price or procurement cost, whichever was lower, the official said.

The panel members include the then Indian Medical Association president Dr K K Aggarwal, Delhi Medical Council president Dr Arun Gupta, former president of Delhi Medical Association Dr R K Gupta, and experts, and senior bureaucrats from the government.

"Health Minister Satyendar Jain is likely to announce the policy on Wednesday," a source in the health department said.

On December 13, Jain, while announcing the constitution of the panel, had said that it would also recommend the Delhi government norms to be followed by city hospitals, including in medical investigation and for behavioural protocols.

However, sources said, the announcement, as of now would only pertain to the policy of capping of profit margins.

The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) had in December said that the private hospital had charged as high as 1,700 per cent margin on consumables and medicines used for the treatment of the dengue patient, a seven-year-old girl, who subsequently died of the illness.

Jain, in his December press conference, had said, "They will not be mere recommendations. The Delhi government will use them to come up with protocols related to medical services."



On what prompted the setting up of the panel, Jain had said his department had received several complaints related to overcharging, refusal or delay in providing immediate medical care to victims of crime or road accidents, or hospitals compelling patients to purchase drugs from in-house pharmacy, rude behaviour by healthcare workers and delay in initiating medico-legal cases.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Delhi government has directed Guru Harkishan Public School in Punjabi Bagh area to disburse salaries to teachers and employees after a probe found an inordinate delay in salary disbursement since March last year, according to an official order.

The government has also asked all schools in the national capital to ensure that salaries of all employees are disbursed maximum by the 7th of every month.

Following complaints from teachers of Guru Harkishan Public School, the Directorate of (DoE) had ordered an inquiry into the matter. The school authorities were not available for comment on the issue.

"An inquiry was conducted by a team constituted by the department to inquire into the allegation and as per their report, some delay might have occurred due to the introduction of the centralized accounting system or due to transfer of funds from the cash-rich branches to non-cash rich branches of the GHP schools," an official order said.

"The reply of the school was examined and found not satisfactory on the ground that the school has disbursed salary to teachers and employees in their saving bank accounts with a delay of 5 days to maximum 45 days in violation of the norms," the order added.

The DoE communication further said that the management committee of Guru Harkishan Public School and all private schools should ensure payment of salaries to their staff by 7th day of each month.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)After successfully providing a new source of livelihood to Delhi's petty criminals, the government is planning to provide similar employment opportunities to youngsters of Jammu and Kashmir who indulge in stone-pelting.

The National Skill Development Corporation (NCDC) and the Delhi Police started a skill training project in the national capital in August last year. In the second phase, they are planning to extend the project to other states like Jammu and Kashmir, Haryana, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.

Sanjeev Beniwal, the Joint Commissioner of Delhi Police told PTI Bhasha that the skill training project, which was initially started in eight police station areas, has now been expanded to 20 police stations.

In the past eight months, 1,555 people have completed the skill training programme and out of them, around 1,100 have got jobs, he said.

Twenty-year-old Rahul (name changed), who was arrested by police on charges of robbery from Kirti Nagar, is now earning a monthly salary of Rs 20,000.

He said that a few years ago, after the death of his father, his mother had to work as a domestic help. Financial problems forced him to quit studies and get involved in crimes.

"After joining the training, I developed an interest in computers. Last year in March, I was employed as an assistant engineer in a well-established organisation," Rahul said.

Similarly, the 19-year-old daughter of a prisoner is currently working as a nurse in Fortis Hospital with a monthly salary of Rs 16,000.

She said after her father was sentenced to life imprisonment, her mother had to take up odd jobs. But her life took a different turn, when she decided to join the skill training project.

Beniwal said criminals aged between 16 and 25 years were trained by the NCDC in 45 types of courses.

Under the programme, female family members of the criminals were also trained in tailoring and beautician work, he said.

He said four state governments have recently sent proposals to Delhi Police for starting this skill training initiative in their states.

After getting an approval from the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, the NCDC and Delhi Police will start working towards this.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)An organisation representing the people displaced from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir today staged a protest in Jammu, urging the Centre to take up with Pakistan the issue of their pilgrimage to abandoned shrines across the border.

The SOS International also highlighted the delay in providing relief to the community as promised by the Centre more than two years ago and called for speeding up the process.

Led by the organisation's chairman Rajiv Chuni, a group of displaced persons staged a sit-in near Tawi bridge in support of their demands.

"We were forced out of our birth place over seven decades ago. Many of our elders left this world with unfilled dream of visiting our religious places in their lifetime," Chuni told PTI.

He said the Centre should immediately take this up with Pakistan so that "we are able to visit our shrines."



Chuni also criticised the state government for its alleged failure to implement the Rs 2,000-crore relief announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 7, 2015, for the "one-time settlement" of the displaced people.

"After the lapse of more than two and a half years, only one sixth of PoK displaced persons' families have been covered till date," he said, threatening to intensify the agitation.

Out of the 31,500 families, only 6,000 families have been provided compensation to the tune of Rs 500 crore, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A new documentary based on the life of rocker Liam Gallagher will be screened at the Cannes Film Festival.

The film "Liam Gallagher: As It Was", which is currently in production, narrates the "emotional story of how one of the greatest rock frontmen went from the dizzying heights of his champagne supernova years in Oasis to living on the edge ostracised lost in the musical wilderness of boredom, booze and bitter legal battles", according to The Hollywood Reporter.

It will be directed by Charlie Lightening, who has worked with Gallagher previously on Beady Eye videos and on his video for "Chinatown".

"'As It Was' is a documentary about my musical comeback. It covers the writing and recording of my first solo album, right through to playing it live for the first time in my hometown of Manchester and around the world," Gallagher said in a statement.

The 45-year-old musician recently released his first solo album, 'As You Were' and he is all set to embark on a brief solo North America tour later this month.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)After featuring in multiple language films from Hindi, Marathi, Bengali and to projects in South India, Radhika Apte is all set to make her foray in Hollywood and the actor says she always had the desire to do international cinema.

Apte will be seen in Michael Winterbottom's "The Wedding Guest", alongside Dev Patel and will also feature in producer-turned-director Lydia Dean's untitled World War II spy drama, with Stana Katic and Sarah Megan Thomas.

"My desire was not just to do a Hollywood film but to do an international film. My desire was to do world cinema. I want to be able to do cinema in any language and do something I am capable or suitable to do. I don't want to restrict myself to just one kind of cinema," the 32-year-old actor told PTI.

In the World War II film, the actor will be playing the role of spy of Indian descent, Noor Inayat Khan.

The movie traces the story of British intelligence officer Vera Atkins (Katic) and the two women she sends into France as spies, one of whom is Khan.

"It is about women spies. A lot of people did not know about it and we have not had a film on them. I felt it is a very interesting and important subject.

"Noor Inayat Khan is an inspiring character that I have come across. It has been interesting to get the opportunity to play her," she says.

What appealed the most about Khan to Apte was that she had a certain internationality to her character.

"She was born in Russia, her mother was an American, her father was an Indian Muslim. She was a British national who grew up in France. She used to write, she was a musician. She was ahead of her times. She was brave. I don't think there was any other character who is so unique and extraordinary," the actor says.

She was not much aware about Khan but research helped her know more about her.

Apte, however, remains tight-lipped about revealing more details regarding both of her international projects.

She may be cracking international projects now, but the "Padman" actor says she has been giving auditions for films abroad for quite some time.

"I have auditioned for a few films but I did not get the part. I audition for films more abroad than I do in India as in here people have seen my work more. Nobody knows about it there. I audition in India too but not as much," she says.

"There were some international collaborations with my films like 'Parched', 'The Ashram'," she adds.

Apte believes there are some differences in the working style between Hindi film industry and Hollywood.

"There are few main differences like they work project to project. They are punctual - everything starts on time, ends on time. I feel, in India, we are capable of far more hectic work in a way. We are capable of any kind of disaster management with far more efficiency," she says.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)National Conference working president Omar Abdullah said today that educated and gainfully employed young men joining militancy in Jammu and Kashmir calls for a "serious introspection" by the Centre and the state.

Abdullah said the "alarming situation" in Kashmir has again highlighted the need for a sustained dialogue "with all stakeholders".

"When educated, gainfully employed young men choose the path of militancy - it should serve as a wake-up call for those who have turned a deaf ear towards repeated pleas for dialogue with all stakeholders to find a solution to this quagmire," he said at a public meeting in Drass town in Ladakh region.

The situation calls for "serious introspection" at the central and the state level.

"Turning a blind eye towards the alarming situation won't change reality. The growing levels of alienation and isolation are alarming signs and need to be acknowledged and addressed politically," Abdullah said.

His remarks came as parts of Kashmir remained tense. Five Hizbul Mujahideen militants, including a commander and a fresh recruit - a university professor, were killed in an encounter between security forces in Shopian district today.

As the encounter progressed, clashes broke out between groups of stone-pelting youths and security forces near the encounter site, leading to injuries to several protesters.

Also, the Kashmir University suspended classes for two days from tomorrow as a precautionary measure. Mobile Internet services have already been snapped in south Kashmir districts and Ganderbal in central Kashmir.

Speaking at the public meeting, Abdullah also said that the PDP-BJP government has neglected the people of Drass and brought development projects started by the NC government to a standstill.

"The power projects initiated for this region have been shelved for reasons best known to the current government," he said.

"NC has always had a vision of equal and balanced development of all regions and we will continue to remain dedicated to people of all regions of the state, especially those areas that have been neglected and sidelined," he said.

The former chief minister said Jammu and Kashmir is "reeling under a failure of and imagination" and the ruling dispensation seems more interested to remain in power.

"This alliance has distanced the people of the state and divided them on regional and religious lines to seek political dividends," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.): Minister of State for External Affairs V K Singh today stressed the need to ensure steady growth of the country's manufacturing sector and called for greater coordination between different ministries at the centre and also the states.

The manufacturing sector needs to grow and it is the most stable part of any country's economy, he said in his address at the maiden 'Deccan Dialogue'-conference on Economic Diplomacy for Development here.

"If the manufacturing sector does not grow and we only depend on the service sector I think we are living in a cloud and need to come on mother earth and ensure that the manufacturing sector grows," the minister added.

Singh also underscored the need to fast-track some of the areas which have been neglected for a certain period of time i.e, technology infusion.

"We need do more where research and development are concerned. We need to do tie-ups. We need to ensure that the tariff, trade and other regimes are so structured that they do not land in conflict," he said.

He further said there was a need to have coordination between the commerce ministry and the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and the states to achieve sustained economic growth.

"Our problem has been that while the diplomacy part is being pushed for an advantage by one ministry, there may be another ministry which is looking at the domestic market and trying to impose restrictions. So, we need to have greater coordination between the Trade and Commerce Ministries and the MEA and also the states," he added.

The minister said there is also a need to improve connectivity whether it is by air, sea or land.

He said ease of doing business comes when the systems change.

"Unfortunately, we are still stuck with certain systems which are bending at a very slow rate. They are made of something stronger than iron and it is taking time to bend them. But, believe you me once movement starts to change things they will change," he added.

There is a need to bring ease of doing business to an extent where it becomes easy for anybody who wants to come and invest and make use of our strengths and therefore it becomes contributory to our own economy, he said.

"Ease of doing business I am sure is going to see a much more steeper advantageous position than what we have today," the minister said.

On foreign direct investment (FDI) indicators, Singh said India is doing well despite the sluggishness being witnessed by the world.

"I think we have done pretty well. We are at an all-time high where FDI is concerned. Economy is at bright spot by all indicators of various world institutions," he added.

He said India's greatest advantage is its market and there is a need to exploit it.

"Our economy and our markets have become more attractive. And therefore we need to exploit this advantage of ours in a manner which is beneficial to us," the minister added.

He said there is a need to look at countries which have done well in economic diplomacy.

"Brazil created institutions by which it was able to leverage its technology and market to advantage. Look at China which created itself as a manufacturing hub and allowed everybody else to come and manufacture and today it has enlarged itself economically," Singh added.

The minister said India should leverage the advantage of being a democracy because each state here can actually become a place of excellence.

Earlier, Telangana IT and Industries Minister K T Rama Rao said the MEA should take up a resource mapping exercise where it can map resources of a state.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Chhattisgarh Police today claimed that for the first time it had recovered a German-made rifle after an anti-Maoist operation in the state.

The German Heckler and Koch (HK) G-3 rifle was recovered after an May 3 encounter in Sukma district between Maoists and security forces a police officer said.

Sukma Superintendent of Police Abhishek Meena told PTI that the rifle was recovered from the site of an encounter, which took place on May 3 in Putpalli village under the Kistaram police station area.

"This is a G-3 rifle manufactured by the German firm Heckler and Koch. It is the first time this type of weapon has been recovered in Chhattisgarh," Meena said.

He said that the rifle appeared to be a smuggled one.

Two Naxals were killed in this encounter that took place between the ultras and a joint team of the District Reserve Guard and the Special Task Force, the official said.

Deputy Inspector General (South Bastar Range) Sundarraj P told PTI that this weapon looked, at first sight, like a UK-made Self Loading Rifle (SLR) usually used by security forces.

But, closer inspection threw up minute differences, he said.

"We are investigating the antecedents of the weapon and how the Naxals got their hands on it," the DIG said.

Police had also recovered an AK-47 rifle and a 12 bore gun after the encounter, officials said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Five unidentified militants were killed in an encounter with security forces in Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir today, police said.

Top Hizbul Mujahideen commander Saddam Padder is also believed to be among the slain militants but police officials said it can only be confirmed after ascertaining the identity of the slain ultras.

Encounter concluded at Badigam Zainpora Shopian, 5 bodies of terrorists recovered. Well done boys - Army/ CRPF/J&K Police," DGP S P Vaid tweeted.

A police official said the identity and the group affiliation of the slain militants is being ascertained.

The encounter broke out after security forces launched cordon and search operation in Badigam village in Zainapora area of the south Kashmir district following specific information about the presence of militants in the area.

A Kashmir University assistant professor, who went missing on Friday, is believed to be among the slain militants.

Mohammad Rafi Bhat, a contractual assistant professor in the Sociology department of the university, went missing on Friday.

Bhat, a resident of Chundina area of central Kashmir's Ganderbal district, was to join militant ranks and reportedly is among the militants who were trapped in Badigam.

Reportedly, Bhat is among the militants trapped there, Inspector General of Police (IGP), Kashmir, S P Pani said.

He said the police brought his family from Ganderbal to persuade him to surrender.

After receiving the input about his presence there, we brought his family from Ganderbal to persuade him to surrender, but so far, repeated attempts have not materialized, Pani had said earlier in the day.

Bhat's family informed the university authorities about his disappearance yesterday.

Protests had rocked the university yesterday over his disappearance, following which the university's vice chancellor met the protesting students and assured them that all efforts would be made to trace the missing professor.

The vice-chancellor had also written to the Director General of Police, requesting him that all efforts be made to trace Bhat's whereabouts.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Five PLFI militants and two arms suppliers were arrested from the Sarla Marla forest of West Singhbhum district, the police said.

Based on a tip-off, security personnel cordoned off the area under Bandgaon police station limit and forced the ultras belonging to the Peoples Liberation Front of India (PLFI) to surrender yesterday, they said.

One carbine, one double barrel gun and one pistol besides a large quantity of ammunition were recovered from them.

During interrogation a PLFI leader Birsa Purty alias Chattan Singh said that they had come to the forest to collect fire-arms from suppliers and also named them. The ultras had already paid Rs one lakh to the suppliers for the deal, they said.

Accordingly, the police conducted raid and arrested two arms suppliers from Chakradharpur and recovered Rs 90,000 which was the part of the advance payment made by the PLFI ultras.

Purty also confessed that they were involved in the killing of a villager in the area recently for allegedly being a police informer.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Nearly 450 families of former militants hoping to rebuild their lives after they returned to the Kashmir Valley through the Nepal route are facing a relentless struggle to make both ends meet in the absence of a proper rehabilitation policy, according to available accounts.

The hapless condition of the returnees has also heightened the risk that some of them may return to militancy as instances of suicide, bouts of depression and attempts to return to Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK) involving these families have been reported regularly with neither the Jammu and Kashmir government nor the central authorities having a clear cut policy on how to bring them into the national mainstream.

Security agencies have been constantly raising the issue about their rehabilitation at the earliest, fearing what they said were "active time bombs" that can explode anytime.

Security officials feel that some workable solution should be redrawn for the Nepal returnees, who could also become an easy fodder for militant groups in the Valley.

The state government officials have been trying to convince the Centre for formulating a policy on return of youths from Nepal but have not been able to cut ice with them. "After all this route was started by the previous state government with concurrence of the Centre. We are also trying," a state government official said.

The opening of Nepal route was started by the previous government led by Omar Abdullah in which residents of Kashmir, who were not involved in heinous crimes, were allowed to enter India via Nepal. Under this scheme, a resident of Kashmir who had exfilitrated to Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK) in the early 1990s could return after someone from the family gave an application.

The plea was duly vetted by the state and central government officials before a go-ahead was given to the family members, officials said, adding around 450 families availed this option and entered via Nepal from 2011 to 2014. The male members were given a minimum loan to start a small job and school admissions for their children were also ensured.

The Omar Abdullah government had announced a rehabilitation policy in 2010 for former Kashmiri militants, who had crossed over to Pakistan from 1989 to 2009 and had designated four points Wagah-Attari, Salambad, Chakan Da Bagh and the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi-- for return of militants. However, the Nepal route was approved unofficially.

As per the state government records, as many as 4,587 youth had crossed the Line of Control (LoC) for arms training and among them only 489 youths, due to change of heart, alongwith their families have returned through the Nepal border which included some during the present PDP-BJP tenure till 2016.

However, after this the policy was discontinued as the Centre felt that it could be misused by militants to sneak into the hinterland of the country.

The state government is also facing criticism from the Nepal returnees who have formed an association -- Nepal Returnee Forum -- whose members now claim that they want to highlight that there is no alternative to peace "but provided our life was made a bit peaceful".

"We were arrested upon our arrival in the Kashmir Valley and till date we are fighting our cases in the court. We were promised the sky but we have to virtually beg in order to make both our ends meet. Our womenfolk have been slapped with stringent Foreigners Act," claimed some of the members. "India should now accept that we are Indians," they said.

Today, many of the families are living in rented accommodations on the outskirts of Srinagar city with some of their children working as daily wagers while pursuing their studies in school. "We have conveyed to the government that at least travel documents should be issued to our families so that we can send them back. This way only we will suffer and not our families," they say.

"We were a scared lot across the border and we are scared on this side of the border too," says the wife of a militant, who availed the surrender policy.

Many of those who returned claimed their names are registered in the revenue records but the state government was not issuing ration cards or state subjects to their family members. "Why are we being treated as an outsider," ask some of the members who did not wish to be identified for fear of their lives.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Malaysian opposition icon Anwar Ibrahim can't vote in what he believes will be a "defining election" for his country on Wednesday but even from his prison cell has remained a political force to be reckoned with.

The firebrand politician's conviction in 2015 for what he and his supporters said were false allegations of sodomy fractured the alliance of opposition parties that under Anwar's leadership was threatening the ruling National Front's decades-long hold on power.

It was Anwar's second spell in prison and it seemed he'd finally been done in by dirty political tactics.

Once a high flyer in the ruling party, in 1998 he was convicted of homosexual sodomy a criminal offense in Muslim-majority Malaysia inherited from the British colonial era and corruption following a power struggle with Mahathir Mohammad, Malaysia's authoritarian prime minister for more than two decades.

Anwar, however, played an unexpected card.

From prison he helped forge a new opposition alliance by ending the two-decade feud with his former persecutor-in-chief, Mahathir, who'd once called Anwar "morally unfit" to govern the country.

It was a hard but pragmatic decision, Anwar's eldest daughter, lawmaker Nurul Izzah Anwar, told The Associated Press.

Anwar, 70, is an "incorrigible optimist" who believes there must be sacrifices to bring about a change of government and badly needed reforms, she said.

"He was instrumental in galvanizing an eventual approval to get Mahathir to be part of our coalition," said Nurul Izzah. "He was the first to state that it's time for us to be actively playing our part to design the Malaysia that we want."



Mahathir, 92, now leads an opposition alliance that includes Anwar's party. They're campaigning to oust Prime Minister Najib Razak, who is mired in scandal, and end the National Front's unbroken 60-year rule.

Even with Mahathir, who is popular with Malaysia's Malay majority, the odds are stacked against the opposition. It won the popular vote in 2013 but the ruling party clung to a majority in Parliament because of an electoral system that gives more weight to Malay-dominated rural seats that traditionally support the government.

A popular Islamic student leader, Anwar joined the ruling Malay party in 1982, a year after Mahathir became prime minister. He quickly rose up the ranks, becoming finance minister in 1991 and deputy premier two years later. Anwar became the heir apparent to Mahathir but they fell out during the 1998 Asian financial crisis and Anwar was sacked.

He refused to go quietly, leading tens of thousands of demonstrators in street rallies in Kuala Lumpur demanding reforms before he was arrested. He was later produced in court with a black eye from a beating by the police chief. That black eye has become the logo of the People's Justice Party led by his wife and is now the symbol of the opposition challenge against Najib.

Anwar was freed in 2004 after Mahathir retired and cleared of the sodomy charges.

In 2008 elections, his opposition pact known as the People's Alliance made major inroads by depriving the National Front of a two-thirds majority in Parliament for the first time. In 2013, the National Front lost the popular vote, its worst result since independence from Britain in 1957. It currently holds 132 of 222 seats.

But in 2015, Anwar was imprisoned again after new allegations of sodomizing an aide that he and his supporters said was a government plot to crush the opposition.

"Authoritarian leaders always believe the best way to deal with dissidents is to jail them, but throughout history, it has always backfired," Anwar said at the time. His opposition alliance broke up after its Islamist ally left. It regrouped as the Alliance of Hope but the pact was shaky due to infighting and the lack of a charismatic figure to hold it together day to day.

Mahathir's political comeback in 2016 provided the missing glue. Despite his advanced age, Mahathir was seen as the best chance for the opposition to win support from rural Malays.

The former prime minister was spurred out of retirement by the corruption scandal at 1MDB, a state fund that is being investigated by the U.S. and several other countries after associates of Najib allegedly stole and laundered $4.5 billion from it. The fund was set up by Najib in 2009 to promote economic but accumulated billions in debts.

In September 2016, Mahathir met Anwar for the first time in 18 years. Social media was awash with pictures of the two men shaking hands and chatting in court, where Anwar was challenging a repressive new security law.

An opposition victory in the election, though unlikely, could result in a spectacular comeback for Anwar.

He is due to be released from prison on June 8 and Mahathir has pledged to hand leadership to him. Officials say Anwar could take power with a royal pardon. Anwar, said Nurul Izzah, "knows it's a defining election, he knows the stakes are high."



"We have to face a lot of onslaught against Mahathir especially in the lead-up to the election, but we are also saying that we are not apologists. Like it or not, he is now doing his bit at the age of 92, what are you doing about it? That's the key message we are giving out.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)High school students in Germany have gathered tens of thousands of signatures in an online petition to complain about an "unfair" final English exam, saying the test was much harder than in previous years.

By Sunday, the students from the southwestern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg had gathered almost 36,000 signatures even though only 33,500 people took last month's statewide exam.

They complained that text excerpts from American author Henry Roth's 1934 novel "Call it Sleep" were too difficult and obscure to analyze and asked for the grading to be more lenient this year.

The final high school exams in Germany called the Abitur are a rite of passage that all students who want to enter university have to pass.

Only those with excellent grades and test scores will get into the most coveted university programs, with medicine among the hardest. But other subjects like engineering or language studies also offer only a limited amount of places.

Many German students, parents and teachers have been stressed out for months over the Abitur. Often schools will cancel all regular classes for younger students during the tests so the Abitur students won't be disturbed.

The online petition has created such uproar that even state governor Winfried Kretschmann weighed in, though he showed only limited compassion.

"There's no right to a simple Abitur," he told the frustrated teenagers. "You wish for it, but you don't have a right to it." At the same time Kretschmann admitted that his own English skills were too weak to actually judge whether the disputed text had been overly difficult, the German agency dpa reported.

Students said the passage from Roth's novel that they had to analyze a metaphorical description of the Statue of Liberty was difficult to understand because of its "unknown vocabulary." They also complained the questions they had to answer were not asked precisely.

They quoted some of the text's most difficult sentences to illustrate their point: "Against the luminous sky the rays of her halo were spikes of darkness roweling the air; shadow flattened the torch she bore to a black cross against flawless light_the blackened hilt of a broken sword. Liberty."



The state's ministry responded by asking external experts to evaluate the exam who then concluded its level was appropriate. Educational authorities also noted that students in the eastern German state of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania had to analyze the same passage and did not complain about it.

That has not stopped the number of signatures online from growing, as younger and out-of state students sign the petition in a show of solidarity.

"I was struggling like all the others, even though I spent a year abroad in America!" Aimee Schaefer wrote in the comment section of the petition. "You would think that I can understand everything by now, but I had to look up a lot of vocabulary ... whoever compiled this exam must really hate us Abitur students.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The labour ministry is likely to notify this week the 5-year low 8.55 per cent interest on PF for 2017-18, paving the way for retirement fund body EPFO to credit returns into the accounts of around 5 crore subscribers.

The finance ministry has ratified 8.55 per cent rate of interest on EPF for last fiscal.

"The labour ministry has sought Election Commission's approval to notify rate of interest for crediting the same into members' accounts by the EPFO in view of model code of conduct for Karnataka elections," a source said.

"The nod is expected anytime this week to provide 8.55 per cent rate of interest to the EPFO subscribers," the source said.

The recommendation on the rate of interest by the Central Board of Trustees, the apex decision making body of Employees' Provident Fund Organisation(EPFO), is sent to the finance ministry for its concurrence.

Once ratified, the labour ministry notifies the rate of interest and the EPFO credits the return for the particular year into its members account.

The CBT, headed by the labour minister, had decided to fix 8.55 per cent rate of interest for last fiscal in its meeting held on February 21, 2018.

It could not be implemented for the want of finance ministry's concurrence and was further delayed due to the model code of conduct for Karnataka elections on May 12.

EPFO had provided 8.65 per cent interest for 2016-17. The members got 8.8 per cent in 2015-16 and 8.75 per cent each in 2013-14 and 2014-15. In 2012-13, EPFO had provided 8.5 per cent rate of interest on EPF. Thus, at 8.55 per cent for 2017-18, it is a five year low.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The expenditure incurred by the government in contesting cases in the Supreme Court has gone up from nearly Rs 11 crore in 2011-12 to Rs 42.40 crore in 2017-18, Law Ministry data shows.

According to the data, submitted to a Parliamentary committee, in the financial year 2011-12, the ministry had paid Rs 10.99 crore as 'professional fee' to law officers and lawyers which are on its panel to represent the government in the Supreme Court.

In 2012-13, the 'expended budget' on professional fee went up to Rs 11.73 crore and Rs 14.47 crore in 2013-14.

In 2016-17, the figure stood at 32.06 crore, much higher than previous fiscals.

In 2017-18 (upto February 22), the government had spent Rs 42.40 crore as professional fee.

Officials pointed out that since there are not many law officers, sensitive cases are also being handled by senior advocates who are on the law ministry panel. These lawyers are paid fees per appearance.

Another reason attributed to higher exenditure is that the ministry is clearing dues of lawyers within 60 days. Earlier, dues used to take months to get cleared.

The number of cases in the Supreme Court where the government is a party has also seen a spike in the last one year, with law ministry officials attributing the spurt to note ban, implementation of the GST and taxation issues. According to latest law ministry data, between January 1 and December 31 last year, 4,229 cases were filed in the top court in which the Centre was a party.

In 2016, the number of such cases was 3,497, while between January 1 and December 31 of 2015, 3,909 such cases were filed. This year, between January 1 and February 22, 859 cases have been filed in the apex court where the Union of India is a party.

The data states that in 2012, there were 4,149 cases involving the government in the top court and the figure went up to 4,772 in 2013. In 2014, when the NDA government came to power, the number of cases was 4,748 but went down to 3,909 in 2015.

While the number of cases in the Supreme Court have increased, the number of law officers representing the Union of India has dwindled. So far there is no word on who would become the next solicitor general.

After Ranjit Kumar resigned as the solicitor general in October last year, the key post has been lying vacant and so far there is no word from the Law Ministry on who would be appointed to that post. P S Patwali and N K Kaul had decided against a second term as additional solicitors general when their terms had ended in July last.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Haryana government today issued transfer and posting orders of 11 IAS officers with immediate effect.

Amneet P Kumar, Secretary, Health Department and Mission Director, National Health Mission has been given the additional charge of Managing Director, Haryana Medical Services Corporation Ltd., relieving Amit Kumar Agrawal of the charge, according to an official release.

Chander Shekhar, Special Secretary, Forests and Secretariat Establishment Departments has been given the additional charge of Managing Director, Federation of Cooperative Sugar Mills Ltd., in place of Ramesh Chander Bidhan, it said.

Renu S Phulia, Special Secretary, Fisheries Department, Secretary, Haryana Human Rights Commission and Special Secretary, Animal Husbandry Department has been posted as Director, AYUSH, Special Secretary, Fisheries Department and Secretary, Haryana Human Rights Commission.

Saket Kumar, Director, AYUSH, Special Secretary, Health Department and Commissioner, Food and Drugs Administration has been posted as Director, Consolidation of Land Holdings and Land Records, Special Officer, Headquarter and Special Land Acquisition Officer relieving Vikas Yadav of the charge, the release said.

Ramesh Chander Bidhan, Managing Director, Federation of Cooperative Sugar Mills Ltd. has been posted as Director, Industrial Training and Employment and Special Secretary, Skill Development and Industrial Training and Employment Departments, relieving T L Satyaprakash of the charge.

Bidhan will also be the Managing Director, Haryana Warehousing Corporation Ltd., against a vacant post.

Ashok Kumar Meena, Deputy Commissioner, Hisar has been posted as Director and Special Secretary, Science and Technology Department. Meena has also been given the additional charge of Deputy Commissioner, Hisar.

Anish Yadav, Sub Divisional Officer (Civil), Firozpur Jhirka has been posted as Additional Deputy Commissioner-cum-Chief Executive Officer, District Rural Development Agency, Kurukshetra and Secretary, Regional Transport Authority, Kurukshetra, against a vacant post.

Manoj Kumar, Sub Divisional Officer (Civil), Nuh has been posted as Additional Deputy Commissioner-cum-Chief Executive Officer, District Rural Development Agency, Charkhi Dadri and Secretary, Regional Transport Authority, Charkhi Dadri, against a vacant post.

Munish Sharma, Sub Divisional Officer (Civil), Hathin has been posted as Additional Deputy Commissioner-cum-Chief Executive Officer, District Rural Development Agency, Kurukshetra and Secretary, Regional Transport Authority, Mahendragarh, against a vacant post.

Rani Nagar, Sub Divisional Officer (Civil), Dabwali has been posted as Additional Secretary, Animal Husbandry Department, relieving Renu S Phulia.

Monika Gupta, Sub Divisional Officer (Civil), Naraingarh has been posted as Additional Chief Executive Officer, Smart City, Faridabad, against a vacant post.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)He was sorry if he had hurt his parents, the son told his father on the phone.

It was the first call of the day that Fayaz Ahmed Bhat received from his sociologist son -- and the last ever.

Bhat was still bleary-eyed at his residence in Chundana in Ganderbal when his mobile phone rang early this morning, he told the police later.

It was his son Mohammed Rafi Bhat. calling to bid farewell.

"I am sorry if I have hurt you, Rafi told his father before he was gunned down in an encounter with security forces at Shopian in South kashmir today.

Rafi had left home on Friday last week and joined the Hizbul Mujahideen terror group, the police said.

The Jammu and Kashmir police, which was monitoring all calls from the encounter site, quickly got cracking and sent a police team to Bhat asking him to convince his son to surrender.

The father, accompanied by his mother, sister and wife, started their journey from their home to the encounter site. But barely after reaching Bota Kadal, 14km from their home, they heard the about Rafi's end.

The family returned home to prepare for his funeral.

The senior Bhat told the police about his last conversation with his son and indicated he was convinced Rafi would not be there to hear their pleas, asking him to surrender.

"I am sorry if I have hurt you and this is my last call as I am going to meet Allah," Rafi told his father, who recounted the conversation to the police.

Rafi Bhat, a 33-year-old professor on contract with the Kashmir University's Sociology department, had left the varsity premises on Friday and had been missing since then.

Reports had suggested he had joined the terror group but his father had repeatedly told the police Rafi would not pick up arms.

Fayaz Ahmed Bhat, who was an overground worker for a terror outfit in the early 1990s, had been keeping a strict watch on his son ever since he had attempted to move to Pakistan-occupied-kashmir at age of 18 but was caught by the police and handed over to his parents.

Rafi, a Ph.D in his discipline, was among five militants killed by security personnel at the Badgam area of Shopian, nearly 80km from his house.

Two of his first cousins were also involved in militancy and had died in the early 1990s.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Indian Banks' Association (IBA) has drawn a plan for measuring implementation of 'reforms agenda' by public sector banks on six specified parameters, which include customer responsiveness, credit off-take and digitalisation.

This assumes significance as the capital infusion in the state-owned banks is directly linked to their performance on reforms front.

The government in October last year had unveiled a huge Rs 2.11 lakh crore two-year road map for strengthening NPA-hit government owned banks, which includes re-capitalisation bonds, budgetary support, and equity dilution.

The IBA has decided to hire a consultant for "Measuring implementation of PSB Reforms Agenda - 'Enhanced Access and Service Excellence' (EASE)".

PSBs account for 70 per cent of the Indian banking system and play a critical role in the nation's banking and economic growth landscape, the IBA said while inviting bids from consultants having a minimum turnover of Rs 100 crore in the past two years in India.

"The massive recapitalisation of PSBs was approved by the government and it is important to ensure holistic and wide ranging reforms take place alongside to utilise this capital effectively," it said.

EASE encompasses a synergistic approach to ensuring prudential and clean lending, better customer service, enhanced credit availability, focus on MSMEs and better governance.

The banks, IBA said, would be monitored and measured on performance in the reforms agenda, which spans across six themes -- customer responsiveness, responsible banking, credit off-take, PSBs as UdyamiMitra, financial inclusion and digitalisation, and ensuring outcomes with regard to HR practices.

The banking sector is passing through tough times with non-performing assets (NPAs) crossing Rs 8.31 lakh crore at end-December 2017.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A young woman sarpanch from Chhattisgarh's Bilaspur district is the candidate of the Gondwana Gantantra Party (GPP) from the high-profile Marwahi constituency for the assembly polls, due later this year.

Though the Election Commission is yet to announce the poll schedule, the GGP has decided to field Ritu Pandram from Marwahi seat, the traditional bastion of former chief minister Ajit Jogi since the formation of the state in 2000.

"I will try my best to get support from the people. The way they had shown confidence in me during the panchayat elections, I hope the response would be the same in the assembly polls too," Pandram told PTI.

"It will not be a cakewalk for me as I will have to contest against the bigwigs of (the leaders of the BJP and the Congress), but every cloud has a silver lining," said the 26-year-old.

The daughter of a farmer, Pandram, who has done her M.SC in Biotechnology, was elected as Sarpanch of Saarbahara village, her native place, in Gourela development block of Bilaspur district in 2015.

Located about 225 kms away from Raipur, the tribal-dominated Saarbahara village has a population of about 9,000.

Stressing that her focus is to educate children and improve the condition of schools in the area, Pandram said," Since I became sarpanch, people from my panchyat as well as from other villages started coming to me with their problems. They told me how this area has been neglected in terms of development works".

"I don't say that the BJP and the Congress have done nothing in the area...probably both the leading parties have failed to match the expectations of the people. I feel there is a need to lay the foundation for a brighter and prosperous Marwahi," she said.

When asked about her campaign plans, Pandram said the door-to-door campaign is the only way to reach to the people and understand them.

She said modes like the social media might not be effective in the tribal belt.

"Still I will still try to connect to youths in the area through Facebook and Whatsapp," Pandram said.

Chhattisgarh GGP president Nand Kishore Raj said Pandram perfectly matched his party's expectations of the ideal candidate, who is young and educated.

"We have the support of the villagers and tribals in the area but so far could not transfer this support into votes. We have been holding regular programmes there. The GGP has made inroads among tribals. We know that it is not easy to win assembly polls, but we are trying our best," he said.

He said Pandram was nominated because she has impressed the locals with the development works.

In Marwahi, which is a part of Korba Lok Sabha constituency, Pandram will face the challenge from the candidates of the BJP, the Congress, and the newly-formed Janata Congress Chhattisgarh (J) of Ajit Jogi.

After becoming the first chief minister of the state, which was carved out of Madhya Pradesh, Ajit Jogi, then in the Congress, had won the Marwahi (ST) seat in 2003 and 2008.

In 2013 polls, his son Amit won the seat on the Congress ticket.

However, in January 2016, the State Congress expelled Amit from the party for a period of six years after some audio tapes purportedly revealed that the bypoll held for Antagarh Assembly seat in 2014 was fixed.

Later, Ajit Jogi quit the Congress and floated the Janata Congress Chhattisgarh (J).

The GPP was formed in 1991 to plead for the rights of the Gondi people, and to establish a separate state of Gondwana.

In the 2003 assembly polls in Chhattisgarh, the GGP had fielded 41 candidates, but drew a blank. In the 2004 Lok Sabha polls, the party fielded candidates from Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)India is making an attempt to re-establish its diplomatic relations with Libya, with Union Minister Kiren Rijiju embarking on an official visit to the North African country beginning Tuesday.

India's relations with Libya were snapped after the fall of the Muammar Gaddafi regime in 2011. New Delhi does not have any representative in Tripoli for the last few years nor does Libya have an envoy in New Delhi.

"First time India will establish contact with Government of Libya after the civil war and the end of Col Gaddafi's long rule," Rijiju told PTI here today.

During his two-day visit, he is expected to meet top leadership of Libya and interact with the Indian diaspora which continues to live in the conflict-hit country.

There are still around 1,500 Indian nationals, who have decided to stay back and continue with their jobs, despite the advisories issued by the External Affairs Ministry asking them to leave Libya.

"It is an initiative of the Ministry of External Affairs to establish diplomatic contacts with those countries with whom India is not having and could not have proper relations so far," Rijiju said.

The minister will be accompanied by Indian Ambassador to Tunisia Prashant Pise, who is also holding additional charge of Libya.

India first established its diplomatic mission in Tripoli in 1969. The high point of Indo-Libya relations was the visit of late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to Libya in 1984.

After Gaddafi's killing on October 20, 2011, Libya was formally declared "liberated" on October 23, 2011. In November, 2011 the interim government - National Transitional Council (NTC) was formed and India's formal recognition to the NTC was conveyed on November 16, 2011.

In his second leg of the tour, Rijiju will visit Tunisia from May 10 to 11 and meet the country's leadership and the Indian disaspora there.

His visit to the two North African countries comes as part of the External Affairs Ministry's plan to reach out to 68 countries that have not been visited by any political representative of the current government.

Many ministers have visited the US, the UK, China, Japan, Germany etc but the NDA government wants that the ministers should also visit other nations for better international cooperation and understanding.

Of the over 190 countries in the world, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has visited around 50 at least once, and, according to officials, wants his ministers to contribute in improving foreign relations through their respective ministries.

Exports by India to Libya during the period 2015-16 stood at USD 122.58 million. On the other hand, imports by India from Libya for 2015-16 were to the tune USD 8.86 million.

The bilateral trade went down mainly because of the ongoing political and civil strife in Libya since July 2014 and decrease in oil production.

The main items of India's exports to Libya are stone, plaster, tobacco, coffee, drugs and pharmaceuticals, and other commodities.

The main item of India's imports from Libya is petroleum (crude and products) and aluminum ores.

The first resident Indian mission at the level of charge d'affaires was established in Tunisia in 1963 and raised to the Ambassador level in 1976. The Tunisian Embassy in New Delhi was set up in 1981.

Several high-level visits took place in this period. Notable among them were that of Indira Gandhi in April 1984, and then prime minister Narasimha Rao in 1992.

Tunisia has been a reliable source for phosphates. India accounts for around 50 per cent of Tunisia's global phosphoric acid exports.

India, on the other hand, exports a wide range of products. Significant among them are automobiles, electrical items, cotton, mechanical engines, rubber, rice, coffee, spices etc. The annual bilateral trade during 2016 was 370.46 million.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Iraqi warplanes carried out a raid today targeting Islamic State group commanders in eastern Syria, in the second such strike on the jihadists since mid-April, the premier's office said.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered the "painful strike" which targeted "a meeting of IS commanders south of Al-Dushashiya in Syrian territory", a statement said.

F-16 fighter jets were used in the early morning strike and the raid was "successful", the spokesman of Iraq's security media centre, General Yehya Rassoul, told AFP.

Dushashiya is in a desert region of Syria's Hasakeh province, where a US-backed Kurdish-led alliance is fighting the jihadists.

On April 19, Iraq said it had carried out an air raid against IS in Syria that killed 36 IS fighters, near the town of Hajin in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor.

Iraq declared victory in December against IS, which launched a sweeping offensive in 2014 and at one point controlled a third of the country.

The jihadists still control pockets of desert along the border with Syria.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Actor Jenny Slate will be producing and starring in the drama "The Sunlit Night".

The 36-year-old actor will be joined by Zach Galifianakis, Gillian Anderson, and Jessica Hecht in the project, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Tony Award winner Alex Sharp, known for films such as "To the Bone" and "How to Talk to Girls at Parties", will also appear in the film.

The film has been adapted from Rebecca Dinerstein's debut novel of the same name and is set between New York City and the far north of Norway.

It follows American painter Frances and emigre Yasha, an unlikely pair who find each other in the Arctic circle. Frances has arrived to jump-start her career, while Yasha has come to bury his father in the land of the Vikings. Together under a sun that never quite sets, they let go of the past and discover the future, and family, they did not know they had.

Fabian Gasmia, Ruben Thorkildsen, Michael B Clark and Alex Turtletaub are on board the project as producers.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Filmmaker JJ Abrams is all set to make his production debut in the superhero genre with the film "The Heavy".

The 51-year-old producer-director, known for films such as "Cloverfield", "Star Trek" and "Star Wars: The Force Awakens", will once again collaborate with director Julius Avery, who is in negotiations to helm the new film.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Abrams will produce the project, which has been described as a subversive interpretation of the superhero genre.

The script has been penned by Daniel Casey and no additional details of the project are known as of yet.

Abrams and Avery recently worked on supernatural World War II thriller "Overlord", which is due to hit theatres on October 26.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Five Hizbul Mujahideen terrorists including its top commander Saddam Padder and a fresh recruit, an assistant professor from the Kashmir University, were killed in an encounter today in militancy-infested Shopian area in south Kashmir even as five civilians died during clashes between protesters and security forces near the encounter site, the police said.

The five slain terrorists were identified as Saddam Hussain Padder, Bilal Ahmad Mohand, Adil Ahmed Malik, Tauseed Ahmad Sheikh and Mohammed Rafi Bhat, a PhD scholar and an assistant professor in the Kashmir University, they said.

Padder, who hailed from Heff in Shopian region, was active since September 2014, while Malik was active since 2014 and Sheikh from 2013. Mohand was active since 2016 and the Kashmir University assistant professor had joined the terror group last Friday, officials said.

With Padder's killing, all 10 militants, who appeared for the first time together along with Hizbul Mujahideen's poster boy Burhan Wani in 2015, have been neutralised, officials said.

The picture of 10 Hizbul Mujahideen militants at an apple orchard had created a stir in the valley as they were touted by insurgent groups as 'Kashmir's new boys' who had taken up arms. Of the 10, Padder was the only one alive, police said.

Padder and his aides were involved in a number of civilian killings and attacks on security forces besides instigating youth to join the terrorist network, police said.

Today's encounter in Badigam comes within 24 hours of a swift police operation in Chattabal area of the city in which three Lashker-e-Taiba militants were gunned down.

During the gun-battle today, police made several appeals to the militants to surrender and also made their family members talk to them.

Inspector General of Police, Kashmir, S P Pani said repeated attempts were made to persuade the assistent professor to surrender.

After receiving an input about his presence, we even brought his family from Ganderbal to persuade him to surrender, Pani said.

"During the encounter, while handling a highly volatile situation, civilians were injured in cross firing and among them five succumbed to their injuries. The condition of other injured persons are stated to be stable," an official spokesperson said.

Police once against requested that encounter sites are prohibited zones and must be avoided by civilians.

Three security personnel were injured and were undergoing treatment at a hospital, officials said.

Kashmir University suspended classes for two days from tomorrow as a precautionary measure and postponed exams that were to be held tomorrow.

Mobile Internet services were snapped in south Kashmir districts and Ganderbal in central Kashmir, while the facility remained barred in Srinagar for the second consecutive day today.

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti expressed anguish and grief over the death of five civilians.

"It sounds very depressing to note that our state is losing young lives, to the unending cycle of violence, who could otherwise be utilised for a positive contribution to the state. Today's deaths have brought a stark fact to fore that gun, either way of a militant or that of security forces, is no solution for resolving issues," Mehbooba said.

She said political issues need political intervention. "The three decades' long violence in the state is a testimony to the fact that guns from either side cannot ensure peace, but a compassion driven reconciliation process based on mutual respect surely can.

"In this regard, I appeal the national leadership of the country to show the element of compassion and empathy as required by the present day situation here and display the statesmanship to get J-K out of the quagmire of killings by engaging in a meaningful dialogue in the state. The sooner it happens, the more we can get our state out of the vicious cycle of killings and destruction," she said.

Opposition National Conference (NC) working president Omar Abdullah said Kashmir issue has to be resolved through sustained dialogue and engagement and the "unabated" civilian killings in the Valley were unacceptable.

Expressing grief and sorrow over the civilian killings in the state, Abdullah said educated, employed young men becoming militants called for serious introspection at the central and state level and again highlighted the need for a permanent, sustainable and acceptable resolution of the political issue.

"Turning a blind eye towards the alarming situation won't change reality. The growing levels of alienation and isolation are alarming signs and need to be acknowledged and addressed politically. This is not an economic issue and cannot be resolved through economic packages," he said.

Meanwhile, separatists called for a strike and march to Civil Secretariat the seat of Jammu and Kashmir government tomorrow.

"Strike will continue across Kashmir tomorrow as well against the killings in Shopian," a statement issued by separatists Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Mohammad Yasin Malik said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Buoyed by the Opposition's grand success in Gorakhpur and Phulpur, the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) today said it would contest the May 28 Kairana Lok Sabha bypoll with the "full support" of like-minded, non-BJP parties.

"We have decided to field Tabassum Begum from Kairana parliamentary constituency," Uttar Pradesh RLD chief Masood Ahmad told PTI.

"We expect the full support of like-minded, non-BJP parties, especially the Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), besides the Congress. Tabassum Begum has joined the RLD today and hopefully, she will emerge as the joint opposition candidate," he said.

A former BSP MP from Kairana, Tabassum (47), who had later joined the SP, is a popular face in the Jat-dominated constituency in western Uttar Pradesh, around 100 kms from New Delhi.

The Kairana Lok Sabha seat has around 17 lakh voters, including three lakh Muslims, four lakh backward castes (Jat, Gujjar, Saini, Kashyap, Prajapati and others) and about 1.5 lakh Dalits.

Exuding confidence that the Ajit Singh-led party will win the crucial bypoll, Ahmad said, "The process of forming a coalition (against the BJP) has started and soon, there will be a mahagathbandhan (grand alliance)."



He also said the RLD will support the SP candidate for the Noorpur Assembly bye-election, to be held simultaneously with the Kairana bypoll, heralding the process of opposition unity ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha election.

The Kairana bypoll was necessitated following the death of its sitting BJP MP, Hukum Singh, in February.

Similarly, the Noorpur Assembly seat fell vacant after the death of sitting BJP MLA Lokendra Singh Chauhan in a road accident the same month.

Commenting on the development, state BJP general secretary Vijay Bahadur Pathak, who is in charge of the party affairs in western Uttar Pradesh, said, "The confusion arising out of such political manipulations will lead to the opposition's defeat and the BJP will emerge victorious with the people's support."



Both the bypolls are crucial for the ruling BJP as well as the opposition parties, as their outcome may set the tone for the parliamentary election, which is less than a year away.

The BJP will put in extra efforts to retain both the seats to send a message to its cadre, the voters as well as the opposition parties that its drubbing in the Gorakhpur and Phulpur bypolls was a closed chapter now and that the saffron party's vote-bank was still intact in western Uttar Pradesh, a party insider said.

On the other hand, the opposition parties -- the SP, the RLD and the Congress -- are viewing the bypolls as another opportunity to convey the message to the voters that the saffron fortress can be breached if the opposition is united.

A hint of the shape of things to come became available when RLD vice-president Jayant Chaudhary, son of party chief Ajit Singh, held nearly three-hour-long confabulations with SP chief Akhilesh Yadav here on May 4.

An understanding was reached that both the parties would jointly contest the two bypolls.

The BSP has already declared that it will not take active part in any by-election and prepare in the right earnest for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

Party chief Mayawati, however, told reporters today that the unity among the secular parties had unnerved the BJP.

"The growing unity among the secular parties has frightened the BJP," she said in a television interview.

A broad understanding was also reached that all the opposition parties would contest the 2019 Lok Sabha polls unitedly, RLD spokesperson Anil Dubey said.

The SP had caused a major upset in the Gorakhpur and Phulpur Lok Sabha bypolls in March, wresting both the prestigious seats -- vacated by Yogi Adityanath and Keshav Prasad Maurya after becoming the chief minister and deputy chief minister respectively -- with the BSP extending support to its candidates.

The victory had shown a way to the Opposition to come together to counter the BJP's victory march, especially in the run-up to the 2019 general election.

Commenting on the RLD fielding Tabassum Begum from Kairana, Congress spokesperson Ashok Singh said they were hopeful of a repeat of the Gorakhpur and Phulpur feat.

Indicating that the Congress might extend its full support to Tabassum, he said, "Our party is exploring all the possibilities to ensure that the opposition votes are not frittered away."



Voting for the Kairana and Noorpur bypolls will be held on May 28 and the results will be declared on May 31.

Kairana parliamentary constituency comprises five Assembly segments -- Shamli, Thanabhawan, Kairana (all in Shamli district), Gangoh and Nakur (Saharanpur district).

In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, BJP's Hukum Singh had bagged 5,65,909 votes as against his nearest rival, Nahid Hasan of the SP, who had secured 3,29,081 votes.

In Noorpur, BJP's Chauhan had bagged 79,000 votes in the 2017 state Assembly polls as against the SP's Naim-ul-Hassan, who had got 66,436 votes.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Kathmandu's local governing body will hold a civic reception in honour of Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to Nepal this week.

Modi is paying a two-day state visit to Nepal on May 11-12 at the invitation of his Nepalese counterpart K P Sharma Oli.

Kathmandu Metropolitan City Mayor Bidya Sundar Shakya will read out the letter of felicitation to be handed over to Modi and hand over a symbolic key to him during the civic reception, according to deputy mayor Hariprabha Khadgi Shrestha.

Handing over a symbolic key has a historic and cultural importance," she said, adding Oli will also attend the function.

KMC will also present a special gift to Modi along with the letter of felicitation printed on traditional painting. The reception will be organised at City Hall here.

A grand welcome gate decorated with national flags of Nepal and India as well as posters of Oli and Modi will also be installed near the venue.

KMC has already started work for beautification of different places in the city ahead of Modi's visit. Some of the works being carried out by KMC include blacktopping major roads, painting city walls and planting new flowers and shrubs along major routes.

Prior to his arrival in Kathmandu, Modi will visit Janaki Temple in Janakpur situated in southern Nepal and Muktinath Temple situated in Mustang district of northwest Nepal on Friday.

In Janakpur, the provincial government will separately organise a civic reception in honour of Modi before he flies to Mustang and Kathmandu.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Supreme Court is likely to hear tomorrow the Kathua gangrape-and-murder case along with the petitions seeking shifting of the trial to Chandigarh and handing over the investigation to the CBI.

A bench headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, which had stayed the trial in the case till tomorrow, would deal with the prayer of the victim's father for shifting the trial to Chandigarh and the plea of the accused seeking handing over the probe to CBI.

The victim, an eight-year-old girl from a minority nomadic community, had disappeared from near her home in a village near Kathua in the Jammu region on January 10. Her body was found in the same area a week later.

The apex court had earlier given a stern warning and said it would transfer the Kathua gangrape-and-murder case from the local court in the "slightest possibility" of lack of fair trial, saying the "real concern" was to hold proper prosecution.

The girl's father had moved the apex court earlier, apprehending threat to the family, a friend and their lawyer Deepika Singh Rajawat. A separate plea was also filed by two accused seeking that the trial in the case be held in Jammu and the probe handed over to the CBI.

The state police's Crime Branch, which probed the case, filed the main charge sheet against seven persons and a separate charge sheet against a juvenile in a court in Kathua district last week. The charge sheet revealed chilling details about how the girl was allegedly kidnapped, drugged and raped inside a place of worship before being killed.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)To "obviate" submission of files by Delhi government departments for delegation of power to officers, Lt Governor Anil Baijal has asked their heads and civic bodies to adopt a new practice of conferring powers by "virtue of office rather than on individual officers by name".

The move is intended to ensure that public works of departments are not affected and files, which are often pending with authorities concerned for delegation of power to a particular officer, should be avoided.

An official said that for instance, if a Value Added Tax Officer (VATO) is to be appointed in the trade and taxes department, an order is currently issued for his appointment and thereafter, a separate notification is also later issued to confer powers on him to enable him to raid or take action against violators.

"For issuance of notification, a file is sent to authorities concerned who often take two-three months to approve it.

"But now, as per the L-G's directions, an officer being appointed VATO will have power since the first day his appointment order is issued," said a government official who did not wish to be named.

Following the directions of Baijal, Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash has asked principal secretaries and secretaries of all the Delhi government's departments and civic bodies to adopt the new practice.

In a written communication to Prakash, Baijal's Principal Secretary Vijay Kumar said that Lt Governor has observed that the practice to confer powers by "virtue of officer rather than on individual officers by name" should be adopted in government's offices, if legally permissible.

"This would obviate the need of submission of files for conferment of powers in case of transfer and postings..." the written communication stated.

In his communication to all heads of departments, the chief secretary said that all principal secretaries and secretaries and local bodies are requested to process the matter as per directions of the Lt Governor.

There are more than 150 departments of the Delhi government, and new move will ensure conferment of powers by virtue of office rather than on individual officers by name.

The official said that with the L-G's directions, the current practice to send files to authorities concerned for delegation of powers to particular officers will be abolished.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Sri Lanka's communist party JVP today said it would move the twentieth amendment to the Constitution seeking abolition of the all-powerful executive presidential system of governance.

"We will soon start talking to Tamil and Muslim minority parties to get their support," JVP senior member Vijitha Herath said.

The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) is to move a private member's bill in parliament to abolish the presidency. The primary intention of the 20th amendment is to abolish the Executive Presidency.

"We all know that there were pledges to abolish the presidency by all presidents who were elected. We believe it can be done," Herath said.

Some sections of the powerful Buddhist clergy and Sinhala majority nationalist political parties have expressed strong opposition to the move and accused the JVP of a conspiracy.

The National Bhikku Council, a religious-politico group, publicly vowed to oppose the move.

"We assure those who claim that 20A will undermine the country's unity and territorial integrity that it would not happen. The JVP is keen to ensure both status." Herath stressed.

He said they had preliminary talks with former President Mahinda Rajapaksa's new party. Rajapaksa's comment that he would support the move brought criticism from within his own ranks. Rajapaksa was elected twice as president.

In 2010, he adopted an amendment to the Constitution allowing him to contest any number of times to be president but the Sri Lankan government in 2015 through the nineteenth amendment to the Constitution restored the two-term limit. This means Rajapaksa cannot become the president again.

Herath said Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe's United National Party had adopted a policy to abolish the system in the past.

"We can get their support," Herath added.

The JVP's talks with minority parties to gain their support would be crucial as the move would want two-third support or 150 votes in the 225 member assembly.

It may be subjected to a national referendum as stipulated in the current Constitution adopted in 1978.

The main Tamil party Tamil National Alliance might support it provided it is moved along side constitutional amendments to grant political autonomy to the north and east regions without dividing the island.

A section of the Sinhala majority nationalist parties demand that the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution adopted in 1987 on India's prompt also needs to be abolished if the 20A is to be adopted.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Chiding Congress and its leaders for feeling "uneasiness" about patriotism, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today asked them to learn it at least from the Mudhol hound dogs of north Karnataka, which have been inducted into the Indian army.

The Prime Minister said there had been such a fall in the party that a Congress leader went to be amid those raising slogans like "Bharat ke tukde honge", giving them blessings.

He was apparently referring to Congress president Rahul Gandhi's visit to the Jawharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus to be with a section of students during the controversy over anti-national slogans being allegedly chanted at the campus.

"When there is discussion about patriotism in our country, when there is a discussion about rashtra bhakti, raashtra geet, Vande mataram, some people are worried," said Modi at an election rally here.

Modi said the country won freedom because of patriotism, and "today if we have started a great campaign of development on the basis of patriotism, Congress and its companions feel a foul smell in patriotism... their health gets upset smelling patriotism."



"Did anyone think that after Independence Congress has fallen to an extent that today Congress leaders are going to be amidst those who shout slogans like "Bharat ke tukde honge" and are giving them their blessings," he said.

Modi also said the Congress and its leaders had 'fallen' to such an extent that when the Indian Army carried out a cross-border surgical strike, they asked for evidence.

"Those who felt uneasiness at the mention of patriotism, those who are averse to the talk about patriotism and for those patriotism is the reason for trouble, I want to tell them if you don't want to learn from others, please don't-- whether it is your ancestors or Mahatma Gandhi's Congress.

At least try to learn from Bagalkote's Mudhol dogs, he said pointing to the induction of these dogs into the Indian Army.

"I know that their (Congress') arrogance has reached cloud seven. The people of the country have negated them, but they are still not ready to come on ground. So I don't expect them to even learn anything from Mudhol Dogs," Modi said.

Mudhol Hound, also known as Caravan Hound, is an Indian dog breed which gets its name from Mudhol in Bagalkot district in north Karnataka.

The lean and lanky Mudhol Hound is the first Indian breed to serve the Indian Army.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Scientists have found a mineral in a lunar meteorite that points to the presence of abundant hidden reserves of water ice under the surface of the Moon, which could be potentially useful for future human exploration.

A team from the Tohoku University in Japan found the mineral, called moganite, in a lunar meteorite discovered in a desert in northwest Africa.

Moganite, a crystal of silicon dioxide, is known to form on Earth in specific circumstances in sedimentary settings from alkaline fluids. It has never before been detected in samples of lunar rock.

Researchers believe the mineral formed on the surface of the Moon in the area called Procellarum Terrane, as water originally present in lunar dirt evaporated due to exposure to strong sunlight.

"For the first time, we can prove that there is water ice in the lunar material," said Masahiro Kayama from Tohoku University, who led the study.

"In a moganite, there is less water, because moganite forms from the evaporation of water. That's the case on the surface of the Moon. But in the subsurface, much water remains as ice, because it's protected from the sunlight," Kayama told 'Space.com'.

Scientists already knew that there is water on the moon. For example, NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite detected a shadowed crater near the Moon's south pole. India's probe Chandrayaan-1 recorded evidence of water in the thin atmosphere above the Moon's surface.

However, there has been no evidence so far of the presence of water in the subsurface at mid and lower latitudes, according to Kayama.

"Many people think that remote-sensing spacecraft only found the evidence of water around the poles simply because we can't see under the surface below a few millimetres," Kayama said.

"This is the first insight into water in the subsurface zone," he said.

The researchers estimate that the water content in the lunar soil under the surface could be up to 0.6 per cent.

If that is right, future Moon exploreres could theoretically extract about 1.6 gallons of water per 36 cubic feet of lunar rock, Kayama said.

"It would be enough for future astronauts and people that could perhaps live on the Moon in the future to extract enough water to cover their needs," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Maharashtra government is planning to enact a law to encourage intercaste and inter- religion marriages and focus on giving protection to such couples, in the backdrop of instances of honour killing.

The couples - where spouses are from different religions or castes - have to face various problems, including social boycott and the threat of honour killing, state social justice minister Rajkumar Badole told PTI.

"Hence, besides other aspects, the law will focus on what kind of protection can be given to the couples who are facing threat to their lives," he said.

According to the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB), Maharashtra ranks fourth in the list of honour killings in the country.

The NCRB, in its report 'Crime in India 2016 Statistics', stated that out of a total 69 such cases reported to it that year, eight people were killed in the name of 'honour killing'.

Another lacunae in the existing laws is that if one of the spouse is from a backward community and another from the general category, the child born to them is deprived of the benefits of reservations and other concessions (given to the backward classes), Badole said.

"The government intends to provide to the children of such couples the benefits that one of their parents is already getting," he said.

Apart from that, the government will provide special concessions such as fee waiver to the children born out of intercaste and inter-religion marriages, he said.

"There are also instances where such couples face social boycott. They will be given protection," he said.

The minister said while there is already a Special Marriage Act (for inter-religious marriages), it has various lacunae that need to be addressed.

The state government will speak to law experts from the Muslim community to ensure that the proposed law does not interfere with the Sharia law, he said.

There are various schemes that promote intercaste and inter-religion marriages but they are not properly implemented, he noted.

"For instance, the Dr Ambedkar Foundation in Delhi gives Rs 2.5 lakh for intercaste and inter-religion marriages. Similarly, we are also considering to provide funds to such couples to start a new life," he said.

A few days back, the minister held a review meeting of the committee constituted to frame the law and asked it to prepare the draft in the next two-three months.

The inter-state marriage law committee chairman, C S Thul, said letters have been sent to all district superintendents of police to seek information about the number complaints pertaining to problems faced by inter-caste couples.

"Protection needs to be given to such couples to encourage more people (for intercaste and inter-religion marriages) in future," Thul said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Maharashtra government is planning to develop the 'Mumbai-Aurangabad-Nagpur' triangle as a tourist circuit to attract visitors.

The Mumbai-Aurangabad-Nagpur belt will be developed on the lines of the Jaipur-Delhi-Agra Golden Triangle tourist circuit, principal secretary (tourism) Vijay Kumar Gautam told PTI.

A detailed project report will be prepared in three months and global tenders will be floated to appoint a consultancy firm for the purpose, he said.

The state has immense tourism potential and the need of the hour is to attract more visitors, Gautam said.

"Despite being a large state, we still lag behind in terms of tourism though we have a long coastline, tiger safaris and naturally rich tourist destinations," he said.

To popularise the Mumbai-Aurangabad-Nagpur tourist circuit, it is necessary to upgrade the transport and infrastructure facilities in these three cities as well as nearby areas, he said.

The aim is to develop the tourist circuit in a way that visitors first reach Mumbai, tour the Konkan coast, and then proceed to Aurangabad.

"Apart from the Ajanta and Ellora caves (in Aurangabad), tourists can also see the Ahmednagar Fort which is close by. They will also have the option of visiting religious places like Shirdi and Shani Shingnapur in Ahmednagar district," the official said.

From Aurangabad, tourists can proceed to Nagpur for the jungle safaris, he added.

On the route, visitors will have an opportunity to witness local folk art, music and cuisine, Gautam said.

The government feels the proposed Mumbai-Nagpur Expressway will help in developing the tourist circuit, he said.

The 'Udaan' scheme, to encourage air services among smaller cities, will also help in promoting this tourist belt, he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)DCW Chief Swati Maliwal has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to set up a special task force to create a plan in the next 15 days for establishing fast track courts and deploying additional police resources in the next three months for handling rape cases.

She also expressed deep anguish and pain at the growing incidents of "communalisation of rapes" and said earlier such incidents were rare, but now the religion of the victim has suddenly become important.

Thanking the prime minister for approving an ordinance to allow courts to award the death penalty to those convicted of raping children up to 12 years of age, she cautioned that the ordinance will not lead to any real change on the ground unless it is ensured that all rape cases are tried within six months for which there is an urgent need to strengthen the resources.

In the ordinance which got presidential assent on April 22, the deadline for the completion of trial in all rape cases will be two months and a six-month time limit for the disposal of appeals in rape cases has also been prescribed.

Maliwal observed hunger strike for 10 days at Rajghat till April 22 and ended it after President Ram Nath Kovind promulgated the ordinance.

The DCW chief in a letter has requested him to uphold the decision of the cabinet - that fast track courts and special police resources will be created in the next three months in the country specifically for handling rape cases.

"She has requested the prime minister to set up a special task force across the states consisting of highest representatives of Centre, states and judiciary to create a plan in the next 15 days for creation of new fast track courts and provision of additional police resources for handling rape cases.

"She has requested that a meeting of the Union Home Minister, Chief Justice of Delhi High Court, Lieutenant Governor and Chief Minister of Delhi, Police Commissioner and DCW be called urgently to create a plan for increasing police resources and fast track courts in the capital," an official said.

Further, she has raised concerns in the letter against the growing incidents of "irresponsible" statements by politicians and people in power on rapes and requested the prime minister to take urgent action against such people.

She also said earlier such incidents were rare, but now the religion of the victim has suddenly become important, expressing anguish over the increasing incidents of communalisation of rapes.

Maliwal said the blood of all rape victims is of the same colour, and requested the prime minister to take strict action against such people who are communalising rapes in the country.

She has also sought an appointment from the prime minister to discuss these issues in detail.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A 10-year-old was burnt to death and five of his family members sustained serious burns today after a neighbour allegedly set their house on fire in Tanda here, police said.

The deceased was identified as Harmanpreet.

The accused, Joginder Singh, allegedly sprinkled petrol and set fire to a room usually occupied by Harmanpreet's father, Kuldip Singh, the police said.

However, Kuldip was not at home at the time of the incident and his family was sleeping in the room, they said.

After setting Kuldip's house on fire, Joginder also attempted suicide by consuming a poisonous substance, the police added.

The injured were rushed to the Civil Hospital and subsequently referred to DMC Hospital, Ludhiana. They are in a critical condition.

Joginder is undergoing treatment at the Civil Hospital and remains critical.

The accused's wife committed suicide last year. Police suspect that Joginder believed that Kuldip may have said something to his wife that prompted her to take the extreme step.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Manipal Health Enterprises today revised yet again its offer for Fortis Healthcare Ltd (FHL), raising the value to Rs 8,358 crore.

"For the purposes of the merger, we propose a value of Rs 8,358 crore to be attributed to FHL and a value of Rs 6,070 crore to be attributed to MHEPL," the revised offer said, as per the FHL filing on BSE. It translates into Rs 160 per equity share.

MHEPL also offered to subscribe to equity shares of FHL by way of preferential allotment for Rs 2,100 crore at a price per equity share of Rs 160.

The move is aimed at helping FHL deal with short term liquidity concerns, repayment of existing loans and payment for the acquisition of the relevant Indian entities from Religare Health Trust (RHT), MHEPL said in its revised offer to FHL board.

Manipal Health Enterprises Pvt Ltd (MHEPL) has offered to merge it with FHL to create one of the leading healthcare platforms in India, the filing said.

On April 24, MHEPL had revised its offer for Fortis Healthcare again, raising the value to Rs 6,322 crore. The earlier revised offer of April 10 valued Fortis hospital business at Rs 6,061 crore.

As per today's offer, MHEPL said that post the acquisition of the SRL stake from PE investors, the SRL board would be restructured so as to ensure that no member of the promoter group of FHL is part of it.

"The implementation of the new offer does not require any further due diligence to be conducted by us and we are ready to work with FHL and its management to ensure swift execution of the steps required to be taken to implement the revised offer," MHEPL further said.

The company recognises the significance of the acquisition of assets from RHT and the preferential allotment will help FHL to partly fund the acquisition of assets from RHT, it added.

IHH Healthcare Berhad and the Munjals-Burmans combine have already revised upwards their offers for Fortis ahead of the deadline set by the board of the healthcare chain for submission of binding bids.

While IHH increased its offer to directly invest in Fortis Healthcare at Rs 175 per share, the Munjals- Burmans also said they would increase their investment to Rs 1,800 crore, without any due diligence, from a previously revised offer of Rs 1,500 crore.

Fortis board is scheduled to meet on May 10 to take a decision on the binding bids for the company as recommended by the expert advisory committee (EAC).

Fortis has received binding offers from four entities - KKR-backed Radiant Life Care, IHH Healthcare, Manipal/TPG consortium, and Munjal and Burman family offices.

The fifth bidder, Fosun Health Holdings, an arm of Fosun International, which made a non-binding proposal to invest a total of USD 350 million (over Rs 2,295 crore) at a price up to Rs 156 per share, has so far not revised its offer.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)As Prime Minister Narendra Modi continues to hurl barbs such as "seedha rupaiah sarkar" to target him, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah today lashed out at him for making "personal attacks" and speaking at a "low level".

The prime minister was using a language that did not befit the office he held, the Congress leader said, taking exception to Modi calling his dispensation a "10 per cent government" and "seedha rupaiah sarkar" while attacking him over alleged corruption.

Siddaramaiah also mocked the Karnataka BJP, saying it solely depended on the prime minister as regards the May 12 state Assembly polls as it had no leader with a "face value".

"We expected a dignified language from him (Modi). But what he spoke was the BJP's language and not the one of a civilised person. He spoke at a very low level...this is not the language of the prime minister," he told reporters here.

The chief minister said it was expected that Modi would speak about the BJP-led central government's achievements and criticise the Congress government in Karnataka.

Maintaining that he neither made personal comments nor used unparliamentary words, Siddaramiah said, "When he (Modi) spoke in an uncivilised manner, initially I thought I would not react. But I was forced to attack him because otherwise, the people would have perceived it as the truth."



At all his election rallies in poll-bound Karnataka, Modi has made a scathing attack on the Siddaramaiah regime, saying it was a "gold medallist" in corruption and calling it a "seedha rupaiah government" (corrupt), a punning allusion to the chief minister's name.

Referring to Modi calling his dispensation a "10 per cent government," Siddaramaiah wanted to know if the prime minister had any evidence to back his charge.

"He has all the central agencies. If he has any evidence, he should make it public...Modi is demonstrating his triviality by making personal attacks," he said.

Accusing Modi of not honouring any of his promises in the last four years, Siddaramaiah said, "He has totally failed. He is lying to hide his failure."



Hitting out at the Karnataka BJP, he said it was entirely dependent on Modi for the upcoming state Assembly polls.

"The BJP is entirely dependent on Modi in this election. They don't have people with a face value, be it Yeddyurappa, Eshwarappa, Ananth Kumar, Ananthkumar Hegde or Jagadish Shettar. A BJP MLA has told me that they are dependent on Modi," the chief minister claimed.

Referring to Modi's charge that then Congress chief Sonia Gandhi had objected to a solution to the Mahadayi inter-state river water issue involving Goa and Karnataka, Siddaramaiah said she was not the prime minister then.

Modi was deliberately misleading the people and lying to hide his failures in the last four years, he said, adding that the people would not buy it.

Attacking the prime minister over his "sabka sath, sabka vikas" slogan, Siddaramaiah pointed out that the BJP had not fielded a single Christian or Muslim candidate in the Karnataka polls.

Stating that the Karnataka election would be a three-cornered contest between the Congress, BJP and JD(S), he accused the saffron party of "experimenting communalism" in the coastal region of the southern state.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)BJP leader Mukul Roy has stirred up a controversy after he promised gifting smartphones to first-time voters in Jalpaiguri district, if the party emerged victorious at the Zilla Parishad there in the upcoming panchayat elections.

"If we manage winning the Jalpaiguri Zilla Parishad, we will be giving away smartphones to all the young voters who have turned 18 years," Roy said at a rally yesterday.

The Central government is advocating cashless transactions and "for that we require smartphones", he said.

The ruling Triamool Congress hit back at Roy, saying the people of the state will not surrender to such "lucrative" offers.

"The people of Bengal may be poor, but I am sure that they will not surrender to all these lucrative offers. We have brought this to the notice of the State Election Commission. We hope that they will act soon," TMC secretary general Partha Chatterjee said.

The TMC's Jalpaiguri District president Sourav Chakraborty said Roy had violated the model code of conduct, and that the party would take legal action against him.

"This is only to befool the common people. We are taking legal step against him in this matter. He must apologise to the people. This is the political culture of the BJP," he said.

CPI(M) leader Sujan Chakraborty added: "Mukul has definitely violated the model code of conduct. This was his practice when he was with the TMC because (chief minister) Mamata Banerjee's party endorses such moves. The SEC must step into the matter and take appropriate action.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Wading into the Jinnah row, Union minister V K Singh today said those Muslims, who supported the presence of Pakistan founder's portrait in the Aligarh Muslim University, were insulting their forefathers, who had rejected his ideology.

They are Indians today because of their forefathers, the minister of state for external affairs said in a social media post.

A controversy has erupted over the presence of Muhammad Ali Jinnah's portrait in the AMU, with BJP leaders demanding that it be removed. A picture of the man responsible for India's division cannot be accepted in a public-funded institution, they have said.

Singh said, "If you are not a Muslim but support the portrait's presence because you think that protests against it curbs your freedom, then you should think if you would like on the walls of your house a picture of somebody whose hands are stained with the blood of your own people"



Without a doubt, freedom is everybody's right. But we tend to forget that how many great people shed their blood in achieving it. Will they be proud today of the manner in which you are using your freedom? the former Army chief asked in the post titled 'Let us protect our freedom from abuse'.

The minister said, If you are a Muslim and want Jinnah's portrait on your walls, then this is a huge insult of your forefathers who had rejected his ideology. You are an Indian today because of them.

Apparently addressing AMU students, he said it is one of the leading universities in the country and they (the students) should be aware of the expectations the country has from them.

Singh suggested they have to choose between wisdom and prudence, or narrow-mindedness and extremism.

Violence broke out on the AMU campus on Wednesday as the row over the portrait triggered a right-wing protest.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)In the wake of alleged disruptions to namaz by right-wing gropus at multiple locations in Gurgaon, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar today said such congregations should be restricted to mosques, eidgahs or private places, even as he asserted the government will ensure that law and order is maintained.

Right-wing outfits have been trying to "disrupt" Friday prayers in Gurgaon over the last two weeks alleging that some people were trying to grab land.

"Our point of view is that namaz should be offered in the precincts of religious places like mosques and Eidgahs, and if there is shortage of place for offering namaz, it should be done at private places," Khattar said.

He was addressing a press conference here before leaving for a 10-day tour of Israel and the United Kingdom.

Over the last two weeks, there were "disruptions" to namaz at Wazirabad, the Atul Kataria Chowk, the Cyber Park, the Bakhtawar Chowk and at the South City, the police said.

The disruptions were caused allegedly by members of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the Bajrang Dal, the Hindu Kranti Dal, the Gau Rakshak Dal and the Shiv Sena, they said.

Asked as to what would be the government's strategy to ensure law and order is maintained in view of such disruptions, Khattar said, "To maintain law and order is our duty and we will do it. We are ensuring that harmony is maintained and there is no tension and we have alerted our officials there."



The BJP leader said the instances of namaz being offered at public places have been "increasing". The Friday prayers, he said, should be offered at designated places because certain individuals or departments may have objections to it being done at at public areas.

"Till the time nobody raises objections (to namaz being offered at public places it is okay," the Chief Minister said. "But if there are objections from any department or any individual, then we have to be careful."



He said the government was keeping a close watch on the issue.

"There has been an increase in this (instances of namaz being offered in public places). So we are keeping a watch on the issue (to ensure law and order is maintained). We are trying to make them understand by telling them that namaz should be offered at designated places and not public areas)," Khattar said.

The right-wing groups have been saying they would continue their protest if the administration did not stop "unauthorised" prayers at public places.

They say Muslim worshippers did not have permission to offer prayers at roadsides, parks and vacant government land in Gurgaon.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Indian boxer Neeraj Goyat, who holds the WBC Asia-Pacific welterweight title, would be gunning for a second yet-to-be-announced belt next month after signing up with Canada's Lee Baxter Promotions.

Goyat, who has won nine of his 13 professional bouts, has signed a two-year contract with Lee Baxter Promotions. His opponent and the title for which he would fight will be known after May 19.

The bout is expected to take place in Canada on June 26.

"I cannot reveal the financial details of the contract but it is a good deal that I have got. I guess I am the first Indian boxer to sign up with a Canadian promoter. I hope it will take my professional career in the right direction," Neeraj told PTI.

"I would be fighting for a title on June 26 but the formalities are still being worked out and my opponent's name will be out in the second half of this month," he added.

Neeraj had won a bronze medal in the Olympic qualifying event for professional boxers in 2016.

The 26-year-old had last competed in August last year when he successfully defended his WBC title against Filipino Allan Tanada in a unanimous verdict.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The NITI Aayog has sought World Bank's assistance to provide it with information and expertise on fraud detection and prevention to ensure no embezzlement of funds takes place in the Centre's ambitious Ayushman Bharat National Health Protection Mission (AB-NHPM).

The World Bank assistance is being taken as it has expertise from its international experience.

According to a source in the NITI Aayog, the World Bank by May 15 is likely to submit a report on how other countries where such health insurance mechanism is in place ensures that there there is no fraud or corruption under the scheme.

"We will very carefully review the recommendations from the World bank, assess their applicability or relevance in Indian context and implement them to ensure there is no misuse and fraud under the Ayushman Bharat National Health Protection Mission (AB-NHPM) which will provide a coverage of Rs 5 lakh to 10 crore poorest families of the country," AB-NHPM Chief Executive Officer Indu Bhushan said.

Besides, the health ministry has also proposed that insurance companies will have to mandatorily refund excess premium if the claim ratio turns out to be less than 85 per cent under the scheme to ensure that insurance agencies do not have windfall gain which aims at supporting the poor on health treatment.

Touted as the world's largest government-funded healthcare insurance programme, 'AB-NHPM' will provide a coverage of Rs 5 lakh per family annually and benefit more than 10 crore families belonging to the poor and vulnerable sections of the society.

The centrally-sponsored scheme will target deprived rural families and identified occupational category of urban workers' families, who constitute 8.03 crore in rural and 2.33 crore in urban areas, respectively, as per the latest Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC) 2011 data, and will cover around 50 crore people.

The health ministry has prepared a detailed timeline to ensure completion of all steps to enable rolling out of the scheme anytime after July, while allocating around Rs 10,000 crore for the project.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The BJP today said there is no information that its leader Mukul Roy's brother-in-law, arrested on May 4 for allegedly duping railway job seekers, was associated with the saffron party.

BJP National Secretary Rahul Sinha, addressing a press conference here, said that the party is also not ruling out political vendetta behind the arrest.

"I have no information that Mukul Roy's brother-in-law is associated with BJP. And we need to check if the politics of revenge and vendetta are involved in it.

"While BJP will not take responsibility if the charges are proved, we are also of the view that this state government is pursuing the policy of revenge," he said.

Roy's brother-in-law, Srijan Roy, was held from New Delhi airport on the basis of complaints, which were filed around six years ago.

Describing the arrest as "political conspiracy", Mukul Roy, who was the Union railway minister in 2012 when the cases were lodged against his brother-in-law, has said that he himself was the actual target of the move.

"This is a conspiracy hatched by Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee against me and my family members. She is resorting to such things because she is afraid of the Bharatiya Janata Party. I am the real target of this conspiracy," he had said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The government's decision to send back the Supreme Court collegium's recommendation for elevation of Uttarakhand Chief Justice K M Joseph as a judge of the top court was unprecedented and needed more detailed discussions, Justice Kurian Joseph, a member of the collegium, said today.

"Things that should not have happened had happened -- that is the general feeling," the apex court judge told reporters on the sidelines of a function here.

He was replying to a question on the Centre returning the recommendation of the collegium and asking it to reconsider Justice K M Joseph's elevation to the apex court.

"There is no precedent of the names recommended by the collegium being returned (by the Centre). So, more detailed discussions should take place (on the matter)," the Supreme Court judge said, without elaborating further.

The collegium had, on May 2, deferred a decision on the issue of reconsidering its recommendation to elevate Justice K M Joseph, after it was sent back by the government last month.

The five-member collegium, comprising Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and justices J Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B Lokur and Kurian Joseph, met after the apex court's working hours, but no decision was taken as certain differences between the members could not be resolved.

The Centre, while returning the file of Justice Joseph to the collegium, had also mentioned that judges from various high courts had not found a place in the apex court.

Justice K M Joseph's name was recommended, along with that of then senior advocate, Indu Malhotra, on January 10 for their elevation as apex court judges.

The government had, on April 26, declined to accept the recommendation of the collegium and asked it to reconsider Justice Joseph's name.

Malhotra was sworn in as a Supreme Court judge on April 27.

In an unprecedented move, justices Chelameswar, Gogoi, Lokur and Joseph had called a press meet in January and highlighted certain issues in the judiciary.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said today that the credit for making north India the most fertile land in the country goes to Uttarakhand as the Ganga and Yamuna rivers originate from this state.

"Two mighty rivers - the Ganga and Yamuna - originate from Uttarakhand and it is because of these rivers that north Indiais the most fertile area in the country," he said at a ceremony here to mark the PranPratishtha of Mahayogi Gorakshanath in a newly built temple here.

He said Uttarakhand which has a temple at each mountain peak and whose sons are a significant part of the armed forces has so much to be proud of including Chardham where people from across the country and abroad come to pay obeisance.

Describing Uttarakhand as the land where he was born, Yogi said the long standing land disputes between UP and Uttarakhand will soon be resolved as it is among the priorities of the governments of both states.

"It has been chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat's priority from the very outset. Even I feel there should be no land disputes persisting for the last 17-18 years between the states. Talks have started in a positive atmosphere and I am sure we will resolve all outstanding issues soon," the UP chief minister said.

He said Uttarakhand was being driven in the right direction in the able hands of Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat who had provided a transparent government in the state.

Yogi also expressed gratitude to Mahanth Narhari for building a temple in the name of Mahayogi Gorakshanath and holding a grant function to mark the occasion.

Rawat, Haridwar MP Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank and Uttarakhand Assembly Speaker Premchand Aggarwal also attended the event.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The BJP today said if a report questioning the charge sheet filed by the police in the Kathua rape and murder case was true then the onus was on the Home Minister Mehbooba Mufti to issue a clarification on it.

A citizen's group which conducted an individual probe into the rape and killing of an eight-year-old girl had claimed that the charge sheet filed by the Crime Branch had discrepancies and the investigation was botched-up. They had demanded a CBI probe in the case.

"If the recent findings questioning the facts of charge sheet are true, then onus lies on the state home minister to clarify," senior BJP leader and party MLC Surinder Ambardar told reporters here.

He was replying to question on whether Mufti, who is the chief minister of the state, should resign in view of the new revelations in the case.

He had also referred to a report by a panel of the Bar Council of India which had said that the local lawyers' body in Kathua had not obstructed the police or the counsel of the victim's family. It also supported their demand for a CBI probe in the matter.

The body of the girl, from a nomadic minority community, was found in Rasana forest on January 17, a week after she went missing while grazing horses in the forest area.

On January 23, the government had handed over the case to the crime branch of the Jammu and Kashmir Police which formed a Special Investigation Team and arrested eight people, including two Special Police Officers (SPOs) and a head constable.

Jammu has been tense since the brutal rape and murder of the girl.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The opposition parties in Jammu and Kashmir today condemned the killing of civilians near an encounter site in Shopian, alleging that the situation is a fallout of wrong policies adopted by the state as well as the central government.

Jammu and Kashmir Pradesh Congress Committee (JKPCC) president G A Mir expressed profound grief over the civilian killings in Shopian and described it as highly unfortunate and painful.

"The civilian killings are fallout of wrong policies adopted by both the state and central government. The Centre lacks any Kashmir policy, which is responsible for extremely volatile situation in the valley," a party spokesman said in a statement here.

Five civilians died during clashes between protesters and law enforcing agencies near the encounter site in Shopian district today.

Senior CPI(M) leader M Y Tarigami alleged that the killings have become an everyday norm in Kashmir now and "it seems the government is least bothered about this unfortunate tragic situation."



"How long it will take the government to wake up from the slumber and initiate a dialogue to address this mass unrest?" he asked.

"For how long the blood of civilians will continue to flow in Kashmir? We have been reiterating it that there is no military solution to address this issue except to imitate a credible process of structured dialogue with all stakeholders. Unfortunately, political leadership is not responding to this worsening situation through political process, Tarigami said.

He claimed that the "indifferent and callous attitude" of those in power in Delhi and Srinagar is only "inflaming the already worsening situation further."



"I have no words to condemn these killings as mere condemnations every time a civilian is killed isn't enough. Ordering a probe after every killing is not a solution to the problem as people have lost faith in such probes," he said.

While expressing solidarity with the bereaved families, he demanded an immediate end to "impunity to security forces in such cases".

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Barring a few complaints from female students who were asked to shorten their long sleeved-clothes, NEET was held at various centres across Kerala today, without any major glitches.

However, tragedy struck a Tamil Nadu student, who appeared for the exam at a centre in Ernakulam district, as his father died of heart attack this morning.

In a Facebook post, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan expressed grief over the death of 46-year-old Krishnasamy Sreenivasan, father of Kasturi Mahalingam, hailing from Thiruvarur in Tamil Nadu.

He also said arrangements would be made to transport the body of Sreenivasan to his home town.

Last year, the test was mired in controversy after a girl candidate from Kannur district alleged that she was forced to remove her innerwear, while some others had to shorten sleeves and cut the pockets of their jeans to meet the prescribed dress code.

According to officials, nearly one lakh candidates, including many from neighbouring Tamil Nadu, appeared for the examination in 39 centres in 10 districts amid tight security.

Some girl students, who wrote examination in northern Kozhikode district, complained that they were asked by authorities to shorten the long sleeves of their dresses before being allowed inside the exam hall.

However, many students and parents told local television channels that prior information about the dress code given by the CBSE had helped them avoid confusion in this regard.

Students also said the physics paper was a bit tough whilebiology and chemistry papers were comparatively easier.

The Kerala government had made elaborate arrangements to help students writing the examination by setting up 'help desks' at railway stations and bus terminus.

On arrangements made by the state government, Vijayan said the help-desks were of great relief to parents and students.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Pakistan's Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal today survived an assassination attempt after an unidentified man opened fire at him in Punjab province, police said.

Iqbal, 59, was hit by a bullet on his right shoulder in the attack in his native Narowal's Kanjrur Tehsil after he addressed a rally, the police said.

His son, Ahmad Iqbal, also confirmed the attack and said that his father was out of danger.

The attacker fired with a 30-bore pistol from a distance of around 18 metres. But the security forces responded immediately and apprehended him, District Police Officer Imran Kishwar said.

However, the reason behind the attack was not immediately known.

Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif described it as an "assassination attempt", Dawn reported.

Punjab government spokesman Malik Ahmad Khan confirmed the attack and arrest of the attackers. He said the minister is stable but being shifted to Lahore.

"Police are investigating the attack and we will know how he (attacker) was able to reach so close to the minister," he said.

He said that the attacker was initially identified as Abid Hussian and his age was said to be between 20-22 years. He is said to be a resident of Narowal.

Rana Manan, a lawmaker of Punjab assembly, said that Iqbal was about to sit in his vehicle when the attacker fired at him.

The attack on the interior minister highlights the issue of security of high-profile politicians ahead of the elections scheduled to be held after June.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Pakistan's Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal was today shot at and injured in a suspected assassination bid after he addressed a rally in Punjab province, police said.

Iqbal, 59, sustained a bullet wound on his right shoulder. He was attending a corner meeting in Narowal's Kanjrur Tehsil when the incident occurred, the police was quoted as saying by Dawn

He was shifted to the District Headquarters Hospital, the report said. Family sources confirmed that the interior minister is being shifted to Lahore.

The suspect has reportedly been taken into custody, according to police.

District Police Officer Imran Kishwar said that the attacker used a 30-bore pistol to fire at Iqbal from a distance of around 18 metres.

"One of the shooters has been arrested and (is) being interrogated by the police," Punjab government said in a Twitter message.

Confirming the incident, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Tallal Chaudhry said Iqbal was out of danger. The arrested suspect is 20-22 years old, he added.

Corner meetings become common as elections come close with politicians interacting with supporters and common people.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Pakistan's Interior Minister was injured on Sunday in an assassination attempt when an unidentified man opened fire at him in province after he addressed a political rally, police said.



Following the incident, prominent Pakistani educational activist and the youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai condemned the attack.

Iqbal, 59, was hit by a bullet on his right shoulder in the attack in his native Narowal's Kanjrur Tehsil after he addressed a rally, the police said.

Terming the incident as "sad", Malala, who is pursuing a degree in Philosophy, and Economics at the Oxford University was quoted by Geo TV as saying, "I wish that every Pakistani [person] remains safe and that no one's life is in danger. I hope for a where everyone lives peacefully."

The Nobel laureate further said that she was thankful to God that the murder attempt on Iqbal did not end up being fatal and prayed for his quick recovery.

The incident took place when the US-educated Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader was leaving the rally.

Prime Minister condemned the attack and called for an immediate report on the incident from top police officials of province.

State Minister for Interior Tallal Chaudry meanwhile, said the suspected shooter was identified as Abid Hussain and has been arrested.

The suspect, who is a resident of Narowal, is about 20 years old and being interrogated, according to media reports.

Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif described the incident as an "assassination attempt".

Iqbal's son said that his father was out of danger.

The attacker fired with a 30-bore pistol from a distance of around 18 metres.

The attacker was about to fire a second shot when he was apprehended, police said.

However, the reason behind the attack was not immediately known.

Sharif said: "Just spoke to him and he is in high spirits.

"Those who indulged in this heinous act will be brought to justice. PML-N will not be browbeaten into submission. I am personally overseeing the investigation".

Punjab government spokesman Malik Ahmad Khan confirmed the attack and arrest of the attackers. He said the minister is stable but being shifted to Lahore.

"Police are investigating the attack and we will know how he (attacker) was able to reach so close to the minister," he said.

He said that the attacker was initially identified as Abid Hussian and his age was said to be between 20-22 years. He is said to be a resident of Narowal.

The Punjab government said that the suspect "is being interrogated by the police".

Rana Manan, a lawmaker of Punjab assembly, said that Iqbal was about to sit in his vehicle when the attacker fired at him.

The attack on the interior minister highlights the issue of of high-profile politicians ahead of the elections scheduled to be held after June.

Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa also condemned the incident and sent his best wishes for Iqbal's early recovery.

Asif Ali Zardari, Bilawal Bhutto and other Peoples Party leaders also condemned the attack.The prison authorities in Gujarat has planned to instal high quality sensors in two central jails to alert officials about any underground movement and thwart bids by prisoners to escape by digging tunnels.

The move comes five years after some prisoners dug up a tunnel in the British-era Sabarmati Central Prison here.

"To foil attempts by inmates to escape by digging a tunnel, we have decided to install a 'tunnel detection system' in the Sabarmati central jail here and the Lajpore central jail in Surat district," Additional Director General of Police, Prisons, T SBisht told PTI.

"Gujarat is probably the first state in the country which is planning to implement such a system injails," he claimed, adding that only the Border SecurityForce (BSF) uses it as of now to detect tunnels near border areas.

The state government has allocated a budget of Rs 2.8 crore for the implementation of the project in these two jails, the official said.

As a part of the system, several sensors will be installed about three meters under the ground at regular intervals inside the jail, Bisht said.

"The sensor is capable of detecting underground vibrations and movements three metres up and down from the place where it is installed. Thus, it would cover a radius of six metres," he said.

The sensors would transmit real-time signals on detecting any underground movement or vibrations due to the digging activity, according to the official.

"The entire web of sensors will be connected to a control room and an alarm. Apart from activating the alarm on detecting vibrations, the system would also send an SMS to the designated numbers of jail officials about the underground activity," he said.

The system is expected to be firstimplemented near the 'high security area' of Sabarmati jail by the end of this year, he said, adding that it would be installed in both the central prisons in Ahmedabad and Suratin a phase-wise manner.

The jail's high security area is the place where hardened criminals and those accused in bomb blast cases are lodged.

In March 2013, the prison authorities had found a 214- feet long tunnel inside the Sabarmati central jail.

The authorities had then alleged that the tunnel was dug up by some ofthe accused in the 2008 Ahmedabad serial blasts case who were lodged in the jail.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Senior National Congress Party leader Dhananjay Munde today said that the removal of 900 tonnes of debris from Mantralaya looked "suspicious" as it was reportedly done without maintaining any record.

Speaking to a channel today, Munde stated that he was going to follow it up, adding that there were several questions that the state government had to answer on the issue.

"I was surprised to see reports and documents stating that some 900 tonne debris had been shifted from Mantralaya and hardly any record has been kept of it. The details of what type of vehicles were used to transport it, the period when this debris was moved are also suspicious," Munde, the Leader of Opposition in the Maharashtra Legislative Council, said.

He asked the state government to answer his queries on who authorised this debris movement as well the purpose behind it.

"Who authorised the movement? For what purpose was it done? What was the activity that generated so much debris ? The state government must have answers to these questions," Munde said.

He said that sloppy documentation of such issues at a place like Mantralaya, which is the state's secretariat, was unacceptable.

"Already suspicion has been aroused due to issues like expenses run up to serve tea to visitors as well as the huge number of rats killed at Mantralaya," he said.

The NCP MLC said that he would demand all the documents pertaining to the debris movement and would raise the issue if discrepancies were found.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Authorities today imposed restrictions in parts of Srinagar as a precautionary measure to maintain law and order in view of a strike called by separatists over the killing of militants during an encounter and the death of a civilian in a clash here.

Restrictions under Section 144 of the CrPc have been imposed in seven police station areas of the city here, a police official said.

He said strict curbs have been imposed in the police station areas of Nowhatta, Rainawari, Safakadal, MR Gunj and Khanyar, while partial restrictions were in force in the Maisuma and Kralkhud areas.

The curbs were put in place as a precautionary measure to maintain law and order, the official said.

The separatists, under the banner of Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL), had called for a complete shutdown today to protest the killing of three militants in a gunfight with security forces, and a civilian during clashes between protestors and law enforcing agencies near the encounter site in the Chattabal area of the city.

One of the militants and the civilian were residents of Srinagar.

The JRL, comprising Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Mohammad Yasin Malik, appealed to people to observe complete shutdown against the killings.

Shops, fuel stations and other business establishments were shut in the rest of the city while public transport was off the roads, the official said.

He said similar reports of shutdown were received from other district headquarters of the valley.

Meanwhile, mobile Internet services continued to remain suspended in Srinagar for the second consecutive day today.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)An FIR was lodged today against a medial college owned by an RJD MP from Bihar for allegedly publishing a prospectus featuring a map of India without the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) in it, police said.

The incident triggered sharp reactions from the ruling BJP-JD(U) alliance, which termed it an act of sedition.

In its prospectus for the 2018-19 session, the Katihar Medical College and Hospital (KMCH) has not shown the PoK in India's map. The college authorities said it was an error committed by the printing press and that it was being rectified.

Ahmad Ashfaque Karim was elected to the Rajya Sabha as an RJD nominee along with five others in March.

On the directive of the Katihar district magistrate, the FIR was lodged with Katihar Mufassil police station this evening against the KMCH management and others for distorting the map of India, Katihar Sub-Divisional Police Officer Anil Kumar said.

After a video on the truncated Indian map went viral on social media, the district administration sent Anil Kumar and Katihar Sub-Divisional Magistrate Niraj Kumar to the KMCH for an enquiry.

They seized the prospectus in question and some other documents from the medical college, Anil Kumar said.

The FIR was registered after Niraj Kumar submitted his report to Katihar District Magistrate Punam.

KMCH owner and RJD MP Ahmad Ashfaque Karim said the printing press was to be blamed for the mistake.

"It is a big mistake which should not have happened. It is an error by the printing press. We had asked the press to rectify the error on April 24 itself. The prospectus is not being sold for the past 15 days," Karim told a channel.

To a question, he said, "Entire Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India. None can separate it from the country."



Reacting to the incident, Union minister and BJP leader Giriraj Singh described it as an act of sedition designed to break up India.

Referring to the ongoing controversy over a portrait of Pakistan Founder



Muhammad Ali Jinnah on the Aligarh Muslim University campus, Singh said "Jinnah's jinn (spirit) has entered in India".

JD(U) spokesman Ajay Alok demanded President Ram Nath Kovind and Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu should look into the issue.

Training his guns at RJD chief Lalu Prasad for sending Karim to the Rajya Sabha, Alok said the country is facing such a situation because of "anti-national elements".

RJD vice-president Shivanand Tiwari said he has not seen the KMCH prospectus and the medical college authorities should apologise to the people.

"I have not spoken to Ashfaque Karim on this issue. But if such a thing has happened even by mistake, the college administration should say sorry and rectify the mistake," Tiwari said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)If the BJP is going all out to woo Dalit voters in Uttar Pradesh to trump a likely alliance of rival parties, it is facing an aggressive RJD bid in Bihar to woo key scheduled castes leaders to corner the saffron party-led NDA in the Lok Sabha elections next year.

Former Bihar chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi, who snapped his party's alliance with the BJP in February this year to join the RJD-led alliance, told PTI that NDA governments in the Centre and Bihar have been a disappointment for Dalits for Bihar with the community in the state staring at a crisis.

The only option for Dalit leaders like him is to try out another alliance as the earlier one did not work, he said.

Another scheduled castes leader and former Assembly speaker Uday Narayan Choudhary left Nitish Kumar-led JD(U) earlier this week and announced his support to the Lalu Prasad-led RJD.

Incidentally, Manjhi and Choudhary have been rival leaders and the former Bihar chief minister had defeated the latter in Imamganj Assembly seat in 2015.

With both of them now together in the RJD-led alliance, which includes the Congress, RJD leaders have been quick to claim that the development highlights an anti-BJP mood among Dalits.

Leaders follow the churning at the ground level. As of now I can say that 70 per cent of Dalits in Bihar are with the RJD. The leaders coming to us have their ears to the ground, RJD spokesperson and Rajya Sabha MP Manoj Jha said.

However, BJP leaders have played down the import of Manjhi and Choudhary leaving their alliance, saying that they have limited appeal.

A NDA leader, who did not wish to be named, claimed that a big majority of Dalits will support their alliance as Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar enjoys the backing of most marginalised castes among Dalits while Union Minister and their ally Ram Vilas Paswan is an undisputed leader of Paswans, the largest Dalit caste.

He also pointed out the recent joining of former Bihar Congress president Ashok Chaudhary, a Dalit, in the JD(U) to claim that the ruling alliance retains its appeal in the community.

Jha, however, dismissed the claim and took a dig at the BJP, saying Dalit outreach for the saffron party was all about its leaders having food ordered from outside with the community members.

When Lalu Prasad as chief minister would go to Dalit localities, spend entire day with them, have food with them and get haircut for Dalit youths, then the BJP would call it a drama. Now it is doing the same drama with much more perverse manner, he said.

Claiming that the conviction rate in cases of atrocities against Dalits in Bihar is merely 0.36 per cent and non-execution of reservation for them in promotion in government jobs, Manjhi said the community is faced with a constitutional and political crisis.

Dalits are close to 16 per cent of population in Bihar and their votes could be decisive in a state where castes remain a key influence in elections.

While the BJP-led NDA is seen to be a favourite of upper castes and a number of intermediary castes, the two largest voting blocks of Yadavs and Muslims are seen to strongly backing the RJD. In such a scenario, votes of Dalits and some extremely backward castes (EBC) could be decisive.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) today announced that it would contest the May 28 Kairana Lok Sabha bypoll and hoped to get the "full support" of other like-minded, non-BJP parties.

The Ajit Singh-led party also said it would extend support to the Samajwadi Party (SP) in the Noorpur Assembly bypoll.

"We have decided to field Tabassum Beghum from Kairana parliamentary constituency," Uttar Pradesh RLD chief Masood Ahmad told PTI.

"We expect the full support of other like-minded, non-BJP parties, especially the SP and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), besides the Congress. Tabassum Beghum has joined the party today and hopefully, she will emerge as the joint opposition candidate," he added.

Tabassum Beghum, a former BSP MP from Kairana, had later joined the SP. She joined the RLD in New Delhi today in the presence of party chief Ajit Singh and other senior leaders.

Exuding confidence that the RLD will win the crucial Kairana bypoll, Ahmad said, "The process of forming a coalition (against the BJP) has started and soon, a mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) will be formed."



He added that the RLD would support the SP candidate in the Noorpur Assembly bypoll.

The Kairana bypoll was necessitated following the death of its sitting BJP MP, Hukum Singh, in February. Similarly, the Noorpur bypoll was necessitated due to the death of sitting BJP MLA Lokendra Singh Chauhan in a road accident in February.

Both the bypolls are crucial for the ruling BJP as well as the opposition parties, as the results may set the tone for the 2019 parliamentary election in Uttar Pradesh.

The BJP will put in an extra effort to retain both the seats to send a message to the voters, party cadre as well as the opposition parties that its drubbing in the Gorakhpur and Phulpur bypolls was a closed chapter now and that the saffron party was still strong in western Uttar Pradesh.

On the other hand, the opposition parties are viewing these bypolls as another opportunity to convey a message to the voters that the saffron fortress had been breached.

Voting in the Kairana and Noorpur bypolls will be held on May 28 and the results will be declared on May 31.

The Kairana parliamentary constituency comprises five Assembly segments -- Shamli, Thanabhawan, Kairana (all in Shamli district), Gangoh and Nakur (Saharanpur district).

In the 2014 Lok Sabha election, BJP's Hukum Singh had bagged 5,65,909 votes as against his nearest rival, Nahid Hasan of the SP, who had secured 3,29,081 votes.

RLD vice-president Jayant Chaudhary held a nearly three-hour meeting with SP chief Akhilesh Yadav in Lucknow on May 4 and an understanding was reached that both the parties would jointly contest the Kairana Lok Sabha and Noorpur Assembly bypolls, RLD spokesperson Anil Dubey said.

A broad understanding has also emerged that all the opposition parties should contest the 2019 Lok Sabha polls unitedly, he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Nearly five years after he inadvertently crossed into Pakistan and was subsequently jailed, Jitendra Arjunwar, who hails from Madhya Pradesh, today returned to his home in Barghat area near Seoni, four days after he was handed over to Indian authorities by their Pakistani counterparts at the Wagah border.

Arjunwar had reportedly crossed into Pakistan's Sindh while in search of water across Rajasthan desert.

He was arrested by the Pakistan police on August 12, 2013, and was lodged in the Hyderabad Central Jail in Sindh province there.

An assistant sub-inspector of the Seoni police was sent to the Wagah border along with Arjunwar's younger brother to receive him, Seoni Superintendent of Police Tarun Nayak said.

Ailing Arjunwar, who walks with the help of crutches, was handed over to Indian authorities on May 2.

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had last month confirmed to the Pakistan authorities that Arjunwar is an Indian citizen, following which the Seoni police forwarded documents related to his citizenship as demanded by the MEA and the Ministry of Home Affairs, the SP had said.

Arjunwar's voter ID and ration card were submitted as proof of his Indian citizenship.

Arjunwar's brother, who works as a mechanic in Barghat town, had earlier said that his sibling was unable to walk properly and had to use crutches.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed has kicked off campaigning for the Milli Muslim League, the political front of the JuD, with an eye on the general elections in Pakistan this year.

The US last month designated the Milli Muslim League (MML) as a foreign terrorist organisation, saying the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) members make up MML's leadership and the so-called party openly displays Saeed's likeness in its election banners and literature.

The MML has not been yet registered by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).

Saeed yesterday held the MML's first rally in Haroonabad, some 400 km from here, asking the participants to vote for the MML and canvass for it.

Former military dictator gen Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq's son Ijazul Hasan was also present on the occasion.

Saeed said the enemies of Pakistan want clash of institutions in the country so that it could achieve its nefarious designs.

"We have to be united to fail their (enemies) agenda," he said.

Saeed urged the Pakistani government to change its policy towards India.

Talking about the MML priorities, the LeT founder said: "the MML wants the country economically strong. We will have to follow the Quaid-e-Azam's vision to achieve a strong and prosperous Pakistan".

Saeed had confirmed that his organisation Jammat-ud-Dawah (JuD) would contest the 2018 general elections under the banner of the MML.

The Election Commission of Pakistan has asked the MML to produce a clearance certificate by the interior ministry for its registration as a political party. The interior ministry has not issued a clearance certificate to the MML, citing its ties to banned militant outfits.

The LeT was designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) group on December 26, 2001.

Its leader Saeed is also designated as an SDGT.

To avoid sanctions, LeT has repeatedly changed its name over the years, the State Department alleged.

The JuD is believed to be the front organisation for the LeT which is responsible for carrying out the Mumbai attack that killed 166 people, including six Americans.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)BJP national secretary Rahul Sinha today alleged that the State Election Commissioner (SEC) has been subjected to threats by the ruling party on panchayat polls and said he should inform the court about it in a private statement.

The SEC A K Singh had even told a BJP delegation that his mobile phone "is tapped and the land line calls are recorded," Sinha told a press conference here.

"The announcement of a one-phase panchayat poll on May 14 has been made under threat and intimidation by the ruling Trinamool Congress leaders and ministers. The SEC should apprise the court of the situation in a private statement to clear the air," Sinha said.

Demanding the May-14 panchayat poll date be scrapped, Sinha said the panchayat polls should be conducted by the SEC under the supervision of the High Court.

"The entire state is looking at the High Court. The Panchayat Minister Subrata Mukherjee had said it was the duty of the SEC to ensure security during the panchayat elections. But who will ensure the security of the SEC who is under serious threat", the former party president of West Bengal unit said.

He alleged that democracy was being throttled in West Bengal by the TMC which had prevented the opposition to file nomination papers in over 20,000 seats or 34 per cent of total seats in panchayats.

He said till May 4, seven BJP functionaries had been killed in panchayat-related clashes, 412 party workers hospitalised and 38 functionaries missing.

On deployment of central forces in the state, Sinha said even if the forces were requisitioned they would be confined to camps and not be deployed. For this reason "we call for holding of panchayat poll under the supervision of the judiciary."



To a question on demand for imposition of Central rule in state, Sinha said "we don't want imposition of President's Rule which will give ammunition to a discredited Trinamool Congress which is already on its way out."



He said "BJP will be gainer in a one-day poll as TMC won't be able to carry musclemen from one part to another on a single date, but the need of the hour is to uphold the spirit of democracy.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Separatists today called for a strike and a protest march to the Civil Secretariat here tomorrow over the death of civilians in a clash between protestors and security forces after an encounter in Jammu and Kashmir's Sophian district.

The secretariat in the state's summer capital opens tomorrow after the bi-annual shifting of capitals between Jammu and Srinagar.

"The strike will continue across Kashmir tomorrow against the killings in Shopian," a statement issued by the separatists, under the banner of the Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL), said here.

Five Hizbul Mujahideen terrorists, including a top commander and a fresh recruit -- a university professor -- were killed in the encounter today, even as five civilians died during clashes between protesters and law enforcing agencies near the encounter site in Sophian, the police said.

The JRL comprises Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Mohammad Yasin Malik.

It asked people to march peacefully to the Civil Secretariat where sit-in would be staged by the JRL.

"We appeal to the people, traders, lawyers, civil society, students and employees to march peacefully to the civil secretariat where the leadership will hold a sit-in as a protest against the unabated killings," the statement said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Congress leaderDhiraj Deshmukh, son of former Maharashtra chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, believes that the BJP's growing dominance in his family bastion of Latur is a "temporary phase".

"People of Latur will now judge BJP's performance as it has won the Zilla Parishad (ZP) for the first time in 30 years and the municipal corporation after ten years," said Dhiraj, youngest of the three sons of the late Congress leader, speaking to PTI today.

"My father too had lost an Assembly election from Latur once. But he was elected again later," he said, calling the present setbacks as a "temporary phase".

In the Latur civic body, of the 34 corporators of the BJP, 12 were 'imported' from the Congress, he pointed out.

"If they are the largest party in the world, why do they have to take in people from other parties? The BJP doesn't have its own candidates even for a municipal election," he said.

To a question on whether he will contest the 2019 Assembly election, Deshmukh, presently a ZP member, said he will fight the election if the party decides so.

His eldest brother, Amit Deshmukh, is the Latur MLA, while the other brother, Riteish, is a Bollywoodactor.

"We will ensure the Congress gets highest number of seats in Latur district," Dhiraj said.

Having worked in the Youth Congress, he understands Congress president Rahul Gandhi's style of functioning, he said.

"Rahul Gandhi wants to reach out to people in person. His heart is in the right place," Deshmukh said.

"Ever since he entered politics, he has worked with cadres. He did not take a minister's post even when he had the opportunity. When we say India is a young country, we need a leader like him who thinks like a young person," Deshmukh said.

For himself, Deshmukh said, from being a Youth Congress member to becoming a ZP member and now campaigning for the party in Karnataka has been a learning process.

"Being a ZP member, one gets an understanding of schemes and policies for the last person in the society.

"Optics are great for the ruling BJP. They are very good in branding themselves. Their schemes are only on paper," Deshmukh said, adding that the Congress failed to market its achievements.

Asked about the criticism that his family was not seen around when Latur faced a severe water crisis two years ago, Deshmukh said it was BJP propaganda.

"It was late Vilasrao who worked hard to develop Latur into the place it is today. There are facilities for rainwater harvesting. What could one do if there was no rainfall for three successive years? Now, does one hear anything about (water shortage in) Latur? Sugarcane production was the highest, where did the water for sugarcane come from?" he said.

People of Latur didn't blame his family for the water crisis, he said, alleging that the BJP ran this campaign of disinformation as it had no other issue in local elections.

Deshmukh has been tasked by the Congress with campaigning in Marathi-speaking areas of Belgaum, Bidar and Gulbarga in Karnataka for the Assembly polls.

Talking about the party's chances in the neighbouring state, Deshmukh said the Congress hopes to beat the trend of last 20 years where incumbent governments were defeated.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Six people were killed, including four government officials and a soldier, in an attack by Boko Haram jihadists on a Chadian army checkpoint on an island in Lake Chad, a military source said today.

The overnight killings, which cost the life of a civilian along with two customs officials, two forestry agents and a soldier occurred when "Boko Haram elements attacked an advanced post of the Chad army" in Gabalami in the country's far west, the source said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The RSS-affiliated Swadeshi Jagran Manch, which has expressed reservation on Air India's disinvestment, will present a report to Civil Aviation Minister Suresh Prabhu this month suggesting "alternative ways" to revive the national carrier.

Prabhu recently met SJM co-convener Ashwani Mahajan to discuss the stake sale in the national carrier, sources said.

"A five-member team led by Mahajan is preparing a report, which will suggest alternative ways to revive Air India and will present its report to the civil aviation minister this month," a source said.

The report will be considered before taking any call on Air India's disinvestment, the same source added.

When contacted, Mahajan confirmed that he and four other economists are preparing the "report" on Air India.

SJM has previously suggested that the government monetise Air India's assets to repay debt, rather than selling its stake.

Mahajan said Air India has operating profits, but is running into losses due to its debts. "So, rather than selling stake in the national carrier, the government can reduce its debt by selling off its land," he told PTI.

His remarks assume significance as RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat has categorically said Air India should not be sold to a foreign buyer.

The Centre has invited 'expression of interest' to sell a 76-per cent stake and management control in the airline.

Mahajan has said that the SJM is "opposed" to disinvestment of the national carrier in its "current form", asserting the airline can be made profitable by repaying debt.

He blamed the Congress for the sorry state of the airline and alleged that during the UPA rule, profitable routes of Air India were given to other airlines.

"Rather than selling stake in the company, the government should make the airline profitable and then, if required, explore the option of raising money from markets by issuing shares," Mahajan said.

The Indian government owns 100-per cent equity of Air India, which was founded in the 1930s. The airline is commonly known for its Maharajah mascot.

The government has injected more than Rs 23,000 crore since 2012 to bail out the airline.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Suryakumar Yadav's successive half century and an all-round performance from Hardik Pandya powered Mumbai Indians to a 13-run win over Kolkata Knight Riders, keeping them in play-offs contention in the Indian Premier League.

Yadav (59 off 39) continued his rich run with a fourth fifty of the tournament before Pandya (35* off 20) plundered the KKR attack to nudge the hosts to 181 for four. Yadav's opening partner Evin Lewis (45 off 28) too made a valuable contribution in the 91-run stand.

KKR skipper Dinesh Karthik (36* off 26) tried his best to get his team over the line but was unable to after the visitors needed 60 runs off the last 30 balls.

By the final over, KKR needed 23 runs and Krunal Pandya defended them comfortably with the innings ending at 168 for six. Robin Uthappa's (54 off 35) first fifty plus score of the competition also went in vain.

It was another much needed win for slow starters Mumbai, who had beaten KXIP on Friday. They remain in fifth spot in the standings with eight points, having earned their fourth win in 10 games.

KKR, on the other hand, remain in the top-four with 10 points after their fifth loss in 10 matches.

Chasing a stiff 182, KKR lost both the openers Chris Lynn (17) and Shubhman Gill (7) quickly, leaving them at 28 for two.

Then Rana and Uthappa, who got a life on 4', resurrected the innings with an 84-run stand. They hammered spinners Pandya and Mayank Markande as the two amassed 30 runs in just two overs. Uthappa, who was dropped by Markande, smashed him for two consecutive sixes.

After Uthappa's and Rana's dismissal, the asking rate went up steeply and the target proved to be too much.

For Mumbai, Hardik (2-19) was the pick of the bowlers while Markande, Bumrah, Krunal and Mitchell McClenaghan picked up a wicket each.

Earlier, Mumbai openers Yadav and Lewis set the platform for a challenging total.

Yadav made his intentions clear by hammering debutant Prasidh Krishna for a boundary. Then he punished Australian Mitchell Johnson, pulling him for a six and followed up with two fours as the over went for 15 runs.

Lewis, who was playing second fiddle, freed his arms striking two consecutive fours off Sunil Narine. Lewis then pulled Krishna for a towering six over deep square-leg.

Bowling changes did not work for KKR as the West Indian welcomed Piyush Chawla with a six over mid-wicket before smashing two consecutive fours as Mumbai raced to 56/0 after the power-play period. They hit seven fours and three sixes in the first six overs.

Yadav and Lewis, who got a life on 38', continued their brutal assault as the hosts raced to 82/0 in just eight overs. But as the two were poised for a big score, Andre Russell broke their stand removing Lewis, who was caught by Chris Lynn, in the 10th over.

Lewis struck five fours and two sixes in his knock. The openers fall led to KKR bowlers making a strong comeback.

The away team conceded only 43 runs from overs 9-15, bringing the run rate down drastically.

Krunal (14) also did not contribute much as he gave a sitter to Shubhman Gill off Narine.

A late cameo by Hardik helped the three-time champions cross the 180-run-mark. Hardik struck two fours in the final over with J P Duminy (13 not out) at the other end.

Russell (2-12) and Narine (2-35) were the pick of the bowlers for KKR.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Paintings of Rabindranath Tagore were displayed in an exhibition here to commemorate the 157th birth anniversary of the Nobel laureate.

The exhibition titled 'Rabindranath Tagore: Rhythm in Colours' was inaugurated by India's Ambassador to Egypt Sanjay Bhattacharyya yesterday at Ahmed Shawki museum in Giza - originally the house of famous poet Ahmed Shawki.

Inaugurating the festival, Bhattacharyya spoke about the friendship between Tagore and Egyptian poet Shawki.

"Tagore's best friend was the Prince of Arab Poets Ahmed Shawki. Today, Tagore is coming back to his friend's house once again. Thanks for the ministry of culture for making this visit happen, the ambassador said.

The painting exhibition is part of the Tagore Festival which runs from May 3 to 7 to commemorate the birth anniversary of Tagore, who penned India's national anthem.

Amrit Sen, professor and head of the department of English at Visva-Bharati University in Santiniketan, West Bengal, held a presentation about Tagore's "rhythm of colours".

Tagore, who began painting much later in his life when he was into his 60s, had made more than 3,000 paintings and drawings in the last 17 years of his life.

He did not have a formal training in art but created a variety of images.

Sen said that initially, Tagore started to paint as painting is a universal language and can reach everyone without the need to be translated.

After he developed his love for painting, Tagore described the visible world around him as a vast procession of forms.

Most of the landscapes he painted showed nature bathed in the evening light, skies and forms coagulating into ominous silhouettes.

His landscapes invoke mystery and a sense of disquiet and silence.

Tagore did not name his paintings, but by leaving them untitled he freed them from the limits of literary imagination, Sen said.

"He wished his viewers to read the paintings in their own light and admire them in individual ways. His painted faces speak of vast human experience and intrinsic human emotion," Sen said.

The Tagore Festival is organised by the Maulana Azad Centre for Indian Culture (MACIC), the cultural wing of the Indian Embassy in Cairo.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The telecom ministry is the competent authority to take the final call on Idea Cellular Ltd's proposal for infusing 100 per cent foreign direct investment (FDI) in the company, Commerce and Industry Minister has said.

The Department of Telecom (DoT) has put some condition while seeking views of the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) on the proposal.

"The matter is completely in the domain of the line ministry. We have already clarified. No need of our approval," Prabhu told PTI In an interview.

It was communicated to DoT that they are the competent authority to deal with the proposal, he said.

"We have sent back (the proposal) immediately. We have stated that it is for you to decide," he said, adding that tax liabilities do not constitute additional condition.

Idea's proposal assumes significance against the backdrop of pending merger with to form the country's largest telecom operator.

The FDI policy allows an overseas firm to buy up to 49 per cent stake in an Indian telecom company under automatic approval route. But the government approval is required for stake above 49 per cent.

Idea and Vodafone announced last year that they would combine their operations to create the country's largest telecom operator worth over $23 billion, with a 35 per cent market share.

Foreign share holding in Idea as on March 31, 2018, stood at around 34 per cent, including 7.49 per cent in promoter group and the rest as public shareholders. British telecom multinational Vodafone Group plc is a majority shareholder in

Foreign shareholding in the combined Idea-Vodafone entity, thus, would breach the automatic approval limit of 49 per cent.

According to the Idea-Vodafone merger announcement, Vodafone would own 45.1 per cent of the combined company after transferring a 4.9 per cent stake to Aditya Birla Group for Rs 3,900 crore in cash, concurrent with completion of the merger.

As the DoT had added a condition in the proposal, the matter was sent to the DIPP.

After the abolition of foreign investment promotion board (FIPB), respective departments and ministries of 11 sectors, including telecom and print media, are the competent authorities for approval of FDI proposals unless they want to add some condition or reject the proposal. In such circumstances, they have to seek the views to the DIPP.

The merged Idea-Vodafone entity will have highest subscriber base of 410 million accounting for over 35 per cent market share and second largest spectrum holding of 1,850 megahertz in the country.

The debt of resultant entity is expected to be around 1.1 trillion as per debt situation of Idea and at the end of September 2017.Japanese electric vehicle maker Terra Motors Corporation is working on a slew of products, including a three wheeler and two wheeler, which it plans to launch in India over the next two years.

The company, which has already invested around USD 5 million in the country, has lined up further investment of around USD 5 million for product development and capacity expansion.

"We started business in India in 2014-end and now we are aiming to become number one electric vehicle manufacturer in the country," Terra Motors MD Akihiro Ueda told PTI.

The company, which has sold around 12,000 e-rickshaws in the country since 2014-end, is now focussing to expand its product portfolio in the country.

"We are in the process of developing e-three wheeler with litium-ion battery which we aim to launch next year and after that try to bring in an e-two wheeler by 2020," Ueda said.

The company plans to invest around USD 5 million -- 1.5 million to 2 million this year alone on R&D this year besides USD 3 million extra for putting up new assembly lines for e-three wheeler, he added.

"We see India as biggest opportunity. We (headquarters) have raised a total of USD 10 million and it is our intention that at least half of it should be invested in India over the next two years," Ueda said.

Terra Motors, which is a leading electric vehicle maker in Japan, also plans to make make India export hub for Asian countries.

The company, currently, imports parts from China and then assemble the units at its three plants in India.

Commenting on sales target for the year, Ueda said the company aims to sell 12,000 e-rickshaws this year. It also plans to double its sales network to 150 by end of this year.

Tokyo-headquartered Terra Motors is the leader in electric two and three-wheelers in Japan. It also has presence in various Southeast Asian countries like Vietnam and the Philippines.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)US President Donald Trump's former personal attorney could have made payments to women other than adult film star Stormy Daniels if "necessary", his new lawyer Rudy Giuliani said today.

Appearing on a Sunday talk show, Giuliani exuded confidence that Trump would come out clean on the issue and this is unlikely to affect his presidency.

Former New York mayor Giuliani succeeded Michael Cohen as the new personal attorney for Trump.

"I have no knowledge of that but I would think if it was necessary, yes," Giuliani told ABC in an interview. He was asked if Cohen made payments to other women for Trump.

"He (Cohen) made payments for the president, or he conducted business for the president, which means he had legal fees, monies laid out and expenditures, which I have on my bills to my clients, Giuliani said.

"Are you confident that his testimony and the Stormy Daniels payment won't contradict the president? he was asked.

"Not in any material respect. If it didn't contradict it at all, then somebody would be lying. I remember that great cross examination when the person just repeated the things over and over again the same way. Of course there'll be minor details," he noted.

"On the two main facts, was it for another purpose other than just campaign, even if it was campaign? Yes. It was to settle a personal issue that would be embarrassing to him and his wife. Number two, did he repay it over a period of time and then find out ultimately what it was about? Yes," Giuliani said.

"I'm comfortable with that. That's 100 percent. That's why these people who think they're chasing this down are involved in the same witch hunt that Judge Ellis was so concerned about with (ex-FBI director) Robert Mueller," he said.

During the interview, Giuliani said that people do not go away with USD 130,000 for a meritorious claim. Days before the presidential elections, Daniels received USD 130,000 from Trump's personal attorney Cohen so as not to go public with her alleged intimate encounter with Trump years ago.

Giuliani did not deny an old picture of Trump and Daniels appearing in the media, but appeared to have strongly refuted the allegations against the president.

"I know this sounds funny to people there at home. I never thought USD 130,000 was a real payment, it's a nuisance payment. When it was real or a real possibility, it's a couple million dollars, not USD 130,000," he asserted.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Ashta police in Sehore district of Madhya Pradesh have registered a case of rape against two local BJP workers and arrested one of them.

Raja Ram (35) was today arrested for allegedly raping a 28-year-old woman repeatedly for the last two years, Ashta Sub Divisional Officer of Police G P Agrawal said.

Ram's friend Mukesh Thakur (32), also accused of raping the woman, was absconding, he said. Thakur is a local representative of BJP MP Manohar Untwal.

Agrawal said that Ram, who a working committee member of the state BJP's Scheduled Caste Cell, ran a centre under the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas (Skill Development) Yojana.

He gave a job to the woman in April 2016. As per the woman's complaint, he 'raped' her many times by "cheating" and "offering allurements" to her.

He also threatened her and forced her to sleep with his friend Thakur on some occasions, the woman said in her complaint, lodged yesterday.

Police today arrested Ram and efforts were on to nab Thakur, the police officer said.

A case under IPC sections 376 (rape) and 506 (criminal intimidation) was lodged against the duo, Agrawal said.

When contacted, district BJP chief Sitaram Yadav said he had sought a report in this regard from the Ashta unit of the party.

"After getting the report we will take appropriate action," he said, when asked if the BJP will expel the two men.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Union Minister Prakash Javadekar today alleged that the ruling CPI(M) led LDF and Congress headed UDF opposition in Kerala have come together to defeat BJP for the May 28 bypoll in Chengannur.

"Both CPI(M) and Congress have joined handsas they are afraid of BJP, which has conquered most of the states in the country, the latest being CPI(M) ruled Tripura. If one votes for LDF, it is actually for UDF and if you vote for UDF, it is for LDF", he said.

The senior BJP leader was speaking after inaugurating an NDA election convention here.

Expressing confidence that BJP candidate P S Sreedharan Pillai would win the by-poll, Javadekar said the party got nearly 40,000 votes in the 2016 assembly polls.

"In this election the party will win by a massive margin. The Lotus will bloom in Chengannur", the BJP leader said.

The Union HRD minister also said that his party would capture power in Karnataka, where assembly elections are to be held on May 12.

The BJP would also taste victory in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and come to power in Kerala in the 2021 state assembly polls, he said.

"People of the state will vote against the dynastic of the Congress and the of violence of CPI(M), he said.

Slamming the LDF government headed by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan over 'collapse' of law and order in the state, he referred to the recent custodial death of a 26-year old man in Kochi, lynching of tribal man Madhu at Palakkad recently and rape and murder of a Lithuanian tourist.

Development has come to a standstill in Kerala and the state Finance Minster T M Thomas Isaac was blaming the Centre for it, he said.

The Union Minister also listed out the 'achievements' of the BJP led NDA government at the centre, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)BJP joint general secretary V Satish today asked the party's workers in Rajasthan to utilise social media for publicising various schemes and programmes of the government.

Social media platforms should not be misused for destructive purposes rather it should be constructively utilised for the sake of development, he said at a division-level meeting of the party's IT and social media volunteers here.

He said that digitisation has brought transparency in governance due to the efforts of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The party's state general secretary Chandrashekhar asked workers to publicise the party's programmes, ideology and public welfare works.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A 19-year-old Uzbek woman was apprehended at the Delhi airport today for allegedly carrying a live bullet round in her baggage, an official said.

A CISF officer detected the bullet on the x-ray monitor when he was scanning the baggage of the woman at about 5 am at the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA), he said.

A bullet of 7.65-mm calibre was recovered from the passenger who had a Uzbekistan passport and was travelling to Nagpur from here, he said.

"The woman was not allowed to take the flight and was handed over to the police as she could not produce any documents for carrying the ammunition," the official said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Auditing major Price Waterhouse has quit audit mandate of technology firm Vakrangee Ltd, flagging concerns to the corporate affairs ministry about the books of accounts, mainly related to its bullion and jewellery business, even as the company denied any irregularities.

The company is also being probed by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), which had earlier probed some other entities having traded in Vakrangee shares, about alleged disclosure and corporate governance lapses, regulatory and government officials said.

There were no comments from Vakrangee as well as PwC, which resigned as the statutory auditor of Vakrangee before completing even a year of auditing assignment with the company.

Incorporated in 1990, Vakrangee calls itself a "unique technology driven company focused on building India's largest network of last-mile retail outlets to deliver real-time banking, insurance, e-governance, e-commerce and logistics services to the unserved and under-served rural, semi-urban and urban markets".

For its retail outlets called 'Vakrangee Kendra' and billed as the 'One-stop shop' to avail various services and products, the company had earlier talked to some big jewellers and banks but many of those couldn't fructify.

The company had acquired some shares in PC Jewellers also, which they are believed to have sold already and a proposed tie-up between the two could not be concluded, sources aware of the developments said.

PC Jewellers also didn't reply to queries in this regard.

Vakrangee had earlier announced ambitious plans to setup and manage a total of 75,000 'Vakrangee Kendra' outlets across India by 2020 and covering the presence in all postal codes of the country.

Price Waterhouse was appointed by Vakrangee in September last year. It has reviewed the company's financials till December quarter but the problem cropped up when the auditor started working on the full year accounts and found problems with the company's "election books as well as bullion and jewellery businesses", government and regulatory officials said.

Price Waterhouse has now written to the corporate affairs ministry, expressing its concerns about the company's businesses. Moreover, the accountancy firm informed the ministry that it did not receive any reasonable assurance from Vakrangee, whether its financial statements were free from material misstatements, whether due to fraud or error, officials said.

Before writing to the ministry, the auditing firm had sought information from Vakrangee's management and audit committee about these businesses on several occasions in March but did not receive satisfactory reply. In fact, the reply were "inadequate or contradicting".

This was one of the prime reasons cited by Price Waterhouse for quitting the company.

The absence of "adequate and relevant information and explanations regarding the company's election books, bullion and jewellery businesses," by the firm made Price Waterhouse to withdraw from the audit engagements.

However, Vakrangee has informed the stock exchanges that it has provided all the information with respect to business and affairs of the company to the auditor and the audit committee and "the financial statements present the true and fair view of the state of the affairs of the company".

In February this year, Sebi had imposed a fine of Rs 9.5 lakh on Abhirati Trading for shareholding disclosure lapses in the matter of Vakrangee. The regulator upon suspicion of violation of various provisions had conducted an investigation into the shares of Vakrangee.

At that time, Vakrangee had claimed in a press release that it has received clean chit from Sebi in the matter. The regulatory officials, however, asserted that the company remains under the scanner for possible lapses from the past, while the concerns flagged by PwC are also being looked into now.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Vietnamese Ambassador to Argentina Dang Xuan Dung at the opening event of the Vietnam Film Week in Argentina from May 3rd -9th. (Photo: VNA)



The Vietnam Film Week was launched by the Vietnam Cinema Department on May 3rd, featuring Co Ba Sai Gon (The Tailor), Quyen, Dao Cua Dan Ngu Cu (The Island of Aliens), Toi Thay Hoa Vang Tren Co Xanh (I See Yellow Flowers on the Green Grass), and Cuoc Doi Cua Yen (Yens Life).

Speaking at the opening ceremony, Vietnamese Ambassador to Argentina Dang Xuan Dung said since Vietnam and Argentina set up the diplomatic ties 45 years ago, the comprehensive partnership between the two countries has been strengthened in all areas, from politics, economics to culture and people-to-people exchange.



He hoped that the films artistic and cultural values will bring people of the two nations closer to each other. He said he expects through these films, Argentine people will have a fresh look of Vietnam today, a country that is making great efforts to keep up with the world and at the same time, preserve its traditional culture.



Head of the Vietnam Cinema Department Ngo Phuong Lan said the films are outstanding works by young Vietnamese directors, which have won a number of awards at both local and international film festivals.





A scene of The Tailor by young directors Loc Tran and Kay Nguyen. (Photo: xonefm.com)

The film week will run through May 9th.

During this time, the Vietnam Cinema Department delegation is scheduled to meet with leaders of the Argentine Ministry of Culture, the National Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts (INACAA), the Argentina  Vietnam Culture Institute (ICAV) and local film makers./.Batting for the Congress' return in Karnataka, party leader P Chidambaram today said the voters would compare five years of "development" under Chief Minister Siddaramaiah versus five years of "instability" from 2008 under BJP's three chief ministers.

In a series of tweets, the former finance and home minister claimed the people would remember that it was the same three "incompetent" men, who were leading the BJP's campaign in 2018.

B S Yeddyurappa, D V Sadananda Gowda and Jagadish Shettar were the chief ministers when the BJP was in power in Karnataka from 2008 to 2013.

"Karnataka voters will remember: in 2008 when they gave BJP an absolute majority with 110 seats, BJP gave the people absolute instability," he tweeted.

He said the people will remember that between 2008 and 2013, the BJP gave three chief ministers, all short-lived and incompetent.

"Karnataka voters will compare: 5 years of stability and development under Congress' Siddaramaiah versus 5 years of instability and infighting under BJP's three chief ministers," he added.

Siddaramaiah has been the chief minister of Karnataka for five years from 2013 when the Congress assumed power in the state.

Elections to the 224-member Karnataka Assembly are due on May 12.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, under pressure to resign from his position and the UNP leadership, today pledged for reforms in the party so that its second run could play a decisive role in the island nation's oldest political party.

Wickremesinghe, 68 has led the United National Party (UNP) continuously since 1994 and faced many revolts for his ouster.

In February, he was asked to resign as the prime minister by President Maithripala Sirisena. Last week he comfortably defeated a no-trust motion moved by the Joint Opposition against him.

Wickremesinghe, who leads a national unity government in alliance with Sirisena's Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), received 122 votes against the motion while 76 favoured the motion to oust him.

"We have set in the reform programme and I will introduce more reforms so that the party's second level can play a decisive role in the party affairs," Wickremesinghe told addressing his party's May Day celebrations held here today.

"We must work as one team to ensure UNP's victory," the premier said.

Since the defeat of the UNP to the new political party of the former president Mahinda Rajapaksa in the local election held in February, pressure has mounted on Wickremesinghe to step down and make way for a new leadership.

A reform committee appointed by him had proposed elections for all office bearers. However, senior positions have been filled with Wickremesinghe loyalists defying the proposal for internal elections.

Junior members of the party accused Wickremesinghe of going back on the pledges made.

At the gathering several speakers endorsed Wickremesinghe to be the UNP runner at the next presidential election to be held in 2020.

Wickremesinghe had unsuccessfully contested two previous presidential polls in 1999 and 2005.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Steel tycoon L N Mittal today said he would be surprised if ArcelorMittal, the world's largest steelmaker, will not be eligible to participate in the bid for Essar Steel.

ArcelorMittal and Numetal are the two bidders in the race to acquire debt-laden Essar Steel, currently undergoing insolvency proceedings as it owes more than Rs 45,000 crore to over 30 banks.

"Ultimately, I would be surprised if we are not eligible to participate in the bid for Essar Steel. ArcelorMIttal is the world's leading steel company we are financially strong, we are ready to invest and bring our technology and our products and processes to India," Lakshmi N Mittal, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, ArcelorMittal told PTI.

The Committee of Creditors (CoC) on May 2 had met representatives of ArcelorMittal and Numetal regarding their eligibility for Essar Steel and a decision is awaited.

Mittal, who has been trying to get a foothold in India for over a decade, said: "India is important to us. Of course for me personally I would like us to have a presence here in my home country".

But moreover, he asserted, "India is a strategic growth market and if you look at steel industry growth then the majority of growth in the coming years is going to come from the developing economies ex China and that includes India".

Emphasising that under the present circumstances, India being a growth market, Mittal said there is a strong strategic rationale for the company to establish a presence here".

Asked whether they would be open to organic, inorganic growth in India, Mittal in an email interview said: "At the moment we are focussed on Essar".

ArcelorMittal, last week, had said that "a swift decision" on the case will be in the best interest of all stakeholders.

Unable to register its presence in India for more than a decade, the world's largest steel maker is eyeing entry in Indian steel market, which it believes has high growth potential, through Essar acquisition.

It has said that ArcelorMittal would be the most credible owner of Essar Steel and the company viewed the acquisition as a compelling opportunity for it to enter the Indian steel market.

The company has plans to increase Essar Steel's output in long term to 15-20 million tonne per annum (MTPA) from the current about 6 MTPA.

The steel firm also said that if its bid is successful it would help India bridge its supply-demand gap and make a significant contribution to the Make-in-India initiative.

ArcelorMittal had bid for Essar Steel on 12 February.

ArcelorMittal has been trying for long to enter India but could not get any success so far. Over a decade back, it had announced to set up two plants - 12 million tonnes each in Jharkhand and Odisha.

ArcelorMittal is the world's leading steel and mining company with a presence in 60 countries and an industrial footprint in 18 countries. It is a leading supplier of steel in major global markets.

In 2017, ArcelorMittal had revenues of USD 68.7 billion and crude steel production of 93.1 million tonnes, while its own iron ore production reached 57.4 MT.

It is listed on the stock exchanges of New York, Amsterdam, Paris, Luxembourg and Spain.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Gujarat government is ready to offer land for construction of Army schools in villages near the Indo-Pakistan border if there is a formal proposal, Chief Minister Vijay Rupani said today.

Addressing a gathering of BSF jawans and locals at Bheliya bet near Bhuj in Kutch district, Rupani said his government was committed to address the needs of the jawans deployed along the Indo-Pak border in the state.

The chief minister laid the foundation stone for a Hanuman temple to be built by the Swaminarayan Sansthan.

He said the issues of potable water and mobile network connectivity, among others, being faced by BSF jawans in the area will be addressed by the state government soon.

"The chief minister had resolved the issue of mobile network problem faced by BSF Jawans deployed at Nadabet in the district last year. The CM promised that the issue of potable water, road connectivity and mobile network connectivity at Beliya bet will also be resolved," an official release said.

The CM also announced an assistance package of Rs 15 lakh for the families of those killed in two recent accidents in Kutch district.

BSF Inspector General Ajaykumar Tomar said that 3 lakh people visited the border in Banaskantha district under the state government's "Seema Darshan" programme which was launched by the chief minister a year-and-half ago.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)For three months, Amit Mishra hoped the family's waitlisted tickets on a train to Bihar would get confirmed. When he failed to get reserved seats, the Delhi resident decided to take a bus to Madhubani.

Mishra, flanked by his wife and son and waiting for the bus near the Anand Vihar bus terminus here, said he was aware of a recent accident in which a Delhi-bound bus fell into a 20-foot deep pit and burst into flames in Bihar's East Champaran district.

"It is not a matter of choice for us. But what option do we have other than taking a bus for such a long route," he asked, pointing out that the over 1,000-km trip to the Bihar district would take more than 20 hours.

Mishra said the Rs 2,000 per seat he had to shell out on the privately run, air-conditioned bus was significantly higher than what a train ticket would have cost him.

"I had booked my train tickets barely days after the start of the advance reservation period (ARP), and still they did not get confirmed," said Mishra, who is originally from Bihar.

Many of those lining up for buses said they had opted for a road trip either because there were no tickets or due to the fact that trains to Bihar were running late by several hours. Or, as some said, it was a combination of the two factors.

"I have heard that trains are running late because of work on rail tracks but the Railways should make some alternative arrangements so that passengers do not suffer," Faridabad resident H K Jha said.

Jha, also from Bihar, was among those who had not managed to procure a train ticket, but he was not unduly worried about possible accidents on the long road trip.

"Accidents may take place anywhere. Train derailments, plane crashes keep happening. So, what's the big deal about a bus accident," he asked.

But like Mishra, Jha blamed the government for the dearth of confirmed train tickets.

"I had offered to pay up to Rs 5,000 to a broker for a confirmed Tatkal ticket in an AC train, but it was of no use. I had to go for a bus ride instead," he said.

But the passengers' loss was the bus operators' gain.

The area was humming with activity, with people lining up in front of a dozen private operators whose buses ply on the long route between Delhi and various destinations in Bihar.

Some of the operators said all their tickets for the day had been booked.

Scores of passengers were either seen negotiating for tickets or waiting for their bus at the tour operators' offices.

A few operators said after the accident, they had cautioned their drivers to take due care on the journey.

But accidents on the routes were not rare.

In March this year, a Bihar-bound bus from Delhi dashed against a dumper near Barabanki district in Uttar Pradesh, killing at least five people and injuring several others.

Last year in March, a bus on its way to Madhubani turned turtle near Bihar's Muzaffarpur district, killing five people who were on their way home from Delhi to celebrate Holi with their families.

On Thursday, the private air-conditioned bus on its way from Muzaffarpur had skidded off NH-28 at around 5 pm in Belwa village under the Kotwa police station area. Locals claimed the driver had taken a sharp turn on the highway while trying not to hit a motorcycle after which the bus fell into the pit and burst into flames.

East Champaran District Magistrate Raman Kumar said no one died in the accident and that a total of 13 passengers, who had boarded the bus from its starting point of Muzaffarpur, were undergoing treatment for injuries.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Defending the BJP leadership's decision of giving tickets to mining barons,the Reddy brothers of Ballari and their associates, BJP's chief ministerial candidate B S Yeddyurappa today said that winning each assembly constituency was important for the party.

Yeddyurappa said he was aware of his past experiences with the Reddy brothers and would cautiously move ahead.

"All the former and present MLAs of Ballari, including Sriramulu, are with us. While two of them left us, we gave tickets to the rest of them. They will surely win. Victory is equally important," he said.

BJP has fielded G Somashekhara Reddy in Ballari city and his elder brother and former Ballari Lok Sabha member G Karunakara Reddy in Harappanahalli in Davanagere district.

Another brother, Janardhana Reddy, has been barred from entering Ballari,in accordance with his bail conditions in the illegal mining case and is camping near Molakalmuru in Chitradurga district overseeing the campaign of his siblings as also the BJP.

Yeddyurappa said Janardhana Reddy had not expected a ticket to contest the polls and added that if he felt he should help, he was free to do so independently.

"I admit I should move cautiously," he told a meet-the-press programme organised by the Press Club of Bangalore and Bangalore Reporters Guild.

Yeddyurappa said he has not forgotten the past.

"I am not forgetting (the past incidents of) Reddy brothers. I have told you we will be very careful in future. I know what had happened when I was the chief minister. I will be careful," said the former chief minister.

Asked about chief minister Siddaramaiah's accusation that Somashekhara Reddy had been accused of bribing a judge in the cash for bail case, he said the charge was not true and had lost its meaning as the Reddy brothers had been absolved.

Somasekhara Reddy has been accused of bribing a judge in the cash-for bail case that involved Janardhana Reddy. He is currently out on bail.

Yeddyurappa counter questioned the chief minister, asking him to explain aboutthe cases against their candidate Anand Singh, to whom they had given a ticket and who too had been to jail.

To a question on reported differences of opinion between him and party president Amit Shah regarding Janardhana Reddy, Yeddyurappa said the latter was not in the BJP.

BJP has publicly distanced itself from Janaradhana Reddy, with party chief Amit Shah recently saying it has nothing to do with him.

Yeddyurappa, however, admitted he had met Reddy before Shah had publicly disowned him.

"Since the court has denied him (Reddy) permission to canvassin the election (at Ballari), he cannot canvass for us. For me winning each and every constituency is important."



To a query that Reddy brothers had abused himin public, Yeddyurappa said, "You forget....What about people's opinion? How can they win there then?"



Asked how he would face the electorate when he hadbeen to jail on corruption charges, the BJP leader said he hasbeen absolved of all charges by the courts.

Yeddyurappa demanded that the chief minister, who has been tauting him, saying he was once a prisoner, explain who gifted him the Rs 70 lakh watch and the reason for it.

"Siddaramaiah who looted and didcorruption, talks of Yeddyurappa going to jail. Why are thenpeople giving me 150 seats?"



The BJP leader ruled out any possible tie-up with Janata Dal (Secular), headed by former prime minister H D Deve Gowda, saying that such a question does not arise because his party would get absolute majority.

"Even in Badami, defeat is staring at him. Congress is a divided house with three doors,where there are differences of opinion between Siddaramaiah, Mallikarjun Kharge and G Parameshwara," said Yeddyurappa.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)(Corrects May 4 story to show that Subramanian served as an expert witness for Xerox's activist shareholders, not for Xerox, in third paragraph)By Liana B. Baker and Laharee Chatterjee(Reuters) - Xerox Corp on Friday appealed a New York court ruling to block its deal with Fujifilm Holdings, just hours after the company announced that its ousted CEO and directors would remain in place.Xerox said its entire board and management team would stay, as the agreement to oust them reached with dissenting shareholders Darwin Deason and Carl Icahn expired late Thursday."With the caveat that I have not ...Guests unveil the Karl Marx statue during the unveiling ceremony of the Karl Marx statue in Trier, Germany, on May 5, 2018. A China-donated statue of German philosopher Karl Marx was unveiled on Saturday in his birth town on the 200th anniversary of his birth. (Xinhua/Shan Yuqi)

TRIER, Germany, May 5 (Xinhua) -- A China-donated statue of German philosopher Karl Marx was unveiled in his hometown Trier Saturday on the 200th anniversary of his birth.

The bronze figure portrays a middle-aged Marx in walking, with a book in his left hand, together with his iconic beard. It is situated in proximity to Porta Nigra, a large Roman city gate that's landmark of Trier, one of Germany's oldest cities.

Weighing 2.3 metric tons, the bronze figure was mounted in front of a former Marx family home.

The statue's height, 5.5 meters, was made to coincide with his birthday on May 5, said its creator Wu Weishan, a Chinese artist.

Marx, son of a Jewish lawyer, spent 17 years in Trier, southwestern Germany, before becoming a great thinker.

"Marx's ideas are of great value to the world, and in particular had far-reaching influence on China," Guo Weimin, deputy director of the State Council Information Office of China, said in a speech shortly before the statue's debut.

Malu Dreyer, the governor of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, in which Trier is located, called the statue from China "a pillar and a bridge for our partnership".

Hundreds of people, including local residents, tourists and Chinese guests, took part in the debut, the climax of a series of events in Trier to commemorate Marx.

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[ Editor: Liu Jiaming ]